Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

[tomandtish]

Yeah. He'd been battling cancer for a while and it finally caught him. While I loved him as Odo, he was also a great character actor.

[Wraith]

S7E12: The Emperor's New Cloak: Ferengi Mirror-Universe Shenanigans
S7E13: Field of Fire: Dax hunts a serial killer with the help of her crazy murderer memories.

S7E14: Chimera

I'm a bit surprised that it only shows up in the last half season, as an encounter like this could have happened at basically any other point in the series.

I kind of wish that this episode *had* happened a lot earlier in the show, preferably even before the beginning of the Dominion War. The idea of tempting Odo to go off with one of his kind and be a real shapeshifter is a very interesting and complex motivation for him, but this late in the arc the discussions about racism and prejudice towards Laars feel... neutered.

He is a Changeling. The Federation is at war with the Dominion, who are run by Changelings. Rationally, everything said about Laars potentially being a spy or saboteur is completely plausible, and his arrogant attitude really doesn't help - its not entirely prejudice against the guy if people dislike him because he's a jerk.

I think this would have been far more impactful back in, say, season 4 - that way accusations of being a spy levelled at Laars would have been only slightly more credible than the same accusations being made against Odo, him being a stranger from a strange and unusual race. By season 7, every time Laars or Odo say that people are just prejudiced should instantly be answered with "We're literally at war with these guys, and we haven't had 20 years to get to know him like we did with you. Being the 'soft and idealistic' Federation is one thing, but we're not idiots!"

[Talakeal]

I kind of wish that this episode *had* happened a lot earlier in the show, preferably even before the beginning of the Dominion War. The idea of tempting Odo to go off with one of his kind and be a real shapeshifter is a very interesting and complex motivations for him, but this late in the arc the discussions about racism and prejudice towards Laars feel... neutered.

He is a Changeling. The Federation is at war with the Dominion, who are run by Changelings. Rationally, everything said about Laars potentially being a spy or saboteur is completely plausible, and his arrogant attitude really doesn't help - its not entirely prejudice against the guy if people dislike him because he's a jerk.

I think this would have been far more impactful back in, say, season 4 - that way accusations of being a spy levelled at Laars would have been only slightly more credible than the same accusations being made against Odo, him being a stranger from a strange and unusual race. By season 7, every time Laars or Odo say that people are just prejudiced should instantly be answered with "We're literally at war with these guys, and we haven't had 20 years to get to know him like we did with you. Being the 'soft and idealistic' Federation is one thing, but we're not idiots!"

I totally agree.

I actually remembered it happening much earlier in the series, and was wondering why Yora had skipped it.

[Yora]

S7E18: Til Death Do Us Part

Sisko is discussing his vision with Jake. Who is just as upset about it, which does not really help Sisko. Kai Wynn comes to his office to commandeer the wedding festival the Bajorans are looking forward to. When she leaves his office she has her first vision of the Prophets, but they seem a bit sinister and are probably wraiths. They tell her to wait for a messenger that will come to her.

Worf is antsy and trying to come up with new plans to escape from their cell and Dax tells him to please stop antagonizing the Breen. They get food and sit down, and Worf finally starts to have a normal conversation with her. He is surprised how very much she still is like he remembered her and happy to have her back. Which gives her something to think about.

Weyoun is going to Damar's quarters who is passed out drunk in his bed in his uniform. Weyoun tells him to get ready because they will travel, and also lets him know that he is fully aware that Dukat is back. Damar seems to consider straightening up, but rather takes another drink instead. When he goes to see Dukat, Dukat tells him that he's really letting himself go and needs to get a grip of himself. Dukat then travels to Deep Space Nine in his Bajoran disguise.

Kassidy is back from her delivery and notices that Sisko is upset about something. He tells her about the vision and that he doesn't know what to do. For now, the wedding is off.

Dax wakes up from a weird dream and Worf recommends she ignores it. She wants to figure out what it means and Worf doesn't seem happy that Bashir was in it. The Breen come to their cell and stun them and take Worf with them, leaving Dax behind.

Wynn's secretary come to her quarters and bring Dukat to her, who says he wants to get her blessing. He tells her the things that her vision told her would identify the messenger. He tells her a story about pest problems on his farm, and that it can only be fought by burning the whole field. Wynn takes that as the message from the prophets and tells Dukat that he is destined to help her restore Bajor to its old height.

Sisko reveals his problem to Kira and has her sympathy, but she doesn't have anything to help him.

When the Breen bring Worf back he's hallucinating and shouting before fully waking up again. When the Breen come to take Dax, he attacks them and gets stunned again.

Dukat keeps playing his act as a simple farmer and when Wynn is prodding him for his thoughts to find something that could guide her. After some time he reluctantly tells her that he's not a fan of the Emissary, who as an outsider doesn't seem qualified to help rebuilding Bajor. He also tells her a story of how he was once sentenced to death by Gul Dukat but was miraculously saved by an administration error. And to Wynn's astonishment, that error was something that she had arranged to save the prisoners. Dukat tells her that he's certain the prophets had chosen him to serve her.

Quark comes to Sisko's quarters, informing him that the wedding ring he ordered was delivered. He also recommends to not let it go to waste.

Dax is also in not too good shape when she's brought back from interrogation and mumbling all kind of nonsense, again dreaming about Bashir. When she's back up, Worf is upset that she made advances to him while actually being after Bashir. She denies such a thing, but he doesn't believe it. The Breen take them from their cell and beam to a Dominion ship where they are given to Weyoun as a gift to celebrate the new alliance.

