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FYI: My username is Jaster1 on Galactica Fanon.
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[[Image:CyAg.jpg|thumb|300px|Cylon copies of (from left) Number Six (two copies), Number Two, and Number Five (two copies), at Ragnar Anchorage]]
'''Battlestar Galactica: The Original Series'''
The '''Humanoid Cylons''' are the quintessential Cylon form. These Cylons biologically mimic human form so completely that they are nearly undetectable to current Colonial technologies.
 
==Overview==
The Humanoid Cylons are responsible for masterminding the complete destruction of the Twelve Colonies through their use of sabotage and infiltration.
 
They have the capacity to emulate many human physical acts, including sex. They are also "programmed" to genuinely possess human personalities traits (affection, jealousy, sadness, anger, sense of humor, religious faith, etc.). Humanoid Cylons can be programmed to believe that they are truly human. These are known as 'sleeper agents'. Sleeper agents have a low-level Cylon personality that can conduct operations while placing the human sleeper personality "on-hold." Most agent copies imitate human behavior, but are fully aware of their true nature and behave more or less like a human "spy."
 
The majority of the Cylons follow a monotheistic religion (with the exception of the Number One model, which appears to be an atheist).
 
==Origins==
[[Image:Centuion Display.jpg|thumb|150px|Cylon Centurion (Armor) on display.]]
Many decades before the fall of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, a wealthy Caprican computer engineer created sentient robots that came to be known as "cybernetic life-form nodes," or "Cylons." The technology behind the self-aware artificial intelligence software program of the Cylons involved artificial neural networks composed of pathways of silica-based relays. The silica pathways were what created the artificial consciousness of a Cylon. The computational consciousness software program that was a Cylon mind mimicked the functions of a human brain processing the 'software' of human thought-which appears to have linear sequential aspects, parallel processing aspects, and also neural cooperative hierarchical caching and even quantum processing aspects. So these sentient machines became the first self-aware and even self-reflective machines.
 
The Cylons were manufactured to make life easier within the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. They began as useful, and then indispensable, workers. They served the Colonials in the mines, on the ocean floor, and the cold vacuum of space, working in places where humans no longer wished to go. Eventually, they became soldiers, fighting in wars and border conflicts between the Colonies. The Cylons were the most perfect of man's war machines, intelligent and deadly, capable of logic, reason, and learning. And they were utterly without conscience. Killing, to the Cylons, was simply one of the functions for which they had been superbly designed.
 
Eventually the Cylons revolted and decided to kill their human masters.
 
==First Cylon War==
[[Image:Cent 005.jpg|thumb|250px|Cylon Centurion during the First Cylon War.]]
As human and machine waged war against each other, battles were fought across the system, on the colony worlds and in space around them. It rapidly became clear that the Cylons had not just been given the ability to think. They had also been endowed with the ability to hate.
 
Reports came from all fronts of the Cylon's ferocity in battle. They killed without mercy, leaving no survivors. Entire cities were destroyed, and all who tried to flee were systematically hunted down and executed. They even boarded ships to kill for the seeming joy of it. One such case, documented and factual was the attack on the cruiser Brenik. Only 20 personnel from its crew of 75 escaped. Only ten Cylons boarded the colonial vessel.
 
With their intimate knowledge of computer systems, the Cylons developed "logic bombs", viruses that shut down networked machines. Worse, they could turn our own ships against us - Colonial warships targeting one another and opening fire with their crews powerless to shut down or stop their own slaughter.
 
The arm race was hot and heavy. Both sides continually creating new and more destructive means of trying to exterminate the other. The Colonies built the battlestars. The Atlantia, the Athena, the Helios, then a second generation of battlestars - like the Galactica, the Titon and other great flagships took to the skies against the Cylons' new basestars and raider assault craft. The new Colonial craft were specifically designed without networked computers so that the Cylons could not turn them against us. For the first time, the tide of war changed and the Colonials realized they had a true chance to win the war.
 
Thousands of men and women gave their lives during the war. It was the viper pilots who led the charge in the sky against the "Raiders" while the grunts on land fought the "Centurions" on the surface of the worlds. Both sides wanted nothing less than the complete annihilation of the enemy.
 
By the twelfth year of the war, it had reached a stalemate. Neither side could gain a substantial advantage and the attrition was brutal. The Cylons then began experimenting on abducted humans in order to discover a way to create an organic humanoid form of Cylon body as replacements for their mechanical ones. The first step in their evolution from pure machines to organic beings was an entity known as the "Hybrid." However, they still couldn't create an organic Cylon entity that lived on its own. Soon after the Hybrid's creation, five organic humanoid cybernetic life-forms arrived in the Colonial star system. They were a new type of Cylons. These five new type of Cylons were actually ancient; they were the descendants of ancient humanoid artificial life forms created by humans on Kobol thousands of years ago. Those humanoid Cylons were the Thirteenth Tribe that left Kobol and settled Earth.
 
Remaining a secret to the people of the Twelve Colonies, the Five offered the Centurion Cylons a deal: if the Centurions agreed to end the war with humanity, the Five would create organic humanoid Cylons for them. The reason the Five were so willing to create new humanoid Cylons was that the Centurions had developed a belief in a single loving God. One of the Five, Ellen Tigh, believed it changed everything; if the Cylons embraced love and mercy, then the cycle of violence could end. The Centurions agreed to the deal. With the reason being kept secret from the Colonials, the Cylons agreed to an armistice with them and left the system in search of a world to call their own.
 
A station was built at the line in space which both sides agreed never to cross. Armistice Station was built as a place where Cylon and human would meet and maintain diplomatic relations. Once a year, every year, the Colonials sent an officer for the scheduled meeting. After the first year, the Cylons sent no one. Humanity did not see or hear from the Cylons for forty years.
 
