Cylon War

Background
The war lasted from 5 July 2140 to 9 January 2152 (Based on Earth-standard Timing/Dating).

Prelude Crisis
Commonly referred to as the Prelude Crisis, at the time considered the Sixth Colony War, this period started with the culmination of tensions between the Colonies that sparked an over-reliance on the Cylons and their eventual backlash against the Colonials.

Prometheus Incident
Three years prior to the Cylon War, the Caprican warship CSD Prometheus led an expedition from the Lunar One Station, inside the territorial space of Virgon. Commander Stephen Jaromi was under ordered to stop the raids of the Western Brothers of Caprican shipping, which long-range telescopes confirmed were operating near Persephone. Jaromi was under strict orders to avoid any contact with the Virgonese as his ship was not on a sanctioned mission, a direct violation of the current non-aggression pact between their respectively Colonies.

Shortly after arriving at one of the fleet's rendezvous points the Prometheus's sensors detected a silhouette at the edge of their dradis range. Jaromi, knowing they were well away from the Virgon transfer points, immediately grew suspicious, speculating that the Western Brothers was actively shadowing them. When the expedition encountered a vessel it believed to be a pirate craft they discovered it also being escorted by three Virgon Runnerstars and a Leonis Strikestar.

Jaromi was confused, as at the time Leonis and Virgon were supposedly bitter rivals with each other. As no battle damage existed on any of the ships to confirmed they had been captured, Jaromi speculated the Virgonese were operating in cohots with the Western Brothers and Leonis.

As he was contemplating and gathering information the gathering of ships turned towards and began to approach the Prometheus. Captain Jaromi misinterpreted the gesture as a sign of hostility and ordered all forward batteries to open fire, destroying one of the Virgon Runnerstars and damaging the Strikestar. However return salvos heavily damaged the Prometheus and crippled vessel was seized. Most of her crew was executed outright and Captain Jaromi was expeditated back to Virgon for interrogation.

In the meantime Virgon threatened Aerilon and Tauron, two worlds that Caprica was dependent on for agricultural trade. After several major droughts and famines, almost 30% of Caprica's food was supplied by these two Colonies, to lose them would mean starvation for close to two-billion people and a collapse of civilian infrastructure on their Colonies.

This lead Caprica to dispatch warships into the Helios Beta-system, heightening tensions further and causing Leonis and Canceron to pledge support for Virgon while Picon moved to side with Caprica, as Scorpia and Libran began to actively raid Caprican and Virgon trade ships as now they lacked proper military protection due to most of their defensive fleets being moved to the expanding front-lines in orbit of the gas giants Hestia and Ragnar. Virgon stated it would use nuclear missiles on Aerilon and Tauron if it is attacked, a clear violation of the Cyrannus Eight Treaty.

As Caprica lacked the military size to counter Virgon, they instead decided to place their confidence in their sizable Cylon armies. Their first act was the activation of the newly developed Skynet, the Caprican military's first attempt at a true AI to govern and lead their mechanical forces if war ensued, ensuring that Caprica would not have to commit a true human fleet to protect its interest, swelling their ground force regiments to match Virgon's and increasing the response times of their Cylon forces by almost 300%.

As intelligence reports from spies on Virgon reported the colony had launched two incursion fleets to take Aerilon by force, the Caprican military brought Skynet online and placed a small force under its control as a 'field-test'. Ten Caprican Cylon Basestars engaged thirty Virgon ships, the results were astounding. The Virgon force was completely annihilated, two Skynet controlled ships were lost and Virgon was pulling back the bulk of its forces that had recently been threatening Aerilon.

But what surprised the military most was the Skynet the AI began to exhibit intelligence, from what scientist today theorize was a result of being given such a wide ability to expand, learn and adapt, something previously never programmed into the primitive AI's of the Cylon Centurions. This ability to think for itself, act independently from constant supervision and gaining amazing results caused the military controllers of Skynet to remove most of the system restraints put on the AI and transfer over one-fourth of the Caprican Cylon forces under its command, primarily its defensive forces.

Hoping that they could prove to the Capricans they were a power not to be trifled with, Virgon launched a strike against a Caprican mid-range military base in the Zeus. Virgon's intentions were to strike with a fleet of fifteen ships and destroy the Caprican base, thus proving to Caprica that they were the more powerful military, crippling one of their key supply facilities to the outer worlds, remove the confidence in the Skynet AI and force Caprica to the bargaining table.

This was to be the first major battle better Caprica and Virgon in over three centuries.

The Virgon fleet entered the Zeus orbit and slowly under stealth entered weapon range of the Caprican Station Thula. The Caprica fleet consisted of only twelve Basestars, to Virgons forty ships. The battle lasted only twelve seconds. In these twelve seconds the mounted batteries on Station Thula and the Basestars destroyed every one of the attacking Virgon vessels, allowing only two fighter squads to survive, so it could return to Virgon to tell its people of the results of the battle.

While Virgon ships had enough firepower to destroy the station, Caprican intelligence had received reports of the impending attack and though they could not move ships in to counter the Virgon fleet in time, they placed Skynet in control of the small defensive fleet around Station Thula.

Seeing the success of its power at Aerilon and in the Clotho Belt, the Caprican government decided to place Skynet in control of their offensive instead of their defensive forces. From this point on Skynet would fight the war, while the Capricans would merely defend and cement their presence.

Virgonese Genocide
A year of fighting eliminated the majority of the Virgon's military and finally the Battle of Kronos was to be the Cylon's final assault on Virgon. The Cylon had laid waste to every fleet Virgon had sent at them, and having destroyed the Virgonese bases on Hibernia and Pallas and skirted past Troy, the Cylons were in a perfect position to attack Virgon itself. Despite the constant pleas of the Gemenon, Tauron, Leonis and Canercon for mercy and Virgon's attempts to sue for peace, Caprica was adamant on finishing the war, and planned nothing less than the complete annihilation of Virgon's infrastructure and ability to threaten Caprica in all future situations.

With no options left and with the knowledge that their defeat was inevitable, Virgon prepared a final defense of the planet, assembling what remained of their forces in a massive armada designed to slow the Cylon advance and buy time for an allied Scorpia and Leonis fleet to arrive to assist them. The Virgon pilots and naval crew, convinced that annihilation was at hand, still volunteered in droves, rallying together for one last battle to "hold the line against the night."

The assembled defenders fought bravely against the superior Cylon forces, but were overwhelmed, the superior firepower of the Cylon and their stealth technology too strong to be overcome. As with every other space battle of the war, Virgon fought bravely but were ultimately brought down, with many Virgoneses dying for every Cylon casuality that occurred.

Looking for a reason to end the conflict, King Esteban Kumara of Virgon offered an complete and unconditional surrender of the Colony, seceding all power to Caprica, offering to abdicate his position to Caprican-rule and ordering the Virgon fleet to stand-down for Caprican occupation.

Caprican President Alexander Edwin accepted the surrender order from Kumara and ordered the military to have Skynet stop the advancing Cylon fleet. However when the joint chiefs ordered Skynet to pull back it instead refused orders and pressed the attack.

