P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Doc
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shushuteur
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope!
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drnolicense
Characters Played at Ataraxion: n/a
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Dr. Gaius Baltar
Canon: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Original or Alternate Universe: Canon
Canon Point: Sometime after S02E14 (“Black Market”) but before S02E17 (“The Captain’s Hand”) -- after curing Roslin’s cancer, but before his decision to run for president.
Number: No preference!
Setting: Battlestar Galactica takes place on a fleet of ships constituting the remnants of human society following an attack on their home worlds (known as the Twelve Colonies.) These refugees are chased by their would-be destructors, the robotic Cylons: once servants of man, now their killers.
Although the setting is undeniably "futuristic" (with space travel, faster-than-light drives, and AIs advanced enough to even consider turning on their makers) it's due to the Cylons' affinity for infiltrating computers that much of the technology available to the Fleet is archaic, in order to be incompatible with the Cylons' more advanced interfacing. Most of the ships in the Fleet are dark, dingy, and decidedly unglamorous.
History:
Gaius Baltar hails from the farming planet of Aerilon, the so-called "breadbasket of the Colonies," though hardly anyone left alive would be able to tell looking at him. At an early age, he'd eschewed his blue collar roots in favor of loftier subjects: science, art, culture. And where else could someone find culture but on Caprica, the seat of politics, learning, and everything else that young Gaius aspired to? By his 18th birthday he'd trained himself to speak without the rough Aerilon accent (similar to our Yorkshire accent) and with the far more sophisticated Caprican accent, ensuring that from then on no one would suspect his true origins.
Turning his back on his family and heritage, he set off for Caprica where it can be assumed he completed and excelled in his studies, certainly well enough to win several prizes for his work in information technology and eventually earn himself a position of some prestige as lead defense systems developer at the Ministry of Defense. He flourished in Caprican life, his charisma making him somewhat of a celebrity and even winning him the friendship of people as high up as the President of the Colonies himself.
It was somewhere around then that he'd won the "friendship" of a strikingly beautiful blonde woman, and despite (numerous) flings with other pretty faces, he remained quite taken with her in a way that he'd never really felt about anyone else before. Among the many perks of the relationship was the fact that she was willing to help him rewrite much of his code for the navigation program used in all ships in the Colonial Fleet (a task that he may have been capable of doing himself, but was frankly just too lazy to.) In return, he granted her access to the national defense mainframe, thinking he was doing her a personal favor. Their relationship went on this way for a couple of years but, Gaius being Gaius, he never actually learned her name before everything changed.
Turns out this dream woman of his was, in fact, a robot. An extremely human-looking one -- "Number Six" out of twelve others modeled after the human form -- but a Cylon agent nonetheless and (as he would find out very shortly) he'd played an instrumental part in her mission. The first conflict between man and machine had ended in an uneasy armistice, but the Cylons were back with (putting it mildly) a vengeance, and he had given them their opening. They launched an attack on all Twelve Colonies, exploiting the weaknesses Baltar's Cylon lover had written into Colonial Fleet's navigation programs, and wiped out nearly all of humanity in less than 24 hours. But only "nearly all," thanks to the one military ship with an old-fashioned commander who preferred his Battlestar as outdated and Cylon-unfriendly as possible. This ship -- the Galactica -- and the approximately 50,000 surviving Colonial citizens escaped the destruction, and thus humanity was on the run.
Through some uncannily good luck, Baltar managed to be one of those 50,000 citizens and was immediately (and not a little ironically) recognized as a valuable asset to the human race. Becoming a sort of resident authority on all things science, his expertise was frequently called on by both President Roslin and Commander Adama. When the news broke out that Cylons could now look like humans, his first important project became the development of a procedure to distinguish normal friendly human from secret murder machine.
This attention would normally be well and good and the sort of thing he could handle, but Gaius was faced with one big problem. Unintentionally or not, he'd committed Treason with a capital "T," and if anyone ever caught wind of what he did, they would immediately have his head chopped off. His months aboard Galactica were a struggle between appearing helpful and doing what the Commander and President wanted him to do, and not being so helpful that he'd be a target for Cylon assassination-- to the extent that he even sabotaged his own Cylon detection machine so that no unveiled agents would kill him on the spot. Gaius's main goal became self-preservation, and he turned out to be exceptionally good at it. He did what he had to do to survive, and rarely anything more than that.