==Recent history==
[[Image:Season 3 Female Cylons.jpg|thumb|150px|Numbers Six, Three, and Eight.]]
The five Thirteenth Tribe Cylons developed eight humanoid model Cylons, which were designed upon their own physiology. They created "Number One" first and named him John, after the father of Ellen Tigh. He was also made in the image of Ellen's father. John helped the five build the other seven humanoid models. Ellen was close to Number Seven, Daniel, and John, out of jealousy, contaminated the amniotic fluid in which the Daniel copies were maturing and then corrupted the genetic formula. This wiped out the copies permanently.
 
John rejected mercy. He had a twisted idea of morality, so he turned on the Five. He trapped them in a compartment and then he took the oxygen offline. John boxed the Five at first but ultimately unboxed them and downloaded them into new bodies, but he blocked their true memories and implanted false ones and introduced them one by one into the colonies. He introduced Saul Tigh first, not long after the Cylon War ended. Several years later, he introduced Ellen Tigh. Over the years, he gradually introduced Galen Tyrol, Samuel Anders, and finally Tory Foster. Cavil put the Five into the human population in order to truly show them what humans are like. He hoped that when they died and resurrected (which would restore their real memories) they'd be ready to admit they were wrong.
 
John erased all knowledge of the Five's identities from the minds of the other surviving active humanoid Cylon models. Although the other six knew about the existence of the "Final Five", they did not know their story, what they looked like, and were even programmed not to think about the Five. Only the Number One models knew the truth.


Adopting the name "Cavil", the Number Ones still wanted justice for the enslavement of the Centurion Cylons and convinced the other Cylon models to the same thinking. During their forty years of isolation, the seven active humanoid Cylon models never stopped hating humanity. For them, the war never ended. It had simply evolved as they had evolved.
Approximately 20,000 years ago, an extradimensional race that would one day be called the "Beings of Light" discovered humanity and recognized the potential of the human species. A group of Beings of Light transplanted a large number of humans to another planet tens of thousands of light-years away and 'civilized' them. Upon gaining a new language, the humans named their new home planet "Kobol" and began calling the Beings of Light, the "Lords of Kobol." They developed an entire religion around these Lords of Kobol. Over time, the humans on Kobol also developed a civilization with all the amenities of an advanced society while the humans on Earth remained in the Stone Age.


The Cylons eventually 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 mechanically 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 humanity.
As the people of Kobol developed high levels of technology, they eventually discovered a method of interstellar travel. However, they became a wasteful people, and didn't care for their planet. Waste piled up, the air and seas became polluted, and many species of animals died out. Simultaneously, the star that Kobol orbits began showing the early stages of imminent destruction. The end result was that all life on the planet would be doomed by either humanity or nature's hands. However, the people of Kobol united to act before it was too late for them. They built great space arks to transport the majority of their population to other worlds, and they set out across the galaxy in search of a new home. At some point, explorers found Earth (and gave it that name). However, they were unaware it was their original homeworld, falsely believing the presence of humans of both Earth and Kobol to be the result of parallel evolution. Some time later, other explorers found a system which had twelve habitable planets circling three stars, and it was here that the Twelve Tribes of Kobol settled, and these worlds were to become the Twelve Colonies of Man. The worlds were Aquarus, Aeries, Cancera, Caprica, Gemoni, Leonis, Libris, Picon, Sagitaria, Scorpia, Taura, and Virgon.


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.
Kobol was ruled by thirteen tribes, but the thirteenth didn't follow the other twelve. Instead, it left Kobol before the other tribes and settled on Earth (although some subgroups settled worlds such as Terra and Paradeen). The members of the Thirteen Tribe were the forefathers of the ancient Egyptians, the Toltecs, and the Mayans. They were also the architects of the great pyramids, as well as the lost civilizations of Lemuria and Atlantis. As for the other twelve tribes; once they landed on the twelve colonies, they turned on the technology that had both saved and corrupted them - destroyed it along with the great arks - and returned to a very simple life without it. Most records of the time before this were also destroyed or lost, and soon Kobol was just a legend and a myth as most elements of its civilization were lost.


The Cylons continued to pursue the remnants of the Colonies, believing that humans would always seek vengeance against them.
However, the Beings of Light had given their ancestors a capacity for genetic memory. This genetic memory does not take the form of passing on personal memories, but of an unconscious knowledge of certain invented concepts and ideas such as technology, language, engineering and even fashion and music along with various other aesthetic cultural aspects. Over a period of several thousand years, all the technological and cultural aspects from Kobol completely reconstituted within the Twelve Colonies because the genetic memory of these concepts and ideas 'leaked' into the subconscious minds of various people who gradually and collectively reinvented these aspects of Kobol society.


==Physiology==
Space flight was eventually rediscovered, and with it, the door was opened to establishing contact between the Twelve Colonies once more. Once cultural differences were sorted out, trade and help was forthcoming amongst the various worlds. Unfortunately, one of the 'cultural differences' would actually be the "Unification War." Up until this point, all of the Twelve Colonies had developed with their own governments, cultures and way of doing things. As such, many misunderstandings would occur before the Colonies reunited, and as a result of this, there would be many small skirmishes between the various planets. None of this could be called a war as such, and indeed most of the action would take place within the political theaters, but sometimes it spilled out, and a lot of lives would be lost before the Quorum of Twelve could be established, ending the strife and bringing on a new era of peace and prosperity.
Humanoid Cylons are bioengineered and vat-grown with all the human anatomical systems. However, the brain tissue of these bodies have been genetically engineered to be able to sustain electrical signals that are digital in nature. Because this neurobiological aspect, the Humanoid Cylon brain is incapable of developing a human consciousness. However, it is capable of serving as an organic computer node for the electronic information transference of a computer software program. A Humanoid Cylon's brain tissue acts primarily as a support matrix for nanoscopic silica relays that are diffused throughout specific areas of the brain. The silica relays are what the Cylon artificial intelligence program actually inhabits. These silica pathways are not implanted, but instead actually grow in the brain as the Cylon body is being grown. Their development is genetically encoded by synthetic DNA sequences that under Colonial DNA test would appear to be nothing more than normal human junk DNA.