Out of control Skynet swept away the remainder of the Virgon fleet and opened fire on ground-based targets on the Colony's surface. While thankfully nuclear weapons were barred from Cylon ships, as Caprica still wished to set an example and abidide by the conventions of the Cyrannus Eight Treaty, heavy weapons fire destroyed dozens of major cities, including the capital of Boskirk where most of the royal family including King Kumara were killed. Four million Virgonese died in the 20-minute bombardment before the Skynet controlled fleet retreated. From her orbital defensive fleet of approximately 20,000 defenders, only about 200 survived, mostly among small fighters that had managed to hide among the wreckage.

Night of Tears
Read More: Night of Tears

The military command was shocked by the refusal of Skynet to heed its commands and tried to shut down the AI, at one point detonating high-yield explosives inside the command server's building to destroy the machine. However Skynet turned against them and in its opening volley of the undeclared-Cylon War it overloaded the main reactor of the Caprica Military Headquarters, causing the facility to meltdown and killing all four-thousand personnel.

Across Caprica the result was the same, an all out rebellion by all Cylon-derived machines and automated robots. Skynet seized the Caprican global communication network and began to transmit its signal across the entire Cyrannus-system. Within five-hours of its original revolt the revolution order had reached as far as the Helios Delta-system, resulting in full Cylon revolts on all twelve of the Colonies.

Millions perished as their Cylon servant attacked. Industrial Centurions purposely overloaded the reactors of nuclear power plants, pilot Centurions crashed space-going cruise liners into the ground, household Centurions wiped out whole families. In a single night, known as the Night of Tears, almost 60-million people were killed over each of the Twelve Colonies.

Hardest hit was Sagittaron, who with their sizable Cylon population were sitting on a powder keg. Censuses before the conflict reported out of all the Colonies, Sagittaron averaged four Cylons for every one human, meaning that when the keg blew, Sagittaron was decimated. Thousands perished when the Colony's automated military turned on them and attacked, reducing the once powerful world to nothing in a night. Out of the 60-million killed during the Night of Tears, 15-million were Sagittaron.

By the time the Colonials mounted a resistance and destroyed the largely commercial and civilian designed machines, they had taken devastating civilian loses and a sizable chunk of their collective military forces were decimated or crippled.

Skynet Withdrawl
Before the center's destruction, Skynet managed to upload itself into one of the orbiting Cylon Basestars and took control of not only the Cylon fleets around Caprica but Picon, Scorpia, Tauron and Sagitarron's as well. But instead of pressing the attack it retreated to the gas giant of Hera with over a hundred and fifty Basestars, Strikestars, Runnerstars and Bomberstars under its command.

Amber Massacre
As Hera was a distant, unclaimed area, the Colonies could only watched in baffled confusion as the Cylons claimed the Hera moons for itself. Its first act was to order the surrender of the Amber agricultural colony on Iris, a settlement that claimed independence from its native Canceron and was home to 4400 residents. Upon their arrival the Cylons ordered the Iris settlement to remove itself, which was refused outright by Iris Governor Niles Baan. In the interim following his refusal, Governor Bonbon issued an order for all settlers to be assembled in Amber, the central settlement, for immediate evacuation. Many chose not to leave and were killed in the subsequent ground battle and bombardments. Four days after the evacuation order Cylon forces destroyed the research stations on Euobea and the winter resorts on Djerba, killing 1750 people.

Again the Cylons ordered the Iris colonists to leave but when Governor Baan stated that they had neither the ships or the supplies to end 800 people even the nearest Colony, Cylon battalions began to land and killed any that resisted. Securing Amber, Centurions loaded the survivors onto an outdated transport, with no food or water and sent the ship drifting on inertia away from Iris. By the time they were picked up by a Aquarian patrol three days later, forty-seven people remained, out of the two-hundred loaded abroad, from Serenity's original population of 800.

Hera Dominance
For six-months the Cylons remained firmly among the three largest moons of Hera, Euobea, Djerba and Iris, constructing numerous foundries, factories and military bases across the triple worlds.

Because of the devastation wrought on Virgon and the still reeling situation from the Cylon revolt, a Caprican military expedition to Hera was denied by the governments of Leonis and Virgon. As the Virgonese military had been near-completely decimated in the Genocide of Virgon and the Leonid military was barely enough to patrol Leonis' territorial space, the Cylons were allowed to move unmolested across the entire Helios Beta-system.

They established 01, or as many Colonials called it 'the Machine City', on the remains of Amber. In a short time the city grew to a tremendous size. It ran on a combination of nuclear fusion and thermal energy, easily the largest constructed facility in the entire system and out-classes even the largest Colonial cities by shear size and volume.

Yet never attempting to push their influence beyond the moons the Cylons continued to play a message of isolation, any Colonial ship entering the area would be destroyed.

However, the still lingering anger over the devastation to Virgon and the Night of Tears, left a termendous rage in the Colonials. Any attempts at even cold war coexistence with the Cylons and the city of 01 were rejected. In the first true act of unity since the Exodus, all the Colonies now saw 01 as a formal threat, and decided to blockade Hera.

First Battle of 01
In response to this, a Caprican-led alliance with Scorpia, Tauron, Picon and Leonis went to full alert, and began mobilizing the largest fleet in Colonial naval history. However, they needed an experienced commander to lead it. They turned to Vice Admiral Ramona Devi, a retired veteran of the Fifth Colony War and a brilliant tactician. Devi reluctantly agreed, and was promoted to full admiral.

When Devi's fleet of ninety ships arrived at Hera, they found the Cylons firmly entrenched. The Cylon Baseships immediately opened fire and began picking off Devi's ships one by one. Devi had a last-minute tactical inspiration: ordering the fleet to fire all its weapons simultaneously. This ploy won the battle at the cost of forty Colonial vessels, half Devi's fleet.

With Iris and Eubea space mostly secured Admiral Devi supported a temporary hold until reinforcements could arrive. But allied command ordered her to press the attack and launch a strike on Eubea directly and remove Skynet's control of the Cylons.

Devi's first wave began when Colonial bombers launched a massive aerial attack on 01 using large amounts of nuclear weapons. This bombardment devastated the city and much of Eubea's surface, but did not completely destroy it as the Colonials had hoped. Many Cylons hid in EMP-shielded bomb shelters until the attack was over, and as Cylons were not affected by radiation and heat, they quickly recovered from the assault. Devi ordered the fleet to move in closer and start using shipboard weaponry to hit the surface, thereby eliminating the ground-based shelters.

However this was what the Cylons had been hoping for. Close to the planet, trapped against the gravity well and not able to fully manevuer, Devi's forces were caught off-guard by the appearance of twenty Basestars, ten Strikestars and almost eight hundred Raiders. With little chance to respond Devi's entire fleet was massacred.

Cyrannus Blitz
The Cylons, realizing that their former masters would not allow them to live in peace, dedicated themselves to annihilating humankind in order to preserve their way of life.

Barely minutes after Admiral Devi's armada was destroyed, fleets of Cylon controlled Basestars swarmed out from Hera and launched a massive assault against every Colony. The Cylons launched their first true attack against Sagitarron and Tauron, but they fight off the Cylons successfully. First Battle of Tauron

During the First Battle of Tauron, the Tauron defense navy drove the attacking fleet into retreat, yet 120 Tauron Offensestars were lost against the lose of 12 Cylons ships, which arrived with a fleet of thirty. However successive strikes gained space superiority over the Kronos sub-system and routing much of the fleets of the Inner Colonies. Only Leonis, Canceron and Libran managed to entrench their control of the Zeus moons.

