Alex Quartararo

Lieutenant Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo (a.k.a. "Crash") is the Raptor ECO who replaces after Sharon Valerii reluctantly leaves Agathon behind on Cylon-occupied at his request .
A survivor of the crew of the battlestar Triton, Quartararo aids in the discovery of a fresh water source for the Fleet , a Cylon-held tylium mine , and the planet .
Despite Valerii's initial misgivings of him, Quartararo is a loyal officer. His actions include the defense of Valerii to Sergeant Hadrian prior to Valerii's being taken away for questioning .
Quartararo is also the object of Ensign Davis affections ("The Hand of God," "Colonial Day"), and claims to have known a "lady friend" named Kimiko prior to the Fall of the Twelve Colonies .
==Events on Kobol ==
After Valerii attempts suicide, Quartararo accompanies a mission to investigate Kobol, which meets with disastrous results. A Cylon basestar and Cylon Raiders had already taken position above the planet, causing the destruction of one Raptor, the retreat of another and damage to Quartararo's Raptor. He pilots Raptor 1 after his pilot is killed, crash-landing on Kobol near the ruins of the Opera House .
thumb|left|Quartararo at work, still wearing a battlestar Triton patch When sonic booms are heard, presumably coming from a Cylon ship, Quartararo leads the team away from a likely approach by Cylon Centurions. However, he hurries his team excessively to the point where they abandon most of their critical survival supplies, leaving Socinus, critically injured in the Raptor crash, without needed medicine. Quartararo orders Tarn, Galen Tyrol and Cally Henderson to return to the crash site to retrieve the needed medicine. This ill-advised move results in Tarn's death from Centurion gunfire, and later the death of Socinus, as the retrieved medicine could not treat his injuries in time. All that the medic kit could do is to give Socinus an euthanization of morpha in lieu of suffering an agonizing death .
Quartararo's inexperience reemerges again as he attempts to organize his team through textbook field exercises to destroy a missile battery that several Centurions have constructed from the remains of their Heavy Raider to destroy any colonial SAR parties. The parameters of the operation change when the Centurions shift their deployment, providing greater Cylon defense at the missile launcher, and when the DRADIS guidance dish is left relatively unprotected. Quartararo assigns Hendreson the likely-suicidal task of creating a diversion while the remaining team try to destroy the missile battery.
Although Galen Tyrol insists that destroying the missiles' DRADIS guidance dish would accomplish their mission and prevent the shooting down of the SAR operation, Quartararo's inexperience and by-the-book insistence on following his original plan blinds him to alternatives that would greatly increase his team's survival chances.
As the SAR Raptor's sonic booms announces their imminent arrival, Quartararo hastily orders Henderson to begin the operation, but she is frozen in fear and refuses to move. Becoming increasingly irritated and irrational, Quartararo aims his sidearm at Henderson's head and threatens to kill her if she does not follow orders. Chief Tyrol aims his sidearm at Quartararo, asking him to stand down while Quartararo counts to three in a final effort to move Henderson along.
Before the final number is counted, Gaius Baltar shoots Quartararo in the back, likely severing his spinal cord or piercing his heart, killing him instantly.
After their rescue by the SAR team, both Baltar and Tyrol lie to Captain , claiming that Quartararo died a hero in battle .
Lt. Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson succeeds Quartararo as Valerii's ECO for her mission to destroy the basestar over Kobol .
==Notes==
*Before Pegasus arrives later in season 2, Quartararo is the only confirmed survivor from another battlestar in the Re-imagined Series.
*Crashdown is possibly named for the "Crashdown Café" from Ron Moore's previous series, Roswell, which dealt with supposed alien survivors of the crash.
*According to actor Samuel Witwer in Battlestar Galactica: The Official Companion, David Eick told Witwer to play Quartararo with a personality like Private Hudson ("Game over, man!") from the movie Aliens.
*His real name was never stated on screen, but confirmed to be Alex Quartararo by Bradley Thompson. The name also appears on a playing card in the Battlestar Galactica Collectable Card Game.
== References ==
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