- This article concerns the first Number Eight Cylon that served on Galactica with the callsign of "Boomer".
- For information on the Eight discovered on Caprica and the wife of Karl Agathon with the callsign of Athena, see Sharon Agathon.
- For information on the Original Series character, see Boomer (TOS).
| Sharon Valerii | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
|
Human Name |
Sharon Valerii | |
| Age | ||
| Colony | None (supposedly from the mining colony Troy) | |
| Birth place | {{{birthplace}}} | |
| Birth Name | ||
| Birth Date | {{{birthdate}}} | |
| Callsign | Boomer | |
| Nickname | {{{nickname}}} | |
| Introduced | Miniseries | |
| Death | {{{death}}} | |
| Parents | None (supposedly Abraham and Katherine Valerii) | |
| Siblings | None in the traditional sense (supposedly one, per photo in "Downloaded") | |
| Children | ||
| Marital Status | Presently in a relationship with a Cavil; formerly in a relationship with Galen Tyrol | |
| Family Tree | View | |
| Role | Cylon infiltrator, saboteur; Raptor pilot | |
| Rank | Formerly lieutenant, junior grade | |
| Serial Number | {{{serial}}} | |
| Portrayed by | Grace Park | |
| Sharon Valerii is a Cylon | ||
| Sharon Valerii is a Final Five Cylon | ||
| Sharon Valerii is a Human/Cylon Hybrid | ||
| Sharon Valerii is an Original Series Cylon | ||
| Related Media | ||
| @ BW Media | ||
| Additional Information | ||
| [[Image:|200px|Sharon Valerii]] | ||
Sharon "Boomer" Valerii is a copy of the humanoid Cylon model Number Eight who is initially planted as a "sleeper" agent in the Colonial Fleet. She is unaware of her Cylon nature and serves for two years as Lieutenant Valerii on Galactica, where she is assigned as a Raptor pilot and also engaged in a secret relationship with Chief Tyrol. After the Cylon attack, her underlying programming repeatedly emerges which leads her to unconscious acts of sabotage. Growing confusion about her true self result in a deep depression and a failed suicide attempt. After Valerii returns from a successful mission to destroy a Cylon basestar, she shoots Commander Adama in the chest, wounding him critically. She is incarcerated in the brig and soon afterwards killed by Cally Henderson.
Her consciousness is downloaded and she is reborn in another body. Subsequently, she experiences severe problems integrating into Cylon society and long considers herself more human than Cylon. She eventually works together with Caprica-Six in an attempt to change Cylon popular opinion about humans and she emerges as one of the Cylon leaders jointly responsible for the end of the occupation of the Twelve Colonies and later the Cylon occupation on New Caprica. Following the failure on New Caprica, Valerii abandons her hopes for coexistence with humans and she denounces her past on Galactica. However, while she feels that she belongs to Cylon society, she is not fully integrated into it and relatively isolated among her peers.
Biography[edit]
Life on Galactica[edit]
Valerii is a "sleeper" agent, unsuspecting of her Cylon status. As far as she is aware, she was born on the mining colony of Troy, as the daughter of a family from Aerelon (Flesh and Bone). Troy itself was destroyed in an unexplained cataclysm, allowing Valerii's background to be established as that of an orphan. Following her arrival on board Galactica, she enters into a relationship with the ship's Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol, which is against military protocols concerning fraternization between officers and non-officers. Whether this is unintentional or a subconscious reaction to her Cylon programming remains unclear.
At the time of the Cylon attack, Valerii is flying her Raptor to Caprica with Galactica's last remaining operational Viper squadron, when they learn of the attacks and attempt to engage two Cylon Raiders. However, the Viper squadron is destroyed, and the Raptor is damaged while trying to escape, forcing Valerii and her ECO Karl Agathon to make an emergency landing on Caprica. After repairing the Raptor, they are mobbed by desperate civilians and undertake a rescue operation. Lifting a number of children, Valerii states there is room for three adults. Valerii holds a lottery for the three seats. When the last number is called, Agathon chooses to give up his place aboard the Raptor so that Doctor Gaius Baltar can be rescued as well (Miniseries).
After being found by Laura Roslin's group of stranded military and civilian ships, Valerii works within the new civilian Fleet, assisting Roslin's attempts to gather other stranded civilian ships in the space surrounding Caprica. She finds a number of ships critical to the fledgling Fleet's survival, such as a fuel tanker. After the newly assembled Fleet, led by Galactica, leaves the solar system of the Colonies, Valerii aids in other critical acts, including the discovery of a tylium-rich asteroid, replete with an active Cylon mine (The Hand of God), and locating a source of water to replenish the Fleet's lost supply after the sabotage of Galactica's stores (Water).
