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01: Video
[The screen turns on to show Felix, new to the barge and newly free of the breach. He's standing in the middle of a metal room, the walls honeycombed with bunk beds -- industrial in appearance, but spaced with a certain military precision.
As with the breach, he's missing the lower half of his right leg. But now, he has a clunky-looking metal prosthetic attached, extending down to a black boot, and he leans on a single forearm crutch instead of the awkward things he relied on back in town. He's neat and trimmed and wearing some kind of uniform.
And he looks very, very confused.]
What the frak was that? I thought it was a dream, or maybe even one of those visions everyone keeps having. Some last flash before the end...
...But then, how could I possibly be back on Galactica? There's no way I'm a Cylon, too... if nothing else, I don't think they'd let me resurrect like this. [He taps his crutch against his leg, with a hollow metal sound.]
As with the breach, he's missing the lower half of his right leg. But now, he has a clunky-looking metal prosthetic attached, extending down to a black boot, and he leans on a single forearm crutch instead of the awkward things he relied on back in town. He's neat and trimmed and wearing some kind of uniform.
And he looks very, very confused.]
What the frak was that? I thought it was a dream, or maybe even one of those visions everyone keeps having. Some last flash before the end...
...But then, how could I possibly be back on Galactica? There's no way I'm a Cylon, too... if nothing else, I don't think they'd let me resurrect like this. [He taps his crutch against his leg, with a hollow metal sound.]
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The Cylons did it to us. To twelve of our worlds. Every city, every settlement, every shipyard, from Picon to Caprica. And they did it to themselves, on Earth, 2000 years ago. I've been there! I saw it myself!
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But... Earth was a colony. And not a human one.
[And he's starting to think that maybe the kid hasn't been saying Cylon, this whole time, either... He shakes his head, swaying unsteadily on his crutch, rubbing a hand over his face.]
I don't understand any of this. There can't be two Earths, can there?
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Earth's a planet, dude. Not a colony. Maybe there's a colony named after the planet, but... hell, if humans aren't on Earth, what would be?
[He folds his arms, inwardly wondering if maybe he should find this guy and have a more personal kind of talk with him. What he's saying is unsettling, and what he's saying that isn't unsettling is downright fucking terrifying.]
No... no, there's no way there could be two Earths. I don't understand half of what you're saying, but I do understand that much.
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Or a Cylon.
But he's trying not to think about that option.]
Colonies are planets. There were twelve Colonies, populated by the twelve human tribes. And the thirteenth tribe, the Cylons, went to Earth instead. It was all Cylons. And then they nuked it and...
[He laughs, but in a really exhausted sort of way.] I don't even frakking know what they claim happen next. But destroying their own planet wasn't good enough for them, so they had to come after ours, too.
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[He's not nearly so good at calming himself down as the other guy is. This might have something to do with the fact that the Earth as he left it was facing an alien invasion and a very real threat of annihlation.]
I don't know who you are or where you're from... but you're wrong, whatever world you're talking about, there's no way it could be true. I don't know what's going on with these Sylars or how you think they nuke planets, but... no. It's just... it's never gonna happen, understand?
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Listen to me, David. It did happen. They destroyed Caprica, Saggitaron, Aerilon... everything. All twelve of our Colonies. My homeworld, too, Picon. Billions of people. And when we tried to stop fighting them, they enslaved us for months. We've been fighting them for four years.
It happened. It all happened. Maybe... [Here, he takes another deep breath, running a hand through his hair.] ...Maybe, somehow, your world is different. Like what we just went through. Maybe you really have an Earth that the Cylons never touched. But that was how it happened for us.
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These... Sylars. What are they? [And Sylar, the Sylar... could he have been one of them? Could they be Yeerks, this whole group of planet-destroyers? It would explain a great deal. But if it's true... if it's true, then it means he sentenced not just his backstabbing old comrades-in-arms, not even the human race, but the entire planet, to death.]
I want to know about them. Everything. ... Where are you?
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[He limps offscreen, leaning heavily on the crutch. There's the sound of a heavy door opening, then closing a moment later. When he returns, he looks a bit frazzled.] Level five, room fifteen.
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[And he wastes no time in heading down there, because this is serious shit and he's already on edge after the Winchester mess. So about six minutes later he's knocked on room fifteen's door, uncertain of what to expect. If this guy's fought Yeerks, he'll probably try to make sure he's not a Controller first. Or a Sylar, if that's what they're called now. He's tense, uncertain, half-expecting an attack from whoever this guy is.]
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But what if that's why the Cylons made one?
Still, he reluctantly opens the pressurization hatch and lets David into the large, honeycomb-walled metal room. There's a long table running down the middle, and it's here that Gaeta sits himself down, peering up at David warily.]
So you're from Earth.
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For now, at least.
He looks around the soldier's quarters with undisguised interest, peering closely at the honeycomb walls. It's nothing like Heero's room. It takes a moment for Gaeta to pull his attention away, and when he does, he doesn't sit down. He does amble over to the other side of the table, though.]
Yeah. I'm from Earth. The planet Earth. It's 1997 where I'm from.
