Day 41: Great Moments in Fictional Military History
This entry is brought to you by the Council for Why You Should Totally Start Watching Battlestar Galactica.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 3, Episode 4
Humanity is under the thumb of the Cylons. They decided to set up shop on the first inhabitable planet they found that wasn’t already found by the enemy, a cold, inhospitable world that was of course discovered by the Cylons.
The four month occupation has been brutal. Humans suspected of resisting the occupation have been taken in the middle of the night to the detention center, the only permanent structure in the tent city, never to be seen again. Other prisoners are tortured, broken, and then released back in to the population as a lesson to others.
The resistance is being strained. They have taken to hiding weapons in their temples. Those who have lost their families to the Cylons are volunteering to be suicide bombers. The stress of living under Cylon rule, even if they claim to be working with humanity’s best interests in mind, is too much on top of the war being kicked off by the Cylons murdering twenty billion people and reducing the original twelve colonies to radioactive wastelands.
When the Cylons first came to New Caprica, they found humanity split; most living on the planet and the rest are still in what remains of the refugee fleet orbiting the planet. As soon as the Cylon forces moved in, the human fleet jumped, knowing that their two capital ships would not be enough to turn back the numerous Base Stars.
With all hope gone, the resistance is getting ready to deal with the fact that they’re just going to keep fighting and keep dying until there’s nothing left.
Until Galactica manages to get word through. The rescue of nearly fifty-thousand people, all that remains of humanity, is coordinated across light years of empty black space. While civilians will run to the ships for the evacuation, soldiers will storm the prison to rescue those held by the Cylons, but the troops are tremendously out gunned. Guard towers with heavy weapons, enemy fighters, and vast numbers of chrome plated soldiers who can soak up bullets before dying all stand in their way.
Basestars, gigantic space-faring fortresses, surround the planet. There’s no way to get through them without the ship and its entire crew being destroyed. Thus Admiral Bill Adama decides to “jump” into the atmosphere. The massive ship was built in space, and cannot fly or function in the gravity of a planet. The second it appears; it plummets to the ground, the air around the old boat becoming scorched, as the ship tears itself apart on the inside.
The boots on the ground, trapped behind their cover, can only watch as their friends and neighbors are cut to pieces by the Cylons’ guns. They hear the crash of the Galactica making its light speed jump in the sky above them.
“Launch attack fighters.”
Human fighter craft spill out of the Galactica’s side, flying through the flames and into the air, while bagpipes swell. Some engage the Cylon Raiders in the sky, covering those making attack runs on the prison’s defenses.
The fighters in the air, the Galactica jumps back into space, the shockwave felt all across the planet’s surface.
The evacuation of New Caprica has begun.