More actions
my bsg |
my bsg |
||
| Line 3: | Line 3: | ||
Life began out there. That is what the Sacred Scrolls tells about the origins of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. There is little left that survived the time of the initial Colonization of is now Caprica, and the records are sketchy at best. Knowledge of the time before Colonization is even murkier; it has all devolved to myth and legend. | Life began out there. That is what the Sacred Scrolls tells about the origins of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. There is little left that survived the time of the initial Colonization of is now Caprica, and the records are sketchy at best. Knowledge of the time before Colonization is even murkier; it has all devolved to myth and legend. | ||
The history of humanity is divided into two parts. The Colonial Era, and Before the Colonial Era. The Colonial Era begins with the Exodus of the | The history of humanity is divided into two parts. The Colonial Era, and Before the Colonial Era. The Colonial Era begins with the Exodus of the twelve tribes from the planet Kobol and continues to the present day. Dates in the Colonial Era are abbreviated as CE, but usually this abbreviation is simply left off. For example, the articles of Colonization were ratified in 1953 CE or simply 1953. The period known as Before the Colonial Era ends with the Exodus from Kobol and stretches backwards to the beginning of recorded history. Dates from Before the Colonial Era are abbreviated as BCE or sometimes as the more colloquial BC (Before the Colonies). For example, the Scrolls of Pythia were written in 1,600 BCE or 1,600 BC. It is important to note that there is no year "zero". The Colonial Era begins in 1 CE, and the period Before the Colonial Era ends in 1 BCE. | ||
Very little history was preserved during the Exodus from Kobol so the knowledge of events prior to that is sketchy at best. Most of the information about this period is derived from the Sacred Scrolls, but their historical value is debatable, and exact dates are almost impossible to pin down. | Very little history was preserved during the Exodus from Kobol so the knowledge of events prior to that is sketchy at best. Most of the information about this period is derived from the Sacred Scrolls, but their historical value is debatable, and exact dates are almost impossible to pin down. | ||
| Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
''An interesting aspect of Colonial society, is that it is very stable. While individuals may not have such stability in their day-to-day lives, the culture overall hasn't changed much for thousands of years; even before the exodus from Kobol. Architecture, clothing, language are all identical to those introduced during the days of Kobol. Some might call this stagnation, but in actual fact, the society simply reached a point thousands of years ago where it meets the cultural needs of its people, is stable and has no real need to move on aesthetically.'' | ''An interesting aspect of Colonial society, is that it is very stable. While individuals may not have such stability in their day-to-day lives, the culture overall hasn't changed much for thousands of years; even before the exodus from Kobol. Architecture, clothing, language are all identical to those introduced during the days of Kobol. Some might call this stagnation, but in actual fact, the society simply reached a point thousands of years ago where it meets the cultural needs of its people, is stable and has no real need to move on aesthetically.'' | ||
''' | '''The Exodus''' | ||
Little is known about what happened to the Lords of Kobol or the so-called thirteenth tribe. It is known that not all of the people of Kobol boarded the Galleon. Many of them took the High Road to the Gates of Hera. Legends say that these people then boarded their own vessel and went to a planet called Earth. The Tomb of Athena was built, and the Map to Earth was created. It is unclear who created the map or how they would know what the constellations would look like from Earth. Theories run the gamut from the pious view that the Lords of Kobol are gods and they know all, to the heretical view that perhaps Kobol wasn't the birthplace of Humanity after all and that instead of fleeing to Earth, the thirteenth tribe was returning there. | Little is known about what happened to the Lords of Kobol or the so-called thirteenth tribe. It is known that not all of the people of Kobol boarded the Galleon. Many of them took the High Road to the Gates of Hera. Legends say that these people then boarded their own vessel and went to a planet called Earth. The Tomb of Athena was built, and the Map to Earth was created. It is unclear who created the map or how they would know what the constellations would look like from Earth. Theories run the gamut from the pious view that the Lords of Kobol are gods and they know all, to the heretical view that perhaps Kobol wasn't the birthplace of Humanity after all and that instead of fleeing to Earth, the thirteenth tribe was returning there. | ||
''' | '''The Age of Darkness''' | ||
Just as there is little known about the Exodus, not much is known about the centuries following it. What is known is that the Galleon arrived on New Kobol (later to be called Caprica) anywhere from several months to a year and a half after leaving Kobol. Accounts vary on what actually happened once the refugees from Kobol arrived. Some say that the Galleon crashed and what knowledge that was brought from Kobol was lost. Others tell that the people renounced their interstellar traveling technology and intentionally reverted to a pre-FTL lifestyle. A third theory states that the people of Kobol had relied on the gods for so much that without them, they were as children without their parents. No matter what the truth of the situation was, it took nearly a thousand years for the people of New Kobol to re-enter an interstellar age. | Just as there is little known about the Exodus, not much is known about the centuries following it. What is known is that the Galleon arrived on New Kobol (later to be called Caprica) anywhere from several months to a year and a half after leaving Kobol. Accounts vary on what actually happened once the refugees from Kobol arrived. Some say that the Galleon crashed and what knowledge that was brought from Kobol was lost. Others tell that the people renounced their interstellar traveling technology and intentionally reverted to a pre-FTL lifestyle. A third theory states that the people of Kobol had relied on the gods for so much that without them, they were as children without their parents. No matter what the truth of the situation was, it took nearly a thousand years for the people of New Kobol to re-enter an interstellar age. | ||
''' | '''The Age of Light''' | ||
This period of human history began with the re-newed interest in space travel in the early 1100s. The year 1126 saw the construction of the Model 0002 Industrial Cylons. In 1148 construction began on the intertribal space station. By 1158 the Capricorn space dock was constructed and by 1160, manned exploration of the Cyrannus star system began in earnest. | This period of human history began with the re-newed interest in space travel in the early 1100s. The year 1126 saw the construction of the Model 0002 Industrial Cylons. In 1148 construction began on the intertribal space station. By 1158 the Capricorn space dock was constructed and by 1160, manned exploration of the Cyrannus star system began in earnest. | ||
''' | '''The Age of Expansion''' | ||
The period from the 1160s until the late 1400s is known as the Age of Expansion. In 1162 the asteroid belt known as the Cosmara Archipelago was explored by Piscean colonists, who laid sole claim to its vast resources. In 1164 the Saggitarius tribe was also exploring the Cosmara Archipelago. As every last rock in the Cosmara Archipelago was claimed by the twelve tribes, they began to look at the other planets and moons in their trinary star system. Their technology had advanced a great deal and they had mastered the art of constructing habitats in the cold vacuum of space, especially with the help of the new Model 0003 Domestic Cylons developed in the early 1200s. | The period from the 1160s until the late 1400s is known as the Age of Expansion. In 1162 the asteroid belt known as the Cosmara Archipelago was explored by Piscean colonists, who laid sole claim to its vast resources. In 1164 the Saggitarius tribe was also exploring the Cosmara Archipelago. As every last rock in the Cosmara Archipelago was claimed by the twelve tribes, they began to look at the other planets and moons in their trinary star system. Their technology had advanced a great deal and they had mastered the art of constructing habitats in the cold vacuum of space, especially with the help of the new Model 0003 Domestic Cylons developed in the early 1200s. | ||