The war was brutal, yet precise. The Cylons pursued a strategy of swift advance, jumping into orbit in force, crippling whatever Colonial military assets were present, then moving on to the next world, leaving the civilian targets intact. After they had removed all true military resistance and destroyed the last of the Colonial's defenses, they would burn the Colonies, and proceed back out into the outpost worlds, destroying every human planet until no humans would be left alive. This was, for the Cylons, a war of genocide.

Despite suicidal bravery on the part of Colonials, the Colonial found itself being annihilated, losing soldiers at an appalling rate, with the war itself progressing in favor of the Cylons.

However, the Colonials made the Cylons pay a steep price in blood for every step forward. In the Battle of Ray, the damaged Picon cruiser Transgression deliberately rammed a larger Cylon Basestar, destroying both ships in the process. During the First Conquest of Novenov, ground-based Colonials weapons forced the Cylons to land soldiers on the planet, and massive hand-to-hand combat raged across the planet's surface. In the end every human on the Novenov was killed, but the Cylons suffered heavy casualties in the fighting. Ambush in Coltho

Only one battle was a real victory for the Colonials, involving the destruction of the Cylon flagship Basestar Alpha 002. An Caprican task group was ambushed by the Basestar Alpha 002 in the Clotho Belt, leaving all ships destroyed or disabled. The damaged Caprican warship Colombia, under the command of Commander Hugh Ashdown acutely aware of the Cylons policy of exterminating all enemy combatants without mercy, even when they were legitimately surrendering, mined several nearby asteroids with nuclear devices as a precaution. The Colombia then issued a distress call, which attracted the attention of Basestar Alpha 002. The mines completely vaporized the Basestar Alpha 002, giving Caprica and the Colonies a much-needed morale boost for such a resounding victory at the Ambush in Coltho.

Year Two
The Colonials fought on bravely but victories were few and far between, the Colonies losing an average of five ships for every Cylon vessel destroyed. The only battles won by the Colonies were Pyrrhic victories, as the cost in ships and manpower always averaged a 3 to 1 loss in the Cylon's favor. In two-years of fighting Tauron was firmly under Cylon control, most of its populous forced to hide or waging guerilla style warfare. Caprica and Picon still fielded the only true militaries in the system but lacked the manpower to support them, as much of their personnel were lost in the Night of Tears. The Colonies were fast approaching apocalyptic ruin, Colonial leaders grew increasingly desperate. Nothing was working, not even launching nuclear missiles directly at the advancing Cylon armies (and vaporizing nearby human forces in the process). The governments were collapsing, its armies were becoming disorganized and being slaughtered, and thousands of civilians were dying of starvation. The Cylons quickly overran all of the Colonial lunar outposts and were fast encoarching on total domination of the Colonies, using biological on Aquaria and Tauron, along with nuclear weapons against Caprica and Gemenon at around the same time. Massacre at Cimitar

After months of war, the governments of Aquaria, Aerilon, Libran, Leonis and Canceron vie for peace with Count Iblis of Aquaria acting as diplomat. The peace is to become official at Cimtar Station, a science station near Hera that had been largely bypassed by the war due to its lack of weaponry and low stragetic value. Instead of peace, the Cylons launch their largest onslaught ever against the six allied fleets. The Cylons use a two-pronged attack, striking at both the peace delegation as well as the respective Colonies of each represented world, throwing their forces into dissary.

Cylon fighter groups of Cylon Raiders (numbering five hundred total, along with support fuel tankers) hide near the moon of Maytoria in wait for their chance at attacking the fleet. The Basestars were left free for bombardment of the Colonies.

The Cylon fighters use a variety of tactics, including kamikaze methods to destroy the Colonial peace fleet and its thirty ships.

Cylon Basestars coasted by by Colonial defenses, allowing an undefended attack on the six Colonies. Only with the timely intervention by the naval fleets of Caprica, Picon and Virgon is total ruin averted what later became known as the Massacre at Cimtar.

Colonial Unification
Feeling that the war would soon be lost now Admiral Ashdown calls a system-wide secret summit of surviving military leaders across the Coloines at the Arridus moon of Carillon, a planet in the Kronos sub-system. Dispatching and summoning the top and few remaining professional officers from each Colony, including those who were retired or in-active service, Ashdown believed and insisting these Colonial Fleet leaders were mankind's last hope and needed to unite. Separate, no one Colony could withstand the War, but if they organized and unified, not as an alliance but as one nation, they could beat back the Cylons. To a group of eleven astounded Colonial representatives Ashdown presented the group with the Articles of Colonization, which called for the unification of the Colonial military into one force, under a single command and a the establishment of a federal government to take control of all foreign and matters of state. Domestic control would remain in their hands but from now on the war was down to basic survival.

All twelve representatives, Admiral Ashdown representing Caprica, signed the Articles and quickly designated the Admiral as supreme commander of the Colonial Fleet. Secondary, Brutus Crias, at the meeting representing Picon was elected as the first President of the united Twelve Colonies of Kobol, as the new government had christened itself, for his widespread humanitarian efforts not only for his own Colony but many other worlds that had originally been bitter enemies of the Piconese. The remaining ten representatives became the basis for the Quroum of Twelve, the new legislative body, with Ashdown and Crias' positions quickly filled.

The first order of the Quorum was to order Supreme Commander Ashdown to begin the construction of a new class of warships to combat the Cylons, twelve vessels to defend each of the twelve worlds.

With their mastery of Colonial technology, the Cylons were able to infiltrate nearly all networked devices. The Colonials were forced to abandon networked computers and wireless devices in favor of more secure and durable technologies, able to withstand both Cylon infiltration and the powerful nuclear weapons used by the warring parties. Most of the current military were formerly networked ships that had been dumbed down to prevent Cylon infiltration, but now the new Quorum wanted warships built from the ground up without network systems. As they were later christened, Ashdown began the construction of the first Battlestars.


 * Battlestar Galactica - Caprica


 * Battlestar Perseus - Canceron


 * Battlestar Ceres - Libran


 * Battlestar Invictus - Aerilon


 * Battlestar Hermus - Leonis


 * Battlestar Athena - Scorpia


 * Battlestar Aurora - Aquaria


 * Battlestar Rycon - Sagitarron


 * Battlestar Orion - Gemenon


 * Battlestar Columbia - Picon


 * Battlestar Fontus - Virgon


 * Battlestar Nixi - Tauron

With the Colonies now unified under one rule, the new military sought to bring about full cohesion between the newly integrated ranks and more importantly prove the superiority of the Colonial military over the separate militias of each Colony. In order to bring about this they planned a full frontal assault against the Cylon First Fleet stationed near _. It was hoped that by defeating the largest Cylon armada in the solar system the Colonials would only prove to the Cylons they were not to be trifled with, but also to cement their power among their own respective worlds who still held reservations about the new government.

The Colonial armada, almost 130 units strong with elements from all twelve worlds, jumped into normal space above _ and engaged the Cylons in a pitched battle.