Dukat goes to Wynn in the middle of the night to tell her a miracle has happened and his brother just called him that there's new plants growing on the field destroyed by the pests.

--

I found this episode to be rather weak. It's decently enough done, but the only real development is Dukat getting Wynn's confidence. Neither Sisko nor Dax and Worf make any actual progress with their issues and nothing gets really accomplished.

[Rodin]

I found this episode to be rather weak. It's decently enough done, but the only real development is Dukat getting Wynn's confidence. Neither Sisko nor Dax and Worf make any actual progress with their issues and nothing gets really accomplished.

This is a problem I had with the whole final arc of episodes, to be honest. None of the episodes stand on their own, its just a slow burn of isolated events happening in small snippets. I think they were trying to build everything up for a grand finale episode, but because they didn't leave themselves enough time these developments all have to be crammed into a small number of episodes. And since the events have to happen in a certain order, there's no way to divide them up into individual episodes such that the pace of the story is properly maintained. We get all the build-up events with no actual plot.

This is also the point where the Prophets crossed from "irritatingly vague" to "okay now you're doing this on purpose to be jerks."

[Yora]

S7E19: Strange Bedfellows

Damar is upset because he never was told there were negotiations with the Breen, and because Weyoun traded away Cardassian territory to the Breen without even telling the Cardassians what sytems they will be handing over. But Weyoun makes it clear that the Cardassians are subjects of the Dominion and the Founders can do with their territory what they want. He is also worried that Worf and Dax are very well informed how badly the war is really going for the Dominion.

Sisko is telling Martok that he's going to marry Kassidy anyway.

Dukat continues to charming himself into Winn's confidence.

Worf and Dax are getting hung upside down by their feet in a cell by the Jem'Hadar, and Dax is back to her typical habit of dealing with stress by snarking.

Kassidy is happy that Sisko will marry her, but really doesn't want to get involved in the Emissary business. But he warns her that the Bajorans are very persistent when it comes to these things.

When they arrive at Cardassia, Weyoun wants to further interrogate Worf and Dax. If they don't cooperate with him, he will give them to the Cardassia to be tried for war crimes. Which as usual for Cardassian justice, don't need to be further specified. Weyoun is offering them life in prison if they talk. He then says insulting things about Dax that were recorded in their cell and Worf snaps his neck in a second. Damar tells the Cardassian guards not to shot them because he finds this really funny.

Winn has another vision from the wraiths who call her their chosen one to restore Bajor. They also reveal their true identity to her, which she doesn't like at all. She tells her secretary to bring her the orb that is in the shrine on the station to banish the evil that is trying to get a hold of her.

Weyoun is still in a very cheerful mood when the new Weyoun clone arrives. This quickly ends when the command center on Cardassia is handed over to the Breen, whose leader will also be Damar's new boss.

Worf and Dax break out of their cell and kill a couple of guards, but are quickly recaptured.

O'Brien and Bashir are feeling down, but Quark remains optimistic that Dax will be back. Bashir is musing about not really being sure what he was feeling about her.

Winn's secretary brings her the orb and is concerned if anything is wrong, but she tells him not to ask questions and sends him out. She opens the box to look at the orb, but nothing happens. Dukat decides that its the right time to reveal to her that he was send by the wraiths. She wants to throw him out, but he tells her that the Prophets did do nothing to protect Bajor during the occupation and won't talk to her, even though she's the Kai.

Once Dukat is gone, she calls Kira in the middle of the night to ask her for guidance. Kira thinks that it's a good thing that she starts seeing that she didn't serve the Prophets well and wants to change. But she also recommends her to give the position to someone else while she rebuilds her relationship with the prophets, and that's absolutely not what she wants to hear.

Damar shows up for work in the morning and Weyoun doesn't pass the opportunity to tell him the Breen commander discovered several improvements to their strategy that the Cardassians had not spotted. Damar gets much upset when he finds a report that an entire Cardassian fleet has been destroyed in the night and nobody thought to inform him.

Dax and Worf continue to bicker about their relationships. She's had enough of it and straight up wants to know if he loves her. And he avoids saying either way, but seems to lean towards no. After a long time thinking, he admits it and apologizes for trying to see Jadzia in her. Dax wants him to know that Jadzia never had ambitions at Bashir.
Damar comes with two Jem'Hadar to take them to the execution but then shots the two guards and leads them to a ship to get a message to the Federation that the Cardassians need their help against the Dominion.

Winn's secretary brings Dukat to her quarters and is increasingly annoyed at the secretive dealings the two are having. Winn tells Dukat that if she can't be Kai for the prophets, she's willing to serve the wraiths instead.

--

This episode is a lot better than the previous two. I think it's because the plot is now well enough established and we're getting some actual progress and development.

It's still not a great episode, though. While I am a big fan of Weyoun, his interactions with Damar have become increasingly less believable for a while and in this episode it really just doesn't work anymore. There had been barbs and subtle treats for a long time, but at this point Weyoun is openly boasting about the Cardassians being discarded and the only reason he still keeps Damar around seems to be to taunt him about it all day. Originally these interactions served to assure Damar that everything is allright and continue to do his job for the Dominion. I don't see why Weyoun would still have him in the command center long after he's become irrelevant. He doesn't need to waste any time on Damar anymore and he's just a security risk. And that's exactly how it plays out. This doesn't fit Weyoun's character.

Also, what is the point of having a 30 second scene in which Worf and Dax escape from their cell and are immediately captured wit no consequence. It's not only completely pointless, it makes the Dominion feel less dangerous. And on top of it it is so obviously pointless that it hurts the pacing of the episode.