His troubles were exacerbated by the fact that he was suddenly plagued by (and, in equal measure, treated to) visions of the Six that was his lover back on Caprica. Visions that, although only he could see, were sometimes very tangible in a way that he couldn't quite explain. He made many such attempts to explain the phenomenon -- ranging from "Cylon chip implanted in his brain" to "stress-related manifestation of his unconscious mind" -- but when this so-called vision began to predict events and successfully guide his decisions in a way that mere luck couldn't account for, he gradually came to believe himself to be an instrument of the purportedly Cylon god that the invisible Six claimed to serve as messenger. He continued to follow his Messenger Six's subtle guidance -- and occasionally very forceful guidance when he was feeling particularly blasphemous -- and by someone or something's design, ended up as Vice President of the Colonies.
The position, ostensibly, was to better facilitate his divine role as protector of "a new generation of God's children," the first of which he came to believe was the recently conceived Cylon-human hybrid within the very Fleet. It was mainly just boring work, not worth the few perks-- and certainly not worth the harsh scrutiny of President Roslin, who had started a growing list of reasons not to like him very much. A distraction came in the form of contact with the Pegasus -- another Battlestar that had managed to survive the attack on the Colonies -- and in particular, one of its passengers.
Gina Inviere, a copy of Six, was being kept as a prisoner of war in unimaginably brutal conditions, subjected to torture, abuse, starvation, and much worse. Having totally withdrawn into herself, she offered the Pegasus crew and its admiral, Helena Cain, little more information they wanted, and so Gaius (as the Galactica's Cylon expert) was brought on to succeed where they had failed. Horrified by her condition, he vowed to help her in any way he could -- and after feeding her, clothing her, and treating her with basic human decency, he helped her escape... And sort of let her kill Admiral Cain along the way.
And so Gina was spirited away to a civilian ship, living there in hiding. Gaius attempted to keep his vow, wanting to help her and the pro-peace movement she had joined, but finding it difficult to do so in his quite public role as Vice President. This wasn't helped by the fact that President Roslin was dying -- in the final stages of a cancer that had been growing since before the fall of the Colonies -- and it was looking very likely that he would find himself as President in the weeks to come. That moment came, but not before the President declared (as one of her final presidential orders) that the Cylon-human pregnancy aboard their ship be terminated. Although he tried desperately to reverse her opinion without coming off as too suspicious, he couldn't find a reason compelling enough for her to do so.
Just in time, he found a reason that was compelling enough for Admiral Adama. Going over some lab tests done on the child, Baltar discovered that the fetus's blood had no type, and that it was almost certainly blessed with the same properties that made pure Cylons so resistant to human diseases. It was a long shot, but he theorized that injecting the dying Roslin with the hybrid blood would cure her cancer right on the spot. It certainly couldn't do much worse to her system.
They went through with the procedure, and miraculously the President survived... But not before she witnessed a vision of Baltar on Caprica ages ago -- a dredged up memory from her subconscious -- in the arms of what was unmistakably a Cylon copy of Six. So Roslin lived, the baby lived, but Gaius was now forced to contend with the fact that the President had a very good reason to distrust him very much and was doing so quite openly, and he didn't even really know why. He did know, however, that the letter that was left for him in the event of his ascension to the presidency outlined her lack of faith in him rather well, and so he found himself disliking her quite openly in turn. His most egregious act of rebellion -- and the first truly independent one he'd made -- came when he decided to give Gina Inviere the leverage she and her movement needed.
In the form of a nuclear warhead.
Personality:
Gaius Baltar is a man built on impressions -- it's typically his first impression that's his most flattering one, and people find themselves liking him less and less once they get to really know him -- and his first impression is quite a good one. He's practically epitomizes Caprican culture: he's sophisticated, well-spoken, well-dressed, a genius and innovator in his field of expertise, and he has a lot of money. He's charismatic enough to win the friendship of very important people, and charming enough to ensure his bed was a rotating door through which many attractive women passed. When he eventually becomes Vice President, he does so almost entirely on the strength of his public image -- he's a popular guy with the general populace, and he knows how to use that popularity.
