Jump 099: Battlestar Galactica

Jump 99: Battlestar Galactica
>Ace of Swords (An opportunity to bring reason and intelligence to bear in the pursuit of justice and truth. An excessive power that must not be abused.)
This is going to be one of those "may you live in interesting times" things, isn't it.
>Age: 33
>Location: Gemenon (orbit)
Wait a god damn minute, I thought the attack was supposed to happen a year from now, not an hour ago with the dust not even settling on the planetary surface.
Bloody hell.
>Identity: Scientist (-50)
Well, if I'm stuck on a wagon train to the stars, they're going to need someone who actually has the brains to help.
>Species: Human (0)
Deus vult!
>Scrappy (Free, Human)
Sounds like a good perk to go tubthumping with.
>A Mind That Burns Like A Fire (Free, Scientist)
It doesn't hurt to have increased flexibility in imagination, not to mention the aspects of making functional theories that much more quickly.
>Omnidisciplinarian (850, Scientist)
"But I must save the scientists!"
>No, Jumper. You are the scientists.
And then Crux was the Colonies' version of Stephen Hawking.
>Promotion Orders (x5: Flag Officer) (600)
I have every intention of using this, and then promptly dodging most responsibility that comes my way, just so I can pull this out when the plot demands it to prevent stupidity.
>Jumper's TO&E: Special Duty/Detatched (500)
This is how I dodge responsibility. Besides, using jumper powers to convert one hangar pod into hydroponics and the other into a manufacturing facility is probably a good idea, yeah?
>Battlestar Import: Sajuuk (0)
When a problem comes along, you must BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR. Before the cream sets out too long, BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR. When something's going wrong, BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR.

After the opening credits, I began on the command deck of the Battlestar Sajuuk, a Mercury-class battlestar which has been pencilled into the books but otherwise has no assignment nor record of crew. Which is rather relevant, because there is not another soul on board. Of course having just jumped into orbit during the attack after the Cylons left orbit, it raises some flags. I know what is happening, and the command navigation program is removed from the systems while I start working on coming up with something of my own creation as quickly as I can. It will take a good long while to create something that will be fully functional on Colonial hardware without overtaxing it, but there's time enough to worry about that later. After all, I can bypass it thanks to shenanigans.

This is important because an intact battlestar would make Cylons worry. An intact battlestar that just jumped right back out makes them worry more. An intact battlestar that jumps to the mouth of the nebula that Ragnar Anchorage is in, in order to clear the way for the Galactica to jump away... now they're probably in a mild panic. Mine would be the third one, and even if Galactica may not have picked up on it, I definitely picked up on THEM and proceeded to follow them out from there, despite that I should not have been able to follow.

The Cylons started following, jumping in every 33 minutes. I let this go on for a short time before I decide enough is enough, get Adama on the horn, and ask him if he had anyone doing anything while they were decommissioning it. Devices in the CIC that don't belong, and so on. And once everyone starts looking... they realize that, hey, there IS in fact a Cylon device there. Suddenly, after the next jump, no one is jumping in after them. Good sign!

Galactica's water reserves get sabotaged a matter of days after that, but you've got a second battlestar with all kinds of water reserves, and I'd be happy to help out; after all, I have no crew needing it.

>"Did I hear that correctly? No crew?"
>"Correct, Commander Adama."
>"How, exactly, is it that your battlestar is functioning without crew?"
>"A great deal of automation. Not Cylon, Fleet wouldn't be willing to give that sort of thing a chance to stab us in the back twice - quite different. Sajuuk is a test bed of sorts, it's a stroke of luck that she was armed, but the skeleton crew was on leave and I was watching the ship when the nukes dropped."
>"But no crew at all aside from yourself."
>"No, Commander. Completely scrapped the CNP in order to make it work, but work it does."
>"Completely scrapped the- do you even sleep, doctor Cross?"
>Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies. Though I've been meaning to mention, I DO have a full crew's worth of supplies over here, not just the water - send over a raptor, if you like, it'll do more good on Galactica than over here. Hell, if things calm down, I'll head over there and bring a bottle of ambrosia with."
>"...you're an odd one, doc, but I won't say no."
>"Oh, I do try. Speaking of which, I'd like to talk to you about search and rescue operations if and when we do meet face to face..."

