I'm sure as hell not complaining - Barham, during Shtarkergeddon, went down fighting like a possessed wildcat on PCP. Makes a damn good story.
As Vasili Mishingun would have put it, Shtarker definitely proved he had the BEETS to captain a battlestar in action.
The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Moderator: LadyTevar
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
You didn't really think this was dead did you? 
Act Two: Unity
New Arrivals
Terran Orbital Space
To say that things were tense in the space around Terra would have been a colossal understatement.
The battered and bloody Combined Fleet had held the line and annihilated the Cylon attackers, though at great cost: one Battlestar was gone, another had only just reappeared on sensors but was almost certainly dead in space. A third was holding station near Olympus Base with moderate internal damage. Three defence platforms and their crews were shattered. Ten of the fourteen destroyers were now nothing but dust and debris and nearly half of their Vipers were lost; fortunately many pilots had ejected safely and SAR Raptors and shuttles were even now racing to recover them.
Despite this, it had been a decisive victory. They had faced no less than fifty four Cylon capital ships just six hours before, now, all of them were destroyed. The Cylon Fleet was destroyed completely, not a single Basestar remained anywhere in what had been Cylon space. Their God had apparently been killed as well, earning the Colonial veterans a measure of vengeance for their lost worlds.
Now, however, they faced something new and totally unexpected. A new ship, smaller than a Battlestar but still sizeable, hung in space a respectful distance from the three operational Battlestars. All the crews on those ships were feeling the after-effects of an hour-long adrenaline rush. More than a few crewmen and officers had collapsed to the deck shaking and many had vomited their last meal onto the walls of their compartments. This was especially true for the Terran crews who had never faced battle before.
Aboard the Excalibur, Admiral Lethbridge-Stewart had regained consciousness and was standing in the Fleet Ops Centre with his faithful Chief of Staff, while a medic checked the bandages on his head. He had gone through an emotional roller coaster in the last few minutes; learning of the casualties and then the victory and then the Cylon God’s arrival and then Jellicoe’s actions in firing on a surrendering enemy. The main thing keeping him standing was knowing his daughter had survived and acquitted herself well.
This new contact and its message was truly baffling. Earth was a name known to the Terrans purely from their Colonial brothers, a mistranslation of Terra in their scriptures. The idea that Earth was an actual place was something no-one had thought of.
That this ship, and this “Supreme Commander Thor” claimed to be from the Asgard was actually easier to accept. The Terrans knew of the Asgard, a race of proud and capable warriors that had been true and loyal allies of the Lords of Kobol in the distant past. Nothing had been heard from them since the last of the Lords, Zeus and Prometheus had left and ordered the Astria Porta sealed away. It had long been considered that this race were either extinct or had left the galaxy entirely.
The Admiral acted quickly, first sending out a signal to the battered fleet that he was reassuming command. He then ordered the four surviving destroyers to jump immediately to the Galactica’s position and render assistance. Finally, he lifted the comm handset and replied on the open channel.
“This is Admiral Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, Commander of the Terran Commonwealth Navy and the Combined Fleet. As you can probably see we’ve just fought a major battle so you’ll have to forgive me for being terse and suspicious. Until my government can respond, you will hold your position or you will be fired on.”
Asgard Science Vessel Daniel Jackson
“Well they sound friendly.”
Jack O’Neill’s comment was the first response on the Asgard vessel’s bridge. Teal’c nodded in agreement as he examined the sensor displays. Colonel Carter on the other hand felt the need to respond to her commander and friend.
“If these readings are right then he really isn’t kidding when he says they just had a major battle. Thor, what are we looking at here?”
The small creature hummed in thought as he shifted through the data. “It would appear that this Admiral is correct. My sensors do indicate a large scale fleet action. I am detecting after-effects of hundreds of nuclear detonations, some of them extremely high yield. Analysis of the debris indicates at least four different kinds of ship of varying size were present…and one Ha’tak.”
That made everyone stop and think. But before anyone could respond, Thor continued:
“The three vessels facing us are all large and powerful vessels. Two of them appear to be of a substantially less-advanced basic design that has been upgraded in a manner similar to your own Prometheus. The third ship near us, as well as the one holding near that large space station, are very advanced ships and appear to use Ancient-derived technology, and have human life signs aboard. The planet is home to approximately five billion humans and the large cities all possess defensive shields.”
This was clearly an advanced and powerful civilisation they had stumbled across. Even O’Neill, with his known fondness for Star Trek, could not deny that the large ships in front of them were impressive vessels. The one that was more advanced, according to Thor, was also a very familiar design, but Jack couldn’t place where he’d seen it before.
Thor sent a reply: “We will hold position until your government can respond officially. We mean you no harm.”
That did not get a verbal answer, though the other ships fire-control sensors were no longer painting them at least. The humans returned to examining sensor data. All of them were particularly impressed as the scan revealed the large space station was apparently a shipyard, with no less than three more of the large warships nearing completion. Thor also detected another, hidden shipyard in a close orbit of one of the outer gas giants – it held only one ship, but that ship was easily twice the size of the other ships being built over the inhabited planet and was likewise nearing completion, at least structurally.
Thor was becoming more and more interested as he continued to analyse the data. The designs and technology, not to mention the architecture on the surface, were clearly either Ancient or derived from his long-gone allies. He was considering that this might have been a hidden colony of humans, set up by a splinter faction of the Ancients who had stayed in this galaxy rather than fleeing to Pegasus.
Most interesting was that none of the ships arrayed before them had hyperdrives that he could detect. He said as much to SG1 before he continued:
“They apparently use some unknown form of superluminal travel. I am detecting some readings that are similar to an inactive Stargate but I cannot be sure what they signify. The ships are powered by large and extremely efficient naquada reactors and are armed with weapons clearly derived from Ancient energy weapon designs. They also seem to mount very large fixed versions in their bows.”
This caught Jack’s interest immediately. “Big honking space guns?”
“Indeed General. There is a curious armour present on the most advanced ships, it is a type I have never seen before.”
Daniel spoke up next, curiosity burning in his tone. “Are there any markings on them Thor? Names, numbers?”
Thor hummed again, then brought up a magnified view of the three largest ships. The image split, then zoomed in further to show a section of the large pods that flanked each ship’s hull. Clearly visible, in letters tens of feet high, where names.
“Pegasus…Excalibur…Warspite…” read Sam. “Those are familiar names, and curious ones at that.”
Daniel agreed. “Pegasus and Excalibur I can understand if they draw on the same Ancient histories for their myths that we do, but Warspite? Wasn’t that a British battleship? How did that name get all the way out here?”
