Earth, 10 years after the arrival of the Colonial fleet and Galactica
Romo Lampkin looked out over the village, watching as the early morning sun rose in the east and the first villagers awakened and began to stir. Despite Lee Adama's desire to stay away from building cities and introducing technology, Lampkin had insisted on at least a rudimentary village for the purposes of pooling resources and mutual protection. The last decade had been rather rough, given that most Colonials (and the scattering of rebel Cylons that had joined them) were used to a much more advanced life.
Amazingly it was Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six who had been the de facto saviors of at least this pocket of humanity. Baltar had been raised a farmer, and his success at cultivating a farm here had spawned numerous failed imitations. Baltar had seen the struggles of the Colonials to farm, and had (in uncharacteristic humility and with no thought of personal gain) volunteered to oversee, teach, and direct farming efforts for the Colonials. After that first successful year, he had gone on a short tour of the planet in one of the last surviving Raptors to give details of his methods to the other Colonial/Cylon settlements spread throughout the planet, and to spread news around the final settlements of humanity and Cylon. This trip had been repeated every other year, though this year would likely be the last.
What they had learned was both uplifting and sobering. Of course, they knew from the moment they had decided to forgo their technology that life here would be dangerous and that there would be losses, but it was still sad to hear of so many old friends from the four years of life in the stars had passed on.
Baltar brought back news of the death of Laura Roslin; she had passed on in the first days, in a Raptor with Admiral Adama as they scouted for a place to call home. The Admiral was well, though content to remain in solitude in his cabin. He'd asked Baltar and Caprica Six to take his Raptor back with them as well, and had also hinted strongly that he no longer wished to be contacted or "checked up on".
Lee Adama had caught a ride with a Raptor transport in the first weeks of the landing and made his way to a smaller northern continent near the islands where Galen Tyrol had settled. He lived in a rocky area near a small sea, with a primitive settlement of the early humans they'd found on this world. Some of these humans had learned rudimentary speech from him, and called him by his old pilot callsign of "Apollo". He'd explored a great deal of this area, naming some of the locations from ancient religious names and names of friends past. He in fact called the village he lived in "Thrace" for his good friend Kara, who had mysteriously disappeared minutes after Admiral Adama left the gathering camp a decade earlier.
Baltar's former followers had settled in an area on a large continent north of the planet's equator. While not the largest continent, it was favorable in terms of fertility of the soil and game. Having several former farmers in their midst, they were doing well, and had integrated with the native humans. Paulla was still upset with Baltar for leaving their group, and personally refused to speak to him, but the others were generally forgiving and eager to hear news of the others.
While the Colonials had abandoned most technology, they still had a Raptor for each major population group. As fate would have it, they had split into thirteen roughly equivalent groups of about 3,000 people each, with each group having a proportional split of humans and rebel Cylons. Most groups had a central settlement that over the years spread out and expanded as they interbred with the native population. Sometimes there were visits between groups, facilitated by the remaining Raptors, but these were growing less frequent as tedium supplies dwindled. Surveys had indicated the planet rich in many minerals and natural resources, but there was no tylium at all.
The visits over the years had shown the Colonials and Cylons were integrating quite rapidly, and in fact were little interested in maintaining what remaining technology they had. While the rebel Cylons were largely accepted, owing in part to their strongly demonstrated willingness to work with the humans and in part to their human appearance and overall human limitations, the Colonials by and large rejected most of their former technology. Now fourteen years from the holocaust, many saw their life here as a way to turn a page and start the human race over, without the burden of a robotic slave race that could turn on them at any time.
This latest trip had, however, uncovered a small group in each "colony" that were not content to live in the primitive world that was this new "Earth". This time, they had made a request, and it fell to Romo Lampkin, the de facto "President" of the remaining Colonials, to make one final decision.
"They want what, exactly", Lampkin again asked Baltar.
