Kara Thrace

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace was a Viper pilot in the Colonial Fleet and, by most reckonings, the most gifted flyer of her generation. Her brilliance in the cockpit was matched by a volatile temperament that repeatedly stalled her career and strained her closest relationships, among them William Adama, who came to regard her as a daughter, and Lee Adama, with whom she shared a turbulent love. After she flew to her apparent death over a gas giant, a figure bearing her appearance and memories rejoined the Fleet and ultimately led humanity to its new home.

Early life#

Thrace was born on Picon some years after the first Cylon War. Her father, Dreillide, was a piano composer who abandoned the family to pursue his music; her mother, Socrata, was a decorated Marine corporal obsessed with an oracle's prophecy that her daughter held a special purpose for humanity. Kara's childhood was physically abusive, and at one point every finger on one of her hands was broken. As a young adult she enlisted in the Colonial Military without expecting a long career, having once hoped to play the sport of Pyramid professionally.

The Fall and escape from Ragnar#

On the day of the Fall, Thrace was in the brig but was released to serve as acting CAG aboard Galactica, flying the museum-grade Viper Mark IIs that survived because they lacked the compromised navigation program. After the rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage she flew the reconnaissance that confirmed Cylon basestars lay in wait, then fought through the breakout, at one point pinning Lee Adama's damaged Viper with her own to bring it home.

Days later, blinded by guilt over a training accident, she washed out a class of new recruits for trivial flaws and confessed to Adama the truth of Zak's death, that she had passed him through training despite his inability to fly. Adama was furious. On the next training flight she was ambushed, shot down, and stranded on a desert moon with a broken knee; she survived by repairing the downed Cylon Raider she found and flying it back to the Fleet. The injury sidelined her from flight for a long stretch.

The mission to Caprica#

Assigned to interrogate a captured Number Two named Leoben, Thrace revealed a deep-seated faith in the gods even as she brutalized him, and was genuinely saddened when President Laura Roslin ordered him airlocked. Roslin then sent her on a dangerous mission to recover the Arrow of Apollo from occupied Caprica, persuading her to go by admitting that Adama did not in fact know the way to Earth, a revelation that shook her trust in him.

On Caprica she reunited with Karl "Helo" Agathon and the Sharon Valerii copy carrying his child, fell in with a resistance cell led by fellow Pyramid player Samuel Anders, and was briefly captured and experimented upon at a Cylon "farm" before escaping. She promised Anders she would return with help, then carried the Arrow to Kobol, where it opened the Tomb of Athena and yielded a rudimentary map to Earth.

New Caprica and after#

Promoted to Captain by Admiral Helena Cain of the Pegasus, Thrace later transferred back to Galactica as its CAG. Her bond with Lee Adama deepened into a single night together on New Caprica, after which she abruptly married Anders while Lee married Anastasia Dualla. During the Cylon occupation she was imprisoned in a recreation of her Caprican apartment, where a Leoben model tried to convince her they were destined to be lovers and presented a child he claimed was hers; the girl, Kacey, proved not to be her daughter after the Exodus.

Back with the Fleet she grew reckless and destructive until Adama gave her an ultimatum to straighten out or leave his ship. Her affair with Lee resumed and collapsed again over their respective marriages and her religious refusal to divorce Anders. Her crash on the algae planet left her with severe hand burns.

Destiny and death#

Thrace's troubled past and her experiences with Leoben returned as nightmares tied to a mandala connected to her supposed destiny. While refueling at a gas giant she pursued a Cylon Raider into a storm system that resembled the mandala, but found no evidence of any Raider afterward, leading many to think she was hallucinating. On a later patrol she pursued another Raider, was knocked unconscious, and experienced a confrontation with a figure wearing Leoben's appearance who forced her to face her past and her fear of death. Realizing the figure was not the Cylon Leoben, she flew on into the storm and told Lee to leave her. He watched her Viper implode with no sign she had survived.

After her death, a figure assuming Thrace's appearance and memories joined the Fleet, insisting she had been to Earth. Though her certainty caused friction, she ultimately input the numerical sequence that jumped Galactica to the world the Fleet would name Earth, having guided humanity to its new home.