No one had an answer for him. Jack, however, had been searching his memories as the name Pegasus had sparked a thought for him. Then it hit him:
“Damnit, I knew I recognised those ships! They’re Battlestars!”
Sam looked at her boss with a curious look on her face. “You mean that cheesy 70’s sci fi show?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah.”
Sam looked unconvinced. “That would be one hell of a coincidence sir, someone in the 70’s coming up with a design from another civilisation…” she trailed off as an explanation occurred to her. “Joe the barber from Michigan?”
Jack shrugged. “Those two mind-stone-things can’t have been the only pair lying around.”
Before Sam could answer, Thor broke in: “As interesting as that possibility is, I have detected something else. Traces of unusual subspace signals that came from the area of the destroyed Ha’tak.
The amount of data that was sent was vast, possibly enough to indicate a complete humanoid mind.”
SG1 paused in thought. Daniel summed it up “Someone transmitted their mind from a destroyed ship? How?”
“Presumably they used a device similar to the neural interface that Anubis once used to transfer my mind to his ship’s computer.” That brought up less than fond memories for Jack, Sam and Teal’c. The feeling of being stuck on a spaceship that was flooding was just too weird.
Thor spoke again. “The humans are sending us another signal.” A few presses of buttons and a voice came over the speakers, distinct from the first.
”This is President Edward Matthews of the Terran Commonwealth, we welcome the return of the Asgard to our region of space. The Lords of Kobol spoke highly of their close allies. We also welcome your friends from Earth…even if we have no idea where this “Earth” might be. If they are friends of the Asgard, they are welcome here. I would invite your party to land aboard Olympus Base in one hour to meet in person.”
Thor spoke. “Thank you for the invitation. Please send coordinates and we will arrive in one hour.”
The channel closed. SG1 looked around at each other. Jack summed it up: “Well that was…weird. I geuss we’d better get all dressed up.” The Asgard commander had, of course, thoughtfully beamed up dress uniforms and similar formal wear for just this possibility. “Thor, I somehow doubt these guys will appreciate us just beaming in…any chance you have a shuttle or something aboard?”
“No. But using our beaming technology and patterns stored in this ship’s database, I can fabricate such a craft in the necessary time. I will alert you when it is ready to depart.”
With that, the team nodded and left to find their bags. As they walked through the corridors, the background hum of the ship increased in pitch and volume as the beaming system went to work building them a shuttle.
=========
It lives. THe real crossover begins. Yes, I felt it best to address the idea that the old BSG series existed on SG1!Earth...fortunately, series 8 gave us a fun idea that can explain it well enough, with a little temporal shenanigans thrown in.
I have another part written, but will post that later.
Act Two: Unity
New Arrivals
Terran Orbital Space
To say that things were tense in the space around Terra would have been a colossal understatement.
The battered and bloody Combined Fleet had held the line and annihilated the Cylon attackers, though at great cost: one Battlestar was gone, another had only just reappeared on sensors but was almost certainly dead in space. A third was holding station near Olympus Base with moderate internal damage. Three defence platforms and their crews were shattered. Ten of the fourteen destroyers were now nothing but dust and debris and nearly half of their Vipers were lost; fortunately many pilots had ejected safely and SAR Raptors and shuttles were even now racing to recover them.
Despite this, it had been a decisive victory. They had faced no less than fifty four Cylon capital ships just six hours before, now, all of them were destroyed. The Cylon Fleet was destroyed completely, not a single Basestar remained anywhere in what had been Cylon space. Their God had apparently been killed as well, earning the Colonial veterans a measure of vengeance for their lost worlds.
Now, however, they faced something new and totally unexpected. A new ship, smaller than a Battlestar but still sizeable, hung in space a respectful distance from the three operational Battlestars. All the crews on those ships were feeling the after-effects of an hour-long adrenaline rush. More than a few crewmen and officers had collapsed to the deck shaking and many had vomited their last meal onto the walls of their compartments. This was especially true for the Terran crews who had never faced battle before.
Aboard the Excalibur, Admiral Lethbridge-Stewart had regained consciousness and was standing in the Fleet Ops Centre with his faithful Chief of Staff, while a medic checked the bandages on his head. He had gone through an emotional roller coaster in the last few minutes; learning of the casualties and then the victory and then the Cylon God’s arrival and then Jellicoe’s actions in firing on a surrendering enemy. The main thing keeping him standing was knowing his daughter had survived and acquitted herself well.
This new contact and its message was truly baffling. Earth was a name known to the Terrans purely from their Colonial brothers, a mistranslation of Terra in their scriptures. The idea that Earth was an actual place was something no-one had thought of.
That this ship, and this “Supreme Commander Thor” claimed to be from the Asgard was actually easier to accept. The Terrans knew of the Asgard, a race of proud and capable warriors that had been true and loyal allies of the Lords of Kobol in the distant past. Nothing had been heard from them since the last of the Lords, Zeus and Prometheus had left and ordered the Astria Porta sealed away. It had long been considered that this race were either extinct or had left the galaxy entirely.
The Admiral acted quickly, first sending out a signal to the battered fleet that he was reassuming command. He then ordered the four surviving destroyers to jump immediately to the Galactica’s position and render assistance. Finally, he lifted the comm handset and replied on the open channel.
“This is Admiral Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, Commander of the Terran Commonwealth Navy and the Combined Fleet. As you can probably see we’ve just fought a major battle so you’ll have to forgive me for being terse and suspicious. Until my government can respond, you will hold your position or you will be fired on.”
Asgard Science Vessel Daniel Jackson
“Well they sound friendly.”
Jack O’Neill’s comment was the first response on the Asgard vessel’s bridge. Teal’c nodded in agreement as he examined the sensor displays. Colonel Carter on the other hand felt the need to respond to her commander and friend.
“If these readings are right then he really isn’t kidding when he says they just had a major battle. Thor, what are we looking at here?”
The small creature hummed in thought as he shifted through the data. “It would appear that this Admiral is correct. My sensors do indicate a large scale fleet action. I am detecting after-effects of hundreds of nuclear detonations, some of them extremely high yield. Analysis of the debris indicates at least four different kinds of ship of varying size were present…and one Ha’tak.”
That made everyone stop and think. But before anyone could respond, Thor continued:
“The three vessels facing us are all large and powerful vessels. Two of them appear to be of a substantially less-advanced basic design that has been upgraded in a manner similar to your own Prometheus. The third ship near us, as well as the one holding near that large space station, are very advanced ships and appear to use Ancient-derived technology, and have human life signs aboard. The planet is home to approximately five billion humans and the large cities all possess defensive shields.”
This was clearly an advanced and powerful civilisation they had stumbled across. Even O’Neill, with his known fondness for Star Trek, could not deny that the large ships in front of them were impressive vessels. The one that was more advanced, according to Thor, was also a very familiar design, but Jack couldn’t place where he’d seen it before.
