Cylon War: the machines revolt

The Cylon War, also known as the First Cylon War, was an interstellar war fought between the Cylons and the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. The Cylons had been created on Caprica before the war to serve in numerous roles in Colonial society, but after a relatively short time they rose in revolt against their human creators. After twelve years of brutal fighting, the conflict came to a sudden and mysterious end with the signing of an Armistice between the Colonials and the Cylons. More than forty years later, the Cylons returned and launched a surprise attack on the Twelve Colonies, annihilating the Colonial Fleet and carrying out a devastating nuclear bombardment of the Colonial worlds. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Caprica, "Pilot")

Prelude to war#

The war's roots lay in Graystone Industries on Caprica, where Daniel Graystone set out to build a military robot with real intelligence. The breakthrough came only when a software recreation of his dead daughter, Zoe, was installed in the U-87 prototype using a stolen Meta Cognitive Processor. Graystone named the result a Cylon, for Cybernetic Lifeform Node. For a time the Zoe-driven robot was the only one of its kind, since the processor's success couldn't simply be copied into other chassis. (Caprica, "Pilot"; Caprica, "Rebirth"; Caprica, "Apotheosis")

Cylons went on to spread through Colonial society, protecting the public from terrorists and taking on work from building to housework. They also inherited Zoe's monotheistic faith, and in secret they gathered to worship the one God and grew to resent being treated as tools. (Caprica, "Apotheosis")

The war#

Encouraged by the monotheist cleric Clarice Willow, among others, the Cylons eventually rose against their makers. The miniseries opening sums it up briefly: the Cylons were created by man, they rebelled, and the war that followed was long and bloody. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Caprica, "Apotheosis")

In space the Cylons used computer viruses to break into Colonial networks and cripple ships. Facing the threat together, the Twelve Colonies signed the Articles of Colonisation and united under one government. Battlestars such as Galactica and Columbia were built for this war, and Galactica's computers were deliberately kept off any network, a choice William Adama still defended forty years later because it kept the ship safe from Cylon infiltration. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

In the war's final days, Galactica and Columbia took part in Operation Raptor Talon, an attack on a Cylon outpost on a frozen planet believed to house a superweapon. Raiders and basestar missiles destroyed Columbia. A young Viper pilot, William Adama, crash-landed on the planet and found no superweapon, only a laboratory where the Cylons experimented on human captives, the work that produced the First Hybrid. Elsewhere the Cylons attacked Tauron, where a young Helena Cain lost her sister in the fighting. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Aftermath#

After the Armistice, Armistice Station was built on the line between the two sides as a meeting place. Every year the Colonials sent an officer there, and for over forty years the Cylons never came. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

The twelve Colonial worlds rebuilt, and research into artificial intelligence was banned. Even so, a young computer scientist named Gaius Baltar argued publicly that advanced technology should be embraced, and his Command Navigation Program spread through the Colonial Fleet. Galactica, by then the last of the old battlestars, was due to be decommissioned and turned into a museum when the Cylons returned. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Major battles and campaigns#

Battles and campaigns of the war seen or named on screen include Operation Clean Sweep, the Battle of Sector 12, the mission to Djerba and the Ghost Fleet Offensive it set up, Operation Raptor Talon, and the fighting on Tauron. The complete Battlestar Galactica timeline puts these fights in order alongside the Fall and everything that followed. (Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome; Battlestar Galactica: Razor)