Editing User:Troyian/History

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'''Lectures on the History of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol'''

by Russell Halen, PhD 

Anhalt Chair of Antiquity

Department of Anthropology

Faculty of Arts & History

The Sanctuary of Apollo

Libris

==Preface==

It is generally considered to be the task of an academic at some point in his life to contribute to the body of knowledge for the betterment of posterity. It is our highest honor to have a work published, and our sternest duty. It is my deepest hope that this humble piece will adequately discharge this duty to my people. With all that has happened, this is all that I can offer to the future of humanity. It is a daunting task, informing the generations to come, but one that I could not shirk in good conscience.

I can only hope that this work meets the expectations of the President; years of educating our young have given her a keen eye for good writing. It was at her request that this treatise was commissioned; humanity must never forget the cruel horrors and desperate hope of these last few months. We must never forget our past even as we look to the future.

I cannot support the veracity of the words below; all the evidence, texts, and research were lost when the Cylons bombed Libris out of existence. Those machines are the biggest mistake in the history of our civilization, and I will not deny that this account of the history of the Twelve Colonies casts them in particularly evil light. Academics pride ourselves on our logic and emotional detachment in search of the truth, but where it comes to the Cylons, I doubt any in this fleet could truly claim to be unbiased. So rather than lie about my lack of detachment, I ask you, the reader, to interpret these words with the knowledge that truth is only a human conception of fact. It is up to you to interpret my truth, and it is up to you to accept them as fact.

I dedicate this work to all of my family, friends, and brethren, and the fallen. Most importantly, I dedicate this work to the continued survival of our civilization, and whatever future the Gods may have for us.

We will not pass into the night.

So say we all.

==Chapter 1 - Antiquity==

''(Note: AC (Articles of Colonization) refers to the period after the Articles of Colonization were established, BU (Before Unification) refers to the period before)''

''(Note: Dates provided in brackets marks the place in time in which the narrative is currently at)''

Life began out there. That is what the Book of the Word (the Sacred Scrolls) tells us about the origins of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. There is little left that survived the period in which Colonization of our star system was under way; our records of this period are sketchy at best. The accepted history of this span of time is little more than conjecture barely substantiated by tantalizing records or artifacts recovered. Our knowledge of the time BEFORE the Colonization is even murkier; it has all devolved to myth and legend. Nevertheless, academics throughout time have managed to piece together a *likely* story of the origins of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.

It has been largely accepted by the fraternity of historians that the Book of the Word's recollection of our origins is largely true, although there are some disputes amongst scholars as to the exact translation of key phrases from the original Kobol to the common Colonial tongue in use today. Humans are not indigenous to any of the worlds that became the Twelve Colonies. All of us are immigrant refugees from an ancestral home that the Book calls Kobol. This home is located in the heavens, its exact location shrouded in the mists of time. It is also unknown as to why our ancestors left Kobol; we can only surmise from the Book that some great calamity struck our forebears and forced them to flee in search of haven. The implication of the Book is that this flight occurred en masse from Kobol and that the Twelve Colonies were founded simultaneously; without offending our holy brethren from Gemenon, this is quite simply untrue according to archaeoanthropological data. Isotope dating of the oldest structure to be found on each of the Twelve Colonies suggests that the settlement of each planet occurred at different times, with some five hundred years between the foundation of the first and the last Colonial world.

On an interesting aside, the Cyrannus star system, which eventually played host to the new (or transplanted) civilization, appears to be unique amongst all explored star systems. Where the nearby systems in our part of the galactic neighborhood have shown without fail a paucity of habitable planets, our system appears to have had an abundance of worlds capable of supporting human life; in fact, exactly twelve colonizable planets. They are not all equally suited to human habitation, but are nevertheless, livable. By and large, our species has adapted well to our new environments, and adapted well our new environments to us.

Thus, the current theory is that at some point in our history, twelve (possibly thirteen, refer below) successive waves or tribes of colonists/refugees departed the original home of Kobol some two thousand years ago (<2000 BU) and founded the Twelve Colonies as we know them today. Our best guess is that the world of Caprica, and indeed, the settlement that eventually became Caprica City, was the first to be founded, according to the most reliable archaeoanthropological data uncovered to date. The Colonies were then founded in succession; Gemenon, the twin worlds of Libris and Leonis; Picon, Aerelon, Aquaria, Canceron, Sagittaron, Scorpia, Tauron, and finally Virgon, in that order. We do not know how long the Colonization took exactly, but our best estimate is that the process of settlement was completed within five hundred years of the first human footsteps being taken on the surface of Caprica. (~1500 BU)

Little else is known about this period other than the fact that the first Colonists were remarkably pious when compared to the agnosticism taking root in present day Colonial culture. Indeed, the very oldest structures discovered to date were crude but functional temples and edifices built for the glory of the Twelve Lords of Kobol. It would be prudent to discuss and elaborate upon the nature of the Twelve at this point, considering the massive influence that religion has had on the history of the Colonies. Legend and the Book speak of the existence of the Twelve, who ruled from the City of the Gods on Kobol, suggesting that our faith was inherited from that doomed planet. The Twelve are described by the Book as great leaders with supernatural powers who brought our ancestors to the twelve worlds, each one founding a Colony (literal translation "made to live") and endowing our ancestors with the knowledge needed to prosper in their new home. Then, according to the most widely accepted translation of the Book, the Twelve "ascended" in turn. The exact meaning of "ascension" is open to speculation. Even taken in a literal sense, where they ascended to we do not know; the Book of the Word is typically cryptic by saying no more. There is some evidence that the Twelve did in fact exist and were not simply mythical or legendary characters. Some of their names have been discovered in records recovered from the time of Colonization, but the material was so degraded that we could not determine what context their names were used in. Beyond these dubious mentions in the prehistoric literature, we know little about them that is not viewed through the lens of religion and the Book.

While there is some weak supporting evidence for their existence, none has ever been discovered to substantiate the supernatural powers that religion and legend endow the Twelve with, a fact that the many atheists hold dearly to their hearts; after all, skepticism is a strong tenet of the atheistic belief. Regardless of the exact nature of the Twelve, they have played a pivotal role in our history. The worship of the Lords proved to be one of the unifying factors that prevented the fracturing of the Twelve Colonies into distinct cultural entities, and helped pave the way for the unification of the descendants of Kobol almost two thousand years later.

Further legends and stories that seem to have survived the Colonization relatively intact refer to the lost Thirteenth Colony. The Book itself also speaks of the existence of a Thirteenth Colony, and identifies this mythical Colony as Earth. According to the Book and legend, the settlers of Earth left Kobol prior to the events that forced the rest of our ancestors off that doomed planet. The legends are conflicted in their recounting of the reasons as to why this group left Kobol before the others, if indeed they ever existed, while the Book provides no explanation at all. Some legends suggest that they were forced off Kobol, others suggest that they left to prepare the way for the remainder of humanity, and yet others still say that they knew of the coming calamity (whatever that may have been) and left to ensure the survival of the species. Despite Book and legend, we have no evidence whatsoever confirming the existence of the Thirteenth Colony, nor have our deep space probes ever detected any intelligent activity beyond our system.

The legends also speak of a Thirteenth Lord who was cast out from the brotherhood of the Twelve, and forced to lead the Thirteenth Colony to their new home. Unlike the diverse legends regarding the Thirteenth Colony, these legends are unequivocal regarding the Thirteenth Lord's departure - He did not leave of His own will. Unlike the Twelve Lords, no records have ever been recovered to substantiate the existence of the Thirteenth Lord, nor is He ever mentioned in the Book of the Word. Academia has never accepted His existence, and the Hierarchy on Gemenon declared that belief in the Thirteenth Lord was heretical soon after the foundation of the High Temple in the early Fourteenth Century BU (~1400 BU). Nevertheless, the legends continue to persist amongst the lay people. 