Thor sent a reply: “We will hold position until your government can respond officially. We mean you no harm.”
That did not get a verbal answer, though the other ships fire-control sensors were no longer painting them at least. The humans returned to examining sensor data. All of them were particularly impressed as the scan revealed the large space station was apparently a shipyard, with no less than three more of the large warships nearing completion. Thor also detected another, hidden shipyard in a close orbit of one of the outer gas giants – it held only one ship, but that ship was easily twice the size of the other ships being built over the inhabited planet and was likewise nearing completion, at least structurally.
Thor was becoming more and more interested as he continued to analyse the data. The designs and technology, not to mention the architecture on the surface, were clearly either Ancient or derived from his long-gone allies. He was considering that this might have been a hidden colony of humans, set up by a splinter faction of the Ancients who had stayed in this galaxy rather than fleeing to Pegasus.
Most interesting was that none of the ships arrayed before them had hyperdrives that he could detect. He said as much to SG1 before he continued:
“They apparently use some unknown form of superluminal travel. I am detecting some readings that are similar to an inactive Stargate but I cannot be sure what they signify. The ships are powered by large and extremely efficient naquada reactors and are armed with weapons clearly derived from Ancient energy weapon designs. They also seem to mount very large fixed versions in their bows.”
This caught Jack’s interest immediately. “Big honking space guns?”
“Indeed General. There is a curious armour present on the most advanced ships, it is a type I have never seen before.”
Daniel spoke up next, curiosity burning in his tone. “Are there any markings on them Thor? Names, numbers?”
Thor hummed again, then brought up a magnified view of the three largest ships. The image split, then zoomed in further to show a section of the large pods that flanked each ship’s hull. Clearly visible, in letters tens of feet high, where names.
“Pegasus…Excalibur…Warspite…” read Sam. “Those are familiar names, and curious ones at that.”
Daniel agreed. “Pegasus and Excalibur I can understand if they draw on the same Ancient histories for their myths that we do, but Warspite? Wasn’t that a British battleship? How did that name get all the way out here?”
No one had an answer for him. Jack, however, had been searching his memories as the name Pegasus had sparked a thought for him. Then it hit him:
“Damnit, I knew I recognised those ships! They’re Battlestars!”
Sam looked at her boss with a curious look on her face. “You mean that cheesy 70’s sci fi show?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah.”
Sam looked unconvinced. “That would be one hell of a coincidence sir, someone in the 70’s coming up with a design from another civilisation…” she trailed off as an explanation occurred to her. “Joe the barber from Michigan?”
Jack shrugged. “Those two mind-stone-things can’t have been the only pair lying around.”
Before Sam could answer, Thor broke in: “As interesting as that possibility is, I have detected something else. Traces of unusual subspace signals that came from the area of the destroyed Ha’tak.
The amount of data that was sent was vast, possibly enough to indicate a complete humanoid mind.”
SG1 paused in thought. Daniel summed it up “Someone transmitted their mind from a destroyed ship? How?”
“Presumably they used a device similar to the neural interface that Anubis once used to transfer my mind to his ship’s computer.” That brought up less than fond memories for Jack, Sam and Teal’c. The feeling of being stuck on a spaceship that was flooding was just too weird.
Thor spoke again. “The humans are sending us another signal.” A few presses of buttons and a voice came over the speakers, distinct from the first.
”This is President Edward Matthews of the Terran Commonwealth, we welcome the return of the Asgard to our region of space. The Lords of Kobol spoke highly of their close allies. We also welcome your friends from Earth…even if we have no idea where this “Earth” might be. If they are friends of the Asgard, they are welcome here. I would invite your party to land aboard Olympus Base in one hour to meet in person.”
Thor spoke. “Thank you for the invitation. Please send coordinates and we will arrive in one hour.”
The channel closed. SG1 looked around at each other. Jack summed it up: “Well that was…weird. I geuss we’d better get all dressed up.” The Asgard commander had, of course, thoughtfully beamed up dress uniforms and similar formal wear for just this possibility. “Thor, I somehow doubt these guys will appreciate us just beaming in…any chance you have a shuttle or something aboard?”
“No. But using our beaming technology and patterns stored in this ship’s database, I can fabricate such a craft in the necessary time. I will alert you when it is ready to depart.”
With that, the team nodded and left to find their bags. As they walked through the corridors, the background hum of the ship increased in pitch and volume as the beaming system went to work building them a shuttle.
=========
It lives. THe real crossover begins. Yes, I felt it best to address the idea that the old BSG series existed on SG1!Earth...fortunately, series 8 gave us a fun idea that can explain it well enough, with a little temporal shenanigans thrown in.
I have another part written, but will post that later.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Dass.Kapital
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 225
- Joined: 2011-06-09 03:35am
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
There are no words for the power that is the aweesomness of this story line.
Now to wait and see where a little blue box is mentioned.
Now to wait and see where a little blue box is mentioned.
"And low, I have cometh, the destroyer of threads."Highlord Laan wrote:Agatha Heterodyne built a squadron of flying pigs and an overgunned robot reindeer in a cave! With a box of scraps!
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Sorry, no little blue box. BSG and SG1/SG:A only for this story. Trying to add what Davros called "a certain meddling Time Lord" would be somewhat absurd I think
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Dass.Kapital
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 225
- Joined: 2011-06-09 03:35am
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Hehehe, I wan't thinking of a whole 'Role' or what ever... just a few lines of 'cameo' as one of the iterations (A 'technical consultant'? ) rushes past Admiral Lethbridge-Stewart perhaps?
"Can never quite get past calling him 'Admiral' after all those times of 'Brigadier'."
"Can never quite get past calling him 'Admiral' after all those times of 'Brigadier'."
"And low, I have cometh, the destroyer of threads."Highlord Laan wrote:Agatha Heterodyne built a squadron of flying pigs and an overgunned robot reindeer in a cave! With a box of scraps!
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Your idea does have some merit, and I may be able to work something in...actually, this gives me an interesting idea for future chapters.
As for Admiral/Brigadier, how weird do you think it is for me writing it?
As for Admiral/Brigadier, how weird do you think it is for me writing it?
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Darth Lucifer
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1685
- Joined: 2004-10-14 04:18am
- Location: In pursuit of the Colonial Fleet
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
This is great, so awesome to see the story continues! 
I love the mention of Battlestar Galactica for real and it totally fits into the concept of Eternal Recurrence, which is mentioned in the series.