But indeed, it's only an impression. For while he fits the Caprican ideals of humanity to a "T", he's also the model of their highest faults: he's vain, arrogant, and self-absorbed to the point of bordering on the absurd. There's a moment, far from this point in time that he's being taken from, that he's asked if he's ever once done something that didn't serve his own interests-- and he couldn't honestly answer yes. Although ask him that now, and he'd probably give you a dozen weak examples just to prove you wrong.
More than that, much of his outward appearance and personality is a carefully-crafted facade. In truth, Baltar hails not from cultured Caprica, but rural Aerilon-- and he hates being reminded of it more than anything else. He'd gone to the extent of leaving his home and his family behind entirely, training himself out of even speaking like the working class member he was, just so that one day he could live life like the upper-class citizen he wanted to be. And then once he'd experienced fame and fortune and everything he'd spent his life striving towards, he seemed to want to do little more than enjoy himself and the company of his numerous lovers without doing much more of the exceptional work he'd become famous for in the first place.
His faults are magnified on Galactica, with the constant looming threat of a public reveal of his transgressions (and a swift and subsequent execution.) Although he's always been a little high-strung when under pressure, it's generally his other qualities that people notice first. But on a ship full of mostly-strangers, he's gained a reputation for being not a little strange: erratic, nervous, prone to bursts of anger or emotion and periods of sullen silence in between. Even worse, his invisible companion -- the Six that seemingly exists only in his head -- tends to bother him when its least convenient, leading to some very public and very mortifying situations in which he's seen talking (or "responding" very physically) to someone who isn't there. But in the end these quirks are passed off as simple eccentricity. What genius isn't a bit of a weirdo, after all?
What's somewhat more insidious, again, is that self-preservation. Gaius has taken his own survival instincts to extreme lengths, doing whatever he can to stay alive-- and that includes justifying even the worst of his sins to himself and anyone else he needs to justify them to. He's the constant victim, always shifting blame from himself to something or someone else, even when actual physical proof of his faults are laid in front of his eyes. Although he's almost never one to act out of pure, malicious intent -- that requires agency that he's so rarely willing to accept -- his own insane self-interest leads him to frequently act in ways that end up severely screwing over other people. And there's little wrong with that, as far as he's concerned.
Though it would appear otherwise, stress has hardened him somewhat. Although he's far from the steely types in the military, he's started to show a little backbone even to the point of some physical aggression to get what he wants. When push comes to shove, he doesn't totally shy away from making his wants and opinions known, and he even gets rather competitive when his ego is compromised. But ultimately, he remains the sort of person who relies on backhanded methods to get what he wants done-- but for all that, frequently finds himself sort of roughly guided by the invisible hand of fate. Not quite doing anything on purpose, but somehow ending up in the middle of everything anyway.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Despite some possible evidence to the contrary, Baltar’s human through and through, and thus comes with all the strengths and weaknesses his species entails. He’s not as strong or as quick or as dependable as a Cylon (or really even as an average human) but he makes up for it somewhat with a considerable intellect and an astounding capacity for self-preservation. Though it’s unclear whether it’s divine providence, sheer dumb luck, or his own wits that get him out of them, he’s escaped far too many situations that should have, by all rights, spelled certain doom for him. More likely than not, it’s a combination of all three.
Gaius is a scientist, and a pretty damn good one at that. A genius, really. Although his domain on the Galactica encompasses all of “science” in the broadest sense imaginable (mostly by necessity, as there seems to be a distinct lack of specialized scientists in the post-genocide Colonial Fleet) he excels mainly in information technology -- specifically in computer programming and network security -- but he’s quite accomplished in the fields of medicine, biology, and astrophysics as well. To give an idea of his aptitude, he was a three-time prize winning scientist in his field, and was formerly employed by the Colonial Ministry of Defense as their lead systems developer, trusted with designing the navigation program that was used in all ships throughout the Colonial Fleet.
So he has undeniable skill but it’s somewhat cheapened by the fact that, as of late, he really only ever exerts as much effort as he has to. Fame has made him lazy, and he’s perfectly content to slack off on important projects when it pleases him or, in the case of the aforementioned navigation program, let someone else do most of the work for him. Gaius typically prefers to indulge himself in women, cigars, and more women-- though it’s one woman in particular (and a number of her iterations) that he has a special weakness for. That would be the Six copy, the partner in his most recent dalliance of note which directly led to the destruction of the Twelve Colonies.
