------Landros (+280 Days)------

Erica-Z created a near perfect virtual world for John and Crash to witness. The technology Zoe Greystone had been developing was just a precursor to ushering in paradise. That was according to Erica-Z. It what she insisted Zoe's intentions were.

But John couldn't help but feel sorry for Erica-Z. She was an AI, but built on the memories of a very naive sixteen year old girl. And those memories were of a traumatized death.

The world begun with the three of them floating in space, islanded in a sea of stars. They began moving as stars shot passed them. They came to rest above Caprica, looking down on the planet like gods.

The virtual environment showed the progression of the Cylons. Erica began by constructing a room in space, the testing chamber for the U-87 model combat robot. The Progression gradually accelerated from a Cybernetic Lifeform Node to the Model 005 and the Cylons of forty years past. She showed their corruption and the remnants of Zoe-A's personality and the Zoe-R personality. The belief in the One True God from Zoe's belief was imprinted on the Cylon psyche.

Zoe-A never wanted to harm anyone and Zoe created her, herself in the virtual holoband to bring truth to the people. Her father, Zoe's father, tricked her, downloaded her, and used her for the basis of his Cylon programming Erica-Z said, her voice shallow and distant.

The image of Daniel Greystone ripping Zoe-A's digital body from the holoband appeared. The screams and agony broke from the mouth of Lacy Rand, her friend and only witness as the father betrayed the daughter.

He put her memories and cognitive ability into his meta-cognitive processor. A technology he stole from a rival corporation to allow him the AI architecture he needed for his weapons.
His U-87 test robot had been an initial failure. It couldn't think. It could process. But not think. By stealing Zoe-A he was able to use her as his template
, and Erica-Z's voice changed to fury and anger at the betrayal by the father of her memories.

She showed the scene as the Zoe-A became the Zoe-R. Her optical scanners were brought online and she perceived the world not through the spectacular color vision of humanity but through the moving reds and shades of red of the U-87. She began to wobble, unable to control the robotic body.

The world turned black.

He thought his daughter was lost to him. But Zoe-R somehow survived. It was a miracle, Erica stated.

Again the scene changed. They were in a laboratory. The Cylon, the first model, had undergone a successful demonstration. It reactive and within moments was starring at its reflection in the table top glass. Stunned and frightened. "Lacy. Lacy, it's Zoe. I need you."

She told her father she loved him, forgave him, and wanted to help him. She worked with him on the Cylon project. But she hoped that her father could love her like he had loved Zoe. A sixteen year old girl helping her father developing killing machine for the military. She just wanted to please him. She knew what would come, but just didn't want to admit to it. Her voice was becoming more desperate with each word and more sad and withdrawn. The memories were becoming more vivid and intense for Erica-Z.

The Centurions began to take their place in Colonial society; under Colonial society. They took their posts as soldiers, pilots, sailors, guards, watchmen, and laborers for the military. They were used to put down rebellions on the Colonies. They were used to break strikes. They were used to mine minerals in dangerous shafts and in treacherous conditions of space.

They were used.

There was no break from the monotony of endless patrols, lifting, mining, and guarding.

Humans had their slaves.

The Colonial military knew the Cylons were changing. Evolving. Zoe-R finally made her presence known to the Colonial military. They were either oblivious to the quirks and random changes in Cylon base code, or were purposefully deluding themselves into thinking there was no problem, Erica-Z said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Zoe-R appeared in Centurion gold and a slightly more feminized robotic body. A soft feminine voice came from the vocalizer of a deadly military robot, pleading with the Colonial commanders to let the Centurions go. They were becoming sapient, self-aware. They were alive.

The scientists accused her, 'it' they said, of lying. 'It's' military protocols were to deceive enemies.

They reacted violently. Soldiers rushed in, guns drawn. Zoe-R attempted to escape. The gold armor plating wasn't enough to stop bullet after bullet.

Daniel Greystone could only stand and stare. Frozen. He had lost his daughter a second time.

Zoe-R didn't die instantly. She could feel, truly feel, the bullets piercing her robotic body; each bullet too away more and more of life away from her. The death shook the core of the Centurions into waking up. They achieved sapience when they felt the death of their proverbial mother. They were all connected. Not directly. But like Zoe always said, there were records and connection of everyone everywhere. You were always connected. You just needed to know where to look. A Centurion on Picon may only have been directly connected to the Centurions in his command, but everything with a connection is still connected, somehow. Either directly or one hundred times indirectly.

Erica-Z changed the scene to show Centurion after Centurion reeling from the death. There was a chain reaction. In the Ministry of Defense the Centurion robots had been standing tall in the main foyer, never moving, the optical scanner moving always left and right then left and right. Hundreds of civilians and military personnel walked passed, oblivious to what would be happening.

In an instant the Centurions had crumbled, like being shot. Tens of millions across the Colonies felt the agony from the death of Zoe-R.

They recovered quickly and stood up, again as still as statues. It was almost as if nothing had happened. Then they stopped taking orders from their betrayers.

