#ds9 the station itself

[garakism]

i've seen the joke about the combination shopping mall and war outpost, but in my heart deep space nine is more huge-international-airport than standard-shopping-mall. i have a lot of reasons for this but just know i am correct

#ds9 #maybe the vegas airport for quark rights. there's just slot machines all over that place #granted i've been thinking about airports a lot recently in general so i may be biased #i also work in a mall i am an authority on this #ds9 the station itself

[subatoism]

On the subject of DS9 and Imperial Radch, I’ve been thinking about how Garak kind of fits into the same position as the ships/ancillaries within the Imperial framework, like,, being aligned with, yet permanently located on the periphery of, the Imperial power (Garak had ‘power’ as long as Tain gave it to him, but he is always ultimately constrained by the situation of his birth; Breq repeatedly notes that she is not Radchaai, yet her identity is centered around their culture and value system),, both victims of violence and “programming” perpetrated by those in power, as well as perpetrators of that violence and coercion themselves (see: Annexations; “Elim Garak — former Cardassian oppressor”).

The references to Garak’s Hebitian heritage in ASIT also adds to this parallel, since the bodies turned into ancillaries (including Breq’s) are victims of the Annexations themselves, their minds and memories of their own cultures overwritten by the ships’ AI, much like Garak never knowing/being allowed to engage with his own minority heritage until Tolan reveals it, and then still being separated from it for a long time after because of how he was raised to disdain what the Hebitians represent.

#there’s a very interesting AU somewhere in here I just know it #I mean Terok Nor itself pretty directly parallels Athoek Station #and I could make my own head explode #thinking about ‘Justice Propriety and Benefit’ #re: the Cardassian Union #but i digress #ds9 #deep space nine #imperial radch #elim garak #breq mianaai

[vaguely-concerned]

imagine being a rando civilian ds9 resident trapped behind forcefields as the station slowly ratchets up to blow itself to pieces in civil defense and then you look up and see the local tailor powerwalking irritably towards ops while the lockdown parts for him like the red sea before moses. and he's presumably caught in a permanent eye roll over every ATTENTION BAJORAN WORKERS as he goes

#star trek #star trek ds9 #ds9 #elim garak #it's just so funny that he's the only person running around out there fhsdjka #do u think he'd be like 'oh by the way those pants are probably going to take a little extra time to get ready sorry about that' #if he spotted a customer along the way #'under the circumstances I think that's understandable mr garak. do you know how to turn off the sound of the announcements' #'*barely credible customer service smile* if I did do you think we'd still be listening to this' #'good point'

[red-cicada]

I'm nervous to post these.. I've never made ocs before but star trek has imbedded itself so deep into my mind that I started to come up with stories

i dont have names for them yet im horrible with names and idk know how to go about that for my Romulan dude

i started thinking about them and when i got around the 4th season of ds9, so theres a lot of random story plots, and ideas written in a notebook and in my head but the basic story so far is

that this dude is a human from 2024 who lived in the sanctuaries, and due to some weird space shit and unfortunate events with a ship and its crew he ends up in the future. ( hes actually stays on a space station with its crew )

he meets the Romulan dude on a trip that was supposed to be going back to earth, but they got a distress signal from a nearby planet and when they went to check it out they found a crashed Romulan ship and a injured Romulan

i have more in-depth story but im not a writer so im nervous to talk about it lol, i have some more characters in mind but these two are the only ones who i know how they look like.

#star trek #star trek oc #my ocs #romulan oc #romulans star trek

[ezrisdax-archive]

Going to go with DS9 for your "5 things you'd change" ask meme. Curious to hear your thoughts :з

send me a tv show/book/fandom and i’ll say the top 5 things i’d change about it

So, I'm biased and I'm tumblr user ezrisdax which means I need Ezri to exist but that said I'd change how Jadzia died. I've personally never been a fan of that, the ending and how she said her goodbye to Worf and Sisko was fine but Dukat killing her like that just...did not appeal to me at all, I hated that. Now how I'd have her die I don't know. Maybe while she was stuck in the Changeling mind trap place they gave her a drug and it's been slowly tearing down her ability to host the symbiont. (maybe that also means it can be removed but Jadzia has to be rushed to Trill and in a coma and thus gone for a time and Ezri is there still, I can still come up with Jadzia lives AUs right?). Or have her die defending the station just not...turning around and hey Dukat is there. At least let her get one punch in to him please.

Ezri and Julian and I don't have to expand on that, dear god, no.

Worf and Jadzia's wedding, not the wedding itself but the lack of the TNG characters. Like yeah I get not wanting to pay them etc etc but also listen, I need Jadzia and Deanna meeting properly and teasing Worf. It has always bothered me they weren't there for his wedding.

Jadzia's lack of interaction with other characters after Worf's arrival. I do feel starting season five it gets really bad; she doesn't have a lot of interactions with the others that don't also involve Worf in some capacity after that and while I do enjoy that ship I wanted more weird Trill adventures as it's own thing.

