Karl Agathon

Karl Agathon
Name	{{{name}}}
Age
Colony
Birth place	{{{birthplace}}}
Birth Name	Karl C. Agathon
Birth Date	{{{birthdate}}}
Callsign	Helo
Nickname	{{{nickname}}}
Introduced	Miniseries
Death
Parents
Siblings
Children	Hera (Human-Cylon hybrid)
Marital Status	Married to Sharon Agathon
Family Tree	View
Role	Tactical Officer and former Executive Officer (Battlestar Galactica) Formerly Raptor ECO
Rank	Captain
Serial Number	{{{serial}}}
Portrayed by	Tahmoh Penikett
Karl Agathon is a Cylon
Karl Agathon is a Final Five Cylon
Karl Agathon is a Human/Cylon Hybrid
Karl Agathon is an Original Series Cylon
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Additional Information
[[Image:|200px|Karl Agathon]]

Captain Karl C. Agathon was the ECO aboard Raptor 478, piloted by Lieutenant JG Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. He is young, loyal, capable, resourceful, and attracted to Valerii. Those aboard Galactica seem to find his real name cumbersome or unwieldy. He's almost always addressed by his callsign, "Helo."

Biography

At the time of the Cylon Attack, Lieutenant Karl Agathon, serial number PK-789934, is on patrol in Valerii's Raptor flying with battlestar Galactica's last fully-operational Viper squadron, and witnesses the destruction of the squadron by Cylon Raiders, after the Raiders exploit the Command Navigation Program to disable the Vipers.

Following the attack, Agathon and Valerii attempt to return to Galactica, avoiding Cylon patrols, but are unsuccessful: their Raptor is damaged in a Cylon missile strike, and Helo receives a wound in his leg from shrapnel that pierces their ship. As a result of the damage received, the Raptor is forced down on Caprica, where Valerii makes emergency repairs. Moments after Valerii's repairs, their ship is mobbed by civilians desperate to get off the planet.

With limited space for survivors aboard the Raptor, Agathon volunteers his seat to Dr. Gaius Baltar and remains on Caprica in the hope that Baltar will be of benefit to the Colonials in their renewed fight against the Cylons. Both Helo and Boomer feel that there is no chance that he will survive the Cylon nuclear attack on Caprica, but he selflessly chooses to stay behind anyway, giving up his own life so Baltar can get to Galactica.

Marooned

After Boomer's departure, Helo apparently separates from the surviving refugees (who soon succumb to radiation poisoning) and flees from Cylon ground forces. After six days on Caprica, surviving on anti-radiation medications from his survival pack, he is captured after noticing a version of the Cylon known (secretly only to Gaius Baltar) as Number Six.

Helo is "rescued" by a copy of Sharon Valerii, unaware that this is not the same one who abandoned him on Caprica. She guides him across Caprica as part of an elaborate (if potentially hastily conceived) plan / experiment designed to make this second Valerii the object of Agathon's affections. Several situations are engineered to make this happen:

Helo and Starbuck in her apartment in Delphi, Caprica in Valley of Darkness.

• A "honey trap" offering reasonably secure accommodations (a "fall-out shelter") together with sufficient supplies for two people beneath a restaurant (Act of Contrition)
• Engineering Valerii's capture to test Helo's loyalty towards her (You Can't Go Home Again / Litmus)
• Establishing a further (long-term) "honey trap" for Helo and Valerii in the wilderness of Caprica.

Agathon eventually admits that he has feelings for Valerii and that he would have gladly traded places with Chief Tyrol, who he knew was having an illict relationship with her. Following this, the two have sex in a forest on Caprica. Afterwards, Valerii is instructed by the Five and Six overseeing the experiment to lead her lover to a nearby cabin, and to kill him if he refuses to settle there. However, the Cylon plan goes awry because Valerii has apparently fallen in love with Agathon. She forces them both on the run once more, this time genuinely seeking to escape from Caprica via the military base at Delphi, which is now under Cylon control.

During their attempts to reach Delphi, Agathon witnesses a troop of Cylon Centurions being led by Number Six - the woman he thought had been killed when Valerii rescued him. This draws him to the conclusion that the Cylons are using human clones they have created (Colonial Day). Once at Delphi, Agathon receives another shock: not only are further versions of Six on-hand - he comes face-to-face with another Valerii copy, revealing the full truth about the woman known as "Boomer" to him. Believing he was lured into a trap, Agathon goes on the run, leaving Valerii at the base.

