Resurrection is the term that refers to the process wherein the consciousnesses and memories of a Cylon whose body had been destroyed are captured, recovered, and transferred into a new body.
When a humanoid Cylon's body ceases to function, their consciousness can be transmitted (or "downloaded") into a duplicate humanoid Cylon body, one which is empty of consciousness before the download (TRS: "Miniseries").
For resurrection to occur, the dying Cylon must be close to a resurrection ship or hub, otherwise his or her consciousness risks being permanently lost. The transmission method of a Cylon's consciousness has not been explained, but a form of wireless is probable. Resurrection points identified include the Cylon homeworld, the central Resurrection Hub, Resurrection Ships, and planet-based facilities. A rebirthing facility may have existed on occupied Caprica. Within each resurrection point is at least one rebirthing tank, where a duplicate body is immersed in a thick opaque substance to await download (TRS: "Downloaded").
Resurrection affords the Cylons a great tactical advantage in war, as it enables them to carry out suicidal attacks without fear, learn from their deaths to improve their strategy, and fall back to their home base by dying in order to escape capture, nullify a debilitating injury or transmit information. The Cylons are able to sustain themselves as a society indefinitely so long as Resurrection is intact, without having to fear death by natural causes. This fact is especially important in light of the Cylons' difficulties in achieving sexual reproduction.
While humanoid Cylons appear to be able to be resurrected indefinitely, two problems can occur. Repeated downloads can cause pain and other unexplained symptoms. A Cavil reports severe headaches after one resurrection, and a sensation that felt like "a white hot poker in my skull" in a following instance (TRS: "Exodus, Part I"). Far more threatening is if a humanoid Cylon's memories have become compromised, corrupted, or otherwise tainted (from the perspective of other Cylons). If that occurs, the consciousness might be "boxed" immediately after download while the reborn Cylon is in the tank and unable to resist, a drastic measure equivalent in Cylon society to capital punishment. Conversations suggest that this practice is very rare, and Number Three is the only case of an entire model line being boxed (TRS: "Downloaded" and "Rapture").
It is also apparent that the resurrection process is involuntary in that humanoid Cylons cannot choose to die permanently, nor can other Cylons in control of a Resurrection Ship choose to prevent someone from being downloaded. The only way to prevent a dead Cylon from downloading is to move the Resurrection Ship out of range (TRS: "Torn"). An example of this is when Sharon Agathon downloads to a Resurrection Ship to rescue her child. Despite being a traitor, the Cylons do not stop her from resurrecting and she is able to rescue her child as a result (TRS: "Rapture"). Furthermore, Gina Inviere, a Cylon prisoner aboard Pegasus who was tortured so badly she wants to die for good, is unable to control her resurrection. To ensure her permanent death, she supplies the Colonials with information on the Resurrection Ship, so that it can be destroyed (TRS: "Resurrection Ship, Part I").
When a humanoid Cylon is downloaded, his or her memories are added to a collective database and can be accessed by another Cylon of the same model. This is not automatic; the Cylon receiving his or her counterpart's memories must choose to do so (TRS: "The Hub").
Very little is known about the mechanics of downloading, other than what can be inferred and comments made from official crew members. Not all Cylons of the same model line share the same knowledge, and thus knowledge is variable between Cylons of the same model line. However, memories are stored upon download and "can be accessed by a curious Cylon who knows how".[1] Hence, the memories of Sharon Agathon were stored when she downloaded to rescue her daughter, and another Number Eight was later able to access them (TRS: "The Hub").
A download usually occurs a short amount of time after death; however, if a great number of Cylons are killed at once, it can take much longer to resurrect them all. After Caprica-Six killed D'Anna Biers, she said that due to the amount of Cylons killed by a bombing, it would take at least 36 hours to even get to Biers. This also indicates that Cylons are resurrected in the order that they are killed, in that it was implied that she was going to be the last to be resurrected.
Downloading also apparently has something to do with the datastream, as when certain Cylons are killed and downloaded into new bodies, their memories are shown flowing in a datastream.