Your handling of characters and dialogue is good, I totally don't think it's weird at all; I have this mental image of Nicholas Courtney being all stoic and commanding, true to form. O'Neill is on point too. Since you're bringing in the SG-1 crew, I'm dying to see Samantha Carter and Baltar in a scientific sparring match with sexual overtones.
I love the mention of Battlestar Galactica for real and it totally fits into the concept of Eternal Recurrence, which is mentioned in the series.
Your handling of characters and dialogue is good, I totally don't think it's weird at all; I have this mental image of Nicholas Courtney being all stoic and commanding, true to form. O'Neill is on point too. Since you're bringing in the SG-1 crew, I'm dying to see Samantha Carter and Baltar in a scientific sparring match with sexual overtones.
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Very well done, and I'm looking forward to this next chapter. 
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Well, E_F, I had thought this was buggered, not resting. Very happy to have been proven wrong.
I'm glad to see I'm bending your mind out of shape after you ran with my suggestion of a naval Lethbridge-Stewart remix. You could have gone with Jonesy, but noooo....
Darth Lucifer, No More Mr Nice Gaius happened a while back, during the interlude - Head-Six snuffed him.
I'm glad to see I'm bending your mind out of shape after you ran with my suggestion of a naval Lethbridge-Stewart remix. You could have gone with Jonesy, but noooo....
Darth Lucifer, No More Mr Nice Gaius happened a while back, during the interlude - Head-Six snuffed him.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Dass.Kapital
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 225
- Joined: 2011-06-09 03:35am
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Your idea does have some merit, and I may be able to work something in...actually, this gives me an interesting idea for future chapters.
As for Admiral/Brigadier, how weird do you think it is for me writing it?
Remebering my writing bug of many years ago.....
Yah, when the thoughts of your charcters start doing your own head in? Something right/wonderful is happening.
"And low, I have cometh, the destroyer of threads."Highlord Laan wrote:Agatha Heterodyne built a squadron of flying pigs and an overgunned robot reindeer in a cave! With a box of scraps!
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Darth Lucifer
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1685
- Joined: 2004-10-14 04:18am
- Location: In pursuit of the Colonial Fleet
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Yes, I know...I'm holding out hope that Raines or somebody shoves Baltar into a sarcophagus and brings him back from the dead. He could still be very useful to everyone, especially "God", if he has the rare ATA gene. Then Baltar can do what he does best...science, betrayal and saving his own cowardly skin.fnord wrote:Darth Lucifer, No More Mr Nice Gaius happened a while back, during the interlude - Head-Six snuffed him.
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Well for those who missed it, there is mention in this last chapter that Ba'al may have survived after all - he gave the Cylons resurrection tech and we know he made clones, so it's not a huge stretch that he'd use it himself - he won't be a major element in the story for a while yet.
Also, you get a hint at what I'm working on that I call a Warstar
As for Baltar, well, despite the RL delay, in-story he's only been dead for a few hours...and the Terrans do have some sweet medical technology.
The next two chapters are done, revealing what happens to Galactica, and Jellicoe's after-action report with the Admiral, plus a little SG1 thrown in an Jack speculating on Thor's sense of humour
Also, you get a hint at what I'm working on that I call a Warstar
As for Baltar, well, despite the RL delay, in-story he's only been dead for a few hours...and the Terrans do have some sweet medical technology.
The next two chapters are done, revealing what happens to Galactica, and Jellicoe's after-action report with the Admiral, plus a little SG1 thrown in an Jack speculating on Thor's sense of humour
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Galactica got mission killed (?) doing what she does best - getting between her charges and harm's way.
Is Frankie a dead ringer for Ba'al? After all, he's got the "dead" bit down pat.
And, as has become somewhat usual for me, where's Wallop?
Is Frankie a dead ringer for Ba'al? After all, he's got the "dead" bit down pat.
And, as has become somewhat usual for me, where's Wallop?
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Nah, Frankie doesn't look like Ba'al...that would be too cliche, even for this story.
As for Wallop, and you know full well that's not his name, he'll turn up in a little while.
As for Wallop, and you know full well that's not his name, he'll turn up in a little while.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Was using it as callsign, not name.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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U.P. Cinnabar
- Sith Marauder
- Posts: 3933
- Joined: 2016-02-05 08:11pm
- Location: Aboard the RCS Princess Cecile
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
As long as you call him Marquis.[/bad Britcom reference]Eternal_Freedom wrote:Your idea does have some merit, and I may be able to work something in...actually, this gives me an interesting idea for future chapters.
As for Admiral/Brigadier, how weird do you think it is for me writing it?
"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."
—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law
"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”
---Doctor Christine Blasey-Ford
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
This week on The Thirteenth Tribe, Words! Sentences! Paragraphs!
Interlude: Survival
The Battlestar Galactica was falling.
Given that she was a spacecraft which usually spent time in perpetual freefall around a planet, this would not normally be an issue. This case was different however.
She was falling into Terra’s upper atmosphere. Her engines were offline, in fact the two ventral engine pods had been completely destroyed, gutted by a lucky Cylon nuclear strike as the ship fought her desperate action to prevent a massive Cylon bombardment of the surface.
The rest of the ship also showed signs of extreme damage. The forward hull showed a huge chunk missing from the port bow; another Cylon missile had punched through her failing shields and blasted away a large chunk of hull, spaceframe and compartments, extending laterally as far as her centreline and a similar distance towards her aft. If an outside observer had seen the damage but not what caused it, they would be forgiven for thinking some vast life form had taken a bite out of the ship.
The midships section too was battered – the starboard flight pod had been blown in half by yet another strike that had hit just forward of the after pylon attaching the massive hanger deck to the main hull. The rear two-thirds of the pod were completely gone, while the remaining section remained stubbornly attached – though bent a good twenty degrees from where it ought to be.
Within the ship, numerous fires raged. Many of the engineering spaces were virtually awash with fire as fuel and oxygen stores vented their combustible contents into the already raging inferno. In the bow similar fires burned in those compartments and areas that were not open to vacuum; they were spreading as the ship’s overtaxed damage control parties desperately tried to prevent the fires reaching the forward magazines.
In CIC, chaos reigned. Or rather, that is how it would appear to someone not familiar with this ship and this crew. There was frantic activity certainly; repeated alarms and sirens came from the damage control board, at the Nav table Felix Gaeta was trying to plot an FTL jump under intense pressure and rocked by turbulence as the ship began her atmospheric entry. The fact that he had a broken arm certainly didn’t help either.
At the centre of it all was Admiral William Adama, standing with a remarkable serenity at the plot table, while the XO Colonel Tigh was manning the DC station, facing an eerie repeat of their first action of this war; raging fires, trapped crew, the ship under extreme threat, and him having to make brutally hard calls.
