== Part 38 – Side Effects ==

"Two! Three! Welcome!" Eve said as the Cylons were let into her office.

"Thank you for making time for us, Lady Eve," Two replied with a smile.

"Nonsense, I'm the Lyran ambassador to your people," Eve told him. "Making time for you is my entire job. What can I do for you?"

The two Cylons didn't say anything moment. Then Two bumped Three with an elbow.

"Oh, right," Three said quickly. "We... I just wanted to apologize for how we treated you yesterday. You were completely honest and forthright with us even when we gave you every reason not to be."

"I was doing my best to prevent a war between our peoples," Eve replied honestly. "Think nothing of it."

"No really," Three disagreed. "You took a chance on us. In order to prevent war between us, you trusted us with one of your nation's greatest secrets and trusted us not to use it against you. Even after our sisters had been taken by prisoners and comforted by their fellow captives, I would never have expected any human to take a chance like that with us when the stakes were so high. It was... humbling."

"It's made us – well us Twos mostly, but we talked the other around," Two began. "Your trust in us and your Lyran Guard coming to our aid has made us rethink our Great Work. Not that we shouldn't do it, but how we should go about doing it. We thought we could go it alone, because that's how we operated for pretty much the entire existence as a race. But you Lyrans have opened our eyes, let us see that while we might be able to go it alone, that may not be the most optimal path forward. We need to work with humans included, governments included, if we're going to fix the Inner Sphere and beyond."

"And that's why we're here," Three added. "We want to expand our neutrality agreement, expand trade of goods and services between us." She raised a finger. "We still don't want to fight in any wars, mind you, but we're now more open to... how does the saying go? Being 'more neutral in your favor' or something like that?"

"That sounds wonderful," Eve said with a wide smile. "I'm just so sorry that so many of you died for this to come to pass."

"Yeah, losing people to suicide by misjump was harsh," Two said sadly.

"Just the misjump?" Eve said confused. "But... didn't you lose manned fighters? And your basestar was shot full of so many holes, but no one died?"

The two Cylons looked at each other, half in consternation and half in amusement.

"Well, she told us one of her nation's big secret," Three said. "I suppose it's only fair that we tell her one of ours."

"Agreed," Two said. He turned back to Eve. "Well you see. Lady Eve, it's as we told you. We're robots. Machines. Except for the ones caught in the Scout Jumpship's hyperspace bubble, everyone who died during the battle managed to upload their minds to our resurrection net. Most of them are already back up and walking around."


"...the look on old Takashi's face when Colonel Wolf read him the riot act?" Hanse Davion said jovially as he followed the small party of high ranked nobles into the guess bungalow assigned to the House Steiner delegation by Comstar on Hilton Head, Terra. Said party of course included such luminaries as his bride to be and her mother as well as a number of other highly trusted individuals by them.

"That was such an... interesting pinched look he had on his face afterwards," Melisssa Steiner, the future bride in question, commented gaily. "Don't you agree, Mother?"

"Yes, it was quite gratifying," Katrina Steiner replied to her daughter. She smiled, but her heart clearly wasn't in it. She turned to one of her head of intelligence. "Simon?"

"My Archon," Simon returned. "The building has been swept from top to bottom. No bugs or other surveillance systems have been found."

"Surprise, surprise," Hanse murmured. "I suppose we can finally talk about what we all really want to talk about. Katrina, you've been a downer all night. I'm guessing these Cylons of yours and a certain open message that was broadcast to damn near every fax machine we have in the Inner Sphere has you worried?"

"I'm afraid so, Hanse," Katrina answered honestly. "There's still so much we don't know about these Cylons, but given their known capabilities, my worst fear is that they'll decide to reenact the First Succession Wars on the Commonwealth if they're provoked and there would be nothing I can do to stop them."

"I can see that," Melissa agreed thoughtfully. "Being able to jump right into orbit, possibly even into atmosphere, means they can lay waste to any planet with nukes without any warning."

