What are the Cylons?
The Cylons are mechanized robots, who destroyed their original biological creators and began a genocidal campaign against the humans (not unlike Fred Saberhagen’s Beserker series.) The novelizations diverge from the series somewhat and treat Cylons as biolgical organisms with body armor. According to Commander Adama, the conflict with the Cylons began when the humans intervened on behalf of the Hasaris: We did not initiate a conflict with the Cylons until we helped our neighbors, who the Cylons wish to enslave. And until we helped the Hasaris get back their nation, taken by force by the Cylons. Thus began the thousand-yahren war. Why were the Cylons willing to exterminate some races, like the humans and the Delphian Empire, when they were willing to subjugate others like the Ovions? According to Adama: They hate us with every fiber of their existence. We love freedom, we love independence — to feel, to question, to resist oppression. To them, it’s an alien way of existing they will ne
