Karl Agathon

Karl C. Agathon is the Executive Officer of the Battlestar Galactica and husband of the cylon Sharon "Athena" Agathon in the series Battlestar Galactica. His aviator call sign is Helo.

Background

Agathon is an Electronic Countermeasures Officer, part of a two-person Colonial Raptor crew, and is paired with Sharon Valerii before the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies. During the Cylon attack, their Raptor is damaged and forced to land on Caprica. While making repairs, they are mobbed by a group of survivors desperate to get off the planet. A lottery is used to decide who will be allowed to escape due to the Raptor's limited space, but Agathon additionally sacrifices his own seat to allow Dr. Gaius Baltar, discovered in the crowd, to survive.

After the Raptor leaves, Agathon flees into the wilderness and tries to elude Cylon forces, surviving by using anti-radiation injections and the other contents of his survival kit. Eventually, he is captured by a Number Six copy, but is rescued by Valerii (herself a Cylon model Number Eight copy, unknown to Agathon). Valerii's true motive in accompanying Agathon is the participation in a Cylon experiment designed to attempt to create a viable Cylon/human hybrid offspring. The Cylons track Agathon's progress toward a military base in Delphi, placing him in situations that are designed to result in affection and ultimately love towards Valerii. The experiment results in a successful pregnancy after Valerii has sex with Agathon, though as an unintended side effect, she falls in love with him as well. Agathon soon discovers the truth about her Cylon nature after spotting another Number Eight copy while trying to infiltrate the Delphi military base. Believing that he is being led into a trap, he runs from the base and Valerii.

She eventually catches up to him and reveals that she is pregnant. Despite shooting her in the shoulder, Agathon realizes he can't bring himself to kill her and instead, at her urging, takes her with him to the Delphi museum. It is there that he is reunited with fellow Galactica pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, who is on a special mission from President Laura Roslin to recover the Arrow of Apollo. After nearly being killed by Thrace, Valerii steals the Cylon Raider and flies off. Agathon and Thrace make their way first to Thrace's old apartment to retrieve a new mode of transportation (an old army truck she owned), and then into the woods in search of another military base. While stopping to get their bearings, they run into a group of Pyramid players-turned resistance fighters. After Thrace is wounded and captured by the Cylons, Agathon and the others track her down and attempt to rescue her from the hospital where she is being held. They are, surprisingly, aided by Valerii, who returns in a stolen Heavy Raider. With the Arrow of Apollo in hand, Agathon, Thrace and Valerii leave Caprica and make their way to Kobol to rejoin Roslin.

Upon rejoining the Colonial survivors aboard the Astral Queen, Agathon pulls his gun on Lee Adama in order to stop him from shooting Valerii, whom Adama blames for the attempt another Valerii copy makes on his father's life. Later, while searching for the Tomb of Athena on the surface of Kobol, Agathon admits to Valerii that he still loves and trusts her.

After finding the Tomb of Athena, Agathon returns with the group to Galactica, almost three months after being presumed MIA. His homecoming is bittersweet; Helo's love for his version of Sharon results in his former friends turning their backs on him, due to his love for a Cylon, let alone one who's doppleganger attempted to murder the beloved Adama. However, Helo finds support with Starbucks and Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol, who was in love with the original Galactica crew member version of Sharon before her ultimate betrayal of the fleet and death.

After the appearance of the Battlestar Pegasus, Agathon was forced to watch as Sharon was taken to "Pegasus", where Sharon was tortured and almost raped by Lieutenant Thorne, a Pegasus crew member and Cylon interrogator. Along with Tyrol, the two stopped Thorne from raping Sharon but in the process, accidentally murdered him. Admiral Cain's summary trial and death sentence of Agathon and Tyrol bring the Galactica to confrontation with Pegasus. Although the death sentence is not carried out, Agathon and Tyrol remain in the brig, where Tyrol ultimately gives Helo his blessing for a relationship with Sharon as the two are eventually released by Colonel Jack Fisk, with all charges ostensibly being dropped.

Following his captivity on the "Pegasus", Helo reunited with his version of Sharon as she continued along with her pregnancy. When President Laura Roslin proclaims her intention to force Sharon to undergo an abortion for the purpose of eliminating the perceived threat that Helo and Sharon's child represents to the fleet, Helo attempts to beg Adama to overrule Roslin and allow himself and the pregnant Sharon to leave the fleet and find a world where they could live in peace without being persecuted. Adama refuses and Roslin rescind her demand for a forced abortion when Gaius Baltar extracts blood from the unborn child for use as a cure for Roslin's terminal cancer. This then leads to Roslin betraying Helo again but ordering Helo and Sharon's newborn daughter being taken from the hospital after she is born and it's death faked.

Following the discovery and settlement of New Caprica, Agathon remains on the Galactica as part of her skeleton crew. He serves as Galactica's Executive Officer, replacing Colonel Saul Tigh (although it is unclear whether he has received the promotion to a rank more typical of that position). Karl Agathon has since officially married his version of Sharon, who is now a Lieutenant in the Colonial fleet ("Occupation"/"Precipice").

Trivia

• The character of Helo was originally conceived as a red-shirt character. After stranding him on the post-nuclear atack Caprica, the writers had no further plans for the character and intended his fate to be that he died in the radiation that followed the nuking of the planet. However, many fans took a liking to the character and wanted to know what happened to him after he was left on Caprica, resulting in the writers revising their original plans for the series to include the character and his activities on Caprica after the mini-series.

• Despite his heroic and selfless nature, nearly every major negative plot point on the show after the Cylon invasion stems from Helo's selfless act of allowing Baltar to take his seat on the Raptor during his and Boomer's evactuation of the planet in the mini-series. As a result of this act of noble self-sacrifice, Baltar was able to join the fleet and ultimately force the colony to settle on New Caprica, leading to the Cylon occupation of the new colony and the misery that followed.