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  1. - Top - End - #211
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    Kobold

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Vukodlak View Post
    They don’t retcon that the wormhole wasn’t in Dominion space the Dominion were lying. For two years they heard only whispers of the dominion.
    That entire ordeal was an attempt to trick the federation into letting in a vorta spy. Why the hell should we believe the soldiers claim the wormhole was in Dominion space.
    So why was the Dominion lying? Because they are ''evil"?

    Look at it this way. The USS Explorer enters sector 0099, an unexplored and unknown sector TO THE FEDERATION. Of course it's not unexplored or unknown to the people that live there. And when the USS Explorer encounters a Doga partol ship that says ''stop, the Doga Empire claims this sector and you can not simply wander around in your heavely armed and armored battleship and ''explore". " So what does the Federation do? Respect anothers borders or ''invade and explore"?

    How would the Federation feel about a Doga exploration ship(that is as armed and armored as a battleship, of course) that just warpped over into the Federation to ''explore'?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    They only mention that Federation shields resist Jem' hadar poleron beams only at the last episode of Season 5. It's not a huge deal, but it's always something to remember as to why the Jem Hadar kicks everyone ass.

    The.. New ship can withstand hits because it has specific, top secret ablative armor.
    Not true....the Federaton tweaks their sheilds amazingly RIGHT before the War starts(or it would have been a short war). When attacked DS9 has cool anti dominion sheilds, as does every ship in Starfleet.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    Nah, actual Dominion space a long way off from the wormhole.
    But according to who? If the Dominion says it is ''their space"....then it IS. Does the Federation just ignore that and say ''oh your lying...your space is over there"? How does the Federation know where it is? Is there a map?

    As we see over the next season Dominon space is within at least a couple light years of the Wormhole. It never takes very long to get to the Dominon from the Wormhole. It's not like it's ''well we need to travel six weeks at warp nine to get to the Dominion." It's more like a couple minutes or hours....

    Quote Originally Posted by bguy View Post
    It's not a retcon. It's a territorial dispute. The Dominion is making an expansive (and frankly rather absurd) territorial claim by essentially claiming the entire Gamma Quadrant as their territory, and the Federation is disregarding that claim.
    Is it? Does not the Federation claim the whole Alpha Quadrant? Is that not the exact same thing?

    Is there such a thing as ''international space''? Can you only claim...er...''seven light years" from a solar system as ''your" space?

  2. - Top - End - #212
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    Not true....the Federaton tweaks their sheilds amazingly RIGHT before the War starts(or it would have been a short war). When attacked DS9 has cool anti dominion sheilds, as does every ship in Starfleet.
    Were you so driven by the obsession to correct someone you did not even bothered to check before writing this absurd paragraph?

    "Until the last episode of Season 5" - - > that is the start of the war. That is when the Dominion attacked DS9. This is when the Federation developped anti - poleron beam shields.

  3. - Top - End - #213
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    Does not the Federation claim the whole Alpha Quadrant?
    It does not. There are many domains in the Alpha Quadrant, not just the Federation.
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  4. - Top - End - #214
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    So why was the Dominion lying? Because they are ''evil"?

    Look at it this way. The USS Explorer enters sector 0099, an unexplored and unknown sector TO THE FEDERATION. Of course it's not unexplored or unknown to the people that live there. And when the USS Explorer encounters a Doga partol ship that says ''stop, the Doga Empire claims this sector and you can not simply wander around in your heavely armed and armored battleship and ''explore". " So what does the Federation do? Respect anothers borders or ''invade and explore"?

    How would the Federation feel about a Doga exploration ship(that is as armed and armored as a battleship, of course) that just warpped over into the Federation to ''explore'?
    Only that the Dominion attacked people for unknowingly entering "their territory". Which according to them is everywhere they can get.

    Also, as long as said exploration doesn't include experiments like "how many shots does it take to depopulate a planet". I'm pretty sure the Federtion would be fine with it.


    But according to who? If the Dominion says it is ''their space"....then it IS. Does the Federation just ignore that and say ''oh your lying...your space is over there"? How does the Federation know where it is? Is there a map?
    Err, What? So if they Claim Bajor or Vulcan or Earth is within Dominion borders they are?
    The Dominion aren't the only guys in the Gamma Quadrant. Some of those people the Federation made contact with.
    So yes, they most likely have a rough idea where some of the borders are.
    Basically, they ignore the Dominion's claim because it is frankly ludicrious according to all other sources.

    Is it? Does not the Federation claim the whole Alpha Quadrant? Is that not the exact same thing?
    Err, no? They don't? I mean it's not like they claim any of the non-member worlds (or other superpowers for that matter) violate Federation borders just by living within them.
    Heck, I'm pretty sure there are even worlds who aren't part of the Federation within it's borders and they're left alone.
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  5. - Top - End - #215
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    As we see over the next season Dominon space is within at least a couple light years of the Wormhole. It never takes very long to get to the Dominon from the Wormhole. It's not like it's ''well we need to travel six weeks at warp nine to get to the Dominion." It's more like a couple minutes or hours....
    It took the Alpha Quadrant races a whole year of exploring the Gamma Quadrant before they even heard whispers about the Dominion and then another year after that before they encountered them, so it seems pretty clear that Dominion territory wasn't anywhere close to the wormhole at the start of the show.

    As for Dominion space being closer to the wormhole in subsequent episodes, it's likely that the Dominion started aggressively expanding in the direction of the wormhole as soon as they found out about it as they would not want the AQ powers to colonize that area or make alliances with any native species in the area.

    Is it? Does not the Federation claim the whole Alpha Quadrant? Is that not the exact same thing?
    Wait, what? Where did you get the idea that the Federation claims the entire Alpha Quadrant?

    Is there such a thing as ''international space''? Can you only claim...er...''seven light years" from a solar system as ''your" space?
    In the absence of a treaty between two powers which explicitly establishes their borders the most logical way to determine a space nation's territory is that they control any star systems they have settled and a certain amount of space around their colonies (akin to the territorial waters that Earth nations have.)

    There's no existing treaty between the Dominion and the AQ powers, and the Dominion doesn't seem to have any settlements or member worlds anywhere near the wormhole (again it took two years for the Federation to encounter the Dominion. They would have run into them a lot sooner if there had been any Dominion worlds near the wormhole), so the Dominion has no legitimate basis to claim that the wormhole is in their territory, and the Federation has no reason to submit to such a ludicrous claim.

  6. - Top - End - #216
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    biggrin Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    S3E1: The Search, Part 1

    Kira is running exercises to prepare the station for a possible attack by the Dominion, and they just aren't equipped to deal with an invasion force. Dax picks up a cloaked ship extremely close to the station, and as it decloaks they are called by Sisko who has returned from Earth with a new Federation attack ship. The Defiant is a prototype build for defending against the Borg, and Starfleet made a deal with the Romulans to loan them a cloaking device for a recon expedition into the Dominion.

    With him are a Romulan officer who opperrates the cloaking device, and Commander Edington, who was put in charge by Starfleet of securing the Defiant and all other Starfleet assets on the station. Odo expectedly starts to complain immediately and wants to resign if he can't have all control over security to himself. Kira arranges for him to come along on the expedition as a Bajoran security evaluator, but he doesn't want any help. Sisko also goes to Quark to tell him that he has to come along to get them in touch with his business partners in the Gamma Quadrant to establish contact with the Dominion. Quark doesn't want to, but Sisko tells him it's an order from the Grand Nagus who doesn't want trade with the Gamma Quadrant to stop.

    As the Defiant is ready to depart, Odo decides to come along at the last moment. In the Gamma Quadrant they run into two Jem'Hadar ships that seem to spot them, but the Romulan tells them that at close ranges the cloaking device work much better when they get out of warp. They stop the warp drive and the ships soon break off their search and leave. Odo has to share a cabin with Quark and is unusually bristly and angry about getting pestered.