I did mostly like Winn's part in this episode. Everything she does is perfectly in line with her character over the last six seasons. She is behaving exactly as we would expect of her. Even asking Kira for advice since she's the Emissary's confidant and not wanting to talk to one of her own people makes sense. But the whole thing still sours a bit that everything hinges on Kira telling her she should quit her position. There is very sound reasoning behind it, but the way it takes place comes across as super forced and just not believable. Kira would know that dropping that bomb on Winn right in the first minute will result in a violent rejection. Again, it's super obvious when you watch it, which makes the illusion crumble.

[Wraith]

Also, what is the point of having a 30 second scene in which Worf and Dax escape from their cell and are immediately captured wit no consequence. It's not only completely pointless, it makes the Dominion feel less dangerous. And on top of it it is so obviously pointless that it hurts the pacing of the episode.

Token action sequence, I guess? Take out the gunfight, as brief as it is, and the episode is 45 minutes of people talking at each and getting grumpy. With it included, there's at least a few minutes in the middle, between the cold open (when we don't know any better) and the dramatic climax, where the music picks up and the audience has to re-engage instead of only listening to the dialogue.

It's a cheap ploy and somewhat mishandled, but I can appreciate what they're going for.

[tomandtish]

S7E19: Strange Bedfellows

This episode had what I consider to be one of the best (if not THE best) quotes in Star Trek....

After seeing that Worf and Dax escaped.

Weyoun: "The Founder - she wishes to see me. She has to be told about this".

Damar: "Oh, I'm sure she'll understand. But if she doesn't, I look forward to meeting Weyoun 9."

That rates up there with Vir's quote to Morden in B5.

[Yora]

S7E20: The Changing Face of Evil

Word and Dax make it back to the station. At the same time they get the news that the Breen Pearl Harboured the Starfleet headquarters on Earth.

Weyoun is happy, the Breen general not so much. Damar does not pass the opportunity of for once being the one to rub someone else's face into huge losses of ships. When Weyoun goes to see the Founder, Damar warns the Breen that the Cardassian's were not long ago in the same spot they are standing in now, and that pretty soon they will enjoy being part of the Dominion just as much.

Sisko doesn't want Kassidy to fly around in a freighter while the Dominion is on a major offensive, but she's not having it.

Dukat has one of his henchmen put together a list of the Cardassian officers they can trust and deliver a secret message to them.

Winn is going over her appointments with her secretary and tells him just to cancel all of them. He wants to know what else she's planning to do, but she tells him it's not his business. Study and meditation stuff. When Dukat strolls in and tells him what he wants for breakfast, the secretary is visibly rolling his eyes. Winn still doesn't fully trust Dukat yet and is surprised by the suggestion that they should release the wraiths, which has been prophesied to destroy Bajor. But Dukat tells her that it's the beginning of a better new Bajor, for the people who are worthy. With her as ruler.
She does come around a bit and wants to know how the wraiths could be released and Dukat tells her to search for the answer in an ancient book. But again she is shocked that he would suggest opening that cursed book that is prophesied to bring a great evil.

Bashir and O'Brien are working strategy on how it would be possible to defend Fort Alamo against the Mexican army. Quark can't believe they are playing around like that when there's a real war going on. Bashir suggests they could try building a moat around the fort, and Quark mutters something about building a moat around the station.

Dax and Worf are watching them from a distance and Worf is still very doubtful if she really wants Bashir. She's not really sure about this herself. He thinks Bashir is still too immature for her, playing around with that battlefield model with O'Brien. But in the end, she has to know what she wants. Also, Bashir and O'Brien are wasting their time because the Alamo battle is unwinnable without reinforcements. Maybe he should go down and tell them?

Weyoun is surprised that Damar shows up for work early, which is completely unexpected for him. He also tells him he looks only half dressed without a drink in his hand. Weyoun interprets his sudden straightening up as Damar feeling that with help from the Breen, the war is no longer lost.

Winn's secretary brings her the book. And he also has reached the point where he's done with being silent and tells her reading the book that was sealed away for centuries will be a terrible mistake. As is listening to the stranger that appeared from nowhere and became her closest advisor. She demands that he gives her the book and eventually he puts it on the table and leaves with no further words.
Winn and Dukat open the book, but it's nothing but empty pages. Dukat thinks the secretary was pranking them, but Winn is certain that there is a secret to reading the book.

Kassidy is upset with Sisko that her Bajoran employer has just taken her off duty for a month. He tells her he just did it to keep her safe, but she doesn't want that and that she's not calling his bosses to send him away, even though his job is much more dangerous. He appologizes to her and arranges for her to go back to work. But right that time the admiral arrives to tell him they have to go into battle.

The secretary brings Winn more books with forbidden knowledge and tells her that the archivists are already wondering what she is doing with all these evil books.
When he later returns and finds her sleeping at her desk, he picks up the books to lock them away again, but he runs into Dukat outside the door, who hits him and takes the books back into her office.

The Defiant joins the battle against the Dominion fleet but in the first encounter gets hit by some kind of Breen ion canons that takes all systems out of action. With no defenses, Sisko gives order to abandon the ship. The fleet gets pretty much wiped out and Weyoun wants to destroy all escape pods, but the Founder tells him to let them run home in fear of their new strength.

Winn's secretary comes to her that he discovered that the man Dukat pretends to be has long been dead, and that he's a Cardassian. That's finally too much for and realizing he's Dukat wants to reject him. The secretary figures out that they planned to free the wraiths, but Winn tries to assure him that the wraiths are the true gods of Bajor. He tries to leave and warn others but before he gets to the door Winn stabs him in the back. With everything having gone to hell, she wants to destroy the forbidden book, but when blood drops from the knife still in her hand, it reveals the invisible writing on the pages. She's creeped out, but Dukat convinces her to read what the wraiths want to teach her.

