Cylon total population

[Mr. Oragahn]

(The Fleet jump back to Galactica and the Basestar.)

Galactica: Adama's Offices

Helo: If we go in on our own horse, we won't last five minutes. But we go in with that Baseship parked out there, nobody's gonna notice us for awhile.

Tigh: What do we fight with? Their Raiders are frakked.

Helo: We don't use theirs. We use ours. Take half the Viper wing.

Adama: Half the wing?

Helo: Yeah. We'll sneak them in on the rebel Baseship. Hoshi did some calculations from Racetrack's photos. We take out the FTL and the Hub's stranded.

Tigh: We blow the Hub and, uh, billions of skin jobs lose their bath privileges.

Roslin: Imagine. Once they're gone, they can't come back. Mortal enemies.

Helo: Before we blow the Hub, we need to get a team in to unbox D'Anna.

We know, since the Scar episode, that even Raiders are resurrected.
The seven human models are a minority.

So, "billions" refers to:

• All modern Cylons (this excludes the old Centurions). Unlikely.
• All human models and Raiders.
• All human models, Raiders and Centurions. Unlikely, since no source proves that Centurions are resurrected, although it is expected.
• All human models, which are a minority, but a ruling caste in the Cylon hierarchy.

Tigh refered to Centurions as chrome-jobs, and we've only seen human cylons get a bath (although it doesn't exclude other Cylons from resurrecting in tanks).

[l33telboi]

‘Skin-jobs’ is a term that refers to human-form cylons specifically, not centurions or raiders. The only real question is if those billions are currently active and separate individuals, or whether the figure includes currently unused bodies. Given the wording, it seems billions is the current number of active human-form cylons. Though it is a rather large number. I was as surprised as you are when I first saw the episode.

[Mr. Oragahn]

‘Skin-jobs’ is a term that refers to human-form cylons specifically, not centurions or raiders. The only real question is if those billions are currently active and separate individuals, or whether the figure includes currently unused bodies. Given the wording, it seems billions is the current number of active human-form cylons. Though it is a rather large number. I was as surprised as you are when I first saw the episode.

Yes, skin-job has been used to refer to the human models, the infiltrators.

Even billions of reserve models would be exceptionally important, but the wording clearly points to active models.

Now, the number appears to be large, but at the end of the first Cylon war, 40 years ago, the Cylons already had built their first hybrid.

As machines, they may also produce vast numbers relatively quickly.

More importantly, on every possible occasion, we have seen that Centurions and Raiders largely surpass the number of human models, who seem to solely leave on spaceships (we're yet to hear anything about a Cylon world), and the existence of a mobile secret hub would precisely point to their civilization being largely nomadic.

No matter how you read it, this gives the Cylon military huge troops and Raider numbers, and quite a lot of Basestars spread across a sector of the galaxy.