    They reach Quark's business partners, but their representative is very reluctant to help them find the Founders. He's not sure if the Founders really exist, and if they do they clearly don't want to be found. They are only dealing with the Vorta, and when you don't do what the Vorta tell you, they send the Jem'Hadar. And then you die. Quark reminds him of the trade with the Ferengi that would stop, and that the Vorta might be very angry about losing that source of revenue, and so he points them to the com relay they are using for communication with the Vorta. Odo happens to get a look at the star map of the region and suddenly becomes very fascinated with a nondescriptive nebula on it, that the trader doesn't know anything about. Quark decides that with his part done, he'll be getting off and get passage back home himself.

    They make it to the relay and O'Brien and Dax beam over to find information where it connects to. There's barely any real security, but as soon as they transmit the coordinated for their next destination, shields go up communication is blocked, and three Jem'Hadar approach. The Defiant has no choice to make its escape and leave the two behind as prisoners.

    Sisko calls Odo, but Odo tells him he is indisposed. Kira goes looking for him and Odo barely pays attention to her. The only thing that he wants is to get a shuttle and go to the nebula. He doesn't know why, but he instinctively has to. Kira tells him they can look into that later but Odo gets increasingly desperate to go immediately. The Defiant is ambushed by three Jem'Hadar ships and gets heavily beaten. Three more ships arrive and soldiers board the ship, the bridge crew starts fighting them for some reason.

    Kira got knocked out in the fighting in the crew quarters and Odo took her to a shuttle to make their escape. And then headed for the nebula where they discover a single habitable rogue planet. (Which the graphics team apparently didn't understood and still painted it close to a dim white star.) Odo and Kira land next to a lake of ooze, that has four other shapeshifters step out of it to welcome Odo home.

    --

    Changeling episode #3

    This episode has the now well established issue with single episodes of a multi-parter being very difficult to judge, but together these are among my very top favorite Star Trek episodes. I assume the show first ran in most countries with one episode per week, which means this one would have aired half a year after the last episode of Season 2. It pretty much picks up right where the previous episode ended, but establishes that Sisko had been at Starfleet Headquarters for several months to work out a strategy for dealing with the Dominion, the Defiant getting readied for service, and getting the Romulans on as a partner. I think putting The Jem'Hadar at the end of season 2 instead of the start of season 3 was a very good move. It probably did a great job at getting people excited when the new season got closer, and I also think the long break inbetween made the whole Dominion business feel more important and like a bigger issue that would stay around for some time.

    Plot-wise, there is not actually much happening this episode. The first half is all exposition, but they get many different topics covered in just a few sentences, with multiple short dialogs between different characters, so it doesn't feel like massive info dumping. When they do go to the Gamma Quadrant, things do feel a little bit rushed and like being made on an extremely tight budget. The whole dealing with the trader takes place on the bridge of the Defiant and we only see a single one of the aliens. We don't actually see their world or even one of their ships. The relay station is the inside of a crammed box of pipes with no outside. Everything on the Defiant that is not on the bridge takes place in two identical cabins and the very crammed corridor right outside the door. We also don't see Odo's shuttle in space, and I really wouldn't be surprised if the one shot of the Changeling planet is actually a recycled one from TNG. Which would explain why they talk about the sensors only seeing a single planet with no star and the surface being in darkness, but the establishing shot clearly showing a prominent star.
    But there isn't really any question about where the whole budget went. It's all in the shots of ships shooting at each other. Nothing fancy from today's standard, but just having watched the first two seasons and having keep an eye out for it, this is much more elaborate than anything that had been on the show yet. TNG had plenty of big ship battles, but from what I recall they had little to no fancy flying. Here we now have the considerably smaller Defiant and Jem'Hadar ships, which translates to much more movement and maneuvering. I also believe there's more effects to come in part 2.

    There isn't really any character development this episode, but Odo is acting notably strange. Him getting a hissy fit about a new Starfleet security officer taking charge of some things on the station is expected by now, but once he gets on the ship his behavior starts getting weird. Quark is annoying, but the hostility he reacts with is way above anything seen since his first big appearance in A Man Alone, which I pointed out as being out of character for him back then. Then later he becomes very absent minded staring at the star map and quite upset when Kira says his trip to explore the nebula has to wait. And it works quite well to establish that something important is going on there that nobody else is noticing, and it properly pays off at the end.

    Where the episode really shines is in establishing the sense of urgency, but also maintaining mystery instead of falling into panic and chaos. It's a slow and deliberate journey into the unknown, and the lack of outside shots for most of the episode actually does contribute to that, though I don't think that played much weight in the decision where to put the available resources. Ending with the Defiant shot up and the fate of everyone else unknown to Odo and Kira also works quite well. But really, why are they fighting back when the Jem'Hadar board them? Their own ship is already out of main power and they have been ambushed by six ships. Sure, it's more dramatic for the story, but there's really no reason why they should try to fight off the boarding parties. They just should have surrendered immediately once engines and weapons where out.

    But overall, an excellent episode. There's some things that could be improved, but it all works out really well, making this one easily make it into my Top 10.
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  7. - Top - End - #217
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    PirateGuy

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

    The space you claim doesn't matter nearly as much as the space you can defend. From the 1600s until 1950 a country's territorial waters were defined as 3nm (nautical miles) because that was how far you could shoot a cannon back when it was coined. The Dominion claim a right to the whole quadrant, but even in all their power they can't back that claim up everywhere at once.
    Now with half the calories!

  8. - Top - End - #218
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    So why was the Dominion lying? Because they are ''evil"?

    Look at it this way. The USS Explorer enters sector 0099, an unexplored and unknown sector TO THE FEDERATION. Of course it's not unexplored or unknown to the people that live there. And when the USS Explorer encounters a Doga partol ship that says ''stop, the Doga Empire claims this sector and you can not simply wander around in your heavely armed and armored battleship and ''explore". " So what does the Federation do? Respect anothers borders or ''invade and explore"?
    Lets tweak your story a bit to fit the reality of the situation, The Explorer hangs around sector 0099 for two years, hearing only whispers of a group called the Doga Empire from refugees and a few traders. Why the hell should the USS Explorer believe a hostile ship's claim that the territory they've been exploring for nearly two years and didn't encounter anyone belonging to the Doga Empire.

    Either the wormhole was not in Dominion Space in which case they were lying... or they deliberately concealed their presence at part of a scheme to deceive the Alpha Quadrant powers in which case they're liars. As I said the whole ordeal of the episode was part of a deception.

    But according to who? If the Dominion says it is ''their space"....then it IS. Does the Federation just ignore that and say ''oh your lying...your space is over there"? How does the Federation know where it is? Is there a map?
    There was zero Dominion presence anywhere near the wormhole. The Federation and ships exploring the area and the Bajorans had Colonies in the area the Dominion had NOTHING. If anything the Dominion violated Bajoran Space.
    Last edited by Lord Vukodlak; 2019-07-08 at 03:10 PM.
    Nale is no more, he has ceased to be, his hit points have dropped to negative ten, all he was is now dust in the wind, he is not Daniel Jackson dead, he is not Kenny dead, he is final dead, he will not pass through death's revolving door, his fate will not be undone because the executives renewed his show for another season. His time had run out, his string of fate has been cut, the blood on the knife has been wiped. He is an Ex-Nale! Now can we please resume watching the Order save the world.

  9. - Top - End - #219
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    biggrin Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    S3E2: The Search, Part 2

    Odo is quite excited about having found his people but has lots of questions and remains guarded. The leader melds her arm with his to give him a first look into their collective mind and he's quite stunned by the experience. Kira wants to try to call Sisko, but the leader tells her that she must not do that from the planet as it might lead others to their secret hiding place. Once the other Changelings leave, Kira tells Odo she'll try anyway but will be very sneaky about it.

    Sisko and Bashir escaped on another shuttle that got badly damaged, and after several days get rescued by Dax and O'Brien who were able to talk with the Founders and explain the situation to them. They immediately head to the station where Sisko's superior and a Dominion official are already starting negotiations. The man from the Dominion is a Vorta who reveals that both he and the Vorta from last season belong to the Founders.

    Garak approaches Bashir to tell him about his suspicions about the Dominion suddenly being so friendly. The Cardassian government approves of the peaceful negotiations Starfleet is having with it, which Garak takes as a sign to be very concerned. They meet the Romulan cloaking device opperator who had a fight with security about being denied to talk with the negotiators to protest that the Romulans are excluded from the talks.

