New Forum of Kobol

107 years after the final battle, 57 years after the Resettlement of Kobol

"It's been a long, long road." Cavil said, his broadcast called out over the large viewscreen setup in front of the Forum. A great opera house lay beside a massive domed structure, built upon the foundations of the old world. "The sons and daughters of Kobol have returned once more. The price in blood has been paid."

Cassandra watched the moment with reverence. Of all the survivors of the Exodus, only Cavil hung on, and his attendants assured the descendants that his days were few. All had come to see the dedication of the New Forum. Some thought that Cavil merely drew breath that he might see this event, the symbol of a new beginning for the people of Kobol. Recordings were made for those who still lived on New Caprica, for some of the more stubborn Colonials did not feel like leaving their old home. The last jump-capable ships were worn, now, and soon the two branches of the Colonies might be separated for a time. But hopefully not for long. Off in the distance, she saw the tall spire of the new spaceport, still under construction.

Cassandra Summers opened her great-grandfather's weathered book, adding her own observations to the ancient, worn pages, as her family had for generations. The printers would create their own copies later, but for her it was not complete unless the words appeared here.

She wrote the words on the final page – there was no more room in the old book – and signed her name at the end. Thus, the chapter of Cassandra was finished. There would be no more.

And so, the Exodus comes to a close, and the Thirteen Tribes of Kobol see the end of the long night. The last of those who took the journey will soon leave us. The dawn has begun. All of this has happened before, but gods-willing, shall not happen again.

William Isard took the stage and cut the ribbon at the Forum's entrance after a short speech of his own. Families poured inside, marveling at the stone columns, the great dome at the center, and the massive, opulent opera house, now the center of Kobol's night life.

On the outskirts of the City of the Gods, there were still ancient, haphazard structures built out of a mishmash of salvage metal and local wood stock. But those were gradually being replaced with tall, steel structures, covered in glass. Further out, great farms stretched as far as the eye could see. The Tribes of Man were spreading out across this world. Those hamlets were slowly acquiring an elegance to them as well, less like refugee homesteads and more like the houses seen in the ancient films recorded on the surviving computers.

But nothing, Cassandra thought, compared to the New Forum. It was an architectural achievement to rival the pre-Exodus days, carefully designed to match the old Caprican Forum, itself a mirror of the previous Forum of Kobol, upon which the New Forum had been built.

William descended from the platform and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, wrapping his arms around her. "Cassie! Did I do okay? You know how much I hate big speeches."

Cassandra closed the book and dropped it into her book bag. She smiled. "You did great for being a big idiot." She laughed and jabbed him in the stomach teasingly. "And it was good Cavil wasn't entirely out of it today."

William frowned a little at that. "Well, his time is short… and I think he wanted to make it meaningful. He was saving himself for this, I think."

She nodded. "I don't think anyone can complain after living that frakking long, though."

"True," William said. "But when he passes on, it'll be like it's really over. All of it."

"And thank the gods for that. I read about what our ancestors did, what they survived… Let it all be over, love." Cassandra smiled and kissed him again. "It's a new dawn."

She walked hand-in-hand with her fiancé, stopping beneath the old bronze statue of Apollo, his bow and arrow pointing into the skies. Something about the piece always struck her as particularly poignant. It had a gravitas to it, a sort of melancholy.

William chuckled a little. "I always love how you talk. It's like that damn book speaks through you. All that old, flowery language."

"And I like that you're a big idiot." She poked him again. "How's that for big words?"

The Colonial officer laughed at that. "Dumb enough to marry you, I guess."

"I wonder what our ancestors would think of that? I mean, an Isard and a Summers…"

"I'd like to think we'd have their blessing. But they were pirates more than anything, they'd expect us to do what we wanted, space be damned, I think." William pointed to the insignia on his uniform, the skull and crossed wrenches of Ares, the haphazard ancient 'heavy cruiser' that still orbited Kobol.

"Someday, if we ever finish the spaceport and shipyard, we're going to replace that flying scrapheap."

"Yeah, someday." William said. "I think we're a long time from that, though. Still, the silicon foundry is a nice step toward that."

Cassandra thought about that for a moment, the warnings of the Old Scrolls echoing in her mind. Creating new computers, despite the extremely primitive nature of the first homegrown machines, was a step on a road her ancestors had walked. All of this has happened before and all of this will…

"No."

William looked at her quizzically. "No?"

"I mean, we're not going to repeat the past."

He nodded. "The Industrial Guild said that the first batches will barely be worth powering a handheld calculator. So far from an operating AI that… it's not even worth mentioning. We're fifty years - at least - from being able to build computers really worthy of the name, I'd wager."