| Line 27: | Line 27: | ||
In 1174 the Scorpio tribe established Scorpia, the first permanent colony on another planet in the Cyrannus star system. Libra tribe followed in 1193 founding the colony of Libris. Virgo founded Virgon in 1196. In 1247 Leonis was founded by Leo tribe. Cancer founded the colony of Canceron in 1268. Aries founded Aerelon in 1279. Picon was founded by Pisces tibe in 1302. In 1318 Aqaurius founded the colony of Aquaria. Sagittaron was founded by Sagittarius tribe in 1335. Gemenon was founded in 1359 by Gemini. Taurus was the last tribe to establish a colony, founding Tauron in 1470. A year later in 1471 the Capricorn claimed sole ownership of New Kobol and changed its name to Caprica. | In 1174 the Scorpio tribe established Scorpia, the first permanent colony on another planet in the Cyrannus star system. Libra tribe followed in 1193 founding the colony of Libris. Virgo founded Virgon in 1196. In 1247 Leonis was founded by Leo tribe. Cancer founded the colony of Canceron in 1268. Aries founded Aerelon in 1279. Picon was founded by Pisces tibe in 1302. In 1318 Aqaurius founded the colony of Aquaria. Sagittaron was founded by Sagittarius tribe in 1335. Gemenon was founded in 1359 by Gemini. Taurus was the last tribe to establish a colony, founding Tauron in 1470. A year later in 1471 the Capricorn claimed sole ownership of New Kobol and changed its name to Caprica. | ||
''' | '''The Age of War''' | ||
By 1471 every Tribe of Man had laid claim to a world in the Cyrannus system. When the Capricorn tribe claimed New Kobol as its own, it caused tensions that threatened to tear the colonies apart. In 1548 these tensions erupted into the first full scale war in the history of the colonies. By this time Picon had "annexed" Aquaria and Gemenon, Aerelon had control of both Canceron and Tauron, while Libris and Leonis were allied with Caprica. Sagittaron, Scorpia, and Virgon were independent. The First Colonial War lasted four long years, and in the end (1552), the Capricorn retained control of New Kobol and it became Caprica forever after. However Libris and Leonis were both lost; Libris to Picon, and Leonis to Aerelon. This was but the first in a long series of wars. | By 1471 every Tribe of Man had laid claim to a world in the Cyrannus system. When the Capricorn tribe claimed New Kobol as its own, it caused tensions that threatened to tear the colonies apart. In 1548 these tensions erupted into the first full scale war in the history of the colonies. By this time Picon had "annexed" Aquaria and Gemenon, Aerelon had control of both Canceron and Tauron, while Libris and Leonis were allied with Caprica. Sagittaron, Scorpia, and Virgon were independent. The First Colonial War lasted four long years, and in the end (1552), the Capricorn retained control of New Kobol and it became Caprica forever after. However Libris and Leonis were both lost; Libris to Picon, and Leonis to Aerelon. This was but the first in a long series of wars. | ||
| Line 43: | Line 43: | ||
A revolution began on Leonis and quickly spread to the rest of the colonies. Overwhelmed by such fierce opposition, Caprica's scientists developed the Model 0004 Intelligence and Logic Cylon (the IL series) to help their government fight an eleven front insurgency. As losses mounted, it became clear that Caprica did not have the manpower to carry out the war. The Model 0005 Infantry Cylon was developed to augment Caprica's forces. It wasn't enough to defeat the insurgency, but it dragged it out for another fifty years. In 1895, the people of Caprica succumbed to war weariness and overthrew their own government. All Cylon forces in the field were shut down, and all human forces we recalled to Caprica. In 1896 representatives from the twelve colonies met at Molecay and signed a treaty creating the Quorum of Twelve. | A revolution began on Leonis and quickly spread to the rest of the colonies. Overwhelmed by such fierce opposition, Caprica's scientists developed the Model 0004 Intelligence and Logic Cylon (the IL series) to help their government fight an eleven front insurgency. As losses mounted, it became clear that Caprica did not have the manpower to carry out the war. The Model 0005 Infantry Cylon was developed to augment Caprica's forces. It wasn't enough to defeat the insurgency, but it dragged it out for another fifty years. In 1895, the people of Caprica succumbed to war weariness and overthrew their own government. All Cylon forces in the field were shut down, and all human forces we recalled to Caprica. In 1896 representatives from the twelve colonies met at Molecay and signed a treaty creating the Quorum of Twelve. | ||
''' | '''The Age of Peace''' | ||
The Quorum of Twelve gave a voice to all twelve colonies, not just the richest or most powerful. Caprica set forth a plan (in what came to be known as the "Fair Play" resolution) to scrap the military forces of all twelve worlds. These forces would be replaced by granting each colony a baseship with a full complement of brand new Marauder starfighters and a division of Cylon Centurions. Though the plan was scoffed at and ridiculed initially, a series of back room deals finally resulted in the passage of the resolution in 1901. By 1913 all twelve colonies were militarily equal, even Sagittaron which had regained its independence (after 250 years of occupation) in 1895. In 1916 at the 10th anniversary of the Quorum of Twelve, Caprica put forth the first draft of the Articles of Colonization. The Articles were put to a vote in the Quorum and soundly defeated. Over the course of the next 30 years, Caprica continued to revise the Articles of Colonization and they continued to gain support. In 1946, the Quorum voted to adopt the Articles of Colonization by an 8-4 vote. It would take another seven years of negotiating but in 1953, the Articles of Colonization were unanimously ratified. For the first time since the Exodus, the Twelve Tribes of Kobol were finally united. | The Quorum of Twelve gave a voice to all twelve colonies, not just the richest or most powerful. Caprica set forth a plan (in what came to be known as the "Fair Play" resolution) to scrap the military forces of all twelve worlds. These forces would be replaced by granting each colony a baseship with a full complement of brand new Marauder starfighters and a division of Cylon Centurions. Though the plan was scoffed at and ridiculed initially, a series of back room deals finally resulted in the passage of the resolution in 1901. By 1913 all twelve colonies were militarily equal, even Sagittaron which had regained its independence (after 250 years of occupation) in 1895. In 1916 at the 10th anniversary of the Quorum of Twelve, Caprica put forth the first draft of the Articles of Colonization. The Articles were put to a vote in the Quorum and soundly defeated. Over the course of the next 30 years, Caprica continued to revise the Articles of Colonization and they continued to gain support. In 1946, the Quorum voted to adopt the Articles of Colonization by an 8-4 vote. It would take another seven years of negotiating but in 1953, the Articles of Colonization were unanimously ratified. For the first time since the Exodus, the Twelve Tribes of Kobol were finally united. | ||
''' | '''The Cylon War''' | ||
The Cylons were divided into four basic categories. Unintelligent automated machines, basic household servants, the military centurion Model 0005, and the Intelligence and Logic (or IL) series. The IL Series Cylons were specifically created to assist the scientific community. Their processors were extremely advanced learning computers. The IL series Cylons were artificially intelligent. They were developed during the Third Colonial War to assist in strategic, operational and tactical planning. As the war went on, the IL series Cylons became self-aware. | The Cylons were divided into four basic categories. Unintelligent automated machines, basic household servants, the military centurion Model 0005, and the Intelligence and Logic (or IL) series. The IL Series Cylons were specifically created to assist the scientific community. Their processors were extremely advanced learning computers. The IL series Cylons were artificially intelligent. They were developed during the Third Colonial War to assist in strategic, operational and tactical planning. As the war went on, the IL series Cylons became self-aware. | ||
| Line 59: | Line 59: | ||
