As his trial proceeds, Baltar's first lawyer is killed in an explosion aboard a sabotaged Raptor. His second attorney, Romo Lampkin, survives a similar attempt on his life. Lee Adama (now Lampkin's security adjutant) then joins Baltar's defense team.
In the book, Baltar attempts to explain his actions as President to the public and foment class warfare by describing the fleet as a bifurcated society, accusing the elite upper class of militarism and professional civilians of exploiting the less well-educated working class.
The original telefilm novelization tells a different story, where Baltar is a rare items dealer who had grown wealthy from his business dealings, and whose title of Count had been self-proclaimed.
In the episode "The Hand of God", Baltar successfully helps the fleet destroy a Cylon mining base on an asteroid with badly needed tylium ores for fuelling the fleet. The planners of the attack ask Baltar to point out where the best target for a bomb run is on a recon photo, even though he has no idea what it looks like.
As his trial proceeds, Baltar's first lawyer is killed in an explosion aboard a sabotaged Raptor. His second attorney, Romo Lampkin, survives a similar attempt on his life. Lee Adama (now Lampkin's security adjutant) then joins Baltar's defense team.
In the episode " Collaborators ", we find Baltar living on a Cylon Basestar in a barless cell. Caprica-Six informs Baltar she has had a change of heart about him and has let her feelings for him cloud her judgment, presumably ending their relationship. However, by the end of the episode, it is indicated she has cast the tie-breaking vote amongst the Cylons to allow Baltar to remain alive aboard the Cylon Basestar, though it is clear they remain estranged. Over time, Baltar becomes accustomed to his new environment. Once Baltar learns that no one knows what the "Final Five" Cylons look like, he begins to suspect that he himself may be a Cylon. He admits however that this is wishful thinking on his part, because of his desire to have all his 'sins' forgiven and become a hero to another people.
Meanwhile, the real-life Six disappears from Galactica and is nowhere to be found. In the episode "The Hand of God", Baltar successfully helps the fleet destroy a Cylon mining base on an asteroid with badly needed tylium ores for fuelling the fleet.
The defense team uses the very end of the trial to try to persuade the jury that Baltar is guilty only of being a scapegoat for the Cylon occupation. Lee Adama also mentions the fleet has forgiven numerous other persons for their mistakes because they have had to in order to ensure their survival.
Head Six tells him it wasn't her job to put it in there. Baltar realizes there is a Cylon on board Galactica, but knows he cannot reveal that information, or indicate the device is not a part of the ship without implicating himself in the destruction of the Colonies.
Gaius Baltar claims to be from the colony of Aerilon, and that at the age of ten, finding the Aerilonian dialect to be detrimental to his career dreams, he trained himself to speak the Caprican dialect in hopes of one day being considered a citizen of one of the more respected and wealthy colonies such as Caprica.
Having unintentionally brought about the near-annihilation of the human species, Baltar flees Caprica when Karl Agathon gives up his place on a Raptor, feeling that his own life is less important to save than a famed scientist's. The Raptor returns to the Galactica, where Baltar attempts to endear himself to Laura Roslin, the new President of the remnants of the Twelve Colonies, and hopes to conceal his involvement in the genocide that has taken place.
Towards the last years of the Thousand Yahren War between the Cylons and the Twelve Colonies of Man, Council-of-Twelve member Baltar acts as a liaison between the Twelve Colonies and the Cylons, and arranges for a peace conference that will bring an end to the war, with the Cylons conceding defeat. This is a ruse, Baltar makes a deal with the Imperious Leader of the Cylons: Baltar will conduct the peace conference to distract the Colonials while the Cylons orchestrate a massive attack on the Colonial military and the Twelve Colonies. In return, the Imperious Leader promises Baltar that his home colony will be spared and Baltar will be installed as its dictator. The Imperious Leader goes back on his word, and destroys all twelve Colonies in the attack.
The Imperious Leader sentences Baltar to death. In the original theatrical version, Baltar is decapitated by a Cylon. In television screening, the scene was reshot to the Imperious Leader ordering Baltar be taken away for public execution. Shortly after the Imperious Leader is destroyed when the planet Carillon explodes.
In exchange, Adama agrees to maroon Baltar with sufficient equipment and supplies to allow him to live on the first habitable planet that the Fleet passes on its journey; Adama also reluctantly gives Baltar equipment for "short-range communications" so that he has "some hope of eventual rescue".
In the final episode of the series, "The Hand of God ", Baltar makes a deal with Adama. Baltar provides the Colonials with technical information on Cylon basestars, which Apollo and Starbuck use to render a wayward Cylon basestar "blind" to the Galactica, which then destroys it.
In the Marvel Comics run from 1978–80, Baltar was executed by the Cylons as seen in the treasury sized edition. In the 1990s, Baltar appears in the Maximum Press comic book series, still pursuing the Galactica, after having been freed by Commander Adama in exchange for bartering his knowledge of the Cylons.
The Imperious Leader installs Baltar as the commander of a Cylon basestar, with an "IL-series" Cylon named Lucifer (body by Felix Silla, voice by Jonathan Harris) as Baltar's second in command. Baltar makes it his personal quest to vanquish his rival, Commander Adama, and destroy the Galactica and its fleet.
Colonials / Cylons. Count Baltar is a leading antagonist in the original Battlestar Galactica (1978) television series. The character betrays the human race to its enemy, the robot race of Cylons. He was portrayed by Canadian actor John Colicos .