Gaius Baltar
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Overview
Age: 34
Marital Status: Single
Children: None.
Current position: Special Advisor on Cylon Affairs to President Laura Roslin, currently assigned to the Battlestar Galactica
(Played by: James Callis)
Biography
Background
Gaius Baltar is a literal 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. Beneath his outstanding abilities lurks apathological 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
When the Cylons launch their attack, Baltar is horrified to learn that his "corporate spy" lover is in fact a new type of 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 Colonial ships susceptible to a Cylon virus that subverts their command and control systems.
Appalled by the fact that his sexual folly has lead to the virtual wiping-out of humanity, Baltar is nevetheless dtermined 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 Adama, and Batlar is put to work trying to devise a means of detecting humanoid Cylons. In order to deflect possible suspicion of his role in the Cylon attack, he uses an early version of his detector to identify (at Six's prompting) Aaron Doral - a PR exceutive who has been co-ordinating the media coverage of the Galactica's decommissioning - as a Cylon agent (Mini-Series). As a result of this, and despite his protestations of innocence, Doral is put off the ship and left at the Ragnar Anchorage.
Religious Leanings
Having gained the uneasy trust of those arround him - despite his abberant behaviour of talking to himself and acting strangely, Baltar is put in charge of developing a more advanced Cylon detector - something he has no idea how to achieve, seeing as how his "prototype" didn't actually work. He also finds himself being slowly drawn into the Cylon religious belief system by Six through a series of incidents which see:
- Baltar's colleague, Dr. Amorak, try to contact President Roslin with news of how the Cylons infiltrated the Colonial defensive sytems - only for the ship carrying Amorak to disappear and later be destroyed (33)
- Finding himself accused outright of treachery by another corporeal Six, this time calling herself "Shelly Godfrey" (Six Degrees of Separation)
- Finally being convinced he is indeed a "tool or God", after helping the Galactica win a major engagement with the Cylons and secure vital fuel supplies needed by the fleet (The Hand of God).
With his Cylon detector now complete - again, oddly thanks to prompting from his "inner Six", and having been vindicated of treason once, Baltar is now in a position of considerable power. He can fake the results of the Cylon test should he desire (Flesh and Bone) - and so literally has the power of life and death in his possession.
--Colonial Archivist 22:38, 8 Jan 2005 (EST)