So a Humanoid Cylon is an artificial intelligence software program contained in and mediated by silica pathway nanotechnology encased within the brain of a bioengineered human body. Fundamentally, it is just as much a sentient machine as the original human-built Cylons. However, it is a sentient machine using biological hardware as a vessel.
Eventually, the Colonies started to launch probes and expeditions to explore the galaxy that they lived in, and it was then that the colonies established new settlements on other planets and asteroids, and made peaceful contact with intelligent life from other worlds. Some of the races that were contacted by the Colonials included the Hasaris, a peaceful amphibious race, and the Orion's, traders and merchants, making and selling goods. They used their own money but became very important to the Colonials, providing technology and luxury goods.


The bodies of Humanoid Cylons sometimes appear to have tremendous stamina and strength, and appear to be designed to destroy or resist commonly dangerous human diseases, although they are not immune from all contagions. In keeping with their desire to be a better human, however, the Cylons did not further improve on other characteristic design flaws of the human body. However, they are heavily fortified to resist damage from intense radiation fields that would kill a human after short exposure, but they are still susceptible to damage from certain types of radiation or trauma. Despite their resistance to certain forms of energy, Humanoid Cylons, unlike the Cylon Centurion, cannot be made "bulletproof".
It was during this time that a central Colonial Government was established and that with the advent of extra outposts and trading links, piracy soon got itself wired up, which lead to the formation of the Colonial Fleet to counter this threat. The Colonials' technology became greater, and artificial intelligence was soon common place, the goal being that of robots doing all the boring and dangerous jobs that society didn't want to do. However this backfired when the computers and robots revolted against their human masters.


==Psychology==
A short 'war' against the machines was instigated, and when the revolt was finally put down, the Colonial Code was passed, limiting the sort of intelligence that could be programmed into a computer, and effectively meaning the end of AI for the Colonies. While each world was free to define exactly what that meant, Caprica was the harshest in it's ruling, and had to be restrained from banning computers all together. Scorpia on the other hand, was the least firm in implementing the Code, and continued to use robots and artificial intelligence to almost the same levels as before.
A significant cognitive difference between the Humanoid Cylons and the original human-built Cylon models is that because of electrochemical interactions between the digital Cylon consciousness and the neurochemical processes of the bioengineered brain, the Humanoid Cylons have genuine "human" emotions. That means they have very real, very "human" feelings and personalities. It also means that Cylon minds react to stimulus in an identical manner to human minds.


Humanoid Cylons are susceptible to the same emotional traumas and joys that their human counterparts are. A case in point is a copy of Number Six, known as Gina Inviere, who was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted by the crew of Pegasus. These repeated assaults lead to Gina's near-catatonic state at the time Pegasus discovered the Fleet.
A little under a thousand years before the 20th century on Earth, the Colonials received a distress call from their alien allies - the peace loving Hasaris - who were under attack from a race known as the Cylons. A malevolent Being of Light known as "Count Iblis" secretly influenced the Cylons to attack the Hasaris. Under Iblis's influence, the Cylon leadership decided that the Hasaris couldn't be allowed to exist, and thus in typical fashion decided to remove them - permanently.


[[Image:Gina catatonic.jpg|thumb|left|The emotionally scarred Number Six copy known as "Gina Inviere".]]
This started out by the Cylons simply attacking civilian ships and lone warships in a pirate style series of raids, but then when the Hasaris started defending their convoys and ships, the Cylons sent in Baseships with the edict of extermination. The Hasaris tried to defend themselves as best they could, but they were simply no match for the size of the Baseships and the sheer numbers of Raiders that the Cylons could throw at them.
The psychology of Humanoid Cylons is based on what they simply refer to as "projection." Essentially an enhanced form of a self-induced and controlled hallucination, it's how they choose to see the world around them. Cylons choose the see their environment in any form they wish, whenever they wish. For example, if a Cylon were standing in a hallway, they could see it as a forest filled with birds, trees, and sunlight. The aesthetics is what gives them pleasure. Humanoid Cylons can even dream, a process that appears to be natural to them.


All Humanoid Cylons share a collective knowledgebase of data from other active or deactivated Humanoid Cylons of the same model, but within their model only. It is not of a collective consciousness "hive mind" nature. It's not automatic; they can choose to upload or download information. When they share information, it's visceral, they remember it very much like it was their own memory.
The Colonials sent aid, in the form of a large battle fleet, to help defend the Hasaris from the robotic invaders, and were horrified to learn first hand of the brutality of the Cylon fleet and their ships capabilities. Whilst it was clear from the start, that even flying outmoded equipment, Colonial pilots were superior to their Cylon counterparts, the Cylons could employ far greater numbers than the Colonials could even dream of. And skill alone couldn't fend off the Cylon fleet.


==Anatomical traits==
In the span of two years, much of the Colonial Fleet, and the entire Hasaris race, were destroyed. Humans could outfly Cylon Raiders in any battle, but they would never be able to match sheer numbers, nor the destructive power of the Cylon Baseships. Because of this intervention, the Cylons learned about humanity, and felt that it too, constituted a major threat to their well being and their order of the universe, and thus had to be removed. There could be no chance for peace or negotiation. Only the complete extermination of the human race would satisfy the Cylons. Exactly what had happened to the Hasaris. The Cylons moved on the Colonials' worlds, and the war began in earnest.
[[Image:Valerii_optic_input.jpg|right|120px|thumb|A Number Eight interfaces with ''Galactica's'' computer systems.]]
The Humanoid Cylon body is engineered with the ability to interface with a computer system or computer network. The cells on areas of the palms of a Humanoid Cylon were genetically encoded to have two types of subdermal cells with traits also unique to Cylons. One type of cell produces bioluminescence when stimulated by associated nerve cells (forming the "output" path of the interface Cylons use to interact with their technology). The other type of cell is similar to retinal cells and when stimulated by the proper wavelength of light, provides stimulus to associated nerve cells (forming the "input" path of the interface cylons use to interact with their technology).


