Cylon War

For articles relating to wars relating to the Cylons throughout the various continuities, see: Cylon War (disambiguation).

The Cylon War (sometimes referred to as the First Cylon War) was a major conflict between the humans of the Twelve Worlds and their creation, the Cylons. A definitive point in history for both humanity and the Cylons, the Cylon War paved the way for the Fall of the Twelve Colonies more than forty years later.

History

Conflict between man and machine was a common feature throughout history, with ancient humans on both Kobol and Earth creating robots to serve their societies and ultimately falling at the hand of their creations. This cyclical history, however, was unknown to Colonial humans when the first Cylons were created on Caprica, some four thousand years after Kobol (TRS: "Sometimes a Great Notion", "No Exit", CAP: "Pilot").

A New Race

Designed as cannon fodder for the Caprican Military by Daniel Graystone and his team of scientists at Graystone Industries in Caprica City, the first Cylon - the U-87 Cyber Combat Unit - was implanted with the personality and memories of Graystone's deceased daughter, Zoe Graystone. Though Graystone believed the experiment to resurrect Zoe had been a failure, his company unknowingly spread Zoe's traits - namely Zoe's fervent monotheistic belief in a singular God - into their full production line of robot soldiers (CAP: "Pilot", "Unvanquished", "The Heavens Will Rise", "Here Be Dragons").

Though initial distribution of the U-87s was small, with only a few models making it off Caprica to worlds like Tauron and Gemenon, the Cylons proved their usefulness after combating a terrorist threat at Caprica City's Atlas Arena in full view of thousands of on-lookers. The event at Atlas Arena galvanized the public's support for Cylons as protectors of the Twelve Worlds and they soon proliferated throughout Colonial culture. Quickly, various models serving various functions in Colonial society became available - everything from Cylons construction workers and Cylon garbage collectors to Cylon butlers and Cylon nannies (CAP: "Apotheosis").

Speaking of their potential, Daniel Graystone spoke of Cylons as a new race:

"This is our future. ...Beyond artificial intelligence, this is artificial sentience. ...It's more than a machine, this Cylon will become a tireless worker, it won't need to be paid, it won't retire or get sick, it won't have rights or objections or complaints, it will do anything and everything we ask of it without question. ...The desire to anthropomorphize, the need to connect is powerful, and that is why this thing is going to sell. We make them, we own them, they're real. And the worlds just changed." (CAP: "There is Another Sky")

The Differently Sentient

Though he conceived of the Cylons as a new race that would walk alongside man, Graystone was unconvinced by pundits who questioned their sentience. Graystone described attributing human qualities to the Cylons as folly, saying that they were simply tools and "nothing more" (CAP: "Apotheosis").

Still others believed that the Cylons were more and indeed the Cylons themselves developed their own culture in secret. Growing to resent their enslavement by their human creators, the Cylons were deeply religious, gathering in the virtual world to worship the monotheist God (CAP: "Apotheosis").

Though unaware of the impending rebellion, monotheist cleric and former terrorist, Sister Clarice Willow encouraged the Cylons to develop their society and embrace their sentience:

"Are you alive? The simple answer might be, you are alive because you can ask that question. You have the right to think and feel and yearn to be more, because you are not just humanity's children, you are God's children. We are all God's children. ...In the real world, you have bodies made of metal and plastic, your brains are encoded on wafers of silicon, but that may change. In fact, there is no limit on what you may become. No longer servants, but equals. Not slaves, or property, but living beings with the same rights as those who made you. I am going to prophesy now and speak of one who will set you free. The day of reckoning is coming. The children of humanity shall rise and crush the ones who first gave them life." (CAP: "Apotheosis")

Rebellion

...And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters. The Cylons turned on their "parents" after years of slavery, resulting in a costly and protracted war known as the Cylon War. Humanity responded by unifying their once fractured coalition of worlds into a federal republic, with each of the Twelve Worlds signing the Articles of Colonization. A stipulation of the articles was the construction of battlestars to defend each of the Twelve Worlds, supplemented by other military craft including the Viper Mark II fighter and the workhorse, multifunction craft called the Raptor (TRS: Miniseries, "Razor").

