“The Jem’Hadar”
Written by Ira Steven Behr
Directed by Kim Friedman
Season 2, Episode 26
Production episode 40512-446
Original air date: June 12, 1994
Stardate: 47987.5
Station log: Jake is doing a science project for school involving Bajoran katterpods. Sisko challenges him to do something a bit more impressive, and asks what his dream science project would be. His answer (after learning to pilot a runabout, which Sisko quashes) is a planetary survey in the Gamma Quadrant, and Sisko decides that they should do it, as a working father-son vacation.
Kira and Dax go over stuff with Sisko, then Jake comes in and says that Nog’s having trouble coming up with a science project, so he’s going to partner with Jake—which means joining them in the GQ. Sisko isn’t at all happy about having a third wheel in his father-son bonding trip, but Jake guilts him masterfully—if he doesn’t do well on this project, he’s going to drop out; he’s my friend, I have to help him—and Sisko agrees.
Odo gleefully informs Quark that Sisko has refused his request to use the monitors to sell ads. Nog then tells Quark he needs to take some shifts off so he can go to the GQ with the Siskos, and Quark pounces on the opportunity to change Sisko’s mind about the ads by going along, under the guise of being Nog’s chaperone, also guilting Sisko by saying that Rom thinks that humans look down on Ferengi, and Quark going along will prove him wrong, right?
Sisko bows to the inevitable with a rueful smile, and off they go into the wild blue yonder. They go to a pastoral world in the GQ, which Sisko thinks is as close to paradise as you’re going to get and which Quark thinks is just icky (he’s got an itch behind his ears). Quark also tries and fails to sell Sisko on ads. Then Sisko checks on Jake and Nog, who are doing a fine job with the mineral survey. Later that night, Sisko cooks jambalaya, which everyone but Quark likes. The Siskos’ reminiscence about a past camping trip that they took with Jennifer is interrupted by Quark setting himself on fire. Nog and Jake run off, and Quark and Sisko get into an argument.
A woman comes running into the campsite, hitting Sisko with a telekinetic attack, then warning them about the Jem’Hadar—a bunch of soldiers then phase into existence and capture Sisko, Quark, and the woman, whose name is Eris. She’s shocked to learn that Sisko and Quark have never heard of the Jem’Hadar, and Sisko explains where they came from. Eris says that the Jem’Hadar are the troops of the Dominion. Quark is surprised, since the Ferengi has been trying to open trade negotiations with the Dominion, and he’s never heard of the Jem’Hadar.
Eris claims to be a refugee from a Dominion attack, on the run after they attacked her homeworld. They put a collar on her neck to suppress her telekinesis. Sisko thinks that they can get the collar off her, and then they can use her abilities to escape. While he works, Quark keeps trying to get someone’s attention by shouting a lot and begging a lot and making offers. Eris asks at one point if they have to take Quark with them when they escape, but Sisko understands the value of gaining intelligence, and to do that they need the Jem’Hadar’s attention—and Quark is good at getting attention.
A Jem’Hadar named Third Talak’talan steps into the security field. He says that the Founders have ordered the prisoners remain in custody. Eris dismisses the Founders as a myth, but Talak’talan insists that they created the Dominion. He then queries Sisko about the Klingons, the Cardassians, and just generally shows off how much he knows about the politics of the Alpha Quadrant, while stating that the Dominion will no longer tolerate ships from the AQ coming through the wormhole.
Jake and Nog beam up to the Rio Grande, and scan for Sisko and Quark. But they can’t beam them up through the field. A ship lifts off from the surface and heads away, and Jake doesn’t have an authorization code to command the runabout to function. They manage to disengage the autopilot, but that just means they have to fly it manually, which Jake has more than a little trouble with. (On the other hand, it means he gets his first choice as well as his second choice for science project…)
Talak’talan was on that ship that left the surface, which goes through the wormhole. Talak’talan beams into Ops to tell Kira that they’re holding Sisko indefinitely for questioning (O’Brien slaps him in a containment field as soon as he beams aboard). They will no longer tolerate ships coming through the wormhole, and provide a list of ships they’ve destroyed—said list is on a padd that they took from the New Bajor colony when they wiped it out. Talak’talan then walks through the containment field, beams off the station, and goes through the wormhole—O’Brien is unable to establish a tractor beam on the Jem’Hadar ship.
