The Cylon Population

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

Before the last episode there had been discussions and talk about the numbers of Cylons in the universe. The issue was brought up again with the Cylon Civil War. Ive always assumed that there was more than maybe just 10 or so Basestars worth of Skinjobs, but after learning that it was the Final Five who knew the secrets to resurrection, Im starting to doubt that assumption.

We know from the episode that the Larry Cylons couldnt get beyond developing the Hybrids and knew nothing of Resurrection, and that the Final Five were the ones who created the Skinjobs and the Resurrection technology. We also know that at some point after they finished developing the 8’s that Cavil killed the Final Five and erased their memory.

Now this may be a leap since its not explicitly sated in the show, but what if the Final Five also were the ones who knew the secrets to creating sane personalities (as opposed to rambling prophecies as we see with Hybrids). What if before they were killed by Cavil, the Final Five only created so many personalities for the different Models.

If there is only a specific number of personalities, and the Skinjobs dont have the ability to create them or develop them in some way on their own, it could explain why we never hear of talk about if there are other 3s alive on the Cylon Homeworld. What if the ones in space are really just it?

#2

Another, slightly related, interesting question is what happened to all those frakking 3’s when Deana was boxed? Did they all just drop dead all over the place???

#3

Well I assume they turned off all the goo tubs with 3 bodies.
And then Cavil went around killing the threes who were still kicking…
Wouldnt put it passed him.

#4

I have been wondering about this too. The question is how many Basestars are there total? I had assumed it a lot, but the total number might be around 15-20, at the start of the Cylon civil war.

My question is where are all the other Sixes, Eights, and Leobens? If there were only 20-30 basestars, then maybe only 8-10 were full of the rebel Cylons. I didn’t go back and check, but in “Six of One” we see some rebel basestars get destroyed. (Lets say 2-3). So with my mostly made up math, there would be 5-6 rebel Basestars total. One of them is with the human fleet, and the rest are probably out there either fighting the rest of the Cylons or on the run.

The bottom line is we have not really been given much information the Cylon civil war, but we do get the feeling that it is larger then we have been shown.

#5

One of those purposefully vague things. The memorial wall on Galactica really made me think of the Cylon population as well.

#6

Yeah, does anyone remember how many Basestars we have seen on screen at once? I doubt its more then 5 or 6.

#7

I wondered this myself. Surely there must be other baseships with liberal cylons aboard.

But anyway, are we expected to believe that when the Cylons rebelled, and later isolated themselves completely, that they were always out in space, they didn’t look for a home planet of their own? I wouldn’t put it past them, because their technology is so advanced and their actual needs so limited that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal for them.

But where do they build their ships? And why didn’t their population grow more in all those decades. They don’t even need to grow, they just build more of themselves.

#8

I think we shall learn that there is no Cylon Home World per se - other than Erf. As you point out - they seem to do fine without a planet.

As for population growth of the “race”, I don’t know how many toasters we should assume there were at the start of the series, but in the various resurrection ships, hub resurrection ship and basestars (how many of those have been blown to pieces?) - there sure were a lot of skin jobs - most of them seemingly now destroyed.

I also think we shall learn that all that is left of the Cylons are those on the rebel base star and those with Cavil. The writers “need” to do that to wrap up the story, it seems to me and we shall probably get an explanation about the Cylons leaving the 12 Colonies to rejoin their fleet when “The Plan” airs. Likewise, I suspect we’ll learn that there are no humans left on the 12 Colonies in “The Plan”.

#9

You know it’s been a long time since i’ve even thought about the 12 colonies. Based on what we saw in the 1st season while Helo was on Caprica - it seems like the colonies weren’t as bad off as Erf was…why can’t the fleet go back? Once they’ve defeated Cavil and his folks - what would stop them from repopulating the colonies? I’m not so sure there aren’t humans left - unless the cylons killed them all when the left.

#10

Radiation contamination. Although, I don’t remember what if any effect it had on Anders and his merry band of fighters.

#11

I tend to think, since in Six of One Cavil had at least 3 basestars, one of which is the rebel basestar, he may have no more than 2.

#12

I think the show naturally leads you to think that the Cylons wiped the Colonies off the universe with great power, but I know I tend not to think of how easy pickings the humans were due to the virus; you don’t need much of a combat force to pick off detritus floating in space.

#13

I think they were placed in tubs of goo and then left on the hub…

#14

I think only Deana herself was unboxed. She was the only Three walking about.

#15

That is a huge plot hole, right?

No explaination what so ever. She was just one Three. Imagine being blamed for the actions of one of your fellows. They really take the whole one bad apple spoiling the bunch too far.

Is it a collective consciousness the cylon share. Do they all know each other’s thots? It has been explained that you can download the thots of others. I believe in the episode when Three was boxed Cavil said, “Your model is fundamentally flawed.” D’anna questioned her existence and searched for answers. She literally stepped beyond the veil and Cavil axed her for it.

My guess would be that as the mandate went forth and all the Three’s were put out of commision. That action sowed the seeds for the cylon civil war.

#16

I was under the impression all the 3’s were boxed with Deana.
Deana was unboxed but the rest of the 3’s got blasted to bits along with the Res Hub.
I imagine it had to be a logistical nightmare herding up all the 3’s for boxing…they couldn’t have been to happy about it. Seems like a easy way to bring more 3’s back if they wanted to…Opps, one musta got away!

#17

In the scene where Leoben, Natalie and an 8 confront Cavil at his desk about the raiders turning back when they discovered a FF, Cavil said something to Leoben about millions of others of his model had the same nose I think. It could’ve been “thousands”, but I think it was “millions”. Which means there are many, many copies of each model out there.

In a podcast in Season 3 on New Caprica maybe, RDM said that when Caprica Six says “our resources are stretched to the max” that they wanted to tell us that Cylons weren’t just on New Caprica…that they were out there doing other things. I imagine it’s too late to explore this now, but I think it’s clear he meant for there to be many, many copies in existence.

#18

Its very possible that the Basestars werent the majority of the Cylon fleet.
Like we saw in Razor, a Basestar didnt even jump in to destroy that shipyard, just hundreds of Raiders.

We also saw in the Miniseries and the episode where Sharon sticks the wire in her arm (cant remember exact name) that the raiders were capable of using the virus in both small ships like Vipers and ones like Battlestars.

So using that, its not unreasonable to say that maybe the Cylon fleet never had many Basestars and they used Raiders to do most of the damage.

#19

Well I dont debate there are many copies of models, but I wonder about how many distinct downloadable personalities their are, especially if the Final Five were needed in the creation of the models.

#20

Anders and his band of merry men, and Helo, were taking “anti-radiation” meds, if I remember correctly. So, like Earth, the colonies are not a long term option. The meds will eventually run out. Anything New Caprica style will work. Heck, New Caprica would have worked, except for the whole Cylons finding them thing.

Which makes me think. Either they get somewhere AND resolve the whole Cylon problem, or they keep running, and the series ends.