    Kira finds that she can't get any messages out because some power source beneath the surface is interfering with the systems, and it appears to be shielded against sensors. Odo is frustrated with not making any progress or seeing the point of the shapeshifting exercises he was told to do to help him integrate with the other Changelings.

    Sisko talks to the admiral about the Romulans being angry of being excluded while everyone else is invited, and she tells him that the Dominion requested that. But it doesn't worry her because the Romulans wouldn't be any threat if the Federation were allied with the Dominion.

    The Changeling leader explain to Odo that he was send into space with hundreds of others to learn more of the outside world. However, they didn't expect him to find his way back anywhere near as quickly as he did. Kira goes looking for the source of the interference and finds a cave sealed by a metal door that the scannners can't get through.

    Quark is quite happy with the new situation, seeing a lot of future profits. O'Brien and Bashir have more doubts about it. Then a Jem'Hadar starts beating up O'Brien for no reason. Edington shows up with security and apologizes to the Jem'Hadar that they won't be having any more trouble. Bashir is outraged, but it's orders from the top. Dax comes to Sisko with new orders for her to be transferred to another post. He gets a call from Bashir about O'Brien and storms off to the admiral to get some kind of explanation. She tells him that they just agreed that Starfleet will abandon Bajor and give it over to the Dominion. The Bajorans will surely agree with that once they are informed about that.

    Odo finally gets what the Changelings are trying to teach him about shapeshifting and is exhilarated about seeing the world and himself in a new way. Kira tells him she plans to leave, but before she leaves she tells him about the door she found, which Odo immediately find extremely suspicious. Odo takes a look at the door and discovers that it locks from the outside and uses his shapeshifting open the unusual locking mechanism.

    Garak comes to talk with Sisko about the new developments and he agrees that it is madness. He also entertains the idea how nice it would be if they had someone who would be willing to stop their leaders. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Sisko agrees, but they are interrupted by the Romulan being chased by Jem'Hadar and getting shot, which makes Sisko jump to her rescue and attack the soldiers. Garak gets Dax and Bashir to break Sisko out of jail. They plan to take a shuttle and destroy the entrance to the wormhole with torpedoes. Bashir is a bit miffed about this being the end of their careers, but Garak think he should be more concerned about his life.
    At the shuttle ramp they are stopped by Jem'Hadar and Garak at the back holds them at gunpoint and tells them to drop the phasers. The Jem'Hadar ask Garak what this is about, and Garak explains to them the plan they apparently have not been told about. "You see, I pretend to be their friend. And then I shot you!" He kills the two guards and they continue on their way, but more Jem'Hadar arrive and shot Garak while the others escape. They get on the shuttle and head for the wormhole. The admiral and the Vorta call him to stand down, but he ignores them and destroys the wormhole.

    Odo and Kira go into the cave and find two Jem'Hadar waiting for them behind the door. They are taken to a chamber where the Vorta has Sisko and the others in machines hooked up to a simulation to learn how they would react to the Dominion moving into the Alpha Quadrant. Sadly, the result is "not well", but that's not really going to be a problem. The Changeling leader walks in and reveals that they are the Founders. Odo is appalled by his people being tyrants, and sees no justice in what they are doing, but she tells him that justice doesn't matter and their only priority is order. Odo decides that he doesn't want to join them, and demands to take the others with them. Because Changelings have never harmed each other, she allows him to leave this time, but they won't be so generous with him in the future. The others are woken up and the Vorta tells them that the Defiant is in orbit and ready to take them back home. Odo and Kira tell them that they will explain everything later, but they really should beam to the ship immediately.

    The Changeling leader tells Odo she hopes he will return to them soon, but he doesn't think he will. She replies that perhaps they should come to visit him them. They certainly seem to be lacking order on their side.

    --

    Changeling episode #4

    Great episode. I like this one even better than the first part. Also one of my favorite TV twists. Which is actually quite surprising to be working so well. There is zero foreshadowing or any clues about the Changelings having anything to do with the Dominion and the reveal comes out of nowhere, which are all the typical markers of a really bad twist. This shouldn't work, but it does. I think it's probably helped by the Changelings only having appeared in the last scene of the previous episode and so we don't actually know anything about them, except that they value their seclusion and secrecy. I guess the Founders had also be established as being secretive and seclusive, but we're told that the Founders are a secret cabal of Vorta pretty early in the episode with no reason to doubt that. There is so much happening that you don't really get the time that this is a bit lame as the reveal for the driving mystery of the first episode.

    If there are shortcomings in this episode, it could possibly the same as in the previous one. Things are happening really quickly, with scenes all being very short and jumping around a lot. It's already a two episode story but I feel it could easily have been done as three, maybe even four. But then, the quick pace with the many turns might be a big factor in what makes these two episodes so exciting.

    The admiral is acting pretty crazy, wanting to ally with the Dominion and being completely unconcerned about pissing of the Romulans just a week after meeting the Dominion for the first time. But I guess that was kind of the point of the simulation. The Dominion wanted to try out a worst case scenario that would put Sisko under maximum pressure. If he had swallowed that pill and the others had gone along with that, they could have been pretty confident that Starfleet would play along with whatever plan they may have to establish a foothold on Bajor.

    Character wise, the main treat is obviously Odo first interacting with the Changelings. He is obviously excited about finally having found his people, but he doesn't seem comfortable with them right from the start. Kira finds it funny that he's immediately trying to interrogate them, but he does seem to have an actual problem with the whole idea of young Changelings being send away across the galaxy without any knowledge of their purpose or origin. The other Changelings even object to the leader introducing him to their hive mind so quickly, and she still is telling him barely anything. When Kira tells him that she found a locked door on a planet inhabited only by a hive mind that spends its whole day as a liquid lake, he immediately wants to investigate since they are clearly hiding important things from him.
    Even this early, it's established that the conflict between Odo and the Founders is their different interpretations of their shared natural instinct for order. For Odo it's all about justice, but for the Founders it's tyranny. And by this point of his life, justice has become such a defining point of his identity that he places it above the collective existence in which his species naturally lives. He's cordial with them, but he rejects them outright, with no doubt or hesitation at this point. He got the answer he had always been looking for, and joining their society doesn't seem to have any appeal to him.
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Even this early, it's established that the conflict between Odo and the Founders is their different interpretations of their shared natural instinct for order. For Odo it's all about justice, but for the Founders it's tyranny.
    Is it, though? This early during the run of DS9 there were quite a few episodes where Odo comes over as pretty fascist, especially early in season 1. I have the impression that only after establishing the other Changelings as the Founders that we get more episodes where we see Odo caring about justice first and less episodes where he just wants order. Especially the great "Things Past" in season 5, where we see that he deeply regrets his earlier attitudes. I am not saying that there were no "justice"-episodes in the first two seasons, just that the writers themselves were not yet sure where exactly they wanted to go with the character and putting few fascist ideas into his mouth that may seem off-character on a re-watch.

