Chapter Text
Starbuck, His Early Years: A Family at Last
By Pepper
For Those not familiar with the series, Battlestar Galactica, a glossary of terms is included:
ACV= Air-cushioned vehicle (means of travel on Caprica)
Dwelling=house, home
Hovermobile= vehicle (means of travel on Caprica)
Caprica=planet series takes place
Instructed=schooled
Centons = minutes
Centar = hour
Instructional Center=school
Chronometer=watch, timepiece
Turbowash=shower
Constable=police officer
Viper=fighter plane that flies in outer space and atmosphere
Constable Cruiser=police car
CP=constable precinct (police station)
Wagering=gambling
Yahrens=years
Cubit=money
PROLOGUE to Starbuck, the Early Years
In a system consisting of twelve planets and three suns the survivors of Kobol make their home. They name their system the Twelve Colonies and name each planet after one of the twelve tribes of Kobol. The fairest and most earth-like of the twelve is Caprica, the capital planet of the system and its capital is called Caprica City.
Caprica has an atmosphere like Earth. The seasons on Caprica are also like those found on Earth with a hot summer, a cool fall, a cold winter and a warm spring. The temperatures ranged from 80 degrees F at its hottest and 20 degrees F at its coldest.
It has fertile land for the support of the extensive plant life the planet offers plus the crops brought over from Kobol. The native wildlife were similar to that found on Kobol and the new settlers found it easier to use the names of their familiar beasts than make up new ones. Some were destined as food and others to aid in the comfort of the settlers. The livestock was brought from Kobol and over the milleniums they became known simply as protein. The different types were bovine protein, porker protein, ramkin protein and doeling protein and a mixture of all types was plain protein.
The new settlers also brought daggits along to act as protection as well as companions to the humans; and strong equines to ride the rolling hills and valleys. It is in this universe that my series takes place, in the capital city of Caprica City.
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In the original series, Starbuck is orphaned at a young age during the Cylon raid on his agro city of Umbra near the Thorn Forest on Caprica. He knows not who his parents were being so young when he was orphaned. He doesn't even know his true age.
In my series Starbuck is orphaned at the young age of five yahrens and remembers his mother, the lovely Cassandra. It is his father that he only has fuzzy memories of, since he had left them soon after the child's birth. His mother only has graven images of the man who fathered her child, and sharing them only occasionally with the boy.
The father does send cubits in support of the child and his mother whenever he strikes it rich in wagering. Starbuck, even at his young age, is blessed with some of the same talents his father has...he can twist his mother into giving him whatever he wants and he has a talent for the cards. It is the later that constantly got him in trouble with his mother since she didn't want him to follow in his father's footsteps. It is during this time that the Cylons raid and all that Starbuck holds dearly is brutally taken away and he joins the thousands fleeing the Thorn Forest in their flight from Cylon destruction. Starbuck is sent with other orphaned children to the local orphanage.
The yahrens following the raid find Starbuck being looked over by numerous families until he is turns eleven and he is fostered by a middle age couple, Scylla and Charybdis to become their virtual slave, although the couple tell the orphanage that they want the boy to raise along with their own children, Eris and Ares as their brother...they feel that it is their civic duty to help the unfortunate and because the orphanage is over crowded Starbuck is sent, on the condition that he will be instructed along with the couple's own children. It is agreed and Starbuck becomes a member of their family. Starbuck soon learns of his actual status in the family when he is ordered to do the children's chores on pain of beatings.