Cylon History
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- For information on the Original Series Cylons, see Cylons (TOS).
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More than fifty-two years before the destruction of the Twelve Worlds, the humans of the Colonies reveled in their advanced technology, from which came their creation, the Cylons, a race of sentient machines. However, over two thousand years ago, ancient Cylons existed on Earth, and on Kobol more than two thousand years before that.
Ancient Cylons
According to the Sacred Scrolls, humanity lived alongside the Gods on the planet Kobol four thousand years prior to the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. In reality, however, man lived alongside humanoid Cylons on Kobol, until the mass exodus of Kobol's inhabitants - humanity forming twelve tribes that traveled to the Twelve Worlds, the Cylons forming a Thirteenth Tribe that settled on a distant planet called Earth (TRS: Miniseries, "Kobol's Last Gleaming", "Revelations", "Sometimes a Great Notion", "No Exit").
- Ronald D. Moore, creator and executive producer of Battlestar Galactica, explained the creation myth of Kobol in an interview. Describing the overall concept behind the exodus of man from Kobol by comparing it the mythological story of Prometheus, saying "Kobol, once upon a time, [was where] man and the gods lived as one. Man stole fire from the gods, which in our case was the secret of AI or artificial intelligence."[1] Still, a clear picture of what happened on Kobol has never been fully revealed.
Earth
On Earth, the Thirteenth Tribe prospered, building a new civilization that grew into a modern age of technology. From that technology grew a race of mechanical Cylons, ancient versions of the Cylon Centurions. Roughly two thousand years after the colonization of the Thirteenth Colony, Earth's civilization was wiped out by a devastating war between the mechanical Cylons and their humanoid creators (TRS: "Sometimes a Great Notion").
Five survived the holocaust, later coming to be called the Final Five. These survivors were researchers involved in the recent rediscovery of resurrection technology - process by which an individual could be reborn after death in a duplicate body. Having anticipated the attack, the Final Five resurrected aboard a ship, waiting for them in orbit of Earth (TRS: "Sometimes a Great Notion", "No Exit").
Fearing their human cousins in the distant Twelve Worlds would suffer the same fate as the humanoid Cylons of Earth, the Final Five departed in their vessel, beginning an approximately 2,000 years long sublight journey in order to prevent such a catastrophe (TRS: "No Exit").
First Cylons in the Twelve Colonies
The first Cylons in the Twelve Colonies were created by Doctor Daniel Graystone, a brilliant computer scientist and CEO of Graystone Industries on the colony of Caprica. Known as the U-87 Cyber Combat Unit, or Cybernetic Lifeform Node, the prototypical Cylon was created as cannon fodder for the Caprican Military. Though its design called only for soldiers capable of "shooting and fighting", the U-87 achieved true sentience through the integration of the robotic body with the meta-cognitive processor, a device stolen from Graystone competitor Tomas Vergis of Tauron. The mega-cognitive processor, or MCP, was a revolutionary new artificial brain that - though it never worked for Vergis - served as higher intelligence for the U-87 once uploaded with the living virtual avatar of Daniel Graystone's recently deceased daughter, Zoe Graystone (CAP: "Pilot", "The Imperfections of Memory", "Unvanquished").
A New Race
Though Graystone was unaware his attempt at resurrecting his daughter by implanting her personality into the U-87, Zoe Graystone lived on as the first fully sentient Cylon consciousness. Unable to reproduce the MCP with the Zoe avatar driving it, Graystone Industries scientists struggled to meet the Caprican Military's order for 100,000 battle-ready units. Finally, however, the avatar was removed from the chip when the U-87 prototype was destroyed. Rebooting the original chip from the ruined chassis, Graystone Industries was finally able to duplicate the MCP for mass production (CAP: "Ghosts in the Machine", "End of Line", "Unvanquished").
Seeing beyond their application as robot soldiers, Daniel Graystone spoke of the potential of Cylons as a new race that would walk alongside man:
- "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")
Delivering the first line of U-87s to the Caprican Military, Graystone scientists were unaware that remnants of the Zoe avatar still existed on the MCP, making the U-87s recognize and even obey people from Zoe Graystone's past. With the Tauron crime syndicate, the Ha'la'tha, controlling Graystone Industries in tandem with Daniel Graystone, a black market was created for Cylons, with the robots being shipped to the colonies of Gemenon and Tauron without the knowledge or consent of the Caprican Government (CAP: "Unvanquished", "False Labor", "Blowback").
