#things get a little jumbled and Nate is more of a Billy position for Ted than a Baltar VP position

[justplainsalty]

Tedbecca, Battlestar Galactica AU 💀

Just so everyone has context, this one is a rubber band back to me. It is my fault. And now I'm having to eat crow.

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Rebecca Welton is the relatively new commander of the Battlestar Richmond, an old and creaky ship that hadn't won any battles in almost as long as she'd been alive, possibly longer. She was the ship's XO for years, under her longtime-ex-husband Rupert, until he was caught sleeping with an NCO on the flight deck and court martialed back to Caprica. Now she's faced with taking over command of a ship where every crewman was highly loyal to Commander Mannion, and she must prove herself out of his shadow. The negative press attention on her since Rupert's arrest has not helped boost her crew's opinion of her. Her new XO, Higgins, suggests accepting President Adar's request to send a PR team up to the ship to film an on-ship pyramid match between command staff and NCOs and boost morale. President Adar has been pushing a multi-pronged initiative to "sanitize" (or in Fleeters' opinions, sterilize and castrate) the Fleet forces for years; Rebecca is the unlucky commander who is forced to accept it this PR move, but it doesn't mean she has to be happy about it.

Ted Lasso is the current Secretary for Culture and Sport within the New Caprican government; he is currently 45th in line for the presidency. Ted is never without his shadow, Coach Beard, the Under-Secretary for Sport. There are questions about how Ted and Beard rose to their positions, debates whether it was a good ol' boy backroom deal, or something more scandalous. After all, Ted has no real government experience on his resumé: prior to his role on President Adar's campaign staff, and then his role as Secretary, Ted was best known for coaching university-level pyramid. Everyone who has worked with Ted understands why he is a good leader and policy-maker; to everyone outside the room where it happened, the choice could not be more opaque. Adar asks Ted to attend the pyramid match with the PR team in order to ensure its smooth execution and diffuse any conflicts that arise.

Nathan Shelley is an intern with the Department of Defense, in the department responsible for the maintenance of the planetary defense mainframe. His girlfriend, Bex, works for a defense contractor. Nathan wasn't supposed to, but he let Bex have some access to the mainframe, so she could scope out some specs and look good for her bosses when they put a bid in for the latest contract. And then she asked if he could get her access to the software the Colonial Fleet was writing to update all the newest ships, and Nate wanted to impress her, so he did. Nate didn't want to ask too many questions -- he was too grateful that someone like Bex was with someone like him in the first place.

And then the cylons attack.

Suddenly, these disparate paths converge, as Rebecca is faced with a fight for her life from the outside, a fight for control of her ship from within, and a fight for the future of humanity from the teeth-grindingly jovial sports coach-turned-president who doesn't seem to understand just how dire their situation is. And what kind of a person says, "We have to get out there and start making babies!" with a straight face, anyway?

Featuring:

Keeley Jones, Tactics Officer

Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, Chief Medical Officer

Trent Crimm, independent journalist-turned-quorum representative and general thorn in Ted’s side (although with plenty of mutual respect)

Pilots: Roy Kent, Jamie Tartt, Sam Obisanya, Isaac McAdoo, Colin Hughes, Dani Rojas, Richard Montlaur, Thierry Zoreaux, Jan Maas, Moe Bumbercatch

Bex, cylon number 6

Leave an AU and a pairing in my ask and I’ll give you the plot of the fic I won’t write for it.