Cylon Church
The PC's run into some people that are worshiping the Cylon God. They even say that they are hearing from the Cylon God. Could they be Cylons or are these just misguided people? Could there be something more sinister behind it such as a Cylon plot?
A Pirate in our Midst
Contact has been lost with one of the ships in the fleet and the PCs are sent to discover what has happened. Upon arrival the PC’s are attacked by members of the ship’s crew and civilians. Once the shooting stops, the PCs find that the ship recently suffered through a “pirate raid.” Someone is using a shuttle to attack and perform pirate raids on the ships of the fleet. It is surmised that the pirates are using the engine wakes of other ships to mask their signature and “disappear.” (To make it even more interesting let the pirates have colonial uniforms.) Broken Arrow
A viper pilot just can’t take it anymore and goes rogue launching his viper. He threatens to attack ships of the fleet. Can the PCs convince him to give himself up and what damage can he do to the fleet.
We have met your type before.
The PCs discover a civilian ship that immediately begins defensive maneuvers anytime the PCs approach. Could it be Cylons or could it be a ship that ran into the Admiral Cain and the Pegasus?
Reaching Back
The fleet hears word of another group of survivors that got away from the colonies. Does the fleet go back to combine forces or do they keep to their own and therefore not add any problems to their already long list? Command Central Down
An explosion rocks CIC killing many command officers and putting others in sick bay. The PCs must take auxiliary control of the ship and keep it on course while investigating what caused the explosion.
Picking up Pieces
The characters find a derelict ship where Centurions got on board and vented the ship to space. The ship could be recent or date from the first war. While investigating/salvaging the ship, the centurions re-activate after they powered down for lack of humans to kill
Cold Front
Even with all the Cylons using enhanced radiation bombs, the sheer number of nukes that hit Caprica has ruined the weather patterns, and the radiation hasn't helped the plantlife. The characters find (or learn of) a pre-invasion bio-dome that contained samples of Caprican flora in a sealed environment. Can they get the samples offworld and use it in their agro-ships? Do Caprican resistance groups need the bio-dome to survive or as a source of food?
Hell No, We wont go
Political dissent strikes the refugee fleet as a charismatic speaker starts a movement to split up the remaining supplies and take his followers on a different course than whatever the current power structure would like (be it form a new form of government, colonise a tasty planet, or just go in a different direction) - what will the players do to maintain order? What won't they do? Is the speaker a Cylon?
The temple
The players find an Egyptian style pyramid on a planet. On the walls of the pyramid are cartouches(sp?) with writings that can be dated to a ceremonial writing style that was in use around the time of the evacuation of Kobol. When translated, the writings almost accurately describe the number of people in the refugee fleet (out by the number of Cylon infiltrators), the direction they came from, the direction they will go to, and the current date (by an inscribed starmap of the current planetary alignments). There could be stone age humans living in the area (that might be too stargate-y) and any Cylons would be very interested
The Even Thinner Blue Line
It's the end of the world, but there's still crime - and the law still needs enforcing. So when Commander Adama orders the creation of special investigation units and the call goes out for people with practical law enforcement experience, who do they get in contact with? You guessed it. And there's these weird murders they want you to look into...
Mutiny!!!!
One of the ships in the fleet has mutinied against its captain. Do the PCs accept the new captain or do they help the old captain regain command?
Post War/Holocaust
No Rest For The Wicked
A rival resistance/pirate group has decided that the easiest way to get the supplies/luxuries
they need is from the heroes and their allies. The PCs must either eliminate/coopt the rival
group or hit back with sufficient force that the rivals decide further predations are not cost
effective.
Intercept
A Cylon spy has stolen a small transport (comparable to a Raptor) and is attempting to
escape. The PCs are detailed to intercept and capture the spy. (Simply blowing them from
the stars isn't enough. Is the spy a Cylon or merely a collaborator?)
Any Era
Tread Lightly
Completing a subspace jump, the PC's ship or Fleet finds itself in the heart of a minefield.
Not only must they extract themselves, but they must determine who laid it and why- and then
destroy the minefield.
Who Goes There?
The PC's ship or Fleet is shadowed, but not contacted or attacked, by an unidentified vessel.
Why? By whom?
Strangers
The PC's ship or Fleet encounters a small convoy (or a large vessel and several lighters)
hovering near the Colonial border. Challenged, they head for the hills. They must decide who
and what to pursue.
Safe and Secure
A civilian vessel or outpost is quarantined because of a problem. The PC's are detailed to
maintain the quarantine.
Rocks and Shoals
A Colonial registered freighter is under attack by several raiders/salvers loitering in the
area. Just to make things interesting, the freighter is carried a mixed cargo- bulk repair parts
and pressurized tylium. One stray energy blast and the freighter and anyone near her become
a small sun!
