Galen Tyrol
Overview[edit]
Rank: Chief Petty Officer
Age: 30 (?)
Marital Status: single
Children: none
Current position: Senior NCO commanding Deck Crew 5, Battlestar Galactica
(Played by: Aaron Douglas)
Biography[edit]
Background[edit]
Galen Tyrol is a much-admired NCO aboard the Galactica. He has served under William Adama for a number of years, and has considerable respect for the Commander - a feeling that is reciprocated. Indeed, he admires Adama to such a degree that he has modelled his own style of leadership on that of Adama: firm, fair, and will to go to the fullest degree in support of his crew.
Originally leading Deck Crew 5, a team of 15 deckhands and specialists, since the Cylon Attack he has become the most senior and experienced NCO on the Galactica.
Cylon Attack[edit]
At the time of the Cylon Attack, as well as leading his deck crew, Tyrol has been overseeing the refurbishment and restoration of Viper Mark II N7242C - the Viper originally flown by William Adama at the time of the Cylon War (Mini-Series).
Following the attack, with the Galactica undermanned, Tyrol also performs the function of senior Damage Control officer (Mini-Series / Water), a role that brings him into conflict with Colonel Tigh after the Galactica is struck by a Cylon nuclear warhead.
Relationship with Sharon Valerii[edit]
For several months prior to the Cylon attack, and in it aftermath, Tyrol has been engaged in an affair with Lieutenant (JG) Sharon Valerii, a Raptor pilot aboard the Galactica. Despite the fact the relationship breaks military protocol, senior officers on the ship turn a blind eye to it, while Tyrol's own crew treat it with fond amusement.
When the water supplies on the Galactica are sabotaged, Tyrol is placed in an awkward position: by her own admmission, Valerii knows explosives were missing from a small-arms locker - potentially making her a suspect - and he is the principle DC investigator into the cause of the explosions which wreck the water tanks. Torn between love and duty, the situation prompts him to hide evidence and allow a theory that the walls of the tanks simply collapsed from fatigue resulting from damage the Galactica received from a nuclear warhead in the Cylon attack (Water / Mini-Series).
Following the sabotage attempt, Valerii is ordered to end her relationship with Tyrol (Bastille Day) as a part of a general tightening-up of security and discipline on ship, only to have Tyrol's deck crew help the two of them to continue to meet in greater secret (Litmus).
Tyro's world is thrown further into turmoil when both he and Valerii become the prime suspects in an investigation into how a Cylon agent managed to get aboard the Galactica, kill a guard, steal explosives and them blow himself up in a ship's corridor, almost killing Adama and Tigh (Litmus). When one of his own Specialists is thrown in the brig for dereliction of duty which may have enabled the Cylon to access a weapons locker and steal the explosives, Tyrol is shocked into re-thinking his relationship with Valerii, and ends it himself.
While they continue to encounter one another professionallly - their work means they can hardly avoid one another - Tyrol and Valerii now have an uneasy distance between each other, and Valerii's actions around a captured Cylon Raider have begun to disturb Tyrol.