document_title: Term limits in the United States

question_text: term limits for house of representatives and senate

text: Term limits in the United States

text: Historical background[edit]

text: The Constitution[edit]

text: Term limits date back to the American Revolution, and prior to that to the democracies and republics of antiquity. The council of 500 in ancient Athens rotated its entire membership annually, as did the ephorate in ancient Sparta. The ancient Roman Republic featured a system of elected magistrates—tribunes of the plebs, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls —who served a single term of one year, with re-election to the same magistracy forbidden for ten years (see cursus honorum).[1] According to historian Garrett Fagan, office holding in the Roman Republic was based on "limited tenure of office" which ensured that "authority circulated frequently", helping to prevent corruption.[1] An additional benefit of the cursus honorum or Run of Offices was to bring the "most experienced" politicians to the upper echelons of power-holding in the ancient republic.[1] Many of the founders of the United States were educated in the classics, and quite familiar with rotation in office during antiquity. The debates of that day reveal a desire to study and profit from the object lessons offered by ancient democracy.

text: Prior to independence, several colonies had already experimented with term limits. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1639, for example, prohibited the colonial governor from serving consecutive terms, setting terms at one year's length, and holding "that no person be chosen Governor above once in two years."[2] Shortly after independence, the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 set maximum service in the Pennsylvania General Assembly at "four years in seven".[3] Benjamin Franklin's influence is seen not only in that he chaired the constitutional convention which drafted the Pennsylvania constitution, but also because it included, virtually unchanged, Franklin's earlier proposals on executive rotation. Pennsylvania's plural executive was composed of twelve citizens elected for the term of three years, followed by a mandatory vacation of four years.[4]

text: The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781, established term limits for the delegates to the Continental Congress, mandating in Article V that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years."[5]

text: On October 2, 1789, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of thirteen to examine forms of government for the impending union of the states. Among the proposals was that from the State of Virginia, written by Thomas Jefferson, urging a limitation of tenure, "to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office the members of the Continental Congress".[6] The committee made recommendations, which as regards congressional term limits were incorporated unchanged into the Articles of Confederation (1781–89). The fifth Article stated that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate [to the continental congress] for more than three years in any term of six years".[7]

text: Term limits in the Constitution[edit]

text: In contrast to the Articles of Confederation, the federal constitution convention at Philadelphia omitted mandatory term limits from the second national frame of government, i.e. the U.S. Constitution of 1789 to the present. However, George Washington set the informal precedent for a two-term limit for the Presidency—a tradition that prevailed until Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, after which the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1951 formally establishing in law the two-term limit.

text: However, when the states ratified the Constitution (1787–88), several leading statesmen regarded the lack of mandatory limits to tenure as a dangerous defect, especially, they thought, as regards the presidency and the Senate. Richard Henry Lee viewed the absence of legal limits to tenure, together with certain other features of the Constitution, as "most highly and dangerously oligarchic".[8] Both Jefferson[9] and George Mason[10] advised limits on reelection to the Senate and to the Presidency, because said Mason, "nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government as a periodic rotation". The historian Mercy Otis Warren, warned that "there is no provision for a rotation, nor anything to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well-timed bribery, will probably be done".[11]

text: 19th century[edit]

text: The fact that "perpetuity in office" was not approached until the 20th century is due in part to the influence of rotation in office as a popular 19th-century concept. "Ideas are, in truth, forces", and rotation in office enjoyed such normative support, especially at the local level, that it altered political reality.[12] For a detailed study of the 19th-century concepts of rotation, consult Political Science Quarterly, vol. 94, "House Turnover and the Principle of Rotation", by Robert Struble, Jr. See also his Treatise on Twelve Lights,[13] chapter six, "Rotation in History". Consult also, James Young's The Washington Community, 1800–1828.

text: According to Young, the tendency to look with mistrust upon political power was so ingrained into American culture that even the officeholders themselves perceived their occupations in a disparaging light.[14] James Fenimore Cooper described the common view that "contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed".[15] An article in the Richmond Enquirer (1822) noted that the "long cherished" principle of rotation in office had been impressed on the republican mind "by a kind of intuitive impulse, unassailable to argument or authority".[16]

text: Beginning about the 1830s, Jacksonian democracy introduced a less idealistic twist to the practice of limiting terms. Rotation in office came to mean taking turns in the distribution of political prizes.[17] Rotation of nominations to the U.S. House of Representatives—the prizes—became a key element of payoffs to the party faithful. The leading lights in the local party machinery came to regard a nomination for the House as "salary" for political services rendered. A new code of political ethics evolved, based on the proposition that "turnabout is fair play".[18] In short, rotation of nominations was intertwined with the spoils system.

text: In district nominating conventions local leaders could negotiate and enforce agreements to pass the nominations around among themselves. Abraham Lincoln was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846 under such a bargain, and he returned home to Springfield after a single congressional term because, he wrote, "to enter myself as a competitor of another, or to authorize anyone so to enter me, is what my word and honor forbid".[19]

text: During the Civil War, the Confederate States Constitution limited its president to a single six-year term.

text: Era of incumbency[edit]

text: The practice of nomination rotation for the House of Representatives began to decline after the Civil War. It took a generation or so before the direct primary system, civil service reforms, and the ethic of professionalism worked to eliminate rotation in office as a common political practice. By the turn of the 20th century the era of incumbency was coming into full swing.

text: A total of 8 presidents served two full terms and declined a third and three presidents served one full term and refused a second. After World War II, however, an officeholder class had developed to the point that congressional tenure rivaled that of the U.S. Supreme Court, where tenure is for life.

text: Term limits movement[edit]

text: "Homesteading," or securing a lifelong career in Congress, was made possible by reelection rates that approached 100% by the end of the 20th century. The concept of homesteading brought about a popular movement known as the "term-limits movement". The elections of 1990–94 saw the adoption of term limits for state legislatures in almost every state where citizens had the power of the initiative. In addition, 23 states limited service in their delegation to Congress. As they pertain to Congress, these laws are no longer enforceable, however, as in 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned congressional term limits in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, ruling that state governments cannot limit the terms of members of the national government.[20]

text: Where rotation in the legislative branch has withstood court challenges, term limits continue to garner popular support. As of 2002, the advocacy group "U.S. Term Limits" found that in the 17 states where state legislators served in rotation, public support for term limits ranged from 60 to 78 percent.[21]

text: Federal term limits[edit]

text:
Office
Term limits

President
Limited to being elected to a total of 2 four-year terms. A President by succession who completes more than two years of a former President's unfinished term may be elected in his or her own right only once, and 2 more four-year terms are permitted if they complete two years or less. Becoming a President by succession may happen to someone an unlimited number of times, for example, if he or she is Vice President and the President dies, resigns or is removed from office via impeachment conviction.[22][23]

Vice President
Unlimited four-year terms

House of Representatives
Unlimited two-year terms

Senate
Unlimited six-year terms

Supreme Court
No term limits, appointed to serve "during good behavior"[24] (but can be impeached and removed from office for "high Crimes and Misdemeanors"); in practice a Justice serves until death or stepping down (by retirement or resignation)

text: As of 2013, term limits at the federal level are restricted to the executive branch and some agencies. Judicial appointments at the federal level are made for life, and are not subject to election or to term limits. The U.S. Congress remains (since the Thornton decision of 1995) without electoral limits. During one of Trump's speeches from October 2016, he is quoted as having planned to impose term limits on Congress within his first hundred days in office.[25]

text: President[edit]

text: The first U.S. president, George Washington, started the tradition of informal presidential term limits by refusing to run for a third term (originally he claimed he did not want to run in the first place, much less for a second term). The short-lived Confederate States of America adopted a six-year term for their president and vice-president and barred the president from seeking re-election. That innovation was endorsed by many American politicians after the American Civil War, most notably by Rutherford B. Hayes in his inaugural address.

text: Franklin D. Roosevelt (president, 1933–1945) was the first and only U.S. president to break Washington's tradition successfully. He died in office a few months after starting his fourth term. This gave rise to a successful move in Congress to formalize the traditional two-term limit by amending the U.S. Constitution. As ratified in 1951, the Twenty-Second Amendment provides that "no person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice".

text: Congress[edit]

text: Reformers during the early 1990s used the initiative and referendum to put congressional term limits on the ballot in 24 states. Voters in eight of these states approved the congressional term limits by an average electoral margin of two to one.[26] It was an open question whether states had the constitutional authority to enact these limits. In May 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995), that states cannot impose term limits upon their federal Representatives or Senators.