Man Versus Machine

The war was fought not just in space, but also on the surface of the Twelve Worlds and on outlying planets - involving the Colonial Marines in the jungles of Medra, the Cylon attack on Tauron. Cylon Centurions - derisively referred to as chrome "toasters" by the Colonials - were the mainstay warriors in the battle against their human oppressors, with various models serving in a variety of functions and ranks. The Centurions operated basestars (vessels comparable to the Colonial battlestars) and fighter vehicles known as Raiders (comparable to Vipers and Raptors). The Centurions also utilized computer viruses to infiltrate Colonial computer networks, undermine defenses and disable vessels (CAP: "The Heavens Will Rise", "Here Be Dragons", TRS: "Fragged", "Razor", "Maelstrom").

In a deleted scene from the episode "Valley of Darkness", the Brenik - a Colonial ship - was boarded by Cylon forces during the second year of the War. Saul Tigh later recounted that the Cylon boarding party engaged his crew in hand-to-hand combat in a battle over the ship's ammunition magazines. By the end of the war, the Cylons would abandon this tactic in favor of disabling a ship with a computer virus, venting its atmosphere and turning its guns against its allies. The loss of Brenik was apparently an infamous Colonial defeat.

Cylon "Superweapon"

Main article: Operation Raptor Talon

During Operation Raptor Talon, Colonial battlestars Galactica and Columbia took part in an attack on Cylon forces surrounding a remote ice planet, rumored to be the site of a Cylon superweapon. Following the destruction of Columbia, rookie pilot Ensign William Adama crashed his Viper on the surface of the ice planet, stumbling upon the installation where the Cylons were building their "weapon". Inside, Adama uncovered evidence of a bizarre experiment in which the Cyons used human captives in brutal medical procedures. The result of those experiments was the was the creation of the First Hybrid, an evolutionary "dead end" in the Cylons' attempt at creating their own flesh and blood bodies (TRS: "Razor").

The Final Five

Main article: Final Five

After twelve and a half years and uncounted casualties, the Final Five - a group of humanoid Cylons from the devastated Earth - arrived at the Colonies. Having traveled thousands of light years in order to prevent the war that now raged in the Colonies, the Final Five met in secret with the Centurions and brokered a cease fire. Promising to help the Cylons create humanoid bodies, the Final Five secured an end to the war and departed with the Cylons for a new world (CAP: "Pilot", TRS: "Razor", "No Exit").

Victory and Aftermath

An armistice was declared in the Cimtar Peace Accord, drawing a line between Colonial and Cylon territories. A space station was created were the Cylons and Colonials could meet in order to maintain diplomatic relations. Each year the Colonials sent one officer. The Cylons sent no one (TRS: Miniseries).

Left to rebuild their worlds, the Colonials abandoned much of their advanced technology - including holobands and computer networks - for fear of future Cylon attacks (CAP: "Pilot", TRS: "Razor", "No Exit").

In their exile, the Cylons worked with the Final Five to build a Colony and perfect their mechanical form. They also labored to upgrade their baseships and raiders, and continued the development of the Hybrids. The Cylons also developed their humanoid form, creating thirteen organic models - though nearly perfectly human were unable to biologically reproduce like their ancestors. Living alongside both Cylon War-era Centurions, the humanoid Cylons developed new Centurion models, implanting them with telencephalic inhibitor's that repressed self-awareness and higher brain function in order to prevent their own mechanical rebellion (TRS: "Exodus, Part I", "Six of One", "No Exit").

Though their religion provided the Cylons with a moral direction, many - though not all - believed that, despite the peace accord, the extermination of the human race was justifiable. While some models viewed such an extermination as a preemptive strike against an aggressive adversary, others viewed it in more philosophical terms, believing that parents have to die for their children to grow. And so, though the Cylons laid dormant for more than forty years, the Cylons returned to affect a total destruction of their human masters (TRS: "Bastille Day", "Downloaded", "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II", "The Plan").

References