What are we to make of Gaius Baltar? He’s a bad apple, there’s no mistaking it: selfish, egocentric, and vain. He’s a slave to his own worst instincts, willing to do anything that serves his interests. If the destruction of the Colonies and the death of billions of innocents bothered him at all, it scarcely showed, as his primary concern was that he not be blamed for any part in it. He’ll accuse one man of being a Cylon with no evidence, condemn a possibly innocent man to death, but conceal the discovery that a trusted member of the crew actually is a Cylon, if it means increasing his own chances of survival.

But is he really all bad?

Baltar was the winner of three Magnate Awards, a media cult figure, and a personal friend of President Adar. Working as a top consultant for the Ministry of defense on computer issues, and known for espousing controversial views on advancing computer technology, Baltar was instrumental in the creation of the Command Navigation Program (CNP), an automated system integrated into the navigational systems of all Colonial ships.

That’s where the problems started, of course. It seemed the CNP was a bit beyond Baltar’s abilities. Luckily, he was sharing his bed with a woman well versed in programming, who offered to rewrite half the algorithms and help get the program up and running. All she asked in return was for Baltar to use his connections to grant her unlimited access to the Ministry of defense mainframe,  …