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

    Mostly he wanted things to be done his way. He had no ambitions beyond his own turf and didn't really care what other people are doing in other places. He never had any plans for society, just his own personal convictions about how he wants to do things.
    In this episode, he does take a stance. Which he does specifically in reaction to seeing that the Founders are the kind of people whose preferred first option to deal with any issue is to intiimmidate anyone into obedience through excessive and random violence. That has never been his style. It's how Dukat did it, and he always detested that. He always uses force only to restrain violent attackers and doesn't use weapons. He sometimes does go straight into people's face and acts like a big tough guy, but that's usually reserved for big mercenaries looking for a fight. He is very flexible in dealing with suspects and witnesses in many different ways that they best respond to. Occasionally he complains that security breaches would not have happened if Sisko would allow him to use the methods he wants, but that might just as well only be about things that are different from Starfleet security regulations and had no hints that they would have been anything excessive or draconic. He doesn't complain that the regulations are too soft to provide acceptable results, just that he thinks his methods would be more efficient. The cases in which we see him do things of uncertain legality are mostly when he's talking to criminals. Not to enforce the law, but to prevent crimes. Law never seemed to be high in his priority, his goals always seemed to be maintain peace and safety. And the Founders don't seem to care about any of these things. Only their own safety and peace among themselves. For everyone else it's a reign by terror.
    I don't recall him ever talking about justice, but when confronted with the way the Founders run the Dominion, this becomes his way of putting his own motivation in words. And it doesn't really contradict anything he ever did in a clear state of mind. Except possibly S1E3 A Man Alone, which I criticized for just that in my review. Does the concept of justice become more prominent in his actions and reasoning in the future? I think it does, though my memory is very weak on this. But it does make sense, since his encounter with the Founders puts him into a position where he has to rethink what he really wants, and what his instinctive view of what is right means in the bigger picture of his people.
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    Main thing for Odo and Justice that I recall is the flashback to his first job, refusing to just nab Kira despite her being eith the Resistance and pushing back even against Dukat.
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    S3E3: The House of Quark

    The bar is completely empty except for one totally drunk Klingon. Quark tries to get him to pay his bill and he jumps up, pulls his knife, trips, and kills himself. Bashir checks the body and finds nothing out of the ordinary and Odo asks Quark what happened. Having a crowd outside the door, Quark makes up a big story about a great fight to get some publicity. Odo and Bashir clearly don't believe a single word, but the crowd seems impressed. Rom points out that the Klingon's relatives might show up for revenge, but Quark tells him that in that case they'll simply tell the truth.

    The Klingon's brother shows up pretty soon and threatens Quark. He tries to explain but before he can finish his story, the Klingon tells him that he better not say anything about the head of his clan having been so drunk that he stabbed himself dead and dishonor all of them. The Klingon doesn't seem to really believe it, but Quark gets the hint that he'll better stick to his story.

    There's also another plot about the school having closed because most civilians have left the station, that has nothing happening and doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

    Later the dead Klingon's wife shows up at the bar late at night and Quark tells her again the story that he killed him in a duel. She pulls her knife and comes at him and Quark immediately runs away jumping behind the bar, having no choice but telling her the truth. She tranquilizes him and when he wakes up he's in her estate on Kronos. An old Klingon is waiting for him and explains that they have a big problem because the clan doesn't have any heir for their dead leader. The Klingon that first came to Quark isn't the old leader's brother but the head of a rival family that is trying to ruin them. Had their leader died in an accident, his wife might have been able to become the new official leader because of the special circumstances. But now that everyone heard the story about him dying in a duel, it's a regular death and they can't save the clan with that loophole. The wife's new plan is to marry Quark and have him take the position of the new leader. Quark isn't given any say in it.

    O'Brien sees Sisko about an idea to build a greenhouse in an unused storage area to give his wife a new work, but it still doesn't seem interesting or relevant in any way.

    On Kronos, the leader of the other clan makes a formal request to the High Council to get the estate of Quark's new wife transferred to him. Quark's wife interrupts to announce that Quark is now the new head of the clan. The rival leader is furious, but since he had already testified that Quark killed the Klingon in a duel, he doesn't really have any obvious grounds to contest it. Quark tries to be diplomatic and negotiate in the land dispute between the two families, but his wife tells him to keep quiet. Back the the estate, Quark asks her what the next part of the plan is, but she's improvising as she goes. Quark convinces her to let him take a look their family is owing their rivials. She things trying to solve their problems with accounting is dishonorable, but since she doesn't seem to have any real plan, Quark want to try his way for a change.

    Quark quickly finds out that the rival family had been using financial tricks to ruin his wife and get them deeper into debt so he can claim their land as compensation. They take the evidence to the council to dishonor the rival, who in turn challenges Quark to a duel. He also learned that the whole story about the fight in the bar was a lie, and he brought Rom to confirm it. Klingons just don't have time for any of this nonsense, so duel to the death it is.

    In the night, Quark and Rom try to flee, but are caught by his wife and the old servant. She's very disappointed that he tries to run away because she thought he is braver than other Ferengi. Quark has some hesitation, but decides to better save himself.

    At the time of the duel, it looks like Quark is a no show, and the rival is happy to get the estate, but in the last moment he arrives with a sword. "I am Quark, son of Kelgar. And I have come to answer the challenge of D'Gor, son of... whatever." The duel starts and Quark immediately forfeits and throws his blade away. He's not going to participate in his challenger pretending there is anything honorable in this duel, and claims that this whole duel is a farce. What honor is there in conquering a rival house by killing a small unarmed Ferengi? D'Gor is happy to go with that, but is stopped by the chancelor for dishonoring the council hall, and subsequently shunned and thrown out. Given the whole weird situation, the chancelor rules that the requirements are met for Quark's wife to lead the house. Quark then requests to get divorced and returns to the station.

    O'Brien has a talk with his wife that he thinks she should sign up as a botanist for an expedition to a remote area on Bajor, because it's clearly not working out that she tries to busy herself with small things around the station while he's stationed there, and instead get back into a proper job.

    --

    Klingon episode #2

    Not an outstandingly amazing episode, but I really quite like this one. The one thing that stands out immediately is that O'Brien's story is very weak and doesn't interact or compliment Quark's story at all. It's not that the scenes are bad, they just don't add anything and feel out of place.

    On the other hand, Quark's story is really fun. There are few situations for a character to be that out of place as a Ferengi among Klingons and there is considerable risk for Quark all the time, but he takes it all in stride and is always thinking on his feet. He knows perfectly well that he doesn't have any honor in Klingon society and builds all his plans on that instead of looking for some clever way to get their respect. He quickly figures out that the conflict between the families is really about land and resources, even though everyone involved pretends that this has nothing to do with anything to maintain their warrior honor. Understanding that he is viewed with ridicule by the Klingons anyway and has no hopes to gain their respect, his strategy is to fight the conflict out in a way that will humiliate his opponent. It's smarty and sly, but he also pulls it off with a display of great confidence and doesn't try to hide. And the way the episode presents it, I think it comes across as quite believable. Had he been acting cowardly before the council, they probably wouldn't have cared if he gets killed since they would simply have been annoyed with him. But by putting his life on the line without flinching he at least got their attention and this way got them to watch his opponent's actions more carefully.
    The the chancelor saved him was lucky, but even if he had been killed his opponent would have made himself the target of ridicule. First he tried to get his hand on the land of a rival family with financial tricks and then he staked his claim on it on the grounds of having killed an unarmed Ferengi. Among Klingons that makes you a joke.

    I quite liked Quark's wife and her old servant as well. They are clearly Klingons, and from the warrior aristocracy, but something different from the regular Klingon soldiers we've seen so far anywhere else.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    The the chancelor saved him was lucky, but even if he had been killed his opponent would have made himself the target of ridicule. First he tried to get his hand on the land of a rival family with financial tricks and then he staked his claim on it on the grounds of having killed an unarmed Ferengi. Among Klingons that makes you a joke.
    Sfdebris has a review of this episode where he theorizes that the chancellor and the rest of the council were just waiting for any opportunity to get rid of D'Gor. They did not have a handle on him within the usual Klingon honor system, but he was clearly dangerous to them personally as he was ambitious and willing to attack them in ways they could not fight back against. That theory makes a lot of sense to me. The question is: Would Quark know that too and speculate on it?
    Last edited by Seppl; 2019-07-09 at 05:44 PM.

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    S3E4: Equilibrium

    Sisko invited the command stuff over to cook something for them. Dax arrives late, having had a stressful day. She finds one of Jake's old instruments lying around in an open crate and starts to play something even though she can't remember ever having learned it in any of her lives. The next day she's playing chess with Sisko and he tells her that she's been humming a tune the entire time. He tells her it's distracting and she says she will stop, but starts again just a few seconds later. She loses the game because she wasn't paying attention and gets suddenly hostile about it and saying he's cheating. Kira goes looking after her after she stormed out and Dax keeps acting hostile and very weird. She storms off again but suddenly sees the promenade to be dark and deserted, except for a masked figure that takes off its mask and just has more masks under it.

    Wisely she lets Bashir take a look at her brain and is very sorry for how she was behaving. It never happened to her before, or any of the previous Daxs. The only thing she can think of that might have caused neurological damage to the symbiont was when Torias was in a coma for six month before it was transferred to Curzon. Bashir thinks her scans are worrysome and wants to take her to her homeworld to get her treated by Trill experts.

