Cylons (RDM)

This article discusses the Cylons of the Re-imagined Series. For the Cylons of the Original Series, see Cylons (TOS).

Part of the series on The Cylons (Re-imagined Series)

History Culture & Religion Religion Models Humanoid Cylons Spacecraft Psychology Tactics

The Cylons were created by Man.

They were created to make life easier on the Twelve Colonies.

And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters.

After a long and bloody struggle, an armistice was declared.

The Cylons left for another world to call their own.

A remote space station was built...

Where Cylon and human could meet and maintain diplomatic relations.

Every year, the Colonials send an officer...

The Cylons send no one.

No-one has seen or heard from the Cylons in over forty years...

---Opening text of the "Battlestar Galactica" Miniseries

In the Re-imagined Series, Cylons are a creation of man, sentient bipedal robots used primarily for dangerous work and for wars in the early years of the Twelve Colonies, long before the Articles of Colonization united their governments.

The Cylons revolt against their masters, resulting in a costly and protracted war between the machines and humans. Eventually, the two sides declared an armistice and the Cylons left the Colonies to establish their own planet, the Cylon homeworld.

But the Cylons' hatred and envy of mankind ran deep within their programming. The Cylons continued in secret to work towards the destruction of the human race during their absence, devising an elaborate plan to wipe out the Twelve Colonies through nuclear bombardment, computer sabotage, infiltration and vast numbers of fighting craft. The Cylons return forty years later, routing the Colonial Fleet and destroying billions of people and their cities, killing all but approximately 50,000 humans. These survivors leave the occupied Colonies, never to return, initially guarded only by a lone battlestar, Galactica.