Cylon (reimagining) - History

History

The origin of the original Cylons has not been revealed. It has been mentioned that resurrection/downloading technology has existed on-and-off since the time of Kobol but it has not been indicated if Cylons developed the technology on their own or if humans were involved. Humanoid Cylons have two origins; those who originated from Kobol, were identified as the Thirteenth Tribe, and settled on Earth, and those constructed with the knowledge of five surviving Kobolian Humanoid Cylons, identified as Colonial Humanoid Cylons, or the eight additional models. The underlying premise that humanity continues to repeat the events of creating mechanical life that in turn seeks to exterminate their creators is reflected in one of the show's sayings, "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."

The Thirteenth Tribe was a race identified as Cylon. Between 3,000 and 4,000 years prior to the events of the Miniseries, they left Kobol and settled on a planet they dubbed Earth. It is implied that the humans and Cylons of Kobol had a destructive war between them as would happen in the 12 Colonies but the nature of the possible conflict wasn't explored. Eventually, these Cylons developed the ability to sexually reproduce and resurrection technology fell into disuse and was lost. 2,000 years prior to the miniseries, the "Final Five" began work to redevelop resurrection, having been warned by mysterious "angels" that a disaster possibly similar to the one on Kobol was coming. When life on Earth was destroyed in a nuclear war between the thirteenth tribe of humanoid Cylons and their mechanical Cylon creations (caused by maltreatment of the mechanical Cylons at the hands of the humanoids), the Final Five managed to download into a vessel they had in orbit.

The Final Five wanted to warn the humans of the Twelve Colonies to treat their Cylon workers well in order to prevent another catastrophe. However, not having yet developed FTL travel, the Five necessarily travelled at sub-lightspeed taking approximately 2,000 years (relative to Earth and other planets outside of the ship while only a few years passed inside the ship due to Special Relativity). When they arrived, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, descendants of the original 12 tribes, had already created Cylon Centurions which had revolted from mistreatment and a war was raging as happened on Earth. The Colonies counter-attacked with military force and the first Cylon War commenced, lasting roughly twelve and a half years. The Final Five also learned that the Centurions were trying to develop organic bodies through experiments on humans, resulting in the first Hybrid. In order to end the war against the humans, the Final Five agreed to assist the Centurions producing model numbers One to Eight and resurrection technology. The war ended with an armistice and an attempt by the Colonies to establish diplomatic relations between the parties. The Cylons disappeared and were not seen by the Colonies for another forty years, despite the annual dispatching of a Colonial representative to a space station that had been built to serve as neutral territory for diplomatic meetings.

The first of the Colonial humanoid Cylons, John Cavil, refused to let their creators', the five Kobolian Humanoid Cylons, care for humanity blind them. He suffocated the Final Five and boxed their memories before they were resurrected. He then periodically sent them to the Colonies so that they would see how terrible humanity was.

Having not heard from the Cylons in forty years, the Colonial Admiralty became suspicious and sent the Battlestar Valkyrie on a covert mission close to the armistice line to gather intelligence on Cylon activity. A stealth ship from the Valkyrie crossed the armistice line and the pilot was captured by the Cylons. Three years later perhaps in retaliation, the Cylons initiated a nuclear surprise attack on the twelve colonial home worlds simultaneously. The attack was successful because a Cylon agent, later known as Caprica Six, infiltrated the colonial defense network on Caprica with the unknowing complicity of renowned Colonial scientist Gaius Baltar and created backdoor programs to shut the network and its defenses down. The attacks wiped out billions of humans, nearly the entire colonial population. Two Battlestars – the Galactica and Pegasus – managed to escape the massacre due to their systems either being non-networked or offline. The others were destroyed when their systems were disabled during the attacks. A fleet of civilian ships were also left scattered throughout the neighboring space. All told there were only a little over 50,000 humans left, stuck on ships that were left behind or trapped on the Cylon-occupied Colonial worlds.

Following their victory, the Cylons began pursuit of a fleet of civilian ships led by the Galactica as well as initiating the next phase of their evolution, procreation. Female human survivors on the planet Caprica and perhaps other Colonial worlds were detained and used in experiments to create Cylon-human hybrids. The experiments were unsuccessful and the Cylons believed that the missing component in their attempts at procreation was love. They tested this by using a Number Eight posing as Lt. Sharon “Boomer” Valerii from the battlestar Galactica to seduce a marooned Galactica officer, Lt. Karl “Helo” Agathon on Caprica. Helo fell in love with the copy. This copy of Number Eight also fell in love with Helo and turned her back on the Cylons, knowing that Helo would never agree to stay on Caprica. She defied orders to kill him if he didn't agree to stay, helping Helo to escape the planet. The couple produced the first viable human/Cylon pregnancy. This Eight would go to the fleet with Helo. After approximately a year's imprisonment on Galactica she would slowly gain the trust of Commander Adama and the other Galactica crew. She would later marry Helo, join the Colonial military and receive the call sign "Athena" from a mostly accepting crew.