Back on the station, Kira calls Sisko that they received a message from Damar who announces that the Cardassians are rising up against the Dominion.

--

As the tension keeps going up, the quality keeps going down. At this part of the show, they have the visuals and acting all nailed down, and the episodes look good and they don't get really boring, which is why I still rate this one as okay.
But the writing makes less and less sense. Weyoun isn't fun to watch anymore because his taunting of Damar isn'r clever. The Founder is just barking at anyone who crosses her path and doesn't feel threatening as an evil mastermind.
I can understand why Dax is no longer the pilot on the Defiant, but why is Kira flying now? Who's in command of the station? I don't want to keep comparing the show unfavorably, but "that other show" was much more consistent with the assignment of responsibilities.

But the big elephant in the room are the Breen. Before this storyline, the Breen appeared once guarding some Cardassia and Bajoran mining slaves on an uninhabited desert planet. And there was a Breen prisoner with Worf, Garak, Bashir, and Martok in the Dominion prison who did nothing except shooting one guard and getting himself killed simultaneously. And in their third appearance ever, the Breen are now suddenly the fifth superpower in the Alpha Quadrant. The Federation, Klingons, and Romulans are steamrolling the Cardassians and Jem'Hadar, but as soon as the Breen join in everything flips over completely. Where did that come from? The most powerful fleet of the show's setting never got ever mentioned even once? That's just bad writing.

And I think this probably has been going on for a while now, but I', really not liking the editing the show has now. They are constantly jumping between storylines in what feels like every 30 seconds.

I give this episode an okay rating, but only barely. And because the terrible episode in season 2 and 3 were so much worse. This isn't anywhere near that bad yet. Still feels very disapointing and I don't understand how late season 7 is by many considered the peak of Star Trek.

[Cikomyr]

I give this episode an okay rating, but only barely. And because the terrible episode in season 2 and 3 were so much worse. This isn't anywhere near that bad yet. Still feels very disapointing and I don't understand how late season 7 is by many considered the peak of Star Trek.

Season 7 is considered weaker by most. The peak of Star Trek was season 4-5-6 for most.

[Talakeal]

The Breen were mentioned a dozen times throughout TNG, DS9, and VOY, as well as in Generations, before ever being seen, so they didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.

[Traab]

The Breen were mentioned a dozen times throughout TNG, DS9, and VOY, as well as in Generations, before ever being seen, so they didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.

I think the point wasnt that they were created out of whole cloth, but that their threat level was. They go from one of the casually mentioned races in the vast federation to being powerful enough to turn the tide of the war effort in a huge way. I dont recall offhand any mention of the breen being surprisingly powerful and able to project that power on a galactic quadrant level.

As far as the founders go, they were NEVER really all that personally threatening. Their power was entirely bound up in the hard wired loyalty of the jemhadar and the vorta. They had a bureaucracy that was utterly devoted to them as gods to run the government and fanatically loyal clone soldiers by the million to throw at any threats. All that makes them personally dangerous is how easily they fill the SAID route, Sabotage, Assassination, Infiltration, Demolition.

[tomandtish]

I think the point wasnt that they were created out of whole cloth, but that their threat level was. They go from one of the casually mentioned races in the vast federation to being powerful enough to turn the tide of the war effort in a huge way. I dont recall offhand any mention of the breen being surprisingly powerful and able to project that power on a galactic quadrant level.

It's also important to note that the Breen are so effective in this initial attack because their weapons effectively bypass shield and cripple weapons systems. Until this point, they may not have been considered a dangerous power by anyone else.

Think of it someowhat like Wakanda. They've done an excellent job of hiding their power over the years, but you REALLY don't want to mess with them. Honestly, if they hadn't broken off the offensive to deal with the Cardassian uprising, they might have won the war by attacking quickly enough that Star Fleet can't retrofit their vessels.

[bguy]

I think the point wasnt that they were created out of whole cloth, but that their threat level was. They go from one of the casually mentioned races in the vast federation to being powerful enough to turn the tide of the war effort in a huge way. I dont recall offhand any mention of the breen being surprisingly powerful and able to project that power on a galactic quadrant level.

Is it that the Breen were a major power or is it more that the Federation-Klingons-Romulan alliance and the Dominion-Cardassians were fairly evenly matched at that point in the war, so with the the two sides being evenly matched even a mid-rate power joining in for the Dominion was enough to tip the scales in their favor?

[GrayDeath]

Is it that the Breen were a major power or is it more that the Federation-Klingons-Romulan alliance and the Dominion-Cardassians were fairly evenly matched at that point in the war, so with the the two sides being evenly matched even a mid-rate power joining in for the Dominion was enough to tip the scales in their favor?

Given that "mid-Rate Power" had Weapons that effectively simulate Star Wars Ion Cannons but better, heck yes!


Mind, I found the Breen scary in retrospect as a lot was hinted at them being secretive and such (and I remembered TNG and the Romulans) but I think that was a bit of a "Giv ethem the Vorlon Treatment" from the DS9 Writers. ^^

[bguy]

Given that "mid-Rate Power" had Weapons that effectively simulate Star Wars Ion Cannons but better, heck yes!

They were pretty much a one trick pony though. (And it didn't take Starfleet all that long to counter that one trick.)

