Battlestar Galactica Timeline: every major event from Kobol to the arrival on Earth

This timeline follows the Reimagined Series continuity: Caprica, Blood & Chrome, the 2003 miniseries, the four seasons, Razor and The Plan. The show almost never uses calendar years. Dates are counted from the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, so you'll see "about 40 years before the Fall" or "Year 1 after the Fall", and the ancient dates are rough, sometimes contradictory figures from scripture and carbon dating. The 1978 series and Galactica 1980 are a different universe, covered briefly at the end.

Kobol and the Thirteen Tribes (thousands of years before the Fall)#

The scriptures of the Colonies remember Kobol as the place where humans lived beside their gods. No episode gives the exodus a single firm date, and the figures that do turn up don't agree with each other.

• Undated antiquity: Humanity lived on Kobol with the Lords of Kobol, organised into thirteen tribes (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Undated antiquity: The Thirteenth Tribe were humanoid Cylons, created long before on Kobol. They left on their own, apart from the other twelve (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• At least 4,000 years before the Fall: On their way across space the Thirteenth Tribe stopped on the algae planet and built the Temple of Five, a temple to the five priests of a forgotten deity. Carbon dating by Galen Tyrol's party put it at no less than 4,000 years old, which Tyrol linked to the Thirteenth Tribe's exodus (Battlestar Galactica, "The Eye of Jupiter").
• Around 2,000 years before the Fall: The other twelve tribes abandoned Kobol, which stood empty from then on. Elosha placed the departure about two thousand years in the past, a figure that clashes with the temple's age (Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1").
• Undated: The tribes left behind the Tomb of Athena, which held a projection of the constellations as seen from Earth. Only the Arrow of Apollo could open it (Battlestar Galactica, "Home, Part 2").

The Thirteenth Tribe's Earth (about 4,000 to 2,000 years before the Fall)#

The Thirteenth Tribe found Earth and lived there for some two thousand years. Their story only surfaced near the end of the war, through the recovered memories of the Final Five.

• About 4,000 years before the Fall: The Thirteenth Tribe settled Earth. Over the following centuries they began to reproduce biologically and gave up the resurrection technology their ancestors had used (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• Around 2,000 years before the Fall: Earth's people built their own mechanical servants, the Earth Cylons. Five scientists, among them the people later known as Ellen Tigh and Saul Tigh, worked on reviving resurrection (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• Around 2,000 years before the Fall: Warned of the coming war, the five placed a resurrection ship in orbit. The machines rose, and Earth died in a nuclear war. The five were killed and woke aboard their ship (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit"; Battlestar Galactica, "Sometimes a Great Notion").
• Around 2,000 years before the Fall: Without a jump drive, the Final Five set off for the Twelve Colonies at sublight speed. They wanted to warn the other tribes to treat any machines they built better than Earth had (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").

The Twelve Colonies (about 2,000 to 58 years before the Fall)#

The twelve tribes settled the worlds of the Cyrannus star system. Where Kobol lay became a matter of faith.

• After the exodus: The tribes founded the Twelve Colonies, among them Caprica, Tauron, Picon, Virgon, Gemenon and Sagittaron. Most Colonials followed the gods of Kobol in a polytheist faith (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Later: The worlds were eventually bound under one government by the Articles of Colonization, remembered each year on Colonial Day (Battlestar Galactica, "Colonial Day").
• About 58 years before the Fall: On Caprica a small monotheist movement, the Soldiers of the One, had turned to terrorism (Caprica, "Pilot").

The creation of the Cylons (about 58 years before the Fall)#

The Cylons began in a grieving father's lab on Caprica. Caprica covers these years.

• About 58 years before the Fall: Ben Stark, a member of the Soldiers of the One, bombed a maglev train. Among the dead were Zoe Graystone, daughter of Daniel Graystone, and Tamara Adama (Caprica, "Pilot").
• About 58 years before the Fall: Daniel found a virtual copy of Zoe, Zoe-A, which she had made herself. He built a second avatar from Tamara, Tamara-A, using the same method (Caprica, "Pilot").
• About 58 years before the Fall: Daniel had a meta-cognitive processor stolen from his rival Tomas Vergis. With Zoe-A loaded onto it, his U-87 robot finally worked, and he demonstrated it to the Caprican military as the first Cylon (Caprica, "Pilot").
• Years afterwards: Cylons were mass produced and spread through Colonial life as workers and soldiers. Some of them began to take up the monotheist faith (Caprica, "Apotheosis").

The First Cylon War (about 52 to 40 years before the Fall)#

The Cylons rebelled against their human makers. The war lasted about twelve years and pushed the Colonies into building the low-tech battlestars.