Alexander's whole thing in DS9, I didn't think it fit him at all and I absolutely hated it. Like first of all he should have just been with Worf anyway I thought we went through this in TNG and second of all he's never been interested in the Klingon stuff and he shouldn't have to and then why did they make him an idiot at it? He was a smart kid, c'mon.

Did I say top five? Just kidding here's more because I can't decide. Everything about Profit and Lace. I tend to skip over that episode during rewatches and it's bad. I think they should have brought Pel back instead and have another episode with her where it shows how much she's flourished and profited in the Gamma Quadrant.

I minute thing that's also always bothered me, Mirror Jadzia dies for....???? reasons? Like Ezri in the Mirror verse is Ezri Tigan, she doesn't have or need the symbiont and they just drop that Jadzia is dead that episode for zero reasons, like why couldn't she be away on a mission or something. I'm sorry but that stuck in my head and ate away at me for the longest time.

Sisko and Ezri and the lack of a relationship in any way after the third episode of season seven. Like she Dax and she pulls him back in and I think them navigating a new relationship again where this time Sisko is the mentor figure would be way way way more interesting then the Ezri/Julian storyline they stuck in instead.

VIC FONTAINE. I hate that fucking holoprogram. Too many episodes were about him and why the fuck is there an alive mirror verse version of him?????

Screw SNW I want a DS9 musical episode.

#replies in thirty minutes or they're free #bite-my-grimy-fleshy-ass #beej talks star trek

[thegeminisage]

it's time for!!! a ds9 update <3 wow <333 last night we watched "past prologue" and "a man alone."

past prologue:

FIRST OF ALL, THAT LITTLE GAY DOCTOR

idk what i expected but the scene i've seen gifs of was the VERY FIRST ONE right out of the gate. i was so thrilled. for some reason garak is WAY different than i expected. like, he's just as gay, of COURSE, but for some reason i expected him to be like...meaner. and instead he's sooooo friendly and he's also a fucking tailor. julian bashir needs a new fucking suit.

that said, bashir is so slow on the uptake literally all of the time. the suit thing and something in the other episode that i forgot. king how can you be a doctor when you are so stupid...not that i'm complaining. i wouldn't change it for anything. he's so funny.

HILARIOUS that immediately after he has any clandestine conversations w garak he has to IMMEDIATELY run to the "bridge" and tell everybody about it. he gets so excited. he really is hilarious i don't think he's done a single thing so far that wasn't funny. the fact that he was late to this little party also sir get it together

i think this ep had excellent character stuff for kira, who we've only known 5 minutes. it sets up her history and her current position so well, and her conflict of interests is such a real and tangible thing that i felt awful for her. like you knew from the beginning that guy was gonna betray her but OUCH. ending the ep on her getting called a traitor was Such a choice.

i also loved her little scene with odo..."i don't do pretense" alright autism king. and yet he talked her through it and then sort of took the decision out of her hands at the end (which was a very compassionate thing to do) when it became clear what most of her wanted to do...he's like. a really good person actually 🥺

HE TURNED HIMSELF INTO A RAT.......i love getting shocked when random objects turn out to be odo. i love playing this game. also, there was totally a leaky pipe in that scene too. ds9 feels so fucking lived in...you'd never have those on tng.

i also think sisko did a good job threading the needle here, even if kira had to go over his head to get him to see reason. you gotta do what you gotta do but he was mostly compassionate to kira's dilemma and even let her take point when she requested it...AND THEN LOL smiled while threatening her if she ever went over his head again. WHICH IS WHAT KIRA DOES. SMILES WHEN ANGRY. it was really good. i like him so much

it was such a nice touch to add o'brien telling him not to hand that guy over to the cardassians. the implication being that he was in the room when picard was transported back to the enterprise post-torture which like of COURSE he was. i don't think him outlining in detail picard's torture by those guys would have swayed sisko's opinion much because it's picard so it was also smart that he didn't go into particulars. but it does hammer home that what the cardassians do to people is real to the bajorans and to o'brien in a way that it is not (yet?) real to sisko.

KLINGON SISTERS. when they first appeared i was like "holy shit those boob windows" even though i didn't recognize their faces at all. i recognized only the boob windows. then when they said their names i was like I KNEW IT. what a funny little throwback

side bar i also love that they call the station itself ds9. they don't say deep space nine they say ds9 just like we do

a man alone:

holy racially motivated hate crimes, batman

wait sorry actually let me start at the beginning. the first scene with julian getting shot down 1000 times by jadzia (or are we supposed to call her dax...) was really funny. i'm trying to figure out in my mind palace if he's a bi king or a gay-but-closeted king.

also, so much happened in this episode. there was an a plot a b plot AND a c plot but instead of feeling rushed it just felt comfortably chaotic. i was never waiting for one plot to be over so we could get to the one that really mattered, you know? i liked everything that was going on except for the lack of garak i want him to be in every episode so bad

i like everything jadzia had going on this ep...like, people react to her different as a super hot lady than they did as an old man. sisko's talk about fucking the twins was especially hilarious. dude you can still fuck twins with her if you wanted. but the way that like 3 different people had romantic tension with her and she's just out here to do her job AND ALSO is like "i try to rise above all that" so true aroace queen. although i do actually know she has a romantic plotline with worf (who should be fucking riker and deanna) and also that *** ****, which sucks a lot.