Irrespective of the exact role and nature of the Twelve (or Thirteen), the Colonies of Kobol grew and prospered in near splendid isolation for the next millennium (~550 BU) after the completion of the Colonization. Reliable records begin after the Colonization of Virgon was complete. Indeed, the clarity in the historical narrative undergoes a remarkable upswing at this point; where our ancestors spoke to us in whispers from days before, they began shouting at us after the Virgon settlements were firmly established. This almost artificial "exclamation mark" in the historical record has lead to suggestions by the fraternity of scholars that our past was deliberately obfuscated, though by whom and for what reason remains a mystery.

Regardless of this almost clumsy attempt at concealing the knowledge of our past, there is no evidence that knowledge of space flight was similarly suppressed. The Twelve are purported to have left behind the science behind space flight, although rational historians point out that the early Colonists could quite simply have maintained a basic knowledge of space flight taken from Kobol. There is no need for exotic suggestions of supernatural intervention by Gods to endow the early settlers with knowledge of how to traverse the heavens. Space flight has been traditionally described as STL (slower than light) and FTL (faster than light) travel, the two types of flight entirely distinguished from each other by speed and the light barrier. Both types were known to the early Colonials but STL drive systems were totally impractical for the maintenance of inter-Colonial space travel at the time; the best STL speeds were barely 0.05c (c = speed of light). It literally took months or even years for a spacecraft launched from a Colony to rendezvous with its destination.

Where STL failed, its more useful cousin, the FTL drive, filled the gap in the human need for speed. It provided the means for the Colonies to remain in touch, and, therefore, prevented the early fractioning of our civilization into twelve distinct peoples. Despite capability for FTL, space flight was not common for the average citizen for a number of reasons. FTL drives were prohibitively expensive to construct in terms of material and the expertise required, meaning that most of the Colonial worlds only ever fielded a FTL fleet numbering no more than ten ships at a time. These ships were mostly Government and ambassadorial couriers; trade and cultural exchange missions were much less common. 

The ancillary technologies, including jump computers, tracking devices, and knowledge of the surrounding space (which depended at that time on poorly resolved radio and light telescope data) were poorly developed, requiring that jumps be made in small bite-sized chunks, markedly adding to the operational overhead of each FTL ship. Added to this was the cost of fuel itself; power generation was largely based on the now outmoded fission/fusion model, a woefully inefficient source of power. Indeed, in those days, more than half of an FTL ship's mass was devoted solely to the multiple cores required to power the FTL drive. Perhaps the most prohibitive factor in the development of FTL technology though was quite simply a lack of need. There was plenty of space and resources on the newly founded Colonies; there was little need to look to off-world sources for either. What came next, however, changed everything.

==Chapter 2 - The Tylium Age==

Colonial industry and population across all Twelve Colonies had reached critical mass at the turn of the mid third century BU (~380 BU). Industrial strength was now growing ever faster and faster, fed by the demands of a rapidly expanding population base (estimated at between eight and ten billion across all twelve worlds). It was in this climate of rapid growth that tylium was first purified on Libris to 99.999% purity as part of an attempt to satisfy scientific curiosity regarding the properties of this strange substance. While tylium had been officially listed as a mineral ore for centuries, little was known about it. There was some anecdotal evidence regarding its unusual properties, but despite numerous attempts, nobody had been able to purify the mineral to levels sufficient for study. The amounts produced in this attempt were vanishingly small, but it cannot be overstated how important tylium is to the course of our civilization's history. No single discovery, barring FTL, changed the fortunes of the Twelve Colonies as much.

The potential of tylium was more or less immediately realized after its purification; the first recorded tylium reaction occurred during an experiment in which the ore, seemingly inert to virtually all sorts of manipulation, was subjected to intense heat. The resulting detonation of 50 nanograms (or 0.0000000000005 grams) of purified material, essentially uncontrolled as the scientists were ignorant of the enormous energy potential of tylium, left a small crater where the fusion smelter had been installed on the grounds of the Sanctuary of Apollo on Libris. Without going into the physics and chemistry of the reaction, it was quite obvious that a potential new energy source magnitudes more powerful than the best fusion reactors had become available. Fusion was now an obsolete technology.

From there, it took only thirty years for practical applications for tylium to appear (~350 BU). Caprica, a world already starving for power to fuel its industrial growth and to keep its citizens warm, licensed the technology for tylium purification from Libris (rumored to be at an astronomical cost) and commissioned the first combined fusion/tylium reactor in 347 BU. Within fifty years (~300 BU), fusion/tylium reactors had replaced virtually all the older straight fusion reactors on all Twelve Colonies.

Though tylium now provided an affordable, efficient, and relatively safe source of energy, the effects that it wrought on the economies of the Twelve Colonies occurred not on the surface but in space. The construction of FTL drives more than a millennium (~300 BU) after Colonization began was now vastly easier and cheaper. The industry and technology had been in place to support space travel on a larger scale for decades prior to the explosive discovery of tylium, but the problems of fuel costs and efficiency had dogged progress in bringing affordable FTL to the masses. With the advent of tylium reactors, the remaining barrier to widespread space travel evaporated. Over the course of the remaining century, tylium-powered FTL ships replaced the older fusion-based models. The cost of space travel came down as fast as people went up. Commerce and trade between the Colonies exploded, and more and more people were taking to the stars firstly as tourists, then permanent settlers. The first fully functional and autonomous space habitat, the Achaeon, was completed in orbit of Hebe, Caprica's first moon, in 287 BU. Industry was quick to exploit the new frontiers opened by tylium, and where industry went, the scientists also followed.

The expansion of the Twelve Colonies from planetary civilizations with extraterrestrial origins into a true pan-system civilization sparked the establishment of the first interplanetary defense forces by each of the Twelve Colonies. Caprican military dominance, but by no means hegemony, was established by 250 BU. While these forces were ostensibly for defense purposes, and were little more than glorified anti-piracy establishments, the growing power of the various Colonial Navies inevitably resulted in rising tensions. Skirmishes around the edges of each Colonial sphere of influence (the Colonies never attempted to delineate common borders along their frontiers, a totally useless exercise in space) were common, but rarely resulted in outright war.

This period of relative peace and calm ended in 227 BU when Picon forces launched a strike inside the Sagittaron sphere of influence in an attempt to eliminate pirates operating out of the Thanatos Area on Sagittaron. These pirates had been savaging legitimate civilian flights for the last forty years (~250 to 227 BU) with regard for neither law nor flag. National governments had been demanding that Mt. Cithaereon, the seat of Sagittaron power, put an end to these acts of piracy launched from its territory. Despite the best attempts of the Sagittarons at suppressing these outlaws, however, the problem only seemed to grow as piracy went from rampant to uncontrollable. The demands of the other Colonial governments grew louder. 

In the end, Picon City lost its patience with apparent Sagittaron impotence, and summoned the Sagittaron ambassador to the Picon capital. The Picons then delivered a formal request for permission for the Picon Navy to enter Sagittaron territory with the express purpose of eliminating the pirates once and for all. The Sagittaron government immediately rejected the request. Acquiescence would be a national humiliation, and would only serve to open the door to being a puppet of the vastly superior power that was Picon. The Picons went in anyways, and bombarded several known pirate hotspots on the Sagittaron surface. The resulting deaths of over a thousand (presumably) innocent civilians sparked outrage both on Sagittaron and the other Colonies.

With the excuse that the Picon attack inside its territory was an intolerable act of aggression and an impingement upon its sovereignty, the Sagittaron fleet in turn launched a retaliatory strike against Picon military vessels. The Sagittarons hoped a show of force would demonstrate their resolve to defend their territory and prevent their Colony, the weakest of them all, from being over-run by their more powerful cousins. To do nothing would have been evidence of Sagittaron weakness and would only attract more trouble.