    On the flight, Dax really isn't looking forward to return to the facilities of the symbiosis comission and is quite nervous about it, having had a bad time before being joined. She talks with Bashir about it late at night and he offers that she can take the other bunk in his cabin, which she accepts and she's out within seconds.

    Dax sees a Trill doctor with Bashir and Sisko. The examination results don't look too worrying and Dax is relieved that she doesn't have to stay in the facility during the treatment and can stay on the ship. Bashir wants her to go to her cabin and rest, and she accepts it but is getting a bit worked up about it again. On the way to the cabin, she starts hearing the music again and sees the masked figure. Then two Trill in uniform run at her to take her away, and Bashir gets her back to her senses just before she is to punch him in the face.

    So back to the hospital it is for another examination by the doctor, who thinks increasing her medication is the way to go. Dax tells her that she saw being attacked by staff from the facility, and the doctor believes that it's a result of the hard time she had there four years ago. Dax is certain she saw them wearing uniforms from a hundred years ago that Jadzia would never have seen, but the doctor still thinks that after seven lifetimes it's not unusual for memories to get mixed up.

    Dax decides to go to the caves where the unjoined symbionts live in underground pools and ask around among the also unjoined humanoid caretakers, who know a lot of what's going on in the facility but usually stay separate from the rest of the staff. Bashir wants to talk to one and Dax warns him that they tend to be someone odd, and the man is indeed a bit socially strange. He recognizes Jadzia and remembers that she's the current Dax. He also immediately spots that something is wrong with her. With a short touch he gets a mental impression from the symbiont and correctly guesses that she's suffering from dreams or hallucinations. It's probably the result of some conflict between the symbiont and either the current or any of the previous hosts. He feels pretty confident that he can help her and tells her to come with him.

    Later Dax returns to the ship and tells Sisko and Bashir that the issue seems indeed to be with one of the previous hosts and she's going to go back for another examination tomorrow. Sisko and Bashir have finally been able to find the music she keeps remembering. It was written by a Trill named Joran 86 years ago. She never heard of him, but his picture scares him and causes another hallucination. She sees the masked figure stabbing another Trill to death. She asks who he is and under the mask it's the same face as in the picture. She has a seizure and passes out.

    Back in the hospital, the doctor thinks that possibly she suffered some neurological effects from frequently travelling through the wormhole. It's not completely implausible, but mostly she has no other idea what might be causing her condition. If they can't treat it, she estimates that they will need to take the symbiont to another body in two days to prevent it taking permanent damage. Sisko and Bashir go back to the cave to talk with the caretaker. He tells them that he is sorry to her that she's gotten worse, but there's really nothing that he can do to help and there's no point in him coming to the hospital, He seemed very confident to solve the problem yesterday and seems rather nervous now, so Sisko suspects that someone had been pressuring to not get involved. He and Bashir decide not to push him and instead try to find out more about the composer first to get more evidence id this is some kind of cover up. Bashir goes back to his file, and finds evidence that it used to be much larger but most of it has been deleted. He checks if there are any kind of matches between his file and Dax's, and his date of death is the same day that Torias died after his long coma.

    They are able to find a relative of the composer and call him. He turns out to be a very old man who says he was his brother. He never heard of Torias Dax, but his brother might very well have, as he was also a symbiosis candidate before his death. He was told his brother murdered a doctor of the commision after he was rejected from the program, but he always had doubts about that story because his brother had been acting like a different person for the last six month and had claimed to have been joined. That his brother murdered someone didn't seem very surprising to him, though. It all looks very much like Torias died immediately after his shuttle accident and wasn't in a coma, but instead the symbiont went to the composer who then murdered a doctor before the symbiont went to Dax.

    Sisko and Bashir go to the hospital to confront the doctor, who is already preparing for the surgery to transfer Dax again. Bashir figured out that the dirty secret is not that the commission made a mistake and gave Dax to someone very much unsuited. That would just have been very embarrassing. The much bigger issue is that the symbiont was not rejected by the man and causing his death within three or four days, but he lived very well with it for half a year. And he probably would have much longer if Dax had not been transferred to Curzon. If that secret came out, than all kinds of crazies would try to get around the selection process with money or kidnapping, which really wouldn't be in the interests of the symbionts and their current hosts. Sisko still demands that Dax is not transferred to another body to keep his silence. The doctor agrees to wake her up and let her make the decision if she wants to risk dealing with those memories coming back and threaten the symbiont.

    Dax goes to the caves to have a talk with the symbiont through their way of communicating with electric signals in the pools. With their help she sees Joran without the mask and embraces him.

    They all return back to the station and Sisko goes to see Dax before the night. She's doing very well and is glad that the artifically repressed memories are allowed to return, and says she'll be back to work the next morning.


    --

    Trill episode #5

    I had not seen this one in ages. Maybe decades. From the description on the box I thought it sounds really awful, but against my expectation this is actually really good.

    It's a good mystery that ends up being a conspiracy that actually has really good reasons to maintain a lie. If people learned that an unsuitable joining doesn't lead to the death of the host, a lot of people would start running around murdering people to get their symbionts, or even just use bribes and blackmail to coerce symbionts to join with people they don't really want to. I hope that Sisko's threat to expose that secret was a bluff. In the end, that wasn't really what forced the doctor to cancel the surgery, and it came down to convincing her that Dax should make the choice to risk going insane (and possibly dying?), or to continue with suppressing the memories and keep switching bodies every time they come back. Which I think is a very valid compromise. Since Dax is still in a condition where the symbiont can have full part in making that decision, there really is no grounds to claim that others must sacrifice the body to save the symbiont.

    The episode is very well structured and the acting well done throughout the episode. In particular Dax is comes across as believably mentally disturbed before her hallucinations hit her, and visibly distressed when she comes back to her senses. And she really must have had a very bad time at the commission facilities before she was joined. The doctor even commends her for having made it through.

    The one question I still have is what the idea was with Dax saying that the caretakers in the caves tend to be somewhat odd people, and the man turning out to behave a bit unusual? Sure, they are working in a cave and the people they are working with are not humanoid, but how does that make their hiring process select neurologically unusual people? And why was Dax heading straight to them for advice when the doctor didn't believe that she was actually hallucinating things from a century ago? I feel like there's some bigger story there that somehow got lost when the draft was turned into a screenplay.

    However, there is one major issue with this episode. Again. This is the fourth episode dealing with the many lives of Dax, and for the third time the whole thing rests in the hands of Sisko while Dax is incapacitated to deal with her issue herself. This time it's a lot better than the other two times, where Dax was refusing to say anything or spend the entire episode more or less unconscious. But again, she is not contributing anything to solving her problem until she decides to go to the unjoined symbionts to help her with dealing with the returning memories at the very end. Is it so hard to write a story about Trill dealing with issues resulting from the weirdness of the symbiosis without putting them out of action? We got Blood Oath, and that one is awesome. That's a story about Dax insisting about dealing with the situation herself in her own way and refusing to let other pick a solution for her. It wouldn't even be hard to improve this episode in this regard. Dax could at least have been sitting next to Bashir when he finds the music that she is remembering instead of only walking into the room once he has it. There was no need to have her sedated after the third hallucination. instead of Bashir having the computer look for matches between the files of Joran and Dax, Dax could just have taken a look at Joran's file and recognize his date of death as the day she was joined to Curzon. Then she could pass out and get sedated, after she made the vital connection that lets Sisko and Bashir track down Joran's brother and get his story. This really wasn't needed.

    But aside from this repeating issue, which really is only an issue because it happens so regularly, i think this is a really good episode.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S3E3: The House of Quark

    Not an outstandingly amazing episode, but I really quite like this one. The one thing that stands out immediately is that O'Brien's story is very weak and doesn't interact or compliment Quark's story at all. It's not that the scenes are bad, they just don't add anything and feel out of place.
    The writers felt that this was the best episode to remove a problem, namely Keko O'Brien. They had a hard time doing anything with the character, and her being off station most episodes allowed them to develop the Bashir/Miles friendship.