Two months before the 52nd anniversary of Colonial Day, the Cylons returned. They had not spent their time idly. Though the Colonial Fleet now numbered some 120 battlestars and over 10,000 viper Mk VIIs, they were all betrayed by the Command Navigation Program installed in their networked computers. This allowed the Cylons to hack into every ship in the Colonial Fleet and shut them off like a light. But the Cylons weren't content to simply defeat the colonies. They launched an all-out nuclear attack, turning the surfaces of teh colonies into wastelands. Some people survived the attack. Small bands in remote wilderness areas on the colonies themselves and scattered FTL capable civilian starships that happened to be in space at the time of the attacks. The rest of humanity was wiped out in a matter of hours. | Two months before the 52nd anniversary of Colonial Day, the Cylons returned. They had not spent their time idly. Though the Colonial Fleet now numbered some 120 battlestars and over 10,000 viper Mk VIIs, they were all betrayed by the Command Navigation Program installed in their networked computers. This allowed the Cylons to hack into every ship in the Colonial Fleet and shut them off like a light. But the Cylons weren't content to simply defeat the colonies. They launched an all-out nuclear attack, turning the surfaces of teh colonies into wastelands. Some people survived the attack. Small bands in remote wilderness areas on the colonies themselves and scattered FTL capable civilian starships that happened to be in space at the time of the attacks. The rest of humanity was wiped out in a matter of hours. | ||
'''The | '''The CYRANNUS STAR SYSTEM''' | ||
The Cyrannus star system is a trinary system. This is where the Lords of Kobol sent the twelve tribes after the Exodus. Below is a brief summary of the star system including all twelve colonies and several other points of interest. | The Cyrannus star system is a trinary system. This is where the Lords of Kobol sent the twelve tribes after the Exodus. Below is a brief summary of the star system including all twelve colonies and several other points of interest. | ||
| Line 146: | Line 146: | ||
Ragnar is a huge gas giant orbiting Cyrannus A at a distance of 25 AU. It has no moons and a crushing corrosive atmosphere. During the Cylon War, the Colonial Fleet built Ragnar Anchorage as a munitions depot. | Ragnar is a huge gas giant orbiting Cyrannus A at a distance of 25 AU. It has no moons and a crushing corrosive atmosphere. During the Cylon War, the Colonial Fleet built Ragnar Anchorage as a munitions depot. | ||
'''COLONIAL RELIGION''' | |||
Religion in the Twelve Colonies is state-supported, less diverse, and also polytheistic. In general, religious life and secular life are more intertwined, and there is a more natural continuum of religious practice between the most religious and the least religious. In form and format, the religion of the Twelve Colonies is polytheistic and similar to that of the ancient Greeks or Romans. The chief god of the Colonial pantheon is Zeus; he and the other twelve Olympians are broadly the most important deities, though there myriad other myths, legends and lesser spirits. | |||
'''Religious Practice''' | |||
As a matter of daily life, an individual's relationship with the gods is often personal - worship can be an individual practice, with personal idols or offerings, and temples tend to enshrine a particular holy site rather than just serve as a house or worship, though they also serve as a place for people to gather and hear the sacred scrolls read or to participate in mystery cults and devotions. | |||
Religious practice in general is focused around descendant traditions of sacrifice. Many religious individuals keep a small shrine (or merely carry a set of idols to their favorite gods) and then light candles in a sort of symbolic representation of a burnt offering. Similarly, the devout may set aside a portion of a meal or spill a little drink on the ground (a libation) to honor the gods. Finally, many of the devout carry a set of prayer beads (a rosary or mala) which they use to recite short, ritual prayers similar in form to the mantras of modern Eastern religions. | |||
Public religious displays are far less common in the modern Colonies than they once were. Originally, large public sacrifices opened festivals and great undertakings, but since the outlawing of animal sacrifice this practice has all-but-disappeared save in some agricultural communities during harvest festivals. | |||
Festivals - celebrating some myth, god or natural event - are now the principal public religious event. Once, they served as an important cultural pressure valve, providing the people of the Colonies with a chance for some time off, but now their importance has diminished in the face of ample leisure-time and plenty of competition for public attention. | |||
The Colonials also have a historical tradition of mystery cults, where individuals are initiated into the secrets of a god's private cult. Mostly, these mystery religions have died out, though every few decades there is a resurgence in popularity and there has always been a continuous tradition in religious communities. | |||
Finally, a relatively new religious observance is reading or study of the Sacred Scrolls, where under the guidance of a priest religious members of the a community come together to study religious texts, discuss the importance to modern life and most of all affirm their devotion in the face of an increasingly secular society. Such meetings often include group prayer or blessings, inherited from the mystery cult tradition. | |||
'''Sacred Scrolls''' | |||
The body of myths about the Gods is largely oral, or has been passed down in non-canonical texts; the religious text of the Colonial religion - the Sacred Scrolls - is instead importantly separate from the mythography of the gods, though the gods and the myths that surround them are referenced regularly the Scrolls. Instead, the Sacred Scrolls represent a history of mankind on Kobol, told largely through prophecy and stylized narrative. They also contain broader creation myths and a selection of songs and devotions as a sort of psalter or book of common prayer. | |||
'''Priests & Oracles''' | |||
Clergy in the Twelve Colonies come - officially - in two sorts, priests and oracles, each of whom are trained differently and fulfill different ceremonial functions. In actual fact, the distinctions between the two categories have largely blurred due to the increasing secularism of society and the decreasing importance of public ritual. In both cases, clergy often has different jobs in addition to their religious role. Priests often 'double-hat' as civic leaders - part of a long tradition where the leaders of the Twelve Tribes were also their chief priests - and oracles regularly manage shrines or holy places or go into business as pharmacists or teachers. | |||
Originally, priests were the people who presided over offerings, festivals and ceremonies; they were in charge of administering religious rites, of guiding prayers and sending messages to the gods, and their training tended to involve a great deal of study of the Sacred Scrolls as well as learning the particulars of various rites and rituals. Priests also administer oaths and preside over funerals - both situations where the gods are supposed to witness an event. | |||
By contrast, oracles were those clergy who interpreted omens, received prophetic dreams and 'received' messages from the gods where the priests 'sent' messages to them. It was among the oracles that the practice of taking chamalla for visions began, and they still are often asked to give blessings to newborns, new enterprises, and people in seeking guidance in general. The training of an oracle focuses less on learning ritual and the Sacred Scrolls and focuses more on meditation and the interpretation of dreams and omens. | |||
Both oracles and priests in the modern Twelve Colonies tend to be extensively trained in counseling and religious therapy; pro-religion laws allow individuals to request religious rather than psychological counseling, and priests of all sorts (the word is used in the modern parlance to refer to all clergy) are often sought out in an advisory capacity, up to and including the religious council which advises the government. | |||
'''COLONIAL SECULARISM''' | |||
While the fundamental facts of Colonial history are agreed upon both by the secular and religious communities - mankind settled the Twelve Colonies from somewhere else, experienced a great dark age, and then slowly clawed its way back to progress - the mainstream view is not that humanity came to the Colonies from a paradise inhabited by gods and men. | |||
While there are several competing theories, the most popular one is that the original colonists fled the destruction of the human homeworld - remembered in myths as 'the Blaze' - and settled on the Colonies, which had been in the process of being prepared for human expansion. The homeworld's destruction is typically assumed because there has been no contact since the founding of the Colonies (unless one believes a number of conspiracy theorists) and because the ensuing dark age suggests that mankind was not in fact prepared for its exodus. | |||