Death Ship
The heroes discover a Colonial Heavy freighter on an inbound course, running fast, her
long silent engines still set near full throttle. Boarding the ship, they discover all hands dead
in their seats/posts. They must determine what took place aboard without succumbing
themselves. (* A Cylon virus penetrated the Life Support Computer and eliminated the crew,
then returned the settings to normal. Highly entertaining when the heroes download the
system logs for analysis.)
With things returning to a relatively even keel, the crew is given a chance to rest and relax.
Just as they begin sink into a bottle of ambrosia, they are called to CIC. When they arrive,
they find the senior officers/staff analyzing a massive ion storm (with some subspace
properties) bearing down on the ship/Fleet. The storm is moving at nearly the speed of light,
and is nearly 84 AU’s in diameter. It's already disrupting systems enough to make an FTL
jump extremely dangerous. The storm will reach the ship/fleet in four hours and will take
12-14 hours to pass. A good analogy for this storm is a hurricane or typhoon. Sensors and
transporters will be rendered unreliable (at best) and even hardened systems will be suspect.
The best solution for everyone involved is to get the hell out of the way- not an easy task. A
nice, thick planetary atmosphere will complete shield any targets from the storm (although
there will be unusual auroras and a LOT of RF interference. While the coming storm is
severe, a battlestar’s armor and sturdy construction should protect her. Smaller vessels
(anything smaller than a cruiser/frigate) need to seek safe harbor immediately!
Likely Storm Effects
Hull Ionization – Blue Lightning Plays around control stations, exposed equipment
and exterior ports of the shipand everyone’s hair stands on end.
System Failure- A random system suffers a failure. That system cannot be used until
repairs are made.
Random Malfunction- A random system behaves abnormally. The Comm. System
starts playing Buddy Holly tunes, the Dradis detect a Cylon Basestar approaching, the
coffee makers begin making Cheese Blintzes.
Radiation Pocket- The ship is surrounded by a small cloud of ionized particles putting
out extreme levels of deadly radiation. The victim must seek shelter, take
anti-radiation meds, or take damage.
Electrical Arc- A bolt of blue lightning leaps from a support arch or active system at
the nearest person. The victim must dodge or take damage.
Brown out- All the station’s systems fluctuate off and on (brown out).
Turbulence- The station (or ship) is rocked to her keel and everyone must make
Agility rolls to remain standing.
As if these weren’t complications enough, the crew receives a distress call from the tylium
collier (which has become disabled on the periphery of the storm and needs immediate
rescue!) The ship must be boarded and either grappled for towing OR repaired. One minor
complication- should the ship’s tylium bunkers take a hit, the ship will explode and vaporize
her crew and any would-be rescuers.
Pre-War
Shore Leave and A Bit More
The PC’s visit a large space station composed of hundreds of networked pods. The place is
relatively open and peaceable society- basically a flea-market writ large. The mayor of the
city is beside himself thanks to a series of vicious murders taking place in his city. With his
chief of security murdered, he begs the PC’s to help bring the murderer to justice.
Theft
The PCs ship arrives in orbit just as the bad guys who are stealing the great, royal, whatzit
flee orbit. Now they are chasing the bad guy through the orbital yards and parking lanes, and
hoping to disable him before he can calculate an FTL jump.
Treachery
In the wake of a number of pirate attacks, the PCs shadow a tylium convoy through each of
the three checkpoints, hoping for contact with hostile forces.
Dubious Cargoes
A civilian research vessel has been out of touch with her corporate headquarters for several
days now- Colonial Fleet has been contacted and the heroes have been assigned to
investigate. Does trouble come in an internal form (an experiment gone awry, an industrial
accident, illegal chemical weapons, illegal genetic or biogenic research) or external (piracy,
slavery, navigational error or accident-in-space)?
Bouy Duty
Colonial Fleet Command orders the PCs to deploy several navigation and communications
buoys and beacons. As the work on the first three buoys proceeds, the heroes' base-ship is
called away to investigate a sighting that may or may not be a raider lurking in the system.
By the time the contact is resolved, a full-scale storm will prevent return. The repair team
must weather the storm on the buoy. Play up the elements of isolation and buffeting from the
storm and encourage role-playing among the trapped PCs- confessionals and past events can
be brought out at this point. This is an excellent setting for a story involving flashbacks
which might be pertinent to their current predicament or unresolved issues in the heroes' past.
Should the story-line begin to lag, a serious system failure in life-support can be arranged (the
main trunk line for the atmospheric regenerators has blown out- we only have two hours
worth of air if we don’t get it fixed!). While working on repairs, just before being rescued,
the crew discovers a back door has been installed in the computer programming- use this as a
hook for further adventure- who installed the back door and why?
