Commander AdamaMr. President, a wall of unidentified craft is closing in on the Fleet.
Possibly a Cylon welcoming committee.
Commander Adama
Sir, might I suggest we launch a welcoming committee of our own?
Mr. President, there remain many hostile feelings amongst our warriors. The likelihood of an unfortunate incident with all those pilots in the sky at once?
Commander Adama
Sir, did Baltar suggest that our forces sit here, totally defenseless?
My friend, we are on a peace mission. The first peace man has known in a thousand yahrens.
Captain, we have to know how many base ships we're dealing with.
You must be mistaken, Captain! Fighters couldn't function this far from Cylon without base ships; they don't carry enough fuel!
I said no base ships! Just fighters, maybe a thousand.
Commander Adama
How do you count for that, Apollo?
I don't know. They...! We picked up an empty tanker on our scanner. It's my guess the Cylons used it to refuel for the attack after flying to that point from wherever their base ships are.
Well, why operate this far from Cylon without base ships when it isn't necessary? They would've been well out of our range at the old moon!
Commander Adama
Unless it was necessary... for them to be somewhere else! Get me the President!!
Commander Adama
Mr. President, I request permission to leave the Fleet. I have a reason to suspect our home planets may face imminent attack.
[Cylon raiders blast away the bridge of the Atlantia and portions of its bridge explode.]
Commander Adama
Maintain contact!
[The communication image of President Adar distorts, then clears.]
How could I have been so completely wrong? I have led the entire human race to ruin...
Commander Adama
Mr. President, it wasn't your fault. You didn't lead us to this disaster. We were led!
[last words] Baltar! I don't believe it...
[A Cylon raider blasts one of the Atlantias anti-assault batteries and the explosion surges into the bridge, knocking out communications.]
Commander Adama
Mr. President!
I want to know where you were as well! All of you! We waited, we watched and prayed, and you never came!
Most of us are dead. The Fleet is all but destroyed.
From the Battlestar Galactica.
But what of the President and the Council of Twelve and...and all the other Colonies?
Commander Adama
All destroyed.
Commander Adama
Yes, Serina.
It's true, then. We are defeated. Doomed.
BBoxey
Can I ride in your ship, sir?
Fighter planes are no place for little boys.
They're going to have to be if our people are going to survive. We must fight back.
Commander Adama
Yes, we are going to fight back. But not here, not now, not in the Colonies. Not even in this star system. Let the word go forth to every man, woman and child who survived this holocaust; tell them to set sail at once in every assorted vehicle that will carry them.
Commander Adama
We gather here as representatives of each ship in our fleet to answer that single question: Where will we go? Our recorded history tells us that we descended from a mother civilization, a race that went out into space to establish colonies. Those of us assembled here now represent the only known surviving colonies, save one. A sister world, far out in the universe, remembered to us only through ancient writings. It is my intention to seek out that remaining colony, that last outpost of humanity in the whole universe.
Commander Adama? This thirteenth colony, this other world. Where is it and what's it called?
Commander Adama
I wish I could tell you that I know precisely where it is, but I can't. However, I do know that it lies beyond our star system, in a galaxy very much like our own. On a planet called... Earth.
Commander Adama
And just what did you think you were doing, volunteering for a mission like that?! Sire Uri must be laughing up his sleeve!
What's worrying you more – the mission, or you being made to look foolish by Uri?! [Adama glares at Apollo] Look, I'm sorry I know better than that, but there was no choice. You didn't seem to have a viable plan! It was his way or mine!
Commander Adama
Now you see?! He's got us doing it! Turning one against the other! If Uri weren't such a prima donna, I'd say let him lead! But we must not allow ourselves to be fractioned off; there are too few of us left! A single voice is imperative!
But not his! He's only interested in himself! I don't understand how he got elected to the Council of Twelve, and you voted for him!
Commander Adama
You should known him back in the Renaissance days of Caprica. He was one of the best! A builder, an architect of dreams! (Adama falters at the memory of Uri's regression to a corrupt politician) Now he just sits and decays himself with drink and remembrance. No wonder our world fell apart.
Looking back is contagious. Decay and corruption go hand in hand with defeatism and lack of action. Uri moved in because you failed to act to have alternatives to his plans!
Commander Adama
I believe it is sometimes prudent to steer away from the flames once you've been badly burnt.
