Battlestar Galactica – Series Bible
By: Ron D. Moore
Source: Battlestar Wiki and Series Bible (in PDF format)
I have no idea how I missed this. The BSG Series Bible was put online in March 2009. For those that don’t know what the BSG Series Bible is, I’ll let Battlestar Wiki explain …
A series bible is a guidebook written by the creator(s) of a TV show so that all writers will know the general outline of the show; it contains the backstories of the characters and outlines the in-series universe. Typically, it contains information that might not actually be revealed to the audience until later, but is known to the writers from the start, so they won’t make any conflicting new stories. Additionally, writers of some film series use a similar bible. The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series bible was written by Ron D. Moore after the Miniseries during a hiatus and was completed on 17 December 2003.
CHARACTER BIOGRAPHIES – Chief Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol was born and raised on the colony of Gemenon. Tyrol’s father, Iophon was a priest and his mother, Daphne was an oracle. Gemenon itself was founded by the colonial equivalent of Puritans, and its society is a theocracy, ruled by religious leaders and steeped in the traditions of the scriptures. Tyrol grew up steeped in religious training and belief, but secretly prayed to the gods for a chance to leave Gemenon and travel among the stars. His parents would have none of it, however, and the boy seemed destined to take orders just as his father did. But the day before his acceptance into the priesthood, he walked into a recruiting officer and signed up for the Colonial Fleet. The impulsive decision would permanently rent the family, and Tyrol and his parents would not speak again for the next ten years.
In basic training Tyrol was immediately pegged as a natural leader, a man the other recruits looked to for direction when the drills became too much to handle. He was honor man of his graduating class, and made Able-Bodied Deck Hand, First Class almost immediately. Given his choice of specialties, Tyrol at first sought out Intelligence training believing it held the most exotic and far-ranging lifestyle, but six months into the program, he opted out, finding the long hours of academic study boring and stultifying
He’d spent years fixing machines, starting with his father’s ancient car, but Tyrol had no interest in pursuing life a mechanic. He wanted a life of excitement and danger, not one filled with tools and cranky engines.
Then, entirely by chance, he assigned to temporary duty aboard the battlestar Pegasus, which was short of hands and about to participate in a series of war games. Tyrol was put into the deck gang on the hangar bay -just another pair of hands for the Chief of the Deck, no pressure to achieve, no reason for him to stand out. But Tyrol did more than stand out, he became a star on the hangar deck.
He had an intuitive feel for working with and repairing spacecraft, somehow always knowing what was wrong with a recalcitrant engine before anyone else. The atmosphere aboard the Pegasus in general was hard-charging demanding and the atmosphere on the flight deck was even more high-pressure. As the ship entered the war games, Vipers were being launched and recovered faster than thought humanly possible and the deck gang went without sleep for almost three days straight. Tyrol not only survived, he thrived. Something about handling the big dangerous Vipers struck a chord with mm Here was an entirely secular enterprise, a world where a machine either worked or it didn’t. Tyrol fell in love with the pressure and the adrenaline of the flight line, and he decided then and there to work on the hangar deck.
Following formal training at the Fleet Aviation Repair and Maintenance Center he was assigned to the newly commissioned battlestar Columbia as one of her first deck chiefs. The Columbia was a cranky, difficult vessel, fresh from the shipyard, and her complement of Vipers were the experimental new Mark VII’s. Tyrol spent five years ironing out the problems and breaking in the new flight deck. He ran a tight crew, brooked no inattention or sloppiness among his people when it came to the job, but had little use for formality or strict protocol. He was a popular chief, liked and trusted by officer and deck hand alike.
Then came disaster. A Viper pilot and was killed when his engine prematurely ignited still in the launch tube. An investigation showed a valve had been improperly seated in the casing and Tyrol’s deck gang was responsible. No one ever determined who had mishandled the valve or how it had escaped detection, but it was Tyrol’s job to sign off on all work done on his Vipers and it was the tradition of the service that he take full responsibility. His sterling record was taken into account and he was not discharged, but he was reduced two steps in ranks and reassigned to the Galactica, the oldest ship in the Fleet, a far cry from the sparkling new Columbia and essentially a dead end for his career.
Tyrol started over on the Galactica – just an anonymous deck hand, trying to keep his head down, and forget about what had happened. But he didn’t stay anonymous for long.
Adama liked to walk the flight line every day, checking out his birds as part of his morning routine, and he soon spotted Tyrol and his affinity for the fighters and the deck gang It wasn’t long before Adama restored his rank and made him Chief of the Deck.
Tyrol thrived aboard Galactica, appreciated Adama’s old school style of command and even began to fall in love with the old ship herself. Galactica was about three decades obsolete, and constantly in need of repair, but Tyrol didn’t care. If anything Galactica needed him in a way that the Columbia never would. Tyrol had found his home and his place.