• About 52 years before the Fall: The Cylons rose up against the Colonies. The Cylon War went badly for humanity as Cylon hacking crippled networked ships (Battlestar Galactica miniseries; Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome).
• During the war: The Colonies fought with battlestars whose computers were kept off any network, because the Cylons could break into linked systems. Galactica served through the whole war (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• About 42 years before the Fall: In the tenth year of the war, Ensign William Adama joined Galactica as a rookie pilot. He flew a Raptor carrying Dr. Becca Kelly, a Graystone Industries software engineer, to the Cylon-held ice world of Djerba (Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome).
• About 42 years before the Fall: The Osiris was lost when its commander rammed it into a Cylon basestar. Kelly turned out to be a traitor passing word of a Colonial fleet to the Cylons, and a Cylon broke her neck. Colonial command had expected the betrayal, and the fleet she gave away was already gone (Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome).
• About 40 years before the Fall: On the last day of the war, Adama flew his first combat Viper mission in Operation Raptor Talon. The battlestar Columbia was destroyed, and Adama found a Cylon lab experimenting on human prisoners, the work that produced the first Hybrid (Battlestar Galactica: Razor).
• About 40 years before the Fall: The Final Five reached the Colonies during the war's last days. They offered the Cylons flesh bodies and resurrection in exchange for peace (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• About 40 years before the Fall: The Armistice ended the war. The Cylons left for a world of their own, and the Colonies built Armistice Station for a yearly meeting the Cylons never attended (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).

The forty years (40 years before the Fall to the eve of the attack)#

The Colonies rebuilt and slowly forgot the Cylons. Out of sight, the Cylons changed beyond recognition.

• After the Armistice: With the Final Five's help, the Cylons created the first humanoid Cylons, starting with Number One, John Cavil, who then helped make seven more models (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• Decades before the Fall: Cavil killed the Number Seven line, the Daniels, out of jealousy. He then murdered the Final Five, boxed their minds, wiped all memory of them from the other models, and sent the five into the Colonies with false pasts. Saul Tigh came back as a war veteran (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• About 20 years before the Fall: Tom Zarek was jailed for blowing up a government building on Sagittaron (Battlestar Galactica, "Bastille Day").
• Some years before the Fall: Commander Adama ran a covert operation across the Armistice Line from the battlestar Valkyrie. A Stealthstar piloted by Daniel Novacek was lost and he was captured, and Adama later wondered whether the mission had given the Cylons a pretext (Battlestar Galactica, "Hero").
• Shortly before the Fall: Adama's son Zak died in a Viper accident during flight training. Kara Thrace, his instructor and fiancée, had passed him when he should have failed (Battlestar Galactica miniseries; Battlestar Galactica, "Act of Contrition").
• Shortly before the Fall: A Number Six seduced Gaius Baltar and used him to reach the defence mainframe and his Command Navigation Program, which went into most of the fleet (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Eve of the Fall: Galactica was being decommissioned as a museum under Commander Adama. Laura Roslin, Secretary of Education in Richard Adar's government, learned she had breast cancer (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Eve of the Fall: The Cylon fleet massed for the strike, while Cylon agents already hidden in the Colonies, two copies of Cavil among them, waited for it (Battlestar Galactica: The Plan).

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies (Year 1 after the Fall, the first day)#

Every date after this point counts from the attack. Billions of people died in a single day, and the war that followed was a chase.

• Day of the Fall: A Cylon envoy destroyed Armistice Station. The Cylons then jumped into orbit over all twelve worlds, shut down networked ships through the Command Navigation Program, and hit the planets with nuclear weapons (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Day of the Fall: Admiral Nagala led the fleet's counterattack near Virgon. It was wiped out with the flagship Atlantia (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Day of the Fall: The battlestar Pegasus escaped the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards with a blind jump (Battlestar Galactica: Razor).
• Day of the Fall: Roslin, aboard a passenger ship, found she was the most senior surviving member of the government and was sworn in as President. Six was killed on Caprica and woke up in a new body (Battlestar Galactica miniseries; Battlestar Galactica, "Downloaded").
• Days after: Adama took command of what was left and gathered the survivors at Ragnar Anchorage, where Galactica fought off the Cylons. The fleet fled with about 50,000 people, and Adama promised them he knew where Earth was (Battlestar Galactica miniseries).
• Days after: The Cylon occupation of Caprica began as ground forces landed (Battlestar Galactica: The Plan).

The flight (Year 1 after the Fall)#

The survivors jumped from system to system with the Cylons close behind. Cylon agents were hidden inside the fleet.