Burning Time
A ship looses life support while the fleets traversing a system with a class O or B star.
Overheating causes several cascade failures meaning a jump isn't an option and sublight is
spotty. Basically this is a shipwreck story in space where the players are either trying to
survive aboard, trying to save the ship, or trying to evac the complement
Dark Horses
The fleet picks up a number of distress beacons way beyond the red line. Investigating they
find 6 civilian ships sitting dead in space, they can establish communications with survivors
aboard but find them very suspicious of any military. As soon as any big ships turn up or it
looks like a raptor evacuation is underway, a basestar jumps in. Cue scary battle/rescue scene
After the rescue, the survivors of the ships say they were abandoned by the battlestar Pegasus
after they had their resources stripped at gunpoint, and then the Cylons just used them as bait
for any other humans
Blood and Chrome
The group finally catches a Cylon skinjob. The Cylon is incredibly reasonable and explains
everything from their point of view. The Cylon is also an NPC that has befriended all the
players (be it a deckhand, fellow pilot, cook, doctor) and makes no bones about eh fact that
he/she always knew they were a Cylon - How are the players going to react?
This is a good idea for firming up how each carachter relates to the new Cylons without the
moral ambiguity of a sleeper agent
Murderer
A PC is accused of murder when someone that they have been arguing with has been found dead. The person that was murdered was actually a Cylon skinjob that picked a fight with the PC and planted evidence so that everyone thinks the PC committed the murder. In truth the Cylon skinjob committed suicide so they could report back to the Cylon fleet the whereabouts of the PCs fleet.
What I did on my weekend off
Its been a tough couple of weeks with lots of combat/missions/mining/whatever so the players have been told to take 48 hours leave. Deciding on a change of pace they head to an aggro/rec ship where players can garden, watch the stars, gamble, make out, watch a movie, or just grab a deck chair and chill. The ship however has a secret - some of the rations it's growing is getting diverted to the black market and theres suspicion among the crew that someone is about to turn them all in. The characters WILL be assumed by the ships crew to be investigators, which will light off a storm of suspicion which escalates. Soon bodies are being found in the pantry, crewman are approaching the characters trying to cut deals without sounding like they are, the captains taking to drink, the real investigators acting the most shifty of all, and the characters are just sitting around trying to unravel the whole thing....
Pre-Attack THE COMPANY
A sudden glut of tylium into the market is depressing prices quickly. That is not the problem, of course...there is some question as to who is dumping the product and since tax revenues have not increased on the fuel, the government is terribly interested in what is up. The trail leads through the banking havens on Libris to Tauron, where a tylium company, owned by a shell company on Libris set up by Tom Zerek years ago, is funneling the tylium profits into the SFM.
This leads to a wildcat mine outside of the colonies' system, and very close to the Armistice Line. There, miners are going about their business, while SFM agents are stealthily refurbishing VIpers from the last Cylon War to use against the Colonial government.
ACTS OF MERCY
A natural disaster strikes a beautiful resort on Aquaria that is just far enough off the grid that the locals are having trouble responding quickly. A battlestar group will hop in and try to aid the injured.
TRAINING EXERCISE
The characters are part of a training exercise against the OPFOR at Picon. These guys do nothing but provide opposition for the other battlestar groups & are consequently, quite good. The commander wants a win (or at least not a complete disaster.) With no wars on, performance at Picon is paramount if you want promoted, so look sharp.
SEARCH AND RESCUE
The raptor goes down in a training accident in backwoods [pick your planet]...right into the middle of an area known for morpha processing. They have to find the crew while dodging the rebels that are supported by the morpha profits. Works even better if half the group are the guys on the ground running for their lives. Secret Stash of Death
A pilot on one of the civilian ships in the fleet has a deadly secret. On Judgment day his ship was carrying a supply of highly contagious viruses for study by a medical school (or maybe it was being used in experimental warfare?). The Pilot kept it a secret because he was afraid that his ship would be quarantined by the fleet and left behind. Now, someone has broken into the cargo bay where it was being stored and it is missing. Was it a Cylon agent? What would be the black market value of liquid death? Can the PCs stop it in time before someone gets sick and the virus begins to spread?
MURDER ON CAPRICA (tip o' the hat to the president's reading habits...)
The characters get involved in the murder of a military contractor involved in the new CNP updates. One of the characters runs into the murder just after the deed and get their butt knocked about. Investigation leads to Intersun Aerospace, where many defense contracts are serviced. The murder is one of the Doral model (and can't be taken alive.) Good for a cameo of Six and Baltar.
