Laura Roslin

Laura Roslin
Name	{{{name}}}
Age
Colony	Caprica (presumed)
Birth place	{{{birthplace}}}
Birth Name	Laura Roslin
Birth Date	{{{birthdate}}}
Callsign
Nickname	{{{nickname}}}
Introduced	Miniseries
Death
Parents
Siblings
Children
Marital Status	Unmarried
Family Tree	View
Role	President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, formerly Secretary of Education
Rank
Serial Number	{{{serial}}}
Portrayed by	Mary McDonnell
Laura Roslin is a Cylon
Laura Roslin is a Final Five Cylon
Laura Roslin is a Human/Cylon Hybrid
Laura Roslin is an Original Series Cylon
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Additional Information
[[Image:|200px|Laura Roslin]]

Laura Roslin serves as Secretary of Education at the time of the Cylon attack, later becoming president of the Twelve Colonies.

Background

• Roslin, an unmarried former teacher, worked with Richard Adar when he was a mayor. Over the twenty years in politics, she herself has risen in political rank to the office of Secretary of Education.
• Adar, a married man, and Roslin are in a sexual affair during the events of a teachers strike that she is trying to mediate, to Adar's objection.
• Roslin learns that she, as did her mother, has breast cancer. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is grim, as the cancer has already spread.
• Roslin sat in the Government Plaza after her doctor's appointment, where she saw Gaius Baltar, the famous scientist, walking and kissing an attractive blonde, but pays it little attention.
• Roslin successfully resolves the teachers strike crisis, but Adar vehemently disagrees with her method, and asks for her resignation. She asks him to defer the matter until she returns from the decommissioning ceremonies on battlestar Galactica.
• Despite being thrust into the role of President in highly unusual and stressful circumstances, Laura Roslin initially proves herself both tough and capable within the role. Initially in awe of Commander Adama, and worrying that he didn't hold her in high regard (Water), she quickly overcomes her doubts and fears to be able to make the required decisions at the right time, and also stand up to Adama himself (You Can't Go Home Again). She is always prepared to put the safety and destiny of the Fleet first, no matter what the cost of her actions ("Flesh and Bone", "Home, Part I", "Home, Part II", "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II") while remembering her limitations and fears.
• Roslin is rarely hesitant to make controversial decisions unilaterally, but often must deal with the significant ramifications of her choices.

Character History at a Glance

• After attending the decommissioning ceremonies for the battlestar Galactica, when the Cylon attack leaks through wireless, Roslin begins rescue of stranded civilian ships in Caprican space. The Case Orange automated beacon response assigns Roslin the role of president after Adar and other high-level government officials are dead or incapacitated.
• Roslin successfully persuades Galactica commander William Adama away from a suicidal counter-attack against the Cylons, and towards helping the survivors of humanity escape from occupied Colonial space.
• Roslin and Commander Adama begin their leadership together under an uneasy understanding. Where she is responsible for all civil leadership issues among the surviving Colonials, Adama is responsible for all military decisions (Miniseries). However, the dividing line is not always clear between the two leaders. Roslin establishes a fledgling civilian government and reestabishes a new Quorum.
• Roslin chooses chamalla extract as an alternative to diloxin, remembering her mother's malaise with that treatment. Her illness remains a secret until she relates her chamalla-induced visions of Kobol to priest Elosha, who connects them to Pythia and ancient Colonial prophesy (The Hand of God).
• After research, Roslin convinces Lt. Thrace to use the captured Cylon Raider to return to Caprica in search of the Arrow of Apollo, a possible key to the true location of Earth (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I).
• Commander Adama stages a military coup in retaliation and she is incarcerated aboard Galactica. Adama is soon shot by Sharon Valerii, leaving the Fleet in the hands of Saul Tigh (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II).
• From her cell, Roslin eventually tells the Quorum of Twelve of her role in the Sacred Scrolls, and begins to gain significant underground civilian support for her cause. After escaping Galactica, Roslin takes a third of the Fleet back to Kobol, with the help of rival Tom Zarek, to search for the Tomb. Starbuck meets Roslin's fleet with the recovered Arrow, and a hazardous expedition on Kobol begins, aided by a second copy of the Sharon Cylon and Elosha, who is soon killed, leaving Roslin with a gap in her spirituality for a time (Home, Part I).
• The recovered Commander Adama gains refreshed insight on the need for the Fleet to stay united, and finds Roslin's expedition. The leaders reconcile. Roslin's gamble on faith pays off big for humanity, and the group gains a map and their first waypoint to the true location of Earth (Home, Part II).
• After this, Adama's and Roslin's respect for each other grows stronger and their leadership in managing fleet business becomes more cooperative, asking each other for advice and correcting each other as needed, starting with a potentially disruptive tabloid expose of the Gideon shootings.
• After a near-disastrous military confrontation between Adama and Admiral Cain, Roslin forces them to concentrate on more important matters. Privately, Roslin tells Adama that Cain, whose power can radically affect the remnant of humanity both Roslin and Adama have strived so hard to protect, must be killed if Adama and the Fleet are to survive.