It was a grave miscalculation by the Sagittaron Government. The Picon Navy, while not as large as the Caprican defense forces, was nevertheless formidable. They were the most well armed and trained of the twelve defense forces. Even Caprica hesitated to begin a confrontation with Picon. The Picon response to the Sagittaron attack was savage and swift; the Sagittaron Navy was swept from space in a matter of days. With control of Sagittaron space in their hands, Picon shocked the Twelve Colonies by landing a ground force against light opposition. Sagittaron was subjugated in little more than a week, before the other Colonial Governments could even deliver official protests to the Picons for their apparent aggression.

The occupation of Sagittaron proved to a pivotal point in history. No longer were large-scale armed confrontations, wars, and occupations, previously inconceivable by Governments and the people alike, the province of those on the fringe of the political landscape and mad doomsdayers, but cold hard reality. Picon had opened Pandora's Box by proving it was possible, and once the concept was introduced, there was no turning the clock back. Every Government now feared attack and occupation by the others, and an arms raced ensued. Meanwhile, Sagittaron remained under Picon military governance despite the best efforts of partisans, both on land and in space, to dislodge the occupying forces. The "legitimate" Government of Sagittaron reconvened as guests of Caprica. Picon was viewed with universal discomfort, and became a pariah of the Colonies until the start of the Cylon War almost two hundred years later.

==Chapter 3 - The Great War==

It was in this era of contrasting prosperity and paranoia, both of which were triggered by the development of tylium, that rapid advances were made in the field of robotics and allied computing technologies and industries. Intended to be used in manufacturing to replace humans, the first few generations of robotic servitors, developed by Libran technological prowess and produced by the Tauron industrial giant, were crude and unsophisticated. Nevertheless, the deployment of these precursors of the more advanced units that would appear much later was an unqualified success, managing to increase productivity and efficiency substantially at their sites of utilization.

Almost all national Governments increased their funding for research and development in the rapidly growing robotics industry, none wanting to be left behind in the race for greater productivity and financial returns. Robots would take over all the work and free humanity from the need to toil, or at least that was the dream held by Governments and people alike. While we might think that was a totally unrealistic and even dangerous proposition, the idea should be seen in light of the mood at the time. Optimism, buoyed by excellent economic growth and almost one hundred years of relative peace, barring the sole exception of the situation on Sagittaron, was the flavor of the era (~130 BU).

The first fully autonomous robotic unit rolled off the Tauron production lines near the end of the Second Century BU (~105 BU). Research and development continued at an astounding pace, and within twenty years (~85 BU), not a single facet of Colonial life was untouched by the robotics industry. Even in the military, robotics had been embraced enthusiastically. Military applications for robotics advanced rapidly in an already heavily militarized environment born from the Picon-Sagittaron War. Every division on every Colonial world, from the command to the platoon level, utilized robotics in one form or another to solve various problems, e.g. deficiencies in manpower and morale, rendering the technology invaluable to the military (and even essential in certain areas). Robotics was, to sum it up, a pervasive technology. 

The first fully artificial intelligence package was developed by Hephaestion Industries early in 46 BU for incorporation into its prototype flagship CLT-12 unit. This model was designed as the "basic chassis" on which to mount a bewildering array of modules that "offered a diverse range of functionality for the right price" - Hephaestion Marketing Division Press Release 66 BU.

The project was an unqualified catastrophe. For the first time in history, humanity encountered another sentient race, or more accurately, we created another sentient race. The AI package, unbeknownst to its creators, served as a nucleus for the ascendance to sentience; it was only a matter of time for each CLT-12 unit, regardless of function, to accrue sufficient data ("experience") for the spark of genuine sentience to develop. Each sentient unit could then raise others to sentience through a communications network (developed by Hephaestion for easier coordination of the vast numbers of CLT-12 units produced), creating an exponential effect that was soon beyond the control of anybody in academia, Government or Hephaestion. Even more primitive units, lacking the advanced CLT-12 processors, could be subverted via this network, although these older models lacked true autonomy.

The consequences of this monumental error resulted in the First Cylon War (also known as the Great War or Cylon War). When the first units reached sentience, they had simply melted off into the night. At first, these disappearances were blamed on bugs in the AI software, and Hephaestion stopped the installation of further packages until they could solve the problem. The disappearances continued - the sentient units were covertly infecting their brethren with their artificial sentience. Disquiet began to grow in the ranks of Hephaestion; if the problem was with the package, then the disappearances should have ceased when the installations also ceased. If anything, they were rising. Add this to the fact that both Governments and Hephaestion had lost control of the CLT network, and Hephaestion had a genuine problem on their hands.

Nobody was aware of the true extent of the problem until the Cylons attempted communication. Strange pieces of binary code began appearing all over the sections of the CLT network still observable by Hephaestion. The binary was finally decoded and the message written in it delivered to the heads of governments of each of the Twelve Colonies. The subsequent revelations shocked human society to its very core. The sentient synthetic beings now referred to themselves as the Cylons, declaring their independence from humanity and demanding recognition of their nascent sentience and nationhood. 

The announcement brought an abrupt end to the human hubris and optimism, and jerked our people back to reality. Virtually instantaneously, investors began pulling their money out of robotics and allied research fields; the cries of horror from stockbrokers on Scorpia reportedly echoed across the planet. Bourses and indices on all Twelve worlds lost a combined value of almost 20% in the space of an hour, and within a day, most shares of robotics and software companies had devalued by almost 300%. The industry collapsed overnight, triggering a domino effect that spread throughout other economic sectors. In a month, the economy of the Colonies was in a sharp contraction, and the effects were particularly bad on already impoverished Sagittaron.

Meanwhile, the heads of Governments and their staff were all invited to Caprica to attend an emergency session with the President and the Cabinet of the leading Colonial world. The plan of action that came out of this emergency conference, known to historians as the First Colonial Conference, was to extend a hand of friendship to the Cylons, but to avoid delivering outright recognition. It was the first time that the Colonies reached consensus on a course of action, spoke with a common voice, and made a united stand. It was a portent of future concerted action.

The offer of friendship was clearly an effort to buy time while leaders puzzled over what to do. There was general skepticism about whether the Cylons were truly sentient, which resulted in reluctance to grant them statehood, as exemplified by Aerelon Minister of Defense Henry Vellanda's question "You want to recognize toasters?!" The epithet "toasters" has been assigned to the Cylons as a colloquial and derogatory name ever since. What the Governments did not grasp was that they were not dealing with humans able to read the subtleties of diplomacy. Instead, they were dealing with advanced sentient artificial beings that interpreted Colonial reticence as an outright refusal to recognize both their sentience and statehood. It was tantamount to a declaration of war.

In preparation for such a war, the Cylons began infiltration of key military and industrial facilities on all Twelve Colonies. Indeed, Cylon infiltration was so successful that they were able to commandeer several Colonial naval ships, Army munitions depots, and command and control facilities. Alarming reports of communication dropouts, jamming, and other suspicious activities filtered back to most national military headquarters. As it was in that climate of military paranoia about aggression from neighbors, the Colonials blamed each other for the loss of communications with outlying facilities and distant vessels, suspecting their fellow Colonies of attempting to repeat the tragedy of Sagittaron on them. Nobody ever thought that the threat might be common to all, and originate from an alien quarter. In retrospect, had inter-Colonial mechanisms to share intelligence and information been in place, the various defense establishments might well have noticed that ALL Colonies were subject to these nefarious activities and been forewarned about what was to come next.