text: In the 1994 elections, part of the Republican platform included legislation for term limits in Congress. After winning the majority, a Republican congressman brought a constitutional amendment to the House floor that proposed limiting members of the Senate to two six-year terms and members of the House to six two-year terms.[27] However, this rate of rotation was so slow (the life-tenured Supreme Court averages in the vicinity of twelve years) that the congressional version of term-limits garnered little support among the populist backers of term limits, including U.S. Term Limits, the largest private organization pushing for congressional term limits.[28][citation needed] The bill got only a bare majority (227–204), falling short of the two-thirds majority (290) needed for constitutional amendments.[29] Three other term limit amendment bills failed to get more than 200 votes.[30]

text: Defeated in Congress and overridden by the Supreme Court, the federal term limit uprising was brought to a halt. The term limits intended simultaneously to reform state legislatures (as distinguished from the federal congressional delegations) remain in force, however, in fifteen states.[31][32]

text: In 2007 Larry J. Sabato revived the debate over term limits by arguing in A More Perfect Constitution that the success and popularity of term limits at the state level suggests that they should be adopted at the federal level as well. He specifically put forth the idea of congressional term limits and suggested a national constitutional convention be used to accomplish the amendment, since the Congress would be unlikely to propose and adopt any amendment that limits its own power.

text: Some state legislators have also expressed their opinions on term limits. It is confirmed that in the following five states—and there may be others—state lawmakers approved resolutions asking Congress to propose a federal constitutional amendment to limit the number of terms which members of Congress may serve:

text: This section has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (February 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text:
South Dakota Legislature (designated as POM-42 in the U.S. Senate) approved in 1989, South Dakota House Joint Resolution No. 1001 (see Congressional Record of April 4, 1989, at pages 5395 and 5396, with verbatim text provided);
Hawaii Senate (designated as Memorial 400 in the U.S. House of Representatives) approved in 1990, Hawaii Senate Resolution No. 41—unicameral only (see Congressional Record of September 28, 1998, at page 22655) it took 8 years for this resolution to find its way into the Congressional Record and to be correctly referred to the Committee on the Judiciary—and even then, its text was not provided in the Congressional Record); back in 1990, Hawaii's S.R. No. 41 was indeed received by the U.S. House of Representatives, and was designated as Memorial 416, (Congressional Record of June 6, 1990, at pages 13262 and 13263) but the resolution was erroneously referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce—and its text is NOT provided in the Congressional Record;
Utah Legislature (designated as POM-644 in the U.S. Senate) approved in 1990, Utah Senate Joint Resolution No. 24 (see Congressional Record of September 27, 1994, at page 26033, with verbatim text provided) it took four years for this resolution to find its way into the U.S. Senate's portion of the Congressional Record;
Idaho Legislature (designated as Memorial 401 in the U.S. House of Representatives) approved in 1992, Idaho Senate Joint Memorial No. 116 (see Congressional Record of April 29, 1992, at page 9804—text NOT provided in the Congressional Record); and
Florida Legislature (designated as POM-122 in the U.S. Senate) approved in 2012, Florida House Memorial No. 83 (see Congressional Record of July 25, 2012, at page S5378, with verbatim text provided). Taking matters a bit further, on February 10, 2016, Florida lawmakers approved House Memorial No. 417 calling upon Congress, pursuant to Article V of the Federal Constitution, to assemble a Convention to prepare a constitutional amendment that would establish term limits upon members of Congress.

tag: ol

text: Supreme Court[edit]

text: Legal scholars have discussed whether or not to impose term limits on the Supreme Court of the United States. Currently, Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life "during good behavior". A sentiment has developed, among certain scholars, that the Supreme Court may not be accountable in a way that is most in line with the spirit of checks and balances.[33] Equally, scholars have argued that life tenure has taken on a new meaning in a modern context.[34] Changes in medical care have markedly raised life expectancy and therefore has allowed Justices to serve for longer than ever before.[33][34] Steven G. Calebresi and James Lindgren, professors of law at Northwestern University, argued that, because vacancies in the court are occurring with less frequency and justices served on average, between 1971 and 2006, for 26.1 years, the "efficacy of the democratic check that the appointment process provides on the Court's membership" is reduced.[33] There have been several similar proposals to implement term limits for the nation's highest court, including Professor of Law at Duke University, Paul Carrington's 2005 "The Supreme Court Renewal Act of 2005".[35]

text: Many of the proposals center around a term limit for Justices that would be 18 years (Larry Sabato, Professor of Political Science at University of Virginia, suggested between 15 and 18 years).[33][34][35][36] The proposed staggered term limits of 18 years would, according to Calebresi, Lindgren (2006), and Carrington (2005), allow for a new appointment to the Court every two years, which in effect would allow every president at least two appointments.[34][35] Professor Carrington has argued that such a measure would not require a constitutional amendment as the "Constitution doesn’t even mention life tenure; it merely requires that justices serve during ‘good behaviour’ ".[34] The idea was not without support among Judges, as John Roberts supported term limits before he was appointed to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice. Calebresi, Lingren, and Carrington have also proposed that when justices have served out their proposed 18-year term they should be able to sit on other Federal Courts until retirement, death, or removal.[33][34]

text: Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind Poll measured American voters’ attitudes towards various proposed Supreme Court reforms, including implementing term limits. The 2010 poll found that a majority of Americans were largely unaware of a proposal to impose a term limit of 18 years, as 82% reported they had heard little or nothing at all.[37] Notwithstanding a lack of awareness, 52% of Americans approved of limiting terms to 18 years, while 35% disapproved.[37] When asked how old is too old for a Supreme Court judge to serve if he or she seems healthy, 48% said "no limit as long as he or she is healthy", while 31% agreed that anyone over the age of 70 is too old.[37]

text: Some state lawmakers have officially expressed to Congress a desire for a federal constitutional amendment to limit terms of Supreme Court justices as well as of judges of federal courts below the Supreme Court level. While there might be others, below are three known examples:

text:
In 1957, the Alabama Legislature adopted Senate Joint Resolution No. 47 on the subject (appearing in the U.S. Senate's portion of the Congressional Record on July 3, 1957, at page 10863, with full text provided);
In 1978, the Tennessee General Assembly adopted House Joint Resolution No. 21 on the subject (designated as POM-612 by the U.S. Senate and quoted in full in the Congressional Record of April 25, 1978, at page 11437); and
In 1998, the Louisiana House of Representatives adopted House Resolution No. 120 on the subject (designated as POM-511 by the U.S. Senate and quoted in full in the Congressional Record of July 17, 1998, at page 16076).

text: State term limits[edit]

text: Term limits for state officials have existed since colonial times. The Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties of 1682, and the colonial frame of government of the same year, both authored by William Penn, provided for triennial rotation of the provincial council—the upper house of the colonial legislature.[38] The Delaware Constitution of 1776 limited the governor to a single three-year term; currently, the governor of Delaware can serve two four-year terms.

text: At present, 36 states have term limits of various types for their governors. To circumvent the term limit in Alabama incumbent governor George Wallace pushed through the nomination of his wife Lurleen, in the 1966 Democratic primary, which was, in those days, the real contest in Alabama. It was generally understood that Mrs. Wallace would only be a titular governor while her husband continued to hold the real power. She won the election, but only served 16 months before dying in 1968.

text: As indicated above, in fifteen state legislatures the members serve in rotation, i.e., under term limits enacted during the reforms of the early 1990s. In another six states, however, state legislatures have either overturned their own limits or state supreme courts have ruled such limits unconstitutional. In 2002 the Idaho Legislature became the first legislature of its kind to repeal its own term limits, enacted by a public vote in 1994, ostensibly because it applied to local officials along with the legislature.

text: Gubernatorial term limits[edit]

text:
No limit
  No limit, two-year terms
  One; re-eligible after 4 years

  Two; re-eligible after 4 years
  Two; eligible 8 out of 12 years
  Two; eligible 8 out of 16 years
  Two, absolute

text: Governors of 36 states and four territories are subject to various term limits, while the governors of 14 states, Puerto Rico, and the Mayor of Washington, D.C., may serve an unlimited number of times. Each state's gubernatorial term limits are prescribed by its state constitution, with the exception of Wyoming, whose limits are found in its statutes. Territorial term limits are prescribed by its constitution in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Organic Acts in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and by statute in American Samoa.

text: Unique in its restriction, Virginia prohibits its governors from succeeding themselves, although former governors are re-eligible after four years out of office.[39] Many other states formerly had this prohibition, but all had eliminated it by 2000.

