30th Anniversary DS9 Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

I lost track of time. The retrospective entries will start soon, but in the meantime let's look at the series bible:


(There will be different optical effects going the opposite direction through the wormhole)

Did this actually happen? I don't think it did. I'm not sure what the "different optical effects" would actually be. A different color?

[The Prophets] have been sending out orb-like probes from the wormhole, one orb every century for a thousand years, seeking contact with other lifeforms.

We only know of five Orbs:

Contemplation-DS9 Bajoran Temple
Prophecy and Change-Bariel's monastery
Emissary-the so-called "tenth Orb", discovered late in the series so it doesn't count for the series bible
Time-Temple of Iponu on Bajor
Wisdom-on Bajor


The expanded universe names the others:
Held by the Obsidian Order until the relaunch novels-Destiny, Souls, Truth, Unity

Memory-lost in space for thirty years until rediscovered in the relaunch novels)
Possibilities-left behind on Cardassia until the Star Trek Online era

Peace-11th, accidentally send to the Gamma Quadrant


And of course the Millennium books reveal that the Pah-Wraiths made three red Orbs, but that's another story.


So after the Occupation Bajor had three, one of which was lent to DS9.



Bajoran terrorism during the last several decades has been a significant problem for the Cardassians.


Whether or not the Resistance counts as "terrorism" is a can of worms I care not to open. I'll only say that I kinda thought that terrorists tend to threaten civilians, and I doubt that there were that many Cardassian civilians in Bajoran space during the Occupation.


The Bajora desperately need help. They have asked for membership in the Federation and have been granted preliminary acceptance. But the political situation on the planet is terribly unstable. Factions that had been united in opposition to Cardassian rule have resumed age old conflicts.


Okay, so "Bajora" doesn't mean proto-Maquis like we all thought, it was an early alternative to "Bajoran" like "Vulcanian." That raises further questions in light of the events of "Ensign Ro", but let's move on.


It's sad to say that although Kira brought up the factional conflict a few times, we never really saw any evidence of that except for the time Winn wanted to steal those reclamators from Shakkar. In fact we saw more religious factional conflict than political factional conflict.

The Starfleet team's mission is to spearhead the arduous diplomatic and scientific efforts that accompany the lengthy entry procedure.



Picard said as much, but I don't recall seeing much of this on display. The diplomats were working offscreen, Sisko's problem was keeping things calm on the station. In fact, it occurs to me that perhaps this role was taken away from Sisko in light of this "Emissary" business. A Starfleet officer can't get much done politically if you're never sure if the Bajorans are agreeing with Captain Sisko or Emissary Sisko.


Due to the turmoil on the planet, it is deemed unsafe to create a Federation base on the surface so, at the request of the provisional government, Starfleet takes command of a recently abandoned Cardassian space station in orbit of Bajor.


Really? We never saw that much conflict directly between the civilians and Starfleet. It was usually civilians vs. Provisional Government or civilians vs. the church. Furthermore, if Starfleet Security can't protect one building from phasers and grenades they're pretty pathetic.


[Two hundred Bajorans and fifty Starfleet are on the station]


This number seems pretty low considering the size of the station. If the implication is that the Cardassians trashed the place so well that 90% of the station in uninhabitable in the beginning, it would've been nice to tell us that.


Plus, y'know, we know that there are a bunch of aliens on board as well. A couple dozen Ferengi, for starters.



Ships need to stop at DS9 to be outfitted and tuned with special impulse energy buffers to travel safely through the wormhole. [An explanation of how ships cause pain to the Prophets].


I'm glad that this plot point was dropped. It would've caused a lot of headaches for the writers, plus the big question of why Gamma Quadrant ships don't cause pain to the Prophets.


...sexual holosuites upstairs.


I get that a lot of Quark's clientele are looking for a virtual brothel, but I'd still like to know what differentiates a normal holosuite from a sexual holosuite. Would the tech be all that different? One thing that occurs to me is the difference between a regular hotel and a love hotel. If Quark tends to specialize in single-user experiences, why are the holosuites so big? Surely you could make the projections more advanced in a smaller room.


[Runabouts have a max speed of Warp 4.7]


Cute, real cute. Of course on the actual show they tended to use Warp 5 as max speed.



A multi-purpose room for meetings and dining is located directly off the cockpit.

Not really. There's a corridor between the cockpit and aft compartment with the crew quarters and science labs.



It's the Delta Flyer that has direct access, dum-dums.



These ships are the symbol of the Federation presence in this sector.



Which begs the question: why do the runabouts not look like Starfleet ships in the slightest except for the nacelles? Why do they look so similar to the station?


[The Bajoran's religious way of life conflicts with the Federation's secular way of life].


I'm offended by the way so many people assume Federation=atheist. I've mentioned before how the expanded universe has many examples of religious people. They're just kept offscreen because there's no point in bringing religion up if you're not going to take it seriously and use it in a way that advances the story.


SF Debris brings up the issue in his review of "Balance of Terror." Angela Martine engages in some pretty blatant religious behavior before her wedding. It makes sense in that context because she's about to get married and she obviously considers this a spiritual event.



Even in Voyager people are pretty accepting of religious belief as long as it doesn't interfere with their work.

[Nate the Great]

[Sisko] frequently goes into a holosuite to have a catch and a chat with one of his legendary ballplayer heroes.


So the genesis of Buck Bokai started this early.



A former "Major" in the Bajoran underground, Kira is now an outspoken critic of the provisional government.


Why would the Resistance use military ranks (outside of Star Wars, that is)? Looks like someone didn't do their homework.


O'Brien has been the Transporter Chief on STTNG for five years.


No, it was four years. During the first season he was in Security and manned the helm.



Three-year-old baby girl, Molly.


Molly was born in 2368, it is now 2369. Oops.



You know, a lot of things in TNG could be explained by having the mission taking longer than seven years, but "All Good Things" clearly states that the mission was seven years.


[A symbiote] looks like a short, fat snake.


Not really. "The Host" is mentioned, but like I've already said, why didn't they just change the name when they changed the makeup and everything else about the Trill?


[The symbiote tries to suppress the youthful passion of the host]


I know that they were trying for a more intellectual, dispassionate feel for Dax in the beginning. How silly that seems in light of later episodes (especially "Playing God"), where she's one of the most hedonistic people on board.


Her sexually appealing new form will create a certain tension between her and Sisko.


Another case of Early Installment Weirdness. Especially when you take a step back and wonder how this would actually work. Sisko being attracted to Jadzia makes sense, Jadzia being attracted to Sisko does not. Curzon had decades to see Sisko as a protege, and furthermore he must've known Jennifer and therefore what kind of woman Ben was attracted to.



[Odo] has a couple of Bajoran deputies.


Really? I'd imagine the station would need a couple dozen Bajoran deputies even before you throw Starfleet Security into the mix.


Dr. Julian Amoros


Amoros as a name is usually French or Spanish. Bashir is Arabic. Alexander Siddig is English/Sudanese. One presumes that the name was changed to match the actor.


[Julian] likes to go to the phaser firing range to practice with O'Brien.


Did they actually do this, ever? The Alamo program is years away, I don't think Bashir would put weapons training high on his priority list at this point.


For that matter, would O'Brien go to the phaser range? Maybe he did it with Worf once or twice, but I'd presume that once he was accurate enough for Security Officer purposes he'd stop. He wouldn't want to remind himself of his service in the Cardassian War, just being on a Cardassian station must be enough trouble for him.


[Jake is] an army brat.


Boy is there a lot to unpack here. I tend to associate "army brat" with "parent lives and breaths the military so child does so as well for approval." Sisko may hope that Jake joins Starfleet, but actual indoctrination should wait for a few years.



[Sisko said there would be other kids on the station, but there are only a handful].


How long did it take for the migration of Bajorans back to the station, anyway?


[Keiko isn't happy on the station, there's nothing to do for a botanist here. She was happy on the Enterprise].


You really gotta wonder what the O'Briens are doing here. The crew of the Enterprise didn't want him to leave, she didn't want him to leave, and what is someone in Operations doing as Chief Engineer anyway?



In any case, TNG has plenty of examples of married couples with different posts. Furthermore the number of juicy plots that Keiko got the first few years were quite minimal, "In the Hands of the Prophets" and "Tribunal" are the only ones that I can think of. Maybe she and Molly should've stayed on the Enterprise for the first few years with occasional cameos.



[Keiko's] scientific background will also be a help to Dax.


How often did that happen? A few times when she was pregnant with Yoshi, but that's years in the future.


[Lwaxana Troi has an entry along with her crush on Odo]


This early? That's an episode premise, not something for the series bible.

[Nog's father is Peck]


I guess "Rom" hadn't been invented yet, just some mysterious "Ferengi Pit Boss" character who wasn't attached to Nog yet.


[Dukat's entry is remarkably short]


A surprise given that I thought they were setting him up as a major recurring villain from the get-go. They even ripped him away from his TNG cameos for this purpose.

[Nate the Great]

January 3rd, 1993, "Emissary"

Fiver by Zeke

The Episode

On Stardate 43997, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise was kidnapped for six days by an invading force known as the Borg. Surgically altered, he was forced to lead an assault on Starfleet at Wolf 359.

43997 fits the general timeline (on 43996.2 Picard recorded a log while the Enterpise was hiding in the dust cloud). Riker recorded a log on 44001 after the first attempt to rescue Picard. This is about two days after assimilation.

"Family" was 44012. That's four days later. Oops.

CAPTAIN: (a Vulcan) Red alert.

We never learn the name of the captain of the Saratoga in canon. The novelization says it's Storil, the novel Saratoga says Saros, the game Crossroads of Time says Sutik. I think I believe the novelization the most.

Stardate 46379.1. Three years later.

That's two and a half years later. Ugh.

(Through a viewing window we see a circular space station with three curved vertical spines above and below. Oh, you know what it looks like.)

I wouldn't describe the pylons as "vertical spines", Chakoteya!

O'BRIEN: When my wife Keiko saw our quarters, she started talking about visiting her mother in Kumamoto.

Kumamoto is a city in southern Japan.

JAKE: Dad, there is nothing to sleep on in there except a cushion on the floor.

Seriously? People act like the Cardassians just left a couple days ago, but I would certainly wait until there were proper quarters in place before bringing civilians on board. I know that the Enterprise is busy, but there wasn't a smaller starship that could hang around to ensure a peaceful transition?

JAKE: Is this the food replicator?
O'BRIEN: I'm afraid they're all offline. There's plenty of emergency rations. I could send some down.

You don't bring Federation civilians to a place that doesn't even have reliable replicators. Duh. Especially when we've seen that portable replicators the size of vending machines exist.

O'BRIEN: I'd like to ask the designer what he was thinking about when they built this place. I still haven't been able to find an ODN access.

That's 'cause this is a Cardassian station, Miles! Their tech is completely different! Even if Dukat isn't feeling charitable enough to leave behind a DS9 tech manual, this can't be the first time that Starfleet has encountered Cardassian tech.

Seriously, the writers overdid the "grungy" bit WAY TOO MUCH.

SISKO: Is it my imagination or is it unusually warm?
O'BRIEN: The environmental controls in Ops are stuck at thirty-two C. We're working on it.

That's 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Like I said, they're overdoing it.

KIRA: Because I have the bad habit of telling the truth even when people don't want to hear it.
SISKO: Perhaps I want to hear it.
KIRA: I don't believe the Federation has any business being here.

So who does, Kira? Odds are the Bajorans wouldn't have found the wormhole by themselves, not for a few years at least. Let's face it, without Federation support Bajor would've spent decades rebuilding, and that's presuming that the Cardassians didn't swoop back five years from now after rebuilding their military to take Bajor back.

SISKO: The Federation is only here to help
KIRA: Help us. Yes, I know. The Cardassians said the same thing sixty years ago.

Not to be a jerk, but the situations aren't remotely parallel. I definitely get the feeling that Bajor's first contact was with the Cardassians, who took advantage. The Bajorans are older and wiser now, they wouldn't let the situation happen again.

Oh, and the precise length of the Occupation will fluxuate A LOT in coming episode. Eventually the creators will settle on fifty years, but you'll hear forty years from time to time in coming episodes. You'd think something this simple could be set in stone before filming.

SISKO: Major, when I was ordered here, I requested a Bajoran national as my first officer.

You had to request that? The Bajorans wouldn't insist on one of their own in this position, just like the Vulcans and T'Pol?

ODO: I don't allow weapons on the Promenade. That includes phasers.

Good luck enforcing that, Odo!

SISKO: It's been a long time, Captain.
PICARD: Have we met before?
SISKO: Yes, sir. We met in battle. I was on the Saratoga at Wolf 359.

Ugh. What is Sisko trying to accomplish here? Picard's guilt over the Locutus thing is on record, and you're not helping to defuse the situation, Ben!

PICARD: I assume that you have been briefed on the events leading to the Cardassian withdrawal?
SISKO: Yes, sir. I understand they've spent the last half century robbing the planet of every valuable resource before abandoning it.

Not even five minutes and the Occupation has gone from sixty years to fifty years. I thought that pilots are proofread more thoroughly than the rest of the show!

PICARD: They've left the Bajorans without a means of being self-sustaining. The relief efforts we've been coordinating are barely adequate.

Why is that, anyway? At least spout some nonsense about how we're still trying to recover from Wolf 359 and the Klingon Civil War!

PICARD: I've come to know the Bajorans. I'm a strong proponents for their entry into the Federation.
SISKO: Is it going to happen?
PICARD: Not easily. The ruling parties are at each others throats.

Like I said before, we see shockingly little about the politics of the Bajorans, especially when compared to their religious struggles. Why didn't we meet more people of the Pro-Federation, Anti-Federation spiritual, and Anti-Federation military factions?

PICARD: Your job is to do everything short of violating the Prime Directive to make sure that they are.

I don't think that this ever really panned out.

PICARD: I have been made aware by Starfleet of your objections to this assignment. I would have thought that after three years spent at the Utopia Planitia yards, that you would be ready for a change.

