BSG- What if?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I havn't seen too many what-if's for the nBSG, but here's one; What if, 2 days out of Ragnar Anchorage, the fleet finds Admiral Cain's flotilla. Right from the start we've got two Battlestars, all the resources, and Cain doesn't have to cannibalize ships and forcibly conscript civilians.

Would things have gone much differently for the fleet? Also assume Adama manages to convince Cain that Rosilyn is the rightful president.

[Starglider]

Cain doesn't have to cannibalize ships and forcibly conscript civilians.

'Doesn't have to'? There's no evidence that she 'had to' in the original continuity. She just saw fighting the cylons as of overriding importance and took anything that looked useful. Given the size of the Pegasus she almost certainly could've accommodated all the civilians from that tiny fleet on board (or at the very least the families of the people she conscripted), but she considered them dead weight and an unnecessary drain on resources.

Also assume Adama manages to convince Cain that Rosilyn is the rightful president.

That's a tough assumption to make. Adama was highly skeptical of Roslyn until half way through the second season, initially he wanted to go kick Cylon ass the same way Cain did. There was no evidence that Cain was going to start taking orders from Roslyn even after the Ressurection Ship was destroyed, right up to the point she died. You might get away with 'Cain wasn't initially so psycho, she worked up to it over several months as she tried to fight the cylons alone and dealt with the destruction of the colonies'. She's still going to end up making decisions Roslyn and Adama find reprehensible, so you're looking at some sort of rebellion eventually. Though if Cain gets enough warning that it's coming, she might just go through with assassinating Adama and have Roslyn airlocked for treason. I admit that that would be amusing to see.

[Skylon]

Cain doesn't have to cannibalize ships and forcibly conscript civilians.

'Doesn't have to'? There's no evidence that she 'had to' in the original continuity. She just saw fighting the cylons as of overriding importance and took anything that looked useful. Given the size of the Pegasus she almost certainly could've accommodated all the civilians from that tiny fleet on board (or at the very least the families of the people she conscripted), but she considered them dead weight and an unnecessary drain on resources.

I'm going to guess that Cain may have had to cannibalize those ships. Pegasus had just put into dry-dock for an overhaul. There may have been a real need for certain things to be replaced. Still doesn't justify what she did though.

With Galactica I actually see her being more prone to possibly cannibalize civilian ships as now you have a ship that was due to retire, with at the very least, half it's fighter launch and recovery capability in need of restoration.

2 Days out of Ragnar as your figure? Well, let's say that's after "33". If the water crisis hit, and the fleet still opted to use prisoners, Cain would have probably boarded the Astral Queen guns blazing leaving a dead Zarek...

But in all honesty, I imagine if Galactica found Pegasus at this point Adama's idea to find Earth would be cut, very, very short and the only elements of Adama and Roslin's rag-tag fleet Cain would have had real interest in keeping around would be Galactica and any mining/foundry ships.