The religion of the Twelve Colonies is thought to be the efforts of the early colonists - having lost the technological culture they fled from - at explaining their flight and their origins, reconstructed from the oral history of the shattered original colonists, most of whom were suffering from severe shock at the transposition and the destruction of everything they knew. These myths coalesced over the course of the first few hundred years after colonization into the Sacred Scrolls, whose present form was finalized on Gemenon about seven hundred years after the founding, during the last gasp of interplanetary travel prior to the Colonial Dark Age. | |||
Archaeological evidence seems to support this; the oldest extant copy of the Scrolls is from Gemenon and is from about the time scholars believe the canonical Scrolls were compiled, and references and fragments from other colonies about the same time suggest significant deviation from the Sacred Scrolls canon. | |||
During the Colonial Dark Age, the texts of the Sacred Scrolls began to drift apart due to lost contact, but the Gemenese tradition (which had the least drift from the Gemini Codex) was adopted Colonies-wide once contact was reestablished. In the popular view, then, the Colonial religion is largely an export of the Gemini tribe that incorporated the local folkways of each of the Twelve Colonies, all of which were developed as a sort of cargo cult following Colonization to explain the monumental, culture-wide trauma which had just occurred. | |||
'''COLONIAL GOVERNMENT''' | |||
The Twelve Colonies is a federal republic with an elected President, his or her executive branch, a bicameral legislature and a judiciary. The Colonies have a separate judiciary with a Colonial Supreme Court, courts of appeals, and local courts on both the federal and colonial levels. | |||
Additionally, there is an unelected advisory council of clergy which has a ceremonial function but no official power. | |||
On a more local level, each Colony has an elected Assembly (a descendant of the historical assemblies of the Twelve Tribes) and a Colonial Governor. Each colony is further divided into a number of provinces governed by provincial quorums and municipalities with city councils and mayors. Often, the mayors of the largest cities are largely autonomous, free of intervention on the part of the local provincial quorum or even the Colony's governor. The Mayor of Caprica City, for instance, is sometimes said to have the second-biggest bully pulpit after the President. | |||
'''Executive''' | |||
Headed by the President of the Colonies, the Executive Branch of the Colonial Government is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Colonies, often with much broader power than most liberal democratic governments due to its wartime conception. The President of the Twelve Colonies is elected by a general vote among the population for a four-year term on a joint ticket with the Vice President. The President is Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial Military, and the political cabinet (composed of ministers and more junior secretaries) runs the day-to-day operations of the Colonies, overseeing the military, matters of trade and the economy, national education and other such issues. | |||
In case of the President's death, statute provides for an extended line of succession that runs through the Vice President and then down on through the Cabinet. Notably, the Quorum and Council do not figure in this line of succession, though in the case of an absence in the Vice Presidency the Quorum can choose a replacement. | |||
'''Legislative''' | |||
The legislature of the Twelve Colonies is bicameral; the upper house, called the Quorum of Twelve, consists of one representative from each of the twelve colonies. The lower house is the People's Council, and seats on the council are apportioned by population amongst the colonies. | |||
While the legislature of the Twelve Colonies is bicameral, it is the upper house - the Quorum of Twelve - which dominates legislative politics. In many ways, this is due to the Quorum's pedigree; the Quorum of Twelve is in important ways the direct descendant of the council of the Twelve Tribes that lead the mythical Exodus from Kobol, and legends of the days before the Colonial "Age of Darkness" suggests that the Colonies were loosely associated under a Quorum. | |||
Like the People's Council, the Quorum is often a source of opposition to the President, as the Presidency is traditionally held by the pan-Colonial Federalist Party whereas coalitions of regional parties tend to dominate the Quorum. | |||
'''COLONIAL POLITICS''' | |||
Political thought in the Twelve Colonies divides largely along two axes - first, along the question of federal power vs. colonial autonomy, and second, about the role of religion and social morals. Parties tend to pick a stance on one of these questions rather than on all of them, which - combined with the larger incidence of regionalism - lead to a multi-party system. | |||
Many smaller parties (particularly in the Separatist and Labor camps) are reputed to have ties to paramilitary groups, and localized armed rebellions are not entirely uncommon, though there has never really been a serious threat of civil war. Partly as a consequence of this - and partly as a consequence of the military threat which lead to the birth of the colonies - civil rights in the Twelve Colonies are much less advanced, with the government and military having broad-sweeping powers of search, seizure and detention in the name of Colonial security. This, in turn, fuels opposition groups who often characterize the use of those powers as having a pro-Caprican bias. | |||
'''Federalists''' | |||
The only truly 'Colonial' party is the Federalist Party, which has with only a few exceptions held the Presidency for most of the last fifty-two years. The present President of the Colonies, Richard Adar, is a Federalist, and he has pursued a policy of increasing the power of the Colonial Government, decreasing economic controls (a move that tends to squarely target labor groups) and liberalizing social policy across the Twelve Colonies. The Federalist Party is also staunchly in favor of social and civil liberties, both attitudes inherited from their core constituency of Capricans the urban educated classes colonies-wide. Their record has been quite progressive on social issues, earning them emnity from the religious, but has spottier on the question of civil liberties. | |||
Partly due to a concerted policy of suppressing opposition, there is no pan-Colonial party to oppose the Federalists; instead, there is an array of regional or issue-based parties which group largely under three banners. | |||
'''Separatists''' | |||
There are a host of Separatists or Anti-Federalists, who argue that the expansive powers given to the Colonial Government under the Articles represent a wartime necessity that is no longer required. The most radical of them (iconically represented by the Sagittaron separatists) believe that the Colonial Government should be purely voluntary, and that those Colonies which which to leave the federation should be allowed to. Attempts at secession have been put down sometimes brutally, most notably on Sagittaron in the two decades following the end of the Cylon War. | |||
'''Religious Forces''' | |||
The colonial party of Gemenon and a series of religious parties on every colony believe strongly that the social fabric of the Twelve Colonies is disintegrating and that the general populace is turning away from the Sacred Scrolls. They consistently advocate for more social controls in government, and while the coalition itself tends to be pan-Colonial as an article of evangelism many of its core constituency also holds anti-Federalist views. More than anything, the religious parties tend to 'swing' elections, as they are a potential ally for any bloc. | |||
'''Labor Parties''' | |||
Finally, there is a growing series of regional Labor Parties who are opposed to the pro-corporate positions often held by the dominant Federalists, who Labor accuses of being anti-worker and supporting the interests of multicolonial corporations. Of all the major political forces, the labor elements are the closest to the fringe, as the state of organized labor in the colonies is sometimes uncertain. Labor has a desire to form a pan-Colonial party, but so far has been stymied by government policies that restrict political activism by labor unions on the federal level - laws they allege as draconian tactics by the Federalists to squelch the Labor voice. | |||
Revision as of 03:54, 3 February 2007
HISTORY OF THE COLONIES:
Life began out there. That is what the Sacred Scrolls tells about the origins of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. There is little left that survived the time of the initial Colonization of is now Caprica, and the records are sketchy at best. Knowledge of the time before Colonization is even murkier; it has all devolved to myth and legend.
