Fall of the Twelve Colonies

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies, also known as the Second Cylon War, was a massive Cylon campaign against Colonial space that saw the indiscriminate destruction of civilian and military targets alike with the objective of the total annihilation of mankind. Though the Cylons suffered far fewer casualties than even their lowest expectation, they failed to destroy humanity in a single day.

Background#

Forty years before the Fall, the Cylon War closed in a stalemate. The two races had fought for twelve years, each seeking to annihilate the other to guarantee its own survival. With the arrival of the Final Five, humanoid Cylon refugees from Earth, the Colonial Cylons agreed to call off the war and strike a deal with the Colonial Forces. The Colonials would keep control of their own space but would recognise Cylon sovereign territory past the designated Armistice Line.

Over those forty years the Cylons changed radically. 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 Number One, known as "John" or "Cavil," launched a rebellion against the Centurions and the Final Five, robbing the Centurions of free will with a telencephalic inhibitor, destroying most in favour of newer inhibited machines, and rendering the Five amnesiac before sending them into Colonial society convinced they were human. John then prepared for over twenty years to wipe out mankind as a final act of revenge against the Five, disgusted that they had created him in a limited, human-like body. Officially, the Cylon plan was presented as revenge for the original enslavement, with knowledge of the Five erased from the other Cylons' memories.

Twenty years after the Armistice, during the 20s BCH, the Colonial Fleet underwent massive re-armament on the intuitive but otherwise unfounded belief that 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 for its historical significance. Two years before the Fall, around 1998, another military shake-up under President Richard Adar saw an experimental Stealthstar launched from Valkyrie across the Armistice Line to test Cylon defences. Coinciding with this was the development of the Command Navigation Program, a networked system to be installed universally in all military craft. Its architect was Dr. Gaius Baltar, a proponent of networking, which had been officially banned during the Cylon War because of Cylon hacking. Aware of Baltar's program, the Cylons sent a Number Six, later known as Caprica Six, to gain his trust and alter half of its algorithms so they could quickly penetrate Colonial firewalls and disable ships with a computer virus.

Initial attack#

The Cylon attack force was based at The Colony, which had moved just outside the system. The first shots were fired at Armistice Station, a diplomatic space station, but the main fleet was kept out of the star system until the penetration of the Command Navigation Program had been verified, coincidentally on the fortieth anniversary of the Armistice. Fourteen hours before the attack, a Number One personally met with Caprica Six to receive a device containing the up-to-date program code that the Cylon forces could exploit.

Over Caprica, the Colonial Fleet immediately detected the strike force, and three Battlestars, Valkyrie and Yashuman among them, moved in to intercept. The Battlestars and their Viper wings were quickly disabled by the hacking, allowing the Basestars to concentrate on the planet and fire MIRVs at densely populated areas such as Caprica City. Similar engagements took place over the other eleven colonies. Over Scorpia the Basestars bombarded the planet while Raiders armed with nuclear missiles destroyed the Scorpia Fleet Shipyards. Picon Fleet Headquarters put the fleet on general alert when Basestars were detected over Picon, but it too was destroyed in the bombardment. Pegasus escaped the shipyards by performing a blind jump, possible only because its computer networks were down ahead of a refit. Through the hacking, the Colonial Fleet lost thirty Battlestars, roughly a quarter of its strength, in the opening minutes, and the hackable Viper Mark VIIs were picked off individually by Raiders. President Adar offered an unconditional surrender that the Cylons ignored entirely, and as rescue workers dug survivors from the ruined cities, a massive Centurion 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 fleet and ordered all ships to rendezvous for a counteroffensive built on strength in numbers. At the Battle of Virgon, Nagala's force of no more than ninety Battlestars, including Atlantia, Columbia, Solaria, and Triton, engaged the Cylons. The battle was a catastrophic failure, for the hack was still unknown and no explanation could be given for the frequent computer failures. The entire fleet was destroyed and Nagala killed aboard Atlantia. When word of Atlantia's destruction arrived, Commander William Adama of Galactica assumed command and ordered all remaining ships to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage to resupply, transmitting to all units that he was taking command and that they should regroup for a counterattack. Detected by Cylon raiders before it could depart, Galactica's wing of Viper Mark IIs was refuelled and rearmed, and lacking networking they proved more successful against the Raiders, though Galactica was still damaged by a nuclear detonation and forced to sacrifice eighty five crewmembers by depressurising the burning compartments near the hangar deck.

Civilian situation#

Soon after the initial attacks, the Colonial Government shut down the civilian spacelines to keep civilian ships out of the combat areas. Unprepared for long journeys, some of these ships began to lose power. Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, assumed command of the government shuttle Colonial Heavy 798 and prepared it to rescue stranded civilians. During these efforts the shuttle received the Case Orange alert, signifying the deaths of President Adar and most of the cabinet. As the only member to submit an authentication code, Roslin was designated his successor, and the shuttle was renamed Colonial One. Over the following hours a large civilian fleet assembled with the aid of stranded Raptors used to locate and guide FTL-capable ships. Among the survivors were the Earth Cylons Tory Foster and Ellen Tigh. When a Raider located the fleet, it was decided that all FTL-capable ships would evacuate to Ragnar, leaving the sublight ships behind.

Battle of Ragnar Anchorage#

During Galactica's resupply, a Number Two was found hiding on the station. Posing as the arms smuggler Leoben Conoy, his rapid deterioration from exposure to Ragnar's radiation drew the attention of Commander Adama, who confirmed him as a Cylon agent. When the civilian fleet reached Galactica, Dr. Baltar examined the body and confirmed minute synthetic hallmarks. Warned of a possible Cylon agent aboard, Baltar accused civilian PR manager Aaron Doral of planting a device in the CIC, which proved correct, as Doral was a Number Five who had planted a transponder to let the Cylons track the ship, and he was abandoned on the station. Baltar and Lieutenant Felix Gaeta also confirmed that the Command Navigation Program had been infiltrated, and orders were given to disable networking on the Vipers and Raptors that arrived.

With no surviving Battlestars or cruisers reaching Ragnar after several hours, Adama concluded the war was lost and that Galactica's inevitable destruction would doom the refugees. The decision was made to abandon the Cyrannus star system entirely and seek a new home far from the Cylons, with Galactica protecting the convoy. A group of Basestars then arrived over Ragnar, having tracked Doral's beacon, and to give the civilians time to escape Adama positioned Galactica between the refugees and the enemy.

Aftermath#

Within twenty four hours of the initial attack, almost the entire human population, numbering over twenty nine billion, had been wiped out. The Cylons began a recovery effort, repairing damaged cities to make them habitable for the Humanoid Cylons. Surviving humans quickly suffered the effects of radiation exposure, which limited the viability of resistance. After several weeks, the only meaningful resistance was on Caprica, surviving in the hills and protected in part by the Cylons' unwillingness to kill its leader, Samuel T. Anders, one of the Final Five. Over fifty thousand people escaped in refugee ships and aboard the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus. Although the Cylons abandoned the colonies after ten months of occupation, the worlds were left so irradiated that human settlement was impossible, and both races set out to search for a new place to live.