Aliases Kat Affiliation Colonial Fleet First appearance "Act of Contrition" Fictional universe Battlestar Galactica | Gender Female Portrayed by Luciana Carro Last appearance "The Passage" | |
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Title Lieutenant (Episode 1.05 - 2.20)
Captain (Episode 3.01 - 3.08)
CAG (Episode 2.20 - 3.04; 3.08) Similar Margaret Edmondson, Cally Tyrol, Billy Keikeya, Anastasia Dualla, Tory Foster | ||
Louanne Katraine (callsign "Kat") is a fictional character from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series, portrayed by Luciana Carro.
Before the show and unknown to the audience, Sasha Billings is a drug-runner. Fortunate enough to be among the ragtag fleet, she takes the name of her roommate, Louanne Katraine, to get her through background checks to become part of a group trained by Lieutenant Kara Thrace (Starbuck). A natural, she quickly becomes a rival to Starbuck. But without military training, fatigue and stress mount, and Kat turns to stimulants to keep her senses sharp, before overdosing. She is talked down into a near crash-landing by Starbuck, and is temporarily hospitalized.
After Starbuck and Cpt. Lee "Apollo" Adama are transferred to the Battlestar Pegasus by Admiral Helena Cain, Kat seems to act as the Galactica 's de facto CAG ., and in the months after their return, the rivalry between Kat and Starbuck intensifies. Kat comes to disdain her former flight instructor's drunken and irresponsible behavior; Starbuck considers Kat to be an upstart with excessive self-esteem. After the settlement of New Caprica, Kat becomes the Galactica's CAG and leads the decoy attacks that allow the rescue of the civilian population.
When the Galactica attempts a difficult passage through a star cluster, Starbuck discovers Kat's past; Kat begs her not to tell Admiral William Adama. On the last jump, she refuses to allow her assigned ship to be lost, and stays in the cluster after Adama orders the Raptors to jump in order to save that ship. She succeeds, but receives a fatal dose of radiation. Admiral Adama visits her deathbed, and posthumously promotes her to CAG.
Like many characters in the series, Kat was originally intended to be a minor character, but the performance of Luciana Carro impressed Ronald Moore enough that the role was expanded. Kat is the only such character to have an episode ("The Passage") where she is the primary focus. A deleted scene from the episode "Maelstrom" would have shown the deceased Kat appearing alongside Starbuck's viper, encouraging her to accept her fate by telling her, "I've got your six."
Although it was not made explicit in the scene, Ronald D. Moore explained in his commentary on "The Passage," that Adama looked on Katraine (and by extension, all his favored pilots), like Kara Thrace, as an adopted daughter of sorts.
