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P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Yubsie
OOC Journal: yubsie
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over 18
Email + IM: Email: Yubsie at gmail dot com, AIM: Yubs42
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Bail Organa, Sandman!Death, Granny Weatherwax, Wash, Gavroche Thénardier

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: William Adama
Canon: Battlestar Galactica
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: End of season 3
Number: Randomize!

Setting: A universe in which we can't have nice things
History:

Bill was born on Caprica, the son of prominent lawyer Joseph Adama and his former secretary Evelyn. He was named for his dead older half-brother, which apparently no one found strange at all. It was a very stupid plot twist and I have still not forgiven Caprica for making me care about that other William Adama under false pretenses. Ahem. Bill was raised in a small fishing village called Qualai.

While he was still in school, the first Cylon war broke out. After finishing his education, Bill enlisted in the military as a Viper and Raptor pilot, with his first assignment being the Battlestar Galactica. He successfully shot down a Cylon while flying his first combat mission. Shortly after that, he was selected as part of a very hush hush mission involving ships that were believed to have been destroyed. The mission ultimately weakened the defenses of every Cylon base in five sectors as well as providing a much needed morale boost to the humans.

Despite his notable service, Bill was furloughed from the military after the end of the war. While working on a civilian ship, he met a (supposed) fellow veteran, Saul Tigh. The pair struck up an enduring friendship. Bill’s marriage to Carolanne, daughter of an influential family, paved the way for his reinstatement into the military. Not surprisingly, he also arranged for Saul’s reinstatement two years later.

Bill and Carolanne had two sons (Leland and Zak), but the realities of a military career created a strain on their marriage. While Bill was advancing through the ranks to XO of the Battlestar Columbia and commander of the Battlestar Valkyrie, his marriage to Carolanne was breaking down, ultimately ending in divorce.

Late in his career, Bill escorted a stealth ship over the Armistice line. The mission was an unqualified failure, requiring that the pilot be shot down and provoking the ire of the Cylons. Afterwards, Bill was assigned to command the aging Galactica.

Bill’s sons both followed him into the military. Lee soon proved himself an excellent pilot, but Zak was ill fitted to the career. Zak only passed basic flight training due to his relationship with flight instructor Kara Thrace. His shakey piloting skills led to his death on an operational mission. This further strained Bill’s relationship with the elder, Lee. At Zak's funeral, he met Kara and went on to form a close bond with her.

When Bill attended the decommissioning ceremony for Galactica, very little went as planned. First he gave a more ominous speech than he intended. This was followed by the return of the Cylons are the death of the vast majority of the human race. Rather than a museum, Galactica wound up as the protector of a small civilian fleet. Bill initially wanted to go out fighting the Cylons, but was persuaded by the newly promoted President Laura Roslin that protecting the remainder of the human race was more important, leading him to raise the prospect of finding the mythic Earth before the fleet.

Bill and Laura came to an agreement that while she was in charge of the fleet, military matters would remain in his hands. The two often clashed early on, culminating in a coup d’etat during which Bill threw Laura in the brig. He then devised a daring plan to take out a Cylon basestar. The triumphant pilot returning from that mission proceeded to shoot him in the chest. Twice.

Unfortunately for the Cylons, the shot was not fatal. However, tensions in the fleet worsened while Bill was unconscious (Never let Saul Tigh run a press conference). After his return to duty, the fleet was divided over Laura’s insistence on seeking the Tomb of Athena on Kobol. Roughly a third of the fleet follows her away from Galactica. However, he eventually realized that keeping the fleet together is of utmost importance and orders the remainder to jump to Kobol. He travelled down to the surface in an attempt to mend fences. This marked the beginning of a much gentler relationship with Laura Roslin involving considerably less throwing people in brigs.

The Fleet then encounters the Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by the much more hardline Admiral Cain. Tensions lead to a conspiracy to assassinate Admiral Cain, which ultimately went unexecuted. However, Cain was killed by a Cylon prisoner shortly afterwards. In the aftermath, Bill was promoted to Admiral.

After the election of Gaius Baltar, the majority of the Fleet settles on New Caprica. One year later, the Cylons invade and Galactica and Pegasus retreat. After desperate planning, Bill eventually comes up with a plan to return and rescue the colonists. This is a rather awesome manoeuvre involving belly flopping Galactica into the atmosphere. The Fleet then resumed its search for Earth.