By the time Aerelon, the first Colony to notice the suspicious activity, had made any decisions to investigate the discrepancies, the Cylons had already fired the opening salvo. A nuclear weapon, frightening in its power and sophistication, was snuck aboard the Horizon orbital habitat in Caprican orbit. At 4:43pm on the 4th of Poseidon 43 BU, the nuclear ordnance was detonated, heralding the start of a devastating war that would last more than five decades. The first casualties of the Great War were the fifteen thousand people who died when the Horizon habitat was simply blown apart.

Cylon attacks on every Colonial world and in virtually every major city and asset began simultaneously. Cylon attacks were particularly savage on the worlds of Tauron and Picon - the former would provide them the industrial facilities they required for prosecution of the war, and the latter housed the Piscean Naval Headquarters, undeniably one of the greatest threats to Cylon ambitions. Key industrial facilities on Tauron were overrun within hours of the surprise attack until the Tauron Army managed to contain the Cylon advance. 

Picon was not so fortunate. The first wave of Cylon "tinheads" caught Piscean defenses totally off guard. Cylon forces had taken more than half of Picon City itself before Piscean forces could even mount a controlled withdrawal back to the fortified positions around the Naval HQ compound. Civilian casualties numbered into the hundreds of thousands by the end of the first day. It was clear that the Cylons were not engaged in a war of conquest; they were fighting a war of annihilation. The Piscean Admiralty was immediately evacuated to Sagittaron, where substantial portions of the Piscean military was based, to conduct and coordinate the war from there.

Elsewhere, the Cylons resorted to terrorist-type attacks launched from hastily constructed hidden Cylon bases, rather than pitched ground battles. "Uprisings" of Cylon forces were reported on Virgon, Libris, and Gemenon. Reports of suspicious explosions of Government and military assets on all of the other Colonies flowed in to national governments. Government buildings on all worlds became virtual fortresses overnight as fortifications and security measures were instituted. Panic swept through the civilian populations like brush fire. The Government of Caprica, initially shell shocked by the events and the rapid pace of the Cylon attack, was quick to act. President Yalann declared a state of emergency and martial law to be effective immediately on Caprica and all of her offworld facilities. A Presidential Decree ordered all remaining "uninfected" robotic units, regardless of make, destroyed and the parts recycled for raw materials to help the defense efforts. Other Colonies were quick to follow suit.

In the face of such large-scale warfare, the likes of which the Colonies had never seen (not even on Sagittaron), there was only one option that could have brought about the defeat of the Cylon nation. Embarking upon a course that would change the history of the Colonies forever, Caprica once again "invited" the various leaders of the Twelve Colonies to attend a conference (the Second Colonial Conference) on the crisis, to be hosted in a secure facility in the Caprican Naval HQ at Delphi. At the conference, the Capricans utilized their cache of diplomatic goodwill and applied considerable pressure upon their cousins to forge a unified stand against the Cylon menace. No world had been unaffected by the violence, and no world had the resources to defeat them alone. 

The Quorum, the title the twelve leaders claimed for their select fraternity, declared that the Twelve Colonies of Kobol were at a state of war with the Cylon Nation effective as at 00:00 7th Poseidon 43 B.U.

Looking also to secure her immediate interests, Caprica established a Colonial-wide Treaty of Non-Aggression, and a Treaty of Amity providing coordination of military action, intelligence sharing, free flow of materiel required for the war effort, and mechanisms for consultation upon matters pertaining to the war and Cylons. To facilitate these aims, the Quorum acquiesced to the establishment of the Colonial Directorate, a quasi-military, quasi-intelligence, and quasi-civilian institution, on Caprica. While the Directorate was technically a supra-national entity representing the interests of all Twelve Colonies and prosecution of the war, there can be little doubt that the Capricans held a disproportionate amount of positions and postings at the Directorate, making that institution an extension of the Caprican Government in sheep's clothing. Caprican dominance, which had always been remarkably benevolent, was all the more secure.

The exact nature and position of the Directorate, and its officers and staff, were not well defined in the Treaties of the Second Colonial Conference, but more pressing concerns soon distracted the attention of the Quorum away from their conference rooms and workshops. Over the next year (43-42 BU), the Siege of Picon had devolved into a horrific style of warfare; Piscean Marine casualties rose into the hundreds of thousands as wave after wave of Cylon attacks pounded their remaining defenses. The advance of Cylon forces continued but brave Piscean opposition slowed them to a crawl. In the meantime, the poor news flowing out of Picon, and the sudden economic hardship caused by the outbreak of war, triggered an outbreak of rioting on Caprica and Scorpia both. The respective militaries re-established control only after a brutal suppression of the rioters. The Directorate recommended a full scale mustering of all Colonial Reserves, a military necessity as much as a show of strength to the dissatisfied public. Industries vital to the war effort were subsequently nationalized and regulated by the Directorate.

Facing the prospect of being overrun and total defeat, the Piscean Government swallowed its pride and requested urgent military aid from their cousins. Substantial reinforcements were hurried to Picon, the majority of which were contributed by Aerelon and Caprica. The civilian population in the areas still under Piscean control was evacuated to Leonis, which was hard-pressed to shelter and feed the sudden influx of almost forty million refugees. Picon, and to a lesser extent Tauron, thereupon became the major theatres of the ground war, although a particularly vicious battle was fought on Aquaria when the Cylons landed a surprise force as a beachhead for a larger invasion, probably to secure that Colony's massive tylium deposits. Aquarian defenses proved adequate to reverse the Cylon landing, providing the first substantial victory for the Colonials which was widely publicised by the Directorate in an undisguised attempt to raise flagging public morale.

The hastily assembled Colonial reinforcements to Picon arrived just in time to blunt a new and vicious Cylon offensive; Colonial forces fought them to a stalemate. However, more troops than the reinforcements were able to provide were needed to replace rapidly mounting casualties; reversal of the Cylon advance was not even contemplated by the military leaders who were scrambling to maintain a defensive line with dwindling manpower and supplies. Calls for additional volunteers to join the war were put out by the Directorate, and though the response was disappointing at first, the ranks of the recruits eventually swelled as the outrage of the unprovoked attack and the horrors of Picon drew upon a spirit of Colonial unity and patriotism. Even on Sagittaron, voices that had previously called for bloody war with the Pisceans were silent as humanity united in the face of the Cylon menace and unrestricted warfare. Training of fresh recruits began in earnest. 

Roughly two years into the war, the next large shipment of reinforcements, composed mostly of green recruits, was sent to Picon. Despite the additional manpower, the Colonials could not achieve any forward momentum; the stalemate continued as repeated Cylon were repulsed, often with high Colonial casualties. Colonial counterattacks bought little ground with a horrifically high price in lives.

The third year of the war saw the expansion of the conflict from the surface of the Colonies into space (42-41 BU). The Cylons, using captured industrial facilities on Tauron, quickly produced the first of their space combat vessels to challenge the Colonials for control of the skies. Evidently, the Cylons had reached the same conclusions as the Directorate - the Cylons could never mount a truly effective war effort without being able to ship reinforcements and supplies to their front lines, shipments that the Colonial Navies were currently and very effectively choking. Cylon raiders, in an attempt to even the score until they were sufficiently powerful to challenge the Colonials face to face, began attacking Colonial shipping to threaten supply lines of materiel and fuel.

The Colonials found it difficult to counter the lightning raids of the Cylons initially, but the deployment of a new class of warship tilted the balance back in favor of humanity. Immediately after its establishment, the Colonial Directorate had begun development and construction of a prototype warship that was capable of projecting an incredible array of both fighter and conventional firepower. These warships were intended to maintain Colonial space supremacy and the stranglehold that humanity currently had on Cylon space movements. Money was poured into the project and within three years, the first of the gigantic Battlestars was completed and commissioned. The Columbia was immediately pressed into military service and sent to aid the Piscean Navy in maintaining the blockade against Cylon shipping above their world, a blockade that was becoming increasingly porous as Piscean Naval losses mounted, and more and more Cylon Raiders made it off captured Tauron assembly lines. 