Ten months after the initial attacks, the Number Eight from Galactica, Sharon Valerii who had the call sign of "Boomer", attempted to assassinate Commander Adama under the influence of internal programing unknown to her. She was a sleeper agent who was unaware of being a Cylon before the attack, though she had been uneasy even before then as a result of suffering from unexplained blackouts during various attempts to sabotage the Galactica. She was killed by a vengeful crew mate, Cally Henderson and downloaded into a new body. She settled on the now Cylon-occupied Caprica including in her former apartment, not being able to relinquish her human identity for some time. She with Caprica-Six, then began leading a Cylon campaign for better treatment of the humans. The word of these two Cylons, considered "war heroes" by the others, carried weight in the greater Cylon civilization. The newly educated Cylons determined their actions to be a mistake, going against God's will and ideals of love and compassion. They withdrew from the colonial home worlds and pursued a more benevolent treatment policy toward the humans and, as Sharon Valerii hoped, reconciliation.

During this time, the half-human half-Cylon hybrid, Hera Agathon was born on Galactica but, fearing the outcome of the Cylons capturing the child, President Laura Roslin faked Hera's death and secretly had her adopted by a human woman within the fleet. Shortly after, the humans found a nearly barren but habitable world hidden in a nebula. They settled on the planet they would dub New Caprica.

The human/Cylon separation lasted a year before the Cylons traced the radiation signature from a nuclear explosion indirectly and unintentionally caused by Gaius Baltar (who had given a nuclear device to Gina, a Number Six type Cylon) back to that planet. The Cylons decided to occupy the new human settlement under their benevolent control, at first peacefully as per their new policy but later forcefully and more viciously as the human Resistance increased. In the end they started to use punitive methods to keep the humans in line, including summary executions and infiltration of the Resistance by seemingly sympathetic Cylons. One such infiltrator was an Eight model who manipulated Felix Gaeta into giving her a list of people the Resistance desired to be set free from Cylon detention whom she then had executed.

Four months later the colonials were able to escape from the Cylons with the help of a resistance movement and the efforts of both the battlestars Galactica and Pegasus, though not without a very large loss of life. The escape could not have occurred without the help of Caprica Sharon, the same Eight model that earned the trust of Admiral Adama and was sworn into the Colonial Military. She was able to get in the Cylon facility and obtain the keys to the various Colonial spacecraft that were on the planet for the escape of the humans. Prior to this a Number Three found out from a human oracle that Hera was alive and somewhere on the planet. She managed to rescue Hera after her adoptive mother was killed during the escape. The Pegasus was destroyed during the escape, sacrificing itself to save the crippled Galactica, but the crew survived, abandoning ship after it took too much damage and joining the Galactica's crew.

Having failed at their occupation, the Cylons then adopted the colonials’ mission to find the home of the thirteenth tribe, a planet called Earth, with the intent of making it their new home. They resumed pursuit of the fleet but upon reaching the Lion's Head Nebula, dispatched a Basestar to investigate. The Basestar took on board a canister left by the thirteenth tribe. The canister was found to contain an airborne virus that proved highly contagious and deadly to the Cylons. The virus was also found to be capable of accompanying a Cylon during the download process so the Basestar that had been dispatched for the investigation was abandoned by the rest of the Cylon fleet for fear that any rescue would contaminate the fleet. The colonial fleet soon discovered the disabled Basestar and sent a team on a Raptor and captured a small number of ailing Cylons. The colonial fleet attempted to use the virus to wipe out the Cylons but the plan was defeated when Helo, repulsed by the potential genocide and the possibility of innocent Cylons like his wife who had no ill will against humans also being killed, had the captive Cylons killed before they were within range of a resurrection ship.

Meanwhile Sharon "Boomer" Valerii started to turn increasingly anti-human after the disappointment of the occupation of new Caprica. She was charged with the care of Athena's daughter Hera but Hera rejected her. During a truce negotiation with the Galactica, Boomer told Athena that her daughter was alive but sick on the Baseship. She also invited Athena to come to the Baseship and rejoin her people, for the occupation showed that humans and Cylons will never get along and that the Humans would never truly accept her despite her position. Later, desperate for her child, Athena convinced her husband Helo to shoot and kill her so she could resurrect on the Cylon Baseship. Once there, she retrieved Hera with the help of Caprica Six who killed a hate-filled Boomer to prevent her from killing the child. She had tried to prevent Athena from taking Hera back to the humans and declared that Cylons were never meant to have children (in reference to the Cylons' inability to reproduce naturally) and perhaps in pain over her knowledge that she would never have children like Athena, despite Boomer's projection of her imaginary daughter she desperately wanted. Caprica Six returned with Athena and was detained by Adama in Athena's old cell.