Eventually, the pilot he had to shoot down reappeared. This was generally awkward all around but Laura insisted on giving him a medal anyway because it was good for morale. And she's the boss of him.

Things hit a rather high crisis level when the fleet's food supplies became contaminated. After considerable searching and right in time, a planet full of protein rich algae was discovered. Of course, there also turned out to be a temple to the final five cylons which attracted the Cylons' interest. He threatened to nuke the entire planet, Lee included. It seems fairly unlikely, but he would have gone through with it, it was enough to spook the Cylons into backing off. Shortly afterwards, the sun went nova, pointing the way toward Earth.

Of course, during all this, they also got stuck with Gaius Baltar. And had to figure out what to do with him. The first thing they opted for was torture, that's always a good time! Ultimately he and Roslin opted to give him a trial.

Around this time, Kara Thrace, who Bill regarded as a daughter, was killed in action. Bill... did not take this well. He smashed his model ship. Except that wasn't in the script and it was actually a museum quality replica. Oops.

Things were not going well for Baltar's lawyer, so Bill placed Lee in charge of his security. And Lee wound up helping with Baltar's defense, because he hadn't changed jobs in a while. Bill gave him his father's old law books.

Bill was drawn from a hat to serve as a judge at Baltar's trial because the Fleet has apparently never heard of bias. This caused a lot of tension with Lee because Bill didn't care for his cross examination of Saul Tigh. And cared even less for him forcing Laura Roslin to admit her cancer's return on the witness stand. Again, I reiterate, the Fleet has apparently never head of bias in judges.

That said, Lee's speech about everyone being guilty of something rung true and ultimately led Bill to vote “not guilty”. This... did not go over well with Laura. Or the general public, really. Baltar was ultimately really not a popular president. But not guilty isn't the same thing as innocent.

The Fleet jumped to the Ionian nebula, a key landmark on the way to Earth. And then the power suddenly failed on every ship. And as soon as power was restored, a large Cylon fleet appeared because this was a season finale. And before it could be resolved, Kara Thrace re-appeared just to really leave everyone with questions over the break.

Personality: A mainstream media story once referred to Bill as “the stoic Admiral Adama”. I have no idea what show they were watching. Bill is often fairly reserved in public, but in private the phrase “king of the woobies” comes to mind. He is prone to outbursts of emotion behind closed doors. These might involve tears. They might involve throwing things off desks. They might involve kissing the president as the only way to express his feelings.

Bill is very by the book... right up until it involves somebody he's closed to. Then all of a sudden, the book is really more of a suggestion. This is particularly notable in everything he allows Kara Thrace and Saul Tigh to get away with. He is, in the end, afraid of living alone. Speaking against the people he's particularly close to is a good way into his bad books. This caused significant tension with Helena Cain. Ultimately, despite the regard his own crew holds him in, there is a reason he didn't advance to higher rank before the attacks. Now, it has led to a government very much backed up by the military... so long as Laura Roslin is president.

Despite all the odds, Bill is an idealist. He is a patriot. He believes in everything the uniform is meant to stand for. He takes his duty seriously (the fact that he's on Tranquility and not at home dealing with the giant battle that was starting is going to bother him a lot). He is, perhaps, too much of an idealist for the desperate times after the end of the world. Fortunately, he is good at listening to advice... eventually. He can initially be very stubborn, but will often repeat the exact words spoken to him to someone else later on. He just doesn't tend to actually come out and say “you were right”. He depends on Laura to help him make hard decisions, and he in turn helps her keep in touch with her own humanity.

Bill takes on a very fatherly role with his crew. He strives to know the name of every man under his command, doing memory exercises to learn them all. In general, he's a much better father to people he isn't actually related to than he is to his own flesh and blood. Learned from his mistakes, it would seem. Because of this, he is very reluctant to leave any man behind. When he is forced to (often requiring the president to call him on the fact that it is in fact the only way), it causes him tremendous pain. He also tends to take betrayal by his crew personally. The betrayal of Boomer turning out to be a Cylon sleeper agent was almost worse than the pain of the bullets.

Being a veteran of the first Cylon War left Bill with some very strong feelings about technology. In particular, he is strongly anti-network. They're far too much of a security risk. The fact that the only reason Galactica survived was her lack of network has only reinforced that view. Needless to say he's going to be pretty grumpy about the network on Tranquility.