Was Utopia Planitia a punishment? I thought Sisko was playing it safe, especially as the only parent of a young child. He could've asked for active service at any time.

SISKO: I have a son that I'm raising alone, Captain. This is not the ideal environment.
PICARD: Unfortunately as Starfleet officers, we do not always have the luxury to serve in an ideal environment.

Really? Unless it's wartime I would assume that Starfleet officers can at least make a demand regarding serving on a ship vs. a starbase vs. a planet.

And lets be real here, at this point Sisko is hardly a prodigy as a commander, much less irreplacable.

ODO: You are a thief.
QUARK: If I am, you haven't been able to prove it for four years.

Quark's been here about ten years, it was Odo who arrived four years ago.

SISKO: We need a community leader and it's going to be you, Quark.
QUARK: Community leader?
ODO: Seems reasonable. You have all the character references of a politician.

Actually Quark would be a better politician than most we have now. At least Quark has a brain and understands the necessity to keep the wheels of industry moving on all levels. After all, peasants can't afford to pay him, but people with money CAN.

QUARK: Commander, I've made a career out of knowing when to leave, and this Bajoran provisional government is far too provisional for my taste. And when governments fall, people like me are lined up and shot.

Why? Quark has nothing to do with the Provisional Government. Furthermore, even if the Provisional Government collapses odds are it will be a military faction who takes command of the station without violence. The worst they would do is evict him from the sector.

KIRA: Our spiritual leader. She's known as the Kai. Our religion is the only thing that holds my people together. If she would call for unity, they'd listen. Leaders of all the factions have tried to get to her, but she lives in seclusion, rarely sees anyone.

How can the Kai be in that kind of seclusion? Kai Winn seemed pretty busy as a politician during her term, so how can Opaka hide away? The Pope has to interact with a lot of people, doesn't he?

For that matter, why did Opaka accept the position of Kai if she didn't intend to do the job?

(She opens a case to reveal a floating, green glowing bolus - an Orb)

Looks like Chakoteya chose to be pompous today. A "bolus" is a rounded mass, a bumpy sphere. If he wanted a fancy alternative to "hourglass-shaped", he could've at least said "hyperboloid".

[Nate the Great]

JENNIFER: My mother warned me to watch out for junior officers.
SISKO: Your mother is going to adore me.

I mean, who wouldn't?

OPAKA: Tradition says the orbs were sent by the Prophets to teach us. What we have learned has shaped our theology. The Cardassians will do anything to decipher their powers. If they discover the Celestial Temple, they could destroy it.

I think "understanding the Orbs" and "discovering the wormhole" are two unrelated things.

QUARK: What'll you have, Commander?
SISKO: How's the local synthale?
QUARK: You won't like it. I love the Bajorans. Such a deeply spiritual culture, but they make a dreadful ale.

You make synthale by hand? I thought that's what replicators are for.

Station log. Stardate 46390.1. The Enterprise has been ordered to the Lapolis system. They're scheduled to depart at zero-five hundred hours after offloading three runabout class vessels.

Danube-class, grrr.

If you're wondering where the word "runabout" came from, it's a real word, unlike "Puddle Jumper" over on Stargate. A runabout boat is a motorboat with a flat bottom to allow for skipping on the water (some modern jetskis are also called runabouts). Runabout cars are light cars meant for short errands only, based on older horse-drawn buggies of similar purpose. The word is still used in the United Kingdom today to describe a small car meant for local use only.

SISKO: He's a little young for you, isn't he?
DAX: He's twenty-seven, I'm twenty-eight.
SISKO: Three hundred twenty-eight, maybe.

This seems odd. We know that Sisko has met other Trill in the past, and must therefore know that such maturity arithmetic doesn't work the same way as with humans. The idea that joined Trill can only have relationships with other joined Trill is frankly disturbing.

BASHIR: This'll be perfect. Real frontier medicine.
KIRA: Frontier medicine?
BASHIR: Major, I had my choice of any job in the fleet.
KIRA: Did you?
BASHIR: I didn't want some cushy job or a research grant. I wanted this. The farthest reaches of the galaxy. One of the most remote outposts available. This is where the adventure is. This is where heroes are made. Right here, in the wilderness.

And the creators wondered why viewers hated Bashir at first. This guy is really supposed to be genetically enhanced?

DAX: Computer, create a data base for all historical references to the Orbs, including all reports of any unexplained phenomena in Bajoran space.
COMPUTER: Time parameters?
DAX: Ten millennia.
COMPUTER: Initializing data base. Requested function will require two hours to complete.

One wonders how fast the Enterprise computer could do it.

PICARD: This is your favorite transporter room, isn't it?
O'BRIEN: Number three. Yes, sir.

What makes one transporter room different from another?

DUKAT: Excuse my presumption, but this was my office only two weeks ago. I'm not used to being on this side of the desk.

I do wish the writers put more thought into the sequence of events. Quark couldn't find a way off the station in two weeks?

COMPUTER: Idran is based on the analysis conducted in the twenty-second century by the Quadros-One probe of the Gamma Quadrant.

The expanded universe makes clear that this was a Starfleet probe, but knowing what we know now of the Enterprise days, I doubt that Starfleet at that time had deep-space exploration in mind. This seems more like a Vulcan thing. Their lifespans would also allow them to wait the decades required to hear back from these probes.

(Sisko sees a vicious, rocky, lightning-ridden alien planet, but Dax sees they're in a beautiful garden.)
DAX: It's beautiful.
SISKO: You have a strange eye for beauty, Dax.
DAX: You don't think this is one of the most idyllic settings you've ever seen?
SISKO: We are standing on a rock face. Do you see the storm?
DAX: It's as clear as a summer's day.

What was the point of this?

KIRA: Mister O'Brien, what would it take to move this station to the mouth of the wormhole?
O'BRIEN: This isn't a starship, Major. We've got six working thrusters to power us and that's it. A hundred sixty million kilometre trip would take two months.

31 km/s is a thousandth of full impulse. That's really slow.

At least 160,000,000 km isn't unreasonable for the distance from Mars to a point halfway across the asteroid belt.

KIRA: That wormhole might just reshape the future of this entire quadrant. The Bajorans have to stake a claim to it. And I have to admit that claim will be a lot stronger if there's a Federation presence to back it up.

I'm pretty sure that anything inside a solar system is the property of the inhabitants of that solar system. And remember that the Barzan wormhole was merely in the same sector as Barzan.

DAX: Couldn't you modify the subspace field output of the deflector generators just enough to create a low-level field around the station?
O'BRIEN: So we could lower the inertial mass?
DAX: If you can make the station lighter, those six thrusters will be all the power we'd need.

Before you mention "Deja Q" I need to point out that that was a warp field, not a deflector field. I'm pretty sure the station doesn't have any warp coils.

JAKE PROPHET: What comes before now is no different than what is now, or what is to come. It is one's existence.

I always hated this "the Prophets have no concept of the passage of time" thing. Over and over again they show that they know what "before" and "after" are. Furthermore, why do they care about Bajor if humanoid behavior is incomprehensible to them?

JENNIFER 2: I've heard Starfleet officers don't want families because they complicate their lives.
SISKO 2: Starfleet officers don't often find mates who want to raise families on a starship.

I thought that only the Galaxy class was designed for families and large numbers of civilians. The Miranda class was a workhorse, how is there room for families?

PICARD PROPHET: It is terminated.
SISKO: Terminated?
PICARD PROPHET: Our existence is disrupted whenever one of you enters the passage.

This is where the "wormhole travel hurts the Prophets" thing comes from. And you may have noticed that a Prophet just admitted to an if-then sequence of events, i.e. the PASSAGE OF TIME. Grrr....

JAKE: You value your ignorance of what is to come?
SISKO: That may be the most important thing to understand about humans. It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers. We explore our lives, day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. And that is why I am here. Not to conquer you with weapons, but with ideas, to co-exist and learn.

Time to link to the Explorers video again.

SISKO: I never left this ship.
JENNIFER PROPHET: You exist here.
SISKO: I exist here. I don't know if you can understand. I see her like this every time I close my eyes. In the darkness, in the blink of an eye, I see her like this.
JENNIFER PROPHET: None of your past experiences helped prepare you for this consequence.
SISKO: And I have never figured out how to live without her.
JENNIFER PROPHET: So you choose to exist here. It is not linear.
SISKO: No. It's not linear.

As much as I HATE the Prophets (I really do, and we'll be discussing them in depth during the retrospective), this is a lesson that Sisko needed to learn.

CARDASSIAN 3: They were using a Thoron field to block our sensors but we were able to penetrate it.
JASAD: What are their defences?
CARDASSIAN 3: According to our scans, an estimated five thousand photons, integrated phaser banks on all levels.
JASAD: When did they receive these armaments? And how did they install them without our knowledge?

A very good question. I'm pretty sure that installing this stuff would necessitate creating scaffolding and equipment outside the station. Stuff that long-range scans would notice. You just can't do the job with workbees (which we know DS9 has).

Station log, Commander Benjamin Sisko, stardate 46393.1. The lifeforms who created the wormhole have agreed to allow safe passage for all ships traveling to the Gamma Quadrant.

When did that happen?

[Nate the Great]

Memory Alpha

* There's a lot of stuff about what had to be changed when Forbes decided not to join the cast.
* They made a big deal about how expensive the pilot was to shoot. I feel that this isn't fair, because a lot of the cost was the extremely large sets that would be reused for the series itself. The episode-specific stuff was quite minimal and basic.
* The reason Quark looks weird is that Shimmerman's prosthetic nose wasn't ready yet, so they had to steal Rom's instead.
* There were four models of DS9, which surprised me. I thought that there were only two-the full station and a larger version of a runabout pad.
* Sisko told the Prophets that his father is dead. Oops.

The Fiver

Sisko: I request a re-assignment. And I wish I were asking someone else, since I still hate you for the wife-killing thing.
Picard: We are Picard. Grudges are futile.
Sisko: You're not helping.

Hehe.

Kira: Exposition time: Bajor is in political turmoil, with the only hope for unity being Kai Opaka.
Sisko: That sounds like "opaque." Should I be worried?
Kira: No, the opaque one is Kai Winn. She's later.
Sisko: When?
Kira: No, Winn. But she's not involved yet, so it's a no-Winn situation.
Sisko: Hold still for a moment so I can hit you.

I don't really think that Winn is opaque. Spend ten minutes with her and you know exactly where she stands. That's the point: the common Bajoran's haven't spent ten minutes with her.

Kai Opaka: Greetings. Behold my orb.
Sisko: But that's a big figure 8. Orbs are balls.
Kai Opaka: Stop nitpicking and have a vision.

Seriously, why are these things called Orbs?

Kai Opaka: Good boy. Find the Celestial Temple and I'll give you a Scooby Snack.

Now there's a joke that was funnier twenty years ago.

Bashir: Watch me prove my naiveté by accidentally insulting your entire species.
Kira: Hey, this is weird...I'm feeling some sort of attraction to you, even though you're scum.
Bashir: Yeah, me too. Uh oh. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Kira: A classic case of confusing ourselves with the actors playing us?
Bashir: Yep. Kiss me.

I'm with SFDebris: tossing hints at the Siddig/Visitor relationship was never that funny.

Odo: I hate your guts.
Bashir: I want to study yours.
Odo: In case I eventually come down with a disease or something? Get real.

Ouch.

Kira: Recurring villain here to see you, sir.
Sisko: Send him in.
Dukat: Greetings. I am...GUL DUKAT. Mwahahahahahaha!
Sisko: Yeah, hi. You here for a reason, or just to establish yourself?
Dukat: Second one.

Well, actually he's here to be bitter about losing his office. Maybe the chair is really comfortable, who knows?

Quark: Closing time. Put your winnings in this bag, which is not a shapeshifter trying to sneak aboard your ship and disable it.
Cardassian: Prove that.
Bag: It's true. No shapeshifters here.
Cardassian: Good enough.

I can almost hear the canned laughter.

Jadzia: Stable, too. It took us to the Gamma Quadrant.
Sisko: Oh, so we're stranded? Time for a speech. (ahem) We're alone. In an uncharted part of the galaxy--
Jadzia: Um, Ben? We can just take the wormhole back.
Sisko: Don't interrupt.

I'm pretty sure that two people in a runabout could never survive a decades-long journey.

Jadzia: What am I doing back on DS9?
Kira: You're the science officer; you tell us.
Jadzia: Actually, I know very little about science. I'm only here so this show will have a bizarre alien, and later a love interest for Worf.
Kira: What a gyp.

Dax isn't even remotely the most bizarre alien in the cast. I'd put Quark and Garak over her any day.

Prophets: Explain about this "time" stuff.
Sisko: They say time is the fire in which we burn. Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives, but I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey....
Prophets: We don't want sophistry, you kneebiter, we want definitions.

I wonder if Soran was quoting some old El-Aurian saying. Come to think of it, what do Trill and El-Aurians think of each other?

Sisko: Goodbye, sir. My grudge is gone and I respect you now.
Picard: Respect is irrelevant. Your archaic cultures are authority-driven. You will become one with the Borg.
Sisko: Whatever.

Burn!