The Valerii copy that Helo has paired with later catches up with him, and while he shoots her in the arm, he does not kill her as she might be of use to him in escaping the planet. Caprica-Valerii then informs Helo that she is pregnant with his child, and that they should go to the Delphi Museum. There, Agathon is reunited with Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (who just arrived from Galactica using a stolen Cylon Raider) immediately after she kills a copy of Number Six and retrieves the Arrow of Apollo. Thrace, realizing immediately that Valerii is a Cylon (knowing much earlier than Helo that Cylons can mimic human form) tries to kill Valerii, but Agathon stops her because she is pregnant (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II, Scattered).

Valerii runs away out of fear of Thrace, taking her Cylon Raider. Fearing that Number Six will finish transferring her consciousness to a new body and warn the Cylons about the humans' presence in Delphi, Agathon and Thrace make their way to Thrace's old apartment (Scattered, Valley of Darkness). Later, Thrace and Agathon join up with the human resistance on Caprica (Resistance).

The Resistance and Escape from Caprica

Agathon, Anders and others later rescue Thrace from the Cylons' "hospital". Valerii returns to aid Helo in locating the missing Thrace, and later saves the day by gunning down several Centurions in a stolen Heavy Raider. Helo, Thrace, and Valerii leave Caprica en route to the Fleet (The Farm). The group lands on the Astral Queen, which has broken off from the rest of the Fleet (Home, Part I). When Lee Adama grabs the new copy of Valerii and threatens to shoot her, Helo raises his gun to Lee's head in response. They are calmed by Roslin, who then orders Valerii thrown out of an airlock. Valerii convinces Roslin of her usefulness before this happens, and later accompanies Helo and others to Kobol to find the Tomb of Athena (Home, Part I). On the way to the Tomb of Athena, Apollo remarks to Starbuck that he is disturbed that Helo and this Valerii copy love each other, and Helo admits to Valerii that he now loves and trusts her. When they finally reach the tomb, Commander Adama orders Helo to stay outside with Valerii and Tom Zarek while Chief Tyrol guards all of them. With the successful gathering of information on the whereabouts of Earth, Helo and the group return to Galactica and the reunified Fleet.

Home on Galactica

Helo's welcome-home to Galactica, months after being declared MIA on Caprica (Home, Part II), isn't a generally warm one. Many in the crew find his romance with the Caprica Valerii disquieting or disgusting. A few crew warm up to Helo after his suggestion of using carbon composites on the new fighter, the Blackbird, turns Tyrol's pet project into a significant stealth technology (Flight of the Phoenix).

Chief Tyrol is still nursing the loss of Boomer (the Galactica copy of Valerii that left Helo on Caprica and later shoots Commander Adama), and now must deal with the return of another Valerii, her "memories" of him, and the fact that Helo is romantically involved with her. The friction between Helo and Tyrol becomes too much and a fight ensues before both realize that fighting will gain them little. The two tacitly appear to accept the awkward situation for what it is.

Helo and Tyrol learn of the gang-rape of the captured Cylon on battlestar Pegasus, and are shocked to learn that the "Cylon interrogator", Lieutenant Alistair Thorne, would be "interrogating" the incarcerated Valerii that day. Prior to this discovery, Helo is prepared to fight the drunken Pegasus crewmembers over their disrespect, but Tyrol realizes what is coming for Valerii and convinces him to head to the brig to her aid. While apparently successful in stopping the assault, the two are arrested and taken to Pegasus when Thorne is accidentally killed. Admiral Helena Cain conducts summary courts-martial on the two Galactica crewmembers, finding them guilty and sentencing them to execution. When Commander Adama hears of this abrupt treatment, he launches a Raptor with Marine units as well as his Viper squadrons to get Helo and Tyrol back. A standoff ensues, with not only Helo's and Tyrol's lives in the balance, but thousands of others in the Fleet (Pegasus).

Aboard the Pegasus

After Starbuck returned with images of the Resurrection Ship, Adama and Cain agreed to a truce. Helo and Tyrol were given a stay of execution, but not a pardon. While they were imprisoned aboard the Pegasus, a pair of deck hands, irate about Thorne's death, assaulted them. Jack Fisk, the XO of the Pegasus, put a stop to this by citing regulations, but rebuffed Helo's thanks. Like the deck crew, Fisk had been saved from death by Thorne, and he was not sympathetic to Valerii, whom he viewed as a machine.

