Scylla

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Scylla
Race	Colonial
Type	Civilian
FTL	Yes, later removed by Pegasus technicians
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Status	Abandoned, believed to be destroyed by Cylons
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The Scylla was a civilian transport ship in a small group of vessels picked up by the battlestar Pegasus a week after the Cylon attack on the Colonies (Resurrection Ship, Part I).

Peter Laird was aboard the Scylla and acted as the ship's spokesperson in conversations with Colonel Fisk and Lieutenant Shaw. After informing the passengers about Admiral Cain's intentions to strip the ships of their resources, he and the passengers initially refused and became agitated; in part because taking the ships' FTL drives would leave them dead in space, and because all of them traveled with their families. When Cain heard of the civilians' resistance, she ordered Fisk to shoot the families of the people to be recruited, who in return started to attack the Marines. The standoff was ended by Shaw by shooting a woman in the head—an act that Cain believed to make Shaw a "razor". Shaw's action resulted in the deaths of nine other civilians after Pegasus Marines massacred them, among them being two families of the selectees.

After the civilian uprising was put down, Laird and other selectees from the Scylla and other ships were quickly drafted into Colonial service by Cain and stationed aboard Pegasus. The Scylla was left for dead after being abandoned and stripped of parts by the Pegasus crew. Thus, the ship is believed to be destroyed by the Cylons ("Pegasus", "Razor").

Notes

• The ship's name (and the fate of its passengers) is a faint reference to a story from Homer's The Odyssey. The hero's ship is trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis, a group of monsters that attack Odysseus's ship and crew. The phrase "between the Scylla and Charybdis" is an expression denoting a situation where moving from one danger places one closer to another danger. The battlestar Pegasus serves as the "Charybdis" in the story of the Scylla's passengers, who cannot escape from either ship, either being pressed into service on the battlestar or left stranded and lost on the civilian ships.