If Secretary Roslin was president, we’d be at brunch right now.

PART 1

INTRO

The Cylons were created by man. They were created to make life easier on the 12 colonies. And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters. After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared. The cylons left for another world to call their own. A remote space station was built where Cylon and Humans could meet and maintain diplomatic relations. Every year the colonials send an officer. The Cylons send no one. No one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years.

A ship is docking with a space station while we get a bunch of intro text. A man walks down a long hall carrying a briefcase, and sits on a chair at a table in the middle of the hall. There is an empty chair across from him. He opens the briefcase and looks at the papers inside, they are specifications for cylons, but the old style from ye olde movie. The man is startled as the door at the far end opens, and two cylons step through flanking the door. A woman in a red dress steps through, walks down the hall and circles to the man's side of the table, and asks if he’s alone. She says prove it and they make out for a minute. We see a massive starship launch missiles at the space station and she says “the event has begun” as it begins to break apart.

We cut to a ship, the Battlestar Galactica. A lady is jogging down the hall, through a group of people taking a tour through it. He says the Galactica is the last ship of it’s kind from the original cylon war. We see the commander, practicing a speech. He passes a group of engineers who are salty that the ship is being turned into a museum. Commander Adama links up with Lieutenant Gaeta who says it’s been an honor serving with him. Gaeta passes the Colonel Saul who is getting drunk in the hallway. We go back to the tour group, and learn that the galactica has corded phones and manual valves and none of it’s computers are networked together as protection against the cylons. Adama heads down to the flight deck and a cloth is pulled off a fighter ship. It’s adama’s old ship, fully refurbished and ready to fly.

We cut to the mess hall, the pilots are drinking and playing cards, the Col is there. Starbuck (the jogging lady from the intro), and Col saul are taunting each other. He flips the table, she punches him in the face, and then he sends her to the brig. Saul and Adama are chatting about what just happened with Starbuck, Adama convinces Saul to drop formal charges and just have her cool off in the  brig.

We cut to a sci fi metropolis named Caprica City located on the planet Caprica. We see a woman sitting in a waiting room, looking out the window. A doctor walks in and sits across the desk from her. She is given a diagnosis of advanced cancer and we cut away. The same lady is sitting in a ship enroute to the Galactica.

Back in Caprica City’s Market we see the woman from the opening walking down the street. She stops to look at a baby in a stroller and asks to hold it. She comforts it, puts it down, the wife is distracted and she reaches in and you hear a slight snapping sound. The woman screams.
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We see a news program, where a man named Dr. Gaius Baltar is being interviewed. Gaius is there, giving the interview. The blond lady walks in, and we cut to some fuckin. The camera goes behind the woman's back as she’s riding and her spine pulses a glowing red light, very visible through her skin.

We cut to a fighter landing on the galactica. His ship has his name on it, Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama, the commander’s son. We go to a pilot briefing about the days maneuvers. Apollo will be flying his father's viper, he doesn’t seem stoked about it.

Cut to caprica city, Gaius and the blonde lady are there walking down the street. Gaius is bragging about a new project succeeding and the woman is upset that she gets no credit, she rewrote half his code. She did it because she gotta poke around the defense mainframe. She claims god told her to help him, and gaius is a shitty internet atheist about it. She declines a kiss and says she has to go meet someone, and they part.

Cut to the galactica, the passenger vessel arrives, and we find out the woman with cancer is Secretary of Education Roslyn. She’s busting Adama’s balls about networking computers to help the teachers in the museum when Adama cuts her off to remind her that many fine men and women lost their lives because someone wanted a faster computer.

We cut to starbuck doing pushups in the brig, then she’s interrupted by apollo. There’s some drama about the other adama son’s death (he was starbucks boyfriend, she was involved somehow), but it literally never matters to the series again so fuck that.

Cut back to caprica, the blonde lady is sitting in Gaius’s bedroom. She wakes him and some other girl up. She tells the girl to get out, Gaius acts like a total simp about it, and she just cuts him off and says she came to tell him something. Back on the galactica, Apollo and Adama are taking publicity shots. Back in the commander’s quarters they catch up. Grats on your promotion, how’s your mother, then Apollo is a huge dick to his Dad about his brother’s death. Adama bullied his kids into enlisting, and helped the dead son get through flight school.

Back on Caprica, the blonde is telling him that he’s a Cylon. Gaius doesn’t believe it. She was sent specifically to get in with him to gain access to the defense mainframe. The cyclons know literally everything about the defenses of every human colony. Gaius freaks and tries to immediately shift blame and wonders who knows that he’s involved, he could get the death penalty. He goes to call his attorney, and she says it’s unnecessary, in a few hours there will be no one left to charge him with anything, humanity’s children are returning and a huge explosion is visible in the background through his window.

On the galactica fighters are doing blue angels shit, then adama gives a speech. It cost many lives to defeat the cylons, but why was humanity worth saving. We who still force our sins on our childrens. Humanity tries to play god, and wash its hands of what it created, and a day will come when we cannot hide from what we’ve done.

Gaius is watching the news, more bombs are falling on major population centers, and he cries about what he’s done.Gaius is freaking out, and asks about how she’s gonna escape, he wants to go with her. She tells him she’s immortal, her consciousness will be uploaded into a new body like the others. She says there are 12 human esque models, she is the sixth. We cut to a planetary shot where we see massive explosions all over the surface.

