Battle of Kobol (TRS)
| Battle of Kobol | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | Second Cylon war | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | Day 50-51 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Kobol, nearby interstellar space | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Colonial victory | ||||||||||||||||
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This battle is not yet completed and follows over several episodes at this time.
Battlestar Galactica stumble upon the mythological human homeworld of Kobol and attempt to use its secrets or resources. (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I)
Discovery
During a reconnaissance flight, pilots Sharon Valerii and Crashdown return to Galactica with information on an unusual habitable planet. Investigation of the ruins and features of the planet confirm that the Galactica had discovered, by accident, the original homeworld of Kobol, detailed extensively in the scriptures from the Lords of Kobol. Adama directed three Raptors to conduct a thorough surface survey of the planet, particularly to note whether the fleet should settle there.
As the Raptors complete their jump near Kobol, they are attacked by Raiders. One Raptor is destroyed and a second jumps away to safety. A third is shot and crash-lands on Kobol.
Before a rescue could be done of the surviving crashed Raptor crew, Kara Thrace suggests the use of the captured Raider (You Can't Go Home Again) to sneak near the Basestar with a nuclear warhead, leaving it there to destroy the capital ship and as many Raiders as possible. Adama agrees to the plan. However, intervention by President Laura Roslin with Thrace leads the pilot to disobey orders and to divert the Raider while on a test flight to Caprica to seek an artifact known as the Arrow of Apollo. This change requires Adama to direct Valerii to fly a Raptor with a Cylon IFF device to the Basestar (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II).
The Raptor successfully entered the occupied zone as the IFF device indicated that the Raptor was another Cylon-occupied vessel. A problem with weapon deployment forced the crew to land within the Basestar in a habitable area to manually deploy the weapon. The Basestar was completely destroyed a short time later.
Valerii encountered other Humano-Cylon copies of herself while in the Basestar, which apparently activated more of her latent Cylon programmiing. As Adama congratulated Valerii, she pulled her pistol and fired on the Commander twice at point-blank range, severely injuring Commander Adama. Colonel Saul Tigh assumed command of Galactica at this time while medical staff attended to the seriously-wounded Adama.
The Galactica based Valerii is interrogated, along with Tyrol, who is also suspected as a Humano-Cylon (The Farm). Baltar manages to prove Tyrol's innocence while coercing Valerii to tell him that there are eight remaining Cylon operatives in the fleet. As the Galactica Valerii is moved to a new holding location, she is shot and killed by Cally.
Scattering of the Fleet
In the immediate chaos to attend to Adama after the shooting, a Cylon basestar suddenly appears. Caught by surprise, Galactica orders the fleet to immediately jump to its emergency jump coordinates pre-planned by standard procedure by Lieutenant Gaeta. However, Galactica herself had incorrect jump coordinates and finds herself separated from the rest of the fleet (Scattered). The ship cannot return to their original location to obtain the fleet location by conventional procedure; this would take hours, and the Basestars would likely destroy the ship in far less time. Gaeta devises a way to determine the fleet location faster by temporarily networking several ship computers to process data faster. Knowing that the Cylon virus would attempt to inflitrate the network, Gaeta places four software firewalls in place to slow the progress of the expected infection.
The downed Raptor crew on Kobol, lead by Crashdown attend as best they can to their injured. They are later attacked by Cylon Centurions and flee to the woods for cover.
Galactica returns to its previous location and is immediately attacked by the waiting Cylon fleet. Galactica deploys a squad of Vipers to aid in holdiing off the attack. During the attack, a new Cylon ship, the Heavy Raider, heads for Galactica. Lee Adama attacks the craft, which veers out of view of the Vipers and crash-lands in the starboard landing pod, depressurizing it (it was converted as a museum area in preparation for the ship's expected decommissioning and was unused for flight operations). Gaeta successfully obtains the fleet coordinates, but not before some of the Cylon virus infects one of the networked systems, a fact of which the command staff is not yet aware. He disconnects the network a moment later. Galactica jumps to reunite with the remaining fleet.