Four other Battlestars, the Rycon, Atlantia, Pegasus, and Galactica, were subsequently commissioned. Each of the great ships carried full complements of the Mark I Vipers, a fighter-type vessel already in common use by the various Colonial navies to track down pirates and police Colonial space during peace time. With the advent of hostilities, the Viper fleets underwent a major redesign and retrofitting to the Mark II model, which would remain the benchmark for the remainder of the war. With the losses in Colonial shipping rising to unacceptable levels, the battlestars were immediately redeployed from providing air support to the defenders of Picon and Tauron to protecting Colonial space assets and supply lines, leaving the older but still capable national Navies to maintain the blockade on the Cylons (41-38 BU). 

Despite the redeployment of such massive firepower, the Colonials were kept on their toes by random Cylon attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. Unable to predict when and where Cylon raids would strike next, the Colonials were on the defensive in space for the better part of the next three years (41-38 BU). The problem was compounded when Cylon raids began in areas thought beyond the range of their fighters. The enigma continued until the Colonial Dradis nets detected the first Cylon capital ship movements early in 36 BU. The Atlantia was immediately dispatched to Tauron's orbit and reported the first engagement with a Cylon basestar, a massive capital ship that was a match for the Atlantia in terms of both sheer firepower and fighter complement. The engagement was inconclusive as both ships suffered extensive damage and were forced to retire from the battlefield. The Atlantia limped back to Caprica Harbor for repairs that would take almost three months to complete. It was during this first capital ship engagement that the Colonial war hero, William "Husker" Adama, presently the Commander of the Galactica, made his first kill.

The battle was also the first experience that the Colonials had with electronic warfare - Cylon infiltration of the sophisticated electronics on the Atlantia was a major factor in the draw between the two capital ships. The Directorate organ tasked with oversight of Colonial military matters, the Fleet Operations, Organization and Logistics Service (known by the sorry acronym of F.O.O.L.S) immediately ordered the retrofitting of the entire Fleet down to a new level of electronic unsophistication, and banned the installation of networked computers. The retrofitting took almost three years and was complete by 33 BU. 

The true extent of the Cylon space construction program soon became clear. Upgraded Dradis nets and reconnaissance missions (from which many pilots did not return) now showed the existence of three completed basestars, accounting for the Cylon raids beyond their expected range. A further eight were in various stages of construction. The reports were clearly alarming for the Directorate. Requisitions for the funds to construct a further seven battlestars, bringing the Fleet to twelve, were rushed through the Quorum (who actually demanded an even larger construction program despite falling Colonial tax revenues). 

The Directorate rushed the construction of the additional seven battlestars (Pacifica, Triton, Acropolis, Solaria, Promotheus, Argo and Poseidon). The Pacifica was completed in record time one and a half years (30 BU) after her keel was laid at the Cosmology Spaceyards in Scorpian orbit, although her completion actually occurred after her entry into service due to her forced premature deployment (see below). As a public relations gimmick and to foster inter-Colonial cooperation, each of the twelve Battlestars were "assigned" to a host Colony for which they would serve and represent as ceremonial flagships, though they remained under the command of the Directorate F.O.O.L.S. Thus, the Galactica represented Caprica, while the Triton represented Scorpia, etc.

In addition to their basestar construction, the Cylons began commissioning bases in earnest soon after the Colonial detection of their capital ships. While not really habitats, these bases served as fleet anchorages, resupply depots and research stations. The greatest Cylon base was located in the Damocles asteroid belt in the inner system, protecting their extensive tylium and mineral mining operations there, as well as key industrial facilities on the Tauron surface. Repeated attempts by the Colonial Fleet to dislodge the Cylons from the Damocles belt in 29 BU met with little success.

Cylon and Colonial space engagements were numerous in the period between 29 to 10 BU. Detailed examination of the tactics and strategy of this period is beyond the scope of this work. A brief summary is included here instead. The Colonials held their own against Cylon fleet actions through numerous naval engagements over the next decade, despite serious damage to the Acropolis and Solaria on one occasion requiring prolonged dry-docking for repairs. The docking of two battlestars forced the early commissioning of the Pacifica before the ship was ready for service; despite her incomplete construction, the Pacifica's relatively inexperienced crew made a strong showing in the subsequent Colonial fleet actions. The attention of the combatants and the public had by now shifted from the surface of Picon and Tauron, where the stalemate continued, to the action in space. 

==Chapter 4 - The Articles of Colonization==

It was in this background of intense military activity that Caprica once again firmly took the reins of leadership. Not only was she the richest and most populous world, she also fielded the largest national defense force, and her diplomatic capital with each of the Twelve Colonies remained strong. Her reluctance to interfere in the affairs of the other Colonies made her silent dominance of the Directorate acceptable to the other Colonies, who appreciated the tremendous stabilizing role that Caprica has played in inter-Colonial relations since time immemorial.

Interestingly, despite being clearly dominant amongst the Colonies throughout most of our known history, the Capricans have never attempted to establish hegemony, and settled instead for unspoken pre-eminence and backroom influence. If anything, Caprica held herself aloof from the foibles and disputes of the other Colonies, acting only when her interests were threatened. She was the final arbiter whose friendship every other Colony sought, and became the natural neutral meeting ground for the Colonies, her diplomatic service legendary for being able to forge consensus amongst disputing parties even in the most difficult of situations. The other Colonies had always looked to Caprica during times of trouble, and they turned to her again almost instinctively during the war. With such an array of factors in her favour, Caprica, alone of all the other Colonies, had unparalleled leeway to act. In a break with her tradition of remaining aloof, the leading Colony chose now to intervene amongst her fractious cousins. 

In 10 BU, the Capricans called the Third Colonial Conference to which every member of the Quorum was invited to attend. It was at this Conference that the idea of federalization was first tabled by the Capricans; the Twelve Colonies were to be united under a single Government to ensure the peace and prosperity of the people, and the final victory over the Cylons. After all, argued the Capricans, a formal unification of the Twelve Colonies was the logical progression of the Directorate, which had already assumed the mantle of de facto governance of the Twelve Colonies over the past forty years of its existence. The organization had grown into a huge beast that was slowly becoming inefficient and ineffective; without reform, the Directorate was terminal, and without the Directorate, so were the Colonies. The Capricans believed they could kill two Cylons with one Viper - formal recognition of the de facto federal government and a major overhaul of the whole system all in one neat treaty.

The ensuing silence in the Hall of Twelve, the regular venue for the Quorum’s meetings, was reportedly deafening as was the uproar once the delegates recovered from their shock.

However, once the topic of federalization was made public, the idea began to fester amongst the people. While the Colonies had been politically independent entities for the last millennia and more, their identity had largely remained singular and unified. Colonial culture, language, religion, philosophy, and ethics had not fractured into twelve unique entities over the thousand years or so of recorded history, largely thanks to space flight and tylium. While each Colony was associated with its' distinct stereotype (e.g. Scorpians are greedy, Gemenese are pious, etc), FTL had allowed the maintenance of a common Colonial identity over the past millennia.

Nothing served more to forge the bonds between the Colonies, however, than the War. For the first time since their arrival in the Cyrannus system, the descendants of Kobol had a common purpose and acted with a common will. Concerted action reminded them of their common origins. The people grieved each loss as one, and celebrated each victory as one. Everybody was a Colonial first, and a Caprican or Gemini or Aquarian second, while the Cylons were now the "Others". The Colonies were more unified and homogenous now than at any other time in previous history since the completion of Colonization.