The Differently Sentient
As the threat by the monotheist terror group, the Soldiers of the One, culminated in the attempted bombing of Atlas Arena in Caprica City, a turning point was achieved. Using a squadron of Cylons to target and kill a group of STO terrorists at Atlas, Daniel Graystone prevented the bombing and the deaths of 100,000 Capricans. The event at the arena galvanized the public in support of Cylons as protectors of the Twelve Worlds, with statues erected in their honor. Within five years of the U-87's development, several new lines of Cylons were created to serve various functions in Colonial society (CAP: "Apotheosis").
Cylons quickly became integrated into life on the Colonies, with Cylon servants and Cylon workers becoming a common sight on the streets of worlds like Caprica. With that integration came questions about Cylon sentience, notably addressed by Sister Clarice Willow, former STO leader and monotheist cleric, who lead congregations of Cylons - communicating through the virtual world - in worship of a singular, all knowing, all powerful God:
- "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")
The First "Skin Job"
While Cylons were becoming commonplace in the Colonies, the Zoe Graystone avatar - having survived the destruction of the original U-87 chassis - lived exclusively in the virtual world. Though she attended Clarice Willow's Cylon sermons, the Zoe avatar was primarily concerned with the construction of a new robotic body that would allow her to exist in the physical world (CAP: "Apotheosis").
Working with her parents, Daniel and Amanda Graystone, Zoe labored to create a body more suited to her. Utilizing Daniel Graystone's expertise in robotics and Amanda Graystone's experience as a plastic surgeon, the family was successful in building the first "skin job": a mechanical skeletal structure with human-looking skin and hair. The body was activated in the Graystones' private lab - a perfect, robotic copy of their daughter and the true rebirth of Zoe Graystone into the physical world (CAP: "Apotheosis").
- Had Caprica continued to a second season, the series would have followed the Zoe avatar in flashback as she worked to create the skin job. In that storyline, Zoe would have communicated with the Final Five in the virtual world as they traveled to the Colonies. The Final Five would have assisted Zoe in building the skin job, though not in creating a true humanoid Cylon body. Zoe would have worked in later episodes, in her new body, to undermine the coming Cylon rebellion on behalf of the Final Five, albeit unsuccessfully. [2]
The Cylon War
...And then the day came when the Cylons decided to kill their masters. Within just a few years of their introduction, the Cylons revolted, 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 and military craft such as the one-manned Viper fighter and the workhorse, multi-function craft called the Raptor to combat the Cylon threat (TRS: Miniseries, "Razor").
On the Cylon side, Cylon Centurions - derisively referred to as "toasters" by the Colonials - battled against their human opressors and basestars and fighter vehicles known as Raiders were employed. The Cylons also utilized computer viruses to infiltrate colonial computer networks, undermine defenses and disable vessels (TRS: "Fragged").
- It is unclear if civilian Cylons like those depicted in Caprica also took part in the Cylon War as only the chrome plated Centurions have been depicted in the conflict. It is possible that those Cylons - smaller in stature than the U-87s so clearly connected to the Centurions - were either upgraded or destroyed.
The Cylon War was fought on the surface of the Twelve Worlds as well as on outlying planets and in space. During an operation late in the war, rookie Viper pilot Ensign William Adama crashed his plane on a remote ice planet, stumbling upon a Cylon installation. Inside the installation, Adama discovered evidence of a bizarre experiment in which the Cylons used human captives to perform dissections. The result of those experiments 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 casualties mounted as the war stretched on for twelve and a half years. Ultimately, the Final Five arrived at the Colonies and met in secret with the mechanical Cylon race. Promising to aid the Cylons in creating humanoid bodies, the Final Five brokered an end to the war and departed to create a new world. With an armistice declared and the war over, the Colonials were left to rebuild their worlds, abandoning much of their advanced technology - including holobands and computer networks - for fear of future Cylon attacks (CAP: "Pilot", TRS: "Razor", "No Exit").
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).
The Transition
During the Cylon War, Cylons secretly made the first steps developing new models that were organic in nature and essentially identical to humans. The first step in their evolution from pure machines to organic beings was known as the "Hybrid." Other hybrids were later created to control baseships before the experiments were abandoned (Razor).