text: The governors of the following states and territories are limited to two consecutive terms, but are re-eligible after four years out of office: Alabama,[40] Alaska,[41] Arizona,[42] Colorado,[43] Florida,[44] Georgia,[45] Hawaii,[46] Kansas,[47] Kentucky,[48] Louisiana,[49] Maine,[50] Maryland,[51] Nebraska,[52] New Jersey,[53] New Mexico,[54] North Carolina,[55] Ohio,[56] Pennsylvania,[57] Rhode Island,[58] South Carolina,[59] South Dakota,[60] Tennessee,[61] West Virginia,[62] American Samoa,[63] Guam,[64] and the U.S. Virgin Islands.[65] Equivalently, the Governors of Indiana[66] and Oregon[67] are limited to serving 8 out of any 12 years. Conversely, the Governors of Montana[68] and Wyoming[69] are restricted to two terms, limited to serving 8 out of any 16 years. Finally, the governors of the following states and territory are absolutely limited (for life) to two terms: Arkansas,[70] California,[71] Delaware,[72] Michigan,[73] Mississippi,[74] Missouri,[75] Nevada,[76] the Northern Mariana Islands,[77] and Oklahoma.[78] The current Governor of California (Jerry Brown) is, however, serving a fourth term because his first two terms were before limits were passed in California, and the limits did not apply to individuals' prior terms.

text: The governors of New Hampshire and Vermont may serve unlimited two-year terms. The governors in the following states, district, and territory may serve unlimited four-year terms: Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The Governor of Utah was formerly limited to serving three terms, but all term limit laws have since been repealed by the legislature.

text: State legislatures with term limits[edit]

text: The following 15 legislatures have term limits:

text:
Arizona Legislature: four consecutive two-year terms for both houses (eight years). No limit on total number of terms.
Arkansas General Assembly: sixteen years total in either the House or the Senate. (Prior to the 2014 election, the previous limits of three two-year terms for House members (six years) and two four-year terms for Senate members (eight years) applied).
California State Legislature: twelve years total in either Assembly or Senate. (For legislators first elected on or before June 5, 2012, the previous limits (enacted in 1990) of either three two-year terms for Assembly members (six years) and two four-year terms for Senate members (eight years) apply).
Colorado General Assembly: four consecutive two-year terms in the House (eight years) and two consecutive four-year terms in the Senate (eight years).
Florida Legislature: may serve no more than eight consecutive years in either house. No limit on total number of terms.
Louisiana State Legislature: three consecutive four-year terms for both houses (twelve years). Members may run for the opposite body without having to sit out an election.
Maine Legislature: four two-year terms for both houses (eight years). No limit on total number of terms
Michigan Legislature: three two-year terms for House members (six years) and two four-year terms for Senate members (eight years).
Missouri General Assembly: four consecutive two-year terms for House members (eight years) and two four-year consecutive terms for Senate members (eight years). Members may be elected again to the other house, but not serve more than 16 years.
Montana State Legislature: four two-year terms for House members (eight years) in any sixteen-year period and two four-year terms for Senate members (eight years) in any sixteen-year period.
Nebraska Legislature: unicameral legislature; members limited to two consecutive four-year terms (eight years), after which they must wait four years before running again.[79]
Nevada Legislature: six two-year terms for Assembly members (twelve years) and three four-year terms for Senate members (twelve years).
Ohio General Assembly: four consecutive two-year terms for House members (eight years) and two consecutive four-year terms for Senate members (eight years).
Oklahoma Legislature: six two-year terms for House members (twelve years) and three four-year terms for Senate members (twelve years). Once term-limited in one house, a legislator cannot be elected to the other.
South Dakota Legislature: four consecutive two-year terms for both houses (eight years).

text: Overturned or repealed state legislative term limits[edit]

text: The following six legislatures have had their term limits nullified:

text:
Idaho Legislature: the Legislature repealed its own term limits in 2002.
Massachusetts General Court: the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned term limits in 1997.
Oregon Legislative Assembly: the Oregon Supreme Court ruled term limits unconstitutional in 2002. See term limits in Oregon.
Utah State Legislature: the Legislature repealed its own term limits in 2003.
Washington State Legislature: the Washington Supreme Court voided term limits in 1998.
Wyoming Legislature: the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled term limits unconstitutional in 2004. See term limits in Wyoming.

text: Municipal term limits[edit]

text: Some local governments have term limits. In Philadelphia, the mayor cannot be elected three consecutive times, but there is no limit on how long any individual can serve as mayor. Frank Rizzo was elected mayor in 1971 and 1975; he attempted to repeal the term limit, but failed and could not run in 1979. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1983 but he lost to Wilson Goode. In 1986, he switched to the Republican Party, and ran as a Republican in the mayoral elections of 1987 and 1991.

text: Limits vary from city to city even within the same state. For example, Houston, Texas, has a limit of 2 four-year terms (prior to November 3, 2015, 3 two-year terms dating back to 1991), while San Antonio, Texas, has a limit of 4 two-year terms. Both Houston and San Antonio's term limits are absolute; elected officeholders are ineligible to run for the same position where seeking higher office is common.

text: A two-term limit was imposed on New York City Council members and citywide elected officials (except for district attorneys) in New York City after a 1993 referendum (see the Charter of the City of New York, § 1138). On November 3, 2008, however, when Michael Bloomberg was in his second term of mayor, the City Council approved the extension of the two-term limit to a three-term limit; one year later, he was elected to a third term. The two-term limit was reinstated after a referendum in 2010.[80][81]

text: In Los Angeles the mayor serves two four-year terms since 1993, while the City Council serve three four-year terms.

text: In Cincinnati, Ohio, the term limit for mayor is two successive four-year terms. Council members are limited to two successive four-year terms. There is no limit to total terms that may be served, just a limit on successive terms.

text: In New Orleans, City Council members are limited to two four-year terms. However, a council member representing one of the five council districts may run for one of the two at-large seats on the council once they reach the two-term limit, and vice versa. There is no limit on the number of terms a council member may serve in a lifetime. Since 1954, the mayor of New Orleans has been limited to two consecutive four-year elected terms, but he or she may be elected again after sitting out one four-year term. When the new city plan of government was adopted, the mayor at the time, DeLesseps Story Morrison, was exempt from term limits due to a grandfather clause.

text: Under the original Metropolitan Charter adopted in 1962, the mayor of Nashville was limited to three consecutive four-year terms, which was subsequently reduced to two consecutive four-year terms in 1991. Councilors were likewise limited to two consecutive four-year terms, but subsequent court rulings have determined the offices of district councilor and at-large councilor to be separate offices even though all councilors serve together in one unicameral body, which has meant that at large councilors have continued in office as district members, and (more frequently) district councilors have been elected to subsequent terms as at large councilors.


document_title: Bohrium

question_text: iupac name of element with atomic number 107

root

text: Bohrium

text: History[edit]

text: Discovery[edit]

text: Two groups claimed discovery of the element. Evidence of bohrium was first reported in 1976 by a Russian research team led by Yuri Oganessian, in which targets of bismuth-209 and lead-208 were bombarded with accelerated nuclei of chromium-54 and manganese-55 respectively.[9] Two activities, one with a half-life of one to two milliseconds, and the other with an approximately five-second half-life, were seen. Since the ratio of the intensities of these two activities was constant throughout the experiment, it was proposed that the first was from the isotope bohrium-261 and that the second was from its daughter dubnium-257. Later, the dubnium isotope was corrected to dubnium-258, which indeed has a five-second half-life (dubnium-257 has a one-second half-life); however, the half-life observed for its parent is much shorter than the half-lives later observed in the definitive discovery of bohrium at Darmstadt in 1981. The IUPAC/IUPAP Transfermium Working Group (TWG) concluded that while dubnium-258 was probably seen in this experiment, the evidence for the production of its parent bohrium-262 was not convincing enough.[10]

tag: p

text: In 1981, a German research team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) in Darmstadt bombarded a target of bismuth-209 with accelerated nuclei of chromium-54 to produce 5 atoms of the isotope bohrium-262:[11]

text: This discovery was further substantiated by their detailed measurements of the alpha decay chain of the produced bohrium atoms to previously known isotopes of fermium and californium. The IUPAC/IUPAP Transfermium Working Group (TWG) recognised the GSI collaboration as official discoverers in their 1992 report.[10]

text: Proposed names[edit]

text: In September 1992, the German group suggested the name nielsbohrium with symbol Ns to honor the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. The Soviet scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia had suggested this name be given to element 105 (which was finally called dubnium) and the German team wished to recognise both Bohr and the fact that the Dubna team had been the first to propose the cold fusion reaction to solve the controversial problem of the naming of element 105. The Dubna team agreed with the German group's naming proposal for element 107.[12]

text: There was an element naming controversy as to what the elements from 104 to 106 were to be called; the IUPAC adopted unnilseptium (symbol Uns) as a temporary, systematic element name for this element.[13] In 1994 a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 107 be named bohrium, not nielsbohrium, since there was no precedence for using a scientist's complete name in the naming of an element.[13][14] This was opposed by the discoverers as there was some concern that the name might be confused with boron and in particular the distinguishing of the names of their respective oxyanions, bohrate and borate. The matter was handed to the Danish branch of IUPAC which, despite this, voted in favour of the name bohrium, and thus the name bohrium for element 107 was recognized internationally in 1997;[13] the names of the respective oxyanions of boron and bohrium remain unchanged despite their homophony.[15]

text: Isotopes[edit]

text:
List of bohrium isotopes

Isotope
Half-life
[16][17]
Decay
mode[16][17]
Discovery
year
Reaction

260Bh
00000035 !35 ms
α
2007
209Bi(52Cr,n)[18]

