BattleStar Galactica Unchained

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Here is my take on BattleStar Galactica, the 1978 TV series.

The original story creator, Glen Larson, apparently sees, as a backdrop or a setting, what I see as the main story - One BattleStar escorting the remnants of Humanity in whatever ships they could get, fleeing from a Cylon Empire that will not rest until it destroys them all. He is of course welcome to tell his story in whatever way he wants to, even if it's not the one I wanted to hear.

I wanted to hear what the human fleet would do to try to survive & improve on their situation - especially what an intelligent person could do with the meager resources they had. But Mr Larson wanted to tell us stories like who is in love with whom, who finds their long-lost father and how that works out, who got shot down and how they managed, who got framed for murder and how they managed, etc. He mentioned very little about how Humanity and its fleet managed. In fact, his episodes are a lot like an old sitcom or cartoon, in that the basic situation never changes, no matter what happened in the last episode.

Since he wouldn't tell me the story I was curious about, I had to think it through and tell it myself. I had to do this for my own satisfaction, but I hope others enjoy it too.

I re-watched all the episodes & read all 14 of Glen Larson's novels first. There is a lot of contradictory material between the books, but I did my best.

So again, in my mind, the story isn't about characters: who loves who, their grief and other emotions & so on. Rather it is, or should be, on "what do we do now to try to survive" - "how do we best use what we have to build our strength, overcome all obstacles as best we may, & seek a satisfactory ending".

So my version doesn't involve the main characters much.

And I wanted to know how it all ended, though the author's mindset became clear in reading the books: the original ragtag fleet of 220 ships had fallen down to 120 ships by book 6 page 23, with the proximate cause being listed as salvaging/scrapping damaged ships to keep the others going. That, plus continually running out of food and fuel, suggests that, in Glen Larson's mind, Humanity was gradually being whittled down to nothing. That's not an ending I liked.

But he missed some opportunities, or rather, did not develop certain things he introduced. These could change the course of things.

My story is in the spirit of " ", (in case that address gets stripped out, that's How It Should Have Ended (minus the spaces) point cee oh emm), where a number of popular stories get alternate endings. My favorite are the ones, like the Lord of the Rings one, where something the author either didn't notice, or glossed over, would have made the story go very differently.

Key:

Since many of the terms used in the TV shows have unclear meanings or even change meaning, here are the meanings I'm using. Where not specified, I keep it simple and use regular terms like second, day or week, since using too many special terms felt awkward.

Sometimes a term like Micron seeps through, though I try to define it in context.

Centon= Minute

Yahren=Year

Metron=Meter

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Actual Story:

Alfred Pike walked down the corridor of the BattleStar Galactica musing on the events that had brought him here.

He had never expected to be on a military ship - his right leg was a little shorter than the other, meaning he was never suitable for the military, as he could not meet the physical fitness requirements.

And while he'd been interested in all things military for a while, he'd eventually found other interests.

In a way, that is what had brought him here.

Though he still never would have been here if he hadn't lost his family on Carillon, when the Cylons attacked. The destruction of the 12 Colonies and most of the human race had left many of the survivors, including himself, in something like a state of shock. His wife and children had been the only solace he could find, so he'd withdrawn into family life, such as it was, in their cramped cubicle on an overcrowded ship. But when they'd died on Carillon, he'd been shocked out of the constant daze he'd been in. Now he had a new reason for living - he felt driven to do all he could to prevent any further losses.

He needed to spare others the grief he felt. At least he needed to do all he could towards that end.

So he'd done something he never would have done otherwise, and campaigned for political office. He had no real ability to change things otherwise.

And he'd won.

He hadn't really expected to, but he'd had to try.

He wasn't a politician, or very charismatic. In fact he could be brusque and blunt, though on the inside he was very kind-hearted.

But he had some unusual sources of support to vote for him.

Before the Cylon victory, he had owned and run a factory called Pike Works. Many of its former workers had been saved and were in the fleet now. They were very loyal to him, partly because he'd always treated them right, and partly because he was a big part of the reason they'd been saved.