And so Adama and I got drunk together, I passed him my paperwork saying that I was TECHNICALLY holding an admiral rank but outside the normal chain of command, we spoke with the acting president the next day and I passed my pips to him just so we could be certain that he wasn't outranked and to ensure I wouldn't pull any shenanigans. And with me being what I was - a scientist first and foremost, but with military rank - it provided an interesting counterbalance to the William Adama/Laura Roslin dynamic. And it also meant they got to let their hair down a little bit once in a while.

I convinced Adama to lend me crew in order to do search and rescue operations; I wasn't insane enough to muck about the colonies, but charting probable outbound courses, sending raptors to check the area (and what a coincidence that the testbed-of-a-battlestar had raptors with upgraded scanners on them!), and jumping Sajuuk to any ships we found. And we did find many - some were already destroyed by Cylons, some were floating dead in space, some... had been stripped, and we heard nightmare stories about another battlestar. The Pegasus. Everyone was brought onto Sajuuk and given the option to go to the civilian fleet, as we were hardly going to press-gang anyone, and some very frank discussions were had with the newly-minted admiral and president. To wit: if we found Pegasus, we'd bring her to the fleet (without civilians present), go over there, and relieve her of command immediately.

That didn't happen for months, though, despite me trying to move the timeline along faster.

What did happen, however, is a riot on the prison ship. Tom Zarek instigated things, and then he had a most tragic heart attack. Can't blame that on anyone except the will of the gods, for the more superstitious members of the fleet.

>"...but for you, the people. The survivors of the holocaust and the children of humanity's future. I am Tom Zarek, and... and this is the first... f-first day of... a new... nngh..!"

Asserting control over the prisoners was a lot easier with their ringleader dead of natural causes. I was on Sajuuk and completely uninvolved, of course - if I'd been involved, I would have had to board that ship via some sort of strange magic, and use that same magic to induce cardiac arrest, then escape back to my ship all while evading anyone's notice.

Duties necessitate me running back and forth between Sajuuk and Galactica periodically, and there are basically rotating staff manning it by this point; while it's largely automated, having people come over there and on Galactica for training under more experienced officers is definitely a plus. Of course, my fighter compliment was sent over to Galactica, and the hangar pods were converted - one is dedicated to hydroponics and the other to manufacture and fabrication of parts for the fleet - and these things give the dedicated civilian population useful work, to boot. Of course there are always other things, but with an empty battlestar, it means more breathing room throughout the fleet.

And then I get to meet doctor Gaius Baltar. Oh the fun I had.

>"Well! It's good to see that you managed to survive the bombing of Caprica City. Some might say God is watching out for you, Gaius."
>". . . w-w-what did you say?"
>"Oh, sorry, I must have overheard something that friend of yours said."
>"A f-friend, yes ... er, to whom are you referring, exactly?"
>"Oh, you know. Blonde, long-legged, red dress, standing over your shoulder running her mouth and thinking that I can't see her because she's only appearing to you and if she opens her mouth and says one more thing I'm going to bisect her because I'm not playing her frakking games."
>"Y-you-- you can... s-see..?"
>"Oh my, yes. That's why I'm speaking to you in your office rather than somewhere that others will overhear. She does like to hear herself prattle on, doesn't she? Blah blah twelve models blah blah god has a plan blah blah I'm an angel. He doesn't like being called a god, because he isn't one. She has delusions of grandeur - she's no angel, either."
>"What the frak... how do you..?!"
>"Gaius. You are a scientist, are you not? Use that brain of yours. Let us suppose an intellect grows sufficiently advanced - as in, a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. You know humans are essentially walking, talking, biological computers; Cylons are lower-tech emulations of such. With the right technology, you can write bits of data to a computer remotely, yes? Further advancement means that they can do that to peoples' brains as well."
>"Oh my gods. The implications-"
>"Yes, doctor Baltar, every bit as staggering as you think. You, for your failings, would not have done what you did without outside influence. Their problem is that they finally attracted a sufficient outside force that is frowning upon their shenanigans. Ah, and now she has heard enough and disappeared. Smart girl. If she reappears, give me a ring, will you? Consider the implications, after all, of what I've told you. Don't you think it's rather convenient that an off-the-books, empty and nigh-autonomous battlestar showed up in the fleet's hour of need?"
>"I... think I need to sit down."