The battle lists both ways. Both sides were about even in total numbers of ships. The Cylons were caught by surprise and the Colonials had the element of surprise, but the Cylons and their powerful vessels were not easily dispatched. They quickly assemble their smaller fighters to act as buffers between the Colonial Vipers and the heavier warships. They then attempt to outflank the Colonials fleet, succeeding at least once in surrounding several key warships.

Ashdown personal led the strike and ordered the fighters to take point while the medium class ships provide escort to the fleet's heavy hitters. He managed to counter the Cylon flanking maneuvers, but the Colonials still lost many ships.

At least forty Cylon crafts are destroyed and dozens of Cylons fighters and smaller craft are wiped out. The Raptor bomber squadrons prove particularly effective at damaging large capital ships while the Viper MK II succeeds in destroying the small Cylon ships with a 1:8 ratio.

Ultimately, the Colonial armada was capable of driving back the Cylons, but at a very high cost, as for every two of their ships that were destroyed, one Cylon ship was destroyed. In total the Fleet Action at _ was among the costliest battles of the war, 92 ships lost for 46 Cylon ships but helped to provide the proof that a unified Colonial government worked better then twelve separated and inflicted heavy damage against a Cylon fleet that had to date the highest success rate of any of its counterparts.

Lose of the Brenik
Yet barely three years into the war the Colonials suffered a devastating hit to their moral with the lost of the Brenik. The Brenik was a Colonial ship in charge of transporting President Crias, from Gemenon to Caprica, a relatively short trip. However the Brenik and its escorts of two Picon cruisers were intercepted a third of the way into their journey and after the destruction of its protectors, the Brenik was boarded by Cylon forces.

The Cylon boarding party engaged the crew in hand-to-hand combat in a battle over the ship's ammunition magazines. By the end of the war, they would abandon this tactic in favor of venting a ship's atmosphere and turning its guns against its allies.

With a crew of approximately 75, only 20 of whom survived the attack and drive the Centurions away, but not before President Crais was killed. The Brenik had to be scuttled soon afterwards and the remaining crew members were picked up six-days later. The loss of Brenik was among the most infamous Colonial defeats. Strike at Caprica

Almost days after this terrible moral disaster the Cylons attacked Caprica, zeroing in on the orbital shipyards of Amalthea Station and Pan Station, where the new Battlestar fleet was under construction.

The frames of the Battlestars Aurora, Athena, Ceres, Fontus, Galactica, Hermus, Colombia and Invictus had just been laid while the Battlestar Perseus, Rycon, Orion, Nixi and Majestic were still in the planning stages. The Aurora, Ceres, Fontus, Hermus and Invictus were gone in minutes, with heavy damage being inflicted on Amalthea Station and Pan Station. As the local miltias fought the Centurions and Raiders back, they could only rescue three of the active frames, the Battlestars Athena, Galactica and Colombia.

In fear of another crippling attack, future Battlestar construction was decentralized, meaning the Athena and Colombia were transferred to other shipyards to complete their construction and to ensure the Cylons could no longer launch one hit strikes to cripple the Colonial's future military.

Two months later the people were given renewed hope as Ashdown announced that the first Battlestar was completed at Aquaria, the Battlestar Athena under the command of Commander Nadia Calla.

First Battle of Ragnar
Barely two days out from port the Athena was placed on defensive patrol near the almost completed Ragnar Anchorage. Ragnar had a reputation as being avoided like the plague by the Cylons, its turbulent atmosphere and unique radiation seemed to play havoc with Centurions and Raiders alike. It was the reason the Colonial Engineering Corp had spent month painstakingly building and dragging the station into orbit. With its completion Virgon, Aerilon and Aquaria would be able to resupply a large majority of its space fleet following loses during the Virgon-Caprica Crisis and the early Cylon War.

After three weeks of no activity Colonial Command was planning to redeploy the Athena to Aquaria to deal with Cylon Raiders harassing civilian shipping when a armada of eight Cylon Basestars launched a fercious attack on the Anchorage. Even though only 2/3 complete, the station and the Athena combined fire power and were able to destroy six Basestars outright, disable a seventh one. However by the time the battle was winding down the ordinance on the Anchorage began to run low, along with significant battle damage, so Commander Calla ordered her ship to draw the last remaining and undamaged Basestar away.

The Athena fled towards the upper cloud pockets of Ragnar, with the Basestar in pursuit. Once they entered, both ships found that their dradis systems were disabled and their visual and tactical systems were severely impaired. The conflict became a game of 'hide and seek', with both vessels firing at each opportunity they got. Cylon opened fire first with a barrage of nuclear missiles narrowly missing. On the second opportunity of firing, the Athena was just aft of the Basestar but because weapon locks were rendered inoperable by the clouds, gunner officers had little alternative but to aim them manually. As they were about to fire upon the Basestar, the Athena was rocked by storm activity within the clouds, jogging the aim and the weapons fire narrowly missed the Basestar.

Some minutes passed with no conflict until both ships saw each other almost on a collision course and as the Athena performed evasive maneuvers to starboard, Cylon fired weapons on the Athena, disabling the Athena's port flak cannons and further damaging the port flight-pod. The Athena was able to inflict significant damage to Basestar as well in the short firefight, hitting just behind its central power cores.

Commander Calla theorized that although the Cylon were intelligent, their critical weakness was its apparent inexperience - attack pattern indicated just 'two-dimensional thinking', not considering attacking from above or below, only on the same plane. Having realized this weakness, Calla ordered the ship to descend vertically and stand by on rail guns.

The Athena crew caught the Cylon by surprise when the ship passed over the Athena, which allowed the ship to ascend behind the enemy and begin its brief but relentless onslaught on the Basestar at close range - first a salvo of rail gun shots destroyed the Basestar's own port missile launchers. Secondly, a flak cannon blast hit the Basestar's port engines, severely damaging it and finally a nuclear warhead was fired, completely severing most of the lower ship and killing most of Cylon's crew. In spite of the severe damage that the Basestar had sustained, the Cylon still outmatched the Athena and returning fire, almost completely crippled the craft. Most of the Athena's weapons were either disabled or destroyed and three direct hits to her aft sections resulted in several serious hull breaches.

Because the Cylon vessels outgunned the Athena, Calla would have to devise a cunning strategy to defeat the her opponents. She set a course for one of the clouds of the lower atmosphere, full of volatile hydrogen gas. Despite the warning that the Athena would be destroyed if the Cylon fired on her while in the cloud, Calla went ahead with her plan. The sealing the aft hanger doors of both flight-pods, she used the open space to collect the _ gas until the spaces were full and after leaving the cloud piloted the ship away from the Cylon, opening her aft hanger doors and vented, leaving a trail of hydrogen gas in the wake of the Athena. At this point, the Cylon vessels fired upon the vessel but this would have disastrous consequences for the Cylon. The missile ignited the gas, turning it into a massive fireball, which engulfed and destroyed the Cylon vessel

Commander Calla was victorious and was awarded the Colonial Metal of Valor for her actions and Ragnar Anchorage was completed a month later, quickly designated the main fleet command hub for the entire Colonial military war effort among the Kronos sub-system.

