Lay Down Your Burdens

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[edit] Part I

Survivor Count: 49,579

Captain Starbuck is green-lit to lead a group of 20 Raptors back to Caprica to rescue the human resistance led by Samuel Anders. The team utilizes a captured Cylon navigation device wired into the Cylon prisoner Sharon "Athena" Valerii, to increase the Raptor's jump range allowing them to get back to Caprica in only ten jumps. On the first jump however, they lose track of a Raptor piloted by Racetrack, whose mis-jump causes her to arrive inside a nebula. Debating with her ECO whether or not to try and catch up with the others, they stumble across a planet hidden in the nebula, that although somewhat harsh, can support human life.

Back at the fleet, Vice President Gaius Baltar is under stress, finding himself behind in the polls with two weeks until election. Once Racetrack returns with data on the new planet, Tom Zarek realizes that it provides a crucial election issue: an opportunity for permanent colonization. Baltar finds the notion ludicrous until Zarek convinces him to push the idea in his campaign believing that people cooped up in the fleet for nine months will support it overwhelmingly. President Laura Roslin suspects the Cylons may already know of the hidden world, and that their stay should only be a temporary "pit stop"; just long enough to gather fresh water and to grow food supplies. She believes anything else would be a fatal mistake for humanity.

In Galactica's hangar, Chief Galen Tyrol is found after sleepwalking, restlessly asleep on the deck by Cally. He suddenly snaps and violently assaults her after she wakes him from a horrifying nightmare. Later, he seeks help for his problem with religious counseling from a rather sarcastic and irreligious priest named Brother Cavil. Tyrol explains he dreams of jumping off a hangar bay catwalk to his death. Cavil believes it is Tyrol's subconscious desire to kill himself manifested from a fear that he too could be a Cylon "sleeper agent" like Boomer. When the Chief asks how Brother Cavil can be so certain he is actually human, Cavil sarcastically reassures Tyrol, "Well maybe because I'm a Cylon and I've never seen you at any of the meetings," and then insists that Tyrol should return to his duties without worry.

On Caprica, Starbuck's rescue team arrives and locates the survivors including their leader Samuel Anders. To their dismay however, what was once a large population of several hundred resistance fighters has since been reduced to a handful of no more than sixty dispossessed and traumatized wanderers. The survivors inform their rescuers that they are being pursued by the very Cylons who drove them from their base earlier that morning killing half their number, but it is too late. They come under immediate attack, and Part One ends as a hail of gunfire and explosive ordnance crash down around the small group.

[edit] Part II

Survivor Count: 49,550

On Caprica, after Starbuck's rescue team has an 18-hour standoff with the Cylons, they find their enemy has completely withdrawn.

At the fleet, Cally is recovering from her beating by Chief Tyrol. Tyrol comes to apologize and Cally not only emphatically forgives him, but also reveals that she has harbored feelings for him. Roslin secretly meets with Baltar and asks that he table his idea for settling the planet he calls "New Caprica" until after the election. Baltar refuses, to Roslin's dismay. She then confronts him about seeing him on Caprica with the blond Cylon woman, recalling her deathbed vision. However, Baltar knows she has no proof of this and calls her bluff, stating that while he may have saved her life, he won't save her political career as well.

When Starbuck's rescue team returns to Galactica, an alarmed Chief Tyrol notices a copy of Brother Cavil among the rescued Caprican survivors and alerts security. The man admits to being a Cylon with a message for the humans and is taken to the brig along with Sharon Agathon, since she knew Cavil was a Cylon agent and didn't warn them. Sharon later explains to a dejected Helo that she didn't warn them because she believes Adama killed her baby, so she no longer cares what happens to her.

Roslin meets with the Cylon man, who is joined in the brig by his sarcastic twin, Brother Cavil. The Cylon man gives the message, stating that two Cylon "heroes" (a Number Six and Number Eight), have convinced the rest of the Cylons that the attack on the Colonies, along with the pursuit of the fleet, were errors. He states that in doing so it made them become what they hated the most; human. The Cavils believe that Cylons, as machines, need to find their own unique path to enlightenment; not try and steal the humans'. It has been decided to make "other plans" and offer humanity a "reprieve". Roslin and Adama don't believe it, and Roslin orders they be vented into space.

Meanwhile, Starbuck and Anders get themselves "reacquainted" in a bunk room. Commander Apollo enters to introduce himself to Anders, but a drunken Starbuck barely acknowledges Apollo's presence, save to make some very insensitive remarks about his new relationship with Petty Officer Dualla.

As election day comes, Baltar has a 5000 vote lead over Roslin, however the final batch of votes from the Zephyr wins Roslin the election, against all predictions. Lt. Gaeta who was in charge of the ballot counting, spots a major irregularity with the Zephyr's ballot papers and reports the matter to Col. Tigh. The truth is that Tigh himself, in collusion with Dualla and Tory Foster (Roslin's campaign assistant), has rigged the election in favor of Roslin. Gaeta takes the matter directly to Admiral Adama.

