Modern technology in deep-sea research has, in the last few years, opened up a whole new world previously unknown to us. Remote submersibles have introduced us to deep-sea vents, giant squid, bizarre life forms living at crushing depth in total darkness, and so on.
As we begin more intense surveys of the ocean floor, and see more, new things for the first time, an astonishing discovery is made.
An astonishingly large chunk of ferrous metal is homed in on, and as robo-subs work on it, it becomes evident that what lies on the deep-ocean floor is none other than the Battlestar Galactica. It takes awhile to figure it out, of course, but eventually through sonar pings, x-rays, and so on a composit picture is put together of the general shape and size and it can be nothing else but the ruined Battlestar.
Eventually it is discovered that the ship de-orbited, losing chunks in the atmosphere, thousands of years ago, and that the impact was uncontrolled. The vessel is thoroughly corroded, no fancy tech can be salvaged. Once people know what to look for, other debris can be found-- the rotted hulls of old Vipers, Raptors, other ships... again, fascinating finds but after thousands of years on the sea floor they are little more than corroded scrap.
Once people start going over ancient books and legends, it becomes apparant that many Galactica and Fleet personnel did, in fact, survive to reach Earth. Looking over old tales with new perspective, influences can be seen in ancient cultures (not the least of which the almost word-for-word translations of ancient Greek gods), not just from ancient Greece but Etruscans, Egyptians and so on-- small groups of Galactica Fleet survivors interpersed through ancient Earth civilizations.
Rumors of these discoveries run rampant, and the governments of the world finally begin to accept what can hardly be believed. As soon as this bizarre discovery is finally accepted, Glen A. Larson and Ronald Moore go missing. The conspiracy theorists, especially UFO cultists and others in the blogosphere; rumors (which turn out to be false) abound that Moore was seen being interrogated at Guantanamo. It comes out that Glen Larsen was told the story idea by an acquaintance, back in the late 1960's, and he spun it into the fanciful and light-hearted action-adventure tale it became on TV in 1978. Moore, on the other hand, dug up more information and did more research, coming to his re-imagined version which apparantly was a more accurate retelling of the ancient legend.
Both men, however, were certain that the whole thing was, indeed, just a tale and a clever collection of old myths mixed together and shaken-- neither had any idea that their mysterious "contacts" that gave them the ideas and information in the first place were actually passing on a real story.
So--
What happens here on Earth, modern day, spring of 2008, as it slowly dawns on us that the whole "Lords of Kobol" and "Galactica Exodus" stories are in fact true?
We would know that somewhere out there a race of Cylons are running about, they seem alternately bent on our destruction or intent on preserving humanity for unknown purposes-- and they can mimic human life and even interbreed with us, although they seem particularly susceptible to encephalitis.
We know that FTL is not only possible, but we used to use FTL ships as a regular part of our daily lives. There were colonies, Kobol, a runty planet that supports human life called "New Caprica" which may have another colony of humans on it ("We left a lot of people behind..."), and so on.
Speculate!