Kai Opaka: Good job. Your series is just beginning.
Sisko: But what about my Scooby Snack?
Kai Opaka: Oh yeah. Um...er...LOOK OVER THERE!
Sisko: Where?
(Opaka takes off at Ludicrous Speed)

What? Where? I don't see anything. What's so funny?
I'll tell you in a minute.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil also wonders why the civilians are still here. Couldn't they be dropped off in escape pods far away from the Borg?
* Phil also did the stardate math.
* If Kira hates Bashir's statements that this is the frontier, why isn't she angry about "Deep Space Nine"?
* When did the Starfleet crew become fluent in Cardassian?
* Back in Best of Both Worlds Data clearly said that nobody survived Wolf 359. And yet this episode says that plenty of escape pods were around. There isn't a snowball's chance in Grethor that escape pods can go farther than the Enterprise's sensor range in only a day.
* How come the Saratoga here has a different registry than the one in The Voyage Home, and isn't NCC 1937-C or something?
* Phil has a problem with Kira using "godforsaken." I'm willing to chalk that one up to Universal Translator hiccups. Don't even try to tell me that the Starfleet crew is fluent in Bajoran at this point.
* Phil decides to wait until "Dax" and "Invasive Procedures" to discuss the changes made to the Trill since "The Host."
* Somehow Quark is able to hold the bag that is really Odo, when logically Odo should way too much for that. I'm willing to go with the idea that Odo shifts mass into and out of subspace when he changes. Remember that when he impersonates an inanimate object he's indistinguishable from that object as far as sensors are concerned.
* O'Brien says the Cardassians took everything of value. And yet there's plenty of valuable equipment on board. Phil points out the transporter, but I would argue that the viewscreen counts as well. Remember that the viewscreen isn't a monitor, it's two devices that project a hologram OF a monitor screen. I'd call that valuable as well.
* O'Brien wants the Enterprise to save them from three Cardassian warships when we've seen in the past that two warships were enough to give Picard reason to worry.
* Picard muddles the pronounciation of "Bajor" a few times. This is odd considering how often he dealt with Bajorans (including Ro) in the past.
* How come the DS9 uniforms are different than the TNG ones?
* The ensign in the transporter room calls O'Brien "sir" even though O'Brien makes it clear over and over that he's a noncomm and nobody should call him "sir." Maybe she was on board in the early seasons when O'Brien was a Lieutenant.

[Nate the Great]

January 11th, 1993, "Past Prologue"

Fiver by Derek

The Episode

BASHIR: You know, some people say that you remained on DS Nine as the eyes and ears of your fellow Cardassians.
GARAK: You don't say? Doctor, you're not intimating that I'm considered some sort of spy, are you?

So what is the official story on why Garak was left behind? There must be one.

The novel A Stitch in Time makes it clear that this was Dukat's idea, let Garak suffer in isolation surrounded by Bajorans who hate him.

GARAK: Ah. An open mind. The essence of intellect.

I've remembered this line for years. It takes a wise man to know that stories often have more than one side and it's folly to depend entirely on one perspective.

BASHIR: You're very kind, Mister Garak.
GARAK: Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak.

The "Plain, simple Garak" thing went on too long in my opinion. No ordinary Cardassian civilian would've been on DS9 in the first place and even if they were they wouldn't've been left behind by Dukat.

O'BRIEN: Major, upper pylon three'll be shut down for maintenance for forty-eight hours.

48? In the future they'll be a lot more diligent about using the 26-hour Bajoran day.

DAX: What do you think he might want from you, Julian?
BASHIR: I don't know. Federation medical secrets? Rest assured they're safe with me, Commander.

Cardassian physiology is sufficiently different from most other races that I fail to see what the point is. Besides, the Federation seems the type to readily disseminate medical knowledge to whoever asks for it anyway.

TAHNA: My name is Tahna Los. Request political asylum. Kira?

It took a rewatch to realize that Tahna is played by an actor that I've seen before. Jeffery Nordling is best known to me from his roles in the third Mighty Ducks movie and the 1993 Journey to the Center of the Earth (recommended if you want to see Tim Russ give a very non-Vulcan performance). I wish that he could've been in Trek more, he seems like the type of guy who could've played a variety of alien roles a la Tony Todd or Jeffery Combs.

GUL DANAR [on viewscreen]: Federation Commander, you've taken aboard a known criminal. You will turn him over to us.
SISKO: He has requested asylum.
GUL DANAR [on viewscreen]: You have not granted it.
SISKO: To be honest, I haven't decided yet.

To be frank, this sort of thing should've been part of the peace treaty in the first place. The Maquis proved that there are many "war criminals" out there in the DMZ. There should be a lawyer on DS9 and a lawyer on a nearby Cardassian station (possibly Empok Nor) already set up to take this matter out of Sisko's hands.

GUL DANAR [on viewscreen]: He is Kohn-Ma! Even the Bajorans would not grant his kind asylum.

Kira said earlier that the Kohn-Ma were a touchy subject with the Bajorans, but I wish they had gone into greater detail about why Bajor wouldn't want to give them asylum.

KIRA: My priorities are straight, Commander. Let's not be confused here. my loyalties are to Bajor, and Bajor needs men like Tahna Los.
SISKO: Apparently his war with the Cardassians isn't over yet.
KIRA: If Bajor is ever to rebuild a strong and independent society, it will require the repatriation of splinter groups like the Kohn-Ma. You have, we have, an opportunity here.

This really needed more clarification.

SISKO: I assume as a member of the Kohn-Ma you've committed serious acts against them.
TAHNA: Any one of a hundred that would lead to a Cardassian death sentence.
SISKO: Any of them since their withdrawal from Bajor?
TAHNA: Frankly, yes.
SISKO: Why would you continue the violence against them now?
TAHNA: To be honest, I'm not sure anymore. We say we're punishing them for crimes committed against us for over half a century, but I've had enough of the killing.

This seems a bit too pat of an answer.

ROLLMAN [on monitor]: Ben, that Bajoran woman you have working for you interrupted a staff meeting to tell me how she disapproves of your handling of this asylum matter. I think you have a problem there, Commander.
SISKO: Yes, Admiral.

I'm amazed that Kira got through. You don't just establish a comm line with anyone you want among the admiralty on a whim. And frankly as Bajoran liason she should already have a proverbial hot phone to a designated admiral elsewhere.

TAHNA: Don't get along?
KIRA: Oil and water. You're tired.

Oil and water seems like it would be exclusively a human expression. If Bajorans have an equivalent that the Universal Translator has been programmed to turn into "oil and water", someone is working overtime over at Starfleet Communications.

SISKO: I'm going to grant him asylum for the time being. Eventually, he'll want to relocate to Bajor and if you want to pursue the matter with the Provisional Government, then that's your business.

Shouldn't the higher-ups back at Central Command have requested a conversation with the First Minister by now already? FYI, the First Minister at this time is probably Kalem Apren, who Kira will mention in "Shakaar."

KIRA: Look, I don't want the Federation here any more than you do but they are serving a purpose. For the time being, at least. Without the Federation, the Cardassians would be back in a minute to take control of the wormhole.

A good point. And frankly without the Federation the Occupation wouldn't have ended. Although mentioning the wormhole really brings up a big problem-why isn't there a designated starship in the sector yet? At the very least a ship patrolling the DMZ and stopping by every week for a checkup. Maybe before the wormhole there wasn't much reason for the Cardassians to come back so soon, lest the war with the Federation continue. But now things are different.

TAHNA: I don't want to be a power in the quadrant. I want Bajor for Bajorans. I want our homeland back.

A bit short-sighted in my opinion. If Bajor had to rebuild without Federation assistance it would take decades, because there'd be a lengthy civil war before it. And the Cardassians would probably just reinvade in five or ten years. Unless you're really going to tell me that Bajor has no natural resources left and Cardassia has no reason to come back.

ODO: Who are you?
LURSA: We are Lursa and B'Etor. Of the house of Duras.

After the Klingon Civil War I would expect them to be public figures. Odo should really keep up on current events.

SISKO: Lursa and B'Etor.
ODO: You know them, then.
SISKO: They tried to grab control of the Klingon High Council, started a brief civil war. They've been out of sight since then.

It's only been two years since the civil war, everyone should know who they are. Including Odo, the Cardassians would always be on the lookout for people who could disrupt the governments of the other galactic powers.

ODO: I ran a security check. The Klingons have them listed as renegades.
SISKO: We've heard they've been trying to raise capital to rebuild their armies.

How? To have armies and ships you need to be part of a House that actually exists. I'm pretty sure Gowron totally shut down the House of Duras just like he will with the House of Mogh three years from now.

LURSA: Your safety is not our concern.
B'ETOR: Your gold is.
TAHNA: It will be available tomorrow.

The term "gold-pressed latinum" will be used later in the episode, I don't like people using "gold" as an equivalent when it will be made clear that gold is just a shiny container for the valuable latinum.

And like I said, what Klingon would sell ships to people who have been stripped of their honor? No doubt the Ferengi or the Orion Syndicate has a few Klingon ships to sell, but nothing that would make a battle-worthy fleet.

KIRA: I've managed to arrange a hearing of the Ministers' Court.

The what? Do you mean the Council of Ministers? Seriously, this is series bible stuff.

SISKO: Be sure to mention it the next time you chat with Admiral Rollman.
KIRA: Sir.
SISKO: Go over my head again and I'll have yours on a platter.

This seems a bit dark. I'm not sure even Kirk would use an expression that violent.

GARAK: At your service, madam. May I show you our latest fashions? Perhaps some silk lingerie from Kraus Four?

Lingerie doesn't seem like something Klingons would use. They seem to prefer raw animal sex to anything slow and seductive.

GARAK: I meant no offence. I have few Klingon patrons.

Why would Garak have any Klingon patrons at all? They wouldn't be in the area during the Occupation, and they don't seem the type for exploration for exploration's sake through the wormhole.

B'ETOR: We understand you still represent Cardassian interests here.

Where would she get that idea? You have to assume that Garak is spreading lies in order to get enough political capital to "buy" his way back into Central Command's good graces.

LURSA: What is he worth to them?
B'ETOR: In gold-pressed latinum.
(Garak puts a number on a PADD.)
LURSA: You insult us.

This is what TVTropes calls Undisclosed Funds. I'll have to add this example to the page.

KIRA: I have the third minister's vote. The hearing is simply a formality now.

There are only five members of the Council of Ministers? I thought that it would be in the dozens! I would expect the Detapa Council to have more than five!

[Nate the Great]

KIRA: I don't want the Federation here, but for now
TAHNA: Once you're in your comfortable bed with the Federation, you won't be able to get out. We won't be able to get out.

They really needed to explain more how having the Federation here is so bad. The Federation is providing substantial help in rebuilding and will be loaning them very expensive soil reclamators in a few years.

BASHIR: What's bilitrium?
GARAK: A rare crystalline element, that can be an incredibly powerful source of energy. Provided, of course, one also has an anti-matter converter.

What can you convert antimatter into that will react with bilitrium any better than any other matter? Incidentally, "Firstborn" will mention that the Duras sisters tried to sell bilitrium on DS9.

DAX: Acknowledged. DS Nine to Ganges.
SISKO: Go ahead.
DAX: They're in the Yangtzee Kiang.

The rollbar exists to differentiate the ships. I had the model as a child. While rollbars make sense on larger starships, I always thought that they would throw of the symmetry of the warp field so much as to be impractical.

KIRA: Bajor Eight in one hundred twenty thousand kilometres. Dropping to impulse. What is that?
TAHNA: An anti-matter converter. I'm transferring power from the ship's warp drive into the storage cells.

If the idea of an antimatter converter is to hold warp plasma in some sort of stasis, the name doesn't really the reflect that.

TAHNA: Thirteen kilograms of gold-pressed latinum, as promised.

I guess bars, strips, and slips don't exist yet. If we assume bars (5 inX2.5 inX0.5 in) are solid gold, that's 2 kg per bar. Seven bars is a little more than Quark makes in a day!

KIRA: The wormhole? It's not the space station you're after. You can't possibly believe you can destroy the wormhole with that device?
TAHNA: I don't have to destroy it, just have to collapse the entrance.
KIRA: You're only hurting Bajor by doing this, Tahna.
TAHNA: No more wormhole, no more Federation or Cardassians. Or anyone. Drop out of warp. Now!

Yeah, this logic doesn't work. The Federation was here BEFORE the wormhole was discovered and they still want Bajor to join. Maybe the Cardassians wouldn't bother showing up until they're ready to invade again, but the Federation wouldn't leave.

The Fiver

Garak: Spy? Me? Why, what a shocking revelation! I am quite sure that in my time here since the Cardassians left that you are the first person to insinuate that.
Bashir: Heard that one before, have you?
Garak: Not often... only two or three times every hour.

It's not like you aren't asking for it, Garak.

Bashir: Oh my gosh! You'll never believe it! The spy! The spy talked to me! Maybe he wants my secrets!
Dax: What secrets, Julian?
Bashir: Maybe he knows about my genetic -- uh, research! My genetic research!

Ha ha. I'll bet that Garak had it figured out before anyone else, but not THIS early.

Los: No really. I've got some good Federation guilt going on now, and I want to reform and be good. For... the safety of puppies... and Christmas!

Ouch. He might as well say that he's here to win a baseball game to save the orphanage.

Admiral: (over the comm) Ben, your Bajoran liaison officer just called me and droned on and on and on about ten things she hates about you.
Sisko: Your point?

Ten Things I Hate About You is a 1999 movie. The fiver is from 2006. Not the most topical reference we've ever made.

Dunar: We Cardassians demand Los and the revered symbol he stole from our people!
Sisko: Wait a second... Admiral Forrest? I thought you were dead!

It would've been better if Dax did that joke.

Kira: Los, we need the Federation because they provide wormhole protection, and they've got a great insurance plan for it with the optional Occupation rider.
Los: So selling out to them is all about money?
Kira: When it comes to the wormhole, we don't want to do anything that will hurt our prophets.

Now that is one painful pun.

Lursa: Greetings, W-- Hey, this isn't TNG!
B'Etor: I knew we should have made that left turn at Albuquerque.

Looney Tunes gags are always funny.

Garak: No reason, no reason. Now off you go.... So, Doctor, how do your clothes fit?
Bashir: Garak, you gave me a dress.
Garak: A very becoming one, I might add.

Why did Bashir still put it on? Was it that dark in the dressing room?

Bashir: What's bilitrium?
Garak: Like any unheard-of chemical substance, it's a highly volatile explosive. All Los would need to make a bomb would be a toothpick, a rubberband, and an old sock.
Bashir: GASP!

Was this supposed to be a subtle MacGyver joke?