Before the Cylons were able to develop independent humanoid models, the Final Five arrived, offering both resurrection technology and their assistance in creating organic Cylon models in exchange for an end to the war against the colonies.
The Five then set about creating new organic humanoid Cylon models. The first of these organic models was John, later known as Number One and Brother Cavil, patterned and named after Ellen's father. He assisted in the development of the other seven models. John, jealous over the attention Ellen paid to Daniel, the original Number Seven, contaminated the amniotic fluid in which the Number Seven copies were being grown and corrupted the model's genetic formula. The fate of Daniel prototype is unknown; Anders states simply that "Daniel died." Bitter over the limitations of his organic body and obsessed with vengeance against humanity, Cavil then killed the Final Five and boxed them, later resurrecting them with false memories and sending them to the twelve colonies. It can be inferred that he is responsible for programming the other six models to avoid thinking of the Final Five. (No Exit)
At some point, the Cylons revised the original Cylon robotic soldier, the sentient Cylon Centurion Model 0005, into a more agile and dangerous version. Unlike the original version, however, the new Centurion is silent and is artificially inhibited from being fully self-aware, as the humanoid Cylons wanted to prevent these updated creations from forming an intra-Cylon uprising that mirrored their war with the humans (Exodus, Part I).
Returning Home
The Cylons, realizing that the Colonial forces would likely be too strong to engage in a direct military action, devised an elaborate plan to infiltrate the Colonial ships' operating system software, leaving a backdoor that could be exploited to disable any Colonial ship with its own programming. The plan was successful; the Colonial Fleet was destroyed, the Colonies themselves subjected to nuclear bombardment, and humanity was all but wiped out, except for a handful of survivors on the Colonies in outlying areas as well as caravan of space-dwelling humans that eventually escaped the Colonial star system.
The Cylons continued to pursue the remnants of the Colonies, believing that humans would always seek vengeance against them (Exodus, Part II).
The Faith and Reproduction
- Main article: Cylon Religion
The Cylons followed the monotheistic religion of the human-built Centurions, which was programmed into them by the Final Five (No Exit). Among other tenets, their faith calls for the Cylons to reproduce biologically as part of their mandate to replace humanity. However, as Cylon-Cylon reproduction was believed to be impossible, the Cylons occupied many of the devastated human worlds themselves, killing any surviving humans or pressing them into service in farms, centers that harvest genetic material and fertilize human women with Cylon DNA in the hopes of creating Cylon-human hybrid children. The farms, however, proved to be unsuccessful, so the Cylons attempted to emotionally bond a humanoid Cylon with a human, hoping that love would generate the desired result (The Farm).
The experiment was successful, but was soon out of the Cylons' control (for a time). The conception and birth of a Cylon-human hybrid, Hera Agathon, the child of a rebellious Number Eight and Karl Agathon, was born in the safety of the Colonial Fleet.
Mixed Successes
The Cylons almost succeeded in sending the Colonials into chaos when one agent nearly killed Commander William Adama (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II). For reasons unknown, the Cylons did not press their tactical advantage at Kobol, having underestimated Kobol's importance to the Colonials and their search for information on the path to Earth.
Cylon forces continued to track and attack the Colonials for months, keeping the few humanoid Cylons in the human fleet reinforced with a Resurrection Ship, used to resurrect the consciousnesses of killed agents, and gaining vital intelligence on the humans. Complicating the Cylons' plans, the Colonials gained sufficient water and fuel resources ("Water", "The Hand of God") and reunited with a second battlestar, Pegasus (which had conducted hit-and-run operations against Cylon installations and forces before discovering Galactica). The Cylons suffered a major setback when the Colonial battlestars combined for an offensive action that all but destroyed a Cylon fleet, including a Resurrection Ship. Without the Resurrection Ship, the Cylon battle tactic changed for a time to ambushes and traps ("Scar", "The Captain's Hand").
Benevolent Dictators
Two humanoid Cylons, both "Heroes of the Cylon" for their undercover work among the Colonials, but now influenced by their affection for humanity, convinced the Cylon majority that the genocide and occupation of the Colonies was wrong. With this change in philosophy, the Cylons abandoned the Colonies and went out in search of the Colonials.
The Colonials eluded the Cylons for over a year by finding a hidden habitable world and colonizing it. The planet was located inside a nebula that masked its presence, but a nuclear detonation within the Colonial fleet left a marker for the Cylons to follow. The Cylons eventually found New Caprica and, in overwhelming numbers, made themselves the "caretakers" of the trapped colonists, occupying the colony and forcing the humans to surrender under the threat of annihilation (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II).