Acts of sabotage[edit]
At the same time as she is supporting the human Fleet, Valerii's underlying Cylon subroutines periodically emerge. Her Cylon programming is the cause of the sabotage of Galactica's water tanks (Water). Later, she likely assists a copy of Aaron Doral to access a munitions store. The Doral copy constructs a suicide bomb which nearly kills Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh (Litmus).
Valerii finds herself soaking wet, after she awakes to her human personality shortly after the bombs used to destroy Galactica's water tanks were planted. She becomes increasingly concerned and starts to question her true self. Her worry increases when she experiences a certain attachment to a captured Cylon Raider, and is able to give insight into how it can be properly assessed and understood ("Water", "Six Degrees of Separation", "Flesh and Bone"). Her concerns are further elevated when, following the bombing by Doral, Galactica's Master-at-Arms, Sergeant Hadrian, suspects her and Chief Galen Tyrol of Cylon complicity (Litmus).
Tyrol distances himself from Valerii after this incident, and he later ends their relationship following the arrest of Specialist Socinus (Litmus). Facing Tyrol's suspicions concerning her activities immediately before the bombing, Valerii finds herself emotionally isolated and stressed. She takes the Cylon detector test created by Dr. Baltar, but he hides her positive test result in fear that once discovered, she might immediately retaliate and kill him (Flesh and Bone). Valerii finds short solace in Baltar's test, but deals with an anonymous accusation, when she finds the word "Cylon" written on the mirror of her locker; though it is possible she wrote it herself, unknowingly (Six Degrees of Separation).
Frightened and alone, Valerii withdraws into herself and attempts suicide, but is initially unable to do so. During her second attempt, she is interrupted by Dr. Baltar who, rather than discouraging her, essentially gives her his blessing on her suicide. Following his departure from the duty locker, Valerii succeeds in shooting herself, but her Cylon personality interrupts the attempt. Valerii only wounds herself in her right cheek (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I).
After Kara Thrace absconds with a captured Cylon Raider intended for an attack on a basestar orbiting Kobol, Commander Adama asks Valerii and ECO Margaret Edmondson to use a Cylon transponder in their Raptor to infiltrate the basestar and place a nuclear warhead within to destroy it. The mission is a success, but when the weapon would not auto-release from the Raptor after landing, Valerii exits the ship and enters the basestar. Inside, she encounters a dozen copies of herself, confirming her worst fears. Valerii escapes in the Raptor just before the warhead detonates and destroys the basestar. Back on Galactica, her encounter with the other Eight models on the basestar apparently triggers Valerii's Cylon programming to emerge once more, and she shoots Commander Adama in the chest while being congratulated on her successful mission in CIC, wounding him critically ("Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II", "Scattered").
Imprisonment and death[edit]
After shooting Adama, Valerii is quickly restrained by guards and jailed in the brig. During her imprisonment, Colonel Tigh attempts to forcibly extract information from her at gunpoint, but Valerii stonewalls him and even asks him to shoot her (Scattered). Chief Tyrol is later incarcerated in the same brig cell by Tigh, also suspected of being a Cylon. While imprisoned together, Valerii tries to convince Tyrol that her feelings for him were real and important, but he rejects her and threatens to kill her if she touched him.
Dr. Baltar later enters the cell, ostensibly to collect a blood sample from Tyrol to prove his innocence using the Cylon detector, but he instead injects Tyrol with a potent toxin that would kill him in a matter of seconds if Baltar does not give him an antidote. Baltar interrogates Valerii, demanding to know how many other Cylons are in the Fleet, using the dying Tyrol to blackmail her. Valerii first protests that she does not know, but as Tyrol is about to die, she reveals that there are eight other Cylons in the Fleet and Baltar then revives Tyrol.
Soon after, while being transferred to a new reinforced cell built to hold Cylons for later experiments and long term incarceration, a large crowd of crewmembers jeers at her and calls her a traitor. Specialist Cally who considers Valerii responsible for Tyrol's imprisonment breaks through the crowd holding a gun and shoots Valerii at point-blank range. Valerii's last words are "I love you, Chief" and she dies in Tyrol's arms (Resistance).
Valerii's body is sent to the morgue and autopsied. Later, the recovered Commander Adama visits her corpse, asking "why" aloud, and weeps over her body. Adama pronounces a very mild reprimand for Cally, sentencing her to 30 days in the brig for discharging a weapon without authorization. Cally is never tried for murder, since Cylons are not seen as people (The Farm).
Rebirth and life among Cylons[edit]
After being shot by Cally Henderson, Galactica is close enough to a Cylon Resurrection Ship so that her consciousness is retrieved for download into another body. On rebirth, Valerii rejects her Cylon nature and continues to call herself "Sharon" instead of "Eight," even going so far as to reclaim her former apartment (502) on Caprica. A copy of Number Three, representing the status quo of the Cylons, is deeply disturbed by this and suggests that Valerii be boxed.
