Chapter 1: Prayers

100 days before Armistice Day.

Cassandra Turner née Forcat, the Undersecretary of Shipbuilding Industry, came home from a long day at work. She had worked overtime, as she often did.

Despite her tendency to work hard and long, she still managed to have a family life and good health. She must have won the genetic lottery wen it comes to not needing a lot of sleep.

She stopped her car, purple but otherwise unremarkable, on the driveway of her middle class house, identical to the surrounding houses, white fences and all, expect that the lawn was never mowed. She stepped and out and went through a path in the grass, outside of which the grass stood at waist height.

What is the point for having a piece of nature in your front yard if you don't let it be nature? She always thought. Naturally this attitude had brought her into conflict with the local home owners' association but she liked to annoy 'those little-minded self-centred people'. Only the high quality of what her car had under the hood and her house's location close to the centre of Caprica City betrayed that she was a lot more affluent then she appeared.

Ms Turner took her key and opened the front door. She ran to the simple kitchen to get herself something to drink. Whilst it was but a glass of tap water she treasured every sip as if it tasted like some sort of exquisite wine or exotic fruit juice.

Meanwhile her husband had appeared at the kitchen door. After she had put her glass away they gave each other a hug.

"Did anything happen at work?" He asked, whilst his hand went through her straight blonde locks.

"Yes," she replied "But you'd find it boring."

"Ah, I see." He wondered why he kept asking that if he nearly always received that answer. "Also, today I was called by my father, apparently my brother and nieces will be visiting him the weekend after the next. He asked whether we'll come along, so we could all see each other again."

"I'd love to, as it isn't like my side of the family ever invites me. But I'd thought to visit some of my friends from that old club then, though I could see whether I can move that a weekend earlier or later."

He wondered why she preferred the company of the people she met in that, now defunct, boardgaming club over that of his own family. Though, considering what he knew about her family that might not be unexpected: in her late adolescence, her mother died a slow agonizing death from some rare disease with an unpronounceable name. Then she had a crises of her faith, whereupon her over-zealous father had thrown her out of the family for 'disrespecting the Lords of Kobol'. In order to strike back at him she became a heretical unitarian, took on her mother's family name, Forcat, and left Gemenon forever.

So far he knew she had never talked to her family again.

She then drowned her sorrow with work, throwing herself at her university studies, achieving the best scores of her class in all subjects, and later climbing many corporate ladders. A few years ago she decided that this was not her 'purpose in life' and instead went over to the Colonial Ministry of Industry (where, apparently, the bigwig decided her quirky nature made it hard for her to usurp his position and made her his most trusted aide, though hearing Cassandra her high position had more to do with the ministry being filled with lazy idiots).


The same evening Ms Turner was in her son's bedroom in the attic. Only the lights of the city prevented the stars from being seen from the roof window. The room itself was lighted by a weak lamp whose shade was decorated with paper fish, throwing shadows at the walls.

She was reading a bedtime story to her 11-year old son to reward him for doing his homework and tidying up his room. It was the Redemption of Zok, a fantastical story about a friendly monster who defended humans against others of his kind. Strange enough, the mother seemed more intrigued by the story then her own son.

After she had to stop halfway, it already was getting late, she encouraged him to talk about what he thought about the story. In the first few minutes they were mostly talking next to each other, the son blabbing about Zok's cool abilities, the mother complaining about plot holes. Then they found overlap.

"You know, he really is a cool hero." He finished.

"Yes, and a nuanced character." She added. "He made did good deeds but in doing so he betrayed his own kind."

"But," He replied, already used to such debates. His mother liked them. She was convinced they were good at developing ones reasoning. "The monsters are the bad guys. So doesn't that make him a good guy?"

"Hm, I had not looked at it in that way. But then I'm more used to 'grey' stories without a clear distinction between good and evil. In those tales it would be doubtful that the humans would turn out to be less cruel to the monsters then the monsters were to them. Zok, himself, would be looked down upon as a traitor by his own race whilst the humans he saved would still distrust him and see him as an abomination."

