Crayondog: BSG

I said I'd tell you more about Battlestar Galactica. I LOVE it. So much. At any rate, here's the main plot so far.

The cast of season one.

The spaceship Galactica is being retired from use and turned into a museum. Another ship (Colonial 1) is taking some passengers and the Secretary of Education (Laura Roslin) to Galactica from the home planet, Caprica. Laura Roslin is really upset because she's just been diagnosed with cancer. Then, all of a sudden, these bad guy/robots called Cylons come blasting out of nowhere and pretty much blow up Caprica. Galactica (I don't quite remember this part) either tries to destroy some Cylons or does a hyperspace jump to elsewhere. The long and short of it is Galactica, Colonial 1, and ~500 (I think) various spaceships survive. Caprica and all of the other planets with humanoid life are pretty much annihilated.

Caprica, after the Cylon attack.

The commander of Galactica (Adama) orders Galactica to re-activate itself and sends a rescue ship to Caprica. There are two pilots on the rescue mission: Sharon (aka Boomer) and this other guy and they rescue about 50 people from Caprica, including the super-genius scientist, Gaius Baltar. Sadly, to rescue Gaius the "other guy" is left behind on Caprica. Sharon and the rescuees go back to Galactica. The bad thing is, Gaius had an affair with a human-looking Cylon known as Number 6. Number 6 was "killed" on Caprica and now Gaius is hallucinating Number 6. Or she planted an electronic chip in his head so that she could know what he was thinking and make him "see" her. One of those.
Meanwhile, on Colonial 1, it is discovered that the planetary president, Adar, was killed by the Cylons on Caprica. So the presidency passes to the next highest-ranking person in the government, which turns out to be the Secretary of Education, Laura Roslin. She's sworn in as president.
That's about the first episode or two. There's a few other characters who are important, too.