Raider Type III: Cylon space superiority fighter

The Raider Type III, called a "sparrow" in Colonial military jargon, was the principal attack fighter fielded by the Cylons after the First Cylon War. Unlike a conventional machine, the Raider was a living thing: a biological organism built into a metal body with weapons and engines. It replaced the older Cylon War-era Raider, which had been crewed by Centurions, and it became the fighter that Colonial pilots faced across the battles that followed the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "You Can't Go Home Again"; Battlestar Galactica, "Maelstrom")

First contact#

In the aftermath of the attack on the Twelve Colonies, Galactica launched its Vipers against the incoming Cylon fighters. The enemy showed up on DRADIS, but after forty years nobody knew what the new fighters looked like, and the pilots could only guess from the old Raider preserved in Galactica's museum. When the new Raiders were finally seen, they turned out to be curved, bird-like craft built around a central body with a scanning eye. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

A living machine#

The Raider was first assumed to be a machine run by an artificial intelligence. That changed when Kara Thrace, shot down onto a moon, climbed inside a dead Raider and found it was biomechanical. Large organs, including a central brain, sat in its centre, protected by a layer of fibrous tissue. (Battlestar Galactica, "Act of Contrition"; Battlestar Galactica, "You Can't Go Home Again")

Like any living thing, the Raider needed an oxygen supply to survive, and Kara had to work out how its controls tied into its body before she could fly it home. Raiders could fly in atmosphere as well as space, and they carried an FTL drive. (Battlestar Galactica, "You Can't Go Home Again")

Cognition and rebirth#

Raiders were self-aware, but their intelligence was closer to that of a trained animal than to a humanoid Cylon. Like the humanoid Cylons, a Raider that died was reborn into a new body, carrying over what it had learned. In Galactica's brig, Sharon explained to Kara that this made death a learning experience for them, and that repeated deaths could fill a Raider with bitter memories. (Battlestar Galactica, "Six Degrees of Separation"; Battlestar Galactica, "Scar")

One Raider ace, named "Scar" by the Viper pilots for the mark on its nose, was reckoned the deadliest of the Cylon fighters, with a string of pilot kills to its name. Sharon warned Kara Thrace that each time Scar was reborn it came back angrier, and that it hated her as much as she hated it. (Battlestar Galactica, "Scar")

Kindred spirits and rebellion#

The Raiders could recognise their own kind, even in human form. During his first sortie as a Viper pilot, Samuel T. Anders found himself in the middle of the battle at the Ionian Nebula, with Galactica under siege and the fleet close to destruction. A Raider closed on him and its scanning light swept across his face. Moments later, as if answering an invisible order, the whole Cylon strike force broke off and withdrew. (Battlestar Galactica, "He That Believeth in Me")

The Raiders could think for themselves enough to refuse orders, and after this retreat a Cylon faction led by Cavil decided to rewire their neural architecture, in effect lobotomising them. In response, the rebel Cylons removed the inhibitors from the Centurions' higher brain functions, and the Centurions turned their guns on the faction behind the procedure. These actions helped ignite the Cylon Civil War. (Battlestar Galactica, "Six of One"; Battlestar Galactica, "The Ties That Bind")