Roslin and Adama.

• After the battle, and Admiral Cain's death, Roslin, now more frail with her illness, promotes William Adama to admiral. The new admiral gives the president a kiss, establishing a more personal aspect to their friendship (Resurrection Ship, Part II).
• Roslin is miraculously saved by the injection of stem cells from the Cylon hybrid fetus, which apparently eradicates her cancer (Epiphanies). In the hours prior to the cure, however, Roslin remembers her last days on Caprica, including the attractive blonde with Dr. Baltar, her vice president. She now recognizes the woman as a humanoid Cylon.
• Roslin returns to work with a dispassionate, zealous manner, including an attempt to stop the black market, handling the terrible loss of Billy Keikeya, and the upcoming presidential election. After Keikeya's death, Roslin appoints Tory Foster as her aide.
• Roslin's decision to enforce a no-abortion law to aid in repopulation complicates what might have been an easy reelection. Her own vice president, Dr. Baltar, challenges Roslin for the presidency. After the Agathon's child is born, Roslin, fearing both for the child's safety and its significance to the Cylon, has the child's death faked (Downloaded).
• When New Caprica is found, Baltar uses the discovery to wedge the election to his favor. Roslin gives Foster tacit approval to rig the election; Foster, with the aide of Tigh and Dualla replace one ship's ballot box en route to the counting room, but the fraud is subsequently discovered by Lieutenant Gaeta. In a reversal of their earlier roles, Admiral Adama confronts Roslin about her actions, admitting the he doesn't like Baltar either, but adamant that they would be criminals if they stole the election, justified or not. Roslin listens to her friend, but remains convinced that it is the wrong choice and that they just give up. After the correct results are revealed, President Baltar first order is to begin the colonization of New Caprica.
• Early in the colonization, Roslin finds time to relax on New Caprica. She meets with Admiral Adama, who also takes in some time to unwind. The two friends comfortably chat about matters small and not-so-small over smoking and drinking, and later gaze at the stars together, allowing themselves to relax, lying outside, close to each other. Roslin worries that, amidst their temporary comfort, the Cylons could return, but it is nice to have what they have for the time being (Unfinished Business).

Roslin as a teacher on New Caprica.

