1931 to 1954 - American & British Archaeological digs across the globe (Turkey, Greece,

Cyprus, Guatemala, Honduras, Scottish Highlands, North America) reveal the presence of
an advanced civilisation far earlier than was been previously heard of. All the dig sites
unearth a small case, battered & worn, made from materials far in advance of those
available at the time. With the dig teams unsure of how to proceed, they contact their
respective governments and request further instructions. Fearing an uproar amongst the
academic & general populace, American & British archaeology councils both agree to quietly
file the artifacts & data away, for later examination, however due to WW2 and the
subsequent cold war between the allied west & USSR, successive governments show little
interest in funding any research into the artifacts & data collected...until....

January 20th, 1954 - Ahead of the upcoming Berlin conference, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower is briefed by Interior Secretary Douglas McKay on the findings of the latest
archaeological dig. Eisenhower all but dismisses the information, preferring to concentrate
on the upcoming Berlin conference. He forwards the information to the Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, Leonard Carmichael on the proviso that no information is to be
divulged to the public, or any member state not-included in the UKUSA treaty, aka 'Five
Eyes'.

April 1954 - Carmichael formally requests permission from President Eisenhower to contact
the governments of the UK, New Zealand, Australia & Canada for assistance. Eisenhower
agrees. A 15-man team, comprised of 3 experts from each country, is set up to investigate
the artifacts properly.

December, 1960 - Over the course of 6 years, the team examines the cases and their
contents in great detail. Radiocarbon dating is used to determine the age of the artefacts.
They run the tests over a dozen times to verify an accurate result, each time astonished at
the figure - they're over 140,000 years old.

Inside each case are documents - all printed or written on octagonal paper as well as maps
and an assortment of personal or religious effects. One case, though, from a dig in the
scottish highlands, contains a thick sheet of acetate, printed double sided, in a language
unknown to humanity. The alphabet resembles a mixture of ancient greek, georgian &
armenian characters. Despite being unable to decipher the language, the detailed images on
it clearly indicate to an area on the edge of Mare Imbrium - on the lunar surface.

Early May, 1961 - Newly elected US President John F. Kennedy is given an otherwise
routine briefing by Interior Secretary Stewart Udall & USGS director Thomas Nolan which
covers the discovery of ancient colonial artefacts and the smithsonian groups subsequent
research efforts. Kennedy is enthralled and contacts Carmichael, granting him more funding.
Due to the potential enormity of the find, Kennedy decides to begin the race to the lunar
surface.
July 31st, 1971 - Moon Surface

Commander David Scott & LM Pilot James Irwin are sent to covertly investigate un-identified
object 2000 metres from their landing site.

They discover a two colonial Raptors & two viper MkII's in a crater, underneath a sheet
metal construction, apparrently designed to protect against micrometeoroid impacts & solar
radiation. It's taken a beating, but has held up, despite its hasty construction. Upon further
investigation, they discover a single human in the pilot seat of the raptor, in colonial flight
suit...bearing the emblem of the Battlestar Galactica (BSG-75). The lack of atmosphere and
the temperature have preserved the corpse. A notebook, written in what we later discover is
Caprican, is found clasped tightly in his hands.

The raptor and vipers contain items of colonial origin. Flight manuals which detail their
operation, along with six cases in the first raptor. The second raptor contains a further 12
cases, 8 of them from seemingly different vessels - latterly discovered to be; two from the
tylium refinery 'Hitei Kan', two from mobile repair & salvage vessel 'Virgon Express', two from
medical transport 'Rising Star' and two from the mining ship 'Monarch'.

The first case from the first raptor contains optical data disc reader including written
instructions on laminated paper sheets on it's every operation. The stack of 8 discs
purporting to contain details of the colonial power & engine technologies, including jump
drives, computer technology, the history and location of the 12 colonies and logs of the
galactica upto her scuttling. A second case marked "classified" contains two paper manuals
approximately 3 inches thick, and a further 14 optical data discs containing blueprints,
construction plans & computer systems software of the battlestar Galactica from ~52BCH.

The rest of the crates contain a litany of magazines, textbooks, music, literature & personal
effects from the colonials.

Due to the limited space & weight restrictions on the LEM, the Commander and LEM pilot
bring the first two cases with them, a reel of photographic evidence and the notebook.

Apollo 16 returns to the site in 1972, bringing a further two crates back.

Apollo 17 returns for a final time in December 1972, collecting the remaining cases from the
first raptor, leaving the raptors, the raptors occupant and both vipers behind.

Upon their return to earth, all the cases were immediately sent by secure Air Force transport
to the Groom Lake R&D facility.

When the find was confirmed, NASA embarked on the shuttle programme, ostensibly
designed to retrieve the technology left behind.
3rd January 1973 - All research conducted by the smithsonian institute team is turned over
to the DoD. The governments of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand & Canada are
informed they will be 'kept in the loop'. All research team members are are made to sign the
official secrets act.

From 1972 to 1983, various consultants were brought in to analyse the returned data &
equipment, most notably the following:

● Dr David Paul Gregg, who, having invented the first optical disc, had been tasked
with reverse engineering the optical disc reader that had been returned. The
discoveries made on the project directly lead to CD's, DVD's & Blu-Ray technology.

● Stephen P. Morse and later Pat Gelsinger of Intel Corporation, who would be
responsible for the sudden acceleration & advancement of semiconductor &
microprocessor technology.

● Rockwell International would use the discoveries to advance the field of Avionics for
the next 40 years.

● Lawrence Livermore National Laboratorally, under the auspices of the DoE would be
responsible for reverse engineering the fusion reactors of both the Viper and Raptor,
and researching the fuel formula's provided by the data left by the colonials.