"Oh come on it won't be that bad. He showed everyone that, at least sometimes, the two species can live in peace. Plus, all the people he saved owe him. Surely that must count for something."

"Ah, well argued." For an eleven year old. She added in her mind. "But I still would have severe doubts about that in his case, but then, even so, I might still do it. Sometimes ones only choice is declaring the least bad option, the best one."

"Well, I certainly would."

With that they ended their conversation. They still hugged and wished each other goodnight before she left the room.


That night, when Ms. Turner was alone in her room, her husband Anthony Turner taking a shower, she again prayed to the above for answers with her whole heart. Was that loathsome, blood soaked path that she was ordered to go on really her destiny? She doubted it.

But, alas, like all other times she did not receive any easily discernible answer. What was that supposed to mean, if it meant anything? Was she supposed to make her own destiny?

If so, she was making quite the mess of it. She had procrastinated for so long now mere months were left. But then all options before her were bad, no, catastrophic, so no wonder she had postponed it for too long.

Then she thought back to that bedtime story. Maybe her prayers for guidance had been answered after all?

Possibly, it might just as well be coincidence, in fact it probably is, as it came so late. But still the path it is pointing towards is increasingly looking like the least bad option, as she didn't want to explain to her husband and kids why she did nothing to prevent her in-laws and their friends from being nuked.

I can't let billions die by standing idle. She decided. She did not believe herself to be one of 'those delusional people' who see a dozen deaths as a tragedy and a dozen billion as a mere statistic.

Certainly there have be to some innocents in the population of the Colonies? Even if only enough billions to be counted on a single hand. She knew humanity, after all.


A bit more than 13 years earlier.

Humanoid Cylon 3-156-B7-20 was sitting on her coach with a smile on her face. Whilst her apartment was rather small and drab with but few decorations, she did not really care as, using her ability for projection, she had long made herself a much better dwelling.

She imagined a giant hall, Caprican pillars, arches in the Virgonian school, stained glass windows showing spectacles from Aerelonian mythology, floor mosaics in Canceran geometric style, marble statues of rulers past and, lastly, her couch was a majestic gilded throne, in-laid with rubies, sapphires and emeralds. How fitting. The throne-warmers past thought themselves better than the commoners surrounding them because of their 'blue blood', and was the superiority of her blood not more than a mere delusion? Let the Threes back home or beneath her dream of their cathedrals; in her time here she had decided a royal palace fitted her more.

She stood up from her throne to look outside the window of her palace to see the flying busses and ground bound cars pas on the tree-lined boulevards of Caprica City, just outside the apartment building.

She was lucky to have so many favours to call in, but that was not surprising considering her position, her competence, and the wave of infiltrators she belonged to: late enough for there to have been earlier agents to construct a good cover for her, but still early enough to advance to a high position in human society and then still have time left to help a lot of her greener sisters and brothers to advance their career. And, of course, every Cylon she helped in that or another way owed her.

And now, she thought while her eyes went over the lines of trees between the concrete, the time has come for them to help me.

According to what she has heard about the debates back home, they were about to abort that which was often nicknamed 'operation Sleeping Mother'. It was an experiment to test the viability of a Cylon-human hybrid. They were fascinated by the idea of having children back home, though after having seen real babies herself she did not quite understood why, yet they had not succeeded in making pure Cylon offspring.

The procedure of 'operation Sleeping Mother' was simple: already a few sleeper agents, which for some or other reason ended up in a mostly worthless position, were reprogrammed to fall in love, get married and have children. Whereafter the whole family would disappear.

Unexpected problems had occurred, especially in the penultimate step. It was almost as though someone was sabotaging the project from within.

These failures, however, failed in getting the project's proponents to abandon it. She would have thought it must be something like the 'sunk cost fallacy' or the 'forbidden fruit effect' she knew about from the courses on human psychology she downloaded before leaving, if she had not known Cylons were simply too rational for that.

Now, in their desperation, some of them had suggested active infiltrators be used instead. This was fervently opposed by the Ones claiming security risks, though it did not look like they were winning the debate.