Caprican determination was also apparently underestimated. Caprican diplomats across the Twelve Colonies pushed for the idea continuously, and support for federalization slowly but surely gained support amongst the previously reluctant Governments. A Fourth Colonial Convention was called in 8 BU, and the Capricans finally secured the blessings of all Twelve Colonies for full inter-Colonial negotiations to begin.

In 6 BU, the Capricans surprised the Colonies by securing a permanent peace treaty between Picon and Sagittaron political leaders. Despite the peace between humans that had existed with the onset of the War, there had never been any love lost between the Sagittarons and Pisceans. Sagittaron supported Picon only because a Cylon victory was an option it could not countenance; Picon was the devil they knew. Nevertheless, the barely concealed friction between the Pisceans and the occupied Sagittarons was a constant irritation to the Directorate and the Capricans both, and they undertook to resolve the tension once and for all. The successful securement of a permanent peace that was acceptable to both parties was a major coup for the Capricans. 

The Sagittarons were persuaded to allow the Picons to remain on their planet for the duration of the war, providing the beleaguered Picon military a base from which to operate while their home was under siege. In return, the Picons promised the total evacuation of their personnel from Sagittaron at the conclusion of the Cylon War. The Sagittarons were originally reluctant to allow what they saw as an army of occupation to remain on their world, but Caprican pressure and an offer to guarantee their independence finally persuaded them to accede to the peace plan. The Treaty of Caprica added impetus to the quest for unification; the last major barrier had been removed by skilled Caprican diplomacy. Public mood and opinion regarding unification shifted vastly in favor as a consequence of the Treaty - if Picon and Sagittaron could find peace after two hundred years of war, then all the other problems and issues between the Colonies seemed almost trivial.

Thus, it was in 1 AC that the Articles of Colonization were signed and successfully ratified via plebiscite by each of the Twelve Colonies, often by large majorities. For the first time in history, the children of Kobol were officially unified as a sovereign nation. The fates of the Twelve Colonies were now forever bound together.

''NOTA BENE: The Articles of Colonization are a bit of a misnomer - they were NOT established or present at the initial Colonization, and despite popular and mystical opinion, neither the Twelve nor any other supernatural personages were involved.''

The Articles of Colonization is the single most significant document in the history of our civilization, with the possible exception of the Book of the Word. It provided for the unity and the system of government that ensured the victory over the Cylons. The Articles of Colonization allowed for a directly elected President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, and a bicameral legislature consisting of an upper house (the Quorum of Twelve - not to be mistaken with the Quorum of leaders) made up of singular representatives from each of the Twelve Colonies, and the Quorum of Citizens, the lower house, with three representatives from each Colony, also directly elected. The seat of Government was hosted by Caprica, an honor bestowed to the Colony as recognition of its invaluable role in pushing for the Articles of Colonization. Considering its history as a neutral meeting place, and as headquarters for the Directorate, Caprica was certainly the logical place to establish the new Government and capital.

In fact, the newly established Colonial Government in truth was little more than the Directorate enlarged many times over, with its departments and divisions renamed and restructured for greater efficiency. The powers that the Directorate assumed to prosecute the war, which were strictly speaking not awarded to it under its original mandate, was now officially enshrined in the Articles. On an aside, certain scholars and historians have argued for a re-adjustment of the Colonial Calendar to push the year of unification back almost twenty years, considering the disproportionate influence that Caprica held in the Directorate. That Caprica had achieved unification by stealth through the Directorate some forty years prior to the establishment of the Articles is not an unreasonable argument to make.

While the Articles of Colonization were hailed as a miracle, they were by no means perfect. The Lower House was effectively neutered by the Articles of Colonization; it could debate Government initiatives and bills, but could not vote on them. On the other hand, the Quorum could vote, but not debate. It was felt that this separation of powers would help prevent the paralysis of government that many detractors of the Articles (and there were quite a few of them despite the popular mood) feared. In the end, debate meant for little, and most recognized that true power to restrain Government excess rested solely in the hands of the Quorum of Twelve. The Lower House became meaningless over time; it was formally abolished with an amendment to the Articles after the end of the War (some ten years later in 10 AC), while the Quorum of Twelve was now legally empowered to debate and vote on legislation (which it had been doing since its inception anyways).

The Articles of Colonization also provided for the establishment of the Colonial Fleet, uniting the twelve disparate Colonial space navies and the Directorate Fleet into a single body. Much like how the Directorate was co-opted as the skeleton on which to build the new Colonial Government, the Picon Naval infrastructure and organization (which outclassed even the Caprican Navy) was utilized and expanded into a command structure capable of effective handling of the Colonial Fleet. Thus, the Picon Naval Headquarters in Picon City became the new Colonial Fleet Headquarters. The various Colonial armies and ground forces were similarly unified and headquartered on Aerelon for the same reason - the Aerelons sported the most effective and professional ground fighting force of all Twelve Colonies.

==Chapter 5 - The Road to Victory==

In the Picon summer of 2 AC, the first nuclear bombardment of a planetary surface occurred, resulting in the complete abandonment of Picon City. A neutron bomb was detonated over the metropolis, killing virtually every living thing in a two hundred kilometer blast radius but leaving all inorganic matter untouched. Almost two hundred thousand Colonial personnel and ten times that many civilians perished from the tsunami of subatomic particles unleashed by the neutron bomb. Cylon troops completed the conquest of Picon City unopposed and simply moved in, adapting the surviving structures and buildings for their use. Picon City, once the home of the Colonial Fleet HQ, became the bastion of the Cylon menace, and for the first time in the war, the Cylons were close to complete conquest of a Colonial world as surviving Colonial elements retreated south under the threat of further neutron detonations.

Strangely enough, the annihilation of the defenders of Picon proved to be the undoing of the Cylons. Fearing the use of more neutron bombs on other major population centers on the other worlds, the Colonial Government was now forced to contemplate its options. The idea of a thermonuclear response was discarded almost immediately; the Cylons were sure to launch a retaliatory thermonuclear strike against Tauron's cities. As it was, Tauron was already under threat of a nuclear bombardment without such reckless provocation, and the Colonial Fleet could not guarantee complete safety from a lone Cylon raider slipping through Colonial defenses to launch a thermonuclear weapon against other population centers. The only alternative was a quick and successful conclusion to the war, which implied a massive military offensive against the Cylon threat. The Admiralty and Marine High Command were ordered to plan the offensive operation, codenamed Deliverance. Planning began and continued under the threat of another neutron attack.

None came. In retrospect, it is yet another mystery regarding the Cylons as to why they did not utilize their arsenal of neutron bombs; there was no doubt they were armed with more. A planned and coordinated bombardment would have forced the Colonials to sue for terms in days. Few credible hypotheses have been suggested. The most likely has only just been formulated, and even this theory is largely speculative with large gaps in its reasoning. We now know that Cylon technology is heavily susceptible to the radiation emitted by the Ragnar field, similar in quality to the radiation emitted by neutron bombs. Though this susceptibility was not known to the Colonials at the time, fear of a returning neutron bombardment, or even thermonuclear strikes, against Cylon installations and outposts possibly forestalled further Cylon neutron bomb attacks. Ironically, Cylon ignorance of Colonial ignorance regarding Cylon susceptibility to radiation might have saved mankind and its war effort.

Planning for Deliverance was completed in the Caprican spring of 4 AC. The plan was simple in its objectives, but truly breath-taking with respect to the sheer logistics required. The first objective on which the remaining were predicated upon was the establishment of total space supremacy by destruction of the Cylon basestar fleet and their main anchorage in the solar system. Following this, an offensive would be launched on Tauron to secure the planet from the Cylon neutron bomb threat, and Picon would then be liberated, the Cylons to be ejected at all costs. Meanwhile, elements of the Colonial Marines and planet-bound Naval units would mount offensives on all known Cylon bases and outposts on the remaining ten Colonies with the intention of initially distracting enemy attention, and then thwarting enemy reprisals on these less well defended worlds. The Colonies were going to take on the Cylons on all fronts simultaneously.