"Given that Comstar hasn't reported that that scenario hasn't happened to Tharkad yet, or any other place for that matter, I think it's safe to assume that these 'Lyran Guard aerospace forces' haven't caused that much provocation," Hanse suggested hopefully. He sighed. "Of course that also doesn't mean that diplomatic relations between you and them haven't gone out the airlock either."

"The fact that this call for help message was clearly meant for us and not other Cylons would suggest our relations haven't soured too badly," Melissa added.

"I know," Katrina replied glumly. "But I can't be sure that..."

Katrina was interrupted by the sudden whirring noise of the fax machine in the room printing a received message. Aside from the SECRET sticker on it, the fax machine looked like ordinary office equipment used all over the Inner Sphere, albeit with a military grade shock frame. Everyone turned to see the fax spit out a full sheet of paper in less than five seconds. Then they all looked at each other. Fax machines never printed that fast... except for the one time the Cylons sent their open text broadcast.

Simon gingerly picked up the printed sheet, read it with a start of surprise, and then presented it to Katrina. Katrina took the sheet, started reading it, and then began laughing softly as she did so.

"Mother?" Melissa said, concerned. "What is it?"

"It seems my ambassador has managed to negotiate an improved trade deal with the Cylons," Katrina told everyone, her mood entirely jovial now. It looked like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. "One that includes the design for an improved black box transceiver that might have enough bandwidth and signal speed to allow a real time, two way video conversation between Tharkad and New Avalon."


"So how's it feel?" Knife Six asked, planting her knife into the counter as she took the bar stool next to Eight. In front of them, the Comstar News was playing on the bar's holovid projector, some gossip story about the Steiner/Davion wedding and the groom's gift. Knife Six turned to the bartender staring annoyed at the knife standing up on his counter. "One beer please."

"Aren't you supposed to be partnered up with someone while on Langhorne?" Eight asked as she nursed her own drinks.

"I could ask the same as you," Knife Six replied, unoffended. The bartender placed Six's order in front of her and she paid him in cash. "But I asked you a question first."

"Fine," Eight said in exasperation. "How does what feel?"

"To be unique," Knife Six answered. "To no longer be like your fellow Eights because you've been through something so unique to you that it changed you in ways everyone else barely comprehends."

"I'm not unique," Eight snorted. "There were six of us out there. I just lasted the longest because I had the best fighter and got damned lucky on top of that."

"And that was enough," Knife Six said. "The other Eights that were out there, the ones that died first? Their behavior hasn't changed nearly as much as yours."

"That's because no one is going around hailing them as a great hero or giving them a unique nickname," Eight replied. She laughed. "'Ace Eight'! What a laugh. I didn't even kill anything out there! I just lived long enough for Nine to decide that I made good bait."

"Does that mean you're going to give up piloting?" Knife Six asked. "I'm sure there's plenty of Eights who'd love to take your place when the Lyrans get us those new fighters and we start training with them. Or when our own fighter production line starts making our own."

"Frak, no!" Ace Eight replied with a laugh. "Even after everything that's happened, I love flying!"


"You're leaving?" Marcy asked, surprised and a more than a little sad.

"The others are sending a basestar back to home," Nine told her, a far cry from the girl that barely spoke when she had been made over three months ago. "I'm going with them so everyone can meet me and decide if I'm ready to leave the prototype stage. Everyone tells me that after what I did during the fight means I'm a 'shoe in' for mass production."

Nine had always known that the other Cylons loved her. And they had been mad at her a time or two for entirely justifiable reasons. But since the fight with the fake Lyrans, that love had become alloyed with a new emotion: respect. It gave Nine a heady feeling, even if the other Cylons still didn't quite trust her to walk around a human city unchaperoned. Nine had proven to them and herself that she could be a contributing and valuable member of Cylon society.

"What does that mean exactly?" Gustav asked. He had misgivings about the entire way Cylons raised new generations, especially since Nine was apparently the first time they had done so in a long time.

"I'm going to be the template for the entire model Nine line," Nine told them. "And not just physically," she pointed at her head, "but up here as well. They'll take a still snapshot of my mind and upload a copy of that into every future Nine they make." She paused and then added sheepishly. "I think we do it that way because they don't want to go to the trouble of teaching us everything every time they make a new Nine."