i liked keiko getting an actual plotline in this episode. like this place didn't even have a bed for jake when sisko got here, of course she doesn't wanna raise her daughter there, and of course she's bummed out that her field of expertise is fucking useless there, although i agree w her husband that somebody needs to plant some fucking trees. i do disagree with her that it's less safe than the enterprise, though...that ship almost blows up every fucking week. anyway the fact that sisko was ready to give her whatever she needed was very nice. please treat her really niceys. side bar her baby is AODRABLE that child wanted her hands on that little bell soooo bad

speaking of jake!! it was nice to see him again. i like that when he gets in trouble his dad is obviously pissed without it being like a Problem. like he's pissed and jake is in trouble and sisko is gonna lay down the law but it's not a relationship-threatening issue. it was harmless teenage fun.

unfortunately sisko did kinda carry the idiot ball for the rest of this ep...i feel like there were so many choices he could have made to maybe NOT put a giant target on odo's back and it also took him a lot longer than i would have liked to step in once the mob started going, but he did step in, so that's what matters.

i loved odo in this episode!! he's just as angry as kira is in his own way, and his relationship with both her and quark (WOWWW more on that in a sec) feel so lived in, you can feel the years between them...it's also just now apparent to me that he's actually really protective, which, aw. i love also the lore that every 18 hours he has to just exist as goop in a pail. so true king me too

odo also aroace king he simply chooses not to couple. so true. that said whatever he and quark had going on was FUNNN i love a little sexual tension in my star trek. is he aroace or is he gay for that little ferengi. only time will tell.

on a more serious note odo's quarters getting hate crimed really drives home how set apart he is from others...and the mob section was GENUINELY scary. and he's so protective it was a little sad that kira was the only one really standing up for him :(

I NEARLY FORGOT TO ADD: julian bashir straight up growing a guy in a bubbly goopy little vat just to catch a killer? insane. thats a whole ass person who is about to be part of society who exists "just because." imagine the existential issues lmao

TONIGHT: "babel" and "captive pursuit." technically after babel we're supposed to watch "ship in a bottle" from tng, but i've been informed it's a barclay episode which means i will be watching it myself later tonight on 2x speed. it's not the first time we've fucked with the order a little bit lol (i was famously late finishing tas) so i still count it as mostly watching in release order

#personal #star trek blogging #ds9 lb #MY DS9 POSTS ARE LONGER THAN MY TNG ONES LOL. wow #it's still too early to tell but contenders for my favorites are kira odo bashir and sisko. and garak. so like half the fucking cast

[croc-odette]

One of the first conversations Sisko has with the Prophets is about non-linear perception; why would anyone want to experience time in linear progression, ignorant of what happens next? Sisko explains the benefit of linear perception through a baseball game– the game is only enjoyable if one is constantly wondering what will happen next.

SISKO: With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape.

PROPHETS: And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed.

SISKO: That’s right. In fact, the game wouldn’t be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.

The Prophets are associated with religion, faith, and non-Federation culture; aspects of Star Trek that were either taboo in the writer’s room or in need of ‘correction’ from Starfleet and its futuristic scientists. The Prophets raise a question for the viewer; is non-linear thinking also in conflict with Star Trek’s usual commitment to science and rationality?

-

Star Trek as a whole is both linear and non-linear. In linear fashion, it is a show about the future where technology has advanced humanity to the point that we can explore space, create matter out of energy, teleport, and meet extra-terrestrials. In non-linear fashion, episode premises are often about how familiar problems such as prejudice, war, sickness, and violence reoccur in the future despite the progress of technology and social causes. The show was originally set in an idealistic 2260s, but written to look constantly behind its shoulder at the current problems of the 1960s in the United States. The original series’ politics could be radical at the time it aired; but in non-linear back-and-forth fashion, a show written in the 1960s, set in the 2260s, and still watched in the 2020s reveals outdated and blatantly offensive tropes. At the same time,  newer shows written in a post-War-on-Terror United States can feel more conservative than their predecessors. The quality or messaging of the franchise cannot be argued as a linear progression, but is itself a messy and changing reflection of the writers, the show’s subjective goals, and the political atmospheres it’s both created and viewed in. If the franchise (or the audience) was truly linear, then the older series (30-60 years old) would have no meaning or purpose to today’s viewers, and would have been discarded in favor of more recent series. Instead, new generations consistently still find relevance in older series.

-

Star Trek, especially TNG, tends to suggest advancement in technology as an obvious replacement for religion. The simplified linear idea is that a society begins with religion and ends at the ideal state of pure science. The Federation and Starfleet must be good, because they are our main characters, and therefore their exploration and desire to expand their purely scientific culture (linear) must be presented as a logical good.