Then came Sharon Valerii. She was the youngest of the young pilots, and greener than grass. She and Tyrol started sniping at one another almost immediately. The friction became something more and even though each of them knew they were risking their careers, they soon found themselves engaged in one of the most hazardous activities of all — a shipboard affair. Two people could hardly be more different, but neither of them could stay away from the other. Tyrol calmed Sharon and Sharon sparked Tyrol. As Galactica began her final voyage, Sharon, along with most of Galactica’s squadron, was reassigned to the battlestar Pegasus. Tyrol quietly put in a request for transfer to the Pegasus as well, and with Adama’s letter of recommendation now in his service record, Tyrol was accepted aboard the Pegasus and he was looking forward to life back on the front lines when the Cylons attacked.
Tyrol is old school, a believer in the customs and traditions of the service. No longer a devout man, he still retains the core faith of someone raised in a religious home. He can be intolerant and bullheaded when it comes to the job, but he is also carries around the pressure of being responsible for every man and woman on his crew.
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CHARACTER BIOGRAPHIES – Lieutenant Sharon Valerii
Her relationship with her Flight Officer – Helo – was a close one, and the older man watched out for her as she struggled to make her deck qualifications. They almost pursued a romantic relationship as well, but then Sharon hooked up with Chief Tyrol. Helo was aware of the affair and the impropriety of it, but he guarded her privacy jealously and let it be known that he would exact a price from any pilot who caused trouble for her.
Sharon is unaware of her true nature, unaware that far from being the daughter of a mining family, that she is in reality a Cylon sleeper agent, implanted into Colonial society. She slipped onto to the commercial transport just before it left Troy, fully aware of her mission and her nature. But when she awoke from her “nap” her cover program took hold from that point forward, she believed herself to a normal human being with a tragic past.
Sensitive and shy, she puts on a tough-chick front for the benefit of those around her. In Tyrol , she had found a man who is, quite literally, her first true love.
* The above is a snippet from the ‘Lieutenant Sharon Valerii’ section where Chief Tyrol is mentioned.
CHARACTER ARCS – Chief Tyrol & Baltar
Tyrol will start to become suspicious of Baltar and his motivations. Eventually Tyrol will become Baltar’s implacable foe, convinced that the scientist is in league with the Cylons and plotting his own takeover of the fleet. However, Tyrol will be hampered by the his own relative low-rank and his inability to get the goods on the man that is increasingly seen as one of the heroes of the rag-tag fleet.
CHARACTER ARCS – Sharon Valerii
She will begin to experience odd lapses in memory. Strange moments of missing time during which she seemed to go places and do things she cannot recall later.
Bit by bit Sharon will discover clues pointing to her true nature, but instead of pursuing them, she will fight against them on an intuitive level and instead will attempt to form a family with Chief Tyrol and Boxey, seeking out the one thing she can never be – a maternal role in a human family.
CHARACTER ARCS – Sharon & Tyrol
Their professional lives will be thrown into chaos as Tigh cracks down on their personal relationship, deeming it destructive to discipline and unit cohesion. At first, they will obey orders and stay away from each other, but their feelings for one another will slowly but surely bring them back together in greater secrecy. As Sharon begins to realize that there’s something not right with her, Tyrol will become even more protective of her and he’ll be determined to get to the bottom of what’s happening to Sharon without ever considering that he may not like the truth once he finds it.
THE BATTLESTAR GALACTICA – Enlisted and Officers
There is a clear distinction between enlisted personnel and their officers. Officers are expected to be leaders, capable of taking charge of any situation, and to always take care of the men and women under their command. Enlisted are the backbone of the service and perform all the hard work from wrestling armaments aboard Vipers to cleaning the compartments to filing paperwork. It is strictly against regulations for enlisted and officers to become romantically involved, especially within the chain of command. This is to ensure that enlisted feel treated fairly by their officers, not being favored or passed over because of some other relationship. Therefore, the relationship between Tyrol and Sharon is way out of bounds and will be a recurrent problem for them both.
While flying is clearly the primary role of any pilot or flight officer, they are also officers and as such they are expected to shoulder additional responsibilities when not actually flying Every junior officer aboard Galactica commands a division within the ship.
A division is a group of enlisted personnel commanded by a noncommissioned or petty officer (typically a Chief), who then reports to the division officer. As a practical matter, pilots and flight offices do not have the time or energy to oversee a division in comparison to regular officers, so for all intents and purposes the Chief runs the division – but it is important to keep in mind that the division officer is ultimately responsible for anything and everything that happens in their division. For instance, if there’s a maintenance issue in Boomer’s division, if one of the Vipers is chronically short of spare parts or unable to fly, the CAG will be on Boomer’s case about it, not Chief Tyrol.
