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

[Lord Vukodlak]

S3E5: Second Skin
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."

This was the point where Garak learned that yes he could manipulate Sisko. As he was almost certainly lying. He probably knew from his contacts exactly why Kira was taken and either saw this as an opportunity to eliminate Entek, aid the dissident movement or both.

[The New Bruceski]

You talk about boundaries like the Federation gets all hand-wringy about a line on a map. They favor negotiation and equality but they're an empire just like everyone else. Every border with other empires is a result of war and a current uneasy peace. O'Brien hates Cardassians because at some point off-camera he was a soldier actually fighting them, and folks like the Romulans and Klingons are just older versions of the same story. Main thing the Federation has going for it is that if a planet in their domain says "go away" they respect that and limit their interference to diplomatic channels trying to prop up a pro-Federation government.

If the Dominion drew a line and said "this is our territory" instead of claiming the whole Gamma Quadrant the Feds would do exactly the same thing they're doing now: bemoan the planets held under the Dominion's rule and send out exploratory parties to test their willingness to enforce those borders.

[Yora]

Since most discussion here is still about Dominion territorial claims and not about the episodes that are being reviewed, I have to ask to take this elsewhere.

[Cikomyr]

Since most discussion here is still about Dominion territorial claims and not about the episodes that are being reviewed, I have to ask to take this elsewhere.

Fiiiiiine

S3E5: Second Skin

.

Fun fact, the original pitch for this episode was "O'Brian actually was an unaware carsassian agent since the war". The only reason they couldn't make it work is that they needed to explain how Molly wasn't half carsassian without having Keiko cuckolding him.

It's really interesting how this episode was therefore pitched as yet another "O'Brian suffers" episode.

BTW, Nana Visitor had massive claustrophobia attack under the Carsassian makeup. So her acting of Kira being distressed was probably closer to home than she usually would have.

I really like this episode. I still wondering exactly what Garak's plan was in all of this. My best guess was that he was specifically enacting Obsidian Order internal politics, and therefore sending the message "Deep Space 9 is my turf. Don't try anything there again or I'll come for you, regardless if I am exiled".

Or maybe he realized Entek made himself vulnerable by enrolling Kira in his scheme, and merely grabbed the opportunity to get rid of a dangerous Obsidian Odder rival.

[Yora]

S3E6: The Abandoned

Quark gets a visit from his purple haired smuggler friend who wants to sell him the cargo from a wreckage they found in the Gamma Quadrant. He goes to check out what he bought and finds a baby in one container. Bashir has no idea what kind of species it is and Dax and O'Brien try to find out where the wreck came from.

In the evening, Bashir calls Sisko to the infirmary. The child has been growing massively and even started to talk. Bashir thinks that he's not natural but an artificial creation.

Kira goes to visit Odo, who got himself his own quarters, which he is filling with things that are interesting for practicing shapechanging, as he saw when he was stying with the other Changelings. He has some difficulties explaining it, but seems quite exited about it.

Bashir is talking with Dax about the boy's unique anatomy, and he discovered that even though he has obviously been massively genetically enhanced, he seems to be unable to produce enough of unique substance that his body requires to function. He gets a call from the infirmary that he is needed immediately, and the boy has grown to full size and started developing the gray scales of the Jem'Hadar. He starts attacking people, but when Odo arrives to stop him, he immediately kneels before him.

Starfleet wants him to be transported to Earth for study immediately, but both Odo and Bashir object to it. Sisko has a private conversation with Odo, who says that he both feels an obligation to help someone who has been created as a slave species by his people, and that he doesn't want to let a young person get put in a lab for study like he was. Sisko is willing to let him try what he can do for the Jem'Hadar and delay the transport for a while.

Odo goes to the jail, where Bashir explains to him that the Jem'Hadar is starting to suffer from the lack of the enzyme his body is missing, which seems to make him nervous and aggressive. Odo tells him to let Bashir do more tests on him, so that he can try to create the enzyme, and he stops objecting to it. Odo asks him if he has any wishes and if there is anything he wants to have or to do, and he replies that he wants to fight. He doesn't know why, and he doesn't care who, but he just needs to fight.

Jake has his Bajoran girlfriend over for dinner, and Sisko seems to get along with her well enough.

O'Brien calls Odo to the cargo bay because he found a container in the wreckage that seems to be the substance the Jem'Hadar needs. Odo suspects that they were deliberately created to depend on a substance that can't be replicated to keep them from mutineering. O'Brien think's that's really cold blooded. "My people don't have blood, chief." Bashir starts giving it to them Jem'Hadar, but he's not sure how much of it he will need and how long the supply they have will last. Bashir thinks there's no need for him to stay in the infirmary, and he wants to stay with Odo.

Odo and the Jem'Hadar have a talk about themselves and other people, and the Jem'Hadar can't get over his instinct that he is superior of everyone else, and only Odo is superior to him. Odo ties to get him to make choices for himself and asks him if there is anything he wants right now. He wants to know more about what he is and where he comes from, and Odo can completely understand that wish. But he warns the Jem'Hadar that the answer to that often turns out to be rather unpleasant. He shows him some security recordings from when the Defiant was boarded, and the Jem'Hadar finds it quite interesting to see the fighting. So Odo takes him to the holosuit for combat practice. He loves it, and is instinctively very good at it. Kira comes by to see Odo and doesn't feel that it's a good idea. They go outside to talk in private and Kira still sees the Jem'Hadar as an organic weapon, but Odo believes he is making progress to help him developing into a proper person. She agrees to give him more time with the Jem'Hadar, but reminds him to not forgot who he is dealing with.

