Something I have found hard to believe is that there would be only FIVE survivors of the Earth massacre. Doesn’t it seem likely that more than just those five would have been resurrected aboard another ship, ready to set off for the other tribes? Wouldn’t they try to save as many of their people as possible? So my theory is that they did save as many people as they could but they weren’t brought “back online” until they reached Caprica where they then integrated themselves (secretely obviously, possibly due to the hate of the centurians…the non-humans) in to Caprican society. That would explain why Kara’s father knew the song. It would also explain how they plan to create a miraculous moment that would finally bring the humanoid cylons and the humans together once and for all; because many of them ARE half cylon like Kara and Herra. It could explain why some of the main characters are having “visions” or basically projections although I feel that a higher, unknown character, is projecting to some like Laura and Baltar…or maybe it’s information that they already have through their own internal programming (if they are half cylon that is). This theory may also help tie in Baltars preaching of an afterlife…as he said on the last episode that death is not the end and should not be feared. I guess you wouldn’t fear it if you’re going to be resurrected! Obviously there are many missing pieces to my theory like wouldn’t Helen remember if they had brought a shipful of their people to Caprica with them? And, who, if any, is pulling all the strings? The one who brought them to Earth and resurrected Kara. Anyway, just a thought.

My first theory is alot like some of the above. I think that the 13th tribe (cylons) after settling on Earth eventually forgot/diregarded their origins as machine slave to the people of Kobol and created their own Centurians to make their lives easier. In their own arrogance they treated these machine badly and they rebelled, causing the nuclear holocaust seen in Tyrol’s flashback. The Cylons, in creating such pefect replicas of the humans have subjected themselves to the same viscous cycle of Cylon/Human warfare and exodus. The last several episodes seem to lend credence to the theory of some sort of deity or outside force being the catylist/central force behind this cycle, and I like the theory about main characters being reincarnations/representations of the Lords of Kobol.

My other theory is less of a theory and more of a “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?”
Upon Galactica’s dicovery of the desolate remains of Earth, they are able to follow clues found amongst the ruins of an exodus from this ruined world. They follow the evidence and find not a single world of Human survivors, but the Alliance home system from the Firefly/Serenity continuity. There the find the Parliament in the process of creating a race of robotic workers/soldiers to serve them in the wake of other failed projects such as the attempt to passify people on Miranda and the super-soldier project River Tam was a part of. These failures along with people’s growing discontent after the revealation that the Reavers were in fact the result of the Parliament’s experimentaion, and general dicontent from the unification wars has resulted in an underground resistance movement. The Galactica, after ascertaining the all around badness of the Parliament joins this resistance as their flagship in a war to overthrough the Alliance. Also, this would open up fun things like Cylons (and I mean Raiders, Centurians, Hybrids and Skin-jobs, the whole shebang) being infected with the Reaver virus.

There are a couple of things I disagree with, but they’re mostly nit-picky things.

I think the 5 are from Earth, I don’t get the impression that they were personally from Kobol during the Colonial Exodus.

If Starbuck is a hybrid, like Hera, then I belive her dad was the cylon. Ellen did mention another model named Daniel, and some tragedy associated with him, when she was talking to Cavil. It seemed to me that they were hinting that Kara was Daniel, but your theory has me thinking along the lines of Kara!Hybrid.

Hmmmmmmm…

Anyway polytheistic humanity creates but then persecutes the cylon one-God beings then they go into hiding (catacombs etc.) get strong and defeat polytheism sending it underground where it once again gets strong then comfortable, creating cylons who again rise become persecuted, hide get strong and defeat the polytheists again….

The 5 cylons from Kobol want to break the cycle ( or maybe their human creators want to) so they insert themselves (or are inserted into) the human race so that at a certain time they can “wake up” and teach the two groups to get along via tolerance and integration. (having already integrating themselves into the lives of the humans)Hera, the little child who will lead them, represents the only way for human and cylon to integrate and stop the crazy cycle of persecution, murder and annhiliation. Kara Thrace’s father Daniel maybe was the human or the cylon the 5 cylons came to on Caprica in order to get the humans to listen about not persecuting and destroying each other. Together he and the 5 made the other skin jobs. 1 skin job (Cavil)rebelled against the whole plan like Satan and seeks to destroy the “messiah” Hera. Or use her to his own gain. Maybe if Daniel was a human he married a cylon which is why she was so cold to Kara.

