Tom Zarek

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Tom Zarek
Tom Zarek
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Portrayed by	Richard Hatch
First appearance	"Bastille Day"
Rank	Vice President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol
Colony	Sagittaron
Affiliation	Twelve Colonies

Tom Zarek is the name of a fictional character on the Sci Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica. He is played by Richard Hatch, who had previously portrayed Captain Apollo, a character on the original Battlestar Galactica series of the late 1970's.

Zarek is a charismatic and philosophical populist political leader from the Colony of Sagittaron, who was jailed twenty years before the Cylon holocaust for terrorist activities (he planted explosives in a government building, destroying it and causing many deaths) and for spurring political unrest. After the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, he and a number of other inmates find themselves stuck on the Astral Queen, a prison barge which joins the Battlestar Galactica in fleeing the Cylons.

Gathering followers among the prisoners, Zarek leads a riot against the leadership of the ragtag fleet, protesting the poor living conditions on the Astral Queen. He creates a hostage situation which then-Commander Adama and President Roslin must resolve in the midst of a crisis of water supply in the fleet. ("Bastille Day"). As a homage to the original 1970s series, at one point in the episode Zarek and Lee Adama are in discussion sitting opposite each other in one of the cells. One of Zarek's co-conspirators calls "Apollo!", at which point they both turn in recognition.

Later in the series, Zarek runs for political office, and is elected representative for Sagittaron on the new Quorum of Twelve (the Legislative branch of the government). He then runs for the vacant office of Vice President, in a power play meant to take a step towards ascending to the presidency, but is defeated when Roslin makes a surprise replacement for her own nominee, and Dr. Gaius Baltar is elected Vice President.

During the time in which Col. Tigh imposed martial law on the fleet, Zarek assists Lee Adama in hiding Roslin from the military. ("Resistance"). While on the run, he unsuccessfully tries to persuade the younger Adama to record a message to the fleet publicly denouncing his father for ordering Roslin's arrest. ("The Farm"). After the Astral Queen leads the pro-Roslin faction to Kobol, Zarek and his lieutenant, Meier, accompany Roslin's party to the planet's surface, ostensibly to provide security as they search for the Tomb of Athena. Zarek tries to dissuade Meier from his plan of assassinating Lee to no avail, and Meier ends up dead when the plan fails. ("Home").

Soon after reuniting with the fleet, Lee turns to Zarek for information on his "shady friends," who control a black market for essential goods. Zarek gives up a gangster named Phelan, who is later killed by Lee. Although he denies any involvement in the black market, Zarek is nevertheless shown associating with one of the late Phelan's former henchmen. ("Black Market").

Subsequently, Zarek goes on to become Gaius Baltar's campaign manager in his bid against Laura Roslin. He engineers a winning platform that called for the fleet to settle on an isolated, newly discovered planet later dubbed "New Caprica." When Baltar is elected President of the Twelve Colonies, Zarek became his vice president. Zarek was placed in confinement, however, when he refused to collaborate with the Cylons after they forced the surrender of the Baltar administration. He, along with Laura Roslin and Cally Tyrol, was one of 200 citizens sentenced to death by the Cylon-controlled Colonial Government. Believing themselves to be doomed, Zarek elicited a confession from Roslin about the election fraud that almost denied Baltar the presidency. Upon hearing the truth from Roslin, Zarek admitted that in light of the Cylon occupation, settling on New Caprica was a bad idea. The group is saved at the last minute by the human resistance movement.

After Galactica's return to help the remnants of humanity escape, Baltar is left with the Cylons. Zarek becomes president of the Colonies, but decides to step down, believing that without the military's support he wouldn't be able to control the fleet. Before his resignation, he appoints Laura Roslin as his Vice President. Upon becoming President, Roslin appoints Zarek as her Vice President. Before Roslin resumed her presidency, Zarek secretly authorized "The Circle" to carry out death squad executions of those who collaborated with the Cylons on New Caprica. Roslin is horrified when she learns of this, but Zarek says that the fleet needs quick justice to prevent chaos and that Roslin's new mandate needs to start with clean hands. The executions stopped when Roslin declared a general amnesty in her inaugural address. After Baltar is returned by the Cylons to the Colonials during the Eye of Jupiter incident, Zarek repeatedly counsels Roslin against giving him a public trial, again citing the potential for chaos in the fleet that could ensue.

Zarek has shown himself to be an ally and adversary to the crew of Galactica, constantly seeking his own ends whilst consistently defending his actions as populist and for the "greater good." This compiled with his place within the Colonial government have made him a mover and shaker, a powerful and dynamic character on the show.

[edit] Backstory

Zarek is a central character in The Cylons' Secret (2006) by Craig Shaw Gardner. The novel is set twenty years after the first Cylon War. At this time, Zarek is a junior crew member aboard the free cruiser Lightning, a scavenger/pirate ship owned by Captain Nadu.