Los: Have you got the bilitrium?
Lursa: Yes, we accept payment in gold, latinum, or trilithium.
Los: PayPal?
B'Etor: NEVER!

Hehe. Today we'd probably use BitCoin instead.

(BOOM!)
Sisko: (over the comm) Your bomb has been detonated and our runabout has your runabout surrounded. Surrender.
Los: A good terrorist knows when it's time to call it quits. Very well, I surrender.
(Los is arrested at Ludicrous Speed)

This is one of the lamest final scenes I've ever seen in a fiver. No offense.

Memory Alpha

* Andrew Robinson freely admitted that he played the role as if Garak was attracted to Bashir.
* Supposedly Tahna Los's pain-inducing implant was supposed to be a reference to "Chain of Command." I didn't get it.
* Garak's shop has costumes worn in "Haven", "Captain's Holiday", and "The Perfect Mate". It's only the last one that I have a problem with, I don't think Kriosian culture has quite spread to the rest of the galaxy yet.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil still thinks that Odo's mass is conserved when he shape-shifts. Ugh.
* He wonders when Kira learned to pilot a runabout. I don't have this problem, no doubt all of the senior Bajoran officers got this training. Besides, they can't be any harder to fly than their own ships.
* Phil is surprised that Odo can shape-shift a functional commbadge. I never thought that Odo did anything but use a real thing and hold it inside his mass as needed. Yeah, a few times we see the commbadge turn to goo, but those are obviously mistakes.
* He points out that Kira's hairstyle changed. Memory Alpha says that Nana Visitor asked for a simpler, more utilitarian look for the character.

[Nate the Great]

January 17th, 1993, "A Man Alone"

Fiver by div1701 (I never heard of this guy either)

Even if you throw out all of the mischaracterizations in this episode, it just doesn't work. Mob mentalities have to be written very carefully, and it's not in this case.

The Episode

DAX: Julian, you and I have to have a talk about Trills and relationships.
BASHIR: Fine. We'll do it over supper. Quark has found me this delightfully dry champagne estate bottled on Korris One.

Only mention of Korris One. This would've been a great time to namedrop a TOS planet. Platonus from "Platos Stepchildren" comes to mind immediately. FYI, Platonus didn't actually have a name until Star Trek Maps in 1980.

BASHIR: What is this?
DAX: An Altonian brain teaser.
BASHIR: A brain teaser?
DAX: A puzzle.
BASHIR: A puzzle? I love puzzles. How does it work?
DAX: It responds to neural theta waves. The goal is to turn the sphere into a solid colour.

I'm glad that this whole "dispassionate intellectual" thing for Dax didn't last long. Especially when we know that none of the previous hosts were like that.

That being said, the idea of a holodeck using specific kinds of thoughts as game inputs is a little creepy. Besides, this puzzle thing doesn't seem to warrant a whole holosuite, surely you could build this into a tabletop projector like kaltoh.

DAX: That's all. I've been trying to master it on and off for, oh, a hundred and forty years. Would you care to try?

In 2230 the host was Tobin, but from what we know of the previous hosts this seems more like a Lela thing (150 years ago).

BASHIR: Your hands are cold.
DAX: It's a peculiarity of the Trill.

This whole "Trill blood runs cold" thing was always odd to me, especially given the amount of time that she spends on Risa.

ODO: Business is good, Quark. You're almost making an honest living.
QUARK: A lot of new faces.
ODO: The wormhole does bring them our way, doesn't it?
QUARK: Everybody wants a piece of the new frontier.
ODO: And I'm sure you've already tried to sell it to a few of them.

This raises an interesting question. Who sets the rules about who can profit from the Gamma Quadrant? Back in "The Price" everyone was acting like the Barzan deserved all profit from their wormhole. Has Bajor declared a tariff on goods going through the wormhole? Furthermore, by now you have to wonder why the Federation hasn't mounted an extensive exploration expedition into the Gamma Quadrant to at least know what governments operate over there. By all means don't mention the Dominion yet, but someone like the Karemma should've been established early.

O'BRIEN: We made the decision together.
KEIKO: Not true. That's not true. You decided and asked me to agree with it.

Yeah, this is nonsense. Keiko is a Federation scientist who spent years among Starfleet officers. When she married Miles they should've agreed on what happens when he inevitably gets transferred. If Keiko can only be happy married to Miles when they're serving on a family starship, they never should've moved here in the first place. Furthermore, I refuse to believe that O'Brien is the best choice for this post. Just because he's fought the Cardassians doesn't mean that he knows their tech better than any other engineer in the fleet.

And let's get this out of the way right now: a noncommisioned officer shouldn't be chief engineer of anything. Transporter chief and part of the "inner circle" of engineering by all means, but not Chief Engineer.

QUARK: You've never coupled?
ODO: Choose not to. Too many compromises. You want to watch the karo-net tournament, she wants to listen to music, so you compromise. You listen to music. You like Earth jazz, she prefers Klingon opera, so you compromise. You listen to Klingon opera. So here you were ready to have a nice night watching the karo-net match and you wind up spending an agonising night listening to Klingon opera.

Only mention of karo-net. It sounds like this would be a Bajoran game, but we don't even know that. I guess springball hasn't been invented yet.

I always hated this speech. Is this how relationships work on Cardassia? I can't see Cardassians liking Klingon Opera. Furthermore, when did Odo observe couples like this? Cardassians don't seem to have "work at the same post" as a priority. If anything Odo would've seen more Bajoran mistresses where this sort of thing wouldn't come up.

(Sisko and Dax are on the upper level, and Quark makes an appreciative growl)
ODO: Don't even think about it.
QUARK: I can so think about it.
ODO: You might as well try to find a drink of water on the Yadozi desert. Besides I'd say our new Commander is interested in her.
QUARK: Not at all. I know for a fact, when she was a he, you know, before she got this new body, they were old friends.
ODO: Things change.

Only mention of the Yadozi desert, why not mention Vulcan's Forge here?

Sisko and Jadzia never made sense as a couple to me. Sisko may accept Jadzia as a woman, but the idea of kissing Curzon would be repulsive to him. And frankly Ben isn't ready to date again yet. He just came to terms with Jennifer's death a couple weeks ago!

DAX: Steamed azna will put years on your life.
SISKO: Dax, I don't want years on my life if I can only eat steamed azna. Sautéed, rolloped, fricasseed, fine. But not steamed.

Rolloped is a fictional method of cooking, probably unique to Bajor. The Urban Dictionary says that rolloping means to hit someone with a roll.

ODO: I don't want you on this station.
IBUDAN: Yeah, well that's too bad, because I have every right to be here.
ODO: I decide who has rights and who doesn't on this Promenade.
IBUDAN: You'd better ask your Federation superiors about that one.

This is totally not Odo. He's authoritarian, not power-mad.

ODO: You have twenty-six hours to get off this station.

Did they ever establish that Bajoran days are 26 hours long, or did they leave this to us to assume?

O'BRIEN: Look, I'm willing to ask for a transfer if that'll make you happy.
KEIKO: That's not fair either. You'd have to give up your promotion.
O'BRIEN: Not necessarily.
KEIKO: I wish I knew the right thing to do. I'm just lost here. Starfleet doesn't need a botanist on this station.

What promotion? O'Brien won't be promoted from Chief Petty Officer to Master Chief Petty officer for another four years. Transfers are not promotions.

KEIKO: Do you really want to raise your daughter in this place, Miles?

I get it, Keiko will soon become a teacher, but that doesn't negate the effect on Molly. Furthermore, why couldn't they stay on the Enterprise while Miles serves here? It's established over on TNG that they do visit DS9 from time to time offscreen. Picard is invested in rebuilding Bajor, he'd find reasons to come back.

(Nog has bought a confection on a stick from a kiosk)

Glop on a sticks (yeah yeah, "jumja stick") played a much bigger role behind the scenes than what actually appeared on screen. The Star Trek Cookbook says make maple syrup sugar candy on a stick.

What interests me is why these things seem to be manufactured as opposed to replicated. Is jumja sap one of those things that can't be replicated precisely?

SISKO: If he hasn't done anything wrong, you can't just arbitrarily force him to leave.
ODO: Watch me.
SISKO: Mister Odo, you're not going to take the law into your own hands.
ODO: The law? Commander, laws change depending on who's making them. Cardassians one day, Federation the next. But justice is justice, and as long as I'm in charge of security.
SISKO: If you can't work within the rules, I'll find someone who can.

Oh boy, there's a lot to unpack here. Odo is supposed to be interested in the order provided by law, but this "I'm the ultimate arbiter of what's right and wrong" stuff doesn't match what we will know of him OR why the Bajorans respect him so much. I refer you to "Things Past" in particular.

JAKE: What are they?
NOG: Garanian bolites. Come on.

Only appearance of Garanian bolites. Even the expanded universe didn't make use of them, although they got an entry (like everything else) in an RPG supplement.

BASHIR: I guess I know the competition now.
DAX: What are you talking about, Julian?
BASHIR: Did you have a nice dinner with Commander Sisko?
DAX: Julian, Trills do not look for romance the way humans do. In fact, we find it quite a nuisance.
BASHIR: A nuisance?
DAX: It's a weakness of the young, and although a Trill host may have these feelings occasionally, it is our wish to live on a higher plane, to try to rise above these kinds of temptations.

Okay, here's the thing. If Trill symbiotes repress sexual and romantic feelings in their hosts, that would be a big strike against being joined. A Trill wants to be joined to gain wisdom, not to have to sacrifice humanoid pleasures or their very sense of self-identity. The very notion is horrifying. Furthermore, it's a further disjoint from the Trill from "The Host." Why didn't they just change the name of the species again?

SISKO [OC]: We need medical assistance above the bar in holosuite four.

I'm pretty sure Quark owns the only holosuites on the station. This seems redundant.

BASHIR: Cause of death's no mystery. The knife was thrust directly between the left and right thoracic vertebrae, perforating the lower ventricle of the heart.

The thoracic vertebrae are the ones in your ribcage and neck There really aren't "left" and "right" vertebrae, unless you're going to tell me that Bajorans have two parallel spines and you can stab between.

[Nate the Great]

KEIKO: And they were just looking for trouble. Those kids have no reason to be hanging around the Promenade.
O'BRIEN: It's about the only place they have to go. You can't keep them locked in their rooms.
KEIKO: This isn't like a starship, Miles. The kind of freedom children have on the Enterprise just won't work on a space station. There are too many ways to get into serious trouble here. What this place needs is a school.

Yeah, this sort of thing should've been sorted out before the Federation arrived. It does make one wonder why a portion of the Habitat Ring can't be isolated as a family-only section with places for children to go. Perhaps with a backup sickbay with a dedicated pediatrician.

Then again, I do wonder why there were children on board during the Occupation. They can't work in the ore refineries, they were just there using up precious resources that could be used by the Cardassians instead.

KEIKO: That's not exactly true, Jake. There are twelve other children on board, ranging from eight to sixteen. The problem is there's no structured activity for them. Don't you miss the schools you used to go to, Jake?
JAKE: No. I guess. Studying alone on the computer, it kind of gets boring sometimes.

Starfleet doesn't have Teams meetings via subspace for remote teaching yet? Yeah yeah, Teams is still twenty years away at this point.

SISKO: You'll have them. I hope you realise what you're getting yourself into. I can't force the Bajora, the Ferengi or anyone else to send their children to your school. And even if they do come, every one has a different culture, a different philosophy.

I'll be calling out every usage of "Bajora". Are there Ferengi children on board besides Nog? We never got that impression.

ODO: It's a pretty neat package. His calendar shows he was planning to meet with me at the time of the murder. No one except a shape-shifter could get into the holosuite. And since I'd obviously be called there after the body was discovered, traces of my DNA wind up at the scene of the crime.

Since when does Odo have DNA? You'd think of all species a Changeling wouldn't be leaving fingerprints or hair follicles around to be traced.

ODO: Major, I have to return to my natural state every eighteen hours to regenerate. To be quite honest about it, I was in a pail in the back of my office when Ibudan was killed.
KIRA: The killer might have known your regenerative cycle and planned the murder accordingly.

Does Odo make his sleep cycle public? By all means Quark would keep tabs on this stuff, but it should be news to anyone else outside the station officers.

KIRA: Who might want to frame you for murder?
ODO: I can think of about five hundred different people, but I haven't seen any of them around the station recently.

Five hundred seems a little extreme. That would be something like a person every week. I wouldn't even mention this if it wasn't Odo, he doesn't seem the type to exaggerate.

ROM: Little lady, little lady, what do you know of Ferengi education?
KEIKO: I understand you employ a work-study approach, Mister Rom, with apprenticeships in a wide range of business and economic fields.

Yeah, some imposter has replaced Rom. Maybe the same guy who called himself the Ferengi Pit Boss a couple weeks ago.

This work-study approach would make sense for the Ferengi, so why is Nog here if he's old enough for that?

ROM: It can't work. He will not listen to you.
KEIKO: Why not?
ROM: You are female.

Ugh. The speech I could give on this exchange.

ZAYRA: I can't believe you're defending him, Quark. You're his worst enemy.
QUARK: Guess that's the closest thing he has in this world to a friend.

This exchange always stuck with me.

KIRA: You're going to relieve him of duty.
SISKO: I don't see any other choice.

I do wish that the precise relationship between the Bajoran Militia and Starfleet had been established by now. Shouldn't this be Kira's job?

ODO: Who will be taking over the investigation?
SISKO: I've placed Major Kira and Lieutenant Dax in charge.

There aren't ANY Starfleet security officers on board?

BASHIR: Just how many different lives do you think she's led?
SISKO: I don't even know. He'll go, she'll go through a list of them, then out comes another one in a later conversation. I'd guess that Jadzia is probably the sixth host.

Not counting Joran, Jadzia is seventh. I'd expect Sisko to know this by now.

BASHIR: You care for her a great deal, don't you?
SISKO: Dax and I are just friends, Doctor. If you're interested, you have nothing to fear from me.

Really? Further events in the first season will poke holes in that idea.