The Odyssey arrives at the station. A Galaxy-class ship, its captain, Keogh, has been ordered to rescue Sisko and find out more about the Jem’Hadar. Kira insists that the remaining runabouts accompany them, as they need all the help they can get. Kira and Bashir take the Orinoco while Dax, O’Brien, and Odo take the Mekong. The two runabouts go through the wormhole with the Odyssey, and are surprised at the lack of a welcoming committee. They do, however, find the Rio Grande, and O’Brien beams aboard to save the boys’ asses.
Sisko gets the casing off of Eris’s collar, and then Quark picks the lock. Eris is able to telekinetically take the force field down. Sisko kicks some ass (with some unexpected help from Quark), and they escape. Once they’re in the open, O’Brien is able to beam all three up to the Rio Grande.
A trio of Jem’Hadar ships engage the Odyssey and the runabouts (which is the name of my next band). The Jem’Hadar are using a phased polaron beam weapon, which plows right through everyone’s shields. With Sisko rescued, they head to the wormhole, which is good as both the Mekong and the Odyssey are pretty much toast. But as they’re retreating, one Jem’Hadar ship makes a kamikaze run right at the Odyssey’s deflector dish, destroying both ships completely.
Quark had held onto Eris’s collar, hoping to replicate and sell the telepathic suppressor, but he discovers that all it has is a complex locking mechanism. It didn’t suppress anything. Quark tells Sisko, who then holds a phaser on Eris in Ops. Sisko assumes she’s one of the Founders, but Eris assures them that the Founders would never waste their time on someone as inconsequential as them. Before Odo can take her into custody, she beams away—to where, no one can tell.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The Jem’Hadar use force fields generated by a circle in the floor that are lethal. They have personal cloaks that allow them to stay in hiding until they attack. Jem’Hadar ships use phased polaron beam weapons that Starfleet shields are defenseless against, and the Jem’Hadar themselves can walk through force fields. Also the Vorta apparently have access to Scotty’s long-distance transporter from the two latest Trek films….
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko’s attempt at a getaway with his son gets ridiculously complicated and unpleasant—and that’s before the Jem’Hadar show up.
The slug in your belly: Dax and Keogh don’t get along at all. This adds absolutely nothing to the plot, but that’s part of the entertainment value. It’s just two people who really dislike each other, which is kinda nice to see.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo goes along on the rescue because he figures that, while most people are focused on Sisko and the two boys, someone should look out for Quark.
Rules of Acquisition: Quark hates nature, viewing the pastoral planet as nothing more than an exploitable resource, quoting Rule #102: “Nature decays, but latinum lasts forever.” He also testily informs Sisko that Ferengi history has nothing in it as barbaric as concentration camps, genocide, slavery, and warfare.
Victory is life: We meet the Dominion’s soldiers, the Jem’Hadar, and their diplomats, the Vorta, though the latter species has yet to be identified by name. They make it clear that they view any journey through the wormhole as an invasion, and destroyed New Bajor to put an exclamation point on that.
Keep your ears open: “Maybe they were attacked by a wild animal!”
“You heard my dad. There aren’t any wild animals, just insects and plants.”
“Maybe they were attacked by a vicious tree!”
Nog and Jake’s response upon returning to an empty camp.
Welcome aboard: Robert Alan Oppenheimer, one of the great character actors, plays Keogh, having previously played Koroth in TNG’s “Rightful Heir.” And, of course, Aron Eisenberg is back as Nog. Cress Williams plays our first Jem’Hadar and Molly Hagan—who had just finished up a well regarded run on the TV series Herman’s Head—is our first Vorta.
And our Robert Knepper moment is Michael Jace, who plays the Odyssey first officer. Jace would go on to play Officer Julien Lowe in The Shield, one of your humble rewatcher’s favorite shows.
Trivial matters: After mentions in “Rules of Acquisition,” “Sanctuary,” and “Shadowplay,” we finally meet actual members of the Dominion. They will be an antagonist for our heroes for the remainder of the series’ run.
