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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S1E2: Past Prologue
    [...] I find it quite interesting that they made this the second episode of the season and not one of the last one. I guess they wanted to get Kira quickly established to her final form and not actually deal with the conflict about the Bajoran crew not wanting the Federation on the station.[...]
    The episode really depends on being an early one. Garak's motivations being unclear (even by the end clueing Bashir in it could be actually being a good person or worrying that Cardassian interests would be harmed even if they nabbed him), Odo as a supporter of stability but still not exactly loyal to the Federation, Kira in a state where she could have gone either way. If you wait until the end of the season all those things either get nailed down as the station crew settles into their relationships or it has to be kept up in the air for a lot longer. I don't think the show could have survived keeping Kira in divided loyalties like that for the whole season.
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    S1E10: The Nagus

    O'Brien is substitute teacher at the school for a month, while simultaneously still doing his regular job as chief of maintainance. Under what circumstances could that ever possibly happen? But at least this allows him to be in this episode after not appearing at all for three episodes in a row. He's the most underused character in the series so far, having only played a major part in Captive Pursuit, and smaller meaningful appearances three more episodes.
    Nog doesn't have his homework, which doesn't surprise anyone, and Jake seems to have had enough with covering for him.

    In the bar, Quark is angry at Rom for giving a customer a refund and gives him a tedious cleaning task as punishment. Rom finds Nog playing around with his school tablets and some empty glasses and punishes him by giving him the cleaning task. Quark gets visited by a Ferengi who introduces himself as Krax, which doesn't interest in, and his father, the Grand Nagus Zek, which makes Quark visibly fighting the instinct to start screaming in panic. The Grand Nagus is obviously a very high ranking and ancient Ferengi official, who walks around like he owns the place. Which Quark is afraid he very soon will. He spends hours in the Holo Suit, refuses a glass of something orange to drink straight from the bottle, and demands that Quark invites him for dinner. While the Nagus is stying on the station, Quark is "honored to offer him his very own... brother's quarters!"

    While they are eating and the Nagus is pushing everyone else around, Nog asks if he can leave to do his homework and spills that he is going to a Federation school run by a human woman. Rom freaks out and tells him to never go to the school ever again. The Nagus is quite impressed by Quark's business activities so far and mentions that his cousin just got released from prison, after the two had been selling broken warp drives and Quark sold him out to go free and keep all the money for himself, which he really liked. The Nagus finally reveals that he has come to the station because he wants to hold a conference in Quark's bar with influential Ferengi magnates to open new markets in the Gamma Quadrant. At the conference, introductions are being made, listing each man's recent shady business deals, which gets a lot of applause from everyone, and then they get really excited and worked up about the possibilities of doing business in the Gamma Quadrant where nobody has yet heard of the Ferengi and they will have decades in which they can scam everyone freely. However, the Nagus announces that he will retire and he choose Quark to be his successor. Quark is completely surprised, and the attending elite Ferengi industrialists are outraged.

    Nog is getting rather rude with Jake about hating school anyway and humans and the Federation being annoying in general, and they argue until Nog storms off, visibly quite distressed by having been pulled out by his father. Jake is unhappy as a result and Sikso asks him about it. He tells Jake that humans and Ferengi just don't get along, while Jake uses his own weapons against him by bringing up how often Sisko talks about Federation values about being open to other cultures.

    Quark is feeling very good about himself being appointed as the next Grand Nagus and immediately other Ferengi are trying to suck up to him, but one of them makes it quite clear that he's not asking, but telling Quark that he is now his new close associate, or there could be severe consequences. Quark goes to see the Nagus about advice how to deal with such threats but in the middle of the conversation the Nagus suddenly croaks it and Quark will now have to deal with it himself. At the funeral event, Odo shows up explaining that with unexpected deaths of visitors to the station, he has to ask for the body to be examined. Which the Ferengi find very funny and explain that the little green boxes they are auctioning off are the Grand Nagus' pulverized remains, as is custom for famous Ferengi. At one moment Quark sees a coin dropping to the floor and bends down to pick it up, which causes a guided bomb to miss his head just barely. When Odo later asks him who might want to assassinate him, Quark is unwilling to cooperate and quickly disappears from the informary with Rom and Krax, who are his new lackeys.

    In his quarters, Quark is reenacting The Godfather with some ugly little critter in his lap, being smug to the people who come to him requesting exclusive trade concessions. He gets bored quickly and dismisses everyone who is still waiting outside to call it a night. Rom and Krax stay behind and start to work on a second plan to murder Quark before he gets too popular.

    Dax is coming by Sisko's quarters and finds him waiting for Jake to finally show up for dinner. He asks her if she has any advice on how do deal with Jake and she admits that she has been a parent five times and thinks she never was much good at it, but in his place she would go out and find Jake to take him home personally. Sisko takes her up on the advice and finds Jake in a cargo storage, helping Nog to learn proper reading, so he's willing to let it slide. Odo has noticed that it is very suspicious for the Grand Nagus' undyingly loyal servant to have not attended the funeral, as normally he would never leave his master's side, so he starts following him around the station.

    Quark is getting ready to go on a trip to the Gamma Quadrant because Krax told him the Nagus was conducting business negotiations that Quark now has to complete. Rom aks him if now that he's the new Nagus, he would give the bar to him, to which Quark only replies with more of the usual abuse. Rom says they should hurry and get to their ship. As they pass by the bar, Quark gets the idea to take one of the Dabo girls along to make his first entrance more impressive, but Rom and Krax insist that she would only distract from Quark's own magnificent appearance. They reach the airlock and Quark sees that there is no ship docked on the other side of the window, just as the other door is closing behind him. Rom uses the opportunity to taunt him but just before he can push the button to throw Quark out into space, the Odo appears with the Nagus who tells them to stop. He faked his own death and pretended to make Quark his successor just to see how his son would react in the situation. Trying to assassinate a powerless Nagus to take his office is way too blunt and lacks true intelligence, so Krax clearly does not have the skills to take the position yet and he will have to cancel his planned retirement for a good while more.

    At the bar, Quark and Rom have a conversation about Rom trying to murder him to get at the bar, and Quark is actually very impressed and praises Rom for his ambition and ruthlessness. However, he still won't reward him in any meaningful way.

    --

    Ferengi episode #1.

    Usually I don't like comedy episodes, and every Ferengi episode is a comedy episode. But I like Quark, and I like the Nagus. They are both funny characters who are funny without doing slapstick nonsense or wisecracking in inappropriate situations. They are more like carricatures and the jokes revolving around them I usually find genuinely witty.

    The big elephant in the room is that Rom tried to murder his brother. Twice! And there is absolutely zero consequences for it. Quark might not want to pursue the matter, which would still be weird, but Rom and Krax detonated a bomb in a public area. That alone should get them to prison for a very long time.

    I find it quite interesting that both Sisko and Rom each have a moment in which they get a bit racist about each other's culture. With Sisko, Jake lands a good blow by reminding him that the Fedration always praises seeking peaceful contact with other cultures and to not discriminate against anyone, but Sisko is always more than willing to make an exception for Ferengi, while Jake does not. With Rom, his racist shouting seems to be more of a panic reaction to protect himself by proclaiming what he thinks people in higher stations would want him to say. And after his initial reservations, he let Nog go to the school the whole time. It's only when a powerful conservative Ferengi hears about it that he loudly objects to it. I seem to remember that this will be a central element of his own minor character arc later in the series.