And even when the Breen energy weapon was working at maximum effectiveness, it didn't exactly move the battle lines that much. The Dominion-Cardassian-Breen forces were able to retake the Chin'toka system, but they didn't seem to advance any further than that. (Certainly we don't hear about a renewed Dominion offensive driving deep into Federation space or anything like that.) That the Dominion didn't immediately steamroll the Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance once the Breen entered the war but instead only made very minor gains suggests that the Breen fleet itself was actually pretty small.

[Rodin]

I have a hard time justifying the Breen from an in-story perspective, but I can just about swallow that they were reclusive and nobody knew about the Breen energy weapon.

This doesn't change their effect on the storytelling. They felt like a cheat in the same way as revealing the murderer was the next door neighbor who we never met. The writers wanted to drum up some drama, then dropped the Breen just as quickly once their purpose was fulfilled. They get given no backstory, no reason for joining the Dominion. Hell, they don't even have any dialogue outside of Chewie-speak. The Breen exist solely to say "uh-oh, the Dominion might win the war unless our bold heroes do something!"

[Yora]

S7E21: When it rains

The Klingons have found a way to shield their ships from the Breen ion canons. The Federation and Romulan ships are still vulnerable, so the Klingons plan to keep the Dominion distracted with random attacks.

Sisko sends Kira and Garak to Cardassia to find Damar and teach him how to fight the Dominion from inside and survive until help can arrive.

Bashir asks Odo for a fluid sample so that he can research how it takes on other forms, with the hope of developing organic tissue that can be morphed into replacement organs. I wonder if a writer read something about this new research in stem cells in 1999.
Odo gives him a beaker, but wants it back when he returns with Kira and Garak. I sense a Chekhov's gun ahead.

Winn is reading the evil book to find a way to release the wraiths and is getting annoyed by Dukat hovering over her.

Garak managed to contact Damar and arranged for a meeting. But Damar thinks that the Cardassian's wouldn't take orders from Bajoran officers, so she's quickly made a Starfleet Commander.

Gowron comes to the station to give Martok a medal. He's not happy to see Worf there, but then switches his mind and says if Martok has taken him into his house, he's willing to see past their past disputes.

Bashir calls Dax to the infirmary to get a chance to talk with her in private about her avoiding him. She tries to explain things but he tries to stop her when she gets to her time with Worf when they were gone. She keeps trying to tell him what she really means, but he gets distracted by something important showing up in the scans of Odo's material. He calls Odo to tell him that he's infected with the Founders' disease. He currently isn't sick and there's nothing Bashir could do at this point, so Odo continues with the mission to help the Cardassians while Bashir goes working on a cure.

Dukat sneaks into Winn's office at night to read the evil book. But as he starts reading he gets zapped in the eyes and goes blind.

After giving Martok the medal, Gowron tells him that he will now take command of the Klingon fleet himself. Martok isn't thrilled about it, but Gowron tells him to be happy that he can now properly fight battles and has the administration work taken off him. Sisko and the admiral both don't look too pleased by this change.

Bashir calls Starfleet to get a copy of their files from when they examined Odo to have additional data to work with, but those files are classified and everyone tries turning him away. He makes calls up the chain of command until a commander tells him that he isn't going to get those files to develop a cure for the disease killing the Founders. He talks with O'Brien to repeat and clarify that this seems fishy and then decides to ask if Sisko can get the files for him.

Kira tries to teach the Cardassians to fight from hiding, but the soldiers are very reluctant to use sneaky unconventional tactics.

Bashir got the files from Sisko and starts going through them, but quickly finds that it's just a copy of the files he got from Doctor Mora when he first came to the station. He pieces together that Federation-Stasi has switched the files to prevent the creation of a cure.

Martok is grumpy that Gowron has taken over his job. Worf thinks it's because Martok was becoming too popular with the Klingon warriors.

Damar's henchmen try to start a fight with Kira for giving Damar the idea that they need to attack Cardassian soldiers still working for the Dominion. Somehow they think that asking Odo about why he gave Bajoran prisoners to the Cardassians when he knew they would be executed and somehow that actually works on making Kira really angry. Odo has a talk with her and when she's out of the room he notices that he's having first symptoms of the disease.

Dukat got examined by Winn's doctors but they couldn't find anything wrong with him. She also has enough of him and has the guards throw him out of the temple. Relying on the charity of the Bajoran people might teach him the humility to regain the favor of the wraiths.

Gowron calls Martok and Worf to his office to tell them of their new strategy. He wants to send all the Klingon ships on a surprise attack at Cardassia to win the whole war in one brilliant move. Martok and Worf really don't like the plan, but he's not asking for their opinion.

Bashir and O'Brien are trying to come up with a plan to cure Odo in secret. Quark comes by to offer them some coffee as his contribution to their efforts. O'Brien is surprised that Quark knows Odo is infected and tells him not to tell anyone they work on a cure. Bashir analyzes the sample to calculate when Odo was infected and it comes out as being when Odo was at Starfleet on Earth. Which means he was infected there to spread the disease to the Founders.

--

Same issue as before. Too many long running storylines happening at the same time, which means that in each episode nothing much of consequence happens.

How come Odo was the first to be infected, but now is the last one to start getting sick?

The idea to give Kira a Starfleet uniform makes sense, but it doesn't really feel necessary. It's only necessary because the writers made it necessary and it feels like a gimmick. First Kira tells the Cardassians they will have to fight Cardassian soldiers fighting for the Dominion, or the Dominion will simply have some Cardassians stationed at every base. Not pretty, but that's how this works. And then they want to get back at her by reminding her that Odo gave small criminals to the Cardassians knowing they would be executed and she actually goes ballistic? Does not compute.