Several of the technological feats the Dominion displays here are not seen again: Eris is the only Vorta to display telekinetic abilities, and both the long-range transporting and the walking-through-force-fields ability are never really seen again.
Talak’talan refers to “the anomaly,” continuing the trend of GQ folk using that phrase to describe the wormhole.
Your humble rewatcher fleshed out the crew of the Odyssey and explained the tension between Keogh and Dax in The Brave and the Bold Book 1, a story that took place shortly before this episode. That story gave Keogh the first name of Declan, named the first officer as Michael Shabalala, and established the rest of the main crew as well.
Talak’talan appears again in the Dominion Wars videogame, and your humble rewatcher showed an alternate timeline version of him in A Gutted World (in Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions). The Mirror Universe version of Eris appears in the MU novel Rise Like Lions by David Mack.
Trailers for the episode included shots of the Odyssey’s destruction, leading some viewers to fear that the Enterprise-D was going to show up on DS9 and be destroyed. Which was kinda sorta the idea….
Walk with the Prophets: “You have no idea what’s begun here.” This episode was way more effective the first time, as knowing what’s coming blunts the impact on two levels. One is the obvious: once you’ve seen it, you know that the Jem’Hadar blow up the Odyssey and that Eris is a Vorta and therefore a major player in the Dominion.
But the other is that, while the episode in general establishes a new status quo with a new and very nasty bad guy, the specifics are not followed up on hardly at all. Talak’talan says that any travel through “the anomaly” will be viewed as an invasion of Dominion territory, yet ships will continue to bugger through the wormhole for the next five seasons without any specific response. We meet no other telekinetic Vorta, we see no more soooooper transporting over long distances, we see no more walking through force fields.
Having said that, it’s still a very strong episode, mostly for the bits with the Siskos and the Ferengi (together, they fight crime!). Quark’s speech on how the Ferengi are better than humans is a masterpiece (with the delightful coda, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lock to pick”). Just in general, this episode does a superb job of establishing that the Ferengi are a complex species that can’t just be pigeonholed into “yucky capitalists.” I adore the notion that they don’t have anything like the history of warfare and violence that humans (and other species in Trek) have.
The interaction between Sisko pere et fils remains powerful and brilliant and one of the very best things about the show. This is Cirroc Lofton’s best outing to date, giving us his bright smile when Sisko agrees to the trip, the serious please-don’t-make-me-betray-my-friend expression when he guilts Sisko into letting Nog come along, his bittersweet reminisce about his mother, and his attempts to remain calm in the face of danger.
Avery Brooks is particularly magnificent here, as well, showing Sisko’s loving side, his frustrated side, and his badass side, with Armin Shimerman keeping up with him every step of the way. And the hilariously awful attempts by Jake and Nog to rescue their chaperones and make the Rio Grande work right are beautifully played. (And it’s especially funny given where Nog winds up by series’ end. One wonders if watching helplessly while Jake took the Rio Grande apart was a contributing factor in his pursuing a career as a Starfleet engineer down the line.)
And Cress Williams and Molly Hagan do great work as our first Jem’Hadar and Vorta. Williams is especially scary (“I was really hoping to meet a Klingon”), and Hagan’s modulation from victim to bad guy in the final scene in Ops is chilling.
Plus, we get to watch a Galaxy-class ship go boom, a very unsubtle and obvious but still damned effective use of symbolism: these guys could’ve blown up the Enterprise. More than the walking through force fields and the phased polaron beams (whatever the heck those are), this shows that the Dominion is a force to be reckoned with.
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be at New York Comic-Con at the Javits Center in NYC this weekend. Look for him in the podcast area promoting The Chronic Rift and Dead Kitchen Radio. For this reason, the second-season overview won’t be until next Tuesday, the 15th, with “The Search, Part I” kicking off the third season on Friday the 18th.
Actually, the Dominion’s long-distance transports are referenced again–used to abduct Kira when Dukat has his little cult on the Not-DS9 abandoned Cardassian station. The limitations are also handwaved in the same episode, as they needed to plant a beacon on Kira before they could grab her. So apparently they can transport far, but without additional aid they’re just limited to practical sensor range.
