This adventure is set before the Fall of the Colonies, and was designed to muddy the spiritual and narrative waters in my campaign.
The characters can be scientists, Colonial military, Colonial Marshals or Security Service, or Sagittaron terrorists or police.
The premise: a scientific expedition on Sagittaron is working on a find that some spelunkers found outside of Petra, a bustling city not too far from the captial of Tawa. The cavers had been exploring a section of complex caves in the hills outside of town and not only found human remains, but indications of an underground city. The scientists can be part of an archeological expedition sent to examine the find, following the initial assessment that has rocked Colonial science and religious circles — what was found is the remains of a modern city — the honeycombs of the caverns are the interiors of buildings reclaimed by rock over time, but still sporting the advanced metalurgy of modern day. More intriguing, there are indications of the photographic shadowing of a nuclear flash. There are skeletons from an era ago… and the carbon dating puts the place at 100,000 years prior to colonization! It predates the Exodus from Kobol — how is this possible?
The Sagittarons (and other religious groups) see this as a threat to the literal truth of the Sacred Scrolls and want the dig shut down. If playing the Sagittarons, they are part of the Sagittaron Freedom Movement or the Servants of Kobol, a radical splinter group. Their mission: take the scientists hostage and force the Sagittaron government to invoke their anti-blasphemy laws to evict the expedition from the planet and force the Colonial government to suppress the findings.
If Colonial police or military, your mision is to rescue the scientists by negotiation or a raid — tricky as the find is underground in a complex series of caves. They will be able to get help from one of the spelunkers (a Leoben, here for his own spiritual reasons…) Put a clock on the mission to push the action.
The point to this is to play off of the “all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again” mantra of the series…but is this the same retelling of the great cycle as in the show? Could it be that the story of Earth, Kobol, and the Colonies is more complex? Did the people of Earth (either one) settle Kobol and create the Gods – maybe Cylons? — who then created their own artificial life (the Colonials), who then run to the Colonies only to be destroy time and time again?
Key point: do not answer their questions…leave it mysterious and build on it. Maybe there are other iterations of the colonies, Earth, Kobol out there, or do they cycle through the only habitable real estate inteh galaxy over and over again..?
The Black Campbell 