That’s a matter of interpretation. I disagree, but we’re both entitled to ours.
Again, I disagree (partially) with that. Baltar’s higher up than Gaeta, both positionally and with the cylons. And Baltar is winning no prizes here, by the way. I believe Baltar when he says he knew what Gaeta was doing, and let him. Which makes him even worse, because if he knew what Gaeta was doing, then why the fuck (or frak, I suppose) didn’t he warn him about the 8-with issues? There’s no way Baltar doesn’t have the upper hand in that conversation. All he has to do is tell Gaeta that he’ll turn him in, if Gaeta does anything to harm Baltar. He’s got D’anna and Caprica 6 in his corner, so it’s a fight he’d win.
All interpretation differences, really. To my mind, intent matters. Gaeta was trying to save as many lives as he could. It’s reasonable on the face of it “I’m spying on the cylons, so why shouldn’t she be doing it too?” He knew Boomer, he knows Athena; it isn’t without precedent. And Felix is brilliant, but not big with the people skills, I think. (Roslin would’ve seen through this in three seconds, but then this is why Roslin kicks everyone’s ass on the show.) He was wrong, and a total idiot, and the family members of the people on the list would be right to hate him. But I don’t think he’s weak or pathetic, he’s not irredeemable, and he did much more good than harm on New Caprica.
Gaius Baltar is a narcissistic, despicable little man with delusions of messiah-hood. He’s not the hero of this story. Saying “Gaius Baltar is worse than Gaeta” is damning Gaeta with faint praise.
He already answered that: he had a gun to his head, literally. By the time he knew what was going on, he was powerless to stop it anyway. He had much less latitude than Gaeta, being quite under the thumb of the Cylons when Gaeta was running around with his Eight playing spy games.
Now I don’t even know what you’re talking about anymore, honestly. What fight? There was no fight. Baltar didn’t even threaten to tell anyone. His whole point was, you sit there in judgment of me, all self-righteous, but you’re just as bad as I am, Felix. Gaeta didn’t want to hear that. In his mind, he’s noble, he was tricked, it’s not his fault. Baltar knew that wasn’t true, that Gaeta could have known what was going on but chose not to, and that makes him a collaborator too. Rather than face the reality of his own nature and consequences of his choices, he stabbed Baltar in the neck.
I never said he was irredeemable, nor that his intentions weren’t good, but the road to hell is paved with those intentions. I stand by weak and pathetic. He most definitely was weak in his dealing with the Eight and the self-delusion he engaged in. His behavior on the shuttle was the same exact behavior he exhibited on New Caprica. Nothing noble or brave about it, just a weak person in denial, blinded by foolish hope. So no, he’s not evil, but he’s not a sterling example of great integrity either.
ETA: simster, in the webisodes, Baltar did say the words you bolded to Gaeta, which is when Gaeta stabbed him in the neck.
We’re clearly talking across each other (we see the timing of all this differently.) So you think that Baltar only clicked into Gaeta spying for the resistance and his dealings with 8 when the cylons had him under the gun to sign the death warrant? Not the way I see it (and it doesn’t make much sense to me.) Baltar has relative freedom of movement - and certainly prostitutes can come and visit so we know he’s not isolated - and Gaeta has been passing info to the resistance for a long time. It seems to me that either Baltar knew about the info passing for a while, and if he knew that he probably knew about the 8 for a while too. Or he was basically lying about knowing that Felix was passing info (figuring it out as Doral holds a gun on him does not count for his argument) and then sure, that could be when he figured out about the 8 as well. Thinking that he knew that the 8 was killing people because of Felix without knowing about the info/dead drops…Actually, I suppose that does make sense if you’re Baltar and assume everyone’s as bad as you. But that doesn’t make him a reliable witness for Felix’s thoughts and actions.
Of course, we don’t know how long the fling was going on between issues-8 & Felix. Almost certainly not nearly as long as Gaeta had been passing the resistance info, or a lot more people would’ve died. Also, “spy games”? You do know that everybody dies on the planet, if not for Gaeta?
What I meant by fight was this: assume, as I think is likely, that Baltar had knowledge of both Gaeta passing the resistance info, and eventually, the 8 killing most of the people on the lists. If Baltar goes to Gaeta - and remember, Baltar doesn’t like violence aesthetically (possibly even morally) - and says “that 8 you’re frakking is killing the people you hope to save,” the likely worst Gaeta could do is not believe him. (Because what else is Gaeta gonna do here? He needs to be free to continue passing info, and drawing attention to himself hinders that.) Now Baltar’s a paranoid schmuck, so I’d assume that he didn’t do that because he was worried about it somehow coming back on him (like Gaeta freaking out and threatening to claim that Baltar was a spy.) But as I said, if Gaeta goes up against Baltar in the cylon court of law, Baltar wins, and he would know that. All immaterial of course, since none of it happened.
