Session Report - BSG Pegasus - Despair and Executions in Deep Space

This 7 player game was played on 25 February 2012. We used New Caprica and Pegasus, with one Cylon Leader and no sympathizer.

In turn order

Admiral Adama (Admiral)– Fiona

Caprica Six – Matt

Tom Zarek (President) – Me

Saul Tigh – Glenn

Chief Tyrol – Garrett (BSG Virgin)

Apollo – Will

Helo – Jonroy

Choices for characters were a bit questionable. We had 3 military leaders with only one of each other type. Adama offered to switch to a pilot. She chose first, so she should be the last person to have to change. We let it go. The humans may regret it.

I am not a Cylon

Adama plays first. With Cylon ships on the board, Adama elects to go to the research lab to draw cards. I immediately suspect him of being a Cylon. His crisis is Build Cylon Detector and Adama decides to give up a nuke. Neither choice is good, but as this is not Exodus, there is no opportunity to get back nukes, so this may be another indicator of Cylonhood. Not a good start. Caprica Six is next, and I am quite curious to see what she will do. Knowing the player, I figure Six will indicate if she is for us or against us right off the bat. If she tries to infiltrate and claims she is for the humans, she is either has human win conditions or is sneaky. If she stays with the Cylon fleet, she is likely against the humans. She stays with the Cylon fleet and draws a crisis card, Food Shortage. I choose to lose 1 food and skill cards.

I am next. I start to collect Quorum cards but lose 5 skill cards to Water Crisis. Tigh shoots down one raider and the Chief misses killing a heavy raider. For his crisis, the Chief pulls Suspicious Elections. Adama decides to remove me as President and the presidency goes to Apollo. I am now sure Adama is a Cylon. Apollo, now the president, flies around and shoots at the heavy raider, missing. Helo is still on Caprica. Turn one ends with Adama almost a proven Cylon, Six likely against the humans and everyone else basically wasting their turns. Galactica has a Centurion on board. I start to wish I had chosen Baltar, so I would have a greater chance of being a Cylon.

Turn two starts with Adama going to the Armoury to try and kill the Centurion. No Strategic Planning is played and he fails. We fail Adama's crisis and lose 1 population. Thankfully, we autojump. Adama plays a distance of one but we do gain one fuel. Adama claims that the choice was between 2 distance 1 cards, but I am skeptical. Six forces the crisis Rescue Caprica Survivors and Apollo decides to save them, we lose 1 fuel and 1 food.

I make the point that it is foolish to have the only pilot as the president. Apollo's job is to kill Cylons, not collect Quorum cards. I am the only political leader, I am not a Cylon and have done nothing suspicious. I move to Administration and propose that I be the President and ask for the support of everyone. Even though my arguments are sound and logical, Six argues against them. I suggest that we should just write off Six. It is obvious she has the humans lose condition, as she seems to be trying to sow distrust by going against my logical arguments. Six doesn't deny my accusations or claim she is on our side. I write Six off. I am able to convince everyone and my proposal passes and I re-assume the Presidency. My crisis is Reunite the Fleet, which we barely pass only because I use a Declare Emergency.

On his turn, Tigh goes to the Armoury and kills the Centurion with the help of a Strategic Planning played by me. Tigh's crisis is Assassination Plot, which allows the president to decide to execute the Admiral. I am fairly sure Adama is a Cylon. I make the point that, during the first turn, with Cylons around the ship, Adama went to research to draw cards, instead of XOing a pilot. He then removed the presidency from the only political leader, having it revert to the only pilot, and only moved us 1 distance on our first jump. Also, with New Caprica in play it is very dangerous to allow someone to have the Admiral title without checking their loyalty. Although we do not know for sure if Adama is a Cylon, his actions have been suspicious enough that he might as well be, and we should us this opportunity to get rid of him and be sure. No one disagrees, except for Six, who uses my arguments to claim I am just a Cylon trying to cause damage. I point out that Six is not to be trusted, has used all her turns to pull more crises on us, is known to have been contributing treachery cards to skill checks, and has never denied being sympathetic to the Cylon cause. After all this discussion, sure that Adama is a Cylon and hearing no objections from the humans, I choose to assassinate Adama. I love the Old Man and am sorry to see him go, but it is for the survival of the human race is at stake. Out the airlock he goes. Adama is reveled to be a human. Six uses this to cast more suspicion on me. Dee replaces Adama and Saul Tigh the drunk becomes the Admiral.

