what up w Baltar?

A ragtag fugitive BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ramble...

After a run of stand-alone episodes ("The Captain's Hand" did include the ramp-up for the presidential campaign, highlighting the fleet's church and state takes on abortion in the face of survival of the species, an exception, and a strong and thoughtful piece of the BSG puzzle), the show comes back with a major mover for the big arcs - Damn, what a bee-yoo-tiful episode this week!

And I'm not even thinking of the trio of Cylon hotties!

Okay, that's not exACTly true, heh. But this episode, "Downloaded," a season and a half in the making, is a little bit of storytelling nirvana. All these little threads, that could've been nothing, left alone and never again touched by some shows and writers, and really not effecting anything if left alone, are instead gathered up and braided together to create an amazing intersection of revelations.

Vague puffy talk, I know. There's just this power that I'm particularly susceptible to, that comes from a well choreographed and thoughtful crossover or team-up or shift in POV in a familiar and consistent world. It can be a bit formulaic in pop narratives, but I'm usually still swayed. Like those excellent John Byrne issues of FANTASTIC FOUR that focused on Galactus and Dr. Doom. And that crazy little conceit of a back-up story in MAN OF STEEL about Lex Luthor slumming in some diner in a small berg on the edge of Metropolis, waving his name and money in an INDECENT PROPOSAL way to destroy a young couple's happiness, just to do it, just because he can.

The crystalization of the notion that two celebrities in a homogeneous Cylon culture would pose a danger, a threat to their carbon copy unity, is a truly brilliant realization. Good good crack.

LOVED how Sharon and Six bumble through their lies to Number Lucy at the cafe. They had more trouble playing it cool than a couple of wide-eyed schoolgirls around a parent or principal... or Kirk Cameron (oh, Mike Seaver, why-o-why so born again?). Kinda backwards, after Sharon's interpretation/accusation of Six's success as a non-sleeper agent among the humans - "That just means you're a very good liar!" But then again, Cylons aren't in the practice of hiding things from one another, donchaknow.

Number Lucy, heh. Sorry, I can't remember now the numbers they recited and connected to the Cylons we know. I was so frustrated that we didn't get to see a familiar face as an as-yet-unknown Cylon on Caprica, especially when the Cylonettes are pulled out of the destroyed garage! But, I guess that would be too much to pack into this particular episode ending, and would detract from the women's pact and promise of some Cylon revolution.

36 hours?

Ah, Baltar... Baltar, Baltar, Baltar...

Only after discussing this week's BSG with Anna did I even SEE that the leap could be made to Gaius Baltar being dead, killed in the initial nuking of Caprica!

Thanks, Anna, for the little push over this cliff into theory madness! : P

While soaking in the pilot way back when, I just massaged the old suspension of disbelief when he showed up on the hillside with the other refugees, to ultimately be picked up and ferried to Galactica. Between a nearby nuke's initial blinding blast and the pressure wave that hits his lake house, he tells Caprica 6 that he doesn't want to die, and he kneels down before her and embraces her, as she puts her body between Gaius and the shockwave. I FEEL like she tells him to, "Get down," as if doing so will save his smart ass...?

The shockwave blows out the windows, and likely flattens the house. Actually, I'm not sure of that. I think maybe the rubble cloud obscures the camera and that's used to cut to another scene...?

And then, a commercial break or two later, we see Baltar, sans Six, on that hillside...

What to think? That Gaius wakes to find himself mostly uninjured, in what used to be his living room, a little coma of protected space surrounding him. Six used her Cylon body to protect him from the shockwave... somehow... Perhaps sacrificing herself, as she'd just explained to him how she would be downloaded into a new body if she died, or, sustaining only superficial injuries, she manages to walk away and leave Baltar unconscious. Or even carries him some way from the destroyed home and closer to where Boomer and Helo touch down...?

That fits, doesn't it? Or at least, it used to. Now, we know the skin jobs bleed like any fleshbag, right? It doesn't take any superhuman strength to hurt a Cylon...

