We witness it every week, as part of the open credits: Caprica six stands in Baltar’s house on the lake, and Baltar is hunched in front of her as the blast blows the house to bits. It’s a lovely, powerful shot. But maybe it’s there for a reason, and not just to recap the attacks.
I think Baltar died in the blast. I think he was somehow resurrected and Cylonified, like Starbuck was went her Viper blew up.
I also think that Roslin’s hylon blood transfusion partially cylonified her.
Somehow, that may be why Baltar, Starbuck, and Roslin have all had vision experiences. Though it doesn’t explain Caprica Six’s Head characters.
Anywho, what do you think? DID the fragile body of Gaius Baltar survive?
I’m going to say he did coz he doesnt he doesnt seem to have a gap in him memory and there wasnt much time to downloaded or watever in the amount of time he spent on Caprica. When he wanted to be a cylon he didnt question how he survived the original attack.
Mate, you know you are preaching to the choir as far as I am concerned!
Gaius Frakkin’ Baltar was most definitely killed in the nuclear explosion which occurred near his lakeside home.
It was not just some ‘dust storm’ or even tornado strength winds which hit him. It was a blast wave. If you are that close, and it moves that fast (several km across the lake/bay in about one second) then frail human flesh (even that ‘covered’ by Six’s tasty flesh) does not survive.
All subsequent considerations, such as how, where, how long later, with what memory, etc, etc, that Baltar ‘came back’ to us are interesting and speculative, but not really relevant.
With you 100% on this.
I also think that Roslin’s hylon blood transfusion partially cylonified her. Somehow, that may be why Baltar, Starbuck, and Roslin have all had vision experiences.
As good an explanation as any.
Though it doesn’t explain Caprica Six’s Head characters.
This is a whole separate issue. Maybe a poll thread for these would be in order?
I’m with you on this one. As I’ve argued elsewhere, I think Baltar is the progenitor of the seven cylons we first encountered. He may be the final one of the final five cylons, but I now think this is unlikely. However, I think he’s either a 13th cylon or something else entirely. I agree with another argument on the forum recently that he has (for whatever reason) made himself “take human form”, and hidden his nature from himself. Head Six (and thus Head Baltar) are constructs he created to guide him when he needed assistance. In the end, I think Baltar is to all intents and purposes the Cylon God, or a manifestation of it. I think this can all be explained “scientifically” - cylon-type technology from a previous cycle. He may be from the same place as the final five (he still may be the fifth), who are from the last cycle. Maybe he’s from a cylce prior to that.
If Baltar created the Seven, he would have set up a construct of himself to guide some or all of them when they needed guidance to serve his ultimate purpose (which would explain Head Baltar appearing to Caprica Six, mirroring Head Baltar). He seems to favour Six (and who wouldn’t - if the original god-Baltar had a penchent for good looking women it would explain why his character is such a lothario and why all the female skinjobs are as they are, in contrast to the male skinjobs (according to certain female fans…).
Again, I like the idea of Baltar being the Cylon God - his current role is pretty messianic (in broad terms if not the detail), and Head Baltar would then be a analogous to some sort of holy spirit - the Holy Trinity of Gaius Frakkin’ Baltar.
Question is, which “Baltar” do we see in that scene? If we are to assume that the “head” Baltar wears at least the pinstripe suit, then it is “head” Baltar we see in a couple of scenes in the miniseries, and not Baltar. I believe we are seeing more than one Baltar in the miniseries. Which one when is the question. In fact, if I remember correctly it is the pinstripe-suited, or “head Baltar” that Roslin remembers seeing with Caprica Six in one of her relapses. How do we explain that?
this has always been a problem for me. Six is hot and strong and her back glows when doing the nasty…but she aint gonna protect you from a house going ker-flueey around you. Forget that it was brought on by a nuclear blast. Just the house itself going ker-flooey…you’re gonna at least needa band aid
Ahh-haaaaa. Not sure if I buy into that, but that’s the first time I’ve considered such a possibility, and I’ll continue to mull it over. Regardless, good points. Welcome aboard.
ummmm. go through the Ron Moore commentary on the episode where Head-Baltar is introduced. He was a whim. Just consider there’s an explanation as to why there can be a Head-Baltar, but we may well not see him again. I wouldn’t read into Head Baltar more than what it could say for Baltar’s psyche and/or nature.
