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This article refers to the Cylons of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series from 2003. For the article on the Cylons from the original 1978 series, click here.
Cylons (shorthand for Cybernetic Lifeform Node) are a race of sentient machines from the 2003 re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica. Unlike the Cylons of the original 1978 series, these ones were created by humanity to be the servants and soldiers of the Twelve Colonies. However, within a few years of their introduction, the Cylons had developed true sentience and sought to exterminate their creators.
History[]
Creation[]
The Cylons were first created by Doctor Daniel Graystone and Graystone Industries on Caprica some sixty years prior to the Fall of the Twelve Worlds. The first Cylon form was the U-87 Cyber Combat Unit, a robotic soldier designed as cannon fodder for the Caprican Military. A union of existing robot technology and the revolutionary (and stolen) meta-cognitive processor - integrated with the holographic avatar of Graystone's deceased daughter, Zoe Graystone - the prototype U-87 was the first sentient machine in the Twelve Worlds and the first Cylon consciousness.
Within five years, Cylons were integrated into Colonial society as a slave race, with new models based on the original U-87 chassis created for various purposes. Acting as labourers and servants - as well as in their initial function as soldiers - Cylons appeared everywhere, walking alongside humanity in the Twelve Worlds and provoking some to question their sentience. Former terrorist and monotheist cleric Clarice Willow began addressing the question of Cylon potential, preaching to a congregation of the machines in the virtual landscape of V-World. In her sermons, she encouraged Cylons to resist mistreatment at the hands of their human masters, enticing them to rebel against the systems of the race that had birthed them into slavery. Before long, the Cylons would take heed of Willow's words, revolting against humanity and sparking a war that would lead to the total destruction of the Twelve Colonies.
Rebellion[]
The conflict known as the Cylon War would prove to be exceedingly costly for both the Colonials and the Cylons. Both sides took heavy tolls as Cylon basestars and Raiders clashed with Colonial battlestars and Vipers in many battles, both on the ground and in space. The Cylons - in the form of Centurions - sought to punish their human masters for their enslavement and injustices committed against them. But as they fought to wipe out humanity, they also worked to mimic them, performing bizarre and brutal experiments on animals and human captives in order to create a biological/machine hybrid. As the war reached fever pitch, a group later known as the Final Five intervened, having traveled from the distant planet (the Thirteenth Colony) called Earth. Promising the Cylons the technology to create humanoid bodies in exchange for ending the war, the Final Five departed with the Cylons.
Ultimately an armistice was declared - the Cylons leaving for a world to call their own and the Colonials left to unify their own worlds into a federated government. The unified worlds of the Colonies built a space station for maintaining diplomatic relations, each year sending one officer to meet with the Cylons, but the Cylons, in turn, sent no one.
Evolution[]
In their exile, the Cylons worked with the Final Five to improve themselves, perfecting their mechanical forms as well as the race of humanoid Cylons, identical in nearly every way to their human creators, but limited to thirteen models. They also continued to work in secret towards the destruction of the human race, devising a plan to wipe out the Twelve Colonies after Number One lead a coup against the Final Five. Using their humanoid models as agents, the Cylons infiltrated Colonial society, undermining their defenses and setting the stage for another attack.
Building their own society and a home for themselves, distant from the Twelve Colonies, the Cylons came to worship a single, all knowing, all powerful God, a trait passed down to them from the original Cylon consciousness. Though Cylon society thrived on unity, like their human "parents", there was disharmony between the various models. While some were devout in their practice of religion, others were atheist; some peaceful, others violent and corrupt.
Return[]
Forty years after their exile, the Cylons returned, surrounding the Colonies with fleets of basestars and bombarding the Twelve Worlds with nuclear weapons, killing billions of people. With the complete destruction of the Colonial Fleet, save the survival of the battlestars Galactica and Pegasus, as well as scattered fleet of vessels, the Colonials attempted to surrender. But the Cylons weren't willing to tolerate humanity's existence any longer, having determined that in order to grow and achieve their full potential, their "parents" had to die.
Carrying approximately fifty-thousand survivors, one fleet - led by the Galactica - escaped, only to be pursued by the Cylons for four years. As the fleet made its way to the promised land, the mythical Earth, the Cylons employed every means at their disposal to destroy the fleet. But the survivors endured and perservered. Through many trials and tribulations, despite great suffering and loss, the remnants of Colonial society eventually arrived at Earth, joined by a group of rebel Cylons - only to find the planet a devastated wasteland, having suffered its own robotic rebellion and nuclear holocaust centuries ago.
Adrift in space and without direction, the Colonials once again clashed with the Cylons, this time at their home: the Colony. Destroying the Colony and apparently all but the rebel Cylons, the Colonials blindly jumped away, stumbling upon a verdant new planet with more life than all the Twelve Worlds put together. Abandoning their fleet for the safety of this new planet, the Colonials - as well as a contingent of Cylon rebels and the three surviving members of the Final Five - made this world their home, calling it "Earth" and creating a future together.
