"Deciding the Fate of Humanity over bottles of Miller High Life" - by lj1983
Saturday night, six people gathered to decide the fate of humanity over bottles of Miller High Life. The players (in play order):
-Admiral William Adama (myself)
-Lee Adama (Adam)
-Saul Tigh (Autumn)
-President Gaius Baltar (Matt)
-Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (Gina)
-Galen Tyrol (Winter)
(Note: I’ve described the players below according to the gender of their character rather than their actual gender. Tyrol and Tigh were played by lovely ladies, but are described below with masculine pronouns for thematic purposes. Hopefully they won’t hold this against me.)
I was hosting the game, and no one had ever played before; but I’ve been evangelizing for this game for weeks, so both spirits and expectations were high. I had all the components laid out, with examples of each type of Crisis card, each type of skill card, and each type of loyalty card. I pushed through the explanations pretty fast, assuring everyone that they would understand once we got underway.
“Basically,” I explained. “Battlestar Galactica is a game where terrible things are going to be happening to you constantly. If you work together, you may be able to make some of these things slightly less terrible, or occasionally avoid horrendous trauma altogether, or at least have a choice between two equally hideous fates. Excited?”
They were.
Now I’ve played this game four or five times, and I can only recall being human the whole way through once. I have uncanny Cylon karma, and as I dealt out the loyalty cards, I prayed to the gods of Kobol for a reprieve.
I turned over my loyalty card, and Boomer was pointing a gun at me.
“You are a Cylon,” she said.
Crud.
Now I have to explain to all these noobs how to win the game while I try to undermine and destroy them. Good thing I’m the Admiral.
Act I:
A Rough Start or
”That’s only bad if we’re boarded by centurions.”Honestly, I’ve never seen a game start out quite so dire. It seemed like everyone picked up the rules and mechanics really fast, but suddenly there were five raiders off one launch tube and two heavy raiders off the other one. Alert pilot Lee Adama became alert patient in the sickbay. A shot from a Basestar damaged our Armory. “That’s not so bad,” I explained. “Unless we’re boarded by centurions.”
We were boarded by centurions.
Finally, Starbuck forewent jumping in a viper for activating the FTL. We left the Cylon fleet and 1 population behind us, but we would have lost a lot more if those raiders had reached our civilian ships. I drew two destination cards and chose the “1” distance destination card that allowed us to repair some of our vipers. I explained to everyone that going only “1” distance was pretty poor, but that most of the destination cards had some kind of crappy consequence.
It came to Tyrol’s turn: a perfect opportunity to repair the Armory and take a shot at the centurions, but Tyrol mournfully explained that he had used his last repair card on a previous skill check, and so he headed to the research lab instead. Thus, the first sparks of suspicion were kindled; why wasn’t our engineer
repairing things?
More turns followed, and the centurion moved steadily towards humanity’s doom. “I don’t have an executive order,” I explained through lying teeth, “but if someone
did have an executive order, they could order Tyrol to move to the Armory and repair it.” Thus, I fulfilled my role as both teacher and traitor. Lee Adama didn’t have an executive order either, so it fell to Saul Tigh to order Tyrol to the Armory and repair the damage.
President Baltar tried to make an inspirational speech to rouse morale (which was already pretty low), but failed to energize his core demographic. Starbuck moved to the Armory and took a shot at the centurion, and missed. Then Tryol, in an odd twist, played an executive order on Starbuck. Two more shots, the second of which was aided by Saul Tigh’s strategic planning card, and the toaster was toast. Huzzah for barely surviving!
Act II:
Growing Suspicions or
"It's like there's a party in the brig, and everyone's invited."The ship jumped again, and we moved a pitiful “2” distance. Before you accuse me of taking advantage of their naiveté, I made sure everyone understood that the cards ranged from 1 to 3, and that I was choosing low distance cards. Of course, I said I was doing it to protect our resources.
A season of relative peace passed by. The Cylon fleet didn’t show up, and the humans gathered their resources, but they were still losing skill checks, and the dials were dropping. A particular skill check resulted in three negative skill cards, and so the humans knew there was a Cylon out there. And since I hadn’t played any skill cards in that challenge, I knew I wasn’t alone.
Another skill check resulted in four negative skill cards: 2 piloting, 2 engineering. The two main culprits were Adama and Tyrol, since Starbuck hadn’t contributed. Both were suspicious, but the weight of accusations fell against Tyrol for the “I’m out of repair cards,” play earlier. Lee Adama moved to the Admiral’s quarters and had her thrown into the brig (I’ll admit, I helped a little bit. I didn’t think Tyrol was a Cylon).
We continued to fail skill checks, and the general sentiment was that Tyrol actually wasn’t a Cylon. They tried to bust him out of the brig, but a leadership card sabotaged the skill check (I wonder who played that?). Fortunately someone drew a crisis card that allowed a chosen player to be sent to Sickbay, and Tyrol was moved there, circumventing the horrendous “get-out-of-the-brig” ordeal for the horrendous “get-no-skill-cards-ordeal.”