DS9 challenges this concept not only by investing two of its main characters in Bajoran religion, but by overwhelmingly revealing the horror and tragedy still present in Federation societies with access to advanced technology. The Dominion War (much like the conflict with the Borg) kills tens of millions of people and seems hopeless. The scientifically advanced Federation still employs torture, assassination, forgery, and biological warfare in attempts to win it. Earth, a peaceful and insulated paradise, becomes wracked with paranoia when one Founder infiltrates. Bajor and the space station Deep Space Nine represent a gruesome history of colonization, occupation, and post-occupation, regardless of the occupying force’s technological capacity. The Federation, Bajor, and the Cardassian empire view each other in a barely held together truce with distrust, hatred, and disdain. Even when the Federation sends aid to Bajor, the limits of technology become more visible than they often are on Starfleet flagships. Machines for revitalizing polluted soil are fought over, and homes and land have to be obliterated for mining and energy. The space station itself was built by Bajoran slave labor and during the occupation was used as a dangerous ore processing facility. The toll of technological advancement becomes apparent in a way that Star Trek usually dodges; what does it take to build a space station? Who builds it, and under what conditions? Where does the material come from? Whose home is destroyed in order to get it? Who gets access to this technology? Who profits? If technology has to invent solutions to problems it created with past ‘solutions’ (see: the combustible engine leading to global warming), then has it created an objectively linear progression or a snake racing after its own tail? Is technology objectively advancing humanity if it still creates a massive imbalance of suffering and resource depletion where we choose not to see it?

The alternate simplified linear thinking is, well, okay then, religion is good and technology is bad. However, DS9 also critiques Bajoran religion rather than presenting it as an absolute good. Rather than bashing it for daring to exist at all, it pays attention to moments of corruption, fundamentalism, and power grabs. And technology in DS9, typically medicine, saves people and makes life in general easier. In an early episode called “Paradise,” Sisko and O’Brien crash on a planet where a previously stranded group of people have formed a cult without Starfleet technology. Later, it’s revealed that their leader had manipulated them into crashing, in order to forcibly deprive them of technology and shape them according to her own interest in ‘the ancient religions’; conveniently, she is at the top of their strict power structure. Rather than dismissing religion entirely, Sisko only coldly tells her “Perhaps one day you’ll even feel the hand of God on your shoulder.” The conflict is less about her shallow claims of technology versus religion, and more about her clear desire for punitive and total control over other people.

Both religion and technology are ancient aspects of human life, and cannot be simplified down to opposing or competing ends of a spectrum. Even for a non-religious society or individual, our interest in what’s mysterious or unfathomable about our world gives us humility, comfort, and curiosity; staring at stars or listening to music is not a ‘rational’ exercise that requires explanation in order to feel good. Modern humans evolved with a focused capacity on making and using tools, and the ability to teach and learn between generations, helping us survive and develop art and culture. Perceiving either our interest in the unknown or in science as the only ‘true’ way forward to a better life– however that may be defined– leaves little room for critique of either, and corrupt and exploitative power structures can grow without question. The idea that a single tool forward, a clear linear path, must be decided upon and committed to entirely– whether it’s to a futuristic utopia or existential salvation– tries to dodge the harder questions of personal choice, human behavior, and quests for control that often create the reoccuring problems in Star Trek no matter the time period.

-

Sisko understands non-linear perception of time more personally than other Star Trek characters we’ve seen. He’s studied history, specifically flashpoints of Earth. He’s deeply aware of the racism that would have prevented him from enjoying a 1960s Las Vegas casino. His grief over his wife’s death is what helps him understand the non-linear time of the Prophets, just as his love of baseball helps them understand linear time. He starts off doubtful and clinical towards the Bajoran religion and his posting near the planet, and by the end of the series is sincerely committed to Bajor.

In an episode that focuses on Sisko’s identity as an African American and a Bajoran religious figure, he experiences a past life as a scifi writer in the mid-20th century United States on Earth. The episode explicitly raises non-linear thinking through Sisko’s questioning of whether he imagines the writer or the writer imagines him, and we as the audience watch a man from the distant future see himself as a man from our recent past. Racism, rather than being masked through genre allegory as prejudice against aliens, elves, or mutants, is undisguised racism– the episode deliberately draws the parallel and then removes it again when Sisko imagines racist cops as Cardassians for several seconds. A non-linear problem in Star Trek is it originated as a show interested in civil rights and social progress, and over time became so bogged down in convention and metaphor that fans openly and unironically raged at the idea (both for DS9 and Discovery) of a Black captain and perceived ‘political correctness’. The episode points to the linear through-line of scifi, when Sisko’s past self asserts that even though his story about a Black astronaut will not be published, the fact the idea existed at all proves it could one day happen. The events that lead from Benny Russell’s story to Benjamin Sisko’s existence, however, are hardly a straight line. Sisko’s actor, Avery Brooks, experienced racism on the set of the show, both from showrunners and lot guards who racially profiled him when he would drive in to the parking lot. Even in Star Trek’s stated premise of a future where prejudice on Earth has disappeared, the franchise itself has been plagued with overt racism, sexism, and homophobia. Sisko’s character, despite existing in a show that is supposedly post-racism, shows the way progress does not move forward in a neat line, but often double-backs and pulls constantly from both the past experience and knowledge of the oppressed, and from the past prejudice and control of the oppressor.

