Jack Fisk

Commander Jack Fisk was a tactical officer of the battlestar Pegasus who survived the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. Promoted to Executive Officer after the Fall and later to command of the ship itself, he became deeply enmeshed in the fleet's black market, a hold on power that ultimately led to his murder.

Survival and promotion#

At the time of the Cylon attack on the Twelve Worlds, Fisk served as a senior officer aboard Pegasus, a Mercury-class battlestar, with the rank of Colonel. The ship was docked at the shipyards over Scorpia ahead of an extensive refit, and Fisk was aboard when the Cylons attacked, escaping the destruction of the shipyards and the bombardment of the planet.

In the days after the Fall, Fisk received a battlefield promotion to Executive Officer when Colonel Belzen was executed for refusing to carry out orders while Pegasus was caught in a Cylon trap. Aware of what would happen if he too refused, Fisk obeyed Rear Admiral Helena Cain and launched all Viper wings against the vastly superior Raider force. Afterward, Pegasus jumped to a flotilla of civilian refugee ships that had escaped the Fall thanks to their FTL drives. Fisk personally boarded one of the ships to strip it of vital components for Pegasus and to conscript experienced civilians. When unrest developed among the flotilla, Lieutenant Kendra Shaw murdered a woman to frighten the others into line, an act both Fisk and Cain approved. The ships and the unwanted civilians were then left behind to be destroyed by the Cylons.

Contact with Galactica#

Several months after the attack, Pegasus made contact with Galactica and its own refugee fleet. The early reconciliation was marked by crew transfers and supply deliveries, and Fisk used the opportunity to befriend Galactica's Executive Officer, Colonel Saul Tigh. While drunk, he made remarks about the execution of Colonel Belzen and the abandoned refugees, then passed them off as a joke when he saw how shocked Tigh was.

Relations between the two ships soured rapidly, the final straw being the accidental killing of Lieutenant Alastair Thorne by two Galactica crewmembers, Lieutenant Karl Agathon and Chief Galen Tyrol, as he tried to rape a Cylon prisoner. The two were sentenced to death, a verdict put on hold when both warships prepared to launch Vipers against one another. Fisk understood the killing was accidental but respected Cain's ruling that, since Cylons were not people, they could not be raped and the men's legal defense was therefore flawed. When two of Thorne's friends assaulted the Galactica crewmembers, Fisk broke up the fight and warned them that striking an officer in time of war could lead to their own executions. Fearing that Galactica's commanding officer, William Adama, would remain a problem, Cain ordered Fisk to take a Marine team to Pegasus and execute Adama on a signal. After the two ships' attack on a Cylon Resurrection Ship, Cain changed her mind and ordered him to stand down, and Fisk returned with the Marines. Soon afterward, Cain was murdered by Gina Inviere, a Cylon prisoner.

Command and the black market#

Newly promoted to Commander and appointed commanding officer of Pegasus, Fisk took a different approach to the civilian fleet than his predecessor. Rather than confiscate the ships for parts, he drew on Pegasus's own supplies to establish a large presence in the black market, using the proceeds to send expensive gifts to politicians and Colonial officers as bribes. His powerful position in the market proved his undoing. Pushing to be put in charge of the investigation into the black market, he kept others' reputations secure for a time while focusing on intimidating his fellow marketeers. Having had enough of him, Phelan, a high-profile gang member based on the Prometheus, ordered his liaison to board Pegasus and kill him. Accustomed to such trade aboard his ship, Fisk allowed the man into his private quarters, where he was garroted.