Gaius Baltar

Key Data
Gaius Baltar
Position:	Interim Vice President, The Twelve Colonies of Man
Birth Planet:	Caprica
Age:	34 (estimate)
Spouse:	Unknown
Offspring:	Unknown
Played By:	James Callis

Biographical Notes

Background

Gaius Baltar is a genius. Elegantly dressed and aesthetically handsome, with the affected humility of the truly arrogant, Baltar is a computer technology designer who has won three Magnate Prizes, and who was responsible for the design of the Colonial Command Navigation Program (CNP).

He is also deeply flawed; Baltar is a pathological narsissist. Beneath his outstanding abilities lurks a pathological weakness of character. Self-absorbed, sly, guileful, and utterly dedicated to his self-preservation, Baltar has carried on a two-year affair with a woman he believes to be a corporate spy - even to the extent of using code she herself wrote to overcome shortfalls in his CNP - and thus allowed her unrestricted access to some of the most sensitive systems known to humankind.

Cylon Attack

File:Bsg-baltar-1.jpg

Dr. Gaius Baltar (credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

When the Cylons launch their attack, Baltar is horrified to learn that his "corporate spy" lover is in fact a new type of Cylon - a Humano-Cylon, able to mimic human beings down to the smallest detail - and that she has in fact used his CNP as a gateway to make all integrated Colonial computers and defence systems vulnerable to a Cylon virus that subverts their command and control systems.

Appalled by the fact that his sexual folly has led to the virtual wiping-out of humanity, Baltar is nevetheless determined not only to survive, but also avoid having what amounts to his treachery exposed.

Helped off of Caprica following the forced-landing of a Colonial Raptor - at the cost of one of the crew staying behind (Mini-Series), he is pleased to find himself treated with the same esteem he enjoyed back on Caprica. His only problem is that Number Six, his former "lover" - herself destroyed in the shockwave of a nuclear blast - now appears to him in visions, and he cannot be sure whether this is a result of his own guilt at his actions or whether - as she initially claims - she is part of a chip that has been implanted in his brain.

Shortly after his arrival on the Galactica, the fact that Cylons can look like humans becomes known to Commander William Adama, and Batlar is put to work trying to devise a means of detecting humanoid Cylons. At the prompting of Number Six, he exposes Aaron Doral - a PR exceutive who has been co-ordinating the media coverage of the Galactica's decommissioning - as a Cylon agent (Mini-Series), using little more than invented technobabble to convince Colonel Tigh. As a result of this, and despite his protestations of innocence, Doral is put off the ship and left at the Ragnar Anchorage.

Due to his unique abilities, Baltar is charged with turning his initial "Cylon detector" into a working machine capable of screening everyone in the fleet. While he at first baulks at this, events such as the sabotaging of the Galactica's water reserves (Water) force him into a position where he can no longer procrastinate over the detector - despite his fear that such a device might somehow expose him as the original traitor among humans. Gaining aid from a most unusual source - his inner Six (Bastille Day) - Baltar does eventually develop a genuine detector, which, together with his survival of an attempt to brand him as a traitor (Six Degrees of Separation), firmly establish his credentials within the fleet's hierarchy.

With this new-found trust, and despite his willingness to deliberately conceal vital information, such as Lieutenant Valerii's true status as a Humano-Cylon (Flesh and Bone), Baltar is willing to be moved into the realm of political leadership, firstly as the Representative for Caprica on the Quorum of Twelve, and then as the newly-elected Vice President within the fleet (Colonial Day).

Cylon Manipulations

The Cylons commenced their direct manipulations of Baltar some two years prior to the attack on the Twelve colonies, by bringing him into contact with their agent Number Six, who instigated a torrid affair with him while at the same time using him to access vital Colonial command and control systems within the Ministry of Defence (Mini-Series).

This manipulation continued even after the Doctor left Caprica and Six behind, with Six appearing to him in a sensory perceptions, possibly through an implant in his brain (Mini-Series) or perhaps even through a series psychotic hallucinations as the Doctor struggles to reconcile his guilt and his desire of self-preservation.

Regardless of the cause of her appearances, Six has continued to both help and hinder Baltar, gradually drawing him to a point of near-open acceptance and participation in Cylon plans and activities (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II). The majority of this manipulation has been through religious intrigue, linked to physical threats to Baltar's well-being. These have included:

• Using the threat of Baltar's former colleague, Dr. Amorak, attempting to contact President Roslin with information on a "traitor" within Colonial circles - and only "removing" this threat once Baltar has "repented of his sins" (33)
• Using the threat of direct accusation (in the form of "Shelly Godfry") coupled with "photographic evidence" - and only "removing" this threat once Baltar has "accept" the Cylon God into his life (Six Degrees of Separation)

Baltar's near-acquiescence to the Cylon religion comes when he goes through a process similar to the evangelical Christian belief in "rebirth" through adult baptism. In this, the new believer in the Christian faith is baptized (generally through full immersion in water), symbolizing the "death" of the "old" self and "birth" of the "new" Christian self. In The Hand of God, Baltar apparently undergoes "death" at the hands of his inner Six when she "breaks" his neck - and is "reborn" in his real life as the "instrument of God", able to point-out precisely where Colonial forces must strike in order to eliminate the Cylon base preventing them from accessing supplies of tylium.

This act leaves Baltar ripe for the final revelation of his role within Cylon expectations, when "the future" is revealed to him by Six on Kobol, in the form of the first of "God's new generation of children" (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II). Baltar is not particularly pleased by this, especialy when the fact that the first of these children is the child of he and Six is revealed to him. (Scattered) Despite this, when he believes Commander Adama is trying to kill the child, he tries to stop this. (Valley of Darkness)

Speculation: The Real Baltar?

For Baltar to survive the destruction of Caprica was no small matter, especially considering he was in the wake a nuclear blast and that, apparently, the body of Six that he knew was destroyed in trying to protect his in the events of the mini-series. But that blast was substantial (not unlike that from a pyroclastic flow and would tear through Six's body just as well as Baltar's. Six has had two years to gather plenty of Baltar's genetic material. Could the Baltar on Galactica be now, in fact, a Humano-Cylon?

Information from RDM indicate that, at the start of season 2, there are eight Cylon operatives that appear in the fleet. A Baltar copy would also had made matters very, very easy for the Cylons in their work to infiltrate the Colonial defenses and would be easily dropped in place to escape or happen to appear on a ship of the nascent fleet. Such clones may also explain the 'fake' recording from Shelly Godfrey of Baltar compromising Colonial computer systems in a latter Season 1 episode. Perhaps it was the Cylons who doctored what was, in reality, a legitimate recording of a Baltar copy.

One notable question would be why Six have spent so much time talking to Baltar, and then have thrown herself in front of the blast if she'd intended for him to die? If Baltar was already a humano-Cylon, his consciousness from that moment would be thrown into a waking duplicate, pre-disheveled and scraped, where Baltar would merely think he was blown clear to safety where he could run to escape attacks with other survivors. Also, since Baltar appeared to be key in many Cylon plans, they would want to ensure that Baltar would reach any remaining humans to spy for them, and having only one copy might risk the success of such plans.

In addition, Six has stated her desire to have a child with Baltar. Humano-Cylon couplings have failed to result in offspring prior to that point (The Farm). If Baltar and Six were both Humano-Cylon, it is likely that offspring would either be impossible or at least exceptionally unlikely. This point gives the strongest evidence against the Baltar-as-Cylon theory, but cannot (yet) dismiss the notion.