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Still, he's not exactly warm and friendly towards David, right now. The date, which means nothing -- less than nothing, even -- just makes him frown.]
1997 what? Not... people? That can't be right.
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[Now David finally gives Gaeta his full attention, his hands twitching nervously at his sides. He wants to shove them in his pockets, but he doesn't dare - if this dude does flip out on him, he wants his hands free. For all the good it would do him.]
Forget the year. I wanna know what these Sylars are.
[He's not mentioning Sylar the inmate yet, or the Yeerks. Let the lieutenant show his hand first, that's his strategy.]
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It's Cylon. The Cylons. They're...
[Again, that disbelieving head-shake.]
I can't believe there's anyone who doesn't know. They're machines. Robots. Software. And some of them -- the ones in charge -- look like people. They infiltrated us, and then...
[He grits his teeth.]
1997 what? There were about 39,600 left when I died.
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The blood's drained from David's face, but he doesn't notice. His hands clench the fabric of his jeans and squeeze.]
'Cylons'... okay. Cylons. [So does that mean Sylar's out? Maybe telling the lieutenant about the guy isn't a bad idea after all.]
1997's the year. There's almost six billion people in the world. And.. [He hesitates before forcing it out.] ... we are being infiltrated. It's just started.
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[It's like two halves of a different puzzle; there are places that almost fit, but not quite. He sits forward, eyes narrowing.]
Infiltrated by what? The machines?
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The Earth is know is where humans come from. I thought that was true everywhere.
[And if it's not, does that mean the lieutenant's 'Cylons' are really just humans? He did say he was human, right?]
No... not machines. Aliens. Parasites. They call themselves Yeerks.
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[He sounds less suspicious now -- more distant, thinking, calculating. The odds of two human populations, and two planets called Earth...] We always thought they were humans, too, the thirteenth tribe. We didn't know until we got to Earth, and then the skinjobs -- the ones that look like people -- they figured it out. Or... remembered, somehow...
[...And two infestations. He blinks, refocusing.] ...Parasites?
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[He's a little calmer now - maybe it's Gaeta's sturdier presence, or maybe it's just that he doesn't think the lieutenant's as apt to go off on him now. The cerebral part of his brain's a little freer now to note that pecular word. 'Skinjobs'.] I don't understand any of this. There's one humanity, there's not... I mean, I guess there's sort of tribes, if you count Americans, British, that kinda thing. But they're not on different planets or anything.
[Oh boy. This is gonna be tough to explain.] Yeah. They've got robots, but they're not robots. They're... slugs, I guess. Big ugly slugs that crawl in a person's brain and wrap around it and make them their slave. We call those Controllers.
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[It upsets him to realize this, something that hadn't struck him until now. He's gotten so used to thinking about things as BCH and ACH -- it was three years Before that he joined Galactica, it was four years After that he died - that he really can't remember what year it was when he still had a home on Picon. He rubs his hands over his face, only half-listening to David's musings.
After he's done, though, muttering words like America that Felix barely remembers from the breach, Felix adds, quite bleakly:]
And no. There are no other worlds with people on them. That's what I've been trying to tell you. There are no more worlds at all.
[His world is dead, and David's has alien slugs. He's not sure what to make of that, honestly. His nose wrinkles in automatic distaste, both at the thing itself and the idea of being invaded, enslaved, in a way even more complete than what the Cylons had done to them.] Gods. That's despicable.
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[The more this Lieutenant Gaeta tells David, the less he wants to know. No one would mistake him for a hero of justice, but the wholesale murder of worlds is more mindless destruction than he can accept. And if somehow the future Felix Gaeta described could be traced back to the Yeerks... to his own actions even, he wasn't enough of a monster to accept it as a meaningless sacrifice. His hands clench his knees and tighten. What he can do, he's not yet sure, but he won't just go back home and ignore the invasion if his decision could lead to this kind of slaughter.]
So... everyone's in spaceships now. [There's an urgency in his tone now that wasn't there before - he doesn't just want to understand now, he needs to understand.] And these Cylon things... is there any way there could be a connection between them and the Yeerks? [He wants to hear him say no, but the cold and logical part of his mind knows that even if he did, it wouldn't mean much. The Yeerks always operated by secrecy. If they could invade a planet without anyone knowing they exist, who's to say they couldn't nuke one the same way?]
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was a stupid plot twistisn't something he has any way of knowing! At this point, he's starting to believe, unlike David, that there must be two worlds, at least two, because-- Yeerks? Slugs? Felix may trust the toasters as far as he can punt them with the gimp leg they gave him... but he has to assume they'd have mentioned parasitic brain slugs at some point.So he considers David's question honestly, but he finds himself shaking his head.]
I don't think so. Skinjobs are made to be as close to human as... we are. [He glances up at David as he says this, a little reluctantly. He's closer to believing David's not a product of murderous robots, but...]
I mean, we've autopsied them extensively, and they're essentially indistinguishable from humans. We even tried to build a Cylon blood detector once, and it failed. So no slugs, no, um, aliens. [Honestly, aliens?] Not unless someone's been hiding something on a massive level, anyway.