Caprica News Network studio
Caprica City, Caprica, Helios Alpha, Cyrannus System
"Welcome to the Basil Midas hour, I'm your host, Basil Midas, and we have one great show for you tonight, people." the news broadcast began with the main talking head in his expensive suit, thick makeup and hair-dye, shining his overly whitened teeth at the audience.
"First off, and you all know about this by now, but President Adar announced last night that the Colonial Fleet had made contact with a previously lost tribe of humanity." the puppet-like expression on the broadcasters face shifted to a comical attempt at surprise, "Not the Thirteenth Tribe, not lost colonists from our own early space-travel era, but an entirely separate tribe of Kobolian origin!"
"We have Professor Sophia Schliemann of the University of Caprica's history department to explain our current knowledge of this unknown tribe, which some on social media have jokingly taken to calling the '0th Tribe', as a reference to their apparent early exodus from Kobol. Professor," Midas flashed a fake smile to the guest and the camera shifted to focus on a well-dressed professional looking middle-aged woman.
"Thank you Basil, it's really a pleasure to be on the show," she had to give the mandatory tribute to the host's ego, before continuing, "Now, as we know from President Adar's press release, an element of the Colonial fleet on a routine patrol in the outer Helios Delta system came upon an unknown ship in distress."
The cameraman made sure to flick back to Midas, to show the man nodding along, so everyone at home knew that he was completely familiar with the ongoing situation.
"First contact was made, Admiral Nagala met with the unknown ship's commander in person, and it's from this meeting that we have some hints as to the origins of these unknown humans. They call themselves Prometheans, and apparently arrived in the Cyrannus system by accident while testing an experimental jump-drive." Professor Schliemann looked vaguely uncomfortable being on television, but spoke in a steady, confident tone. "I'm sure the name alone is enough for many of our viewers to guess as to their origins."
"As our viewers are aware, the Sacred Scrolls tell us that the Twelve Tribes left Kobol after some cataclysm a few thousand years ago, and ended up settling the Cyrannus system. We also have records of another tribe, who we call the Thirteenth Tribe, that left Kobol around two thousand years before that, and founded the lost colony of Earth."
"This newly contacted tribe, according to the brief history provided to Admiral Nagala, left Kobol even earlier than the Thirteenth Tribe. According to their beliefs, their ancestors left Kobol perhaps as early as eight or nine thousand years ago, which is a time period only sparsely attested in the Scrolls."
The camera moved back to focusing on the main man, Basil Midas, who had what he thought was a scholarly look on his face, spoilt by an unusual raised eyebrow. "Yes, I believe historians have previously estimated that the Titanomachy may to have occurred at around this period, with an estimated timeframe of the Lord Zeus's final victory over the Titans at around... eight-and-a-half-thousand years ago? This tribe having left Kobol at around the same time brings up some interesting possibilities, doesn't it?"
"Yes, that's right Basil, according to what we do know from the Scrolls, and some lesser known tablets uncovered a few years ago from an archaeological dig on Leonis, we are reasonably confident in placing the Titanomachy in the time period of eight to nine thousand years ago." Midas nodded widely after his point was acknowledged.
"And again, you're right in that the existence of a tribe with such an early departure from Kobol has a lot of fascinating possibilities for historians, religious scholars, archaeologists and anthropologists." Schliemann waited for the camera to return to her before speaking again, "According to President Adar's press release, the tribe refers to itself as Prometheans, and are descended from followers of the Titan Prometheus, who is primarily known, in our own versions of the Scrolls, for attempting to go behind Lord Zeus's back and win control over humanity by presenting humanity with fire, which had been confiscated due to humanity's sins."
"The existence of a tribe calling itself Prometheans, and stating themselves to be descended from that Titan's followers, gives additional support to these myths, as it shows that the Titan really was successful in winning over at least a portion of the tribes then living on Kobol."
"Doesn't it also imply that they are a lot of Titan-worshipping heathens, who must presumably view Lord Zeus and the other Olympians as usurpers at best?" Midas looked quite proud of this idea, "They could be dangerous, at least the Monads didn't actively worship the enemies of the Lords of Kobol, they just denied they all existed."