After the practice, Odo talks some more with him to remind him that there is much more to life than fighting and killing, but the Jem'Hadar doesn't feel that way. Odo is called to Sisko's office, so he tells the Jem'Hadar to go to his quarters with a security guard. Sisko tells him that a ship is coming to take the Jem'Hadar. He's sorry about it and he tried to delay it for as long as he could. That moment the Jem'Hadar turns visible inside his office with a Bajoran phaser, demand that he is not going anywhere. He wants to get a ship to return to the Dominion and take Odo with him. Odo agrees to play along for the moment so nobody else get threatened, but keeps trying to convince the Jem'Hadar to go into hiding somewhere else, so he doesn't have to go to a lab or the Dominion. But he really doesn't want anything other than joining his people and fight at their side.

Sisko and some security guards beam to the shuttle airlock to keep them from leaving. Odo asks him to let them leave so he can return the Jem'Hadar to his people, because he thinks that if they try to keep him, he will just start trying to kill his guards until he is killed himself. He's also very certain that no Jem'Hadar will try to attack him. Sisko doesn't like it and expects that his boss will get pretty angry, but agrees that this is probably the only way.

When Odo comes back, he goes to Kira to tell her that she was right.

--

This is a decent episode. Though episodes like this make me glad that I only use three ranks of rating. Really not sure if this is strong decent or weak decent. The basic idea is certainly interesting, but I find the script to not be very strong. Again, we have the issue with too many plots that are only thematically linked in the most tenuous ways. Odo's interaction with Kira are about the boy, so they fit in well enough, but Sisko meeting Jake's girlfriend seems like filler. Which is unfortunate, because I think the Jem'Hadar could have had a couple more scenes. But then, I am not sure what additional scenes he could have gotten. In the end the Jem'Hadar are really simple creatures. They are artificially created to fight and obey the Founders, and that seems to be really all there is about them. As Odo admits at the end, Kira was right to believe that they are organic weapons engineered in a lab.

I think the most interesting thing that the episode does is to confront Odo with new insights in how the Changelings are running their empire. But that's little touches, not something major in the episode.
And even with the extensive masks, I am pretty sure the Jem'Hadar is the same actor as the Cardassian boy in season 2.

This really is not a bad episode by any means, and it does provide useful information for the following seasons. It's just not very exciting to watch.

[Saph]

You didn't find it exciting? I thought it was one of the most interesting episodes Star Trek's done.

Star Trek's played around with the 'crew meets a solitary individual of an enemy species' idea a few times. TNG did it with that Borg drone, and Voyager did it with Seven of Nine. But in most of those episodes, as soon as the individual gets accepted in by the crew, they quickly decide to join Team Federation. It's the easy way out, because everyone gets to tell themselves that see, the Federation really is superior, everyone will see that as soon as they get the chance.

But this episode of DS9 asks 'what if a species that's been genetically programmed to be hyper-aggressive slave soldiers actually do just want to be hyper-aggressive slave soldiers?' And it turns out there aren't any very easy answers to that question.

[JCarter426]

This really is not a bad episode by any means, and it does provide useful information for the following seasons. It's just not very exciting to watch.

I agree. I think the main detractor...

Star Trek's played around with the 'crew meets a solitary individual of an enemy species' idea a few times. TNG did it with that Borg drone, and Voyager did it with Seven of Nine.

...is that unlike with these episodes, we never really got to know the Jem'Hadar. The Borg had appeared in three dedicated Borg episodes before Hugh showed up, and of course much more than that before Seven of Nine's appearance. The Jem'Hadar, on the other hand, really only appeared in "The Jem'Hadar", in which they were minor villains. Just that and the simulated bar fight in "The Search" were the extent of our contact with the Jem'Hadar. In "The Abandoned" we do learn more about them, some things that will be critical to their characterization later, but it's out of context, given that it's wrapped up in the initial mystery of who the kid is. Starfleet is clueless about the Jem'Hadar, so we are too, and therefore I think we have less of an investment in what happens to the one in the episode.

With the Borg, we know it's a big deal for a drone to express individuality. Likewise, we know it's a big deal that Captain Picard could use Hugh to end the Borg threat and that he chooses not to, despite his history with the Borg. He risks everything on the hopes that Hugh's individuality will be a positive influence on the rest of the Collective, rather than using him effect the genocide of his own kind (even if it would sort of be self defense on the Federation's part). There's a whole moral quandary going on based on prior knowledge of their species.

Here, we go into the episode not knowing much about the Jem'Hadar. We don't even know that he is a Jem'Hadar until halfway through the episode. Then characters who know little about the Jem'Hadar try to teach a Jem'Hadar how to not be a Jem'Hadar, and it doesn't take because apparently Jem'Hadar are engineered to be Jem'Hadar and that's just the way it works. We didn't know that's how it works, and we didn't know what impact this would have either way, so there's no tension. We aren't wondering if this guy is going to be the one Jem'Hadar who's different and asking whether all Jem'Hadar could change. Not just because this guy doesn't change, but because we really don't know enough about them to ask these questions.

The only suspenseful element is whether this one Jem'Hadar gets treated as a test sample, which was never a realistic outcome because Jem'Hadar. The only thing keeping him on the station was his willingness to humor Odo for half an episode.

Fun fact, the original pitch for this episode was "O'Brian actually was an unaware carsassian agent since the war". The only reason they couldn't make it work is that they needed to explain how Molly wasn't half carsassian without having Keiko cuckolding him.

It's really interesting how this episode was therefore pitched as yet another "O'Brian suffers" episode.

That's the last sort of episode O'Brien needs, but it would've made for an interesting episode. I do find it strange that they would think of him before Kira, though. Of course he has a bit of prejudice going on (at least before "Cardassians") and fought in a war with them, but he was no Bajoran terrorist, so it's not as an extreme situation.

[Yora]

S3E7: Civil Defense

O'Brien and Jake are working on some system located in the old ore processing facilities. Sisko comes by to ask about something as O'Brien is discovering an unidentified program that asks for his access code. His code is rejected and the the room goes in lock down and a message by Gul Dukat plays, telling the Bajoran workers that they have been caught sabotaging the machines and are ordered to stand down and return control to the Cardassian guards. Kira callls to ask if they are doing something with the computers in ore processing because they had the message play across the entire station. She tells Dax to beam them out of the room, but transporters have been disabled. Quark comes to complain to Odo, who says he's already looking into it since some of his old access codes from the occupation are still working.

