Samuel T. Anders

Samuel T. Anders was a citizen of the original Earth, a planet colonised by the Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, and one of the Final Five Cylons. Having escaped that world's destruction with four others, he used Resurrection technology to prolong his life across many bodies. After the Cylon War his memories were compartmentalised by the Number Ones and he was made to believe himself human, living for years as a renowned Pyramid star. He survived the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, led the resistance on occupied Caprica, married Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, and ultimately became the Hybrid of the Battlestar Galactica, dying before he could set foot on humanity's new home.

The original Earth#

Anders grew up on the original Earth, a world settled by the Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, a race of cybernetic beings who had developed the ability to reproduce. He was one of five contacted by the Messengers, who forewarned of a coming war with their own newly sentient machines. Rather than prevent it, the five were led to redevelop Resurrection technology, by which conscious minds could be downloaded into cloned bodies to cheat death. They completed their research and perished in a nuclear holocaust, their minds downloading into clones stored aboard a ship in orbit.

The five then set out to find Kobol's human population, eventually tracing them to the Cyrannus star system. Lacking faster-than-light travel, they crossed the distance at relativistic speeds.

The end of the Cylon War#

The five arrived twelve years into the war between humanity and its sentient creations, the Cylons. Determined to prevent another holocaust, they offered the Cylons access to their technology in exchange for an end to the war. The proposal was accepted, and over the following years Cylon society came to include human-like models resembling their benefactors. The Number Ones came to oppose this new order and launched a violent overthrow. Anders was captured and killed. Long afterward his consciousness was uploaded into a new body with his memories compartmentalised and replaced with false ones, in the manner of a sleeper agent. He adapted to human life and became a world-famous Pyramid player as captain of the Caprica Buccaneers.

Guerrilla leader on Caprica#

When the Cylons launched their assault on the Cyrannus system, Anders and the Buccaneers were training in the mountains near Delphi. Over the following weeks the team took up Centurion weapons and learned to fight back, joining other survivors. Anders became their leader, though the inexperienced fighters suffered heavy losses. Unknown to him, the resistance was permitted to survive by Cylon design: a Number One lived among them as a priest, while a Number Four serving as the team's medic deliberately shortened the group's life expectancy by misusing their medicine, the One wishing to prolong Anders' suffering.

About seven weeks into the occupation, Anders and the surviving Buccaneers encountered Lieutenants Kara Thrace and Karl Agathon of Galactica. He led them toward a Heavy Raider refuelling station, but the plan collapsed in a Centurion ambush, and Thrace was taken to a Cylon Farm where her ovaries were harvested for the hybridisation programme. With the help of a Number Eight, Anders tracked Thrace to the hospital used as the Farm and worked to liberate the captives.

The resistance shifted to striking Delphi itself, which the Centurions were rebuilding as a settlement, in the hope that the humanoid models would suffer and download enough times to abandon the occupation. After a café bombing went wrong, Anders was captured by a Number Three, who was in turn killed by a Number Six and a Number Eight intent on changing Cylon society. They parted from Anders, leaving him aware that there were good Cylons. When Raptors at last descended to extract the survivors, the Number One among them claimed the Cylons had departed the colonies for good, and was unmasked and air-locked on arrival at Galactica.

New Caprica and reconciliation#

Rejoining the fleet, Anders began a relationship with Thrace, and the two married during the year the survivors settled New Caprica. He fell gravely ill with pneumonia but recovered. When the Cylons occupied New Caprica, Anders again became a leader of the resistance.

After the escape, he joined the Circle, a body commissioned by President Tom Zarek to try and execute suspected Cylon collaborators. He quit after thirteen executions, having lost his taste for revenge, and was replaced by Thrace. The strain exposed deep rifts in their marriage and the two separated; later attempts at reconciliation were undermined by Thrace's growing feelings for Lee Adama. After Thrace's apparent death, Anders drank heavily and broke his leg in a fall from a Viper.

Awakening#

Anders later joined the Fleet as an Ensign and entered flight training. As the trial of Gaius Baltar commenced, he and three others, Tory Foster, Galen Tyrol and Colonel Saul Tigh, began to hear strange music audible only to them. The four came to understand that they were Cylons. Following Tigh's declaration of loyalty to the fleet whatever his nature, Anders reported for duty.

On his first battle mission his weapons jammed, and a Cylon pilot recognised him as a Cylon before the Cylon fighters withdrew. Reunited with the returned Thrace, he told her he would love her even if she were a Cylon. He was assigned to her crew aboard the Demetrius on the secret mission to find Earth, and when the crew mutinied against her, he shot Felix Gaeta in the leg to stop him jumping the ship back to the fleet against her wishes. On the ruined Earth he found the remains of a guitar and subconsciously played a song he had once played for the woman he loved, recalling that he and the other Final Five had lived their past lives there.

The Hybrid#

During the mutiny led by Gaeta and Zarek, Anders was beaten and imprisoned, then shot in the neck during the escape led by Thrace and Lee Adama. The wound triggered a reawakening of his Cylon memories, and he frantically tried to teach his fellow Final Five their history before lapsing into a coma. His brain activity proved unusual, and at a Number Eight's suggestion he was immersed in a Hybrid pool aboard a basestar and connected to its data stream, whereupon he began to speak in the prophetic ramblings of a Hybrid. When Thrace attempted to end his life, he caught her arm by reflex and named her the Harbinger of Death, as another Hybrid had done.

It was found that Anders was interacting directly with Galactica's power grid through the Cylon organic resin used in the ship's repairs, in effect becoming Galactica's own Hybrid, theoretically able to jump the ship by himself. During the Battle of the Colony he used this role to remotely access the Colony's Hybrids and take them and their weapons offline, preventing Galactica's destruction. He also shared his memories as the Final Five attempted to recreate Resurrection.

Once the fleet reached the new Earth, the decision was made for Anders to pilot Galactica and the rest of the fleet into the sun, leaving humanity to resettle below. As Thrace said her final goodbye, he answered quietly that he would see her on the other side, and flew the fleet into the star.