Cylon Tactics

The Cylons quickly establish the initiative and used overwhelming force in both symmetric and asymmetric methods of operation to effect the total devastation of the Twelve Colonies and to virtually succeed in annihilating of the human race.

Sesha Abinell gathered information on Cylon modus operandi as part of her ill-fated plan to exact revenge for her husband's death and expose military coverups and collusion with the Cylons. Her computer monitor in "Sacrifice" details several tactics of the Cylons from her point of view:

Sleep Deprivation

Shown in the episode, "33"

The Cylons are machines that do not require food or rest. Combined with the work of Cylon agents that have infiltrated the members of the Fleet, the Cylons can terrorize and force the Fleet to tax and drain their limited resources. The Colonial military support is also eroded through exhaustion as well as wear-and-tear. The driving tactic of ambushing the Fleet every 33 minutes for 5 consecutive days greatly limited Galactica's ability to repair fighters as their hangar deck crews as well as command crews were pushed to exhaustion and inefficiency.

The humanoid Cylon agents are mostly organic, and thus require food and rest by definition; however, they do not require nearly as much as normal humans do, as demonstrated by the Valerii Cylons in "33" and "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down".

Assault on Natural Resources

Shown in "Water," "The Hand of God"

Cylon agents pose the most fundamental threat to the security of the Fleet and to the remaining survivors of the Twelve Colonies. Because Cylon agents are visually indistinguishable from true humans, they form an asymmetric threat to the densely packed and defenseless civilian elements of the Fleet. Destruction or control of the Fleet's limited resources such as water supplies or tylium are of high importance.

Emotional Manipulation

Shown in many episodes, including "Flesh and Bone" and "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II"

Cylon agents, be they "sleeper agents" such as Boomer "Valerii" or self-aware agents such as the first Aaron Doral copy (Miniseries) possess strong emotions that are indiscernible from the emotions of a human. As agent copies are architypes of human personalities, each Cylon agent is specialized to affect the humans they contact in particular ways. For more on Cylon agent personalities, see the Cylon agent article.

Suicide Bombing

Shown in "Litmus"

As the personality of a Cylon agents can be resurrected under the right conditions, a Cylon agent may intentionally expose themselves to destroy a Colonial resource. A second copy of Aaron Doral detonates himself inside a corridor in Galactica, nearly killing its commanding officers.

While not bombing per se, a Raider may also use ramming as a tactic against a Viper or battlestar.

Cylon impregnation and reproduction

Shown in "Six Degrees of Separation," "The Farm" and "Downloaded"

As part of their commandments, the Cylons have used captured Colonial refugees still alive in the remains of the Colonial cities in an attempt to reproduce themselves with human hosts as a surrogate and attempting to artificially fertilize the human host's eggs with Cylon agent genetic material. To date, only one successful fertilization and birth of a Cylon-human hybrid has been accomplished. Such tactics are demoralizing to Colonials who believe strongly that Cylons are purely machines; they may feel that such tactics are a form of rape or perversity that is intolerable, as expressed by Kara Thrace to Samuel Anders (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II).

Multiple models

There are twelve models of Cylon agents, each with a personality architype considered one of 12 human behaviors or traits. The number of copies of a particular model are unknown, but believed to be very large, further complicating Colonial identification of one model and their actions versus another copy.

Sleeper agents within the Fleet

Shown in numerous episodes, particularly "Water" and "Resistance"

Sleeper Cylon agents are not aware of their true nature. A low-level personality overrides the human personality as required to perform espionage or sabotage. Boomer "Valerii" is a sleeper agent that rebels against her suspected nature but eventually succumbs to it when her sleeper personality directs her to shoot Commander William Adama at point-blank range in an assassination attempt (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II).

Takeover by Brute Force

Shown in "33," "Scattered," "Resurrection Ship, Part II" and "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II"

The symmetric threat posed by the Cylons resides chiefly in the large, well-supplied, technologically sophisticated and well-coordinated space-based naval forces. These are comprised of space-superiority fighters, armored personnel carriers and light bombers, large capital warships, associated support vessels, and a Resurrection Ship, which is responsible for the recovery of killed Cylon agent and Raider personalities.

The superiority of numbers of the Cylons, be it ships or troop units, leaves the Colonial remnant with very limited defensive options and virtually no offensive options should they encounter Cylon forces. Tactics seen include:

• Infantry Combat: The fast, heavily armored, and well-armed Cylon Centurion has proven its lethality in multiple close engagements with armed Galactica personnel. Small numbers of Centurions can pose a significant threat to the entire crew (Valley of Darkness).
• Precision Strike: The Cylons have demonstrated the capability to insert a strike team onto an battlestar despite its defenses (Valley of Darkness). During a boarding by specially-armored Centurions, the Cylons would have gained access to Aft Damage Control, probably captured Galactica and destroyed the rest of the Fleet were it not for the knowledge of the commanding officer and his experience and information from serving in the Cylon War.
• Electronic Countermeasures (ECM): The uncanny ability of Cylons to compromise the security of networked computer systems has been well-documented. Raiders routinely send signals to either open a backdoor in Colonial fighters equipped with the CNP or attempt to crack a fighter's avionics or access a battlestar's computer network to infect it with a debilitating virus.
• Mass invasion: The Cylon forces are so overwhelming to remaining Colonial forces that the mere appearance of a single basestar is cause for immediate retreat. While the Fleet (with battlestar Pegasus to aid) is able to stop a massive two-basestar Cylon fleet that followed Galactica for a time, two battlestars were far outmatched by the bulk of dozens of basestars that appear near New Caprica to occupy the colonists who settle there.