Saul Tigh

Colonel Saul Tigh was a member of the Colonial Fleet and the executive officer of the battlestar Galactica through the years surrounding the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. The oldest friend of William Adama, he was a competent but hard-drinking officer whose worst impulses were often steadied by Adama and inflamed by his wife Ellen. Late in the Fleet's journey he learned the most disorienting truth of his life: that he was one of the Final Five Cylons, an identity he reconciled with his unshakable sense of himself as a Colonial officer.

Early life and friendship with Adama#

After the demobilization that followed the first Cylon War, Tigh served in the merchant navy, where he became close friends with William Adama, a retired Viper pilot who hoped to re-enlist. When a government initiative to improve the military offered an opening through Adama's wife Carolanne's connections, both men returned to the Fleet. Tigh's marriage to his wife, Ellen, was a troubled one; her infidelity left him deeply bitter, to the point that he once attacked Kara Thrace for mentioning it during a card game. The couple's inability to have children was a further strain, though Tigh once remarked that he was grateful to be childless after watching Adama's difficulties with his son.

Tigh served as Adama's executive officer aboard the Valkyrie, and after a failed black-ops mission along the Armistice Line the two friends were reassigned to the less prestigious Galactica to finish their careers. During this period Tigh published three volumes of war history before his personal troubles interfered.

The Fall and interim command#

The long peace ended with the return of the Cylons, and Tigh was tested almost at once. When a nuclear missile struck Galactica, he ordered the affected section sealed off, dooming eighty-seven of the crew but saving the ship. He led the marine detachment that briefly deposed President Laura Roslin, taking both her and Lee Adama into custody after Roslin surrendered.

His hardest trial came when the sleeper agent Sharon Valerii shot Commander Adama. As interim commander, Tigh struggled with the civilian population in a way Adama never had. He ordered an emergency jump that, through a transmission failure, separated Galactica from the rest of the Fleet, and to rejoin it he ordered the ship's computers networked, overriding Adama's standing prohibition. His declaration of martial law and dissolution of the Quorum, urged on by Ellen, led to the bloody confrontation the Fleet dubbed the Gideon Massacre. With Adama's recovery, Tigh gladly returned to his role as the Admiral's right hand. He bore Roslin no lasting ill will and, with Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla, took part in the attempt to rig the presidential election in her favor, later confessing his guilt to Adama.

New Caprica and the resistance#

Tigh and Ellen joined the settlers on New Caprica shortly before the Cylon occupation. As the highest-ranking officer left on the planet, Tigh led the human resistance with Galen Tyrol and Samuel Anders as his lieutenants. He was jailed and tortured repeatedly, and his right eye was torn out, leaving him to wear an eyepatch thereafter. Embittered further, he sanctioned suicide bombings over the objections of others.

His darkest act followed Ellen's betrayal of the resistance: she had slept with the Cylon Cavil to free Tigh from jail and was then coerced into informing on the resistance. When her treachery was discovered, Tigh poisoned her while sharing a final drink, weeping as she died in his arms, viewing her death as a grim necessity.

Bitterness and recovery#

After the Exodus, Tigh was made a member of the Circle, the secret tribunal that executed suspected collaborators. He resented Karl "Helo" Agathon's occupation of the XO post and sank into heavy drinking and open discontent until Adama confined him to quarters. The recovery of the long-captive Daniel "Bulldog" Novacek, whose capture Tigh bitterly revealed to be Adama's doing, paradoxically pulled him out of his spiral: when Bulldog attacked Adama, it was Tigh who saved his old friend's life. The two slowly rebuilt their friendship over a shared drink, and Tigh returned to duty as XO, slipping back into the CIC by a side door to avoid attention.

The Final Five and the end of the war#

Drawn together by music only they could hear, Tigh, Anders, Tyrol, and Tory Foster came to realize during a Cylon attack that they were themselves Cylons, four of the Final Five. Tigh's response was defiant: he declared that whatever else he was, he was an officer of the Colonial Fleet, and that was the man he wanted to be. He nonetheless suffered visions of shooting Adama and of his dead wife's face. He entered into a relationship with the captive Caprica Six, who became pregnant by him in the first recorded Cylon-Cylon pregnancy. Briefly brevetted Rear Admiral and given command of Galactica, he never wore the insignia.

Tigh revealed his Cylon nature to Adama and offered to airlock himself as leverage against the enemy, but he and the others were granted amnesty by Acting President Lee Adama. After the ruined first Earth, he learned that the resurrected Ellen was the fifth of their number; her return and his relationship with Caprica Six brought conflict, and Caprica lost the child they had meant to name Liam. Tigh volunteered for the final mission to rescue Hera and coordinated the battle from the CIC with Adama. When Cavil took Hera hostage, Tigh offered him resurrection technology in exchange for her release and an end to the hunt for humanity, sealing the truce. He was shocked to learn Tory had murdered Cally and could only watch as Tyrol killed her in revenge. After Galactica jumped away and broke its back, Tigh reported the damage and resumed his duties. On the new Earth he forgave Tyrol, saying he would have done the same in his place, and went off with Ellen to live out their lives together.