"They want to take what remaining Colonial and Cylon technology exists, including the last of the Raptors, and move to a large island in the ocean between this continent and the two continents to the west. They want to attempt to rebuild what technological elements they can…computers, advanced food storage and preparation, medicine, sciences, whatever they can recreate. They have finally decided that it was time to ask to be relocated, before we finally lose the ability to use the Raptors and relocate them." Baltar looked rather distressed over what he had just related, as if the thought of a technologically advanced settlement bothered him greatly.
"Well, Dr. Baltar, what do you think of this idea?"
"I think it's a mistake." At this, Caprica Six and Lampkin both looked at Baltar in surprise.
"Doctor, I'd have thought you, of all people, would not only approve but be in line to be a member of this settlement." Lampkin was somewhat amused at Baltar's discomfort, though despite the teasing he realized just why Baltar would not be at all interested.
"Romo, I truly believe this is a serious mistake. Present company excluded; let's not forget what got us into this situation in the beginning…the Cylons. Which we, in our quest to make life easier through the use of technology, created. Let's not forget that, as we heard so many times, this has all happened before…and if we allow this settlement to come into being, it may all well happen again!"
"Gaius, I understand your concerns. Really, I do. But for whatever reason these people have asked me to make the final call, possibly because ten years ago a certain Lee Adama, acting as the legitimate Vice President of the Colonies, put me in the President's chair when he and Laura Roslin headed off on that suicide mission on Galactica. Ever since, somehow I've been crammed into the mold of de facto President, even though we don't even have a real society or government anymore. But one thing I learned as a lawyer even before having politics dumped in my lap is that people have to be free to follow their own path, even if we don't agree with that path. How many are we talking about, anyway?"
Caprica Six spoke up, then. "About four thousand, in small groups from each of the settlements. Most are former scientists, Colonial technicians, and a few medical personnel. No Cylons at all." She said this last with a hint of pride that none of her brother or sister Cylons were looking to re-create the mistakes of the past.
"Okay…I'll consider it, but I want to meet with any leaders they have. There need to be some general agreements as to just what they get to do there." Romo specifically thought of research into robotics…granted, it would be a long way off for even an expert, given conditions and the overall loss of technology since landing on this world, but the thought of a new breed of Cylons even in his descendant's futures did bother Lampkin more than he wanted to admit.
One year later, Tanza settlement in present-day Africa
Sharon "Athena" Agathon climbed into the pilot's seat of a Raptor for the first time in eleven years. Amazing, she thought, I still remember all of this. For the past decade she, along with her husband Karl and daughter Hera (who was now a teenager and dating a young boy from the village) had been living in the same village with about 2,500 other former Colonial fleet citizens…and nearly a hundred of the native humans, some of whom had learned to speak and read their language. Sharon never thought she'd be back at the controls of a Colonial Raptor, but Romo Lampkin and Ellen Tigh had persuaded her to assist in the relocation of about 3,800 people to a large island where they were going to try to restore Colonial technology and live in a society that more closely resembled what they had in the past. She had been surprised at just how readily people had turned their backs on technology, though she was ready herself to simply settle down with Karl and Hera and leave her past Cylon/Colonial officer's life behind. It came as little surprise that the rigors of primitive life would not set well with some. What did surprise her was that it was so few, and that their fellow refugees had so strongly rejected them. She was not sure that allowing them to look back to technology was such a good idea, but she figured it was their choice…their leaders had agreed to stay firmly away from robotics, and to leave strong restrictions on this area to their descendents, and for the past year they had worked to persuade Romo Lampkin and Gaius Baltar to allow them to set up their society and take the last vestiges of Colonial technology with them. It had finally succeeded, though similar efforts to wrangle Cylon technology had been met with polite, but very firm, denials from the surviving Sixes, Twos, and Eights, as well as from Sharon herself. Funny, I don't even think of myself as an Eight…and I can't remember when I last did.