Needless to say: when Gaius Baltar fucks up, he fucks up on the largest scale imaginable.
Luckily for him, he’s pretty good at appearing otherwise. He’s quite comfortable in the limelight he so often finds himself in and, under normal circumstances, is an exceptional public speaker. But circumstances are rarely normal around him as of late, and the abrupt appearance of a vision of Six that only he can see and interact with has left him a bit of a nervous mess-- caught talking (apparently) to himself, making increasingly odd decisions at the behest of his invisible companion, and just being really paranoid overall. The typical first impression someone has of him is that he’s just eccentric (as people so often like to think of geniuses.)
If only that were it. Truth be told, Gaius is selfish, spineless, and not a little bit neurotic. The fact that people around him have found it increasingly difficult to place their trust in him is entirely because of that.
This one time, he fired a gun and even managed to kill a guy that was (ostensibly) on his side. But. although he's technically capable of shooting at something if he needs to -- and possibly even hitting it! -- he's probably not the first person you want on your side in a firefight.
Inventory: The suit and tie that he generally wears as Vice President (charcoal grey), a couple of sets of clothing (similarly business/business casual), a nearly empty box of Caprican Imperial brand fumarella (basically tobacco) cigars, his glasses (prescription), and a half-filled book of his personal notes and research completed while on Galactica (largely useless here.)
Appearance: It probably doesn't help that most of the other men he's tended to spend his time around are trained soldiers, but Gaius Baltar is not an especially large or imposing figure in comparison to his fellows. Standing at around 5'8" with a rather unremarkable build, he doesn't exactly command a room on his appearance alone.
That being said, he's attractive enough -- a generally snappy dresser with well-defined features and "dreamy hair" -- but it's his personality that pulls most of that weight... For better or for worse. It's a personality that's often very clearly reflected in his facial expressions (mainly those of arrogance, boredom, nervousness, and sometimes straight-up panic) but in his role as Vice President he's managed to smooth all that over when exercising his natural talent for public speech.
He usually only wears the glasses when needed, and not as a rule.
Age: Somewhere in his mid-thirties. 33 works.
AU Clarification: n/a
Your Name: Doc
OOC Journal:
shushuteurUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope!
Email + IM: ornithophobic(at)gmail(dot)com /
Characters Played at Ataraxion: n/a
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Dr. Gaius Baltar
Canon: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Original or Alternate Universe: Canon
Canon Point: Sometime after S02E14 (“Black Market”) but before S02E17 (“The Captain’s Hand”) -- after curing Roslin’s cancer, but before his decision to run for president.
Number: No preference!
Setting: Battlestar Galactica takes place on a fleet of ships constituting the remnants of human society following an attack on their home worlds (known as the Twelve Colonies.) These refugees are chased by their would-be destructors, the robotic Cylons: once servants of man, now their killers.
Although the setting is undeniably "futuristic" (with space travel, faster-than-light drives, and AIs advanced enough to even consider turning on their makers) it's due to the Cylons' affinity for infiltrating computers that much of the technology available to the Fleet is archaic, in order to be incompatible with the Cylons' more advanced interfacing. Most of the ships in the Fleet are dark, dingy, and decidedly unglamorous.
History:
Gaius Baltar hails from the farming planet of Aerilon, the so-called "breadbasket of the Colonies," though hardly anyone left alive would be able to tell looking at him. At an early age, he'd eschewed his blue collar roots in favor of loftier subjects: science, art, culture. And where else could someone find culture but on Caprica, the seat of politics, learning, and everything else that young Gaius aspired to? By his 18th birthday he'd trained himself to speak without the rough Aerilon accent (similar to our Yorkshire accent) and with the far more sophisticated Caprican accent, ensuring that from then on no one would suspect his true origins.
Turning his back on his family and heritage, he set off for Caprica where it can be assumed he completed and excelled in his studies, certainly well enough to win several prizes for his work in information technology and eventually earn himself a position of some prestige as lead defense systems developer at the Ministry of Defense. He flourished in Caprican life, his charisma making him somewhat of a celebrity and even winning him the friendship of people as high up as the President of the Colonies himself.