[Cikomyr]

If I had to guess, the disease probably accelerates the more you shapeshift. And Odo takes a lot less forms than other founders for budget reasons preferential reasons.

[Rodin]

Another explanation could be that it's designed to work slower in Odo specifically. Tuned to his DNA, or whatever equivalent changelings have. Starfleet would want him to be contagious while not showing symptoms for as long as possible. Maybe it's simpler than that, and the disease has a dormant phase where it just hangs around and passing it on skips the dormant phase.

If it was a random disease, this would be improbable. In a disease engineered with Star Trek level super science, anything goes.

[Traab]

Another explanation could be that it's designed to work slower in Odo specifically. Tuned to his DNA, or whatever equivalent changelings have. Starfleet would want him to be contagious while not showing symptoms for as long as possible. Maybe it's simpler than that, and the disease has a dormant phase where it just hangs around and passing it on skips the dormant phase.

If it was a random disease, this would be improbable. In a disease engineered with Star Trek level super science, anything goes.

Agreed, I could totally see it as star trek fiction to remain dormant but contagious for at least a certain length of time. They should have gone the metal gear route. "Nanomachines son." Super easy to justify it activating after being spread to the other founders, barely an inconvenience to decide it multiplies based on shifting. (Thats right, two references in one post)

[bguy]

If I had to guess, the disease probably accelerates the more you shapeshift. And Odo takes a lot less forms than other founders for budget reasons preferential reasons.

Odo also spent a number of months as a solid. The disease was presumably dormant during that time.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Another explanation could be that it's designed to work slower in Odo specifically. Tuned to his DNA, or whatever equivalent changelings have. Starfleet would want him to be contagious while not showing symptoms for as long as possible. Maybe it's simpler than that, and the disease has a dormant phase where it just hangs around and passing it on skips the dormant phase.

If it was a random disease, this would be improbable. In a disease engineered with Star Trek level super science, anything goes.

The disease was dormant within Odo, it was designed to become active when he linked with another shapechanger in the hopes of infecting the great link. If he got sick to early that would have blown the whole plan. Section 31 did it in the hope that Odo MIGHT link with another shapechanger one day.

He infected the Great Link at the same time they forced him to assume a fully humanoid form. At that point the disease became active and was passed onto the Link. And Odo now being locked in a solid form would either be immune to the disease or would severally stunt the progression of it. Or Odo didn't become infected with the active form of the disease until he linked with the 'female' changeling during the occupation of DS9.

[Mightymosy]

Also, for some silly reason some writers believe that "patient zero", or "the host", is immune to the disease....

Didn't they use that in Outbreak?
Also, I think in vampire or zombie stories I think I have seen that before.

At least, here it makes actual sense, as, like others have pointed out, this is an actual engineered plague.
It would make more sense if Odo was actually Fully immune instead of only temporarily, but one could easily say that this was not achievable for the evil scientists, and they decided that Odo surviving longer than other changeling was good enough to try it.

Come to think of it, real viruses sometimes behave like that: they mutate in one host and then have different outcomes in the next host. Maybe the virus mutated and killed other changeling faster, simply because the Star fleet Stasi got lucky and the virus mutated after Odo spread it to the hive mind?
Actually, the virus should have much more options to mutate once it infected a hive of minds, instead of a single individual like Odo.

The one thing that would strike me as unrealistic is that Bashir *HAS* to research artificial organ replacement at this point in federation history. How about taking producing one in a replicator or teleporting device?
Didn't Dr McCoy give one patient in San Francisco a pill that made them grow new kidneys really fast?

[Wraith]

The Dominion-Cardassian-Breen forces were able to retake the Chin'toka system, but they didn't seem to advance any further than that. (Certainly we don't hear about a renewed Dominion offensive driving deep into Federation space or anything like that.) That the Dominion didn't immediately steamroll the Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance once the Breen entered the war but instead only made very minor gains suggests that the Breen fleet itself was actually pretty small.

I feel that one of the biggest weaknesses of DS9, for all that I like about it, is one of the same things that have always plagued Star Trek - there's very rarely a consistent scale for what they're doing.

We keep being told that the Dominion is winning, that they have taken over X number of new systems and that the Federation/Klingon Alliance has had to fall back, and fall back, and fall back... But it doesn't actually change much about how the stories progress.

Characters can still travel between Earth and DS9 in a handful of days without any problems. The Klingon Empire goes to Total War against the Dominion, but that means there's still just four or five ships on the screen at any given time. DS9 itself is at the mouth of the wormhole, which is the only way that the Dominion forces can get into, or out of, the Alpha Quadrant and thus should be THE battlefront of the war as either sides vie for control of the single biggest key resource that the Dominion have... But usually DS9 is pretty quiet with two, maybe 3 Federation ships docked at any given time and only once gets shown to be in any threat when Dukat takes it over again only for it to be retaken within an episode or two. We keep getting silly one-shot episodes where Captain Sisko has nothing better to do with his time than to solve a problem for a fictional character that lives inside the holodeck.... I mean, Jesus wept, Benjamin! You're at war for the survival of every species in the Alpha Quadrant! Turn the damn thing off and back on again and be done with it!

The Dominion are winning; the Cardassians and the Breen have joined in with them and the Federation loses a bunch of battles... But that doesn't seem to do anything, apart from give the characters something to complain about until some technobabble happens off-screen and suddenly its not so bad any more. Food isn't rationed, there's no fuel crisis, there's still plenty of civilians hanging about looking quite calm and unbothered.

