Is the first Hybrid a copy of the Cylon god?

[bradtem]

One of the biggest questions to come out of Razor is the nature of the first hybrid, and his statement that "his children think he is a god." Is this being somehow related to the Cylon's god who has been largely behind the scenes? Is the Cylon god real? Is he physical or supernatural? And is this hybrid a copy or incarnation of him?

I wrote up an article on this question for my Battlestar blog here: http://ideas.4brad.com/cylon-god-and-hybrid

Comments are welcome here, or in the blog. I will note that the article contains a few notes based on the Season 4 trailer/sneak peek, which some may consider a very mild S4 spoiler, though I don't judge it to be one.

[aylinn]

Didn't the Hybrid say "My children think I'm a god"? I might not remeber, but I guess it was something like that.
I don't think Hybrid is a Cylon god, I think it was the old robots who created modern Cylons, they were trying to create sth during the First Cylon War, but suddenly they left, which means they wanted to finish their project in peace so they could attack later on with greater power.

[JDS]

I don't think so...I'm pretty sure the Cylons don't have a better conception of their God than Christians have of theirs.

[OrionFour]

That's a good question. I think that IF he does represent God to the Cylons, then he IS there God, not necessaily a copy, at least in as far as faith goes. He might even be the one that the Cylons got the idea of having their own god from in the first place, and since his memory faded into history with the mainstream Cylons, his existence became more mythical.

But I like this better:
The Leobon's think of the Hybrid's more as oracles of God, not actually god's themselves. I think the first Hybrid is nothing more than the first oracle of God, not God himself. He might have even started the idea of religion for them (or not). Notice how he says that "my children believe me to be a God", but he does not endorse the idea himself. He's sort of plays with the idea of being a god instead, even though he knows himself to be mortal. That's not to say that faith is less important than cold reality however. My two cents.

[bradtem]

He doesn't think he's mortal, he expects to start a new existence after the foreseen destruction at Kendra'a hands. As I note, this could just be referring to downloading. But who are the "my children" that think he is a god. Even if he doesn't want to claim to be a god, there is a group of his "children" who think so.

Now, some would say it's the Guardians, but we never see a shred of evidence that they worship him. We only see them say 3 things, in fact. And they are not his children in any literal sense, they were built first, by humans or other Cylons, and then they built him. He is not their creator. However, we do know of other Cylons, who are a result of the experiments that made this Hybrid, who do talk about a god all the time.

Plus the original cylons were more logical, rational, robotic. Not the emotional, religious creatures the bio-cylons are.

To #3, god is "the one who programmed us" -- not the colonials or the centurions.

The cylons have a much more immediate connection to their god

[frakk`up]

well... that is, imho the key question: what is this so called cylon god.

The first hybrid days : my children believe i am god.

as said: the organic ones? or are there more cylon types we just dont know? The organics dont know who created them, so who was it, is he/she/it still around? Who the hell scraped the old modells? they just made war to be free, so why accepting being scrapped? maybe all of them went in some kind of maincomputer to nullifie there individuality, cause thats whats humans are. And there are not (evidently) they are all the same, just as the organics have some kind of unity till some of them go human...
cylons as a race are some kind of shizo: unity on the one side (monotheistic, bound together in a 7-modell democrazy, in the past finding consensus was easy, as stated by cavil), want to be in union with humanity (hybrid) till

they mix up with humans who are defined by differences (polytheistic, every single human is unique...

this war made some cylons famous ( as stated by Caprica-six in downloaded)
and shattered the whole cylon cultur.... imo civil war in coming for them as there discovered what it means to be a individual... they tried to be humans and thats what there are about to become in a weird way... thats what they wanted and what they hate.

[bradtem]

Actually, I always though a great plot twist would be that the biological cyclons were made by downloading the brains of the metal cylons, or even the combined memories of whole contingents of metal cylons, so they remember being all of them.

This would have allowed some of our Cylons to go up to older colonials like Adama, Roslin or even yes, Tigh, and say "I remember when you owned me, mother-fracker."

