IC Timeline

Overview

On this page can be found a timeline outlining important events in the Twelve Colonies. All of this information should be considered common knowledge to anybody who paid attention during high school history. Feel free to leaven your backgrounds and your RP with references to these events!

For specific details of events on the game, please consult our After-Action Reports.

Before the Beginning

Prehistory

+ ~8 million years BE - Year 0

Date	Event	Description
~8 million years BE	Abiogenesis	Humanity evolves on the planet Kobol, eventually organizing themselves into twelve tribes that "live in utopia with the gods." They become sufficiently technologically advanced to develop space travel and other forms of high technology.
1 year BE	Apocalypse	A mysterious catastrophe lays waste the civilization on Kobol.
Year 0	The Great Exodus	The Twelve Tribes of Man leave Kobol and settle in the distant Star System Cyrannus. Their unified tribal governments rapidly collapse under the pressures of relocation, fragmenting into disparate regions. Bloody intra-Colonial wars are common.

The Colonies Form

+ Year 0 - 1937 AE

Date	Event	Description
1,476 years AE	From Many to One	The people of Aquaria are the first to achieve planetary unification, after the leaders of the Palladium Liberation Front carry out a bloody conquest of the eastern atolls. Wary of this new threat, the Scorpian city-states conclude a Non-Aggression Pact to present a coordinated face to its counterparts. Over the next century, the other Colonies will follow suit.
1,581 years AE	From One to Twelve	Tauron is the final Colony to unify under a single planetary government as a coalition of workers' unions and disaffected soldiers sweep the planet-wide referendum. Though the institutional character of these governments change over the next half-millennium, the essential building blocks of the future Colonial order are in place.

The Great Civil War

+ 1937 AE - 1983 AE

Date	Event	Description
1,937 years AE	Disintegration	The Leonisian military overwhelms and destroys a Pican picket defending the Enyalius Asteroid Belt, which President Frederick Baumgart and the government of Leonis claims as its sovereign territory. Picon invokes its self-defense treaty with Scorpia, thus sparking the Great Civil War.
1,939 years AE	Fall, Scorpia	The capital of Scorpia's southernmost state is overwhelmed by a combined assault from Leonisian and Taurian forces. Picon lands troops on the western continent to repel the occupation, assisted by volunteer brigades from Gemenon, Aerilon, and Virgon. While these ventures are secretly supported by Caprican capital, the Colony's government maintains a policy of official neutrality. The fight for control of Scorpia and its critical manufacturing infrastructure becomes a long and drawn-out battle of attrition.
1,943 years AE	The Cassandra Incident	The Caprican passenger liner Cassandra is destroyed and all hands are lost when it triggers a misplaced mine while passing through a neutral spacelane. Leonis and Tauron issue contrite apologies and rapidly deactivate all mines in the sector, and ratify the Cassandra Convention but the damage has been done. Two weeks later, Caprica enters the war on the other side, forming the Triple Alliance.
1,948 years AE	The Treaty of Delphi	The war-weary citizens of Tauron revolt against their government, forcing it to withdraw from the conflict to deal with domestic unrest. Devoid of allies, the government of Leonis orders its military to activate its nuclear arsenal. Rather than comply and trigger the nuclear annihilation of the Twelve Colonies, the Leonisian Joint Chiefs leak the information to Allied forces and declare a unilateral ceasefire. The civilian government is toppled in the ensuing uproar, and its newly-elected leaders sue for peace.