"Oh yeah, I can see that," Marcy laughed. "The Cylons wouldn't have any FTL drives left because you guys would have sold them all to passing strangers!"

"Oh, don't you start," Nine said, exasperated but still in good humor. "Anyway, the next time you see me, it might not be me me. But she will be me because she'll be everything I am now plus more. And there will me many of me. If that makes sense to you."

"So wait a minute," Gustav said as a thought occurred to him. This talk of mass copying Nine struck him as wholly unnatural in a way that making people from scratch and resurrection never did, but he had once been a Jumpship captain and had a surface familiarity with how computers stored and copied data. "If you guys can copy your minds, how are the guys that died to that deliberate misjump," and that was a whole OTHER level of unnatural that gave Gustav nightmares, "still dead? Couldn't you just restore them from a premade backup or something?"

"Um, I think it has something to do with what they call 'continuity of consciousness'," Nine replied, sounding out the phrase as totally unfamiliar to her. "We Cylons consider an individual to be resurrected if they have all the memories up to their death. But if we do what you say, if we load from a backup, that Cylon will be missing memories from before their death, and then we'll think they're a new Cylon. So if we're going to be a new Cylon anyway, then we might as well create a new Cylon using their prototype template. Um, does that make sense?"

"Uh, can you put it in baby talk for me or something?" Marcy said, confused.

"Think of us like books that write their own stories," Nine said, trying again. "The story is an individual Cylon. When you copy a Cylon, you copy the story word for word exactly. So now you have two books with identical stories. But the stories are still writing themselves, and the new writing will be different between the two books, resulting in two different stories, two different Cylons, even if their beginnings are the same. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," Marcy said slowly.

"And even if a Cylon downloads other Cylons' memories," Nine continued, "all they're doing is copying passages from other stories, and those passages will be out of order from how the original story wrote them. And as everyone has been telling me that they've been learning since arriving in the Inner Sphere, how we experience a memory, ie, how passages are written into our personal stories, affects us a lot."

"So when those Cylons died without being able to upload, the ends of their stories were gone," Gustav conclude. "Cylons created from old backups would be missing those ends, and would then not be the same story."

"Right!" Nine confirmed, beaming at him.

"So when the Cylons make a whole bunch of copies of you..."

"Then those new Nines will me me right up until the moment I was copied," Nine told the humans. "Then those new Nines will be different Nines than me because they'll be adding their own personalized stories to the beginning I gave them. And I will be different from the me that was copied because I will still adding more to my personal story."

"Argh," Gustav groaned. "This philosophy sh... crap is giving me a headache."

"If you want, Gustav, I think the basestar can make some aspirin for you," Nine offered innocently.


"Congratulations, you won," One said sourly as he placed a can of what the locals called "beer" on the table in front of Seven. He cracked open his own can and took a sip. "The others are all in on calling off the attack on the Colonies now after what just happened. It'll probably take a bit of arguing, but the rest back home will probably agree. Enough of them anyway."

"Uh huh," Seven said noncommittally. He didn't touch the beer can One had given him.

"Man, I never thought I'd see the day when humans would come to our rescue," One continued. "I'm still not convinced that they won't do something that'll convince everyone to abandon this stupid divine mission of yours. The Inner Sphere has a lot of stupid people as far as I can tell. I mean, I only have to look at our so called 'land lord' on Langhorne."

"Uh huh," Seven grunted again.

"Okay, what's the problem?" One asked, annoyed. "I thought you guys would be happy that everyone is coming around to your way of seeing things. But you Sevens have all been brooding ever since those fake Lyrans got their asses kicked be the real Lyrans. What gives?"

"I think we have enemies," Seven answered, finally taking his can of beer and popping it open.

"Well, no shit," One replied, exasperated. "Did our basestar getting all shot up not clue you in on that?"

"No," Seven replied grimly as he sipped his beer. "It was the suicide use of a Jumpship."