261Bh
000000118 !11.8 ms
α
1986
209Bi(54Cr,2n)[19]

262Bh
00000084 !84 ms
α
1981
209Bi(54Cr,n)[11]

262mBh
000000096 !9.6 ms
α
1981
209Bi(54Cr,n)[11]

263Bh
000000002 !0.2? ms
α ?
unknown
—

264Bh
000097 !0.97 s
α
1994
272Rg(—,2α)[20]

265Bh
00009 !0.9 s
α
2004
243Am(26Mg,4n)[21]

266Bh
00009 !0.9 s
α
2000
249Bk(22Ne,5n)[22]

267Bh
0017 !17 s
α
2000
249Bk(22Ne,4n)[22]

268Bh
0025 !25? s
α, SF?
unknown
—

269Bh
0025 !25? s
α ?
unknown
—

270Bh
0061 !61 s
α
2006
282Nh(—,3α)[23]

271Bh
00012 !1.2 s
α
2003
287Mc(—,4α)[23]

272Bh
00098 !9.8 s
α
2005
288Mc(—,4α)[23]

273Bh
5400 !90? min
α, SF ?
unknown
—

274Bh
00040 !40 s
α
2009
294Ts(—,5α)[7]

275Bh
2400 !40? min
SF ?
unknown
—

276Bh
—
—
unknown
—

277Bh
—
—
unknown
—

278Bh
0690 !11.5 min?
SF
1998?
290Fl(e−,νe3α)?

tag: table

text: Bohrium has no stable or naturally occurring isotopes. Several radioactive isotopes have been synthesized in the laboratory, either by fusing two atoms or by observing the decay of heavier elements. Twelve different isotopes of bohrium have been reported with atomic masses 260–262, 264–267, 270–272, 274, and 278, one of which, bohrium-262, has a known metastable state. All of these but the unconfirmed 278Bh decay only through alpha decay, although some unknown bohrium isotopes are predicted to undergo spontaneous fission.[16]

text: The lighter isotopes usually have shorter half-lives; half-lives of under 100 ms for 260Bh, 261Bh, 262Bh, and 262mBh were observed. 264Bh, 265Bh, 266Bh, and 271Bh are more stable at around 1 s, and 267Bh and 272Bh have half-lives of about 10 s. The heaviest isotopes are the most stable, with 270Bh and 274Bh having measured half-lives of about 61 s and 40 s respectively, and the even heavier unconfirmed isotope 278Bh appearing to have an even longer half-life of about 690 s. The unknown isotopes 273Bh and 275Bh are predicted to have even longer half-lives of around 90 minutes and 40 minutes respectively. Before its discovery, 274Bh was also predicted to have a long half-life of 90 minutes, but it was found to have a shorter half-life of only about 40 seconds.[16]

text: The proton-rich isotopes with masses 260, 261, and 262 were directly produced by cold fusion, those with mass 262 and 264 were reported in the decay chains of meitnerium and roentgenium, while the neutron-rich isotopes with masses 265, 266, 267 were created in irradiations of actinide targets. The five most neutron-rich ones with masses 270, 271, 272, 274, and 278 (unconfirmed) appear in the decay chains of 282Nh, 287Mc, 288Mc, 294Ts, and 290Fl respectively. These eleven isotopes have half-lives ranging from about ten milliseconds for 262mBh to about one minute for 270Bh and 274Bh, extending to about twelve minutes for the unconfirmed 278Bh, one of the longest-lived known superheavy nuclides.[24]

text: Predicted properties[edit]

text: Chemical[edit]

text:
Bohrium is the fifth member of the 6d series of transition metals and the heaviest member of group 7 in the periodic table, below manganese, technetium and rhenium. All the members of the group readily portray their group oxidation state of +7 and the state becomes more stable as the group is descended. Thus bohrium is expected to form a stable +7 state. Technetium also shows a stable +4 state whilst rhenium exhibits stable +4 and +3 states. Bohrium may therefore show these lower states as well.[4] The higher +7 oxidation state is more likely to exist in oxyanions, such as perbohrate, BhO−
4, analogous to the lighter permanganate, pertechnetate, and perrhenate. Nevertheless, bohrium(VII) is likely to be unstable in aqueous solution, and would probably be easily reduced to the more stable bohrium(IV).[2]

text: Technetium and rhenium are known to form volatile heptoxides M2O7 (M = Tc, Re), so bohrium should also form the volatile oxide Bh2O7. The oxide should dissolve in water to form perbohric acid, HBhO4. Rhenium and technetium form a range of oxyhalides from the halogenation of the oxide. The chlorination of the oxide forms the oxychlorides MO3Cl, so BhO3Cl should be formed in this reaction. Fluorination results in MO3F and MO2F3 for the heavier elements in addition to the rhenium compounds ReOF5 and ReF7. Therefore, oxyfluoride formation for bohrium may help to indicate eka-rhenium properties.[25] Since the oxychlorides are asymmetrical, and they should have increasingly large dipole moments going down the group, they should become less volatile in the order TcO3Cl > ReO3Cl > BhO3Cl: this was experimentally confirmed in 2000 by measuring the enthalpies of adsorption of these three compounds. The values are for TcO3Cl and ReO3Cl are −51 kJ/mol and −61 kJ/mol respectively; the experimental value for BhO3Cl is −77.8 kJ/mol, very close to the theoretically expected value of −78.5 kJ/mol.[2]

text: Physical and atomic[edit]

text: Bohrium is expected to be a solid under normal conditions and assume a hexagonal close-packed crystal structure (c/a = 1.62), similar to its lighter congener rhenium.[3] It should be a very heavy metal with a density of around 37.1 g/cm3, which would be the third-highest of any of the 118 known elements, lower than only meitnerium (37.4 g/cm3) and hassium (41 g/cm3), the two following elements in the periodic table. In comparison, the densest known element that has had its density measured, osmium, has a density of only 22.61 g/cm3. This results from bohrium's high atomic weight, the lanthanide and actinide contractions, and relativistic effects, although production of enough bohrium to measure this quantity would be impractical, and the sample would quickly decay.[2]

text: The atomic radius of bohrium is expected to be around 128 pm.[2] Due to the relativistic stabilization of the 7s orbital and destabilization of the 6d orbital, the Bh+ ion is predicted to have an electron configuration of [Rn] 5f14 6d4 7s2, giving up a 6d electron instead of a 7s electron, which is the opposite of the behavior of its lighter homologues manganese and technetium. Rhenium, on the other hand, follows its heavier congener bohrium in giving up a 5d electron before a 6s electron, as relativistic effects have become significant by the sixth period, where they cause among other things the yellow color of gold and the low melting point of mercury. The Bh2+ ion is expected to have an electron configuration of [Rn] 5f14 6d3 7s2; in contrast, the Re2+ ion is expected to have a [Xe] 4f14 5d5 configuration, this time analogous to manganese and technetium.[2] The ionic radius of hexacoordinate heptavalent bohrium is expected to be 58 pm (heptavalent manganese, technetium, and rhenium having values of 46, 57, and 53 pm respectively). Pentavalent bohrium should have a larger ionic radius of 83 pm.[2]

text: Experimental chemistry[edit]

text: In 1995, the first report on attempted isolation of the element was unsuccessful, prompting new theoretical studies to investigate how best to investigate bohrium (using its lighter homologs technetium and rhenium for comparison) and removing unwanted contaminating elements such as the trivalent actinides, the group 5 elements, and polonium.[26]

text: In 2000, it was confirmed that although relativistic effects are important, bohrium behaves like a typical group 7 element.[27] A team at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) conducted a chemistry reaction using six atoms of 267Bh produced in the reaction between 249Bk and 22Ne ions. The resulting atoms were thermalised and reacted with a HCl/O2 mixture to form a volatile oxychloride. The reaction also produced isotopes of its lighter homologues, technetium (as 108Tc) and rhenium (as 169Re). The isothermal adsorption curves were measured and gave strong evidence for the formation of a volatile oxychloride with properties similar to that of rhenium oxychloride. This placed bohrium as a typical member of group 7.[28] The adsorption enthalpies of the oxychlorides of technetium, rhenium, and bohrium were measured in this experiment, agreeing very well with the theoretical predictions and implying a sequence of decreasing oxychloride volatility down group 7 of TcO3Cl > ReO3Cl > BhO3Cl.[2]

text: The longer-lived heavy isotopes of bohrium, produced as the daughters of heavier elements, offer advantages for future radiochemical experiments. Although the heavy isotope 274Bh requires a rare and highly radioactive berkelium target for its product, the isotopes 272Bh, 271Bh, and 270Bh can be readily produced as daughters of more easily produced moscovium and nihonium isotopes.[29]


document_title: Number Eight (Battlestar Galactica)

question_text: when does boomer find out she a cylon

question_tokens: when does boomer find out she a cylon

text: Number Eight (Battlestar Galactica)

text: Notable copies[edit]

text: Cylon models Six and Eight are the most common in the series. Many Number Eight copies have been seen in various roles, including leadership positions; two are featured as central characters — Boomer and Athena.