MOLLY: Can I come to school?
KEIKO: I wish you could. At least I'd know one student would be coming. But you have to wait a year or two.

Molly's first day of school would've made an interesting episode.

ODO: What happens to this one?
BASHIR: In about two days, he becomes a living, breathing member of Bajoran society.

Who looks like a criminal. I'd hate to be that guy.

ODO: Killing your own clone is still murder.

Comparisons have been made between this episode and "Up the Long Ladder." That's a kettle of fish that I don't care to go into.

Memory Alpha

* Piller and Behr were wondering if it was too soon for a murder mystery, but they justified themselves by saying that this was a spinoff where the world was known. I would argue that the world of DS9 is NOT known this early, much less the characters. Nothing in this episode resembles anything in TNG in the slightest.
* The creative staff was proud of the murder mystery. I wouldn't be. There wasn't enough time to do it properly, and as SF Debris says, far too much time was spent on explaning why the only culprit could be Odo that it became laughably obvious that it couldn't be. Plus there's the whole question about how Odo could've sneaked a knife in there.
* Rom says "hew-man" instead of "hew-mon". Chalk this one up to Early Installment Weirdness.

The Fiver

Jadzia: Do you think we should still be friends?
Sisko: Well, if you left the series, whom would Worf marry?
Jadzia: Hmm...Leeta?

That's an image I didn't need.

Sisko: That's enough fighting and out-of-character behaviour!
Odo: These are still early days. I can act however I want.

"It's in my contract!"

Odo: Leave me alone!
Mob: You're outvoted.
Sisko: Stop or I'll give my speech.
Mob: We'll stop.
Sisko: I'll give my speech anyway.

"It's in my contract!" OR "As main character I have the right to speechify whenever I want!" Whichever you prefer.

Ibudan: And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Odo: You are under arrest for murder, theft, conspiracy, betrayal, cloning....
Ibudan: We'll be here a while.

"...And impersonating Tayar!"

Tayar was one of Lore's Borg, played by the same actor as Ibudan. I thought I was due an obtuse and obscure joke by now.

Nitpicker's Guide

* The computer in Ibudan's quarters on the Bajoran ship uses stardates. That's weird, and the dates also say that the events of this episode took place over two weeks. Oops.
* Doesn't the Federation require teachers to have teaching licenses?
* Phil has a problem with Quark using the phrase "in this world". What world would Quark be referring to? I don't see the problem, obviously Quark was speaking methaphorically to the world of the living.
* This time Phil did the stardate math. Everyone calls Molly three years old when she's only 15 months.
* Sisko warned Keiko about Bajoran beliefs, and yet she won't actually alter her thinking before "In The Hands of The Prophets."
* Phil points out Dax's hypocrisy. Jadzia will make an offer to let a man "count her spots" just a few years from now in "Meridian."
* In this episode Odo says he has to regenerate every 18 hours, in the future it'll be 16 hours.
* Phil wonders why there isn't DNA from users prior to Ibudan in the holosuite.

[Nate the Great]

January 24th, 1993, "Babel"

Oh, this is gonna hurt...

Fiver by Derek

The Episode

JAHEEL: Mister O'Brien.
O'BRIEN: Captain Jaheel, those people have been stuck in that airlock for over an hour. Now if you can wait until we get that door opened, I'll be happy to listen to any problems you might have.
JAHEEL: But I've already been waiting two days for your people to readjust my ship's antimatter flow converter.

This seems like a situation where more staff needs to be brought in. The initial crew compliment was based on no wormhole, when Bajor was the backwater and would rarely get visitors. Now things have changed. Nobody should ever have to wait two days to get repairs.

Far too often the writers will come back to the "make O'Brien suffer" plot. I'm not a fan.

DAX [OC]: Dax to O'Brien.
O'BRIEN: O'Brien here.
DAX [OC]: Can you spare a minute, Chief? I have a little problem here at the lab.
O'BRIEN: On my way.

There's only one lab? And Dax of all people should know not to burden Miles unnecessarily.

(Sisko gets a drink from the replicators and it is awful)
SISKO: Chief, I thought you were going to fix the replicators.

This seems like a situation where either the replicator should shut itself down after sensing that it was making stuff that's not up to snuff OR O'Brien should've shut the thing off so nobody could use it until he could fix it.

But seriously, they should've ripped out the Cardassian replicator and put in a Starfleet one. An army walks on its stomach and all that.

O'BRIEN: Fix the replicators, Chief. My console's offline, Chief. I should've transferred to a cargo drone. No people, no complaints.

Or, y'know, stay on the Enterprise like Keiko wanted. Have I mentioned lately how much I HATE it when they imply that only the senior staff can do anything on their ship or station?

And for that matter, how much I HATE that Voyager is in better shape than DS9 despite an inadequate staff and limited resources?

ODO: Who knows, if things don't improve you may be forced to close down.
QUARK: You'd like that, wouldn't you?
ODO: Let's just say, without you around my job would be considerably easier.

Would it, though? Quark may be a criminal, but he's a criminal who actually follows a code, convoluted though it may be. Quark is predictable to say the least. Plus you can bribe or threaten him into helping out when required, I doubt you could say the same for an Orion Syndicate front or whatever.

QUARK: It's these replicators. If I don't get them fixed soon, they'll destroy my business.
ODO: Why not get O'Brien to fix them? He has the replicators on the command level working perfectly.
QUARK: I'm on his waiting list. He assures me he'll get to them as soon as he can.

Quark doesn't have his own engineer on staff? It stands to reason that this would be considered an essential for even a Ferengi business. Where is Rom, anyway?

O'BRIEN: That's nice to hear, sir. She's flower units about the lad herself.

Okay, let's talk about the aphasia virus. In the real world aphasia is being unable to remember specific words or communicate properly. It is NOT words being jumbled up in the mind as though the wires between words and their meanings are being scrambled up. Brains are only similar to computers in the vaguest sense.

Actually, it would've been interesting to see the EMH suffer from a computer virus that could actually create aphasia.

DAX: I forgot how different it was.
KIRA: How different what was?
DAX: Being female. I haven't been one for over eighty years. All this attention.

The last female host was Audrid, who died in 2284. 85 years, actually.

QUARK: Who says Bajorans don't have a sense of humour? Actually, we're celebrating the repair of the bar's replicator system. Perhaps I could interest you in a nice double whipped Idanian spice pudding.

This is the only mention of Idanian spice pudding in combination with Dax. In the future it turns out that the real fans were Jake and Bashir.

We won't meet an Idanian until "A Simple Investigation." (I'm not looking forward to that one, FYI).

(O'Brien grabs a PADD and starts tapping on it)
KIRA: What is that? What's he written?
(The PADD says 'Flame the dark true, salt way link, complete strike, limits victory, frosted wake, simple hesitation)

Sending words to the mouth and the hands would require different parts of the brain. It's unlikely that aphasia would hit both parts simultaneously.

BASHIR: He appears to be suffering from a form of aphasia. It's a perceptual dysfunction in which aural and visual stimuli are incorrectly processed by the brain. His actual thinking hasn't been affected, but he's incapable of expressing himself or understanding others.

What does being unable to hear or see correctly have to do with speaking?

DAX: Isn't aphasia typically associated with some kind of cranial trauma?
BASHIR: Yes. It can occur as a result of a stroke or blow to the head. But there's no evidence of that here.

The last time O'Brien's head was messed with was "Power Play" over a year ago. Not relevant, but interesting.

SISKO: Dax, you will temporarily assume Mister O'Brien's duties.

Why? O'Brien should have an assistant who's already handling things. Dax isn't qualified.

BASHIR: It imposes itself within the established synaptic pathways and then randomly reroutes them. For example, when I look at this, (holds up a tricorder) a process occurs in my brain which connects the stimulus to the word tricorder. This virus disrupts that process.

How? Even as a self-professed expert in creating BS Treknobabble explanations, this is ludicrous! This "process" is simple neural interaction, not something you could dampen without shutting down all conscious activity. If the brain was that scrambled all you'd be able to do is breathe and pump blood, the automatic functions. Coma city.

QUARK: Computer, let's start with one Ferengi starduster, please.

A Starduster sounds like a great name for a drink, I wonder why it wasn't used more often. Only one eBook if Memory Beta is to be believed.

ODO: Unauthorised access to crew quarters is a crime, Quark. You could have just asked to use the replicators.
QUARK: There's an old Ferengi saying. Never ask when you can take.

Of course the Rules of Acquisition don't exist yet. This isn't one of them. The closest I can find is 62: The riskier the road, the greater the profit.

ODO: You claimed Rom fixed your replicators.
QUARK: So?
ODO: Rom's an idiot. He couldn't fix a straw if it was bent.

Talk about Early Installment Weirdness (go TV Tropes!).

SISKO: You're saying it's in our food?
KIRA: That's not possible. All the food on the station is replicated, and all the replicators use biofilters. They automatically screen out contaminants including viruses.

Ugh, I hate it when they act like current tech is effective against all possible future scenarios. The biofilters can only filter out the stuff that's currently known to the people designing them.

SISKO: So what we have here is sabotage.
KIRA: Cardassian sabotage.
SISKO: How can you be sure?
KIRA: It has a diboridium core for a power source. That is Cardassian technology.

Only mention of diboridium.

QUARK: I'm merely here visiting my less fortunate customers to make sure they're not faking the illness to avoid paying their bills.

Well, that's a cynical outlook. Or maybe this is supposed to show us that Quark's heart of gold is REALLY deep inside him.

KIRA: The energy decay of this power core indicates that it dates back to the building of the station.
ODO: That's eighteen years ago. I suppose the Bajoran underground could have smuggled it aboard during construction.

DS9 was built sometime between 2346 and 2351, we don't know more than that. Eighteen years ago is 2351, which probably accounts for that latter date.

ODO: The truth is, I never learned the game.
QUARK: You mean, you've sat here for all these years and you don't even know how to gamble?

This seems odd to me. It stands to reason that Odo would want to learn the fundamentals of all games at Quarks so he has some idea of knowing when Quark is cheating.

QUARK: Relax. I served on a Ferengi freighter for eight years.
ODO: All right.
QUARK: I must have witnessed the procedure hundreds of times.
ODO: Witnessed? You mean to say you never handled the controls yourself?

Even the ship's cook should know the basics of how to work a transporter. Even the Ferengi would see the value in cross-training.

[Nate the Great]

The Fiver

Sisko: Hey! I asked for "Coffee, black" and got "Tea, Earl Grey, hot"!
O'Brien: Captain Picard wouldn't have complained.
Sisko: I'm not Picard.
O'Brien: Indeed not. You're much easier to provoke.

Odd place for a "Q-Less" reference.

Jadzia: Neat! I'm a woman again.
Kira: I would've thought an old man might have trouble being in a young woman's body.
Jadzia: Perhaps, but now I can go where no man has gone before: the women's restroom!

Forgot the "boldly" there.

Kira: So, Chief, how're the repairs coming?
O'Brien: They're brillig and the slithy toves are gyre and gimble in the wabe.
Kira: Grrr. I can see where this episode is going and I don't like it.

Have I linked to Christopher Lee reciting Jabberwocky yet? Probably not, I think I've linked to the Neil Gaiman version, though.

Bashir: O'Brien's suffering from aphasia. He says different words than he means to say.
Sisko: Shouldn't the Universal Translator be able to compensate?

Actually, no. If there was a uniform set of 1:1 word exchanges that everyone used, MAYBE, but even so you'd have to program it for each language.

Quark: Computer, make me a root beer.
Computer: Zap! You're a root beer!

This is a really old joke. "Call me a cab!" "Okay, you're a cab."

Odo: Jaheel is tearing the station apart with his ship.
Quark: Wouldn't his ship just pull the whole station along with him?
Odo: No time for logic!

Good point.

Memory Alpha

* The screenwriter made sure to make the gibberish flow as though it was the real words. Valiant effort, but ultimately pointless in my opinion.
* O'Brien's standard coffee order of "black, double sweet" goes back to "Rascals."

Nitpicker's Guide

* They forgot to punish Quark for stealing from command-level replicators.
* Wasn't it just last episode that Dax said that she wasn't interested in romance? And now she's making goo-goo eyes at some men! Just kidding, I think everyone would prefer to pretend that "A Man Alone" never happened.
* For that matter, last episode Dax was being a snob about eating healthily, and this week she's eating spice pudding!
* Supposedly this whole thing got started when O'Brien "fixed" the replicator and had coffee. Except we saw the device turn on after that. Oops.
* Phil has a problem with how O'Brien can tap a PADD twelve times and create a message with fifteen words. I don't have a problem with this one, no doubt there are macros to present common word combinations. Or the PADD can read his thoughts just like Voyager's computer. (Shudder...)

[Nate the Great]

January 30th, 1993, "Captive Pursuit"

Fiver by Me

The Episode

* I don't understand the scene that implies that Quark sneaks fine print into the Dabo girls' contract saying that he can use them as sex objects. I know that Ferengi are by nature misogynists and that it's too early in the show for "hew-mon" morals to rub off on him, but he should know about Bajoran and Federation law. The Ferengi believe in knowing everything about anyone who could be a threat to their profits, and being in jail for harassment, assault, or human rights violations would certainly be a threat to profits.

SISKO: That was one of our patrol vessels. You've travelled almost ninety thousand light years.

I thought that this figure was an example of Early Installment Weirdness, but no better value of the distance covered by the wormhole exists. However, "Battle Lines" indicates that it would take 67 years at maximum warp to get back. That's faster than Voyager, which I kinda thought was designed to be a long-distance high-warp ship.

DAX: I think we might want to skip formal first contact procedures for now.

Come to think of it, why isn't there a dedicated First Contact team on board by now? Arrange trade of goods and technical knowledge, make formal contact with governments, etc.

TOSK: The coladrium flow has been damaged.

We'll later learn that the coladrium flow is kinda like the hydrogen plasma collected by a Bussard ramscoop. I don't like the use of a fictional element taking the place of something established just to sound alien.