I also thought the point was that he is behind Caprica 6 and that she ‘shielded’ him from the blast.
I listened to that Moore podcast, and here’s what I read between the lines: There is some kind of explanation of the Head Characters coming. And for no real reason, I took that as further evidence that the Head Characters are more than part of their subjects’ psyche. Previously, I was closer to believe the part-of-their-own-psyche theory, but I refuse to believe it’s coincidence that Caprica Six has a Head Baltar, and Baltar has a Head Six (and now a Head Baltar).
Tying in with that, I think – think – that Caprica and Head Baltar somehow merged or got mixed up when they uploaded after the blast.
After the last RDM podcast I think you might be right that we’ll get some real explanation of the Head Characters, but I also think that he was hinting pretty heavily that Head Baltar was a diversion he allowed into the show as a red herring to have fun with and throw us off.
One could say that Head Baltar appears as Caprica Six remembers the real Baltar. Head Baltar is smart, collect and sly and I think that’s better manifested in a suit than his terry cloth robe or something.
I don’t know if Caprica Six ever wore a red dress before the attacks , but since Baltar saw her as a sex object I am not surprised Head Six appears in that slutty red thing.
About Baltar dying, correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t the novelization of the miniseries talk about Baltar waking up after the explosion? And that book is considered canon isn’t it?
(I was going to read it but I heard it added very little to the miniseries itself so I could be way off base)
We don’t really have any clear notion as to how close the actual explosion was. A nuclear detonation is
BRIGHT
, at least as bright as the surface of the sun. A light that intense could be seen for miles, even outside the “kill zone” radius of the blast. Human eyes would never be able to gauge distance from it with any real amount of accuracy. And while the blast wave is as powerful as you said it is, its destructive potential decreases dramatically the further one is from ground zero. If it’s far enough away, there’s basically just hot wind. We see the window shatter; the house doesn’t burst into flames or get ripped from its foundations. Tasty flesh can easily protect a fragile human body from broken glass.
Hi there 3-3. Nice to have you on board. But straight off, I must disagree with you…
As is pointed out in this thread Head! Baltar was not introduced until much later, but even more importantly, he is introduced in an arbitrary manner, (RDM mentions this in a podcast, and I think perhaps Jane Espenson in her blog.) as in “Hey, that’s a cool idea.” There was no intention at the time of the mini-series for a Head! Baltar to exist. This would be a massive retcon if the Baltar we see hiding behind Six turns out to be a Head! character.
Further, even if it was a Head! character we see, psychologically, would the Head! Baltar we come to know later cringe and cower behind a woman in the face of danger? Would this be in line with the Head!'s later-disclosed personality?
The blast wave covers kilometres in a second. That’s way supersonic. Which means… pretty close. Just a few k’s away from ground zero. Even if there is no pyroclastic-like fireball the kinetic energy of the wave would simply flatten just about any normal structure. What we see in the less than half second or so after the wave hits the house is just the vanguard of the main wave. But even in the tiny fraction there is plenty of destruction. More than flesh and blood could take.
BTW, maybe I’m ‘retconning’ in my own mind, but I seem to recall a flash immediately before the blast wave. This should be easy enough for someone with the mini-series on hand to verify.
I know we agree on quite a few things RMHPH, but I guess this won’t be one of them…
It should be possible to determine the distance to the blast by comparing the difference in arrival times of the flash and the blast wave (just like determining how far away a storm is based on the time it takes thunder to arrive after seeing lighting).
If the blast wave is travelling at several km/s the explosion was a good distance away because there was a sizeable delay between seeing the flash and the blast arriving.
Once the distance is determined (and we’d need to know the speed at which the blast travels) we’d still need to know the size of the weapon involved to assertain if Baltar was likely to survive.
Apparently, it’s more complicated than what I described because the speed of the blast wave is not constant according to the Federation of American Scientists.