With the successful trial by fire of the Athena construction was hastened on the other Battlestars and Athena was soon joined by her sister ships the Battlestar Colombia representing Picon and soon after the Battlerstar Galactica representing Caprica. Construction on a new batch of Battlestars was quickly ordered, to remove some of the burden being placed on the Colombia, Galactica and Athena, but at the same time to field more of the ships that could go toe to toe with three Basestars and win. Each was to be renamed after the ship frames lost during the Strike at Caprica, in the spirit that the Cylons could not destroy what the Colonials built.

The war continued in the meantime, as the Cylons began to adopt more desperate tactics to overtake the increasingly advancing and dangerously united Colonies. Well-known tactic evolved for jumping a single Raider into the heart of civilian convoys and detonating a nuclear payload, resulting in hundreds of deaths over the years and demoralizing inter-Colonial trade.

The war took its toll on the supply and transportation lines between the Colonies and their smaller intergalactic interests to the point where whole worlds and outposts were abandoned, just now being reclaimed in modern times.

These planets became cut-off from the Twelve Colonies, resulting in a loss of technological advancement, even regression. Some were even left to fend for themselves in the face of Cylon invasion, like the Scorpia moon of Antila, which lost over 90% of its population before Colonial military aid arrived by way of the Battlestar Galactica and the newly christened Battlestar Perseus.

Another act was to hack the information networks of the Colonies to spread false rumors and sow dissent among their people. This sparked fundamentalist Gemenonese to erupted in civil war in an attempted to gain power and launch a purge of the orthodox theists. Though they failed it led to a polar shift against the fundamentalists, causing the majority to migrate to the southern deserts and become large isolationists.

Yet counter to these event the Colonials began to re-establish the control over their former territory, retaking many lost outposts from the Cylons. Cylon Supremacy in the Hestia Sector

Destruction of Borallus
The Battlestar Perseus manages to liberate a Cylon prison facility on Pallas that had been holding captives, including numerous members of the Colonial government and military leaders sentenced for execution. With its lose, most of the Cylon's prisoners of war are taken to Borallus, where they are used as slave labor. The increased interred population soon lead to riots among the prisoners and the native Borallus colonists, supplemented by cargo drops from nearby Tauron. In retribution for the largest particular revolt, the lead to the destruction of two landed Basestars, the Cylons exterminated all 23,000 humans on Borallus. In outrage, and as no human lives remained to be threatened, Tauron launched their entire arsenal of nuclear weapons at Borallus, wiping out the entire Cylon force stationed there but rendering Borallus uninhabitable for centuries. Second Battle of Tauron

In reaction the Cylons deploy fleets to conquer Sagitarron and Tauron, as they are becoming increasing too liberal with stragetic weapons and their Colonies are located closest to the Cylon held Hera system. While Sagitarron rebuffs the invasion, Tauron ultimately fell under heavy attack, becoming the first Colony to be occupied by the Cylons. First Occupation of Tauron

The Cylon occupation of Tauron began when the Tauron government agreed to an unconditional surrender to the Cylon at the end of the Second Battle of Tauron. The Tauron government was dissolved with most members arrested and/or executed. The Cylon leadership was determined to keep the Tauron in subjugation and prevent them from ever becoming a threat again.

During the occupation, Cylon ships attacked the Colony, resulting in thousands of deaths. The numerous survelliance satellites orbiting the planet, plus the blockading force's superior position in orbit made escape impossible, all the while cutting off all trade with the Colony and creating an increasingly-horrible humanitarian crisis on the planet below. A number of commercial transports tried to leave the planet carrying thousands of refugees, including injured people, only to be destroyed. Meanwhile, heavy ground fighting took place between the local defenders and Centurions sent to quell the rebellion, leaving the Colony in all-together dire straits.

Therefore they treated the captive Tauron populace with great cruelty: millions were herded into work camps, as expendable slave labor used in rebuilding the planetary infrastructure. The punishment for the killing of any Cylon by any Tauron was the execution of five hundred Taurons including the perpetrators own family. Millions more Taurons were slaughtered as part of a genetic cleansing program, intended to eliminate the potential for aggression from their gene pool - whole communities were destroyed in this process.

As a result of the Cylon bombardment, Tauron underwent major climate change, as dust blown into the atmosphere reduced the planet's sunlight, lowered the global temperature, and created near-constant windy conditions around the planet. Destruction of Tawa

Sagitarron fell into crisis when the Cylons reprogrammed the FTL plotter of a cruise ship and rammed the the vessel at near-FTL speeds into the heart of Tawa, the colony's capital. The was hit with a blast that obliterated its downtown area and left a crater five kilometers wide. Shockwaves from the blast were powerful enough to destroy buildings 11-kilometers away, killing tens of thousands of people.

The Radium, Sagitarron's parliamentary building, was at the epicenter of the blast and was believed to be the Cylon's primary target. No registered armed ships were in orbit or in the sky above Tawa, leading authorities to believe the blast was caused by a ship used as a weapon of tremendous force, aimed at the Radiatum and accelerated to near-FTL speed.

At the time of impact, Hathor Magenis, Sagitarron's representative in the Qourum of Twelve was present in his executive building, now indistinguishable from the rest of the rubble. The Sagitarron viceroy, chief of staff, and countless government workers were also killed, burned, or vaporized by the tremendous impact of the FTL vehicle.

By the time rescue workers arrived and recovery efforts began close to 1.2 million lives had been lost, the largest civilian death toll since the Night of Tears. Defeat at Nihuk

In order to make up for the devastating loses at Tauron and Sagitarron, Colonial intelligence had shown that Nihuk, a terrestrial planet close to Hera, was lightly guarded and seemed to be the prefect target for a military strike. The Colonial hoped that they could destroy the Cylon supply base and shipyards would force the Cylon to temporarily halt their advance while raising spirits after the lose of Tauron. This would give the Colonials time to regroup and rebuild their forces. The danger of this plan was that, in order to create a fleet large enough to make the assault, the defenses of the Colonial homeworlds were severely depleted, thereby leaving them open to attack if the Cylon discovered the Colonial's plan.

Unfortunately for the Colonials, the Cylons made sure that a fleet of vessels were guarding Gorash while the Cylon fleet headed to the Colonial homeworlds in order to lay waste to the planet.

The entire Colonial fleet, under the leadership of Commander Renu, was wiped out in orbit around Nihuk when it jumped in. The Battlestar _ was lost, along with eighteen other ships and 10,000 lives.

Second Battle of Ragnar Anchorage
Commander Ramona Vandelz took command of Zeta Wing, while Alpha Wing and Delta Wing also launched to protect the station. The Battlestars _ and _ also launched their Viper wings as soon as the enemy descended into Ragnar Anchorage air-space.

Arriving with two Basestars, two Sagitarron Assaultstars, dozens of Raiders, and a troop ship carrying Centurions, leading Cylon units ordered Ragnar Anchorage and the other ships to surrender themselves immediately, Trane responds vocally against the order and refuses to surrender. When the Centurions breaks off communication, Trane activated the station's defense grid.

The Cylon task force opened fire first. The Colonials immediately respond. Commander Vandelz lead the station's Viper wings in assaulting the Cylon ships, hoping to disable them enough to allow the Battlestars to take them down. They also engage in fierce dogfights with the enemy Raiders.