    I was sceptical going into the episode, but I think it might actually be my favorite episode yet. The secondary plot with Sisko and Jake was okay, but it lacks weight by itself and is connected to the rest of the episode only barely. There is only one moment where the two intersect for less than half a minute.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    The big elephant in the room is that Rom tried to murder his brother. Twice! And there is absolutely zero consequences for it. Quark might not want to pursue the matter, which would still be weird, but Rom and Krax detonated a bomb in a public area. That alone should get them to prison for a very long time.
    Based on what this episode established about Ferengi politics

    Spoiler: The end of the series
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    it's hard to imagine Rom lasting more than a day or two as Grand Nagus before getting assassinated.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by bguy View Post
    Based on what this episode established about Ferengi politics

    Spoiler: The end of the series
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    it's hard to imagine Rom lasting more than a day or two as Grand Nagus before getting assassinated.
    That was after a lengthy series of reforms in the later seasons though. Which, having proven successful in growing the Ferengi economy, created a solid bedrock of support for a reformist Nagus to take up the staff. Ferengi - eventually - go where the latinum is.

    Rom's also a far tougher and more assertive person as the series goes on, more than most Ferengi.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by bguy View Post
    Based on what this episode established about Ferengi politics

    Spoiler: The end of the series
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    it's hard to imagine Rom lasting more than a day or two as Grand Nagus before getting assassinated.
    That's not how they operate though. They work by quietly amassing contacts/wealth/influence, until they have all the power of the Grand Nagus, and then they replace the individual.

    I would have to say that some of my favorite Ferengi are:

    1) Brunt
    Spoiler: Is Spoliers, Don't Yell at Me
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    The IRS Man from Hell


    2)
    Spoiler: Is Spoilers, Don't Yell at M
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    That Assassin Guy


    3) Gaila,
    Spoiler: Is Spoilers, Don't Yell at Me
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    who tried to kill Quark
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by russdm View Post
    That's not how they operate though. They work by quietly amassing contacts/wealth/influence, until they have all the power of the Grand Nagus, and then they replace the individual.

    I would have to say that some of my favorite Ferengi are:

    1) Brunt
    Spoiler: Is Spoliers, Don't Yell at Me
    Show
    The IRS Man from Hell


    2)
    Spoiler: Is Spoilers, Don't Yell at M
    Show
    That Assassin Guy


    3) Gaila,
    Spoiler: Is Spoilers, Don't Yell at Me
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    who tried to kill Quark
    I figure you love The Magnificent Ferengi?

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

    Quote Originally Posted by russdm View Post
    That's not how they operate though. They work by quietly amassing contacts/wealth/influence, until they have all the power of the Grand Nagus, and then they replace the individual.
    Zek works by quietly amassing contacts/wealth/influence, but he is shown to be a lot craftier than the other Ferengi. The fact that Quark in this very episode is not upset that Rom tried to kill him (and indeed was rather proud of Rom) shows that more typical Ferengi apparently see nothing wrong with assassination as a way of getting what they want.

    Spoiler
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    Which doesn't bode well for a new Nagus who has no real business experience (guaranteeing he won't be respected by the Ferengi powerbrokers), and who is pushing a reformist agenda that is bound to upset many of those same powerbrokers.


    I would have to say that some of my favorite Ferengi are:

    1) Brunt
    Spoiler: Is Spoliers, Don't Yell at Me
    Show
    The IRS Man from Hell


    2)
    Spoiler: Is Spoilers, Don't Yell at M
    Show
    That Assassin Guy


    3) Gaila,
    Spoiler: Is Spoilers, Don't Yell at Me
    Show
    who tried to kill Quark
    Spoiler
    Show
    You'll notice that of those three characters, Brunt was willing to forego a large payoff just to see Quark dead, Leck (the assassin guy) is a professional assassin, and Gaila spent a small fortune to try and get Quark killed, so those three would all seem to be further proof that assassination is a relatively common practice in Ferengi society.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Cool to see this thread finally taking off. Bit of a slow start.

    S1E11: Vortex

    Odo is hanging around at Quark's bar and makes some observations about some interesting recent arrivals. There's a guy from the Gamma Quadrant named Kroden who Odo finds suspicious but Quark assures him he is harmless. The other arrivals are two big Miradorn brothers who look like they are no good. Quark takes the Miradorns to a back room and Odo sneaks in by disguising himself as one of the glasses on Rom's tray. Quark and the Miradorns are negotiating about selling a very valuable jewel that recently was stolen when Kroden comes in with a phaser to rob it. The two much bigger Miradorns aren't impressed by one wimpy looking guy and pull their own weapons, with one of the two ending up shot dead before Odo can break up the fight.

    The other Miradorn vows to avenge his brother's death, but Odo puts Kroden in jail. He also figures out that Quark and Kroden set up the robbery together, and if the Miradorn finds out he probably will want to kill Quark as well. While Odo and Sisko are interrogating Kroden, he makes an off-hand remark about other changelings like Odo living in the Gamma Quadrant. Odo immediately suspects that Kroden is making up lies to manipulate him, but finds himself unable to resist the lure of there maybe being some truth to it. Kroden says he got proof and gives Odo a little stone on a necklace that has the ability to shift into a key. Odo has it scanned by Bashir, who confirms that it's apparently some kind of organic technology with a cell structure similar to Odo's.

    Sisko and Dax fly to the Gamma Quadrant to find Kroden's homeworld and ask if they have any information about him, and when they mention his name the official immediately demands that they hand him over to be punished for his many crimes. They don't care about the Federation and want nothing to do with it, they just want them to give them Kroden immediately. The Bajoran courts don't care about keeping him and so Sisko orders Odo to transport him back to his world. The Miradorn figures out that the prisoner has secretly been taken off the station and threatens Quark and Rom to find out where he is. With no real choice, Quark breaks into the security files, which clearly list the destination of the transport.

    On the trip, Kroden keeps telling stories about Changelings being extinct on his world, but still surviving in other places, and that he has been declared a traitor and his whole family been sentenced to death, which might or might not be true. As the Miradorn's pirate ship catches up to them, Kroden convinces Odo to try shake them off in the nebula where he claims to have lived with a group of Changelings in the past. They land on an asteroid but Odo figures out that he has been manipulated and there aren't any Changelings there. Kroden admits that he lies about that, but that he has to get his daughter who he has hidden away in a stasis chamber on the asteroid. They get her, but on the way back to their ship, the attackers start shoting at the asteroid, causing rocks to fall from the ceiling and one hitting Odo on the head, knocking him out. Kroden first hesistates to saves him, but eventually decides to carry him to she ship since his daughter is watching him.

    They get off the asteroid and trick the Miradorn to take his ship into a cloud of explosive gases, which then gets ignited when it fires its weapon, destroying the ship. They leave the nebula and meet a Vulcan science ship that saw the explosion and came to investigate, and Odo decides to tell everyone that Kroden died on the Asteroid and get a passage to Vulcan for him and his daughter.

    --

    Changeling episode #1

    I think this episode was pretty good. Kroden is rather annoyin and unpleasant, but manages to do so completely without being agressive or particularly provoking. He's just completely unrepentant and lets any accusations about his failing bounce off him. Odo figures out instantly that Kroden is making up stories about knowing about Changelings and meeting them for the purpose of manipulating him to help him escape, but simply can't help himself to be tempted by the possibility to learn anything at all about his origin and his people. And once Kroden sees that he has found Odo's weakness, he shameless exploits it the entire time. He knows he is being manipulated, almost certainly will be disappointed, but still can not resist. Odo having been fooled by a made up story and then ending up feeling betrayed would have been the easy way to go with the story, but this is even better. Odo knows he is beeing played and finds that he has to struggle to resist it, and he is really tempted to knowingly betray his principles and duties over it. In the end he doesn't get any real answers, but Kroden seems to have been trustworthy in his claims that Changelings are something that is known in the Gamma Quadrant, even though they are apparently extremely secretive and rare.

    Last episode, Rom commited two cases of attempted murder with no consequences. This time Quark conspired to commit a robbery in which one of the victims got killed. And Odo knows he did. But since the victims were obviously a pirate, it does carry no consequences.