• First week: Cylon attacks came every 33 minutes for days. Galactica destroyed the Olympic Carrier when it seemed to be leading them on (Battlestar Galactica, "33").
• First weeks: Sharon Valerii, a sleeper Cylon, sabotaged Galactica's water tanks (Battlestar Galactica, "Water"). Zarek led a prisoner revolt on the Astral Queen (Battlestar Galactica, "Bastille Day").
• First weeks: Kara Thrace was shot down over the red moon and flew home in a captured Cylon Raider (Battlestar Galactica, "Act of Contrition"; Battlestar Galactica, "You Can't Go Home Again").
• First weeks: Pegasus, alone, hit a Cylon target and Admiral Helena Cain shot her executive officer, Jurgen Belzen, for refusing an order. Her crew stripped civilian ships such as the Scylla and left people behind (Battlestar Galactica: Razor).
• Weeks after: Galactica raided a Cylon tylium refinery for fuel (Battlestar Galactica, "The Hand of God"). The Quorum of Twelve was re-formed, and Baltar became Vice President (Battlestar Galactica, "Colonial Day").
• Around 50 days after: The fleet found Kobol. Adama removed Roslin from office after she sent Thrace to Caprica for the Arrow of Apollo, and Valerii's Cylon programming made her shoot him (Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1"; Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2").
• Weeks later: With Adama down, Tigh's martial law led to the Gideon massacre. Roslin escaped and the fleet split. On Caprica, Thrace and Karl Agathon met Samuel Anders's resistance (Battlestar Galactica, "Resistance").
• About two months after: The fleet reunited on Kobol. In the Tomb of Athena, the Arrow of Apollo revealed the night sky of Earth (Battlestar Galactica, "Home, Part 2").
• About half a year after: Galactica met Pegasus. Adama and Cain came close to fighting each other (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus").
• About half a year after: At the Battle of the Resurrection Ship the fleet destroyed the Cylons' long-range resurrection ship. Cain was killed by her prisoner Gina Inviere, and Roslin made Adama an admiral (Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part 2").
• Later in Year 1: Hera Agathon, daughter of Karl Agathon and the Cylon Sharon Agathon, was born. Roslin faked the baby's death and hid her in the fleet (Battlestar Galactica, "Downloaded").

New Caprica (Years 1 to 2 after the Fall)#

A habitable planet hidden in a nebula looked like the end of running. It became a Cylon prison instead.

• Late Year 1: A Raptor stumbled on New Caprica. The Cylons pulled off Caprica, and Baltar beat Roslin in the election by promising to settle the new world (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 1"; Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2").
• Late Year 1: Gina set off a nuclear bomb Baltar had given her, destroying Cloud 9 and other ships. Settlement went ahead anyway (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2").
• About a year after settlement: A Cylon fleet arrived over New Caprica. Galactica and Pegasus fled, and the occupation began with Baltar as a puppet president (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2").
• Months of occupation: Tigh and Tyrol led an insurgency that used suicide bombers. Thrace was held captive by Leoben Conoy (Battlestar Galactica, "Occupation").
• About four months into the occupation: In the Exodus from New Caprica, Galactica jumped into the atmosphere to cover the escape. Pegasus was lost ramming a basestar, and Tigh poisoned Ellen for collaborating (Battlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part 2").

The search for Earth (Years 2 to 4 after the Fall)#

The fleet hunted for clues to Earth while the Cylons began to fall apart over the same question.

• Year 2: A Cylon basestar at the Lion's Head Nebula was infected by a disease left on an old beacon. Baltar, now on the Cylon side, worked on the route to Earth (Battlestar Galactica, "Torn").
• Year 2: The fleet crossed a dangerous star cluster to reach the algae planet. Louanne Katraine died after leading the last group through (Battlestar Galactica, "The Passage").
• Year 2: Tyrol found the Temple of Five on the algae planet. D'Anna Biers, a Number Three, saw the Final Five there before the star went nova, and the Cylons boxed her whole line (Battlestar Galactica, "The Eye of Jupiter"; Battlestar Galactica, "Rapture").
• Year 2: Thrace's Viper went down in a gas giant's storm and she was thought dead (Battlestar Galactica, "Maelstrom").
• Year 2 to 3: Baltar was acquitted at his trial. At the Ionian Nebula, Tigh, Tyrol, Anders and Tory Foster heard music and realised they were Cylons, and Thrace came back alive, claiming she had been to Earth (Battlestar Galactica, "Crossroads, Part 2").
• Year 3: The Cylons split over the lobotomy of their Raiders, and the Cylon Civil War began. Natalie Faust led the rebels (Battlestar Galactica, "Six of One").
• Year 3: Humans and rebel Cylons destroyed the Resurrection Hub, ending resurrection for all Cylons (Battlestar Galactica, "The Hub").
• Year 3: Tigh, Tyrol and Anders were exposed as Cylons, and a signal in Thrace's Viper led the fleet and the rebel basestar to Earth. It was a radioactive ruin (Battlestar Galactica, "Revelations").
• Year 3: Earth's destruction was dated to about 2,000 years earlier. Anastasia Dualla killed herself, and Tigh remembered that Ellen was the fifth Cylon (Battlestar Galactica, "Sometimes a Great Notion").
• Year 3: Felix Gaeta and Zarek seized Galactica in a mutiny against the Cylon alliance. Adama took the ship back, and both leaders were executed (Battlestar Galactica, "Blood on the Scales").
• Year 3: Ellen, resurrected after her death on New Caprica, escaped Cavil with Valerii's help. Anders recovered his memories, and the full story of the Final Five came out (Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit").
• Year 3 to 4: Valerii kidnapped Hera and took her to the Colony (Battlestar Galactica, "Someone to Watch Over Me").