It pretty much went off the rails from there. To make a long story short: it turns out that while Cylons share group memories, each has an individual soul. I tested that theory on Cavil while he was still on Galactica and later found that when his clone was activated on the Resurrection Ship, it was brain dead. He was the only one I used a killing curse on - this was all his fault - but I quietly rounded up the Cylons throughout the fleet, took them over to Sajuuk, sat them all down in a briefing room, and told them everything. And I do mean everything. The war was immediately called off, they dedicated their time to helping survivors (they had barely started the internment camps), and they gathered up their people and worked to clean up the damage they'd caused, before leaving in disgrace and swearing a pact never to return. The Ones were boxed.

The final five Cylons - that is, the Tighs, Tyrol, Anders, and Foster - had their memories restored. And then I promptly punched each of them in the face. Fools who thought they could play god, directly responsible for this mess. Their penance was to help restore the Twelve Colonies to better condition and live out their remaining days as humans.

Once things calmed down there... we ran into Pegasus, which was very confused by the Cylons all but disappearing. Helena Cain tried to pull the expected nonsense. I had already grown tired of the dramatic bullshit, told Adama that I would handle it before anything happened, and then teleported onto Pegasus' command deck, turning their radio on and transmitting to Galactica.

>"Helena Cain, you have been convicted in absentia of piracy and high treason. You and your staff will stand down immediately, or face execution."
>"How the frak- shoot him!"
>Gunfire is heard for about thirty seconds while the radio channel remains open.
>"Cute. I will tell you once more, Helena Cain, stand down or I will execute everyone in this room who fired on me. You killed dozens. Condemned hundreds to die in space. It would have been thousands had they not been rescued. Aaand you've reloaded despite every single bullet failing to strike me. Are you really that dense?"
>"I will not stand by while some... civilian, threatens my crew! No matter what trickery you're using!"
>"Admirable, but misguided. And the rest of you? ...Despite that you idiots saw her shoot her XO in the head? You realize that you were within rights to relieve her of command?"
>Gunfire is heard again for about fifteen seconds.
>"Admirable... but mistaken."
>The channel cuts out for about five minutes, then resumes.
>"Admiral Adama, Pegasus CIC is secure and is powering down non-essential systems at this time. Please send over the appropriate personnel to pacify crew and assume command, but keep in mind that half the crew at this point was been press-ganged."

Other than that? The 'angel' versions of Six and Baltar never bothered anyone else again. It may have something to do with the fact that they couldn't figure out where the hell I came from, nor how I managed to track down their source. It turns out that a jumper is much closer to a god than their 'god' was, and when a jumper makes a threat, they will happily remind whomever they threaten that they are fully capable of carrying out that threat.

I politely suggested they get hobbies other than repeatedly fucking over human civilizations for their own amusement and offered to befriend them should they decide to go back to their old ways.

And then, when my time was nearly up and the colonies were cleaned up, I mass-resurrected all the humans who were willing to come back to life after having died in the attacks (and wiped their memories of their deaths so they could remain sane). There was a rather impressive percentage of people willing to do so; let's hear it for epic spells.