Caprica-Six, also seen as a Hero of the Cylon, protests and Three advises her to get Valerii to change. When Valerii laments the loss of Tyrol, Caprica-Six tells her about her own love for a human, Baltar, which prompts Valerii to inform her that he is still alive. Suspecting that Three has an ulterior motive and wants to box both of them, the two play along and Valerii announces her intent to move out of her old apartment. After a Caprica Resistance bombing, Valerii, Caprica-Six, and Three are trapped in a garage with the resistance's leader, Samuel Anders. There, Caprica-Six reveals their true intentions and declares that Valerii and herself are celebrities in a culture of unity, and, through their love for humans, have realized the horror of the Cylons' actions. Using their celebrity, they could convince a large portion of the Cylon society of their new belief that the genocide of humanity was wrong. Valerii stops Anders from killing Three, but is surprised to see Caprica-Six kill Three herself. After telling Anders to escape, Valerii agrees to help Caprica-Six reveal the truth of the genocide to the other Cylons (Downloaded).
Valerii and Caprica-Six are obviously successful in their attempt to change popular opinion among Cylons about the genocide on the human race. According to a Cavil model that is briefly incarcerated on board Galactica, Valerii and Caprica-Six convinced a majority that "the slaughter of mankind was a mistake" which ultimately leads to an end of the occupation of the Twelve Colonies (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I).
One year later, Valerii is one of the leaders of the Cylon force occupying New Caprica. But as other Cylons start to consider the occupation a failure, her influence appears to decrease quickly, most evident when she is unable to secure Henderson's release from detention or to remove her from the death list (Precipice). Their initial plan on New Caprica, "to push past the conflict that separated us from humans for so long", fails and the occupation is ended after four months (Exodus, Part II).
Following the retreat from New Caprica, Valerii is on the same basestar as Caprica-Six and Baltar, and assigned responsibility for the Cylon-human hybrid child, Hera Agathon. At a stand-off with the human Fleet at the algae planet, Valerii is part of a Cylon delegation to make demands regarding the Eye of Jupiter, but on board Galactica, she is identified by Sharon Agathon and denied entry. During this first meeting between them, Valerii informs Agathon that her daughter, Hera, is still alive, and she suggests that Agathon will never be fully accepted among humans, because they continue to treat her as a thing (The Eye of Jupiter).
After Agathon downloads into the Cylon fleet to recover her child, it becomes clear that Valerii resents her, possibly out of jealousy for her connection with Hera. Valerii has been growing increasingly frustrated by her inability to make progress with the child. She also states that she is done with her past on Galactica and that the failure of New Caprica has taught her that humans and Cylons cannot coexist. When Agathon insists that Hera is suffering from a blocked intestine and must be brought to a human doctor who knows how to care for an infant, Valerii immediately suspects that it was the other's intention all along to take Hera back to Galactica, although she is forced to admit that the child's belly has become "as hard as a gourd". Suggesting that Cylons were never meant to have children in the first place, Valerii threatens to kill Hera but is knocked to the floor by Caprica-Six and killed by her former comrade (Rapture).
After the Cylon Raiders refuse to take any offensive action for fear of harming the final five Cylons in the human fleet, Valerii votes in favor of lobotomizing them into effective fighters once again. This is in contradiction to the opinion of the rest of her model, breaking the stalemate between the Ones, Fours, and Fives in favor of lobotomization and the Twos, Sixes, and Eights against it. Valerii's explanation is that, "we need to be able to defend ourselves." Natalie accuses the Number One that she calls "Cavil" of having influenced Valerii (Six of One). The two are romantically engaged, as they kiss shortly after Cavil's resurrection, and later questions Cavil's decision to attack Natalie's rebel faction at the onset of the Cylon Civil War (The Ties That Bind).
Notes[edit]
- This Number Eight is often just called "Boomer" colloquially, as that callsign is closely associated with her, while Sharon Agathon is usually called "Sharon" and more recently "Athena". Until Season 3, this copy was referred to as the Galactica copy ("Galactica-Sharon"), because she was first encountered on Galactica.
- Virtual Six rhetorically asks Gaius Baltar in "Flesh and Bone" why he thinks that Valerii got the callsign "Boomer", implying a sexual reference. Aside from the fact that Valerii is the analogue of Boomer from the Original Series, the reason for giving her this callsign is likely due to her reputation for loud and botched landings with Raptors (Miniseries, "Flight of the Phoenix", "Scar").
- In reality, "Boomer" is a nickname for a ballistic missile submarine. "Helo" is a similar nickname for a helicopter.