Messengers

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Number Six and Gaius Baltar in his lab aboard Galactica.

Baltar's Internal Six

Fleeing Caprica City and then the planet itself, Dr. Gaius Baltar is shocked to discover that the woman he had a relationship with on Caprica lives on - inside his head.

At first he tries to dismiss her presence as a manifestation of his own guilt over what has happened to his people, and his role in it. However, Six suggests that she is in fact a controlled hallucination resulting from a chip she implanted inside his head. However, while some of her actions - such as terrifying Baltar into constructing a genuine Cylon detector (Bastille Day) - very much suggest she is a part of his own psyche, this is countered by her underlying actions and deeds, all of which represent a furtherance of those aims and goals she expressed as a corporeal entity. Some of these are characteristics never witnessed by Baltar himself - such as her jealous reaction to Boomer's visit with Baltar in his lab (Flesh and Bone), which closely mirrors the jealousy she shows towards the Valerii copy on Caprica ("Litmus", "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down").

Her existence as a personality download within Baltar's brain is a view he himself comes to embrace, as he relies more and more on her for guidance and insight into Cylon ways - so much so that she deliberately suggests that her presence within him is something of which other Cylons have no knowledge. However, in her relentless drive to get Baltar to fully accept the Cylon concept of God, it certainly seems for a time that not only are other Cylons in the fleet aware of her "existence", they are in communication with her: hence the arrival of "Shelly Godfrey" onboard Galactica with her accusations of treachery at the precise time Six ceases to communicate with Baltar.

Baltar recieves his brain scan from Dr. Cottle, as Six looks on in amusement.

When Baltar begins to deny Six's actual existence, she turns the tables on him by assuming a more 'natural' appearance and telling him that he is, indeed, "crazy" (Home, Part II). Baltar asks Dr. Cottle to perform a brain scan to check for anything unusual. "Nothing, nothing, more nothing" is the gruff diagnosis from Cottle. However, later in the same episode Baltar comes to believe that the Six he sees could could not possibly be a hallucination caused by him going "crazy", because she seems to know things (such as that Sharon Valerii was pregnant) that his subconscious mind has no way of knowing. When confronted with this, Six agrees that she is not a product of Baltar's mind, although scans show no chip in his brain. When Baltar asks her what she really was, Six only replies that "I'm an angel of God sent here to protect you, to guide you and to love you". While Baltar may not have a conventionally visible chip in his head, it could convceivably be organically-based (like the Cylon agents) and indistinguishable from other tissues in his brain or central nervous system. There was thought by many to be a remote chance that Baltar could be a Cylon agent himself (see the Cylon agent speculation article for arguments for and against Baltar as a Cylon agent), but later episodes have all but disproven this.

Hallucinations on Kobol.

Not only does Baltar's former lover appear to him as herself in the context of his physical surroundings, but she can also make him see or experience an environment which is not real. Six has often interacted with him in the memory of his lakeside house on Caprica, which now exists purely in Gaius' mind. (33) These visions have become less frequent as Dr. Baltar feels less nostalgic about his former dwelling. (Resurrection Ship, Part I)

The best example of Six's powers of illusion is during Baltar's ordeal in Kobol, in which he had a number of mass hallucinations. The first was during the traumatic crash of Lt. Crashdown's Raptor. Six appeared to save Baltar's life by leading him through the flames unharmed. In reality, he was saved by Crashdown. The next vision was of the Forum and the City of the Gods, which he saw complete and undamaged. In this hallucination, Six leads him down the aisle of the Great Opera House onto the stage, where a white cradle awaits them. Six reveals to him there the plan that God has for Baltar and she, to create the next generation of God´s Children. (interestingly enough, we later see that same cradle in New Caprica, where baby Hera is kept.)

The next hallucination in Kobol also deals with the Cylon Hybrid child. Baltar has a vivid dream in which Galactica's SAR team has arrived, with Adama leading the mission. Adama takes Baltar's child, and proceeds to drown her. When Baltar wakes up, he realizes that he must stop at nothing to ensure the survival of his baby, which seems to be exactly what Six wanted to see happen. Later, tells him that one of their party will betray the others during the mission to destroy the Cylon missile battery preventing their rescue, and that to prove his worthiness as a father he must act like a real man for a change. This prompts him to take part in the mission as a scout, and later to kill Crashdown when he threatens Cally's life.

Six's Internal Baltar

Turnabout is fair play.

In the episode "Downloaded" it is revealed that the vision of Number Six that Baltar sees everywhere is definately not the same Number Six consciousness as the one he had a relationship with back on Caprica: Caprica-Six's consciousness downloaded into a new body, and for nine months continued to live on Cylon-occupied Caprica. Within a few seconds, it it clear that "Caprica's" personality is completely different from the one in Baltar's head. Not only that, but just as Baltar has visions of her, Caprica-Six has persistent visions of Gaius Baltar. This image confronts her with her guilt in the slaughter of billions of human beings, and with the logical error behind the Cylons' actions. If murder, genocide, and vengeance are sins in the eyes of God when humans commit them, then why would God sanction the Cylons' mass murder of an uncountable number of unsuspecting people? Under the influence of Internal-Baltar, "Caprica" speaks out against the war alongside the reincarnated Sharon Valerii, and a new path is forged.

Analysis and Questions

This adds a further level of complexity to the question of who exactly Baltar sees all the time:

• Would Caprica-Six really implant a chip in his head?
• When she was downloaded into a new body, Caprica-Six actually thought that Baltar was dead, and did not find out he was alive for months. Furthermore, just as Baltar has an inner Six inside his mind, Caprica-Six has an inner Baltar in hers (and just as Baltar's inner Six manipulates him against the humans, Caprica-Six's inner Baltar manipulates her against the Cylons). She may have implanted a chip, containing one of her "sister" consciousnesses, into him as part of a "backup plan" she never thought she'd actually use...or she may really have never implanted a chip inside Baltar.
• But if this is true, why would she also have a chip inside herself of Baltar?
• And why would the behavior of the copy be so different from even the other Sixes?
• Could "Six" in fact be an angel, as she has claimed (or a fallen angel)?
• What about Internal-Baltar?
• If they are both angels, could they be on opposite sides of a celestial war? (see Beings of Light, War of the Gods)
• Could what started as a mere hallucination have taken on a life of its own?

The answers remain unknown.

Lay Down Your Burdens

It was hinted that the internal Six had been silent for some time when the Cylons arrived at New Caprica. She appeared to Baltar as the first Raiders entered the sky observing that it was finally "judgement day." (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II) Exactly what will happen with the internals now that Caprica-Six has again met Baltar remains to be seen.