Not assuming anything was safe in time of war, he'd had emergency shelters under the factory. And, using the peace conference as an excuse, but really because he didn't trust the Cylons generally and wanted his workers close just in case anything went bad, he'd hosted a big peace party at the factory for his workers, their families, and friends.

That had come in handy.

When the Cylons had attacked the Colonies during the peace conference, his people had used the shelters and been safe.

And it was no coincidence that those shelters had been well-stocked.

Then when the broadcast had come about assembling the ragtag fleet, his people had all escaped in his factory's freighters.

He had those freighters to reduce transport costs, and he'd arranged their schedules so they were all at the factory when the peace conference aka Cylon victory had come.

He hadn't been sure what was going to happen, but anyone with ears had known the Cylons had consistently, for a thousand yahrens, sworn to eradicate all humans. And anyone with a brain should have been able to figure out that that wasn't likely to change overnight.

So he'd been ready just in case, and that had helped him, his family and friends, plus his workers, their families and friends, all of whom he referred to as 'his people' now.

And his people had not just voted for him, they'd been very active in encouraging others to vote for him.

Then he got more fame, and fans, from his experience on Carillon.

While most others had been gorging themselves in the resort, he and some of his people had been touring the tylium mines and refineries. Mainly his reason for doing so had been the curiosity of one industrialist and his best workers for how another race did similar things.

When the Ovions and Cylons attacked the humans on Carillon, his group had been surprised, but not unprepared. Their Ovion tour-guides had pulled weapons on them, assumed his apparently unarmed group had capitulated, and escorted them in to the lower chambers where they were to be eaten. It was then that Pike and his people had pulled out their concealed weapons (he'd always believed in his own responsibility to defend himself, and he encouraged that in others), took out their Ovion 'captors', investigated the pods containing other captured humans and got out of there.

But it was the way they'd gotten out that had gotten him some fame and votes.

He didn't just run.

He and his people had run back to the factory they'd been shown, recovered some ore-moving vehicles & taken them back in. They'd loaded them full of captured humans, even the ones who might have been too far gone to be savable, then driven to the Ovion freighters. They'd driven the vehicles aboard: freed humans, ore and all, judged the risk, and loaded as much tylium as they could, then taken off in all 6 freighters the Ovions had had there.

Flying a freighter had been part of his cross-training program at the Factory.

So they'd arrived at Galactica and escaped with the rest of the humans, but they'd freed people and brought a lot of fuel with them while doing so.

And that had made it possible for him to get enough votes to be voted onto the Council of 12.

Though only just barely.

There had been no less than 3 run-off elections before he finally won.

Consequently he'd missed the first 2 meetings and would have the lowest seniority on the Council.

All the Council members, except Adama, had low seniority, since all were newly elected. But seniority is a relative thing, and though they had little, he had less.

They'd needed a new Council, since the old one had been so foolish as to get themselves all killed while chasing dreams of peace by disarming on Carillon. They should have known better, since that same approach had just recently gotten most of the human race killed.

The sliding doors of the Council chamber opened and cut off his train of thought.

He'd barely entered the room when he heard -

"The observation gallery is the next door along, only Council members and their assistants are allowed in this door" sneered a man at the table wearing a particularly ornate robe.

"Hold on a moment Councilman Nendina, maybe he is here to take out the trash – after all, it is full", simpered a man to Nendina's right.

"Well, he certainly is dressed as a garbage collector" sniffed the arrogant Nendina.

"Hold please" interrupted Council President Adama "I see that you haven't learned the faces of the new Council of 12. I have. Please welcome Councilman Pike."

A series of barely polite nods around the table accompanied some whispers that Alfred couldn't hear.

For the first and only time, he regretted his choice of what to take with him when he fled the 12 Colonies to join the ragtag fleet. Most folks had taken clothes, mementos, maybe some food - things like that.

He, perhaps inevitably given his personality, hadn't taken any of that. Instead he'd taken his personal computer and as many data crystals as he could, each stuffed with data and computer programs. He had figured that if they survived at all, then preserving their technology base was important. And 'technology base' mostly meant what you could build. So he'd brought absolutely as much manufacturing data, plans, schematics & similar as he could.