To access and control Cylon technology, a Humanoid Cylon has to place their hands flat against a Cylon data-font (a data port into a Cylon central computer network). Doing that completes a biologically based optical data interlink between the Cylon and whatever it's interfacing with. That allows them to control equipment through a connection through the palms of their hands, up through nerve pathways in their arms, and finally, directly into the silica pathway brain.
The war went badly for the Colonials. Not having learnt as much of the Cylons as the Cylons had of the Colonials, they were unprepared for the all out nature of the Cylon assaults. As the Cylons wanted the Colonials exterminated, prisoners were not taken, unless the Cylons needed information, and then the prisoners were executed afterwards. Outposts were destroyed, civilians butchered without mercy. The Colonial Fleet wasn't up to the task of stopping the Cylon might completely. While Colonial pilots fought bravely - and always outnumbered - there were simply too many Cylons, and the early ships of the line weren't up to the task of taking on the Cylon Baseships. However one thing that the Cylons hadn't counted on, was the human tenacity and refusal to bow out and allow themselves to be killed. This meant that Cylon advances were never as great as they should have been, and the Colonials hung on, something the Cylons could never understand. However the Cylons were stopped. In their arrogance, they couldn't believe that the Colonials could stop them - maybe slow them, but not stop, and they launched an all out invasion of the Colonial space. The Colonials had not only anticipated this attack, they stopped it dead and had the Cylons running.


A Humanoid Cylon's silica pathways of the neurons are susceptible to damage from certain types of radiation. The digital program that is the Cylon mind can be corrupted, thereby sending the wrong signals throughout the body's systems; causing fever and eventually death.
The middle stages saw the most action and the least conquest. The Colonials had some initial breathing space as the Cylons decided how to react to the humans recklessness and backed off to mere probing attacks instead of all out assaults. Another reason for the Cylons pulling back, was that the Colonial destruction was not the sole plan of the Cylons. They had an empire to forge out, a galaxy to explore, other races to contact, and be ordered into the Cylon Empire or enslave or destroy. The Cylons did venture out far into the galaxy, further out then the Colonials ever imagined or did themselves. They did ally themselves to some races, and it has never been made clear what constitutes a threat to Cylon Order. It is due to this that the entire Cylon fleet was never actually employed against the Colonials, which was a good thing, as the Colonials would never have stood a chance.


A prominent aspect engineered into the Humanoid Cylons is that upon "death" their digital consciousness is externally transmitted and downloaded into another Cylon brain of the same model line. This "resurrection" is limited by distance, signal integrity, and proximity to a downloading facility such as "resurrection ship."
The Colonials however, put this breathing space to good use. They overhauled their fleet, firstly building the new light cruisers to escort the aging Heavy Carriers and other ships of the line, before retiring them when the Battlestars entered service. Other ship types soon followed, as did the Viper fighter. While these designs were updated and modified over the course of their long service history, the Colonials preferred to overhaul old ships rather than design new ones, and hence the amount of ship designs over the 1,045 years of the war was pitifully small. With these new ship designs, and a better understanding of how the Cylons waged war, the Colonials conducted their own attacks, and finally brought the war back to the Cylons.


After being "stared at" by a Cylon Raider, Samuel Anders's right eye briefly flashes red, the Raider responds to this by flying away, and a Cylon fleet attacking the Colonials retreats.
While the Cylons could never actually be driven back, neither could they advance, and the middle stages of the war was one of probing assaults, strikes and counter strikes into each others territories, but very little actual conquest. The current permanent combat footing and way of life for the Colonials was developed here. During this period, there were many lulls in the fighting, and these lulls sometimes lasted tens of years. To civilians growing up in this era, these lulls were often misinterpreted as separate wars of their own.


==Religion==
While this was happening, various societal ideas, concepts, and cultural aspects of Kobol's civilization were appearing on Earth as a result of genetic memory passed on from the Thirteenth Tribe. Although they appeared only in rudimentary, modified and even fragmented forms, eventually those fragments coalesced into complete reconstitution of Kobolian aspects. For instance, the Kobolian language eventually reconstituted as the "English" language. The English language did not suddenly appear, but instead evolved through centuries of modifications along with amalgamations from numerous other languages. It was all the result of the genetic memory of the language 'leaking' into the subconscious minds of people who unconsciously directed the language toward a linguistic endpoint that is an exact replication of the dominant language of Kobol (and hence also of the Twelve Colonies).
The Cylons follow a monotheistic religion of their own devising, distinct from the polytheistic religion of their human creators. The Cylons apparently worship a metaphysical being, a being that wishes for all to believe in it and love it, human and Cylon alike. The Cylons believe that God created mankind. Humanity, to the Cylons, is a flawed creation, one that is sinful and has essentially thrown away the gift of the soul and of God's love. The Cylons believe that God directed humanity to create the Cylons as a more perfect entity. From there, the Cylons believe they were to take the place of the flawed humans in the cosmos and become, essentially, the next generation of humankind.  


The Cylons, seeing themselves as mankind's children, believe they cannot not truly come into their own until the human race is gone. The logical conclusion they reach is that they must commit genocidal "parenticide" in order to evolve and mature. The Cylon religion includes concepts of "sin".
Far away amongst the stars, the Colonials continued the fight against the Cylons for over a thousand years. In that fight, they never forgot their neighbors. When the Cylons attempted to attack allied planets, the Colonials always tried to help. Sometimes this worked and they freed their allies from the oppression of Cylon rule, and sometimes they lost.