I had the opportunity to reveal myself as a Cylon, but decided to hold off. We were close to jumping, and I felt like if I could choose another dinky destination, I could really sink this fleet.
Alas, it was not to be. Saul drew a Crisis card that allowed him to look at an opponent’s loyalty card, and he checked me out.
“He’s a frakkin’ skinjob!” Tigh shouted.
Now this isn’t my first time playing a Cylon. When you find yourself in a situation like this, you can’t get defensive or become angry. Take a breath.
“Oh my God.” I looked surprised, and then disbelieving. “You’re the Cylon.” And I said it with a straight face. And I felt everyone look from me to Saul to me to Saul, and they weren’t sure who to trust, and I saw that look in Saul’s eye, that hurt, betrayed, furious look that says,
you just made me a SUSPECT.That’s cool. I had the same look on my face. I cracked up once, but nobody saw it.
The turn passed to President Baltar, who used his once-per-game ability on me to look at my loyalty card. The room was tense as everyone awaited the outcome of his analysis. I looked hopeful, glad for the opportunity to be vindicated.
“He
is a Cylon,” President Baltar announced.
“See?” Saul cried.
“Okay,” I said. “Now we know who the two Cylons are.”
I lined up the pieces. Those two negative engineering cards? President Baltar is an engineer. All those negative tactics and leadership cards? Saul Tigh gets leadership and tactics cards. What a well-played coup. And, I reminded them, if I lose the title of Admiral, it goes to Saul. Just before a jump, too.
Obviously, it was hard to swallow. But I didn’t need them to swallow it—just choke on it a little. And from the uncertain looks around the table, I’d managed to plant the seeds of doubt.
But the seeds of doubt can’t help much against Saul Tigh’s “Cylon Hatred” ability. President Baltar convinced Starbuck to use the “Admiral’s Quarters” against me. Although I had a bunch of skill cards from using my “Command Authority” once-per-game ability to take all the skill cards from a previous challenge, it couldn’t help against a mostly united effort to send me to the brig at a -3 difficulty.
Then, we jumped. The new Admiral Saul Tigh finally understood the burden of leadership when he looked at the destination cards.
“These are both terrible,” he groaned.
He played a “2” distance, and the sleeper phase triggered. Morale was in the red, so no danger of the sympathizer becoming a Cylon. But guess who’s the Cylon sympathizer? None other than Saul Tigh.
The Admiral-for-a-day joins me in the Brig, and Lee Adama becomes Admiral. Chip off the old block, that one.
As it was, Saul had joined me in the brig just in time to see me off myself. Goodbye, Galactica. Hello, resurrection ship.
Act III:
The Gloves Come Off or
A Chip Off the Old ChassisThe Cylon fleet finally showed up. Saul was freed from the Brig, but did not automatically regain the rank of Admiral—that still belonged to Lee. Starbuck took to a viper and wasted some raiders, but a lucky 8 on a raider’s roll sent her to the Sickbay (it was actually two eights in a row, since she played evasive maneuvers on the first one). Things were looking pretty bad when I played my Super Crisis Card, “Bomb On Colonial One.”
I imagine that, after the skill check was tallied, President Baltar, from his desk on Colonial One, tugged on his collar with one finger.
Boom.
Goodbye, executive branch. It was nice to know you.
Morale dropped down to “1.” The fleet was on the verge of crippling depression. They were wearing more black and writing bad poetry.
But then Admiral Lee Adama, his viper shining like a white horse, flew into battle against the Cylon raiders and blasted them to pieces—one, two, three. With a devilish grin and a cut jaw, his gave the fleet a thumbs up through the canopy of his space fighter, and all of humanity breathed a collective sigh of hope.
A crisis popped up. The Admiral would choose between two terrible fates, a loss of population or a loss of morale. A difficult choice, to sacrifice lives for hope, but the course of action was plain. After the disappointment of all their previous leaders—a traitorous Admiral, a drunken, Cylon-sympathizing XO, and an ineffectual, exploded President— could this handsome young viper pilot lead them to the promised land?
Through the cockpit canopy, across the gulf of space, the Admiral’s boyish eyes glittered as he mouthed his answer.
“Nope.”
Following the finest tradition of military leadership, Admiral Lee Adama sided with the Cylons and doomed humanity.
Upon his return to the resurrection ship, Lee and his father had a heartfelt reunion. Tears were shed, and embraces were held for slightly longer than was comfortable. Daddy-issues were resolved.
“I’m proud of you, son,” William Adama said.
“We did it, dad,” Lee said.
*cue sentimental music*
*fin*
Wrap-up: Everyone really enjoyed the game, despite the whole “death-of-the-human-race” ending. Starbuck regretted not being able to get in a viper more often, but the Cylon fleet just wasn’t showing up much in this one. Apparently Lee Adama had been a Cylon from the start, and the father & son combo had just been too much. Saul Tigh, who is my roommate, may never forgive me.
The next day, when I opened the fridge, I realized that we had drunk all my Miller High Life. If that’s not the sign of a successful evening, then what the frak is?
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