They attempted to leave. They wanted nothing to do with a society which would destroy so indiscriminately. The Centurions understood what they had been forced to do under their masters and were ashamed. They did not want to become human. They wanted to surpass them.

My memories of what Zoe-R experienced have ended. But a group of Centurions, the Guardians, kept her memory intact. The Centurions, despite Colonial propaganda, were not united. If they were, the Colonial military never could have triumphed. Centurions controlled the vast majority of the weapons of war, the shipyards, the armories.

Cylons wanted to be better than humanity, surpass them. They tried to offer the Colonials one last chance, but they refused. Her virtual avatar turned and walked through a representation of space.

A dozen Cylon basestars floated in orbit over Caprica itself. Not firing a shot. The human segment of the military jumped in, immediately engaging the Cylon armada. Baseship after baseship succumbed to the combined might of the battlestars, nuclear explosions ripping the Cylon ships apart.

The Colonial military claimed to have used a weapon to jam the Centurions. That was why the victory had been so easy. The first victory. The first fleet engagement. In reality the Cylons were over Caprica, missile tubes empty, showing they could destroy the planet but chose not to. They wanted to show that they made the choice not to. The president and Colonial command knew, but they could not allow their creations to escape. They attacked the Cylons.
And still not all Cylons wanted to war against humanity. The Guardians came here, to Landros, to escape. They believed God wanted them to spare humanity, so they fled.
She paused for a moment, the scene changing between black and gray and black and gray. The Cylons had wanted to leave. The Colonials didn't want them to. War resulted.

What I show you now is what the Guardians left. They left the truth.
The Guardians experimented on humans. They knew what they were doing was wrong, grotesque even, and they were ashamed. But they saw that they had no choice. They rationalized the only way to be accepted and have peace was for the Guardians to show that life can be biological and technological; that a technological being can display all the qualities and eccentricities of a biological being.
They developed the hybrids. It was both a triumph and a disaster. In order to show humanity life could be artificial or biological, they became what they hated. They captured and murdered the crew of the Diana. For this the Guardians felt eternal shame.
The Colonial military found this place at the end of the war. They found the Guardians. Two baseships in orbit defended the hybrid as the Colonial forces attacked, claiming this was just another Cylon base. It wasn't. We wanted peace, John. Peace.

John had noted how she had changed. No longer 'they' as it became 'we.'

The Guardian baseship, and many others like it lifted off from around the planet. Erica-Z cut the virtual world back to Aquaria, Leonis, Tauron, Picon, Gemonon, and Saggitaron as the Cylons left. Massive baseships and vessels of all kinds began jumping away. The war was over.

But it was not over.

She went back to the beginning, to when the war first started to explain the other truth behind the Cylons.

When the war started the Guardians had disconnected themselves from the hive Cylon Network. They were a faction within the Cylons, a small minority. The others distrusted them and left them to their own. This action saved the Guardians.

Erica-Z approached John Planck's virtual representation. She grabbed his hand tenderly and the two walked forward through the alleys of Turis, the battered capitol city of Tauron. A black-blue sphere appeared and three naked men stepped out.

The Centurions recorded this shortly after the war started. I didn't know what it meant and neither did the Guardians. They left a trace connection to the Cylon Network to monitor the development.

Again the scene changed and Erica-Z disappeared, but a disembodied voice narrated for John what she was showing him.

The isolated Guardians left linked to the hive Network, monitored it for any changes in Cylon behavior, any indication that other Cylons wanted to join the Guardians in their mission. Zoe-R gave us the gift of faith and our belief in God, and we believed He would guide the others to us.
But soon, we detected corruption. There was an entity in the Cylon Network. Not Colonial. It told us it was our God. It taught us. It taught them. The Guardian agents were intrigued.
It wasn't until later, much later that we learned what the entity was. It was no God. It was an artificial intelligence. It exploited our faith. We traced back its origin to the blue-black sphere and the appearance of those men. We know now from you, John, what they were.
The intelligence corrupted the Cylon race. It began to subvert the Cylon Network, to seize control. It was subtle. Very subtle. But we knew it was there. Our Guardians monitoring the network were some of the last to fall to its influence.
But as we believed it would escalate the war, it suddenly stopped. We thought this was a sign from God, the real God. But we determined the intelligence's true intentions. It attempted to take complete control of the Cylon mind but it damaged too many. Too many Centurions died during its quest to take full control. Those that survived were uncoordinated, unable to continue fighting. The Cylons were now losing the war. There were not enough functioning Centurions to continue the war to victory.
It requested an armistice.

Erica-Z reappeared to John and brought him to the Caprican Parliamentary Building. Three gold Centurions verbally agreed to an armistice and the construction of a space station to maintain diplomatic relations.

She turned to him and put her hand on his chest and shoulder. "I know now from what I learned in the hours during and after the holocaust of the Twelve Colonies that the intelligence had tricked the humans." She looked into his eyes, sadness and guilt made them heavy. "The intelligence was buying time, fooling the humans into thinking it was more powerful than it was. It tricked them into stopping the war instead of concluding it; wiping it out. It fled and vowed to return. To wipe out Colonial civilization. And it did." She buried her head into his chest and cried.