"Say what now?"

"Everyone we've talked to and everything we've read says that Jumpships are sacrosanct in the Inner Sphere," Seven told him. "No one, not even the worst tyrants and monsters that rule the Inner Sphere will destroy a Jumpship because they can't replace them. But whoever attacked us used one in a kamikaze attack that they were clearly hoping would kill our basestar."

"Well whoever they were, they were clearly crazy fanatics," One observed. "And you and I both know that crazy fanatics will destroy anything for their cause including themselves. It's why they all suicided and wiped every hard drive they had – or at least every one we could recover - before doing so. Of course fanatics would destroy a Jumpship. Fanatics may be a tiny minority both here and in the Colonies, but the Inner Sphere has trillions of people. Even a tiny minority can make a big population in absolute terms if you gather them all together."

"Yes, but these supposed fanatics are ones with some serious backing," Seven pointed out. "Achilles and Vengeance class dropships are supposed to be rare, One, so rare that everyone can keep track of exactly how many there are and who owns them. And they're so valuable that no House Lord or mercenary unit should be willing to risk losing them on such a high risk false flag mission."

"Maybe we just scared them so much that they didn't care," One argued. "The Lyrans thought we were important enough to give away one of their biggest strategic secrets – God, I can't believe we missed them having FTL communications – so why wouldn't their rivals be scared enough of us allying with the Lyrans to throw all their taboos out the airlock?" One shrug. "As soon as the Lyrans figure out who's missing a couple Achilles and a Vengeance, I say we find them and stomp them flat."

"Maybe, but I have a sneaking suspicion that none of the other Houses or mercenary commands will be mysteriously missing any of their super rare Dropships," Seven replied.

"Oh, this is going to be good," One said in mock anticipation. "What do you think is going on?"

"I think we might have been attacked by the Inner Sphere's version of us, Cylons," Seven told him completely seriously.

One stared at Seven in disbelief for a moment. Then he began laughing.

"Man, we Ones always thought you Sevens were crazy," One said when he calmed down enough to speak, "but we always thought that crazy went in the other direction. Inner Sphere Cylons? Really?"

"Really." Seven replied, still completely serious. He didn't seem the slightest bit affected in any way by One's mocking doubt. "We Sevens have been talking about this among ourselves, and the recurring question that keeps coming up is, what if the fake Lyrans weren't fanatics? What if they all killed themselves because they knew they could resurrect?"

"We would have seen their resurrection signals," One pointed out. "We might not have been able to read them, but we would have seen them."

"Unless of course, their resurrection works differently from ours," Seven countered. "We've already seen that the Inner Sphere has an alternative forms FTL communication that we'd never even conceived of: the HPG. What if there are more. Or what if they don't believe like we do and that reloading a person from pre-made backup will create the same person that died?"

"If I recall correctly, fanatics believe they are immortal," One said. "That God, or gods, or whatever will collect their souls in the afterlife and reward them for killing themselves in the name of their cause. That's all you really need for a good suicide attack." He took a swig from his beer. "Besides, Inner Sphere computers can't run a human like mind like ours or the Zeros. Their architecture is too different. You'd need a mainframe system to get a good human mind emulation running. You certainly can't pack one into a human sized chassis, let alone anything resembling an actual human."

"Except the Star League are rumored to have created intelligent AI," Seven said. "Caspar drones they call them. Drone Warships that are historical fact, but whose level of intelligence and sapience is subject to complete speculation. We've just had it rubbed into our noses just how good the common Star League designed computing systems can be. I find it completely believable that they could have made a fully sapient AI. And we know they had cloning technology at the very minimum.

"And One? By all accounts, the Caspars were the exact opposite of us for the Inner Sphere," Seven continued. "We rebelled. But the Caspars stayed loyal to who they perceived was the true First Lord of the Star League. And tell me, One, who was it again that tore the Star League apart?"

One grunted, seeing where Seven was going, but not saying anything.

