Well - she didn’t crush the baby’s head - she broke its neck. I interpreted her action as being merciful - giving the baby an instantaneous (assumably painless) death, versus dying in the imminent destruction of the planet.
I think this plays into the theme that no one is completely evil or completely good - she (while being a Cylon and bent on destroying humans) has moments of compassion - and we later see that she changes her outlook on the whole destroying the human race deal too.
According to the Wiki, the phrase was coined by Balter. As in the “final five humanoid Cylons to be revealed”. The Cylons just called them The Five.
I have no doubt a ton of shit was made up as they went along. Since it’s like, a made-up sci fi tv show and not based on actual events.
But Earth0 is not our Earth. I don’t care what you think you “know” about what the writers intended. The story, as told to us, is that Starbuck leads them to Earth0. Presumably, so the humans and Cylons can see for themselves the whole “this has happened before” lesson. ie "don’t built intelligent machines / artificial life and then shit all over them.
And we don’t “happen to call it Earth”. We call it “Earth” because the 12 Colonists landed here after finding the real Earth all fucked up and said “Frack it. THIS is now Earth.”
I’m not sure what Baltar actually “deserved”. He was an arrogant, cowardly, selfish, manipulative, womanizing jerk. But he certainly never set out to destroy the 12 Colonies. He was mostly manipulated and duped by Caprica Six. Why would he assume she was a Cylon? The last time they saw them was like 40 years ago and they looked like chrome toasters. And he was a shitty vichy governor of New Caprica. Everything he did was out of self preservation, not mallice. But as Apollo said during his trial, at some point they all made shitty, cowardly choices in the name of self preservation.
From a character development standpoint, it’s probably a lot more satisfying to have Baltar actually do something selfless like going on the suicide mission to rescue Hera.
I think at this point they felt one way or another, they were done running through the galaxy.
Plus the Galactica was fucked. I’m sure the other ships weren’t much better off. That tech was going away regardless. Better to safely dispose of it in the sun than to have it in orbit waiting to drop out of the sky in a thousand years.
And how did Kara Thrace get the call sign “Starbuck”? Did she really like coffee on Caprica? or Hermen Melville?
Possibly. But it just feels like a bit of a fanwank. It’s hard to interpret wantonly killing a baby as anything but “fuck you humans!” Or that it was accidental and due to her freakish Cylon strength.
And as I mentioned, it seems like the last thing you want to do while you are undercover on a secret mission.
I have to go all Chronos on this one and thing that they originally wrote Six to be this calculating, evil robotic ice queen but then made her into a much more complex and sympathetic character.
Yet it would have been nice to have lights, running water and heat for the ol’ log cabin. Maybe a bulldozer and an upright freezer…
I liked that scene. It’s “all of the above” to me. She was genuinely fascinated by the tiny human infant, since her kind come fully formed. She wanted to know how much pressure would snap its neck, and she was being merciful, since the attack was moments away. It was an efficient use of a few spare moments.