• A year passes on New Caprica, and Baltar's administration becomes the disaster that Roslin feared. Roslin returned to teaching, running the new settlement's school. Assisted by Maya, who brings her infant adopted daughter Isis (the secreted Cylon hybrid), Roslin is more comfortable watching over the pair personally.
• On the 380th day after settling on the planet, the Cylons discover the colony, as Roslin had warned, and occupy the settlement).
• Roslin is arrested at least twice during the occupation, and is nearly killed at a firing squad were it not for the New Caprica Resistance (Precipice).During the Cylon occupation, Col. Tigh's resistance militia appear to consider themselves to be under the authority of Roslin, who acts as a government in exile/waiting with Foster as her deputy. Tom Zarek, legally the Vice President and Baltar's successor, is consulted on some military plans.
• Later, during the Battle of New Caprica, Zarek evacuates aboard an unspecified transport ship, and tacitly acknowledges the tenuous nature of his authority in de facto subordination to Roslin, as well as her imminent future return to formal office, when she states that she will evacuate aboard her ship, Colonial One. Zarek notes the important symbolism and gives a sidearm to Jammer , directing him to protect Roslin (Exodus, Part II). Once the fleet is safely reassembled, Roslin, Foster, and civil servants begin clearing the trapings of the Baltar/Cylon administration from Colonial One while assembling a census and calculating their losses. It is at this time that Foster confirms that she failed to ensure the evacuation of Maya and Hera, and offers her apologies and resignation to Roslin who reassures Foster and takes something of a fatalistic view of their loss of Hera.
• Roslin allows Acting President Tom Zarek to assumes his office temporarily. In order to protect Roslin from having to deal with months of public trials which could destroy the unity of the Fleet through public "witch hunts", Zarek quickly establishes the Circle, a secret tribunal to investigate, charge, adjudicate, and execute collaborators and traitors. Zarek and Roslin agree to a "musical chairs" process to constitutionally restore her to the presidency. 1: with Baltar having either died or abandoned his office, Zarek has ascended from vice president to president; 2 Zarek appoints Roslin to fill the vacant office of vice president; 3: Zarek promptly resigns the presidency and Roslin assumes the office; 5: Roslin then re-appoints Zarek to his former vice presidency and privately thanks him for his service and loyalty. With a token number of suspected collaborators having conspicuously disappeared, the newly inaugurated Roslin is able to secretly dissolve the Circle and publicly issue a general pardon for all but Baltar (Collaborators).
• Roslin's relationship with Adama and the Agathons is strained when Adama discovers that Roslin hid the Cylon baby, Hera Agathon, without his knowledge (The Eye of Jupiter).
• Baltar's capture from his time with the Cylons leads Roslin to first interrogate him, then put him to trial, which places new stresses on the President.
• During Baltar's trial, Lee Adama confronts Roslin on his suspicion that she is taking chamalla again. Although Roslin silently pleads with him to not go that route, Adama persists and forces her to publicly reveal that her cancer has returned. Disappointed in him, she recalls a time when they were friends and she called him "Captain Apollo."
• She has a vision in the Opera House on Kobol where she and an image of Sharon Agathon pursue Hera Agathon, but Hera is picked up by a Number Six. A later vision reveals that Sharon Agathon shares her vision. After conferring with each other, they both visit Caprica-Six, who disbelievingly confirms that she, too, experienced the vision. When the Fleet arrives at the Ionian nebula, Roslin nearly faints, possibly having another vision (Crossroads, Part II).
• After Kara Thrace's mysterious return, Roslin deeply distrusts Thrace, although she claims to know the way the Earth and feels an instinctive need to go there. When Roslin and Adama don't comply with Thrace pleadings, Thrace confronts the president at gunpoint (He That Believeth In Me). Thrace hands Roslin her pistol and tells her to shoot if she believes that Thrace is a Cylon. Roslin pulls the trigger, but misses, and Thrace is subdued by Marines (Six of One).
• Roslin still holds a grudge against Baltar and tries to curtail Baltar's freedoms when his new-founded cult has violent confrontations with followers of other beliefs. Ostensibly trying to protect his followers and keep peace in the Fleet, she passes an emergency measure to severely restrict their right of assembly. Although she pleads to the Quorum to think of what Baltar did on New Caprica and what he might do with followers blindly devoted to him, the Quorum vetoes her (Escape Velocity).
• Roslin is currently on diloxin therapy, which has caused her to lose her hair and forces her to wear a wig. Throughout her treatment, William Adama comforts her at her bedside and offers her the use of his quarters when she wants (Faith).
• When a rebel Cylon faction proposes an alliance with the Colonials, Roslin goes along with it to get a chance to destroy the Cylon Resurrection Hub, but doesn't want to uphold her side of bargain until they find Earth. Shortly after, she visits the Hybrid on the rebel basestar, but when it is awakened it unexpectedly jumps the ship away (Guess What's Coming to Dinner?).
• Every time the basestar jumps, she has a vision of herself in an empty corridor on Galactica where she is joined by the spirit of her old friend Elosha, who takes her to sickbay to show her her own death. Elosha explains that Roslin has cut herself off from the ability to love people and shows her how Admiral Adama loves her. On the basestar, a badly injured Baltar confesses to her his part in the attack on the Colonies and she decides to leave him to bleed to death, but Elosha convinces her to help him.
• She orders Karl Agathon to take Number Three to her once she is retrieved. After the battle, the Three jokingly tells her that she is one of the Final Five, but refuses to tell anyone the truth until she is sure that she is safe. Roslin also attempts to get answers from the Hybrid but the Hybrid appears to never say anything helpful, except to inform them of the fact that that Three has already been unboxed, and the reason she jumped away from the Fleet. After the ship returns to the rendezvous coordinates, she greets Admiral Adama who waited for her in a Raptor and finally admits that she loves him (The Hub).
• In the basestar control room, Roslin, William Adama, D'Anna Biers and Leoben discuss the plans to return the Final Five. Biers reveals that there are only four in the Fleet and refuses to provide answers when Roslin questions her about the fifth's location. Roslin knows that the Colonials need them, for they know the way to Earth. Frustrated, Biers citing the failure of co-operation on New Caprica, announces that she will hold the Colonials on the ship hostage until the Final Four are returned to them. When a standoff between the Colonials and the Centurions breaks out, Roslin tells Adama and the pilots to stand down. Biers tells Adama to accompany her to Galactica on a Raptor but Adama refuses until Roslin insists on him going. Before he leaves, Roslin embraces Adama and whispers in his ear that if the Cylons get the four, they get Earth, and he can't allow that to happen, even if he has to destroy the basestar with them aboard. Adama leaves and Roslin returns to Baltar (Revelations).
• Roslin rebandages Gaius Baltar's wounds, who is alive thanks to Roslin's change of heart. Roslin reveals that she told Adama to destroy the basestar if the Cylons get the final four. Foster walks in with a Six and hands Roslin her medication. Roslin thanks Foster and asks how she was able to do so. Foster's response is that she came with Biers to be with her people. It is then that Roslin realizes she was one of the Final Five. When asked if she had any idea, Roslin says no, and Foster tells her it might be worth pondering about other things she has been wrong about, then turns and leaves. Roslin interrupts her departure to ask her to convince Biers to release the hostages. Foster coldly replies that she's done taking orders from her.
• As things heat up, Roslin and Baltar hear the hostages and Centurions outside the room, as a Number Two walks in and tells them that Biers is about to start executing more hostages. When Roslin requests that she be taken to Biers, Baltar insists that he be taken instead for he was with her in the Temple of Five. In her visions Roslin remebers seeing him in the Opera House and she agrees with him.
• After the location of Earth is discovered and the Final Five are granted amnesty with Biers agreeing to release the hostages, Lee is discussing the location of Earth with his discouraged father. Roslin walks in and sitting next to him says she wants to see him pick up the first fistful of earth. He walks away saying that he'll be back. Lee Adama talks to Roslin about stepping down, and she praises him on resolving the crisis. Roslin says that the Fleet will need that kind of leadership in the years to come (Revelations).
• On surface of Earth, Roslin stands with Adama as he lifts up a handful of soil. A crew member next to them reads the soil with a Geiger counter. The soil is irradiated. Laura Roslin stands next to Adama, devastated. (Revelations).