"And yet…" Cassandra wandered to the Centurion monument. "It's a road that ends here."

Entombed below the statue of Gimpy, the legendary Centurion, were the remains of the Centurion survivors, the last of whom had suffered catastrophic CPU failure two decades earlier. They had been great helpers in the reconstruction. But never slaves. That distinction permeated Kobolian society. The last of them had even served as the leader of the Industrial Guild for over a decade. Still, I worry about history repeating itself. The motif in the Old Scrolls was so common...

"We'll remember, Cassie. Come on, today's supposed to be a good day. Don't let it get to you." He grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently.

Cassandra forced a smile and nodded, following her man into the new opera house. In the distance, she saw a friend and waved happily.

"Amy!" Cassandra cried happily. "Good to see you."

William smiled as well. "Lieutenant." He said. She moved to salute, but he waved it off. "It's a celebration. We can skip the formalities."

Amy reached into her pocket and produced a small cigar case, offering the sticks to Cassandra and William.

"You know I hate those things," Cassandra said. William looked for a moment like he wanted to pluck one, but the glare from his fiancé convinced him otherwise.

"Your loss," Amy said, clipping one and lighting it up, taking a long pull.

"So, where are you headed?" William asked politely.

"Rotating in for caretaker duty in a couple hours," Amy said.

Cassandra looked at her curiously. "And the survey project? The old Colonies? Are you still involved in that?"

"Scheduled for next month," Amy said. "I'll be flying in that jumbled scrapheap the Guild built out of Raptor and freighter parts. Personally, I think it's a bit crazy to fly something like that, built of parts that old, all the way back to the Colonies, but the way they figure it, my Cylon heritage means I'll deal with the rads better. And we can salvage some really important resources and get an estimate for when they'll be safe to resettle. Besides. You know me. Crazy is just fine for me…"

William laughed at that. "Yeah, that's for sure. They didn't give you the callsign Asylum for nothing, did they?"

Amy tapped out some of the ashes in the bushes and smiled sweetly. "Congrats, by the way. Heard about the engagement this morning from the Stantons."

"Thanks," Cassandra said, squeezing her man's hand again. "When are you going to get yourself someone special?"

Amy laughed. "Nobody is crazy enough to want me for a wife."

William shook his head. "Well, I think they said that of my great-grandmother, once upon a time, too."

"Point." Amy answered. "Very good point. Anyway, I better get going. Orbital shuttle leaves in two hours, and the old man needs me. Have fun!

Eternal Star

In orbit over Kobol

"A Cylon returns." Cavil said. Eternal Star's decks were mostly empty these days, many of the computers offline, saving the tiny bit of power and fuel remaining for the end.

"I'm not really a Cylon," said Amy, pushing her short blonde hair out of the way.

"Your DNA is 100% Cylon," Cavil said. "You are one of the few pure descendants."

Amy shook her head. "I was born and raised like anyone else. What does it matter?" She frowned a little. Most of the time people treated her like any other of the Thirteen Tribes of Man, but every once in a while, someone would remind her that she was pure Cylon. It was not something she was particularly proud of. Almost everybody had some Cylon DNA these days, though. Only Cavil, or someone who was trying to be an ass to her, would make an issue of it.

Cavil thrashed in his tank a bit, then calmed down. "It doesn't matter. This isn't the end. Nor is it the beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning."

His speech patterns were strange and had grown ever more bizarre as he approached his end. But Amy cared for him, nonetheless. Her Cylon heritage made projecting with him easier, and over the last few years she had helped his fading mind maintain control over the ancient vessel. She did it for him, now, as the last of Eternal Star's advanced equipment – all that could be operated off ship – was long gone. The ship was stripped down. Even her armaments had been lifted for refurbishment and installation on Ares.

But Cavil could not survive without the ship's support systems. They had maintained it for him alone.

"My time comes to a close." Cavil said, his hand leaving the tank to squeeze her arm.

Amy smiled. "Nonsense. You'll stick around and annoy us awhile longer."

Cavil shook his head. "One's time is one's time. Not a second more or less." Amy's smile fell. Something felt very wrong this time. Cavil had spoken in this quasi-fatalistic tone before, but something in his tone... Alarms began beeping on the tank's control surface. Amy hit the emergency call switch immediately.

Other caretakers rushed into the room as his vital signs began fading. Alarms went off around her. But she focused on him. She held his hand and tried to blink back the tears.

"The harbinger of the dawn approaches. They must follow her to the ancestral home. But not yet… not yet… Many years must pass." Cavil looked at her. Everything he said was recorded – some on Kobol thought part of him connected beyond this world, that he spoke to God, or gods… whoever they were. "The others will come. They will join with the new world."