Her reverie was broken by the sound of someone entering the rear bay of the Raptor. A wave of nostalgia hit her as she saw her husband, Karl "Helo" Agathon, in flight gear and ready for his role as ECO.
"You just going to sit there like a rook, or are we gonna pre-flight this bird?" Helo grinned at her, as she shook her head and turned back to the controls.
"Thought you'd never ask. But don't you think this is a bit…weird…us in a Raptor after all this time?"
"Yeah…I do. And it's likely that when we get back here it will be the last flight we take. I ran the numbers, and there's barely enough tylium to make the flights and ferry the Raptor pilots back to their settlements before we hit bingo fuel."
Sharon smiled at his reversion to the old terms. Like riding a bike, it comes back to you no matter how long it's been. As she fired up the onboard systems and ran through a preflight, she almost expected to hear the LSO clear her for launch.
"Hey, Athena…just don't frak up the landing when we get back. No knuckledraggers to fix the dents in the turf these days, and I'm getting too old for it myself."
"Frak off, Helo!"
Sharon ran through the preflight, and then lifted the Raptor off, setting course for the Eurana settlement that was the first stop on their trip.
Eurana settlement, present-day Greece
"Lee!" Karl literally lifted Lee Adama off the ground in a massive bear hug. It had been over ten years since the Agathons had seen Lee Adama, since he'd left their settlement shortly after the mysterious disappearance of Kara Thrace. In the decade since he'd traveled extensively, mostly in the northern continent to which he'd relocated, finally settling down with a Colonial group and large community of native humans near a sea on the southern shores of the continent.
"Karl, it's great to see you. Though if you are here to give me the CAG job back, forget it."
"No, Lee, Romo managed to persuade us to coordinate this relocation and the movement of all the remaining Raptors and other vessels to the island these tech-obsessed people want to colonize."
"Well, I can think of no one better to pilot what will be the final flight of any plan on this world. I'm sure Dad would have been proud."
"Any word from the Old Man, Lee?" Sharon had heard little of the Admiral after his relocation with the late President Roslin and his beginning a solitary hermit-like existence. He'd asked Baltar to arrange to pick up his Raptor on their first visit after his departure, and strongly hinted that he wished to be left alone."
"Yeah…a year ago. I persuaded one of the Eights to take me down there in a Raptor. Dad's gone completely native…it was all he could do to remember how to talk. Took me ten minutes to get him to remember me. He barely recalls Galactica, the war, that last mission…any of it. He's getting pretty old, but when I mentioned moving back here with me he was adamant…he wants to spend his dying days in that cabin he built for Laura, and I didn't have the heart to make him leave."
"So, Lee, no ideas of returning to the world of technology…microwaves, telephones, toasters…?" Helo grinned a bit at his wife as he mentioned "toaster"; it had been a long time since any of them had used the old slang term for "Cylon". Sharon glared at him for a moment, as Lee chuckled and shook his head.
"No, Karl…I'm happy here. Though sometimes it gets a bit creepy, all the natives treating me like I'm some sort of god. They seem to like "Apollo" better than "Lee", ever since Brendan slipped it in conversation one evening. I thought of having some revenge, but somehow hearing "Hot Dog" day in and day out just doesn't appeal to me. So, any familiar names heading to the island?"
The three of them reached Lee's cabin and entered, taking seats around a rough-hewn wooden table. Sharon and Karl exchanged a glance, and then Sharon reached into her flight suit and pulled out several sheets of paper.
"See for yourself. Some names you might recognize, though…Diana Seelix, Noel Allison, Aaron Kelly, Jon Gage, Alex Vireem…"
"Hmm…I remember Seelix and Kelly…and Allison, is that 'Narcho'…but the others…"
Sharon broke in at that point. "They were all surviving mutineers. From Gaeta's Mutiny back on Galactica. Many of the others on the list are as well, though most are civilians. The other interesting thing…none are Cylons, and none are from Gaius Baltar's religious group."