text: Sharon "Boomer" Valerii[edit]

text: This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: Life on Caprica and Galactica[edit]

text: Lieutenant Junior Grade Sharon "Boomer" Valerii is a Cylon sleeper agent programmed to believe she is human. For example, she has been implanted with false memories of being raised on Troy by her parents Katherine and Abraham Valerii, who supposedly died in an accident killing all the members on the mining colony. Whether or not Katherine and Abraham actually existed is unknown. In the time before the mini-series, Boomer and Galen Tyrol are romantically involved, although their relationship is against military protocol (she is an officer, he's enlisted). Due to her programming, she performs a number of sabotage actions (including bombing the Galactica's water tanks) but has no conscious memory of these actions; although,in the special entitled The Plan, we learn that she had a Cylon handler, Brother Cavil, who activated her missions & chastised her for allowing human weakness (inability to hold her breath long enough) to prevent her from planting all the explosives in the water tanks; & later, for not shooting Adama in the head. Tyrol trusts her and hides evidence implicating her in the water bombing but later suspicious events cause him to break off his relationship with her. In time, she begins to suspect something may be wrong with her. She asks Gaius Baltar to administer a blood test to determine whether she is a Cylon. Although his test demonstrates she is in fact a Cylon, he decides not to inform her or anyone else, out of fear she will kill him. She is relieved for a while but gradually her suspicions return and she attempts suicide. Her programming, however, prevents her from killing herself.

text: In the episode "Kobol's Last Gleaming", Commander Adama sends Boomer on a mission to destroy the basestar orbiting Kobol. On the basestar, she encounters numerous other Number Eight copies identical to herself but she refuses to accept she is a Cylon and personally sets the bomb. After returning to Galactica, her hidden programming takes over and she shoots Commander Adama twice in the chest, putting him in a coma. She is put in the brig and violently interrogated by Colonel Tigh, who has taken command of Galactica during Adama's incapacity. Tyrol is also suspected of being a Cylon because of his relationship with her, and is thrown in her cell. He tells her not to speak to him or even touch him; he insists she is a machine and nothing like him.

text: Death and resurrection[edit]

text: Gaius Baltar forces Boomer to tell him how many other Cylons are still hidden in the fleet by injecting Tyrol with a substance that stops his heart and refusing to administer the antidote. Sharon finally tells Gaius there are eight Cylons in the fleet. She is shot and killed by Cally, who blames her for Tyrol's imprisonment; Cally herself is in love with Tyrol as is made clear in later episodes. Sharon dies in Tyrol's arms, telling him she loves him.[1]

text: In the episode "Sacrifice" terrorist Sesha Abinell and her group take hostages about the Cloud 9, demanding that the "Athena" Sharon in Galactica's brig be turned over to her to be executed. The now Admiral Adama tells Abinell that he will give her Sharon, but will execute the Cylon before hand. He sends over "Boomer" Sharon's body as a ruse to give his Marines an opportunity to take out the terrorists. Upon receiving the body, Abinell promptly shoots it twice in the head. Thereafter however, she discovers the ruse when upon seeing the autopsy scars on the body. The rescue is successful however, at the cost of Billy Keikeya's life. Adama and Roslin later view Boomer's and Billy's bodies in the morgue, with Roslin concluding that the ruse "wasn't worth it".

text: In the episode "Downloaded", it is revealed Boomer's consciousness has been downloaded into a new body. She tries to live on Caprica like in her old life as a human. She resists being identified with the Cylon cause, although they view her and Caprica Six as heroes. Over time, she begins to open up to Caprica Six, who like her has been transformed by their love for a human. They decide to try to persuade the Cylons some of their actions against mankind are wrong. Number Three threatens to have them "boxed", that is, placing their consciousness into "cold storage".

text: Boomer is among the Cylons occupying New Caprica. She has accepted herself as a Cylon and is fully integrated back into their society. She functions as a member of the Cylon governing council that controls the puppet human government under President Gaius Baltar. Her desire remains to show humans and Cylons can co-exist; however, relations between the two groups turn increasingly hostile. Boomer visits Cally who has been imprisoned to tell her she is doing everything that she can to free her, and attempts to make peace. She indicates she has accepted Tyrol moving on and starting a family with Cally. However, Cally remains distrustful and angrily rebuffs her.

text: Relation to Hera Agathon and second death[edit]

text: In the episode "The Eye of Jupiter", Boomer is seen attempting to care for Athena's hybrid child Hera, who is mysteriously ill. She is frustrated by the child's deteriorating health and their inability to bond. She later joins D'Anna and Cavil when they go to meet Adama and Roslin on Galactica. Athena identifies Boomer as the Cylon who shot Adama, and Tigh informs her that her visiting privileges have been revoked. Boomer tells Athena that Hera is still alive and living among the Cylons, but has fallen ill.

text: Athena arrives on the Cylon Base Ship and is reunited with Hera who immediately stops crying. Caprica Six is amazed how Hera responds to being back with her "real mother", however Boomer is upset. Athena determines Hera would best be treated by a human doctor. Boomer accuses her of having planned to take Hera back to Galactica from the start. Boomer says the failure of New Caprica has taught her humans and Cylons cannot co-exist and should go their separate ways. Throughout this meeting, Boomer becomes increasingly distressed and emotionally unstable. She suggests Cavil may be right that the Cylons are not supposed to have children, and ultimately threatens to snap Hera's neck, but her own neck is snapped by Caprica Six for endangering the future of the Cylon race.

text: Second resurrection and relation with John Cavil[edit]

text: Shortly thereafter, Boomer again resurrects. She has begun to develop a relationship with John Cavil, a Cylon who embraces his machine nature and sees human traits as a weakness. Cavil insists the Raiders should undergo a procedure to remove or at least reduce their sentience, and he enlists Boomer's aid when the Cylons become deadlocked over the matter. While her fellow Eights vote as a group against the procedure, Boomer decides to vote yes in order to make the Raiders effective fighters once again. In so doing, she becomes the first Cylon to ever vote against her own model (meaning that in a six-vote bloc, she casts an unheard-of seventh vote).

text: After Cavil is gunned down by Natalie's forces, he resurrects and begins to plot the permanent death of the opposing Cylons, including Boomer's fellow Eights, by killing them out of range of a Resurrection ship. Boomer has doubts about killing her "own sisters", and when Cavil reassures her the souls of the others will be looked after by God, she asks, "what about our souls?" Cavil assures her, "We're machines, machines don't have souls."

text: Relation to Ellen Tigh and return to Galactica[edit]

text: Boomer is the only other Cylon whom Cavil has told that he is keeping their creator, Ellen Tigh, prisoner. He teaches Boomer to let go of her human traits to become a better machine. Cavil describes Boomer as "self-destructive, hyper-emotional, torn apart by conflicting emotions." Boomer asks Ellen if she feels any regret for limiting the Cylon by making them as close to humans as possible. Ellen says she gave them free will, the ability to think creatively, to reach out to others with compassion and love. Boomer asks angrily who she should love.

text: When the Resurrection Hub is destroyed, Cavil and Boomer demand Ellen help them redevelop the technology. Cavil threatens to cut open Ellen's brain in order to access her knowledge, but Boomer spirits her away in a Raptor, telling Ellen she is forgiving her. When they arrive on Galactica, Tyrol identifies her as Boomer and she is immediately taken to the brig.

text:
"Did Boomer really love the Chief? That’s an interesting question and one I don’t have a neat answer to. Boomer is deeply conflicted. I think the process of having false memories planted in her, getting switched “on” as a Cylon, shooting Adama, getting shot by Cally, and her experiences on New Caprica have left her severely disturbed. She was determined to go through with her mission, but in the process of seducing Tyrol she reawakened feelings of love that she thought were dead. I think she experienced real misgivings just before she got on that Raptor, but felt she had gone too far to back down. Wrapped up in that is her perverse envy of Athena, who obtained everything Boomer once wanted, and this festered into a sick desire to strike out at Athena. It’s difficult to say someone who did that loves the Chief, and yet in her damaged way, I think she did and still does love him."

