Admiral is a fictional character in the
Battlestar Galactica television series. He was born on the colony world of
Caprica to Evelyn, an
Accountant and Joseph Adama, a
Civil Liberties lawyer. Adama's parents were
Divorce d when he was a teenager.
Adama was serving in the Colonial military as a
Viper pilot when the first
Cylon War broke out. He was a gifted pilot, managing to score his first kill during his first mission of the war. Here he earned the nickname Husker, as seen on the reconstructed Mk2 Viper in the 2003 mini series. He would serve on the
Battlestar Atlantia as a
Lieutenant and there he would make his 1,000th deck landing. After the war ended, Adama would go on to marry his long time love
Caroline Adama (her maiden name is unknown) and would eventually father two sons,
Zak and
Lee Adama (callsign Apollo).
Adama's career appears to have floundered after the war's end and he found himself serving on a commercial
Freighter , where he met and forged a lasting friendship with
Saul Tigh . He used his wife's family's connections in the Defense Council to get himself and Tigh back into the fleet and both quickly advanced through the ranks, culminating in Adama becoming Commander of the Battlestar ''Galactica'', with Tigh as his
Executive Officer .
His son Zak decided to follow in the footsteps of both his father and brother (Lee had become an accomplished pilot) and entered flight school. While in training, Zak began a secret relationship with
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace , his flight instructor. Unfortunately, he did not have the piloting skills that both his father and brother possessed. He would have failed basic flight training if not for his relationship with Kara, who passed him based on her feelings for him (he had recently proposed to her). As a result, during an operational flight, Zak's Viper crashed and he was killed. This tragedy drove a wedge between Adama and his surviving son, Lee, who blamed his father for pushing Zak into military service, and ruined Adama's marriage. He divorced his wife, who later remarried. It was also during this time that William Adama met Kara for the first time and a strong bond was formed between the two that eventually evolved into a father/daughter relationship.
Two years later, Adama would be put to the ultimate test. As the fifty year old ''Galactica'' was nearing the end of its service and headed towards a life as a
Museum , the Cylons launched a surprise attack on the
Twelve Colonies , destroying the majority of the Colonial fleet and bombarding the colonies with
Nuclear Weapon s. As an older ship from the first Cylon War, and due to Adama maintaining several military doctrines from the first war, ''Galactica'' was practically invulnerable to being crippled through Cylon infiltration of its computer systems. Much of ''Galactica's'' more modern fighter complement was not as fortunate, however, and was lost early in the attack. While some vulnerabilities may have nevertheless existed, Adama was also fortunate to avoid direct engagements with the Cylons until the computer weaknesses were identified and corrected. Fortunately as part of it's Museum display, the Galactica had forty Viper MK.II's on board, including Adama's personal fighter. These MK.II's were saved from Cylon manipulation due to their age. Adama had little choice but to avoid combat, as ''Galactica'' had been disarmed in anticipation of its decommissioning. The ship therefore headed to
Ragnar Anchorage to rearm. While there, the ''Galactica'' encounters a rag-tag fleet of civilian vessels loaded with around 50,000 survivors, including the new President of the Colonies,
Laura Roslin , who implores Adama to abandon his plan to fight the Cylons and instead lead the survivors to safety. He complies, deciding the survival of the human race is more important and orders the fleet to jump beyond the red line (the imaginary boundary of known
FTL jumps). He leaves his second wife,
Anne Adama behind.
After an incident on the hangar deck that resulted in the deaths of several pilots, Adama became aware of the true details of his son Zak's death, after Thrace let the whole affair with Zak cloud her judgement again by being too harsh on the replacement trainees. Adama was barely able to restrain himself upon learning of the cause of Zak's death from Thrace. Events following the revelation led Adama and his surviving son Lee to commit a similar act of allowing feelings to cloud judgement, after Thrace was shot down and stranded on an inhospitable planet. After Adama is compelled to abandon Thrace by President Roslin, Thrace miraculously rescues herself and returns to Galactica aboard a captured Cylon Raider. Adama forgives Thrace for her indiscretions concerning Zak.
Soon after ''Galactica'' and the Colonial fleet discovered the lost planet
Kobol , Adama was shot by a Cylon agent, which placed him in mortal jeopardy. Although he survived this assassination attempt, the brush with death has changed Adama somewhat.
At the end of "Resurrection Ship, Part II", with the death of Admiral
Helena Cain , President Roslin promoted Adama to Admiral. There was also a brief, sweet kiss between the two, initiated by Adama, which Roslin seemed to smile at after it was over.
Adama is greatly loved by the crew of ''Galactica'' and is often affectionately called 'the old man,' but not to his face. His popularity among the civilian population of the Colonial fleet is probably not as great. This is because Adama has made a number of decisions that are controversial at the very least, such as staging a brief coup against President Roslin, and concealing the fact that some Cylons can pose as human beings.