Another message plays telling the workers that they have 10 minutes to surrender to the guards or the room will be filled with gas to kill everyone inside. Jake is thin enough to fit through the pipes connecting to the next room and manages to open the door from the other side to let Sisko and O'Brien out. This causes another alarm that the contained workers have escaped and another message plays that assumes that the workers on the station have started to riot. This locks all doors on the station and again new responses are threatened if control is not returned to the guards. Dax tries to work on the main computer but gets her hands zapped by another security system. Fortunately, Garak has an access code that allows him to move freely across the station, but he has no access to the security systems. The only idea he has to prevent the habitat ring from being gassed is to disable the life support systems. With no ventilation the gas can't be pumped through the station and the air should last them for at least another 12 hours. Kira destroys the controls for the life support systems, which immediately causes the security program to go up to level 3. A new message by Dukat plays that informs the Cardassian staff that the station has been taken over by rioting worker and that he has probably been killed or taken prisoner by them. They have 2 hours to regain control of the station before it is destroyed.

Quark is trapped with Odo in the security station and questions his life choices. His father always warned him about that. "What? That you would spend your final hours in jail? I could have told you that." He left home to seek a fortune in space, but all he got is a measily bar. Unlike his cousin Gaela. Who owns a moon. Odo cheers him up and tells him that Quark may not be the richest Ferengi, but the most devious one he ever met.

Garak has gained access to the computer, but doesn't have permission to make any changes. The only one who might be able to disable the security program would probably be Gul Dukat. He could try to fake Dukat's codes, but then the computer certainly would scan his DNA and detect the lie. Dax suggests that they could disable the internal sensors and then try hacking the computer. But she needs Kira to give her a hand. While Garak is searching for Dukat's codes, the computer keeps asking him to confirm his identity until the attack is detected and the replicator replicates a small phaser turret that starts shooting at everything. As hide in cover and try to come up with a new plan, Dukat beams on the station. He was just on a patrol in the region and received a distress call from himself, so he came by to look how the station is doing. With the phaser ignoring him, he finds the whole situation very amusing. He can just shut down the security program, but he thinks this is a good time to discuss certain conditions for his help. He finds Garak hiding under a console and starts taunting him, but Garak shots back with things about Dukat's father, who apparently was tried as a traitor with Garak somehow having been involved. He prommisses Garak that this thing is not over yet, but for now he will disable the phaser and negotiate with Kira in his old office.

He thinks it would be fair for everyone that the Cardassian should station their own troops on the station. "Would you really allow 2000 people to die, simply because you don't like... us?" And yes, she would. Since they still have 30 more minutes, Dukat decides to return to his ship and give them some more time to consider his offer. He calls his ship to beam him back, which starts another automated message calling Dukat a dirty coward for trying to abandon his post while the station is being taken over by his rebelling workers. His access codes are now blocked and he can die with everyone else.

To disable the self destruct, they will have to get the the reactor, which means they have to disable the force fields. Dukat asks Kira if they disconnected the power emitters used to kill everyone who touches a force field and if they are still in their places, which is the case. Since they aren't currently connected, they shouldn't have been blocked off from access by the security program, and if they overload them it would destroy the force fields as well. Turbolifts and transporters will also be out, but they can't use them right now anyway. Kira calls Sisko and O'Brien who are still in the industrial section to tell them that they need to disable the reactor overload. They start evacuating the station with the shuttles and the Defiant, but Odo and Quark are still trapped in the security station. Odo suspects that the security station has a separate containment system because Dukat didn't trust him. "It's because the Cardassians knew you're a honorable man. The kind of person who would do the right thing no matter the circumstances. And now, your integrity is going to get us both killed. I hope you're happy."

Sisko and O'Brien find the path to the reactor blocked but there's an access tunnel they can take instead. However, there is burning fuel in the walls, so they tell Jake to stay back while they go. Sisko makes it through to the reactor controls but O'Brien is knocked out by an electric flash. So Jake goes in to drag him back out. Sisko directs the power surge from the reactor to the shields and the station is saved.

--

Attention Bajoran workers: This is a fantastic episode. I think it's been a while that an episode was so much fun. The plot is of course not much worth mentioning. The computer acts up and people are trapped in different parts of the station. This happened in TNG all the time. But this time there is little real drama and it mostly serves as the background for having plenty of funny situations. I'm not sure if I would call this a comedy episode, there's no slapstick or silly antics here that would be out of place in normal episodes. I am usually not a fan of comedy episodes in non-comedy shows, but I find this one really fun. There are so many things that could be considered jokes, but they aren't, but the humor arises out of the situation instead of characters telling jokes. Except when Dax asks Kira to give her a hand, but I believe it actually becomes a more regular trait of her to make deliberately dumb jokes in serious situations.

Odo and Quark have only a few moments trapped in the security station that don't contribute to solving the emergency, which are all pretty fun, but that's the usual way for the two. Though this time we get the added element of them simultaneously cheering each other up and talking smack about each other. And, as Homer Simpson said, it's funny 'cause it's true.

But the real star of the show for me is no doubt Dukat. And I don't know really why. Because Dukat himself is not actually cracking any jokes himself. I can't point out anything comedic about the messages he recorded, but it's the moments when they start playing that somehow make them really funny. When he comes to the station and sees everyone hiding from the phaser turret he is just enjoying the whole situation and uses it to strut around and be smug. Which is always simultaneously infuriating and hilarious. I don't think you can write this, this probably is all the work of the actor. And then there's of course the big punch line when Dukat gets a message from his old boss about running away from his post in the middle of an emergency. This scene would easily make it into my top ten of the funniest moments in all of Star Trek.
I love this one. It's just pure fun to watch.

[The New Bruceski]

It's a great episode where everyone gets something to do.

