Number Five

File:Bsg-doral.jpg

"Aaron Doral" (credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

Overview

Category: Cylon

Type: Humano-Cylon

Sex: Male

Played by: Matthew Bennett

Aaron Doral appear to be a man in his mid-thirties. He is initially encountered aboard the Battlestar Galactica, where he is operating as a Public Relations executive. Later he is active both within the fleeing Colonial fleet and on Caprica.

Roles

PR Executive (Doral #1)

On first being encountered, Doral appears to be exactly what he claims: a PR executive (Mini-Series). He is charged with coordinating the ceremony surrounding the Galactica's final decommissioning and hand-over to the civilian authorities represented by Education Minister Laura Roslin.

In the role of PR executive, he is efficient, polite and carries the correct about the difference to those around him to enable him to carry out his work without ruffling feathers, while at the same time being able to marshall and manage the media.

Following Gaius Baltars' arrival on the Galactica, Doral becomes the fall-guy Baltar needs to divert any suspicions he feels may otherwise be directed at him following the Cylon incursion into the 12 colonies. In this, he is partially steered by Six - although the selection of Doral as his fall-guy appears to be Baltar's own choice Mini-Series.

Arrested and thrown into the brig, Doral loudly proclaims his innocence of all charges, citing his backgound and upbringing: that he was born in Oasis, a hamlet near Caprica City, grew up on the south side of Caprica city itself before going to Geminon, where he studied public relations at the Kobol Colleges (Mini-Series).

Later, after being left at the Ragnar Anchorage space station, Doral exhibits all of the symptoms initially shown by Humano-Cylon Leoben Conoy, confirming the fact that he is a Cylon and that, however "coincidentally", Baltar selected the "right" man.

Given his protestations of innocence, and the palpable level of fear he demonstrated within the brig, it is possible that the Doral on Galactica was one of the Cylons that - like Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, was programmed to think he genuinely was human, until the radiation around Ragnar began to affects his silica pathways, causing his underlying Cylon identity to come to the fore.

In selecting Doral as his victim, Baltar accidently - assuming it wasn't so form of subconscious prompting from Six - acheived two goals: firstly, he increased his value to the Colonials by "developing" his first "Cylon detector". Secondly, he enabled a Cylon agent to pass on intel to its peers from a place where direct communications - because of the radiation - was impossible. Unfortunately, at the time of his arrest, Doral hadn't gained the information he may have needed to be of more value: Adama's intentions for the Galactica and the fleet.

However, any supposition that Doral was running in "human" mode while aboard Galactica must be offset against he actions while aboard Colonial One, when he was firstly obstructive when Roslin started organising things and later tried to delay the departure of the FTL-capable vessels when a Cylon attack was known to be imminent.

Where these acts - particularly the second one - provoked by Doral's "human" side being concerned for "his" fellow citizens - or were they deliberate acts of a fully-aware Cylon, designed to confuse and delay?

Caprican Overseer

On Caprica, Doral performs the role of a Cylon overseer, working with Number Six to ensure their experiment involving the stranded Karl C. Agathon and Valerii either reaches its desired conclusion, or is suitably terminated (Litmus, Secrets and Lies).

In this, he shows both a harder attitude towards humans than Six. When she expresses regret that the destruction of humanity was necessary in order for the Cylons to achieve their ends, he is not so forgiving:

• Six This all makes me so sad.
• Doral: (matter-of-fact) They would have destroyed themselves anyway. They deserve what they got.
• Six: We're the children of humanity. That makes them our parents in a sense.
• Doral True - but parents have to die. It's the only way children come into their own.

(Bastille Day)

Later, however, when Six is distainful of Valerii's apparent feelings for Agathon when the Caprican experiment goes away, Doral is more sympathetic, wondering what it must be like to be driven by passion that marks Agathon's action: "Even in his anguish he seemed....so alive." (Secrets and Lies).

Suicide Bomber

Doral also turns up on Galactica as a suicide bomber (Litmus), using explosives he steals from a small-arms locker to create a primitive bomb he detonates in a carridor of the ship after being challenged by William Adama.

At the time of the explosion, it is suggested by Starbuck that Doral's intended target was Gaius Baltar. This is possibly the case, and if so, would tend to indicate that each type of Cylon hidden within the fleet may be operating independently of other models (hence Leoben Conoy may well have made an innocent statement to Starbuck when he said he had no idea as to how many Cylons are in the fleet (Flesh and Bone). After all, any attmept to kill Baltar would be counter to Six's attempts to draw him further into the Cylon sphere of influence through her use of religion. Certainly, beyond a malicious desire to upset Baltar (which it did), there is little direct evidence to back-up Starbuck's claim - from Sergeant Hadrian's invesitgation into the matter, it is established the small arms locker used by Doral is located realtively close to the flight pod (where Doral would have come aboard) - therefore, the fact that it is on C Deck, the same deck as Baltar's lab, may have been coincidental.

Certainly, given the fact the locker was on the same deck as Baltar's lab, Doral appeared to spend a lot of time wandering around the ship before setting off his bomb. Was he perhaps looking for a target of opportunity? Trying to get elsewhere, such as CIC?

--Colonial Archivist 10:28, 10 Jan 2005 (EST)