Commander Adama - Battlestar Galactica (1978 Series)

Battlestar Galactica (1978 Series)

Adama is central to the story arc of the series, and in some ways the saga revolves around him.

He flew with his executive officer Colonel Tigh in their younger days, and later served with Commander Kronus aboard the battlestar Rycon.

As well as being a career military officer, Commander Adama is also a member of the Council Of The Twelve, the governing body of the Colonies. He was as much a politician as a military commander; evidently, the Colonial Service Academy offered courses in political science and diplomacy as well as military training.

From the start, Adama was mistrustful of the Cylons at the time of the Peace Conference to end the Thousand Yahren War. He was the only battlestar commander to keep his ship on battle-stations drill, and as a result, the Galactica was the only battlestar to survive the Cylon sneak attack. (Another battlestar, the Pegasus, was later discovered to have survived, and to have raided Cylon outposts for a year after the destruction of the colonies. However, it appeared in only two episodes before it mysteriously disappeared, its fate ambiguous.) Despite the destruction and great personal loss, Adama was able to organize the survivors in an escape from the Cylons and lead them on the search for Earth. In fact the word Adama means Earth in the Hebrew language.

Adama is a fair and beloved leader, with almost unquestioned authority. He is a deeply religious man, and his visit to the planet Kobol and the Fleet's encounter with the Ship of Lights strengthened his belief that someday Earth would be found.

In the episode "War Of The Gods," it is revealed that Adama has been trained in telekinesis as part of a military parapsychology study at the Colonial Military Institute early in his career. In this episode, Count Iblis can read minds, so Adama also mentions that he has received training in clouding his mind with other thoughts, suggesting that he was involved in experiments in telepathic communication. However, there is no further reference to this in the remainder of the series.

He appears briefly in the Maximum Press Battlestar Galactica comics published in the 1990s, having been put in cryogenic suspension after contracting a terminal illness common to Capricans.