    Another thing that I noticed is that the writers really have not put any thought into how Odo's shapechanging actually works. Since his natural state is a fluid, he appears to be arranging his matter into different shapes. But his weight also somehow changes to match whatever he is impersonating. When he turns into a glass, he does not seem to weight any more than a regular glass would be. But when he is in humanoid form, he weighs as much as an adult human. Also, why would he be knocked out from a rock to his head? There is no brain inside. It's just amorphous goo shaped into into the form of a head. The very first display of his ability was to have a weapon fly through his head with no effect. The 90s were a simpler time when it cames to science fiction, with no attempts being made to make the fictional science in any way plausible. You could say that fantasy and science fiction culture has become overly pedantic in the last decade or so, but with things like these I welcome it.

    Overall, I consider this a very solid episode. It's onyl weakness is that the costumes are back to looking really bad. Like they were bad in Captive Pursuit and Move Along Home. I guess the whole costume budget got spend on the Ferengi suits in The Nagus. Those look actually amazing.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S1E9 - Move Along Home

    ....
    I think this is probably not the worst episode of the series. But it is quite probably the dumbest premise for any episode on the series. This feels like a script that was written for TNG, but they told the writer that they have stopped doing such trash in season 2. Instead of doing the right thing and throwing it away, they gave it to DS9 instead.

    It's not just that the premise is silly, the script is also really quite bad. There is no logic to anything. Characters figure out what is going on with absolutely no evidence to base it on all the time. And there never is any explaination for where the four people actually went. Was it a holodeck, was it some alternate subspace dimension, was it all a dream? The episode never bothers to really ask.

    And the way characters behave is also ridiculous. Odo just goes along with anything. He should be insisting that the people are returned immediately, and when the aliens aren't forthcomming he should be demanding an explanation. He and Quark are opperating under the assumption that some or even all of the four are likely to die. They never demand an explanation what is going on, why it's happening, or how the game works. When the alien leader says "roll the dice", Quark does and Odo stays silent, as if there wasn't any other possible thing they could do.

    Also the alien costumes are horrible. I think the design is actually pretty interesting, but the costumes are made exclusively from fabrics that are shiny, glitter, or sparkle, and that makes them all look ridiculous.

    It's not an episode I found very annoying or frustrating to watch. But there is nothing good in it and so many things that are dumb, that there is no other way than to rate it as bad.
    I'll be curious to see what you think is the worst episode. For me this is far and away the worst DS-9 episode. and ranks on my top 10 worst of ALL the Trek I've watched (Classic, Next Gen, DS-9, and Voyager). And for precisely the reasons you stated. When it comes to the others, there are some boring episodes, and way too silly episodes, but I can't think of one that is this BAD.


    Quote Originally Posted by Devonix View Post
    Remember also that the Prime Directive is not a Law. It's a guideline, and a set of principles. But at their discression it's perfectly acceptable for a member of Starfleet to go against it, if they feel that it is nessesary. They may stand for punishment afterwards, but that's not if they can give a valid reason for it.
    Actually, since the default is punishment unless you can justify your actions, it IS a law (or functionally equal to one). After all, even now there are laws you can break if you can justify your actions in a believable form.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitten Champion View Post
    Rom's also a far tougher and more assertive person as the series goes on, more than most Ferengi.
    As well as allegedly less intelligent. Rom in this episode is almost a completely different character, including the voice.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Cool to see this thread finally taking off. Bit of a slow start.

    S1E11: Vortex

    Another thing that I noticed is that the writers really have not put any thought into how Odo's shapechanging actually works. Since his natural state is a fluid, he appears to be arranging his matter into different shapes. But his weight also somehow changes to match whatever he is impersonating. When he turns into a glass, he does not seem to weight any more than a regular glass would be. But when he is in humanoid form, he weighs as much as an adult human. Also, why would he be knocked out from a rock to his head? There is no brain inside. It's just amorphous goo shaped into into the form of a head. The very first display of his ability was to have a weapon fly through his head with no effect. The 90s were a simpler time when it cames to science fiction, with no attempts being made to make the fictional science in any way plausible. You could say that fantasy and science fiction culture has become overly pedantic in the last decade or so, but with things like these I welcome it.
    Behind the scenes, DS-9 producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe stated that Odo basically shunts the excess into subspace. Apparently he can also take his communicator there, since it i a physical communicator (we see him take it off on occasion) and not something he creates. They also don't explain how he sometimes seems to increase his mass....
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Last episode, Rom commited two cases of attempted murder with no consequences. This time Quark conspired to commit a robbery in which one of the victims got killed. And Odo knows he did. But since the victims were obviously a pirate, it does carry no consequences.
    DS9 is just crazy about law and order. Most of the time it does seem like Bajoran law is the rule of the station, and Odo is an officer in the Bajoran goverment. Yet, at exactly the same time the station is under Federation law and Odo is an officer under the command of Sisko. Some times Sisko is all goofy and will say he ''can't" do anything about Quark as it's not a Federation station....and then a couple epsiodes later he will force Quark to not have live vole racing on the station.

    Maybe, amazingly, Bajor and the Federation have exactly the same laws about everything?

    Quark, and a couple of others, commit a LOT of crimes...and often get caught. Sometimes Odo does get to grab Quark and ''arrest him". Sort of? Quark is always back by the next epsiode. So...manye he just paid a fine? Or has a good lawyer?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Another thing that I noticed is that the writers really have not put any thought into how Odo's shapechanging actually works.
    It's typical enough for a TV show. The writers are often not ''hard sci-fi fans". Even as a kid, I saw all sorts of problems with Odo's shapeshifting.

    For example, Odo ''can't" make a humanoid face? That is just silly. Worse, we see Odo become all sorts of animals like a rat, a bird and a dog. Yet he can do all the animals perfectly.

    And how does Odo sense the universe anyway. He must have some sort of ESP or something more exotic. He can't just use sensory organs like eyes and ears. He does not have eyes or ears when he is a blob, a glass or a bag. And yet he can see and hear just fine......

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    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    DS9 is just crazy about law and order. Most of the time it does seem like Bajoran law is the rule of the station, and Odo is an officer in the Bajoran goverment. Yet, at exactly the same time the station is under Federation law and Odo is an officer under the command of Sisko. Some times Sisko is all goofy and will say he ''can't" do anything about Quark as it's not a Federation station....and then a couple epsiodes later he will force Quark to not have live vole racing on the station.
    Presumably it's some sort of dual jurisdiction situation. Maybe something like Bajoran criminal and civil law apply, but Starfleet still has jurisdiction to enact health, safety, and security regulations necessary for station operations. (Which would presumably cover the voles, since if they get loose they can make a real mess of the station's systems.)

    Maybe, amazingly, Bajor and the Federation have exactly the same laws about everything?
    Well we know that the Federation expects certain legal protections for the citizens of any world that wants to join the Federation.
    Spoiler
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    For example it's flat out mentioned in one of the episodes that Bajor can't join the Federation if it allows caste-based discrimination.
    Thus given that the Bajoran government seems to be interested in joining the Federation (and that much of their legal system would have been destroyed during the Occupation) it wouldn't be that surprising if the Provisional Government borrowed heavily from Federation law in setting up their new legal system, so as to help facilitate eventual integration with the Federation.

    Quark, and a couple of others, commit a LOT of crimes...and often get caught. Sometimes Odo does get to grab Quark and ''arrest him". Sort of? Quark is always back by the next epsiode. So...manye he just paid a fine? Or has a good lawyer?
    Several episodes show Quark assisting law enforcement. A low level criminal getting off lightly (or altogether) for their offenses in exchange for helping law enforcement take down a more important/dangerous target is pretty realistic.