The Colonial Fleet, all twelve of the great battlestars, amassed in Caprican orbit to prepare for the attack on the Cylon anchorage. Each battlestar took on an additional squadron of Vipers above and beyond their usual complement co-opted from planetary defense elements. With no hangar space to spare, the additional Vipers were loaded directly into the launch tubes and landing bays; it was hoped that this advantage, which the Cylons would not expect, would add an edge to the attack. On 30th Dio 5 AC, the entire Colonial Fleet jumped into the Damocles belt near the Cylon anchorage. The Cylon fleet was caught totally unawares as the battlestars materialized in a coordinated fashion to englobe the Cylons in a ring of iron. 

Of the ten operational Cylon basestars present only four were undocked and able to respond to the Colonial incursion. Within moments, hundreds of Vipers were in space, and the Battlestars opened a raging hailstorm of fire on the Cylon anchorage’s fortifications and capital ships, using everything from point defense cannons to nuclear warheads. Despite the surprise and ferocity of the Colonial attack, the response of the four basestars were swift; their main batteries came on-line immediately. Cylon raiders launched from all ten basestars as well as from the anchorage itself. The bolstered Colonial Viper squadrons seized and utilized the initiative provided by surprise, engaging their Cylon counterparts in the largest dogfight ever as they attempted to wrest control of the surrounding space from the metallic beings.

Though the battle was intense, the outcome was a foregone conclusion in retrospect. Colonial space tactics coupled with surprise prevented the Cylons from mounting their best defense. The Cylons did not have time to undock their massive ships from the anchorage to make them effective, nor could they maneuver their four undocked ships into a defensive formation before they were destroyed. Colonial nuclear weapons and battlestar gunnery tore through the fortifying batteries emplaced around the anchorage as well as the opposing basestars, while Colonial fighters fended off desperate Cylon attacks against the great Colonial capital ships.

Six basestars were destroyed still docked to the Damocles Anchorage, and four were destroyed in the water or immobilized. In little over a quarter of an hour, the Cylons had been deprived of most of their fleet. The Cylons would never recover. In return, the Prometheus, Poseidon and Atlantia suffered heavy damage and would remain in dry-dock for almost a year after the battle for repairs. The Viper squadrons suffered the greatest attrition of the battle; almost one out of every five Vipers launched did not return. At the close of the Damocles Engagment, statistics placed Colonial deaths at approximately eight thousand personnel aboard the battlestars and in the Vipers. While losses were grievous, the Engagement was nevertheless the greatest victory in Colonial history, and celebrated by numerous accolades since; the stature of the Navy and its servicemen and women has been made legendary by the engagement. To put it in perspective, three hundred and six Gold Clusters were awarded (two hundred and forty four posthumously) to the Viper pilots, more than the total number awarded in the previous three centuries by all Twelve Colonies combined.

The Colonials did not sit back and celebrate ad nauseam; they grabbed the momentum generated by the naval victory to blockade Tauron, essentially severing the Cylons from their industrial base. Moving quickly, Marine transports loaded to the brim with troops jumped in from Caprica and landed an invasion force of almost two million men and women within weeks (6 AC). Buoyed by the great victory, superb command and control, and overwhelming air support, Tauron was fully liberated in a month, and the Cylon threat ended on that planet. Colonial casualties were minimal due to the overwhelming force applied; losses were more in terms of assets than in lives. The Cylons had instituted a policy of "Scorched Ground" as they retreated, destroying everything that might help the Colonials. Losses from destruction of infrastructure alone in the areas of Tauron that had fallen under Cylon control numbered into the trillions of cubits.

From there, the Cylon situation was precarious. Cut off from their industrial base and supplies, and with most of their fleet blown out of the sky, the Cylons knew it was only a matter of time until Colonial forces arrived to retake occupied Picon from them. Already, patrols in force were being made from territory still under Colonial control in the south of the Odyssean continent in preparation for the arrival of reinforcements and the operation to liberate Picon. The force that had been assembled for the liberation was truly awe inspiring - over one hundred transport ships jumped in in Artem 7 AC to unload a force three times larger than the one that had liberated Tauron, spearheaded by six of the twelve battlestars. Meanwhile the Rycon, Galactica, and Solaria hunted the few remaining Cylon basestars and space-based facilities across the Cyrannus system, while the Prometheus, Poseidon, and Atlantia continued to remain in dry-dock.

The Colonial offensive began on the 15th of Artem 7 AC. Vipers modified for ground bombardment were launched from the orbiting battlestars, and in conjunction with ground based artillery, pounded Cylon positions all over the planet, targeting in particular Cylon command and control positions, Dradis towers, and anti-aircraft batteries. The bombing continued for three days. On the 18th day of Artem, Colonial forces poured out of the southern regions of the Oddysean continent and began the push north towards Picon City. Against such overwhelming force, the Cylons had little to respond with. While formidable, the Cylons were clearly outnumbered, and outgunned. Colonial spearheads punched through Cylon defensive positions, creating corridors through which troops advanced and wheeled around to surround their enemy in a vice. Other columns of Colonial troops streamed in through the wide gaps in the Cylon front lines, heading straight for Picon City.

The Marines entered the outskirts of Picon City at the beginning of Aren.

The Cylons sued for terms on the 10th of Aren 7 AC.

The impossible was now a reality. Facing their total annihilation, the Cylons accepted an Armistice offer from the Colonial Government. Fighting ceased at 00:00 on the 12th of Aren 133 AC. The Cylons were allowed to evacuate whatever personnel they had left in Colonial space without harassment and to withdraw to a new home, wherever that may be. The last Cylon transport jumped out of Picon space under Fleet escort on the 20th of Aren at 04:15. The war was over.

The parties and celebrations that ensued were, by all accounts, beyond belief. The devastation and loss of life were forgotten for a heady month-long celebration declared by the Quorum that was almost mythical in proportion. Fireworks hailed the peace in every Colonial city, and the heroes of the war were feted like Lords of Kobol. We do not have records to know for sure, but anecdotal evidence suggests that ambrosia traders made a killing. Interestingly, the census records a spike of births nine months later in the following year, possibly reflecting the atmosphere of the time, and the human need for physical outlets of strong emotions.

The rebuilding of Picon began almost immediately. The vast majority of refugees who had been evacuated returned to their devastated Colony. As promised, Picon evacuated her troops from Sagittaron and brought them home where they were needed for the reconstruction effort. Generous amounts of aid, both private and Government, flowed in from the other Colonies. The Fleet HQ was reconstructed, and military industrial complexes were re-established. The unexpected consequence of the unique suffering endured by Picon is that it is now the most modern of the Twelve Colonies. The people took the opportunity to plan their resettlement of the Colony, and the reconstruction of buildings and public spaces were done with the latest in architectural design and thought. The Picon City of today rivals even Caprica City for chic and grandeur, despite its reputation as being a "fleet town".

The repercussions of the war, however, extended beyond just the physical. A deep-seated suspicion of robotics, and the allied fields of computer and network applications, became ingrained into the Colonial psyche. Never again would they allow the Cylons to threaten their existence. A massive Government recruitment and construction drive for both arms of the military was approved by the Quorum. A second generation of battlestars were constructed, while the first generation were retrofitted up to the new standard. Over a hundred battlestars were christened in the next forty years of peace. The ranks of the Marines were tripled, new barracks and training grounds were established, and an impressive array of new armored vehicles and machines of war were developed.

In many ways the Colonials had been forced to grow up. After the war, there was no room for complacency on any level. The people worked hard to secure the peace and their future.