And consequently he'd been wearing the same set of clothes – the only set he had, every day since then. He washed them every morning, but they were getting a little ragged.

Though, even new, his ordinary work clothes were certainly nothing like the ornate robes the rest of the Council was wearing.

He filed that away as something that, while it may impact his effectiveness at Council, ultimately was not something he cared about.

It just wasn't in him to care about clothes or appearances.

While he was musing on that, the Council Meeting had begun.

They skipped introductions and orientation, since they'd done that in the sessions he'd missed, and they didn't seem to want to do it again for an outsider like him - someone unlike themselves, that is.

They did mention that such information would be in a data packet he would be given at the end of the meeting.

The Council started with minor business,

At least to him it sounded minor. They seemed to think otherwise.

He listened with half an ear.

It was stuff like the enforcement of an existing curfew, and the exact wording of a planned announcement to encourage people to search for and salvage any metals or electronics they could find.

Alfred had objections - the details were impractical and would have unintended consequences. He said so and then voted no.

The votes on those came up 10-2. He and Adama stood against everyone else.

It was as he'd feared – they didn't understand how to be practical. Other than Adama, there wasn't a real achiever among them. All of them were either career politicians, celebrities, famous newscasters or similar. That is, people who were completely unfamiliar with actually getting things done and running things in a practical manner. In short, most were famous because of the type of work they'd chosen, and they'd won election simply because they were famous.

After the minor business was done, each Councilor got a chance to present his own agenda.

Adama started, with some sensible recommendations for the military, then sat down.

But Alfred listened in growing dismay as one Councilor after another presented plans, most of which amounted to "the most important thing we can do is upgrade accommodations for our people, starting with the ones who voted for me".

Well, this is what he'd come for - to try to rationalize production, among other things.

They desperately needed to make the best use of it, since they didn't have much production capacity.

The Galactica had a comprehensive suite of repair facilities for itself and its fighters, and it could be, and had been, adapted to build whole new fighters.

And they had a couple ships designed for minerals extraction, electronics manufacture, or as foundries.

And last and least significant were the odd miscellaneous bits they were finding on the various ships of the fleet.

When the call came to flee and join the ragtag fleet, people had flocked haphazardly to any ship they could. Since Cylons were in the area searching for survivors, they'd mostly been disorganized and in a hurry. Consequently, some of what the ships had previously carried had stayed aboard. While it would have been optimal to discard anything non-essential to make maximal room for passengers and food, ships had tended to throw out unnecessary stuff as passengers arrived & then suddenly take off and leave when their captains judged the Cylon danger to be too high to stay any longer. Many ships had stayed until full, and overfull - way overfull, of passengers. But many had had to leave sooner than that.

So all sorts of odd tidbits were being found on them, now that they had time to look.

And some of those tidbits were machines they could use.

And while passenger accommodations were indeed abysmal, there were more urgent needs.

As the other Councilors finished, Alfred steeled himself for his turn, which would be last, according to his lack of seniority.

He wasn't generally a talkative person. But this was something he cared about.

When his turn finally came, he stood and gave it his best shot.

"Councilors, you are right in that the most important issue is to decide how best to use our limited production facilities. And while passenger accommodations are desperately bad in most of the fleet, they are not, in fact, the most urgent thing we need to fix. People are tough and they can wait a little longer."

He was interrupted by shouts around the room from at least 3 sources.

"What could be more urgent than relieving the sufferings of the only real resource we have left - our people."

"You suggest that our people are unimportant!"

"How dare you put your own whims above the desperate needs of our people."

"We can't ask our people to suffer any more - they've been through too much."

"Order!" yelled President Adama. "Let the Councilor speak without interruption. Then will come the time for discussion."

Alfred was a bit flustered by the interruptions - no other Councilor had been interrupted. But he stubbornly refused to let it get to him. Not right now at least.