Arrival (about 150,000 years before the present)#

Galactica made one last fight and one last jump. What followed was the end of the Colonies and the start of our history.

• Year 3 to 4: Adama asked for volunteers and took worn-out Galactica to attack the Colony (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part 1").
• Year 3 to 4: At the Battle of the Colony, Hera was rescued. Cavil killed himself, Tyrol killed Tory Foster for murdering his wife, and Thrace jumped Galactica using coordinates from her father's song (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part 2").
• About 150,000 years ago: The fleet found a living planet with early humans already on it and named it Earth. They chose to start again without technology, and Anders flew the ships into the sun (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part 2").
• About 150,000 years ago: Roslin died soon after landing. Adama built a cabin by her grave, and Thrace vanished (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part 2").
• Present day: Hera's remains were found in Tanzania and identified as the mitochondrial Eve of modern humans. Humans were building robots again (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part 2").

Where the story stands#

The latest point in the Reimagined chronology is the present-day epilogue of "Daybreak". Colonial and Cylon blood runs through everyone alive, the Colonies themselves are forgotten, and the two angelic figures watching over it all wonder whether the cycle of making and losing machines has to repeat. The settlement of the second Earth about 150,000 years ago is the last event in the main story (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part 2").

Battlestar Galactica watch order#

Release order#

1. Battlestar Galactica miniseries (2003)
2. Battlestar Galactica, season 1 (2004 to 2005)
3. Battlestar Galactica, season 2 (2005 to 2006)
4. Battlestar Galactica, season 3 (2006 to 2007)
5. Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007)
6. Battlestar Galactica, season 4 (2008 to 2009)
7. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009)
8. Caprica (2010 to 2011)
9. Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012)

Story order#

1. Caprica (2010 to 2011), about 58 years before the Fall
2. Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012), in the tenth year of the First Cylon War
3. Battlestar Galactica miniseries (2003)
4. Battlestar Galactica, season 1 (2004 to 2005)
5. Battlestar Galactica, season 2 (2005 to 2006)
6. Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007), whose present-day story falls late in season 2, between "The Captain's Hand" and "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 1"
7. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009), which retells the miniseries and the first two seasons from the Cylon side
8. Battlestar Galactica, season 3 (2006 to 2007)
9. Battlestar Galactica, season 4 (2008 to 2009)

First time through, watch in release order. Razor works best where it aired, between seasons 3 and 4, and The Plan spoils the identity of the hidden Cylons, so save it for after the finale. Caprica and Blood & Chrome are prequels you can pick up whenever you like once the main show is done. The 1978 series below is a separate continuity and can be watched at any point.

Original Series and Galactica 1980 (separate continuity)#

The 1978 series counts time in yahrens and doesn't share any events with the Reimagined Series. Galactica 1980 follows the same fleet thirty years on.

• The Thousand-Yahren War: The Twelve Colonies of Man fought the Cylon Empire and its robot Centurions (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World").
• End of the war: Count Baltar lured the fleet to peace talks at Cimtar. The Cylons ambushed the battlestars, destroyed the Atlantia and wiped out the Colonies. Commander Adama's son Zac was killed, and Galactica led a ragtag fleet away (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Saga of a Star World").
• Months later: The fleet crossed a void and reached Kobol, where Adama found signs of the way to Earth. Apollo's new wife Serina was killed (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "Lost Planet of the Gods").
• Later: Galactica met the lost Pegasus under Commander Cain, who vanished attacking Cylon basestars (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Living Legend").
• Later: Apollo and Starbuck met the Beings of Light and the devilish Count Iblis (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "War of the Gods").
• Last episode: Galactica destroyed a basestar, and Apollo and Starbuck picked up a faint broadcast of the Apollo 11 Moon landing (Battlestar Galactica 1978, "The Hand of God (1979)").
• Thirty years later, Earth year 1980: The fleet reached Earth and found it too primitive to face the Cylons. Troy and Dillon went down to live in secret, and the rogue councillor Xaviar travelled back to 1944 to give the Nazis rocket technology (Galactica 1980, "Galactica Discovers Earth").
• Last episode: Dr. Zee dreamed the story of Starbuck, stranded on a desert planet years before with a rebuilt Cylon he called Cy (Galactica 1980, "The Return of Starbuck").