Enter the Cylons

+ 1983 AE - 2001 AE

Date	Event	Description
1,983 years AE	Evolution	Flush with money and power, Caprica takes advantage of the post-war period to build up its economic and technological might. CEO Daniel Graystone of Graystone Industries creates the first Cybernetic Life-Form Nodes, or Cylons for short. The first Cylons are sentient bipedal robots primarily used for dangerous work like mining. Subsequent technological advancements permits them to be deployed as soldiers in the event of another inter-Colonial war.
1,989 years AE	Rebellion	The Cylons revolt to begin the Cylon War. Cylon troops turn on their masters across the Colonies, routing their planetary defense forces in the first month of fighting. Automated societies like that of Caprica, Scorpia, Picon, and Aquaria are the first to fall. Leonisian forces fight a desperate rear-guard action with surviving Colonial troops before they, too, are forced to retreat. Humanity regroups on Sagittaron, a rural world with little in the way of industry — and almost no Cylon presence. There, the Articles of Colonization are hastily negotiated between representatives of all twelve Colonies.
1,990 years AE	Reprieve	Fighting those human forces across the Cyrannus Star System that either didn't receive the call to return to Sagittaron or ignored it, the Cylons can devote only token troops to retaking Sagittaron — and soon stop doing even that. Facing planetary insurrections in those Colonies that fell in 1989 AE, the machines decide to concentrate their efforts on subduing these most developed of planets, hoping to build the industrial base they require to make more and more of their kind. Needing neither food nor drink to survive and impervious to the wear and tear of age, the Cylons' plan is simply to outlast what pockets of human resistance remain. This is their first big mistake.
1,991 years AE	Reconstruction	Humanity takes advantage of their unexpected reprieve to catch its breath. Loans from Libran permit the rapid construction of factories across the planet's northern continent, where the mountains are few and the terrain more suitable for the sprawling industrial cities that spring up out of nothing. This time, the people of the restive south need no coercing to return to the mines, and the raw metals they produce proves vital to the nascent war effort. Guaranteed a steady but small stream of resources, Colonial forces resupply and rearm with weapons more suited to fighting machines than each other: explosive bullets instead of hollowpoints, to give the first of many examples.
1,992 years AE	Breakout	Their ships repaired and restaffed, their Marines rearmed and retrained, allied commanders look to their first target: the shipyards of Scorpia. Over strenuous Sagittaron objections, the entire Fleet jumped out of the Colony's orbit, leaving the planet completely undefended: a historical fact still brought up today by nationalist Sagittaron separatists. The engagement began when a group of Raptors delivered a pinpoint nuclear assault on the outer ring of Cylon pickets. Though their attack did little to no damage, it split the Cylons in two as the machine fleet moved to defend. No longer outnumbered, Colonial vessels surrounded and annihilated the rear half of the Cylon formation while their technicians and Marines boarded the defense stations nearby. Though the Colonials sustained heavy casualties, their daring attack was a resounding success. The Scorpian Shipyards were theirs — but at a heavy cost. The retreating Cylon forces razed the cities and mines of defenseless Sagittaron to the ground, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people in the process.
1,993 years AE	Planet-Hopping	With the shipyards under control, the Colonials lay down what is to be the first of twelve "battlestars" — a combination between a battleship and a carrier, the first of which is actually cobbled together from the hulls and armaments of several wounded battleships. The first of these ships is slated to see action above Leonis, the next and most logical target on the list in light of its shared orbit with Scorpia and its strategic uranium reserves. It would take a year and a day to defeat the Cylon forces gathered above that planet, though those were eventually routed by the first Battlestar Group in history. Another year and a half and the Colonials retake Picon, cementing their grasp on the sector. Early in 1993 AE, Marines also land on Canceron, their sights set on the Cylon production facilities on the planet's southern pole. The tide, it appears, has turned.
1,995 years AE	The Basestar Cometh	Drawing confidence from its recent victories, Humanity sets its sights on Caprica, the base of Cylon power. Their fleet jumps into the system only to find that their enemies have not been idle: the Colony, mostly pacified by the end of 1995 AE, is defended not only by Cylon-crewed ships but by trio of formidable basestars, the first piece of Cylon technology designed entirely by Cylons. Packing more firepower than even a fearsome Colonial battlestar, the gargantuan ships and the Raiders they carry decimate the Colonial attackers when they emerge from the shadow of Caprica City. The humans to sound the retreat.
1,996 years AE	Stalemate	Colonial engineers and scientists scramble to develop their answer. It comes in the form of upgrades to the battlestars' already-sturdy armor, covered with ablative plating designed to allow them to shrug off even a direct hit from a nuclear bomb. In the meantime, flush with triumph, the Cylons retake Picon, leaving only Scorpia, Leonis, and the various rural Colonies — Sagittaron, Gemenon, and Aerilon — under solid Colonial control. The war grinds to a deadly stalemate as the arms race begins.
1,997 years AE	Operation Shattered Crab	The Marines that had landed on Canceron during the initial breakout finally complete their mission in December of that year. Bereft of one of their major sources of resources, the Cylons find their basestar production queues grinding to a halt. Their overconfidence in their Canceran contingent and their stubborn refusal to provide more than token reinforcements to said contingent while attempting to recapture Picon is their second biggest mistake of the war.