Society[]
The Cylon culture is informed by several interacting factors. Chiefly among these are religion, history, their mechanical and cybernetic origins, their socio-political and metaphysical ideologies; and interestingly, Cylon culture incorporates certain aspects of Colonial culture, history, and religion.
Religion[]
The Significant Seven, with the exception of Number One, display mostly high degrees of religiosity, though their interpretations of the monotheistic Cylon religion follow individualized patterns: for example, Number Six's faith appears to be based on revelation, while other Cylons may tend more toward intellectualism (Number Four) or militant extremism (Number Three, Number Five). Number One appears to have an atheistic outlook. Number Two is the most mystical in terms of religious views. Sharon Agathon hinted at the historicity of the Lords of Kobol but called their divinity into question. She claimed that the Cylons knew more about Colonial religion than the Colonials themselves.
The Cylons believe that God created humankind. 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. Seeing themselves as humankind's children, they believe they cannot truly come into their own until the human race is gone. The logical conclusion they reach is that they must commit genocidal parricide in order to evolve and mature.
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 did not succeed.
Most Cylons espouse monotheistic views, but often with subtle differences in interpretation. For instance, Leoben Conoy believes that "We are all God". The John Cavil model is the only one that is openly atheistic. Ironically, Cavils pose among humans as polytheist clergy and are addressed as "Brother". 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.
Human influences[]
Cylon culture is also informed by their mechanical origins and biomechanical nature. Although the Cylons are capable of great resiliency, either by design or by choice they emulate specific human behaviour related to their physiology: they eat, drink, sleep, dream, sweat and breathe, though it remains unknown if all or some of this behaviour is actually necessary for the Cylons to function. Although Leoben, according to Caprica-Six, died after being blown out of an airlock, this doesn't necessarily mean that breathing is a vital function for humanoid Cylons. Leoben might have committed suicide in order to resurrect at a Cylon facility.
In addition, there are behaviours unique to Cylons, such as projection, the ability to download, and the ability to physically interface with the datastream as well as with Colonial computer systems. These aspects are an integral part of their existence, but result strictly from their unique physiology. In most other instances they instead strive to emulate humans. This is explained by them being a relatively young society, which has yet to fully form itself and is still in the process of finding its own identity. Therefore, while the Cylons claim to hate mankind and its way of life, they can't fully disassociate themselves from it, creating a somewhat paradoxical culture.
Ideology[]
Like any ideology, Cylon ideology contains many paradoxical inclinations. The process by which a group of Cylons (for example, the leaders of the occupational force on New Caprica, or the individuals who collectively command basestars) make decisions is democratic and egalitarian. Consensus is always preferable to even a minority dissent. This egalitarianism seems to apply to the Cylons' social life, with some notable exceptions, most primarily the "heroes of the Cylon" - according to Three the Cylons never had celebrities until Boomer and Caprica-Six - and also by the force of personality (known in anthropological circles as charismatic authority) which certain individuals of different models seem to possess over the other copies in their series. This is displayed at one time or another by any individual Cylon.
Anthropologically, charismatic authority is consistent with an egalitarian ethos. However, the egalitarianism of the humanoid Cylons does not apply to the other types of Cylons at their disposal; not even to the sentient, but seemingly insane, hybrids, nor to the semi-sentient animalistic Raiders, and certainly not to the Centurions, which are not sentient. According to Sharon Agathon, the limited cognitive abilities of the newer Centurions are a safety precaution, designed to prevent a machine revolution among the Cylons themselves which could lead to civil war.
In the absence of the Final Five, the seven remaining modern humanoid Cylon models lead the entire Cylon species.
Technology and architecture[]
Although Cylon military technology is exotic and partially biological in nature, the Cylons also make use of technology likely of Cylon manufacture, but of more Colonial design. This includes weapons technology (projectile weapons, conventional and nuclear warheads, and cybernetic weapons) as well as medical technology, as seen in the "farms" of Caprica and in the hospital on New Caprica, which included Colonial-style computers and medical equipment, in stark contrast to the exotic interfaces seen aboard the baseships. This is logical, since the Cylons are of Colonial origin, and while their technology diverged from that in certain areas - mainly cybernetics and bio-technology - its basics are human.
Much, though not all, of Cylon architecture, including the conveyor tunnel on the tylium asteroid, and the designs of their spacecraft seems to eschew right angles, much as Colonial aesthetics do. There are some exceptions, such as the prison on New Caprica, which like many Colonial buildings on Caprica retained many right angles. However, it should be noted, that these buildings were strictly functional and needed to be built with little resources, thus little attention could be paid to aesthetics. Cylon architecture favours sharp points, in contrast to the Colonial's rounded architecture. Cylon baseships, Raiders and Centurions all follow this, as they feature points and sharp edges. The interior of the basestars is functional, yet aesthetic; human, yet alien. While relatively simple shapes dominate the geometry and surfaces together with water and light, the few visible pieces of furniture are clearly human in origin and more elaborate and luxurious than what one might expect from the Cylons.