It was somewhere around then that he'd won the "friendship" of a strikingly beautiful blonde woman, and despite (numerous) flings with other pretty faces, he remained quite taken with her in a way that he'd never really felt about anyone else before. Among the many perks of the relationship was the fact that she was willing to help him rewrite much of his code for the navigation program used in all ships in the Colonial Fleet (a task that he may have been capable of doing himself, but was frankly just too lazy to.) In return, he granted her access to the national defense mainframe, thinking he was doing her a personal favor. Their relationship went on this way for a couple of years but, Gaius being Gaius, he never actually learned her name before everything changed.
Turns out this dream woman of his was, in fact, a robot. An extremely human-looking one -- "Number Six" out of twelve others modeled after the human form -- but a Cylon agent nonetheless and (as he would find out very shortly) he'd played an instrumental part in her mission. The first conflict between man and machine had ended in an uneasy armistice, but the Cylons were back with (putting it mildly) a vengeance, and he had given them their opening. They launched an attack on all Twelve Colonies, exploiting the weaknesses Baltar's Cylon lover had written into Colonial Fleet's navigation programs, and wiped out nearly all of humanity in less than 24 hours. But only "nearly all," thanks to the one military ship with an old-fashioned commander who preferred his Battlestar as outdated and Cylon-unfriendly as possible. This ship -- the Galactica -- and the approximately 50,000 surviving Colonial citizens escaped the destruction, and thus humanity was on the run.
Through some uncannily good luck, Baltar managed to be one of those 50,000 citizens and was immediately (and not a little ironically) recognized as a valuable asset to the human race. Becoming a sort of resident authority on all things science, his expertise was frequently called on by both President Roslin and Commander Adama. When the news broke out that Cylons could now look like humans, his first important project became the development of a procedure to distinguish normal friendly human from secret murder machine.
This attention would normally be well and good and the sort of thing he could handle, but Gaius was faced with one big problem. Unintentionally or not, he'd committed Treason with a capital "T," and if anyone ever caught wind of what he did, they would immediately have his head chopped off. His months aboard Galactica were a struggle between appearing helpful and doing what the Commander and President wanted him to do, and not being so helpful that he'd be a target for Cylon assassination-- to the extent that he even sabotaged his own Cylon detection machine so that no unveiled agents would kill him on the spot. Gaius's main goal became self-preservation, and he turned out to be exceptionally good at it. He did what he had to do to survive, and rarely anything more than that.
His troubles were exacerbated by the fact that he was suddenly plagued by (and, in equal measure, treated to) visions of the Six that was his lover back on Caprica. Visions that, although only he could see, were sometimes very tangible in a way that he couldn't quite explain. He made many such attempts to explain the phenomenon -- ranging from "Cylon chip implanted in his brain" to "stress-related manifestation of his unconscious mind" -- but when this so-called vision began to predict events and successfully guide his decisions in a way that mere luck couldn't account for, he gradually came to believe himself to be an instrument of the purportedly Cylon god that the invisible Six claimed to serve as messenger. He continued to follow his Messenger Six's subtle guidance -- and occasionally very forceful guidance when he was feeling particularly blasphemous -- and by someone or something's design, ended up as Vice President of the Colonies.
The position, ostensibly, was to better facilitate his divine role as protector of "a new generation of God's children," the first of which he came to believe was the recently conceived Cylon-human hybrid within the very Fleet. It was mainly just boring work, not worth the few perks-- and certainly not worth the harsh scrutiny of President Roslin, who had started a growing list of reasons not to like him very much. A distraction came in the form of contact with the Pegasus -- another Battlestar that had managed to survive the attack on the Colonies -- and in particular, one of its passengers.
Gina Inviere, a copy of Six, was being kept as a prisoner of war in unimaginably brutal conditions, subjected to torture, abuse, starvation, and much worse. Having totally withdrawn into herself, she offered the Pegasus crew and its admiral, Helena Cain, little more information they wanted, and so Gaius (as the Galactica's Cylon expert) was brought on to succeed where they had failed. Horrified by her condition, he vowed to help her in any way he could -- and after feeding her, clothing her, and treating her with basic human decency, he helped her escape... And sort of let her kill Admiral Cain along the way.
