It’s fairly well known by now that one of the big human characters in Battlestar Galactica will be outed as a Cylon before the end of the season, but with only 5 episodes left the rumors are starting to ramp up as to which one it will be. Here’s my take:

There will be spoilers ahead for those who aren’t up-to-date on the current episodes

1. Gaeta – Watch the finale of season 1 again. Watch for the quick pan down of the camera when Gaeta welcomes Sharon back to Galactica. Does he hand her something? Give her some kind of sign to shoot Adama? This year what was he doing sneaking around trying to kill Baltar? Gaeta seemed fine sticking by him during the entire occupation. Does Baltar know something about Gaeta?

2. Tigh – If Tigh is a Cylon he likely doesn’t know it yet. He’s clearly very anti-Cylon and led the resistance against them on New Caprica. He has no family that we know of and him as a Cylon would be very shocking.

3. Starbuck – She would be #1 on this list but various rumors suggest she is not the Cylon. A few episodes ago it seemed to me that the show was trying to use Baltar as the red herring only to eventually reveal Starbuck was the Cylon. This still could be true as Baltar has all but been elimnated now (see #8).

It’s a bit odd how Starbuck is the only one who can figure out how to fly the Cylon raiders, and the way she figured it out seemed so natural. Then of course there is the whole thing with the one Cylon who is obsessed with her. He told her she’d be very important for some reason, could it be because she is a Cylon and will bridge the gap between the Cylons and humans?

4. Helo – Helo has been getting a lot of episode time recently…perhaps to set him up for the fall. I’m thinking he’s either going to die soon or will be the Cylon. (Helo is likely out of the running, see update below)

5. Dualla (Dee) – Making her a Cylon would fix the problem of how to get Leigh (her husband) with Starbuck. He recently firmly recommitted himself to Dualla, but it’s pretty obvious that he will eventually end up with Starbuck during the show’s lifespan…making Dualla a Cylon could speed that process along.

6. Anders – For pretty much the same reasons as Dualla above. Anders also survived a very long time with his band of rebels on Caprica before being rescued.

7. Tom Zarek – He’s been all but written out of the show the past couple years after being so big in the first season. Making him a Cylon would obviously bring him back front-and-center. He’s another one who likely would have no idea he’s a Cylon, but it’s certainly possible.

8. Baltar – They seem to have covered that he wasn’t a Cylon in the past few episodes but perhaps it was all a trick. He is in 6’s head somehow (as we saw in the last episode), but I think it would be too obvious and boring to make the main human Cylon collaborator a Cylon also.

9. Dr. Cottle – Have you seen how much this guy smokes? Every scene he’s in he’s smoking. How is he still alive if he’s not a Cylon?

10. Apollo – I only bring him up because I’ve heard a few rumors of this possibility. I would say this is VERY unlikely; would they reveal that his father adopted him or something like that? Or maybe…

11. Adama – Maybe to explain the above one, Adama too is a Cylon and Lee (Apollo) is really the first hybrid child. Or maybe they’d explain this by adoption as well. Again, highly unlikely.

12. Laura Roslin – I’m gonna say no because she had cancer (can Cylons get cancer?) and had to be cured by the hybrid baby. Plus there are already too many very prominent female Cylons now that I think about it.

13. Tyrol (Chief) – Like Baltar we’ve established in earlier episodes that he wasn’t a Cylon after trying to make us think that he was. Maybe it was a trick, but that would be too easy an out for the producers.

14. Cally – Cally had a human baby and isn’t really a big enough character for it to matter much if she were a Cylon. Though it would be odd if Tyrol fell in love with a Cylon twice.

15. Billy – Billy’s been dead for a while now, but maybe when he was killed he was actually just downloaded back to the Cylon ship and re-created.

16. Ellen (Tigh’s wife) – Same as with Billy; maybe when she was killed she was actually just downloaded and reborn. Hmm maybe she should be a little higher, this actually doesn’t seem all that unlikely given her character’s actions in the past.

I think that pretty much covers all the major (and not-so-major) human characters. We should be finding out who the Cylon is in about a month or so (I assume they’ll wait til the season finale); for now my money is on Gaeta.

UPDATE: Webomatica has some good things to add to this. Helo is probably out because of the hybrid baby he had with Sharon…we know she’s a Cylon so he must be the human…unless it’s not his (Tyrol’s?…is that possible?).

The bigger idea that I had forgotten was about the same Cylon who told Starbuck she was special also told Roslin that Adama was a Cylon! (As I note in the comments) I wrote this off at the time as the Cylons trying to plant disinformation and divide the fleet, but maybe he did mean Lee…the plot thickens…