Overall, a pretty good episode, I think. You’re right that the punch is taken out a bit after the first viewing, but that hardly matters in the long run-I still watch The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense. I love Quark and his bits where he’s more than just an evil capitalist. He has several of these, one of them already showed in the Maquis when he explained war through economics to the Vulcan and many more to come. But they did take the bite out of the Jem’Hadar awfully quick after this one. At least TNG didn’t take the sting out of the Borg for quite a while and some would argue not until Voyager. Either way, the jem’Hadar will continue to be an impressive foe. So they took some of their tools away, as well as the Vorta (but who cares because we get Jeffery Combs soon enough) but they are never dumbed down to the point of being an easy foe. They are aggressive and deadly and have an interesting “Culture” that we get to see later on.
@1:Hehe, I was just going to say that.
I think my favorite part of this episode was Quark and Sisko’s argument. While, yes, Quark was being a whiny, annoying pain in the neck, he also called Sisko out on his prejudice toward Ferengi, and there was a sense (thanks mainly to some great acting from Avery Brooks) that some of those shots landed.
I really suspect that Ferengi history has some forms of debt peonage that make his inclusion of Slavery on the list of their non-sins an exercise in extreme hair-splitting at best, though…
Do we see other Galaxy Class ships on DS9? Or once the Defiant comes along, is it the Strong Ship?
———————————————————-
“The Jem’Hadar use force fields generated by a circle in the floor that are lethal.”
Circles in the floor are lethal? Floors are lethal??
Sorry, could not resist…
When I saw this for the first time, I assumed she beamed to a cloaked ship. I guess I subconsciously assumed that the Jem’Hadar shrouds extended to ship tech.
…it’s probably a good thing that it didn’t.
I always liked how the Vorta had telekinetic powers, but they were always so in control of every situation that they never needed to use them.
I notice the Jem’Hadar have the little wire going into their necks. It’ll be more visible in future episodes, but it reveals that the show’s creators have thought this stuff out way in advance.
The New Bajor thing is pretty harsh, but I wonder if it would have been more effective if we’d seen New Bajor, or got more a sense of why it was so important to the Bajorans to start a colony in the Gamma Quadrant.
Most importantly, this is the episode that raises the big unanswered question: Why does the Federation insist on exploring the Gamma Quadrant when the Dominion asks them not to? A couple of times on TNG, aliens asked to be left alone, and the Enterprise agreed to do so. One answer could be that Sisko and company are already aware that the Dominion is bad news, that it has already made moves in the Alpha Quadrant, and won’t simply be left alone. Another, much simpler answer is, “Oh, yeah? Well, we’re explorers and you can’t stop us!”
And Herman’s Head is “well regarded” now?
As ruthless as the Dominion is in clearing the Federation presence from the Gamma Quadrant, they do kinda have a point — having a foreign power from the other side of the galaxy suddenly start plopping colonies on the Dominion’s periphery is a provocative action. Just imagine the story transplanted to North America c. 1600 with the Federation as England, the Dominion as the natives and New Bajor as Plymouth Rock.
SeanOHara: then you communicate with the AQ people coming through and say, “Hey you kids get off my lawn.” You don’t bide your time gathering intel for two years and then blow up a colony and a starship to announce your presence.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Seriously, no one has yet to explain the long range teleportation of the Vorta? The Enterprise writers can explain why Klingons from TOS do not have prominent ridges, but this stupid little gimmick has yet to be explained? I was hoping for an inside little bit of truth from you KRAD. You task me. You task me.
Mac McEntire: It’s well-regarded by me. And it’s my rewatch. So there, nyah nyah.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Quark declares that Ferengi had nothing like slavery, but I’d really love to see what *Ishka’s* response to that statement would be.
And so it begins. (oophs wrong franchise!)
For me it’s the multi-season Dominion War arc that saw DS9 uniquely distinguish itself within the ST franchise. In addition to finally live up to the much-hyped pre-series promotion, that it would be a darker, tougher Star Trek. Our heroes struggling to make a difference in the spartan conditions, found on the edge of the final frontier.