And so Gina was spirited away to a civilian ship, living there in hiding. Gaius attempted to keep his vow, wanting to help her and the pro-peace movement she had joined, but finding it difficult to do so in his quite public role as Vice President. This wasn't helped by the fact that President Roslin was dying -- in the final stages of a cancer that had been growing since before the fall of the Colonies -- and it was looking very likely that he would find himself as President in the weeks to come. That moment came, but not before the President declared (as one of her final presidential orders) that the Cylon-human pregnancy aboard their ship be terminated. Although he tried desperately to reverse her opinion without coming off as too suspicious, he couldn't find a reason compelling enough for her to do so.
Just in time, he found a reason that was compelling enough for Admiral Adama. Going over some lab tests done on the child, Baltar discovered that the fetus's blood had no type, and that it was almost certainly blessed with the same properties that made pure Cylons so resistant to human diseases. It was a long shot, but he theorized that injecting the dying Roslin with the hybrid blood would cure her cancer right on the spot. It certainly couldn't do much worse to her system.
They went through with the procedure, and miraculously the President survived... But not before she witnessed a vision of Baltar on Caprica ages ago -- a dredged up memory from her subconscious -- in the arms of what was unmistakably a Cylon copy of Six. So Roslin lived, the baby lived, but Gaius was now forced to contend with the fact that the President had a very good reason to distrust him very much and was doing so quite openly, and he didn't even really know why. He did know, however, that the letter that was left for him in the event of his ascension to the presidency outlined her lack of faith in him rather well, and so he found himself disliking her quite openly in turn. His most egregious act of rebellion -- and the first truly independent one he'd made -- came when he decided to give Gina Inviere the leverage she and her movement needed.
In the form of a nuclear warhead.
Personality:
Gaius Baltar is a man built on impressions -- it's typically his first impression that's his most flattering one, and people find themselves liking him less and less once they get to really know him -- and his first impression is quite a good one. He's practically epitomizes Caprican culture: he's sophisticated, well-spoken, well-dressed, a genius and innovator in his field of expertise, and he has a lot of money. He's charismatic enough to win the friendship of very important people, and charming enough to ensure his bed was a rotating door through which many attractive women passed. When he eventually becomes Vice President, he does so almost entirely on the strength of his public image -- he's a popular guy with the general populace, and he knows how to use that popularity.
But indeed, it's only an impression. For while he fits the Caprican ideals of humanity to a "T", he's also the model of their highest faults: he's vain, arrogant, and self-absorbed to the point of bordering on the absurd. There's a moment, far from this point in time that he's being taken from, that he's asked if he's ever once done something that didn't serve his own interests-- and he couldn't honestly answer yes. Although ask him that now, and he'd probably give you a dozen weak examples just to prove you wrong.
More than that, much of his outward appearance and personality is a carefully-crafted facade. In truth, Baltar hails not from cultured Caprica, but rural Aerilon-- and he hates being reminded of it more than anything else. He'd gone to the extent of leaving his home and his family behind entirely, training himself out of even speaking like the working class member he was, just so that one day he could live life like the upper-class citizen he wanted to be. And then once he'd experienced fame and fortune and everything he'd spent his life striving towards, he seemed to want to do little more than enjoy himself and the company of his numerous lovers without doing much more of the exceptional work he'd become famous for in the first place.
His faults are magnified on Galactica, with the constant looming threat of a public reveal of his transgressions (and a swift and subsequent execution.) Although he's always been a little high-strung when under pressure, it's generally his other qualities that people notice first. But on a ship full of mostly-strangers, he's gained a reputation for being not a little strange: erratic, nervous, prone to bursts of anger or emotion and periods of sullen silence in between. Even worse, his invisible companion -- the Six that seemingly exists only in his head -- tends to bother him when its least convenient, leading to some very public and very mortifying situations in which he's seen talking (or "responding" very physically) to someone who isn't there. But in the end these quirks are passed off as simple eccentricity. What genius isn't a bit of a weirdo, after all?
What's somewhat more insidious, again, is that self-preservation. Gaius has taken his own survival instincts to extreme lengths, doing whatever he can to stay alive-- and that includes justifying even the worst of his sins to himself and anyone else he needs to justify them to. He's the constant victim, always shifting blame from himself to something or someone else, even when actual physical proof of his faults are laid in front of his eyes. Although he's almost never one to act out of pure, malicious intent -- that requires agency that he's so rarely willing to accept -- his own insane self-interest leads him to frequently act in ways that end up severely screwing over other people. And there's little wrong with that, as far as he's concerned.