    Note that while the idea of the station is supposed to make families easier, you only had two* families among all the star fleet main cast. The O'Brien family (who they seemed to have problems coming up with convincing story lines) and Sisko/Jake (whom they did a decent job with, especially once they stopped trying to have Jake go the Star Fleet rout).

    *Nog, Quark, and Rom aren't part of the Star Fleet cast, and it was a while before Nog and Rom became more than supporting characters.


    Regarding the Dominion and control of the Gamma quadrant, while they had been hearing "whispers" about the Dominion, there was also plenty of evidence to indicate that they consider the area under their sphere of influence at least. Remember, everyone who mentioned them also clearly acknowledged that they were the major power in the area.

    Sanctuary (2x10): The Skrreeans were freed from servitude (and escaped to space) to the T-Rogorans when the Dominion conquered the T-Rogorans.

    Shadowplay (2x16): Rurigan lived on Yadera Prime until the Dominion conquered it. He fled to the planet he was on (and where he's the only non-holographic intelligent life). Unclear who controls that planet, but it is undeveloped.

    Rules of Engagement (2x7): The Dosi refer Quark to Karemma, and called them a more important member of the Dominion. There's an implication here that the Dosi are also part of the Dominion (although a minor one).

    The biggest concern with Starfleet's actions after the beginning of season 3 is as follows: There's never anything said by the cast to indicate that they DENY the Dominion's claim to the territory. They just seem to be ignoring it. So it never comes across as a dispute over the claim (which has at least the pretense of validity). Instead it simply seems to be a "we don't care that the Dominion says it is their space, we're just going to go into their territory as we please".
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  17. - Top - End - #227
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    The biggest concern with Starfleet's actions after the beginning of season 3 is as follows: There's never anything said by the cast to indicate that they DENY the Dominion's claim to the territory. They just seem to be ignoring it. So it never comes across as a dispute over the claim (which has at least the pretense of validity). Instead it simply seems to be a "we don't care that the Dominion says it is their space, we're just going to go into their territory as we please".
    Sending ships into the Gamma Quadrant is an implicit denial of the Dominion's territorial claim. (As previously stated what Starfleet is doing is functionally equivalent to the Freedom of Navigation exercises the United States Navy runs in disputed waterways.)

    And what pretense of validity does the Dominion claim have? There are no Dominion colonies or outposts anywhere near the Gamma Quadrant nexus of the wormhole. (Like Lord Vukodlak stated, the Bajorans actually have a much stronger claim to that area of space than the Dominion does send the Bajorans actually established a colony there.) The Dominion claiming the entire Gamma Quadrant would be like Russia or China stating that the entire Pacific Ocean belonged to them. It's an absurd claim that would be ridiculous for the Federation to respect.

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    I decided to catch up with you, since I often find myself putting on random Star Trek episodes while working anyway (usually TNG). This will be the second or third time I've watched through all of DS9 properly. I didn't follow it faithfully when it first aired, but I do remember seeing some episodes when they would've been new, and caught repeats on cable when it went into syndication, before watching it all properly in order.

    The Jem'Hadar
    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    And the *Vorta telekinesis (or did she have a bio implant or something?)
    Telekinesis was originally meant to be the Vorta's thing, before they changed it to the clone diplomat thing in later seasons. I assume it was meant to be an analogue to the Vulcan mind meld, considering the other parallels.

    The House of Quark
    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    The the chancelor saved him was lucky, but even if he had been killed his opponent would have made himself the target of ridicule.
    Quote Originally Posted by Seppl View Post
    Sfdebris has a review of this episode where he theorizes that the chancellor and the rest of the council were just waiting for any opportunity to get rid of D'Gor. They did not have a handle on him within the usual Klingon honor system, but he was clearly dangerous to them personally as he was ambitious and willing to attack them in ways they could not fight back against. That theory makes a lot of sense to me. The question is: Would Quark know that too and speculate on it?
    Like Quark said in the episode, it was his last card to play, but it was a gamble that makes sense. Quark has a good understanding of other cultures' principles even if he doesn't share them. It's just like when he corrected the Vulcan Maquis lady's logic. He knew what Klingon honor meant and that if he played along with their charade and got himself killed, he'd be following the letter of their law but not the spirit of their law, which is the important part to them.

    I remember thinking "The House of Quark" was better episode than I'd remembered last time I watched it. Maybe party because the Ferengi episodes get a lot of hate and I was remembering some later ones that weren't as good. But it's also pretty good putting that aside. What I like about the episode is that Quark doesn't concede anything. He compromises to an extent by cooperating with Grilka and working within the Klingon system, but he still solves the problem in his own Ferengi way. He doesn't learn a life lesson about "honor" or anything, which I think TNG would be more inclined to do. It's just that Quark's way is already more honorable than his Klingon opponent because there are nuances here.

    Plus, it's also just so ridiculous that this is the first time we've seen Gowron and the Council since TNG. They all show up and try to be serious, but they're in a Quark episode.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    The one thing that stands out immediately is that O'Brien's story is very weak and doesn't interact or compliment Quark's story at all. It's not that the scenes are bad, they just don't add anything and feel out of place.
    Just had to happen to get O'Brien and Bashir together I guess. Also if you took that subplot out there wouldn't be any other cast members in the episode besides Odo, or any other human characters at all if I'm not mistaken, so that'd be weird.

    Equilibrium
    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    The one question I still have is what the idea was with Dax saying that the caretakers in the caves tend to be somewhat odd people, and the man turning out to behave a bit unusual? Sure, they are working in a cave and the people they are working with are not humanoid, but how does that make their hiring process select neurologically unusual people?
    I just took it to mean that the job tended to make people weird because of the hanging around in a cave with nobody to talk to thing. Although, it's also said they're usually unjoined Trill, which would mean they were either dropped from the program or never wanted to be joined in the first place, but still wanted the symbiont caretaker job for whatever reason.

    Is it so hard to write a story about Trill dealing with issues resulting from the weirdness of the symbiosis without putting them out of action?
    Well, the next time Joran shows up it's Sisko that gets incapacitated, and the time after that is basically just a Joran & Dax episode (with a bit of Odo), so there's hope yet.
    Last edited by JCarter426; 2019-07-10 at 06:59 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bguy View Post
    Sending ships into the Gamma Quadrant is an implicit denial of the Dominion's territorial claim. (As previously stated what Starfleet is doing is functionally equivalent to the Freedom of Navigation exercises the United States Navy runs in disputed waterways.)

    And what pretense of validity does the Dominion claim have? There are no Dominion colonies or outposts anywhere near the Gamma Quadrant nexus of the wormhole. (Like Lord Vukodlak stated, the Bajorans actually have a much stronger claim to that area of space than the Dominion does send the Bajorans actually established a colony there.) The Dominion claiming the entire Gamma Quadrant would be like Russia or China stating that the entire Pacific Ocean belonged to them. It's an absurd claim that would be ridiculous for the Federation to respect.
    Actually, if you want to use that analogy, it's more like China claiming all of pacific Asia (so Vietnam, Japan, etc.). The Pacific is the unclaimed space covered by the wormhole, except even that doesn't work because it's 70,000 light years (so decades of travel at maximum warp). And we are talking a China that appears to be militarily equal (if not superior) to the US.

    Being blunt, the Dominion is throwing up their version of the Monroe Doctrine. And they do appear to have the might to enforce it.

    Again, the bigger issue for me is that after 3x2, there is literally no discussion among our protagonists that the Dominion told them to stay out and they are ignoring that. The closest you get is Sisko claiming they still need to explore the Gamma Quadrant. At that time, there should be a "because even if the Dominion claims it we are still explorers", or a "because they may claim it but we don't see they have any right to it". But there's no acknowledgment of anything.

    At least some others seem to recognize this. Senator Vreenak calls Sisko "The man that started the war with the Dominion".

    Also note that in the alternate "Visitor" timeline, the Klingons apparently ended up with the station, stopped travel through it, and mined the heck out of it. And there's no indication that the Dominion ever tried to continue aggression.
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    Sanctuary (2x10): The Skrreeans were freed from servitude (and escaped to space) to the T-Rogorans when the Dominion conquered the T-Rogorans.