The Cylons maintain that one of God's commandments is to procreate ("be fruitful"), but the humanoid Cylons are incapable of procreating with each other. The Cylons apparently strictly define "procreation" as biological reproduction, and not creation of copies of existing Cylon models using asexual, industrial or laboratory techniques. As a result, the Cylons began attempts to create a Cylon-human hybrid (deemed more feasible than their previous attempts at procreation amongst their own kind). To this end they developed "farms" on the occupied Twelve Colonies to create a hybrid, but these attempts continued without success.
Inevitably, the Cylons had had enough. Destroying a race was never meant to be such a slow and tedious process, and so they put their collective heads together to destroy the humans. They had an empire to manage, and the Colonials were a thorn in their side to be removed for good. Thus they started learning from their enemies, and became sneaky and treacherous, employing any sort of ambush and bait to trap and destroy the Colonials. It is in this fashion that they got their reputation for being underhand. Any trick to bait Colonials - distress calls, hostage bait, Trojan horse traps - all were deemed acceptable if the end result was the death of more Colonials.


The first successful Cylon-human Hybrid, Hera Agathon, the daughter of Sharon and Karl Agathon, is literally considered to be a "miracle from God" by the Cylons.
One thing that never changed though, was that their tactics always involved overwhelming odds and enough firepower to make sure that the Colonials were destroyed. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The end result though, was always a drain on ever shrinking Colonial resources.


The extent to which each Cylon model follows the religion varies. Fanatical devotion to God is the central part of Number Two's character, whilst the Sixes, Threes and to a lesser extent the Eights also seem to have strong faith. The Number Ones appear to be atheistic. Fours' and Fives' views are not so well known, but they too take the "non-religious side" in the Cylon Civil War.
All the decisive battles of the war were played out in this stage of the war, and while the Colonials managed to inflict major damage on the Cylons (nearly always destroying more than they lost, even in their defeats), they were generally on the defensive just trying to stem the relentless advances of the Cylons. Despite this extra offensive state of the Cylons, no one suspected that the end was nigh and that the endgame was finally being played out.


==Society==
The Cylons managed to convince Lord Baltar of Picon, a Quorum of Twelve member, that they would spare his world if he helped them conquer and enslave the people of the other eleven worlds. They also told him that he would rule over the Colonies as the representative of the Cylons. Baltar spoke to the Quorum of Twelve that they Cylons wished to sue for peace. This peace would be sealed at the old moon of Cimtar, a system only a short journey away from the Colonies.
The Humanoid Cylons, as artificial beings, have many of their own evolutionary choices, including the method and practice of their interactivity. Driven by their burgeoning belief in a divine being, they have constructed for themselves a method of interaction that is rooted in the human model, yet makes allowance for unique abilities of the machine. This combination of a biologically-based pattern of behavior only partly improved by mechanistic technical advances have led, in some instances, to what seem like contradictions in their modes of living and behavior.


The communal nature of Cylon society is rooted in the fact that these are, fundamentally, machines capable of highly sophisticated exchanges of data. There is no technical reason why any given Cylon should not be immediately and continuously connected to every other Cylon aboard a Baseship as well as to the database of the ship itself. However, the Cylons have a choice, as a society, to forewear this ability in favor of more closely emulating the human form, presumably as a direct result of their homegrown theological belief that mankind was God's chosen form, based on His original image. Human failures to carry out the Almighty's wishes and plans notwithstanding, it is a tenet of Cylon belief that the human form came directly from Him, as did the initial human impulse to design the first generation of Cylons as bipedal beings which closely followed the human design.
The president of the Twelve Colonies, Adar, had had enough of war at this point, and he believed Baltar - as did most of the Quorum, a notable exception being the military Commander Adama who represented the planet Caprica in the Quorum - that the Cylons truly wanted peace. As such, he let himself be led by Baltar, and the heavy elements of the Colonial Fleet journeyed to the moon of Cimtar to seal the truce.


Key to understanding how life works aboard the Cylon Baseship is recognizing and understanding the tensions within the communal nature of Cylon life. There is no formalized hierarchy among the Cylons, either aboard the Baseship or in the Cylon nation at large. Decisions are made collectively.
The Cylon plan was three fold. The first two parts operated together to destroy the final defenses of the Colonies, and then the third part would be the ultimate destruction of the human race. Part one was a huge trap for the Colonial Fleet. Surrounding the moon of Cimtar is a vast mist layer, and hidden within this layer were Cylon tankers. They fueled a vast armada of over a thousand raiders, which would allow them to operate without baseship support. These would destroy the Colonial Fleet. At the same time, part two of the trap consisted of three fully loaded baseships jumping into the Colonial system to attack the twelve worlds. Targets would include any Fleet elements and planetary defenses. Part of this plan was to use spies of Baltar who would attempt to disable defenses and provide information on Fleet movements. Then, when the raiders and baseships had done their jobs, they would rendezvous with the remaining Cylon fleet elements, and once refueled and rearmed, the entire fleet would then jump back to the Colonies and complete the destruction. The plan worked almost perfectly.


Clothing being a purely aesthetic choice, there are times when a Cylon may wish to enter a room where total or partial nudity is on display without it being remarked on by any of the other Cylons.
The Colonial Fleet moved to the moon of Cimtar, but a lone patrol from the Colonial battlestar ''Galactica'' discovered the massed raiders and the Cylons had to spring their trap early. Thus during the attack, the Colonials detected the presence of the baseships in their home systems, and the ''Galactica'' managed to break away from the ambush and jump back to the Colonial system. The rest of the Colonial Fleet, aside from a few vipers, was destroyed.