Post Exodus
And Suffer Them Not - A military transport containing children who were separated from their parents during the Attack on the Colonies suffers a malfunction causing it to crashland on a planet. Luckily everyone on the transport survive and are on a planet with a breathable atmosphere. Sadly, the Cylon's show up with a basestar and the fleet jumps. Does the Fleet Mount a rescue attempt for the military crew and children? Are there any players on the planet with the children attempting to help them survive under threat of Cylon attack?
Big Damn Heros - The Colonial News Net picks on of the players drawing them out to be heros in the fleet. The reports are always flattering and has drawn the characters alot of attention. At the same time it seems there is an infiltrator in the fleet which has lead to equipment failues, the loss of life support on one ship (can the players save the ship in time), and even an explosion in Galactica itself. Some of Galactica's officers are begining to wonder if these new heros are behind the attacks. Can the players figure out who the infiltrator is or perhaps one of them is the infiltrator.
Desktop Blues - The CIC has just been hit by a cylon virus which was recently stopped. Sadly, everything is not fully functional. Everyone has to be especially aware until the system becomes stable. DRADIS seems to provide information on what may or may not be a ghostship. Lights blink on and off randomly. Can the crew take the mental preasure of these creepy but non-lethal disturbances as Galactica becomes stable? Can the crew stay on ball especially as their is evidence to support that the Cylons might arrive any moment? To complicate matters even further a Skinjob has been killed in the fleet people swear they have seen the dead skinjob re-appear. People begin to ask, "Are there cylon ghosts?" Every ghost siting is the same, the "dead" cylon looks at them and says nothing before disappearing around a corner.
Blackholes and Revelations - The Fleet makes a Jump beyond the red line after four Basestar's arrive. They jump near a blackhole and a trapped temporarily as they need to find new bearings to jump with and the pull of the Blackhole prevents the ships from moving further away. In otherwords the entire fleet is a sitting duck. To complicate matters a few of the skinjobs managed to get on whatever ship the characters are on and seem to be purposefully seeking them out individually each with revelations about the characters...the question is why? Even worse can the fleet find a way out in time?
One More - This is the one I personally want to play but it may be out of the cannon....
Feyd's Dream - The Fleet finds a vessel left behind by the 13th Tribe. There is something inside...something living and has slept for thousands of years in wait. Is it friendly, a cylon trap, or some other doomsday device? Okay One More - AKA Feyd has had to much Soju...
Death Is Only The Begining (Cylon Only) - A sleeper Agent who was recently killed has emerged in a Res. Tank and is left asking the question do I merge with humanity or stay with the cylons. They have heard of someone called, "Sharon" and another called, "Caprica" who seem to have pro-human peace tendancies. (This is a bit generic I know - but for people who are secretly cylon characters it is a realistic play point - besides they might return to the fleet which further complicates story lines).
Lifeline: A group of survivors stuck on one of the planets are attempting to find a way off of the planet. At first they are holed up in a fallout shelter but after a time a radio in the shelter finds a signal. It seems there are other survivors and they have found a ship to take to the stars and join a growing fleet. The survivors have to stay in contact with the voice and follow it to meeting location. The kicker? It's a cylon trap luring survivors into one location for a farm. Can the survivors escape?
The next two ideas are based on Miek's, San Simeon War College Flight Command Center, or sweet Viper School on a Decommissioned Battlestar.
Possible Campaign Idea: During the Initial Attack the Engines of the San Simeon are relit and the Battlestar gets away. However, it has been cut off from the fleet and most of the officers and teachers were killed. It is up to the characters who are the remaining officers to run the Battlestar.
From the Mouths of Babes: The characters are in a Raptor that gets damaged during a battle and are unfortunatly left behind in a dead ship. Things look grim as the Cylons jump away shortly after the fleet does leaving the characters running out of Oxygen. Though just as all hope looks lost an old Battlestar jumps near by and finds the survivors. It is run by a group of young recruits and the characters (if military) find themselves as being the new Senior Officers for the San Simeon. Can they find the fleet or will the Cylons find them first?
Episode 1x02: The Longest Day Part 2 Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
The first day of the attack on your homeworlds has been a long one. In fact, it may well be the longest day of your lives. It began with an early morning Cap where you discovered the remnants of a Tauron vessel. One thing led to another and soon you faced your first Cylon raiders. It was a brief battle, but you came out on top. Then came a distress signal from the Erinyes, where you faced your first real threat. Hundreds of Raiders later you successfully evacuated the survivors from the Erinyes to the Orpheia before the Erinyes rammed itself into the remaining Basestar. As you attempted to regroup and take stock of what happened, a civilian fleet emerged from Battlestar Row. The Orpheia and the fleet fled into the asteroid field to evade detection. Hours later the fleet jumped away to the Ragnar station, where Commander Adama had asked all Colonial Vessels to rendezvous. Once there, and as it descended through the ion storm, a Battlestar did appear on dradis, but not the one you expected: “Battlestar Orpheia, this is the Battlestar Kharybdis. Treia is that you?”