Writer David Weddle discussing the character of Boomer.[2]

tag: div

text: The Cylon rebels decide to put her on trial for treason, with capital punishment possible due to the loss of resurrection. When Tyrol goes to see her in the brig, she professes her continued love for him. She shares with him projections of their dream home on Picon, in which they are married and have a daughter. Convinced she will be found guilty and executed, Tyrol helps her escape.

text: Kidnapping of Hera Agathon[edit]

text: She beats Sharon "Athena" Agathon and hides her, bound and gagged, in a bathroom stall. She puts on a pilot uniform and starts cleaning up, however, Karl Agathon finds her before she can leave. Thinking she is his wife Athena who is set to go on a six-day mission, he starts seducing her. Boomer tries to leave but then changes her mind and has sex with him. She then picks up Hera from the daycare center and quickly drugs her with a drink. Boomer hides Hera in a provisions supply case to be loaded onto a Raptor. She assures Tyrol she was not lying about what she told him.

text:
"Boomer is much more tragic and conflicted, and in a lot of denial. Athena came from a very different starting point, and everything was a lie, but she fought and made it through the trenches. She's a story not of privilege, but about creating whoever you want to be. That's the American story. Boomer could have been a number of things too, but she made a lot of poor decisions."

Actress Grace Park discussing the characters of Boomer and Athena.[3]

text: Adama has been alerted Boomer is impersonating Athena and tries to stall her. However, Boomer figures out she has been discovered, and starts powering up her Raptor. Adama warns her he will shoot her down but Boomer tells him she has Hera. Adama starts closing the flight pod but she manages to fly out, clipping her port wing. She then quickly jumps away, close enough to damage Galactica from the resulting spatial disruption. Ellen later concludes everything Boomer did, including helping her escape, was planned in order to kidnap Hera and bring her to Cavil.

text: Final death[edit]

text: Boomer keeps jumping her stolen Raptor headed for The Colony. Hera cries for her mother and Boomer goes to sedate her but cannot bring herself to do it. Instead she tells Hera about her projection of her and Tyrol's home on Picon and Hera surprises her by revealing she can project too and joining her in the projection. Boomer shows Hera the bedroom she dreamed of for her daughter and bonds with the girl. She ultimately takes her to Cavil but has doubts when Hera calls out for her. During the Colonials' assault on The Colony to rescue Hera, Boomer is shocked that Simon continues examining Hera. When he refuses to stop, Boomer kills him and takes Hera to the rescue party and returns her to her parents. Athena does not wish to forgive Boomer, who says she knew it would likely be her last act. She says she owed something to the Admiral, who had not ejected her from the Colonial Fleet when she kept failing to make proper landings. Boomer is then shot and killed by Athena. With the loss of Resurrection, her death is final.

text: Dual personality mode[edit]

text: The movie Battlestar Galactica: The Plan shows that while she was a sleeper agent aboard Galactica, Boomer had a submerged personality who was aware of her true nature and had a romantic connection to the Brother Cavil aboard the ship, though she was extremely conflicted about her actions. Cavil used an elephant figurine as a trigger to switch Boomer from one mode to the other. This Boomer revealed that she had feelings for Tyrol too and cared deeply for Admiral Adama and stated that she preferred her human personality being in control, that she liked herself better when her main self was in control. This personality blew up the water tank (and came up with the plan to do so) and shot Adama, but she said to do so, she had to mentally make herself a Centurion which deeply disturbed her. After hearing this, Cavil abandoned Boomer to her fate in the brig and this personality never seemed to emerge again. The prostitute Six (and even Tyrol) believes that when she shot Adama, she purposefully didn't kill him.

text: Sharon "Athena" Agathon[edit]

text: Cylon-occupied Caprica[edit]

text: Another copy of Sharon, who is fully aware of her true nature, also appears in the series. She first appears when she joins then-Lieutenant Karl 'Helo' Agathon after he is stranded on the Cylon-occupied planet Caprica. She pretends to be the "original" Sharon who had returned to help him, when in fact she is working with the other Cylons on an experiment to have him fall in love with her. While her intentions at the beginning of the experiment are strictly part of the Cylon plan, she eventually falls genuinely in love with Helo, and tries to help him escape from the other Cylons. Helo discovers her true identity when he sees another Number Eight copy on Caprica (who attempts to kill him but is shot by Sharon), but Sharon eventually convinces him that she loves him, and also reveals that she is pregnant with his child. This pregnancy is the first known successful attempt at a humanoid-Cylon/Human Hybrid, and as a result is of great importance to the Cylons.

text: While on Caprica, Sharon and Helo encounter Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace, who realises that Sharon is a Cylon "copy" and attempts to shoot her, but is stopped by Helo. Sharon flees in Starbuck's captured Cylon Raider, casting doubt on her intentions. She returns later to aid Helo and a human resistance movement rescue Starbuck from a Cylon facility. Though only Helo trusts her, the group allows Sharon to accompany them as they rejoin President Laura Roslin's portion of the Colonial fleet, separated from Galactica.

text: Return to the Colonial Fleet[edit]

text: Sharon's life is again threatened upon her arrival in the Colonial fleet after William Adama's attempted assassination and Boomer's death. First, Lee 'Apollo' Adama attempts to shoot her until Helo intervenes, then Roslin orders her thrown out an airlock, until Sharon uses her knowledge of the Tomb of Athena on Kobol as leverage. She demonstrates her loyalty several times in defending the group from Cylon ambushes during the trip to the tomb, even though she is chained and not entirely trusted.

text: Sharon's reunion with other Galactica personnel on Kobol is also tense, as then-Commander Adama initially attempts to strangle her. Her relationship with Tyrol is complicated by the events involving Boomer as well as by her romantic involvement with Helo. Despite Adama's animosity, she saves his life by exposing a plot to kill him by one of Tom Zarek's followers. She tells them, "I'm Sharon, but I'm a different Sharon. I know who I am. I don't have hidden protocols or programs lying in wait to be activated. I make my own choices, I make my own decisions, and I need you to know this is my choice," as she hands him her gun. Still, she is imprisoned upon returning to Galactica and treated as an enemy by all but Helo and Tyrol.

text: When the Galactica is threatened by a Cylon computer virus, Sharon again demonstrates her loyalty by using her Cylon capabilities to instead turn the virus against the large approaching Cylon raider attack force, allowing the Colonial pilots to completely destroy the enemy. Although she performs this action, she seems conflicted and pained by its repercussions (mainly the subsequent slaughter of raiders). This event causes Roslin and Adama to re-evaluate their attitude towards her, and earns her significant trust. She makes several other valuable contributions to the human cause, offering intelligence and advice on various Cylon situations.

text: When the Battlestar Pegasus is reunited with the Colonial fleet, its commander, Rear Admiral Helena Cain, learns of Sharon's presence. Sharon is turned over to Pegasus's "Cylon Interrogator", Lt. Thorne, who beats Sharon and attempts to rape her, but is killed when Helo and Tyrol intervene.

text: Pregnancy and birth[edit]

text: Sharon's unborn hybrid child is threatened when Roslin orders the pregnancy terminated, outraging Sharon and Helo. Roslin later relents when blood from the fetus is found to be able to cure her terminal cancer. The pregnancy is allowed to continue, and in "Downloaded", Sharon gives birth to her child prematurely, via an emergency caesarean section. The daughter is named Hera. As the baby is deemed a risk to the Fleet if raised by her Cylon mother, Hera's death is faked by Dr. Cottle. The baby is given to a human mother to raise, unbeknownst to either Sharon or Helo. Told that Hera died from breathing complications, Sharon assumes that Hera was killed by the Galactica crew and attacks Dr. Cottle and turns on Helo. She later helps navigate a mission to rescue survivors on Caprica. Her loyalty is again called into question when she chooses not to inform the Colonials that one of the survivors is a Cylon.

text: Post-occupation of New Caprica[edit]

text: In Season 3's "Occupation", it is revealed that during the year-long gap between the events of seasons 2 and 3, Sharon and Helo were married, and Sharon took Helo's surname of Agathon. With the Galactica in need of pilots after the return of the Cylons, and having earned the full trust of Admiral Adama, Sharon is sworn in as an officer in the Colonial Fleet, at Boomer's rank of Lieutenant JG. She is sent back to New Caprica as the liaison between the Galactica fleet and the resistance effort on the ground as a precursor to an attempt to free the subjugated humans from the occupying Cylons. Adama explained that she was the ideal agent, since Centurions cannot tell her from any of the other Eights. Sharon infiltrates the Cylon Base and is able to steal the keys for the civilian ships, thus making Adama's escape plan possible. When leaving with the keys, she encounters D'Anna Biers, a Number Three, who informs her that her child Hera is still alive. Sharon refuses to believe that Admiral Adama would have lied to her (he in fact had not been told the child was still alive), and shoots D'Anna in the knees to keep her from warning the other Cylons.

