The 5th Race and the 3rd Age
by Hamburger73 and SilverInk
Disclaimer
All rights of the mentioned TV series belong to the TV studios that produce them. I own unfortunately only the idea of the scenario.
Predator1701: Thank you for this information. I have found the size of the Daedalus-class on the German Stargate-Wiki. Because of your review, I started another research for the size of that ship-class. And you won't believe it, but I found again something different. On the page Stargate Fandom com (it is in English), the size is 200 – 225 Meter x 90 – 95 Meter x 70 – 75 Meter (Length x Width x Heigth).
According to this size, the information comes from Stargate SG1: The DVD Collection. And they are supposed to follow the canon. It is interesting, because according to them the different ships of the Daedalus-class have different sizes.
So what shall I do now? I have decided that if I can't find the information in the German Wiki, I will search for it on the English pages. And if I still can't find anything, I will have to guess.
I have also decided for myself that I will only change the story again if there are serious deviations. The size of the ships like the Daedalus class is not serious for me.
I'd like to apologize to everyone who thinks this is a serious problem.
But it would be nice if all the readers would ignore these little things, and just read on with the story to the end.
I can promise all readers that there will be some interesting entanglements in the story in later chapters.
A simple "and then they lived happily ever after", will definitely not happen.
3. Happiness in disguise?
unknown date unknown system
Admiral Adama wasn't a lucky man these days. Not really. Not after what he had had to endure during the last 4 years. To say that it had been hell was a nice and friendly way to describe the situation for him and all the other surviving colonials in the fleet.
The most important officers and politicians were currently together with him in the briefing room of the Galactica, everybody was devastated. The fleet was out of resources and wouldn't be able to jump any further, as long as they did not finally carry out the urgently needed and completely overdue repairs and maintenance work on the ships in the fleet. But even then, some ships would probably not be able to continue their voyage.
His old ship the Galactica was one of these ships which wouldn't be able to travel any further. She was already a wreck. And the condition of the Pegasus and 3 Baseships of the Rebellcylons was only slightly better. Since the Battle of New Caprica, the Pegasus had been a shadow of itself. Due to the serious damage during the battle, among other things the entire armament had either been destroyed or there was no ammunition left, the Pegasus now served primarily as a military hospital and training ship. The damaged military ships would probably be able to jump 5 times more but that would be it. Then 157 civilian spaceships would not be able to last very long without their protectors.
The Cylons had only recently joined the fleet. And their arrival had not exactly triggered storms of enthusiasm, on the contrary. Of course, this really couldn't surprise anyone, not after what happened. It would probably also be a little too much for the surviving people in the fleet to forget the attack on the colonies with over 30 billion dead or the occupation of New Caprica. And whether the survivors would ever forgive the Cylons, which was now a question that was very difficult to answer. At the very least nobody would forget it.
This proved to be a problem when the food supplies that the Cylons had brought with them were to be distributed in the fleet, even though the rations had just had to be cut again shortly before. The only way to solve this was for the Cylons to deliver the supplies to Galactica and Pegassus, and from there the food was distributed to the rest of the ships.
Even then it was difficult with some, especially the more fanatical followers of Tom Zarek. They propagated that the Cylons only wanted to buy themselves free from their guilt. And of course they did not leave it unmentioned to say that anyone would betray the dead in the colonies and on New Caprica if they accepted these goods. Fortunately, in the end only very few people were really willing to do without the extra food. It's hard to argue with people like that when they're really hungry.
Another blessing was that the Cylons also brought uniforms, especially space suits. None had been produced since the fall of the colonies. It burdened Admiral Adama that he had to send some pilots in vipers or raptors into action without a proper space suit. Many of these pilots did not survive their first mission. As soon as the encapsulation of the cockpit of the craft was hit, the pilot was as good as dead.