The history of humanity is divided into two parts. The Colonial Era, and Before the Colonial Era. The Colonial Era begins with the Exodus of the twelve tribes from the planet Kobol and continues to the present day. Dates in the Colonial Era are abbreviated as CE, but usually this abbreviation is simply left off. For example, the articles of Colonization were ratified in 1953 CE or simply 1953. The period known as Before the Colonial Era ends with the Exodus from Kobol and stretches backwards to the beginning of recorded history. Dates from Before the Colonial Era are abbreviated as BCE or sometimes as the more colloquial BC (Before the Colonies). For example, the Scrolls of Pythia were written in 1,600 BCE or 1,600 BC. It is important to note that there is no year "zero". The Colonial Era begins in 1 CE, and the period Before the Colonial Era ends in 1 BCE.
Very little history was preserved during the Exodus from Kobol so the knowledge of events prior to that is sketchy at best. Most of the information about this period is derived from the Sacred Scrolls, but their historical value is debatable, and exact dates are almost impossible to pin down.
An interesting aspect of Colonial society, is that it is very stable. While individuals may not have such stability in their day-to-day lives, the culture overall hasn't changed much for thousands of years; even before the exodus from Kobol. Architecture, clothing, language are all identical to those introduced during the days of Kobol. Some might call this stagnation, but in actual fact, the society simply reached a point thousands of years ago where it meets the cultural needs of its people, is stable and has no real need to move on aesthetically.
The Exodus
Little is known about what happened to the Lords of Kobol or the so-called thirteenth tribe. It is known that not all of the people of Kobol boarded the Galleon. Many of them took the High Road to the Gates of Hera. Legends say that these people then boarded their own vessel and went to a planet called Earth. The Tomb of Athena was built, and the Map to Earth was created. It is unclear who created the map or how they would know what the constellations would look like from Earth. Theories run the gamut from the pious view that the Lords of Kobol are gods and they know all, to the heretical view that perhaps Kobol wasn't the birthplace of Humanity after all and that instead of fleeing to Earth, the thirteenth tribe was returning there.
The Age of Darkness
Just as there is little known about the Exodus, not much is known about the centuries following it. What is known is that the Galleon arrived on New Kobol (later to be called Caprica) anywhere from several months to a year and a half after leaving Kobol. Accounts vary on what actually happened once the refugees from Kobol arrived. Some say that the Galleon crashed and what knowledge that was brought from Kobol was lost. Others tell that the people renounced their interstellar traveling technology and intentionally reverted to a pre-FTL lifestyle. A third theory states that the people of Kobol had relied on the gods for so much that without them, they were as children without their parents. No matter what the truth of the situation was, it took nearly a thousand years for the people of New Kobol to re-enter an interstellar age.
The Age of Light
This period of human history began with the re-newed interest in space travel in the early 1100s. The year 1126 saw the construction of the Model 0002 Industrial Cylons. In 1148 construction began on the intertribal space station. By 1158 the Capricorn space dock was constructed and by 1160, manned exploration of the Cyrannus star system began in earnest.
The Age of Expansion
The period from the 1160s until the late 1400s is known as the Age of Expansion. In 1162 the asteroid belt known as the Cosmara Archipelago was explored by Piscean colonists, who laid sole claim to its vast resources. In 1164 the Saggitarius tribe was also exploring the Cosmara Archipelago. As every last rock in the Cosmara Archipelago was claimed by the twelve tribes, they began to look at the other planets and moons in their trinary star system. Their technology had advanced a great deal and they had mastered the art of constructing habitats in the cold vacuum of space, especially with the help of the new Model 0003 Domestic Cylons developed in the early 1200s.
In 1174 the Scorpio tribe established Scorpia, the first permanent colony on another planet in the Cyrannus star system. Libra tribe followed in 1193 founding the colony of Libris. Virgo founded Virgon in 1196. In 1247 Leonis was founded by Leo tribe. Cancer founded the colony of Canceron in 1268. Aries founded Aerelon in 1279. Picon was founded by Pisces tibe in 1302. In 1318 Aqaurius founded the colony of Aquaria. Sagittaron was founded by Sagittarius tribe in 1335. Gemenon was founded in 1359 by Gemini. Taurus was the last tribe to establish a colony, founding Tauron in 1470. A year later in 1471 the Capricorn claimed sole ownership of New Kobol and changed its name to Caprica.
The Age of War
By 1471 every Tribe of Man had laid claim to a world in the Cyrannus system. When the Capricorn tribe claimed New Kobol as its own, it caused tensions that threatened to tear the colonies apart. In 1548 these tensions erupted into the first full scale war in the history of the colonies. By this time Picon had "annexed" Aquaria and Gemenon, Aerelon had control of both Canceron and Tauron, while Libris and Leonis were allied with Caprica. Sagittaron, Scorpia, and Virgon were independent. The First Colonial War lasted four long years, and in the end (1552), the Capricorn retained control of New Kobol and it became Caprica forever after. However Libris and Leonis were both lost; Libris to Picon, and Leonis to Aerelon. This was but the first in a long series of wars.
In 1645 Picon conquered Sagittaron putting an end to the pirate raiding it had been sponsoring since the 1200s. In 1663 the Picon Empire was fractured when Aquaria, Gemenon, and Libris declared their independence. With most of its military forces tied up in subjugating Sagittaron, Picon could not fight a war on three fronts. After a year and a half it was forced to admit defeat, though it still controlled Sagittaron for the next 100 years. In 1679 Leonis declared its independence from Aerelon, which was in the midst of a war with Scorpia.
In 1687 Aquaria conquered Gemenon with a surprise invasion using a force comprised soley of FTL capable landing craft. A month later Aquaria conquered Canceron, and a month after that it conquered Scorpia. In the first month of 1688 Aquaria attacked Tauron, but was repulsed. Tauron, Aerelon, and Leonis formed an alliance to stop Aquarian agression. Caprica, seeing an opportunity to exact revenge upon Aerelon, joined forces with Aquaria and quickly seized control of the Cosmara Archipelago. But by 1693 the Second Colonial War was over. Aquaria and Caprica were defeated, and Aerelon was a shadow of its former glory. Leonis and Tauron had risen to become the two most powerful colonies.
Leonis, Aerelon, Scorpia, Tauron and Caprica formed the Council of Worlds in an attempt to prevent another system wide war. What followed was 45 years of political tension and intrigue as Tauron and Leonis struggled for control of the whole Cyrannus star system. Tauron gained control of Aquaria, Picon, Gemenon, Sagittaron, and Virgon. Leonis led a loose alliance consisting of itself, Caprica, Scorpia, Aerelon, Libris, and Canceron. In 1738 the Tauron Union collapsed due to its inability to compete economically with the colonies of the inner system. Over the course of the next 10 years, Leonis became the sole power in the Cyrannus star system. It seemed as if peace would finally reign again. But it didn't last.
In 1745 terrorists from Sagittaron began a brutal campaign of bombings to protest the last 100 years of occupation by foreign powers. The bombings spread from Sagittaron to Picon, Aquaria, Scorpia, Gemenon and even Aerelon. It wasn't until the CoW headquarters on Leonis was bombed in 1750, that the colonies finally took notice. In 1752, Leonis and Aerelon invaded Sagittaron, disregarding the objections of Scorpia, Tauron and Caprica. By 1757 Leonis was bogged down fighting the resistance on Sagittaron, and Aerelon had withdrawn its support. By 1769 Leonis was forced to withdraw from Sagittaron. Leonis' economy was severely weakened, and once again Caprica rose to power.
