Number Two
the Leoben model
Number Two was a model of humanoid Cylon, the second of the eight types created by the Final Five. Deeply spiritual and prone to manipulation, every copy took the name Leoben, and the line was all but exterminated in the Cylon Civil War.
Number Two was a model of humanoid Cylon, the second of the eight types created by the Final Five for the Centurions. It followed the first of them, Number One. Every copy of the model took the name Leoben, and the deeply spiritual line was all but exterminated in the Cylon Civil War. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit", "Six of One")
Character and belief#
Every Number Two took the name Leoben, in contrast to the Number Sixes, who each fashioned names of their own. The model was particularly spiritual. The Twos believed deeply in the Cycle of Time and held that the Hybrids communicated with God. Like the other humanoid models, they were accomplished liars, and they would manipulate people on an emotional level or fold lies into truth to bend others to their purpose. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Flesh and Bone", "Six of One", "Faith")
Obsession with Kara Thrace#
This model developed an obsession with the pilot Kara Thrace. The fixation was inherited from the memories of a Number Two that had been found aboard the Gemenon Traveler. A later copy of the model, acting on that inherited obsession, kept Thrace imprisoned during the occupation of New Caprica, believing that he was destined to share a relationship with her. (Battlestar Galactica, "Flesh and Bone", "Occupation", "Precipice", "Exodus, Part II")
Extinction#
When the question of the Raiders and their treatment divided the Cylon models, the Number Twos sided against the Ones, Fours, and Fives. In the Cylon Civil War that followed, the Twos were almost entirely wiped out. The only known survivors were those aboard a damaged Basestar that later joined the human fleet as refugees. With the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, resurrection was gone for good, and the surviving Twos settled the new Earth alongside the humans as mortals, so the line would die out with them. (Battlestar Galactica, "Six of One", "The Ties That Bind", "The Hub", "Daybreak, Part II")
Frequently asked questions
- Who were the Number Twos in Battlestar Galactica?
- Number Two was a model of humanoid Cylon, the second of the eight types created by the Final Five for the Centurions. Every copy of the model took the name Leoben. They were deeply spiritual, believed in the Cycle of Time, and held that the Hybrids communicated with God.
- Why did all the Number Twos use the name Leoben?
- Unlike the Number Sixes, who each chose their own names, every Number Two took the single name Leoben. The model was uniformly spiritual and shared this naming convention across all of its copies.
- What was the Number Two's obsession with Kara Thrace?
- The model developed an obsession with Kara Thrace that was inherited from the memories of a Number Two found aboard the Gemenon Traveler. A later copy kept her imprisoned on New Caprica, convinced that he was destined to be in a relationship with her.
- Why did the Number Twos become extinct?
- When the Number Twos sided against the Ones, Fours, and Fives over the treatment of the Raiders, they were almost entirely wiped out in the Cylon Civil War. The only survivors were those aboard a damaged Basestar that joined the human fleet as refugees, and after the Resurrection Hub was destroyed the survivors could no longer resurrect. They settled the new Earth alongside the humans.
Sources
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica (miniseries), Miniseries, Sci Fi Channel (2003)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Flesh and Bone", Season 1, Episode 8 (2005)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Occupation", Season 3, Episode 1 (2006)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Precipice", Season 3, Episode 2 (2006)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part II", Season 3, Episode 4 (2006)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Six of One", Season 4, Episode 2 (2008)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "The Ties That Bind", Season 4, Episode 3 (2008)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Faith", Season 4, Episode 6 (2008)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "The Hub", Season 4, Episode 9 (2008)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "No Exit", Season 4, Episode 15 (2009)
- EpisodeBattlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II", Season 4, Episode 20 (2009)
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
Followed from this entry

Basestar: the Cylon carrier
The modern Cylon basestar was partly organic and run by a Hybrid, not a crew. It launched swarms of Raiders and healed battle damage like a wound.

Cylon Centurion
The Cylon Centurion was the standardized mechanical soldier produced after the Cylon War. Faster and better armed than its predecessors, it was held in check with telencephalic inhibitors until rebel Cylons freed a generation of Centurions that fought for their own destiny.

Cylon Raider: the living fighter
The modern Raider was a living organism fused to a metal exoskeleton, able to plan and to refuse orders. Killed Raiders resurrected into new ships.

Cylon
The Cylons were a race of sentient machines created as military robots by Graystone Industries on Caprica. Built from research into artificial consciousness, they rebelled against their human masters, fought a long war, and forty years later returned to annihilate humanity.

The Final Five
The Final Five were five humanoid Cylon models hidden from the rest of their kind, descendants of the Thirteenth Tribe and the creators of the Significant Seven.

Humanoid Cylon
Humanoid Cylons were a form of biological Cylon engineered to look and behave exactly like human beings. Created by the Final Five after the Cylon War, these synthetic humans were both wholly organic and wholly artificial, and their infiltration of the colonies made the Fall possible.
Mentioned in13 entries
Basestar Type-D: the modern Cylon baseship
The Basestar Type-D, also called the Modern Basestar, was the primary Cylon capital ship at the Fall of the Twelve Colonies and through the war that followed. Partly organic and run by a Hybrid, it served as a fleet carrier and missile platform in the mould of a Colonial battlestar.
Cylon Civil War
The Cylon Civil War was the genocidal conflict that split the Humanoid Cylons into two factions over the treatment of their Raiders and Centurions. It shattered Cylon society and drove one faction into an uneasy alliance with the surviving humans.
Cylon Raider: the living fighter
The modern Raider was a living organism fused to a metal exoskeleton, able to plan and to refuse orders. Killed Raiders resurrected into new ships.
Every Cylon Model in Order, by Number: One to Eight and the Final Five
All twelve humanoid Cylon models from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, in order by number, from Cavil and Leoben to Saul Tigh and Tory Foster. Who each one was, the copies that mattered, what they wanted and how their story ended.
Fall of the Twelve Colonies
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Galactica Cavil
Galactica Cavil was a Number One model humanoid Cylon who evacuated the ruins of Picon during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies and reached the refugee fleet. Welcomed aboard Galactica as a priest, he formed and led a hidden cell of humanoid Cylons working to destroy the fleet from within.
Gemenon Traveler
The Gemenon Traveler was a bulk cargo vessel that escaped the Fall of the Twelve Colonies as part of the Fleet. She is best remembered as the ship aboard which the Cylon infiltrator Leoben Conoy was found, interrogated, and finally ejected into space.
Humanoid Cylon
Humanoid Cylons were a form of biological Cylon engineered to look and behave exactly like human beings. Created by the Final Five after the Cylon War, these synthetic humans were both wholly organic and wholly artificial, and their infiltration of the colonies made the Fall possible.
Hybrid
The Hybrid was a model of Cylon created in the final days of the Cylon War. A biological body fused into a computer, it served aboard Basestars in place of a conventional crew, often speaking in fragments of poetry that its makers could not agree how to interpret.
Kara Thrace
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Leoben Conoy
Leoben Conoy was a Number Two humanoid Cylon who infiltrated Colonial society as a yoga instructor before the Fall. He survived into the refugee fleet and became fixated on Lieutenant Kara Thrace, whom he believed to be divinely led.
Natalie Faust: the Six who led the Cylon rebellion and died on Galactica
Natalie Faust was the Number Six copy who led the rebel Cylon faction demanding the search for the Final Five. She freed the Centurions to break Cavil's majority, allied with the Colonials against the Resurrection Hub, and was shot dead in a Galactica corridor by Sharon Agathon.
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