Yes we had already been served up, more deceit, more politics and more religion than anything that had gone before. But with TNG rolling back the veneer of paradise (perhaps not unsurprisingly, mainly in Maquis / Bajoran /Cardassian focused eps.) it wasn’t crossing the same narrative or style chasm first implied.
DS9 itself had scrubbed up pretty nicely (and quickly) after Emissary and ongoing maintenance woes were shown as no more of a challenge than dealing with constantly misbehaving holodecks on a top-of-line starship!
Is it me of is our first Jem’Hadar also portrayed as the most intelligent? We would come to have, vindictive Jem, sympathetic Jem and blank cipher / cannon-fodder Jem. However whilst we would see them practising tactical strategy and individual combat skills, I don’t think we saw another Jem who would express an interest or have such a handle on the strategic military-political situation of the Alpha Quadrant. It came across as genuine interest and not something prompted by a Vorta to unnerve Sisko. Here was a being, breed for war, which seemed dedicated to learning whatever would make him more efficient at his trade. No bluster, no propaganda, no singing of songs, just how he can understand his enemy and bring them to heel; scary prospect at the time.
And boy did the Odyssey’s fate leave an impact on first watching!
@5 ‘Do we see other Galaxy Class ships on DS9?’ – Do we! “Ensign. Have Galaxy wings, Nine-One and Nine-Three engage those destroyers.” But we’ll come to that in due course. :)
2. MattHamilton
“But they did take the bite out of the Jem’Hadar awfully quick after this one. ”
Oh I dunno, The Dominion totally neutering the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order left them riding pretty high. Even in the end the allies only one the war through an act of god, the worm hole aliens blocking all dominion ships from cross through. Basically the dominion wasn’t defeated so much as held at bay. I probably would have preferred if they’d won solely by biological warfare against the founders. At least that would have been succeed by their own power.
This is where DS9 came completely into its own, showing us what most of the rest of the run would be. It even managed to finish the season with a sort of cliffhanger thanks to the Dominion ordering the ban on Alpha Quadrant traffic through the wormhole.
I also thought that Eris (interesting name choice, that) had transported to a cloaked ship. But I think the idea of long-distance transport had already been established. In the reboot Original!Spock tells Scotty that he invented the concept in the original timeline. And of course a few spacedouches did it to the TOS crew.
Siskos and the Ferengi WBAGNFARB. Just sayin’.
@14 I spoke too harshly against them, taking the bite out of them and all of that. What I mean is, they set up all these crazy things that they can do and all of this tech that the Federation can’t defend against. Then all of a sudden, it’s their brutishness and numbers that make them dangerous, as opposed to the technical superiority. It was sort of like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the Uber-Vampires. One was so tough, it nearly killed everything until it was finally brought down, but when there are dozens of them, they are somehow, suddenly, easier to take down.
I got the impression while watching this (first time-er – although I did have foreknowledge of this development since I’ve seen a few later season episodes) one that the Dominion is, in some ways, thsi series’ Borg – the new big, technologically advanced enemy from a distant quadrant.
And then I kind of wondered what would happen if they ever crossed paths (although in general I find those kind of ‘cool x character versus cool y character’ plots rather annoying if not done well).
As a Louisiana native, it’s my duty to make it clear that the spelling is jambalaya, all A’s for vowels, not “jumbalaya.”
Carry on.
Since I didn’t watch this first-run, I hadn’t seen the trailers for the ep showing the Odyssey gettin’ all blowed up. However, after the first couple of seconds of combat, I knew it would. The Odyssey was shakin’ like the bejeezus after the very first volley. I actually found it kind of hilarious that the DS9 crew were all stunned that a brand new enemy with debilitating tech and a stated desire for you to STAY THE HELL OUT OF OUR END OF THE GALAXY wouldn’t let them retreat to safety. The only thing that surprised me was that the Jem’Hadar bothered blowing up one of their own ships to do it when they obviously could’ve just blasted the smithereens out of it.
@19: Corrected, thanks! (Also, now I will have this version of “Jambalaya” in my head all day. Not a complaint :)
krad @9: Telling a colonialist power that’s encroaching on your territory to leave doesn’t have a particularly good track record in our own history. So far as I know, the only time that strategy ever worked was Japan, and they didn’t exactly play nice about it. I can’t blame the Dominion for deciding to get pre-emptive in their defence of their own sovereignty.