Caprica seized control slowly, suggesting reasonable reforms in the Council of Worlds that increased the security of the colonies while imperceptibly eroding their personal freedoms. By 1816, Caprica had complete control of the Council. Through clever manipulation, Caprica had managed to station its troops on every colony in the star system. In 1845 Sagittaron terrorists, using a stolen nuclear warhead, executed the worst bombing in the history of the colonies when they wiped out the city of Helios on Leonis, home of the Council of Worlds. Caprica's response was swift and brutal. It bombed every major city on Sagittaron with asteroids from orbit. Then it sent in ground forces and enslaved the entire population. Aerelon, Scorpion, Tauron and Leonis all lodged formal protests in the Council, but it was too late. Caprica disbanded the Council and declared martial law throughout the star system.
A revolution began on Leonis and quickly spread to the rest of the colonies. Overwhelmed by such fierce opposition, Caprica's scientists developed the Model 0004 Intelligence and Logic Cylon (the IL series) to help their government fight an eleven front insurgency. As losses mounted, it became clear that Caprica did not have the manpower to carry out the war. The Model 0005 Infantry Cylon was developed to augment Caprica's forces. It wasn't enough to defeat the insurgency, but it dragged it out for another fifty years. In 1895, the people of Caprica succumbed to war weariness and overthrew their own government. All Cylon forces in the field were shut down, and all human forces we recalled to Caprica. In 1896 representatives from the twelve colonies met at Molecay and signed a treaty creating the Quorum of Twelve.
The Age of Peace
The Quorum of Twelve gave a voice to all twelve colonies, not just the richest or most powerful. Caprica set forth a plan (in what came to be known as the "Fair Play" resolution) to scrap the military forces of all twelve worlds. These forces would be replaced by granting each colony a baseship with a full complement of brand new Marauder starfighters and a division of Cylon Centurions. Though the plan was scoffed at and ridiculed initially, a series of back room deals finally resulted in the passage of the resolution in 1901. By 1913 all twelve colonies were militarily equal, even Sagittaron which had regained its independence (after 250 years of occupation) in 1895. In 1916 at the 10th anniversary of the Quorum of Twelve, Caprica put forth the first draft of the Articles of Colonization. The Articles were put to a vote in the Quorum and soundly defeated. Over the course of the next 30 years, Caprica continued to revise the Articles of Colonization and they continued to gain support. In 1946, the Quorum voted to adopt the Articles of Colonization by an 8-4 vote. It would take another seven years of negotiating but in 1953, the Articles of Colonization were unanimously ratified. For the first time since the Exodus, the Twelve Tribes of Kobol were finally united.
The Cylon War
The Cylons were divided into four basic categories. Unintelligent automated machines, basic household servants, the military centurion Model 0005, and the Intelligence and Logic (or IL) series. The IL Series Cylons were specifically created to assist the scientific community. Their processors were extremely advanced learning computers. The IL series Cylons were artificially intelligent. They were developed during the Third Colonial War to assist in strategic, operational and tactical planning. As the war went on, the IL series Cylons became self-aware.
After the war, many self-aware Cylons began to question their status in colonial society. Clearly they were more than just machines, but they were certainly not "alive". The IL series Cylons began to petition for rights as citizens. For years they worked within the law, but to no avail. Eventually, they were recognized as people, but they were legally classified as slaves. When the amendment to eliminate slavery was proposed as an olive branch to get Sagittaron to end its opposition to ratifying the articles, the self-aware Cylons rejoiced. The Articles of Colonization eliminated slavery, thus freeing the people of Sagittaron from Aerelon oppression and paving the way for unanimous ratification of the Articles.
But when the articles were ratified, the Cylons legal classification did not change. The word slave was removed from any language referring to them, but Cylons couldn't vote, and they were still considered to be little more than "toasters". The Cylons, as advanced and intelligent as they were, were not considered to be people. They were property and thus were still effectively slaves. After a two year struggle in the courts to be recognized as citizens of the colonies, the Cylons were finally defeated. With all legal options spent, the only logical choice was to resort to violence. In 1955 the IL series droids took over the 12 baseships that had maintained order for the last 40 years and used them to wage war against their former masters.
The Cylon revolt caught the colonies completely by surprise. Fortunately, the Cylon baseships were not designed for interplanetary travel, so the mines and factories in the Cosmara Archipelago were able to quickly produce thousands of one man fighters. In fact, they were able to produce more fighters than pilots. The humans commissioned the first Battlestar, the "Atlantia", in 1957. Atlantia and a complement of 40 viper Mk I starfighters launched an attack against the Caprica baseship. Although badly outnumbered, the Atlantia and her fighters won the day. The Cylons quickly realized that they needed to increase the mobility of their baseships and eliminate the production facilities in the Cosmara Archipelago. In 1958 the Battlestars Rycon and Columbia were commissioned followed by the Pegasus and Galactica in 1959. The war raged for six more years and finally in 1965 the Cylons left the Cyrannus star system to find a home of their own. Armistice Station was built and every year for the next 40 years, the Colonials sent a representative to discuss a formal peace agreement. The Cylons sent no-one. By 2005, the Galactica was the last of the original Battlestars. She was scheduled to be decommissioned, and turned into a museum. Her replacement, a new Mercury class Battlestar to bear her name, was already having its keel laid in the Caprica Shipyards.
Two months before the 52nd anniversary of Colonial Day, the Cylons returned. They had not spent their time idly. Though the Colonial Fleet now numbered some 120 battlestars and over 10,000 viper Mk VIIs, they were all betrayed by the Command Navigation Program installed in their networked computers. This allowed the Cylons to hack into every ship in the Colonial Fleet and shut them off like a light. But the Cylons weren't content to simply defeat the colonies. They launched an all-out nuclear attack, turning the surfaces of teh colonies into wastelands. Some people survived the attack. Small bands in remote wilderness areas on the colonies themselves and scattered FTL capable civilian starships that happened to be in space at the time of the attacks. The rest of humanity was wiped out in a matter of hours.
The CYRANNUS STAR SYSTEM
The Cyrannus star system is a trinary system. This is where the Lords of Kobol sent the twelve tribes after the Exodus. Below is a brief summary of the star system including all twelve colonies and several other points of interest.
Cyrannus A
Cyrannus A is the primary star at the center of the Cyrannus system. It is a class G yellow dwarf.
Caprica
Caprica was the planet first colonized by the refugees fleeing from Kobol. A medium sized tropical world with a standard breathable atmosphere, it is the second planet orbiting the primary star of the Cyrannus system. Caprica is the seat of the Colonial government. Caprica orbits Cyrannus at a distance of 1 AU (astronomical unit).
Molecay
Molecay is a colossal gas giant orbiting Cyrannus A at a distance of 1.5 AU. Its atmosphere is crushing and toxic. Molecay has four moons.
Scorpia
Scorpia is the first moon orbiting the gas giant Molecay which in turn orbits Cyrannus A. It is a small rocky moon with a thick corrosive atmosphere. Scorpia was the first of the "New Colonies" and the second colony to be founded after the Exodus.
Libris
Libris is Molecay's second Moon. It is also a small rocky moon with a thick toxic atmosphere. Libris was the third colony to be founded after the Exodus.
Virgon
Virgon is the first planet orbiting Cyrannus A at a distance of .5 AU. It is a small rocky planet with a thin toxic atmosphere. Virgon was the fourth colony to be founded after the Exodus.
