Kara Thrace

Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, played by Katee Sackhoff, is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica, a reimagining of the classic series of the same name.

Before the Cylons
Kara had intended to be a professional Pyramid ball player until her knee gave out. She eventually joined the military, where she found more acceptance than she, an abused child,[1] had felt at home. Although Kara's mother had served in the Marines in the First Cylon War, Kara was the first person in the family to become an officer. Kara's mother was not content with her daughter's military record, however, claiming she was not disciplined enough, and that she was wasting her natural talent for flying.
As a Flight Instructor at the Colonial Flight School, she met and became romantically involved with one of her students, Zak Adama. Although Zak told her that he did not want any special treatment from her, Kara passed him even though he failed Basic Flight — she couldn't bring herself to crush his dreams.
Her leniency cost Zak his life when he was killed in his first Viper mission. After his death, Starbuck met his father, Commander Adama. He realized that Starbuck and Zak had been engaged, and brought her under his command as a Lieutenant. Zak's death, however, created a wedge between Commander Adama and his other son, Lee "Apollo" Adama, who blamed his father for Zak's death. After the funeral Lee broke off all contact with his father and Starbuck.
Starbuck has a natural talent for flying, and is considered Galactica's best pilot, although she is also known for being an avid card player and drinker. Commander Adama loves Kara despite her flaws, and considers her something of a surrogate daughter. However, Starbuck and Colonel Tigh share a mutual sense of loathing.

After the attack
In one card game before Galactica's decommissioning ceremony [ie in the Miniseries], Starbuck tauntingly alludes to Tigh's troubled relationship with his wife. Infuriated, he flips the table over, and she punches him in the face. He sends her to the brig, promising that her career is over. However, Commander Adama tells Tigh that he is probably overreacting: while he agrees to leave Kara in the brig until after the ceremony, Adama says there is no need to ruin Kara's career over the incident. And, soon after the Cylons attack the Twelve Colonies Starbuck is released, since she is far too valuable an asset to waste in the brig.
Starbuck keeps her secret about Zak buried inside until after the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies. Soon after, when Starbuck fears she and the rest of humanity might be wiped out by the Cylons, she confesses her mistake to Lee. He is devastated and would later confront her about it when she is chosen to train new Viper pilots aboard Galactica after more than half of its pilots are killed in a freak accident. Starbuck, blinded by guilt, washes all the pilots out for minor flaws. She then admits her secret to Commander Adama who is furious and heartbroken; he orders her to reinstate the trainees.
Not until Starbuck is thought lost and dead on a nearby moon — she had been shot down after making a legendary (and certainly suicidal) attack in an attempt to save said pilot trainees in which she shot down more than five enemy Raiders — did Commander Adama realize Starbuck's importance to him and his love for her. He ultimately expresses his forgiveness once she is safely back aboard Galactica.
Starbuck had broken her knee during her time on the moon, but is able to pilot a downed Cylon Raider back to Galactica and soon after began physical therapy. Depressed by her injury, she initially needs incentive to work on rehabilitation. Even after she is able to move around without a cane, the injury sidelines her from flight for many episodes; when given tactical charge of a mission in one episode, she can't fly the critical role because her knee still can't handle the G-force.
Despite her often crude exterior, Starbuck has a deep-seated faith in the gods. As a result, President Laura Roslin askes her to carry out a dangerous mission: return to Caprica and retrieve the Arrow of Apollo, a religious artifact that supposedly points the way to Earth. She takes the Cylon Raider she had captured, leading Adama to declare that Roslin had suborned mutiny; he sends a detachment of Marines to terminate her presidency.
During her time on Caprica, Starbuck encounters Number Six (who beats her soundly); meets up with Karl Agathon and the Sharon Valerii copy pregnant with his child; and meets a fellow pyramid player named Samuel Anders. He leads a resistance group that had been waging guerrilla war against the Cylons. At one point Starbuck is injured in battle, captured, and wakes up in a Cylon "farm" as part of their experiments to create human/Cylon hybrids. Without her knowledge, one of her ovaries is surgically removed before she escapes, a fact discovered only much later. Starbuck escapes, and plans to return to the fleet; she promises to return to rescue the Caprican resistance group and Anders, with whom she developed a romantic relationship.
Soon after returning from the planet Kobol that the Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Cain, is discovered. Admiral Cain promotes Starbuck to Captain and CAG (Commander, Air Group) of the Pegasus.
After the fleet leadership denies her request to return to rescue the Caprican resistance fighters, Starbuck is depressed and guilt-stricken: she has broken her word, failed her duty, and assumes the man she is "hung up on" is either dead, or will be soon. As Pegasus CAG, she also feels responsible for the pilots who have died on her watch, or died because she has not yet killed the Cylon's "top gun", "Scar." She recklessly maneuvers to take out Scar, but at the last moment pulls away, setting up the kill for Louanne "Kat" Katraine and giving up her own status as "Top Gun." Although this marks the beginning of a new resolve and the end of her self-destructive depressive behaviors, tensions between her and Apollo flare up again after she shoots him in friendly fire during a hostage stand-off.
After Lee Adama's promotion to Commander of the Battlestar Pegasus, Starbuck transfers back to the Galactica and assumes the role of its CAG.