Fall of the Twelve Colonies

This article details the destruction of the Twelve Colonies in the Re-imagined Series. For information on the fall of the Twelve Colonies in the Original Series, see Battle of Cimtar.

Fall of the Twelve Colonies
Cylon nuclear bombs detonating on Caprica
Cylon nuclear bombs detonating on Caprica
Summary
Conflict:	Second Cylon war
Date:	Zero Hour, concurrent with Fall of the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards
Related Episode(s):
Place:	Twelve Colonies of Kobol
Result:	Total Cylon victory, destruction of the Twelve Colonies
Combatants Twelve Colonies of Kobol Cylons Commanders Admiral Nagala † Commander William Adama Many other commanders Basestar command Strength Approx. 120 battlestars, Vipers, Raptors, associated support cruisers Massive number of basestars, Raiders, Heavy Raiders Materiel Losses Virtual destruction of the Colonial Fleet Unknown, minimal Casualties Destruction of major Colonial cities, almost all of the civilian population and military forces Unknown, minimal
[[Colonial battles chronology ({{{series}}})|Battle Chronology]]
Previous Next First Cylon War Fall of the Twelve Colonies Fall of the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies (also called the Cylon Attack or Cylon Holocaust) is a devastating, genocidal attack which marks renewed conflict between the humans of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and their robotic Cylon creations, after a cessation of contact lasting nearly forty years.

The Cylons soften up the Twelve Colonies for attack by infiltrating their military and civilian society with new human-impersonating models. One Cylon seduces the brilliant Dr. Gaius Baltar, fooling him into contract work that gives her access to the Colonial Defense Mainframe. Her work on the project compromises Baltar's Command Navigation Program, creating countless programmer backdoors.

After Baltar's CNP is sufficiently distributed throughout the Colonial Fleet, the Cylons return from their forty-year exile and launch a devastating attack on the Colonies. The backdoors in the CNP enable the Cylons to use various electronic attacks that completely by-pass Colonial electronic defenses, and inflict varying degrees of damage to Colonial military computers.

Entire Viper squadrons lose power upon engaging the enemy, while battlestars suffer an abnormally-high number of "equipment malfunctions," up to and including total power loss. In essence, the Cylons are able to render the Colonial Defense network useless "without firing a shot." This infiltration of Colonial systems, when combined with the "complete surprise" that the Cylons achieve, enable them to sweep the Colonial Fleet aside with minimal losses.

Picon Fleet Headquarters is destroyed in the opening wave of the attack, as are 30 battlestars, and Admiral Nagala takes command of the Colonial Fleet aboard the battlestar Atlantia to mount a counter-attack against the enemy. In order to protect its people and to ensure optimal military readiness, the Colonial government orders a full stop on commercial and civilian space-travel, leaving hundreds of non-military vessels stranded in space around the various colonies.

The Cylons proceed to destroy each of the Twelve Colonies' population and strategic centers through nuclear bombardment, including Caprica. The attack succeeds beyond even the Cylons' most optimistic projections (Downloaded). Not every city on Caprica is destroyed (Bastille Day), notably Delphi, but Caprica City is annihilated in an apparent 50 megaton nuclear detonation.

After Picon is nuked, Colonial President Richard Adar broadcasts an unconditional surrender, which the Cylons completely ignore. President Adar and all senior Colonial government officials, save for space-bound Secretary of Education Laura Roslin, are hence-forth presumed killed or missing. An emergency government contingency mechanism activates to seek out any remaining government officials. Roslin is apparently the only official to acknowledge the beacon. Sworn in on the government-chartered passenger liner Colonial Heavy 798, Roslin becomes the new President of the Twelve Colonies.

The battlestar Galactica, approximately 300 million miles from Caprica is the only Colonial ship unaffected by the Cylons' computer infiltration, as its computer systems were never networked or updated with the compromised CNP. This anti-infiltration policy, used in the First Cylon War, was maintained by all of Galactica's commanders, including William Adama, through peacetime and despite the advances in Colonial technology.

With the primary fight against the Cylons centering around the orbit of Virgon (as determined by a tactical plot of all ships in the solar system by Lieutenant Gaeta), Galactica herself prepares for possible incoming enemies despite two major problems. First, Galactica had earlier destroyed its own large munitions as part of its decommissioning ceremony. Second, the battlestar has plenty of pilots, but hardly any Vipers left to fly; its last Viper Mark VII squadron having been destroyed in a Cylon attack, shortly after said decommissioning.

Fortunately, the battlestar holds 40 Viper Mark IIs on board as part of its recent decommissioning ceremony and expected conversion into a museum. These Vipers are of an old but robust design that is resistant to infiltration and were never equipped to use the Command Navigation Program that dooms newer Colonial fighters.

Galactica re-arms and deploys the old fighters and repels several attacking squadrons of Cylon Raiders in her first sortie of the new war. Able only to evade but not return fire, the battlestar survives a direct hit from a tactical nuclear warhead, but loses 85 of its crew in the port flight pod when damage to the fire suppression system necessitates the venting of the pod's atmosphere, so as to prevent the battlestar's fuel lines from igniting and destroying the ship.

Galactica soon receives word that Atlantia, as well as many more battlestars, have been lost in the counter-offensive against the Cylons. Commander Adama assumes command of whatever is left of the Colonial Fleet, and sends a wireless transmission to any surviving Colonial forces to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage to prepare for counterattack. Ragnar Anchorage holds desperately needed munitions for the battlestar's point-defense batteries and additional ordnance for her fighters. Galactica successfully jumps to Ragnar, skipping past the bulk of the Cylon fleet that stands in her way.

Meanwhile, President Roslin begins locating stranded Colonial civilian and military vessels and forms a fleet. Roslin's efforts also retrieve at least three Viper Mark VII fighters and find Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii and her Raptor, the only survivor of Galactica's last fighter squadron. Valerii is tasked with and successfully locates additional civilian craft before a Cylon Raider scout finds the convoy. Fearing imminent attack but unable to rescue any passengers from the convoy's sublight ships in time, Roslin orders the FTL-capable ships to Jump to Ragnar and to Galactica's safety. The sublight ships and their passengers are destroyed by at least six Raiders armed with nuclear missiles.

Galactica is not the only battlestar to survive the attacks. An attack at the Fleet Shipyards at Scorpia destroys two battlestars, but Pegasus, only partially operational at the time, manages to escape, unaware of Galactica's fate until months later.

Few civilians survive this holocaust. Samuel Anders and the Caprica Buccaneers escape the devastation while in high altitude training in the mountains at the time of the attack. Together with other survivors, they later form a resistance against the Cylons.