    Shadowplay (2x16): Rurigan lived on Yadera Prime until the Dominion conquered it. He fled to the planet he was on (and where he's the only non-holographic intelligent life). Unclear who controls that planet, but it is undeveloped.

    Rules of Engagement (2x7): The Dosi refer Quark to Karemma, and called them a more important member of the Dominion. There's an implication here that the Dosi are also part of the Dominion (although a minor one).
    Which proves that Dominion expansion was near but had not actually reached the wormhole.

    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    The biggest concern with Starfleet's actions after the beginning of season 3 is as follows: There's never anything said by the cast to indicate that they DENY the Dominion's claim to the territory. They just seem to be ignoring it. So it never comes across as a dispute over the claim (which has at least the pretense of validity). Instead it simply seems to be a "we don't care that the Dominion says it is their space, we're just going to go into their territory as we please".
    If that was true The Dominion would have considered the scenario where the wormhole was collapsed to be a good thing. No wormhole to territory violations. But the Dominion didn't want the wormhole closed or hell they probably could have done it themselves.

    The Dominion first response to supposed territory violations was not to politely or even aggressively ask that they leave. It was to murder hundreds of people. The Federation already has problems with the Cardassians honoring the peace treaty. They'd be royally stupid to expect the Dominion to honor a shaken fist agreement made at gun point. They tried to make peaceful contact with the Dominion leadership right after the Dominion revealed themselves. The response of the Dominion was to attack them, kidnap the crew and put them through a simulation to see how the alpha quadrant might responed to the Dominion gaining a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. The Dominion made it clear from the episode The Jem'Hadar and onward their intention was not to protect their borders but to expand their Dominion across the galaxy.
    After The Search Did the Dominion start sending warships to the space around the wormhole to stop anyone from coming through? No because if they stopped ships from entering the Gamma Quadrant well then how could they sneak changeling spies onboard.

    The Federation's mistake in S3 was not doing more to build a collation against the Dominion and knowing the founders were shangechangers not being ready to suspect that any spark of conflict between the Alpha Quadrant powers could be a Dominion trick.

    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    Also note that in the alternate "Visitor" timeline, the Klingons apparently ended up with the station, stopped travel through it, and mined the heck out of it. And there's no indication that the Dominion ever tried to continue aggression.
    The Dominion can play the long game, they could keep the Alpha Quadrant powers fighting one another for decades. There's also no indication the war didn't happen either, the episode wasn't really about The Dominion and giving out those details would have been spoilers for the rest of the series now wouldn't it?
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    Quote Originally Posted by JCarter426 View Post
    The Jem'Hadar

    Telekinesis was originally meant to be the Vorta's thing, before they changed it to the clone diplomat thing in later seasons. I assume it was meant to be an analogue to the Vulcan mind meld, considering the other parallels.
    Funnily enough, I remember playing the Deep Space Nine third-person shooter game a long while ago, and for whatever reason they left the Vorta telekinesis in there as a thing they could do when you got to the Dominion levels in the game.

    Which confused the hell out of me, as this was well before I had watched the whole series - for whatever reason DS9 was only on at like three AM on some random channel here when I was a kid, while Voyager and TNG were on 20 times a day - so I never actually saw the Jem'Hadar episode specifically but I was still somewhat familiar with the Dominion from the later seasons. Why they were shooting balls of opalescent energy from their chests I hadn't the foggiest.

    I guess they made the game between those seasons and worked off the show's design documents.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    Being blunt, the Dominion is throwing up their version of the Monroe Doctrine. And they do appear to have the might to enforce it.
    Sure, but a territorial claim based on the theory of "Try and stop us" is not one the Federation has any moral obligation to respect.

    Again, the bigger issue for me is that after 3x2, there is literally no discussion among our protagonists that the Dominion told them to stay out and they are ignoring that. The closest you get is Sisko claiming they still need to explore the Gamma Quadrant. At that time, there should be a "because even if the Dominion claims it we are still explorers", or a "because they may claim it but we don't see they have any right to it". But there's no acknowledgment of anything.
    It would be self-evident to all the Starfleet members that the Dominion claim on the entire Gamma Quadrant was illegitimate, so why would they even bother talking about it on-screen. (It's not like any character would be arguing that the Dominion had a right to occupy the entire Gamma Quadrant, so what would be the point of such a conversation?)

    At least some others seem to recognize this. Senator Vreenak calls Sisko "The man that started the war with the Dominion".
    Spoiler
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    I believe that comment was in reference to Sisko ordering the mining of the entrance to the wormhole; not to any of Starfleet's incursions into the Gamma Quadrant.


    Also note that in the alternate "Visitor" timeline, the Klingons apparently ended up with the station, stopped travel through it, and mined the heck out of it. And there's no indication that the Dominion ever tried to continue aggression.
    Spoiler
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    Well we really no very little about the astro-political situation in that timeline. The Dominion had already subverted General Martok prior to the events of"The Visitor", and without Sisko around to lead the mission that exposed the changeling Martok, he might have stayed in place, making the Klingon Empire effectively a puppet of the Dominion. Why would the Dominion bother to attack directly when they could use the Klingons to do their dirty work for them?

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    S3E5: Second Skin

    Kira gets a call from a historian who wants to ask her some questions of a Cardassian prison. She says she's never been there, but the Cardassian files clearly say that she did. She show the files to Odo to figure out why there's a fake file about her. She calls one of the prisoners who was in the same cell and he remembers here being there for a week and then suddenly disappearing. Kira goes to Bajor to find out what's going on there, but is followed by an alien who had been trailing her for a while.

    Bashir has a chat with Garak, and Garak implies that he never leaves the station because someone from Cardassia might come after him.

    The historian calls Sisko to tell him that Kira never showed up at her office and has disappeared since her ship had landed on Bajor. Kira wakes up on Cardassia having been altered to look like a Cardassian and is told that she's an undercover Cardassian agent who replaced the real Kira. And her father is supposed to be some very high ranking officer.

    Sisko, Dax, and Odo are searching of Kira and find traces that she might have been beamed away. Or possibly disintegrated with a disruptor.
    Garak comes to Bashir and tells him that he has new about Kira. He has information that she is being held by the Obsidian Order. Sisko and Odo decide to get her, and they demand Garak comes with them. If he doesn't, then Sisko will no longer tell the Bajoran government that he isn't a security threat on the station. "Commander, this is extortion!" "Hm... I guess it is." Garak gives in, but tells him that if anything is wrong, he will save himself and they will be on their own. "Mister Garak, I think this is the first honest thing I ever heard you say."

    The Cardassian officer is concerned that his daughter isn't regaining her memories, but the agent from the Order says he needs to talk with her anyway. Because she now knows important things about the station that he needs. To get her to buy into the story, he produces a corpse that is supposed to be the real Kira. His best argument why she should believe his story is that if she were a real Bajoran and he wanted her information, they would just torture her.

    The Defiant tries to sneak into Cardassian space, being disguised as a freighter on long range sensors. They get picked up by patrol ships that want to board and search the ship, and no stories about angry superiors punishing those who delay their express delivery. Garak tells Sisko to drop the charade and let him talk to the captain. He tells him that this is a top secret mission and that he is ordered to erase all records of this encounter and never talk to anyone about it, which the captain buys and leaves them alone.

    The agent keeps trying to get some intel from Kira about Federation forces near Bajor. If she keeps refusing to cooperate, they will take her to the Order for interrogation. The officer tries to stop the agent and promises that he will do anything to prevent that. Which reveals the probable motive behind the whole situation. The Order wants the officer to betray the state so that they are rid of him. Later that night he does arrange for her to be taken off the planet by his friends in the opposition, and Kira puts all the pieces together. The order can't touch a legate, but this way they get him to expose his friends. Some agents from the Order walk in, now having all the proof they were looking for. Then Sisko and Garak arrive with Odo and disarm the agents. They take Kira and offer the legate to come with them. As they leave, the agent pulls another gun and Garak shots him.

