Is Baltar hallucinating his vision of Six after his escape from Caprica, or is she real, somehow? Watching the season 2 finale and now catching up on the mini-series has given me insights that I don’t know I’d have had, had I seen it in broadcast order. I will, however, approach the issue from within the standard chronology.
I propose that Six is an expression of Baltar’s conscience.
Recall that Baltar last sees in-the-flesh Six at his home on Caprica. She reveals that she can’t die, but will be transported away and reawaken in a new body. He panics, says he doesn’t want to die – and she shields him from a blast with her body. Presumably the blast destroyed her and Baltar escaped. But just before he boards the Raptor thanks to Helo, he sees her briefly in the crowd.
He’s confused, he knows she is dead, and she vanishes immediately after. He next sees her while on board the Raptor, but doesn’t really talk to her until he sees her aboard Colonial-1. There, she proposes that she could have put a chip in his brain; he dismisses that as his own attempt at rationalizing away his vision of her. However that scene is critical because only after that point does he begin to treat her as real. He takes her seriously, answers her questions, asks her questions, and engages her in dialouge (as well as his fantasies).
But she never reveals anything that Baltar doesn’t himself know. The strange device, the identity of the cylon aboard the ship – she shrugs and simply says “not my mission” but that’s accepted too easily by Baltar. After all, were it really Six, she could have told Baltar what her device was that she carried on Caprica, to help him figure out the purpose of the one aboard Galactica. And presumably copies of Leoben were indeed “at the meetings”. Afer all, with only twelve models, a common model like Leoben is pretty hard to miss.
In fact Six never really serves a purpose other than to tweak Baltar – weoo, she also fulfills his fantasies, and provides him an escape – but ultimately she is the voice on his shoulder, his own vast intellect refracted through another perspective to give Baltar insights he wouldn’t have otherwise had.
The big question is, what about the Baby? Since I haven’t see the episodes where Sharon’s pregnancy is revealed, I can’t comment. Let’s see if my theory holds up by the time I follow the Galactica crew to Kobol.
But what we do know is that the real Six doesn’t know anything about her ghost-self. She awakes on the Cylon homeworld, moves to Cylon-ocupied Caprica – and has visions of Baltar. Baltar is her conscience, about the extermination of the human race – which we saw in the min-series, she does have a genuine feeling towards. After all, she “mercy killed” a human baby in the mini series, knowing full well that death would be far worse later. And we know for sure that Baltar didn’t implant a chip in her mind, since her physical body was obliterated on Caprica.
They are each other’s consciences.. a fascinating parallel. I think it’s because they have a true bond. Of love.
And in the last five minutes of season 2, they are re-united again. Season 3 will be interesting indeed.
I think everyone is looking forward to four-way conversations with only two people in the room, both of whom are trying desperately to pretend that they’re sane. And what happens when Baltar gets jealous of… Baltar?
I’m not convinced Six is merely an extension of Baltar’s conscience. Did she tell him that “their” baby would be born in a certain room before Baltar even knew Sharon was pregnant? Of course, I could be remembering the sequence of events incorrectly. Maybe there’s a deeper connection created by their feelings for each other.
Will there be a four-way conversation? The last we see of Imaginary Six is just before the colonials settle on New Caprica, and Baltar’s Presidential orgies suggest that he is trying to fill a void left by the Pegasus-Six’s suicide (Imaginary Six was kind of jealous…). I have no idea whether Imaginary Baltar continued to appear to Caprica Six after she embarked on her divine mission.
It certainly is possible that Imaginary Six will re-appear now to Baltar after a long absence, triggered by the return of Caprica Six (which is doubtlessly confusing to poor Baltar’s psyche, since he’s assumed that Imaginary Six was Caprica Six and now clearly will realize that the two are very divergent. For example, Caprica Six knows nothing about the half-breed Cylon/human baby).
So if Imaginary Six reappears, then there’s no reason for Imaginary Baltar to NOT reappear… so I think that you’re could be right HC. We may likely see all four in a room at some point. At least it would be cool enough a concept that the rationale could be justified as above. However there is also no reason that Imaginary Baltar and Six need to exist anymore either and that Caprica Six and Baltar might just move on together without their (literal) emotional baggage.
I guess we will find out in the first five minutes of Season 3 🙂
Quorlox – I’ll keep an eye out for that plot point. I’ve only just finished the mini-series and so have a long way to go yet. But my impressions thus far are really just shaped by what I’ve seen to date. It’s entirely possible (and probable) that I’ll have to revise them as I continue.
Imaginary Six reappears to Baltar just before the Cylons arrive, telling him that the day of judgment is at hand. He looks up, and she’s sitting in his chair. Check the final episode again.
I do agree that she’s probably been absent for a year, but she’s definitely not gone.
The question of how much Baltar’s Six knows about the baby is a tricky one – I do not think she manifests any knowledge conclusively beyond his own knowledge, deduction, or hallucination.
It is tricky. Since we don’t get to see all of his visions of Six, we don’t know everything she says; some of it could be wrong. And we also don’t know how much Six told Baltar when they were dating; maybe some of his visions are based on what she said. Seeing all four of them in the same room would be cool, especially if the imaginary versions don’t like the real versions. 😀