“Penumbra”
Written by Rene Echevarria
Directed by Steve Posey
Season 7, Episode 17
Production episode 40510-567
Original air date: April 7, 1999
Stardate: 52576.2
Station log: Sisko has purchased land in the Kendra Valley on Bajor and he intends to build a house on it as soon as the war is over. Yates likes the idea very much, and Sisko thinks that he was meant to come here. Yates points out that the circumstances of his birth—that his conception was manipulated by the Prophets—makes “destiny” more than a concept.
Dax, Bashir, and O’Brien’s conversation in the replimat is interrupted by Kira, who reports that the Rotarran and the Koraga were ambushed near the Badlands. Worf was in command of the Koraga, and it was destroyed, and of the six lifepods the Rotarran recovered, Worf wasn’t in any of them. The Defiant is aiding in the search, but three days of looking turn up nothing, and a Dominion patrol forces them to cut the search short.
Back on Cardassia, Damar has to explain to Weyoun why the Defiant spent so long searching: the Federation doesn’t consider its soldiers to be expendable, which leads to him snarking off Weyoun about the number of Cardassian casualties suffered in the war. Weyoun then orders Damar to set up a secure independent comlink in the female changeling’s quarters, for reasons Damar is not at liberty to know.
Dax goes to Worf’s quarters—which he shared with Jadzia—and is flooded with memories of Jadzia and Worf’s time together. Then she steals the Runabout Gander and heads for the Badlands. Sisko decides to let her go, since she’d never forgive him if he dragged her back to DS9. She notices that the Rotarran only recovered escape pods from the Koraga’s starboard side. Assuming a port-side pod was ejected, the Gander computer projects a course to the Badlands. Dax duplicates that course, and then cuts the engine so that the runabout will be buffeted about the same way the pod would have been.
Worried about Dax and Worf, Sisko can’t sleep, so he works on a scale model of the house he wants to build. And then he proposes to Yates because he wants the house to be theirs, not his.
After getting even queasier than usual bouncing around the Badlands, Dax finds Worf’s pod and beams him aboard. It’s incredibly awkward on the runabout as she tends to his wounds. They try to have a conversation which starts out pleasant—Dax gets him to admit that he sang Klingon opera while alone in the pod—but gets nasty because Worf is uncomfortable with any conversation that connects to Jadzia. They’re interrupted by two Jem’Hadar ships which destroy the runabout, though they’re able to transport down to a planet before it explodes. But now they’re stranded…
Weyoun reports to the female changeling that the latest attempt to cure the disease that is affecting the Great Link has failed. She orders the Vorta doctors working on the problem to be killed and their clones activated, hoping a fresh(ish) perspective might help. She also provides another sample by taking a flaky bit off her face, which turns green rather than the usual amber in the sample case.
Sisko gets Jake’s blessing for the wedding—which of course he gives, since he set the two of them up in the first place—and Jake agrees to be his best man. Yates and Sisko’s plans for a nice small wedding are complicated by the realization that the entirety of Bajor is excited about the Emissary getting married.
Dukat comes to visit Damar, asking for his help. He needs to be surgically altered to look Bajoran, and Damar provides a surgeon to perform the procedure.
Worf and Dax have been stranded for six days. Sick of field rations, Worf has gone hunting, to Dax’s annoyance. They continue to bicker and argue—and then they kiss and have sex. Because of course they do. And then, during their post-coital snuggle, they’re captured by the Breen. They wake up in a Breen holding cell, which is confusing to them as a) the Breen aren’t at war with the Federation and b) they’re a long way from Breen territory.
Sisko gets a vision from the Prophets, telling him that Yates can’t walk the same path as Sisko, cannot share his destiny. If he marries her, the Prophets explain, he will know nothing but sorrow. Which puts a damper on the whole wedding thing.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko has a busy episode: he buys land, plans a house, successfully proposes to Yates, plans the wedding, forgets that he’s the Emissary and so must have a huge-ass wedding, gets his son to be best man, and is told by the wormhole aliens that if he marries the woman he just proposed to, he’ll be miserable.