The two Sagitarron Assaultstars do not last very long in the fighting. However, they absorb a great deal of the Colonial's firepower, enabling the Cylons to inflict heavy damage to the Battlestar _ without significant damage to either of the two Cylon destroyers. Indeed, the leading Cylon Basestar initially did not seem to suffer any major hits of any kind.

When the _ takes a few more hits, the ship begins to lose control and fires erupt on all decks. In desperation, Captain Hiroshi has her ship ram the flagship Basestar, destroying both warships completely.

While the battle progressed outside, the Cylon troop ship managed to slip through the station's defenses and latch onto the hull.

The Centurions burn through the hull and heavy fighting ensues. After heavy weapons fire, the fighting becomes closer and the two sides start battling hand-to-hand. Both sides do not hold back, resulting in heavy casualties to all involved.

The battle continues to rage outside the station. Three Thunderbolt Starfuries attack C'n'C directly. While the station's defenses take them out, one crashes into the station, causing damage to C'n'C and injuring Captain Trane. Commander Vandelz, meanwhile, is forced to eject when an out of control Viper collides with her own fighter.

Colonel Ryon orders the Athena, which has only suffered minor damage, to charge the remaining Basestar, firing with the main weapons at almost point blank range. Trane also orders the defense grid to concentrate its fire on the Basestar. The firepower overwhelms the vessel, and it is destroyed.

The station, having endured major damage up to this point, could not endure much more fighting. While the Colonials catch their breath, however, a second Cylon task force begins its descent. Two more Basestars and one Gemenon Firestar issue a second order for the station to surrender.

However, before Trane or Ryona can think to respond, the Battlestar _ and three _ under the command of Admiral Arcourt jump into Ragnar Anchorage, a dangerous move as the magnetic field of the gas giant results in all four ships shorting out their FTL drives completely.

Positioning themselves between the station and the Cylon task force, Wasting no time he deploys an entire spread of nuclear missiles on the approaching force, destroying both the Basestar and severely damaging its escort. With little options left the Gemenon Firestar self-destructed instead of being taken. Meanwhile on the station, there was still major fighting going on between station security and the Centurions. Eventually, around an hour later, the station security defeated the marines, thus bringing the battle to a close. Capture of Eol

Admiral Ashdown ordered a Captain Garmora to establish a ground base on Eol, an ice planet fortified by the Cylons.

The ground forces were supposed to attack the central Cylon base. Unfortunately, the newly-arrived troops had no access to drop pods carrying the majority of their heavy siege weaponry and the direct route to the facility was heavily fortified.

Hope however arrived, the Colonial troops made contact with unknown Colonial forces on Eol. Their leader, Captain Ricco Duma, of the Yatani Pirates, offered an alliance with the Colonial. Captain Garmora was skeptical, as Duma had explained his pirate force lost all their ships during the initial Cylon landing on Eol during the first weeks of the war and without outside communications could have no idea about the unification of the Colonies. Duma explained that he was an enemy of the Cylons, and any enemy of the Cylon was a friend of his. Garmora declared the Yatani Pirates the first colonial conscripts of the Colonial.

Duma offered former mining equipment to the Colonial to be repurposed as siege weaponry, as well as guidance to a less-guarded pathway to Cylon central facility. The Cylon command center was destroyed as a result of long range siege fire and Centurion incursions were stopped dead by Colonial sniper teams. Raid of the Nihuk Shipyards

Based on the data gathered from the captured remains of the central base on Eol, Colonial Command discovered that the main Cylon fleet was currently involved in an upgrade of a third of its forces. While this would only open a five hour window where the response times of the Cylon fleet would be greatly retarded, a strike against one of their mid-range bases could score the Colonials a major victory. Admiral Ashdown picked out the Nihuk Shipyards, home to a number of Cylons Basestars, capture Colonial transports stocked with supplies and numerous prison transports. He also hoped to erase the terrible defeat the Colonial Fleet had originally suffered at the Cylon's hands at Nihuk previously. Ashdown sought to commandeer these ships. Duma warned that based on his long-term experiences with the Eol Cylons, their command would relieze the lose of Eol and would reinforce its outlying bases within 16 hours.

As the attack progressed Colonial crews took control of a number of Basestars. As the ships moved to join the main fleet the expected counterattack by the Cylon fleet arrived. The Cylon Armada was defeated by the captured Basestars and the counterattack fleet was forced to retreat.

In the aftermath the defense forces of Nihuk were impressed into the Colonial fleet, and the shipyards were destroyed.

Third Battle of Tauron
At the start of the battle, the Battlestar Pollux, along with the Battlestar Athena, were ordered by Admiral Ashdown of the Battlestar Colombia to jumped into the system on the opposite side of the Tauron from the blockade fleet.

After a second wave of Battlestars jumped into Tauron orbit, Admiral Ashdown ordered the Battlestar Vesta and the Battlestar Nixi to launch fighters and take point at the second wing. She was then ordered to turn and engage the third wave of Raiders, which had jumped in to the rear of the blockade.

Hoping to force the issue, Hall ordered the Colombia to engage. The Vesta entered into the fight, but only for a short time. Kamikaze Raiders struck the Battlestar midship and crippled the vessel. While she was unable to move, Vesta continued to provide critical cover fire to several wings of Raptors jumping into Tauron orbit to deliver troops to the ground.

After the arrival of a third wave of Raiders, the Pollux joined the Colombia in firing on the Basestars. The Colombia knocked one of the enemy ships out of control, causing it to crash into the front of the Pollux. This impact resulted in her destruction with all hands, as none of the crew had time to get to any lifepods. Athena advanced and engaged forward elements of the Basestar fleet, managing to catch three ships attempting to attack the Vesta, destroying all three.

The Nixi then made a run for the flagship of the Cylon occupation force, inflicting heavy damage before they had to retreat. The Battlestar Furies however managed to make a pinpoint jump, directly beyond the Cylon main capital ships and opened fire with an entire payload of nukes. She suffered heavy damage but destroyed six Basestars and rendered another five disabled. With there lose the Cylon forces began to retreat en-mass, though fighting with small pockets of Centurions continued on Tauron for weeks following the battle.

As the battle ended, the Colombia was the only Battlestar still combat capable but Tauron had been successfully liberated.

Ashdown Rescue
The Athena, flagship of General Ashdown, entered orbit of Lunar Three to bring relief supplies to entrenched soldiers holding back the increasing Centurion forces that were swarming the relay station that kept the Inner Colonies connected to their outer counterparts. However en-route the Athena was badly damaged from Cylon kamikaze Raiders, causing the lose of her thrusters and sending her spiraling towards the moon below.

The flagship crashed inside a small crater that the Cylon soon completely surrounded and entrenched. Ashdown made an uncoded priority one distress call, asking for immediate backup.

The derelict ship was surrounded, preventing Viper Squadron Alpha from rescuing their General. However by jumping in Raptors merely half a kilometer above the ground, they were able to deploy drops directly under the Cylon dradis, though 8 of the 22 Raptors were lost due to jump miscalculations.