After noting to himself that Councilors Nendina, Ari, and Momet, seemed to be his main opponents, he resumed.

"Councilors, our people are not machines. When machines reach the end of their resources, they cease functioning. But a person can continue on a little further even if he is hungry and tired, if it is important enough to do so. And this is very important. As you will see in the documents I sent you, I have done the calculations and if we divert all the production we can to expanding our manufacturing capacity, even for a little while, we can make a dramatic difference in the situation we're all in. We can improve our defenses, expand our capacity to produce food, do ship repairs and upgrades, and yes, expand and improve our living quarters...In general, we can do a better job at taking care of all our needs - not just one."

He sat down and the room exploded into cacophony, as everyone tried to speak at once.

Unfortunately, most of them were doing as the 3 had done before - using emotional arguments to cast him as a bad guy who wanted people to suffer so he could get control of production and try his 'rash, insensitive, and dangerously speculative' ideas. Or at least that is what they called his ideas.

He interjected "You are mis-representing what I said. Did you even listen? I am suggesting we expand production so that ALL needs can be taken care of. The cost, as you see in your copies of the documents I sent out, is that 6% of our people will wait an average of 8 days longer for their better accommodations, while fully 68% will get better accommodations sooner, as the increased production catches up to, and passes, the original schedule!"

But that just set them off more, and the room filled with accusations, which generally had the theme that he was blinded by a love of machines and was eager to let his 'wishful thinking' increase the suffering in the fleet - that the people of the fleet would be his unwilling experimental subjects for an experiment that was doomed to failure due to many factors they imagined or exaggerated, but most especially due, as they said, to his 'unbounded naivety'.

"Look" He said. "This isn't a power-grab. I'm not trying to take away your goodies or tell you what to do. I just want to increase production to keep us all safer and happier, and a brief change in priorities is how we can do that."

"Oh, now he's saying that we're selfishly interested in only our own perks, and he is the only one that cares about the people generally."

"You keep twisting what I say."

"And now he's accusing us of being malicious. This must stop."

"Clear the gallery, so Councilor Pike's false and misleading ideas don't infect the public consciousness and fill them with unrealistic expectations."

10 hands went up in favor of the motion - Councilor Nendina and the 3 others in his faction, plus Councilors Ari and Momet, each with 2 others in their factions.

There was silence while the observers left the room.

Then Alfred discovered that, as with many politicians and celebrities, while their public personas were often very personable, in private they were quite different.

As soon as the door closed on the last observer, Councilman Momet snarled

"Look you grubby little peasant, we're running things, not you, and you certainly don't get to waltz in here, take over and try to make us look bad. You need to learn to respect your betters. I think an object lesson is on order."

While others started nodding, but before they did anything else, he took his chance to respond.

He rose, red-faced and said.

"Leaving aside your evident elitism, I will say that your responses have no connection at all to the facts you already know, or should know, and it is clear that, to the extent that any of you have even glanced at the documents I provided, it was only for the purpose of twisting them out of context so you could misrepresent them. I can only conclude that you are either irretrievably stupid, or are so corrupt in seeking benefits for those who voted for you, in other words, trying to buy their votes, that you are completely unreachable by reason ..."

At this point he was cut off by the explosion of noise in the room. Evidently the other Councilors did not agree with his assessment and disapproved of his making it.

Eventually Adama was able to bring the room to order again, though it took several tries.

The Council then quickly voted on three things.

First, they voted, enforceable by prison time, that he wasn't allowed to speak in Council any further until he made a full apology to each member who had been offended by him.

Second, they voted, amid many excuses that such a distraction would be essential for the morale of the people, that production would go to building a gambling casino in the Rising Star. This was what Nendina's faction had pressed for earlier when they'd had their turns to speak. Evidently deals were being made behind the scenes, and now acted on.

And last, to officially censure Alfred for his 'rudeness', they voted that, although each Council member got to administer a ship, his choice of ships to administer would be limited to only the smallest of the ships which had lost its administrator on Carillon, and further, that he had only 3 centons to decide.