    (And of course the Federation Criminal Justice System is pretty lenient anyway.
    Spoiler
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    What did Garak get for assaulting a Starfleet officer, attempting to sabotage the Defiant and attempting to commit genocide? Six months. And Kassidy didn't exactly get a long sentence either despite being convicted for essentially providing material support to a terrorist organization).
    So even if Quark was prosecuted for one of his crimes, he would probably get off pretty lightly.
    Last edited by bguy; 2019-06-02 at 09:42 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bguy View Post
    Presumably it's some sort of dual jurisdiction situation. Maybe something like Bajoran criminal and civil law apply, but Starfleet still has jurisdiction to enact health, safety, and security regulations necessary for station operations. (Which would presumably cover the voles, since if they get loose they can make a real mess of the station's systems.)
    That's my understanding. It's something like the American military presence in Japan. There are lengthy legal and political agreements between those States, though with this being Star Trek they're somewhat less overtly militarily focused. Still, the general understanding is that DS9 is more about Bajor having a benign galactic power have a flag on their proverbial soil and in exchange the Federation gets to do what they want - scientifically, militarily, and diplomatically - with the station.

    Though, as we'll see, the Federation doesn't really own the station itself outside of what they've brought on to it personally and their agreement can be annulled with the Bajorans reclaiming ownership of it.

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    Some of that is jurisdictional gray areas. The station belongs to Bajor, moving it to the wormhole in the first episode claimed that space for Bajor, not the Federation. But it's the center of the Federation presence and they handle most of the administration, kind of an embassy equivalent. But it's not fully an embassy, Bajorans live there and the Promenade is the center of their activities. I see some of the threatening with charges as "if I put my foot down I can make a huge mess for all of us. Please don't make me have to do that." And as far as Quark goes there's the added factor that his bar's the orbital focus of the Promenade and the local shops would likely follow his lead if he left even after the initial instability. So he's pushing the lines of what he can get away with, and there ARE lines because as annoying as he is he's better than the alternative. I think we can assume that even if he isn't being locked up for years for some of his shenanigans, measures are taken to make them unprofitable and that's plenty of motivation for him.

    Diplomacy, yaaaaaaay.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Inchhighguy View Post
    For example, Odo ''can't" make a humanoid face? That is just silly. Worse, we see Odo become all sorts of animals like a rat, a bird and a dog. Yet he can do all the animals perfectly.
    Apparently, not enough to satisfy the animals themselves. I think that point is made when he's in seagull disguise on Earth in season 4: Homefront - the humans are impressed, but Odo doesn't think the seagulls themselves were fooled.

    Presumably, they use actual animals for the special effects because it's easier.
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    I've always assumed Odo's inability to replicate faces is less about some dearth of natural ability and more a psychosomatic condition born from the traumatic experiments he was subject to during his adolescence. He has a kind of cognitive block in that area and nothing has pressed him into overcoming it, in time he's come to simply accept his current quasi-replication of his... father-figure as part of the core of his identity in an immensely stubborn and self-alienating kind of way.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Another thing that I noticed is that the writers really have not put any thought into how Odo's shapechanging actually works. Since his natural state is a fluid, he appears to be arranging his matter into different shapes. But his weight also somehow changes to match whatever he is impersonating. When he turns into a glass, he does not seem to weight any more than a regular glass would be. But when he is in humanoid form, he weighs as much as an adult human. Also, why would he be knocked out from a rock to his head? There is no brain inside. It's just amorphous goo shaped into into the form of a head. The very first display of his ability was to have a weapon fly through his head with no effect. The 90s were a simpler time when it cames to science fiction, with no attempts being made to make the fictional science in any way plausible. You could say that fantasy and science fiction culture has become overly pedantic in the last decade or so, but with things like these I welcome it.
    To be honest, you may want to just hand-wave this entire point. Because it will get further worse along the way in few later episodes. Even how long Odo regenerates in his pail changes slightly. Seriously, just hand wave that they liked the idea of a shape-shifter, but didn't think any of it through.

    DS9: Law & Order)

    I really think that Quark gets a pass mainly because he can be considered to operate within the rules/parameter of Ferengi culture. He won't commit really serious crimes, and you can, by knowing Ferengi Culture, how much Quark will lie/cheat/steal, and he won't really cross that line.

    Quark is driven by a need to make a profit, and how far he is willing to go.
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    I think it gets stated that the Bajorans asked for the Federation/Starfleet to administer the station on their behalf. So it would Bajoran law plus whatever the Federation Brings

    As for keeping Quark around) The Provisional government is something like a few months old at this point in the series, for its need support. Quark is one of the major stakeholders in the station, having one of the largest establishments there. With the Wormhole and the increased traffic through it, the Bajorans need somebody to provide services, that they can tax somehow. Bajor is after all poor, having been occupied and all.

    So Quark remains on the station and the Bajorans don't have replace the entire area his shop was, but if he does leave, how many of the others will as well? Quark's was the most profitable, if you consider how much it would have been frequented by the Cardassians. If you were someone that owned a place that made only so much there, and you saw Quark leave, would you really consider it worth staying? Quark is also important for another reason.

    Deep Space 9 functions like Star Trek did, but in a different way. Rather than being a Wagon Train to the Stars, DS9 is the city/town built or arrived at by that wagon train.
    [To Explain]

    1) The Station: The Station is our wild west town with everything for it inside the town/station. The roles for each character fits into our Wild West Town Mold.

    2) Doctor Bashir: A Wild West Town's Doctor, basically; keep from out East (along the East Count) and has settled the "Frontier"

    3) Commander Sisko: The Wild West Town's Mayor, guy in charge. Given the task of overseeing the place. Also probably more like a Magistrate running the place

    4) Constable Odo: The Constable or Sheriff, Odo even has deputies

    5) Quark's Place: Essentially the bar/tavern/saloon, with Quark our Bartender

    6) Kira/Bajorans: The Natives of the place, who aren't really happy about the situation. There is also some influence of Occupied France plus extra in the their design and intended relation with the Federation

    7) Cardassians/Gul Dukat: Our former overseers and rulers of the place, who would like to take back over if they could

    8) Wormhole: Basically a mine or other valuable bit that makes the Town profitable. Could be considered a Railroad as it were coming to the town leading further off to the wilderness (in the Gamma Quadrant)

    Beyond that, the detail really doesn't work any more. But it is something to consider or remember for later
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    We could be talking so much about the sources that went into the Bajorans. And I will, when it comes to the end of the season. I think they are the main thing that makes DS9 stand out so much from the rest of Star Trek, and one of the boldest elements ever put into Star Trek.
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    S1E12: Battle Lines

    Dax and O'Brien find old Cardassian files on known terrorists. As expected, Kira does not appreciate her file classifying her as a minor nuisance of no real significance. Bashir calls Ops to inform Sisko that Kai Opaka has just arrived unannounced on a transport ship to visit the station. Sisko shows her around and she is clearly wishing to see the wormhole, so they get a shuttle ready to make a pass to the Gamma Quadrant and back. As they board, Opaka exchanges a few words with O'Brien, and knowing that he has a young daughter, she tells him to give her necklace to her as a gift. When they pass through the wormhole, she is a bit disappointed of nothing being on the other side. Making some references to a prophecy, she asks that they stay for for a little longer before turning back, and they do pick up a signal that nobody had detected before. Sisko and Kira want to come back to check it out later, but Opaka excitedly encourages them to investigate now. They find a planet in a nearby system and detect some people on the surface, but immediately get shot down by a network of satellites and crash. The Yangtse-kiang is wrecked and Kira lightly injured, but Opaka killed, which Kira takes pretty hard because she has always been an icon of unity and cooperation on Bajor.

    They are found by inhabitants of the planet who take them to their caves, and their leader explains that the planet is a prison and the two factions of prisoners are in a continuous war with each other. A group of the other faction attacks and a lot get killed on both sides, but as Sisko, Kira, and Bashir look over the carnage, Opaka suddenly comes into the caves and the fallen all get back up again. Bashir discovers that there are artificial microbes in the air that reanimate dead bodies, and the leader explains that they were put on the planet as a warning to others, because the leaders of their planet just couldn't get the two clans to stop their age old feud. He actually doesn't know what the fight was originally about, and he doesn't think it matters either.