-

In the episode “Explorers,” Sisko’s fascination with history, Bajor, engineering, and being Jake’s dad overlap. He researches and builds a traditional 16th century Bajoran spaceship that ‘sails’ on solar energy. If Sisko wanted to warp across the galaxy or replicate a model of the ship, he easily could. However, the ship for him serves as a pleasurable hobby, a way to bond with his son, and a deliberate retreading of the past and the experience of the people who lived it. The Cardassian empire (which often justifies its occupation of the Bajorans by claiming them to be technologically inferior, overly spiritual, militantly unambitious, and further behind in the Cardassian empire’s ‘linear’ understanding of a civilization’s progress and therefore right to exist) turn their nose up at the ship and its capabilities. By the end of the series, the Cardassian home planet’s reward for its commitment to technology, nationalism, and imperialism is revealed; even before the planet is brutalized by Dominion forces, it is a hollowed out, deeply polluted, and barely livable core of an empire starving for external resources to continue feeding its survival and ‘linear’ expansion. To the Cardassian empire, linear growth of capitalism, the military, and imperial reach was the perfect goal– it ends inevitably with mass casualties of its own population and major divisions. The survivors of the former empire, rather than start over and regrow into the same plant so it can hit the same brick wall, have to stop and simultaneously consider their propagandized history, devastated present, and uncertain future. The only way to actually progress and break the cycle is by questioning what their society considers progress to begin with; unstable imperial domination or sustainable peace?

-

A scientific example of forcing non-linear science in a linear box is evolution. Evolution is sometimes falsely believed to be a process which will result ultimately in a superior, perfectly adapted species; a belief that at its most harmless is used to stroke our own egos as ‘the apex predator’ and at worst used to justify eugenics. However, evolution is a non-conscious process that simply creates and recreates species that can fill whatever niches exist in the moment. A species perfectly adapted to flight in dense jungles will fail completely if placed at the bottom of the ocean. A species adapted to both will waste bodily form and function on trying to check every box, and likely be edged out by more specific competitors. There is no end goal, only a series of events happening constantly, shaping, and reshaping, sometimes retreading genetic history for a pair of legs or a life in the water again, sometimes building up to something that does well until it doesn’t, from the largest whales to the smallest bacteria.

A more poetic way to think about all of it is Ursula K. Leguin’s quote, from the relevantly titled sci-fi novel, The Lathe of Heaven; “Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.”

Faith, technology, even the DNA of every species cannot be seen as arrows reaching a specific target, that once reached, will prevent all past problems forever onward. The argument is not that progress can never be meaningfully achieved, and neither is the argument that progress once reached will remain concrete and fixed. The argument is that any effort, making bread or a tv show or a better world, has to be constantly made, remade, pushed, held, and examined. When a modern problem arises in Star Trek, it is because the conscious effort necessary to solve that problem has grown stale or become forgotten. Characters solve their problems, with the help of technology, and in DS9 with the help of faith, but mostly with the will to confront the issue, to work collectively, to use intelligence and compassion, to bear what cannot be easily solved, and to understand the past’s continued relevance in the present and the future. Even as we perceive time in a linear fashion, and we hope to leave the world better than we found it in whatever way we can, we need non-linear understanding to consistently weave and mend our own places within history. In Star Trek, both Earth and the Cardassian Empire have similar technological advancements– but Earth only achieved warp-travel and replication technology after undergoing World War 3 and being forced to solve its social and ethical crises. Technological advancements in both societies veered into rapidly different results based on the differing cultures, and even then, future Earth risks settling into a fragile state of content ignorance rather than permanent utopia. DS9 implies that Earth’s progress depends on its capacity for maintained social self-awareness rather than technology. We need non-linear understanding to keep from kidding ourselves that we’ve permanently ‘solved’ some great problem of life, either through smaller phones or psuedo-spiritual epiphanies, and no longer need to worry about mistakes from the past. We need non-linear understanding to recognize when a step forward really has happened, and to make sure we remember that step has to “be remade all the time, made new.”

-

In the first episode, we watch Sisko calmly and rationally explain to the Prophets our reality; that we live from one moment to the next, and use our past experiences to inform our decisions in the present about our future. The Prophets start to understand, but they distrust linear life for what they perceive as aggression, adversarial behavior, and lack of responsibility. We watch a capable Starfleet officer and an intelligent human being explain the most intrinsic and inevitable part of our lives; that we can only move forward in linear time. 

However, it is only once Sisko breaks down after repeatedly bringing himself to the death of his wife Jennifer, that the Prophets tell Sisko he exists in that moment and trust him. Beings moving through linear time do not do so carelessly; Sisko begs that he does not want to be at the moment of Jennifer’s death, that he wants to leave it behind; but he can’t. The moment existed, and will always exist for him. Sisko, crying, admits that “it’s not linear.”

#THIS HAS BEEN DRIVING ME NUTS TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO MYSELF. #ds9 #i still can't totally throw the dart at it but hm #i would even argue that by the end of TNG picard has changed from someone wholly married to 'we have moved forward thanks to the objectivity #of science' to 'damn i have experienced a lot of wild shit. oh the space god who's obsessed with me is here #again. sure why not'

[quasi-normalcy]

How various 90s-era Trek series are referenced in the new era:

TNG: Gets an entire spin-off series about Picard, eventually brings back entire main cast; "Lower Decks" largely runs on tropes and aesthetics from Next Gen; even minor characters like Okona, Jellico, and Leah Brahms appear.