So she started to gather support prepared to lobby. As a way to ensure that, should the child seekers' proposal come to pass, the chosen would be picked from among the most trusted Cylons. Cylons who could fit in perfectly. Cylons who have already proved their utmost loyalty with their many contributions. Cylons who have succeeded in surrounding themselves with new agents, so they can be watched constantly should their loyalty waver.

In one sentence: Cylons like her.

For she does not want to experience another near miss or, worse, something like that one incident involving 4-1E7-16A-1F. She then had, for over a year, nightmares wherein she was lifted out of her bed by Colonial Domestic Intelligence Agency officers in the middle of the night. Luckily, that malfunctioning Four was successfully dealt with. (And she later found a way to reprogram herself so she no longer peed in bed out of fear due to her nightmares.)

She had already an idea who she should pick as her partner should she have the honour of being chosen: Anthony Turner.

She knew him from her time at the university. (Personally, that was, not as one of the other Threes who had sent parts of their memories back home to create 'blend in'-protocols, so later arrivals wouldn't end up as some out of touch weirdos who can't operate a coffee machine less than two decades old, never heard of all those awful TV series everybody watches, and uses words only found in dictionaries.)

He was one of the few good people she had met there. She fondly remembered that time they placed plastic insects in the boots of the student fraternity 'elders'.

Afterwards she had kept contact with him as he was a good source of contacts and made an interesting conversation partner. And, maybe, because she had grown to like him— being with him, she corrected herself, after they battled that student fraternity together.

She expected he wanted her, or could easily be manipulated into it. And would likely make a good father for her child. She was sure she had not fallen in love with him. Falling in love with an inferior un-designed human? The idea alone...

She stepped away from the window back into her coach— throne.

But first things first. She had to make sure she would be chosen if the proposal passed, in order to prevent a less reliable Cylon from developing attachments to a human. Unlike her purely scientific and expedient interest in Anthony Turner.

So she had to find a way to stay up to date with how the debate went back home, find a way to contact her 'clients', whom she usually never saw again after placing them on a useable position, and get them to form a smooth part of her lobby and of course manage to convince some other influential Cylons, that should suffice. All in all a difficult and large task, but by no means impossible.

She had, after all, learned from the mistakes she had made when supporting someone else's proposal for a trade treaty with the Colonies. Using their intelligence advantage over the Colonies, they could rip them off whilst those silly humans thought they were the ones profiting most.

But hers, and a lot of other's, efforts were in vain. The proposal was shot down under the guise of not being worth the security risk. She found that odd coming from the same Cylons who were planning to throw identical looking spies around as though if they were confetti. According to current plans there should be one agent, sleeper or active, for every Battlestar Group within the next two decades. As they are supposed to be better informed back home, they surely must have a good reason for it which goes above my head. Or so she hoped.

Now, if this time her influence prevailed, she had but one thing to worry about: not developing attachments to her husband and soon to be in-laws. For it was always possible that resurgent Colonial militarism would force them to pre-emptively nuke the whole place, something she often feared. Because we, Cylons, then no longer would be able to steal technology from them, not because I'm developing an attachment to these primitives or something.

"Humans do not value life the same way we do." She whispered to herself, thinking about all the terrible things the Colonies had done to each other in their history, even if their cruelty shot themselves in the foot.

But then avoiding too many attachments should be easy: she was a machine, after all. Well actually only half, but that's close enough.


Authors Notes:

A warning to any readers: this is my first fanfiction ever and English is not my native language (though I did use multiple drafts). I hope it does not show.

I originaly wanted to make her self deception about her motives more clear using strike-throughs, as then one could clearly see which of her thoughts she does not dare to admit to herself. But then it turned out that strike-throughs don't get converted into story format so I had to improvise, I was already wondering why nobody else used them.

Also should anyone want to go directly towards the action I'd recommend going towards chapter 8 as that's when the Cylon attack should begin.

Edit: it looks like to story is starting to veer into AU territory.