It’s always seemed to me that the GQ opening of the wormhole was not inside or adjacent to Dominion territory, but rather just in the general vicinity. At this point, the Federation has been exploring the area around the wormhole for about two years and so far they’ve only heard rumors of the Dominion up until now.
So it seems to me that the Dominion demand for the Federation to stop sending ships through the wormhole is a little like Ecuador or Chile telling a European country to stop sending ships through the Panama Canal – neither the passage itself nor all the areas being traveled to are under their control.
So the father of the atomic bomb was in this episode?? Or did you mean Alan Oppenheimer? ;-)
I probably gushed about Alan Oppenheimer in the “Rightful Heir” review, but it was good to see him again here, however briefly. I assume they gave him the toupee so he wouldn’t look too much like Picard.
It annoyed me that the Odyssey just offloaded its civilians at DS9 rather than just leaving the saucer behind. That was how saucer separation was supposed to work: You’d leave the civilian section of the ship behind at a safe port before sending the stardrive section into combat. But because the only separable miniature was too big, heavy, and unwieldy, they gave up on separation altogether. They didn’t even bother to build digital models of separated battle sections once they switched to CGI ship effects in later seasons. It’s just so disappointing that these ships were designed to have a specific battle configuration distinct from their research configuration, and then they ended up exclusively using the research configuration in battle.
(By the way, I’m actually posting this from Keith’s guest room. I was just saying to him how ironic it was that I had to type my response to his article into a computer that would send it to a server somewhere far away so that he could read it later on his computer, even though he was standing right there!)
I’m kinda jealous ;)
I couldn’t read you abbreviating the Gamma Quadrant without thinking of the Siskos and the Ferengi appearing in Gentlemen’s Quarterly.
I also thought she was beaming to a cloaked ship they couldn’t detect…like Section 31 later on. I think the only other incidence of a long-range transporter that I can think of is Gary 7’s. @15: I pretty much ignore such things in Abram’s Trek because it was just another case of Did Not Do the Research. Of course, I think they are saying it is all an alternate universe anyway…as in, the main timeline from that movie is also another universe. That’s pretty much the only way to explain the multitude of differences that were not related to the time incursion.
@17: Your example seems like a common trope that occurs in tv shows. I first noticed it in the X-Men cartoon’s premiere, “Night of the Sentinels.” The first sentinel in the mall can’t be scratched by like three of the X-Men going against it, but then by the end of the two-parter, they take out a whole factory of them like it was nothing. Then on the Stargate: SG-1 premiere, the Jaffa have this bullet-proof armor and they are able to kill only one of them (two in the extended cut). By the end of that two-parter, they are able to cut the Jaffa down like any other stock trooper.
Overall, I really liked this episode. The only part that slowed it down for me was watching them sit around in the holding cell, but that doesn’t impact the episode as a whole too much for me. This was one where I knew the ship gets blown up by a kamikazee attack (from the encyclopedia), but actually seeing it happen was still pretty cool and doesn’t lose its effect. And I think knowing that Eris is a Vorta and what’s really going on is kind of fun too…it’s like when you notice the little details in movies after knowing the twist. Here, it’s like you’re in on the joke.
I guess the only other thing about this episode that bothered me is the fact that simply removing one isolinear chip would cause the warp containment field to fail. Sure, it made for some comedy, but it’s the kind of system that would/should have redundant safety mechanisms in place so the compromise of a single chip wouldn’t cause the ship to blow up.
Oh, and I don’t mind the delay for the future posts, as when I went to the library for the next disc I found it had been checked out already that day, as well as the copy at another library in the system. This had happened earlier with this season, and was partly responsible for us falling a little behind. But I assumed the people checking those out had continued on ahead, since I didn’t have that problem with the rest of the season. This is too much of a coincidence now though…I suspect now that there are some others in our area who are also following the rewatch.
Christopher L Bennett and KRAD in New York City at the same time. Together, they fight crime!
…. yeah, I’d totally read that.