I also don't like the Universal Translator only half-translating things if they're supposed to be able to connect the dots on universal ideas.

TOSK: How many live here?
O'BRIEN: Well, three hundred, more or less.

At least they're sticking to the series bible, although the idea of fifty permanent alien residents seems dubious at this point. How large is Quark's staff, anyway?

TOSK: Many ships dock here?
O'BRIEN: Five or six a week.

What? I'd expect five or six a week if there wasn't a wormhole. That should be in the dozens at the smallest.

O'BRIEN: You know, would you like to eat, take in sustenance?
TOSK: Liquid nutrients are stored in plasmic fibres throughout my body.

One wonders if this stuff is anything like ketracel white.

O'BRIEN: I've noticed. Hey, barkeep!
QUARK: Don't call me barkeep. I'm not a barkeep.

You're not? That's news to me. If anything I would expect Quark to complain about how "barkeep" is completely inadequate to describe what he is.

O'BRIEN: They're bombarding us with some kind of radiation I've never see before. Very rapid magnetic flux variations.
(Whumph as the shields go down)
O'BRIEN: What the? They've reversed the polarity of our shields.

What? Even my expertise in Treknology can't come up with a explanation for this one. At best I could say that these guys have the tech to scan everything about a shield's waveform and create an "anti-waveform" to cancel it out. But that's not "reversing the polarity".

HUNTER: In the future, passage through the anomaly will be considered out of bounds for the hunt. Will that satisfy you?

Actually, it kinda should. The Federation can't enforce their laws in non-Federation space.

I'd write a screed comparing these guys to the Hirogen, but I'm not in the mood.

Memory Alpha

* One of the creators says that the Tosk and the Jem'Hadar were created by the same people (probably not the Dominion if true).

The Fiver

Sarda: Quark hit on me.
Sisko: I am not surprised. I'll make sure that --
Dax: A damaged ship is coming through the wormhole!
Sisko: Thank goodness, a real plot.

Slice of life stories can be done well, but this scene was not done well. There's no punishment for Quark and Sarda never appears again. I don't think Quark trying to sexually harrass his employees comes up again until "Profit and Lace."

O'Brien: His ship was shot up. He's not telling us everything.
Sisko: Go fix his ship anyway.
O'Brien: Sure, it's not like I have a whole station to maintain or anything.

In retrospect this punchline seems weak.

Tosk: Computer, show me the weapons.
Computer: Here they are, along with the fastest way to get there.
Tosk: Thanks.
Computer: It's a slow week; we're all desperate for some action.
Tosk: I know how you feel.

I wonder why I don't write self-aware computer scenes more often. And this was a slow week for DS9.

O'Brien: Why do I still feel responsible for him?
Sisko: Because you're stubborn about sticking with your first impressions, because he's blatantly playing you for sympathy, or because it's your episode, take your pick.

If I wrote this today there would've been an O'Brien punchline at the end, probably including a game show reference.

Sisko: Let's go shoot them up. We haven't used up our stunt budget yet. Starfleet Command keeps telling me to use it or lose it.

I don't like this punchline now. Hopping back and forth over the fourth wall is easy to mess up, and I messed up in this case.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil wonders if everyone gets free repairs, or just Gamma Quadrant visitors. A good point, presumably the Bajoran government would want to make some money from the station to help rebuild.
* In "Emissary" they say the wormhole went 70,000 light-years. I have less trouble with this one, the estimate in that episode was based on preliminary scans in unfamiliar space. No doubt by now they've had time to do a more thorough job finding known stars to triangulate.
* Phil also complains about Universal Translator inconsistencies.

[Nate the Great]

February 6th, 1993, "Q-Less"

No fiver (has anyone called this one?)

The Episode

Bashir: (Babbles about obscure medical knowledge and brings up the preganglionic fiber/postganglionic nerve thing again)

Thank goodness this bit was only used twice (a third appearance was cut from "Emissary"). It was never funny. For the record ganglia are nerve clusters involved in the autonomic nervous system. Pre-G fibers connect them with the spine, post-G nerves connect to the rest of the body. Only an idiot would get them mixed up, which is why he lied about it on the exam. I'm not a fan of the genetic enhancement thing, but that screed will wait until "Doctor Bashir, I Presume."

BASHIR: Well, I mistook a preganglionic fibre for a postganglianic nerve during the orals or I would have been valedictorian. It was a trick question.

No, it wasn't. For that matter, why are you trying to impress a woman using obscure medical knowledge?

BASHIR: Life support's down. Oxygen levels have dropped dangerously low.
KIRA: (drawing her weapon) We'll have to burn it through.
SISKO: Forget it Major. The hatch is made of duranium composite. It'll take you an hour to get through.

I get that Kira is supposed to be hotheaded at this point, but that doesn't mean stupid. Especially when the Resistance would have reason to know how long it takes to burn through the hulls of various ships.

O'BRIEN: Vash?
VASH: That's right?
O'BRIEN: Miles O'Brien, from the Enterprise.
VASH: Oh. Yes, of course.

O'Brien wasn't in "Qpid", which was a little under two years ago. I understand that the officers would be gossiping about this woman, but that doesn't explain how she's supposed to know him.

DAX: We found her in the Gamma Quadrant. She'd been there for over two years.

No, she wasn't. And even if she's been gone two years, would Q really limit himself to the Gamma Quadrant?

BASHIR: I, I, I mean you've managed quite well considering you've been out of contact with civilisation for over two years.
VASH: I'd hardly call the Gamma Quadrant uncivilised. Some of the cultures I've encountered have histories that date back millions of years.

I hope that doesn't include the Domionion, as that seems like something she'd want to tell the Federation about.

Civilizations that have been around for millions of years (and are still around) include the Organians ("Errand of War"), the Vulcans (If you believe Star Trek Online, which I don't), and the Cybertronians (yes, there was actually a crossover comic featuring the Transformers).

DAX: She said she didn't want to talk about it. Said it was a personal matter.
SISKO: This doesn't make sense. A human alone in the Gamma Quadrant for two years? Let's check her background. See what we can find out about her.
DAX: She claims to be an archaeologist.
SISKO: That's a good place to start.

Why bother being cryptic when the Federation still has numerous records about her, plus she knows that O'Brien knows her story?

CLERK: The Assay office is the most secure area on the station. The chambers are surrounded on all sides by individual force fields.

I jolly well hope that the security office is the most secure area on the station. Furthermore, I don't trust individual force fields to keep anything secure, power has been lost before and it will be again.

By the way, an assay office is meant to test the purity of precious metals (usually the material for currency, hence proximity to mints), not hold safety deposit boxes.

We'll hear the assay office mentioned a few times in years to come, but it won't appear again until Quark takes Morn's gold-pressed latinum brick out of a box.

(Vash opens a box to reveal a large orange crystal with an inner light)
CLERK: Beautiful. I've never seen anything quite like it. Some kind of Promethean quartz.

Only mention of Promethean quartz. I find myself wishing that this stuff was Promellian ("Booby Trap") quartz instead.

VASH: All right, I'll be back tomorrow to pick everything up. I've booked passage on the Mulzirak Transport.

Only mention of the Mulziraks in canon. They only appeared once more in a novel.

VASH: So now the Daystrom Institute is interested in me. well, that's ironic.
SISKO: Professor Woo seemed especially eager to speak to you again.
VASH: Did he really? I suppose he told you that he suspended my membership from the Institute's Archaeological Council?
SISKO: On two occasions. Something about the sale of illegal artefacts.
VASH: Well, when it comes to choosing between science and profit, I'll choose profit every time.

Another reference to "Qpid."

SISKO: Tell me Chief, how well do you know this woman Vash?
O'BRIEN: Hardly at all. I only met her that one time she was aboard the Enterprise.
SISKO: What was she doing there?
O'BRIEN: Well Sir, Vash and Captain Picard were friends. Close friends, if you follow my meaning. Seems they met on Risa a few years back.

"Captain's Holiday" was almost three years back. I'd categorize that as "a couple" before "a few".

O'BRIEN: I think she must be a special woman, being friends with the Captain and all.
SISKO: Somehow she doesn't seem to be his type.

And you know Captain Picard personally, Ben? To the best of my knowledge the Enterprise won't be in the neighborhood again until "Birthright" a couple weeks from now.

As for whether Vash is Picard's type, that's another screed waiting to happen. I never quite understood their relationship. A fling on Risa, sure, but certainly nothing that could last. Frankly he should've shut her down back in "Qpid" and agreed to treat each other like strangers.

VASH: Thanks, Chief. Oh, by the way, how's Jean-Luc?
O'BRIEN: The Captain? The last time I saw him he was fine.
VASH: Now that I'm back, I'll have to look him up.

The last time you saw Picard he was positively sentimental. I'm not sure if that would make him more or less receptive to a visit from Vash.

Q: Really, Vash, I can't believe you're still pining for Jean-Luc, that self righteous do-gooder.

I'd object to this description of Picard if I could.

Q: You know, I thought first we'd visit the Teleris Cluster, look in on the star dancers at Mundahla. Or maybe head over to the Lantar nebula and view the Sampalo relic on Hoek Four.
VASH: Not interested.
Q: I know. Vadris Three. Charming little world. The natives think they're the only intelligent life in the universe.

I do wish that ONE of these was a TOS reference. The first one that comes to mind is the asteroid-ship Yonada ("For The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"). It stands to reason that a faction of the Fabrini would want to stay inside the Yonada and act like they're alone in the universe. They might even teach their children that they are.

Q: Two years in the Gamma Quadrant hardly qualifies as a grand tour of the universe. There's still the Delta Quadrant to explore, not to mention all the other galaxies.

One wonders what the Delta Quadrant races would think of Q.

Oh, and one of the Strange New Worlds stories reveals that Vash will be assimilated by the Borg eight years from now, but Q will rescue her.

Q: And a stellar life indeed. The eminent Vash. Barred from the Royal Museum of Epsilon Hydra Seven, persona non grata on Betazed. Wanted dead on Myrmidon for stealing the Crown of the First Mother.

Except for Betazed these planets aren't mentioned again. Makes you wonder why Q didn't namedrop the Sacred Chalice of Rixx or the Holy Rings of Betazed.

You have read about Q's encounter with Lwaxana in "Q-in-Law", right?

(Vash takes hold of his lobes)
QUARK: (ecstasy). You have a talent for oo-mox.
VASH: So I've been told.

Eww.

[Nate the Great]

O'BRIEN: We've got a problem. sir. I just saw Q on the Promenade.
SISKO: Q? Here?
KIRA: What's Q?
SISKO: A powerful and extremely unpredictable entity. I was at a Starfleet briefing on him two years ago.

One wonders why it took three years after meeting Q to arrange a briefing on him.

SISKO: Tell me about Q.
Q: I'll tell you anything you want to know, Commander. Just answer one question. Is Starfleet penalising you or did you actually request such a dismal command?

He sure didn't ask for it! Whether this is supposed to be a punishment is another discussion.

Q: Though I must say I approve of your new tailor.
(Q changes from TNG uniform to DS9)

As I hear it, the point behind the inverted colors on the DS9 uniform is that a black uniform would hide dirt better. I'm not that fond of the DS9 uniform, too casual.

SISKO: If you're looking for sympathy, you've come to the wrong place.
Q: Actually, what I was hoping for was a little witty repartee, but I see I'm not going to get any of that either. At least your beloved Jean-Luc knows how to turn a phrase.

We all know that the only reason he visits the Enterprise is to listen to Picard speeches.

Q: Marquis of Queensberry Rules?

Published in London in 1867, the Rules were the first popular set of rules for boxing. The Rules was the first time boxing gloves were made mandatory.

Q: You hit me Picard never hit me.
SISKO: I'm not Picard.
Q: Indeed not. You're much easier to provoke.

Yeah, 'cause Picard would've just stood still and let Q punch him. I doubt it.

SISKO: Every time we've had a power drain, it's been followed by an increase in the graviton field. If this continues, we could wind up with a breach in one of our reactor cores. We'd lose half the station.

Just half? You do realize that all three reactor cores are in the Central Core next to each other, right? Set off one and the other two explode as well!

ODO: I'll never understand this obsession with accumulating material wealth. You spend your entire life plotting and scheming to acquire more and more possessions, until your living areas are bursting with useless junk. Then you die, your relatives sell everything and start the cycle all over again.

Oh, the screed I could write on this topic...

O'BRIEN: Sir, we'll never find the source of the power drain using these bloody Cardassian internal sensors. They're just not sensitive enough.

You'd think upgrading the sensors would be Priority One, especially with the wormhole nearby.

Q: Picard and his lackeys would have solved all this techno-babble hours ago.

This line has always stuck with me. I think that this isn't a fair comparison as the E-D has far superior sensors to the station. Plus, y'know, less volume to scan.

Q: Do I know you?
O'BRIEN: O'Brien. From the Enterprise.
Q: Enterprise. oh yes. Weren't you one of the little people?

O'Brien was on the Battle Bridge during the Farpoint Mission! Q chose not to grab him for the trial. It must be the yellow uniform that's throwing him off.

Station log, stardate 46532.3. With the embryonic lifeform off the station, graviton levels have returned to normal. We've used the control thrusters to return the station to its original position.

Did they use the shields to lower the inertial mass again?

Q: Earth. Oh, don't get me wrong. A thousand years ago it had character. Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Watergate.

"The Brady Bunch Reunion!" The (first) Power Rangers movie may be cheesy shlock, but you can't say that Ivan Ooze wasn't fun.

BASHIR: I feel as though I've been sleep for days. What? Did I miss something?

Nobody checked up on how the Senior Medical Officer is doing?

Memory Alpha

* Q never snaps his fingers in this episode to use his powers. Weird.
* Q and O'Brien never shared a scene on TNG, but as an officer on the Battle Bridge Q would've noticed him.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Bashir invited Vash to Quark's for a date, and she goes there, but he goes to the Replimat. Oops.
* Why didn't the evacuate the station? They had plenty of time!
* If the Cardassians stripped the station of everything of value when they left, why did they leave behind this big piece of precision assay equipment?

