Battlestar Galactica: The Plan 2009

The Plan revisits the fall of the Twelve Colonies from a fresh angle, peeling back the events fans know to reveal the internal motives and rivalries among the Cylons as they execute the attack. In the opening chapters, two versions of Cavil plot together in a Resurrection Ship and in a Cylon base, debating how to “teach a lesson” to their creators, the Final Five, who lie in stasis in resurrection chambers. The two versions of Cavil briefly discuss their grand design, and one version travels to the planet Picon where he encounters Ellen Tigh Kate Vernon, setting off a chain of personal and political intrigues across both humans and Cylons. The narrative also touches on familiar figures from the series: Gaius Baltar holds a final, fraught meeting with Caprica Six; Samuel Anders is seen at his Pyramid team’s training camp alongside the team doctor, who is Number Four/Simon; and Tory Foster Rekha Sharma is depicted driving toward an uncertain destination, hinting at the fates that await them all.

The destruction of the Colonies is rendered with striking new effects, as a Cylon Hybrid provides an oblique, poetic narration of the cataclysm. The film punctuates the disaster with quick vignettes of almost all the planets in the chain of colonies, and Ellen Tigh is badly wounded in the nuclear attack on Picon. Cavil helps her leave the planet aboard a Colonial Fleet rescue ship, while aboard a civilian transport he torments the half-conscious Ellen with his chilling promise to annihilate humanity. Tory Foster survives the initial blast but is injured when her car flips in the explosion. Meanwhile, Samuel Anders and his Pyramid teammates are shown in a training setting, and Anders must process the losses and the brutal new reality around him. As events unfold, Anders and his comrades resolve to counter the Cylon threat, even as the Cylons reveal how deeply they’ve woven themselves into human life.

Aboard the Galactica, Commander William Adama Edward James Olmos begins to sense the deeper stakes involved as Cavil’s schemes unfold from the Cylons’ point of view. Brother Cavil infiltrates the ship’s chapel, where the creation of the Galactica’s “wall of remembrance”—a literal gallery of photos and mementos—begins to take shape. Cavil covertly coordinates the seven known Cylons, telling them of a sleeper agent among the humans and plotting to keep the attack going even as he toys with the idea of a truce in some versions of the plan. The Number Eight, Sharon “Boomer” Valerii Grace Park, is triggered into the old Cylon programming and vaunts a plan to damage the fleet’s water stores, complicating the ship’s survival and testing the loyalties of those aboard. The other Cylons he manipulates include the Number Two and the Number Six, each playing out their own dangerous schemes as Cavil pushes them toward extreme actions. The result is a tense, feedback-loop dynamic that keeps the Fleet guessing and the audience on edge.

On Caprica, Sam Anders, his teammates, and their allies face a brutal reality: Centurions roam in search of their fallen comrades, and Anders’ group launches a dangerous counterattack that costs them dearly but reveals crucial truths about who is Cylon and who remains human. Starbuck [Katee Sackhoff] has a dramatic arc on Caprica, returning to the stranded pilot Karl Agathon [Tahmoh Penikett] as they navigate betrayals, near-misses, and the fraught trust that forms between human and Cylon survivors. Sam and Jean Barolay [Alisen Down], witnessing the hidden lives of their supposed enemies, realize that some Cylons have taken humanoid form, forcing them to confront the possibility that their allies may not be who they thought they were. The escalating tension culminates in a dangerous confrontation where Starbuck is wounded, captured, and subjected to breeding experiments before being rescued by Anders and others.

Back on the Galactica, the characters who have lived through the earlier first-season events continue to intersect with the Cylons’ broader strategy. The human and Cylon camps collide as Boomer [Grace Park] and the others confront the implications of impostor Cylons and hidden loyalties. Aaron Doral [Matthew Bennett] is exposed as a Cylon, and the consequences ripples through the fleet’s fragile sense of trust. Lieutenant Gaeta [Alessandro Juliani] becomes entangled in the unfolding drama as algorithms and loyalties collide, while Helo [Tahmoh Penikett] and Starbuck confront the moral ambiguities of their own past actions and the uncertain path to any possible future with their fellow survivors.

As the Plan unfolds, the two versions of Cavil—one in the Galactica’s chapel and one lurking among the Final Five—reveal competing visions of humanity, love, and power. Caprica Cavil arrives aboard the Galactica, and the two Cavils reveal themselves to be humanoid Cylons, a moment that reframes the entire struggle as a contest of belief, loyalty, and destiny. Caprica Cavil argues that the Cylons’ decision to refrain from genocide stems from a deeper, almost sacred understanding of love—the kind that the Final Five feel for humanity, a feeling that Brother Cavil cannot comprehend. The debate erupts as they are escorted toward the airlock, their fates sealed in a stark, philosophical standoff about what it means to be alive, to suffer, and to choose who to protect.

In the end, the Cylons vote to grant humanity a reprieve, a resolution that shocks both sides and unsettles the balance of power in the fleet. As the two Cavils argue their divergent theories—love versus annihilation—the Final Five look on, watching as John Cavil’s drive toward total destruction collides with Caprica Cavil’s revelation of a more merciful option. The film closes on an unsettling image: the Cavils drifting through space to the rhythm of John Cavil’s voice, his late-season lament about wanting a machine’s senses to truly see the universe, hear its signals, and feel the wind of a supernova. The Plan thus refracts the Cataclysm through questions of faith, loyalty, and what it means to survive, leaving audiences with a layered meditation on the cost of war and the uncertain road to peace.