● Department DTO-1 of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was given the data on the
operation of the sublight propulsion of the Viper Mk II but were unable to construct a
working prototype using construction methods & materials of the time. Theoretical
work continued, however.

In November 1983 STS-10 is launched with a crew complement of five - despite being
officially 'cancelled', to retrieve the Raptor. In the payload bay is a sky crane style heavy lift
retrieval system. Four SRB's are attached to external hardpoints with explosive bolts for
trans-lunar travel. Two of the SRB's are used to bring the shuttle to the moon, the remaining
two, larger SRB's are used for the return trip.

Two of the crew board the skycranes crew compartment and land at the raptor site, affixing
steel cables to the Raptors hard points. They tow the Raptor & it's deceased occupant back
to the Shuttle, whereupon they stow it in the payload bay. The skycrane is jettisoned into
space, along with two of the SRB's used for the journey there. The raptor is returned to earth
without incident.

A further three missions, between March & July 1984, return the second raptor and both
Vipers in the same manner, utilising the same sky crane heavy lift equipment each time
(merely being refuelled). After the final Viper is retrieved, the retrieval equipment is
programmed for an uncontrolled descent into the atmosphere over the atlantic ocean, thus
destroying any evidence of the retrieval project.

Amongst the most important of all the knowledge recovered, is the 'rosetta stone' document,
which provides the basic translation key needed to decipher the Colonial Caprican language
in which everything is written. It's laid out simply, defining the basic concepts of mathematics
& scientific knowledge. First, numbers are represented, from 1 to 100. Then a list of prime
numbers. Simple elements (hydrogen/helium/lithium/beryllium/carbon/nitrogen/oxygen) with
their atomic weight, number and structure are detailed. The colonial periodic table contains
129 elements. The alphabet resembles a mixture of ancient greek, georgian & armenian
characters, possibly the root of all three languages as used on Earth.

The recovered notebook was examined closely. Even with the key, It takes linguistics
experts 4 months to work out a usable translation matrix. It outlined the story of the colonial
fleet, it's eventual discovery of earth, and the subsequent order to scuttle the fleet, its
technology, and start life anew. A small group of colonial fleet officers & civilians, led by
Captain Aaron Kelly, objected to the total destruction of colonial advancement and history.
They made a decision to rebel in secrecy, knowing their dissenting voices would not be
heard.

During the fleets evacuation to the surface of earth, the Raptor, Vipers and material had
been appropriated from the Galactica, surprisingly easily, due to everyone being too
concerned with their newfound home. A plan was devised to store everything under a hastily
constructed shelter in a crater on the lunar surface, in hopes that one day, mankind would
once again rediscover their colonial heritage and once again set off amongst the stars in
search of their original birthplace.

The colonial Raptor Pilot is given a post mortem, where the cause of death is revealed as
asphyxiation, brought about by oxygen deprivation. Traces of something resembling a
barbiturate are found. The pilot had committed suicide, apparrently willingly, in the least
painful manner possible, that left his body intact. DNA analysis shows subtle differences to
our own DNA, specifically, in the 2nd Chromosome, although ostensibly, the pilot is little
different from modern homosapiens. Further tissue and blood samples are taken and stored
on ice for evaluation in the future. The colonial pilots corpse is eventually cremated &
interred at an unmarked site in Nevada, a small colonial ceremony was conducted, based on
the cultural data that was deciphered.

With the physical equipment recovered, an engineering team at Groom Lake R&D facility
was given the task of reverse engineering the Viper MKII. In February 1985, over the course
of 3 months, one of the Vipers had been entirely dismantled & laid out. With the assistance
of JPL, and with the data from the optical discs brought back now available to the engineers,
new materials were finally devised and used to reconstruct an entirely scratch built Viper
MkII from all new, entirely Earth Derived materials over an 8 month period.

In March 1988, LLNL's breakthrough research into the power systems concludes that Tylium
is merely a refined solution derived from Lithium Hydroxide & Deuterated Hydrazine, and
can be synthesised in small batches using readily available materials & refining processes. It
delivers the first 27-gallon drum of synthesised Tylium to Groom Lake R&D by October
1988.

The fusion reactor design in the vipers is determined to produce 31 Megawatts of usable
electrical power from the tylium fuel. 96% of this is directly routed to the engines, which are a
highly advanced VASIMR design.
By May 1989, the first successful engine test of the USAF's new Viper MkII from Kirtland
AFB is conducted. Each engine is calculated to provide 72kN of thrust - roughly approximate
to a Tumansky R15B jet turbine, yet less than 1/10th of the size. Between May and
September 1987 a further 11 engine & thruster tests are conducted, before the first
atmospheric flight occurs, on 3rd November 1989.

The USAF now has the knowledge & means to reproduce the MkII Viper (albeit at massive
financial cost) but puts all plans on hold due to increasing pressure on the DOD from a
congressional oversight committee, who want to know where several billion dollars have
gone in order to fund the research & development. As a result, no further flight tests are
conducted, including the important orbital flight test.

In comparison, the Raptor proves to be far more complex to reverse engineer, due to its
artificial gravity generator & jump drive. Work on the project is halted for both technical and
financial reasons and the Raptor project is mothballed, the Raptor itself being put into
vacuum storage for the next 20 years.

With the end of the Cold War in 1991, the DOD & NASA have their budgets slashed to a
fraction of their previous levels, causing a massive downscaling in the R&D operations
concerning the colonial technology.

More and more technical & scientific advances are slowly leaked, over time, through
consultants & government contractors.

However, by April 1998, the DoD, under orders from the Secretary of Defence & President
Clinton, assembles two teams to continue the research into the colonial data. One team,
comprised of engineers, theoretical physicists, mathematicians & materials scientists work
solely on the technological aspect, while a team of historians, archaeologists, sociologists
are assigned to pore through the cultural data.