The way I imagine it, the 12 colonies came from the Earth of our distant past. Sometime during their absence we lost the technology they used to leave Earth, regressed scientifically and socially, and then destroyed ourselves. The colonists have now returned, thousands of years later.
Of course, neither of those theories explain why there was a VW Beetle on Caprica in one of the resistance episodes...
PSYCHO_DAYV said:
THEY HAVE YET TO REVEAL THE 5th CYLON.
THEY HAVE YET TO REVEAL THE 5th CYLON.
The thing with that is I don't really care anymore - now that we have a truce between Cylons and Humans and Tigh/Anders/Tyrol/Torrie have been more or less let off the hook it doesn't really matter who the 5th is as the threat to both the fleet and the 5th Cylon has been neutralised.
Although... how did Baltar survive the destruction of Caprica? We saw him engulfed in the explosion. Surely he is a Cylon?