More reflection on Razor has led to more thinking about the Cylon god, who I believe is closely tied to the prototype Hybrid we saw in Razor. Indeed that Hybrid may well be an incarnation or copy of the Cylon god. I posted a few days ago about his Starbuck prophecy but decided it was time to detail a bit more of the thinking about this very important character.

Update: the writer’s meeting podcast suggests that the Hybrid is not the Cylon god, but is in constant communication with him, and is worshipped as a god by the Guardians. Guess I didn’t get that one quite right.

For much of the show, the Cylons have spoken of their god the way Christians speak of theirs. They are monotheists, while the colonials are polytheists. The Cylons acknowledge the reality of the Lords of Kobol, but state that the colonials don’t know the real truth about them, and that they are false gods. But like the Lords of Kobol, the Cylon god may be a being with a real physical existence. Not so much a “God” like the one of the New Testament, but a “god” — a super-intelligent, super-powerful being who was involved in the creation of the Cylons, and perhaps more. However, this god might still be subject to the laws of the universe, and not supernatural as a typical religious god is. Science Fiction has often included natural gods. I particularly enjoyed the term Vernor Vinge used in A Fire Upon the Deep — “Applied theology.” In this novel, the “gods” were beings so smart they could understand a human mind the way we understand a calculator — able to build it, predict what it will do, rebuild it, invent it from scratch. Very much as we have thought of gods, but not supernatural.

The Cylon god (or something acting in that role) is certainly real, whether he’s supernatural or physical. There are various clues about that…  read more »