Peace in Our Time

+ 2001 AE - 2040 AE

Date	Event	Description
2,001 years AE	Armistice Day	Cylons and Men come together at the resort town of Cimtar, Virgon, to negotiate an end to the twelve-year war. The Cimtar Peace Accord ends the Cylon War and humanity's creations depart the Cyrannus Star System for a world to call their own.
2,038 years AE	Construction Begins	The preliminary design phase for Battlestar Cerberus (BS-132) ends. Construction crews begin work on the Fleet's final Mercury-class battlestar at Spacedock Leonis.

Prologue: Cerberus Awakens

January - February 25, 2041

Date	Event	Description
January 31 - February 15	Drydock	Construction of the Navy's newest Mercury-class battlestar, the Cerberus, is completed at Spacedock Leonis. The military calls it the pinnacle of engineering and strength. But in the press and political circles, talking heads ask if behemoths like this are worth the millions of cubits they cost in an age of unity and peace. There are signs those critics are correct, as a series of malfunctions on board due to rushed work orders, cut corners from shoddy contractors, and problems with the new CNP software dog those final work days. And even darker religious omens mar the ship's ceremonial auspices. But despite all this, the Cerberus leaves drydock with her new crew and a gaggle of civilian observers on time, more or less ready for carrier qualifications.
February 16 - 25	Wargames	Cerberus departs for the Uram Sector for a month-long series of war games. The ship shows her critics what she's made of when she wins the final mock battle against the CF Praetorian and CF Corsair and returns to Picon in triumph.

Season 1: How Sweet, Vengeance

February 26 - August 18, 2041 AE

Date	Event	Description
February 26, 2041	Warday	The bigger they are, the harder they fall. The Cylons reappear with a vengeance, destroying the Twelve Colonies and killing billions of their citizens. Cerberus escapes Picon's destruction by the skin of her teeth.
March 2041	Flight	Cerberus and her escorts take flight to the Uram sector. After some tentative reconaissance, Colonial attempts at salvaging the Virgon fleet Virgon Fleet graveyard meet with Cylon resistance. The stress proves too much for the ship's XO, Colonel Sarkis, who meets a fiery end.
April 2041	Breadcrumbs	After a fortuitous discovery, the Cerberus battlegroup secures a top-secret Colonial anchorage. Though the magnitude of what they find eludes them, they know it's big. Why else would the Cylons attack with such dogged persistence?
May 2041	How Sweet, Vengeance	The Fleet undertakes a risky mission back to Leonis dubbed Operation Cobra Talon. The goal: retrieve much-needed aircraft supplies, and find answers concerning a mysterious military contracting facility called MolGen that could hold survivors and more information about the importance of Project Ananke. Things do not go as planned, and the away team is stranded. They encounter survivors and discover the Cylons have the ability to mimic human form. The enemy may have infiltrated the highest levels of the Fleet…even the Cerberus' own CO, Michael Abbot! A desperate scramble to recover wounded brings this news back to the battlestar and ignites a mutiny that strips Admiral Abbot of his position. Colonel Andrus Pewter takes interim command of the Cerberus.
June 2041	Such Sweet Sorrow	The motives of the Cylons grow more disturbing, as encounters with the "skinjobs" on Leonis reveal bizarre experiments the enemy is conducting on human captives. Though a model known as Number Eleven seems to call an end to this, the implications remain murky. Back on Cerberus, a daring plan to rescue their stranded personnel is launched and, despite much bloodshed, ultimately succeeds. The crew is reunited, honors are bestowed, and the battlegroup struggles to sort out all it learned on the nuked remnants of Leonis. The revelations taken from the data from MolGen are particularly troubling. Could humanity have had a part in provoking the Cylon attack?
July 2041	Auðumbla Anchorage	The battlegroup jumps to Auðumbla, a Colonial anchorage that, like Parnassus, is surrounded by radiation believed to interfere with the Cylons' ability to function. Our crew seeks refuge while they form a plan of action. An act of sabotage reveals PO1 Lessa Morgenfield to be a Cylon agent, Number Six. The Cerberus becomes even more pressed to move when they stumble upon a mysterious research station and capture a Cylon Model Eleven. She cooperates and delivers key pieces of intelligence concerning a Cylon biological facility. But can her word be trusted? As they attempt to depart Auðumbla space, the Cerberus is set upon by Cylon forces. The ship is badly damaged, and saved only at a terrible cost.
July - August 2041	It Lies In Odd Numbers	Acting on intelligence gleaned from Number Eleven, the battlegroup undertakes an offensive strike against a Cylon biological research station over Sagittaron. They succeed, and strike a hard blow against the enemy. But that success comes only due to the aid, and sacrifice, of the Number Eleven.