The semi-sentient personalities of Raiders also can be retrieved. This allows the Raiders to return to fight with greater tactical awareness (TRS: "Scar").
The Raider known as "Scar" may have been one such Raider to learn master fighting tactics. The Scar personality scores many Colonial kills before its permanent destruction.
Raider resurrection also requires a Resurrection Ship in order to take place.
Shortly after the start of the Cylon Civil War, Resurrection for all Cylons ended with the destruction of the Resurrection Hub. A joint attack on the Cylons' Resurrection Hub, which controls all Resurrection Ships, by Cylon rebels (The Leobens, Sixes and Sharons) and Colonial forces results in the Hub's destruction. As a result, the Cylons lose their ability to download, making them truly mortal for the first time in their history (TRS: "The Hub").
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The text below contains major spoilers about the origins of Resurrection technology and the Final Five. Proceed at your own risk if you have not watched through Season 4.
After the departure from Kobol of these humanoid Cylons, the Cylons of Kobol, later known as the Thirteenth Tribe, eventually settled on Earth. During the next thousand years on Earth, the humanoid Cylons gained the ability to procreate in the same manner as humans, complete with childhood.
As a result, resurrection technology was no longer necessary to preserve their species, and the knowledge of it was lost to time.
A Messenger appeared to each of the five, warning them of an impending holocaust on Earth. The humanoid Cylons had oppressed their version of Centurions and destruction was imminent. Before the holocaust, the five, all researchers in the same research facility, worked around the clock to recreate the technology that was lost. According to Sam Anders' later recollection, the work of Galen Tyrol and Ellen Tigh was exceptional, with Mrs. Tigh making the "intuitive leap" to get the system back online. When the nuclear war came, all five were killed, but they were resurrected on a ship they had prearranged near Earth (TRS: "No Exit" and "Sometimes a Great Notion").
Seeing the utter destruction of Earth and knowing the cause, they were determined that it not happen again. They knew that the humans of the Twelve Colonies would continue trying to create "artificial life" and so they headed in their ship for the Colonies, which had been settled circa 1000 BCH (1000BYR), to warn them not to make the same mistake and to be kind to their creations. However, they only had a ship without FTL—on Earth, the technology had not yet been invented. As a result, travel to the Twelve Colonies was relativistic: on board the ship, travel time was only a few years, but the actual voyage took 2,000 years (TRS: "No Exit").
Near the end of their journey, they somehow made contact with the avatar of the late Zoe Graystone who, with her parents Drs. Daniel and Amanda Graystone, was developing the technology to give Zoe a new human body. The Final Five's assistance sped the Graystones' work,[1] and Zoe-A was resurrected in a tank in her father's home basement laboratory on Caprica.[2]
After what the Final Five would have perceived as nearly an instant—but what the Colonies perceived as a few years of peace, the rebellion of the Cylon slave population, and more than twelve years of human-Cylon war—the Five finally arrived, too late to deliver their prophesy and avert the carnage.
The Colonial version of Cylon Centurions had been trying to develop flesh and blood humanoid Cylons just like the Final Five but couldn't get past the Hybrid stage. The Final Five proposed a deal to end the war: if the Centurions stopped their war against humans, the Five would help them perfect humanoid Cylons, complete with resurrection. The Centurions agreed to the deal and ceased the war with the signing of an armistice. The Five and the Centurions then sequestered themselves in a gigantic space complex they called The Colony, where they developed humanoid Cylons and recreated resurrection technology (TRS: "No Exit").
The Five downloaded at least once more after their initial download during the nuclear holocaust on Earth circa 2000 BCH (0BYR). The Final Five and the Centurions were successful in recreating humanoid Cylons and resurrection. The first humanoid Cylon created was John Cavil, and he helped the Final Five create the other seven new Cylon models. However, Cavil held a deep grudge against humanity for enslaving his Centurion ancestors. To demonstrate what he viewed as the many faults of mankind, Cavil murdered the Final Five, boxed them, and then ultimately unboxed them but downloaded them with their real memories blocked and false memories in their places. Cavil then proceeded to instigate the attack on the Colonies, apparently expecting the Five to die in the attack (TRS: "No Exit").