The Next Generation suffered a little from this - despite their claimed mandate being to expand the frontier and seek out new life and new civilisations, they spent and awful lot of time sat on the edge of the Neutral Zone. If anything, Voyager probably did it best, as they changed their antagonist every couple of seasons to suggest that they were actually moving from one territory to the other and giving the impression of time passing and distance being covered. DS9 tends to sound like people talking about a war happening very, very far away, rather than just across the galactic-scale street.

[bguy]

Characters can still travel between Earth and DS9 in a handful of days without any problems. The Klingon Empire goes to Total War against the Dominion, but that means there's still just four or five ships on the screen at any given time. DS9 itself is at the mouth of the wormhole, which is the only way that the Dominion forces can get into, or out of, the Alpha Quadrant and thus should be THE battlefront of the war as either sides vie for control of the single biggest key resource that the Dominion have... But usually DS9 is pretty quiet with two, maybe 3 Federation ships docked at any given time and only once gets shown to be in any threat when Dukat takes it over again only for it to be retaken within an episode or two.

It was weird that we never saw the Dominion try and take DS9 again. (I remember back when these episodes first aired how everyone thought all the Bashir and O'Brien talk about the Alamo was foreshadowing for a desperate last stand at DS9 which never ended up happening.) Still, it's not completely unrealistic. Maybe after realizing how closely they came to losing the whole Alpha Quadrant by losing DS9 at the start of the war, Starfleet and the Klingons so thoroughly beefed up the Ninth Fleet (defending the Bajor Sector) that it weakened the defense of other sectors, and thus the Dominion thought they could accomplish more attacking on other fronts.

We keep getting silly one-shot episodes where Captain Sisko has nothing better to do with his time than to solve a problem for a fictional character that lives inside the holodeck.... I mean, Jesus wept, Benjamin! You're at war for the survival of every species in the Alpha Quadrant! Turn the damn thing off and back on again and be done with it!

I don't know. When I was stationed in Iraq, I still had time to attend USO shows, watch the Superbowl, and even participate in a dodge ball tournament. And while Sisko was of considerably higher rank and much more important to his war effort than I was in mine, even high ranking officers still need some down time now and then. During World War 2 General Eisenhower was even relieved by his doctors and forced to take a 3 day break to recover from exhaustion following the completion of the Sicily Campaign, so Sisko taking a little time off to play baseball or save Vic Fontaine was reasonable from an in-story perspective (if perhaps a questionable use of story time in the last season.)

The Dominion are winning; the Cardassians and the Breen have joined in with them and the Federation loses a bunch of battles... But that doesn't seem to do anything, apart from give the characters something to complain about until some technobabble happens off-screen and suddenly its not so bad any more. Food isn't rationed, there's no fuel crisis, there's still plenty of civilians hanging about looking quite calm and unbothered.

I agree with this. The show did a poor job of making the situation feel desperate after the Breen joined. (Which is why I say that in-story the Breen must be a relatively weak power with a small fleet because otherwise the situation should have felt a lot more desperate once they joined the war.)

The Next Generation suffered a little from this - despite their claimed mandate being to expand the frontier and seek out new life and new civilisations, they spent and awful lot of time sat on the edge of the Neutral Zone.

Agreed. The Enterprise always seemed like it was much more about showing the flag in and near Federation space rather than actually exploring the frontier.

[Cikomyr]

It was weird that we never saw the Dominion try and take DS9 again. (I remember back when these episodes first aired how everyone thought all the Bashir and O'Brien talk about the Alamo was foreshadowing for a desperate last stand at DS9 which never ended up happening.) Still, it's not completely unrealistic. Maybe after realizing how closely they came to losing the whole Alpha Quadrant by losing DS9 at the start of the war, Starfleet and the Klingons so thoroughly beefed up the Ninth Fleet (defending the Bajor Sector) that it weakened the defense of other sectors, and thus the Dominion thought they could accomplish more attacking on other fronts.

The thing is, DS9 lost all of its strategic importance when the Prophets Deus Ex Machina'ed away any reinforcement from the Gamma Quadrant.

The Dominion seized the station to secure that strategic route. But when it proved to be a dead end, they clearly focused on outright conquering the Federation core territories by taking over Betazed and starting to mount direct offensives against Andor, Vulcan and Earth. DS9, without the wormhole, was just an alternate staging point into Cardassian territory.

[Wraith]

Maybe after realizing how closely they came to losing the whole Alpha Quadrant by losing DS9 at the start of the war, Starfleet and the Klingons so thoroughly beefed up the Ninth Fleet (defending the Bajor Sector) that it weakened the defense of other sectors, and thus the Dominion thought they could accomplish more attacking on other fronts.

Plausible, but I don't think the show ever spent that much time explaining it. As far as I recall, the Defiant remains the only Federation ship permanently assigned to DS9, despite it being *the* key Federation outpost to the wormhole, which is *the* single most important piece of property that the Dominion wants to keep access to. The Gamma Quadrant is otherwise 50 years away from providing reinforcements.

...Maybe THAT was the plot point I missed? The Jem'Hadar that are already in the Alpha Quadrant, along with the Cardassian fleet, is all that the Dominion has? And THAT is sufficient to match with the Federation? That's why the addition of the Breen - or any race would do, for that matter - was enough to tip the balance, since the Dominion had no other way to bring in ships except by alliance?