A trait that many would find surprising is that Bill loves books. While mysteries are his favourite, he also has a great love of classics such as Searider Falcon. Books are a very emotional thing for him, leading to rules such as his refusal to ever lend books. A love of reading is what caused him and Laura to start to see more to each other and books have often been how they express feelings to each other when words fail.

Bill is an atheist, although not a particularly good one. While he does not believe in the gods, he does very much believe in Laura Roslin. And he has come to accept that the scriptures have been providing a very good roadmap on the way to Earth. And when he's out of options, he'll exhort people to pray.

While not a believer himself, he recognizes the value of having something to believe in to the people. He is very adept at inspiring a crowd, which is an important trait at the end of the world. Between that and his common touch, he is well respected by his crew.

Bill is a creative tactician in battle. This has proven to be particularly important in the post-attack world. It interacts well with his determination to keep as many of his people alive as possible. Though it is ultimately wearing on Galactica. Which is unfortunate, because Bill loves his ship almost as much as Laura, Lee and Kara. The three of them sometimes question whether the ship actually outranks him. All four outrank “life itself” in Bill's love hierarchy.


Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

Bill was at one point a hotshot pilot, though that is very much a young person's assignment. He is still a good shot in ground combat, though his eyesight isn't what it used to be. He's also in very good shape for a man in his sixties, spending quite a bit of time boxing.

He is also well versed in tactics and quite creative in coming up with new ones. He's had a long military career and the past few years have been under highly unusual circumstances.

His greatest weakness is that he cares too much about people. This sounds like a job interview type flaw, but the fact is that it does cause him a lot of problems. He lets his feelings blind him to the correct decision. And down the road, it will ultimately send him into a self-destructive spiral of alcoholism, though I'm being nice and taking him at a canonpoint before that happens. He's afraid of living alone.

Inventory:
- Duty uniform
- Dogtags
- Toothbrush
- Glasses
- A set of Fleet tank tops
- Mystery novel

Appearance: Kinda like Edward James Olmos.... Bill is not a young man. His face is careworn and his hair went grey long before looking after the fate of humanity would have pushed that along. He is, however, still in quite good physical condition for a man in his sixties. THose ARMS.
Age: 66

AU Clarification: N/A

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Bill tried to avoid Quorum meetings, when he could. He and Laura had long ago relented on their original division of duties. Around when she had become 'Laura' rather than 'Roslin' or 'the President' or least charitably 'that schoolteacher'. But the fact remained that she was better at politics than he was. It was better for all concerned to let her handle it.

Unfortunately, part of the reason they had abandoned their initial agreement was that splitting it like that wasn't working. Once they'd come to trust each other a little more, that was obvious. Most issues affected the entire Fleet. Which meant he needed to be at a lot of these quorum meetings.

They did, at least, have some things to recommend them. The current president was far more pleasant to look at than the last guy. Generally easier to work with, too, these days.

And in that shirt... Bill was a respectable flag officer, not some green nugget who couldn't control himself. Which meant that he knew how to time the glances so they weren't obvious to everyone in the room. Hopefully they would be able to squeeze in a few minutes to talk about their latest book, if they could get this meeting back on schedule.

And he was only finding ways to entertaing himself because the quorum did not adhere to military scheduling. He'd arrived at 1400 just like they'd agreed only to find they were still debating some matter of... clothing allotments. It mattered, of course, but should have been simple. If this was taking this long, he didn't have high hopes about the matter of fuel that he was here for. No one was going to come away from this happy. But he was here because they had to find a solution that worked, even if it wasn't pleasant.

Comms Sample:

[Bill is glaring at the device through his glasses. His first remarks seem to be addressed at someone just off screen. And somewhat muttered.]

Is this necessary? It seems like asking for trouble.

[There's a slight annoyed noise and then he turns to actually address the device.]

How far does this network go? It seems to be present all over the ship. Integrated into every system.

[He really doesn't seem happy with that]

What sort of security measures are used on it? Multiple firewalls? Emergency disconnects? It's not left open, is it?

I would like to request a copy of The White Stone, as well as a pair of women's sneakers for Laura Roslin.

I would like to request my glasses and shaving supplies.

Also, I would like to see Laura Roslin.