“No! Pull everyone back behind frame 30 and prepare for vent action! They’ve got 30 seconds then we seal the bulkheads!”
It was a measure of how serious the current situation was that, unlike the previous battle, no-one questioned him on this call. The orders were given; those men and women that could get out of the condemned compartments did so. Those that couldn’t frantically sealed their DC suits and prayed.
The time passed. The bulkheads were sealed. The order was given. The main vent hatches opened and the fires in the forward area were extinguished. More than one body was vented as well.
There were plenty of people aboard who knew this hard call was pointless unless they could somehow jump the ship. With barely four minutes to impact, Gaeta was nearing completion of the jump plot. There would be no time to double check his calculations, so he had picked a random point a million kilometres from Terra; if his numbers were off there was ample empty space to emerge in and crucially; no large bodies the ship might collide with before they could be rescued.
If it worked of course.
Adama was still standing with an outward expression of professional calm. Inside however, he was raging. This was his ship, she had served them so well in the last months. Her going down in battle he could have accepted – it was a fitting end for a warship after all and certainly a far less ignominious fate than being hauled to the breakers as so many of her sister ships had been.
But Galactica being destroyed by falling out of orbit after being disabled was far too similar to the fate of many Battlestars during the Fall of the Colonies. Adama was furious at the idea. Finally, with three minutes to impact, his calm demeanour snapped.
“Where’s my FTL jump?”
Gaeta had just finished entering the coordinates. “Ready sir!”
“Time to impact?” Adama asked, once more the calm spacefarer.
“Three minutes five seconds sir.”
Adama nodded: “Start the clock, ten seconds!”
Gaeta had just turned the FTL key when the ship rocked even harder than before. The jump clock was running but Tigh was able to turn and shout at the Admiral: “Starboard pylon’s given out, the whole frakking pod is gone!”
Before Adama could reply, or even begin to think of a reply, the clock reached zero and the ship jumped. The universe was pulled inside out for a moment. From the outside, there was a flash of light and an inrushing of air to fill the new vacuum.
A million kilometres out, the ruined Battlestar reappeared. But the structural damage, the repeated
impacts and the reduced effect from jumping with only one FTL drive extracted a final terrible toll on the ship.
As soon as she appeared in the characteristic flash of light, she twisted. Her ventral hull armour cracked wide open amidships as the entire stern section was bent away from its intended position. From outside, it looked as if the ship had been bent by ten degrees at her centre. The port pod, still extended and so close to the edge of the jump field, had all of its external hull plating ripped away. Dozens of compartments, fortunately evacuated by the Admiral’s order, were opened to space. The ship’s keel was broken, her structural members finally succumbing.
For the crew aboard the ship, it was a colossal shock. Crewmen were thrown about, either to the deck or to the bulkheads, causing yet more injuries for the overtaxed medics to eventually deal with. Main power failed as the safety overrides kicked in, shutting down the primary generators, plunging them into a stygian darkness, which was replaced moments later by the dim red emergency lights which gave every corridor and compartment a blood-red aspect. The ship herself was bleeding as atmosphere and water from breached compartments and storage tanks flashed out into the cold vacuum of space.
Within the hull, the shaking finally ceased. There followed an ominous silence as everything was still. For nearly a full minute, no-one moved and there was dead quiet aboard. Even the omnipresent noises of the ship had ceased; the distant rumble of her huge sublight drives was gone, as was the higher-pitched whirr of the air circulators and oxygen scrubbers.
For an impartial observer, either out in space or within the ship’s corridors, it would appear that the ship and all aboard were dead. But this was not the case. After those first moments of silence, officers and enlisted alike began picking themselves up off the decks to return to their posts, or rather what was left of them.
CIC was a typical example of this. Adama hauled himself upright leaning heavily against the plot table, already certain that his leg was broken. Tigh came up on his knees, looked around and then instinctively reached down to check for a pulse on the crewman lying beside him, even though it was obvious from the angle of the poor boy’s head that his neck was broken. The young man had had the misfortune of being flung over the railing of the CIC’s upper gallery before hitting the deck.
Adama looked around through eyes blurred from blood coming from a cut on his forehead. His experienced ears noted the absence of engine noises, or indeed any noses from his beloved ship except for the low moans of the injured around him. He looked upwards at the DRADIS display, only to find that one of the screens had broken free and the others were offline. He noted that a few consoles were flickering back into life. He spotted Gaeta and Tigh among those who were awake.
“Saul, Gaeta, get me a damage report.”
The order, given in a quiet but firm voice, had a galvanising effect on many of the CIC crew. They threw off the shock and went to work, collecting reports and trying to contact other parts of the ship. Fortunately, the Battlestar still had sound-powered phones to supplement her internal comms system, making this task much easier than it would have been on a newer ship.
Slowly, agonisingly, the CIC crew sounded off the grim news. Tigh went first:
“We’ve got red lights on every structural member. Her back’s broken. Starboard pod is totally gone, everything forward of frame 44 and portside from the centreline is gone, likewise the two ventral drive pods. Every compartment on the outer edge of the port pod has decompressed. Massive hull breaches on her ventral side amidships.”
The helmsman spoke up next: “Main drives offline, manoeuvring thrusters offline, we’re in an uncontrolled lateral spin to starboard.”
Gaeta was next: “FTL drives destroyed, main power offline, secondary power offline…we’re down to the batteries sir. Sensors and comms are down as well.”
Adama absorbed all this, his heart breaking with each word, although he did not show it. “Fires?”
Tigh shook his head. “We lucked out on that, any fires were in areas that have decompressed.”
“Casualties?”
“Everyone in the starboard pod, everyone in the port bow, anyone who couldn’t get far enough inside in time…” Tigh trailed off at the thought of so many dead. “We’re dead in space Bill.”
The Admiral nodded grimly before pressing a bandage against his forehead. He noticed Gaeta’s arm hanging limply at his side, the fact that Tigh was leaning against a bulkhead keeping weight off his leg, and countless other injuries. The assigned CIC corpsman was working frantically on one of the more serious cases by the Weapons Control section. Those with serious but not life-threatening injuries simply had to wait.
Adama looked at his officers. “Gaeta…” he paused, sighed, then spoke again. ”Felix, Saul, get started on repairs. DRADIS and comms are top priority, life support next. We’ve got enough air for about twelve hours as it is. Try and get the transponders up first, we need to let the fleet know we’re here.”
Gaeta nodded. “Wherever “here” is. Aye sir.” He moved off to his usual console. Tigh limped across to his usual position opposite Bill.
“How do you think the fight is going?”
“Our missile strike got the last of the Basestars firing on the surface, hopefully Lee, Jellicoe and the rest can handle the main body.”
Tigh nodded. “And if they can’t?”