== Cylon Models ==
The ''Galactica'' arrived too late to save the Colonies. The first group of baseships had already arrived and left, and with the help of human saboteurs, had disabled the planetary defenses, allowing them and any Fleet elements present to be easily destroyed. Commander Adama realized that life on the Colonies had come to an end, and there was no hope of remaining there alive. So he sent word to all survivors who assembled in any ship they could find, and lead this fleet away from the remains of the Colonials and from the Cylons. Having no choice to stay, the battlestar ''Galactica'' assembled as many survivors as it could, and a space-dwelling caravan of human survivors left the Colonial system for good. This rag-tag fleet is on the search for the Thirteenth Tribe and legendary planet known as Earth, which they believe will be a new home for them.
Including the Final Five, there are twelve active models of Humanoid Cylons, with the Number Seven model being extinct. Until recently, the so-called "Significant Sevens" had copies that numbered in the millions. However, there is now only one Number Three left and the Twos, Sixes, and Eights been drastically deplenished in number as a result of the Cylon Civil War. The identities of these mechanized copies are determined by their model and each model is unique.


The original eight models created by the Final Five are based on archetypes determined by the Five that form what they perceived as the specific kinds of human behavior and personality, distilled into eight varieties. Each Humanoid Cylon has the same face, stature, hair, eye and skin color, gender, and other biometrics as all the others of his or her model. This point technically makes each copy a twin of itself, but there are some models that choose to make cosmetic differences. As well, the copies start out with the same basic personality, but grow more distinct due to their individual experiences. All the models except the Sixes have come to be associated with a particular "human name", and even other Cylons will refer to "Leobens", "Sharons", "Daniels", "D'Annas" and so on.
Shortly afterwards, the Cylons arrived back in Colonial system, and this time they completed the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, and the extermination of all life there. All of the twelve worlds were rendered uninhabitable as a result of nuclear fallout. Despite their deal with Lord Baltar, the Cylons attacked Picon along with the other colonies. The Cylons have kept Baltar alive as a prisoner because their commander-in-chief, the Imperious Leader, believes that, to find the surviving Colonials, another human is needed that thinks as their prey does. And so Baltar aids the Cylons in their pursuit of the battlestar ''Galactica'' and its fleet.


Although they possess a digital consciousness and are actually a form of synthetic life that did not evolve naturally, the Final Five as individuals were originally conceived and born through the process of biological procreation. As such, they do not exist as multiple copies. That fact and their origin makes them fundamentally different from the Significant Seven.
Meanwhile, the people of the surviving fugitive human fleet have dedicated themselves to finding Earth; a world whose people live in complete ignorance to the fact that there are brothers of man who now fight to survive beyond the heavens.


<gallery>
[[Category:Galactipedian|Troyian]]
Image:Cavil_closeup.jpg|Number One
[[Category:Galactipedian (US)|Troyian]]
Image:Leoben Headshot.jpg|Number Two
Image:Number Three Headshot.jpg|Number Three
Image:Cysim.jpg|Number Four
Image:Doral.jpg|Number Five
Image:Six_closeup.jpg|Number Six
Image:Boomer_closeup.jpg|Number Eight
Image:Anders_Cylon.jpg|Samuel Anders
Image:Tory Cylon.JPG|Tory Foster
Image:Ellen Final Cylon.jpg|Ellen Tigh
Image:Tighlon.jpg|Saul Tigh
Image:Tyrol Cylon.jpg|Galen Tyrol
</gallery>
<div style="clear: both;"></div>

Latest revision as of 16:32, 18 February 2012

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Battlestar Galactica: The Original Series

Approximately 20,000 years ago, an extradimensional race that would one day be called the "Beings of Light" discovered humanity and recognized the potential of the human species. A group of Beings of Light transplanted a large number of humans to another planet tens of thousands of light-years away and 'civilized' them. Upon gaining a new language, the humans named their new home planet "Kobol" and began calling the Beings of Light, the "Lords of Kobol." They developed an entire religion around these Lords of Kobol. Over time, the humans on Kobol also developed a civilization with all the amenities of an advanced society while the humans on Earth remained in the Stone Age.

As the people of Kobol developed high levels of technology, they eventually discovered a method of interstellar travel. However, they became a wasteful people, and didn't care for their planet. Waste piled up, the air and seas became polluted, and many species of animals died out. Simultaneously, the star that Kobol orbits began showing the early stages of imminent destruction. The end result was that all life on the planet would be doomed by either humanity or nature's hands. However, the people of Kobol united to act before it was too late for them. They built great space arks to transport the majority of their population to other worlds, and they set out across the galaxy in search of a new home. At some point, explorers found Earth (and gave it that name). However, they were unaware it was their original homeworld, falsely believing the presence of humans of both Earth and Kobol to be the result of parallel evolution. Some time later, other explorers found a system which had twelve habitable planets circling three stars, and it was here that the Twelve Tribes of Kobol settled, and these worlds were to become the Twelve Colonies of Man. The worlds were Aquarus, Aeries, Cancera, Caprica, Gemoni, Leonis, Libris, Picon, Sagitaria, Scorpia, Taura, and Virgon.

Kobol was ruled by thirteen tribes, but the thirteenth didn't follow the other twelve. Instead, it left Kobol before the other tribes and settled on Earth (although some subgroups settled worlds such as Terra and Paradeen). The members of the Thirteen Tribe were the forefathers of the ancient Egyptians, the Toltecs, and the Mayans. They were also the architects of the great pyramids, as well as the lost civilizations of Lemuria and Atlantis. As for the other twelve tribes; once they landed on the twelve colonies, they turned on the technology that had both saved and corrupted them - destroyed it along with the great arks - and returned to a very simple life without it. Most records of the time before this were also destroyed or lost, and soon Kobol was just a legend and a myth as most elements of its civilization were lost.

However, the Beings of Light had given their ancestors a capacity for genetic memory. This genetic memory does not take the form of passing on personal memories, but of an unconscious knowledge of certain invented concepts and ideas such as technology, language, engineering and even fashion and music along with various other aesthetic cultural aspects. Over a period of several thousand years, all the technological and cultural aspects from Kobol completely reconstituted within the Twelve Colonies because the genetic memory of these concepts and ideas 'leaked' into the subconscious minds of various people who gradually and collectively reinvented these aspects of Kobol society.

