Question about the Cylons

[Atrahasis]

Who helped them to evolve? Presumably you would've needed a human agent(s) who sped up their development into self-thinking machines, from the basic Centurion model. After that the thinking model could've taken over. Was it the IL-Lucifer series that was responsible for this? If so why don't we see more of him? Wouldn't there be some kind of intermediary model between the warrior/centurion type and the human type? Because right now the contrast betwene them is so stark you have to wonder HOW the human types evolved from those Centurions.

[Johanobesus]

The history hasn't been laid out in fine detail, but I got the impression that Colonial computer technology was far more advanced than we see now, and that they made the Cylons sentient to begin with. That's why they were able and willing to revolt. Imagine Asimov's robots without the three laws. After that, they may have evolved on their own. They are walking computers, after all, so they might have decided to expend all their energy on developing more sophisticated descendants. It needn't involve human intervention at all.

As for the step from centurion to android, it is conceivable that, as I said, the Cylons deliberatly set out to build better machines, perhaps specialized models for different missions. In this way, they wouldn't have "evolved" like a living species, but rationally set out to make improved models. For the androids, there may be no intermediaries because the earlier models were prototypes, and either destroyed or set to tasks which don't put them on the screen. With sophisticated computer modeling, they might not have made prototypes at all until they had come up with a design that suited their purposes, an android that could simulate humans at cellular and chemical levels well enough fool sophisticated medical technology.

Of course, we now know that the raiders are cyborgs, so unless they are not actually Cylons but allies, all Cylons might be cyborgs. There's no telling how they came to be that way, whether they created their biological parts from scratch or conquered some aliens or had help from somebody, though I doubt the help came from humans.

[Atrahasis]

The problem I have with the idea that they were sentient to begin with is that the Centurion models so far have not spoken. That's not to say that they don't communicate with each other via other means, but I do find it a bit odd.

Also, who controls the Cylons? How did they come up with all their plans? Was it the human models? They certainly seem to be the ones calling the shots.

[Johanobesus]

With all due respect, dumb Centurions isn't a strong point. It never occurred to me while watching the old series, but it actually makes more sense for a population of space faring robots to communicate via radio waves than sound waves. The scene with the old Cylon looking up into the sky and saying "by your command" out loud is pretty silly when you think about it. We haven't seen much of the Cylons interacting with each other, and almost every time we have there have been at least two androids. And of course, the androids seem more intelligent because we can read them. They have not only voices, but facial expressions and body attitudes. The centurions, on the other hand, are bland expressionless things. They look like unintelligent props standing next to the androids, but just because they don't speak out loud doesn't mean they are not sentient.

There is one scene which comes to my mind. On Caprica the pilot ambushed a centurion. The Cylon was damaged and was crawling along on the ground. As the human came up to it, it looked at him, then kept crawling. It wasn't moving towards him as if to attack. It looked more like a dying person trying to get away. That is of course subjective, but it seems to me as suggestive of intelligence as it's silence is of lack of intelligence.

As for who controls the Cylons, that seems to me like asking who controls the humans. Why does there need to be some organism controlling them? So far, every bit of dialogue and exposition has indicated that the Cylons chose to revolt against humans and have developed their own culture all on their own. There is not yet any actual evidence indicating to believe that they aren't controlling themselves.

Although the cyborg raider is odd. There's obviously a lot of mystery behind the Cylons at this point, but until we see some clear evidence that the Cylons have some masters, I see no reason to assume that they aren't sentient beings in control of their own fate.




Now watch the next episode depict some human master and show me a fool.

[Atrahasis]

Actually, if you think about it, the old Cylons needed to be capable of audio communication to take commands from the Imperious Leader and Baltar. That's not to say that they couldn't communicate via other ways amongst themselves of course. But in the new series, for interaction with the humans, it's only the human models that seem to have done this so far. Not even the Raider models seem to be capable of communicating with outsiders, although we know so little about them at this point.

It all reminds me of that Tom Baker Doctor Who episode "Robots of Death" where there were three classes of robots on board the mining ship: Dums, Vox, and Super Vox. The Dums could not speak at all, only take commands, the Vox were capable of speech and more complex tasks, and the Super Vox were the pinnacle. It seems to me that the Cylcons in the new series have a similar hierarchical arrangement...

That means that in Cylon evolution, the lower models had to have constructed the higher models. But if that's the case, where are the intermediary models that should exist? Right now the contrast is just too stark to make much sense.

A possible solution is that they did indeed hit the ground sentient, but they deemed it fit to create a hierarchical structture like in "Robots of Death".

[CaptainKoraH]

It seems highly unlikely that the Cylons have no "central will" and are just free floating about their society with no leadership or unity. They don't seem to be a hive mind as each individual has it's own ideas and each model acts differently. Interesting to note that while each model acts differently, all models don't act alike. There seems to me there must be some leadership, and in many instances we see the androids commanding the centurions (and even more interesting - doing so without speaking!) All this is worth relatively little though since the cylons have so little character that it's difficult to care one way or the other. Why did they cylons revolt again? Why did they come back? Revenge? Why did they decide to exterminate mankind as opposed to enslaving them? What do cylons like and dislike? What motivates them? What do they DO besides hunt down humans?

It's real hard to care about characters you can't understand. Sort of like a movie where an army of clones fights an army of robots... who cares which side wins?

[Atrahasis]

I wonder who outranks who, the human-cylons or the machine cylons?