"[3] Kara Thrace bears some parallels to the original 1978 Starbuck character: both are portrayed as hot-headed and arrogant fighter pilots, considered the best in the fleet, but with a tendency to challenge authorities and get into trouble.

However, her situation appears somewhat similar to Gaius Baltar, who grew up on Aerilon but moved to Caprica when he left home for university, then stayed the rest of his life there and abandoned all connections to his past.

Although Zak told her he did not want any special treatment from her, Kara passed him even though he failed basic flight, as she could not bring herself to crush his dreams.

Starbuck has a natural talent for flying and is considered Galactica's best pilot,[7] although she also is known for being an avid card player and drinker as well as for an eruptive temper.

Starbuck is declared "missing in action", and Adama orders a search and rescue operation which strains the Galactica's crew and combat resources.

She takes the Cylon Raider she had captured, leading Adama to declare Roslin had suborned mutiny; he sends a detachment of Marines to terminate her presidency.

She then meets up with Karl "Helo" Agathon (a close friend she believed dead after he stayed on Caprica) and the Sharon Valerii copy pregnant with his child.

While attempting to find an alternative route off Caprica, they meet a resistance group that had been waging a guerrilla war against the Cylons, led by fellow pyramid player Sam Anders.

At one point Starbuck is injured in battle, captured, and wakes up in a Cylon "farm" as part of their experiments to create human/Cylon hybrids, but is originally led to believe she is in a hospital run by the resistance.

After the fleet leadership denies her request to return to rescue the Caprican resistance fighters, Starbuck is depressed and guilt-stricken: she has broken her word, failed her duty, and assumes the man she is "hung up on" is either dead or will be soon.

Initially, she refuses to believe it and wants nothing to do with the girl, but when Kacey is badly injured in a fall down a staircase, she calls on Leoben for help and seems to grow more attached to both of them.

After her situation on New Caprica and the truth about Kacey, she is left simmering with rage, which causes her to be reckless and destructive, almost killing herself in a Viper training exercise.

Starbuck's relationship with Lee Adama takes another dramatic turn after she angrily challenges him to a brutal and emotional boxing match aboard Galactica.

During a patrol over a gas giant where the fleet is refueling, she sees a Cylon Raider and pursues it into a storm system which resembles her mandala.

Although she felt several impacts during her pursuit, then-Chief Galen Tyrol finds no damage to her Viper and gun camera footage showed no evidence of any Raider, leading many to believe Kara had been hallucinating.

In the cliffhanger Season 3 finale, "Crossroads, Part II", Starbuck reappears in the same Viper that she was flying at the time she disappeared and is discovered by Apollo, appearing to be alive and well,[8] but the reason for her sudden resurrection has yet to be revealed.

The crew continues on the course Roslin had previously decided upon and move further away from the area Kara believes is Earth's true location.

Later, after Adama attempts to have a conversation with Roslin, which turns into a psychological sparring argument, he rethinks his decision and allows Kara to secretly look for Earth on a barge called Demetrius.

Starbuck's description as "the harbinger of death" and Leoben's caution to her not to venture into the woods, "you might not like what you find," were elements of the episode's homage to the original Planet of the Apes.

Dr. Zaius gave Colonel Taylor the same warning, and instructed Dr. Cornelius to read from the sacred scrolls that man was the harbinger of death.

While searching for Adama, Kara and Lee free loyalists found in the brig which includes Anders, who is then shot by a mutinous Marine upon leaving.

In the episode "Daybreak, Part I" Starbuck tries to get answers from Anders about the song, even turning notes into numbers to see if there is a mathematical solution.

In "Daybreak, Part II and III", after getting the coordinates from Anders for the Cylon Colony, Starbuck joins in on the rescue mission for Hera.

Recalling the musical notes and the numbers she extrapolated from it, she inputs them into the computer; the resulting jump puts Galactica near a habitable planet the fleet decides to settle on.

"[2] Fans opposed to the casting of a female in the popular role expressed their discontent during production on the miniseries, and Sackhoff even received a death threat before the start of filming.

[19] Despite the initial backlash, even by original male portrayer Dirk Benedict,[20] Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck has become one of the show's most popular characters.

[16] Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Melanie McFarland notes: "[Starbuck], played with a tomboyish swagger by Katee Sackhoff, is fast becoming the latest in a long line of feminist television icons.

"[21] Wired's Hugh Hart praises Sackhoff's portrayal: "The actress's rough-and-tumble take on the fleet's most mesmerizing fighter jock will doubtless continue to render gender utterly irrelevant.

[23] Salon.com's Laura Miller states: Starbuck is blond, cocky, insubordinate, a cigar-chomping, card-playing showoff; another stock figure, really, with roots as far back as Shakespeare's Hotspur – if not for a clever twist.

In the original series, Starbuck was played by Dirk Benedict; in the new version, it's Katee Sackhoff, a gender switch that knocks the character well out of type.