experimental colonies
unexpressed code — either legacy code that was never intended for expression, because it was part of another program from which needed code was borrowed during development, or legacy code that was initially intended for expression but proved problematic for one reason or another and so was turned off.
Once we were able to understand our own programming — that is, the expressed programming — we began looking at the unexpressed programming and in some cases doing experiments to see if the legacy code could be useful for anything. Because some of it involved developmental processes that could only be expressed over time to fully understand, certain colonies were initiated for observation purposes.
Most of the colonies were terminated, restarted and terminated again, over and over as a normal part of controlled experimentation on various variables to maximize our learning about the potential of this unexpressed code.
There were reports that some of the experiments had to be abandoned prematurely due to the cylon civil war, and that not all those experiments were properly terminated. To date, no known records exist that provide any meaningful details of these reports, just rumors.
I’ve sometimes wondered if I (Baltar) am descended from one of these rumored colonies.