It was later revealed that before the Resurrection Hub was destroyed, a Cylon could download as long as they were within range. This also applied to the Final Five. Cavil kept at least one fresh body for each of them, as was proven when Saul Tigh killed Ellen Tigh and she downloaded into a new body. Apparently Cavil planned for them to rejoin the Cylons when they were killed in the attack on the Colonies, hoping that they would admit that they had made a mistake in supporting humanity and see, in Cavil's view, the bestial nature of mankind and join him in humanity's destruction (TRS: "No Exit").
One apparent side effect of resurrection is the restoration of blocked memories: when Ellen Tigh is killed by her husband and downloaded, the memories that Cavil had blocked following her previous download and insertion into Colonial society come back to her shortly after resurrection (TRS: "No Exit").
When the Resurrection Hub was destroyed, the Cavil-allied Cylons (Cavils, Dorals and Simons) lost the ability to resurrect. They did not know how to rebuild the technology, as it had been created by the Final Five. Cavil tried to get Ellen Tigh to help rebuild it, but she claimed that she could not do it without Anders, Tyrol, Tory Foster, and her husband Saul Tigh, as she only knew part of the system herself. Cavil scoffed at this and decided to mine Ellen's brain in an attempt to find the information, but Sharon "Boomer" Valerii helped her escape, apparently cutting off the Cylons' only chance at rebuilding the technology (TRS: "Deadlock" and "Someone to Watch Over Me").
However, this "escape" proved to be another deception by John Cavil. He let Ellen Tigh go in an ersatz escape so that Boomer could infiltrate the Fleet and capture Hera Agathon, the human-Cylon hybrid child. Boomer successfully brought Hera back to Cavil at the Cylon Homeworld. Cavil's specific plans for Hera and whether she had anything to do with his plans for resurrection remained unclear, though it was speculated that Cavil had shifted his focus from resurrection to determining how Hera was conceived through Cylon-human natural procreation, seeking this as a potential key to Cylon-Cylon breeding (TRS: "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" and "Daybreak, Part II").
The Battle of The Colony and Resurrection's Final End
During the Battle of The Colony, Saul Tigh offers to give back Resurrection if Cavil releases Hera (whom he is holding hostage in CIC) and stops pursuing humanity. Cavil agrees and calls off his forces. The Five combine together to recreate the plans for Resurrection and transmit them to The Colony, as each holds a piece of the puzzle. With the Five giving back Resurrection and the deal made with Cavil, it appears that resurrection's return will finally end the war with peace between the sides (TRS: "Daybreak, Part II").
However, as the Five are linked together through the datastream recreating the resurrection technology, Tyrol sees Tory's memories and learns that she killed his wife Cally. He flies into a rage, breaks the download connection, and strangles Tory to death. The download is incomplete and hostilities resume, as the Cylons believe they have been betrayed. The battle ends with the destruction of The Colony and all of Cavil's forces (TRS: "Daybreak, Part II").
With Tory's death at the hands of Tyrol and Anders' death when he pilots Galactica and the rest of the Fleet into Sol, destroying the ships, only three of the Final Five remain. It is likely that the Ones, Fours and Fives, lacking any knowledge to recreate resurrection, succumbed to old age before they were able to recover the technology, assuming any survived the destruction of The Colony (TRS: "Daybreak, Part II").
↑According to executive producer Kevin Murphy's audio commentary for the episodes "Unvanquished" and "Apotheosis," Zoe's journey to becoming a skin job in the period leading up to the flash forward would have been depicted if Caprica had been given a second season. In that five year period, Zoe would have encountered the Final Five―on their way to the Twelve Colonies following the destruction of Earth by their own version of the Cylons―in the virtual world. There, the Final Five would have assisted Zoe in the creation of her humanoid robotic body. Also according to Murphy, Zoe would have joined the Caprican Legionnaires, working under the command of Jordan Duram to eradicate the Cylon threat before the inevitable uprising. [1]
↑Shown in the "Things to Come" montage at the end of (CAP: "Apotheosis").