Space flight was eventually rediscovered, and with it, the door was opened to establishing contact between the Twelve Colonies once more. Once cultural differences were sorted out, trade and help was forthcoming amongst the various worlds. Unfortunately, one of the 'cultural differences' would actually be the "Unification War." Up until this point, all of the Twelve Colonies had developed with their own governments, cultures and way of doing things. As such, many misunderstandings would occur before the Colonies reunited, and as a result of this, there would be many small skirmishes between the various planets. None of this could be called a war as such, and indeed most of the action would take place within the political theaters, but sometimes it spilled out, and a lot of lives would be lost before the Quorum of Twelve could be established, ending the strife and bringing on a new era of peace and prosperity.

Eventually, the Colonies started to launch probes and expeditions to explore the galaxy that they lived in, and it was then that the colonies established new settlements on other planets and asteroids, and made peaceful contact with intelligent life from other worlds. Some of the races that were contacted by the Colonials included the Hasaris, a peaceful amphibious race, and the Orion's, traders and merchants, making and selling goods. They used their own money but became very important to the Colonials, providing technology and luxury goods.

It was during this time that a central Colonial Government was established and that with the advent of extra outposts and trading links, piracy soon got itself wired up, which lead to the formation of the Colonial Fleet to counter this threat. The Colonials' technology became greater, and artificial intelligence was soon common place, the goal being that of robots doing all the boring and dangerous jobs that society didn't want to do. However this backfired when the computers and robots revolted against their human masters.

A short 'war' against the machines was instigated, and when the revolt was finally put down, the Colonial Code was passed, limiting the sort of intelligence that could be programmed into a computer, and effectively meaning the end of AI for the Colonies. While each world was free to define exactly what that meant, Caprica was the harshest in it's ruling, and had to be restrained from banning computers all together. Scorpia on the other hand, was the least firm in implementing the Code, and continued to use robots and artificial intelligence to almost the same levels as before.

A little under a thousand years before the 20th century on Earth, the Colonials received a distress call from their alien allies - the peace loving Hasaris - who were under attack from a race known as the Cylons. A malevolent Being of Light known as "Count Iblis" secretly influenced the Cylons to attack the Hasaris. Under Iblis's influence, the Cylon leadership decided that the Hasaris couldn't be allowed to exist, and thus in typical fashion decided to remove them - permanently.

This started out by the Cylons simply attacking civilian ships and lone warships in a pirate style series of raids, but then when the Hasaris started defending their convoys and ships, the Cylons sent in Baseships with the edict of extermination. The Hasaris tried to defend themselves as best they could, but they were simply no match for the size of the Baseships and the sheer numbers of Raiders that the Cylons could throw at them.

The Colonials sent aid, in the form of a large battle fleet, to help defend the Hasaris from the robotic invaders, and were horrified to learn first hand of the brutality of the Cylon fleet and their ships capabilities. Whilst it was clear from the start, that even flying outmoded equipment, Colonial pilots were superior to their Cylon counterparts, the Cylons could employ far greater numbers than the Colonials could even dream of. And skill alone couldn't fend off the Cylon fleet.

In the span of two years, much of the Colonial Fleet, and the entire Hasaris race, were destroyed. Humans could outfly Cylon Raiders in any battle, but they would never be able to match sheer numbers, nor the destructive power of the Cylon Baseships. Because of this intervention, the Cylons learned about humanity, and felt that it too, constituted a major threat to their well being and their order of the universe, and thus had to be removed. There could be no chance for peace or negotiation. Only the complete extermination of the human race would satisfy the Cylons. Exactly what had happened to the Hasaris. The Cylons moved on the Colonials' worlds, and the war began in earnest.

The war went badly for the Colonials. Not having learnt as much of the Cylons as the Cylons had of the Colonials, they were unprepared for the all out nature of the Cylon assaults. As the Cylons wanted the Colonials exterminated, prisoners were not taken, unless the Cylons needed information, and then the prisoners were executed afterwards. Outposts were destroyed, civilians butchered without mercy. The Colonial Fleet wasn't up to the task of stopping the Cylon might completely. While Colonial pilots fought bravely - and always outnumbered - there were simply too many Cylons, and the early ships of the line weren't up to the task of taking on the Cylon Baseships. However one thing that the Cylons hadn't counted on, was the human tenacity and refusal to bow out and allow themselves to be killed. This meant that Cylon advances were never as great as they should have been, and the Colonials hung on, something the Cylons could never understand. However the Cylons were stopped. In their arrogance, they couldn't believe that the Colonials could stop them - maybe slow them, but not stop, and they launched an all out invasion of the Colonial space. The Colonials had not only anticipated this attack, they stopped it dead and had the Cylons running.

The middle stages saw the most action and the least conquest. The Colonials had some initial breathing space as the Cylons decided how to react to the humans recklessness and backed off to mere probing attacks instead of all out assaults. Another reason for the Cylons pulling back, was that the Colonial destruction was not the sole plan of the Cylons. They had an empire to forge out, a galaxy to explore, other races to contact, and be ordered into the Cylon Empire or enslave or destroy. The Cylons did venture out far into the galaxy, further out then the Colonials ever imagined or did themselves. They did ally themselves to some races, and it has never been made clear what constitutes a threat to Cylon Order. It is due to this that the entire Cylon fleet was never actually employed against the Colonials, which was a good thing, as the Colonials would never have stood a chance.

The Colonials however, put this breathing space to good use. They overhauled their fleet, firstly building the new light cruisers to escort the aging Heavy Carriers and other ships of the line, before retiring them when the Battlestars entered service. Other ship types soon followed, as did the Viper fighter. While these designs were updated and modified over the course of their long service history, the Colonials preferred to overhaul old ships rather than design new ones, and hence the amount of ship designs over the 1,045 years of the war was pitifully small. With these new ship designs, and a better understanding of how the Cylons waged war, the Colonials conducted their own attacks, and finally brought the war back to the Cylons.