"Well, that is all interesting, but what does it really matter, in the end? Even if they develop significant military technology, what do they really plan to do…get some sort of twisted revenge at this point? Against who?"
"Lee, Sharon and I had this same conversation with Romo and Gaius when we first put the list together. But even considering all of this, Romo still believes we should let them go ahead with their settlement. Gaius doesn't figure they can do much, given the limited resources they do have; they don't have much in the way of specialists in inventing things, either, and very little in the way of manuals or reference materials. All of that was left on Galactica, except for tech manuals for the Raptors. I guess they are convinced that nothing can really come of it, not for a long time."
"Still, it's a bit disturbing to see so many mutineers on that list."
"Lee, maybe they just want to get away from their past. And away from the Cylons…there are some of my brothers and sisters in every group we settled on the planet, and most of the mutineers were among those who were the most opposed to the alliance between the rebel Cylons and humans. And my people did wipe out most of humanity…all the Presidential proclamations of amnesty and alliances can't erase people's feelings." Sharon looked a bit sad, as if remembering some of her own demons from the years on Galactica.
"I guess you could be right. Anyway, if you need me, I think I can still pilot a Raptor. I see you have a plan to return all the volunteer pilots to their settlements after the moving is complete, and I guess you will be taking the only Raptor not staying with the islanders back with you to your settlement."
"Yeah", replied Helo, "and that is a lot of flying. We have thirteen Raptors, thirteen pilots and nine ECOs, though I suppose that's not really necessary. Old habits die hard. But we could use any relief pilots we can get. We're picking up 'islanders' from every settlement, and Raptors don't hold a lot of passengers, so we're looking at a couple days flying…and none of us are exactly at peak flying condition, after nearly ten years off the stick. Last mission…kinda like a final sendoff for all us pilots."
"Well, let's get started, then." Lee grinned at the two Raptor fliers. "One last flight, for old times. So which one of us gets to be CAG?"
Three days later
"Raptor 219, this is Viper 7242, on final approach to Atlantia Colony. Confirm approach at 045 carom 050." Lee Adama was on his final approach to the recently named Atlantia Colony, ferrying the final aircraft to the colony…his father's old Viper Mk. II. Dressed one final time in his Viper flight suit, with Helo and Athena right behind him in their Raptor, his mind went back to the ceremonial flyby he'd performed in this same Viper nearly fifteen years ago during the Galactica's decommissioning ceremony. Back then, he had been annoyed at having to fly an obsolete, primitive craft, being used to the Mk. VII Viper he'd trained and qualified on. Now, eleven years without any technology to speak of, and Lee was amazed to be in the cockpit of what to this world was a technological miracle.
A miracle he was gladly leaving to someone else.
"Apollo, Helo, confirm 045 carom 050, see you on the ground. Hey, don't bang up Atlantia's only Viper, either, Hardball would never forgive you."
"Thanks, Helo, and don't worry…Seelix's opinion of me won't keep me up at night. See you on the ground."
A short while later Lee saw Diana Seelix walking up to the Viper as he pulled off his helmet and started to climb down. He hadn't seen Seelix since landing on this new "Earth". She'd aged dramatically in the last decade, her hair gone grey and a distant, hard look in her eyes. She'd spent several months after Gaeta's Mutiny in a cell on the Astral Queen, and even when Admiral Adama offered amnesty for the mutineers she'd opted to stay in her cell. Seelix was one of a very few Colonials to be opposed at the start to the idea of leaving behind all the technology to start a new life on Earth. Eleven years later, and it appeared her opinion had not changed.
"Apollo, thank you for bringing the Viper to us. It's a welcome addition to our colony." Diana didn't even smile…her welcome seemed forced.
"Well, I hope it helps you toward your goal. Just realize, I brought it in on fumes…there's not enough tylium in her tanks to start a campfire with, and all her weapons were offloaded when Dad flew her off Galactica. And her batteries are barely holding a charge. I don't know what use she'll be…but here you are."