The slug in your belly: Dax remembers dialogue from “Time’s Orphan,” “You Are Cordially Invited,” “Change of Heart,” and “Call to Arms” when she’s wandering through Worf’s quarters. In the end, she decides to fulfill Jadzia’s marriage vow.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf occupies himself by singing Klingon opera in the escape pod and then kills a local predator for dinner, to Dax’s disgust. He considers it a point of pride that he didn’t use a phaser, but an improvised spear.
Rules of Acquisition: Quark tries to cheer Dax up by saying that Worf had to have survived because he hadn’t yet paid Quark for the three barrels of bloodwine he bought for the Koraga crew before they went out to battle. There’s no way Worf would go to Sto-Vo-Kor owing Quark money, it’d ruin the afterlife for him, knowing Quark had something over on him.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Dax and Worf spend six days arguing over a lot of nonsense, including Worf’s inexplicable jealousy over Jadzia’s relationship with Captain Boday. And then they have sex. Because that’s totally how that works.
For Cardassia! For the second time, Damar reminds Weyoun about how many Cardassian lives have been lost in the war, and unlike the Jem’Hadar, they can’t just breed replacements in a factory.
Victory is life: The Founders have confided in the Vorta as to the disease they’re suffering, but not the Cardassians, as the female changeling doesn’t trust them.
Keep your ears open: “Personally, I don’t know what Jadzia ever saw in the man.”
“Well—his brains.”
Bashir and O’Brien on Captain Boday, whose head is transparent.
Welcome aboard: Recurring regulars Marc Alaimo (Dukat), Casey Biggs (Damar), Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun), Salome Jens (the female changeling), Penny Johnson (Yates), and Deborah Lacey (the image of Sarah) return, as does Michelle Horn as Saghi (last seen in “Tears of the Prophets”).
In addition, we get the voices of Terry Farrell and Shannon Cochran when Dax waxes nostalgic in Worf’s quarters.
Trivial matters: This episode commences the final storyline of the series, as the remainder of the season and the series is one big-ass nine-part story to tie it all up.
Weyoun makes reference to a Son’a ketracel-white facility. It was established in the movie Insurrection that the Son’a were working with the Dominion.
Sisko first mentioned the notion of building a house on Bajor to Ross in “Favor the Bold.”
Sisko still has the picture of young Joseph and Sarah that Jake found in “Image in the Sand,” and Worf still keeps his wedding photo with Jadzia from “You Are Cordially Invited” next to his bed.
Jake set Sisko and Yates up in “Explorers” and “Family Business.”
Damar comments that the female changeling looked ill the last time he saw her, which was in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River,” which is when it was revealed that the Founders were suffering a disease. It’s telling that the female changeling—who didn’t realize the disease was physically obvious until the legate pointed it out—has avoided Damar since.
Damar and Dukat make reference to the events of “Tears of the Prophets,” with Damar concerned that Dukat did not fulfill his promise to Weyoun in that episode, while Dukat professes his belief in the Pah-wraiths to still be strong, even after what happened in “Covenant.”
Boday was previously referred to “The Maquis, Part I,” “Let He Who is Without Sin…,” and “Resurrection.” He remains tragically unseen.
Worf refers to the Trill provision against joined hosts getting involved with people with whom previous hosts were intimate, as revealed in “Rejoined.”
Dax reminds Worf that he encouraged her to stay on the station in “Afterimage.”
Walk with the Prophets: “Stay on the path, Benjamin.” And so begins the climax of DS9 as a series, with an ongoing storyline over this and the following eight episodes.
