Battle of Kobol (TRS)
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| Battle of Kobol | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | Second Cylon war | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | Day 50-51 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Kobol, nearby space | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Colonial victory | ||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of Kobol occurred when Battlestar Galactica stumbled upon the mythological human homeworld of Kobol and attempted to discover its secrets.
Discovery
During a reconnaissance flight, pilots Sharon Valerii and Crashdown returned to Galactica with information on an unusual habitable planet. Investigation of the ruins and features of the planet confirmed that Galactica had discovered, by accident, the original human homeworld of Kobol, detailed extensively in the scriptures from the Lords of Kobol. Adama directed three Raptors to conduct a thorough surface survey of the planet, particularly to note whether the Fleet should settle there.
As the Raptors completed their Jump near Kobol, they were attacked by Raiders. One Raptor is destroyed and a second jumped away to safety. A third was shot and crash-landed on Kobol.
Since the orbiting Basestar prohibited a rescue of the surviving crashed Raptor crew, Kara Thrace suggested the use of the captured Raider (You Can't Go Home Again) to sneak near the Basestar with a nuclear warhead, leaving it there to destroy the capital ship and as many Raiders as possible. Adama agreed to the plan. However, intervention by President Laura Roslin with Thrace led the pilot to disobey orders and to divert the Raider while on a test flight to Caprica to seek an artifact known as the Arrow of Apollo. This change required Adama to direct Valerii to fly a Raptor with a Cylon transponder to the Basestar, to carry out the nuclear attack, with Racetrack as her ECO.
Simultaneously, Adama demanded Roslin's resignation over her violation of the chain of command. When she refused, he ordered a [{Colonial Marine Corps|marine]] team on three raptors to arrest her, led by Colonel Saul Tigh and Captain Lee Adama. During this operation, the younger Adama unsuccessfully mutineed against Tigh and was himself arrested.
The Raptor entered the orbit of Kobol undetected, but a problem with weapon deployment forced Boomer to land within the Basestar in a habitable area to manually deploy the weapon. Valerii encountered several Cylon copies of herself while in the Basestar, who apparently activated more of her latent Cylon programming. They detected the nuclear warhead, but nevertheless allowed it to detonate. The Basestar was destroyed with all hands, clearing the way for a rescue operation and leaving a small party of Cylons stranded near the ruins of the Opera House on Kobol. This was perhaps the first time during the entire Second Cylon War that Colonial forces successfully destroyed a Cylon Basestar.
As Adama congratulated Valerii, the Cylon agent pulled out her pistol and fired on the Commander twice at point-blank range (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II).
Scattering of the Fleet
In the chaos caused by the shooting, another Cylon Basestar suddenly appeared. Colonel Saul Tigh assumed command of Galactica, with Captain Aaron Kelly serving as his second in command. As medical staff attended to the seriously-wounded William Adama, Valerii was taken to the brig, and Lee Adama was placed in a cell adjacent to Roslin. Caught by surprise, Tigh ordered the Fleet to jump to its emergency jump coordinates pre-planned by standard procedure by Lieutenant Felix Gaeta. However, Galactica herself had incorrect jump coordinates and found herself separated from the rest of the Fleet (Scattered). The ship could not return to their original location to obtain the fleet location by conventional procedure; this would take hours, and the Basestar would likely destroy the ship in far less time. Gaeta devised a way to determine the fleet location faster by temporarily networking several ship computers to process data faster. Knowing that the Cylons would attempt to inflitrate the network, Gaeta placed four software firewalls in place to slow the progress of the expected infection.
The downed Raptor crew on Kobol, lead by Crashdown attended as best they could to their injured. They were later attacked by Cylon Centurions and fled to the woods for cover.
Galactica returned to its previous location and was immediately attacked by the waiting Cylon fleet. Lee Adama was released on parole to lead a squadron of Vipers in defense of the ship. During the attack, a Heavy Raider headed for Galactica. Apollo attacked the craft, which veered into Galactica's firing solution and crash-landed into the starboard landing pod, depressurizing it (it had been converted as a museum area in preparation for the ship's decommissioning and was unused for flight operations at the time). Gaeta successfully obtained the fleet coordinates, but not before a Cylon virus infected one of the networked systems, a fact of which the command staff was not yet aware. He disconnected the network a moment later. Galactica then jumped to reunite with the remaining fleet.
Cylon Boarding
The crashed Heavy Raider in Galactica's starboard landing pod deploys 10 specially-armored Cylon Centurions, which can only be destroyed by explosive rounds (Valley of Darkness). At the same time, the Cylon virus infects other systems of the ship and shuts down parts of the CIC's control. Tigh orders a counterattack, wary that the Cylons will attempt to vent the ship's crew to neutralize them and turn the ship's guns on the unarmed fleet to destroy them. Marine forces lead by Sergeant Hadrian and Lee Adama manage to destroy the boarding party before they can reach their targets.
Lee Adama begins preparations to rescue the downed Raptor crew from Kobol, and leads a team with two Raptors as part of the rescue team.
Raptor Team Rescue
Shortly after their two most seriously wounded teammates have died, Crashdown and the Raptor team scout and locate a group of three Cylons building an anti-aircraft battery using parts from their downed Heavy Raider (or variant) to order to destroy any Galactica search-and-rescue craft (Fragged). The battery is linked to a DRADIS dish set up some distance from the it. Crashdown develops a plan to distract the Centurions while a smaller group destroys the DRADIS dish, rendering the battery tactically worthless. As the team prepares their attack, they discover there are 5 Centurions, not the 3 initially counted. The team also hears the sonic booms caused by Raptors, indicating their rescue would be arriving soon. Specialist Cally is ordered to create the distraction by Crashdown anyway, but she refuses in fear. When Crashdown threatens to kill Cally for disobeying a direct order, he is shot in the back and killed instantly by Gaius Baltar.
The gunshot alerts the Centurions to the team's presence, and they flee. The battery fires on the incoming Raptors, but Chief Galen Tyrol successfully destroys the DRADIS dish, which breaks the missile's lock on the Raptors. The Centurions are destroyed by a Raptor missile from Lee Adama's Raptor. The survivors are rescued and return to Galactica.