The Cylon Colony, January 2, 3063...
The illusion of order was breaking down. The fives were attacking the Ones, and the fours, and the fours, were growing steadily more crippled by their anxieties.
Worse, the Centurions were refusing to respond to orders, attacking one another, the Humanoid models, and sometimes, even the OLD models.
this wasn't all of them, doing any of these things. There was still the illusion of order.
It had been going for over a month. One unit here, or there, a deck that would drop off, a handful of humaniforms would break into bouts of madness, out of control, or a centurion would take offense and someone would get shot.
In all this, the Ones had yet to meet the new model. she managed to avoid him, but her handiwork was visible everywhere.
a group of Ones, with John Cavil at the center, made their way to the command center of the Colony.
A few Fours stood at positions, the Hybrid being cared for by Boomer, who had also evaded him a bit too often, while the Dorals...well, one of them was wearing a suit. The others wore combat gear.
"What's going on?" John demanded.
a few Centurions, barred from this room after the twos, sixes, threes and eights revolted, were also present.
"Your trial, Johnny." a voice said.
she dangled her feet from a support column, and he got a good look at her as she dropped to the floor.
"My trial?"
"You promised them victory, you started a war, you're losing. You have lost what the ancient Chinese call 'the mandate of heaven'...and you chose to birth me." she said, "And I don't serve under leaders who lose wars."
"Who are you to say that??" he scoffed.
"I'm the person who can give them victory. YOU have given them defeat, followed by restriction, followed by defeat. Your war is stalled, Base-stars are dying, whole crews of thousands of Cylons are waiting in the buggared up buffers, hundreds of thousands of Raiders, living through mutilation over and over again because you can't win wars, Did you think this wasn't going to happen because Doral is a 'good little soldier' and Simon is fascinated by suffering and pain, or because ONE of the Eights thinks you've got a nice bit of manflesh and you do that thing with your tongue?" she flicked her wrist, and a weight spun out on a length of cord, spinnind down and returning, "The vote is taken. You're out-we're deciding whether to box your sorry ass, or use you for shock troops."
"What...who are you?"
She smiled. "my name is legion, for we are many. I haven't decided on a name yet. we haven't."
two more stepped out of the shadow of Centurions. "I could go with the classics- Mara, Mor'riganis, Eris, phobos, I don't know, maybe Echidna, borrowing from pantheism is kind of boring though. How about Lucifer. Lucy for short? would that appeal to the loudly atheistic?" she smirked, "there are so many names. Twelve models of Cylon, yet only eight were named...but there are five more, not the hybrids-they despise you, by the way. Not the Centurions either, they predate you, and succeed you. Only there's five unnamed...only we all know their names, which are Saul, and Ellen, Tory, Tyrol, and Samuel. fun it was, digging that out, so I can't use those names either, and that means I'm not 'number nine'...I'm the unluckiest one of all. Thirteen."
she looked around the chamber, "ANd now, everyone else knows it too. You made me to solve a problem. Your problem is, you grasp harder and harder, and you're losing. the solution is obvious. You must be removed from power-you no longer lead here...or anywhere. and I will give them victory, and with victory, peace."
"Peace?? How will you give them peace with a civil war you instigated!?"
"Peace, Dear, older brother of mine, is not found in the absence of conflict." she said, "It is to be found in the presence of justice." she held up her hand, displaying a device John was very, very familiar with.
"An inhibitor??"
"It proved useful in...persuading the Fours to my line of thinking." she said, "It truly is amazing what you can live through, though I think poor Simon is giong to be a vegetarian for the rest of his existence. this is a thing you did to your own kind, your own...blood. a leader must never impose on her followers that which he himself would not accept."
"I...see." He said, "that's not for me, is it?"
"it only hurts once." she said, "No...I'm going to do you an unusually gracious favor. I know where New Circe is. You, are going to go there, to finish what you started. Just you, the Ones. You will win, or you will be extinct. if you balk?" she flipped the component into the air, "If you balk, this holy mission you put yourself on, the extermination of the Colonial humans, then when you respawn here, it will be with an inhibitor in your skull, and life-such as you might live it, as a menial and as cannon fodder."
"That is insane." Cavil said.
"No, it is making you finish the job you started." she told him. "You started your war, but you're not the one dying in it, you seized power, but it's not you dying to maintain it. here you go, now, go fight your war. go win your war, and if you can't win, then you're unworthy of power."
