This week saw our last game of the year, most likely. (Damn you, holidays!) However, we did get the chance to start a new arc for the fleet, post mutiny and coup.

The first half of the night was concerned with picking up the pieces after the whole of the elected government was killed off. Rather than reconstitute the tradition set up of a quorum, there will be a council of ship captains, who will report their concerns to the small bureaucracy that is still mostly in place. Logistics Minister to handle food and other supplies; a morale and welfare minster for the necessary “bread and circuses” to keep people stuck in 74 tin cans occupied and out of as much mischief as possible; a justice minister (also our head and only judge) to handle criminal cases (and who is overloaded with the coup conspirators); a health minister; and a security minister controlling the civilian police force. The commander of Galactica, a PC, is doubling as defense minister — he is the last word on military matters. There is an “interim president”, which sounds better than “president placed there by the very angry military commander that just had his president dad murdered.”

The big move was the Quorum of Priests who demanded Lady Athena of Kobol rule them. She declined, but took the position of prime minister. She is not legally empowered to make policy or law…but everyone knows that she is guiding the whole show, now. This has actually created more stability in the fleet, despite her having to spend several weeks selling the people on the new government and more importantly, the announcement of the alliance with the Seraph (humanoid Cylons) of Basestar 19.

There was a lot of politicking and changing of the guards — including the PC pilot who was cousin of the mutiny leader finding herself as CAG — but this was overshadowed by two new plotlines:

1) The inclusions of Basestar 19‘s ships, including Resurrection 3. We introduced a new PC — a Leoben-like “messenger” model. This one, named Devet Cavil as a tip of the hat to the new show, is trying to find stability and answers in the wake of The Blaze turning out to be a false god (Hades, armed with Titan’s technology, to be specific) and his continuing revelations from God. He is convinced Athena is the key to figuring it out…what does she know? He has a second problem — the Seraph that have recently been “decanted” are showing odd personality traits — they are very docile, and overly amenable to the policies of the Ones and Twos…are they being programmed? Is this a move by a few of the models to be more equal than the others?

This is leading toward some espionage and politicking in the Cylon fleet.

2) They have gotten close enough to have their first distant survey of Earth’s star. This has raised morale (if only the mutineers had held their fire a few days!), but more important is that as they have moved past the stellar nurseries of the Orion Nebular group, they are picking up what look to be super high frequency and bandwidth communications from dozens of systems in the Orion Spur. These are between 500 and 1000 years in the past…but this section of the galaxy looks to be alive with settled worlds! What might be waiting for them out there, even the Seraph/Cylons — who had sent “Seeks” into the area to find humans to bring under the embrace of the Blaze — can’t know…

So we are about to wander further away from the show, and more toward the post/transhuman elements that have been hinted at throughout the campaign. We know the TITANS created the Lords of Kobol to rule/supervise the humans that they recreated on Kobol after destroying Earth. We know Hades left with the Ophiuchan Tribe (the 13th Tribe) and apparently contacted the Titans, and in his effort to find “God” or understand the universe, went mad and came back as “the Blaze” to overthrow the Olympians on Kobol and rule over the people there. He eventually created the Seraph (our humanoid Cylons) in the image of his brothers and sisters he destroyed, and had them reign in his stead, and also send them to find the rest of humanity and bring them under his gaze.

What we’re finding out: the Seraph lost any of their Seeks to unknown elements at Earth and other worlds near it. We now suspect that the Titans or humans from Earth or the 13th Tribe have settled this region of space…but the transmissions seen suggest they are far more advanced technologically than the Colonials or Seraph; what might they be encountering soon?

We’re in the home stretch of the campaign, and the flavor of the game is moving more toward a combination of the spiritual, but also more transhuman sci-fi. I’ve pretty much got the main elements of the next few episodes mapped out, but only can really plan an episode or two ahead of where I am, as player input is driving us in directions I hadn’t anticipated. (I know my players well enough to usually know where they’ll take us…this hasn’t been the case of late.)