"It's likely that in the past they did have some form of Titanic faith, but according to the information passed on to Admiral Nagala, the vast majority of the Prometheans today are in fact atheistic or agnostic; and there are a number of different faiths among them, which have apparently evolved in the near ten-thousand years of isolation that the tribe has had. We have to remember, Basil, that the Titan Prometheus was captured by Zeus after he gave fire to the humans, so while they may have followed Prometheus, they couldn't have had any interaction with him after their original conversion to his worship."
"I suppose that's a good point, as we all know the Lords of Kobol made regular appearances on Kobol right up to the cataclysms, and they continue to appear to believers today all across the Colonies in our times of need. The Titans, they were all cast down. I doubt any Promethean has ever been saved from disaster by prayer or godly intervention; no wonder they've all become atheists."
"Absolutely. The appearance of the Prometheans has also caused some scholars to reinterpret those parts of the Scrolls that mention the brief fight for dominance over humanity between Prometheus and the Lord Zeus; and the gift of fire to the sinners. It had been proposed before, that 'fire' could be an allegory for information or even technology, but Bishop Nicholas of Mangala has proposed that perhaps it was a reference to space-travel, and that Prometheus provided his followers with starships, with which they used to leave Kobol."
"Do we have any idea where they went, where their colony is, or any information about their colony? Have they stagnated, and only now discovered the jump-drive technology which brought their ship here, or have they had interstellar starship technology since they first left Kobol? If so, they could have dozens, maybe hundreds of planets?"
"No information has been released publicly, other than that their home is very far away from the Colonies. I have heard, from a friend in the fleet, that they may have some technology a bit more advanced than our own, and that the Government is hoping to trade aid for access to some of this tech, but that is only a rumour at this stage."
"Hmm, we'll have to see what happens in the next few days. Thank you Professor for joining me, now, on to our next segment." Midas didn't even wait for the Professor to leave before launching into the introduction for the next story, "Fishermen in a rural Aerilonian village have found a patch of algae that they say resembles the Lady Demeter."
Star Destroyer 'Wrath'
Cyrannus System, Colonies of Kobol
It was nearly feeding time, and a droid would be up soon with the small, low-quality imitation of a meal that they gave to those who found themselves in the brig. As petty as it was, he was always amused by the disgust of the prisoners when they saw their only rations.
Rumours more bizarre with every retelling had run through the ship at light speed over the last day. By the time the rumours arrived at the Detention Level, they said that the ship's travel through the black hole had sent them all through a portal to the past, and that they were going to raid the Old Republic to install the Captain as Emperor.
MK-177 had laughed with the other guards when they heard that, and gone back to work. The Captain had given an explanation not long after on the ships coms, explaining that they really had travelled to a new galaxy, that they had found a local human civilisation and had negotiated a deal, and that their new allies, the so-called Colonies of Kobol, would help repair the ship.
The Captain had also explained that they would have to pretend they were not from the Galactic Empire, but instead from some made up new state called the 'Promethean Colonies', which they would say existed in the far reaches on the other side of the galaxy from their present location.
It had all sounded like bits from some old novel about the early days of the Old Republic, when all the ancient worlds' explorers were meeting up and having their first contacts with each other.
For some reason they were going to try and trick the Colonials into believing they were their long-lost cousins. He had been too tired to really put much thought into that yesterday, what with the battle and the death of the emperor and the fact that they had flown into a black hole, and everything else, also lingering in his mind. Today he had found himself wondering how good he would be at playing the part, could he convince them? He thought so.
Supposedly some of the Colonials were already onboard the Wrath, but none had come to their sector yet. MK-177 wondered about trying to go and find one of them, after his shift was up. He had gone straight to bed as soon as he was done working the day before, but if he could find one of these Colonials, he could test out his acting skills and try to find out some more about their own people.
Currently there were only a handful of captured rebels and pirates in the detention level, and most of them had been in there for weeks now due to the ship's recent busy schedule preventing them from transferring anyone to a regular prison. They could keep them for as long as they wanted, they were the Empire, and these were criminals, they had no rights anymore.
MK-177 enjoyed seeing them in their cells, especially after a session with the interrogators. The rebels were scum, terrorists, murderers. They deserved a bit of roughing up every now and then, and far worse than that when they admitted to or were found guilty of their crimes.
Before he had joined the Stormtrooper Corps, and had replaced his mother-given name of Marat Kavell for the standardised initials and numbers, he had been a trainee tailor, sewing traditional and ceremonial costumes for villagers on his homeworld.