Several balls are tossed in the air to be juggled, adding on to the ones we’ve already got. We pick up on the peculiarity of Sisko’s parentage, as revealed in “Image in the Sand” and “Shadows and Symbols,” including a really bizarre conversation where Yates assures Sisko that she’s totally okay with the Prophets kidnapping a woman against her will and forcing her into a relationship and pregnancy. (Seriously, did it occur to no one that Sisko’s birth as described made him the product of a rape?) Then the Prophets themselves, instead of communicating the way they always have, instead appear only as Sarah, with her referring to him as her son and calling him “Benjamin,” thus continuing latter-era DS9’s boring-ification (I just made that word up) of the wormhole aliens. Screwing with his marriage plans is probably the latest attempt at a penance for Sisko strong-arming them into wiping out the Jem’Hadar fleet in “Sacrifice of Angels,” since their attempt to get him to sacrifice his son’s life failed in “The Reckoning.” But still, this whole plot is just a disaster, oversimplifying a complex alien species to create artificial drama.
The Dominion triad of the female changeling, Weyoun, and Damar continues to sparkle, and it’s obviously approaching a breaking point, as Damar’s drinking increases at the same rate as Cardassian casualties. Unlike Dukat, Damar doesn’t have any particular reason to want the Dominion around, and he’s more and more coming to realize that it was a deal with the devil. To add insult to injury, the female changeling views the Cardassians as allies of convenience at best, certainly not to be trusted. It’s not a tenable alliance, and we get the beginnings of its fraying at the seams.
That leaves us with the focus of the episode, Dax and Worf. The tension between the two of them from “Afterimage” has been largely avoided, except for one scene each in “Once More Unto the Breach” and “Field of Fire,” and it finally explodes here. Worf is at his most dickish here, and it’s impossible to feel any sympathy for him—though the poor bastard did spend several days alone in an escape pod. Dax’s actions in feeling the obligations of a previous host were at least totally in character, as we’ve seen this before, first in “Blood Oath” where she insisted on living up to Curzon’s promise to Kang, Kor, and Koloth, even though Kira and Kang both reminded her that she didn’t have to, and then in “Rejoined” where she was pushing Kahn to pick up where they left off under previous hosts.
And then there’s the big question: why did the Breen take Worf and Dax prisoner?
Ultimately, this episode feels like exactly what it is: setting up the final arc. The problem with this particular epic story is that it’s still also made up of nine episodes, and this one fails to actually be an entirely successful episode of a TV show independent of the arc. (Other parts will do better in this regard.)
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido reminds everyone that several of his works are eligible to be nominated for the Hugo and/or the Nebula Awards, so if you’re a recent or upcoming World Science Fiction Convention member and/or a member of the Science-fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, please consider nominating one of Keith’s works. A full list can be seen here, and Keith will supply copies to eligible nominators.
I clearly didn’t pick up on the comment the first time, since I don’t remember it. Damar’s comment to Weyoun here, however, was, in hindsight, a painfully clunky way of bringing us to the establishment of the Dominion decision to dispose of the Cardassians. That’s a lot of caveats, but still.
Generally I agree with Keith.
– The Worf/Dax plot had some potential, then it got cliche (although, I expected Worf to start complaining immediately after capture that he should have been on guard, it was his fault, etc.).
– The aliens were more direct and less intriguing than they used to be.
– The whole Sarah thing was hashed through in the commments at the beginning of the season, I have no desire to revisit them.
– And, finally, I find it fascinating that a throwaway extra like Damar could turn out to be a more compelling villian than Dukat. I remember the first time I watched DS9 and how annoyed I was by his rise, but he turns into what Dukat should have been. It’s no knock against Biggs as an actor, but Alaimo is just solid in this series (even when he gets awful scripts).
I never really understood the reasoning for the Breen to join the Dominion. They were always the mysterious guys with masks. Feels a little X-Files-esque to me. A convenient plot device.
As for their capturing Dax and Worf, the only reason I can think of is that they might not have wanted them to stumble across schematics or plans for their electromagnetic pulse weapon. That would assume they had a base on that planet, of course. And they don’t seem like the most diplomatic bunch either. I don’t see a Breen council debating the legality of kidnapping lone starfleet officers.