[Rodin]

But the real star of the show for me is no doubt Dukat. And I don't know really why. Because Dukat himself is not actually cracking any jokes himself. I can't point out anything comedic about the messages he recorded, but it's the moments when they start playing that somehow make them really funny. When he comes to the station and sees everyone hiding from the phaser turret he is just enjoying the whole situation and uses it to strut around and be smug. Which is always simultaneously infuriating and hilarious. I don't think you can write this, this probably is all the work of the actor. And then there's of course the big punch line when Dukat gets a message from his old boss about running away from his post in the middle of an emergency. This scene would easily make it into my top ten of the funniest moments in all of Star Trek.
I love this one. It's just pure fun to watch.

Dukat reminds me of Mr. Morden from Babylon 5. They're both incredibly smug, totally evil characters played with an earnest straightness that makes them a joy to hate. Dukat here is in full smug, and I started laughing my ass off when he realized he was stuck on the station too. As you say, it takes a really good actor to sell it, and I'm betting this episode was written solely for the scene where Dukat shows up in ops. They probably started there and wrote backwards to get the rest of the episode - hence why Odo and Quark wind up not doing very much. They needed to work out what to do with both characters since they are both capable of sneaking past the security systems. Sticking them together in the ultra-secure Security Office is both funny and an effective way to keep them out of the way.

----

I'm now fully caught up, and thanks again for doing the reviews - I would have skipped The Abandoned on the premise given in the trailer, but it turned out to be one that was moderately important to watch for continuity.

I was amused when I started season 3 to spot another similarity to Babylon 5 - both shows introduce their Cool Ship at the start of season 3. I think I prefer the White Star to the Defiant myself, but the Defiant is still a huge improvement from the runabouts. I was very surprised when they immediately shoot the crap out of the Defiant in the very first episode though. It's a very bold move to introduce the Cool Ship and then have its special ability (cloaking device) fail immediately and then have them lose the first fight they get into. It does work to sell the danger of the Dominion though - the cloak helps, but is still dangerous, and the Defiant is better than nothing but still can't stand up to the Dominion in a square fight.

Still, it does raise questions. Back when I watched the first time I was a kid and had read no military Sci-Fi of any kind (nor had I seen Babylon 5 yet). Now that I have done, the laxness of the Federation is kind of stunning. We've already established in the pilot that DS9 is comically undergunned - this isn't a big surprise because it isn't a fortress and was never meant to be the main defense for the system. Given that though, where are the system defenses? There's no Starfleet presence outside of the small detachment on the station. There's no mobile defenses in the form of starships. We don't see any Bajoran starships guarding the wormhole. And once the Dominion make themselves known nothing changes. The Federation supplies one defective warship*, the Bajorans don't appear to supply anything. You would expect warships stationed around the wormhole at all time, and fortresses bristling with phaser banks and photon torpedos positioned to attack anything coming out of the wormhole. Instead there's nothing, to the point where unless DS9 can handle it themselves anyone can come or go with impunity. I believe it takes at least another season before DS9 gets upgraded with enough weaponry to be threatening, and it's still basically retrofitting an administrative center instead of putting up proper defenses.

Yeah, it's a standard Star Trek "no other ships available to respond" trope in action. But it's darned weird exactly because it's a stationary space station instead of the Enterprise that was regularly off in remote corners of the Federation. You would expect that an increasingly important trade hub like DS9 would get more attention. Makes me wonder if there was a situation like Basilisk station in the Honor Harrington novels, where the agreement with the Bajorans and Prime Directive concerns kept the Federation from actually doing anything in the system and the Bajorans were more concerned with planetary defense. Can't upgrade the station's defenses because the Federation is in charge of it, and the Bajorans don't trust the Federation. Stuff like that.

*said warship is immediately repurposed into a bus to shuttle our cast around, instead of oh, I dunno, defending the wormhole.

[Cikomyr]

From memory alpha, this episode was apparently hell to write :

This episode had an extremely difficult gestation. According to Ira Steven Behr, "It was one of those back-breaking, horrible, horrible experiences," although he does acknowledge that "it was terrific at the end." The original pitch by Mike Krohn was intended as a bottle show, and while the basic man-against-machine element of the plot was fine, the problem, according to Ronald D. Moore, was in trying to find a way "to make the jeopardy intriguing, to find the inner story." By the time of production, virtually every writer on the staff had had a go at the script, but every single draft was rejected by Michael Piller. According to Behr, Piller called him at 8:00am on a Monday morning to tell him, "I hate to say this Ira, but I'm not buying any of it – it's not working." In the end, after much work, the staff finally got together a script which Piller approved, and the episode was green-lit, but even then, there were more problems. According to Behr, "The writing process turned out as painful and disgusting as we thought it would be." However, he does acknowledge that "in the end, it turned out solid, with some nice twists and some great stuff for Garak and Dukat, and the paired up teams." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

[Kantaki]

I dunno why, but Dukat being trapped with everyone else never fails to cheer me up.
Kinda like G'Kar and Londo being trapped in a lift on B5.

Still, it does raise questions. Back when I watched the first time I was a kid and had read no military Sci-Fi of any kind (nor had I seen Babylon 5 yet). Now that I have done, the laxness of the Federation is kind of stunning. We've already established in the pilot that DS9 is comically undergunned - this isn't a big surprise because it isn't a fortress and was never meant to be the main defense for the system. Given that though, where are the system defenses? There's no Starfleet presence outside of the small detachment on the station. There's no mobile defenses in the form of starships. We don't see any Bajoran starships guarding the wormhole. And once the Dominion make themselves known nothing changes. The Federation supplies one defective warship*, the Bajorans don't appear to supply anything. You would expect warships stationed around the wormhole at all time, and fortresses bristling with phaser banks and photon torpedos positioned to attack anything coming out of the wormhole. Instead there's nothing, to the point where unless DS9 can handle it themselves anyone can come or go with impunity. I believe it takes at least another season before DS9 gets upgraded with enough weaponry to be threatening, and it's still basically retrofitting an administrative center instead of putting up proper defenses.

