(Battlestar Galactica 2004, Caprica and Blood & Chrome)
The Fall of the Twelve Colonies, also known as the Second Cylon War was a massive Cylon campaign against Colonial space which saw the indiscriminate destruction of civilian and military targets alike with the objective of total annihilation of mankind. Though the Cylons suffered far fewer casualties than their lowest expectation, they failed to destroy humanity in the single day.
Background[]
Forty years before the fall, the Cylon War came to a close with a stalemate. The two races had fought for twelve years with the goal of annihilating the other to guarantee their own survival. With the arrival of the Final Five, humanoid Cylon refugees from Earth, the Colonial Cylons agreed to call off the war and make a deal with the Colonial Forces. The Colonials would maintain control of their space, but would recognise Cylon sovereign territory past the designated Armistice Line.
In the forty years, the Cylons went through radical changes. With the help of the Final Five, eight new humanoid Cylon models were created to realise the Centurions' goal of evolving into biological forms. The original of the Number Ones, known as "John" or "Cavil", launched a rebellion against the Centurions and the Final Five, robbing the former of free will with a telancephalic inhibitor and wiping most out in favour of newer, inhibited machines, and rendering the Five amnesiac and sending them out into Colonial society under the belief they were human. John prepared for over twenty years to wipe out mankind as a final act of revenge against the Five, disgusted in their creation of him in a limited, human-like body; officially the Cylon plan was to attack as revenge for the Cylons' original enslavement, with knowledge of the Five being wiped from the other Cylons' memories.
Twenty years following the Armistice, during the 20s BCH, the Colonial Fleet went through a period of massive re-armament on the intuitive but otherwise baseless belief at the time the Cylons were preparing a strike force. The low-tech battlestars were scrapped in favour of more advanced warships, with the exception of Galactica which was preserved as a recruiting symbol due to its historical significance.[1] Two years before the Fall, around 1998, another military shake-up took place under President Richard Adar, which saw the use of an experimental Stealthstar launched from Valkyrie across the Armistice Line to test Cylon defences.[2] Coinciding with this was the development of the Command Navigation Program as a networked system to be installed universally in all military craft. The architect of this program was Dr. Gaius Baltar, a proponent on networking, which had been officially banned during the Cylon War due to Cylon hacking abilities. Aware of Baltar's CNP, the Cylons sent a Number Six, latter known as "Caprica Six", to gain his trust and made alterations to half of its algorithms to allow them to quickly penetrate the firewalls and disable ships with a computer virus.[3]
Conflict[]
Initial attack[]
Yashuman and Valkyrie were in orbit over Caprica during the initial attack and were disabled within moments of the Cylon arrival.
The Cylon attack force was based at The Colony, which had moved just outside of the system. The first shots were fired at the Armistice Station, a diplomatic space station.[3] However, the Cylon fleet was kept out of the star system itself until the penetration of CNP had been verified, coincidentally on the 40th anniversary of the Armistice. Fourteen hours ahead of the attack, a Number One personally met with Caprica Six to receive a computer device in her possession which contained the up-to-date CNP code which the Cylon forces could exploit.[4]
Over Caprica, the Colonial Fleet was immediately made aware of the Cylon strike force and three Battlestars moved in to intercept, Valkyrie and Yashuman amongst them. The Battlestars and their Viper wings were quickly disabled by CNP hacking, allowing the Basestars to concentrate on the planet itself, firing MIRVs at the more densely-populated areas such as Caprica City. Similar engagements took place on the other eleven colonies. Over Scorpia, the Basestars focused on bombarding the planet while Raiders loaded with nuclear missiles destroyed the Scorpia Fleet Shipyards. Picon Fleet Headquarters put the Colonial Fleet on general alert when Basestars were detected over Picon, but it too was destroyed in the bombardment. Pegasus successfully escaped the shipyards by performing a blind jump, which it was able to do due to its computer networks being down ahead of a refit.[5] As a result of the CNP hacking, Colonial Fleet lost thirty Battlestars, approximately a quarter of their fleet strength, in the opening minutes.[3] Viper Mark VIIs were also susceptible to hacking and were shot down individually by Raiders.
Following the opening attacks, President Adar offered an unconditional surrender to the Cylons, which was ignored entirely. While rescue workers deployed Raptors to dig people out of the ruined cities, a massive Centurion invasion army landed via Heavy Raiders with orders to shoot survivors on sight.