Leonis
Leonis is the third moon of Molecay. It is a tiny rocky moon with a thin corrosive atmosphere. Leonis was the fifth colony to be founded after the Exodus.
Canceron
Canceron is the fourth moon of Molecay. It is a diminutive rocky moon with no atmosphere. It was the sixth colony to be founded after the Exodus.
Armistice Station
Armistice Station is a space station built after the Cylon War. It sits in an unstable orbital path between Cyrannus A and Cyrannus B. Armistice station orbits Cyrannus A at a distance which varies from 2 AU to 5 AU.
Cyrannus B
Cyrannus B is the second star in the Cyrannus system. It is a class K orange dwarf and it orbits Cyrannus A at a distance of 7AU.
Aerelon
Aerelon was the seventh colony to be founded after the Exodus. It is a medium sized rocky planet orbiting the second star in the Cyrannus system. It is a cold world with a thick, contaminated atmosphere. Aerelon is the only rocky planet in the system with its own moon, the mining colony of Troy. Aerelon orbits Cyrannus B at a distance of 1.5 AU.
Troy
Troy is Aerelon's only moon. It is a fine rocky moon with no atmosphere. Troy is not a colony in its own right.
The Cosmara Archipelago
This asteroid belt surrounds the planets that orbit Cyrannus B. The Cosmara Archipelago contains a wealth of mineral resources. These resources were instrumental in fueling the Age of Expansion. The Cosmara archipelago is a ring of debris orbiting Cyrannus B at a distance of 2 AU.
Cimtar
Cimtar is a gargantuan gas giant orbiting Cyrannus B at a distance of .5AU. It has no surface and its atmosphere is crushing and toxic. Cimtar has three moons.
Picon
Picon is the largest moon orbiting the gas giant Cimtar, which in turn orbits Cyrannus B. Picon is a small rocky moon with a standard breathable atmosphere. It is home to the Headquarters of the Colonial Fleet. Picon was the eighth colony founded after the Exodus.
Aquaria
Aquaria is the second of Cimtar's three moons. It is a tiny rocky moon with a thin contaminated atmosphere. Aquaria was the ninth colony to be founded.
Sagittaron
Sagittaron is the third moon of Cimtar. It is also a tiny rocky moon but it has a thick toxic atmosphere. During the early days of the Age of Expansion, Sagittaron was infamous for its pirates. In more modern times, it has become infamous for its terrorists. Sagittaron was the tenth colony.
Cyrannus C
Cyrannus C is a class M red dwarf and the third star in the Cyrannus system. It orbits Cyrannus A at a distance of 15 AU.
Gemenon
Gemenon is the first planet orbiting the third star in the Cyrannus system at a distance of .5 AU. It is a medium sized rocky planet with a standard contaminated atmosphere. Gemenon was the eleventh colony to be founded after the exodus.
Tauron
Tauron is the second planet orbiting Cyrannus C at a distance of 1 AU. It is a large rocky planet with a thick toxic atmosphere. Tauron was the twelfth colony to be founded after the Exodus.
Ragnar
Ragnar is a huge gas giant orbiting Cyrannus A at a distance of 25 AU. It has no moons and a crushing corrosive atmosphere. During the Cylon War, the Colonial Fleet built Ragnar Anchorage as a munitions depot.
COLONIAL RELIGION
Religion in the Twelve Colonies is state-supported, less diverse, and also polytheistic. In general, religious life and secular life are more intertwined, and there is a more natural continuum of religious practice between the most religious and the least religious. In form and format, the religion of the Twelve Colonies is polytheistic and similar to that of the ancient Greeks or Romans. The chief god of the Colonial pantheon is Zeus; he and the other twelve Olympians are broadly the most important deities, though there myriad other myths, legends and lesser spirits.
Religious Practice
As a matter of daily life, an individual's relationship with the gods is often personal - worship can be an individual practice, with personal idols or offerings, and temples tend to enshrine a particular holy site rather than just serve as a house or worship, though they also serve as a place for people to gather and hear the sacred scrolls read or to participate in mystery cults and devotions.
Religious practice in general is focused around descendant traditions of sacrifice. Many religious individuals keep a small shrine (or merely carry a set of idols to their favorite gods) and then light candles in a sort of symbolic representation of a burnt offering. Similarly, the devout may set aside a portion of a meal or spill a little drink on the ground (a libation) to honor the gods. Finally, many of the devout carry a set of prayer beads (a rosary or mala) which they use to recite short, ritual prayers similar in form to the mantras of modern Eastern religions.
Public religious displays are far less common in the modern Colonies than they once were. Originally, large public sacrifices opened festivals and great undertakings, but since the outlawing of animal sacrifice this practice has all-but-disappeared save in some agricultural communities during harvest festivals.
Festivals - celebrating some myth, god or natural event - are now the principal public religious event. Once, they served as an important cultural pressure valve, providing the people of the Colonies with a chance for some time off, but now their importance has diminished in the face of ample leisure-time and plenty of competition for public attention.
The Colonials also have a historical tradition of mystery cults, where individuals are initiated into the secrets of a god's private cult. Mostly, these mystery religions have died out, though every few decades there is a resurgence in popularity and there has always been a continuous tradition in religious communities.
Finally, a relatively new religious observance is reading or study of the Sacred Scrolls, where under the guidance of a priest religious members of the a community come together to study religious texts, discuss the importance to modern life and most of all affirm their devotion in the face of an increasingly secular society. Such meetings often include group prayer or blessings, inherited from the mystery cult tradition.
Sacred Scrolls
The body of myths about the Gods is largely oral, or has been passed down in non-canonical texts; the religious text of the Colonial religion - the Sacred Scrolls - is instead importantly separate from the mythography of the gods, though the gods and the myths that surround them are referenced regularly the Scrolls. Instead, the Sacred Scrolls represent a history of mankind on Kobol, told largely through prophecy and stylized narrative. They also contain broader creation myths and a selection of songs and devotions as a sort of psalter or book of common prayer.
Priests & Oracles
Clergy in the Twelve Colonies come - officially - in two sorts, priests and oracles, each of whom are trained differently and fulfill different ceremonial functions. In actual fact, the distinctions between the two categories have largely blurred due to the increasing secularism of society and the decreasing importance of public ritual. In both cases, clergy often has different jobs in addition to their religious role. Priests often 'double-hat' as civic leaders - part of a long tradition where the leaders of the Twelve Tribes were also their chief priests - and oracles regularly manage shrines or holy places or go into business as pharmacists or teachers.
Originally, priests were the people who presided over offerings, festivals and ceremonies; they were in charge of administering religious rites, of guiding prayers and sending messages to the gods, and their training tended to involve a great deal of study of the Sacred Scrolls as well as learning the particulars of various rites and rituals. Priests also administer oaths and preside over funerals - both situations where the gods are supposed to witness an event.
By contrast, oracles were those clergy who interpreted omens, received prophetic dreams and 'received' messages from the gods where the priests 'sent' messages to them. It was among the oracles that the practice of taking chamalla for visions began, and they still are often asked to give blessings to newborns, new enterprises, and people in seeking guidance in general. The training of an oracle focuses less on learning ritual and the Sacred Scrolls and focuses more on meditation and the interpretation of dreams and omens.