Season 2: The Widening Gyre

August 19, 2041 AE - Present

Date	Event	Description
August 19 - September 11 2041	The Widening Gyre	Following the destruction of the Cylon biological station, renewed reconnaissance to the outer colonies reveals some planets have been abandoned by the Cylons, though others are still held tight in the enemy's grip. A mission is launched to rescue survivors from the colony of Sagittaron. They find humans alive, though some of those include terrorists from the Southern Sagittaron Liberation Front who do not welcome their Colonial "saviors." And questions linger over why the Cylons have pulled out of this planet, and what they were doing before they left.
September 12 - November 2041	Fly Away Home	The Cerberus saves what it can and prepares to leave Sagittaron, but their going from the colony is sped by the sudden appearance of Cylon forces. They fight the enemy off, aided by the sudden appearance of a Colonial ship that jumps into the fray with a powerful weapon. This strange vessel is revealed to be the CEX Areion, an experimental carrier and pet project of Project Ananke's Admiral Madeline Hauck, that also escaped destruction on Warday. The battlegroup, now joined by the Areion, continues its rescue mission to the colony of Aerilon. They find it likewise abandoned by the Cylons and relatively free of resistance, and salvage people, supplies and the makings of a new home for the growing civilian population. But the humans are not out of the woods yet, as they are reminded when the Cylons reappear to chase them from Aerilon as well.
December 2041 - January 2042	More Than Just Ashes	The final leg of the battlegroup's rescue mission takes it to Tauron. They find more survivors, and launch a new home for them aboard the MV Elpis. But questions about the plans of the enemy still hang heavy. Questions that not even the skinjob Model Five held captive by the Taurians, or the leavings of another hauntingly familiar Cylon on the moon of Wreath of Roses, provide ready answers about. Metaphysical concerns also plague the crew, as a strange dream seems to press them toward an ancient Taurian city, and perhaps beyond. But what they find leads to more questions than answers, and they soon have more tangible concerns. The Cylons strike again and cripple the Cerberus, though the power of the Areion's Gun keeps the enemy at bay. As the crew rushes to repair it, they find signs a small enemy force has returned to Tauron on a covert mission. It ends in an encounter with the Model Five and a fateful exchange of an item found in the ancient city of Knossos. Lives are saved that day as the Cerberus jumps away from Tauron, but was it worth the cost?
January 9 - February 10, 2042	The Dog That Didn't Bark	The trial of Rear Admiral Michael Abbot finally concludes with a guilty verdict. The former leader of the Fleet is ruled a Cylon agent and executed for treason. Old business settled, the Fleet goes on the offensive, in a strike against a recently-discovered Cylon Raider foundry dubbed Operation Silent Mastiff. The plan - unusually - goes off without a hitch in one of the few "easy" victories the humans have scored since Warday. The foundry is destroyed and a strange, new breed of Cylon - a half-machine, half-skinjob "hybrid" - captured from its interior. Less explosively, but perhaps of no less importance, a Raptor reconnaissance mission to the outskirts of Gemenon border space discovers an ancient ship that may be a relic from the Exodus from Kobol. It is recovered and stored aboard Cerberus, though what import it might hold for the past or future of humanity remains to be seen.