For approximately 138 days, the Colonials were subject to Cylon rule. The Cylons ostensibly wanted to cooperate with the humans and even help them in some areas such as agriculture, medicine and power generation. However, they also severely restricted many freedoms, which leds to a human resistance movement that struck back violently. The Cylons in turn increased their oppression, arresting, torturing and killing hundreds of people. Eventually Galactica and Pegasus, which escaped New Caprica as the Cylon fleet arrived, managed to rescue the approximately 38,000 humans on New Caprica, but at great cost. This ended the experiment in human/Cylon relations, with some models are more determined than ever to deal with mankind once and for all (Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance through "Exodus, Part II")
The Race to Earth
- Main article: Earth (RDM)
The Cylons abandoned New Caprica as well, retrieving the Cylon-hybrid baby from the planet by happenstance, and turned their attention to the same objective as the Colonials: finding Earth. Using the research of Gaius Baltar (who resided with the Cylon fleet at the time), the Cylons located the Lion's Head Nebula. A scouting basestar found an ancient beacon in the area, verifying that the Thirteenth Tribe did pass through the area on their way to Earth. But the Cylon scout ship met with disaster; the probe was contaminated with a pathogen that, while benign to humans, infects, deactivates or kills all Cylons, their ships, and their entities (Torn).
The Cylon fleet, which also includes a second Resurrection Ship, abandoned the scouts and cut off further communication, believing that the virus could replicate through their resurrection process. The Cylon scout ship eventually self-destructed and the Cylons managed to prevent the infection from spreading, although, unknown to the Cylons, the Colonials gained a critical biological warfare option (A Measure of Salvation).
The Number Three units exhibited strange behavior in attempting to ascertain the identities of the Final Five Cylon models, as they had seen in visions prior to a model being resurrected. At the algae planet, while the Cylon majority attempted to gain information on the location of Earth by way of the Eye of Jupiter, the Threes' ulterior motive to seek knowledge of the Final Five disturbed the collective status quo and command consensus of the Cylon majority to the point where all Three models were boxed for their aberrant behavior (Rapture)
The Final Five
- Main article: Final Five
Unknown to either the Cylon or Colonial commanders and leaders, four Colonials exhibited strange behavior that ultimately brought them to come to the discovery that they are Cylons. Saul Tigh, Galen Tyrol, Samuel Anders and Tory Foster were the only crewmembers that could hear a strange melody that drew them to meet each other in a room on Galactica, shortly after the Fleet arrived at the Ionian nebula. The nature of these particular Cylon models, especially given Saul Tigh's existence as a decorated veteran of the Cylon War, was unclear and likely fundamentally different from other humanoid Cylons.
During the ensuing battle, one Raider identified Anders as a Cylon, which caused all Raiders to break off the battle and forced the Cylon fleet to retreat. Because of this, a Number One decided to lobotomize the Raiders to prevent such insubordination in the future. This decision was opposed by a faction, led by Natalie, who advocated the search for the Final Five and who desired to unbox Number Three to learn what she found at the Temple of Five. The disagreement between these factions led to a violent conflict between the humanoid models. This eventually leads to the Battle of the Resurrection Hub where resurrection is destroyed by a combined attack force from the Rebel Cylons and the Colonials. Eventually the Rebel Cylons and the Colonials destroy the main enemy Cylon faction in the Battle of the Colony. The remainder of the Rebel Cylons settle on the new Earth with the Colonials while they let their Centurions have the Rebel Basestar and their freedom to find their own destiny.
The Parent Trap
In the Re-imagined Series, an Oedipus theme exists between the creations (Cylons) turning on their creators (Colonials). The humanoid Cylons themselves draw the analogy of children murdering their parents:
- Number Six: "Humanity's children are returning home... today." (Miniseries)
- Number Five: "But parents have to die. It's the only way children come into their own." (Bastille Day)
Oedipus is the tragic character of Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex. Without realizing it until much later, Oedipus murdered his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta, with whom he had several children, just as the Cylons had tried to do in the farms.
All the Significant Seven models view each other as "siblings".
Notes
- The retaliatory nature of sentient machines against humanity is a popular theme in science fiction.
Cylon Evolution Tree