What you are about to read is the prologue for the Sim’s new incarnation. The foreward will explain the genesis of how the following came about, and since this was first passed around, the story has already evolved beyond what I even expected. I can’t take credit for that, that comes from the imagination of those involved. The format may look familiar to some of you, it’s patterned after the work done by the good folks at the Battlestar Prometheus website.

BATTLESTAR MERCURY: New Genesis

Story by Tony Solorzano

Based on the Second Life Simulation

BATTLESTAR MERCURY BSG-21

Created by “Yevka Laws” (Second Life Avatar)

Based on the Sci-Fi Original Series:

“Battlestar Galactica”

Created by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Created by Glenn A. Larson

FOREWARD by Tony Solorzano

The story you are about to read is the introduction to a new version of the Second Life Roleplay Sim known as Battlestar Mercury BSG-21. The sim, created nearly five years ago, was one of the most successful sims in Second Life dedicated to the re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica. It wasn’t the first one, that honors goes to the former Battlestar Pacifica sim, which is no longer online, and it certainly will not be the last one, but it is the most resilient.

I should know, I was part of the sim for nearly its’ entire existence save for a few months in 2008-2009. But now, the sim is embarking on a new direction of the story made famous for four years on the Sci-Fi channel (I know, they now spell it SyFy, but I prefer the “Old School” look).

First of all, I am not the person who originally conceived the idea that the sim is using for this new version of the Mercury Story. That goes to a woman I know as “Lindsay Mollari,” another resident of Second Life who came up with the idea first about a year ago. This story is intended to be a foundation for the activities in the sim when the time comes to re-open to the public.

This story is by no means the end-all, be-all to the Mercury story. It is my hope that this story will be the springboard to send the role play into new and exciting directions, so that the story of the Battlestar Mercury, and the Galactica, will continue for as long as there’s an audience for the show.

There are of course, a number of thanks to offer, first to the owners of the Sim, “Shmuel Dubrovna” and “Yevka Laws,” without whom, the sim would have never even been imagined. The builders, scripters and designers who have worked on the Mercury versions for nearly five years, there are too many of you to cite individually, so I’ll thank you en masse. The storytellers, like Lindsay and myself, who tried to craft a story line out of thin air, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing miserably, but never giving up on it.

Of course, special thanks are offered to Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Glenn A. Larson, who all made the Galactica franchise what it is today. I also want to thank Ryan Keeton, author of the incredible fan-fiction series, Battlestar Prometheus, his crew of writers and editors, who have kept the Galactica’s legacy going with their highly original and entertaining story of the Prometheus and its own story. Some of Ryan’s storylines were worked into earlier versions of the Mercury story, and even now, this story contains elements that appear in a number of chapters in the third and final season of his story. I am extremely grateful for his work, but I never had the opportunity to thank him until now.

Finally, to the Residents of Second Life, who have been part of the BSG community, whether they were part of the first waves on the Pacifica, the Mercury, or any of the other sims that came after us, I thank you for being part of this never ending saga of Humanity’s last stand and its destiny.

Tony Solorzano

Battlestar Mercury:

New Genesis

PROLOGUE: 150,000 years ago

The plan was simple, technology nearly brought about the end of humanity. So the survivors of the 12 Colonies of Kobol, the 50,000 or so human beings along with who knows how many humanoid Cylons would spread out over the world they came to call Earth, found settlements and rebuild civilization from the ground up. The man who was once President of those Colonies thought it up, giving the human race, and their former enemies, the opportunity to start anew.

It was hoped that the mistakes of the previous generations, stretching all the way back to Humanity’s birthplace, Kobol, would no longer be repeated in returning to the basics, as he suggested. This included ridding themselves of all of the technology that got them to that planet in the first place, the space ships the survivors of the Colonies lived and died in for far longer than they cared to, including the ship that protected them and literally gave its life to shepherd them to their new home, a military ship known as Galactica.

The plan was to have the man formally known as Samuel Anders take over control of all of the remaining ships and fly them into the sun, doing away with them once and for all, the only exceptions were two small craft, a Raptor and a Viper, which were used to transport settlers all over the planet. Those were all placed in deep caverns and sealed away, hopefully never to be needed again. However, each of those ships also contained a small device with a recording made by the former President, telling whoever found the ships, who they were and how they got there.