Years of service in the Empire, and seeing what the rebel bastards had done to so many of his friends, to so many loyal Imperial citizens across the galaxy, had driven him to despise the rebels with his entire being. For all that the Chandrilan bitch might claim the moral high ground for herself, their rebel alliance included plenty of groups that were perfectly happy blowing up civilians at pro-Empire rallies or murdering people for merely being loyal.
"Feeding time," the officer in charge of the current guard shift announced, as the droid entered with it's main compartment containing so-called food for the nine current inmates.
Once they were done with this, their shift would soon be up. Where would the Colonials likely congregate? He could always just wait around the hangar and hope they turned up sooner or later for a ship.
Colonial Heavy 798
En-route to Helios Delta, Cyrannus System, Colonies of Kobol
Secretary of Education Laura Roslin sat in the comfortable passenger transport, snug in the plush upholstered seat with her aide Billy next to her, a pile of reports stuffed into a briefcase in front of her, and a mind that had been racing ever since Richard had told her where she was going.
She had always had a bit of an interest in the Sacred Scrolls and ancient Kobolian history, so the thought of meeting another tribe with potentially so much to share about their early history was exciting, although Admiral Nagala had apparently told Richard that the Prometheans were all atheists and might not actually have any of their equivalents of the Scrolls onboard, due to the lack of worshippers on their ship.
Even so, meeting an entirely new tribe of mankind that had been lost for so many thousands of years would be fascinating, even without the religious/Kobolian angle. Supposedly they had plenty of fancy gadgets that Richard wanted her to look out for, including some sort of hologram projector.
The main purpose of her visit though was to act as an official government liaison to the Prometheans. Admiral Nagala may have been within his legal rights to contact them first, and craft their agreement around fixing up the Promethean ship in exchange for a look at their tech, but it had still ruffled some feathers in the civilian government. Richard wanted one of his trusted ministers to deal with the Prometheans directly, and oversee the completion of the repairs to their ship.
The Quorum was apparently already discussing whether or not the Prometheans, if they were to join the united Colonies of Kobol, would be recognised as a Fourteenth Tribe equal to the others. There was still an empty seat saved for the Thirteenth as per ancient tradition, but nobody had ever considered the existence of other human groups beyond Earth.
The more religious members argued that, as the Prometheans were not followers of the Lords of Kobol, they were not eligible to be full Quorum members, and would be treated as a non-sovereign territory like the inhabited moon of Hibernia, or the few small extra-Cyrannic colonies like Ithaca. That then set off arguments as to which world would have governorship over the Promethean territory.
It seemed like most were content to leave the Prometheans as a separate body for now though, apparently their colonies were on the far other end of the galaxy, and their experimental jump-drive was too badly damaged to repair completely, so they would almost certainly not be able to make the immense journey back. And if it was true that they had no prior knowledge of the Colonies or their location, and arrived in the Cyrannus system by accident, it was unlikely any future Promethean ship would travel to their territory.
The Colonies of Kobol therefore would likely not have governmental or other links with the Promethean home-worlds any time soon, so there was no need to argue over whether or not they should have a seat on the Quorum. They could just give the Promethean crew members citizenships on one or more colonial worlds, and skirt around the problem that way?
So far no planet had volunteered to host them, so they would need to draw up some new legislation to deal with non-citizen humans. It had been shared at the highest levels of the Colonial government that the Battlestar-sized ship held a crew of almost forty-thousand, as well as containing another ten-thousand so called "Stormtroopers" who were the equivalent of the Colonial marines. That was quite a few more foreigners than any one world would be happy accepting in one go.
"Attention passengers, this is your Captain speaking. We will be arriving at the Atlantia in approximately one hour."
Unspecified Location
Somewhere beyond the Armistice Line
"All this nonsense in the Colonial media about these Prometheans, is this our doing?" one of the Twos asked, honestly unsure if this was some sub-plan the Ones had simply not seen fit to inform them about. It wouldn't be the first time.
"No, actually it appears to be the real deal, though we only have sleepers in the nearby fleet units, so we have to rely on the Colonial media's knowledge of the situation for now. That said, the addition of one half crippled foreign ship far from home to the board doesn't change any of our calculations beyond of acceptable parameters, all plans are to go ahead, with the transfer of one Basestar team to deal with this Promethean ship."