The Admiral looked his old comrade squarely in the eyes: “Then we’re dead, along with Terra and everyone else.”
Nothing more needed to be said after that. The crew worked away. Contact was re-established with the engineering spaces, or rather what was left of them, along with sickbay and the other areas the crew had taken shelter in. Casualty reports began to trickle in.
Those were particularly grim. When Galactica had started the battle, she had carried just over three thousand crew, including her air wing. These were a mix of the veteran crew who had manned the ship during the Fall and the subsequent exodus, a handful of extra personnel transferred from Pegasus or Warspite to help fill in the gaps, and a large body of Terrans who had come aboard to bring her up to her full complement, most of whom had been posted in the restored starboard flight pod.
Now, the battered wreck of a Battlestar had barely eighteen hundred survivors. Everyone in the starboard pod was dead, either killed in the initial devastating hit or when the remains of the structure broke free to impact on Terra’s surface. A hundred more had perished in the bow areas blasted away by enemy fire, and most of the rest had died when the engineering spaces had been turned into an inferno.
Over twelve hundred dead, plus however many Viper or Raptor pilots had fallen. Despite his long experience and service in the first war, Adama had only once seen worse losses, when he had witnessed the complete destruction of the Columbia at the very end of the war. He could mentally add to that tally the losses he already knew about in the rest of the Fleet: the Barham, abandoned and destroyed, the Valkyrie, the Vendetta, the Defiant, the Stalwart, the Champion…the list seemed endless. He began wondering if this would be nothing more than a pyrrhic victory for the combined fleet.
Slowly, tantalisingly, things were brought under control. Adama was surprised when the whirr of the air circulators and oxygen scrubbers started up again, making everyone in CIC breathe a little easier. Gaeta, his arm now in a rudimentary splint and sling made from a torn uniform and some pieces of the broken DRADIS display, triumphantly declared that the Terran-designed sensors had been restored.
The Admiral could only nod in acknowledgement; he was feeling the pain from his wounded leg, even though that too had been patched up as well as the frazzled corpsman could manage. He looked at the display screen, surprised that so few contacts were shown. His heart eased its frantic rhythm when the Pegasus appeared to be intact. The Cylon fleet, in contrast, had been shattered.
The technicians continued to work on the comm systems even as Bill and Saul watched the last stages of the Battle of Terra, the appearance of not one but two unknown contacts within a few minutes. The battle, it seemed, was over. Gaeta managed to get the ship’s transponders working again, and several destroyers promptly jumped out to the Battlestar’s position to render assistance.
Bill Adama leaned against the plot table and breathed deeply, letting go of the stress and adrenaline from the largest and most arduous battle had ever witnessed, let alone fought in. He looked around at his shattered CIC and knew deep in his heart that the Grey Lady, as she had been fondly known by her crews in the First War, was finished as a fighting ship.
Normally that would be a sad thought, but Bill refused to feel that way. Galactica may never fire her guns in anger again, may never jump between the stars or hurl Vipers from her decks, but he knew she had done more, given more than any warship he had ever been aboard. More, perhaps, than any warship ever had. And through it all, some of her crew survived. Some, many, would live to remember their time aboard her and this day with pride.
A message came in, commanding the senior surviving officers to report to Olympus Base to meet the new arrivals. Bill called across to Saul, and the two old friends left the ruins of CIC, possibly for the last time as officers in command, with their heads held high despite their wounds.
Galactica would meet her final fate with pride. The odds had been suicidal, the damage crippling, the casualties severe, but despite it all, the Grey Lady and her master had stood between Death and the innocent.
And she had not been moved.
==============
Now, who was that saying I was harsh on canon characters? See, Bill, Saul and Felix all lived through that, as did (most of) the crew. So there!
And if anyone is wondering about the last two paragraphs, I seem to have a knack writing eulogies for warships, just ask Steve about the eulogy for CRS Warrior in his Rule the Waves playthrough.
Interlude: Survival
The Battlestar Galactica was falling.
Given that she was a spacecraft which usually spent time in perpetual freefall around a planet, this would not normally be an issue. This case was different however.
She was falling into Terra’s upper atmosphere. Her engines were offline, in fact the two ventral engine pods had been completely destroyed, gutted by a lucky Cylon nuclear strike as the ship fought her desperate action to prevent a massive Cylon bombardment of the surface.
The rest of the ship also showed signs of extreme damage. The forward hull showed a huge chunk missing from the port bow; another Cylon missile had punched through her failing shields and blasted away a large chunk of hull, spaceframe and compartments, extending laterally as far as her centreline and a similar distance towards her aft. If an outside observer had seen the damage but not what caused it, they would be forgiven for thinking some vast life form had taken a bite out of the ship.
The midships section too was battered – the starboard flight pod had been blown in half by yet another strike that had hit just forward of the after pylon attaching the massive hanger deck to the main hull. The rear two-thirds of the pod were completely gone, while the remaining section remained stubbornly attached – though bent a good twenty degrees from where it ought to be.
Within the ship, numerous fires raged. Many of the engineering spaces were virtually awash with fire as fuel and oxygen stores vented their combustible contents into the already raging inferno. In the bow similar fires burned in those compartments and areas that were not open to vacuum; they were spreading as the ship’s overtaxed damage control parties desperately tried to prevent the fires reaching the forward magazines.
In CIC, chaos reigned. Or rather, that is how it would appear to someone not familiar with this ship and this crew. There was frantic activity certainly; repeated alarms and sirens came from the damage control board, at the Nav table Felix Gaeta was trying to plot an FTL jump under intense pressure and rocked by turbulence as the ship began her atmospheric entry. The fact that he had a broken arm certainly didn’t help either.
At the centre of it all was Admiral William Adama, standing with a remarkable serenity at the plot table, while the XO Colonel Tigh was manning the DC station, facing an eerie repeat of their first action of this war; raging fires, trapped crew, the ship under extreme threat, and him having to make brutally hard calls.
“No! Pull everyone back behind frame 30 and prepare for vent action! They’ve got 30 seconds then we seal the bulkheads!”
It was a measure of how serious the current situation was that, unlike the previous battle, no-one questioned him on this call. The orders were given; those men and women that could get out of the condemned compartments did so. Those that couldn’t frantically sealed their DC suits and prayed.
The time passed. The bulkheads were sealed. The order was given. The main vent hatches opened and the fires in the forward area were extinguished. More than one body was vented as well.
There were plenty of people aboard who knew this hard call was pointless unless they could somehow jump the ship. With barely four minutes to impact, Gaeta was nearing completion of the jump plot. There would be no time to double check his calculations, so he had picked a random point a million kilometres from Terra; if his numbers were off there was ample empty space to emerge in and crucially; no large bodies the ship might collide with before they could be rescued.