After the destruction of the Resurrection Ship and the death of Admiral Cain, Fisk became Commander of the Pegasus. He returned Helo and Tyrol to the Galactica, where the former was joyfully received by Valerii.

The Events of Epiphanies

Things got ugly when the dying President Roslin ordered the hybrid baby aborted. Helo attempted to dissuade Adama from carrying out the order in private conversation in the Admiral's office, but failed. When Valerii was being brought to the medical bay for the abortion, Helo blocked the door, his hand on his pistol. He offered to take Boomer aboard a Raptor and leave the Fleet, but was rebuffed by Adama, who told him, "You're a soldier." Helo retorted that he was a father, like Adama.

Fortunately, Baltar defused a potentially violent incident by arriving with his report on the medically useful nature of the hybrid fetus. The consequences from his action remain to be seen, although since he was later seen working out in the gym with Starbuck both before and after the destruction of Scar (Raider), it is unlikely he was punished.

The Hybrid Birth

Helo was present when Hera, the human-Cylon hybrid, was born. He and Valerii marvelled at their baby, and Helo shocked Valerii when he said that it made one almost believe in the Cylon God. When Valerii attacks Dr. Cottle, accusing him of murder after he informs her of the baby's "death," Helo tries to restrain her but ends up with marines pointing guns at him as Valerii is returned to her cell.

Caprica SAR & New Caprica

Despite Valerii's continued belief that Cottle and the other humans killed Hera, Helo was able to convince her to assist Kara Thrace's plan for the rescue of Samuel Anders and his Caprica Resistance group (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I). Helo and the others manage to survive the Cylon assault after Cavil informs them that the Cylons have left the Colonies.

With the happenstance discovery of the so-called New Caprica, the relationship between Helo and Sharon Valerii became increasingly strained, due primarily to her growing depression over the loss of their child and the fact that Valerii did not inform the SAR team that Caprica-Cavil was a Cylon agent.

It is unknown what happened to his Sharon Valerii during the year Galactica and Pegasus patrolled the orbit around New Caprica. However, Agathon is acting as a replacement to Felix Gaeta as Galactica's tactical officer (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II) and has been promoted to the position as Galactica's XO. (It is not clear whether he has received a promotion to a rank more typical of that position.) It has been revealed that, as of "Precipice", he and Sharon have been married and she has been commissioned into the Colonial Fleet. While he temporarily relinquished the XO slot after the Battle of New Caprica and Tigh's return to Galactica, Tigh's actions and attitude caused him to be relieved of duty ("Collaborators"). Helo finds himself once again acting as Adama's right-hand man ("Torn").

Notes

Name

The new Battlestar Galactica plays heavily on Greek mythology and history; the use of names such as Delphi and those of the Olympian gods is an example. Helo's names have many possible referrents:

• Agathon was an ancient Greek tragic poet.
• Agathos Daemon was of one of the spirits that lie between the gods and mortals in Greek mythology. He is associated with the cultivation of grapes and grain as well as luck and abundance.
• The prefix "Agatho-" means 'good' in Greek.
• Helios was the Greek god of the Sun associated most prominently with the myth of Phaëton.
• "Helo" is slang for helicopter, and the Raptor craft Helo crews is visually based on an Apache helicopter. This fits with the callsign of his former co-pilot, "Boomer", which is slang for a ballistic missile submarine.

Character

• In an interview, actor Tahmoh Penikett discussed the (unofficial) backstory he had worked out with Katee Sackhoff to explain her comment in "Scattered" that they "go way back":

"We are old friends and we have been through a lot together. I have been asked this question before, but I think it is pretty safe to bet that we were either in the academy together or we have known each other for years. Whether there has ever been a romantic relationship, that is definitely a possibility--especially with Starbuck...It could have been a one night stand, but there is in fact a relationship. We are more like brother and sister, and have been through a lot together. Helo really understands Starbuck and she understands him. They are a lot closer than most people think."

• Helo's full name (or even his fate) wasn't revealed until "33". He was initially intended as an expendable character; originally, he was supposed to have actually died when the Raptor left him behind on Caprica. Penikett's performance convinced TPTB otherwise. Curiously, Helo's second replacement on Boomer's Raptor, Racetrack, was also intended as a one-shot character, but was retained by TPTB for similar reasons.
• While he is shown in a Raptor during the funeral of his daughter in Downloaded, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I" is the first time he has done his job as ECO on screen since the Miniseries.

References

Preceded by: Saul Tigh

Executive Officer of the battlestar Galactica

Succeeded by: Incumbent