Dude, if you're talking about the 1970s/80s original lore, your way off. Originally, the cans were created by a race of aliens that looked like reptiles. That race of aliens discovered humans and figured building robots that looked like humans was easier than building them that looked like themselves for some reason. Then, the machines rebelled against their alien creators. The machines eventually figured out they were based on humans and were like. Hey, these guys are gonna try to enslave us to F them before they F us.

It's hard to find the lore in the original 1970 something show. However, it is there.

Unfortunately, it's only mentioned in like 2 episodes. Each mention is less than 25 to 30 seconds long. They're basically throw away statements where they find some humans on a planet and the humans are like. What are these robots, and they're like. Oh yeah, aliens built them to look like us because it was easier than making them look like themselves.

Then everybody shrugged their shoulders and continued with the show. It was frustrating as f***.

First rule of Sci-fi, If it's designed by Ralph Mcquarrie it looks fantastic.

"Machines should not try to be people, they should be the best machines possible [...]"
John Cavil totally agreed with you in his "I don’t want to be human" speech.

The Basestar's kiting strategy does explain the Mercury Class's spinal batteries with the far longer range and one shot capabilities.
After all it doesn't matter if you can make it rain missiles and raiders, if your ship is broken in half before you can launch any of them.

"She has 300 fighters, carries two long-range mega pulsars, here and here, and over a hundred defensive laser turrets. She's an orbiting killer, capable of destroying every ship we have, including the Galactica."

Pulsar actually isn't a bad name for their main weapon, shooting out the bottom and top resembles how actual pulsars emit beams from their magnetic poles. Could definitely lose the "mega" though lol.

15:45 No wonder the Colonials created the Holy Wall Of Flack.
Considering that turning the void of space into an atmosphere composed of 60% Lead was the only effective counter to deal with the Cylons nonsense.

In the original 70s series commander Cain says at this range even their shields will not protect them. So yes the original basestars had shields.

" Cylon Basestars are made of meat "
" that's why the Battlestars chew them up then "

i'll see myself out.

S'funny, as a kid I always had the impression that 70's BSG was a bit cheesy but, even so, there was always something rather unsettling and daunting about episodes that featured a Basestar.

Ah yes... my favorite carrier ship in the Battlestar Universe. I can never get enough seeing them slowly spin through the screen ^^

Funny, from what i remember, the rotation was indeed a side effect of either their reactor or their unique propusion system, but that was long before the new series dropped :)
For the size, since the original Cylon raiders are about 20m wide (remember, their cockpit housed 3 Centurions and gave them plenty of space, then take a look of how big that cockpit window is compared to the rest of the raider), you can use one of them and make them enter one of those hangars like they do in the show. It might look quite good at the beginning, but with narrowing down at the end/the center, you really need to crank up the basestars size to let the raiders enter without scratching the left and right sidewalls.
With that method, you see, that you need at least a diameter of 1500m to make the raiders fit in, without looking completely oversized. Your 2100m diameter make it look quite good, but with 2500m it looks more fitting. So somewhat between 2100 and 2500m.

Watching the original series and seeing the battles we get to see and listening to the in-show lore we hear about other battles, it brings me to the conclusion one Colonial Battlestar has the power to take on one and a half to two Cylon Basestars. Also, using the same information from TOS BSG, it appears there wasn't any huge fleets of dozens and dozens of basestars or battlestars. So, we only ever see a total of three Cylon basestars at any one time due to the need to have a limited fleet covering many locations. Even at Caralon, Imperious Leader had only his own basestar and no further support.

As Cylons do not require fresh produce or meat, they do not have a WalMart.  The BaseStars have an Amazon fulfillment center.

6:01 "He's just rotating there... MENACINGLY! ... GET OUT OF THERE, STARBUCK!"

They used a destroyer version  a single saucer. Like half a basestar , eith the same aof guns  and 50 raiders.  ( tos)

Oh, the Borg Frisbee! They just opened a Jamba Juice last week!

The original basestar is exactly what I imagined when I read about Hapan battle dragons, just with turbolasers on the edges.

I always thought that the original Basestar was superior. If only because of multiple overlapping fields of fire. And the merry go round of death only makes that field of fire even worse.

I thought I remembered a few times when a battlestar and a cylon base star exchanged volleys of shots, but of course the original series came out when I was in elementary school.  Yes, I know most of the gun emplacements were for shooting enemy fighters, and I don't remember those volleys actually doing anything.  More like the obligatory "I don't like you, so I'll shoot spitballs at you whenever we're within range."