*Note: Treia Vall is the Commander of the Battlestar Orpheia and Jamison's (Cmdr of the Kharybdis) former wife.
Episode 1x03: The Things We Carry Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
Captain Katherine Nolan, San Simeon‟s Tactical Officer sits idly in her chair, sipping from her third glass of wine. The dinner so far had gone well and your help in the Kharibdis issue has earned you some lax times with higher ups. Katherine grins to Rani and idles the glass of wine near her lips. “So, I hear you‟re Commander Praetorius‟ child?”
“Yes ma‟am,” Rani said.
“I‟m glad to finally make your acquaintence.”
As Caitlin ran her hand along the slender, elegant nose of the Viper, Chief Gideon appears from the other side of the Viper. “Sorry to scare you,” he said with a grin as Caitlin jumped back. “You‟re related to the Racer from Canceron, aren‟t you?”
“Yeah,” Caitlin said shyly. “He‟s my dad.”
Jacen Turing eyed Miles squarely. They sized eachother up, though one side was clearing out matching the other.
“Clearly you didn‟t hear me,” Miles said with a smirk. “Any frakking day, any frakking time.” “Sagittaron trash.”
“At least I know what I am.”
Monty stood holding the printout of his brother‟s letter, brows furrowed as he read: “Gabby‟s gone. One day she was quiet as a mouse here and the next, nothing left, not a trace. I think she ran off with that rebel of a girl she used to get in shit with at school. Remember that one? The taller one, red hair? Yeah, you remember.” Episode 1x04: Times Like These
Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
“This is Lieutenant Marcus Boer of the Aerelon Planetary Guard. Thank the Lords of Kobol you‟re here! Oh my Gods we‟re rescued!” And slowly, out of your cockpits you can see ships, dozens of them, emerging from the wreckage of battlestar row.
The old woman held a shaking hand to Caitlin. In it was a cylindrical object, pointed at both ends with a strange kind of familiarity that makes you think you know what it is but can‟t think of the name. “This is
Eurydice‟s Lighter,” the old woman says. “You will need it to light her torch.”
“Rani,” Julia said to you in desperation as she looked frantically around the graduation field. “There‟s something about your dad I gotta tell you. There‟s something weird…”
As Rani‟s fingers flipped through various pages of ship‟s logs, she stumbles upon a name she knows: Allison Praetorius, her father‟s first wife. She was alive.
As Miles bobbed his head, trying not to fall asleep, Mara said quietly: "Yeah. Raif told me about it while we were playing chess. He said you're like the Rook…watching out for the Queen. I've heard worse call signs." “Hold that Raptor!” Monty cried as he moved through the flight deck. The Raptor on its way to ferry some more passengers off Heavy-Seven-Sixty-Eight to one of the Luxury Liners had its hatch prepared to close. Monty had just made it. He had to know if she was alive. As the Raptor flitted through space towards the passenger liner, something appeared off in the distance.
“Contact! I have two confirmed Basestars bearing two-nine-eight! Action Stations!” Episode 1x05: Sowing the Wind
Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
Monty fell to his knees, clutching the fabric in his left hand as everything dissolved to fire and light. There‟s a woman there, but you can‟t see her face. It‟s blindingly bright around her. “Who are you?” he asked. “I define Gods and Demons.”
“What is it Monty?” Caitlin asked as she approached him, his hands holding the book before him. “I… I think it‟s a star map of some sort.”
The woman lifted her cigarette to her lips and looked Rani in the eyes. “Katherine Nolan, she may have poisoned the woman you thought was your mother. After she had you, threatened all kindsa things until your father put her in a place to shut her up.”
Caitlin held her breath, waiting for the discharge of ozone that would signal her death, but it never comes. The Centurion walks right passed her and turned the corner, right into the path of her friends. She pulled her sidearm and discharged into the back of the walking toaster‟s head. “Good job Caitlin!” Miles shouted. Huddled in the corner of a row seats is Monty‟s sister. He hardly recognized her. Her hair was a different color, long and disheveled. Her thick eye-liner had run in horrible streaks down her face and dried there like old pathways. She saw him, but said nothing. Her eyes were empty, haunted, and nearly dead. Her body was curled up, her arms hugging her legs to her chest. Her clothing was ripped in places, bloody in others. Her skin had a paleness to it Monty didn‟t remember. Yet she regards him, as if waiting for something.
Robert Kensington raised his head to them, eyes defiant and thoroughly resolved in his thoughts. “I‟m telling you, he was a Cylon and he looked just like us.”