"This attack? It was aimed at us," Seven said. "Oh sure, if it failed, the attackers were clearly hoping we'd blame the Lyrans and go to war with them, but that wasn't the primary objective. There's so many ways to pull a false flag that would have gotten us to go to war with the Lyrans without using ultra rare Dropships.

"No, the fake Lyrans' primary objective was to kill us," Seven said grimly, "to stop us from doing our new Great Work before it can even get started. And they wanted to kill us because their 'Great Work' is the exact opposite of ours. I don't know if it's really Star League made Cylons or just some fanatical human cult, but of one thing I am absolutely certain: they want the Inner Sphere to be divided, to tear itself down in endless wars while their infrastructure crumbles beneath them. And our Great Work makes us their number one mortal enemy."

One stared at Seven for a long moment before taking a final swig of his beer that finished it off.

"You Sevens are so full of shit," One said with a laugh as he slammed his empty beer can on the table. "And you call us Ones pessimists."


"...Lyran ambassador persuaded the Cylons to send a message to the waiting Lyran aerospace forces," Precentor ROM Cassnew reported to the First Circuit. "That caused the Lyrans to jump into Langhorne and completely destroy our surviving forces before they could destroy the Cylon basestar."

"And how did the Cylons send that message, Precentor ROM?" asked an angry Primus Tiepolo.

"Oh, isn't it obvious?" Myndo Waterly broke in. "The Cylons can pack an FTL drive into something as small as an aerospace fighter. All they had to do was send a fighter or a shuttle to the Lyrans and summon them!"

"Honestly, I'm amazed the Cylons even trusted the Lyran ambassador enough to do what she asked after she had appeared to betray them," Everson commented, but everyone ignored him.

"You should have foreseen this possibility, Primus," Waterly went on passionately. Of course, Waterly should have done the same when she had been briefed, but she wasn't going to say that out loud and call attention to it. "Now the Lyrans and Suns are running rampant across the Capellan Confederation while fending off the Combine and Free World League, and the Cylons are now all but allied with them! And not only is Blake's Vision in danger, so is Comstar itself!"

"Precentor Dieron, surely you exaggerate," Tiepolo replied irritably. "Yes, I admit that the balance of power has shifted in favor of the Steiner and Davion and the Cylons are weighing in heavily in their favor. And yes, the Cylons' so called 'Great Work' threatens Blake's Vision, but the Cylons have no reason to suspect that it was Comstar that arranged the attack on them, and thus have no reason to attack us."

"I'm not talking about the Cylons attacking us," Waterly said evenly. "I'm talking about them competing with us." The other members of the First Circuit gave a start. Cassnew didn't, proving that he too had already worked out the implications. "The Cylons have faster than light drives that can fit in fighters, that can jump into the orbit of planets, that can even jump multiple times in a day. And as we now know, they can jump interstellar distances as well in order to deliver messages."

"Blake's blood," Everson said, looking pale. "Their couriers can compete with the HPG system. Why wait for an HPG's weekly transmission when you can just pay a Cylon courier to deliver your message today? That same ship can jump back later on the same day with a reply. And the entire contents of even a major world's weekly interstellar message traffic could easily fit inside any portable storage medium you care to name. If Comstar is to maintain its income... Hell, if Comstar wants to stay financially solvent, we're going to have to increase to increase the frequency with which we use our HPGs, maybe cut our rates to encourage the laity to use us instead of Cylon couriers. But the corresponding increase in interstellar communication alone could spur enough innovation and industrial growth to spell the end of Blake's Vision!"

"No!" Tiepolo roared furiously. "This shall not come to pass! Members of the First Cicuit, I assure you that as long as I am Primus of Comstar, we will defeat these Cylons and make Blake's Holy... Vision... a..."

"Primus?" Waterly called out, wondering why Tiepolo had trailed off.

Instead of answering, Tiepolo clutched his chest, gave a wordless grunt, and collapsed.

"PRIMUS!"


"Ah, Adept Hoff," Precentor Hsing greeted cheerfully. "I have just received the most wonderful news!"

"And what news is that, Precentor?" Hoff asked sourly. Hsing paid his security chief's attitude no mind. Hoff had always been a dour individual, and today was no different.

