Cally Henderson Tyrol

Character biography

Cally joined the Colonial Forces to help pay for schooling as a dentist and was about to be honorably discharged following Galactica's decommission. The destruction of the Twelve Colonies changes these plans, leaving her little choice but to stay on board as a member of the crew.

As with many secondary characters in the series, it was never definitively stated which of the Twelve Colonies that Cally was from, however there are several clues. In the episode "Dirty Hands" she criticizes the social position of the enlisted crewmen like her and her husband by pointing out that most Colonial Fleet officers are from the wealthy colonies like Caprica, Tauron, and Virgon - as opposed to from the poorest colonies, which she lists as Sagittaron, Gemenon, and Aerilon. This indicates that she was from one of these poorer colonies and not one of the wealthier ones. However, she does not appear to be from the poorest and most downtrodden colony, Sagittaron, because at various points when the Sagittarons are discussed she refers to them as a separate group. It's not clear if this means she was from Gemenon or Aerilon, or one of the other six "not wealthy" colonies, though her husband was a Gemenon.

Prior to the attack, and immediately following it, she works as a Specialist in the air maintenance crew of Battlestar Galactica. The crew is led by Chief Galen Tyrol, on whom she has a secret crush despite his relationship with Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. While on the Chief's crew, she is responsible for the maintenance of Vipers and Raptors, and sometimes Galactica herself.

Cally gets her first experience with the hazards of field operations when she is assigned to a team sent to the prison ship Astral Queen to enlist volunteers from the inmates for water recovery from an icy moon. While the team is there, the prisoners stage an uprising and Cally becomes one of several hostages. She is shot by one of the prisoners when she fights off his attempted rape by biting off his ear.

She recovers from her injuries and returns to work. Some time later, she is assigned to the Kobol landing party as part of a technical crew, along with Chief Tyrol, Vice President Gaius Baltar, Lt. Crashdown and a number of others. They are ambushed by Cylon forces on the surface and their Raptor crashes. On the run, with casualties mounting and the situation rapidly deteriorating, she is given a suicidal attack order by an increasingly unhinged Crashdown, her commanding officer at the time. Seeing that she is too scared to carry out the order, Crashdown threatens to execute her, only to be shot and killed himself by Dr. Baltar.

Following their rescue from Kobol, she returns to regular duty, but soon after murders Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, who had been discovered to be a Cylon sleeper agent. Enraged by Boomer's assassination attempt on Commander Adama, and the difficulties she created for the Chief, Cally shoots and kills the Cylon before any trial can start. Although the crime is clearly murder, Adama is lenient after hearing Chief Tyrol pleas, and she serves only 30 days for the minor offense of "unauthorized discharge of a firearm." Following her release, she is treated to a party by her comrades.

Cally's relationship with Chief Tyrol becomes romantic under unusual circumstances. Finding him sleeping on the flight deck one night, Cally rouses the Chief from a violent dream and in his delirium he beats her severely before he becomes cognizant. Remorseful, he visits her in the hospital, where he mumbles what he did to her was "unforgivable." Through her wired-closed broken jaw she tells him she forgives him and, in a deleted scene, admits her love for him.

Though surprised by the admission at first, the Chief eventually returns her love. However, prior to this, Cally has a relationship with Brendan Costanza and becomes pregnant with his child. Some weeks later, the Chief stuns her with a marriage proposal. By the time of their demobilization and settlement on New Caprica, Cally has married Galen Tyrol and taken his last name. Some time following the Cylon occupation of the colony she gives birth to her son with Costanza, Nicholas Stephen, telling the Chief the child is his.

Galen Tyrol is a major player in the resistance movement on New Caprica and Cally supports him. As a result, she is one of the citizens who are rounded up during a major sweep by the New Caprica Police. She is visited in prison in good faith by Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, a direct resurrection of the one she had killed over a year ago, but she rejects her offer of help. Selected to be executed along with several other prisoners, Cally is freed by the policeman Jammer and is reunited with her husband and child.

Following the evacuation, Cally and Galen re-settled aboard Galactica, at first in converted refugee barracks, then eventually in quarters. Reinstated in their old positions, they take turns watching over their son while carrying out their duties on the flight deck, a punishing schedule that begins to take its toll. Although they work well as a team during the exploration and subsequent escape from the Algae Planet, by this time Cally and Galen's marriage is starting to become strained.

An accident on the job brings them back together. Bickering with each other on a routine repair, Cally and Galen become trapped in a leaking airlock. Unable to get the inside door to cycle, the decision is made to get them out through the outer hatch and on to a rescue Raptor, a move that exposes the two of them to hard vacuum for a number of seconds. Both sustain serious decompression injuries as a result and Cally has to spend some time in a hyperbaric chamber. Realizing just how close he came to losing her, Tyrol reaffirms his commitment to her and their marriage.

When he found out, Galen did not reveal to Cally he was a Cylon. The constant demands of his work, as well as his moodiness about his true nature, continue to strain their marriage. Cally becomes suspicious her husband is having an affair with Tory Foster. After finding a suspicious note, she sneaks into a crawl space above a storage room in time to hear part of the secret Cylon meeting and learn unequivocally her husband is one of them. Upon his return to quarters, she attacks and incapacitates Galen then takes her son to a Viper launch tube with the intention of killing both him and herself. Tory — who suspected they were overheard — follows her to the launch tube and talks her out of her plan, only to take the baby, knock her aside, then cycles the launch tube, killing her.

Later Tyrol sees Tory's memory of killing Cally and strangles her to death, avenging Cally's death. This causes a series of events culminating with the destruction of the enemy humanoid Cylons and the discovery of a new planet that would eventually become Earth.