Number Six
Overview
Category: Cylon
Type: Humano-Cylon
Sex: Female
Played by: Tricia Helfer
Number Six is the stunning blonde humano-Cylon responsible for seducing Dr. Gauis Baltar to gain access to his work at the Colonial Defence Ministry and use his own Command Navigation Programme (CNP) as a mean of infecting all Colonial vessels, warships and fighter with a computer virus that reders them vulnerable to Cylon infiltration (Mini-Series).
Roles
However, she fulfils many roles.
Portent of Doom =
She is also the first genuine portent of doom for the peoples of the 12 colonies, when she arrives on Armistice Station shortly before it is destoryed in what are the opening shots of the Cylon attack on the 12 colonies.
Seducer and Infiltrator
Prior to the attack, Six played an important role in preparing the way for a Cylon victory. Seducing the ambitious, self-obssessed, arrogant and untimately flawed Gaius Baltar, she fooled him into believing she was a corporate spy, seeking to gain advantage over her competitors in order to gain an lucrative upcoming defnece contract (Mini-Series). Over the course of 2 years, she used Baltar to gain access to his work - even to the extent of re-writing many of his own algorithms - in order to subvert his own Command Navigation Programme so that it could be used in the forthcoming Cylon attack to disable and cripple Colonial forces.
In addition to this work, she performed a second role - one which is potentially as important to the Cylons, but one in which she may not have been fully capable of performing: trying to make Gaius Baltar fall in love with her and - possibly - have a child by her. This is a role that she admits to him is not an official part of her assignment, but it is in keeping with the apparent aims and goals of the Cylons - for whom "love", expressed through the concept of their God, is a motivating factor behind some of their later actions.
That she is unable to become pregnant in her time with Baltar - given that his is the type of man vain enough to forego any male form of contraception and expect the female to take the required precautions - is suggestive that the humano-Cylons are physically, as well as mentally, configured for specific roles. Six is designed as a seducer - a trend that repeatedly surfaces throughout her various incarnations.
With the opening of the Cylon attack, Baltar's Six is apparently destroyed protecting him from the effects of a nuclear blast shockwave on Caprica. Fleeing the city and then the planet itself, Baltar is shocked to discover that Six 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 more - that she is in fact tthe result of a chip inside his head. However, while some of her "actions" - such as terrifying Baltar into determining how he can construct a genuine Cylon detector (Bastille Day), very much suggest she is a part of his own psyche. But 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, giving added weight to the idea that she is most likely a personality download contained within a chip in Baltar's head.
Certainly, this seems to be the view Baltar himself comes to hold, as he relies more and more on her for guidance and insight into Cylons ways - so much so that she deliberately suggests that her presence within him is something for which other Cylons have no knowledge. However, in her relentless drive to get Baltar to fully accept the Cylon concept of God, it would appear that not only are other Cylons in the fleet aware of her "existence", they are in communication with her: hence the arrvial of "Shelly Godfrey" onboard the Galactica with her accusations of treachery at the precise time Six ceases to communicate with Baltar.
"Shelly Godfrey"
--Colonial Archivist 08:50, 10 Jan 2005 (EST)