We don’t know where the Cylon fleet at Ionia is from. It does use the same ship designs as the S7 Cylons do. I said that Starbuck has come from Earth and it’s likely her patrons, who took her there, are from Earth or friendly with the folks there, if there are folks there. It’s true that Starbuck says that “it’s gonna be OK” which implies she is not worried about the Cylon fleet, and may even be friends with it, but we don’t know the latter.

Now as for design: The Galactica museum showed the Cylons as having body forms and base ships from the original 1978 series. The old ones looked like a sort of yo-yo. My personal suspicion is that the old cycle of Cylons, notably the Final Five, gave the new ones their humanoid bodies, so they may well have given them ship designs and superior jump tech and other technology as well, but that’s just speculation.

What we do know is:

• Starbuck thinks there is nothing to worry about.
• That fleet didn’t track them by following the radiation signature on the mining ship — that ship is going off elsewhere.
• The fleet following them was hostile and shot a missle at the raptor.
• We don’t know for sure how the other fleet was following. The radiation signature was simply Six’s offer of a possible technique. (Six wants to save her own skin and the child but would not otherwise give over Cylon secrets.)
• This nebula was planned as a destination thousands of years ago.
• Proximity to this nebula (but not any non-FTL signal) appears to be the trigger for the 4 Cylons to hear the music and know their nature.
• The fleet was worried it was being followed for most of the trip and knew it was being followed for the last several jumps so it was probably not on any predictable course.