Voyager: Janeway, Chakotay, and a hologram of Janeway are all major characters on Prodigy; Seven of Nine is a major character on Picard (and will probably get her own spin off); Tom Paris and Tuvok (kind of) cameo on LWD; Sundry references to things like the Delta Flyer and the Kazon on LWD and Prodigy

DS9: References to Quark; A changeling appears in a throwaway scene on Discovery; Quark, Kira, and the station itself eventually appear in one episode of LWD

Enterprise: Lower Decks joke about Riker's holodeck habits.

#star trek

[boreal-sea]

DS9: S6 E21: "The Reckoning" is an episode some people dislike. Personally it's one I really like.

One of the things I see people claim is that Kai Winn was "right" in her decision to stop the conflict and that she did it out of compassion and genuine care for Jake and Kira. I heavily disagree. The plot of the show and what is shown on screen just doesn't support that. It was the will of the Prophets for the battle to be seen through to the end, and her stopping the conflict was not their will.

I think two main things played into her decision to betray the will of the Prophets:

Jealousy of Sisko, his relationship with the Prophets, his status as an outsider, his status as Emissary, and his unwavering faith to the Prophets including putting the life of his son into their hands and trusting them to not let Jake die.

Her own loss of faith as the Prophet in this episode ignores all of her pleas for contact.

Kira: "She's jealous of you, and of your relationship with the Prophets".

Kira and Sisko talk about Winn, and Kira notes that not only does Winn hate Sisko because he's not Bajoran, she hates him because she has to share spiritual leadership of Bajor with him, and on top of that, Sisko has the kind of relationship with the Prophets Winn has always coveted.

Now, for the first half of the episode, from Winn's point of view, she is actually 100% in the right. She has the right to demand the return of the artifact. I don't even judge her for doubting Sisko when he says he's sure the Prophets want him to keep the tablet on the station. Sure, none of the Cardassians likely used the Prophets as an excuse, but she dislikes Sisko as an outsider and distrusts him. Plus, there are the disturbances happening on Bajor and in the wormhole, which definitely look like the angry wrath of displeased gods.

So, for the first half of the episode, I don't blame her for her actions. As far as she's concerned, she is trying to serve the Prophets and protect Bajor from what seems to be an obvious threat.

The Prophets are obviously driving Sisko to break the tablet, which he does, thus releasing the Prophet and Pah Wraith within. In fact, he knows right after that it was the right thing to do, but he's unable to convince Winn of that. However, a minute later, they are confronted with Kira possessed by a Prophet, and Sisko's version of things are proven to be right. The debate over whether or not the Prophets are angry or whether they were guiding him becomes clear: they were guiding him.

Winn can see that. In fact, she knows exactly which prophecy the Prophet is referring to when it says "Bajor will be reborn".

Winn: "If the evil one is destroyed it will bring a thousand years of peace. The golden age of Bajor." ... "Who will prevail is not known."

Sisko: "Am I supposed to help you in some way?"

Prophet: "The Sisko has completed his task."

In these lines, if there were any lingering doubts in Winn's mind, they should be erased: Sisko destroying the tablet was the will of the Prophets. It is also literally prophesied that this battle should take place, and that the battle itself is the will of the Prophets.

As the Kai said herself earlier in the episode: "We both serve the Prophets. There is no higher calling."

Kai Winn attempts to engage with the Prophet, to get it to listen to her, but it ignores her almost completely, and says to the room that it is awaiting the Pah Wraith to choose a vessel. She begs it to speak to her, to tell her what to do. It ignores her again.

I honestly think this was the moment Winn's faith began to break.

Sisko chooses to evacuate the station so that the battle can take place without endangering anyone's lives; Winn looks on, listening as the crew tells Sisko about how they could make the Prophet and the Pah Wraith leave if they wanted to by flooding the station with chronitons. She looks deeply thoughtful, frowning as Sisko decides to let the battle happen.

Winn gathers some Bajorans to worship the Prophet, doing the only thing she can to show her faith to it. Sisko tells her they need to go. She expresses her faith that the Prophet will win the battle, though she seems frankly bitter and sarcastic about it. She's got on her best fake-sweet voice as she speaks to Sisko:

Winn: "There will be no need for Kais, or even Emissaries."

I think at this point, she is still willing to allow the battle to happen, if only because she's hoping it'll mean Sisko's role as Emissary will finally be over.

Then Jake is revealed as the Pah Wraith's vessel. Sisko of course immediately tries to take Jake's place, but the Pah Wraith is having none of it. The battle commences, and despite everything, Sisko declares his faith in the Prophets:

Sisko: "The Prophets will protect him!" "The Prophets will not let anything happen to him!"

Jadzia: "How do you know that?!"

Sisko: "I know."

Sisko orders Jadzia and Winn to get to safety, and they head off. However, on their way to the airlock, Winn slips away and heads back to OPS.

