Felix Gaeta

Felix Gaeta
[[Image:File:Bsg-gaeta-1.jpg|200px|Felix Gaeta]]
Name	{{{name}}}
Age	mid-20's
Colony	Unknown
Birth place	{{{birthplace}}}
Birth Name	Felix Gaeta
Birth Date	{{{birthdate}}}
Callsign
Nickname	{{{nickname}}}
Introduced	[[{{{seen}}}]]
Death
Parents
Siblings
Children
Marital Status
Family Tree	View
Role	Tactical Officer, Senior Officer of the Watch, CIC, Battlestar Galactica
Rank	Lieutenant
Serial Number	{{{serial}}}
Portrayed by	Alessandro Juliani
Felix Gaeta is a Cylon
Felix Gaeta is a Final Five Cylon
Felix Gaeta is a Human/Cylon Hybrid
Felix Gaeta is an Original Series Cylon
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Additional Information
[[Image:|200px|Felix Gaeta]]

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta [ˈgeɪ.tə] is a young, capable officer in the Colonial military. For the three years prior to the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies, he has served as William Adama's Senior Officer of the Watch aboard the Galactica.

Prior to the attack, he was studying biogenetics and planned to get a degree through the military extension program. (Water)

He is a stickler for detail and highly efficient. This, and his overall ability have led William Adama to rely heavily on him as a member of Galactica's command crew, despite his relative youth and junior rank.

As well as performing the role of Tactical Officer, Gaeta is also responsible for the management of the ship's FTL systems. This includes both calculating FTL jumps, and initiating the jump itself.

Following the Cylon attack, and as a result of his having studied biogenetics, Lt. Gaeta was selected by Adama to assist Dr. Gaius Baltar in the development of the much-needed Cylon detector (Water). During his time working with Baltar, Gaeta has developed a certain respect and liking for the doctor - despite the latter's apparent eccentricities. So much so, that when a woman called "Shelly Godfrey" arrived on-board the Galactica, Gaeta worked hard to try and prove Baltar's innocence of the charges levelled against him (Six Degrees of Separation). Although he is ultimately successful, he fails to follow-up on the fact that the photographic evidence supplied by "Shelly Godfrey" looked as if the evidence itself had been faked in a way that ensured it was exposed as a forgery.

Gaeta showed his remarkable brilliance after Galactica mistakenly jumped to a different set of coordinates than the rest of the fleet to escape a Cylon attack in Scattered. The FTL drive computers compensate for spatial changes, but due to the chaos after Commander Adama was shot by Sharon Valerii, Gaeta did not have time to synchronize the spatial positioning with the rest of the fleet, whose FTL computers had collectively different information. Worse, if they went back to their original position, the Cylons would destroy the ship before it could retrieve the correct fleet coordinates.

Gaeta blamed himself (although Saul Tigh did not), but later realized that he could network four systems of the ship (something Commander Adama may never have approved) to reduce the coordinate calculation time from hours to minutes. Knowing the Cylons would try to hack the network, Gaeta set up five firewalls in the hacked network to slow their progress while the ship's guns and Vipers bought the needed time to calculate. Unfortunately for Gaeta, the firewalls were not completely effective, and several power and CIC systems were disabled while Cylon Centurions boarded the ship in Valley of Darkness. Gaeta was forced to scramble to purge the systems of any remaining traces of the virus.

Note

• While Gaeta is described as the "Tactical Officer", his role is closer to that of the US Navy's CIC Watch Officer (CICWO), combining it with elements of the Tactical Watch Officer (TAO), a role also partially fulfilled by Colonel Tigh, both under the command of William Adama. According to the official SciFi.com character data file, Gaeta's title is "Senior Officer of the Watch", although the title of Tactical Officer may have a better "ring" to the ears of most viewers.
• The name "Felix" means "Happy" in Latin. It first appeared in the episode Final Cut.
• Gaeta is the name of a small seaport and resort in southern Italy. This goes well with his Latin first name.
• His counterpart in the original "Battlestar Galactica" is Sgt. Omega, a Sagittaron native.
• There is widespread speculation among fans that Gaeta is another Cylon infiltrator.