[Tabitha]

As anyone who has read Legacies, or Fields of Iron, or my new stuff such as Chrome Berrets can tell, I am convinced, based on what I have read, and also my own reasoning, that the Cylons would have failed to capture the Colonies, and that they would have had some very pivotal battles. This is my essay on how they might have failed to take Virgon, as well as how that failure might have led to the Colonies being able to take back what they lost.

The final battle: an overview

The factors that led to Virgon being the perfect battleground were many and varied. It was a combination of timing, technology, and philosophy.
To fully understand the reasons, we must look at the attack from both human and Cylon viewpoints. Because till now, most studies have been written from human only viewpoints, which is why the failure of the Cylons to destroy Virgon, as they did the other colonies, has been mysterious, we will look at the battle and the factors that controlled it, from both sides.

Why was Virgon different from the other colonies?

Virgon was the last of the colonies to be settled. The settlers from Kobol had already managed to build settlements on the other eleven colonies decades before Virgon was established. As a result, the technology of Virgon was an odd mixture of cutting edge, and nearly primitive. The mixture is a direct result of the recent developments in technology that took place and the basic needs driving innovation. The end product of this odd mixture was to have underground structures built of ferrocrete and duralinium. The impact of building structures in this manner was that they were highly resistant to the bombing by the Cylons. The only buildings not able to withstand the bombs were the above ground buildings, which tumbled like a house of cards. The vast majority of casualties were from the collapse of those buildings.
Religion also took a major role in the development of the Virgonian colony. The development of the practical FTL drive again shifted the technology towards a more environmental edge. The buildings were designed to be mostly underground, and nearly all of the transit tubes were also underground. This shift was largely also due to the soft terrain of the islands of the archipelago. The porous soil was perfect for the crops that grew on the planned farms, but made for foundations unsuitable for tall buildings. It also made it impossible to land large ships on all the islands except for the space ports of Port Devotion and Port Harmony.
The Cylon invasion of Virgon was bottlenecked by the lack of space ports, which was a problem unique to Virgon. Of all the colonies, only Virgon was basically a water planet with thick salt seas covering the 85% of the surface. As a result, the Cylons could only commit troops to the surface through the two ports. This forced the majority of the Cylon reinforcements and primary invasion forces to stay aboard the invasion ships in orbit until the troops landing were able to clear the beach head. Since the Cylons were sure that the small land masses, as well as the low population density of Virgon would equate to light to moderate resistance, they allotted their invasion fleet accordingly. They felt that the population of Virgon, being confined to the coasts of the islands, that the bombing campaign would decimate the population and the resistance would be almost non-existent. The Cylon spy ships had recorded, correctly, that Virgon was last on the list for the cutting edge front line fighters and the top of the line weapons systems. As a result, they recorded, accurately, that the Virgonian Defense Forces were limited to only a couple hundred obsolete Mk2F Vipers, seventy light armored vehicles, and six thousand militia troops and a standing force of only three thousand. What the Cylon intelligence didn’t factor in, was that the VDF did not mothball its four thousand CF-31 Jaguars and its nine thousand MT-770 Medium Armored Tanks. It also didn’t take into account the fact that service in the VDF was mandatory for all Virgonians over the age of 15. This made for a trained and moderately effective force of nearly eleven million troops.
Another failure of the Cylons was to design the new Centurions to resist the modern infantry weapons that the colonial military was employing. They had to lighten the Centurion soldier to enable them to carry the heavier energy rifle as well as to carry the energy dissipating armor that the modern Centurion wears. The chrome effect of the new armor, while impressive and intimidating as it is, also weighs nearly twice the weight of the older ceramic covered Kevlar armor of the older obsolete models. The modernization of the Centurion reflects the mindset that the Cylons adopted during the planning of their invasion. They assumed several things, which turned out to be true of the other eleven colonies, but not for Virgon. These assumptions include believing that the Virgonian Defense Forces were few in number, poorly trained, under equipped, and a low threat. The same number of troops, with the same equipment inventory, and the same limited number of assets in other colonies would have, and indeed did, result in a quick and easy invasion.
What the Cylons found, however, was that the modernization of their Centurions had a severe and adverse reaction to their ability to fight an effective campaign against the VDF. The new laser reflective armor, while effective in deflecting large amounts of destructive energy that modern colonial small arms discharge, was next to useless against the older chemical slug throwers of the VDF armories. This alone would have been little more than a minor setback, but it was compounded by several failures of planning which can be explained by recognizing that the Cylons do not think like humans do. When planning, logic and theory play heavily into their strategy, while caution and second guessing do not. The Cylons simply assume that they will succeed, and so do not have alternatives in mind when executing their plans. They do leave some small margin for error, but one could hardly call it a backup plan.
The result of this lack of imagination was their decision to send only one invasion barge to Virgon. It was not supported by any command and control ships, or any sort of support ships. When the VDF was able to target the Cylon invasion barge with their RocShasta anti-satellite/starship missile batteries, the result was to eliminate the entire invasion force that had not been landed. This also eliminated the Cylons ability to perform aerial bombardment or reconnaissance. It also meant that the communications of the VDF were still in place after the initial assault.
Because the Cylons were over-confidant in their ability to bomb the VDF into an early submission, they decided to send their landing forces in first. This was perhaps the most important decision that the Cylons made. It worked to the VDF’s advantage in several ways. Most of the bombers were still aboard the invasion barge when the RocShasta missile struck it in the main armory. The result was the instant elimination of the primary means of suppressing VDF troop movements. The Cylons reacted by arming some of their Advanced Raiders with bombs and air to ground missiles. Some limited bombing was performed, and several major cities on the larger islands were firebombed and destroyed, however, the Cylons had given the VDF time to react, and the civilians, such as they are, were quick to retreat into the underground shelters. The citizens who were still in the VDF also reported to their units in larger numbers than the Cylons had anticipated.
The plucky VDF forces were able to predict the landing force would be concentrated on Port Devotion, and that Port Harmony would be a secondary landing site. This is due to the size of the ports, as well as the size of the ships