[Nate the Great]

February 15th, 1993, "Dax"

Fiver by ceedj (never heard of this guy, either)

The Episode

Station log. stardate 46910.1. Chief O'Brien has escorted his wife back to Earth to celebrate her mother's hundredth birthday. In the meantime, the rest of us are trying to keep the station up and running.

I get that people live longer in the 24th century, but even so waiting until you're in your seventies to have a kid seems dubious. Why not have it be Keiko's grandmother, the one she talked about in "Violations"?

DAX: The technology looks like something the Cardassians must have taken from the Romulans.

One wonders if Garak stole it back when he was the gardener at the embassy on Romulus. Was that before or after he killed Proconsul Merrok?

But seriously, I'd expect the Romulans to be very protective of their tech.

BASHIR: Another raktajino?

I must've suppressed the memory that raktajino was introduced this early. Knowing of kopi luwak, I have to wonder if raktajino beans are soaked in blood before roasting.

DAX: It'll keep me up all night.
BASHIR: I can think of better ways of keeping you up. And they're more fun than drinking Klingon coffee.

For Trek this is positively dirty.

BASHIR: Not necessary, Julian. But not forbidden, either.

And the creators were surprised that viewers didn't like him?

SISKO: Full station security alert. Secure all turbolifts, seal off airlocks for levels four through twelve. Computer, locate Lieutenant Dax.
COMPUTER: Lieutenant Dax is on level six, corridor one.
BASHIR [OC]: No, that's where I am. They just left her comm. badge.

Look, I understand that at times the commbadge is the only way to find a person. When a person is on a ship, space station, or within the range of a colony's sensor array is not one of them. If Voyager can keep track of the mental state of everyone at all times, I expect DS9's computer to keep track of a few hundred different people.

KIRA: We've got eight ships in dock capable of warp five or more. Three on docking pylons, five smaller ones in the ports.
SISKO: Seal off all docking ring airlocks.

You didn't do this already? Frankly all bulkheads in the vicinity should've been locked shut by now.

KIRA: Isolating with cadderon force fields.

Only mention of cadderon force fields. It makes you wonder what the point was. Was this supposed to indicate that Cardassian force fields are different as a Chekov's Gun for later?

SISKO: I'm trying to speed up the bleed-off process in the graviton generator.
(The ship undocks.)
KIRA: We lost them.
SISKO: It's working. I'm increasing the flow to the EPS wave guides.

Seriously, why is Sisko doing this? Why doesn't O'Brien have an assistant?

If this is supposed to tie into his experiences in starship design back at Utopia Planitia, that could've been made more explicit. "Let me try a trick that I learned back at Utopia Planitia."

SISKO: We've got eighteen, twenty years of friendship behind us.
DAX: I'm Jadzia Dax now. That was Curzon Dax you knew for twenty years.
SISKO: So when the Dax part of you survived from one host to the next, it really didn't take our friendship along.
DAX: Benjamin, you know you're still my very dear friend. I'm sorry.

So why'd she bring it up? If the intention was to show that "control" slides more towards Jadzia or Dax at different times, they could've done a better job explaining that.

KIRA: You Klaestrons are allies of the Cardassians. Your knowledge of this station confirms that. They must have given you the layout, which not only compromises Bajoran security, but also annoys us.

Kira does make me smile sometimes.

QUARK: For how long?
ODO: As long as it takes.
QUARK: That could be for days!
ODO: There's nowhere else on the station that's suitable.

Really? There isn't a single empty cargo bay that they could refit for the purpose? I get that this is a great scene, but they could've put more thought into it. For example, explaining that most of the station is still unusable after the Cardassian withdrawal.

QUARK: This is blackmail.
ODO: No, it's just business. And business is business.

Shockingly this isn't a Rule of Acquisition. An appropriate Rule for this situation would be 33 (It never hurts to suck up to the boss).

RENORA: This will be an informal hearing, so I'm going to start with some informal advice. I am one hundred years old. I do not have time to squander listening to superfluous language. In short, I intend being here until supper, not senility. Understood?

Cute line.

SISKO: I want you to find all the medical evidence you can to support the theory that Jadzia Dax and Curzon Dax are two entirely separate people. Major
BASHIR: Excuse me, sir. I don't know that there is any medical evidence on that.
SISKO: Assume there is, then find it.

Of course Curzon and Jadzia are different! Even if you argue that 90% of the fusion is Dax, the other 10% is still the host.

KIRA: Is a Trill responsible for the conduct, for the acts of its antecedent selves.
SISKO: Right. That kind of thing.

Wouldn't this have been settled in court decades ago?

ENINA: Curzon Dax was not responsible for the death of my husband.
(Enina is played by Fionulla Flanagan, who will be Data's 'mother' later in the year.)

And the Amazing Thing That I Learned Today is that this episode was made before "Inheritance." And that she was also in an episode of ENT. And that she was in the Jim Carrey Christmas Carol.

ENINA: How is he?
ODO: Ma'am?
ENINA: Curzon Dax.
ODO: He's gone. The Dax your son is trying to extradite is Jadzia Dax, a twenty eight year old woman. Curzon Dax died two years ago. Jadzia is the new host.
ENINA: What? I'm sorry. I didn't know.

Good moment.

PEERS: Because another Trill is involved, the Trillian government requested that I be present during the extradition.

"Trillilan?" I'm so shocked that I'm not even going to make a Hitchhiker's joke.

TANDRO: So if a crime is committed by a Trill, then the symbiont's next host would remain aware of it, would recall that crime?
PEERS: Yes, absolutely.
TANDRO: Would recall the details of it.
PEERS: Yes, absolutely.
TANDRO: And would still feel the guilt of it.
PEERS: Oh, yes.

And? So? These are observations, not arguments. Just 'cause a previous Dax host was a murderer and remembers the details doesn't mean that a future one is equally capable of murder.

BASHIR: The symbiont and the host are biologically interdependent. Ninety three hours after they've joined, neither can survive without the other.

No. After 93 hours a symbiote has to be in a new host or those pools in the caverns on Trill. The host dies. It isn't an equal arrangement.

TANDRO: In fact, is there evidence of any change at all in the symbiont since it joined with this new host? Yes or no.
BASHIR: (big pause) No.

New memories won't change the brainwave frequency of the symbiot. Duh.

SISKO: My God, Dax. Young Tandro, that wouldn't be your son?
DAX: You have an overactive imagination, Benjamin.

Uh, they never answered this one. Memory Alpha says that the general is his father, but who knows?

Actor Gregory Itzin was 45 at the time of this episode. Everyone says that Curzon Dax was there 30 years ago. I don't think that the affair lasted over ten years.

DAX: Do you remember that Argosian lieutenant who threw a drink in your face?

Only mention of Argosians in canon. Of course they were mentioned in a few novels.

ENINA: Madame Arbiter, Curzon Dax is accused of sending a transmission to the enemy that betrayed my husband. But I know where Curzon was at the exact time that transmission was sent. He was in my bed.

Talk about a mike drop moment.

ENINA: As for you, there is one favour I would ask.
DAX: Of course.
ENINA: Live, Jadzia Dax. Live a long, fresh and wonderful life.

I always remembered this scene. The episode really is good.

The Fiver

Sisko: Your honor, if the glove doesn't fit, you must aquitt!
Judge Judy Renora: Nice try, Mr. Cochran.

The fiver was written in 2006. I'm surprised that the OJ trial was still such a big cultural event (although I think I did see a snippet of the Bronco chase live at the time).

Ilon: I submit that blah blah blah, joined Trill, blah blah blah, same memories, blah blah blah, here's a fiver, let's call it even, okay?

This joke has several layers.

Ilon: Is there a difference between technobabble and technobabble?
Bashir: Um...
Ilon: DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION, ANSWER THE QUESTION NOW!

I really do need to get around to reviewing the movies one of these years...

Nitpicker's Guide

* How did Odo and Enina get to DS9 from Klaestron so fast? They would've had to do it in a few hours to arrive in time!
* Phil has a long speech about the conflicts between TNG Trill and DS9 Trill, but I've already harped on this one long enough.

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

[Odo] has a couple of Bajoran deputies.


Really? I'd imagine the station would need a couple dozen Bajoran deputies even before you throw Starfleet Security into the mix.

I'd imagine 400 crewmembers would need more medics than one doctor and one nurse plus one guy who just shows up to slap the Vulcan silly. Trek is not good with practical numbers.

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

January 3rd, 1993, "Emissary"
SISKO: Major, when I was ordered here, I requested a Bajoran national as my first officer.

You had to request that? The Bajorans wouldn't insist on one of their own in this position, just like the Vulcans and T'Pol?

His commanding officer might have told him that he could have an Academy-trained Starfleet first officer if he felt uneasy about a Bajoran in the position, to which Sisko would be the classy soldier and say no, sir, in fact I want a Bajoran.

QUARK: Commander, I've made a career out of knowing when to leave, and this Bajoran provisional government is far too provisional for my taste. And when governments fall, people like me are lined up and shot.

Why? Quark has nothing to do with the Provisional Government. Furthermore, even if the Provisional Government collapses odds are it will be a military faction who takes command of the station without violence. The worst they would do is evict him from the sector.

Ah, you're using logic again. Violent revolutions tend not to run on any logic more concrete than "if we can scapegoat somebody we will".

[Nate the Great]

Anyone uncomfortable working side-by-side with Bajorans shouldn't be on the station. And to be honest, anyone uncomfortable around Cardassians shouldn't be on the station either.


Yeah, but the violent revolution would be on Bajor itself, not the station.

[Nate the Great]

February 22nd, 1993, "The Passenger"

Oh, I don't like this one...

No fiver

The Episode

KIRA: She was dead. The tricorder clearly showed
BASHIR: Ah yes, well, tricorders. Very accurate with live people, not so accurate with dead ones. We learn that first year medical school.

What is the purpose of this? I'm really asking! I've said it before and I'll say it again, being able to detect alive vs. dead with 100% accuracy for all known species should be Priority One before you send these things out to be used.

BASHIR: And well you should have been. I impressed myself on this one actually. I can't imagine what other doctor would even consider examining the scapular nodes for parasitic infection. I just seem to have a talent, I suppose. A vision that sees past the obvious, around the mundane, right to the target. Fate has granted me a gift, Major. A gift to be a healer.
KIRA: I feel privileged to be in your presence.

Why was Bashir written this badly? I'm really asking! Furthermore, how did these actors ever find time to fall in love when they were given scenes this bad?

QUARK: Iced raktajino, extra cream.

I get that raktajino serves a similar purpose to coffee, but it can't taste THAT similar. Similar enough to work with Earth cream, anyway.

DAX: Thanks.
(Dax leaves)
QUARK: Poor woman. She's obviously infatuated with me.

Quark's crush on Dax never made sense to me. Ever. For that matter, his taste in women in general never made sense to me. He made it clear that when it comes to women he was interested in a traditional Ferengi marriage with occasional hired prostitutes or strings-free flings on Risa. Jadzia doesn't fit into any of these categories. Furthermore it's in his best interest to stay on the good side of the senior staff. It'll take years for Kira to warm up to him, Odo will never accept him as anything other than a lesser evil and occasional informant, he can't afford to be on the bad side of a THIRD officer.

For that matter, at this early stage she was still in her more intellectual phase, making her even more unappealing to Quark. Feel free to repeat Gaston's speech about reading, thinking women here.

ODO: You're deluding yourself.
QUARK: There's nothing wrong with a good delusion. I sell them upstairs to dozens of people every day.

A good line.

ODO: Dax? She has ten lifetimes worth of friends to call on before she calls you.

Does she, though? Curzon was joined in 2286, so all friends would be his or Jadzia's. And for that matter, would any of Curzon's friends be interested in hanging out with a young woman?

ODO: And every man on the station would like to be buying her a raktajino.
QUARK: Ah, but I'm the one with the raktajino machine.

I'm pretty sure you can replicate raktajino. If not, they needed to establish that.

PRIMMIN: (Starfleet Lieutenant) Interesting technique. Do you always get ready for an important operation by leaking word about it to the local black market?

I NEVER liked Primmin, the guy's an idiot. Furthermore, he shouldn't be here. By all means make sure things coming to and from the station are secure and satisfy regulations, but the Promenade is not his job. It's Odo's job.

As for informing Quark, I think the idea was that such information was going to be leaked to the criminal element anyway. Telling Quark this early allows you to control HOW the information is leaked. This means that you can better predict the actions of the criminal element and stop them.

PRIMMIN: I would like to talk to you about the deuridium shipment from the Gamma Quadrant.

We have established trade routes coming in from the Gamma Quadrant already? I thought that we didn't have established trade relations until the Ferengi/Karemma alliance next year.

Only appearance of deuridium, not to be confused with the metal duridium (like I was).

SISKO: I'm sure almost everyone knows about the shipment by now. Odo was probably making sure Quark knows we know he knows.
PRIMMIN: It's not they way they taught us at the Academy, is it, sir. If you want my opinion
SISKO: Actually, I don't. You and I are guests of the Bajorans, Lieutenant. You don't have to forget what you learned at the Academy, you just don't throw it in anyone's face here.

Exactly.

SISKO: The Kobliad are a dying race. They need deuridium to stabilize their cell structure. It prolongs their lifespan.
DAX: The Federation's been working to supply them with deuridium, but even the new deposits from the Gamma Quadrant aren't enough to service the whole population. It's so scarce that some of the Kobliad have gone underground to get it.

PRIMMIN: Before we get started, I want to apologise for us getting off on the wrong foot.
ODO: Think nothing of it.
PRIMMIN: Listen, I know this is your bailiwick. I don't mean to be throwing my weight around.

Yikes. "Baliwick." They had no right to use that word. Being a complete nerd who likes to study the evolution of language I know what it means (a person's area of expertise or assigned range of influence), but the common man won't. This is the screenwriter being pretentious. Just say "jurisdiction!"

