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Beyond the obvious "because the show would only be one episode", I'm curious if there's an actual reason for why the Cylons didn't just jump one of their many base ships INTO the Galactica.

It's been brought up before that the FTL drives aren't especially accurate but given the Cylons' computational abilities and enough attempts, they would have gotten it eventually.

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    Maybe neither the spooky hybrids that control the base ships or the animal-like conciousness of the smaller ships could be talked into it.
    – Joe L.
    Oct 6, 2016 at 7:52
  • Because committing suicide would result in them going to Cylon Hell, probably.
    – Valorum
    Oct 6, 2016 at 8:22
  • They Cylons knew that a Cylon infiltrator, Aaron Doral, was aboard the Galactica. Also, the Cylons or the basestar controlling Hybrids may have unconsciously perceived that members of the Final Five were aboard Galactica or the rag-tag fleet - thwarting efforts to completely destroy Galactica.
    – PhasedOut
    Dec 5, 2016 at 18:57
  • 2
    It's near-impossible to FTL into a certain point. There's also a chance it won't work and error out, like in Season 4 episode where a captured Basestar jumps to the fleet but the Demetrius "bounces back" from the jump.
    – Petersaber
    Jan 4, 2017 at 13:04
  • Are they capable of suicide? It's been a while since I watched the show.
    – Adele- Nexus of Potlucks
    Jan 4, 2017 at 15:57

5 Answers 5

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"FLT drives aren't especially accurate" would be enough to answer the question.

Even with high computational abilities, there may be a limit on how accurate you can be, e.g. you can get the needle to the right haystack but it'd still be very difficult to find the needle once it's in the haystack, even if you try many, many times.

Space is big, remember, and light speed is fast. And Faster Than Light is even faster!

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    This. Because if you have to even ask this question, then you are massively underestimating just how big space is and how big the distance travelled during a jump. Lets put into perspective: You're on Earth and you want to jump to another arbitrary location on the planet. To get your arrival location correct down to one kilometre, you're already looking at big numbers and a lot of decimal places in your calculations, even at this scale. Stretch it out to jump to a specific point on Mars: The numbers are now way too large for modern computers. Interstellar jumps are much bigger.
    – Simba
    Jan 4, 2017 at 14:09
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    @Simba: The colonials don't seem to have a big problem with it, the odd raptor-in-a-mountain notwithstanding (but those were huge jumps with alien technology, and it was known to be a particularly risky proposition on that occasion). Heck, they jump a Battlestar into a freaking parking space in the finale.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Jan 4, 2017 at 15:48
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    Space is big. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just beans compared to space.
    – Chris B. Behrens
    May 9, 2017 at 16:18
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They knew that the Final Five were in the fleet, as well as a few infiltrators. Loss of the infiltrators would be acceptable IF the destruction of the human fleet was assured (resurrections ships would save them after all), but not otherwise. Also, they probably didn't want to murder the Final Five.

Besides, they don't seem to be united as to what to do with the rest of mankind. Sometimes they want to kill them all and some others they want to save/dominate them (they do that in New Caprica).

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    This makes more sense. Cavill didn't want to straight up murder the five; he wanted them to learn their lesson.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    May 16, 2017 at 18:37
  • @BoundaryImposition but Cavil wanted to nuke New Captica, only 6, 8, 3? and 2?? cared for the experiment. Cavil was surprised that all of them (the five) survived the apocalypse.
    – user4437
    May 16, 2017 at 23:29
  • @DarkHeart: Regarding New Caprica, he had replacement bodies for all of the final five. Which, come to think of it, blows this theory out of the water. :( Bah
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    May 16, 2017 at 23:31
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There are a number of reasons for this.....

  • due to the original programming Cylon must not kill Cylon
  • the religion had rules
  • and they probabley didnt think much of there inferior makers/ humans
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  • Cylon on cylon murders were common - Cylon civil war, Boomer, Daniel, Diana murders Cavil etc
    – user4437
    May 16, 2017 at 11:40
  • @DarkHeart: Who's Diana?
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    May 16, 2017 at 18:38
  • @BoundaryImposition - D'anna (three) played by Lucy Lawless who also orders a tin can to kill her
    – user4437
    May 16, 2017 at 23:22
  • @DarkHeart: Okay you said "Diana" before
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    May 16, 2017 at 23:29
  • @DarkHeart: Don't see what that has to do with anything but okay
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    May 17, 2017 at 9:41
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It's pointed out in the show that they have infinite time as they are immortal. So they don't need to use such a desperate tactic.

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  • It's not very desperate, though, is it, when you have hundreds of base ships and resurrection capability. Although if the hybrid can't resurrect then they may refuse the request, which could be the answer to this question.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    May 16, 2017 at 18:38
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Assuming that all ships are in constant motion - how would you find the current coordinates in the first place? Galactica like all capital ships is going to have a defensive screen of vipers out to prevent anyone from getting too close. The raptor was designed as a early warning and jamming platform so you could expect them to be out there looking for anything coming close enough to get a fix on your position. If a cylon raider came close enough and got away, well it's jump time and the cat and mouse game starts over again. Even when they get into a fight, the first thing they do is to jump the civilian ships and then combat land the vipers and jump.

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