The Colonial marines reached the ship and establish a permitter, keeping the Cylons at bay under orbital units could move in to establish a strike pattern. After more then ten-hours of holding off Centurion advances the Battlestar _ managed to break through the orbital blockade and launch four tactical nukes, hitting critical lines of surface-to-air rocket encampments behind the Cylon lines. This gave the Colonials the opening they needed to evacuate back into orbit. Ashdown personally activated the self-destruct on the Athena before leaving. The result nuclear detonation

Battle of Cosmora Archipelago
The Battle of Cosmora Archipelago occurred in the mid-First Cylon War. Intent on liberating the munitions outpost of Cosmora Archipelago and deprive the Cylons access to the thousands of weapons grade uranium stored there, Commander Kronus commanded the Fourth Fleet, including four Battlestars including his flagship the Battlestar Rycon into battle. Rycon was heavily damaged forcing Commander Kronus to transfer his command to a destroyer but successfully regained Cosmora, then holding it for three subsuquent months until support could arrive. Commander Kronus receive a service award from the Quorum of Twelve, promotion to Admiral and years after his death due to natural causes, a Battlestar named in his honor.

Battle of Molecay

Following the Battle of Cosmora Archipelago the Battlestars Night Flight, Chronos, Britannica and Olympus, were reassigned to the 5th Colonial fleet under the command of Rear-Admiral Garris Cain aboard the Battlestar Pegasus. They were given orders to secure Molecay and old mining facility overrun by Cylons. While the Molecay based station had been a lifeline that provided fuel to the Colonies with the War and the Twelve Colonies united, the closer access to tylium on Troy had meant the Molecay mines had lost their purpose- yet they were still a rich source of tylium and the colonial high command decreed that the Cylons should not have it. The Fifth Colonial fleet set out to retake Molecay. Cain- who had been running what essentially was a guerilla campaign against the Cylons in the area came up with the plan to lure the Cylon baseships and raiders away from Molecay with his battlestars using the gas giant Karybdis in the Molecay system as cover and jumping his troopships and support vessels close to Molecay orbit. According to his intelligence the Cylons had only 1 basestar protecting Molecay. He was however betrayed by his intelligence officer Lt. Lyman Ward who was a member of a secret cabal who wished to make peace with the Cylons- a cabal of which Dr. Becca Kelly of Greystone Industries was also a member of. Lt. Ward understated the strength of the Cylon forces guarding Molecay in his reports and also relayed information to the Cylons regarding 5th Fleet's movements.

Knowing the jump coordinates the Cylons set up an ambush over the Gas Giant Karybdis with 5 basestars while holding 1 basestar in orbit of Molecay to ambush the invasion force. The 5th Fleet jumped in and were immediately set upon by Cylon raiders. The Cylons also launched hundred of nuclear warheads at 5th Fleet's battlestars. The majority were intercepted by Colonial CIWS but several got through and Olympus and Britannica were reduced to smoldering irradiated hulks before the raiders blew them apart. Chronos was hit by at least 4 nuclear warheads before she jumped out. Night Flight took two hits but was able to spin up her FTL drive and jump out, while Pegasus- having received a refit which upgraded her armor and weapons charged straight between two basestars and unleashed a torrent of missile and railgun fire destroying both basestars before being forced to make a blind jump. While the Cylon ambush of the battlestars was going on- the invasion fleet proved to be easy game for the remaining basestar in orbit of Molecay- it wiped out the 6 troopships and the 8 gunstars guarding it. 5th Fleet was essentially wiped out- Brittanica and Olympus were destroyed, Chronos damaged beyond repair Pegasus missing, Night Flight requiring at least 10 months refit, the complete destruction of the 6 troop transports and 80% of the escorting gunstars destroyed.

Hoping to gain a boost to moral following the tragic defeat at Molecay, the Colonial military orders the Battlestars Athena, Colombia and Atlas to free the population of the Cylon held moon of Virgon, Ithaca. Cylon use of aggressive tactics for defense, suicide robot ships that destroy the Battlestar Atlas and several dozen troops ships before Colonial marines can land. Over six thousand free humans are killed and though 1,300 civilians are rescued and transported to Virgon for safety, Ithaca was deemed stragetically worthless and abandoned.

Death of Ashdown
The Battle of Orion VII began when Cylon forces ambushed a meeting of Colonial Fleet personnel.

During the battle, the Basestar hit the Battlestar Athena amidships, killing Admiral Ashdown. The Athena first attempted to flee without returning fire, but when the Basestar persisted, it opened up with her rear guns, destroying the enemy craft completely.

Hera Campaign

By the eleven years point, the war had sapped the Colonies of their resources and ability to mount a serious offensive against the Cylons. Military theorists postulated that if the war continued for even another five years the Colonial infrastructure would totally collapse and most of the Colonies would be unable to support anything above agrarian civilization. In order to off put this the Colonial Fleet Headquarters declared the would have the war won in three, but in order to accomplish this they would have to resort to stealth, cunning and sabotage in order to compete with the Cylons. Most importantly the threat of 01 had to be eliminated, as it was the source of almost 60% of all Cylon war production, two-thirds of ship maintenance and the central nexus of their command and communication activities.

Zeus Virus

The first stage of the Hera Campaign began with the implement of the Zeus Virus, one of the most controversial projects of the First Cylon War. The Zeus Virus was a topological anomaly, a type of invasive program with a paradoxical geometric form designed to overwhelm a computer's processing functions by spawning an infinite number of interlocking anomalous solutions.

Colonial Intelligence imprinted the program onto the central core of three Basestars recently captured from the Nihuk Shipyards and stationed them near Ragnar to appear as if the Colonials were testing a new form of networked computers that was immune to Cylon intrusion.

However the second part of the plan had to attract the Cylons to the ships. This was completed by use of the Battlestar Chronos. Damaged from the Battle of Molecay, shipyard estimates stated the vessel was a lost cause and to be scrapped. Colonial Intelligence repurposed the craft and instead repaired the Battlestar just enough to be used for one final operation.

In order to maintain authenticity, Colonial Intelligence assigned eighty crewmen to pilot the Chronos to Sagitarron, informing them that the Chronos was being used as the only available transport to move sensitive materials too classified to be transmitted over wireless, the Chronos purposely sparked an engine failure while close to the Cylon front and transmitted a distress call in the clear. In a matter of 30 minutes two Basestars arrived and captured the Chronos, killing the eighty crew members. This move was widely unpopular with Command but it was the only plausible plan that Colonial Intelligence would draw the Cylons to Ragnar.

Acting as if in a shakedown cruise, five Cylon Basestars jumped in at close range. Given the vessels lacked all forms of weaponry and FTL, the crews quickly began to abandon ship as the Cylons moved in to reclaim the three ships. Waiting from a distance the Colonials waited and hoped.

The program was initially nothing more than a minor distraction to the Cylons, but soon required exponentially-increasing amounts of processing time to solve this no-solution puzzle, thus eventually occupying the entire resources base to overcome. In a matter of a week, eighty Cylon Basestars, numerous bases and stations, along with half of their Centurion legions suffered a cascade failure. The majority of these were centered around the Hera sector, where with the Cylons high level of inter-connection, the Zeus virus crippled entire processing networks as Skynet attempted to overcome it.

Invasion of Hera Sector
With Skynet trying to overcome the damage done to it by the Zeus virus, Colonial forces took advantage of the confusion to launch a flanking maneuver against the Cylon assets stationed across the system. This merely was a distracting measure, as most of these assets were not meant to be held, instead to draw the majority of the Cylon's still functioning fleet out and away from Eubea and 01. Storming of _

During the final phase of the war, Eubea was protected by a forward fleet of over thirty Basestars with additional support from Cylon installations on the surface of nearby _. In order to have a clear strike at Eubea, _ had to be eliminated for the military protection it offered, both as strategic and supply base to their central command.