Does it? They may be able to summon up a level of enhanced physical strength, but they take damage and apparent pain comparable to humans... Galactica Sharon slices herself open to interface w Galactica. Caprica 6 cuts her cheek w her own fingernail. Galactica Sharon and Pegasus 6 both react to and display marks from punishment from humans as a human would. Caprica Sharon and Caprica 6 are both dinged up human-appropriately by the destroyed garage and cafe...

And we KNOW that that nuke destroyed Caprica 6. Could Baltar have survived?

I told Anna I wasn't quite convinced that that's where this leads...

But now, a PULSE and a walk home later, I'm thinking that it's pretty compelling. A human Baltar could not have survived the blast of a nuke that destroyed Caprica 6...

So. What IS Baltar?

I've got two or three kneejerk theories...

1. A Cylon deep sleeper. A thirteenth model of Cylon that numbers one thru twelve don't know about or interact with. More one-of-a-kind than the other twelve? That is, one and only one number thirteen is ever walking around anywhere, in human or Cylon territory (but of course, not Cylon).

What's the purpose of this deep sleeper? Built to specifically interact with a Number 6...? Or to rise up thru human society to become a Baltar, who would then be seduced by a Number 6...? An intentional X-factor in the Cylon race built to keep them from dying out due to some as yet unseen doomsday factor built into the uniformity of their race? Like the recurring Neo in the Matrix as described by the Architect in the MATRIX trilogy...?

2. A Cylon "King" or patriarch. The first Cylon to survive as or upgrade himself to an "organic?" The one who created the twelve models of skin jobs... And with a sort of God complex at work, or some other crazy TOTAL RECALL-ish agenda, he gives them religion, and a prophecy or dozen, and then takes himself out of the picture to let things play out. He wipes his existence from the memories of his children, then wipes his own memory and plants himself (along with some contingency plan and hardware for resurrection) among the humans in a key position to participate in the unfolding fight for dominance...

As well as bone down w human hotties...

Now, doesn't that sound JUST LIKE your typical Greek God? Perfect!

And wouldn't the King "mating" with one of his children result in the glitches we see in their resurrected selves - the phantom 6 and phantom Baltar that speak to each of them...?

3. A member of a third race we haven't seen yet? Or a "lost" sect of Cylons? But why have him be such a frickin tool, right? But maybe that's exactly what he is, a tool of some race that would benefit from having the humans and Cylons duke and nuke it out, thinning the numbers of both sides...? Ovions? Space Nazis? Heh.

It would be neat, or perhaps "neat," if this BSG re-imagined the original BSG's "angels" as a race of dabblers/meddlers in humankind's development, eh?

Crazy talk.

Maybe it's all much simpler and Baltar is just a dopey human, as I've believed him to be until now. Protected by Caprica 6 (even tho she IS *COMPLETELY* surprised to hear that he's survived). Does Gaius ever blubber to phantom 6 about how she died saving his life?

Still... This revealed *reciprocal* Jimminy Cricket phenom, between Baltar and Caprica 6 (which is just a BEAUTIFUL thing - I LOVE that she's walkin around w a Baltar in her head!), does seem to be a sign of something special and unique about Baltar. Neither Caprica Sharon nor Galactica Sharon is talking to a phantom Helo or Chief, right?

Hrmmm... Would the Cylons have built a model based on an existing, contemporary, human? Strategic, no? I mean, the humans on the show must think it's possible, for any of them to suspect Adama, or the prez, right? With their families and histories of service in the spotlight? How long were Sharon and Caprica 6 and that news producer guy they leave in the armory living and planted among humanity anyhow? Do they age?

Maybe Baltar the human IS simply chosen by the Cylon god, protected by him (thru Caprica 6?) so that he can fulfill his destiny?

Yeah. He's gonna end up being human, right? What I originally believed about Caprica 6 sacrificing herself to save Baltar (hrmm... is there a counting "rule," real or b.s., for calculating distance/danger from a nuke detonation by flash and shockwave or rumble, like there is for lightning and thunder?), is correct, or clse enough, right? And this phantom business? Some unforeseen million-to-one chance psycho-digital exchange of engrams? An unpredictable side effect of riding out a nuclear blast while a Cylon psyche escapes its dying body?

Enough rambling for now...
So say we all!~

Ack, just typing that made me cough "nerd" at myself...

Keep on keepin on~