Still round 2, and the Chief gets a chance to use his repair skill and fixes Weapons Control, which was damaged in the last crisis. He gets Networked Computers which we pass, moving the jump track an extra space. Apollo goes to Weapons Control and misses. He pulls Verdict of Guilty and Galactic sustains damage to the Armoury, Admirals Quarters and Command. Tigh, who was in the Armoury, is sent to sick bay. We autojump, with Tigh playing a distance 3 card, moving us to a total of 4 spaces, and the sleeper phase. I am still not a Cylon

At this point, things look fairly good for the humans. We have gone distance 4 in less than two rounds and most of our resources are doing well. Although we have not identified any Cylons, I have one suspicion which I may soon act on. Helo completes the second round, finally getting his first chance to play. He XO's the Chief, who repairs Command and launches vipers. His crisis is Med Breakthrough, which we fail. The skill check is spiked by one, and it was not Six. Tigh, the Chief, Apollo and Helo are suspect. I suspect Apollo is a Cylon. He has been playing suspiciously. On one skill check he will claim that he has none of the colour of cards needed, then immediately on the next check he will play a card of that same colour. Although it has been hard to pin anyone down due to Six consistently putting in cards and forcing everyone to draw Treachery cards, whenever there is a spike, Apollo is always in the group of potentials.

Turn 3 and on my turn, I decide that there is just too much circumstantial evidence against Apollo and use a Quorum card to send him into the Brig. Not wanting to risk another execution, I figure it is easier to let him rot there. Maybe he will revel and we will be one step closer to finding both Cylons, but we will at least limit the damage he can do. We no longer have a pilot, but a pilot who shoots Cylons from Weapons Control isn't much use anyway. Things start to go down hill from there. By this time there are numerous Cylon raiders in various quadrants around Galactica and we are having trouble keeping them away from the numerous Civilian ships that are also scattered around. Tigh kills a heavy raider and the Chief repairs, but we still have a Centurion on board. Three civilian ships are destroyed by three unopposed raiders. Six seems gleeful. Apollo does not revel, tries to get out of the Brig and fails miserably.

On his turn, Helo goes to Weapons Control and kills one raider. A weak move, and I think he might be a Cylon. However, he did XO the Chief to repair on his last turn and has done nothing else suspicious. Of course, it is only his second turn. Helo pulls the Cylon Screening crisis which we fail. There is some discussion on who to check, with Six pushing to check me. I make the point that that would be a waste, since I am not a Cylon. With the sleeper phase over, we should check Tigh, as he can really screw us on New Caprica. No one listens to Six, as she has no credibility. She has done nothing to help us and has been trying to increase suspicion, mostly on me. Helo decides to check Tigh. Giggling to himself and after some prompting, he announces that Tigh is a Cylon. Although I have a slight suspicion about Helo, he does not hold a key position. Tigh does not deny he is a Cylon and acts suspiciously, covering his face with his hands, as if trying to cover his grin at being found out. Dee is next and she moves to Airlock Tigh. It passes easily, with everyone contributing, except for Tigh who puts in all his cards to try and save himself. Tigh is reveled as ...human. Our second mistake.

Baltar replaces Tigh. The title of Admiral passes to Helo, who is obviously a Cylon. He doesn't deny it. We need to remedy that very quickly. Our next jump is coming up very soon and we cannot let Helo pick the destination. We fail Dee's crisis, Unexpected Reunion, with one person spiking it. Six forces another crisis on us, which we fail losing 1 food. Another civilian sip is destroyed and we lose 2 population. Things are going bad fast. My turn and although we have a number of civilian ships threatened and morale is low (I have 2 Inspirational Speeches), we are close to jumping and we have to remove Helo as fast as possible. I use a Quorum card to move the Admiral title to Baltar, reasoning we know he is a safe bet now. We pass the Detector Sabotage crisis and jump. Baltar jumps us distance 2 for a total of 6.

