Capital: Devotion

Located on a deep natural harbor on the largest island in the Inionan Archipelago, Devotion was the center of Virgonese culture and politics for centuries up until the Fall of the Colonies. At the time of the attacks, Devotion was the largest city on the planet with some thirteen million people under its jurisdiction.

Government: Matriarchal Theocracy

Virgon has been ruled directly by the Sisterhood of Aphrodite for so long that the origins of their takeover of power have been lost to time. Even with the formation of a federal government spanning all Twelve Colonies, the Reverend Mother of the Order still remained the most powerful figure in Virgonese society.

The Reverend Mother is both Head of State and Head of Religion on Virgon. The two are very much intertwined and often it is hard to tell above the local level where the State ends and the Sisterhood begins.

Local municipal officials are elected to their office for four year terms, while provincial leaders are appointed by the planetary government.

Major Exports: Silks, Pearls, Seafood, Tropical Fruits

Places of Interest:

HISTORY

Pre-Unification History:

Virgon was not part of any of the wars fought by the other Colonies prior to unification and kept a strict policy of nuetrality. The Colony's military was small by most of the other Colonies' standards, but highly trained and dedicated. Additional protection was given due to Virgon's position deep in the inner solar system compared to the other planets, seperated from the other colonies by a thick asteriod belt that limited contact prior to the perfection of FTL technology.

This led to Virgon developing in nearly complete isolation from the rest of the Colonies for most of its history, only in the last few centuries was there regular travel back and forth between Virgon and the rest of the solar system.

After the 1st War:

While Virgon itself was not as severely damaged in the fighting as other Colonies, the trauma of the first war caused a religious/cultural revival that greatly strengthened the power of the Order.

Prior to the war the order had been undergoing a slow decline in influence and power, and the primacy of the Order in government had been under threat.

During and after the war people turned to religion as a way of seeking comfort and salvation, and a deity of love and fertility was especially popular due to the death and destruction caused by twelve years of war with the Cylons. The people turned to the old ways and brought back practices that hadn't been seen in hundreds of years. Ceremonies were reinstated and festivals that had been sliding into obscurity were given new life. Due to large numbers of orphaned girls being left on temple doorsteps, the Sisterhood's ranks expanded dramatically during and after the war years, and had only recently started to stabilize a few years before the Fall of the Colonies.

Due to the small number of enlistees and officer candidates from Virgon, once defense of the Colony became a federal responsibility all training facilities were eventually shut down and their responsibilities transferred to other Colonies to save on costs.

Not expecting attack so deeply inside Colonial Space, Virgon had the lightest fleet picket and system defense grid of the Tweleve Colonies. Doctrine called for the defenses to hold off any Cylon attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive from further out in the system if the Colony were under threat.

Events since the Fall of the Colonies:Virgon was one of the Colonies that the Strike Group was not able to conduct rescue/recovery missions on due to its location deep inside the solar system. Therefore the bulk of the Virgonese survivors came from Expatriots and other pilgrims en route to the ten day long festival of Acidalia in Devotion, and are more religious than the general population had been prior to the Fall of the Colonies. The Virgonese are one of the larger survivor populations, numbering over nineteen thousand. More than two hundred priestesses survived the attacks and sister Miral Ordade (npc) was elected the new Reverend Mother of the Sisterhood to lead their people in these dark times.

People from Virgon:
Anika JereldsenBethany JereldsenDaniella KyprosEvangeline Wade