    Meanwhile Kira gets back in full out battle mode, wants to improve the defenses of the camp, get the warriors organized, and doesn't stay out of the fighting when Sisko tells her to. Opaka approaches her about getting so agitated about the situation and sees that it's because the prisoners are so much like Kira used to be. Kira first denies everything and insists that Opaka really shouldn't think they are in any way alike, but the more she tries to defend herself the deeper she is digging herself in, and confesses that she is afraid that she's a terrible person because of her past and unable to change and repent.

    Sisko arranges for a meeting with the leaders of both factions and offers to take them off the planet if they both agree to stop fighting until they get rescued. But the leader of the other side refuses, and the guy Sisko was with admits that he never intended to allow his enemies to get off the planet anyway, and they start fighting again. Bashir saves Sikso from getting killed, because he just discovered that the reanimating microbes can only survive on this planet and all reanimated people who leave the planet will die.

    After the shuttle had gone missing, Dax and O'Brien followed their trail to rescue them and being more cautious avoid getting shot down by the planet's security as well. They call Sisko that they will be ready to beam them up in a few minutes and Sisko and Bashir go to talk with Opaka. Before they can explain that Opaka can not leave the planet, she tells them that she will stay with the prisoners because this was prophecised her entire life. Sisko talks with the leader and explains that the prisoners won't be able to leave, but he will try to find a way to keep the microbes from reanimating anymore people again. Which the leader says will be the answer to all their prayers. Kira says that the fear of death never made anyone stop fighting, but the leader explains that it doesn't matter because then they will finally be able to kill their enemies for good. Having enough of this ****, Sisko calls O'Brien to beam them up.

    --

    Bajoran Reconstruction episode #2
    (Destroyed Shuttle #1)

    There are obviously a lot of episodes revolving around Bajorans and I won't number all of them. But there is an ongoing arc about Bajoran society struggling to adapt to function peacefully without fighting either the Cardassians or each other. The first episode in the arc was Past Prologue. In many ways, this episode follows the same key points. In Past Prologue, Kira was worried about the Bajoran factions turning on each other to each get their own way. Here it is more about Kira being afraid that she is unable to live without violence. But I feel there is still the unspoken additional fear that if she can't change, then the Bajorans as a whole can't change and everything will go up in flames.
    I also found it quite interesting that Opaka deals with Kira the same way Odo did. Simply letting her talk and expressing her feelings, and only saying a few words that Kira clearly is thinking but not speaking to get her back to continue talking. They neither accuse, nor are they trying to explain something to Kira that she doesn't already know. They simply get to admit what she knows but does not want to accept.

    I remembered Opaka as being a major character in the early seasons, but she actually appears in only two episodes, at the start and in the middle of the first season. She doesn't do much, but it's enough to establish her place in Bajoran society and the importance of the position she leaves vacant.
    I also feel that at least Opaka is clearly a telepath in some limited way. From what I remember, all other Bajoran priests don't show anyway near as much insight into other people as she does casually all the time. There is no reason she ever knew O'Brien existed before she meet him, but was immediately able to tell that he has a young daughter. I feel giving her necklace to his daughter wasn't meant to be anything significant, and from what I remember it never gets mentioned ever again. It was simply meant to be her giving away her earthly possessions as she knows she is going to disappear forever. She also was able to tell that Sisko is the emissary instantly, before he ever had anything to do with the wormhole. The prophets clearly have been sending her messages, but she knew immediately that Sisko was the one she was meant to expect.

    Regarding the production, this episode looked very cheap. The aliens all look like humans and their costumes are cheap, and the planet's surface seems to be handed down from TNG because they already stopped using those ugly things long ago. The leader of the prisoners is totally Jonathan Banks. Even with the hair and scars over most of his face, it's clearly him. Didn't know that and was quite surprised.
    It's overall a quite strong episode and the first that really picks up the story arc from The Emissary. The only shortcommings are that there are almost as much holes as plot. If the prisoners ever actually wanted to kill each other permanently, they could just cut off the heads of the fallen, and perhaps burn their bodies. Then there is also this amazing biotechnology that enabled immortality and should easily be reproducable, but it never gets mentioned again. And if I got that right, when Dax left the station she mentioned she would stay in contact with the station through a communication relay, but in that case it makes no sense that Sisko didn't send a message to let the station know about their detour. But since the story of the episode is essentially symbolic, that doesn't hurt it in meaningful ways.
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    S1S13: The Storyteller

    O'Brien tries to get out of a mission to Bajor but doesn't have any really good reason for it, and it turns out that the other person going is Bashir. Bashir wants to make friends but O'Brien really isn't interested. Sisko and Kira are preparing for a conference with two Bajoran local leaders about a land dispute. When the first leader arrives she turns out to be 15 or so. Her demands seem somewhat unreasonable and when Quark calls her a little lady she throws her drink in his face and storms out, making Sisko and Kira getting an idea where the problem may lie.

    O'Brien and Bashir arrive in a village whose shaman is dying, and the village leader explains that the village will be destroyed if the shaman won't be able to perform the ritual to ward off an evil demon that comes every year. The old man is disappointed that Bashir is not the one he was waiting for, but then asks to see O'Brien, and taking his hand he becomes certain that he is the one. Bashir says there's nothing that can be done to extend the shaman's life beyond his final few days, but he insists to go perform the ritual at sunset. A storm picks up and a strange cloud does actually appear. As the shaman is performing the ritual he suddenly collapses and the cloud starts to shot energy beams at the village. He tells O'Brien what he needs to shout to the villagers and it actually drives the cloud away, but the shaman dies soon after.

    Nog sees the Bajoran girl on the promenade and has an instant crush with her, and he gets Jake to introduce them to her. Nog doesn't get much words out so Jake ends up doing most of the talking, but she actually picks them up on their suggestion to watch a freighter going into the wormhole. When she next meets Sisko in his office, he tells her she seems to be looking for a fight and not having much interest in finding a solution. She goes back to the promenade frustrated and runs into Jake and Nog again who try to cheer her up, with Jake suggesting that he always goes asking his father for advice when he is having problems. Which she seems to find encouraging and not getting annoyed about Sisko again. Nog makes suggestion that if she is having difficulty with people wanting her to do something, she should try to find something that she wants to demand in return and see it as an opportunity for profit.

    On Bajor, O'Brien doesn't have any clue what he should do the next night when the monster comes back, while Bashir finds the whole situation very exciting and fun. Villagers show up bringing gifts and offering some young women as well, which freaks O'Brien out and amuses Bashir. The village leader is very insistent that O'Brien must stay in the village and be their new shaman.

    Jake and Nog go seeing the Bajoran girl again and she says she's busy right now, but asks Nog what he meant with seeing her duties as an opportunity. That's something he knows how to talk about and in his enthusiasm gets the other two to break into the security station to prank Odo by stealing his sleeping bucket. They stand guard while Nog gets the bucket and when he comes out he trips and spills the bucket with oatmeal over Jake, which he got from the replicator. As they are laughing and making a mess in the security station, Odo walks in, and when Nog tries to run away, he runs straight into Sisko, who is equally not amused.

    O'Brien tries to figure out what caused the strange cloud to appear, suspecting it's some kind of technological illusion. While out in the village, people come to him to asks for blessings and such, which freaks him out again and makes the shaman's apprentice very annoyed. Later he tries to kill O'Brien, but he is stronger and Bashir arrives to help him, and they overpower him. The apprentice thinks O'Brien has no business being the new shaman and that it should be him, and O'Brien is more than happy with that. The apprentice explains that the creature was created by a fragment from an Tear of the Prophets and the negative feelings of the villagers and the ritual meant to unify them. O'Brien wants him to do the ritual for the last night it will appear this year, but the village leader protests that he can't do it because he failed the first time he tried and the old shaman chose O'Brien as his successor instead.O'Brien tries to perform the ritual but does so pretty badly, maybe even on purpose, and as the creature starts tearing the village apart the apprentice takes over for him and banishes the demon.

