Movies - Laura Roslin

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	Movies - Laura Roslin

In the fictional universe of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica
, Laura Roslin is the former president of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Her character is played by Mary McDonnell. __TOC__

Before Succession

Roslin was the Secretary of Education to President Adar and had worked with him since he was mayor of Caprica City. Roslin appears to have been in a romantic relationship, possibly an affair, with Adar. When it began is unknown, but it seems to have continued until their last meeting. While it is speculation, it is possible that Roslin's rise to the cabinet was in some way tied to their involvement.

Before attending the decommissioning of the Battlestar Galactica, she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.

One of Roslin's last acts in her capacity as Secretary of Education was to work to resolve a labor dispute between the government and a group of striking teachers who had engaged in some acts of violence. Roslin was able to convince the teachers to return to work and continue to negotiate. However, Adar had not intended for her to achieve this outcome, and asked for Roslin's resignation. Roslin refused, and said that when she returned from her visit to Galactica, she would fight Adar if he still wanted her to leave her post. Roslin's conversation with the head of the teachers' organization happened at the same time and place as one of Gaius Baltar's meetings with the Cylon known as Six. As a result, Roslin may be aware that Baltar has an involvement with the Cylons which is unsuspected by everyone else. She also may have also seen the people Six met with afterwards, who could be Cylon agents.

Roslin traveled to Galactica to attend decommissioning ceremonies, and was on her way back when the Cylon attack began. During the latter part of the Cylon attack on the colonies, she responded to an automatic beacon, and was later informed that she (the 43rd in line) was the first (and possibly only) person in the line of succession to respond. She was sworn in as president by a priestess aboard her ship, in a scene highly reminiscent of the 1963 swearing-in of Lyndon Baines Johnson aboard Air Force One after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Presidency

Escaping the Cylons

Her first actions included organizing all FTL-capable ships together and convincing Commander William Adama to abandon a retaliatory attack on the Cylons, and instead join the "ragtag fleet" she had assembled, in escaping.

Restoring Government

President Roslin and Billy Keikeya, her aide/press secretary/chief of staff, established a working office space aboard her shuttle, renamed "Colonial One" (which the series' production team intentionally designed to resemble Air Force One.)

She also immediately clashed with Commander Adama, the senior Colonial military leader. They made an uneasy truce - that Adama would lead the military and the fleet's ships, while Roslin would preside over the fleet's personnel and look after the civilians' well-being.

For the first few weeks, she acted as the sole voice of government, attending meetings and issuing orders alone. Soon after the "Bastille Day" Conflict, Roslin bowed to popular pressure and agreed to establish a new Quorum of Twelve - the legislative branch of the colonial government, made up of a representative from each of the twelve colonies. The Quorum is similar to the UN Security Council or the United States Senate.

It was at the first meeting of the new Quorum that Councilmember Tom Zarek of Sagittaron moved to nominate a vice-president; few were surprised when Zarek nominated himself for the post. Zarek, a newly-released political prisoner, has been striving to reinvent himself as a sort of Che Guevara/Yasser Arafat freedom fighter on the series. Some years ago, Zarek bombed a government building and killed many civilians, and President Roslin and Commander Adama will stop at nothing to prevent him from gaining any power in the fleet (in Zarek's defense, the government of Sagittaron was stated to be a brutal dictatorship put in place by the other Colonies to exploit the planet, as a result many Sagittarons see him as the man determined to lead them to freedom, as evidenced by Zarek's winning the seat for Sagittaron on the new Quorum in a fair election).

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