Episode 1x06: Don't Look Back Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
As Caitlin stood up and looked down the long nose of the fighter, she started to wonder if maybe it was the only one who would understand her. Then she began to hear a voice, it felt hallow and full of echo. „It‟s going to be okay,‟ it seemed to say. „Everything is going to be just fine.‟
“Commander, is it true that the Cylons look like us now?” The reporters question simply enraged the already very angry Vall. She ended the press conference with a single grimace and exited the room, leaving Jamison to stand alone.
Rani stared down the man known as Marcus Boer. She set her jaw and delivered her final statement in the discussion, “I will not relinquish control to a civilian government that does not yet exist.”
The crowd was chanting, on their knees and seemingly praying. Mara turned to Miles and said, “My ancient kobol isn‟t that great but I think they‟re saying something like „the lady who leads us to the light‟ or something. I think they're talking about Caitlin. They think she's an Oracle."
A bottle was thrown from the protesting mob at the marines. It whizzed through the air and crashes into one‟s helmet with a small bang and shattered. He cried out and fell, but unfortunately as he fell, his finger pulled the trigger on his rifle. A woman screamed and fell, bullets having torn through her body. Everyone stopped for just a second, disbelief on everyone‟s faces. Then the shouting began, and the civilians rushed the marines.
Vall was on the phone, shouting her orders from her safety area. “Attention all Colonial units, this is Commander Vall. Martial Law is now in effect. You are to take up immediate Condition One posts and subdue this uprising and establish control. Use only as much force as needed. I want this contained, and I want it contained now!”
Monty picked up the envelope and opened it. Inside was a printout, which he took out and read. The only words on the paper said: “There are only 12 human-looking Cylon models.”
Episode 1x07: Sacrifice
Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
Monty stood holding the book, his eyes scanning the pages of the ancient texts. It said, “All of this has happened before and it will happen again.”
Several tired looking pilots all sat around the card table. “If we don‟t find something soon, I swear to frakking god I‟m eating Pithia.” Another pilot smirked. “We‟ll all run out of gas before then.”
Caitlin looked at Monty with an expression of pure exasperation. “You‟re frakking joking right? You want to jump blindly in a Raptor and hope for the best?”
The Raptor hung in space, overlooking a massive asteroid belt. Caitlin glanced down at her console and blinked. “Shep, there‟s enough Tylium and water in these asteroids to fuel the fleet for years!”
Monty‟s Viper hung motionless at the end of the tunnel. Framed in the small circular hole of the asteroid was a single blue star. There we no other stars in view.
Braxis eyed the charts put before him. He glanced from Vall to the Officer of the Watch. The decision came to him easier than expected. “Do it,” he said to the Watchman. “We‟re going here.”
From the view in the Port flight pod, a planet came slowly into view. It was large and blue with sections of green and brown. It looked so peaceful sitting there. “Oh my gods,” said someone over the wireless. “Where is this place?”
Episode 1x08: Forsaken
Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
Cadet-Ensign Rayf Turing led the group of reporters through the historical deck of the San Simeon Flight Academy. A blonde woman with wire-framed glasses held a microphone out to him. “What about the separation between Faith and Military under President Nawara?” Rayf‟s face twisted up at the question. “San Simeon is a religious school. The mandate does not apply to us.”
The group of cadets, all from differing classes and planets, all watched as the Kharybdis duked it out with the S.F.M. Jacen Turing, the top ranked pilot in the Academy, smirked and said, “Good riddance. Why they don‟t just execute Zarek is beyond me.” This enraged the sagittaron population, and especially Miles Corinth and it wasn‟t long until Corinth took a hard punch for his troubles. Immediately his three wingmates jumped in to help. The assailant, with Caitlin on his back hurled himself backwards against the bathroom wall, giving the woman a concussion before the knife cut into her side. Crying out, Caitlin fell from his grasp just in time for Monty and
Miles to get up and restrain him. With a final knee to the chest, Rani put him down. “Frak me,” Caitlin muttered as she slumped against the wall. As the four cadets looked on, they saw the body of Tara Fabry laying on the floor, bleeding from many wounds.
The Viper was laying on its side, slowly burning. “It‟s going to blow!” shouted the crew chief. Inside, the unconscious Lena V‟iers lay, bleeding from several lacerations through her flight suit. Without thinking, Rani, Monty, Miles and Caitlin rushed towards the wreckage. While Caitlin contained the core, the other three worked frantically to extract the hurt cadet.
The four newly commissioned pilots stepped off the shuttle and onto the Orpheia‟s hangar deck for the first time. The ship was cold, and groans of metallic shuddering echoed throughout. “Don‟t worry about that,” the pilot known as Slicer said to them good naturedly. “Ol‟ girl is just haunted. C‟mon, I‟ll show ya around.”