Cavil let go of her hand, and convulsed. Medical personnel buzzed around him, one injecting him with something.

Suddenly, Cavil was lucid again, and the convulsions stopped. His eyes locked on hers and he tilted his head curiously. "Kara, I knew you would come for me."

Amy said nothing, confused. His heartbeat stopped. Cavil's eyes closed as the medical techs tried to revive him. But somehow Amy knew they would not succeed this time. The techs pushed her out of the way, and she stepped out of the frenzied room in a trance.

Just who is Kara? She wondered, trying to push back her tears. She held back the sadness as she always had, through sheer toughness and determination.


Aphrodite walked hand in hand through the New Forum with her partner, still wearing the visage of Gaius Baltar, just as she appeared like a Six. It was well that they could not be seen by the others, for if they had, some of the elders might have recognized them. Some still lived who had gazed upon a living Six. And most had seen pictures of both in their history classes.

"She's playing her part quite well, no?" Aphrodite asked.

"Quite. But she always does."

"So how do you think this plays out?" She wondered. "Three millennia or four?"

Baltar's face furrowed in thought. "Well, they went to some pretty extreme measures to remember this time. I'm thinking it'll be longer than that. At least five thousand years. Maybe even more than that. In the meantime, they will spread across the galaxy, more than even the first ones did."

"Five thousand! Well, that is a change." Aphrodite drew her finger down between her breasts. "I guess the more important question is, will the New Man repeat the same mistakes?"

"Maybe… just maybe… but not for far longer, I think. It's so far in the distance even he can't see."

"I'm glad we got rid of Aurora again," Aphrodite said, her seductive attitude suddenly giving way to cold hatred. "I hate that bitch. I don't care how useful she is to God's plans."

"You're just jealous." Baltar's face smiled and he touched her cheek. "And you know he doesn't like to be called that…"

"Cavil almost gave it away…" Aphrodite looked at her partner, almost worried.

"So did Dana, in her own way. These people are closer to seeing the Plan than any before them… and this time around they will have jump drives from the beginning."

Aphrodite smiled. "The cycle is always different every time."

Baltar nodded. "But every time, the same."


In Orbit Over Kobol

229 years after the final battle

Rhea Stanton drew her Viper along the great spaceframe of the new galleon, admiring the vastness of the vessel, incorporating elements from the ancient galleon, from the battlestars of legend, and sleekness of the Cylon basestars. Her mixed lineage was much like the Thirteen Tribes themselves.

"Getting a good look, Rhea? She's pretty sexy, ain't she?" Her wingman asked over the wireless. Rhea laughed at that. She was one of the few who had chosen to just use her first name as a callsign. The legend of her ancestor, Rhea the Six, was amusing to everyone and the butt of many jokes. That she happened to look a lot like a Six herself did not help matters.

"Frakking right," Rhea said, smiling as she saw the ship's lettering.

Galactica the letters read. And escorting her was a vessel only slightly smaller. Where Galactica had been designed as a battleship-carrier hybrid, with manufacturing, recycling, and colonization equipment filling her holds, her escort was all business. Dreadnought was built to be her screen and her protector, bristling with guns.

Soon the mission to explore known space would begin in earnest. The first expedition over a century earlier had indicated the old Colonies would need several more centuries before they were safe to resettle in a traditional manner. But a space station had been built, and a salvage operation begun shortly thereafter to extract valuable resources and maintain a Colonial presence in the system. If any of the old Slaver Cylons still existed, and still monitored the old Colonies, they were in for quite a surprise.

"You think those Cylon sightings are anything?" Her wingman asked.

"They were confirmed," Rhea answered. "But the question is, are they our Cylons, rebels against the Slavers, or some Slaver survivors? No contact was made. And the sightings were brief. All we know is it's an organic basestar of the old days. And it didn't make any hostile moves either time, so… I hope… I don't think any biological models could have survived though, so what are they? Centurions?"

"True," her wingman replied. "Well whatever they are, if they are hostile, they'll have a lot to contend with, I think."

"All squadrons to land immediately. We begin jump prep in thirty minutes." The Commander ordered over the wireless.

Rhea smiled and kicked in the burn. Her Viper Mk.10, still patterned off the ancient pre-Exodus models, drew along the length of Galactica's flight pod.

"Call the ball, Rhea."

There were no auto-landings aboard the Galactica…

Author's Note

I thought I'd add this little tidbit I had on the drawing board from years back. I don't know why, surely it's a bit of a teaser. But hey... it's fun.