Yeah, it's a standard Star Trek "no other ships available to respond" trope in action. But it's darned weird exactly because it's a stationary space station instead of the Enterprise that was regularly off in remote corners of the Federation. You would expect that an increasingly important trade hub like DS9 would get more attention. Makes me wonder if there was a situation like Basilisk station in the Honor Harrington novels, where the agreement with the Bajorans and Prime Directive concerns kept the Federation from actually doing anything in the system and the Bajorans were more concerned with planetary defense. Can't upgrade the station's defenses because the Federation is in charge of it, and the Bajorans don't trust the Federation. Stuff like that.

The issue is that DS9 isn't a Federation Station, it's a Bajoran Station (technically it's cardassian, but that's just nitpicking.)
So they can't just upgrade the defenses without the Bajorans asking them to- which they won't, because like hell they're going to let a foreign power have that much firepower directly above their homeworld.

Besides, what ships are they supposed to station over Bajor?
Starfleet is depressingly unmilitary considering the state of the galaxy.
No, they're entirely too attached to their "peaceful explorers" image.
The Defiant was their first dedicated warship after all.
Sure, most capital ships aren't helpless in a fight, but they are build for science, not war.

[Kitten Champion]

I don't think they directly address it, but it's shown pretty consistently in the series that DS9 was pretty understaffed by Starfleet relative to their needs. That might've been part of the deal going into their stewardship of DS9, have Bajorans fill a certain percentage of security and engineering roles until they have enough foundational experience to eventually run the station themselves which would mean you'd have a while before they're as dependable as someone trained in Starfleet academy. The result being much O'Brien-related suffering.

Add to that that you're starting with a glorified ore-refinery to begin with and not exactly a fortress, that Federation technology integrated poorly into the Cardassians', that the Cardassians actively vandalized the station the best they could before leaving, that Bajor was mostly a mess politically and in terms of infrastructure, and that the Federation seemed confident enough that staking their flag in the ground would stop the Cardassian from re-invading, it's not surprising it would take years in-universe and the appearance of the Dominion for them to get to retrofitting DS9's fortifications.

[Rodin]

I dunno why, but Dukat being trapped with everyone else never fails to cheer me up.
Kinda like G'Kar and Londo being trapped in a lift on B5.



The issue is that DS9 isn't a Federation Station, it's a Bajoran Station (technically it's cardassian, but that's just nitpicking.)
So they can't just upgrade the defenses without the Bajorans asking them to- which they won't, because like hell they're going to let a foreign power have that much firepower directly above their homeworld.

Besides, what ships are they supposed to station over Bajor?
Starfleet is depressingly unmilitary considering the state of the galaxy.
No, they're entirely too attached to their "peaceful explorers" image.
The Defiant was their first dedicated warship after all.
Sure, most capital ships aren't helpless in a fight, but they are build for science, not war.

Right, but the Bajorans do nothing to defend the wormhole either. We're constantly told how much the Cardassians would love to move back in, and that Bajor would be the first to fall if the Dominion decides to come through the wormhole. I don't feel like it would have been asking too much for a throwaway line about the Bajor system defense fleet moving to take up positions to defend the wormhole and then adding a couple of Bajoran warships to the stock shots of Deep Space 9. Or if that's over budget, throw a scene with Sisko arguing with the provisional government about the lack of support the station is getting.

On the Federation, it's not like they haven't fought wars before. They fought against the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Cardassians, and had extended cold war periods with all three. Heck, two of those are still ongoing! Does the Federation leave the colonies close to the Romulan Neutral Zone as undefended as they leave DS9?

At the end of the day, the only justification you can give is "Star Trek gonna Star Trek". The same thing goes for them continuing to explore the Gamma quadrant after the Dominion told them to piss off - it's the only unexplored space nearby, and we need somewhere to send the characters for TNG-style "new life and new civilizations" episodes. The purpose of the Defiant was far more about giving a ship big enough to send the entire cast on trips simultaneously than it was about the in-universe justification of having a warship on station to defend the wormhole. The military situation is similarly not considered until the war starts because the writers didn't care and were focused on weekly episodes instead of universe building.

Edit: For the record, I'm not upset that DS9 itself isn't properly outfitted as a military outpost. That's very justified in-story. It's that we don't see any sort of fleet garrison (from either Bajor or the Federation) on the single most strategic point in the entire star system.

[Saph]

Yeah, it's a standard Star Trek "no other ships available to respond" trope in action. But it's darned weird exactly because it's a stationary space station instead of the Enterprise that was regularly off in remote corners of the Federation. You would expect that an increasingly important trade hub like DS9 would get more attention. Makes me wonder if there was a situation like Basilisk station in the Honor Harrington novels, where the agreement with the Bajorans and Prime Directive concerns kept the Federation from actually doing anything in the system and the Bajorans were more concerned with planetary defense. Can't upgrade the station's defenses because the Federation is in charge of it, and the Bajorans don't trust the Federation. Stuff like that.

It is sort of a running joke amongst people who watch Star Trek just how bad the Federation is at military tactics. In the Honour Harrington novels, the government of the system that owns their wormhole fortify it with a ridiculous amount of static defences – which is, you know, exactly what any sensible defensive planner would do with that sort of choke-point.

You could argue that the Federation doesn't do this sort of thing because they're too peaceful, but they actually end up doing exactly the same thing and fortifying the place anyway! They just leave it way too late to do much good.

[Kantaki]

I don't think the Bajorans have enough of a fleet to fight their way out of a wet paper bag, much less to defend bajoran space.

Remember, the cardassian occupation only ended recently and they basically took everything not to heavy to carry off.
Plus they wouldn't have their slaves have warships anyway.
So any ship would have been build after the occupation ended and I doubt that would have been a priority with everything else that needed rebuilding.

And sure, the Federation as fought some wars, but never on the scale the Dominion would require.
Minor scuffles in comparison, really.