Rani put her head against the canopy of her Viper. In the distance, the world of Aerelon was taking barrage after barrage from Basestars. Trapped in the mechanic cockpit of her fighter, she was forced to simply watch. So many were dying, and yet to her back she knew there were thousands of others who were living. She just didn‟t know for how long.
Miles pointed behind him at the unconscious form of Mara Ven. The medic, startled by his quick advance, paused. “Do you know who this is? You make sure she‟s okay. Do it, that‟s an order.”
Her voice was a death rasp and with half of her face charred and burnt, Nicole Adams could hardly speak to the woman known as Rani Praetorius. “Are you Persephone? Come to take me across the River Styx? Am I dead?”
Caitlin worked frantically to get the Orpheia‟s FTL drive back in working order. So intent was she in her work that she didn‟t hear the metallic steps of the Centurion until it was almost upon her. Those deadly cannons were pointed right at her and she was frozen in place. Then it just walked on passed her. Drawing her sidearm, she put a round into the back of its head.
Commander Vall took Miles aside and spoke with him quietly. “I need people I can trust. I‟m appointing you head of my honor guard. You will lead my personal contingent of marines whenever I‟m away.”
The Raptor door opened with a hiss and three civilians stepped off, duffel bags in hand. Ember hobbled up to them, giving them a look-see. He inspected them all with a curious eye. “New recruits, straight out of the fleet,” the ECO said to Ember as he climbed out. Ember gave a glance to the woman at the end. “Who might you be?” Ember said with a roguish grin. “Jaina Night, sir. Best pilot you‟ve ever seen.” Ember gave a chuckle. “That so?” Jaina smiled back, confidence all over her face. “Yes, sir.”
“This isn‟t going to work,” Caitlin protested as she finished rigging the Raptor‟s FTL drive. “But, here we go.” And as Monty ignited the spun FTL, the Raptor lurched through time and space until hung, motionless, above a ring of asteroids.
The Cylons were all over them. Colonel Braxis was shouting orders as best he could. Calmly Monty Chandl handed him a set of coordinates. “Jump here.”
“Oh my Gods,” Two said over the wireless as she sat in her Raptor. “Look at that.” And out the port flight pod, they saw a large blue planet hanging there, as if waiting for them.
Pythia coughed violently and lurched slightly upwards. She clasped the odd looking rock into Rani‟s hands. “Keep it… I‟m so sick of carrying this. I don‟t believe in your gods, or this whole frakking thing.”
All around her, Caitlin saw eleven copies of herself holding their arms out to her. “It‟s going to be okay,” they said. After a few more moments of indecision, fear wracking her, Caitlin touched the blue icon of Artemis and the star map appeared overhead.
Sergeant Fulton smoothly drew his sidearm as the crowd of civilians shouted and screamed all around the Dias. His eyes had a blank and empty look to them. Without hesitation, he raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, striking Vall in the back. As she turned in surprise, he pulled off two more shots. As Vall fell to the ground, Fulton snapped out of his daze. A look of shook overtook him just as a bullet ripped into his flak vest and he was
pulled to the ground.
As the Raptor hovered just a few feet off the ground, all four pilots heard what they all knew they would. “All Viper pilots to their ships, set condition one throughout the fleet! The Cylons have found us.”
Episode 1x09: Eurydice's Lantern Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
Monty pulled back the curtain on his bunk. On his mattress lay an envelope. Picking it up and opening it, he pulled a slip of paper out. It read: “There are only twelve human-looking cylon models.”
Doc licked the inside of her cheek as she eyed Monty. “The prints? There‟s two on the envelope. One of them is your sister‟s. Whoever sent you that message, she knew about it.”
The situation on the ground was getting worse. The crowd was panicking now and no one saw Fulton draw his sidearm, and shoot Vall in the back. She turned, only to be shot twice more.
There was no mistaking it. That woman was Pythia, but it wasn‟t. It wasn‟t the same person you knew, but it was her all the same. There was something in her hand, a weapon maybe? You yell for her to stop, and she is going straight for Caitlin. Then a discharge of a gun, and the woman you thought was Pythia, falls with a bullet to the head. Torch drops her weapon, her voice screaming in anguish. “I‟m a frakking cylon, and so was she!” “Frak, have you guys been listening to the wireless?” Swerve, the pilot of your Raptor crew says. “That crap on the flightdeck‟s already seeped into the fleet. I‟ll put it through.” A moment later, the static crackles and you begin to listen out of one channel. “…vious that you can‟t see the truth. You‟ve all been following a lie. Your Oracle isn‟t an Oracle at all. With only one Battlestar protecting our fleet, will we even be able to fend off another Cylon attack, especially if its from the inside?”
As you all looked overhead, the map became clear. The road to the Lion‟s Head Nebula was now in your grasp. Episode 1x10: And If They Lay Us Down to Rest...
