Clarice Willow

Sister Clarice Willow was a Monotheist and member of a Soldiers of the One terror cell on Caprica. Her birth name is unknown, though her surname was taken from her wife Desiree Willow.Caprica, episode: "Rebirth".
== Biography ==
Willow was raised in a Monotheist environment in Gemenon's Gramadas mountain range.Caprica, episode: "Retribution". During the 1920s, the Church was threatened with its very extinction, and the Soldiers of The One, a militant Monotheist organisation turned part of the Gramadas into a fortress, before beginning a terrorist campaign on the other Twelve Worlds around 1932. During or after the STO campaign, Willow was put in charge over all STO cells on Caprica, and obeyed the Church's instructions of lying low. Gaining employment with the prestigious Athena Academy as a teacher, Willow would spend the next ten years converting and recruiting her students. While not opposed to bombings, she saw proselytism as the preferred option. In her private life, she entered into a group marriage with a number of other Monotheists, some of whom being her cell members such as Olaf and Nestor.
In 1942, Willow became aware of Resurrection, a computer program engineered by her student, Zoe Graystone. Through the aide of the Messengers, Zoe's program perfectly created a digital reconstruction of human consciousness, thereby creating sentient artificially intelligent life. Willow recognised this as the ultimate conversion tool, believing that a digital afterlife with sentient Avatars was the only way the Church would become dominant in a world where the Polytheist mythology was already giving way to science. Plans were made by Willow for Zoe to go to Gemenon to show her program to the elders, but she was unexpectedly killed in a suicide bombing by her boyfriend.
In the time after Zoe's death, Willow fell apart emotionally, turning to drug and alcohol abuse. Recognising Zoe as a messianic figure, she turned her attention to her mother, Amanda, who she exchanged phone numbers with. This relationship itself became dangerous because of her drug use, and at multiple points she risked exposing herself as a Monotheist.Caprica, episode: "There is Another Sky" (deleted scene). In her role as STO planetary commander, Willow turned her attention towards a spate of bombings which continued after Zoe's death. Through contact with the STO leadership, she discovered that the organisation was gearing up for another war. STO cell leader Barnabas Greeley was responsible for these bombings, having begun an unauthorised campaign quietly approved by the leadership.Caprica, episode: "Know Thy Enemy". These two paths converged, when Willow paid a house-call to the Graystone residence with the hopes of downloading the family's computer server data, realising that without the avatar program she would have no leverage against Greeley. The plan was a success, though it was found the program had been deleted from the server during a recent download.Caprica, episode: "The Imperfections of Memory". When Olaf discovered an STO poster covertly arranging a multi-cell gathering, the two and Nestor realised he posed a severe threat and could even have them assassinated to take control of the entire planet. Willow put a halt to Greeley's smuggling operations to get to him, then threatened him in person at his warehouse base. The following night, Willow made her departure for Gemenon, and narrowly avoided being killed by a bomb planted in her car.Caprica, episode "End of Line".
On Gemenon, Willow entered negotiations with the Church leadership for sanctioning of her proposal of Apotheosis, the use of Zoe's Avatar program for religious purposes. The Elders were disinterested in her planned method, the mass-murder of thousands of civilians at a Pyramid game at Caprica City's Atlas Arena, and the spawning of Avatars of the suicide bombers.Caprica, episode: "Unvanquished". The killings was deemed detrimental to their cause, and questions would much later be made as to the need of killing at all, as Avatars could be created without even killing the original person.Caprica, episode: "The Heavens Will Rise". Disgusted at the Church's position, Willow began plotting with equally disaffected STO leaders like Diego for an overthrow. One of the Elders, Obal Ferras, was executed by his fellow peers after his own plot to assassinate Willow was revealed. With the tacit threat of further deaths, Willow was able to receive direct support by the Blessed Mother for the bombing operation, and was assured her control over Caprican cells was vouched for.