Adama confronts Roslin on Colonial One, and she admits to knowing that Foster was going to rig the vote in some way, although she did not know any details. She stresses that Baltar cannot become President because he is working for the Cylons, explaining to Adama what she saw back on Caprica. He is shocked at her claims. Although he has sympathy with her, and has no wish to see Baltar as President himself, Adama still insists the vote rigging was illegal and would make both of them criminals if they allowed it to stand. The people have made their choice. He is also worried of the effects of such an action upon Roslin herself, telling her that it would be a "cancer" making her "die inside" in the years to come.

Roslin reluctantly cedes the victory to Baltar, who duly becomes President of the Colonies. Adama explains to Baltar that the original vote count was a "tabulation error". Baltar, who had believed initially that Roslin would never be so dishonest as to rig the vote, knows that this isn't true. However, he decides to let the matter rest and orders Adama to take the fleet to New Caprica.

Baltar later meets with Gina (the former Pegasus Cylon prisoner) and tells her they can live together at the new settlement, but she says she isn't going. After making love to her, Baltar goes to Colonial One to swear in as President. Gina then sets off the nuclear warhead that Baltar gave her terrorist group. The nuclear detonation destroys Cloud Nine and a few other ships of the fleet caught within the blast radius.

The next scene opens one year ahead. The last of humanity has begun to stagnate as the people of the fleet has settled "New Caprica City" (pop. 39,192), which is nothing more than dreary rows of ramshackle structures and tents, surrounding landed spacecraft including Colonial One. Above New Caprica, the remaining larger ships orbit with only skeleton crews. These include Galactica where Admiral Adama is now assisted by Helo, and Pegasus, where Commander Apollo is now assisted by Dualla. It is clear that the battlestars are no longer being maintained in combat-ready condition.

A dishevelled President Baltar has turned Colonial One into a messy bachelor pad, complete with prostitutes, drugs and alcohol. Gaeta works diligently as his aide, although Baltar largely ignores him. As Roslin stated during the election, Baltar is woefully unprepared to handle executive policy of any kind, and the other humans have gradually realized to their dismay just how incompetent and uninterested he is.

Laura Roslin has returned to teaching, and works inside a makeshift school assisted by Maya, the foster mother of Isis (actually Hera, the now one-year-old Cylon-hybrid baby).

Tyrol is now leader of a disgruntled worker union renouncing the deplorable conditions the people face under President Baltar. At his side is a pregnant Cally.

Anders, now married to Starbuck, is currently bedridden with pneumonia. Dr. Cottle has no more antibiotics left to give him, but Tigh tells her that Apollo has antibiotics stored away as a medical reserve on Pegasus for his pilots. Starbuck reluctantly calls Apollo, but neither seem to wish to talk to each other. Before Apollo can respond to Starbuck's request, a fleet of Cylon ships suddenly jumps in. At least six Cylon Basestars appear on the Pegasus DRADIS. Admiral Adama is reluctant to abandon those on New Caprica and wants to stay and fight, but Apollo, knowing that they are woefully understaffed and out-gunned, convinces him to jump away as the only way to save themselves. Adama has all ships jump from orbit, leaving New Caprica undefended. Adama's last words before the jump are "we'll be back."

Gaeta rushes to inform President Baltar that the Cylons have appeared and that the fleet has jumped away; Baltar's initial reaction is one of bewilderment. The Cylons fly over New Caprica in force and proceed to occupy the human settlement as the humans look on in shock. The Cylon Leoben Conoy searches for Starbuck, but finds only the bedridden Anders.

President Baltar and his assistants meet with Cylons Five (Aaron Doral), Six and Eight (Boomer), aboard the grounded Colonial One. It's not clear which copies these are (though the Six does recognize Baltar) but it is inferred that they are the two "hero" Cylons. Eight says they will not attack, unless the humans resist. Baltar asks how the Cylons found them. Five explains that it was "by accident": they detected the signature of the nuclear explosion which destroyed Cloud Nine from over a light-year away. President Baltar then solemnly surrenders to the Cylons on behalf of the people of New Caprica.

Meanwhile, Starbuck, Tigh, Tyrol, Cally and other former Galactica crew can only look on helplessly as ranks upon ranks of Cylon Centurions march through the New Caprica settlement. Tyrol asks Starbuck what she wants to do. She replies: "The same thing we always do: fight them until we can't."

[edit] Historical references

Chief Tyrol's speech at the Union Hall in Part II quotes directly from a speech given by activist Mario Savio at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964.^[1]^[2]

Admiral Adama's final transmission to New Caprica before jumping the fleet away, "We'll be back." mirrors General Douglas MacArthur's "I shall return" message that was broadcast when he left the Philippines in 1942 as they were about to be overrun by Japanese forces during World War II.