Having said that this is my theory in a nutshell….

Humans are “Cylons “and Cylons are “humans” in a sense. Life is life. I think Cylons created humans at some point and the humans rebelled– vice versa the storyline. Its a cycle the reverses itself time and time again with Cylons or Humans being the dominant race at any moment in time…. with “God” being the manipulating force that shifts the balance.

Good call Jeff. The episode tonight was very similar to your theory.

Kobol originally was an entirely human planet until the day came that the people decided to create robotic laborers and soldiers they dubbed “Cylons” to take the burden off themselves using a cybernetic life node technology they had developed. All was well for a while, until the Cylons rebelled against their human owners. A battle ensued, but eventually an armistice was signed and the Cylon’s opted to leave Kobol and seek out a new home elsewhere in the galaxy. So for a time, the humans and the Lords of Kobol lived together peacefully. But during their time of peace the Cylons began to evolve themselves on their new home known as Earth. When the time was right, they returned to Kobol with their weapons and battleships and proceeded to attack it. The humans, unable to adequately defend themselves from the onslaught proceeded to evacuate from Kobol and jump to another part of space, where each tribe of humanity took up residence on one of 12 different planets.

So this of course parallels what we have seen happen in the show where the humans built Cylons. Cylon’s rebelled and the “First Cylon War” ensued. An armistice is signed. The Cylons leave colonial space. Return later after they have evolved themselves and proceed to attach the human colonies and then, unable to adequately defend themselves, the humans must again evacuate their colonies. So history just repeats itself.

Now the second part takes the concept of that theory, but changes it around some in such a way that it gives a whole new perspective on the Cylon nuclear attack on the colonies…and raises the question of just who the “bad guys” are.

One of the Lords of Kobol was jealous and desired to elevate himself above the other Lords by creating his own race of people in the form of humanity. Ultimately, the two weren’t able to coexist together, so the Cylons and their God opted to leave Kobol and settle their own planet. For a time, the cylons lived peacefully amongst themselves and established a civilization of their own. That is, until one day, the humans of Kobol sought out the cylon planet to destroy what they viewed as abominations from the beginning and proceeded to nuke the planet known as Earth which was the cylon planet. The humans were able to destroy the cylons except for five of them who had devised a way to resurrect themselves upon their death. These five, at the behest of their God, proceeded to seek out their destroyers (gives a new perspective on the term “final five” too…they aren’t just the final five to be revealed, they are actually the final five true cylons). Once they arrived at the human homeworld of Kobol, they proceeded to enact their revenge on humanity, either by force with a newly created Centurion army, or perhaps by espionage and subterfugre, possibly releasing diseases or sabotaging crops and causing famines. This in turn, forces the humans to have to evacuate Kobol. As time progresses, these Cylons once again merge themselves in human society (or possibly may have left with them during the evacuation, if they had kept their identities anonymous the whole time). As time progresses further, the humans desire to build themselves a worker class of robots which is influenced either directly or indirectly by the cylons living among them. So, from this point, skip to the appearance of the signifigant seven, and now you have them ready to finally come full circle in their revenge by nuking humanity, just as humanity had nuked their home thousands of years in the past.

So if this or something along those lines were to be true, then it was the humans who “started” the war initially, and cylon nuclear attack of the colonies was a revenge attack, and not just an initial act of aggression.

The difficult part to piece together of the second theory is just how involved the final five cylons were in everything. We know that as of their current existence, they cannot recall what happened between the 2000 years since their apparent “deaths” and their current incarnation. It’s possible they were “switched off” by their creator God during the attack on Earth, and when they were reborn they didn’t recall their previous life. It’s also possible that have just been living lifetimes over and over again and just never recall any of them upon their rebirth waiting for when the time is right…which in order for my second theory to stand as it is, this would likely need to be case.