    Sisko has another chat with the Bajoran leader and she agrees to give up her claim on the land, but in turn ask their neighbours to trade them the resources they need. O'Brien and Bashir get back to the station and Bashir says it's okay if O'Brien doesn't want to call him Julian, but he is okay with that now.

    --

    I never liked this episode and have not watched it in a long time, but I never really knew why. The direction and the acting is pretty good. Watching it again now, I know exactly what's wrong with it. The whole episode makes the Bajorans to be primitive savages. The villagers are being manipulated by a fake wizard exploiting their superstitions for their own good, and they offer young women to the civilized man who has come to save them from the demon. And apparently rural Bajoran communities are still being led by hereditary chiefs. What the hell?!
    I give older works some leeway for being a bit ignorant and insensitive. But this still doesn't fly. Even when I didn't know why this episode made me uncomfortable. I've forgotten the sociological term for it, but the problem isn't that the Bajoran are a racist caricature of any specific existing group, but that the story is build from carricatures that people used and use to encourage racism against lots of groups. By using them in a story, the creators are contributing to the stereotypes persisting and spreading in popular perception. When you see certain things in fiction all the time, and heard the same things supposedly happening in reality, it starts to feel more and more plausible. A caricature does not have to be attributed to any specific group to propagate stereotypes that are being assigned to those groups. That's why this isn't cool. And why I rate this episode as a bad one. The acting and directing is quite good, though.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    I never liked this episode and have not watched it in a long time, but I never really knew why.
    I think your reading way to much into this epsiode. All fiction, and just about all Star Trek is bulit on things like generlazations and sterotypes. And really ''caricature" is such a vague term that it simply means ''anything". Are Jake and Nog acting as ''caricature"s of kids? Is it a ''caricature" that the B story message of peace and coperation is better then civil war?

    The Village Bajorns do come across as superstisious folk....but I'm sure that is intentional. But they are hardly ''savages".

    The whole ''offering of the women" is a funny bit....not some huge social attack. Granted it's not that ''funny", but it's meant to be. In ''western" cluture women might ''offer" thenselves to a rock star...it's the same thing, right?

    And it's a bit much to say the whole thing is a fake. It's very real.

    It is a VERY odd Star Trek epsiode...as you'd think it would end with the big ''Hear me people! The demon is not real! Go towards the light of reason!" like a typical Star Trek plot. Kirk did it ALL the time! And Picard did it plenty of times too. It's no supprise that The Storytellier is an old, unused Next Generation script.

    The ''Story" aside, this epsiode has some REALLY great Jake and Nog bits and some great O'brian and Bashir bits...and you really can see the start of the HUGE arc for both.

    There's not much depth in this episode, but the execution definitely makes it good for some genuine smiles.....I love the lies where Jake says he asks his father for help and it always works.....and Nog says he asks his dad for help....and it never works..LOL.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S1S13: The Storyteller

    O'Brien tries to get out of a mission to Bajor but doesn't have any really good reason for it, and it turns out that the other person going is Bashir. Bashir wants to make friends but O'Brien really isn't interested. Sisko and Kira are preparing for a conference with two Bajoran local leaders about a land dispute. When the first leader arrives she turns out to be 15 or so. Her demands seem somewhat unreasonable and when Quark calls her a little lady she throws her drink in his face and storms out, making Sisko and Kira getting an idea where the problem may lie.
    I tend to skip parts of this episode whenever i re-watch it. Usually the Bashir/O'Brien parts. The Village stuff is almost completely pointless, and the bonding between Julian/Miles could have been done way better with a better plot.

    The other part with the Girl that Sisko/Kira have to deal with though is really important because it establishes several major points across the Series as a whole:

    1) Odo's Pail/Bucket: Odo used a pail/bucket in his office to regenerate every 16-18 hours. This is something he always has to do. The Bucket has some personal significance later for Odo, after changes happen (Can't say what those are, because spoilers)

    2) Jake/Nog: This episode really starts the friendship Arc of Jake Sisko and Nog that would have such an effect on the rest of the show. You can trace some really key events that would have played out differently without the friendship between the two kids.
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    Nog going to the school, joining starfleet using Sisko's recommendation, this encouraging Rom to leave Quark's to later building the cloaked mine field


    3) Bajor Reconstruction: One Key aspect of this episode is the effects that the Cardassian occupation had, and what it is going to take to rebuild Bajor. This gets lost in the shuffle here, but the steps the Federation is undertaking to fix Bajor is important to be shown and understand about. The first little starts here.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S1E12: Battle Lines

    I remembered Opaka as being a major character in the early seasons, but she actually appears in only two episodes, at the start and in the middle of the first season. She doesn't do much, but it's enough to establish her place in Bajoran society and the importance of the position she leaves vacant.
    She's major to some of the characters because of the impact she has had on previous and future events. She's credited with being the reason Bajorans kept their spirituality during the occupation. And her "death" opens the door for Kai Wynn, who is really bad. Wynn gets compared to Opaka a lot as a result (very unfavorably).
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    I admit that I'm not enjoying the first season very much anymore. Looking at the episodes, I'm really looking forward to season two, but I really want to get through season one quickly now, so I'm keeping things a bit shorter than usually.

    S1E14: Progress

    Bajoran Reconstruction episode #3

    Kira gets send to a Bajoran moon to help with the evacuation of the few settlers that are living there for the beginning of an environmentally destructive construction of a power plant. They get most of the people relocated, but one old farmer refuses to move. He went to live there to get away from the Cardassians, and he's not going to let other Bajorans push him around in the same way. Kira tries to be diplomatic but he refuses to leave his farm. When they come back later to evict him and his helpers from the moon, a fight breaks out in which the old farmer gets shot. Bashir is called to treat his injury, but Kira doesn't want to take him off the moon while he's unconscious, though the two helpers get taken by the security people. Kira says she will take care of the situation, but the Bajoran officials in charge of the infrastructure project get annoyed with the delays and Sisko visits the farm in person to tell her that either she gets the man off the moon now, or she hands over the task to someone else who will do it, but no more stalling will be tolerated. Eventually Kira gives up to convince the man to leave the moon willingly and sets his farm on fire so he will come with her without being removed by force.

    Quark has some crates with Cardassian food that is impossible to sell to anyone else and wants Nog to get rid of it. Nog tries to sell it to a freighter captain who is going to Cardassia, but he doesn't have any latinum. Instead he offers a shipment of mechanical parts that his buyer can't pay for, and Jake convinces Nog to take it. Then they try to sell the parts to the original buyer for a discount, but the man doesn't have any latinum either. Nog really hates it, but again Jake convinces him to accept a piece of land on Bajor as payment instead. It turns out that the government plans a development project and needs to buy that land, and so Nog finally gets it sold for 5 bars of latinum.

    --

    I guess this episode is okay. The idea is pretty good, but there isn't really much happening and I don't find it very interesting. Again, Kira stands in for Bajorans wanting to rebuild their world but having difficulties to accommodate everyone's needs and wishes and forcing compromises on others who object to them. Kira very much sympathises with the old farmer to the point where she supports his passive resistance, but in the end decides to sacrifice the respect he has gained for her to help the need of many other people who rely on the power station.

    I already feel like beating a dead horse, but again the science part of this science fiction show feels rather shoddy. The Bajorans have a habitable moon with an ecosystem and decide to destroy it for a power plant? And it is even mentioned that they have a nondestructive alternative, but it would extend the construction by an entire year and the rebuilding economy can't wait that long. This seems very disproportional.