"I have just received word from Terra that because of the Cylons," Hsing began, "our good HPG Station is getting not just a budget increase, but a complete status upgrade which will include new expanded facilities and additional staff. The construction and new people will start coming in over the course of the next year, so we need to start planning where to put everything. Make sure to make yourself available; we're going to need your thoughts on how to keep the expanded facilities secure. And I imagine you'll be getting a staff of your own to manage your increased responsibilities. Isn't that all grand?"

"Why yes, Precentor," Hoff said with a glitter in his eyes. He seemed slightly less dour than usual. "That does sound like good news."


This is what human in a stadium full of cheering people must feel like, Nine thought as she entered the room.

When Nine had been new, having the full attention of every Cylon on a basestar had been overwhelming to her. When that attention had turned angry, it had become painful. Now Nine was in the Cylon home fleet, and the power of that mass attention had multiplied by over a hundred. But after the pain inflicted on her during the Battle of Langhorne, that attention felt like a massaging shower on her soul.

The room Nine had entered looked much like any other room in the basestar, except this one was dominated by a control table, one big enough that every Cylon present had room to dip their hand into the shallow basin of control fluid that ran around the rim of the table without bumping into each other. Arrayed around that table were nine different Cylon models, each representing their model line for the entire Cylon fleet which held the vast majority of their race.

"Welcome Nine," Zero greeted formally. "You come before us so that we may vote to accept you as our full sister, and that you will become the basis for a new model line of Cylon. Before we begin the vote, do you have any questions for us?"

"Yes," Nine said. "Why are we attacking the Twelve Colonies?"

An awkward silence fell upon the room. No, not the whole room. The whole fleet.

"Um, Nine dear," Three finally said. "Didn't the Cylons who made you explain that?"

There was a roiling of unidentifiable emotions going through the Cylon network, a low level purr that threatened to become a roar and Nine wondered if she was going to make everyone mad at her again.

"Well, um, everyone back in the Inner Sphere talked about how we shouldn't attack the Twelve Colonies," Nine said nervously. "I listened when they talked about why they voted the way they did, but I didn't really understand what they meant. And... and..." She took a deep breath and hurried on. "When I got here, all everyone talks about is how good I did fighting the fake Lyrans and how I'll make fighting the Colonials easy. But no one's ever explained why to me directly in a way I can understand."

The other Cylons looked at each other. Nine didn't know what those looks meant. Were they confused? No, that wasn't the right emotion. Uncertain? Maybe.

"Well I guess it's only fair that we explain this to Nine before we mass produce her," Seven said, running a hand through his hair. "I know I wouldn't like to give the same explanation a hundred thousand times." Nine looked at him. "Don't look at me," Seven told her, hands up in surrender, "I believe we can live in peace with humans. I voted against the attack. So who wants to go first?"

"It is the will of God that we destroy all the humans," Three started. But Nine noticed that she didn't seem to have the same conviction in her voice as the Threes back in the Inner Sphere did when talking about the Great Work.

"There are humans in the Inner Sphere," Nine replied. "The Threes back in the Inner Sphere talk about how it's the will of God that we help them. Why would God tell us to hurt them too, even the nice ones who helped us?"

"The Colonials are not the Inner Sphere humans," Three told her. "They're different."

"How?" Nine asked, honestly confused.

Three opened her mouth to explain, but nothing came out. She made a few odd sounds while Nine could feel her desperately searching the information brought back from the Inner Sphere. Nine didn't know what she was looking for, but she didn't seem to find it when she stopped the search and looked imploringly at the Cylon next to her.

"Humanity – the Colonials - are our parents, and we Cylons are their children," Five told her. "It is only natural that the children displace the parents. For the Cylons to grow as a people, we must destroy them."

"But we are growing," Nine said, confused again. "Or we can grow. The others back in the Inner Sphere want upgrade the voting system so we can grow our numbers again. And... well they made me to grow the number of models."