I say again, there’s a sterling example of great integrity on this show? Where?
In any case, you see criminally negligent. I see tragedy related to character flaw and bad circumstances. Interpretation.
Ah, Helo. You mean that guy that should’ve been executed* for treason after the events of “A Measure of Salvation”? All of the human deaths after that episode are partially on him. And you know what, I don’t even think he was wrong, but he never shows any awareness of what he just condemned the survivors to.
My big problem with Helo is that he, more than any character on the show, gets plot immunity that shouldn’t occur in real life. Between that episode, the Demetrius mutiny, and that godawful “The Woman King” episode, I can’t take Helo seriously. Anything he does, will turn out okay, he’ll get no consequences for it, and he won’t suffer more than 2 minutes. If he wants to be the noble exemplar of shining humanity, he’s gotta damn well do something to earn it. Right now it’s easy for him - let’s see if he holds on to that "integrity"if something actually goes wrong for him.
*By their rules, he should’ve been executed. I prefer brig tossing to execution because you can’t keep executing people with only 45,000 or so left.
Knowing Gaeta was working for the resistance and knowing that the Eight he was with was killing people on the list are two different things. And how has this conversation become about Baltar? Put his failure to tell Gaeta on the list of things that Baltar did wrong. That’s fine with me. Does not affect in any way Gaeta’s complicity in all the deaths caused by his choices.
What makes me believe Baltar is the narrative structure of the webisode itself. We get to see exactly how in denial Gaeta can be. The Eight is killing his fellow crew members right in front of him, but still he will not see. Even when it’s just him and the Eight, he’s still acting like he has no idea what’s going on. The writers are demonstrating to us how Gaeta’s mind works. How he behaved on the webisode is how he behaved on New Caprica. He could have known, had he not chosen blindness. That’s not heroic, brave, or admirable. He has done good things, has good intentions, but is deeply, willfully flawed as well. He is partially responsible for atrocities committed on New Caprica. That’s the bottom line.
Nobody’s perfect, but I’ve always thought that Bill Adama had a lot of integrity.
Yes, I see criminially negligent. I think it was amply demonstrated that Gaeta saw what evils he was enabling and allowing to be committed, and did not stop them. Certainly he ignored the murders on the shuttle… and why would the writers set up the shuttle as a deliberate parallel to New Caprica if he had not done the same thing there? He’s shown on the shuttle with his hands covered in blood, weeping. Could they make it any more obvious?
Baltar is a weird one. He’s a genius who sometimes seems to figure things out he shouldn’t really know. It’s possible he didn’t actually know what was going on with Gaeta and the 8, but divined it when he needed to.
Baltar claimed that he allowed Felix to stay behind until the “bitter end” on New Caprica because he was aware that he was funneling info to the resistance. Whether this is true or not, who knows? He was trying to mitigate his own guilt by taking partial credit for Gaeta’s activities, because he allowed them to happen. Turned a blind eye, if you will. Did he know about the lists Gaeta wrote? He says he did, but maybe he found out afterwards, when all those people were killed in internment. Perhaps, by the time he put two and two together, it was a done deal.
Despite being stabbed in the neck, he never did nark on Gaeta.
Probably not. I never saw the ones before season 3, and I was fine without them. The biggest upshot of the webisodes - non-contentious upshot, that is (as you can see from prior conversation), - is that 1) Felix had a very nice boyfriend; 2) too bad about that total nervous breakdown which is leading him to probably join what looks like Zarek’s rebellion against the alliance with the cylons. I’m getting the feeling that Gaeta’s going to start taking people down, and it’s gonna be ugly. And he breaks up with his guy too, for Hoshi’s own good. Poor Hoshi. The webisodes are to provide some extra motivation for that, and give Juliani, who’s really very good, some more screentime.
I think they’re worth it, but YMMV. They were filmed after principal shooting of the series was over, so probably none of the info revealed here will show up in the main show.
I understood that he was trying to ID the resistance leaders/key members, with the belief that his model 8 was helping subvert the Cylons…
…why he would think that, I don’t know. Misled…or did he think he was working with Sharon (who ultimately was able to access the launch keys and help the fleet escape?)…I can’t remember if she was on the Galactica or not at this point.
He was receiving communications from Tyrol, I think. At the time, Tyrol didn’t know he was a Cylon, so he was helping lead the resistance. He communicated with an anonymous government insider(Felix) and shared key info. Felix tried to help by giving various info. back and doing things like what we saw in the new webisodes. Felix was Baltar’s(then President) aide.
By the way, all this happened in the webisodes between season 2 and 3. If you missed those, it might be easy to get confused.
When do the events of the webisodes take place? I got the impression they had already adjusted to the fact earth was nuked, then Cavil showed up and they jumped. If so, the webisodes haven’t occurred yet in the regular series?