Title: Oblivion
Beta: hollywoodgrrl
Disclaimer: I don't own Caprica and BSG, Ron Moore does.
Rating: PG
Characters: Daniel Graystone
Summary: AU. BSG/Caprica. All Daniel Graystone ever wanted was to be remembered. He should've been more careful with what he wished for.
Note: after I saw the pilot, I started toying with this idea… you decide if it's a good one or not ; ) And thanks so much to Vera (hollywoodgrrl) for making it even better 3
***
Daniel Graystone's biggest ambition was to be remembered. As a father, he hoped his daughter would tell her children one day what a great man their grandfather was, how hard he worked to improve life on the Colonies and the great achievements he obtained. As a scientist, he already knew he gained immortality the moment he saw the first Cybernetic Lifeform Node in action during the test trials. He would always be remembered as the creator of the first artificial intelligence in the history of the Twelve Colonies. The creator of a new era.
If only he had known.
No angel came to warn him, even if his daughter's getaway and unexpected death in the train explosion should've pointed him in the right direction. Once again, he sought comfort in science, and gave a mechanical body to the digital clone of his daughter created by Zoe herself. Zoe, who believed the One True God was the answer. A woman of faith, opposed to him, man of science.
The horror in Joseph Adama's eyes, his disgust for what he was going to do to bring their daughters back… was that God trying to make him see the truth? Maybe not, but even if it was, Daniel was blind and deaf to all the warnings, and continued his work. Nothing was too big, nothing was out of reach for Daniel Graystone. What could the next step be? How far could he push the boundaries this time?
The answer came naturally to him a few days after the third anniversary of Zoe's death. (A few days before the third official anniversary of the creation of the Cylons.) He changed the future… the only thing missing now was a chance to see it with his own eyes.
It took him three more years of uninterrupted work and almost all of his money to get close to his idea. His wife left him after the first year of experiments, but Daniel didn't care. He was so close, he could feel it. He would look at the future, and then he would go back to the past, and prevent his daughter from ever taking that damn train. And after, he would tell his old contractors in the Ministry of Defense about his new discovery. Oh, all the things they could achieve with that technology… visiting Kobol, learning the true story of the Thirteen Tribes, stopping wars before they even started. They would take history and erase all the mistakes, to make their worlds a better place.
Maybe it was God's punishment for Daniel's arrogance, or just an unfortunate coincidence, but the day Daniel Graystone tested his time machine was also the day the scientist disappeared from his lab in Caprica City, never to be seen again. He didn't witness the moment when the Cylons turned on their masters, he didn't fight in the war, and he never took responsibility for his actions.
God had other plans for him.
***
When Daniel appeared in the middle of a destroyed house, his first thought was that he chose the wrong destination. All instruments pointed to Caprica City, but there was no way… The most important, beautiful city of the Colonies had been reduced to rubble. It was a ghost town. But where were the Cylons? Why hadn't they protected the city? Surely Caprica City would have more time! Only 58 years…
Walking down the deserted streets, Daniel never expected to see such destruction in his world. He definitely didn't expect to be dragged to the mountains by a gang of former Pyramid players turned resistance fighters. He didn't expect to hear that all the Colonies had been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. And most of all, he didn't expect to hear that the Cylons were responsible for it all.
From what he could gather, his Cylons rebelled against the human population 20 years after their creation. After the war, they left the colonies to look for a new planet to call their own. But 40 years later, the Cylons came back, ready to exact revenge on their former masters. They evolved to the point of mimicking humans perfectly… so perfectly, that they infiltrated the Colonies two years before the attack and no one noticed. Skin Jobs, they crudely called them.
Daniel couldn't believe it. He refused to believe that Cylons, the machines he created to improve life on the Colonies, were behind all that destruction. How could things go so horribly wrong?
And then he discovered a cold harsh truth. People still remembered his name… just, not in the way he intended. Daniel Graystone's name was cursed and hated, and generally never spoken aloud. To avoid problems, he shortened his surname to Gray, and offered his services as computer engineer to the leader of the resistance, Samuel Anders. He wasn't sure how helpful he could be, but when his security system successfully saved them all from a Cylon attack, he started to be considered a valuable member of the team. How ironic.
Then a girl appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be a Colonial officer sent to retrieve the "Arrow of Apollo" on behalf of President Laura Roslin, and Daniel's heart skipped a beat when he heard her name.
Kara Thrace.
Daniel had met a Kara Thrace before, a young woman that looked incredibly similar to the Viper pilot. A woman with whom he betrayed his wife and had a child. He never met him, never wanted to, but he knew his name: Dreilide. The surname and the resemblance couldn't be a coincidence, and Daniel wondered if that crazy girl that promised to come back to save them all was or not his granddaughter.
In his head, Daniel decided she was.
Daniel was an intelligent man, and knowing how things worked was his job. It was easy for him to learn how to be useful on a hangar deck, and his manual skills made sure he would never risk dying of starvation on New Caprica. He worked with his hands, he worked with computers, he atoned for his sins by helping humanity. It's the little things that counted. One day he put a big smile on Kara's face when he surprised her with the last canvas and cans of paints in the universe. Kara was now married to his savior, Sam Anders, but just like her grandfather she wasn't made to be a faithful spouse.
When the Cylons came back, Daniel no longer felt guilt. He felt rage. He didn't know when that happened, but now he hated his creatures as much as everyone else. He immediately joined the resistance with Anders and Tyrol, and once again, Daniel Gray conquered the admiration of the people he inadvertently made fugitives by enduring months in the Cylon prison without cracking under the pressure of his torturers, his creations. It was the first time he came face to face with the second evolution of the creatures he had built. From metal slaves to evolved machines with their own metal slaves… He laughed at the irony and he laughed at the pride he felt. There was no denying the wonder of their evolution. It was almost beyond science, almost a miracle. Almost.
When Galactica came back, he found himself working full-time on the hangar deck. The Chief trusted the machinery in his hands and Daniel liked keeping an eye on Kara from afar. She was never the same since New Caprica. One day they shared a drink at Joe's bar and talked for half an hour about Caprica, Pyramid, and of every insignificant thing that came to their minds. It was the first, honest-to-god talk Daniel had with his supposed granddaughter, and he hoped it was something that would happen again soon.
But later that same day Kara flew her Viper into a gaseous giant's storm, and died in the explosion.
A week after the auction of Kara's belongings he saw one of the pilots with a Dreilide Thrace music tape, and discovered Kara was really his granddaughter.
He did nothing. Because this time nothing could be done. And he knew he should grieve, grieve like he never grieved for his daughter. But there was work to do, and he didn't want to let the crew of Galactica down. So he did a couple shifts in the hangar deck, went back to his quarters and swallowed his gun.
Daniel Graystone's biggest ambition was to be remembered. But now all he wanted was to forget. For everyone to forget and release his name, like his bloodline, into the folds of oblivion.
It would be the new Graystone legacy.