If it worked of course.
Adama was still standing with an outward expression of professional calm. Inside however, he was raging. This was his ship, she had served them so well in the last months. Her going down in battle he could have accepted – it was a fitting end for a warship after all and certainly a far less ignominious fate than being hauled to the breakers as so many of her sister ships had been.
But Galactica being destroyed by falling out of orbit after being disabled was far too similar to the fate of many Battlestars during the Fall of the Colonies. Adama was furious at the idea. Finally, with three minutes to impact, his calm demeanour snapped.
“Where’s my FTL jump?”
Gaeta had just finished entering the coordinates. “Ready sir!”
“Time to impact?” Adama asked, once more the calm spacefarer.
“Three minutes five seconds sir.”
Adama nodded: “Start the clock, ten seconds!”
Gaeta had just turned the FTL key when the ship rocked even harder than before. The jump clock was running but Tigh was able to turn and shout at the Admiral: “Starboard pylon’s given out, the whole frakking pod is gone!”
Before Adama could reply, or even begin to think of a reply, the clock reached zero and the ship jumped. The universe was pulled inside out for a moment. From the outside, there was a flash of light and an inrushing of air to fill the new vacuum.
A million kilometres out, the ruined Battlestar reappeared. But the structural damage, the repeated
impacts and the reduced effect from jumping with only one FTL drive extracted a final terrible toll on the ship.
As soon as she appeared in the characteristic flash of light, she twisted. Her ventral hull armour cracked wide open amidships as the entire stern section was bent away from its intended position. From outside, it looked as if the ship had been bent by ten degrees at her centre. The port pod, still extended and so close to the edge of the jump field, had all of its external hull plating ripped away. Dozens of compartments, fortunately evacuated by the Admiral’s order, were opened to space. The ship’s keel was broken, her structural members finally succumbing.
For the crew aboard the ship, it was a colossal shock. Crewmen were thrown about, either to the deck or to the bulkheads, causing yet more injuries for the overtaxed medics to eventually deal with. Main power failed as the safety overrides kicked in, shutting down the primary generators, plunging them into a stygian darkness, which was replaced moments later by the dim red emergency lights which gave every corridor and compartment a blood-red aspect. The ship herself was bleeding as atmosphere and water from breached compartments and storage tanks flashed out into the cold vacuum of space.
Within the hull, the shaking finally ceased. There followed an ominous silence as everything was still. For nearly a full minute, no-one moved and there was dead quiet aboard. Even the omnipresent noises of the ship had ceased; the distant rumble of her huge sublight drives was gone, as was the higher-pitched whirr of the air circulators and oxygen scrubbers.
For an impartial observer, either out in space or within the ship’s corridors, it would appear that the ship and all aboard were dead. But this was not the case. After those first moments of silence, officers and enlisted alike began picking themselves up off the decks to return to their posts, or rather what was left of them.
CIC was a typical example of this. Adama hauled himself upright leaning heavily against the plot table, already certain that his leg was broken. Tigh came up on his knees, looked around and then instinctively reached down to check for a pulse on the crewman lying beside him, even though it was obvious from the angle of the poor boy’s head that his neck was broken. The young man had had the misfortune of being flung over the railing of the CIC’s upper gallery before hitting the deck.
Adama looked around through eyes blurred from blood coming from a cut on his forehead. His experienced ears noted the absence of engine noises, or indeed any noses from his beloved ship except for the low moans of the injured around him. He looked upwards at the DRADIS display, only to find that one of the screens had broken free and the others were offline. He noted that a few consoles were flickering back into life. He spotted Gaeta and Tigh among those who were awake.
“Saul, Gaeta, get me a damage report.”
The order, given in a quiet but firm voice, had a galvanising effect on many of the CIC crew. They threw off the shock and went to work, collecting reports and trying to contact other parts of the ship. Fortunately, the Battlestar still had sound-powered phones to supplement her internal comms system, making this task much easier than it would have been on a newer ship.
Slowly, agonisingly, the CIC crew sounded off the grim news. Tigh went first:
“We’ve got red lights on every structural member. Her back’s broken. Starboard pod is totally gone, everything forward of frame 44 and portside from the centreline is gone, likewise the two ventral drive pods. Every compartment on the outer edge of the port pod has decompressed. Massive hull breaches on her ventral side amidships.”
The helmsman spoke up next: “Main drives offline, manoeuvring thrusters offline, we’re in an uncontrolled lateral spin to starboard.”
Gaeta was next: “FTL drives destroyed, main power offline, secondary power offline…we’re down to the batteries sir. Sensors and comms are down as well.”
Adama absorbed all this, his heart breaking with each word, although he did not show it. “Fires?”
Tigh shook his head. “We lucked out on that, any fires were in areas that have decompressed.”
“Casualties?”
“Everyone in the starboard pod, everyone in the port bow, anyone who couldn’t get far enough inside in time…” Tigh trailed off at the thought of so many dead. “We’re dead in space Bill.”
The Admiral nodded grimly before pressing a bandage against his forehead. He noticed Gaeta’s arm hanging limply at his side, the fact that Tigh was leaning against a bulkhead keeping weight off his leg, and countless other injuries. The assigned CIC corpsman was working frantically on one of the more serious cases by the Weapons Control section. Those with serious but not life-threatening injuries simply had to wait.
Adama looked at his officers. “Gaeta…” he paused, sighed, then spoke again. ”Felix, Saul, get started on repairs. DRADIS and comms are top priority, life support next. We’ve got enough air for about twelve hours as it is. Try and get the transponders up first, we need to let the fleet know we’re here.”
Gaeta nodded. “Wherever “here” is. Aye sir.” He moved off to his usual console. Tigh limped across to his usual position opposite Bill.
“How do you think the fight is going?”
“Our missile strike got the last of the Basestars firing on the surface, hopefully Lee, Jellicoe and the rest can handle the main body.”
Tigh nodded. “And if they can’t?”
The Admiral looked his old comrade squarely in the eyes: “Then we’re dead, along with Terra and everyone else.”
Nothing more needed to be said after that. The crew worked away. Contact was re-established with the engineering spaces, or rather what was left of them, along with sickbay and the other areas the crew had taken shelter in. Casualty reports began to trickle in.
Those were particularly grim. When Galactica had started the battle, she had carried just over three thousand crew, including her air wing. These were a mix of the veteran crew who had manned the ship during the Fall and the subsequent exodus, a handful of extra personnel transferred from Pegasus or Warspite to help fill in the gaps, and a large body of Terrans who had come aboard to bring her up to her full complement, most of whom had been posted in the restored starboard flight pod.