    S1E15: If Wishes were Horses

    Suddenly imaginary people and phenomenons start appearing materializing throughout the station. A character from Jake's Baseball program follows him from the Holodeck. O'Brien has Rumpelstilzchen appear in his daughter's bedroom, and Bashir gets visited by a copy of Dax who is all over him but not very bright. To his credit, he immediately realizes that there is something very wrong and tries to scan her for brain damage, and when he runs into the real Dex he finds it deeply embarrassing. Fortunately for him it's Dax, who takes it really well and assures him he doesn't need to feel guilty. Even at this part in the series we know that Dax has experienced and done much weirder things in her lives. There is snow on the promenade, followed by large birds running around.

    It all seems to be a side effect of some kind of space anomaly that appeared next to the station. It's growing and could soon destroy the whole system. The baseball player, Rumpelstilzchen, and the fake Dax have a secret meeting about the people on the station having weird imaginations, but they might still be able to work things out. A plan is created to collapse the anomaly with modified torpedoes, but it doesn't help and the station takes damage. Rumpelstilzchen offers to safe the station but want's O'Brien's daughter as his payment. But Sisko figures out that the anomaly is imaginary too and only there because that was Dax' first guess what's going on. Things seem to return to normal and Sisko gets visited in his office by the baseball player who introduces himself as an alien on an exploration mission that is trying to learn about other people by interacting with them through manifestations of their imagination. The threat to the station was never intended and only happened because they imagined it. The alien leaves and offers to talk more about their species and their mission when they come visiting again next year.

    --

    Which they never did.

    This episode isn't terrible. It's just really dumb. I think this clearly a lot dumber than move along home, though the production values have clearly improved quite a lot in the meantime. Another episode that feels like it's a discarded script from the second season of TNG. Meh, not really much else to say about it.
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  24. - Top - End - #54
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    S1E16: The Forsaken

    A group of ambassadors to the Gamma Quadrant arrives on the station, who turn out to be the greatest twits in the Federation. I think they aren't actually diplomats, it's just a pretense to deport them to the other side of the galaxy. Odo finds jewelry that was stolen from Ambassador Troi and she immediately starts stalking him. Odo goes to Sisko for advice about sexual harasment but Sisko laughs at him and tells him he is on his own. A probe from the Gamma Quadrant comes through the wormhole and starts hacking the station's computer, causing Odo and Troi to be trapped in an elevator.

    --

    This season had some very badly written episodes, but I said at least they weren't painful. This is painful. And just all out horrible through and through. I hate it. I hope someone got fired for this.
    I didn't actually watch most of the episode. I fast forwarded through most of it to just end my suffering.
    Last edited by Yora; 2019-06-06 at 12:13 PM.
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  25. - Top - End - #55
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    S1E17: Dramatis Personae

    A freighter is scheduled to arrive at the station and Kira tells Sisko that they should deny it permission to enter Bajoran space because they used to provide the Cardassians with material for weapon production and might still be doing so. Sisko gives her permission to check if they transport the material as long as it doesn't interfere with normal operations. Suddenly a Klingon ship comes through the wormhole and blows up only seconds later, with one Klingon beaming into Ops, but only managing to say Victory before dropping dead where he stands. Odo and Dax are assigned to find out more, but Dax spaces out needs to be asked twice to get up and go to work.

    Odo goes to ask Quark some questions if he heard anything the last time the Klingon ship was at the station but as he leaves he has a sudden seizure and falls unconscious. When he wakes up in the infirmary, he is feeling completely fine and Bashir has no clue what might have happened to him. Before he leaves to return to work, Bashir makes cryptic remarks about Sisko and Kira looking like they will clash with each other about their conflicting views soon. Odo finds it odd, but leaves it at that for now.

    When the freighter arrives, Kira denies it permission to dock while she is still checking documentations, which Sisko is not happy about because he told her not to cause any delays, and he tells the ship to come in for docking. Dax and O'Brien go looking for the flight recorder of the Klingon ship, with Dax being inattentive and O'Brien telling her not to get to friendly with Kira because when things will escalate, he and Sisko won't tolerate anyone siding with their enemies. Kira goes to see Odo to check if he is loyal to her. He figures out that something is wrong but manages to convince Kira that he is with her.

    Back on the station, O'Brien tries to warn Sisko about Kira planning a mutiny, but Sisko doesn't care and tells him to take care of it while he keeps working on designing a mechanical clock. Kira goes to see Dax in Quark's bar to get her on her side, but Dax barely seems to hear and comprehend anything being told to her and replies to everything by telling some old, completely unrelated anecdote. Eventually Kira has to spell it out directly that she plans to overthrow Sisko, which makes Quark drop a glass and Kira goes to beat him up to ensure he's not going to tell anyone.

    Quark goes to Odo to complain and Odo figures out that everyone who was in Ops when the Klingon was beamed over has been going crazy. He goes to see Sisko but he's not in his office, having handed everything over to O'Brien, who is reconstructing the data from the Klingon flight recorder that indicate a mutiny going on and the Klingons starting to kill each other. The Klingon logs also reveal that they found some kind of archive with telepathic records of an ancient civilization in the Gamma Quadrant. Contacting Starfleet Headquarters doesn't work because Kira blocked communications to the Federation, and contacting Bajor has been blocked by O'Brien. Odo asks Bashir if the dead Klingon could have been affected by a telepathic memory imprint which then was carried over to the people in Ops. Everyone except for himself because he has no brain, and Bashir, of course. Bashir thinks he can disrupt the effect with some radiation and Odo reminds him that they will benefit greatly from taking control of the situation.

    Kira tries to take over Ops but Sisko and O'Brien manage to beam to another part of the station because Dax forgot that she was supposed to disable the transporters. Sisko calls Odo to help him get to a ship and Odo tells him to go to a cargo hold and he will disable the force fields on their way. Kira notices and calls Odo about his betrayal, but he explains that he is leading the two into a trap and he will meet up with Kira to get them together. Kira is about to shot Sisko and O'Brien when Odo arrives with Bashir and immediately starts the program that disrupts the telepathic imprints, which leave their bodies as a purple glowing cloud. Odo tells everyone to hold on to something, opens the cargo doors, and the cloud gets sucked into space where it dissipates harmlessly.

    --

    Four bad episodes in a row was tough, but it's so much better now. Having looked at the episode lists, there's only good ones for a while now. I actually really like this episode, even though it's a bit silly and has a couple of flaws. Performances are all very good throughout the entire episode. Which might have something to do with the director, but I think it's mostly because almost everyone is playing unhinged version of their characters and ham it up for all it is worth. I noticed over the years that hammy performances are almost always a bit silly and not ideal for a lot of situations, but a slightly silly performance that is done with full enthusiasm and commitment usually beats performances that are lackluster and anaemic because the actors don't really have anything good to work with.

    I think this is also the episode where Odo starts to really shine. I feel like with the exception of A Man Alone, I singled out the Odo performances as a highlight every time he played an important role. In this episode, Odo is not just observant and putting the clues together, but he also does a really good job at manipulating everyone by knowing exactly what everyone wants to hear from him in their abnormal states. To be fair, the other characters are so single minded and unable to hide their own thoughts, making the job rather easy for him. But usually in such TV shows, the investigating character behaves very slow to make sure that everyone in the audience can follow along as he puts the pieces slowly together. Here it all feels much more spontaneous and quick on his feet.

    Sisko has a very small role here because he just wants to be left alone working on his clock and hands all work over to O'Brien, which works very well for this episode. But it also made me realize that we didn't really get anything from Sisko since the first episode. He is always there, but it's never about him.

    The one thing that I found mildly annoying about this episode is the nonsensical means by which the characters' minds are altered. So the Klingons were exposed to memory imprints of an ancient civilization. Then a single one of them beams to the station and somehow transmits five different imprints to five different people. And then when the imprints are disrupted by the radiation, they flow out of the bodies as an energy cloud. And that cloud apparently isn't energy but a gas, because it is sucked out the airlock together with the air in the room. I am sure there is a reaction gif for this, but I can't think of any good one now. This is just really half-arsed, they could easily have come up with a better way to get everyone exposed to the memory imprints.