However, what scant we know about Caprica suggests that Adama's father was an opponent of the Graystones (the family who made the Cylons) and so probably they would not have owned any Cylons themselves. But Tigh's family might have (even though he is of a different faction of Cylon) or Roslin's.

And of course, obviously the Centurion model Cylon we always see looks like it was made for military work, in which case officers in the miltary before the war would have had these Cylons in their armies.

[OrionFour]

And of course, obviously the Centurion model Cylon we always see looks like it was made for military work, in which case officers in the miltary before the war would have had these Cylons in their armies.

I really wish we knew more about the Cylons, and their history, as there are just so many questions we don't have the answers to. Maybe we'll learn more about them in Season 4. You're refering to the 0005's here right?

I think with the original Cylons there are two possible explanations:
1. There were multiple Cylon models at the time of the War, and the 0005's were used by some sort of organized Cylon authority (the Imperious Leader?) as soldiers. They might have even been designed as soldiers for the Colonies at one point. Other Cylon models were taken to somewhere safe by the Cylons, or something or another happened to them, or maybe they contribute to the war effort in some form.
2. The 0005's are the only Cylon models, and the number suggests multiple prototypes before the series was perfected in the 0005. They were used in all sorts of applications, ranging from manual labor to millitary soldiers. All Cylon robots contribute to the War as soldiers, again, organized by a central authority.

[Bossman]

I don't think that the First Hybrid encountered by Kendra Shaw is the god worshipped by Cylons or even a copy of the Cylon god. Had it been the one "God" worshipped by the humanoid Cylons, then Sharon would have confirmed this when she explained how it (the Hybrid) represented the first step in the Cylon evolution from pure machines to organic beings. In fact, I doubt the identity of the 'Cylon god' will be revealed until the very end of season 4, if at all.

At this point we don't know who or what the Cylon god really is. But do we really know who or what the Lords of Kobol were?

We know that religious Colonials worship the Lords of Kobol as gods and we know they did exist since some of them appear to be buried in the tomb of Athena. Why they are named after the Greco-Roman gods of Earth is unknown, but shows the obvious link between their world and Earth.

We know that Athena committed suicide by throwing herslef from the Gates of Hera in despar over the exodus of the 13 tribes, therefore, the Lords of Kobol could not have been immortal. Perhaps technically advanced enough to extend their lifespan, but not immortal.

We know that one god decided that he should be raised up above all others, and rebelled, and this triggered the cataclysm that drove humans off of Kobol (deleted scene from Kobol's Last Gleaming). Could this be the god worshipped by the Cylons? The one "who's name cannot be spoken?"

We know that after the Colonies were settled, a cataclysm befell the Twelve Tribes which resulted in the destruction of much of their knowledge base and sent the Colonies into a dark age. They basically had to start all over.


This is all speculative of course, but these are the impressions I get from the series:

1. That the Lords of Kobol were actually humans from Earth, possibly the first to discover Kobol and subsequently lead human settlement on the planet. Later human settlers may have looked upon these 'Lords' as their leaders. This explains why the artifacts found by the Colonials such as the Lion's Head beacon and the Temple of Five appear much older than anything found on Kobol.

2. When the war between the 'Lords' began on Kobol, the tribes left; 12 to colonize the known 12 colonies of Kobol, and the 13th tribe to head back home (Earth). Whether or not they made back to Earth it is unknown.

3. After the cataclysm that befell the Twelve Tribes in the Colonies, what little and fragmented information left about their history on Kobol could have lead to the formation of their myths and religion. Where the Lords of Kobol began to be thought of and worshipped as gods.

4. Sometime during the First Cylon War (before armistice), the Cylons may have come into contact with this One Who's Name Cannot Be Spoken.

5. When the Colonials do find Earth, they will find that humanity originated on Earth and that they have come full circle. They may even discover the identity of the Lords of Kobol.

6. Galactica and most of the civilian fleet will be destroyed in a final battle involving the Cylons causing the survivors (both human and Cylon) to be marooned on Earth and start over. All of this has happened before and will happen again.


Seriously though, I have no idea what will happen in season 4, but I look forward to it.