Diana ran her hands along the Viper's fuselage, an odd look in her eyes. "Major Adama, do you ever wish we could go back, gather up all the Vipers and Raptors, and track down every last frakkin' toaster left over from that last mission? The ones back on the Colonies, the survivors on the Cylon colony ship, the Centurions on that Gods-damned rebel Basestar, all the Twos, Sixes, and Eights…all of them…"
"Diana…no, I don't. It's long over, and it's way past time that we moved on. That's why we're here…why we let the fleet and all of that advanced equipment go…we have to break the cycle of violence, Diana."
"Yeah, I know. But sometimes I still…well, I'm sorry but I can't give up my hatred of the Cylons. Every time I see one of them I remember all those people, the friends and shipmates I had on Galactica, the friends and family on Caprica and the other Colonies, all those who died…and for what? President Roslin may have given amnesty, but it doesn't change what they did."
"Diana…look, I can't change the past. None of us can. But for me…I just believe we have to move on."
Lee turned to leave, and Seelix walked up and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Major Adama…Lee…look, I'm sorry. I'm not hell-bent on revenge, that's not why I'm doing this, despite what it looks like. I just can't live around them anymore, and neither can most of us here. And we want a different life, one more like what we lost. Maybe we can't move on…I don't know, but I know I can't look at another frakkin' toaster again, not without going crazy. Here, maybe I can live in some bit of peace. A lot of us feel this way, and yeah, some of us are maybe obsessed with revenge. Believe me, it's for the best that we're here…for us, and for them."
"Well, goodbye, Diana." Lee walked off toward the Raptor with Helo and Sharon waiting for him. As he boarded the Raptor, he looked back one more time at the landing field of the Atlantia Colony. Apparently one of it's members had served on the Battlestar Atlantia years ago, and felt it was an appropriate name. The Viper and a dozen Raptors sat, empty of fuel and most in barely functional condition. Sitting in a field next to them was a collection of what little remnants of Colonial technology remained from the Galactica and the fleet. It all looked like so much junk, but Lee supposed it would give Atlantia's residents something to do. At least the rest of the island had good farmland and fresh water, so the colonists would have sustenance when the provisions they'd brought from their former settlements ran out.
Lee boarded the Raptor, closed the hatch, and looked at Sharon and Karl Agathon.
"Let's go. I think the Atlantians want us gone as much as we want to be gone."
Ten years later
"Mom, do you ever wonder what it would have been like to live on that ocean colony you and Dad helped move all those people to?" Hera Agathon asked over a meal in her parent's cabin. In her twenties now, Hera was a pretty young woman, with three children from a native human who had been eager to learn the ways of the Colonials who had settled on the eastern side of what was now known as the Afris continent, in a settlement called Tanza.
Sharon Agathon briefly glanced at her husband, then back to Hera. "No. Most of those colonists were trying to get away from people like me…and likely you…Cylons and half-Cylons. And I wanted to be away from the reminders of the past. That's why your father and I destroyed the Raptor after coming home. It's time to move on."
"Yeah, I know. I just wonder if they ever succeeded in making anything work. I barely remember Galactica, but what I do remember seems fascinating to me. Traveling among the stars, all that advanced technology…it all seemed magical."
Karl Agathon sat down and looked at his daughter. "The real magic is how our lives are now. It's like Uncle Lee said…our intellect outraced our souls. We created technology that we couldn't see the ramifications of, and it came back to destroy us. We tried to do what only the Gods should do…we created life, and like the Admiral said many years ago, we can't just wash our hands of the consequences. We all have to move on."
Hera nodded, and in her heart she knew her parents were right. Even though her mother was a Cylon, evolved from one of those creations her father spoke of, Sharon even agreed that the technological world was one they were not ready for the responsibility of. And they had made a good life in Tanza. The native humans now lived among them, and already the differences were blurring as those humans learned the languages and manner of the Colonials, and the Colonials (and the remaining Cylons) learned to live off the land like those natives. Already some of the older Colonials were passing on, and some of the offspring born after the landing on this new Earth were reaching adulthood. Soon there would be few left who remembered first-hand the journey here with the fleet, few who really knew what Cylons were or that there had ever been travel out among the stars.
