The Farm

The Farm is an episode of the TV series, Battlestar Galactica, and aired during the show's second season. In the episode, Cylons capture Kara "Starbuck" Thrace and hold her in an abandoned hospital, where they are performing experiments with human reproduction. Starbuck escapes and leaves Caprica to return to the human fleet. Commander William Adama returns to command of the fleet, but President Laura Roslin persuades almost a third of the fleet to follow her back to Kobol.
==Plot==
=== Teaser ===
Starbuck wakes up with Sam Anders. He tries to persuade her to stay on Caprica; the resistance is taking significant losses to the Cylons due to lack of tactical training. Starbuck cannot commit to staying, and plans instead to return to Galactica and send help, also insisting he move his camp up higher into the mountains so the radiation affecting Caprica will take longer to affect them.
A resistance force drives out into the forest to a known Heavy Raider refuelling station, which will be an easy target for hijacking to complete Starbuck's task. Starbuck quickly draws up the mission plans while talking, intending the force to wipe out the three Centurion guards in an explosion which, given the resilience of Cylon design, the Heavy Raider will survive. The force is ambushed by Centurions and Starbuck is shot in the retreat.
=== Plot ===
Commander Adama makes his first visit to CIC since being shot, and is greeted with hand-clapping. He thanks them for their loyalty in the continuing crisis in the fleet, and goes on to search for the 'fugitives'. Lt. Gaeta doesn't think they can find President Roslin or Apollo easily due to Cloud 9's use as a transport hub. Adama plans for the fleet to be split in two, between ships that have been searched and those that have not.
On Kimba Huta, Tom Zarek keeps Apollo, Roslin and Elosha in a freezer for protection. He suggests they head over to the Astral Queen, but Apollo rejects it. The conversation moves to the wireless news reports that Commander Adama has now returned to CIC, and suggests the best way to turn the people against him is to have Apollo speak out against his own father in a recorded message. Apollo gives up mid-recording when Zarek's transcript calls for a popular uprising, forcing Roslin to instead "play the religious card" as she did the Quorum of Twelve.
On Caprica, Starbuck wakes up in a hospital bed. She is being treated by a doctor who tells her she has undergone surgery to remove the bullet in her abdomen. She was brought in by Anders, but he died from massive internal bleeding caused by shrapnel. He leaves the room as she cries. The next morning, Starbuck wakes up again as the doctor comes in to check on her. She asks him if he is a Cylon, which be makes light of. He reveals to her exactly where she is - a former mental hospital 20 km away from Delphi, one of the few places the Cylon occupational forces are yet to check, but is a place known to the resistance. He injects her with drugs so she goes back to sleep.
On Galactica, Chief Tyrol tries to explain Spc. Cally's murder of Boomer to Commander Adama, trying to get her a lighter sentence on the grounds of diminished responsibility over her experience on Kobol. Commander Adama begins asking him about Boomer and if he loved her. He expresses the confusing nature of it all, how everyone knew Boomer for two years and she had an impact on them all, but is still a machine. As Boomer is a Cylon and not Human, her death is legally irrelevant. Cally will only be in the brig for 30 days for irresponsible handling of a firearm. As Tyrol leaves the office, Adama reminds him that there are many copies, and he will meet another Cylon resembling her again.
Back at the hospital, Starbuck begins questioning the doctor again. He has said this is a hospital affiliated with the resistance, and yet he is the only person she has seen. He tells her they have 223 patients, but there are only two doctors and five teachers serving as nurses. Starbuck is still suspicious - it is too quiet. No one is screaming out for attention from doctors. He tells her this is because the other patients are suffering from radiation poisoning so are too weak to shout out, and she is being kept in isolation from the others because their immune systems are compromised, and she may only see them when the hospital determines she is free from pathogens. The doctor moves on, and tells Starbuck he suspects she has an ovarian cyst, which he intends to correct as her reproductive capabilities will be important for the survival of the human race. He implies her dislike of parenting is because of childhood trauma, having seen healed fractures on her fingers from childhood. Starbuck becomes emotional at being reminded of child abuse, and demands he leaves.
On Galactica, Commander Adama reads Roslin's message, where she intends to send out a signal in the next few hours. When that is seen, ships crewed by captains loyal to Roslin will leave to Kobol and embark on her religious quest there. Col. Tigh suspects Astral Queen to be the right place to search, and prepares five Raptors of marine parties to detain her. Roslin is indeed on Astral Queen, and finds herself in a room with the freed prisoners kneeling in prayer, having recognised her religious claims.
Helo and Anders are searching the forest, not finding Starbuck anywhere after the ambush. They are met by Caprica-Sharon, who knows where Starbuck can be found. The resistance has never met a Number Eight before, so are not inclined to shoot when Helo recognises her.
At the given time, Astral Queen fires off a rocket as Roslin's sign, and jumps off to Kobol. No ships jump yet, and Commander Adama suspects only a handful will do so.