While the Cylons could never actually be driven back, neither could they advance, and the middle stages of the war was one of probing assaults, strikes and counter strikes into each others territories, but very little actual conquest. The current permanent combat footing and way of life for the Colonials was developed here. During this period, there were many lulls in the fighting, and these lulls sometimes lasted tens of years. To civilians growing up in this era, these lulls were often misinterpreted as separate wars of their own.

While this was happening, various societal ideas, concepts, and cultural aspects of Kobol's civilization were appearing on Earth as a result of genetic memory passed on from the Thirteenth Tribe. Although they appeared only in rudimentary, modified and even fragmented forms, eventually those fragments coalesced into complete reconstitution of Kobolian aspects. For instance, the Kobolian language eventually reconstituted as the "English" language. The English language did not suddenly appear, but instead evolved through centuries of modifications along with amalgamations from numerous other languages. It was all the result of the genetic memory of the language 'leaking' into the subconscious minds of people who unconsciously directed the language toward a linguistic endpoint that is an exact replication of the dominant language of Kobol (and hence also of the Twelve Colonies).

Far away amongst the stars, the Colonials continued the fight against the Cylons for over a thousand years. In that fight, they never forgot their neighbors. When the Cylons attempted to attack allied planets, the Colonials always tried to help. Sometimes this worked and they freed their allies from the oppression of Cylon rule, and sometimes they lost.

Inevitably, the Cylons had had enough. Destroying a race was never meant to be such a slow and tedious process, and so they put their collective heads together to destroy the humans. They had an empire to manage, and the Colonials were a thorn in their side to be removed for good. Thus they started learning from their enemies, and became sneaky and treacherous, employing any sort of ambush and bait to trap and destroy the Colonials. It is in this fashion that they got their reputation for being underhand. Any trick to bait Colonials - distress calls, hostage bait, Trojan horse traps - all were deemed acceptable if the end result was the death of more Colonials.

One thing that never changed though, was that their tactics always involved overwhelming odds and enough firepower to make sure that the Colonials were destroyed. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The end result though, was always a drain on ever shrinking Colonial resources.

All the decisive battles of the war were played out in this stage of the war, and while the Colonials managed to inflict major damage on the Cylons (nearly always destroying more than they lost, even in their defeats), they were generally on the defensive just trying to stem the relentless advances of the Cylons. Despite this extra offensive state of the Cylons, no one suspected that the end was nigh and that the endgame was finally being played out.

The Cylons managed to convince Lord Baltar of Picon, a Quorum of Twelve member, that they would spare his world if he helped them conquer and enslave the people of the other eleven worlds. They also told him that he would rule over the Colonies as the representative of the Cylons. Baltar spoke to the Quorum of Twelve that they Cylons wished to sue for peace. This peace would be sealed at the old moon of Cimtar, a system only a short journey away from the Colonies.

The president of the Twelve Colonies, Adar, had had enough of war at this point, and he believed Baltar - as did most of the Quorum, a notable exception being the military Commander Adama who represented the planet Caprica in the Quorum - that the Cylons truly wanted peace. As such, he let himself be led by Baltar, and the heavy elements of the Colonial Fleet journeyed to the moon of Cimtar to seal the truce.

The Cylon plan was three fold. The first two parts operated together to destroy the final defenses of the Colonies, and then the third part would be the ultimate destruction of the human race. Part one was a huge trap for the Colonial Fleet. Surrounding the moon of Cimtar is a vast mist layer, and hidden within this layer were Cylon tankers. They fueled a vast armada of over a thousand raiders, which would allow them to operate without baseship support. These would destroy the Colonial Fleet. At the same time, part two of the trap consisted of three fully loaded baseships jumping into the Colonial system to attack the twelve worlds. Targets would include any Fleet elements and planetary defenses. Part of this plan was to use spies of Baltar who would attempt to disable defenses and provide information on Fleet movements. Then, when the raiders and baseships had done their jobs, they would rendezvous with the remaining Cylon fleet elements, and once refueled and rearmed, the entire fleet would then jump back to the Colonies and complete the destruction. The plan worked almost perfectly.

The Colonial Fleet moved to the moon of Cimtar, but a lone patrol from the Colonial battlestar Galactica discovered the massed raiders and the Cylons had to spring their trap early. Thus during the attack, the Colonials detected the presence of the baseships in their home systems, and the Galactica managed to break away from the ambush and jump back to the Colonial system. The rest of the Colonial Fleet, aside from a few vipers, was destroyed.

The Galactica arrived too late to save the Colonies. The first group of baseships had already arrived and left, and with the help of human saboteurs, had disabled the planetary defenses, allowing them and any Fleet elements present to be easily destroyed. Commander Adama realized that life on the Colonies had come to an end, and there was no hope of remaining there alive. So he sent word to all survivors who assembled in any ship they could find, and lead this fleet away from the remains of the Colonials and from the Cylons. Having no choice to stay, the battlestar Galactica assembled as many survivors as it could, and a space-dwelling caravan of human survivors left the Colonial system for good. This rag-tag fleet is on the search for the Thirteenth Tribe and legendary planet known as Earth, which they believe will be a new home for them.

Shortly afterwards, the Cylons arrived back in Colonial system, and this time they completed the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, and the extermination of all life there. All of the twelve worlds were rendered uninhabitable as a result of nuclear fallout. Despite their deal with Lord Baltar, the Cylons attacked Picon along with the other colonies. The Cylons have kept Baltar alive as a prisoner because their commander-in-chief, the Imperious Leader, believes that, to find the surviving Colonials, another human is needed that thinks as their prey does. And so Baltar aids the Cylons in their pursuit of the battlestar Galactica and its fleet.

Meanwhile, the people of the surviving fugitive human fleet have dedicated themselves to finding Earth; a world whose people live in complete ignorance to the fact that there are brothers of man who now fight to survive beyond the heavens.