Ellen Tigh

Ellen Tigh
Name
Age
Colony
Birth place	{{{birthplace}}}
Birth Name
Birth Date	{{{birthdate}}}
Callsign
Nickname	{{{nickname}}}
Introduced	Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down
Death	Poisoned by Saul Tigh (Exodus, Part II)
Parents
Siblings
Children	None
Marital Status	Married to Saul Tigh
Family Tree	View
Role	Civilian
Rank
Serial Number	{{{serial}}}
Portrayed by	Kate Vernon
Ellen Tigh is a Cylon
Ellen Tigh is a Final Five Cylon
Ellen Tigh is a Human/Cylon Hybrid
Ellen Tigh is an Original Series Cylon
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Additional Information
[[Image:|200px|Ellen Tigh]]

Ellen Tigh was the wife of Colonel Saul Tigh and a survivor of the Cylon Holocaust. According to William Adama, her marriage to Tigh was the reason that he took to drinking. While her husband was away from home, she apparently "went through half the (Colonial) fleet" in her sexual promiscuity. During the occupation of New Caprica, she collaborated with the cylons, and was executed by her husband.

Background

Colonel Tigh, estranged from his wife and realizing her tendencies, finds himself burning a cigar hole in a photo of Ellen Tigh, just as action station klaxons rang throughout the decommissioned battlestar at the start of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

With the Colonies destroyed, billions of people are dead, and Ellen Tigh is presumed to be one of the many (Miniseries).

Character History at a Glance

• Commander Adama secretly visits a ship in the the Fleet, telling none of his command staff of his goal. He returns to Galactica and a curious Colonel Tigh with an unexpected surprise: a living Ellen Tigh.
• Ellen Tigh claims to have been on Picon at the time of the Cylon attack, on her way back home for a reunion with her husband. When the airport was hit in the attack, she claims an anonymous hero found her unconscious body and got her on to one of the last transports out, where she had been unconscious aboard the Rising Star for some three weeks prior to Adama finding her.
• Following her reunion with her husband, Ellen claims she wants to make a fresh start, but no sooner as Saul (still hopelessly in love with her) agrees, she influences him back to drinking heavily and begins flirting openly with other men.
• Her first target is an unwilling Lee Adama during dinner with Lee, his father and Laura Roslin. Later she flirts with Gaius Baltar with greater effect - annoying her husband in the process.
• Ellen's rescue claims are immediately considered suspect. No one on the Rising Star can remember treating her through her long weeks of unconsciousness.
• Ellen takes an unnatural interest in Adama's plans to lead the fleet to Earth, almost badgering him into trying to reveal how long the journey will take. Her actions seem to support Adama's precaution of having Baltar scan Tigh's blood sample to see if she is a Cylon (unbeknownst to Saul).
• Baltar's tests conclude Ellen is human, and this quiets Adama's suspicion. But Dr. Baltar self-sabotages his own Cylon detection efforts, fearing that exposing a Humanoid Cylon would expose him in his duplicity in the Cylon attack, or to assassination.
• Commander Adama points out, "Cylon or not, (Ellen Tigh is) nothing but trouble." (Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down)

Tigh at the bar aboard the Rising Star where she meets with Tom Zarek (Colonial Day)

• On Colonial Day, Ellen states her belief that terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek is "the future", and greets him warmly over her husband's objections.
• Later on in the next day, after Wallace Gray's poor showing at the Quorum, Zarek and Ellen talk over a drink, vaguely discussing their own ambitions.
• An associate of Zarek, Valance. is later found dead. Colonel Tigh was among the few who knew where the man was held.
• The following evening, at Gaius Baltar's victory celebration, Shortly thereafter, Ellen dances with her husband and tells him of a "surprise" she has arranged on the Rising Star. She tells him not only to enjoy some time alone there with her, but to discuss "his future" with some people there. She then embraces her husband and locks eyes with Zarek, seated across the room.
• After Adama's attempted assassination, Ellen encourages her husband to take extreme measures to assert his authority, sometimes in contrast to the more reasoned approaches he was proposing.
• Ellen convinces his husband to let the Quorum of Twelve witness the delusional Roslin, who she saw earlier in a poor state. But, thanks to a smuggled Chamalla dose, Roslin shows her resolve and power, which invigorates the Quorum (Resistance).
• Col. Tigh begins to relent and considers reconciliation with the captains of other ships in the Fleet, but Ellen goads him into advocating "stern measures." Her pressures lead her husband to drink and take irrational steps, including a standoff on the Gideon that leaves four people dead.
• Soon after Apollo escapes with President Roslin from the brig, the colonel receives a scolding from Ellen in his quarters when the recently awakened Commander Adama arrives. Ellen is asked to leave, her hand gripping the door frame fiercely in frustration of her turn of fortune as she leaves (Resistance).
• Ellen's insistence to her husband for action with the supply boycott returns to terrorize her when Lt. Joe "Hammerhead" Palladino later attempts to exact revenge on Col. Tigh for the Gideon incident, tying up Ellen and holding her husband at gunpoint. Colonel Tigh is able to defuse the situation (Final Cut).
• Ellen seems to spend much of her time in the Fleet barhopping on ships like Cloud 9, where she is held hostage in a terrorist action. Galactica marines later storm the bar and rescue the group (Sacrifice).