And Starfleet doesn't define itself as a military, they see themselves as explorers and diplomats.
So, considering that and how often the plot was "Federation colony got attacked", yes Federation colonies probably are woefully underdefended.

Again, before the Defiant they had no dedicated warships despite their more aggressive neighbors.
Frankly, sometimes it seems the only reason Federation is still standing is that their previous enemies aren't exactly military types themselves.

Or at least not in the hellbent for galactic conquest way the Dominion is.
Who are the only ones who's troops I would call soldiers hat-wise.
Klingons are warriors, Romulans politicans and Cardassians secret service.

The only one who come even close threat-wise are the Borg.
Who are relatively far away and just not that dedicated to expansion.

TLDR: Bajorans are to weak to defend the wormhole and to proud to ask for help.
The Federation is too nice to force them and too Hippie for a actual military anyway.

[Algeh]

Also, DS9 has the only stable wormhole, so the Federation isn't used to thinking in terms of "securing a specific chokepoint". They're used to a large Neutral Zone to keep an eye on type of border rather than a single spot, which calls for radically different tactics. Combined with it not actually being in their space (since it's in Bajoran space) and their generally non-military orientation, and they just don't think to do much in the way of proactive defense. (Also, they're used to Trying To Make Friends with everyone, so of course they want an open border if the other side is willing to give them one. Do they try to keep non-military ships from crossing into Federation space anywhere else?)

[bguy]

The Federation may also be a little overconfident about protecting the wormhole because they think they can collapse it if necessary with a single volley of photon torpedoes. Obviously collapsing the wormhole would not be the ideal situation, but since the Dominion knows the Feds have both the capability (and based on the simulation they ran on Sisko in The Search) the will to collapse it if necessary, the Dominion is seemingly checked from launching a major attack on DS9 (since that would certainly prompt Starfleet to collapse the wormhole.) So why would Starfleet commit a whole fleet to protect the wormhole when a single runabout can effectively end any Dominion invasion?

[Yanagi]

I like "The Abandoned" and years on it's an episode that I still think about.

And that's because it's basically existential horror playing out in the optimistic, individuality-loving frame of Star Trek.

There are many bottle episodes and arcs in Trek where the crew encounters an alien but find a way to connect with it, and a few where a specific standout figure within a species that is generally antagonistic befriends the crew or acts as an ally. But I'd say "The Abandoned" is specifically a companion piece and foil to the episodes dealing with the individual Borg, Hugh. When Hugh is introduced he is handled not as an individual but as a threat, but over time the engineers working with come to understand that his damage has made him distinct from the Borg hive-mind. Hugh goes through a kind of symbolic childhood over the course of his first appearance, and by the end he is an actualized person and treated as a person by the Enterprise crew...and the episode does a good job of letting different crew accept or resist this idea. (Picard projecting all his trauma and fear onto that single, terrified, damaged Borg is one of the best bits of acting Stewart did on that show, and I say that feeling he was consistently good) It's sort of a little Kantian morality play: people should be treated not as means only ends. When Hugh is established as "person" the idea of using him as means becomes upsetting. The plot resolves by creating an emergency in which Hugh chooses to return to the collective to protect everyone else.

It's the Star Trek ethos compressed into concentrate. It's a show with a deep appreciate of the good and bad of culture, be it the small culture of family or ship-mates or the big culture of imperial species like the Klingons.

Now contrast with "The Abandoned":

The Jem'Hadar never develops a name; their childhood (and thus their period of social dependency and learing on/from others) is fleeting in length. Their personality is mostly-formed and their thought process pre-articulated with assumptions about the world. There are clearly unnatural presets to their cognition--reflexive deference to Changelings, the chopped and channeled lens of attention and enjoyment focusing on aggression and violence--plus the revelation of the manufactured dependency that is a life-threatening condition but also displays characteristics of addiction. At any given moment of choice, the Jem'Hadar appears to be perfectly comfortable with limited choice, and is incurious about what else they could be.

The character is, in-universe, part of a species built to be the "means" by which the Changeling inflict violence by proxy. It contextualizes the suicide ramming of the Odyssey a few episodes ago. It contextualizes everything the Changelings have said to Odo, and everything the audience has been told about Dominion activity. In a setting where's there's warrior cultures that raid and pillage, and tyrant empires, even genocides...the Founders are operating at a deeper level of contempt (and fear) of others that they're willing to operationalize whole species to kill and die. It's a terrifying science fiction extrapolation of genocide: the Founders have built them in a way that binds their agency, tries to lock away choices that individuals could make when exposed to healthy social interactions or new perspectives. This episode presents the full implications of that, mapped onto a single body.

Every single Jem'Hadar is a tragedy and a horror story. In future episodes they are frequently the representation of the physical threat posed by the Dominion--and they are frequently awful and do awful things--but every appearance is contextualized by this episode, by how they're trapped by genetics and addiction and cultural conditioning and religion.

[JCarter426]

I love this one. It's just pure fun to watch.

It is that. I don't have much more to say.

It's a very bold move to introduce the Cool Ship and then have its special ability (cloaking device) fail immediately and then have them lose the first fight they get into.

If there's one universal trait cloaking devices have in Star Trek, it's that somebody's is going to fail before the episode is over.

The only time they ever work is when they didn't have to, like when the Enterprise is facing off with one Romulan warbird and then two more surprise de-cloak and everybody heads back whence they came to maintain the status quo.

Back when I watched the first time I was a kid and had read no military Sci-Fi of any kind (nor had I seen Babylon 5 yet). Now that I have done, the laxness of the Federation is kind of stunning. We've already established in the pilot that DS9 is comically undergunned - this isn't a big surprise because it isn't a fortress and was never meant to be the main defense for the system. Given that though, where are the system defenses? There's no Starfleet presence outside of the small detachment on the station. There's no mobile defenses in the form of starships. We don't see any Bajoran starships guarding the wormhole. And once the Dominion make themselves known nothing changes.

