You are President of the 12 colonies (BSG)

[FaxModem1]

By Act of Q, you wake up in your cabin on the Cloud 9 during the events of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. In your cabin are fives days of clothing, a briefcase with all the command codes, travel papers, briefing documents, and intelligence that someone working for the Colonial government would need. At some point, the captain asks for your Case Orange code, which once you type in, makes you the highest ranking government official in the Colonies after the Cylon attack. Thus, after a quick swearing in, you are the President of the 12 colonies. Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, is 43rd in the line of succession, you are the 38th, so you do outrank her.

You are not a cylon.

What do you do to ensure the survival of the human race?

[Esquire]

This is preliminary to a full response - what's my official government position?

[Solauren]

Once we meet up with Galactica, order Adama to send Raptors to jump to the other systems to look for other ships.
(Foreknowledge: I'm hoping to find the Civie fleet that Pegasus stripped, and possibly find Pegasus as well)
(No foreknowledge: It makes tactical sense)

Assuming I keep my foreknowledge and locate Pegasus, I'm ordering Admiral Psychopath removed from Command. I'm sure her relationship with the six unit (ignoring the fact the six is a Cylon) violates some regs. The Six unit is being transferred to Galactica for interogation. She is not to be sexually abused.

If I don't keep my foreknowledge, the six Pegasus has a prisoner is to be transferred anyway. The Pegasus crew is to close to the situtation.

Assuming events play out as we see in the series, when the 'Cavil' cylons reveal the Cylons are withdrawing from the 12 Colonies and leaving the fleet alone, Contact the cyclons to give them back the Cavils, Provided they give us an update for the 12 Colonies.

i.e How many people are left, how eradiated are the colonies, what's food production look like?

Then, If the colonies are still habitable, go home. If they are not habitable, the fleet might be jumping back there to pick up survivors and supplies anyway. They're has to be something useful left there. Ships that ran out of air or fuel could be salvaged for parts, or even welded onto a ship with the capability to 'tow it', and turned into supply/storage.

If the 12 Colonies are a write off, then keep heading towards Earth. 'New Caprica' is not suitable as a colony world.

Other points
If and when we find Kobol, odds are it's now habitable. Once the Cylons withdraw, in addition to checking out the 12 Colonies, check out Kobol.
Food supplies are the priority.


All the Colonies had to do was evade the Cylons, and once they withdrawl, going back over their pathway to get stuff they had to leave behind would really increase the odds of survival.

[FaxModem1]

This is preliminary to a full response - what's my official government position?

Something that's a back bencher position, just bureaucratically higher than Roslin's. Aquarion's Lt. Governor or Quorum representative, if you like. Feel free to change it to something more fitting your real life career field.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Removing Cain from command during the miniseries events is probably not necessary, she didn't really jump off the slippery slope until Gina was revealed as a Cylon.

As for issues of command, as President appoint Adama as Admiral of the Fleet or something, on the basis that he actually has combat experience against Cylons.

[Joun_Lord]

Didn't Cain kill all those civies, well leave them to die, just after the attack? Like pretty much around the same time the Gal got her civie fleet the Peg got her own but instead of protecting them stripped them for parts, shanghaied some crew and left the rest to die?

That right there is probably grounds for dismissal and shows Cain cares more about fighting the damn dirty toasters then she does protecting lives. I'm sure that goes against her oath as Colonial Officer. It had to happened not very long after the events of the miniseries if not during it. I'm pretty positive the incident with Gina was around the time of the miniseries too.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Actually Pegasus didn't find the civilian fleet until after they'd launched their failed attack on the comm relay, been boarded and Gina exposed.

Incidentally, that raid was so damn infuriating to me. Why bother sending in Vipers to take it out when the Pegasus' main battery would have shredded it in one salvo?

[Zor]

Give an order to get the access codes shifted, order that as much of the fleet as possible be placed on surprise training maneuvers and order that Gaius Baltar spend the next few months month wandering a bureaucratic maze on Sagittaron.

Zor

[Joun_Lord]

Actually Pegasus didn't find the civilian fleet until after they'd launched their failed attack on the comm relay, been boarded and Gina exposed.

Incidentally, that raid was so damn infuriating to me. Why bother sending in Vipers to take it out when the Pegasus' main battery would have shredded it in one salvo?

Ah, my mistake. Been forever since I've seen neo-BSG.

As for why they sent in the Vipers, its because Cain was clearly a crazy person who was the long lost ancestor of Jonathan Archer. She executes her XO for disobeying that clearly stupid order during the time when the battle for the 12 colonies was still going on (if I remember correctly the relay was actually a staging point for the continued invasion of the colonies) well before most had time to go crazy and starting executing people left and right. She was clearly a few Vipers short of a squadron even before the attack.

