20 Of The Coolest Female Robots In Science Fiction

Grace Park as Number Eight (Image via Universal Television)

1. Number Eight (Battlestar Galactica)

The Battlestar Galactica reboot of the early 2000s was fairly crawling with androids. The Cylons had created human-like androids in order to infiltrate human society. They sought to better understand the humans in order to ultimately defeat them. Ultimately, it seems like a roundabout way of destroying an enemy species, but it made for compelling television.

Interestingly, the main Cylon infiltrators in the rebooted series were female. I’ve already mentioned Number Six, whose copies were often strikingly attractive and occasionally religious in a deeply creepy manner.

Number Eight, however, might be even more ubiquitous. Sharon “Boomer” Valerii and Sharon “Athena” Agathon, both portrayed by Grace Park, are the two most prominent Number Eights. Both were pilots on the Galactica, the titular battleship of the series.

Boomer is a sleeper agent, unbeknownst even to herself. On an away mission, she finally meets a bevy of Number Eights, which is one hell of a way to learn you’re a killer robot. She then returns and attempts to assassinate Admiral Adama, the leader of the human forces. Boomer is “killed” in a manner of speaking, but resurrects with the Cylon Fleet.

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Athena possesses the copied memories of Boomer, but has full knowledge of her identity as a Cylon. She’s part of a weird Cylon experiment to make a human fall in love with her, which naturally ends with Athena falling in love herself.