New Caprica

Saul handing Ellen her poisoned drink.

One year after New Caprica is colonized, Ellen Tigh settles on the planet. Her husband joins her later, after Admiral Adama's insistence. Interestingly, they seem to fully reconcile during this time. Shortly thereafter the Cylon fleet discovers the planet, the Colonial Fleet in orbit Jumps away, and the Cylon occupation of New Caprica begins (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II).

Four months after the occupation, Ellen's husband is imprisoned in the New Caprica Detention Center, resulting in the loss of his right eye. In order to secure his release, she enters into a deal with a Cavil model. After her sexual encounter with Cavil, her husband is released (Occupation).

However, as she later finds out from this same Cavil, Ellen's husband is released in order to further the Cylons' plans to tighten their grip on the civilian population. Despite the release, Ellen reports back to Cavil to further fornicate with him, suggesting some sort of long term sexual agreement. In the aftermath of a session, Cavil demands that she must find out when the next high-level meeting of the resistance is to convene; failure to do so will result in Saul Tigh being recaptured and reimprisoned.

Ellen steals a map of Breeders Canyon, created by Samuel Anders, which Saul Tigh gave to her to destroy in a nearby tent fire (Precipice).

The map is later found on a dead Humanoid Cylon by Anders' team after he and Fleet liaison Sharon Agathon eliminate the Centurion attack. Ellen is soon found and forced into the undeground hideout, where Colonel Tigh is told of his wife's deception and confronts her (Exodus, Part I).

The resistance leaders compel Saul Tigh to execute his wife for collaboration with the Cylons. Ellen's husband carries out the execution by poisoning her drink prior to the Battle of New Caprica (Exodus, Part II).

Unanswered Questions

• Did Tigh arrange for Valance's death herself, or just provide his location to a third party?
• What favors did she receive in return? What did she intend Saul to discuss on the Rising Star, and with whom?
  • Does her choice of a "getaway spot" have anything to do with her mysterious appearance aboard that ship four weeks earlier?
• How surprised was she by Zarek's defeat? Is her association with him still advantageous to her?
• Is Ellen Tigh a Humanoid Cylon? (This would stretch believability, according to Ron D. Moore. See the Humanoid Cylon speculation article for more.)
  • If not, how does the attempt on Adama's life impact her plans?
  • If so, what would be her motive for advancing her husband's position?
    • Is there evidence for cooperation between Zarek's people and the Cylons, or manipulation of one by the other?
    • Perhaps she is attempting to create internal strife by playing hardliners such as Saul and Zarek against one another.
    • When Col. Tigh was elevated to the position of sole commander, as per Ellen's wishes, the Fleet degenerated into self-destructive chaos because of the poor command decisions he made. Many of these decisions were made as a result of Ellen's manipulations. Even when things turned horribly violent and even Col. Tigh wanted to stop the downward spiral, Ellen couldn’t seem to care less and just continued with her manipulations. Perhaps spreading chaos was her true intention all along.
• Ellen Tigh and Kara Thrace are shown exchanging a friendly hug on New Caprica. Given Thrace's disdain for Ellen's husband, how did Thrace become on friendly terms with both Saul and Ellen Tigh?

Cinematic Trivia

Jennifer Birchfield-Eick as Ellen Tigh in the Miniseries.

In the DVD commentary for the Miniseries, it is revealed that Tigh was originally portrayed in picture form only by executive producer David Eick's wife, Jennifer. The picture was later replicated for the series with Kate Vernon taking the place of Mrs. Eick and the scene reshot, so Saul Tigh is seen burning a picture of Vernon in the "flashback" sequence at the beginning of "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down."

The Macbeth Connection

Mrs. Tigh can be profitably compared with one of Shakespeare's most memorable women. Like Lady Macbeth, Tigh is married to a man who is in the line of command, but who doesn't want the top job. She uses a combination of insult, flattery, and sexual temptation to get her husband in the game, arranges the murder of others, and even makes alcohol one of her most potent weapons (in the play, Lady Macbeth gets the castle guards drunk so that she and her husband can kill the king and princes). In the words of Lady M herself, to her husband, "Hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits in thine ear, and chastise with the valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round."

In fact, of all Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth is a particularly appropriate one for a series about evil robots who seem human on the outside ("fair is foul and foul is fair"), who are experts at lying and manipulation ("And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us'n deepest consequence"), and who chase our heroes through the gulf of space (at least one scholar has noted that all of the play's most memorable scenes "take place either at night or in some dark spot"). Like Macbeth himself, Saul Tigh is famous for a bout of vicious hand to hand fighting in the recent war ("For brave Macbeth ... disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel which smok'd with bloody execution ... carv'd out that passage").

It is tempting to attempt to extrapolate future plot points based on the Tigh-Macbeth analogy, but we must remember that, so far, Saul Tigh seems to have resisted his wife's manipulations better than his Shakespearean forbear. Nonetheless, this does help to supply a motivation for Ellen Tigh's actions: she doesn't have to be a Cylon to be victim to envy, the "green ey'd monster."