SD, I guess what puzzled me about Ellen's statement is that she's obviously referring to a human (since she made Cavil in his "image"), but she's a cylon. Who would be her "father"? The human being who first made her and/or the Final Five themselves? This is the stuff I know I missed -- those beginnings of who created whom first, etc.
Ellen had a father, like humans have fathers, because the cylons who went to Earth thousands of years ago developed the ability to procreate. Cavil's body was designed by Ellen and the others, and made to look like Ellen's father, who had been one of the Earthling cylons who had gained the power to have babies. I'll be interested to know how they made him look like her father - cloning, DNA, scan-and-assemble-from-synthetics, what?
To run through this, for my own benefit and maybe it will help you as well: Humans originated on Kobol. The 13th tribe were an early cylon race, and left for Earth either 3000 or 4000 years ago (conflicts exist in the scripts). The cylons had developed the power to procreate and had forgotten the technology of resurrection, as it was no longer needed. The Five worked in a lab together and re-developed the power to resurrect, just in time to save themselves. When the battle-bots attacked the other cylons on Earth, the Five were killed in the blasts, but resurrected on their ship, which was in orbit. They decided to go to the 12 Colonies to warn them against creating artificial life. They got there to find the war in progress already - the "first" cylon war, mentioned in the miniseries having happened 40 years ago. They offered to show the cylon attackers how to resurrect, in exchange for armistice. The war came to an abrupt halt. This was when they created Cavil, who helped with the creation of the other 7 skin jobs. Cavil wanted the cylons to be machines without free will, but the Five wanted them to be more human and have free will, show mercy, have love. Cavil so resented their rejection of his plan that he caught the Five in a chamber and suffocated them, and when they resurrected, he wiped their memories and sent them to live among the humans, so they could (in his view) realise how weak and icky humans are. He figured they'd die and return to him, and he could say "told ya so", but they didn't die during the war. So he started messing with them, appearing as a priest to hear Chief's confession, on the planet with Anders, on New Caprica with the (now even more disgusting) blackmailing of Ellen.
I think I kind of over-wrote all that, but I'm still getting it straight, myself, using
Battlestar Wiki.
And the idea of an eighth model made by the Five is interesting. Sam mentions eight, not seven. Then Ellen tells us a bit more. Daniel. But his copies were intentionally messed up by Cavil. Sounds like there are none of Daniel left, but is that so? Is this just a stray tidbit thrown at us that has no more to it? Or is there one Daniel left somewhere?
My guess is that Daniel (the first one, whose copies were slain by the jealous Ca(in)vil, was the father of Kara Thrace. It's pure conjecture, but I think that's going to prove to be the deal. He was "the artistic one", and it would explain her drawings and her apparent ability to not be dead, despite exploding and then burning to bits.
And of course there is now this "colony" where the machinery and technology to recreate the resurrection abilities exist. But Ellen won't willingly give up that information -- is that right? Which is why Cavil is now going to slice open her brain and retrieve her memories of how to do that?
Gotta watch it a few more times....
Ellen was telling Cavil that she doesn't have the whole process herself, and would need the other Four to make it all work again. Why they need so many people when Dr Frankenstein did it with just him and a lame hunchback is beyond me.
Interesting article
here, with some non-spoiler questions answered by Jane Espinson and her writing partner for "No Exit". The question from Clifton comes from our own NimChimpsky! w00t!!