There was another Raptor out there as well, one his father, the former commander of the Galactica, used to leave the staging area with the woman he grew to love, but neither he nor the ship had been seen since they left.

The man looked into the recording device as he stood on the windswept plain full of grassy vegetation. “My name is Lee Adama and I’m making this recording for our descendants to know our story and how we came to this place…”

Along with the recording were left map coordinates of the settlements, as well as information about the ships’ fuel designs. It came as a bit of irony as the planet had no identifiable traces of the fuel anyway, so there would probably be little chance of the ships ever flying again.

Lee continued the recording, “Some of the survivors think that one day, the Cylons might come back and try to finish the job they started back on the Colonies, However, I am in agreement with the,” Lee paused as he struggled to find the right words to describe their Cylon allies who looked human, “With our allies who have also decided to seek shelter on this world with us not as adversaries, but fellow survivors looking to start over.”

Lee looked up at the sky, which was beginning to darken and tried to make out the surviving ships of the fleet. Lee knew the ships would be making their flight into oblivion soon, and wanted to capture the scene on the recording. As the first stars began to appear above, a group of bright stars appeared overhead. They shined, seemingly frozen in place as the rest of the night sky moved behind them. As Lee watched, the stars suddenly brightened and began to move against the movements of the rest of the sky, heading in the direction of the setting sun. When they disappeared from his sight, he returned the recording to his face.

“Now we’re committed to breaking the cycle of violence and hopefully one day, our descendants can find their way back to where everything all began. I hope that whoever finds this, understands the choice we made.”

Lee closed the recording device and stepped into the small pre-fab hut he had been living in for a few days, deciding to make this plain his home. He made a copy of the recording and took it to the Viper. The last of the settler groups, who were headed to the continent west of where they landed, would take both ships, flying them to the cavern complex they found there. The high mountain range and deep wide cavern structure made it ideal to use as a crypt for the last pieces of the Colonials’ technology.

Lee stood as the final group of settlers climbed into the Raptor and flew off, leaving him and a small group of military personnel behind. Those would stay with him and help form the settlement along the wide river plain near a tectonic rift zone. Lee stood there as the moon rose, ready to begin his new life with the coming dawn.

COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER,

Battlestar Galactica

The Cylon formerly known as Samuel Anders activated the pre-loaded flight plan on the remaining Colonial ships and sent them on their way towards the sun, moving the Galactica a minute later, bringing up the rear. Anders, laying naked in the tub created by his fellow humanoid Cylons, had become merged with the Galactica’s computer systems, making him in essence, a Colonial Hybrid, similar to the Cylon hybrids that ran their base ships.

Anders was shutting down systems on the Galactica, in order to let the old girl die in the funeral pyre of the sun’s surface. As he shut off the systems, the ship’s DRADIS picked up a blip. Anders was curious what that blip was and stopped the ship’s motion outside the orbit of the second planet. He reactivated the ship‘s sensors and scanned the region. The DRADIS continued to record something there. Anders moved the ship out of the orbit and moved towards the blip, somewhere in the outer half of the system, near one of the gas giants. As Anders continued to scan the anomaly, a data link was opened and telemetry was received by the ship, new orders, and with the Admiral’s authentication.

Sam said nothing unlike the normal conversations we had before his “transformation,” but spoke in seemingly nonsensical phrases as he reactivated the ship’s engines. He moved the ship towards the new coordinates, crossing through the system’s asteroid belt, where vast deposits of the ship’s unique fuel lay strewn about like nuggets of candy.

The ship approached the rings of the gas giant and settled into a parallel orbit in one of the gaps in the rings, establishing a stable orbit. As Sam resumed the shutting down of the ship’s systems, the figure of a woman appeared next to him. The blonde stood there, smiling at him, gently touching the tattoo on his arm that matched the one on hers.

“Sam, it’s time to go,” Kara said to Anders. “Thanks to you, we’ve made sure that if it’s needed, the descendants of Mankind will find the Galactica,” she said. “Come on, my love, it’s time to rest now.”

The woman put her hand on Anders’ forehead as his eyes closed, the power on the ship beginning to shut down, echoing Anders’ own life slipping away. The woman disappeared as the last command to the ship opened the airlocks, venting the atmosphere and preserving the interior in the cold vacuum of space.

BATTLESTAR MERCURY: New Genesis Prologue