In the ''Battlestar Galactica'' remake series, is the current President of the
Twelve Colonies Of Kobol , as well as a brilliant scientist who is a key player in the Twelve Colonies' defense research. At the onset of the miniseries,
Baltar is involved in an intense sexual relationship with a beautiful blonde woman. Believing the woman to be an employee of a rival computer corporation, Baltar slips to his lover certain computer secrets from his defense work. The woman (known as "
Number Six ") reveals to Baltar that she is in fact an advanced version of Cylon, and that the Cylons will use the computer secrets that Baltar has given her to infiltrate the Colonial defense systems, disable the Colonial military and attack the Twelve Colonies. That day the Cylons launched their attack and destroyed most of humanity.
Having thus recklessly (although unintentionally) brought about the near-annihilation of the human species, Baltar manages to flee Caprica (
Helo gives up his position on the ship to save Baltar), finding refuge with the Galactica and its refugee fleet of civilian ships. There Baltar endears himself to Laura Roslin, the new President of the remnants of the Twelve Colonies, while nonetheless continuing to look out for his own interests above all else -- particularly his interest in preventing knowledge of his role in the genocide of humanity from being revealed.
Baltar is haunted by visions of Number Six, with whom he converses often. It is intentionally left ambiguous whether these visions are the product of a computer chip that Number Six implanted in Baltar's brain while they were together on Caprica (the explanation originally given by a Number Six vision, but which she later refutes); or whether the visions are a manifestation of Baltar's own mind, as Baltar grows insane from the guilt that he feels over his unwitting role in the genocide of humanity.
The vision of Number Six manipulates Baltar through his fear of anyone discovering his betrayal -- such manipulation may represent the Cylons influencing Baltar to work to their ends, or it may represent Baltar's own subconscious desperately seeking to avoid a discovery of his role in the Cylon attack.
In a twist of events, Baltar was later voted in as Roslin's Vice President. In the second season episode "Home, Part II" Baltar underwent a brain scan similar to an
MRI which revealed no sign of a computer chip or any other foreign object in Baltar's brain. While this briefly led Baltar to think that he had truly gone insane, he then realized that the vision of Number Six he sees could not possibly be a hallucination generated by his subconscious mind, because she is aware of facts that his own mind could not possibly know. Number Six told Baltar that the first Human/Cylon Hybrid would be born in the ship's brig, and soon after the
Caprica n version of the Cylon
Sharon Valerii (pregnant with the human
Karl Agathon 's child) was imprisoned in it. When Baltar confronted Six with this, she admited that she was neither a computer chip ''nor'' a hallucination produced by mental instability. When Baltar then asked just who or what she was, she simply replied that she was "an angel of God sent here to protect you, to guide you and to love you."
Recently, Baltar's relationship with Six was troubled by the appearance of Gina, another Six copy who had been posing as a maintenance worker on the
Battlestar ''
Pegasus ''. After discovering Gina, who had been repeatedly tortured and raped by ''Pegasus'' crewmembers, Baltar grew fond of her, making the illusory Six rather jealous. He eventually helped Gina escape from the ''Pegasus'' and arranges a place for her safety. Gina later forms a
Pacifist movement within the fleet, though it is noteworthy their methods are not always peaceful, and Baltar is initially reluctant to support the organization despite his affections for her. Later however, after saving President Roslin from terminal cancer, he reads the letter (a custom performed by all presidents, written to their successors) she had left for him to be opened upon her death which notes his "selfish nature" and asks that he overcome it for the well-being of the fleet. Angered by this, he gives Gina and the movement the nuclear bomb Adama afforded him in an earlier episode, which Gina later detonates amidst the fleet to inform the Cylons of the location of New Caprica.
In the episode ''Downloaded'', we discover that the Number Six model that seduced Baltar and was destroyed saving him from consequences of a nuclear blast ended up downloaded into a new body. She retained her sentimentality and expressed some regret at her actions, as evidenced by her constant visions of Baltar. This Baltar plays a similar role to her that the virtual Six plays towards the real Baltar, as a critical counselor.
Having been offended by Roslin's letter, and encouraged by both his visions of Number Six and by political firebrand and outspoken Roslin-critic (and Baltar's former opponent in the race for Vice President)
Tom Zarek , Baltar announced his intention to run against incumbent
Laura Roslin for the presidency. He did this by surprising both her and the press at a press conference after Roslin announced a moratorium on
Abortion . Baltar hijacked the conference, establishing himself as a candidate and as a pro-choice alternative to Roslin.
Baltar, with Zarek as his close political advisor, proceeded to run a bitterly contentious campaign against Roslin. During most of the election, however, he was losing ground to Roslin, and was only able to score political victories by painting her as a dangerous religious fundamentalist. With little time remaining before the election, however, a desolate but
Habitable Planet was accidentally discovered in a region of space where heavy electromagnetic interference made navigation and long-range observation very difficult. Baltar, although he had no personal desire to settle on the planet, announced that he would begin immediate civilian settlement of "
New Caprica " if elected. The election promptly swung in his favor and, after an attempted conspiracy to commit voting fraud failed to keep Roslin in power, Baltar was sworn in as president.
Just prior to his inauguration, Baltar visited Gina, who made love to him for the first time (she had previously refused physical intimacy, having suffered severe emotional and physical scarring from being repeatedly raped aboard the
Battlestar Pegasus ). During the inauguration itself, she detonated the nuclear warhead that Baltar had given her, destroying the luxury liner Cloud Nine and killing herself in the process.
Following this apparent act of Cylon nuclear terrorism, Adama urged Baltar to immediately focus on internal security and investigate how a Cylon agent could have carried out the bombing. Baltar refuses, however, and stubbornly proceeds with plans for settlement.
Baltar remained in office for at least one year, but his feelings of guilt (or possibly just his fear of being discovered) regarding his involvement in both the fall of the colonies and Gina's suicide bombing, combined with the stress of the presidency, have led him to substance abuse and womanizing, which he does not hide from his aide
Felix Gaeta . Life on New Caprica has turned out to be extremely difficult, with the civilian population living in extremely rough conditions, and shortages of basic supplies like antibiotics persisting. In addition, Baltar's government is in the midst of a major labor dispute with a Union led by
Galen Tyrol , who is advocating a strike for workers' rights. Baltar indicates to Gaeta that he may be willing to jail Union organizers if the labor disputes continue.
The political difficulties faced by Baltar's administration are soon made irrelevant, however, when a Cylon fleet arrives in orbit of New Caprica. The remaining military fleet, which has been operating using skeleton crews, jumps away, leaving New Caprica to be occupied by the Cylons. A Cylon delegation, which includes the reborn versions of both the Number Six who had originally seduced Baltar and the
Sharon Valerii who was originally stationed on Galactica (now apparently leaders of the Cylons), lands in the human settlement and accepts Baltar's surrender.