    But otherwise it's a fun episode. The plot is good and the acting is fun, and the overall pacing works really well throughout the whole episode. I think this is actually one of my two favorite episodes of this season.
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  26. - Top - End - #56
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post

    Four bad episodes in a row was tough,
    So bad I often skip season one when re watching.

    A lot of this is old scripts of Star Trek they just wanted to use up. Plus no one really knew ''what" to do for an epsiode.

  27. - Top - End - #57
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    S1E18: Duet

    This is where the show got balls.

    A ship stops at the station because of a medical emergency, as a Cardassian passenger requires treatment for a rare condition. When Kira hears about it, she immediately calls security to arrest him. The condition is known only in people affected by an industrial accident that happened in one of the worst Cardassian concentration camps on Bajor, which automatically makes him one of Bajor's most wanted. The Bajoran government calls Sikso to praise him for his great service, but when he says they still need to confirm his identity before he can be formally charged with anything, they are very insistent that he hurry up and they absolutely want him, no matter what. The Cardassian says that his name is Mariza, he is a an instructor for administration at the Cardassian military academy, that he has never been to Bajor, and that the doctor on his ship had mistaken the condition he is suffering from for something unrelated. Bashir checks, but confirms that he is indeed one of the people exposed to the industrial accident and not having the disease he claims to have.

    Kira goes to his cell to confront him with that, and he first denies everything that Kira says, but quickly admits to it when Kira is pressing it. He did work at the concentration camp, but he was only a low ranking administration clerk, and there were never any crimes commited there. Well, actually there were lots of dead Bajorans, but those were all mining accidents. And so what, they can only execute him once, so what's the point of asking more questions?

    Dax goes through the archives from the occupation and finds one picture of Mariza at the concentration camp, but the man in the picture doesn't look anything like the one they have in custody. He does however look identical to another man in the picture who is labled as Gul Darheel, who was the camp's commander. Kira goes to see him again and tells him they know he is Darheel. He doesn't deny it and instead just starts boasting and taunting Kira about how awesome he is, what an incredible work he did, and that the Cardassians did the right thing to crush and discipline the savages. He goes into a mad rant and Kira thinks he has gone completely insane. Outside the security station, a small crowd of old Bajorans with scarves over their faces have gathered, who Odo explains to Quark are survivors from the concentration camp.

    Sisko gets a call from Gul Dukat who tells him Darheel died years ago and he has seen the corpse at the funeral. Whoever they have is an innocent man. Exhausted from the ordeal, Kira has a talk with Odo during which the mentions that the prisoner has taunted her about the rebel group she has been in, and Odo thinks she shouldn't talk with him over her own personal things. Which she actually never did, which Odo immediately finds extremely suspicious. Odo and Bashir do some further background checks. Odo finds out that there is a Mariza who was a filing clerk at the concentration camp and spend the last year as an instructor at the academy, but recently quit his job and put all his things in order. However, Darheel was being awarded a metal on Cardassia when the industrial accident happened and never contracted the health condition. Also, someone accessed Kira's file some months ago from the planet where Mariza lived, Bashir also checked his medical files and found that a few years ago he had been taking large amounts of a drug used to prevent scarring after plastic surgery. They are both certain that the man in the cell wanted to be caught.

    Kira returns to the cells and confronts the prisoner with the fact that Darheel was not affected by the accident, which for the first time makes him loose his cool and get into a bit of a panic. He tries to change the topic by going on a rant how useless and cowardly Mariza was, but quickly breaks down and confesses that he wanted to have a big public trial for Darheel to expose the crimes of the Cardassian military with his confessions. Kira decides to let him go, but he gets stabbed dead by a Bajoran drunk outside the security station, who didn't knew who he was and didn't care.

    --

    Cardassian episode #1

    Wow. After plenty of silly antics with aliens of the week, the show dials up the seriousness to max with no warning. It's far from one of the darkest episodes in the show, but at this point it seems incredibly bold. So far the Cardassians had been generically villainous and the Bajorans mostly struggling with getting used to peace after the occupation. But here there are no words minced and the Cardassians established as actual Nazis. Not movie bad guys Nazis, but actual genocide and concentration camp Nazis. That's bold.
    But very interestingly, the resolution of the episode revolves around not all Cardassians being monster. Here we get one man tortured by guilt over his minor role in the occupation and willing to give his life, and expecting torture, to expose the crimes and humiliate the government that ordered them. And not just out of guilt, but he also mentions at the end that he hoped to help with making Cardassia a better society.
    As a German, I probably have a different perspective than the American writers of the show, but what I really felt lacking in this episode is the issue of administrative staff being guilty as accessories in genocide. All the Little Eichmanns, as we call them. Mariza clearly is repenting his involvement, and he went to great length to try making more crimes public, which is probably why Kira decides to let him go free. The series never goes very much into detail about the occupation, but the German genocides in World War 2 were not wild rampages, but highly organized and coordinated multi-year projects with hundreds of thousands of people working together. Much of it wouldn't have been possible without the administration staff organizing and conducting everything from their offices. And Mariza somewhat alludes to that by frequently mentioning how very efficient and reliable he was as a filing clerk. But when he confesses he never brings it up that he personally deserves punishment for his active contributions to the crimes, and neither does Kira. Given the circumstances and the historic precedents the episode draws from, I don't think establishing that he is not Gul Darheel but actually Mariza wouldn't get him go free. He still would stand trial for war crimes he participated in. Maybe they left that out to make the episode not too complicated, but for me personally it's something that the topic really would have needed.

    Otherwise great episode, though.

    One thing that already bugged me last episode, but I skipped to mention because I knew it was coming up again this one, is how terrible Starfleet medicine is at dealing with life-threatening injuries. Last episode, a Klingon went from standing on his feet and still talking to being declared dead in 5 seconds. Here we have a man getting a single knife stab in the lower back, right outside the door of the infirmary, less then 20 meters from the emergency room table, and dying instantly. Even if Cardassians have their heart where the kidneys would be, he wouldn't be beyond saving by future medicine for at least another 5 to 10 minutes. Of course we don't want to see his head getting exploded by a disruptor, but what we see on the screen here is not how medicine works.
    And just a few episodes back we had Kira being absolutely mind blown by still thinking about how Bashir saved a woman after the tricorder was clearly showing that she had been absolutely stone cold dead. And Bashir tries to calm her down and explain that no detectable life signs don't mean a person can't be brought back. A tiny amount of consistency of what can and can't be done would be nice.
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  28. - Top - End - #58
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    NecromancerGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S1E16: The Forsaken
    Wait. Are you saying ambassador doesn't come from embarrassing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    S1E18: Duet
    Consistency? THIS! IS! STAR TREK!
    I mean, as long as they stay consistent within the same episode...
    Also, isn't that where Cardassians have their brain?
    "If it lives it can be killed.
    If it is dead it can be eaten."

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Kantaki View Post
    Wait. Are you saying ambassador doesn't come from embarrassing?



    Consistency? THIS! IS! STAR TREK!
    I mean, as long as they stay consistent within the same episode...
    Also, isn't that where Cardassians have their brain?
    Wait. Cardassians have a heart?

  30. - Top - End - #60
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    Default Re: Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr View Post
    Wait. Cardassians have a heart?
    Well...
    Kinda?
    They sort of need something along those lines.
    Assuming they have something resembling a circulatory system.

    Of course it might fulfil some double duty.
    Like as their liver analogue.
    Or something like that.

    Not the digestive tract though.
    That's in their heads.
    Last edited by Kantaki; 2019-06-09 at 04:11 PM.
    "If it lives it can be killed.
    If it is dead it can be eaten."

    Ronkong Coma "the way of the bookhunter" III Catacombium
    (Walter Moers "Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher")



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