And I'd say you'd better look around more carefully. You're nursing wounds while we're still in the fire.
Commander Adama
I've been sitting here for yahrens, it seems, examining our military intelligence on this Carillon outpost.
I didn't think we had any beyond the exploration for fighter fuel.
Commander Adama
That's the disquieting part. It was Baltar's people who engineered that expedition, and declared the Tylium too minimal for mining. And our military intelligence is based on that report.
And now we find one of the largest Tylium mines in the star system.
Commander Adama
Exactly. So the mystery is, who's behind such a huge remote mining operation? There's no local food source to feed their laborers. They must be bringing it from who knows how far?
They have plenty to share. Some of our people are getting right down obese.
Commander Adama
Yes. And there's another mystery. There seems to be no connection between the Ovion workers underground and the resort on the surface, and yet there must be some connection.
Do you suspect a tie-in with the Cylon Empire?
Commander Adama
Where Baltar's involved, I suppose I suspect everything. You've had no reports of anything odd, out of the ordinary?
No, sir. The people are having the time of their lives.
SUSire Uri
What I propose, instead, is that we now appeal for justice and mercy.
Commander Adama
[clearly surprised] Justice? Justice from the Cylons? Is that what you actually said? Gentlemen, they'd told us that they will not stop until every human has been exterminated. Now why should they believe we are now willing to accept that which we have always found unacceptable – to live under Cylon rule?
SUSire Uri
Because we would destroy our arms to prove we are willing to live in peace.
Commander Adama
Destroy our only means of defense?!
SUSire Uri
Or attack. May I remind my brothers that we did not have conflict with the Cylons until we intervened in their relations with other nations?
Commander Adama
Yes. Yes, you are right. We did not come into conflict with the Cylons until we helped our neighbors, whom the Cylons wished to enslave. And until we helped the Hasaris get back their nation, taken by force by the Cylons.
SUSire Uri
Correct. But if we mind our own business, there's every reason to believe that the Cylons will leave us alone... permanently.
Commander Adama
If you've all come to this Council to turn your backs on the principles of our fathers and the Lords of Kobol, from whom all colonies evolved, you do so with my utter contempt.
[Commander Adama, Captain Apollo and Serina are exploring the ancient ruins on the planet Kobol]
I wonder what the city was called.
Commander Adama
There were many cities here on Kobol. Eden was the largest. It was the first to fall. This... this might be it. I don't know.
Commander Adama
I know. It's difficult. But I've been spending so much time with the old records. For example, that... that refers to the ninth Lord of Kobol. That's his seal. He was the last ruler before the thirteen tribes migrated to the stars.
Twelve to settle our Colonies.
That's why you entered the void. You think you can find a clue to where the Thirteenth Tribe went!
Commander Adama
Yes.
I know exactly how you feel, old friend.
Commander Adama
Baltar. [rushes at Baltar, puts his hands around his neck and tries to strangle him]
[comes between Baltar and Commander Adama and separates the two] No, Father! Leave him to the Council!
You almost killed me! What is this madness?
[removes Baltar's pistol] You need to ask?! Selling out your own flesh and blood?!
Selling out?!! What has he told you? What great truths has Adama spoken to my back?
You mean to say you didn't arrange the destruction of our Fleet, our cities, almost every living thing in the Colonies?!
Are you completely mad?! What sane human being would do a thing like that? Adama, surely you could not have supported such lies! How could you think of me so evil? I, too, hold the seal of the Lords, and a member of the Council of Twelve! I was as much a victim as any of you. I lost everything. My family, my people. I was trapped between the President's Battlestar and my own. Captured by the Cylons, taken away like an animal, to face trial!
Apparently, they found you innocent. A friend of the Cylons!
No. I was spared to lure you into another trap through a message of peace from some new benevolent Cylon ruler.
Commander Adama
Get him out!
Adama, wait! You must hear me out. I have been to the Cylon seat of power. It is in chaos. The Cylon forces are searching for you throughout the star system. The route back into the Cylon Empire is barely defended. One single Battlestar could take control of the Empire and bring it to its knees!
Commander Adama
You have the tongue of an angel and the soul of a serpent!
I can prove my good intentions, that I have the power to lead you back into Cylon, supposedly as my prisoners, but, in actuality, to launch a counterattack against those demons.
The release of one of your officers. Lieutenant Starbuck.
Commander Adama
At what price? Remove him, Apollo!