Aboard the battlestar Gaeta calls Adama and reads the following message from command: “Attention all colonial units, Cylon attack underway. This is no drill.” The alarm sounds on the ship calling everyone to their action stations, not a drill. Saul thinks it’s a retirement prank. Adama tells the ship that the cylons are attacking all of their homeworlds. They have no information at all about the size or disposition of the enemy. The fleets headquarters are totally annihilated and fleet control has been shifted to the most senior ship commander. How and why do not matter right now, they are at war. They need to begin plotting all military vessels in the sector, and sending drop ships to all ammunition depots, the Galactica has no ammo. In space, the ships that were flying tricks have detected a cylon fleet ahead and plan to attack. 

On the bridge adama tells starbuck the cylons achieved total surprise, they are down a quarter of the fleet in the first thirty minutes. Starbuck says they have pilots but no fighters, and adama says go raid the museum exhibit. A report comes in to head of communications Dee that basically every ship has massive malfunctions immediately before coming into contact with the cylons.

The Viper squadron reaches the cylon fighters, and they all lose power and are obliterated while defenseless by the autonomous cylon fighters, save Boomer and Helio’s ship which pulled way back.

We cut back to the passenger ship as they are being given the news that their homeworld is under attack, but they have very little information. We cut back to boomer and helios being pursued by the cylon fighters. They take some shrapnel through the ship and through Helio's leg, they need to land on caprica to repair a fuel leak and repair, so they power down and try to use inertia to cruise through the fight.

Admama reports that a 50 megaton nuke was detonated on Caprica city. Similar things have happened to every planet's capital. 7 Million would be killed by the caprica city nuke alone. Back on the passenger ship Roslyn tells the commander that caprica city is gone, he already knows. Roslyn decides to make the announcement for him, she asks him to contact the ministry of defense and see what they can do to help. The passengers rightfully freak out. Roslyn begins assigning tasks, someone objects and she pulls rank as a cabinet member on the government ship. Roslyn is in touch with the government, Picon offered complete and unconditional surrender, the cylons didn’t even bother to respond. The captain then picks up an inbound missile. Apollo gets it to lock onto him, brings it past the passenger ship, then flips around and obliterates it.

Cut to caprica, helio and boomers are on the surface, repairing their ship as bombs continue to fall. People fleeing the city (including gaius) are running towards their ship. Aboard Colonial One Apollo lands, and the reporter tells him that he wants him to be in charge. They are gonna try to load survivors from across the solar system onto the Colonial One. Apollo declines to take charge.

On caprica people are freaking out trying to get on board the ship, and they pull guns. They agree to take the present children, then can take three more people. They then decide to do a lottery for the remaining space on the vessel.

On galactica they get enemy fighter contact on the radar and begin launching the vipers. Something is wrong with starbucks. Adama is doing naval combat shit. Some good dog fighting scenes. The engineers fix Starbucks ship (she’s been freaking out listening to radio chatter while unable to help her squad), then she launches. A cylon fighter tries to hack her but the vipers are entirely manual. A cylon fighter launches nukes at the galactica and one lands as a direct hit.

The galactica has sustained massive damage, fires, leaking fuel, damaged thrusters on the right hand side (putting it into a spin), and chain decompression. Engineers and staff are scrambling to put out fires, and Saul puts in the order to seal the decompressing section and vent it to prevent the fire from reaching the fuel leaks, despite there being about a hundred people in it. We get a shot of bodies being vented into space and the fires being extinguished.

Back on caprica, the lottery is proceeding, and Baltar isn’t chosen. But Helio recognizes Gaius and gives up his seat for him. Gaius then sees the cylon woman, but she isn’t actually there. On Colonial One, they receive a message about government officials enacting case orange. That means the president, vice president, and most of the cabinet is dead. Roslyn has them send out her ID code in response. Roslyn and apollo are talking, she is 43rd in the line of succession. The captain of Colonial One gives Roslyn a message, and she says she needs a priest. She is the top surviving official and is sworn in as the president of the twelve colonies of kobol.

On the bridge Saul says 86 died. They plan to go dock at an outpost and load up on missiles and ammo. Lots of sad shots of people retrieving burnt as fuck bodies and stacking them out of the path. Chief Engineer Tyrell is extremely pissed, and Adama backs up Sauls decision and tells him that he would have made the same decision, and to set up a temporary morgue on the hangar deck. The ammo depot is three days away and the full cylon fleet is between them. They beginning planning for an FTL jump to the depot. They get a report that the chain of command is dead. Adama is now in charge of the fleet.

We cut to Colonial One receiving the message. Roslyn tells Apollo to tell Adama they require his assistance with rescue operations and says to inform him that the request comes from the president and is not actually a request. Adama is pissed and the Galactica opens voice comms with Colonial One. Adama orders them to jump to the depot, he refuses, then 708 picks up incoming Cylon fighters. Apollo wants to jump away, and Roslyn refuses forcing Apollo to go below deck and is messing with machinery. Galactica detects the fighters also, Adama flips out, Colonial One disappears from the radar and a nuclear blast has been detected. The cylons move away from where Colonial One has been. The episode ends.