Barry Garner

Commander Barry Garner was a chief engineer and, later, the commanding officer of the Battlestar Pegasus. Raised to command as the highest-ranking officer left aboard the ship, he ran the Pegasus with an engineer's exacting discipline that strained his relationships with his crew and his fellow officers. He died conducting repairs in a breached compartment after leading the Pegasus into a Cylon trap.

Chief engineer of the Pegasus#

Garner served as the Pegasus's chief of engineering during the command of Rear Admiral Helena Cain and, after her, of Commander Jack Fisk. The Fall of the Twelve Colonies had left the fleet without any Officer Candidate School to train replacements, and the Pegasus had lost much of its executive officer corps. When command of the ship fell vacant, Rear Admiral William Adama promoted Garner to commander as the highest-ranking officer remaining aboard.

Command and conflict with Thrace#

As commander, Garner made his engineering expertise the basis of his leadership philosophy, punishing crew members for the slightest of errors in an effort to maintain a perfectly disciplined crew. His approach quickly created friction throughout the ship.

When two Raptors disappeared during a training mission, Garner turned on his newly assigned CAG, Captain Kara Thrace, and revoked her flight status. His relationship with Major Leland Adama was strained as a result. When Thrace proposed that the two Raptors had been lured into a Cylon trap by a false distress call, Garner dismissed the theory simply because of who had voiced it. He was forced to take it seriously only when Major Adama raised the same idea in a call with the Admiral.

Death aboard the Pegasus#

Ordered to prepare for a Raptor search-and-rescue operation, Garner ignored the orders outright and instead commanded the Pegasus to jump directly to the suspected coordinates. When his executive officer tried to place him under arrest, Garner had a Marine guard relieve the officer of duty.

The Pegasus arrived to find itself in the Cylon trap and took a nuclear blast from one of three basestars, knocking out its jump drives and causing serious engineering problems. With his replacement chief of engineering underqualified to handle the crisis, Garner went into a breached compartment to conduct the repairs himself. He succeeded in restoring the drives, but died of oxygen deprivation in the process.