Baltar is next and I suggest he use his power to check all loyalty cards immediately. We have only one Cylon left. It is between Apollo, the Chief and Dee. I exclude myself and Six is quick to try and cast suspicion my way. Apollo is still the most likely, but he still hasn't reveled, making me think that perhaps we were wrong, and he just played very poorly at the start. In a previous game, that same player sat in the Brig for much of the game and was a human. Still, the Chief was in the group who could have spiked the skill check. The Chief suggests that Baltar check Apollo instead. Since he is in the Brig already, I immediately suspect the Chief. Now we have to check him. We also have to get Helo in the Brig or executed before his turn. If the Chief is a Cylon and we use Baltar's turn to check him, Helo will revel and we will have to spend time getting Apollo out. Baltar decides to check the Chief and says that he is human. That is a relief. Baltar's crisis is Water Shortage and Helo uses his once per game to force us to discard cards. Chief Tyrol successfully Brigs Helo and we pass our crisis. Apollo again tries to get out and fails again. Helo revels on his turn.

Turn 4 and the human are in rough shape. We are fairly good on the Cylon front, with Helo reveled, Six almost assured as working to defeat the humans, and only Dee not proven beyond doubt as a Cylon. She has done nothing to cast suspicion on herself but the last Cylon has to be either Dee or Apollo. However, Apollo still has not reveled even though it is obvious we are not going to let him out. Each time his turn comes up, we have been torturing him with “Just revel, Cylon” and “We know you are a Cylon, you might as well revel” but still nothing. I don't know if he is foolish or brilliant.

On the resources front, things are horrible. Morale and population are both very low but food and fuel are in the low blues. On the plus side, so many civilian ships have been destroyed that if we ever get to New Caprica, it won't take much time to launch them. Protecting civilian ships is our highest priority now. Dee uses the main batteries to kill 2 raiders but we lose 1 food to a crisis. Six decides to infiltrate the fleet. Being positive that she is against us, I want to Brig her, but I don't see how she could do any more damage than what she has been doing in the Cylon fleet. Her constant spiking of skill checks with treachery cards, especially Broadcast Location, has lost us about half of our civilian ships. We fail her crisis, Mandatory Testing. Morale drops to 2 and Dee kills herself. She is replaced by Starbuck.

With morale so low, I try an Inspirational Speech. No one has Strategic Planning and it fails. We fail my crisis Cylon Tracking and more raiders and a Basestar are placed around the fleet. With a Centurion near the end of the boarding track Baltar goes to the Armoury but fails to kill it. His crisis is Dog Fight. More Cylons appear. The chief goes to the Armoury as well and kills the Centurion. His crisis is Besieged. By this time there are so many Cylon ships on the board that we are running out of ships in the box. There are only 3 civilian ships that are left and they are in spaces unprotected by vipers. It would be impossible to protect them all. We have to jump. Apollo is next and he finally revels. Helo plays his super crisis card, Lured into a Trap. More Cylon ships surround Galactica, but on the plus side, there are no more civilian ships to place. Can we lose all our civilian ships and still have some resources left? We might find out.

Our resources are now 1 population, 2 morale, 5 food and 5 fuel. One of the specials of Lured into a Trap is that anyone who uses FTL to jump is executed. We are at -3 on the jump track, but whomever jumps us will die. I lay out our options. There are too many Cylon ships surrounding our civilian ships. If any raiders activate even once, we will probably lose our 3 remaining civilian ships and likely lose the game. We might as well risk the jump and count on our roll. No point in waiting to get to -1 population, as we are already have only 1 left. Starbuck is next and agrees to sacrifice herself. She goes to FTL, jumps the ship and dies. We lose 1 morale taking us down to one.

Starbuck rolls and passes! Since we are at distance 6, no matter what the distance we will make it to New Caprica. Even though we are by no means safe, it is a miracle that we even got by the huge Cylon fleet. Perhaps there is a chance that we can pull this off. Baltar picks his destination cards and pulls Deep Space, -1 fuel, -1 morale. He has no choice. Both cards are the same. The fleet makes it to New Caprica but dies of despair in orbit.

Humans lose.

Apollo revels that he was a Cylon from the beginning, Helo was a Cylon from the sleeper phase. Six is reveled as having the win conditions of humans win with all resources at 3 or less.