Specter

Specter breaks the bad news to Baltar.

Biography

Specter, an older IL-series Cylon, demonstrates despicable traits of (and including) thievery, dishonesty and deceptiveness. His forces manage to occupy the entire marsh-like planet of Antilla, but is constantly attacked by Megan's children -- Kyle, Miri, Ariadne, Robus and Nilz. When Starbuck is forced into a controlled crash-landing on Antilla, he is almost taken to Specter, however the family-turned-military force waylays the Cylon force.

Specter manages to mislead Lord Baltar into believing that they had managed to capture the warrior, who he conveniently leaves nameless. As attempts to get the warrior by force remain fruitless, an agreement is arranged by Kyle to trade Megan's life for Starbuck's. Specter attempts to deceive Megan's children by floating a manufactured dummy while the children send over the same in place of Starbuck. This forces Specter to continue leading Baltar upon a string.

Lucifer, Baltar's newer IL-series cogitator, despises the lower grade Cylon and attempts to undermine Specter's attempts to curry Baltar's favor. Lucifer manages to come across uncomplimentary requisition orders for additional war material, even though the planet is supposedly completely controlled. Specter manages to, yet again, mislead Baltar, and even get Baltar to feel for the Cylon's plight on Antilla -- they do not fare well on marsh planets for they oxidize.

After a successful and embarrassing attack by Megan's children and Starbuck, Specter again deceives Baltar into believing, not that the garrison had come under attack, but that the commotion was due to his Cylons destroying "the last of the human habitations". Specter manages to secure a place aboard Baltar's base star so that he can later be reassigned wherever the Imperious Leader needed such experienced hands (The Young Lords).

portrayed by: Murray Matheson

Notes

A specter is a type of demon from folklore that is of ghostly or evil nature, also spelled "spectre" in the British-English vernacular. Both spellings are pronounced the same, however.

This naming of the IL-series units supports the theory by Joe Beaudoin that all IL-series Cylons are somehow named after a creature or some evil figure from collective histories of Mankind, as shown in the series.