As it expands, the peak pressures of the blast wave diminish and the speed of propagation decreases from the initial supersonic velocity to that of sound in the transmitting medium. However, upon reflection from the earth’s surface, the pressure in the wave will be reinforced by the fusion of the incident and the reflected wave (the Mach effect) described below.
A large part of the destruction caused by a nuclear explosion is due to blast effects. Objects within the path of the blast wave are subjected to severe, sharp increases in atmospheric pressure and to extraordinarily severe transient winds. Most buildings, with the exception of reinforced or blast- resistant structures, will suffer moderate to severe damage when subjected to overpressures of only 35.5 kiloPascals (kPa) (0.35 Atm). The velocity of the accompanying blast wind may exceed several hundred km/hr. Most materiel targets are drag- or wind-sensitive.
The range for blast effects increases significantly with the explosive yield of the weapon. In a typical air burst, these values of overpressure and wind velocity noted above will prevail at a range of 0.7 km for 1 kiloton (Kt) yield; 3.2 km for 100Kt; and 15.0 km for 10 Mt.
During the time the blast wave is passing through the superheated atmosphere in the fireball, it travels at supersonic velocities. After it leaves the vicinity of the fireball, it slows down to the normal speed of sound in the atmosphere. As long as the blast wave is expanding radially, its intensity decreases approximately as the square of the distance. When the expanding blast wave from a nuclear air burst strikes the surface of the earth, however, it is reflected, and the reflected wave reinforces and intensifies the primary wave.
You know, this question has long bothered me…did Gaius survive the blast or did he somehow fuse with Six in the blast?
My answer is no…there was no fusing. Here is my logic:
When a Cylon ressurects their conciousness, not their physical body gets placed in a new body. If a Cylon gets shot they don’t ressurect with a bullet hole in their body. The same reasoning can be applied to Six and Baltar…if a nuclear blast impacted them, even if they were somehow intermingled it would not cause the resurrecting Six to somehow have some Baltar in her (IYKWIM)
Assuming Baltar is not a Cylon, there were no convienent Baltar template bodies lying around for him to download into.
Assuming Baltar is a Cylon, there was no ressurection hub on Caprica. You ressurect on a basestar or the Ressurection ship. It doesn’t stand to reason that he would ressurect on one of those ships and then be shuttled back to the surface just to be shuttled off again
When Baltar approaches the Raptor he is wounded. A ressurected Baltar would not be wounded.
The only argument I can quasi agree to is the reverse argument…that with the blast bits of Six’s wet-ware (stop it GR) got fused into the body of Baltar. A long shot and a little too hokey for this show methinks.
Like what? I don’t have access to the video at the moment, but as I recall it, all we ever see is the (admittedly huge) window shatter inward.
More than flesh and blood could take.
Arguably, Six isn’t necessarily made of either. If they “have a plan” for Baltar, it’s possible that that particular Six who was sent to protect him was, shall we say, made of sterner stuff. A stretch, I’ll grant, but not impossible.
BTW, maybe I’m ‘retconning’ in my own mind, but I seem to recall a flash immediately before the blast wave. This should be easy enough for someone with the mini-series on hand to verify.
You may well be right, although you need to keep in mind that cool CGI does not necessarily equal scientifically verifiable evidence.
I know we agree on quite a few things RMHPH, but I guess this won’t be one of them…
I think – again, think – that Baltar and Caprica Six’s programming somehow went wonky because of the nuclear blast, and fused somehow. Like, some of her code/signal/whatever got mixed up with his. And I know nothing about physics, so I have no further evidence for an argument or material for an analogy.
And, yes, there probably wasn’t a Baltar body or resurrection hub handy. And, yes, Baltar was wounded when he found Helo’s shuttle. Before the return of Starbuck, I never seriously thought that Baltar hadn’t survived.
BUT Starbuck and her viper seemed to pretty clearly blow up. Then she returns, new viper, same tattoo. I don’t know how it works, but I think something out there can do some kind of resurrection/recreation juju. How long WAS Baltar unaccounted for between the blast at the lake house and the shuttle?
I dunno.
Reading assigment: Let’s rewatch the blast sequence in the mini series, see what we see.
