The Vengeance of a Dead Race

This war started a thousand years ago when the 12 Colonies of Man came to the assistance of a friendly race known as the Hasari, who were being set upon by an implacable warlike enemy known as the Cylon Empire. The Cylons were infamous for using machines as their armies and fleets, and stripped bare whole star systems to feed their war complex. It was rare to ever encounter an organic member of the race, living or dead, but they were said to be like serpents with arms and legs. Few knew for certain where their home worlds lay, nor how many organic Cylons existed, though by rumor from other minor races it was said they were few in number, and dwindling. The Hasari spent centuries quietly searching for the heart of the Cylon Empire, even as Cylon machines relentlessly bore down on their own worlds. Seven hundred years ago, they were overrun and destroyed by the machines, their colonies obliterated in nuclear fire. The only living Hasari were refugees who had fled at the last, taken in by the Colonies to keep their race alive.

It is said that as the oceans of the Hasari homeworld boiled away, Hasari commandos were delivering a deadly plague to the Cylons' own worlds. In a few days of fire and pestilence, the two races were laid low: the Hasari, all but exterminated, and the Cylon serpents, writhing and roiling with virus inflicted cancers.

But the Machines did not stop, for there is no hand on the switch to make them stop. They continue on, expanding, despoiling, and murdering outward into the galaxy. They are the vengeance of a dead race, and they may be our end as well.

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This is part of my Pyramid & Socialators Reboot of Battlestar Galactica, whose lore and history are a divergence of both canon series. (Apparently the real new production is back to calling it a reboot, so, okay.)

The Cylon Raider formation you see here is called a Pentad. Five purely machine Raiders function like a hunting pack with a collective networked intelligence. When I set the models up, I made the very tips of their bows align on the vertices of a large pentagon shape, and rotated and changed elevation as needed to come up with something interesting. You can see their wings glowing with orange light from their heat rejection radiators.

Made with Trimble SketchUp. Rendered with Kerkythea.
Background courtesy of grahamtg