I don't know. When I was stationed in Iraq, I still had time to attend USO shows, watch the Superbowl, and even participate in a dodge ball tournament. And while Sisko was of considerably higher rank and much more important to his war effort than I was in mine, even high ranking officers still need some down time now and then. During World War 2 General Eisenhower was even relieved by his doctors and forced to take a 3 day break to recover from exhaustion following the completion of the Sicily Campaign, so Sisko taking a little time off to play baseball or save Vic Fontaine was reasonable from an in-story perspective (if perhaps a questionable use of story time in the last season.)

All true of course, but to be honest the holodeck stuff doesn't even feel as important as R&R. It feels more like a 2-star General deciding that the most important thing has has to do today is to leave his office and go around changing lightbulbs or unblocking the sink in the Men's bathroom. Sure, he's a 2-star General and he can do that if he really wants to, but.... Why? It's still work, surely there's less crap ways to go and hang out for a bit?

I've occasionally wondered if this sort of micromanagement was going to lead into a story about Sisko suffering from combat stress, the idea being that he's fighting so many fires that he has lost the ability to prioritise as the crushing weight of responsibility starts to bare down on him. Then the stuff with the Prophets could actually be employed for something relevant, like giving him a vision or a cautionary tale that leads to revelation about his true purpose, help him clarify what he needs to do, and set him off towards the finale with purpose and resolution.

But... No. He's fine, he just has nothing better to do than holodeck maintenance while the Federation burns around him, apparently

[Rodin]

Plausible, but I don't think the show ever spent that much time explaining it. As far as I recall, the Defiant remains the only Federation ship permanently assigned to DS9, despite it being *the* key Federation outpost to the wormhole, which is *the* single most important piece of property that the Dominion wants to keep access to. The Gamma Quadrant is otherwise 50 years away from providing reinforcements.

...Maybe THAT was the plot point I missed? The Jem'Hadar that are already in the Alpha Quadrant, along with the Cardassian fleet, is all that the Dominion has? And THAT is sufficient to match with the Federation? That's why the addition of the Breen - or any race would do, for that matter - was enough to tip the balance, since the Dominion had no other way to bring in ships except by alliance?

That's pretty much the case. The Federation (and the Klingons, and the Romulans, and...) sit around and do nothing while the Dominion bring fleet after massive fleet through the wormhole, and those ships then go to Cardassia. When Cardassia annexes DS9 at the start of the war, Sisko and crew build those weird mines to block the wormhole. The Dominion ships currently in the alpha quadrant then guard DS9 quite heavily, like the Federation et al should have been doing prior to the start of the war. Sisko breaks through and gets the Prophets to DEM the ships in the wormhole away, and after that the Dominion doesn't send anything through after that. The fight is entirely between the existing Alpha Jem'Hadar, the Cardassians, and the allied forces of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans.

The show is rather vague on why we don't see the Dominion try to send reinforcements. The base assumption is that the Prophets just shut down the wormhole to any Dominion ships. Given how unreliable the prophets are, I wouldn't like to be betting on that if I were Starfleet. A second solution would be to simply replace the magic mines. Without control of DS9 they can't be quickly removed, and we can assume that Starfleet has a large fleet stationed in an area that could react in time. So, the Dominion just doesn't waste any further effort on the Wormhole and focuses on delivering a knockout punch to one of the major powers.

Overall, I have the same complaint that was mentioned earlier - the idea of the Federation falling back continuously for months doesn't jive with what we see. We never see a strategic map, we never see the Federation fighting over their own planets, and we never get a clear view of what the heck is going on. The episode where Nog gets injured is on its own a very good episode, but the strategic situation that exists makes no freaking sense. There's no apparent air power from EITHER side present at what is supposedly a key location. Either the Federation or the Dominion should have just been able to show up in starships and nuke the site from orbit - in the Federation's case after beaming the sensitive transmitter equipment out of the way.

[bguy]

The thing is, DS9 lost all of its strategic importance when the Prophets Deus Ex Machina'ed away any reinforcement from the Gamma Quadrant.

That's true though it never really made sense why the Dominion didn't try and attack the Prophets directly. The episode where Keiko was possessed by a pah-wraith suggested that the station could be modified to shoot some kind of beam at the wormhole that would kill the Prophets. Thus theoretically the Dominion could retake DS9, modify the station to shoot out the anti-Prophet beam (or just modify one of their warships do it), kill the Prophets and then there would be nothing to stop them from using the wormhole again.

The Dominion seized the station to secure that strategic route. But when it proved to be a dead end, they clearly focused on outright conquering the Federation core territories by taking over Betazed and starting to mount direct offensives against Andor, Vulcan and Earth. DS9, without the wormhole, was just an alternate staging point into Cardassian territory.

True, though even just as an alternate staging point into Cardassian territory DS9 seems like it would be pretty strategically important as it seems to be relatively close to Cardassia Prime.

Plausible, but I don't think the show ever spent that much time explaining it. As far as I recall, the Defiant remains the only Federation ship permanently assigned to DS9, despite it being *the* key Federation outpost to the wormhole, which is *the* single most important piece of property that the Dominion wants to keep access to. The Gamma Quadrant is otherwise 50 years away from providing reinforcements.

Well it was mentioned in an earlier episode that Martok is the Supreme Commander of the Ninth Fleet. Since Martok himself is stationed on DS9, I assume the Ninth Fleet is home ported there as well. I imagine the (in-story) reason for why we don't see many warships from the Ninth Fleet near the station is that an aggressive commander like Martok probably keeps most of the fleet closer to the front lines where they can intercept Dominion raids before they get anywhere near Bajor and also raid into Dominion territory. (And keeping the bulk of the fleet out of the Bajoran system itself would help protect the fleet from getting wiped out in a sneak attack if the Dominion tried to nova bomb the Bajoran sun again.)