Cylon Boarding
The crashed Heavy Raider in Galactica's starboard landing pod deploys 10 specially-armored Cylon Centurions, which can only be destroyed by explosive rounds (Valley of Darkness). At the same time, the Cylon virus infects other systems of the ship and shuts down parts of the CIC's control. Tigh orders a counterattack, wary that the Cylons will attempt to vent the ship's crew to neutralize them and turn the ship's guns on the unarmed fleet to destroy them. Ship Marine forces and other crew manage to destroy all but two Centurions, which were eventually destroyed by a squad commanded by Lee Adama.
Lee Adama begins preparations to rescue the downed Raptor crew from Kobol, and leads a team with two Raptors as part of the rescue team.
Raptor Team Rescue
Shortly after their two most seriously wounded teammates have died, Crashdown and the Raptor team scout and locate a group of three Cylons building an anti-aircraft battery using parts from their downed Heavy Raider (or variant) to order to destroy any Galactica rescue craft (Fragged). The battery is linked to a DRADIS disk set up slightly away from the battery. Crashdown develops a plan to distract the Centurions while a smaller group destroys the DRADIS dish, rendering the battery tactically worthless. As the team prepares their attack, they discover there were five Centurions and not the 3 expected. The team also hears the distinct sonic booms caused by Raptors, indicating their rescue would be arriving soon. Specialist Cally is ordered to create the distraction by Crashdown anyway, but she refuses in fear. When Crashdown threatens to kill Cally for disobeying a direct order, he is shot in the back and killed instantly by Gaius Baltar.
The team is immediately attacked by the Centurions and flee. The battery fires on the incoming Raptors, but Chief Galen Tyrol successfully destroys the DRADIS dish, which breaks the missile's lock on the Raptors. The Centurions are destroyed by a Raptor missile from Lee Adama's Raptor. The survivors are rescued and return to Galactica.
Factioning of the Fleet and Return to Kobol
Kara Thrace successfully lands in Delphi on Caprica and locates the Arrow of Apollo, and after dispatching a Number Six copy, encounters Helo and the Caprica-bound copy of Sharon Valerii. Valerii escapes using Thrace's captured Raider. Helo and Thrace locate ground transport and encounter a resistance of humans. After an incident where Thrace was shot and captured by Cylons in a hospital (The Farm), Thrace escapes with the help of the resistance. Caprica Valerii returns to aid Helo and the resistance. She steals a Heavy Raider to fend off a squad of Centurions as Thrace escaped from the Cylon birth farm. The Heavy Raider later departs, taking Helo, Thrace, Caprica Valerii and several Caprica resistance members back to the fleet.
Commander Adama regains consciousness and resumes command.
President Roslin, aided by several members of Galactica's crew, including Dualla and Lee Adama, escapes the Galactica brig non-violently and leaves the ship in a Raptor. After being smuggled eventually to the Astral Queen, Roslin solicits the fleet who wish to find the location of Earth to leave with her ship for Kobol. The recovered Adama is shocked to see over a third of the fleet jump from the main fleet body and join the faction.
Kara Thrace's captured Heavy Raider lands on the Astral Queen. Roslin holds the Caprica Boomer as prisoner after Valerii tells her that she knows the precise location of the Tomb of Athena (Home). Thrace presents Roslin with the Arrow.
Roslin and several others, including the returned Kara Thrace, Helo, Lee Adama, Tom Zarek, and a handcuffed Valerii, arrive on Kobol. The group is ambushed by Cylon Centurions while priestess Elosha investigates an artifact that marks their trail to the Tomb of Athena. Two "Bouncing Betty"-style anti-personnel mines are triggered, one striking Elosha and killing her. The group returns fire and eliminates the threat. Surprisingly, Caprica Boomer, fully aware of her true nature, aids the team by destroying a Centurion herself.
Adama is at first enraged by the turn of events, but realizes that all the ships are family members and that the family must be reunited. He directs the Galactica to prepare to return to Kobol.