The Destruction of the Twelve Colonies

The Destruction of the Twelve Colonies is a fictitious interstellar holocaust first depicted in the 1978 motion picture Battlestar Galactica, which set the stage for the subsequent television series. It is also the main premise for the 2003 miniseries re-imagining, which also spawned a television series.

In the 148-minute pilot film, it is established that at the end of the Thousand Yahren War, the Cylon Alliance sue for peace through Colonial representative Count Baltar with the Twelve Colonies of Man. Humanity lived on twelve colony worlds in a distant star system. They fought a thousand-year war with the Cylons, warrior robots created by a reptilian race which expired long ago, presumably destroyed by their own creations. Having never been commanded to cease fire, these warrior robots waged war against the colonials. The Colonials send a fleet of five warships known as Battlestars, to rendezvous with their archenemies, and to escort the Quorum of the Twelve (the Colonial governing body) and the President to sign the treaty. However, the peace treaty is a deception, and a betrayal of humanity by the Baltar character. Baltar also convinces the President to keep the fleet off alert status for fear of an incident with the Cylon delegation, even going so far as to characterize a wall of approaching fighters as "possibly a Cylon welcoming committee." The plan works, and the Battlestars are caught by surprise with all but one destroyed in the ensuing space battle. The Battlestar Galactica survives only because its commander (Adama) is suspicious of the Cylons, and had the foresight to put his ship on alert, and his fighters ready to launch on the pretense of a battlestations drill.

As the story progresses, Adama learns from his fighter patrol that the Cylon fighters are supported by tankers, not the Cylon baseships that normally carry them. Rightly suspecting a feint, the Galactica races to defend the Colonies, but is too late to stop their destruction. The Cylon forces are portrayed as attacking the Colonies and destroying them utterly, first via fighter attack, and then by Cylon troops deployed to the surface, as depicted on the colony of Caprica.

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