That time limit didn't bother him as much as they had assumed it would. As part of the analysis he'd done in preparing documents for this meeting, he'd already reviewed every ship in the fleet, with its drawbacks and possibilities.

Not being allowed to speak, he indicated his choice by pointing to the list, at the name Colonial Movers.

That ship had lost its administrator, as well as half its complement, on Carillon.

He didn't want to think about who had been lost on Carillon - it hurt to think about the loss of his family. But he was never one to shrink from something simply because it hurt.

They accepted his choice, then taunted him a last little bit under the excuse of giving him another chance to apologize.

When he failed to do so, they told him to leave and not come back until he'd changed his mind.

Adama handed him a packet on the way out, detailing the rights and responsibilities of a Councilman.

As he walked down the corridor back towards his shuttle, he pulled out his communicator and called Floyd, who had been his foreman at Pike Works Factory and was still his right-hand man and all-around good guy.

"Hey Floyd"

"Hey boss, how'd it go"

"Floyd, you know the factory is gone, so I'm not your boss anymore, right? Nevermind, We've talked about that a hundred times. Anyway, as for how the meeting went - I'm not in jail, though it came close to that. So I guess you could say the meeting was just short of the worst possible it could have been. Except for Adama, they have no real-world work experience among them. They can't really grasp what can and can't be done, so they thought my production plan was just a power-grab where I tried to take away all their perks and goodies for myself. They got upset with me. I got upset back and now I am banned from going back until I apologize, which I'm not going to do."

"Want me to get the guys and bust some heads boss?"

"No Floyd. And though I know you're just kidding, we've got to be more careful, and not say stuff like that even in jest. These guys are seriously messed up & jokes like that could get us jail time."

"Got it, boss."

"What I want you to do, Floyd, is pick about 20 of our old factory crew, with their families - only volunteers, of course. I'll send you the list of the skills I want them to have. Get them moved over to our new ship. It's the Colonial Movers."

"What happened boss? I thought sure we'd get back one of our ships we brought up from the factory. They're in prime shape, already full of our people and were our property until the fleet 'nationalized them for the greater good'".

"I know Floyd, but Hauler 1, 2, 3, and 4 are already administered by somebody else, and the Council restricted me to ships that had lost their administrators. Don't worry about it. The Colonial Movers ship has good engines and some other features I can work with. Get our people there as soon as you can - we have work to do."

"Ok boss. Why only 20?"

"That's all the ship currently has room for - it lost that many on Carillon. Rather, it lost half again more than that, but we need some room for our people to work in - we may not have machines, but we'll build stuff by hand if we have to."

They said goodbye and hung up just as Alfred got to the shuttle bay.

He spent some centons looking for his shuttle, then asked someone, who directed him to a flight controller.

The flight controller said that that shuttle had been reassigned by the Council & that the Council had left him a message.

The message said that, though all Council members normally get a shuttle assigned for their use, he had no place to dock his, since the Colonial Movers ship had no shuttle bay, and further, he had little need to travel since he wasn't welcome back at the Council chambers until he apologized.

They advised him to wait for the shuttle which was doing general bus service - slowly cycling between the ships of the fleet. That would take hours or days, but they didn't seem to care.

He called Floyd back.

"Hey Floyd, what's the status on the Ovion tylium freighters we brought up from Carillon? I know they emptied them of tylium right after we got back, but have they collected them yet?"

"The bureaucracy is still dragging their feet boss - they say they can't allow people to use them until they scan them for any remaining traces of tylium."

"Great. In this case, that works for us. Can you fly one over to Galactica to get me and take me to Colonial Movers?"

"Sure thing boss. I'll be right there."

"Thanks Floyd."

He sat down to wait, and started reading the Council data packet that Adama had handed him.

There were some interesting things in there. Apparently, if he neither showed up, nor sent in a voting proxy, for 3 sessions in a row, he was automatically kicked off the Council. It seemed that was probably the trap that the 10 politicians on the Council wanted to catch him in. No problem, he could assign his voting proxy to Adama. Then if he kept up with reading the Council minutes, and sent in the occasional motion for them to discuss, he'd be fine. They would not be able to kick him off.