Though it would appear otherwise, stress has hardened him somewhat. Although he's far from the steely types in the military, he's started to show a little backbone even to the point of some physical aggression to get what he wants. When push comes to shove, he doesn't totally shy away from making his wants and opinions known, and he even gets rather competitive when his ego is compromised. But ultimately, he remains the sort of person who relies on backhanded methods to get what he wants done-- but for all that, frequently finds himself sort of roughly guided by the invisible hand of fate. Not quite doing anything on purpose, but somehow ending up in the middle of everything anyway.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
Despite some possible evidence to the contrary, Baltar’s human through and through, and thus comes with all the strengths and weaknesses his species entails. He’s not as strong or as quick or as dependable as a Cylon (or really even as an average human) but he makes up for it somewhat with a considerable intellect and an astounding capacity for self-preservation. Though it’s unclear whether it’s divine providence, sheer dumb luck, or his own wits that get him out of them, he’s escaped far too many situations that should have, by all rights, spelled certain doom for him. More likely than not, it’s a combination of all three.
Gaius is a scientist, and a pretty damn good one at that. A genius, really. Although his domain on the Galactica encompasses all of “science” in the broadest sense imaginable (mostly by necessity, as there seems to be a distinct lack of specialized scientists in the post-genocide Colonial Fleet) he excels mainly in information technology -- specifically in computer programming and network security -- but he’s quite accomplished in the fields of medicine, biology, and astrophysics as well. To give an idea of his aptitude, he was a three-time prize winning scientist in his field, and was formerly employed by the Colonial Ministry of Defense as their lead systems developer, trusted with designing the navigation program that was used in all ships throughout the Colonial Fleet.
So he has undeniable skill but it’s somewhat cheapened by the fact that, as of late, he really only ever exerts as much effort as he has to. Fame has made him lazy, and he’s perfectly content to slack off on important projects when it pleases him or, in the case of the aforementioned navigation program, let someone else do most of the work for him. Gaius typically prefers to indulge himself in women, cigars, and more women-- though it’s one woman in particular (and a number of her iterations) that he has a special weakness for. That would be the Six copy, the partner in his most recent dalliance of note which directly led to the destruction of the Twelve Colonies.
Needless to say: when Gaius Baltar fucks up, he fucks up on the largest scale imaginable.
Luckily for him, he’s pretty good at appearing otherwise. He’s quite comfortable in the limelight he so often finds himself in and, under normal circumstances, is an exceptional public speaker. But circumstances are rarely normal around him as of late, and the abrupt appearance of a vision of Six that only he can see and interact with has left him a bit of a nervous mess-- caught talking (apparently) to himself, making increasingly odd decisions at the behest of his invisible companion, and just being really paranoid overall. The typical first impression someone has of him is that he’s just eccentric (as people so often like to think of geniuses.)
If only that were it. Truth be told, Gaius is selfish, spineless, and not a little bit neurotic. The fact that people around him have found it increasingly difficult to place their trust in him is entirely because of that.
This one time, he fired a gun and even managed to kill a guy that was (ostensibly) on his side. But. although he's technically capable of shooting at something if he needs to -- and possibly even hitting it! -- he's probably not the first person you want on your side in a firefight.
Inventory: The suit and tie that he generally wears as Vice President (charcoal grey), a couple of sets of clothing (similarly business/business casual), a nearly empty box of Caprican Imperial brand fumarella (basically tobacco) cigars, his glasses (prescription), and a half-filled book of his personal notes and research completed while on Galactica (largely useless here.)
Appearance: It probably doesn't help that most of the other men he's tended to spend his time around are trained soldiers, but Gaius Baltar is not an especially large or imposing figure in comparison to his fellows. Standing at around 5'8" with a rather unremarkable build, he doesn't exactly command a room on his appearance alone.
That being said, he's attractive enough -- a generally snappy dresser with well-defined features and "dreamy hair" -- but it's his personality that pulls most of that weight... For better or for worse. It's a personality that's often very clearly reflected in his facial expressions (mainly those of arrogance, boredom, nervousness, and sometimes straight-up panic) but in his role as Vice President he's managed to smooth all that over when exercising his natural talent for public speech.
He usually only wears the glasses when needed, and not as a rule.
Age: Somewhere in his mid-thirties. 33 works.
AU Clarification: n/a
