Boxing

This article is concerned with the Cylon process of boxing. Boxing, a sport and martial art, took place in the episode "Unfinished Business".

To box a Cylon is to download a particular humanoid Cylon's consciousness from his or her body into cold storage indefinitely (analogous to a computer core dump), presumably in an inert state. To a Cylon, boxing is in effect equivalent to true, permanent death.

A Cylon is boxed when he or she has been found dangerously unstable, such as when a humanoid Cylon's memories appear "corrupted" by extended or intense human contact, or when a sleeper agent become psychologically maladjusted from denying his or her Cylon nature.

The resurrected Cylons Caprica-Six (the Number Six who died protecting Gaius Baltar when his house is destroyed in the Miniseries) and Sharon "Boomer" Valerii are threatened with boxing by a Number Three shortly after their return. Their "Hero of the Cylon" status and extended human associations threaten the Cylon status quo because the two became individuals, their personalities diverging from their fellow models (Downloaded).

After the incident at the Temple of Five, in which the same Number Three who threatened to box Caprica-Six and Boomer went against the will of other Cylons, the decision is made to box not just her, but all Number Three models. The process of boxing apparently entails killing off the particular Cylon who is going to be boxed and allowing them to resurrect. Similar to Cylon resurrection, another Cylon sits by their rebirthing tank and informs them that the decision has been made to box them. A device on the side of the tank, literally a small metal box, is then removed and the Cylon in the tank deactivates, their consciousness having been downloaded into the box, and their body is stored away in the Resurrection Ship (Rapture).

As revealed in the podcast for Rapture, the boxing of the Threes is the first model-wide boxing in Cylon history, which means there are 11 remaining active Cylon models.