But for now, Hera Agathon could remember back to a childhood on a huge ship, and to her time with the humans and their pursuing enemies, the Cylons led by Cavil. She remembered the Cylon woman who once took her from her parents, then later saved her from the Cylon who was going to kill her. She remembered how much like her mother this woman, Boomer, was, but how she could clearly see the differences when no one else except other Cylons could.
Hera looked out over the plains near her home village…watched women walk by with baskets of fruits balanced atop their heads, saw the rainclouds forming in the west. She wondered what the future of this world held for her children, and their descendants, and what would become of the Atlantians and the other settlers around the world that had come here from Galactica and her fleet.
Atlantic Ocean, approximately 700 miles west of Agadir, Morocco, present day
Aristotle Adamakos climbed out of the diving bell, stripping off his outer suit and looking aft to the large pile of artifacts recovered from the sunken ruins of what many believed was the long lost city of Atlantis. Looks like a bunch of junk, he thought. But it was amazing junk…Atlantis, long believed to be the home of an incredibly advanced civilization, had remained a legend for centuries until this recent find. And, as Adamakos thought, what a find. It blew the doors off many of the reigning theories about Atlantis. After a month's work, the Greek flagged salvage ship "Astral Queen" had recovered items that were shocking in their implication…that the civilization on Atlantis had not just been advanced by the standards of it's contemporary communities when it had been above the ocean, it appeared to be at a state near to that of present-day society, possibly in some ways more advanced.
Preserved in the depths were what appeared to be, of all things, aircraft…but of a design nothing like any aircraft on Earth today or in recorded history. The depths and cold water had preserved them in a remarkable state, and photos taken by deep-water robotic submersibles showed what looked like a sleek fighter and a blockier multi-seat craft. Other items included a few hand weapons similar to those in contemporary use, as well as what appeared to be computers, sophisticated tools, flight gear, and other items far ahead of their time. At first many believed that these items were just so much sea junk dropped by modern ships…but radiocarbon dating showed it to be approximately 150,000 years old, and samples subjected to material testing indicated some alloys that were not composed of any known elements.
Adamakos looked at some of the items in the vault of the Astral Queen. Since the first discovery of anomalous materials, the government had insisted on keeping some of the evidence secret, and Adamakos was one of the few aboard who still had access to the sensitive finds.
The amazing, and secrecy-inducing, items pointed to not just an advanced civilization, but an alien one. Oddly, all the printed words were in English, but the writing pointed to the true nature of the craft found on Atlantis…they were spacecraft. The sleek fighter was apparently a "Viper Mk. II", the larger, blockier craft was a "Raptor". The plates recovered from them indicated the Raptor had something called an "FTL Drive", the Viper (and presumably the Raptor) used "tylium" for fuel, the Raptor could carry nuclear weapons, and the Viper and Raptor both could function in space or in a planetary atmosphere.
The find was incredible. Adamakos wondered while looking at the remains if any of the aliens who came to Earth in these ships had landed anywhere else. He wondered what they looked like. No remains were found near the artifacts, not surprising given the ocean environment, but the tattered flight suits and the layout of the craft indicated creatures that were at least superficially very close to humans. The size of the seats and the suits indicated that they were indeed very close to humans, down to a glove with four fingers and a thumb and a pair of eyeglass frames with the standard two lenses.
A mystery…but a mystery Adamakos doubted would ever really be solved. More likely the Greek government would turn this find over to the British, or even the Americans, and it would end up in some place like Area 51, never to be revealed to the general public. After all, what would people do if they got a hint that maybe, in their distant past, they had ancestors from the stars?