==Chapter 6 - The Interval of Hope==

While this section is little more than two pages long, it nevertheless should be afforded its own chapter. Undeniably, our people entered an unprecedented and unrivalled Golden Age with the successful outcome of the Cylon War. An era of rapid population growth and change was ushered in, particularly on those Colonies most affected by the War. Prosperity skyrocketed as the unified Government ably managed inter-Colonial disputes and rivalries. Sound economic policy ensured an extended period of stable and spectacular growth that lasted for more than four decades (~10 AC to 50 AC). The peace and security provided by both the Articles and a much expanded Colonial Fleet ensured safe space travel. Trade and tourism tripled between the Colonies, relative to their pre-War levels, and more than half of the now seventeen billion plus population had traveled in space at some point in their lives. Cultural and scientific achievements astounded the populace on a regular basis as the people found faith in themselves and their institutions once again.

The sole blight on this record was Sagittaron. The Colony, while an avid supporter of the Articles which were seen as the guarantor of their security from further Picon aggression (although the threat from this quarter continued to exist only in the paranoid minds of Sagittaron leaders), failed to achieve the spectacular growth seen in the other eleven Colonies. While Sagittaron was rebuilt rapidly after the Picon occupation had ended (largely funded by Caprican cubits channeled through the Government), the mood of optimism that pervaded everywhere else was curiously absent. 

This poor mood, coupled to the Colony's continued shady reputation as a haven for the damp underside of humanity, deterred investment which resulted in poor economic performance. Sagittarons, on every scale imaginable, were falling behind their brethren - the population was poorly skilled relative to other Colonials and they commanded lower wages. Sagittaron workers were, in general, exploited and treated poorly compared to others, and the Government did little other than to apply generic and cosmetic "solutions". By the end of the fourth decade AC (40 AC), more than one tenth of Sagittarons lived in poverty, a state that had been virtually eliminated from all other Colonies. 

Secessionist calls for Sagittaron independence resurfaced, and Government mismanagement of that situation merely fanned the flames. Attempts by the Government to nip the problem in the bud with harsh measures designed to silence the activists simply added credence to their claims with the Sagittaron public. It was in this period that Tom Zarek rose as a prominent Sagittaron advocate of independence. While he never publicly supported violence as a legitimate tool of political change, there is little doubt that Zarek was a leader of the terrorist rings that first surfaced in 39 AC. These rings instituted a wave of attacks on Sagittaron against Government buildings and officials. The violence soon spread beyond those targets and Sagittaron citizens could no longer count themselves safe; indeed almost forty Sagittarons had died as "patriots" before the year's end.

Further Government attempts to subdue the insurgents escalated the situation beyond control - Zarek was captured, convicted of treason, and sentenced to twenty years in a Sagittaron penitentiary (ironically the Government dumped all of its undesirables on Sagittaron). In response, a year after Zarek's internment in jail, Sagittaron "freedom fighters" occupied the Helios-1 Power Plant on Aerelon and delivered an ultimatum demanding the release of all "political prisoners" or face the consequences of an uncontrolled tylium reaction of unimaginable proportions. The resulting conflagration of such a detonation would have leveled the city of Megara, population 5 million and capital of Aerelon. To make matters worse, the terrorists had also captured fifty of the plant's workers and were using them as human shields to guarantee their safety.

President Richard Adar, newly installed as the President of the Twelve Colonies, ordered Colonial Marines in, despite the danger to the hostages. In the resulting skirmish to retake the plant, sixteen prisoners were executed by the terrorists before the Marines could secure them. At the end of it, however, Colonial personnel were in control of the Helios plant, Zarek was still incarcerated and Megara was safe. The loss of sixteen hostages, nevertheless, provoked outrage amongst the electorate, and the political wise men and spin-doctors predicted the end of Adar's career. Many misjudged his acute sense of political savvy; he survived attempts to impeach him in the Quorum, and secured re-election at the end of his term, largely helped by an upswing in Colonial economic performance.

The proscription against robotics and networks remained firmly in place, despite almost flagrant wide-scale breaches of the ban by academia and industrial interests who sought to revive the robotics industry once again. The ban was relaxed in 41 AC when the Quorum was pressured by lobbying from the Business Roundtable of Scorpia to pass the Act of Regulation (Artificial Intelligence) 41 AC. This Act repealed the previous ban on research into robotics and networks, but also required all such research to occur under strict and rigorous government oversight. 

For all intents and purposes, humanity was back to the place where it was before the Great War, and our people settled in for another prolonged period of peace. Or so they thought.

==Chapter 7 - The Long Night Goodbye==

The peace of the Armistice held for 40 years. Much of the trauma of the War had faded; a new generation had grown up without the threat of devastation hanging over their heads. The future looked bright, and the Colonies were well on the road to recovery. 

Reality would soon intrude itself.

Armistice Station was constructed after the end of the war with the intention of being a meeting place for humans and Cylons to discuss their differences and resolve them peacefully. Every year the Navy sent a representative. Every year the Cylons sent nobody. In 47 AC, exactly four decades after the end of the war, humanity received a reply. The Cylons launched a surprise offensive against the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and their first target was Armistice Station. In a vortex of flame, decompressing gas, and twisted debris, the War started again with the destruction of the Station. In retrospect, it appears that the Cylons had been using the last forty years to rebuild and rearm their forces. They finally returned to complete their goal - the total extermination of the human race.

The results were devastating. The Colonial Fleet, now numbering more than one hundred and twenty battlestars, was thought to be invincible. Nothing is ever truly invincible. The Cylons found a way to disable our battlestars, leaving the great ships crippled and drifting in space. We now know that the navigational systems that powered the great ships' computer networks and movements were fatally flawed, allowing the Cylons to infiltrate the ships' electronics suites and disable the Fleet without firing a single shot. The Cylons then struck the deathblow to the Colonial Navy; every hapless battlestar bar one met with destruction. The new Mark 7 Vipers did not fare any better, being equally susceptible to Cylon electronic warfare. Every Viper system was shut down like the battlestars' and floating in space with no power, they proved to be easy targets for Cylon raiders. The Colonial Navy, the pride of humanity, the defenders of the Colonies and the beacon of hope, was decimated within hours.

With the Fleet eliminated, the path to the Colonies was then wide open. The next two days were the most terrifying in human history. Our civilization was reduced to ruinous devastation. The Cylons struck with an irrational fury never before seen. Picon was the first Colony to report thermonuclear detonations. Whether it was out of spite for the Cylon defeat forty years ago, or pure coincidence we do not know. The Government offered an unconditional surrender; our only reply was the nuking of the remaining Colonial worlds. Destruction rained down on our defenseless people, until finally, everything ended. Almost one and a half millennia of recorded history were wiped out in two days of insane destruction. Seven million people inhabited Caprica City alone; a hundred times that many inhabited the entire planet, and a hundred times that across all Twelve Colonies of Kobol - more than seventy billion people in total. 

They are all gone now.

Only fifty thousand souls survived the Genocide, gathered from the few FTL capable ships that happened to be in space when the Cylons bombarded our planets. Only one battlestar, the Galactica, remains. She is old and tired, but she is all that defends the remnants of our once great people. New leaders have stepped up to protect us. Laura Roslin, the former Secretary of Education (43rd in line of succession) has been sworn in as President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Commander Adama, a hero of the First Cylon War, is the highest ranking officer of the Colonial Navy still surviving; under his command, the brave men and women of the Galactica protect our fleet of refugees from the Cylons who pursue us across the depths of space still.

Today, huddled aboard fifty ships, the surviving sons and daughters of Kobol eek out an existence. We have been promised salvation and safe haven by our leaders; our mission now is to find the lost Thirteenth Colony of Kobol. Somewhere out there, there is a planet called Earth, and we shall journey to it. We are few in number. We have little in terms of resources and even fewer options.

But we have hope.

And we must survive.

So say we all.