    They return to the station, Kira is back to normal. and the legate goes into exile and plans to look for his daughter who might still be somewhere on Bajor. Before he leaves, he has a last piece of advice for her. Never trust Garak. He is dangerous and will betray you.

    --

    Cardassian episode #4
    Garak episode #5

    This episode deserves to get a good rating, but I actually don't like it very much. What was it in the 90's that had every science fiction and fantasy show have a couple of episodes in which one character's entire existence is supposedly a fabrication? It's s stupid concept. It might have been somewhat original the first time, but now when it got imitated the tenth time. At least this one has the decency to end with a confirmation that the whole thing was a complete lie. Usually they don't, and the next episode everything is back to normal with all the characters living their own lives and it is as if that whole story never happened. I believe there are some very angry reviews lying in the future.

    The only other complaint that I have is that the underlying motive is the same from another Cardassian episode last season. Exploit the commitment to family of an important Cardassian leader to get him to destroy himself politically. Here the pieces are arranged differently, but the basic idea is the same.

    Aside from these things, the execution of this episode is actually really well done. I believe this is the first we get an opportunity to see Garak interacting with other Cardassian active in the spying business. And he seems to be quite well known in the community and having reached a notable degree of infamy among people on all sides.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    This episode deserves to get a good rating, but I actually don't like it very much. What was it in the 90's that had every science fiction and fantasy show have a couple of episodes in which one character's entire existence is supposedly a fabrication? It's s stupid concept. It might have been somewhat original the first time, but now when it got imitated the tenth time.
    Could be because 1990s "Total Recall" was decently popular, setting a mini-trend for TV series writers looking for ideas in movies and other shows.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Cardassian episode #4
    Garak episode #5
    It's a Cardassian episode so it has to have Garak in it, but Garak barely does anything because the episode isn't about him. That's my main problem with the episode.

    What was it in the 90's that had every science fiction and fantasy show have a couple of episodes in which one character's entire existence is supposedly a fabrication?
    [...]
    Aside from these things, the execution of this episode is actually really well done.
    In defense of the execution:
    • Kira is never fooled by the ploy and has no unnecessarily dramatic existential crisis.
    • There was a reason for the convoluted plot, and it had nothing to do with deceiving her. It wasn't as simple as getting information out of her, because they could shine four or five lights at her for an episode if they wanted that.
    • The father not being in on it is a good enough twist. It wraps up all the lingering questions into a single explanation.

    But apart from that, most of the episode is just Cardassians failing to convince Kira that she's a Cardassian while the episode retreads some old themes. There's the similarity to "Cardassians" as you said, and also the Romulan Troi episode of TNG.

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

    Ah, my favourite Non Plot" Episode in the first half of DS 9.

    When I saw it the first time, it was very later at night, in winter, with storm and fog outside, and nonstop.

    The mood and Kira starting the road to despair where simply extremely well done.

    I hoped for a while she was truly biologically cardassian and that they would explore the duality of mentally being a bajoran Resistance fighter and biologically cardassian...but tat would have been too much for the series.

    Which is the only thing I can actually accuse the episode of: it was more or less clear that SOMEHOW they would get back to (a) status quo.

    Still good though.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Vukodlak View Post
    Which proves that Dominion expansion was near but had not actually reached the wormhole.
    I guess there is no realy answe as a Typical TV shows simply does not make sense.

    Maybe Dominion space is like a light year? from the Wormhole? In The Search when Sisko sneaks into Dominion space in a cloaked battleship they cloak as soon as they get out of the Wormhole. Then...head off at warp seven...and like five minutes later they encounter a Dominion Patrol. There was no huge time skip in the epsiode where it was like ''ship log, we have been traveling at warp 7 for six weeks and have finnaly reached the far, far, far, far away from the Wormhole Dominion Space.

    And again, once the The Defiant is caught.....folks try and escape in tiny dinky shuttle pods...and are like ''lets head back to the Wormhole"....kinda like it was a mile away or something.

    Even the ''not the Founders Homeworld" is like right next to the Wormhole....

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    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    I guess there is no realy answe as a Typical TV shows simply does not make sense.

    Maybe Dominion space is like a light year? from the Wormhole? In The Search when Sisko sneaks into Dominion space in a cloaked battleship they cloak as soon as they get out of the Wormhole. Then...head off at warp seven...and like five minutes later they encounter a Dominion Patrol. There was no huge time skip in the epsiode where it was like ''ship log, we have been traveling at warp 7 for six weeks and have finnaly reached the far, far, far, far away from the Wormhole Dominion Space.
    Well we really don't know how much time passed between the previous scene (of Quark and Odo in their quarters) and the subsequent scene where the Defiant encounters the Jem Hadar warships. It could have been weeks later for all we know.

    But regardless I think I have found the answer to this question based on the 5th season episode "The Ship."

    Spoiler: The Ship
    Show
    In that episode Sisko and company are on a Gamma Quadrant planet that is said to be at least 3 weeks away from the nearest Dominion outpost. In the course of that same episode we also see Sisko call for the Defiant (which is back on DS9), and Kira (who will be taking the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant to assist Sisko mentions that she will be gone from the station for about a week. (Which means it is approximately 3.5 days from DS9 to Sisko's planet.)

    Thus if the nearest Dominion outpost to Sisko's planet is 3 weeks away, and Sisko's planet is approximately 3.5 days from the wormhole then the closest Dominion territory could actually be to the wormhole would be approximately 17.5 days away if Sisko's planet is located in the opposite direction of Dominion territory. And Dominion territory could be as far away as 24.5 days from the wormhole if Sisko's planet is located on route to Dominion territory. But regardless if the closest Dominion outpost is between 17.5 and 24.5 days from the wormhole then clearly there is a great swath of space around the Gamma Quadrant nexus of the wormhole that has no Dominion settlements within it. (Which makes it very hard to see how the Dominion could have any sort of legitimate claim on that area.)

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    In The Search when Sisko sneaks into Dominion space in a cloaked battleship they cloak as soon as they get out of the Wormhole. Then...head off at warp seven...and like five minutes later they encounter a Dominion Patrol. There was no huge time skip in the epsiode where it was like ''ship log, we have been traveling at warp 7 for six weeks and have finnaly reached the far, far, far, far away from the Wormhole Dominion Space.
    This was months after the Dominion conquered New Bajor and made claims to the whole of the Gamma Quadrant. They could've been patrol ships sent to stop anybody from passing through the wormhole, or they could've expanded their territory in the interim. That doesn't mean it was originally Dominion space during the first two seasons, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    Funnily enough, I remember playing the Deep Space Nine third-person shooter game a long while ago, and for whatever reason they left the Vorta telekinesis in there as a thing they could do when you got to the Dominion levels in the game.
    It was certainly a forgotten plot point, but it very well could still be an ability that Vorta have. I don't recall if there ever was another situation where it should've come up, since most of the time the Vorta have Jem'Hadar to order around for that sort of thing.

    Maybe the time that one guy got kidnapped, but he could've been nullified off-screen, or the ability could be limited to certain Vorta.
    Last edited by JCarter426; 2019-07-11 at 08:19 PM.

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

    Ok. Reality check: it doesn't matter where dominion territory actually is. It's a tv show.

    In universe, the Dominion has claimed large swat of territory or at least declared anything in the gamma quadrant to be part of their exclusive sphere of influence.

    The problem is, Starfleet/The Federation cannot, on principle, accept someone's claim on interstellar space that has been backed by violent demonstration alone. If you want to keep a certain territory as your territory, the Federation probably wants you to negociate about it. Make your case why it should be exclusively yours, and see where compromise can be met. Maybe you allow a corridor for passing ships. Maybe you establish a neutral zone.

    If the Dominion had genuinely wanted only for the Federation to stay out their hair, they could have drawn a map and said "here's out sovereign territory, keep away from it". They had sufficient intel on the Alpha Quadrant to know that the Feds would respect a neutral zone.

    But no. Instead, they went all *******s and declared the entire gamma quadrant to be theirs. The Federation had zero reason to comply, and complying would have been a sign of weakness as it shows you just need to attack Federation ships to get them to respect your unilaterally picked territory.

    The Dominion has proven in its action it doesn't want coexistence. It wants proactive self defense for all changeling.

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