Lee Adama: Leland Adama, callsign Apollo

Commander Leland Joseph Adama, known almost universally as "Lee" or by his callsign "Apollo," was a Colonial Fleet officer and the sole surviving son of William Adama. A gifted Viper pilot marked early for high command, he served as the Combat Air Group commander of Galactica before turning increasingly to civilian affairs, becoming the Caprican delegate to the Quorum of Twelve and later interim President of the Twelve Colonies. (Battlestar Galactica, "Six of One"; "Sine Qua Non")

Early life#

Lee grew up on Caprica, the elder of William Adama's two sons. His parents divorced while he was young, and he and his younger brother Zak were raised largely by their mother while their father's service kept him away. Lee's admiration for his father turned to resentment as he grew, and his contact with him dwindled. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries))

Lee followed his father into the Colonial Fleet and flight school anyway, and was regarded as an officer well on his way to commanding a battlestar someday. He was accepted to test pilot school, though in a deleted scene he admits he was thinking of leaving the Fleet rather than chase dreams that were his father's. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Zak's death and the rift#

Zak followed his brother into flight training, though Lee doubted he was cut out for it. Lee first met Kara Thrace, Zak's instructor and fiancee, at a dinner at her apartment, and the attraction between them was immediate. Two years before the Fall, Zak was killed when his Viper went down on a routine flight. Lee blamed his father, believing Zak had only flown to please him, and the two barely spoke afterwards. When they met again at Galactica's decommissioning, Lee vented two years of anger at him. (Battlestar Galactica, "Act of Contrition"; "Daybreak, Part I"; Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries))

CAG of Galactica#

Reporting to Galactica for its decommissioning ceremony, Lee was flying escort for Laura Roslin's transport when the Cylon attack began, and once back aboard he was appointed CAG by Colonel Tigh as the ranking pilot. In the breakout from Ragnar he was saved by Thrace's quick thinking. Days later he fired on the Olympic Carrier on Roslin's order, in the episode "33". As Galactica's senior pilot and Roslin's military adviser, he repeatedly found himself between duty and conscience. When President Laura Roslin confronted a prisoner uprising aboard the Astral Queen, Lee defused it by promising the prisoners a say in their future through elections, to Roslin's displeasure. During Roslin's arrest and the standoff over her presidency, he ultimately sided with the President against his own father's orders. (Battlestar Galactica, "33"; "Water"; "Bastille Day"; "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II"; Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries))

His relationship with Thrace ran hot and cold across the years, complicated by his marriage to Anastasia Dualla and her marriage to Samuel Anders, and by a friendly-fire incident in which she shot down his Viper. After promotion to Commander he led the Pegasus, and during the Exodus from New Caprica he left his Vipers with the civilians and brought the Pegasus into the battle, sacrificing the ship to save Galactica. (Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part I"; "The Captain's Hand"; "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II"; "Unfinished Business"; "Exodus, Part II")

From soldier to statesman#

Lee increasingly turned from the cockpit to politics. He investigated and broke up the Fleet's black market, killing its brutal leader Phelan but accepting that some illicit trade could never be eliminated. He was assigned to the security detail for the attorney Romo Lampkin, then resigned his commission and joined the defence team at the trial of Gaius Baltar, arguing on the stand that the Fleet had forgiven many for serious crimes out of the simple need to survive; Baltar was acquitted. Tom Zarek later nominated him as Caprica's delegate to the Quorum of Twelve. (Battlestar Galactica, "Black Market"; "The Son Also Rises"; "Crossroads, Part II"; "Six of One")

During the discovery of the Temple of Five on the algae planet, then-Major Lee pressed the detonator on explosives meant to deny the temple to the Cylons, but the charges had already been disconnected. When Roslin vanished aboard the rebel baseship, Lampkin picked Lee as interim President. After the Gaeta and Zarek mutiny, in which every other Quorum delegate was killed, Roslin named Lee her successor and accepted his proposal for a new Quorum based on representation from each ship in the Fleet. (Battlestar Galactica, "Rapture"; "Sine Qua Non"; "No Exit")

The new Earth#

When Roslin and Lee both joined the final mission to rescue Hera, Lampkin was left to lead the civilian Fleet. After the Fleet reached the habitable world it named Earth, it was Lee who proposed that the colonists abandon their ships and most of their technology and start again among the planet's primitive humans, a plan his father adopted. He bid his father farewell on the new world, having outlived his brother, his comrades, and the civilisation he had been raised to defend. (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")