Gaius Baltar
Template:BSG Character Gaius Baltar is a fictional character in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.
Character biography
Gaius Baltar is a brilliant scientist and an important defense researcher. At the onset of the miniseries, he is involved in an intense sexual relationship with a beautiful blonde woman. Believing her to be a corporate rival, he gives her access to the Colonial defense mainframe. On the day the Cylons attack humanity, she reveals that the she is an advanced Cylon (known as Number Six) and that she used the information given her to shut down the Colonial defenses.
Having unintentionally brought about the near-annihilation of the human species, Baltar manages to flee Caprica (Helo gives up his position on his Raptor to save Baltar), finding refuge aboard the refugee fleet protected by Battlestar Galactica. Baltar endears himself to Laura Roslin, the new President of the remnants of the Twelve Colonies, while nonetheless continuing to look out for his own interests above all else — particularly his desire to conceal his involvement in the genocide of humanity.
Baltar is haunted by visions of Number Six, with whom he converses often. It is left ambiguous whether these visions are the product of a computer chip that Number Six implanted in Baltar's brain while they were together on Caprica (the explanation originally given by a Number Six vision, but which she later disclaims), or whether they are a manifestation of Baltar's own mind, as he grows insane from the guilt that he feels over his unwitting role in the destruction of humanity.
The vision of Number Six manipulates Baltar through his fear of discovery — such manipulation may represent the Cylons influencing Baltar to work to their ends, or it may represent his own subconscious desperately seeking to avoid discovery. The vision also lends him an edge, as it grants him unique knowledge and helps him overcome weaknesses in his personality.
The model of Number Six who had seduced him (now known as Caprica-Six by the other Cylons), began to experience similar visions after her consciousness was downloaded into a new body. Whereas Baltar experienced visions of her, she experienced visions of him. Both visions acted in similar ways: they were seemingly crueler than the person they were based on and manipulated the affected party against his or her own species.
In the episode Colonial Day, Roslin uses Baltar's popularity and charisma to have him chosen as her vice president. In the second season episode "Home, Part II" Baltar undergoes a brain scan similar to an MRI which reveals no sign of a computer chip or any other foreign object in his brain. While this briefly leads him to think that he had truly gone insane, he then realizes that the vision of Number Six he sees could not possibly be a hallucination generated by his subconscious mind, because she is aware of facts that his own mind could not possibly know. Number Six tells him that the first Human/Cylon Hybrid will be born in the ship's brig, and soon after the Caprican version of the Cylon Sharon Valerii (pregnant with the human Karl Agathon's child) is imprisoned in it. When Baltar confronts Six with this, she states that she was neither a computer chip nor a hallucination produced by mental instability. When Baltar then asks just who or what she is, she simply replies that she is "an angel of God sent here to protect you, to guide you, and to love you."
Recently, Baltar's relationship with Six has been troubled by the appearance of Gina, another Six copy who had been posing as a maintenance worker on the Battlestar Pegasus. After discovering Gina, who had been repeatedly tortured and raped by Pegasus crewmembers, Baltar grows fond of her, making the illusory Six jealous. He eventually helps Gina escape from the Pegasus and arranges a place for her safety. Gina later forms a pacifist movement within the fleet, though it is noteworthy their methods are not always peaceful, and Baltar is initially reluctant to support the organisation despite his affections for her. Later, however, after saving President Roslin from terminal cancer, he reads the letter (a custom performed by all presidents, written to their successors) she had left for him to be opened upon her death which notes his "selfish nature" and asks that he overcome it for the well-being of the fleet. Angered by this, he gives Gina and the movement the nuclear bomb Adama afforded him in an earlier episode.
Having been offended by Roslin's letter, and encouraged by both his visions of Number Six and by political firebrand and outspoken Roslin-critic (and Baltar's former opponent in the race for Vice President) Tom Zarek, Baltar announces his intention to run against incumbent Laura Roslin for the presidency. He does this by surprising both her and the press at a press conference after Roslin's announcement of a moratorium on abortion. Baltar hijacks the conference, establishing himself as a candidate and secular scientific alternative to the moulded prophet-like image of Roslin.
Baltar, with Zarek as his close political advisor, proceeds to run a bitterly contentious campaign against Roslin. During most of the election, however, he is losing ground to Roslin, and is able to score political victories only by painting her as a dangerous religious fundamentalist. With little time remaining before the election, a desolate but habitable planet is accidentally discovered in a region of space where heavy electromagnetic interference make navigation and long-range observation very difficult. Baltar, although he has no personal desire to settle on the planet, announces that he will begin immediate civilian settlement of "New Caprica" if elected. The election promptly swings in his favor and, after an attempted conspiracy to commit voting fraud fails to keep Roslin in power, he is sworn in as president.
Just prior to his inauguration, Baltar visits Gina, who makes love to him for the first time (she had previously refused physical intimacy, having suffered severe emotional and physical scarring from being repeatedly raped aboard the Battlestar Pegasus). During the inauguration itself, she detonates the nuclear warhead that Baltar had given her, destroying the luxury liner Cloud 9 and killing herself in the process, but alerting (unbeknownst to the humans) the Cylons to the presence of the planet.
Following this apparent act of Cylon nuclear terrorism, Admiral Adama urges Baltar to immediately focus on internal security and investigate how a Cylon agent could have carried out the bombing. Baltar refuses, however, and stubbornly proceeds with plans for settlement.
Baltar remains in office for at least one year, but his feelings of guilt (or possibly just his fear of being discovered) regarding his involvement in both the fall of the colonies and Gina's suicide bombing, combined with the stress of the presidency, have led him to substance abuse and womanising, which he does not hide from his aide Felix Gaeta. Life on New Caprica has turned out to be extremely difficult, with the civilian population living in extremely rough conditions, and with shortages of basic supplies like antibiotics persisting. In addition, Baltar's government is in the midst of a major labor dispute with a union led by Galen Tyrol, who is advocating a strike for workers' rights. Baltar indicates to Gaeta that he may be willing to jail union organisers if the labor disputes continue.
The political difficulties faced by Baltar's administration are soon made irrelevant, however, when a Cylon fleet arrives in orbit of New Caprica. The remaining military fleet, which has been operating using skeleton crews, jumps away, leaving New Caprica to be occupied by the Cylons. A Cylon delegation, which includes the reborn versions of both the Number Six who had originally seduced Baltar (now known by the other Cylons as Caprica-Six) and the Sharon Valerii who was originally stationed on Galactica, lands in the human settlement and accepts Baltar's surrender.
According to a Doral model Cylon, in the 134 days since the Cylons landed on New Caprica, most humans have come to consider Baltar a traitor and would rejoice in his death. Compounding his alienation to his people, he has been forced at gunpoint to sign an execution order for hundreds of humans.
After the Colonials evacuate New Caprica, Baltar and Caprica-Six discover Hera, the child of Sharon Valerii whom Six predicted would be born in Galactica's Brig. Roslin and Adama, it turns out, had hidden Hera's existence by falsifying [sudden infant death syndrome] and secretly allowing a young mother to adopt the child as her own.
In the episode "Collaborators", we find Baltar living on a Cylon Basestar in a room furnished with no more than a bed and table, guarded by a Centurion. It is here that Caprica-Six tells Baltar that she has had a change of heart and has let her feelings for him cloud her judgement, presumably ending their relationship. However, by the end of the episode, it is indicated that she has cast the tie-breaking vote amongst the Cylons to allow Baltar to remain a human aboard the Cylon fleet.
External links
| 1978 series |
| ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 series |
| ||||||
| Ships | |||||||
| Theme park attractions | |||||||
| Games | |||||||
