Battlestar Wiki:Featured articles/Archive/The Twelve Colonies (RDM) - August 2007

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Kobol, the ancient homeworld of humanity.
Caprica City.


Approximately 2,000 years prior to the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, the last twelve tribes of Kobol leave their planet[1] over conflicts with their gods, as well as a "sort of calamity" [2].

The tribes settle on 12 worlds some distance away (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I). The tribe's namesakes and icons originally corresponded to the twelve signs of the ancient tribes, although these names drifted over time[3] (Home, Part II).

The early Colonies lived (and fought) more as sovereign nations. Some (particarly Caprica) prospered, while others (such as Sagittaron and Aerelon) were often considered lessers. For peacetime labor forces as well as for wars between each other, humanity created the Cylons. When these early models rebelled, the Colonies unified their governments under the Articles of Colonization sometime before or during the Cylon War as a federal republic known as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol[4].

The official symbol of the Twelve Colonies is the Colonial seal.

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  1. According to dialogue from "Torn", "A Measure of Salvation" and "The Eye of Jupiter", the Thirteenth Tribe left Kobol some 2,000 years before the twelve tribes. The Scroll of Pythia is dated as written 3,600 years before the last exodus of Kobol, and chronicles the Thirteenth Tribe's exodus.
  2. As noted by Billy Keikeya in "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I".
  3. Flag matches with Colonies from "Encyclopedia Galactica." Battlestar Galactica: The Official Magazine. Feb./Mar. 2006: 50-55.
  4. Note the difference between the name of the Original Series' counterpart, known as the the Twelve Colonies of Man.