Lieutenant Starbuck

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For Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, see Kara Thrace

Starbuck
Lt. Starbuck as seen in The Return of Starbuck
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Portrayed by	Dirk Benedict
Rank	Lieutenant
Affiliation	Colonials

Lieutenant Starbuck, played by Dirk Benedict, is a character in the 1970's science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck is a Viper starfighter pilot, gambler, womanizer and smoker. He is involved with Lieutenant Athena and Socialator Cassiopeia, and best friend of Captain Apollo. His godson in Galactica 1980 is Doctor Zee.

Orphaned at a very young age, Starbuck never knew his parents. The man known as Chameleon (Fred Astaire in the episode "The Man with Nine Lives") is discovered to be Starbuck's father, but Chameleon does not reveal this fact to his son.

Starbuck is very close to the family of Commander Adama, who refers to Starbuck as a man "he loves like a son" (Galactica 1980: Return of Starbuck).

Starbuck is well renowned as an excellent fighter pilot, but nonetheless manages to crash a Viper several times ('The Long Patrol', 'The Young Warriors', 'The Return of Starbuck') and a shuttle at least once ('Gun on Ice Planet Zero').

Starbuck returned for one episode, "The Return of Starbuck", in Galactica 1980. This episode (which is Dirk Benedict's personal favourite out of all of his performances) involved Starbuck crashing on a barren planet after fighting off a Cylon attack. Starbuck rebuilds one of the Cylons, 'Cy', who eventually sacrifices himself to defend against a second Cylon attack. Starbuck also rescues a woman, Angela, also marooned on the planet, and constructs a makeshift escape vessel to return Angela to the fleet.

"The Wheel of Fire", an unproduced Galactica 1980 episode, reveals that Starbuck was eventually rescued by the beings from the Ship of Lights and that the entire affair was set up by them, to test whether Starbuck was worthy to join them. Starbuck passes the test and becomes one of the Ship's crew.