Father, what if he can prove what he's saying?
Commander Adama
If they've sent him, then it is a trap.
Then why haven't they attacked?!
Commander Adama
I cannot tell you. But our safety is not behind us with you or the Cylons. It lies somewhere out there along the path taken by the Thirteenth Tribe. The tribe that colonized the planet Earth.
Earth?! You can't be serious. That's nothing but a fable.
Commander Adama
I believe it is as real as the existence of the Thirteenth Tribe. And the key to that tribe is here in this place, locked away somewhere. I'm certain of it.
Commander Adama
Serina! Apollo! This is what we came for. This is a record of the mass exodus. The final departure of the first twelve tribes, the ones which eventually became the Colonies we knew. And here, the last days, the final days of Kobol. It tells of the Thirteenth Tribe.
Can you tell where they went?
[Cylon raiders fire a killer laser burst that explodes the pyramids and collapses the temple around everyone]
[as everyone is coughing profusely] The... the door, it's been blasted open!
Commander Adama
[despondent] The writings!
Commander Adama
They're disintegrated; they're gone!
CCCommander Cain
When it was clear that the Fifth Fleet was destroyed, I took every survivor I could aboard the Pegasus and headed straight for Gomoray, a most remote supply base. We've been living off them ever since.
Commander Adama
Incredible. If they control Gomoray, they wield power across half the Universe.
CCCommander Cain
The only thing I've been able to do is keep knocking that base down so they can't get a good full strike at me, but what I'd never been able to figure out is why they didn't send a force of base ships to finish us off. It's clear now why they didn't.
Commander Adama
Yes. The Galactica.
(Iblis leaves the warriors' chamber after threatening to arrest them for not launching amid the return of the ships of light)
Commander Adama
(angrilly following Iblis) Iblis!! Who is attacking us? What are they? What are you?!
I have told you all you are capable of comprehending.
Commander Adama
For a man of such remarkable powers, you show very grave concern for those light forces observing us so closely.
They, too, are from my dominion.
Commander Adama
Then why do you fear them?
I fear no man, no creature.
Commander Adama
(a sneer of growing disbelief in his voice) Not even God?
(clearly wounded by Adama's tone) What do you primitive children know of what you call God?!
Commander Adama
Only that we have been given laws which cannot be broken by any man or creature.
Those laws do not apply to me.
Commander Adama
I wonder.
[Captain Apollo enters Adama's quarters and is shocked to see him use his psychokinetic powers on a small object]
Commander Adama
It's impolite not to make your presence known.
I think I've finally discovered how Count Iblis has been doing these miracles and then I see you do this.
Commander Adama
This was not a miracle. This is a simple test of mind over matter, long a key study of our military institute. I remember I used to drive your mother mad by bending eating utensils until she made me stop the practice.
Commander Adama
It was before you were born. It was in my early days at the institute, a special program, strictly a military study. Our life expectancy now, Cylons not withstanding, is about two hundred yahrens. We're just beginning to utilize some portion of our brains' incredible potential. Now imagine. Imagine if you will, a race of beings whose life expectancy is thousands of yahrens. A race of that kind would certainly have learned to do what we would consider to be miraculous things.
That's what you think we're dealing with here? With Count Iblis and these strange lights?
Commander Adama
No, not lights. The ancient Lords, who first settled on Kobol, spoke of visitations from what they, in their primitive way, referred to as angels.
Commander Adama
Think of them as custodians of the universe. Advanced beings, very highly advanced, whose mandate it is to make certain that their powers are never abused by anyone of their own kind.
And they're watching him. Meaning he's one of them.
Commander Adama
Or was. Now the key, I believe, is to be found in that crashed ship where you discovered Iblis.
That's just what I thought.
Commander Adama
Now you couldn't examine your ship because of radion levels.
But with special equipment...
Commander Adama
All right. Now...I want you go to back there...alone. You mustn't tell anyone of this. And you must forget this conversation. Iblis will pick out your thoughts easily.
Commander Adama
I hope so. This could be the most important mission of your life.
If you run into the Count, he'll know where I've gone.
Commander Adama
I'll crowd my mind with other thoughts. That, too, was part of the institute's investigation into telepathy.
How is it after all this time I'm still learning things about my own father?
Commander Adama
How is it after all this time I'm still learning things about my own son?
Battlestar Galactica (1978) · 78 quotes
