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Description
When I was a kid, I remember seeing Monogram model kits of the original Mk I Colonial Vipers and Cylon Raiders for sale at the local store. The kits came out well BEFORE the pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica (tos) had aired, so we had no idea what these ships were or what the story was about. (Can you imagine that? Models being on shelves BEFORE the show comes out! Today, sometimes you have to wait years after the show has gone off the air before the model kits come out.) Anyway, the ships looked cool and so we bought them and brought them home. When my brother built his Colonial Viper, he decided to paint it black, with orange stripes. I thought he was crazy, but it turned out to look really cool. I was surprised and impressed at how well it turned out. Ever since then, I've liked the idea of black Vipers.

Years later, when the "re-imagined" series came out, Hasbro's Titanium series offered a variant of the Mk II Colonial Viper which was black with blue stripes. I'm not sure, but think I read somewhere that it was supposed to be a reconnaissance version of the Viper. I think it appeared very, very briefly in the museum scene in the pilot episode, but if you blinked you missed it. But based on that milli-centon of screen-time, I guess this black variant does count as "canon."

Anyway, I loved the look of this black Viper with blue stripes even better than my brother's black and orange version. I was always disappointed that they never did anything more with it in the new series. In my own "headcanon" I had all sorts of exciting adventures in mind for this ship. In my mind, there would be a whole squadron of these ships. After they developed that "Stealth Viper" in the series, I imagined that they were inspired by that success, and went on to upgrade a whole squadron of Mk II Vipers with advanced capabilities. They would be invisible to Cylon sensors and equipped with advanced new particle beam weapons, and maybe even an new FTL drive (stolen off of captured Cylon Raiders.) They would be the elite "Blue Squadron," (a nod to the original series,) also known as the "Night Vipers" or maybe even the "Knight Vipers." They would turn the tables, and put the Cylons on the run. Anyway, here is a little glimpse of what they might have looked like in action.

BTW, when I finally got my hands on a model kit of the Mk II Viper, I painted it to look just like this.

Description
When I was a kid, I remember seeing Monogram model kits of the original Mk I Colonial Vipers and Cylon Raiders for sale at the local store. The kits came out well BEFORE the pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica (tos) had aired, so we had no idea what these ships were or what the story was about. (Can you imagine that? Models being on shelves BEFORE the show comes out! Today, sometimes you have to wait years after the show has gone off the air before the model kits come out.) Anyway, the ships looked cool and so we bought them and brought them home. When my brother built his Colonial Viper, he decided to paint it black, with orange stripes. I thought he was crazy, but it turned out to look really cool. I was surprised and impressed at how well it turned out. Ever since then, I've liked the idea of black Vipers.

Years later, when the "re-imagined" series came out, Hasbro's Titanium series offered a variant of the Mk II Colonial Viper which was black with blue stripes. I'm not sure, but think I read somewhere that it was supposed to be a reconnaissance version of the Viper. I think it appeared very, very briefly in the museum scene in the pilot episode, but if you blinked you missed it. But based on that milli-centon of screen-time, I guess this black variant does count as "canon."

Anyway, I loved the look of this black Viper with blue stripes even better than my brother's black and orange version. I was always disappointed that they never did anything more with it in the new series. In my own "headcanon" I had all sorts of exciting adventures in mind for this ship. In my mind, there would be a whole squadron of these ships. After they developed that "Stealth Viper" in the series, I imagined that they were inspired by that success, and went on to upgrade a whole squadron of Mk II Vipers with advanced capabilities. They would be invisible to Cylon sensors and equipped with advanced new particle beam weapons, and maybe even an new FTL drive (stolen off of captured Cylon Raiders.) They would be the elite "Blue Squadron," (a nod to the original series,) also known as the "Night Vipers" or maybe even the "Knight Vipers." They would turn the tables, and put the Cylons on the run. Anyway, here is a little glimpse of what they might have looked like in action.

BTW, when I finally got my hands on a model kit of the Mk II Viper, I painted it to look just like this.