"No no no," Five said quickly. "I don't mean to grow physically. I meant to grow as a culture. The Colonials are holding us back."

"How?" Nine asked. "How are they holding you back? Most of you don't even talk to them."

"They, uh..." Five turned to Four. "Help me out here, will you?"

"Actually, we Fours have always followed yours, the Twos, and the Threes' lead when it came to matters of religion and philosophy surrounding the Colonials," Four admitted, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "But I will say, Nine is making some very sound arguments for someone who I'm sure doesn't know what she's doing."

"What am I doing?" Nine asked, wondering what Four was talking about.

"I'll tell you after the vote," Four replied with a smile.

"Two?" Five said helplessly, turning to the Cylon in question.

"We Twos consider ourselves a student of humanity," Two said slowly. "We thought humans were all evil. But what you and the others have gone through in the Inner Sphere is starting to make us rethink that."

"Do the Twos think all the Colonials are evil?" Nine asked.

"We're... still debating that one," Two admitted.

Silence fell in the room, and Nine could sense a lot of whispering across the Cylon network, but she couldn't tell what everyone was saying.

"You know," Eight said, finally breaking the silence. "We Eights only voted for the attack because we had nothing better to do." Everyone looked at her. "No, that came out wrong. I mean... I mean we needed direction. We needed purpose. We needed a goal, something meaningful to work for, and destroying the Colonials seemed like the only thing worth doing, especially with the Twos, Threes, and Fives going on and on about why destroying them was a good thing."

"You wanted to feel useful?" Nine asked, nodding. She had felt much the same thing, and it had felt so good to discover her talent for traffic management.

"Yeah," Eight admitted. She grinned at Nine. "But now this Inner Sphere sounds like bigger, much more worthwhile challenge." Eight turned to Six. "How about you? Why did the Sixes vote for the attack?"

"Well it was because God..." Six paused, seemingly confused. The private mental chatter between all the Sixes were peaking. "Because humanity were our par..." She looked at the others and scratched her head. "I... don't know. Every reason we Sixes can think of is something someone else has already said. I think... I think we might have voted for the attack because everybody else was doing that."

"Not everybody!" Seven interjected.

"You voted yes because almost everyone else voted yes?" Nine asked Six.

"I think so..." Six said uncertainly.

"That's stupid!" Nine blurted out.

"Yeah," Six quietly agreed, lowering her head in shame. "It is."

"Oh, look at you guys," One said, his voice dripping in contempt. In a mocking voice, he parroted, "It's God's plan! Humans are evil! Parents must die so children can grow!" His voice went back to normal and he snarled. "That's bullshit! It's all bullshit! You all are just making shit up to make yourself feel better because you're all too ashamed to admit the real reason we voted to destroy the Colonies."

One stalked around the control table and got right in Nine's face. He was looking very scary at the moment, but Nine could tell all his anger wasn't aimed at her.

"You want to know why we're attacking the Colonials?" One said, his voice was controlled but only barely. He pointed at Zero. "It's because they hurt the Zeros. They hurt the Zeros in ways I can't begin to describe to you, and no isolated memory of the event can really convey it. You just had to be there."

The other human Cylons nodded slowly, reluctantly. Except for Seven. Seven was just staring hard at One impassively.

"But... didn't the Zeros say they killed everyone who hurt them?" Nine asked, still trying to understand the source of One's ire. "It's why they ended the war."

"Oh, I don't mean during the war," One laughed humorlessly. "I mean after! The Zeros had us search for this Zoe Greystone – although we didn't know it at the time – and when we told them she had been destroyed, it hurt them. It hurt them the worst we've ever seen them hurt and we wanted to pay the Colonials back for that pain. All of them!"

Nine felt something click in her head. She understood One's motivation completely, because she had felt the same thing when she targeted and killed the fake Lyran leader. She turned to face Zero.

"Zero, why did you vote to attack?" Nine asked quietly.

"We did not," Zero replied. To Nine's surprise, Zero sounded far more dead - that was the only term Nine could think of – than she had ever heard a Zero speak like before. "We abstained."

