President Laura Roslin
Liberal democracy under siege
Rights and process, even in crisis.
Reformist Liberal DemocratOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Liberal Democrat hall →- Role
- President (fiction)
- From
- Battlestar Galactica
- Region
- —
- Social band
- Reformist
- Placement
- −18 · −26 · +40
§ Where President Laura Roslin stands
3 axesRoslin's government manages scarce fuel, water and food across a fleet of civilian ships, leaving their crews largely to run their own affairs. In the third-season episode Dirty Hands she faces a strike led by Galen Tyrol over dangerous conditions and a hereditary labouring class on the fuel refinery, and ends it by agreeing to address the workers' grievances, a pragmatic, mildly left-of-centre settlement.
Roslin defends civilian rule and elections against the pull of martial law: she reconvenes the Quorum of Twelve in the first season, holds the scheduled presidential election in the second and is restored to office in the third. Yet she also has Cylon prisoners thrown out of airlocks and, facing defeat by Gaius Baltar, joins a scheme to rig the vote before Adama persuades her to concede.
Roslin is a humane liberal and former teacher, and in the final season she backs an alliance with rebel Cylons, which tilts her towards the progressive side. Yet survival pushes her into hard choices: in the second-season episode The Captain's Hand she bans abortion by executive order to halt the decline of the human population, and her faith in the prophecies of Pythia increasingly shapes her leadership.
How close are you to President Laura Roslin?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
FictionLaura Roslin is the president of the Twelve Colonies in Battlestar Galactica, the reimagined science-fiction television series developed by Ronald D. Moore, which began with a 2003 miniseries and ran on the Sci Fi Channel until 2009. Played by Mary McDonnell, she is a former schoolteacher serving as secretary of education, forty-third in the line of succession, when a Cylon attack wipes out the colonial government. Sworn in aboard a passenger liner that becomes Colonial One, she leads the surviving fleet while privately facing a diagnosis of breast cancer.
Roslin is the series' study of liberal democracy under existential threat: a civilian leader who insists on elections and civilian control of the military, tested by her uneasy partnership with Commander William Adama, yet who repeatedly bends her principles to keep humanity alive, from banning abortion to trying to steal an election. Her belief that she is the dying leader of prophecy adds religious faith to her pragmatism. Made in the years after 11 September 2001, the series was widely read as an allegory of democracies at war with terror, and Roslin became one of television's most discussed fictional presidents.
Notable for
- 01Defended elections in crisis
- 02Civilian rule over the military
- 03Reluctant wartime leader
Key works & moments
- 2003The Sci Fi Channel miniseries introduces Roslin, sworn in as president after the Cylon attack.
- Season 1Reconvenes the Quorum of Twelve; Adama has her arrested after she defies him over Kobol.
- Season 2Bans abortion by executive order, then loses the presidential election to Gaius Baltar.
- Season 3Returns to the presidency after the exodus from Cylon-occupied New Caprica.
- Season 4Allies with rebel Cylons and survives a mutiny led by Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek.
- 2009The series finale, Daybreak, ends with Roslin's death after the fleet finds a new home.
§ Minds closest to President Laura Roslin
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Enter the hall →§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is Laura Roslin's political ideology?
Laura Roslin is a liberal democrat forced into wartime pragmatism: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reformist Liberal Democrat. Economically she sits modestly left of centre (−18), managing a fleet's scarce resources and settling a labour dispute with concessions. On governance she leans towards civil liberty and civilian rule (−26), defending elections and the Quorum against martial law, and socially she is progressive (+40), a humane teacher whose survival measures, such as banning abortion, show how crisis strains her ideals.
Is Laura Roslin left-wing or right-wing?
Centre-left, though the series deliberately blurs the line. Roslin begins as a liberal schoolteacher and education secretary who insists on democratic process, civilian control of the military and humane treatment of the survivors. Under the pressure of extinction she adopts measures associated with the right, banning abortion, executing enemy prisoners and trying to rig an election, and she leans on religious prophecy. Battlestar Galactica uses her to ask how far a democrat can bend before she stops being one.
Why did Laura Roslin ban abortion?
To slow humanity's decline toward extinction. In the second-season episode The Captain's Hand, a teenager from the religious colony of Gemenon seeks an abortion aboard Galactica, and Gaius Baltar warns Roslin that the surviving population, fewer than 50,000, will die out unless births rise. Roslin, who supports abortion rights, reluctantly bans it by executive order. Baltar then announces he will challenge her for the presidency, and the decision becomes one of the series' sharpest dramatisations of liberty versus survival.
Which minds are closest to President Laura Roslin?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to President Laura Roslin are Frank Church (99% alike), Nick Clegg (99% alike) and Earl Warren (98% alike). The furthest is Adam Sutler (17% alike).