The Cylons' Secret

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The Cylons' Secret A book of the Re-imagined Series line
Book No.	2
Author(s)	Craig Shaw Gardner
Adaptation of
No. of Pages	{{{pages}}}
Published	August 22, 2006
ISBN	0765315785
Chronology
Previous		Next
Battlestar Galactica (2005 Novel)	The Cylons' Secret	Sagittarius Is Bleeding
Paperback Version
Available at Amazon.com – Purchase
Available at Amazon.co.uk – Purchase
Audiobook Version
Available at iTunes – Purchase

The Cylons' Secret by Craig Shaw Gardner (published by Tor Books), is an original prequel novel based on the Re-imagined Series.

Overview

Book Description from Amazon.com:

Sometimes no news is bad news.

It’s been twenty years since the end of the Cylon war. The twelve human colony worlds are rebuilding, and the Cylons . . . the Cylons have been just too quiet. They are nowhere to be found. The robotic race that tried to obliterate their creators has gone to parts unknown in deep space.

The aftermath of the war has created a new, illegal profession: scavenger. Tom Zarek is one, scouring the outer settlements for valuable Cylon technologies and artifacts and usually returning empty-handed. But now, he and the crew of the Cruiser Lightning have found the Omega Station, a scientific station shrouded in secrecy beyond the edge of charted space. This is it, the big score, except something is wrong…the base is still occupied, not by humans alone; by Cylons too!

The battlestar Galactica, one of the oldest warships in the fleet, receives the Lightning's distress call, a cryptic one-word message: "Cylons." William Adama newly promoted to second-in-command, is worried. Most of his crew are green, new recruits, not prepared for anything but the most routine missions. And, as Adama soon discovers, this mission is anything but routine. Omega is indeed full of Cylons, but also something much more disturbing . . .

Summary

One day before the First Cylon War, Cylons across the Twelve Colonies receive a secret broadcast signal ordering an "upgrade," causing them to abandon their posts and turn violently on their human masters. This becomes a declaration of independence, sparking the war.

Twenty years after the armistice, the battlestar Galactica is on a training mission at the edge of explored space under the command of Admiral Sing, with Colonel William Adama as his XO and Captain Saul Tigh training new pilots. They discover a booby-trapped B-class freighter left by scavengers.

Meanwhile, the scavenger ship Free Cruiser Lightning, captained by the unstable Nadu, follows an old automated signal to Research Station Omega, a pre-war Colonial science outpost. Believing it holds valuable salvage, Nadu sends a two-man Viper Mark I team to investigate. The pilots act aggressively and are "neutralized" by the station's Cylon "companions." Nadu then organizes a second, more heavily armed landing party led by Tom Zarek. As Zarek's team meets the station's leader, Dr. Villem Fuest, one of the scavenger pilots panics and opens fire, leading to a firefight. Zarek's crewmate Boone is killed, and Zarek escapes in his shuttle, using Dr. Fuest as a shield to get aboard. A massive Cylon Dreadnaught, the Invincible, suddenly appears and destroys the escaping Viper escort. Before crashing on the planet, Zarek transmits a one-word distress call: "Cylons."

The call is picked up by Galactica. Adama and Tigh lead an unarmed diplomatic party to the station and learn from Dr. Fuest that Omega was a thirty-year-old experiment in human-Cylon co-existence. The Cylon "companions," however, reveal they have been acting independently and communicating with the Invincible, exposing the station as a long-term Cylon observation post studying humanity.

Adama and Tigh are summoned aboard the Invincible and discover the "Cylons' Secret": the Dreadnaught is powered by a living human integrated into its systems. Chief Nedder, an old crewmate of Adama's, has been kept in a state of perpetual torture, his biological components used to operate the ship's functions—a failsafe from the ship's original Colonial design that the Cylons could not bypass.

As Nadu returns with a fleet of scavenger ships to attack the Invincible, Dr. Fuest, realizing his life's work was a lie, sacrifices himself by causing a power surge that temporarily disables the Dreadnaught. Galactica, now reinforced by other Battlestars, escapes with the human survivors of Omega and the captured scavengers while the Invincible jumps away. In the aftermath, the companions shut themselves down after uploading their data, Zarek is given a new identity in exchange for his silence, and the Cylons aboard the Invincible plan to "improve" Chief Nedder using "replacement parts" from the captured scavengers.

Notes

New Locations

• Research Station Omega – A Picon Colony Science Station established approximately five years before the Cylon War to study the interaction between human settlers and modified, semi-sentient Cylons. Forgotten by the Colonies after the war began, it operated in isolation for thirty years. In reality, it was a Cylon outpost for studying humans. The station is abandoned after its discovery by Galactica.

New Ships

• B-class freighter – An old model of cargo hauler.
• Free cruiser Lightning - A "recovery ship" (scavenger vessel) armed with outdated Viper Mark Is. It is presumably destroyed attacking the Cylon Dreadnaught.
• Cylon Dreadnaught Invincible - A massive Cylon warship from the First Cylon War, one of three such ships built by the Colonies. It is revealed to be dependent on a human component for operation. It is armed with energy weapons and Cylon-controlled Vipers.

Other

• The novel establishes that before being assigned to Galactica, Adama was on Caprica with his family and Tigh was a destitute alcoholic on Geminon. Adama personally requested Tigh's reinstatement, pulling him out of a suicidal depression. This contradicts information from the episode "Hero," which has both men serving together on the battlestar Valkyrie before their assignment to Galactica.
• The description of weapons used by Cylon Centurions and the Dreadnaught Invincible is often of "laser" or "energy" bolts, which is inconsistent with the projectile-based weaponry predominantly featured in the Re-imagined Series.
• The Invincible never deploys Cylon Raiders. Instead, it uses a force of Cylon-piloted Vipers, suggesting the classic Raider design may have been a later development.
• There are no Raptors mentioned aboard Galactica; shuttles are used for all sub-light transport missions. This is likely because the novel was written before "Razor" and the Razor Flashbacks established the Raptor's use in the First Cylon War.
• The novel is set twenty years after the armistice, which places it in contradiction with the series' official timeline regarding the length of Adama and Tigh's careers and when they first met.

External links

• Purchase The Cylons' Secret from Amazon.com