“The Hand of God” is episode ten of season one of the new Battlestar Galactica.
President Roslin is giving a press conference about a fuel shortage. The fleet is down to 5% of its tylium reserves. The reporters ask Roslin how long before the fleet runs out of fuel and do they only have enough for two jumps. Yes. She’s asked what the contingency plan is, but is seeing snakes on the podium. The plan seems to be to jump to the nearest system with the last of their fuel and pray the find a habitable planet. However, the president is finding it difficult to concentrate on anything but the snakes and ends the conference.
Boomer and Crash are in a Raptor surveying an asteroid field; Boomer is ribbing Crash about an ensign. When Crash hits his monitor, it detects tylium. An asteroid full of it. However, Boomer spots Cylon Raiders patrolling it, and a Cylon base on the asteroid itself.
Back on Galactica, Colonel Tigh figures it makes sense, using the waterholes in the desert analogy again. There’s enough tylium there to last a couple of years. He, Gaeta, Apollo and Commander Adama are looking at photos of the base, which also includes a refinery. Apollo suggests finding another source; Tigh says there will be Cylons there too. The commander suggests taking the tylium from the Cylons. Tigh thinks this is a bad time to attack a superior force. Adam says it’s the exact time; they know the Cylons are there, but not vice versa. If this goes wrong, Tigh points out it’s game over.
Starbuck is briefing the newbies when Adama enters to have a word with her. He asks about her knee, then says he has a job for her. Starbuck says the rumour mill is he’s planning an op. Rumour mill is right. Tigh and Apollo are working on it, but his needs some serious out of the box thinking.
President Roslin is speaking to a priestess, saying she had visions. First a dream of the Cylon, Leuben, in “Flesh and Bone”. Now seeing snakes on the podium. The priestess, Elosha, asks how many snakes. About a dozen. Elosha asks the president if she’s kidding; has she been reading Pythia? No, who’s Pythia? An oracle. 3,600 years ago, she wrote about the exile and rebirth of the human race. A new leader was anointed to gather the caravan of heaven to a new homeland. The leader had a vision of serpents, ten and two. The new leader had a wasting disease, though, and wouldn’t live to enter the new land. But the president isn’t dying, is she?
Apollo and Tigh present their battleplan. Starbuck says it’s textbook perfect. That’s why it won’t work. Adama says Starbuck isn’t weighed down by conventional thinking. They’re not as crazy as she is. Apollo asks what she would do.
The plan is explained to the president. The Raiders will be lured out so the base can be destroyed, then the Raiders mopped up. It will cost them, and the Cylons will come back with reinforcements more than likely, but they will have time. It’s this or run out of fuel.
Starbuck and Tigh head to see Gaius Baltar as their Cylon expert. They need to destroy the military facilities of the base, but without destroying the tylium, and using a nuke would make it useless. Gaius says that a conventional missile, if fired at the staging tanks of the refined tylium precursor, would cause a similar explosion, but without the radioactive fallout. The precursor is more unstable than the fuel. Where are the staging tanks? Gaius asks Number Six. She doesn’t know, and tells him to trust in God, as God knows. Gaius points out what he says are the tanks. Afterwards, he tells Number Six that God didn’t speak to him; Gaius just guessed.
Starbuck is working on her knee and tells Adama that she will be fit for the mission. The doctor says otherwise, and Adama proves that the doctor is right. She’s staying home. Starbuck does tell Apollo that she believes he’s up to it. He says that, though everyone, including him, would feel better if she was along, this is his job and he will get it done.
Starbuck doesn’t like being on the side-lines, back on Galactica watching events unfold. Adama knows how she feels. And Apollo does something that even Starbuck might consider a little crazy.
On Caprica, Helo is saying it’s odd they haven’t seen any other humans since the one that Caprica Boomer shot. Not knowing about humanform Cylons. Caprica Boomer suggests they are in fallout shelters. She also ends up throwing up, and it’s not from radiation.