text: After the successful rescue of the colonists, Sharon gains a measure of acceptance among the Galactica's pilots. When Racetrack refers to her by the old call sign 'Boomer,' she replies that 'Boomer' was somebody else. The other pilots in the rec room offer suggestions for a new call-sign. Many of them affectionately tease her for being a Cylon and suggesting names like "Tin Can" and "Titanium". "Hot Dog" suggests Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, and Sharon proudly accepts it.

text: Athena displays the ability to identify individual Number Eight copies, identifying Boomer (who shot Admiral Adama at the end of Season 1) when she arrives aboard Galactica to negotiate with Admiral Adama. When Colonel Tigh bars Boomer from the meeting, she repeats Number Three's message that Hera is still alive, but ailing, aboard a basestar. Adama confirms this information in a tense conversation with President Roslin. Both Athena and Helo express feelings of outrage that their child was stolen from them. Athena demands at the end of Season 3 episode 11 that she be able to see her daughter.

text: As there is no way that Adama would let her visit the Base Ship, Athena asks Helo to shoot her so that she can die and be downloaded onto the Cylon resurrection ship. Caprica Six brings Athena to the room on the Base Ship where Boomer is caring for the child. Athena insists that Hera's illness could be cured by the human doctors on Galactica, a possibility that neither Caprica nor Boomer wishes to consider. Athena and Boomer have a heated discussion regarding the fate of the child. Boomer becomes emotionally unstable and suggests that the experiment be abandoned and Hera killed. Before Athena can intervene, Caprica promptly kills Boomer for considering the death of the child. Before their actions can be discovered, Caprica whisks Athena and Hera to a Raptor, and the trio escape to Galactica.

text: Athena's abilities as a pilot are recognized and she is given the most important missions for Raptor pilots, including the mission through the star cluster to find a food source after the fleet's food supply is contaminated.

text: Relation with daughter Hera[edit]

text: Sharon discovers that she, Hera, President Roslin, and Caprica Six are all sharing the same recurring vision of an Opera House but are unaware of what it means.

text: Athena serves aboard the Demetrius to help Kara Thrace try to find Earth.

text: Athena shoots and kills Natalie because she sees the Number 6 as a threat to Hera due to the dreams of the Opera House that she has been having. She is placed in the brig by Adama for her actions but is later released, likely because President Roslin and Caprica Six confirmed that they were indeed sharing visions.

text: Athena, along with Helo and Hera, is part of a group of prisoners captured in the mutiny that are placed in the brig. When rescued, she asks Caprica Six to take Hera and a wounded Helo to safety while she helps Lee Adama and Saul Tigh rescue Bill Adama.

text: Late in season 4, when Boomer is freed by Tyrol after bringing Ellen Tigh back to the Galactica from the captivity of John Cavil and subsequently being imprisoned by Adama, she seeks out Athena, knocks her unconscious, and steals her uniform. Afterward, Boomer has sexual intercourse with Karl Agathon, who believes she is actually his wife. Athena herself, gagged and barely conscious, watches the scene from a lavatory toilet stall that Boomer put her in, unable to act or react.

text: In the series finale, after watching the preparations for operation committed upon Hera by a "Simon" (a Four), Boomer kills him. Boomer brings Hera back to her parents Helo and Athena, knowing she was almost certainly going to be killed. After giving them final assistance, she is shot to death by Athena. After arriving at the New Earth, Helo and Athena joyfully joke with each other as how the two will teach Hera all she needs to know, together.

text: Hera becomes "Mitochondrial Eve", meaning that all modern-day humans are descended from Athena.

text: Other versions[edit]

text:
A copy joins a group of Twos, Fives, and Sixes at Ragnar Anchorage after Galactica and the fleet depart having stranded "Aaron Doral." This copy declares that the humans will be hunted down, and a Six replies, "By your command."
A copy wearing a white coat at the Spaceport at Delphi, whom Athena kills before the other Eight can shoot Helo.
Multiple naked copies aboard the basestar above Kobol, which Boomer was sent to destroy and upon which she learns her identity as a Cylon.
A copy who sits in a movie theatre (with other Cylon models) and watches the footage sent from the Fleet by D'Anna Biers (it can be assumed that it is the same one that Athena shot because she wears the same coat as the above-mentioned copy).
Copies who act as "nurses" or "midwives," aiding the respective resurrections of Caprica Six and Boomer.
Several copies on Cylon-occupied Caprica going through daily life in the episode "Downloaded", wearing a variety of outfits.
Copies who are killed when Samuel Anders and Galen Tyrol detonate a bomb near a Cylon Heavy Raider.
A copy who sits next to Boomer during a meeting on Colonial One (during the New Caprican occupation), when the suicide bombings are discussed.
Multiple copies aboard the basestar that Caprica Six and Baltar inhabit.
Multiple copies dying aboard a diseased basestar.
A copy, dying from a disease aboard a basestar, who is taken captive by Galactica. Later, she and the rest of the Cylon prisoners are killed by Helo in an attempt to prevent genocide against the Cylons. This copy, despite calling Sharon a traitor, showed typical Eight concern for her and warned her to stay away due to the disease.
Multiple copies who approach Athena on the rebel basestar, asking her to lead a rebellion against the Sixes. Athena expresses disgust with their typical Eight fickleness.
A copy shot and killed by a Centurion while attempting to unplug the Hybrid. She is comforted by Anders in her final moments after Athena refuses to do so.
The Eight copy who had downloaded Athena's memories and helped Helo bring back D'Anna.
The Eights in flight uniforms during the briefing for the attack on the Resurrection Hub.
The multitude of unactivated Eights Helo sees aboard the soon to be destroyed Resurrection Hub.
Two Eights that were on the Raptor with four humans including Felix Gaeta as seen in The Face of the Enemy webisodes. One had a cynical air and was dressed in a black Cylon flight suit, the other was dressed in civilian garb and had an air of innocence. This latter Eight is the one who pretended to collaborate with Felix Gaeta and had an affair with him on New Caprica. The existence of their interactions on New Caprica was also revealed in The Face of the Enemy webisodes. When the Raptor effectively became lost in space due to a malfunction, the "Innocent" Eight murdered the "cynical" Eight and three humans to in order to conserve the air supply for herself and Gaeta. She then revealed to Gaeta that of the people Gaeta had given her a list of to save, most were really murdered by the Cylons just for being important enough to be listed. She intended to spare Gaeta because she loved him, but Gaeta killed her in revenge for the murders she committed on New Caprica and in the Raptor.
Multiple Eights are seen helping repair Galactica in "Someone to Watch Over Me". One of them is knocked unconscious by Galen Tyrol and substituted for Boomer in the brig. Another is mortally injured in "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" during a major hull breach aboard Galactica; while in sick bay, she asks for Saul Tigh to visit her, and thanks him for the opportunity to meet her "father" (referencing his status as one of the Final Five Cylons) as she dies (with her last words being "too much confusion," suggesting that she was also hearing "All Along the Watchtower," the song that had activated the Final Five). Another was prominent at the bedside of Samuel Anders in "Deadlock", "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" making some key suggestions like connecting Anders to the Galactica's power systems and the Cylon data stream to attempt to jump start his brain. It failed but that Eight's action led him to eventually becoming the Galactica's hybrid and was instrumental in rescuing Hera.

tag: ul

text: Typical Eight traits[edit]

text: Unlike most other Cylon models, the Eights typically show a great deal of concern and affection towards others. The Eights tend to be the most naive of the models and are often emotionally immature. While capable of convincing manipulation and deception, they are also vulnerable to forming emotional attachments. The Eights also have a propensity for fickleness, often changing loyalties to better suit their own needs and desires, with the notable exception of Sharon "Athena" Agathon, whose loyalty to Commander Adama, Helo, and her daughter are unwavering and uncompromising. Moore has also commented that the Eights are more likely to "shoot things they don't like". Early in the series, the Eights were implied to be the most militaristic of the models and the most likely to have combat training; overall, an Eight is at least as good at combat as a Six.