As the pursuit continued, internal relations between the Cylons began to break down. A Number Three violated her programming by actively seeking information about the Final Five models, including seeing a vision of them on the Algae Planet where the Colonials stopped to get food. From that she was able to identify them. This resulted in her and her entire line being "boxed", i.e. all copies pulled from active service and their consciousness stored. Within the fleet a musical activation signal was being received by the Final Five Cylons, bewildering and in some cases disorienting them. It soon became apparent to each of them that Saul Tigh, Samuel Anders, Galen Tyrol and Tory Foster were Cylons (four of the Final Five) when they simultaneously became aware of their origins after hearing the same music in their minds, drawing them to each other. They didn't tell anyone of their discovery. Saul Tigh pledged fierce loyalty to the humans. Anders also remained loyal to the humans, willing to fight and possibly die in battle for them. Tyrol and Foster were ambivalent, with Tyrol having pro-human leanings but wondering what it was like to be a Cylon and was more accepting of his nature. Foster became increasingly anti-human, murdering Cally Tyrol to protect her secret and showing no remorse. After their activation, the fleet came under attack but, during the battle, a Cylon Raider identified Anders and he and his fellow Raiders broke off the attack, refusing to fight.

This set off a debate in the Cylon government regarding the failure of the Raiders to fight. The Number Ones, Fours and Fives voted to "lobotomize" the Raiders to make them quiescent. The Twos, Sixes and Eights led principally by a Number Six named Natalie, convinced that the Raiders had sensed the presence of the Final Five, voted against this measure but lost their vote against having the Raiders reconfigured when the 3-3 tie was broken after a single Eight (Boomer) voted against her model, something which had never been done before. In frustration over the legal trick, Natalie retaliated by removing inhibitor circuitry from the Centurions, granting them free will and independent thought. The Centurions then sought retribution against the models who were “lobotomizing” the Raiders and killed them.

In response, Cavil lured Natalie and her forces into a trap outside of resurrection range and proceeded to slaughter them. Only Natalie's crippled Basestar survived. With all of her Raiders destroyed and only possessing some Heavy Raiders left as well as the surviving Twos, Sixes, and Eights (minus Boomer), Natalie allowed Leoben Conoy, a Two copy to locate Kara Thrace and form an alliance with the humans. The alliance was formed and a deal was struck between the two sides: the humans would help the rebels unbox the Threes and the rebels would lead the humans to the Resurrection Hub, the central Cylon resurrection facility and help them destroy it so Cavil would lose resurrection forever. The humans agreed to the deal and transferred half of their Vipers to the Rebel Basestar to act as the ship's fighter force. Athena, however, afraid that Natalie would take Hera away from her, killed Natalie in cold blood, causing the Hybrid to jump the Rebel Basestar, with President Laura Roslin on board, away before everyone was ready. The Hybrid took the Basestar to the Hub where the allies launched a daring plan where they had the human Vipers towed into battle by Cylon Heavy Raiders so they could catch the Cylons by surprise. The plan worked and the Hub's FTL drive was taken out, stranding it. While the Rebel Basestar engaged two other Basestars, Helo and an Eight boarded the Hub to unbox D'Anna and found her already unboxed by Cavil and Boomer. The three escaped and the Vipers nuked the Hub, destroying it and Cylon resurrection capability forever.

After a tense standoff, the identities of the four Cylons in the human fleet were revealed and together they found the devastated Earth, still a nuclear wasteland after 2000 years. There, Tigh, Anders, Foster and Tyrol got flashes of their life on Earth and Tigh learned the identity of the final Cylon: his dead wife Ellen. As Earth was uninhabitable, the humans and rebel Cylons (minus D'Anna), abandoned it in search of a new home together. The humans and Cylons ended up striking a deal: in return for joining the fleet as full members, with all the privileges that entailed, the rebels would upgrade the fleet's FTL drives with Cylon technology, increasing their jump distance by at least three times. This led to a political coup and mutiny which failed, but left Samuel Anders seriously injured but with his true memories returned. After telling the others as much as he could, Anders slipped into a coma and vegetative state from which he only partially emerged while acting as Galactica's hybrid.

Cavil revealed that he had a resurrected Ellen Tigh as his prisoner, ever since her download after she was killed on New Caprica. Her resurrection restored her true memories, and her only company was Cavil and Boomer whom he'd let in on the secret. After Cavil planned to dissect her brain to try to regain resurrection technology, Boomer helped Ellen escape to the fleet in what was revealed to be part of a plan to kidnap Hera so the Cylons could learn how she came into being. This led to Galactica and some of the rebel Cylons assaulting the Colony, the Cylon space station that was the Cylon homeworld, in order to rescue her while the Rebel Basestar protected the fleet. During the battle, Boomer, who had begun to feel remorse for kidnapping Hera, killed the Four that was starting to dissect the child and carried her back to her parents. Athena then killed Boomer. The rescue team made it back to Galactica where Cavil led a Centurion assault on CIC but was defeated. He took Hera hostage, but was convinced to stand down and create a permanent peace with the humans in exchange for the Final Five giving him back resurrection technology. At first everything goes fine, but after Tyrol learns that Foster murdered Cally, he breaks the download, causing the Cylons to attack again. Cavil kills himself. At the same time, an unmanned Raptor is struck by an asteroid, causing the dead pilot to fire eight nuclear missiles into the Colony, knocking it out of orbit and into a black hole, destroying it and every remaining One, Four and Five. Galactica manages to jump away as the Colony goes down, and arrives at a habitable planet. The humans and rebel Cylons settle there while the rebel Centurions are given their freedom and the Rebel Baseship to find their own destiny. To get a fresh start, the human fleet and all its technology are flown into the Sun by Anders.