Battlestar Galactica: Personnel: Dr. Gaius Baltar
Name: Baltar Ph.D.,
Gaius Age: 32
Rank: Civilian, Chief of Cylon Intelligence,
Resident NerdRace: Corscian
Dr Baltar is a household name in all of the (former) twelve colonies for his work on computer artificial intelligence and networking theorems. He received not one, not two, but three Magnate (Noble) Prizes for his work in the field of computer science. His latest achievement, before the downfall of the colonies was the program that allowed the entire defense grid to be networked and thus more efficient. Ultimately this was the downfall of the colonies as the Cylons found a backdoor in the programs to disable the planetary defenses, and were able to disable them during the attack. Baltar now resides aboard the Galactica as its chief science advisor and Cylon expert.Baltar is a young, attractive and a genius. As he has a British accent.
And like most people in American media with a British accent, he’s an evil git.(side note: has any else noticed that the devil always has an English accent?). He cares nothing for his fellow man. It is his belief that other humans are just there to worship him and his brilliance. It goes without saying that he is a complete womanizer.If you were to meet Baltar in a pub, he’d be surrounded by women. He’d be flirting with all of them, and trying to get them to compete with each other for 
his affection. He’d only be drinking the finest wine in the establishment. And it would be bought by his female admirers.
Chances are if you’re a bloke, he’d completely ignore you, and maybe even try to chat up your girl.Baltar isn’t really that smart though. Like Tio Holtzman of Dune, he thought up some good equations and concepts when he was younger, and has been surfing the fame wave ever since. In fact he didn’t write the defense program. He came up with the basic design, but Six was the one who wrote most of it. And since Six was secretly a Cylon spy, she allowed it to be easily overcome by her Cylon brethren.
While Six was coding the colonies doom, Baltar was sleeping with her. He secretly suspected Six was a Cylon, but he didn’t care because she was doing all the work, and he was taking the credit. That, and Six is really good in bed.
After the Cylon attack on Caprica, Six sacrificed herself to save Baltar from a nuclear shock wave. But before her demise she implanted a personality chip of herself in Baltar head. Now the obsessive, love struck Six resides in his brain. Where only he can see, hear and feel her. She takes every opportunity to screw with him…. and give him advice. It will be interesting to see how long Baltar will remain sane with Six always talking to him.
Season 2 Update:
Baltar has been through quite a bit in the last few months. Promoted to Resident Cylon Detector, Baltar felt this was too much to handle. His ambition began to wan, and because of this Six stepped up to the plate, forcing Baltar to sieze his destiny. Along with her help he became the Vice-President for the Colonies, and has garnered great support among his peers. Considered to be one of the great orators left in the human race he has rallied massive support to the President, even though his loyalties lie elsewhere…
Baltars love life has taken a turn for the better. He is currently involved with quite a few people that we know of including one of the premiere members of the Press Corps. He also had a liason with Starbuck, culminating with Starbuck shouting Apollos name in bed. This caused a strange reaction in Baltar who apparantly has never been anything less than the absolute center of a womans attention. His aggression towards Apollo has become an almost tangible fog over their relationship.
In the final episodes of Season 1 Baltar was chosen through 6 to become the Hand of God, and the rearer of the next Generation of Cylons. Ironically he is also as of this moment, acting President of the Colonies following the imprisonment of Roslin. Wether or not this will last, only time can tell…
Baltar is played by James Callis.
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Battlestar Galactica reviews are © 2005 Ryan Bechtel
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Battlestar Galactica names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Sci-Fi Channel, NBC-Universal and R&D Television.
