“Life here began out there”.
These are the opening words of the Sacred Scrolls, which tells of a harrowing journey
undertaken countless centuries ago by twelve tribes of Man.
Settling in a distant star system thousands of light years from Kobol, the birthplace
of humanity, the Twelve Tribes would eventually become the Twelve Colonies and stand together
in the twilight of their existence as the United Colonies of Kobol.
Much of the earliest history of the Twelve Colonies is as much legend as fact and remains
shrouded in religious lore.
What is known however, is that shortly after arriving in the Cyrannus Planetary System
the Twelve Tribes underwent some sort of cataclysm, losing or perhaps deliberately abandoning
much of their advanced technology and knowledge.
The twelve tribes, scattered across twelve worlds, endured this dark age, until progress
and time gave rise to sovereign nations.
Over the centuries, the names of the ancient tribes were consigned to myth and the 12 Colonies
entered the modern ages as Aerilon, Aquaria, Canceron, Caprica, Gemenon, Leonis, Libran,
Picon, Sagittaron, Scorpia, Tauron, and Virgon.
While some of these worlds, such as Virgon and Leonis, had prospered, others languished,
beset by overpopulation, a lack of resources, unstable governments, or religious extremism.
Conflicts arose out these inequities and fighting between the colonies resulted in poorer worlds
occupied and exploited by their more aggressive neighbours.
On Caprica, the wealthiest and most powerful of the colonies and considered by many to
be the center of human civilization, tech company Greystone Industries began developing
a line of prototype robotic soldiers for use in the Caprican military.
After a dramatic display in which U-87 Cyber Combat Units prevented a terrorist bombing
in Atlas Arena, the U-87 and many other models were brought into service.
These “Cylons” quickly became integrated into life across the colonies, used not only
in military applications but in civilian service as well, typically performing menial tasks
and labor.
Precisely when the Cylons gained some form of sentience is difficult to determine but
their rebellion sparked a twelve year conflict known as the Cylon War.
The brutal fighting left none of the colonies untouched and several outlying settlements
across the system were occupied or completely destroyed over the course of the war.
Faced with this grave threat to their existence, the Twelve Colonies signed the Articles of
Colonization, uniting every world under a central federal government.
As part of this agreement, a new type of battlestar was designed and the first 12 ships of the
Jupiter Class symbolically represented each of the Twelve Colonies.
When an armistice between man and Cylon was finally achieved, the newly formed United
Colonies of Kobol embarked on a massive recovery program.
Former independent governments and institutions were reorganized to fit into the new Federal
structure and executive power was placed in the office of a democratically elected President.
Each of the colonies remained represented within the Quorum of Twelve which served as
the upper house of the Colonial Legislature.
While both the Office of the President and the Quorum of Twelve were based on Caprica,
which fulfilled the role of a de facto Capital, many other institutions were spread across
the colonies.
The Inter-Colonial Court, the nation’s highest federal judiciary was based on Libran, while
Fleet Headquarters was located on Picon.
The deep-rooted Cylon threat remained a major influence within Colonial politics and the
armed forces were a major priority in every successive administration.
The Colonial Fleet became the primary branch of service, the Jupiter Class and other Cylon
War era vessels supplemented and then slowly replaced by larger and more capable battlestars.
The fleet was supported by several other services, including the Colonial Marine Corps which
maintained a presence on Battlestars and other major warships.
At the height of its power, the Colonial Fleet consisted of 120 Battlestars, thousands of
smaller vessels and various support ships and fighter squadrons.
These were divided between various Battlestar Groups spread across the twelve colonies.
Equally important in Colonial politics were the various faiths practiced across its worlds.
The majority of these were polytheistic, centered around the worship of the Lords of Kobol.
Each lord was the embodiment of a particular practice or virtue, such as Ares, the Lord
of War, or Artemis, the Lady of the Hunt.
According to the Sacred Scrolls, the principal religious tome of the Colonial Faith, the
Gods and humanity once lived in harmony on Kobol before being driven apart as part of
a circle of time in which the same story was told again and again throughout eternity.
Other smaller cults were known to exist, typically centered around a specific Lord of Kobol,
although a small minority of Colonial citizens were secretly monotheists and instead worshipped
a single divine presence.
This practice diminished across the colonies when it emerged that this belief bore a striking
similarity to the religion of the Cylons.
The Cylons had remained behind the armistice line following the end of their conflict with
the Colonials, disregarding every attempt at renewed contact.
Until without warning, forty years after the end of the Cylon War, dozens of Cylon basestars
appeared across the Twelve Colonies as part of a massive surprise attack.
Using their mastery of computer systems to somehow hack into the Colonial Defense Mainframe,
every means of defense was infected with a Cylon virus and disabled.
The Colonial Fleet suffered tremendously, losing 30 battlestars in the opening wave
while a Colonial counter-attack above Picon was likewise incapacitated and destroyed.
Simultaneously, each of the colonies was bombarded with dozens of nuclear warheads, while all
military and civilian installations in orbit were destroyed.
After losing Picon Fleet Headquarters, then-current President Richard Adar offered a complete
and unconditional surrender, but the gesture was ignored.
Adar and his administration were killed a short time later alongside over 50 billion
of his fellow citizens.
In less than a day the United Colonies of Kobol had been completely destroyed, reduced
to the few remaining spacecraft that had somehow escaped the Cylon attack.
In the days following the attacks on the colonies, a small flotilla of these ships embarked on
a journey to find a new home, echoing the migration undertaken by the 12 Tribes millenia
ago…
...for all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.
The Templin Institute investigates nations, organizations, and factions from alternate
worlds and realities.
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