SISKO: But you have to realise that Starfleet is not going to take command of a station in deep space without assigning some security to protect its interests.

I don't have a problem with the basic premise, I have a problem with Primmin taking the job without a comprehensive briefing with Sisko and Odo about who covers what.

KAJADA: I have trouble sleeping. Last night was particularly bad I used an alpha wave inducer to help me.
BASHIR: You should be careful with those. They're only meant for occasional use.

You'd think these things would be programmed to transmit a usage log to the person's doctor. That and have an autoshutoff after X minutes unless the doctor overrides it.

DAX: Here's the hypothesis. The body dies, the consciousness lives on.
BASHIR: In another brain?
DAX: Possible?
BASHIR: The closest thing I've encountered is synaptic pattern displacement. But that's never been done by a non-Vulcan.

Really? Off the top of my head I can think of Sargon's group, Janice Lester, and Roger Korby (and Ira Graves, sort of). It's well established that "souls" can move between bodies.

DAX: Well, it might make sense if you wanted to send a bio-coded message along the glial cells of someone's nervous system all the way to the brain. My guess is that's what Vantika was trying to do.

Glial cells are the part of the central nervous system that transmits impulses between the neurons that do the actual work.

DAX: Julian? Computer, location of Doctor Bashir.
COMPUTER: Doctor Bashir is in the Infirmary.
(He's left his comm. badge behind)

I've ranted enough about how locating via commbadge should only happen when a person is on a planet. On the station sensors should be keeping track of everyone via biosigns. Or at the very least the computer should detect when someone takes off their commbadge.

Memory Alpha

* Primmin was introduced because Colm Meaney was away doing a movie.
* Supposedly this episode was the first time Quark did something blatantly illegal. I'm dubious on that one.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Primmin's actor also appeared back in "Brothers" as an ensign. Phil jokes that they must be the same character who was promoted since then. Except that he played a guy called "Kopf" back then.
* Vantika only wanted the deuridium to prolong the life of his original body. Once he transferred to Bashir he didn't need it anymore, so why is he still trying to steal it?
* This episode establishes the number of Dax hosts at ten, when it was really seven (plus Joran). Oops.
* Mere minutes after saying that tricorders aren't great at IDing dead people, he uses one to declare someone dead. Oops.
* Kira tells the runabout computer to beam four people when runabouts only have two transporter pads. Oops.
* Phil also brings up the replicated raktajino problem. The only explanation he can think of is that you can't replicate iced raktajino.
* Bashir tells someone to use an antigrav generator to move heavy things, but in "Melora" we're told quite clearly that antigrav tech doesn't work on DS9. Oops.

[Nate the Great]

March 14th, 1993, "Move Along Home"

No Fiver

SISKO: You and I have got to have a talk, young man, about women.
JAKE: That's okay.
SISKO: I mean it. There are some things you have got to know.
JAKE: I already know them, Dad.
SISKO: Oh yeah? And who told you?
JAKE: Nog.
SISKO: Nog. So all you know about women you've heard from the Ferengi boy.
JAKE: We were just talking.
SISKO: Swell.

Oh boy, how warped must Nog's ideas of women be at this point?

(Only the Doctor is not in Starfleet dress uniform. Bajorans don't have one.)

Kira is the only one to wear the Bajoran dress uniform, but it won't appear until "Rejoined."

BASHIR: I'm positive I packed my dress uniform. I can't understand it.

Putting aside the fact that dress uniforms should be replicatable, Garak should be able to make one.

QUARK: Oh, what a handsome container. There's an old Ferengi expression. Good things come in small packages.

I can't find an actual Rule that comes close to this. The expression exists around the world, usually of the variant that the best version of something comes in the smallest package.

FALOW: Klon peags. Highly sought in our culture. They have many different uses.
QUARK: I'm sorry, but I have enough sticks right now.

Quark is being an idiot here. Ferengi must know that what's worthless in one culture can have value in another. In fact, it's good business to be informed about the value of everything. At the very least he should ask what these "sticks" are. Maybe they're a valuable spice (did you know that genuine cinnamon is twice as expensive as the related cassia that can do the same job in most cases?). Maybe they have narcotic or medicinal properties.

(Another aide brings Quark a bottle and glass)
QUARK: What's this?
FALOW: Alpha-currant nectar. It's priceless.
(She pours Quark a drink, but his face says he wants to spit it out again)
QUARK: One man's priceless is another man's worthless.

Ugh. He sells root beer all the time and thinks it tastes awful. Ferengi would know that different races have different taste buds. Ugh.

FALOW: Then, we really have nothing to wager, except this.
(And pours out a pouch of gem stones. Quark summons a waiter.)

This is the most stupid of all. By the 23rd century it's possible to replicate any gemstone we like. While I have no doubt they'll still have value, the potential is less than the other stuff.

SISKO: Nog is older than you, Jake. He stays up later. He probably does things, things with girls for instance, you're not ready for yet.

As a matter of fact, Nog is two years older than Jake. He was born the same year as Jack Crusher's death, Riker and Geordi entering Starfleet Academy, Ziyal was born, and Kira's mother died.

SISKO: Great. Just great. I've done nothing for the past six hours but eat Ferengi lokar beans and watch people play childish games.

Lokar beans will remain the complimentary bar food of choice until Pel convinces him to replace them with Gramalian sand peas.

KIRA: Behavioural test? Now wait a minute.
DAX: There doesn't seem to be any immediate threat, Major.
KIRA: Oh, no. I'm sure all you Starfleet explorers find this fascinating, but I'm a Bajoran administrator. This is not what I signed up for.

At this point Kira calls herself an administrator? She should still call herself a soldier!

ODO: Computer, confirm that Commander Sisko is not on the station.
COMPUTER: Confirmed.
ODO: What time did he log out?
COMPUTER: That information is not on file.

Ugh. "Commander Sisko's commbadge stopped responding at X:00 hours."

PRIMMIN: Constable Odo. Good morning to you.
ODO: Where's Major Kira?
PRIMMIN: Didn't report for duty on time this morning. None of the senior officers did.
ODO: And you don't find that odd?
PRIMMIN: I heard that Wadi party went on all night.

Primmin's not worried? And this is the guy who was a stick in the mud about Starfleet procedure last week?

QUARK: But you haven't even told me the rules yet.
FALOW: You're required to learn as you play.

That's stupid. Quark should've called off the game at this point.

ODO: Wouldn't your scans pick up human life signs on their ship?
PRIMMIN: Usually, but we've never encountered Wadi technology before.

Why is Primmin acting as Science Officer? I would've preferred Primmin not being in the episode at all if it meant giving his lines to a Bajoran officer. Perhaps someone who contrasts with Kira and could be a recurring character.

FALOW: No, Quark. I'm afraid all your players were lost.
KIRA: What? You mean we were never in any real danger?
FALOW: It's only a game.

I always hated this reveal. Falow should show some guilt, or at least callousness.

Memory Alpha

* In the script Bashir was going to have Garak make a uniform for him, but Dax thought that it wouldn't be appropriate.
* Dax was going to be in "Birthright" (a much more logical cameo), but since Bashir "died" first in this episode he got to do it instead.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Why is Sisko so nervous about First Contact with the Wadi when the Vulcans already did that in the Gamma Quadrant?
* The Vulcans recommended Quark's to the Wadi?
* Phil seems to think that if a commbadge can't establish a commline with the desired party, it should make a link with any commbadge found in range. I'm dubious at this. Maybe there would be a separate vocal command for this, but it wouldn't be the default.
* Why is Sisko wearing a TNG dress uniform instead of a DS9 one?

[Nate the Great]

March 22nd, 1993, "The Nagus"

Fiver by Derek

The Episode

SISKO: The two of us are going to Bajor for the start of the Gratitude Festival.
JAKE: What's the Gratitude Festival?
SISKO: It's the biggest Bajoran holiday of the year.

The Gratitude Festival will return in the third, fifth, and sixth seasons.

SISKO: And I figured, while we were on the surface, we could visit those fire caverns you've been wanting to see.
JAKE: Sounds great.

This will be the only reference to "fire caverns", they'll be replaced by the Fire Caves for the rest of the series. Given that anyone who visits runs the risk of being posessed by a Pah-wraith, I don't think they should be treated like a standard tourist location. Please don't tell me that Sisko is abusing his Emissary privileges to get access.

JAKE: Thanks, Dad. Nog and I kind of have plans for tomorrow.
...
SISKO: Let me get this straight. You would rather hang around a cargo bay with Nog than visit the Bajoran fire caverns with the old man?

I understand the parent-child conflict, but this is ridiculous. Sisko doesn't go to Bajor every day, and Jake can hang out with Nog in the cargo bay anytime. The anti-grav tractors will be here when you get back!

It would've been so much better if Jake was doing something that actually had a time limit on it.

O'BRIEN: Let's take out our homework PADDs. We'll begin with the older students. Your last assignment was to write an essay defining the term 'ethics.' Let's start with Nog.

Just "ethics"? That seems awfully open-ended. In fact, you could write a doctoral thesis about such a broad topic.

NOG: I don't have my essay.
O'BRIEN: Why not?
NOG: My PADD was stolen.

This is just painful. The Internet may have been in it's infancy in 1993, but it DID exist. Even if wireless computer connections were a distant dream, the concept of synching a PADD with the station computer via some sort of cable must've existed.

Let's address this ludicrous notion that Nog doesn't know how to read yet. Not only would the Ferengi value literacy for business purposes, there isn't a chance in Gre'thor that Keiko wouldn't have noticed this by now. She would've done a proper evaluation of every child's current education needs in order to create her curriculum.

NOG: There are four teen
JAKE: Fourteen planets.
(Sisko sneaks in, staying hidden behind barrels, and watches the reading lesson)
NOG: Planets in the Bajoran. What's that word?
JAKE: System.
NOG: System.
JAKE: That was pretty good. Want to try some more?
NOG: The lar, largest planet is Bajor. It has three moons?
JAKE: You got it. Keep going, keep going.
NOG: The third moon, it has

Doing research into the Bajoran system revealed some amazing oddities. The planet Bajor is the eleventh from the star. The station, the Denorios Belt, and the wormhole are between the ninth and tenth planet. Which is ludicrous, as I think we all assumed that the station and the wormhole were outside the system, the equivalent of our Kuiper Belt.

Presuming that the wormhole doesn't orbit the star, neither does the station. So do they have to dodge the orbiting asteroids all the time? Furthermore, if the wormhole is firmly within the star system, why did they have to move the station to stake a claim?

ROM: According to Krax, Stakoron Two contains rich deposits of mizanite ore.

This is a typo, the ore is actually called "mizinite." It only reappeared in "Statistical Probabilities." This might be a typo for moissanite, a crystalline form of silicon carbide that is useful for making semiconductors and other electronic components that would otherwise use diamonds. It would make sense that this stuff would still be useful in the 24th century.

KRAX: But why, father?
ZEK: It was a test to see if you were ready to take my place. And you failed miserably.

The idea that Grand Nagus is a heriditary title is ridiculous. Given what we know of Ferengi society, it would be most logical to assume that succession is created from a rival proving himself a better businessman. A corporate overthrow, not an inheritance.

The Fiver

Krax: May I present the Grand Nagus!
Quark and Rom: Inconceivable!
Zek: Why does everyone always say that to me?

Must be the giant behind you...

Jake: Why weren't you in school this morning? Vulcans steal your homework again?
Nog: Take your human witticism and bury it.

I know this is a reference to something, but I forget where in Trek.

Sisko: Woohoo! So wanna go see the firecaves now?
Jake: Geez, will you stop asking me that?
Sisko: I'll go see those firecaves if it's the last thing I do!

Actually it won't be, the novels make it clear that Sisko returns to his human form in time to see his daugher's birth.

Quark: Zek, help me! Someone wants my head!
Zek: If he gets it, then you'll be dead.
Quark: No more rhymes now, I mean it.
Zek: Anybody want a -- GAK!

The rhyming should've been by someone other than Zek to fit the Princess Bride theme. And I thought "Gak" was for actual deaths, "Ack" was for fake deaths.

Jadzia: Why so glum, chum?
Sisko: It's six o'clock and I don't know where my child is.
Jadzia: Uh, we have a computer. You can find out from it.

This is a reference to a series of PSAS from the '60s through the '80s. Pop culture references in the '90s were relatively common.

Nog: "A is for Apple. J is for Jacks. --"
Jake: Good grief. Are you really this illiterate?
Nog: Hey! I'm not illiterate, I know exactly who my parents are.

A illiterate/illegitimate pun was also used in the "Reduced Shakespeare Radio Show." I recommend it.

Krax: Zek? But you died! I saw you!
Zek: I know, that's what's so funny! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!
Krax: Inconceivable!

No room for a play on the rest of the line? "Never let Federation citizens live in Cardassian space", "Never go in against a Zakdorn unless you're an android", etc.

Memory Alpha

* First appearance of the Rules of Acquisition.
* For some reason O'Brien returned from Earth before Keiko (they left in "Dax" so celebrate her mother's 100th birthday).
* Molly's age is stated as three when she was only born a year and a half ago.

Nitpicker's Guide

* How can O'Brien be subbing in school when fixing the station is a full-time job?
* Zek says "nine o'clock" instead of "nine hundred hours." The Universal Translator must be on the fritz.
* If the title of Grand Nagus is hereditary, wouldn't Rom be next after Quark, not Krax?
* Krax sold vacuum-dessicated parts of Zek, but Zek didn't die! Who was Krax selling?
* This episode says that Bajor has three moons, but in "Progress" a fifth moon is mentioned. Oops.
* Somehow the holosuites aren't soundproof in this episode. That seems rather icky.
* In "Dax" the computer could only locate someone with a commbadge, yet in this episode it can find Jake, who doesn't wear one. Oops. Maybe they moved the comprehensive internal sensor upgrades up to the top of the list after that debacle.