Notes

• The character of Laura Roslin is unique to the Battlestar Galactica saga. She has no counterpart to the Original Series, where its version of President Adar is killed and a presidential replacement is never made. Roslin assumes more of the political-spiritual leadership of the Original Series' Commander Adama, whereas William Adama is representative of the Original Series' character's military commander aspect.

• Roslin's apparent cure in "Epiphanies" contradicts the "dying leader" clause of the Pythian Prophecy, despite the fulfillment of her role in the Tomb of Athena story arc. However, in "Crossroads, Part I", she reveals that her cancer has returned.

• Actress Mary McDonnell is perhaps best known for her role in the epic film, Dances with Wolves, with Kevin Costner. Another famous role of hers was the First Lady in Independence Day, a film which (in a less serious tone than Battlestar) depicts cocky human fighter pilots battling an genocidal enemy from outer space.

• In the Singer/DeSanto continuation of the the Original Series, a female president named Mara would visit Galactica in much the same way that Laura Roslin did as part of that Galactica's decommissioning ceremony.

• The glasses that the character wears are also McDonnell's real glasses.

• President Roslin's appointment as Colonial president parallels US President Gerald R. Ford, who became US Vice President and later President through appointment and succession respectively, not by election.

• The name Laura Roslin may be a combination of the first names of the incumbent US First Ladies at the time of both the Re-imagined and the Original Series: Laura Bush (nèe Laura Lane Welch) and Rosalynn Carter (nèe Eleanor Rosalynn Smith).

References

Preceded by: Richard Adar	President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol	Succeeded by: Gaius Baltar
Preceded by: Tom Zarek	Vice President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol	Succeeded by: Tom Zarek
Preceded by: Tom Zarek	President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol	Succeeded by: Incumbent

Re-imagined Series definition: a hallucinogenic plant used in religious ceremonies and medical treatments, see: chamalla

Original Series definition: a Colonial court hearing (see: Law of the Twelve Colonies)