Battlestar Galactica is set in a distant star system, where a civilization of humans live on a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies. In the past, the Colonies had been at war with a cybernetic race of their own creation, known as the Cylons. With the unwitting help of a human scientist named Gaius Baltar, the Cylons launch a sudden sneak attack on the Colonies, laying waste to the planets and devastating their populations. Out of a population numbering in the billions, only approximately 50,000 humans survive, most of whom were aboard civilian ships that avoided destruction. Of all the Colonial Fleet, the eponymous Battlestar Galactica appears to be the only military capital ship that survived the attack. Under the leadership of Colonial Fleet officer Commander William "Bill" Adama and President Laura Roslin, the Galactica and its crew take up the task of leading the small fugitive fleet of survivors into space in search of a fabled refuge known as Earth.
Leonans are similar to Virgons, in that they enjoy gourmet food and fine wine. Leonan women are known for being beautiful and thin, no matter what they eat. Beauty is defined uniquely as "being in one's own hour." Leonis was once an empire, ruled by a powerful set of royals who protected their rule by insisting on a millennium of inbreeding. Eventually the Leonan empire came to be ruled by a leader who was descended from one great-great grandmother, Johanna the Mad, no fewer than fourteen different ways. Leonan government changed to a democracy, and the royal family did not continue. Leonis is one of three colonies known to have an official language other than Caprica, Leonese, which printed material in the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide :Beyond Caprica travel guide on Leonis resembles French