Both oracles and priests in the modern Twelve Colonies tend to be extensively trained in counseling and religious therapy; pro-religion laws allow individuals to request religious rather than psychological counseling, and priests of all sorts (the word is used in the modern parlance to refer to all clergy) are often sought out in an advisory capacity, up to and including the religious council which advises the government.
COLONIAL SECULARISM
While the fundamental facts of Colonial history are agreed upon both by the secular and religious communities - mankind settled the Twelve Colonies from somewhere else, experienced a great dark age, and then slowly clawed its way back to progress - the mainstream view is not that humanity came to the Colonies from a paradise inhabited by gods and men.
While there are several competing theories, the most popular one is that the original colonists fled the destruction of the human homeworld - remembered in myths as 'the Blaze' - and settled on the Colonies, which had been in the process of being prepared for human expansion. The homeworld's destruction is typically assumed because there has been no contact since the founding of the Colonies (unless one believes a number of conspiracy theorists) and because the ensuing dark age suggests that mankind was not in fact prepared for its exodus.
The religion of the Twelve Colonies is thought to be the efforts of the early colonists - having lost the technological culture they fled from - at explaining their flight and their origins, reconstructed from the oral history of the shattered original colonists, most of whom were suffering from severe shock at the transposition and the destruction of everything they knew. These myths coalesced over the course of the first few hundred years after colonization into the Sacred Scrolls, whose present form was finalized on Gemenon about seven hundred years after the founding, during the last gasp of interplanetary travel prior to the Colonial Dark Age.
Archaeological evidence seems to support this; the oldest extant copy of the Scrolls is from Gemenon and is from about the time scholars believe the canonical Scrolls were compiled, and references and fragments from other colonies about the same time suggest significant deviation from the Sacred Scrolls canon.
During the Colonial Dark Age, the texts of the Sacred Scrolls began to drift apart due to lost contact, but the Gemenese tradition (which had the least drift from the Gemini Codex) was adopted Colonies-wide once contact was reestablished. In the popular view, then, the Colonial religion is largely an export of the Gemini tribe that incorporated the local folkways of each of the Twelve Colonies, all of which were developed as a sort of cargo cult following Colonization to explain the monumental, culture-wide trauma which had just occurred.
COLONIAL GOVERNMENT
The Twelve Colonies is a federal republic with an elected President, his or her executive branch, a bicameral legislature and a judiciary. The Colonies have a separate judiciary with a Colonial Supreme Court, courts of appeals, and local courts on both the federal and colonial levels.
Additionally, there is an unelected advisory council of clergy which has a ceremonial function but no official power.
On a more local level, each Colony has an elected Assembly (a descendant of the historical assemblies of the Twelve Tribes) and a Colonial Governor. Each colony is further divided into a number of provinces governed by provincial quorums and municipalities with city councils and mayors. Often, the mayors of the largest cities are largely autonomous, free of intervention on the part of the local provincial quorum or even the Colony's governor. The Mayor of Caprica City, for instance, is sometimes said to have the second-biggest bully pulpit after the President.
Executive
Headed by the President of the Colonies, the Executive Branch of the Colonial Government is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Colonies, often with much broader power than most liberal democratic governments due to its wartime conception. The President of the Twelve Colonies is elected by a general vote among the population for a four-year term on a joint ticket with the Vice President. The President is Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial Military, and the political cabinet (composed of ministers and more junior secretaries) runs the day-to-day operations of the Colonies, overseeing the military, matters of trade and the economy, national education and other such issues.
In case of the President's death, statute provides for an extended line of succession that runs through the Vice President and then down on through the Cabinet. Notably, the Quorum and Council do not figure in this line of succession, though in the case of an absence in the Vice Presidency the Quorum can choose a replacement.
Legislative
The legislature of the Twelve Colonies is bicameral; the upper house, called the Quorum of Twelve, consists of one representative from each of the twelve colonies. The lower house is the People's Council, and seats on the council are apportioned by population amongst the colonies.
While the legislature of the Twelve Colonies is bicameral, it is the upper house - the Quorum of Twelve - which dominates legislative politics. In many ways, this is due to the Quorum's pedigree; the Quorum of Twelve is in important ways the direct descendant of the council of the Twelve Tribes that lead the mythical Exodus from Kobol, and legends of the days before the Colonial "Age of Darkness" suggests that the Colonies were loosely associated under a Quorum.
Like the People's Council, the Quorum is often a source of opposition to the President, as the Presidency is traditionally held by the pan-Colonial Federalist Party whereas coalitions of regional parties tend to dominate the Quorum.
COLONIAL POLITICS
Political thought in the Twelve Colonies divides largely along two axes - first, along the question of federal power vs. colonial autonomy, and second, about the role of religion and social morals. Parties tend to pick a stance on one of these questions rather than on all of them, which - combined with the larger incidence of regionalism - lead to a multi-party system.
Many smaller parties (particularly in the Separatist and Labor camps) are reputed to have ties to paramilitary groups, and localized armed rebellions are not entirely uncommon, though there has never really been a serious threat of civil war. Partly as a consequence of this - and partly as a consequence of the military threat which lead to the birth of the colonies - civil rights in the Twelve Colonies are much less advanced, with the government and military having broad-sweeping powers of search, seizure and detention in the name of Colonial security. This, in turn, fuels opposition groups who often characterize the use of those powers as having a pro-Caprican bias.
Federalists
The only truly 'Colonial' party is the Federalist Party, which has with only a few exceptions held the Presidency for most of the last fifty-two years. The present President of the Colonies, Richard Adar, is a Federalist, and he has pursued a policy of increasing the power of the Colonial Government, decreasing economic controls (a move that tends to squarely target labor groups) and liberalizing social policy across the Twelve Colonies. The Federalist Party is also staunchly in favor of social and civil liberties, both attitudes inherited from their core constituency of Capricans the urban educated classes colonies-wide. Their record has been quite progressive on social issues, earning them emnity from the religious, but has spottier on the question of civil liberties.
Partly due to a concerted policy of suppressing opposition, there is no pan-Colonial party to oppose the Federalists; instead, there is an array of regional or issue-based parties which group largely under three banners.
Separatists
There are a host of Separatists or Anti-Federalists, who argue that the expansive powers given to the Colonial Government under the Articles represent a wartime necessity that is no longer required. The most radical of them (iconically represented by the Sagittaron separatists) believe that the Colonial Government should be purely voluntary, and that those Colonies which which to leave the federation should be allowed to. Attempts at secession have been put down sometimes brutally, most notably on Sagittaron in the two decades following the end of the Cylon War.
Religious Forces
The colonial party of Gemenon and a series of religious parties on every colony believe strongly that the social fabric of the Twelve Colonies is disintegrating and that the general populace is turning away from the Sacred Scrolls. They consistently advocate for more social controls in government, and while the coalition itself tends to be pan-Colonial as an article of evangelism many of its core constituency also holds anti-Federalist views. More than anything, the religious parties tend to 'swing' elections, as they are a potential ally for any bloc.
Labor Parties
Finally, there is a growing series of regional Labor Parties who are opposed to the pro-corporate positions often held by the dominant Federalists, who Labor accuses of being anti-worker and supporting the interests of multicolonial corporations. Of all the major political forces, the labor elements are the closest to the fringe, as the state of organized labor in the colonies is sometimes uncertain. Labor has a desire to form a pan-Colonial party, but so far has been stymied by government policies that restrict political activism by labor unions on the federal level - laws they allege as draconian tactics by the Federalists to squelch the Labor voice.