That wasn't the worst part of the situation. There was still Cavil, who obviously knew exactly where Earth was. D'anna and Natalie had already confirmed that whenever the Cylon fleet had lost the colonials, Cavil had given them the direction where they should search. And a short time later they had found the colonials again and again. But Cavil had never told the other models where he got his information from. He would certainly attack soon. He still had a pretty impressive force of over 25 base ships. Cavil would certainly not give them the time they needed to carry out the repairs and perhaps produce some ammunition. Unfortunately, ammunition had become a scarce commodity in the fleet. It did not matter whether it was ammunition for the Vipers or for the large warships. If the Cylons finally came with their fleet, there would be a massacre. Not that this would have been the very first in this long war against the Cylons.
Yesterday they had finally discovered Earth in this solar system, only to discover that it had been a radioactively contaminated wasteland for many centuries. OK, they had found out that the 13th tribe consisted only of Cylons. But unfortunately that was all they had found out here.
Currently, only the people in this room knew what was really going on. But that was no reassurance, neither for Admiral Adama nor for anyone else. There would either be a mass panic or an uprising if the people learned the truth about the Earth and the fleet. Adama really wished, when he slowly looked at the faces of the others, that the situation would be a lot different after all. As he looked around, he realized that the members of the Quorum in particular were close to losing their heads.
Okay, Adama could understand this behavior. But that didn't mean that he would call it good, not that it would help them in any way. There were about 420,000 people in this fleet and he prayed that he would soon come up with a solution. After all, it was his responsibility to ensure the safety of everyone in the fleet.
In this moment a call from the CIC could be heard on the loudspeaker. Adama went to the panel and answered the call. "Actual here."
"Sir, we have something on Dradis." said the slightly worried voice of Lt. Gaeta.
"Alright Mr Geata, send the CAP out to investigate. We will be there in a minute."
Adama knew quite well, that it would be useless in this kind of situation to leave all the others behind in this room. Especially the members of the Quorum, but at lea they interpreted his gaze correctly – not to be in the way and to behave calmly.
As soon as the Admiral had entered the CIC, he asked: "Sitrep?"
"Sir the unknown appeared a few minutes ago at the edge of our Dradis range. Who or whatever that is, it is either flying very slowly or it's drifting. We haven't tried to make contact yet. The CAP should have visual contact with the unknown in a few minutes. Kat is leading the CAP. Racetrack and Skulls are supporting them."
"Ok" with these words Adama took the mic. "Kat, Racetrack, this is Galactica actual. Can you identify the unknown ship or at least confirm that it's not a cylon baseship?"
"Negative so far, Galactica." Both of them answered. "Sir, from my position I can tell, that this ship is definitely huge. It is at least 10 times larger than the Pegasus. And it really seams as it's only drifting in space" added Racetrack.
"Admiral that makes no sense." said D'anna Biers, one of the leaders of the Rebelcylons. "The colony might be large and a lot bigger than all the other ships that we have in this fleet, but she is not that big. So who ever that is, I don't think, that it's from Cavil's fleet."
"D'anna is right, Admiral. It doesn't look like it's coming from Cavil." confirmed Natalie Faust, another leader of the cylon rebels. "Fantastic and then who should have built it, the Lords of Kobol?" Colonel Tigh interjected questioningly with his cynical voice.
"Sometimes you have to roll a hard six." Adama said more to himself than to anybody else. Suddenly he had a strange feeling. It was almost as if someone was talking to him and urging him to fly to this unknown spaceship. But there was no one right next to him at that moment. So why did he now only have the impression that he would make a huge mistake if he didn't went there now?
When he looked some of the others in the eyes like Tom Zarek, Laura Roslin, Sarah Porter, D'anna Biers or Leoben Conoy, he recognized in their faces that they all felt the urge pull of this unkown spaceship as fast as possible. He didn't know how, still he knew that this was the truth. And he was also very curious about this ship or whatever that was. He only hoped that they would not make a mistake with this "excursion", especially a mistake that could not be corrected again.
"Ok, everybody up for a little trip?"