It might not be totally apparent yet, but Bajor and the wormhole just aren't that important to the Federation at the moment. They're willing to help out with the reconstruction, but they don't have a vested interest in the planet. It's not their colony, a lot of Bajorans don't even want their help, and there's a constant doubt over whether Bajor will ever join the Federation. At the start of the show, Starfleet sends a token presence to the system so the Cardassians won't get any ideas about re-occupation, but they were never meant to serve as a serious defense force.

A lot of things change after the wormhole is discovered, but the general situation doesn't. They use DS9 as a base of operations for exploring the Gamma Quadrant because that's what Starfleet does, but the wormhole is little more than a curiosity to them. It's not theirs to defend; it's in Bajoran space. And there are likely plenty of Admirals in Starfleet who would be willing to pull out and leave Bajor to its fate at the first sign of trouble.

The purpose of the Defiant was far more about giving a ship big enough to send the entire cast on trips simultaneously than it was about the in-universe justification of having a warship on station to defend the wormhole.

Isn't that how budgeting always works? You wait until you have a pretty good excuse to ask for the cool thing you always wanted for other reasons anyway. Sisko knows how red tape works. He didn't get those rank pips by collecting bottle caps.

[Gnoman]

...is that unlike with these episodes, we never really got to know the Jem'Hadar. The Borg had appeared in three dedicated Borg episodes before Hugh showed up, and of course much more than that before Seven of Nine's appearance. The Jem'Hadar, on the other hand, really only appeared in "The Jem'Hadar", in which they were minor villains. Just that and the simulated bar fight in "The Search" were the extent of our contact with the Jem'Hadar. In "The Abandoned" we do learn more about them, some things that will be critical to their characterization later, but it's out of context, given that it's wrapped up in the initial mystery of who the kid is. Starfleet is clueless about the Jem'Hadar, so we are too, and therefore I think we have less of an investment in what happens to the one in the episode.

With the Borg, we know it's a big deal for a drone to express individuality. Likewise, we know it's a big deal that Captain Picard could use Hugh to end the Borg threat and that he chooses not to, despite his history with the Borg. He risks everything on the hopes that Hugh's individuality will be a positive influence on the rest of the Collective, rather than using him effect the genocide of his own kind (even if it would sort of be self defense on the Federation's part). There's a whole moral quandary going on based on prior knowledge of their species.

Here, we go into the episode not knowing much about the Jem'Hadar. We don't even know that he is a Jem'Hadar until halfway through the episode. Then characters who know little about the Jem'Hadar try to teach a Jem'Hadar how to not be a Jem'Hadar, and it doesn't take because apparently Jem'Hadar are engineered to be Jem'Hadar and that's just the way it works. We didn't know that's how it works, and we didn't know what impact this would have either way, so there's no tension. We aren't wondering if this guy is going to be the one Jem'Hadar who's different and asking whether all Jem'Hadar could change. Not just because this guy doesn't change, but because we really don't know enough about them to ask these questions.

See, that's where this episode really excels. It isn't a "get to know the enemy as a People instead of Them" episode. It is a "Realize just how powerful and scary these things are" one. It is "Alien", where the Borg episodes are "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial".

[Seppl]

Regarding defenses of DS9: Were we watching the same show? I distinctly remember that the station itself was in very few fights. In the first episode, it was armed only with a token defense because it was an important backwater in the middle of nowhere. But after that it gets some serious upgrades and in the next major engagement it can stand up to the Klingon warfleet send to conquer the whole Cardassian empire. When the Dominion threatens, they are able to quickly call on a multinational taskforce - except they don't fight because it was all a trick by the Dominion. When the Dominion comes for real the result of much the same as the against the Klingons: The station can stand it's ground against dedicated warfleets but not forever.

[Yora]

If there's one universal trait cloaking devices have in Star Trek, it's that somebody's is going to fail before the episode is over.

The only time they ever work is when they didn't have to, like when the Enterprise is facing off with one Romulan warbird and then two more surprise de-cloak and everybody heads back whence they came to maintain the status quo.

Which is more or less how actual stealth technology works. It doesn't make you undetectable, but is designed to not make the enemy notice you until you are very close.
It's just to let viewers see what's going on, ships are always shown to be rediculously close together. And Star Trek is always more concerned about maintaining a consistent presentation than thinking about the practicality of the technology.

In the end, all those shiny ships, sleek uniforms, and technobabble do a very good job to disguise that Star Trek is actually very soft sci-fi.

[Rodin]

Regarding defenses of DS9: Were we watching the same show? I distinctly remember that the station itself was in very few fights. In the first episode, it was armed only with a token defense because it was an important backwater in the middle of nowhere. But after that it gets some serious upgrades and in the next major engagement it can stand up to the Klingon warfleet send to conquer the whole Cardassian empire. When the Dominion threatens, they are able to quickly call on a multinational taskforce - except they don't fight because it was all a trick by the Dominion. When the Dominion comes for real the result of much the same as the against the Klingons: The station can stand it's ground against dedicated warfleets but not forever.

Right, but that's in season 5 or somewhere (it's past the point where I stopped watching as a kid, and I was around for Worf which is season 4). There's no mention of the defenses getting upgraded in the episodes between the first episode and where we are now in season 3. Since I haven't seen every episode it's my assumption that (like Babylon 5 did) there will be an episode where we see work crews around upgrading the station or get some sort of indication that it was upgraded from other means. The "quickly call on a multi-national task force" is another bit of TV nonsense when you're talking about areas of space that takes weeks* to cross. It would take a long time to organize such a force, and that doesn't help when the Dominion can come crashing through the wormhole with no warning and take control of Bajor in a matter of hours.

All I really wanted to point out was that (much like every other Star Trek franchise) military reality is completely ignored in favor of plot. They can't station another starship there because then DS9 wouldn't be "the only starship in the sector". The Defiant being meant to defend the station if the Dominion comes through is immediately tossed away by the command crew taking it on research missions, taking it to Earth, and generally using it like a car to ferry people around when they still have perfectly serviceable runabouts for the same purpose. The reason we don't see any of this is because DS9 isn't a show focused on the military - at least, not yet. I'm not sure how much that changes in the later seasons I'm less familiar with, but I'll probably bring this up again then.