Colonial counteroffensive[]
When the scale of the attack became clear, Admiral Nagala took personal command of the Colonial Fleet and ordered all ships to rendezvous in preparation of a counteroffensive, expecting to use strength-in-numbers. At the Battle of Virgon, Admiral Nagala's force of no more than ninety Battlestars engaged the Cylons, with Battlestars Atlantia; Columbia; Solaria and Triton among them. The battle was a catastrophic failure, as the CNP hack was still not made aware and no explanation could be given for the frequently-reported computer failures. The entire fleet was destroyed and Nagala killed onboard Atlantia. When news of Atlantia's destruction was received, Commander William Adama of the Galactica assumed command of the fleet and ordered all remaining ships to rendezvous with Galactica at the Ragnar Anchorage, where it was to resupply. The following message was transmitted to all ships, and was picked up by civilian craft and military alike: "To all Colonial units: Am taking command of fleet. All units ordered to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage for regroup and counter-attack. Acknowledge by same encryption protocol, Adama." Detected by Cylon raiders before it could depart, Galactica's wing of Viper Mark IIs were refuelled and rearmed. Lacking networking, they were more successful in fighting the Raiders, though Galactica was still damaged by a nuclear detonation and was forced to sacrifice 85 crewmembers in depressurising the burning compartments close to the hangar deck.
Civilian situation[]
Soon after the initial attacks, the civilian spacelines were shut down by the Colonial Government to keep civilian ships out of the combat areas. As these ships were not prepared for long journeys, some began to lose power. Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, assumed command of the government shuttle Colonial Heavy 798 and prepared it for rescuing stranded civilians. During these efforts, the shuttle received the Case Orange alert signal, signifying the deaths of President Adar and most of the cabinet. Roslin was the only member to submit an authentication code, thereby designating her as his successor, President Roslin and the shuttle was renamed Colonial One. Over the next several hours a large civilian fleet was amassed with the aid of stranded Raptors used to locate and guide FTL-capable ships. Among the evacuated survivors were Earth Cylons Tory Foster and Ellen Tigh, with several more humanoid Cylons. When a Raider located the fleet, it was decided that all FTL-capable ships evacuate to Ragnar, and refused to give coordinates to the sublight ships.[6]
Battle of Ragnar Anchorage[]
AA fire from Galactica offering a degree of anti-missile protection.
During Galactica's resupply efforts, a Number Two was found hiding on the station. Known at the time as Leoben Conoy and posing as an arms smuggler, his rapid deterioration from exposure to radiation in Ragnar's atmosphere got the attention of Commander Adama, who was able to confirm him as a Cylon agent. When the civilian fleet made contact with Galactica, Dr. Baltar examined the body and confirmed it to have minute hallmarks being synthetic. Warned by a Messenger about a potential Cylon agent on the ship, Dr. Baltar accused a civilian PR manager, Aaron Doral of being such an agent, and accused him of planting a device in the CIC. This was later determined to be correct, that he was in fact a Number Five Cylon, who had planted a transponder to allow the Cylons to detect the ship. Believing Dr. Baltar's claim to have run tests on Doral, he was abandoned on Ragnar Anchorage. Also during this visit, Dr. Baltar and Lieutenant Felix Gaeta confirmed that CNP had in fact been infiltrated, and orders were given to disable the networking on stranded Vipers and Raptors that arrived.
With no surviving Battlestars or cruisers arriving at Ragnar after several hours, Commander Adama was convinced the war was over and that Galactica's inevitable destruction would doom the refugee fleet. Consequently, it was decided that the entire refugee convoy should abandon the Cyrannus star system entirely and depart for a new home far away from the Cylons, with Galactica protecting it. A group of Basestars arrived over Ragnar, having detected Doral's beacon. To give the civilians a chance to escape, Adama had Galactica positioned in between of opposing fores.
Aftermath[]
Within 24 hours after their initial attack, almost the entire human population, numbering over 29 Billion, had been wiped out. The Cylon forces began a recovery effort, repairing the damaged cities to allow for habitation of the Humanoid Cylons. Surviving humans quickly began suffering the effects of radiation exposure, which limited the viability of resistance efforts. After several weeks, the only existing resistance was on Caprica, which survived due to being in the hills and the Cylons' unwillingness to kill its leader, Samuel T. Anders, who was one of the Final Five. Over fifty thousand people escaped in refugee ships, as well as on the Battlestars Galactica and Battlestar Pegasus. Though the Cylons themselves abandoned the colonies after ten months of occupation, the planets were so irradiated human settlement was impossible, and they instead searched for a different place to live.
Notes[]
- "The Plan" confirms that there was a 14 hour gap between Caprica Six meeting her mysterious contact in the Miniseries (revealed to be a Number One) and the opening bombardments
- The size of the force is assumed by Admiral Nagala taking command of the fleet following the loss of 30 Battlestars and Picon Fleet Headquarters at the start of the attack. As Starbuck claims 30 is a "quarter" of the fleet, the fleet over Virgon is no more than 90 ships, and could be much less due to over variables (e.g. ships being destroyed elsewhere before the Nagala's radio commands reached them).
Gallery[]
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