At first they looked at Adama very unbelievingly, but then everyone realized that this was something they had to do together. Meanwhile, the Admiral ordered the helmsman to change course and fly towards the unknown ship. The rest of the fleet would be holding position. Soon several Raptors and 2 Heavy raiders left the Galactica.
The closer they came, the more impressive the unknown object became. Nobody had ever seen anything so big in space. While some marveled silently, others mumbled again and again "Unbelievable".
Something was wrong with the unknown spaceship, Athena thought. "Admiral Adama?"
"Yes what is it Athena?" "Well something tell is telling me that we approach the unknown from the underside Sir. I will change the course so that we will come from the other side." "Yes please, and inform the others to stay close to us."
Due to the change of course it still took about 30 minutes until they could really see the object from the other side. "But this is an entire city. Helo, do you already have data about the size of this thing?"
"Admiral, I can tell you this city ship is really damn big. The diameter is about 24 km horizontally while the vertical diameter is about 840 meters."
No one who had heard the dimensions of this "city ship" could really believe it. Who had built this city in space and why? So far anybody had not been able to make radio contact with the spaceship. Were there people on board? And if there were, were they still alive?
"Could anybody explain to me, why this ship seams to glow in orange?" President Roslin wanted to know.
"No, I'm afraid, I can't answer that question." Helo answered. "According to the scanners, there is only this flying city. It could be a shield of some kind, but we won't get our answer here in space only on board that city-ship."
"A shield? I think your imagination is running away with you," Colonel Tigh replied.
"Well, can you explain what this could be otherwise?" Helo replied. Colonel Tigh left this answer with an angry look, but otherwise unrequited.
"Admiral, look over there. Can you see it? There are spaceships parked." mentioned Athena. Her eyes, due to the fact that she was a Cylon, were able to spot these objects much earlier.
"Ok that is interesting; please fly right past the spaceships Athena. Circle quietly a little above them. Can you see how many spaceships there are?" The Admiral wanted to know.
"Well, I can make out a total of five spaceships there. 4 of them seem to be identical to me. Helo can you tell us anything else?"
"Unfortunately our scanners aren't able to catch anything here. As you can all see, the four smaller space ships look like a small version of our Battlestars. But the biggest surprise here is, since we entered this "shield", there is an atmosphere."
"Ok, Athena find us a nice place, as close as possible to the center of this thing, were we can land. I guess we have to do rest the old fashioned way."
"Yes Admiral, I have discovered a good place where we can land all our ships." replied Athena.
Soon after the ships had been landed, and everybody has disembarked the small crafts, at first they all everyone admired the view. It was simply unimaginable how incredibly huge this city ship was. It must have taken years to build it, if not decades or even centuries. Admiral Adama knew that if such a spaceship had been produced in the colonies, it would have taken ages and probably would have used up all resources.
"What now?" Laura Roslin asked. "Where should we go now?"
"I guess we'll probably find most of the answers in one of those towers," said Dr. Baltar.
Some, like President Roslin, slightly spoiled their faces at that answer. Why did they take him with them again, ah yes, he was a nuisance and unfortunately the only capable scientist they had left. Everyone knew this, but unfortunately Dr. Baltar too.
"Well, we might as well try our luck with the Central Tower; I don't think it'd be so good if we split up." Lee Adama said.
"Why? What are you afraid of? Do you think there are ghosts here?" Starbuck teased him.
"Quiet, that goes for everyone. As long as we don't know for sure that we are alone on board and that there is no danger for anyone, nobody will walk alone. Is that understood?" the Admiral wanted to know. All members of his "travel group" agreed with Adama after a short moment of hesitation.
And so they all finally went on. This group also included 4 Centurions and a squad of Marines to protect everyone. The majority of them all went silent and they were all still very impressed by this city ship. They needed about 20 minutes on foot to reach the central tower. As they walked around the tower, they finally found a door. When Lee Adama, who was a little ahead, approached the door to examine, it suddenly opened as if by magic.
This unsettled everyone for a short moment, but they were too curious to finally getting answers. So they all entered the door. Suddenly they all heard a loud voice, "Freeze."