It’s a setup episode, obviously. I do enjoy Sisko’s willingness to find a home on Bajor though. Very character-centric episode, still light on plot.
Ugh. KRAD hit on all the many reasons I don’t like this episode; I’m surprised, then, that it still pulled off a 6.
The exception being the beginning of Damar’s redemptive plot. That part is awesome, thanks to all three of Damar/Weyoun/Salome’s Changeling.
@1: Wait, I’m confused. You praise Biggs’ acting as what Alaimo should have done, but then say Alaimo’s acting was better? (Personally, I have no complaints about either of them; I actually really like that we get one Cardassian leader sinking into the depths of depravity, while another grows a valiant spine.)
@2: I imagine the Breen-joining reasoning was: (a) they’d been mentioned several times and the writers felt like they had an outstanding obligation to flesh out the race a bit before the series ended; (b) it makes the Dominion more threatening if they are, in fact, still finding willing allies in the Alpha Quadrant; and (c) they need an excuse for the Dominion to have a snazzy new anti-ship weapon very soon for the sake of a certain subplot.
@3: I think the main reason for bringing in the Breen was to establish that the Dominion saw Cardassia as disposable — not the partners they’d promised, but just a stepping-stone toward their conquest of the quadrant, to be tossed aside as soon as they’d outlived their usefulness (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor). It was a motivator for Damar’s — and Cardassia’s — journey toward rebellion.
@@.-@: That’s as good an explanation as it gets. I was thinking more in terms of plotting rather than character, but it makes sense when you think about the Breen from Damar’s point of view.
The continued fracturing of the Cardassian/Dominion alliance in the Final Chapter’s kickoff only serves to highlight what, in retrospect, was an obvious and central flaw of the Founders’ military policy.
Their dismissive attitude towards Solids has long been reflected in their treatment of the Jem’Hadar and the Vorta. To administer and police their empire, they selected races that could clone and genetically engineer at will. These servants are clearly viewed as mere military hardware and are easily replaceable.
Now, that’s what allowed them to maintain momentum against the Alpha Quadrant powers. It also helped them conquer the Gamma Quadrant. But…it also means that by viewing their servants as easily replaceable, they lost the ability to value their soldiers’ and followers’ worth.
The Jem’Hadar and the Vorta don’t mind thanks to their genetic programming. But the Cardassians, who have to replace their soldiers the old-fashioned way, DO care. And for a usually psychologically savvy foe, the Dominion’s inability to understand or care about the Cardassian psychology and pride is staggering.
But it shows the other big flaw of the Founders’ policies: They’ve been TOO successful. They’ve been at this for so long that they naturally expect all Solids to fall into line and follow their orders.
And that’s what makes what’s to come all the more satisfying because the Founders have shot themselves in the foot big time – and even at the bitter end, they STILL can’t understand it.
I personally disliked several aspects of this one. The Worf/Dax plot was way too cliche (fighting always leads to make-up sex) even it did feature Ezri. The Breen are the least interesting villans ever. Oooh, they wear masks and we never see them! Zzzzzzzzz. And “boring-ification” is the perfect word for the wormhole alien plot. The one part of this final arc that I did like was Damar. I think they did a great job showing his growing disaffection and eventual rebellion. He came a long way from the hot-headed exec for Dukat to where he ended.
Not too many deep thoughts on this one. I really like Worf’s hair in it, though.
A bit of trivia not mentioned, arising from my own confusion while watching the episode yesterday:
I noticed the captions calling Dax’s runabout Ganges even though not only is that not what she was saying, but the Ganges got destroyed a long time ago. How could the captioners possibly have picked up the name of a different runabout?! According to Memory Alpha, this was actually a scripting mistake – they called it the Ganges until they remembered that one wasn’t available anymore. Captioners often work from scripts, so Ganges stuck, even though the name was dubbed to Gander in post-production. (The DVD subtitles unhelpfully complicate the situation by spelling it Ganda.)
