Karl Agathon

Lieutenant Karl C. "Helo" Agathon was an officer of the Colonial Fleet who served aboard the Battlestar Galactica. Trained as a Raptor Electronic Countermeasures Officer, he was left behind on Caprica during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies and survived for months under the Cylon occupation. There he formed a relationship with a Number Eight Humanoid Cylon, Sharon Valerii, whom he would later marry, and he became the father of the first successful human-Cylon hybrid child, Hera. Personnel shortages after the attacks saw him take on a succession of duties over the following years, including executive officer and Commander, Air Group. (Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II"; "The Farm"; "Downloaded"; "The Son Also Rises")

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies#

The Cylon strike on the colonies coincided with the planned decommissioning of Galactica. The ship's last fully operational Viper squadron had been flown out towards Caprica, escorted by a single Raptor crewed by Agathon and his pilot, Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. When Cylon Raiders closed on the squadron, they disabled the Vipers through the Command Navigation Program and destroyed them. The Raptor was damaged by a missile strike and Agathon's leg was cut by shrapnel. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries))

The damaged Raptor put down on Caprica for Valerii to make emergency repairs, and was soon mobbed by civilians desperate to get off the planet. With only a few seats to spare, the crew held a lottery. Recognising Dr. Gaius Baltar in the crowd, Agathon gave up his own seat to him, reasoning that Baltar's mind would be worth more to the survivors, and held off the crowd as the Raptor departed, shooting a man who clung to it. Stranded on Caprica, he fled. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries))

Stranding on Caprica#

Agathon survived on anti-radiation medication from his survival kit while eluding Cylon forces. After he was captured, he was rescued by a figure he believed to be Valerii, in fact another copy of the Number Eight model, who shot down the Number Six holding him. Her true purpose was a Cylon experiment to produce a human-Cylon child: the Cylons engineered situations meant to draw the two together, and the experiment resulted in a pregnancy, with the unintended effect that the Eight genuinely fell in love with Agathon. The rescue itself comes in the episode "33". (Battlestar Galactica, "33"; "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II")

He discovered her Cylon nature after coming face to face with another identical copy in Delphi, and fled, believing himself led into a trap. She caught up to him and revealed the pregnancy. Though he shot her in the arm, he did not kill her, and at her urging took her to the Delphi Museum. There he was reunited with Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, who was on a mission to recover the Arrow of Apollo. Sharon fled, and Agathon and Thrace joined the Caprican resistance before the three finally left Caprica together to rejoin the fleet. (Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II"; "The Farm")

Return to the fleet#

The group landed aboard the Astral Queen, where Agathon drew his weapon on Lee Adama to stop him shooting Valerii, whom Adama blamed for an earlier attempt on his father's life by another copy. Searching for the Tomb of Athena on Kobol, Agathon told her he still loved and trusted her. (Battlestar Galactica, "Home, Part I"; "Home, Part II")

His homecoming aboard Galactica, months after being declared missing, was bittersweet. Many in the crew found his love of a Cylon disturbing, and he and Chief Galen Tyrol, who had loved the first Sharon, came to blows before settling into an uneasy truce. He won wider acceptance after recommending that the experimental Blackbird stealth ship be built from carbon composites to evade DRADIS. (Battlestar Galactica, "Flight of the Phoenix")

After the arrival of the Battlestar Pegasus, Agathon and Tyrol intervened to stop the Cylon interrogator Lieutenant Alastair Thorne from raping the pregnant Sharon, and in the struggle killed him. Admiral Helena Cain sentenced both men to death in a summary trial, bringing Galactica and Pegasus to the brink of open conflict. The sentence was never carried out; the two were eventually released and the charges dropped. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; "Resurrection Ship, Part II")

When President Laura Roslin moved to force an abortion to remove the perceived threat of the hybrid child, Agathon begged Admiral William Adama to let him and Sharon leave the fleet. Roslin rescinded the order after Baltar used blood from the unborn child to cure her cancer, but later had the newborn daughter taken and her death faked. (Battlestar Galactica, "Epiphanies"; "Downloaded")

Rising rank#

During the year the fleet orbited New Caprica, Agathon remained with Galactica's skeleton crew, was promoted to Captain, and served as executive officer in place of Colonel Saul Tigh. He married his Sharon, who was later commissioned as an officer and given the callsign "Athena". When Galactica attempted to spread a virus to destroy the Cylon race, Agathon sabotaged the plan, judging the act to be genocide. (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II"; "Precipice"; "A Measure of Salvation")

When Tigh returned to the post of XO, Agathon went back to the flight line and piloted one of the Raptors that guided the fleet through a hazardous radioactive star cluster. After the deaths of Kat and Starbuck he was among the most senior pilots left, and he took over as Commander, Air Group from Lee Adama, then stood in again as XO when Tigh faltered. He later served aboard the Demetrius in the search for Earth, and in the assault on the Resurrection Hub he retrieved the Number Three, D'Anna. (Battlestar Galactica, "Collaborators"; "The Passage"; "The Son Also Rises"; "Crossroads, Part I"; "The Road Less Traveled"; "The Hub")

The Colony and after#

During the mutiny led by Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek, Agathon was beaten unconscious and locked up. After order was restored, the family's life resumed until Boomer impersonated Athena, seduced Agathon, and abducted Hera, taking her to the Colony where John Cavil intended to dissect her. (Battlestar Galactica, "The Oath"; "Someone to Watch Over Me"; "Islanded in a Stream of Stars")

When Adama obtained the Colony's location, Agathon and Athena volunteered for the rescue, a mission made perilous by the black hole the Colony orbited. Inside the Colony, with the help of a repentant Boomer, they reached their daughter. Agathon was shot in the leg along the way, and told Sharon to go after Hera rather than tend to him. He survived, and settled with Athena and Hera on the new Earth. (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")