Gaius Baltar

Even though Baltar plays a significant role in the Miniseries, I postponed discussing him until "33." Part of the problem is that I just wanted to move past the miniseries and I think "33" is a reasonable place to start a discussion on Baltar, since he more or less comes into his own in this episode. I also kept getting stuck writing about him because I was caught up on the sleeze / coward factor, and so I was running out of things to say.

Although a large part of Baltar's character is defined by deceit and rampant egotism, focus on this makes him pretty one-dimensional. Baltar is actually a pretty complicated guy, and his belief system changes radically over the course of the series.

So let's focus on the nasty bits first, because that is where the fun lies.

In the Miniseries Baltar immediately comes across as untrustworthy when he flirts with the news anchor interviewing him. (To quote from My Fair Lady, "Oozing charm from ev'ry pore, he oiled his way across the floor.") Baltar is a womanizer (I realize some male readers of this blog might not consider that a bad thing). A large part of his womanizing is characterized by "do anything, say anything." (I suppose, actually, that is a defining feature of womanizing.) This explains, of course, why he inadvertently participates in the death of billions by giving away the defense mainframe codes to some babe so that she would sleep with him.

He is, however, capable of great charm, which is not always obvious in the series, but certainly explains his success with women. His flirtation with Starbuck over a card game ("Water") is fun to watch, and he is one of the few people who actually beats her at cards. There is a strong air of sexual frisson throughout, and she is very provocative when she blows cigar smoke in his face. Of course Starbuck is a strong personality and can pretty much give as good as she gets from Baltar, which I assume increases their mutual attraction.

As we all know, Baltar's personality is dominated by self-interest. (At the end of the Miniseries he says, "I am not on anyone's side.") He is cowardly and he lies constantly, although he is caught often enough to make me wonder why he continues to do it. I wonder if he is modeled on Zachary Taylor from "Lost in Space," but I haven't seen the original Battlestar Galactica, so I have no idea how closely he resembles the original Baltar. Two or three times each season, though, he shows great compassion or says something that demonstrates genuine concern for others. (For example, his conversation with Boomer during "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1.") It is something of a surprise when this happens, but it saves Baltar from being a complete caricature.

In the Miniseries, as Baltar escapes Caprica, the Six that only he sees makes her first appearance. (BTW, for the purposes of this blog I will simply refer to her as "Six," since all the other Sixes have names. This Six is called "Sarah" by Baltar, but only once ("Home, Part 2"), and I didn't even catch that until something like the 400th viewing of the episode in question.

Six is very beautiful, very sexy, walks like a model, and usually wears amazing dresses. With her white-blond hair she is radiant in contrast to Galactica's grubby surroundings. This is beautifully shown in "33" when she is setting next to Baltar on Colonial One, looking at the couple opposite. Baltar is rumpled, sweaty and a total mess. She is serene, beautiful, and relaxed, as if this was an ordinary flight.

The Baltar-Six interactions also create a lot of comic relief as Baltar often carries on two simultaneous conversations and then has to try to integrate seemingly odd behavior and statements into the "real" conversation. (As Roslin says in "33," "He's a strange one.")

The billion-dollar question, of course, is who, or what, is this manifestation? Baltar himself doesn't know, although he sometimes seems to believe that she is "an expression of my subconscious mind working itself out in a waking state." (Miniseries) Season 3 also implies a psychological origin, since there are references to Baltar taking meds ("Collaborators" and "Torn"). The settings for Baltar's conversations with Six also veer back and forth between Baltar's physical location and other, more pleasant, virtual locations that exist, presumably, in Baltar's imagination.

Galactica, in general, is wildly inconsistent about Six. It doesn't make sense for her to be an illusion cooked up by Baltar's psyche because she knows a lot more about Cylon strategy than Baltar can possibly know. She is clearly tied to actual events, and often seems to control the outcome (Miniseries and "33" to name but a few examples), but later in the series it is clear that the "real" Cylons aren't aware of her either. She also has moments when she is unseen but physically present. For example, in "Epiphanies" she pulls up Baltar's tie, and in "Escape Velocity" she literally props him up.

A large part of the tension in "33" hinges on whether there is a Cylon agent in the fleet who is responsible for the repeated attacks. Six alerts Baltar to this possibility. Baltar's life also hangs in the balance since a witness to this involvement in the Cylon attack is on the same ship as the Cylon agent. Whether this threat to Baltar is removed is dependent on his response to Six's questions about his relationship with god (sort of like having a Jehovah's Witness on your doorstep). When Baltar finally states that he accepts the Cylon god, Roslin decides to shoot down the ship, eliminating the Cylon agent, and also killing the only person who could tie Baltar to the Cylon attack.

This sequence of events raises some pretty tough questions. First, there is a strong sense that everyone is playing out roles that have been predetermined ("all this has happened before and all this will happen again"). Does this mean that Roslin's agonizing over her decision is pointless because she is meant to order Galactica to shoot down a civilian ship? If Baltar had not made his admission, would Roslin have made a different decision?

This scene plays itself out again in "Six Degrees of Separation" - Baltar repents and 2 seconds later the incriminating evidence is shown to be false and his accuser disappears.

Foxhole prayers are notoriously unreliable, is the Cylon god really so naive as to take them seriously? They are a recurring theme in Galactica, and they do seem to lead Baltar to a stronger commitment to the Cylon belief-system, but assertions of faith made under duress seem pretty untrustworthy to me.

Baltar also keeps making lucky guesses, which again, seem tied to his relationship with Six's god. He fingers Doral as a Cylon in the miniseries based only on speculation about how Doral is perceived by the rest of the crew. He is correct, although he doesn't find out until later. This happens again in "The Hand of God" when he randomly chooses a site on a surveillance photo as the correct target for blowing up the Cylon's trilium refinery. Both events raise questions about free will. What guides Baltar to make random choices that turn out to be critical to the survival of the fleet, given his ambivalence about his place in the human-Cylon war?

Despite the fact that Baltar is on a non-stop emotional rollercoaster, his world-outlook at the beginning of the saga is based on the scientific method. There is no place for constructs such as faith, or belief in an intangible higher power. As the series progresses, Baltar's intellectual foundation crumbles and is rebuilt with a fundamentally anti-intellectual outlook based on conversion to the Cylon god. It's hard to pinpoint a defining moment where he crosses the line. I think finding Hera on New Caprica is a significant point, as well as his experience in the Temple of Jupiter. By season 4.0 he has actually managed to convert some humans, and is worshipped by them as god's mouthpiece. His sermons are mixed with beautiful imagery ("Faith") and completely self-serving statements ("God loves us as we are because we are perfect."). This understanding of god's will also absolves him of any responsibility for the nuclear holocaust on the twelve colonies ("Hub").

As of this writing, the second episode of Season 4.5, Baltar is disillusioned and angry at his god. In "The Disquiet that Follows My Soul" he is preaching while drunk, and sits back drinking and smoking, while ignoring a fistfight. To my mind, Baltar's behavior is reverting back to his old persona from before he became a religious prophet.

James Callis is just a terrific actor. Baltar is such a mess of contradictions, but Callis manages to make him coherent. In spite of the many facets of Baltar's personality, Callis creates a sense of consistency about his character. In each manifestation Baltar is completely recognizable as Baltar (I'm not sure if that makes sense).

My prediction about Baltar's fate, btw, is that he is going to die before the end of season 4.5. It's kind of weird to think about that becaue he is a lot like Rasputin - people keep trying to kill him, and he always manages to survive.