And that, ladies and gents, is how we got a runabout with the name of a goose.
@8 Or one of the rivers called “Gander“.
As for the episode. This season continues to be this season. Oh well, at least it isn’t Enterprise.
@5: “I was thinking more in terms of plotting rather than character, but it
makes sense when you think about the Breen from Damar’s point of view.”
It’s a safe bet that any protege of Michael Piller is going to approach any story decision in terms of character first and foremost. When I pitched DS9 proposals to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, the one thing he stressed relentlessly was, “How does this affect our characters?” I learned a lot from that pitch session, even though I didn’t sell anything.
@8: That was an odd decision, to redub the name. If they could have a second Defiant just a few episodes later, why couldn’t they have a second Ganges?
Still, it explains why that runabout had such an odd name. Neither Gander River seems like a major waterway, and it is too similar to Ganges.
As a Cincinnatian, I’m disappointed that they never had a runabout Ohio…
@3 – what I meant was that while Biggs took the throwaway Damar and made him compelling, Alaimo’s work as Dukat was even more incredible. What was disappointing was that the writers gave the latter an awful arc to work with. Similarly, Russell Wilson is a solid quarterback, but can you imagine how gaudy Johnny U’s numbers would be with today’s rules?
@8 – I was wondering about that. I saw that the subtitles had Ganges, and I assumed that the actors were being directed to use the original Ganga pronunciation. It was kind of painful to listen to, so when Keith used Gander, I assumed it was just a transcription error.
@10, you can see Piller’s philosophy in the first two seasons of Voyager. It wasn’t perfectly executed, but at least it was there.
Once he left, all bets were off and true, long-lasting character pieces were few and far between.
Am I the only person who thought of gold member then weyoun peeled the skin off the female founder? That’s a keeper…
@13: You are not the only one who thought of Goldmember. I really wish they had made her give a sample from her finger instead of off her face.
I don’t really like the concept of cutting the engines and drifting to the same spot as the escape pod. I’m not sure how the Badlands are supposed to work, but this implies that the pattern of storms and the currents and eddies are consistent. If that’s the case, then they should be able to map the badlands and not need super good pilots to go into them.
I wonder if the inclusion of the Badlands here in the kickoff was meant to be a final reflection of the pivotal role they’d played in the saga (and for Voyager, too).
On top of the borification of the Prophets, their prophecy in this episode makes little sense. Presumably the “sorrow” they’re talking about is what happens to Sisko in the final episode…? But I don’t see how those events would’ve been any less sad if Yates was “only” Sisko’s girlfriend and not his wife? Wouldn’t they still have loved each other just as much? It seems like the wormhole aliens are being dicks, trying to cancel Sisko’s marriage just to fuck with him, because the two of them getting married doesn’t actually change Sisko’s fate in any way.
@16: Yup, you’re right. Doesn’t make much sense. This wasn’t lost on the writers, either. A fair amount of space in the Deep Space Nine Companion is devoted to the writing of the final arc, and they lament how they didn’t find a more satisfying way to resolve the issue of the “sorrow prophecy.”
Christopher: In seven years, they never repeated a river name for a runabout. To start now would’ve appeared to be a mistake.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@18: Although the Rio Grande crashed in “The Ascent” and reappeared later. The ship was intact enough after its crash that we can assume it was salvaged, but it was never made explicit in the episode itself.
And my notes from some years back (before I started relying on Memory Alpha and Beta for everything) say that the Mekong was mentioned in “The Sword of Kahless” after it was abandoned in “The Die is Cast” and replaced by the Rubicon in “Family Business.” But I can’t find any confirmation of that anywhere else, so I probably have it wrong in my notes. I wonder why I thought that.
Regarding “Gander” being a river as well as a goose – yes, of course. But I suspect most people think “male goose” and then realize “but all the runabouts are named for rivers, so it must be a river, too.”