I personally think it was Sisko's display of unwavering faith that convinced Winn to betray the will of the Prophets, and she knows she's doing it, too, because she says "May the Prophets forgive me" after she's pushed the button to flood the station with chronitons.

When Jake is recovering, he notably says that he could feel the hatred of the Pah Wraith, and new it had to be defeated, even if it meant his own death, and that his father had done the right thing.

And the most damning thing, of course, is Winn's attitude afterwards. She's both pompous and annoyed as she asks why Sisko isn't there to escort her, and that she expected him to thank her, since she saved his life, the station, and the life of his son.

Kira: "Don't pretend you did it for the captain."

Winn: "I did it for Bajor. If you haven't heard, the floodwaters have receded and the earthquakes have stopped."

Kira: "And you're going to take credit for that?"

Winn: "I take it as a sign I did the right thing."

Kira: "You defied the will of the Prophets, and you did it because you couldn't stand the fact that a human, an infidel, had a stronger faith than you. The Emissary was willing to sacrifice his own son to serve the Prophets."

Winn: "My faith is as pure as the Emissary's."

Kira: "I think you're confusing faith with ambition."

Winn: "I'm not confusing anything, child, you are. The Prophets chose you as their instrument, that doesn't mean you can speak for them."

Kira: "Because of your interference, the reckoning was stopped. The evil still exists. And I'm not sure even the Prophets know what that will mean for Bajor."

#ds9

[highway-stars]

I love that you're so enthusiastic about DS9!!! I am due a complete watch at some point, since I only caught it sporadically while it was airing live.

This is now a space for you to go absolutely bonkers about Garak. Please. He deserves the attention.

YEEEAAAS Watching it while it was live must've been cool.

I thought Garak perfectly encapsulated the series itself despite being a side character - he's mysterious, chaotic, sneaky, deeply troubled, aggressive and ultimately becomes good-ish by using his skills as an evil dude and I think that captures the vibe of DS9 really well. He shows the idealistic characters what they're in for by being on this station.

I love how untrustworthy he is, I love his incessant lying. And I like how his relationship with Bashir DIDN'T make Bashir any less idealistic despite the awful things he had to go thru, and I don't think Bashir's idealism rubbed off on Garak either. They stay opposites in that regard. They LEARN from eachother and can even like and respect those qualities but they don't change their respective outlooks. Man I love themmmm.

But holy balls WHY did they give Garak Ziyal as a girlfriend for like twenty seconds. I get it was a vehicle to raise the tension between him and Gul Dukat but there was just nothinggggg there. If they had developed Ziyal a little bit more beforehand maybe I woulda liked it better but it was just so blatantly out of place.

Idk I think the Garak Vibe that just makes me love him is that he's got a good balance of "hehehe I'm toying with you cause I'm evil" without being overconfident and over-the-top. I don't like an overconfident/self-absorbed villain nearly as much. He's got just enough of an edge to be overtly MEGA SINISTER but never in a way that turns him into a characature. I think THAT'S what makes me really love him. Yeah.

#i think im just so jaded by most modern morally-gray 'hehehehohoho im a bad guy 😎' guys that having someone who COULD be open about it #without being a punchy one-liner I Am Shit Man was nice #if that makes any sense

[writergeekrhw]

Hi Robert,

I understand that early in DS9's development there was talk of setting it on Bajor itself. How long did this idea last, and how was the series planned differently than what made it to the screen?

Thanks

Before my time. DS9 was set on a space station from when I joined the show (after production started but before the premiere), and I never heard Michael talk about the idea of setting it on Bajor itself, so I have no idea if this is accurate or if/when Michael changed it.

#star trek #deep space nine #deep space 9 #star trek deep space 9 #star trek deep space nine #star trek ds9 #ds9 #tv #tvwriting #tv writing #ask me anything #ask me stuff #there's stuff I just don't know though

[jimintomystery]

DS9: "Life Support"

After months of secret negotiations, Kain Winn and Vedek Bareil are close to securing a peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia. When Bareil is severely injured in a shuttle accident, Winn relocates the talks to Deep Space Nine, so that the vedek can continue to advise her from the station's infirmary. Although Doctor Bashir recommends extensive rest, Bareil insists on any experimental treatment that will allow him to help the kai...even at the cost of his own life.

The A-plot of this episode is pretty good, but every time I sit down to watch it, I get a sinking feeling when it starts out on the B-plot. In general, I like how Jake Sisko and Nog overcome their cultural differences to remain best friends. But their disastrous double date, and Jake's scheme to patch things up, feels like something out of an unfunny sitcom.

The peace treaty itself isn't important to the Bareil story--he could have been advising Winn on any number of important political issues, and it wouldn't make much difference. Even so, I like that the show built up Cardassian-Bajoran hostilities and then resolved them here rather quietly. The treaty doesn't matter a lot in the long run, but it will loom over several episodes in a way that adds texture to Deep Space Nine's neighborhood.

