After the Galactica takes a nuclear missile hit to its port launch bay, part of the CIC goes into Damage Control mode.  Chief Tyrol and another officer take up a position next to a large board with a top-down schematic of the Galactica.  The board has various lights in major sections of the ship representing various air-tight modules in the ship.  

After the nuclear hit, the port launch bay is venting to space, bulkheads are collapsing in due to the damage, and there are uncontrolled fires.  In those blocks, the lights blink red.

Colonel Tigh orders the red sections sealed off and vented to space.  When Tigh turns his special damage control key in the “Master Vent” control, the lights disappear until the areas are sealed off again.  When the fires go out and the master vents are closed, the lights return to a green state.

On the board then, the lights have three states:

• Green: air-tight, healthy
• Blinking Red: Fire
• Off: Intentional Venting

There does not appear to be any indications of the following states:

• Damage Control Teams in the area
• Open to space/not air-tight

We also do not see how sections are chosen to be vented.

Why it works

The most effective pieces here are the red lights and the “vent” key.  Chief Tyrol has a phone to talk to local officers managing the direct crisis, and can keep a basic overview of the problems on the ship (with fire being the most dangerous) with the light board.  The “vent” key is likewise straightforward, and has a very clear “I’m about to do something dangerous” interaction.

What is confusing are the following items:

• How does Chief Tyrol determine which phone/which officer he’s calling?
• Who is the highest ranking officer in the area?
• How does the crew determine which sections they’re going to vent?
• How do they view more complex statuses besides “this section is on fire”?

As with other systems on the Galactica, the board could be improved with the use of more integrated systems like automatic sensors, display screens to cycle through local cameras, and tracking systems for damage control crew.  Also as with other systems on the Galactica, these were deliberate omissions to prevent the Cylons from being able to control the Galactica.

One benefit of the simplified system is that it keeps Chief Tyrol thinking of the high-level problem instead of trying to micromanage his local damage control teams.  With proper training, local teams with effective leadership and independent initiative are more effective than a large micro-managed organization.  Chief Tyrol can focus on the goals he needs his teams to accomplish:

• Putting out fires
• Evacuating local crew
• Protecting the ship from secondary explosions

…and allow his local teams to focus on the tactics of each major goal.

What it’s missing

A glaring omission here is the lack of further statuses.  In the middle of a crisis, Chief Tyrol could easily lose track of individual teams on his ship.  He knows the crews that are in the Port Hangar Bay, but we never hear about the other damage control teams and where they are.  Small reminders or other status indicators would keep the Chief from needing to remember everything that was happening across the ship.  Even a box of easily-grabbed sticky notes or a grease-pen board would help here and be very low-tech.

Possible indicators include:

• Secondary lights in each section when a damage control crew was in the area
• A third color indicator (less optimal, but would take up less space on the board)
• A secondary board with local reports of damage crew location and progress
• Radiation alarms
• Extreme temperatures
• Low oxygen states
• High oxygen states (higher fire risk)
• Structural damage

It is also possible that Colonel Tigh would have taken the local crews into consideration when making his decision if he could have seen where they were for himself on the board, instead of simply hearing Chief Tyrol’s protests about their existence. Reducing feedback loops can make decision making less error prone and faster, but can admittedly introduce single points of failure.

Colonel Tigh and Chief Tyrol are able to get control of the situation with the tools at hand, but minor upgrades could have lessened the stress of the situation and allowed both of them to think clearer before jumping to decisions.  Better systems would have given them all the information they needed, but the Galactica’s purpose limited them for the benefit of the entire ship.