text: Some of the Cylon models appear to share all of their memories, making them seem interchangeable with all others of their model type. That is not the case with the Eights (or Sixes). In the BSG episode "The Hub," a deleted scene involving three characters - Helo, an Eight who had accessed Athena's most recent downloaded memories, and the just-reactivated Three/D'Anna - would have clarified that the model Eight Cylons don't normally have access to each other's memories. This would give them a stronger capacity to form distinct identities. On that note, a scene in the extended version of "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" involving Athena and Galen Tyrol also clarifies that Athena still had Sharon "Boomer" Valerii's memories from before the war, because the Cylons had provided them to her in order to help her impersonate Boomer when she and Helo were "running from the Cylons" back on Caprica. However, Athena did not have any newer memories from Boomer, even though Boomer had died and downloaded into a new body at least twice since then (see "Downloaded" and "Rapture").

text: It was stated by Caprica showrunner Kevin Murphy that had the prequel series Caprica continued, it would be revealed that the Eights' default personality was modeled after that of Tamara Adama (while the Sixes were modeled after Zoe Graystone).[4]

text: Call sign origins[edit]

text: The call signs for both Sharon characters derive from the names of characters in the original Battlestar Galactica series. Boomer was the name (not the call sign) of a Viper pilot character played by Herbert Jefferson, Jr. Sharon Agathon's call sign, Athena, in the original series was the name of Commander Adama's daughter Lieutenant Athena. Athena was the sister of Captain Apollo, with the duties of bridge officer, shuttle pilot, and occasional Viper pilot.


document_title: Star Destroyer

question_text: what was the name of darth vader star destroyer

text: Star Destroyer

text: Concept and design[edit]

text: In draft scripts for the film that would become Star Wars, the term "Stardestroyer" refers to two-man fighters flown by what would become the Galactic Empire.[2] The film's second draft features four Star Destroyers chasing a single Rebel ship,[3] but the tremendous costs incurred by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) when production began helped lead Lucas to use a single "terrifyingly large" Star Destroyer instead of four.[4] ILM built a 91-centimeter (36 in) shooting model that was about half the size of the model for the Tantive IV the Star Destroyer was chasing.[2] Lucas asked ILM to build a larger Star Destroyer model to match the Tantive IV's scale, but ILM convinced him that the Dykstraflex camera invented for the film made this unnecessary.[5] Nevertheless, they added additional hull details to the Star Destroyer model.[5] The 13-second opening shot was the first special effects piece ILM completed,[5] and its success was an essential test for the Dykstraflex.[5]

text: ILM built a 259-centimeter (102 in) Star Destroyer, equipped with internal lighting to provide a better sense of scale, for The Empire Strikes Back (1980).[2] During production, Lucas decided that every Star Wars film would open in space with a shot of a Star Destroyer.[6] The Empire Strikes Back also introduces the "Super Star Destroyer", also referred to as a "Star Dreadnought".[7] The shooting model for the Super Star Destroyer Executor in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi was 282 centimeters (111 in) long.[8]

text: The design of the Venator-class Star Destroyers appearing in Revenge of the Sith (2005) are meant to bridge the appearance of the Acclamator-class transports in Attack of the Clones (2002) and the Imperial class in the original trilogy.[9]

text: Depiction[edit]

text: Films and television[edit]

text: The iconic Star Destroyer first appears in the opening scene of Star Wars, as Darth Vader's flagship, the Devastator, chases the Tantive IV above Tatooine. This appearance shows the Imperial ship's massive size in comparison to the Tantive IV.

text: Imperial-class Star Destroyers appear not only throughout the original trilogy, but also in Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One (2016). Rey scavenges material from one such Star Destroyer, the Inflictor, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Rey lives in a small encampment near the Inflictor crash site, and takes what little parts she finds inside to the nearby Niima Outpost to be sold.

text: The original trilogy also features a massive Super Star Destroyer, Executor, that serves as Darth Vader's flagship in The Empire Strikes Back. The Executor, now commanded by Admiral Piett, again appears as the Imperial command ship at the climax of Return of the Jedi.[8] In the sequel trilogy movie, The Force Awakens, Rey pilots the Millennium Falcon through the wreckage of the crashed Super Star Destroyer, Ravager, during a chase scene.

text: Other Star Destroyer varieties appear in the Star Wars prequel and sequel films. Star Wars creator George Lucas calls the cigar-shaped Separatist cruisers visible at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith "Star Destroyers" in the movie's DVD commentary track.[10] Venator-class Star Destroyers are introduced in Revenge of the Sith and later appear throughout Star Wars: The Clone Wars.[9] The Venator-class ships initially appear with a red and grey Republic color scheme. However towards the end of Revenge of the Sith the Venators are gray and white, signifying the Empire's rise to power.[9]

text: The Force Awakens introduces the Resurgent-class Star Destroyers, belonging to the First Order. The Resurgent-class star destroyers are larger than Imperial-class star destroyers but smaller than Super Star Destroyers. One of them, the Finalizer, is commanded by Kylo Ren.[11]

text: The Last Jedi introduces two classes of Star Dreadnoughts: The Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought, and the Mega-class Star Dreadnought. The Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought features two “orbital auto cannons” and is used as a siege warship. The sole Mega-class Star Dreadnought, the Supremacy, is commanded by Supreme Leader Snoke himself and acts as the headquarters of the First Order. The Supremacy has a different geometry than other Star Destroyers; it is a short, very wide triangle while other star destroyers are long, thin triangles.

text: Novels and other media[edit]

text: In addition to the main Films and TV series, much of the other Star Wars media post-2014 is also considered canon. These materials feature additional details and storylines involving Imperial Star Destroyers; also introducing other varieties.

text: It is revealed that the Empire had a dozen Super Star Destroyers in service during the time of the Battle of Endor,[12] in addition to Darth Vader's Executor command ship (as the sole ship depicted in the films).[13] The final surviving Super Star Destroyer, the Ravager, is the vessel whose wreckage appears in The Force Awakens. The Ravager's crash onto Jakku is depicted in the game Star Wars Battlefront (2015).

text: Star Wars Legends[edit]

text: In April 2014, most of the licensed Star Wars novels, games, and comics produced since 1977 (and prior to 2014), were rebranded by Lucasfilm as Star Wars Legends; and therefore declared non-canon to the franchise.[14][15] However, Star Destroyers feature in numerous Legends publications, with a considerable amount of additional notable information.

text: According to Star Wars roleplaying books and other texts, Imperial-class Star Destroyers are constructed by Kuat Drive Yards and hold a distinguished place in the Imperial Navy, symbolizing the Empire's military might with a peak number of more than 25,000 vessels.[16] Like the Victory- and Venator-class ships that precede it, this Star Destroyer is notable for its massive size and overwhelming firepower; a single Imperial-class ship is capable of overwhelming most starships or devastating a hostile planet, and its mere presence is often enough to deter rebellion.[16] At 1,600 meters (5,200 ft) long, Imperial-class Star Destroyers are armed with turbolasers, ion cannons and tractor beam projectors.[16] They carry 72 TIE fighters, numerous ground forces (including stormtroopers, 20 AT-ATs and 30 AT-STs), a prefabricated base for rapid deployment to planetary surfaces, and a variety of support craft.[16] After the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance captured several Imperial-class ships and added them to their own fleet.[17] Although the New Republic eventually upgrades its starfleet with newer ship types, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer remains in service well into the New Jedi Order era and fights during the Yuuzhan Vong War.[18]

text: Kevin J. Anderson's novel Darksaber describes a Super Star Destroyer as being "worth twenty Imperial Star Destroyers".[19] Described in A Guide to the Star Wars Universe (1984) as being 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) long, Executor-class Super Star Destroyers were later described as being 19 kilometers (12 mi) long.[20] In addition to Vader's command ship, Star Wars novels introduce the prison ship Lusankya and stealth-armored Night Hammer as ships in the class.[21][19]

text: The labels "Star Destroyer" and "Super Star Destroyer" are applied to several other massive Star Wars warships, such as the Pellaeon-class in the Legacy comic series (2006–2010), the reborn Emperor Palpatine's flagships Eclipse and Eclipse II in the Dark Empire series (1991–1995), and the Victory class first described in the early Star Wars novella Han Solo's Revenge (1979).[22][23]

text: Merchandise[edit]

text: Lego has released numerous Star Destroyer kits, including a 1-metre (3 ft 3 in) 3,104-piece Imperial-class Star Destroyer[24] and a 50-inch (130 cm) 3,152-piece model of the Executor.[25]

text: The Super Star Destroyer has also been merchandised. Kenner wanted to use a less ominous name than Executor for the toy playset of Darth Vader's meditation chamber.[8] An advertisement agency's list of 153 alternatives included Starbase Malevolent, Black Coven, Haphaestus VII, and Cosmocurse;[8] ultimately, the toy was labeled "Darth Vader's Star Destroyer".[8] In 2006, Wizards of the Coast created an Executor miniature as part of its Star Wars Miniatures Starship Battles game.[26] An electronic Super Star Destroyer toy released by Hasbro "is the rarest among Hasbro's Collector Fleet".[27]