Also, as Christopher noted, both Gander Rivers are quite small, not on the level of any of the other rivers with runabouts named for them. I think the Danube itself would have been a better choice – it would read as closely to “Ganges” on the lips as “Gander” does, and there’s plenty of precedent for ships of a class carrying the name of the class (Constellation, Defiant).
@20: Hmm, “Danube” wouldn’t dub over “Ganges” that well because the lips close at the end to pronounce the B.
I can’t think of any other two-syllable names that might have worked, except maybe the Huang He (the Yellow River). “Zambezi” would almost work, except it’s got the same “B” problem in the middle.
@21: It works as well as Gander – with “Ganges” the lips form a different shape on the ges vs. the der. :)
@22: Yes, but the lips are still open in both cases, so it’s a subtler difference that can be more easily overlooked if you aren’t watching for it. Of course any different-sounding word is going to have some difference in the lip shape, so this is a question of degree.
@23: Just rewatched the single scene where she says “Gander” on screen. It’s so obviously not “Gander,” it’s hilarious. I suppose “Danube” might have been a little more obvious, but I still think it would have been a better story choice. :)
I am finding that the comments are pretty much off limits to me right now, so we’re going to have to push through the last episodes and then I can come back. So far we’ve only made it through the next two. But, some thoughts:
1)It bugged the hell out of me that they kept talking about Sisko as being ‘half-Prophet’ or as the Prophets as his mother, etc. Um, no. He’s totally human, a Prophet just possed his mother, used her sexually, and then abandoned her, which is super gross. Gah. I honestly would have preferred it if it turned out Sarah actually was an ‘incarnate’ Prophet (as trope-y as that may be) because the actual explanation actually does make the Prophets kind of evil, in my opinion.
2)I liked that Ezri went off for Worf, and is struggling with her memories/old feelings for him. That could be interesting. I did not like that, once again, Worf is portrayed as this completely one-sided jerk who slut shames his former wife for having lovers before him. And then they have sex. OMG.
3)Bajoran Dukat. Ha! So, I had been a bit spoiled for the fact that Winn and Dukat have a relationship, and this makes so much more sense now…
4)I don’t really think that the episode suffers from the setup-ish format. I’m pretty interested in what happens next, at any rate.
5)It would be nice if the Prophets could give some reason/explanation for their telling him not to marry Kasidy (which totally put a damper on my squeeing over that plotline, btw). I actually didn’t catch that it was possibly just a test or a penance for their help in the wormhole. If so, what do they gain from that, aside from making him suffer? Or is there an actual reason Sisko needs to be unattached? Given how we’ve seen that they have no compunction about using humans and then abandoning them, I am not super inclined to think they actually care about him or his happiness on a personal level. (Maybe the pah-wraiths are in the right after all, haha!)
Keith: Don’t forget to mention the original titles for the following two episodes: Umbra (Til Death do us Part) and Eclipse (Strange Bedfellows).
I love the name Gander for the runabout, but that’s because I am Canadian, and very attached to Newfoundland. Perhaps they were recognising Nicole DeBoer’s Canadian heritage as they looked for a new name? I enjoyed hearing Gander, though if that was the case, St. Lawrence would have been a good Canadian choice, though not fitting Ganges/Gander/Danube.
Coming back here, post-“Dogs of War,” to note that they may not have ever reused a runabout name, but reusing Defiant was apparently just fine…
I can’t help it. I like that Worf and Ezri hooked up. Does anyone else do a double-take every time the female Founder shows up? She looks like Odo in drag.
Finally reached the Final 8 in my rewatch.
Worf really has reached the pinnacle of his jackassery in this episode although I have a little sympathy because Ezri is annoying. She has that habit of running her mouth and turning off her filter when she’s nervous. It must be a little galling for Worf to know that she’s carrying Jadzia’s memories. The fighting-leading-to-sex bit bothered me 20 years ago and hasn’t gotten any better. DS9 is still my favorite of all the Trek series but now I see some of the really bad days the writers had.