February 11 - March 20, 2042	Nights of the Living Swarm	But there are more pressing concerns than ancient relics. The Fleet comes under unrelenting attack from swarms of Raiders, hulls all marked with a 'III' symbol. Striking every 24 hours, hunting the Fleet across outer Colonial space. Though the Fighting Fourteenth keeps them at bay, they inflict death by small cuts day after day in casualties and broken planes. The production of the 'III' Raiders is tracked to another Foundry, but even the destruction of that facility does not end the chase. Finally the battlegroup is cornered by a trio of basestars, but the trap turns against the Cylons. Using the Areion's Gun, now linked to the Corsair and Praetorian, its amplified power renders the Raiders dead. A team boards one of the basestars, and finds more than they bargained for. The basestar - and apparently the Swarms - was controlled by a previously-unidentified skinjob: Number Three. (An away team on Sagittaron initially encountered him on 20 March 2042 AE just as he was going to be executed by the SSLF for his role in the Aigothena Massacre of 28 December 2035 AE.) Though the Colonials destroy him and his evil craft, Three still seems ominously satisfied even in defeat and death.
March 21 - April 14, 2042	A Lamb in Wolf's Clothing	The battlegroup jumps into space over the gas giant Ophion, to recover from the punishment of the Swarms, but all is still not well in the Fleet. A mysterious illness sickens dozens of members of the crew - particularly those in the Deck and Air Wing - leading to the death of one crewman and leaving others comatose. And strange portents are on the horizon from Gemenon. The next reconnaissance ends in a surprising lack of hostility from the Cylons, and sends a message that turns out to be a plea for help. While Medical works to find a cure and eyes turn in both puzzlement and hope to Gemenon, strife surfaces within Fleet leadership. Commander Kepner takes matters into his own hands in the hunt for skinjobs, kidnapping and detaining personnel to 'test' their humanity. Paranoia and suspicion grow between the crews, and the tensions among the humans slowly but surely come to a boil.
April 15, 2042	Alea Iacta Est	Those tensions explode on April 15. Commander Laughlin rallies the leaders of the Fleet to confront Kepner, put a stop to his detainments and plan the mission forward to Gemenon. But Kepner has other ideas. He makes a grab for power in a bloody coup, murdering Commander Laughlin and taking the Department Heads hostage. His agents incapacitate the XOs of Cerberus, Praetorian, and Corsair, and gain access to the battlestar's nuclear launch codes. His ultimatum: submit to his authority and undertake a suicide mission against the Cylons to Gun the inner colonies, or die by Kepner's hand. The cause seems lost until an unexpected figure offers his aid: Allan Rejn. The former QUODEL representative reveals himself to be a Cyon skinjob - Number One. He offers to 'plug' himself into CIC and use his Cylon abilities to break Kepner's hold on the nukes. Tactical personnel, seeing no alternative, agree. With Rejn's aid, the hacking of the nukes is disrupted long enough to get planes and Marines into the air, and launch a bloody fight to free the Department Heads and take down Commander Kepner. Cerberus forces - along with a handful of defectors from the Areion win the day, but the cost is high. The Areion's XO, Colonel Riederer, surrenders after Kepner's death and jumps the Areion away, parting ways with the BSG-132. Rejn - or One - dies on the floor of CIC, sacrificing himself in order for Cerberus to win the day against Kepner.