*weeks if you go by common sense and what is depicted in most of the shows and expanded materials, about 20 minutes if you look at how fast the Enterprise crossed the entire Federation in First Contact. The size of the Federation is more wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey than Doctor Who.

[Yora]

S3E8: Meridian

Kira gets hit on by a friend of Quark and she pretends Odo is her boyfriend, which he finds very annoying.

Sisko is taking the Defiant to scout the Gamma Quadrant for activities by the Dominion. They detect some kind of anomaly around a solitary star and when they go investigate an entire habitable planet suddenly appears out from nowhere. They are scanned from the surface and find a single village of 30 people who are calling them and invite them over for a visit. The leader explains that this planet keeps disappearing into another incorporeal dimension where they exist as energy beings for 60 years, and when the planet returns to normal space everything is in exactly the state as it was before.

On the station, Quark's friend pays him a lot of money to make him a holo program of Kira. So Quark tries to lure her into the holosuit to get a scan of her. Odo points out to what Quark is doing and she's very pissed obviously.

Dax befriends one of the inhabitants of the planet Meridian who explains that they are the descendants of people who crashed on the planet a long time ago. They also discovered that their time in normal space keeps getting shorter and is now down to only 12 days, and eventually will cause the planet to disappear into the other dimension permanently. Sisko offers to look into ways to help them and they find that the phenomenon is related to some instability in the star. Dax' new friend starts hitting on her out of nowhere and she's game, which is horrible to watch. They seem to have met just a few hours ago, but are already turning into a couple, and they also find the solution to the unique space anomaly some hours later. When the planet will reappear in 60 years, they will be able to keep it corporeal for the next 30 years instead of just a few days. But Dax' new boyfriend decides that he's not going with the other to the other dimension to be with her, though his people aren't happy about it. Then Dax decides that she will go to the planet instead. Sisko asks if she really thinks this is a good idea, and when she says yes he wishes her best of luck.

Odo finds out that Quark tried a new way of making a hologram of Kira, but he managed to hack it to paste Quark's head on the body, which his friend doesn't find very funny and vows revenge.

Dax beams to the planet to leave with the others but things are getting wrong when the planet starts to shift. Sisko has her beamed back before the planet rips itself apart and it disappears into the other dimension.

--

I am watching it so you don't have to.

This sucked, but I think almost everyone already knew this. This episode regularly shows up in Worst Of Star Trek lists. Though I have to say it's not nearly as terrible as I thought. The Forsaken is many times more horrible. Again we have a main plot and a secondary plot, and the secondary plot is pointless nonsense that has no connections to the main plot and only the vaguest thematic match. But the main plot is also pretty bad. The paradise planet with a weird space anomaly is once again bad early TNG stuff, but what makes the whole thing such an ordeal is the completely ridiculous romance. The whole thing must have spanned 12 days, but the way the episode is edited it's impossible to tell any passing of time except that one time it is night for a minute, so it feels like it all takes place in less than 24 hours. Alien boyfriend seems nice enough, and I guess it's not completely implausible for Dax to moments of impulsiveness, but both Sisko and Bashir act as if the two had already been together for months. It is obvious that this is another 20 minutes romance story from start to finish and that this means everything will be back to normal at the end and nobody will ever talk about it again. It's impossible to have any kind of tension like that or get the audience to care even the smallest bit. I think this one is worse than Melora, but still a good deal better less awful than Second Sight.
I know that there is at least one more episode of this type in the later seasons, but that time they at least made it a hostile telepathic parasite instead of trying to pass it off as genuine attraction and emotions.
This episode has no reason for existing.

[Kantaki]

I actually remember the B-Plot.
Probably because I always thought the punchline was hilarious.
But the A-Plot?
Yeah, no.
That one's so unspecific that it could be from any SF-series. (So much I could swear DS9 already used that premise.

[Cikomyr]

The B Plot highlights many ethical issue about the holodeck.

I mean, we can all agree that Quark and his customer are both horrible creeps, right?

Then why is it not an outright crime when Barclays bone a Holo-Troi, or when 7 bones a Holo-Chakotay?

[Rodin]

I actually remember the B-Plot.
Probably because I always thought the punchline was hilarious.
But the A-Plot?
Yeah, no.
That one's so unspecific that it could be from any SF-series. (So much I could swear DS9 already used that premise.

See previous point about wanting the Defiant so they could put the entire crew on and recycle TNG/TOS-era scripts.

The episode is worth it purely for the B-plot, and the A-plot is at least inoffensive if not actually interesting in any way.

I did find myself wondering "Why Dax?" while watching, as she initially seems like the one least likely to get swept up in a whirlwind romance. Then I realized it's because she's the only unattached person in the crew. Kira has Bareil, O'Brien is married, Sisko would never leave Jake alone, Odo wouldn't be interested, and Bashir has an established crush on Dax.

Oh, and I found this great quote on Memory Alpha:

"Meridian" is based on Brigadoon, a musical about a magical Scottish village that appears only once every one hundred years. Co-Executive Producer Ira Steven Behr, an admirer of Brigadoon, confessed to originating the idea about making an episode based on the musical. Of his idea to do a Star Trek show based on Brigadoon, Behr says "I am a moron."

[Kantaki]

Oh, and I found this great quote on Memory Alpha:

Well... At least he's aware of it?

[Traab]

The B Plot highlights many ethical issue about the holodeck.

I mean, we can all agree that Quark and his customer are both horrible creeps, right?

Then why is it not an outright crime when Barclays bone a Holo-Troi, or when 7 bones a Holo-Chakotay?

Because its not actually hurting anyone unless it involves a total violation of privacy. Its certainly creepy, but, is it really any more gross than having a fantasy session in your own mind over someone you find attractive? It just lets you act out your fantasy outside your own skull.