Previously on the Battlestar Orpheia...
Monty felt that presence behind him and he didn‟t even have to turn around to know it was her. The metallic voice filled his ears and echoed off the walls. “Your people are dying. The plague is spreading and it will devour everything. All is not lost however. If you go and light Eurydice‟s Lantern, many will be saved. Your sheep will suffer, but there are others who will live on. Lighting the Lantern will sacrifice one of your own. The broken child of Hephaestus will not live to see what they‟ve sown. Your journey does not end there, you must assure that the Others find their way to the Abyss. Only then will life begin again. Have faith, my child. You are coming home soon.”
The cylon chuckled as he looked at the four of you, and then finally focused his attention on Caitlin. “You really just don‟t know do you? You still think you‟re human? You‟re a cylon, a malfunctioning model eight.”
They stood on the wall between two of the great white watchtowers. They heard the roar of waves in the distance, and the beacons of the watchtowers finally go dark as a figure stepped from within each citadel. Through the gaseous clouds and storming, electrical pulses the Raptor came nose to nose with a large, cylindrical object. It was ancient, they could tell that just by looking at it. Its design was unlike anything you‟ve ever seen… but familiar somehow. It was mechanical and from the looks of it, despite its alien nature, it looks very similar to a signal beacon.
Caitlin placed Eurydice‟s Lighter into the beacon and the machine seemed to accept it and soon the entire thing began to emanate a huge signal. It glowed brightly, obviously having just been powered up.
And then, they were surrounded. As the four of you stood gaping out the side of the dead Raptor, hundreds of Raiders began to cloud about you, circling… like sharks.
Rani‟s eyes scanned the pages of the journal, reading unfamiliar words though they spoke about a family she thought she‟d known all along. “The child must be kept safe so that she may find her brothers and sisters. Destiny has told me that she is one of the chosen. Though I‟ve never seen her face, the woman in the white light knows me, knows all of us.”
Monty couldn‟t make her out, bathed in blinding white light, this woman was familiar to him, but yet she wasn‟t. “Who are you?” he asked. “I define Gods and Demons. I will guide the way. This is the way the world ends.”
The Battlestar Orpheia jumped just as the missiles attempted to reach their winding grasp out and rend it apart. When it appeared again, a blue, lush planet appeared before it. “Could this really be it? Is this Kobol?” Caitlin said, the other three looking at her dubiously.
Again the white woman appeared to Monty, her voice a warning tone. “It will show the way to the Blue Iris where your hunger ends. Across the River Styx you will find the Pillars of Dionysus and the Way to where the Lion sleeps. But beware, for Zeus warned those that came before that to walk this path again would exact a price in blood."
Pythia clutched at Rani‟s hand, shoving the rock-key into her fingers. The disease was taking its toll on her. “Take it, I don‟t want this frakking thing anymore. I don‟t believe in your Gods.”
The Battlestar Orpheia burned in places and leaked fluid in others. It continued its head-on attack on the Basestar. Both Cylon capital ships bombarded her but the Orpheia‟s target was already breaking up. The Wireless exploded in static for a moment before Braxis‟ voice entered it. “It‟s been an honor serving the Colonial Fleet. Say a good word for us to the Gods.” And the Cylon ship exploded, one of its massive arms severing the Orpheia‟s Port flight pod. Then a massive missile hit struck her in the side and secondary explosions removed two engine thrusters. The explosions continued until she began to keel to one side. The „head‟ section of the mighty Battlestar was severed from its body and began to float away. The body broke up in many smaller explosions. The Battlestar Orpheia was no more. “Combat Landings!” called Jamison to all channels. “All Vipers to the Kharybdis. We‟re getting the Frak out of here!”
The Raptor sat motionless in the cloud storm, dead, powerless. Caitlin took out the small, diamond-shaped object from her flightsuit and slid it into a port that she just… felt was correct. The beacon turned on. Rani‟s eyes were scanning the markings. “It‟s not a language of any of the twelve colonies… it was like it was… a thirteenth.”
Monty felt her there again. He didn‟t even have to turn around this time. He just put his head against the shower wall and listened. “Lighting the Lantern will sacrifice one of your own. The broken child of Hephaestus will not live to see what they‟ve sown. Your journey does not end there, you must assure that the Others find their way to the Abyss. Only then will life begin again. Have faith, my child. You are coming home soon.” Miles held Caitlin‟s hand. Her condition was worsening every day. Her voice was even more feeble than he‟d remembered it. “What are we going to do now?” Miles shrugged slightly, kissed her forehead, and went to sit outside.
The four of them: Miles, Monty, Rani and Gabrielle stood in the chamber, looking across the room at one another. They‟d all had the same dream, over and over, now it had led them here.
