Lost Planet of the gods: Baltar/Imperious Leader/Desanto

For the sake of some good informed discussion I have some questions that ask for thoughts on the episode Lost Planet of the gods:

When the Imperious Leader told Baltar that things had changed and that he wanted the colonials captured and brought back, not killed do you think he was serious or just playing Baltar for a fool again?

When Baltar told Adama that they could pretend to be his prisoner and then use it as a ruse to attack the cylon homeworld, do you think he was serious or playing the colonials for fools again?

If Baltar accomplished his mission wouldn't he expect to be double crossed by the cylons again? If he expected that to happen wouldn't it be in his best interest to actually execute the plan he discussed with Adama-attack the cylon home world?

Does anyone see or think there is a similarity to what the Imperious Leader proposed to Baltar and the actual scenario that forms the basis for the Desanto Continuation--defeat the colonials militarily but take them into the cylon empire for some purpose that does not involve killing them?

I am curious to know your thoughts on these questions. Thanks in advance.

[kingfish]

Actually Baltar was Lucifer's pet project. He had Baltar saved from execution. This was also a way of working him back into the series. Larson was impressed with Colicos' performance in the pilot.

[BST]

Originally Posted by antelope526

For the sake of some good informed discussion I have some questions that ask for thoughts on the episode Lost Planet of the gods:

When the Imperious Leader told Baltar that things had changed and that he wanted the colonials captured and brought back, not killed do you think he was serious or just playing Baltar for a fool again?

Originally Posted by antelope526

When Baltar told Adama that they could pretend to be his prisoner and then use it as a ruse to attack the cylon homeworld, do you think he was serious or playing the colonials for fools again?

antelope, in a way, you answered your own questions. At least, I could easily see Baltar coming to this conclusion:


If Baltar accomplished his mission wouldn't he expect to be double crossed by the cylons again? If he expected that to happen wouldn't it be in his best interest to actually execute the plan he discussed with Adama-attack the cylon home world?


Now, for the question that I used as an answer to the other two:

Originally Posted by antelope526

If Baltar accomplished his mission wouldn't he expect to be double crossed by the cylons again? If he expected that to happen wouldn't it be in his best interest to actually execute the plan he discussed with Adama-attack the cylon home world?

The answer to this would be YES.

Originally Posted by antelope526

Does anyone see or think there is a similarity to what the Imperious Leader proposed to Baltar and the actual scenario that forms the basis for the Desanto Continuation--defeat the colonials militarily but take them into the cylon empire for some purpose that does not involve killing them?

I am curious to know your thoughts on these questions. Thanks in advance.

Not sure about this. The IL, in TOS, never really showed his hand about plans for the humans. All that he mentioned was "now that we are omnipotent, we can afford to be more charitable". I took away the idea that the IL would permit the humans to exist as long as they remained "peaceful" and did not threaten the Cylon Empire. DeSanto's idea seems to incorporate some type of Borg-like assimilation of the humans into a human/machine hybrid.

From this vantage point, the two scenarios seem dissimilar except that they both "spare" the humans from extinction.

[Eric Paddon]

Originally Posted by kingfish

Actually Baltar was Lucifer's pet project. He had Baltar saved from execution. This was also a way of working him back into the series. Larson was impressed with Colicos' performance in the pilot.

That was the novelization. There is no indication in LPOTG itself that Lucifer had anything to do with Baltar being spared, and that in fact it was the emergence of a new Imperious Leader who saw more value in keeping Baltar alive to pursue the humans.

BST:
Do you think the Imperious Leader was serious when he made those statements to Baltar or do you think he was just using him again?


I kind of thought if he was serious and didn't care about the colonials he would have simply let them go but then again he may be worried that at some point in the future the descendants of the colonials might try to seek revenge on the cylon empire or try to reconqueor their home worlds.

If he was serious about bringing them back I would be curious if the colonials on the homeworlds had already been exterminated. If they had been exterminated I guess the colonials could be resettled on one of the 12 planets. Maybe hunting down and killing the humans was a lot more expensive and harder than the cylons thought and figured if they had no military it was better to watch them on their planets than fight and occupy the planets. There was reference in a few episodes to cylon civilians and some kind of community. Maybe public opinion in the cylon empire changed with the death of the previous Imperious Leader at Carillon.

[BST]

Antelope,

It's hard to tell since the "new" IL's original mission for Baltar was never expanded upon. In later episodes, (especially, Living Legend), Baltar seems pre-occupied with the "last battlestar's destruction". Personally, I think that the IL did, in fact, want the humans alive and fancied them to eventually become followers. Remember, as was stated in WOTG, the IL was the embodiment of Count Iblis' evil spirit, i.e., "god of the netherworld", etc. and a "god" needs believers otherwise, the "god" is just another being. Remember how Count Iblis was courting Sheba as a follower?

I do think that Larson wanted to go in that direction, eventually but, with the rushed schedule that TOS was on, it was an effort just to get a particular week's episode finished prior to airing. Not much time was left for "tie-ins" or expanding a particular story-arc.

In all honesty, if the show had gone forward, I would have loved to see it depicted as the Cylons and Colonials being pawns in a proxy war between the 2 great powers, Iblis and the Beings of Light. That's why I always felt that WOTG was the "defining episode" of Battlestar Galactica.