I’m also seeing some good reasons for the Trill prohibition on re-associations. Is it Ezri who really wants to be with Worf or Jadzia? Would Ezri choose to be with Worf if she hadn’t been joined? If the symbiont is the one calling the shots, is this any better than the Prophet taking over Sarah Sisko and forcing her into a relationship and childbirth?
The dramatic surgical alterations that some of these characters go through to appear as other species has always bothered me. Human to Klingon / Romulan / Andorian isn’t too much of a problem but making Arn Darvan look human (although we don’t know what he looked like as Klingon) and making Dukat look like a Bajoran just stretches my disbelief too far. Also, why didn’t he do that when he was leading the Pah Wraith cultists?
Tell you what – the Prophets accused Sisko of being “intrusive” but they’re taking a lot on themselves by telling him he shouldn’t get married. Later, they even intrude just as he’s saying his vows. Their seventh season arc stripped away some of their appeal. Then for Sisko to cave into that was just sad.
I was kinda hoping that it would end up being a Pah Wraith appearing as Sarah just pretending to be a prophet, but no such luck I guess.
If the symbiont is the one calling the shots, is this any better than the Prophet taking over Sarah Sisko and forcing her into a relationship and childbirth?
That’s an excellent point. The depiction of the Trill symbiont has changed. In TNG’s “The Host,” the host seemed to be nothing but a chassis to carry the symbiont around, its mind totally suppressed, like those taken by Goa’uld in Stargate SG-1
With Jadzia and now Ezri (and continuing with Adira in Star Trek: Discovery) the symbiont itself seems to be little more than a database of memories that the host can draw on, while still being their own person.
If there’s an official writer’s guide to the Trill, carved in stone and passed down from series to series, I can’t divine what its decrees might be. Or should be.
@32/terracinque: “In TNG’s “The Host,” the host seemed to be nothing but a chassis to carry the symbiont around, its mind totally suppressed, like those taken by Goa’uld in Stargate SG-1”
Rather, I think the intent was that the humanoid Trill hosts had low intelligence to begin with. The unjoined host we saw seemed very dull-witted and passive, as if she were just a trained animal, a horse awaiting its rider. I think the writers of “The Host” saw it as the symbiont being the brain and the host just being the body. It was DS9 that redefined it as two brains merging into one.
“With Jadzia and now Ezri (and continuing with Adira in Star Trek: Discovery) the symbiont itself seems to be little more than a database of memories that the host can draw on, while still being their own person.”
I think that’s greatly understating the importance of the symbiont. We saw in “Invasive Procedures” how much Verad’s personality altered when he was joined with Dax, how much smarter and more confident and charismatic he became, while Jadzia without Dax seemed much younger, weaker, more vulnerable. And we saw in “Facets” how many of Jadzia’s interests, habits, and attitudes were shaped by her former hosts.
“If there’s an official writer’s guide to the Trill, carved in stone and passed down from series to series, I can’t divine what its decrees might be. Or should be.”
There’s the prototype version depicted in “The Host” and the revised, very different version developed for DS9 and used ever since. Think of “The Host” as a “pilot” for the concept of the Trill. A lot of stuff that was tried out in the pilot got rejected and wasn’t kept for the later version, just like the characters and set and costume designs in “The Cage.”
@33 And does anything we’ve seen before explain what’s going on with Gray?
terracinque: What’s happening with Gray is very similar to the manner in which Ezri summoned an image of Joran in “Field of Fire.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@35 Yes it is! That didn’t even cross my mind when I rewatched “Field of Fire” a few days ago.
The Gander may have been named for a river, but the sound editor chose a goose call for its critical failure alert.
Extremely minor nitpick. In the scene where Ezri cuts the engines to the runabout hoping the currents from the plasma storms will lead her to Worf, why does the inside of the ship start shaking… She cut the engines, she didn’t cut the structural integrity field or the inertial dampeners.