Barry Garner

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Barry Garner
Commander Barry Garner
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Portrayed by	John Heard
Rank	Commander
Affiliation	Colonial Fleet

Barry Garner is a fictional character from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series, played by John Heard.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Commander Garner became commanding officer of the Battlestar Pegasus following the deaths of Admiral Helena Cain and Commander Jack Fisk. Colonel Saul Tigh of the Battlestar Galactica questioned Garner's appointment, but Admiral William Adama noted that Garner was the best that Pegasus had.

Garner was formerly the vessel's chief engineer. (It was never made clear if Garner had served as XO under Cmdr. Jack Fisk, his predecessor prior to being made CO.) Garner was well-suited to working with machines; unfortunately, he was less than competent when it came to command of the ship as a whole. In an attempt to rescue two missing Raptors, Garner disobeyed Admiral Adama's order not to take the Pegasus to search for them, and jumped away from the Colonial Fleet. The Pegasus thus fell directly into a Cylon trap and was damaged by multiple nuclear missile strikes. However, Garner redeemed himself and saved the ship in a noble sacrifice: he ordered his fellow engineers to seal him inside a depressurizing compartment while he repaired the stricken Pegasus' FTL drives.

In an after-action report delivered to Admiral Adama, Major Lee Adama recognized the bravery of Garner's actions and identified his flaw as being "used to machines: command is about people." Captain Kara Thrace's after-action report was less kind. Garner was succeeded as commander of the Pegasus by Major Adama, who had served as Garner's executive officer.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

In his podcast for the episode "The Captain's Hand", series creator Ronald D. Moore revealed that the character of Barry Garner was originally named Barry Trammel. This name was used in promotional materials until legal issues required that the character be re-named almost at the last minute. but stuck in Moore's memory: he accidentally refers to Garner as "Trammel" at several points in the podcast.