There were 12 colonies, and we only saw the resistance forces on Caprica. I'd bet that organized resistances might have existed on the other eleven worlds, although Picon might have been a radioactive post-apocalyptic hell from the cylon destruction of the fleet HQ. We know that at least one world had a reputation for lawlessness, another had a reputation as a world of religious devotees, and so on. Play that up, and have NPCs sterotype the characters. Accuse someone of being a cylon. Whatever it takes, keep in mind that your players are members of a hunted race. Try and capture that feel of play in whatever setting you choose.
Rather than a part of the fluid nature of PL progression, it is much more likely that the FTL drive is a holdover reminant technology from the era of Kobol. We are talking about a civilization that could sculpt 12 habitable worlds out of one solar system here. Some of them might have been harsh, but they were all able to support human life. A teleport FTL is not inconsistant with that technology level. When Kobol fell, pices of its technology and knowledge base survived intact.
Cylon Battlestars have no exaust, did anyone else notice that? They must be using a gravity or pure Reactionless drive to propell them through space. This could be based of the Artificial Gravity tech the colonials already had durring the Cylon war. I wonder why they don't have laser Point Defense, except that the power generation and transfer arrays for such a system would need large radiators to keep the heat buildup tolerable.
