Well canonically, the Cylons in the First Cylon War were Galactica TOS Cylons - metal robots with intelligence and self-awareness.

Then they decided it would be cheaper if the Cylons looked like people cool to be organic, and so they evolved themselves into the current humanoid models. Those models then built the modern-day centurians/raiders/etc, which don't have self-awareness because the humanoids don't want a rebellion on their hands.

The Final Five don't fit neatly into this story, and most likely evolved earlier along another path entirely.

But the human type cylons reprogrammed the Centaurions so that they couldn't think independently. (This came up in Exodus Part 1, I believe.)

So originally the Centaurions were a more independently thinking form of AI and rebelled and developed the human style Cylons who must have rebelled and reprogrammed the Centaurions to be their slaves.

Oh and in the webisodes/flashbacks associated with Razor - we see that the young Adama saw an early version of a Hybrid so he knew that the Cylons were experimenting with human/cylon Frankencreatures. (I'm sure that is official retcon on the part of the show but there it is.)

Okay, that's how rusty I am, I had forgotten/hadn't realized that the centurions now were different from the ones of the first Cylon War.

And, hey, at least the show realized that it needed to retcon.

Still have to catch Razor sometime.

So I'm pointing my finger at Adama for having more involvement in the Cylons and the Cylon war than we originally were led to believe.

This I believe. And the episode with the lost fighter pilot certainly lends credence to that.

My thought on the Final Five is that they are capable of growing/aging, and maybe all the 12 models are, but the other 7 chose not to upload after death into their new baby bodies (sorta like reincarnation) because they were impatient and didn't want to bother with the wisdom that comes with a lifetime of growing up, so they built adult models and then there was a fundamental rift.

I don't know that you even have to take it back to the baby issue - I'm not sure we know for a fact that even regular Cylons don't age. We haven't seen variation among the 7, true, but we're seeing a relatively brief chunk of time where aging might not be that apparent. Most planet based Cylons would have died in the attacks and been reborn, and who knows what the ship based ones were up to in the time preceding the attack. I'm not saying they do age, at this point, but I don't think we know they don't. So Tigh, who clearly has aged considerably during the time when he has been known continuously by non-Cylon characters may not necessarily require all that much explanation. If someone who's childhood is known by other characters is a Cylon though - Lee, that is - I'd need a lot more to go on.

But, on the baby note - I haven't seen it brought up by one of the four yet, but there is now another known hybrid besides Hera.

Still have to catch Razor sometime.

Damn Tivo. Recorded it, but they must have run a marathon soon after and it got lost in the "keep at most X episodes" crap.

I'm surprised by no mention of the other hybrid, actually. But I guess we're just one in.

Timewise, they really should have been talking about the hyrbid through all of S3. But such is the nature of the retcon.

Timewise, they really should have been talking about the hyrbid through all of S3.

But Chief only found out he was a Cylon at the end. How was he supposed to know his kid was a hybrid?

Oh, wait, you guys are talking about the Razor hybrid? Or the Adama thing? Or...I don't know anymore.

The Razor hybrid. (Didn't it seem like the same hybrid as on the Ice Planet?)

Razor hybrid? I saw Razor but don't remember a hybrid. I wish this show didn't go so long between seasons. Maybe I need to rewatch that BSG in 8 minutes thing.

Eta: Does Chief's kid have a name?