Upon return to Caprica, Willow was given assistance via Holoband by GDD Director Gara Singh, himself a leading STO member keeping his identity secret. Greeley's cell, which included children radicalised from Athena Academy, had exposed themselves on security cameras in a failed bombing attempt on Caprica City's spaceport. Using his GDD resources, he was able to give out the names of the suspects, and Willow and Olaf were able to murder bombers Pann and Hippolyta before the GDD could arrest them. Possibly with further help, the two tracked down Lacy Rand and Keon Gatwick to a tower block under construction. Entering the building, they found Gatwick dead, having been killed by Greeley for trying to leave the building. Rand herself was dragged out of the building by Olaf, while Greeley was handcuffed to one of Gatwick's bombs and killed. In the aftermath of the cell's collapse, Willow had Rand drugged and imprisoned in the attic of the Willow residence for an unknown length of time before being interrogated for information on where Zoe would download her program to, finding out she had a storage drive hidden within a pendant. Sparring Rand's life, Willow had her taken to Gemenon to take part in the STO's official training campaign, where she would be killed if she dropped out.Caprica, episode: "Things We Lock Away".
During the final days of preparation before the Atlas Arena attack, Willow continued to see Amanda, who had left her husband, Daniel, and housed her at a cabin outside the city. While she pondered how to go about obtaining Zoe's pendant, which was in GDD hands after Zoe was incorrectly blamed for the bombing, she got the attention of GDD agent Jordan Duram. While Singh found excuses not to sanction an investigation of Willow, who had too many connections to STO members and Monotheists, Duram was able to recruit Amanda as an off-records Confidential Informant. From this information the GDD agent was able to uncover suggestions of an upcoming terrorist attack, though information was scarce. To keep Amanda alive, Singh was given documents suggesting Mar-beth Willow, another member of the group-marriage, was instead the CI.Caprica, episode: "Blowback". Warned immediately by Singh, pretending to be a third-party, Willow was quick to believe Mar-beth was an informant. The following day, Willow followed Mar-beth to a nearby park and stabbed her in the throat, with Olaf and Nestor covering the body and dumping parts in the river. Alongside the fake documentation, Amanda was able to replace Willow's holoband with another of the same model, and moved back in with her husband. The positive news was that Singh had successfully smuggled out Zoe's pendant from the GDD active case store room, giving them access to the Avatar program.
In the day before the Atlas Arena attack, the three Willows realised the holoband had been swapped and Mar-beth was killed for no reason. As the plans for the terrorist attack were on the holoband, there was a serious risk the Graystones could expose it, Daniel himself being the owner of Atlas Arena. Plans were quickly drawn for an assault on the Graystone residence, and they attacked under cover of night. Despite Amanda and Daniel Graystone hostage in a bunker under the house, the three failed to get the holoband back, and fled when Nestor was killed by a U-87 Cylon Daniel had in storage.Caprica, episode: "Here Be Dragons". In spite of this shortcoming, Singh tracked down the two remaining Willows, and assured them he was using all of his power to implicate the Graystones as terrorists and allow the STO a window to commit the bombing.Caprica, episode: "Apotheosis". On the day of the bombing, all suicide bombers bar Clarice had been digitised and, as Nestor died before creating the template for a Clarice Willow Avatar, she gave herself an excuse not to attend, instead remaining with the family's computer servers, which were programmed to only generate the Avatars and upload online once their holobands determined them to be dead. Exploring the Heaven programmed on V-World for the new Avatars to load in, Willow was met by Zoe-A, the original Avatar created by Zoe Graystone. Having met with her creator's parents, she demanded to know the reason for Willow's actions, having been in control of the U-87 during their raid, and was let in on the STO's plans. Outraged, Zoe-A destroyed the Heaven program, while in the real world the terrorists were gunned down by U-87 Cylons, foiling the bombing. Zoe-A's carnage also bled into the real world, causing the computer server to explode before the Avatars finished generating and, therefore, killing all but her.
Over the next five years, Willow shaped herself anew as a Monotheist priest, giving sermons in V-World to Cylons of numerous varieties. Built with computer chips based on one Zoe-A was once housed in, the Cylons were all sentient beings, while slaves in the real world, and shared the original Zoe's religious inclinations while not being perfect copies. With Rand having used U-87s to overthrow the Gemenese STO leadership and its Church, Willow was forced to plead with her for "divine recognition of the differently sentient", which she quickly received. Willow's sermons calling for a Cylon uprising against mankind to liberate themselves as God's children had an effect, and by 1947 Caprica's military was engaging in covert actions against rogue Cylons. By 1948, this expanded to a universal slave revolt. Willow's fate during the twelve-year long Cylon War is unknown.
==Gallery==
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==Further notes==
*Paula Malcomson originally auditioned for the role of Clarice Willow, but was instead given the part of Amanda Graystone.Caprica DVD, "The Caprica Dynasty".
==Sources==
Category:Caprica characters