Galactica.com - Unlocking The Secrets Of The Cylon

By Michael Hinman, Syfyportal.com, on 03-12-2006

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Syfy SyFriday's Michael Hinman unravels the mystery

The third season of "Battlestar Galactica" may be putting more focus on the enemies of the Colonial fleet -- the Cylons -- but it's still safe to say that all we know about this human-created robotic race could fill nothing more than a few sentences in a paragraph.
There are 12 human-like models. but only seven seem to remain active. We know very little about the other five. While not being able to procreate similar to humans amongst themselves, they discovered that they can procreate using a human the emotion of love, as demonstrated between Helo (Tahmoh Penikett) and the Cylon who would later be known as Athena (Grace Park). Each Cylon model seems to have their own individual personality and opinions, but no matter what happens, as long as there is a resurrection base nearby, they can never die.

So that's it. End of story. We have to wait for Ronald D. Moore and his great staff of writers to clue us in from there. But that doesn't mean we can't speculate, does it?

First of all, it's not very hard to figure out that 12 is a common number in the show, referring to things like the Twelve Colonies, which in turn leads to the Quorum of Twelve. The planets were named from the 12 signs of the Zodiac, which we use to signify portions of the 12 months of the year.

OK, so what does that mean? Only Moore, the true Cylon god, knows for sure. But it can't be a coincidence.

The gods at one time lived with the people of Kobol. That was well established in the second season of "Battlestar Galactica" during Roslin's (Mary McDonnell) search for the Tomb of Athena. During that entire sequence, something that Leoben (Callum Keith Rennie) said during the first season of the show kept repeating itself in my mind: "All of this has happened before, all of it will happen again."

The gods were not exactly figures of storytelling passed down through a belief system, like our religions in reality are, they were real, corporeal creatures who could both live and die. But something had to make them stand out, something had to elevate them from being just mere leaders to being worshipped as gods. And I believe I know why. The colonial gods? They were artificial beings, similar to that of the Cylons.

Yeah, I know it was 3,000 years ago, but is it really THAT unfathomable? I mean, we are talking about a society who had ships that could travel through space, and great distances. If they had the technology to do that, then why couldn't they have the technology to build artificial beings?

But my theory gets even crazier. The gods were not created by the people of Kobol, but instead were created by another group ... you might know them as your brothers and sisters living here on Earth. Yes, that's right. I am the only person in the world who believes that the source planet of humanity is not Kobol, but instead Earth. That humans started out on Earth, maybe even advanced themselves enough to create artificial beings (I mean, come on, what do we really know about our ancestors?). For whatever reason, they fled Earth, found Kobol and settled there, bringing humans with them. Over the centuries, the humans thrived and looked upon the artificial beings as gods. But then a more enlightened society (or maybe ones that simply got tired of their gods) were forced to flee once again, and this time settled the Twelve Colonies, where they more or less reverted their technology to simpler times, and slowly built it back up again.

As crazy as it is, this somehow makes sense in my mind. I mean, if the lost 13th tribe didn't know where to go, how could they leave a map behind? I'm sure there is a way to explain all that, and if I'm wrong, I'm sure Moore and Co. will do exactly that. But Roslin, when eyeing the "map" to Earth, mentioned that the constellations of the Zodiac sign matched that of the original symbols of the colonies. I'm no astronomer, but a planet in a different solar system is going to have a different starfield in the sky than Earth, wouldn't you think? So the only place those constellations could be found and named would be on Earth, and unless this lost tribe was going back and forth between Earth and Kobol before the rest of the people ran off, there is no way that could've become a main component of the Colonial planet names and such unless it was Earth that served as humanity's source planet, and not Kobol.

It's all happened before, it will all happen again. Roles get reversed, but the story remains the same. What I say above comes nowhere except for from my twisted mind, and maybe through ideas generated in many online discussions I have had about the show. And before I really make your head explode, there is one last idea about the "Battlestar Galactica" mythology I want to share. This tidbit isn't from me, but from a good friend of mine who enjoys life in Seattle. For some reason, this theory makes perfect sense to me, and I think it's worth sharing.

We have no idea why Baltar (James Callis) can see Number Six (Tricia Helfer) in his head, and vice versa. We do learn in "Torn" that much of what Baltar does is a form of projection that is so unique to the Cylons, he starts to wonder if he is a Cylon. But my friend doesn't believe Baltar is a machine.

In the miniseries, Six is killed but Baltar somehow is saved from a nuclear blast that obliterates his home. This is a nuclear blast, and when you're dealing with radiation and such, it can do tricky things to your psyche.

At the time of the explosion, the impact forced an imprint of Six's mind to Baltar's, and of Baltar's mind to Six's. With that, Baltar acquired the ability to project, and as he's told in "A Measure of Salvation," he "chooses" to see Six. Six, on the other hand, doesn't need to acquire the projection talent as she was programmed with it, but the imprint of Baltar forces her to project Baltar.

Both the dream Six and the dream Baltar seem to be a part of the two's subconsious speaking out. Whether there are actually any divine assistance here, I don't know. But at least this seems to be some kind of plausible explanation on what the hell is going on.

SyBits
This past week, SyFy Portal's Alan Stanley Blair had a chance to talk to John Barrowman, the star of the new BBC Three series "Torchwood" who is best known as Capt. Jack Harkness in the new "Doctor Who" series. Later this month, Barrowman will make a marriage-like commitment to his partner of 15 years, Scott Gill.

When the ceremony takes place, everyone from the "Torchwood" cast and maybe even some people from "Doctor Who" will be there to support him. And it's amazing to see something like that, to see people who aren't bogged down by prejudices and bigotry to support someone doing nothing more than expressing exactly who he is.

Barrowman is no special than anyone else. He just happens to be a man who likes guys rather than girls, and he's not someone asking for any special treatment. Unfortunately, gay people around the world face extreme discrimination and hatred than anything else.

Love is love. And unless it's our own love, it's none of our business who people fall in love with and express it mutually. Every few months, a new country somewhere breaks down some of the barriers for gay civil unions or even marriages. Hell, even South Africa is getting in on the act.

Whether you're gay, bisexual, straight, or Capt. Jack omnisexual, we're all still people, and we all deserve to have the same rights as everyone else. And as Barrowman is demonstrating with his upcoming commitment ceremony, we all deserve to express our undying commitment to the person we truly love, whether that person is the of a different gender, or the same.

Send us your questions or comments or whatever you want to talk about to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , and if you're lucky, you might even have it included in an upcoming SyFriday column. Please include a name we can use, as well as where you're writing from.

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