On Caprica, Starbuck wakes up, finding she has been in surgery. She asks the doctor about it, and he explains it was due to internal bleeding but she is OK. She is nearly fully recovered and will be sent out to the fight once more. He drugs her again and leaves. Starbuck however does not pass out, as she has made shoot to cut the tube. Heading into the hallway, she sees the doctor talking about taking Starbuck to a processing facility soon, the receptionist being a Number Six. Starbuck returns to her room, now realising she is being held captive by Cylons.
In the morning, the doctor returns to see Starbuck. As she reads a magazine, he looks over to her IV drip, suspicious she has done something to it. As he approaches her, she stabs him in the neck with a broken mirror. As he dies, she explains to him she couldn't trust him after he called her Starbuck, as he shouldn't have known that name. Heading into another room, Starbuck finds a number of other patients being hooked up to machinery, among them being Sue-Shaun, who was also captured during the ambush. She tries to free her, but Sue-Shaun has sustained severe mental trauma after the ambush, and wants her to just turn off her life-support machine so her suffering can end. Starbuck honours her request by destroying the machinery, causing a power surge which turns the lights off. She heads down a corridor towards the exit as a Number Six passes by. Armed with a fire extinguisher, she bashes the Cylon on the head and runs out the door. On the other side, she meets another Cylon resembling the doctor, but he is gunned down by the resistance. Starbuck jumps to the ground as Centurions exit the hospital to engage the resistance, killing one member. Caprica-Sharon pilots a stolen Heavy Raider over the hospital and destroys the Centurions. Landing the craft, the resistance members rush inside back to their camp.
In the fleet, twenty-four ships - almost a third of the fleet - jump out to Kobol in mere seconds. Commander Adama is shocked at this, and leaves. Heading to the morgue, he looks back at Boomer's body, and can only ask "why".
Back on Caprica, Caprica-Sharon explains the nature of the hospital - 'Farms' - which were part of a human-Cylon breeding program, to bring the Cylons 'closer to God' by being able to procreate. Female patients at the hospital were being harvested of their ovaries so there is a steady supply of test subjects, and Helo notices Starbuck has a scar on her waist. Starbuck is both shocked at the violent nature of the experiments, and confused why they would do such a thing when they were able to create a hybrid without this. Helo adds to that, saying that he and Caprica-Sharon were set-up to fall in love as part of an alternate experiment to test the hypothesis that love was necessary in Cylon breeding to work. Anders is told that there may be hundreds of thousands of women in Farms across Caprica, which gives the resistance a new objective. Though Starbuck is now willing to stick around and help liberate these farms, he hands over the Arrow of Apollo and tells her to leave and to "go find Earth". She warns him that he will die on Caprica without military aid, and he holds her to her promise to come back to rescue them all. She gives him her dogtag to prove she is serious in her promise. Helo, Starbuck and Caprica-Sharon depart in the Heavy Raider back to the fleet.
==Cast==
*Edward James Olmos as Commander William Adama
*Mary McDonnell as President of the Twelve Colonies Laura Roslin
*Katee Sackhoff as Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
*Jamie Bamber as Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama
*James Callis as Doctor Gaius Baltar
*Tricia Helfer as 
**Messenger Six
**Number Six
*Grace Park as Sharon Agathon
*Michael Hogan as Colonel Saul Tigh
*Aaron Douglas as Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol
*Tahmoh Penikett as Lieutenant Karl "Helo" Agathon
*Nicki Clyne as Specialist Calandra Henderson
*Alessandro Juliani as Lieutenant Felix Gaeta
*Kandyse McClure as Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla
*Michael Trucco as Samuel T. Anders
*Rick Worthy as 
**Simon O'Neill
**Number Four
*Lorena Gale as Elosha
*Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek
*Tamara Lashley as Sue-Shaun
==Appearances==
===Characters===
*Lee "Apollo" Adama
*William Adama
*Karl "Helo" Agathon
*Gaius Baltar
*Anastasia Dualla
*Felix Gaeta
*Calandra Henderson
*Billy Keikeya
*Number Eight
**Sharon "Boomer" Valerii
**Sharon Agathon
*Number Six
**Messenger Six
*Laura Roslin
*Saul Tigh
*Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
*Galen Tyrol
===Locations===
*Cyrannus Star System
**Caprica
*The Fleet
===Species===
*Cylon
**Centurion
**Humanoid Cylon
**Raider
*Human
===Technology===
*FTL
*Wireless
===Vehicles and vessels===
*Colonial One
*Galactica
*Raider
*Raptor
*Viper
===Organizations===
*Colonial Fleet
*Colonial Government
*Colonial Marine Corps
==Production==
An October 2005 entry of the Ron Moore Blog titled "Blog: The Return" answered fan questions about the nature of the ambush and Simon knowing Thrace and Anders by name. Moore explains that the ambush was no coincidence and the Cylons were well aware of Anders' resistance and had been keeping up with them for some time. Moore also explains how Simon knew about Thrace - that there is a Cylon agent giving out information from within Anders' cell, a plot point that was discussed about for this episode but never put into the draft. This plot point appeared once more in "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part Ⅰ" and "The Plan".
== Notes ==
* Ronald D. Moore recorded a podcast, which can be found here.
==Sources ==
==External links==
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