Now, the battered wreck of a Battlestar had barely eighteen hundred survivors. Everyone in the starboard pod was dead, either killed in the initial devastating hit or when the remains of the structure broke free to impact on Terra’s surface. A hundred more had perished in the bow areas blasted away by enemy fire, and most of the rest had died when the engineering spaces had been turned into an inferno.
Over twelve hundred dead, plus however many Viper or Raptor pilots had fallen. Despite his long experience and service in the first war, Adama had only once seen worse losses, when he had witnessed the complete destruction of the Columbia at the very end of the war. He could mentally add to that tally the losses he already knew about in the rest of the Fleet: the Barham, abandoned and destroyed, the Valkyrie, the Vendetta, the Defiant, the Stalwart, the Champion…the list seemed endless. He began wondering if this would be nothing more than a pyrrhic victory for the combined fleet.
Slowly, tantalisingly, things were brought under control. Adama was surprised when the whirr of the air circulators and oxygen scrubbers started up again, making everyone in CIC breathe a little easier. Gaeta, his arm now in a rudimentary splint and sling made from a torn uniform and some pieces of the broken DRADIS display, triumphantly declared that the Terran-designed sensors had been restored.
The Admiral could only nod in acknowledgement; he was feeling the pain from his wounded leg, even though that too had been patched up as well as the frazzled corpsman could manage. He looked at the display screen, surprised that so few contacts were shown. His heart eased its frantic rhythm when the Pegasus appeared to be intact. The Cylon fleet, in contrast, had been shattered.
The technicians continued to work on the comm systems even as Bill and Saul watched the last stages of the Battle of Terra, the appearance of not one but two unknown contacts within a few minutes. The battle, it seemed, was over. Gaeta managed to get the ship’s transponders working again, and several destroyers promptly jumped out to the Battlestar’s position to render assistance.
Bill Adama leaned against the plot table and breathed deeply, letting go of the stress and adrenaline from the largest and most arduous battle had ever witnessed, let alone fought in. He looked around at his shattered CIC and knew deep in his heart that the Grey Lady, as she had been fondly known by her crews in the First War, was finished as a fighting ship.
Normally that would be a sad thought, but Bill refused to feel that way. Galactica may never fire her guns in anger again, may never jump between the stars or hurl Vipers from her decks, but he knew she had done more, given more than any warship he had ever been aboard. More, perhaps, than any warship ever had. And through it all, some of her crew survived. Some, many, would live to remember their time aboard her and this day with pride.
A message came in, commanding the senior surviving officers to report to Olympus Base to meet the new arrivals. Bill called across to Saul, and the two old friends left the ruins of CIC, possibly for the last time as officers in command, with their heads held high despite their wounds.
Galactica would meet her final fate with pride. The odds had been suicidal, the damage crippling, the casualties severe, but despite it all, the Grey Lady and her master had stood between Death and the innocent.
And she had not been moved.
==============
Now, who was that saying I was harsh on canon characters? See, Bill, Saul and Felix all lived through that, as did (most of) the crew. So there!
And if anyone is wondering about the last two paragraphs, I seem to have a knack writing eulogies for warships, just ask Steve about the eulogy for CRS Warrior in his Rule the Waves playthrough.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Darth Lucifer
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1685
- Joined: 2004-10-14 04:18am
- Location: In pursuit of the Colonial Fleet
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
The Bucket kicks the bucket. 
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Rock out, Galactica, rock out.
The BoT's caused much wear and tear on the TCN - ten destroyers k-killed, one battlestar (Barham, *sniff*) k-killed (don't apologise, it made for an awesome story), Galactica mission killed, Lionheart apparently needing what might-as-well-be a Warspite-level rebuild, and Warspite herself... needing a new coat of paint?
I think what's going to be felt more than loss of kit is loss of trained, experienced people - especially the Colonial naval cadre that the Terrans were building on/around.
The BoT's caused much wear and tear on the TCN - ten destroyers k-killed, one battlestar (Barham, *sniff*) k-killed (don't apologise, it made for an awesome story), Galactica mission killed, Lionheart apparently needing what might-as-well-be a Warspite-level rebuild, and Warspite herself... needing a new coat of paint?
I think what's going to be felt more than loss of kit is loss of trained, experienced people - especially the Colonial naval cadre that the Terrans were building on/around.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Was I the only one seeing/hearing the old girl's back breaking? She went down, but she took her enemy with her.Darth Lucifer wrote:The Bucket kicks the bucket.
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
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Darth Lucifer
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1685
- Joined: 2004-10-14 04:18am
- Location: In pursuit of the Colonial Fleet
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
It was just like Daybreak Part 2 all over again. Seriously, I cried when I read that shit. And bucked up as Adama and Tigh walked away from it all, heads held high.LadyTevar wrote:Was I the only one seeing/hearing the old girl's back breaking? She went down, but she took her enemy with her.Darth Lucifer wrote:The Bucket kicks the bucket.
They better get a new ship ala Enterprise-A, dammit!
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
I think the TCN has slightly more immediate problems than lifting Galactica's nameplate up and sliding a new hull underneath.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Can't believe it took me this long to ask this, but for the halibut: How close a reproduction, if any, is the Terran system compared to the solar system?
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10413
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Daybreak Part 2 was my inspiration, both in the damage and the glorious last fight. With my own special, um, twist (heh) of course.Darth Lucifer wrote:It was just like Daybreak Part 2 all over again. Seriously, I cried when I read that shit. And bucked up as Adama and Tigh walked away from it all, heads held high.LadyTevar wrote:Was I the only one seeing/hearing the old girl's back breaking? She went down, but she took her enemy with her.Darth Lucifer wrote:The Bucket kicks the bucket.
They better get a new ship ala Enterprise-A, dammit!
Also, I feel weirdly proud that it made you cry
As for a new Galactica, wait and see!
Fnord: The Terran system isn't Earth's solar system so it's quite different. Terra is the 4th planet, for instance, but there are only 3 major gas giants in the outer system. That's about all the thought I've put into it tbh.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Crazedwraith
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11948
- Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
- Location: Cheshire, England
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
I'd give odds that the mentioned partially completed Warstar will be the new Galactica.Darth Lucifer wrote: They better get a new ship ala Enterprise-A, dammit!
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Cool chapters EF. Though it was fun. I don't think O'Neill was that big an SF he claimed not. To the extent of never seeing Star Wars by early S5. He references star trek and wars (1969 comes to mind and the s7 opener) but only on a level poeple could pick up from pop culture osmosis.
Additionally th e person with the memory stone must have got a really garbled image of the first war to turn it into oBSG if that is really what happened.
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Question time are we supposed to know who beamed their mind out? Or is it a surprise?