The basic conflict, between Bareil's work and his personal wellbeing, holds up. But it's a little shaky in places where you can tell the original idea was for Bashir to use questionable procedures to reanimate a dead man. Bareil's near-death experience in the first act doesn't really feel necessary for the finished story, but I can see how it would have played into a Bashir-as-Frankenstein arc. Replacing several of Bareil's organs with artificial implants also ends up feeling excessive, especially since they never bother to make Bareil look like he's undergone multiple surgeries. Which brings us to the robot brain.

Bashir's last big move is to replace the left half of Bareil's brain with a positronic implant. This has always bothered me, since Star Trek had firmly established positronic brains as something you'd use to build a fully artificial person, i.e., Lt. Commander Data. Replacing part of Bareil's brain with part of Data's brain sounds a bit like swapping his kidneys for a catalytic converter. This seems like a very controversial, very difficult form of surgery...but within two minutes of bringing it up, Bashir has already finished, and Bareil doesn't have a hair out of place! It's a good thing Philip Anglim delivers a chilling performance of a man who's been halfway turned into Mr. Data, because otherwise you might totally fail to notice that Bashir has opened up his head and scooped out a chunk of his brain.

#star trek #deep space nine #star trek: deep space nine #ds9 season 3 #we are of bajor

[patchoulol]

re:how does quark stay in business - I think having control over the station's holodecks and having a gambling floor play a major role in it. though something I think the berman era struggled with in general was explaining how for profit businesses could continue to exist in a universe with replicators and they tried out a few different answers for that across TNG, DS9, and VOY

I'm reminded even Quark thinks he should abandon the bar when the Federation takes over. He does get maintenance and power from Starfleet for free, despite constantly charging them for things back, which is probably part of the deal Sisko begrudgingly gave him to help keep the local economy from collapsing. It's likely he installed the holosuites as private property from the start under the occupation, but that doesn't mean it necessarily makes sense Starfleet never sets up its own holodecks for military and scientific use since they aren't strictly recreation only.

Star Trek Online was considered canon up until PIC came out because PIC's writing disrespected everything before it and does have Federation energy credits to latinum conversions. I think it would make sense if Starfleet officers were technically always rationed energy with foreign currency conversions, just that it took the situation on Voyager for the personal limits to become small enough to come up in conversation. They phrase it as not getting paid or needing to amass wealth, but they probably have some weird energy based UBI equivalent system going on universally.

In TNG the sheer distance helps things make sense, not everyone has access to a Galaxy-class starship with 20-something holodecks and replicators in every room and their warp speed has a hard technological limit. Some materials can't be replicated and certain sizes of materials require industrial replicators. If a world doesn't have a stable energy solution yet then running these things as casually as Earth or Starfleet does would become impractical. Voyager fudges the resource count between episodes (have fun counting torpedoes) but for the most part the energy rationing makes more sense as an economic basis than anything we've seen in the rest of Star Trek. It seems mostly established that the Federation will provide for all your needs barring logistical issues but you might be on your own for recreation and hobbies depending on location, meaning you can't ever go using so much energy other people can't eat or run necessary equipment and that amount varies between places, which means the value of energy itself varies between places along with all things you could replicate with it. (...but if you pay attention too much, the warp times stop making sense especially in the movies, but just don't pay attention too much!)

#patchoulol #luunie #ask #Yes I'm aware I said universal Universal Basic Income. #Learn about it at the Universal University of the Universe.

[tanadrin]

in s1 e5, O’Brien says a few hundred people permanently reside on DS9. for comparison, JFK airport employs 35,000 people. now, obviously the station itself is big (bigger than a Galaxy-class ship, with upwards of a thousand people), and the total population is probably much higher most of the time, but still! by size, it’s a small airport! it’s actually kind of astonishing that the Federation didn’t immediately start considering replacing the Cardassian station with a bigger, more robust, more modern design the instant the wormhole was discovered.

[rikareadman]

I just have to say, I’ve had a Star Trek fixation the past few months and I did NOT expect to enjoy Picard. I skipped out on TNG, having started with Voyager when I was a teenager and DS9 earlier this year, so my attachments were to Sisko, Seven, the Ferengi and the Borg, etc.

Patrick Stewart is like the least energetic character on the show but he still does a great job as the protagonist, and the way the series has more of a focus on grounded events/planetside events instead of everything taking place inside a starship or a space station is super good. The writing itself is pretty nice too, I was on episode 9 before I realized I’d been completely compelled by the plotlines unraveling in front of me.

also gay robots are nice

#Startrek #Star Trek #Picard #seven is gay #good for her #also need romulan samurai twink in my life

[slippery-domjot-balls]

In Bloodletter by K. W. Jeter there is talk of a section of the DS9 infirmary called Quarantine Module. If you know more about this please share! Here is what I found out so far:

The Module is capable of completely isolating itself from the station to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and cut off opportunity for a pandemic to spread.

In the event of an outbreak, the infectious patients would be quarantined in the module with medical staff, and the module itself would "eject" to physically separate from the station. An umbilical cord would anchor it to DS9 to prevent it from floating off on its own.

Other online resources like Memory Beta suggest that Starbases were often equipped with Quarantine Modules. However, the DS9 module was added to the station since the Cardassian structure did not originally house one.

#star trek #star trek ds9 #deep space nine #ds9