But even more interesting was this: Apparently, as a perk for being elected to the Council, all members got a 'welcome package'. That mostly consisted of production from the foundry ship Hephaestus - one shift worth, or in other words what they produced during one regular work day.

Adama had hand-written a number to call.

Alfred called it.

"Hello? This is Ron, administrator of Hephaestus, what can I do for you?"

"Hi this is Councilman Pike. I'm not really sure how this is supposed to work, but I understand I can ask for one shift's worth of production for my own needs?"

"That's right, where would you like your palatial mansion sire?"

"What?"

"Sorry your honor. I didn't mean to offend. I just assume you want your living quarters expanded and improved like all the rest did. We have an array of very fine furnishings we've become good at making - would you like to see them? In any case, what ship will it be on and how would you like me to proceed?"

"..."

"Your honor, please don't be upset with me, I meant no offense. Allow me to say again that I'm sorr-"

"Hold on Ron. Don't abase yourself for me. I'm not offended, just stunned that they'd waste production time like that. You're just doing your job as legally required, even if the result is being wasted on a bunch of wanna-be oligarchs who wouldn't know a good plan from a bad one if they had a map, directions, and a dozen expert helpers to explain it to them."

"Mr Pike, I think we're going to be friends."

"Thanks Ron. I get the impression you're a regular guy who knows his way around a factory floor. I'm almost always friends with such folks."

They chatted for a moment, then Alfred got down to business, directing that his production time be spent on making certain machines he would need - machines that would let him do his own production, to some degree.

"I like how you think Alfred - we'll start making some of that during the second shift tonight and get all of your machines to you by the end of the day tomorrow. But I'm pretty sure they won't take up all the time you're allotted - is there something else you'd like too?"

"Thanks Ron, I'll look over my books and get back to you on that. There are so many things I'll need that it's tough to choose. Will you be open for trade later? I mean, if you are tasked with, say, building shuttles, and I can make certain sub-assemblies for those, would you be willing to take my sub-assemblies in exchange for the time it would have taken you to make them?"

"Sure thing Alfred. And may I say it's a pleasure doing business with you."

"The same Ron, talk to you soon."

They hung up and Alfred happily gave all his attention to his data reader, looking for exactly which machines he could get that would serve him best.

When Floyd showed up, he was surprised to see Alfred so happy.

When he asked about it, Alfred explained "it turns out that being elected to the Council is what I'd hoped for after all, though not in the way I'd expected."

As they flew to the Colonial Movers ship, he explained his plans to use the machines he would get from his "welcome package" to make more machines & so effectively start on his expanded production plan on his own. As a Councilman and administrator of a ship, he could more or less do what he wanted with his ship.

It would be a slower start than he'd hoped for, but he expected he could still get the end result he wanted.

They spent the rest of the day making plans and organizing, At first just between the two of them on the Ovion tanker & then on the Colonial Movers ship with the rest of their people, once they'd arrived.

There was an interesting dichotomy on the Colonial Movers ship, which he discovered was named LowBoy 64 - the 64th freight ship operated by the Colonial Movers company, though they might as well just call it LowBoy, since none of the other ships from the Colonial Movers had managed to join the ragtag fleet.

His people were excited and motivated to work, mainly because of being back together in a situation that gave them jobs to do and looked promising.

But the people who had already been on the ship were fairly representative of most of the rest of the fleet - lethargic and hopeless, since they'd been packed in like sardines, fed barely enough, given nothing to hope for, and nothing to do.

There simply hadn't been room enough for them to do much of anything. The ships of the fleet had had one primary overriding focus when they fled - to save as many people as possible. And they had. People were crammed into every nook and cranny - most of them living in cubicals smaller than those which would have housed a large pet back on the 12 Colonies.

So there was no space for anything more than huddling in your cubicle, bored and with no real hope, waiting to be handed your next skimpy meal.

He aimed to fix that.

He promised them things would improve soon, but they were in no shape to believe it. Not yet anyway.