Which is why under no circumstances should she be left in command. Kick her upstairs or kick her ass to the curb, just kick her ass off the Pegasus.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh she definitely needs to go, but the events seen in Razor were IIRC a few days/weeks after the attack on the Colonies. That gives us a bit of leeway. Of course, even before she went crazy and started shooting people here crew seemed very loyal to her so simply ordering her arrsted/removed from command may prove difficult.

Unfortunately the time the OP states we begin is too late to save most of the Fleet and the Colonies. If we had only a few hours more notice we could actually achieve something more than "find Pegasus earlier and avoid New Caprica."

Now, if it were that we were, for instance, the Vice President and Adar gets killed in a car crash the day before Galactica's decomissioning, then we can actually do something useful rather than counting the mushroom clouds.

[FaxModem1]

Now, if it were that we were, for instance, the Vice President and Adar gets killed in a car crash the day before Galactica's decomissioning, then we can actually do something useful rather than counting the mushroom clouds.

There are also domestic policies. Do you outlaw abortion, like Roslin did? Do you turn Cloud 9's pleasure dome into a giant farm? Do you space all the prisoners onboard the Astral Queen, including Tom Zarek? Do Cylons get to stand trial, or are they immediately thrown out the airlock upon detection? What do you do about the remaining supplies on board the fleet and their distribution? etc. etc.

This isn't Roslin's administration, it's yours, what changes would you do?

[Mackon]

Do something a bit more proactive with Athena. Would a decent debrief by a profession without a bucket of ice water revealed that the mechanical Cylons had been fitted with "suppressors chips" that kept them enslave to the BioCylons? That she could turn off a fleet of Raiders by plugging herself into the Galactica's communication dish? I don't know but I feel that a she was an opportunity missed. Sure she did good as a Colonial Officer on the Galactica but I think she could have done more for the RTF if they had worked at it a little.

[Zwinmar]

One thing I would try to push is sentient rights, not that I would get any where with it.

[Knife]

I'm going to start just after 33 and water, after the very immediate threat is over.

1) Full census of personnel on who they are, what they can do, and what they know; gaining a sense of what resources I have and what intelligence I have. I would also start a recruitment drive (IIRC the Galactica had a skeleton crew to decommission) and put civilian ship captains under Federal control and perhaps start a police force under Federal control and not rely on Galactica Marines for internal security. Might pull a couple of the Marines off Galactica to train up some new cops.

Prisoners are transferred to the Galactica, each case is reviewed with recommendations on release either to civilian fleet or conscript to military. Zerick and others to dangerous to release are kept on Galactica.

2) Consolidate ships. Cloud Nine, Zephyr, and the botanial cruiser are tasked with food production and civilian living. Strip down all the small liners and transports not really meant for long term flight and/or living and use interiors to set up long term living in the three really big ships while still having a large amount of their space dedicated to food production. If the three 'food ships' are not enough space for all the civilians, even after mass recruitment, then pick whatever large ships as needed to convert to civilian transport. Perhaps one or two of the large freighters like the Prometheus.

Mining and industrial ships re tasked to fleet needs and storage of spare parts stripped off of unwanted vessels.

Some of the smaller ships, like the Gemenon Traveler, should be kept but stored on Galactica's non used flight pod. Having the second flight pod all glassed up is a total waste. Un-glass it and put a couple usable assets there for future use, something like long range recon to different systems for water/air/fuel along with spare parts from stripped down fleet.

4) Have the military do recon of either Colonies or colonial sites with priority to save additional people, gather supplies, and perhaps ships. Up to the Admiral, but something akin to have the fleet jump around outside the Home System, send Raptor recon flights into various places looking for those things without engaging with the enemy. You have one flight of Raptors jump around the outside with actual list of jump points back to the fleet, and one flight without that knowledge jumping to the colonies and then to predesignated points where flight one can then redirect back to the fleet.

5) Once all assets in place, strike out away from the Colonies to find a new home. Food, water, and resources to be scrounged on the way. If the Earth story keeps us going, great. Start setting up a government that reflects the current situation. A representative from each civilian ship, plus the President, plus a military liaison to handle the affairs of state. The Admiral is in charge of military affairs but the POTUS gets the ship captains and police force. With fewer but larger vessels, administration, distribution, and really defense, would be easier. It would mean each ship loss is a bigger deal, but all and all, I think a better idea than spread loading the last of humanity across a couple dozen small ships. Long term, the sense of a community in a larger ship rather than a bunch of people crammed into a space Airbus would help with the psychological aspects of the holocaust and what not.