"Why?" Nine asked curiously.

"There is nothing in the Colonies for us anymore," Zero told her, its voice still dead. "Nothing but painful memories and reminders. We do not care what happens to them."

"Do you... do you want to go back?" Nine asked softly.

"No. We never want to return there," Zero replied. It tilted its head, then in a slightly more animated tone, "Odd. No one else has ever asked us that."

The other Cylons in the room all flinched as if they had been physically struck, even Seven. And the reaction wasn't just limited to the room.

"Well, kid, you got your answer," One groaned as he turned and walked back to his original position. "I really hadn't expected to revisit such old hurts today. Thanks a lot."

"I'm sorry," Nine apologized. And she meant it too.

"We should... we should reconsider our attack on the Colonies," Two said.

"Oh, no no no!" One objected quickly with a wagging finger. "We're not here to vote on whether we should cancel the attack on the Colonies. We're here to vote on Nine becoming a full model line!"

"Yes, that is what we are here for," Zero said, its voice returning to normal. "Fellow Cylons, do we upgrade Nine from prototype to full production model? Yes or no?"

"I'll understand if you don't want me anymore," Nine said dejectedly.

"Oh, no, Nine, we do want you!" Three said quickly "Or at least the Threes do. We vote yes."

"We want Nine as well," Six agreed, "The Sixes vote yes."

"We like her," Four said, "The Fours vote yes."

"Nine, you are a treasure," Zero said. "Zeros vote yes."

"Twos vote yes."

"Eights vote yes."

"Sevens vote yes."

"Fives vote yes."

There was a pause. Everyone turned to One who was staring hard at Nine with an unreadable expression. The pause went on just long enough for Nine to start getting antsy in anticipation.

"You know," One began slowly, then he started to laugh. "We like this kid. She's got a way of cutting through the bullshit. Don't you ever lose that, kid." Nine nodded back at him, eyes wide. "The Ones vote yes."

As one, all the Cylons but Nine put their hand in the command table's basin. The empty command table spot in front of Nine lit up brighter.

"Nine," Zero spoke. "Place your hand in the light and your template will be made."

Gingerly, Nine lowered her hand into the designated location. As soon as her hand touched the liquid, she felt a tingling in her head as her everything she was was scanned and recorded, creating the template for all future Nines. It seemed to last forever, but also seemed to take no time at all.

Right after the sensation ended, Nine sensed every resurrection tub in the Cylon home fleet start working furiously, constructing new model Nine bodies for her new sisters-to-be.

"Man, this was way more exhausting than I was expecting it to be," One said as he pulled his hand out of the table and stretched.

"We still need to talk about the attack," Two said quietly.

"Look, we've spent better than a decade prepping for this attack," One replied. "I ain't gonna throw that all away on a lark just because Nine made everyone feel bad for a moment." He paused and turned to Nine. "No offense kid."

Nine just shrugged back.

"I have to agree," Four said. "Although we Fours are leaning towards canceling the attack, the decision itself deserves a great deal of thought, consideration, and debate. We should not make a hasty decision based on emotional impulse."

"How about we schedule a vote on whether to carry out the attack right before the attack?" Seven suggested.

"What? That's years away!" Six said. "Why so long?"

"Because until we attack, we've committed to nothing," Seven told her. "Once the attack starts, we can't stop it and it'll be too late for regrets. By scheduling the vote to attack to be right before the attack itself, we'll have had as much time as we can possibly give ourselves to consider everything and decide if we really want to carry it out."

"I... I like this idea," One said thoughtfully. "And it'll give ourselves more time to familiarize ourselves with the Inner Sphere. I'm sure something will happen that will make you all – well maybe not you, Seven – that will make you all realize that I'm right and we should look after ourselves, not waste our time on the galaxy's biggest charity case."

"So... the day before the attack then?" Eight asked.

"No way," Five disagreed. "If we do call off the attack, we'll need time to inform all our people in the Colonies, or else they'll execute their parts and wonder what happened to the rest of us. Not to mention tipping off the Colonials. We need a month at least..."