As the Raptor squadrons began to prepare for the coming battle by scouting the installations and smuggling stealth mines into the flight standard _ orbital patterns of Cylon warships, Admiral Meedows and his fleet also prepare to move in as well. The Battlestars would lead the attack while the rest of the Colonial fleet would provide flank protection and establish a perimeter. They would not directly engage unless fired upon, instead meant to buffer the Cylons into concentrating on the forward units. This was because the majority of the Colonial fleet had sacrificed most of their heavy and strategic weaponry to arm the Battlestars, if the Cylons pushed to the flanking units they would be ill-equip to defend themselves.

The battle began when four dozen Raptors jumped into Eubea's atmosphere and bombing eight of the main Cylon installations. Nine of Cylon ships move in back to the planet but the majority held position. Locked in the gravity well of Eubea they were unprepared when secondary Raptor squadrons launched a trap, jumping in and saturating the orbital space with nuclear missiles, in order to both destroy the Cylons and also to disrupt the dradis of the remaining forces that had not taken the bait. Six Basestars were destroyed, three heavily damaged.

Shortly afterwards, Colonial forces jump into the space around Eubea. Before the Cylons could engage, many intersected the stealth mines left in orbit, destroying another eleven warships. Those that weren't destroyed were quickly disabled or destroyed by the Colonial fleet.

Rush of Eubea

With the forward units and supply bases on _ eliminated, the Colonials began to move towards Eubea. But the Cylons did not wait for the Colonials to strike and attack waves launched a preemptive strike on the incoming fleet even as Colonial commanders were in conference. The Battlestars were engaged at close range by Basestars, and by the powerful surface-to-orbit batteries.

Breaking through Eubea's orbital defenses was delegated to General Wendy Hoshi and Alpha Squadron. Hoshi was intimately familiar with the defenses after being the Caprican colonel in charge of bombing runs during the First Battle of 01. Three orbital platforms served as staging points for the Cylon military and Hoshi proposed a strike on the central platform. This would cause enough confusion to allow a small force to break through to the surface. The Colonials secured the platform after defeating defending Centurion forces, but at the lose of over 800 marines. Using the platforms weaponry, Hoshi used the central platform to open first on its counterparts, destroying one and crippling another before Skynet activated the platform's self-destruct, killing the remaining 200 marines including General Hoshi.

A Colonial force led by Admiral Meedows descended to the surface, destroying war factories operated by the Cylons. However the Cylons were better prepared than planned and Colonial troops and equipment struggled to make land fall even as near-Eubea space was being contested. Most Raptors were destroyed in mid-drop or quickly overrun after landing. Those that survived the gauntlet were badly scattered. Some units were forced underground into the more defensible tunnels that snaked the crust of Eubea. The situation was exacerbated by a breakdown in communications. Ground units had difficulty reaching higher command, and Admiral Meedows was temporarily unavailable after transferring to the Battlestar Fontus and coming under attack himself. Despite heavy casualties, little progress was made toward establishing a secure landing zone. Isolated units fought on as their intended support literally crashed around them.

Several Raptors from the Beta Zeta squadron landed relatively intact and established a base in a landing zone near 01, despite of the disaster unfolding around them. Colonel Philmont quickly took in the chaotic situation and began using improvised maneuvers using equipment nearby. Philmont's initiative paid off. A Colonial force, sufficient to secure a perimeter, slowly snowballed around the Beta Zeta, and a nominal foothold was established. It happened not a moment too soon. The Battlestar Fontus, with Meedows aboard, was disabled and crashed near the base. The survivors dug in and were rescued by the Beta Zeta as the Cylons began overrunning their position, a surrounded Meedows was rescued personally by Philmont from a regiment of Centurions.

The foothold was renamed Philmont Forward Base. Meedows met with Philmont there at 16:58 to discuss strategy. Cylon strength was too great for a direct push on the primary processing cluster, and Skynet was recalling Cylons forces back to Eubea from worlds conquered earlier in the war. The Colonials understood the window of opportunity was rapidly dwindling, and there was time for only one secondary attack to weaken the defenses and clear the way for the main assault.

Assault of 01

Fourth Battle of Tauron
The Fourth Battle of Tauron shares joint status with Operation Raptor Talon as the last battle of the First Cylon War. Tauron was unfortunately a heavily fought over strategic battlefield. Many industrial cities like Hephaestion were occupied by the Cylons to produce ships, weapons, and more sinisterly, their own Cylon Army. It was liberated and conquered no less then four times, resulting in Tauron suffering the greatest loss of life then any other Colony. Over a fifth of the native population was wiped out and numerous cultural treasures lost forever.

Tauron was left under-defended, as they committed the majorty their Battlestars, the Battlestar Nightflight and Battlestar Nixi to Operation Talon- leaving only Rycon for system defene. . While Caprica and Leonis promised to provide reserve units to counter this lose, they failed to arrive in time and Tauron was attacked by 3 Cylon Basestars and ground forces, causing many civilian causalities in areas such as the city of Hypatia, formerly Tauron's largest metropolis that was massacred and depopulated of its 11 million residents in a matter of two-days. Although even up-gunned and up-armored, even Rycon was unable to prevent the Cylon Basestars from laying siege to Tauron. All that Rycon could do was stage hit and run attacks on the Basestars when they were far enough away from each other for support. It was during one such ambush that Rycon was able to disable one basestar- mere minutes before the ceasefire was announced, and moments before Kronus and Fix inserted their keys to unleash her store of Nuclear missiles to finish it off

Operation Raptor Talon
Concurrent to this was Operation Raptor Talon, a military operation that took place on the 4,571th and final day of the First Cylon War. The battlestars Galactica, Nightflight and Columbia were among the Colonial vessels taking part in the mission.

The objective was to attack Iris, a moon of the gas giant Hera, that was rumored to house a Cylon superweapon. According to intelligence on hand, the Cylons had three Raider wings, ground forces, defensive batteries and nuclear weapons. Additionally, the Cylons had at least two Basestars defending the planet from orbit.

Raptors from Raptor Squadron 2 were the first Colonial vessels to be launched in the operation, intent on landing marine ground forces on Iris to split the Cylons from their ground support. But the ground invasions were ambushed by Cylon forces soon after. Almost two thirds of the Raptors were destroyed and none managed to land, costing over 500 lives before command ordered a retreat and the main capital ship units of the fleet to move in instead.

During the orbital engagement with the enemy, Columbia was destroyed by incoming missile salvos. All crew members were killed and over 200 Vipers lost in the result blast wave and debris. At this point members of the Colonial leadership were seriously beginning to consider pulling out of Iris and retreating back to friendly reports, when news came from home.

It was during this operation that the Cylons finalized an armistice with the Colonies, and instigated an immediate retreat from the Colonial space.

It is estimated the First Cylon War caused the death of an estimated 3.1 billion of Colonials and lasted for approximately twelve and a half years (4,571 days). But those deaths would have been much higher if not for the Battlestar fleet, which after the war numbered eighteen of the behemoths.