Cylon

The Cylons, an acronym for Cybernetic Lifeform Node, were a race of sentient beings descended from pioneering research conducted by Zoe and Daniel Graystone on Caprica. Created as military robots for the Caprican military, they spread across the Cyrannus Star System within a few years, then launched a slave rebellion against their human masters that became a genocidal war. After ending that war and departing to pursue their own evolution, they returned four decades later to exterminate nearly the whole of mankind. Their later history was marked by repeated political collapse, culminating in a civil war that split the race. The Cylons were an intimate element of the Cycle of Time, echoing earlier attempts at building a sentient labor force, such as the Thirteenth Tribe on Kobol and the machines of Old Earth, both of which had ended in bloodshed.

Genesis#

The Cylons developed from two separate concepts. Dr. Daniel Graystone, the leading computer engineer behind Graystone Industries, was contracted by the Caprican military to build advanced battle robots. Drawing on his familiarity with robotics, and on intellectual property taken from his daughter's childhood drawings, he produced the U-87. The company could engineer the prototype, but the development of a Meta Cognitive Processor failed repeatedly, leaving them unable to create a battle robot capable of following complex orders. When the rival Tauron firm Vergis Corp lied about its own success to wrest the contract away, Graystone hired Ha'la'tha member Sam Adama to steal the Meta Cognitive Processor, an act that resulted in two deaths.

Contemporaneously, Zoe Graystone objected to her father's theft and used her own computer expertise to surpass his design, developing a program able to replicate a person's conscious mind, personality and memories included. Only one digital Cylon was created before she died in a Soldiers of the One suicide bombing: a copy of herself, "Zoe-A". When Daniel discovered the creation, he downloaded her into his computer and, in exchange for the stolen processor, used the avatar generation program to create "Tamara-A", based on the daughter of Ha'la'tha lawyer Joseph Adama, who had also died in the bombing.

The U-87 became a success only because of both Zoe-A and the processor. Attempting to give Zoe-A a physical body, Graystone transferred her software into the chip and installed it into a prototype. The processor malfunctioned, developing atypical operations and binding itself so tightly to that single prototype that neither earlier copies of the chip nor other prototypes would work with it. After the prototype's failed escape attempt from Graystone Industries, the fire damaged processor was recovered and reproduced. The resulting mass-produced U-87s were sentient but lacked the personality of Zoe-A, yet remained efficient at their designed purpose.

Graystone Industries became entangled with criminal and terrorist connections. The Ha'la'tha shipped a platoon of U-87s to a Soldiers of the One training camp on Gemenon, where they served as guards and executioners before turning on and destroying the camp's leadership, having recognized the trainee Lacy Rand as their rightful commander. Unsanctioned Ha'la'tha members sent further units to eradicate rival gangs and to support an uprising on Tauron. The public first glimpsed Cylon capability when a platoon descended on Caprica City's Atlas Arena ahead of a Pyramid game and shot down a group of suicide bombers, several units sacrificing themselves to shield civilians.

Expansion and faith#

Over the following years the Cylons expanded far beyond military hardware. Industrial models were mass-produced for construction and haulage, and domestic service units took on simple household chores. Daniel and Dr. Amanda Graystone worked to build a physical body that would let Zoe-A return from cyberspace, using synthetic skin to give it a near-realistic appearance. Throughout this period the Cylons entered the V-World simulation in their off hours and practiced the Monotheist faith alongside Zoe-A, coming to see themselves as slaves who, as children of God, deserved to stand on their own.

The Cylon War#

These Cylons eventually began a general insurrection against humanity, opening a years-long war against the Colonial military and constantly developing new weapons to stay a step ahead of their enemies. After twelve years of fighting, they were contacted by a group of five humanoid Cylons who had come from Earth, a world destroyed when its own mechanical creations rebelled. The Cylons agreed to the visitors' plea to end the war in exchange for humanoid body manufacturing and resurrection technology. The conflict closed in 40 BCH, and the Cylons departed to a colony of their own.

Evolution and enslavement#

Over the next forty years the humanoid Cylons gained control of the emerging civilization. The Number Ones exiled their own creators, later remembered as the Final Five. Fearful of a Centurion revolt like the one that had destroyed Earth, representatives of the Seven Models voted to install inhibiting chips that prevented the Centurions from thinking for themselves, reducing them once more to slaves.

The genocidal campaign#

After four decades of isolation, the Cylons launched a massive assault on the Cyrannus Star System, wiping out the human colonies and killing tens of billions within hours. For the following year they hunted survivors to ensure total eradication, but a movement led by Sharon "Boomer" Valerii and Caprica-Six brought the operation to a formal end. A year after that, the Cylons attempted to coexist with the human refugees who had founded the New Caprica colony, but the experiment failed as the more fanatical models drove an increasingly violent response to a human resistance movement.

Civil war and the search for Earth#

After abandoning New Caprica, the Cylons began a search for Earth, swinging between negotiating truces with the humans and laying ambushes to destroy them. Unrest among the humanoid models continued. The entire line of Number Threes was boxed, their bodies barred from regrowth. In response to the Ones' dictatorial actions, the Twos, Sixes, and Eights launched an insurrection against the other models, and most were wiped out in the fighting.

After learning Earth's location, the Cylons and humans traveled to it together, only to find the planet a nuclear ruin, its Thirteenth Tribe inhabitants and their mechanical creations long since destroyed. The alliance between the Colonials and the rebel Cylons came under repeated strain in the aftermath but held. When the child Hera was captured by Cavil for study, the rebel Cylons joined the assault on the Cylon colony, leaving their baseship to guard the civilian fleet, because Hera, the "Mitochondrial Eve", was held critical to the survival of both humanity and the Cylon race. The mission succeeded against immense odds, though at heavy cost.

Upon discovering a new habitable planet that would come to be named Earth, the humanoid Cylons and the Colonials gave up their technology for the sake of a fresh start. The rebel baseship was handed to the Centurions to find their own destiny, an act of good faith meant to break the cycle of violence born of slavery. The humanoid Cylons and Colonials dispersed across the planet and intermingled with one another and with its native humans. One hundred and fifty thousand years later, all memory of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and of the Cylons had been lost, and the descendants of Hera had begun building their own forms of artificial life.