Brought into service long after the conclusion of the First Cylon War, the Mercury Class
Battlestar is one of the largest and most sophisticated warships ever deployed by the
Colonial Fleet, representing the cutting edge of colonial military engineering, and the
apex of naval development before the fall of the Twelve Colonies.
At a length of 1789 Meters, the Mercury dwarfs it’s Jupiter and Minerva Class predecessors,
presenting a thickly armoured and sturdy spaceframe, flanked by double-stacked flight pods, and
propelled by a vast assembly of 8 capital-grade sublight engines.
The Mercury carries a standard crew complement of 2,500 Personnel, with space to comfortably
house a sizeable contingent of Colonial Marines and a number of passengers.
As a product of its post-war development, the Mercury Class is built to incorporate
a number of networked computer systems, drastically improving shipboard processing speed and electronic
countermeasures, but presenting a vulnerability should the Battlestar’s firewalls be defeated.
The weapons complement of the Mercury Class is extensive, including 30 automated twin-barrel
artillery turrets, four fixed high-yield forward gun batteries, a number of guided missile
hardpoints and a ship-wide CIWS defence gird concealed between the plates of the ship’s
hull.
The greatest concentration of weapons are spread across the vessel’s broadsides, but
the most powerful individual batteries are fixed at the ship’s prow, for this reason,
Mercury Class vessels will often charge head first into close quarters combat, in the hope
of quickly cutting down at least one enemy vessel using its main guns, after which the
ship will turn side-face to its enemy, bringing the bulk of its automated batteries to bear,
while allowing more of its point defence positions to contribute to a defensive flak barrier.
Perhaps the most distinctive features of the Mercury Class are the ship’s inverted ventral
landing bays, stacked beneath the conventional bays on each flight pod.
This simple yet elegant design provides the Mercury with storage space for a vast complement
of strike craft, including hundreds of cutting-edge Mark VII Vipers, and dozens of Scout Raptors.
The ship’s flight pods also include exposed loading docks on their dorsal flanks, allowing
logistics craft to quickly deliver or retrieve supplies and personnel while keeping the primary
landing bays clear for approach.
The Mercury carries a number of onboard foundries and processing facilities, that allow the
ship to construct replacement strike craft and other useful equipment using raw materials
harvested from natural sources such as asteroid belts.
This drastically increases the self-sufficiency and tactical range of the Mercury Class, allowing
the ship to operate alone for extended periods without resupply, and to support a larger
battlegroup by augmenting or replenishing their supply of auxiliary craft.
The last of the Mercury Class vessels, and one of only two Colonial Warships to survive
the Cylon Holocaust, was the Battlestar Pegasus – BSG-62.
Under the command of Rear Admiral Helena Cain, the Pegasus escaped the Cylon’s brutal attack
on Scorpia Fleet Shipyards by performing a blind FTL jump, far beyond the Red Line.
Fortunately, the extensive computer networks of the Pegasus had been temporarily disabled
for a ship-wide refit, allowing the vessel to escape without being disabled by Cylon
Cyberwarfare attacks.
Long after it’s departure from Cyrannus, the Pegasus eventually rendezvoused with the
Battlestar Galactica, where it spent almost 17 months helping to protect and resupply
the Fleet until the vessel was tragically lost in the Battle of New Caprica.
As one of the final warship designs produced by the Colonial Fleet, the Mercury Class represents
the pinnacle of human accomplishment in military shipbuilding, confidently embracing technologies
once feared under the threat of the Cylons, and enduring even after the return of humanity’s
long-absent enemy.
Though the class saw little action in peace-time, her legacy was carried beyond the fall of
the twelve colonies by the last of her kind, whose sacrifice ensured the survival of the
human species for countless millennia to come.