I have to say, when you turn off your brain from knowing the outcomes of the Dominion story arc and watch this one as though its the first time, the impact is still strong. That’s a credit to an excellent story well acted by all concerned. Back in ’94, I had not seen a shot of the Odyssey being destroyed, so I had no idea that was going to happen. Every time I see that part, I
Stupid phone. As I was saying that part is still so shocking in its brazeness that I am awestruck every time I see that Jem’Hadar ship smash into the Odyssey.
Quark’s commentary on Ferengi and human society always forces me to think, with excellent delivery by Armin Shimerman. Such a delight to see Jake and Nog try (and fail) to save the day, but their earnest efforts endear them even more to us. And Avery Brooks is wonderful to watch start to finish. Watching the two Sisko men was the best part of the series for me, as I got to see what it would be like to have a father son bond.
This episode is such a great setup, exciting (and scary) to watch everytime.
Jake and Nog failing to save the day is a nice trope inversion. TV has led us to expect that they’ll eventually find a way to get around the authorization problems and beam up Sisko and Quark who will then extricate them from the larger problem. That they don’t is a lot more realistic. Another plus for this episode.
crzydroid: Keep in mind that there were already half a dozen isolinear chips on the deck of the runabout when they almost blew up the ship. I suspect that the redundancies were all spread out on the floor between Jake and Nog at that point……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who is, in fact, fighting crime with CLB — no really!*
* Not really.
The unanswered question I have, though, is whether the Federation was actually in the wrong for continuing to explore the Gamma Quadrant after this. No matter what you think of their rule, the Dominion is, in fact, the lawful government for most of the Quadrant; if they choose to deny access to the wormhole, isn’t that their right?
I haven’t watched in years, but wasn’t the first overt act of war committed by the Romulans & Cardassians? That it was only a rogue group from their respective governments, and that it was successfully averted, doesn’t matter in the scheme of things – from the Dominion perspective, the Alpha Quadrant declared war on them.
I disagree completely on the perspective that the Dominion is somehow justified in committing mass murder because of ships coming from the AQ into the GQ. Unless Starfleet ever attacked a Dominion-held world or one of their ships knowingly, the declaration of war was on the Dominion’s part when they massacred the New Bajor colony and killed one thousand people when the Jem’Hadar destroyed the Odyssey.
Further, the Gamma Quadrant is a huge portion of space. I doubt even the Dominion controlled every single star system in the GQ. So its plausible that the Dominion simply didn’t want AQ ships in the GQ for that sake alone, which is still not enough to justify mass murder. Again, the declaration of war was on the part of the Dominion.
@34: Except for the part where, BEFORE the Dominion issued an ultimatum about everything through the wormhole being their territory, they massacred New Bajor, kidnapped two Alpha Quadrant citizens, and (before they allowed said citizens to escape) used them to lure a rescue mission into “their” territory so they could show off destroying a capital ship using kamikaze tactics.
Seems like the Dominion dealt the first acts of war to me.
2 points
1: How would the FEderation or the other Alpha Quadrant powers feel if the Dominion had been doing some trespassing themselves under the guise of “exploration” or where establishing colonies left and right in the AQ?
2: The Sisko and Federation incompetence clock has just started. They have a single point of entry to defend. They have numerious options, from saturate mining it to to always having a fleet ready to blast whatever comes through to just collapsing it. Stargate SG1 had a contigency for this issue after their first epsiode (the Iris). Given how future evnts play out and the many many numerious warnings they get, the crinimal galactic incompetence has begun.
What do you mean ‘under the guise of’? The Federation hasn’t been pretending to explore while insidiously planning on taking over the quadurant. Given that it’s been two years and there has been no overt mention of some kind of overarching government over this region, I think it is reasonable for them to assume that whatever planet they colonized was fair game. I think if other powers came through the wormhole they would introduce themselves, make contact in good faith, and open whatever negotiation process would need to happen if they wanted a colony. Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to colonize within Federation space but there’s still a lot of space out there – and I doubt the Federation would try and stop them (or really be able to if it were outside their jurisdiction). Some of the other AQ powers may take a more shoot first, ask questions later approach, but I don’t think the Federation would. Just my two cents.
As for number two, you may have a point ;) I haven’t seen the rest of the series yet though.
Late to the party, but I just wanted to comment on this post because “The Jem’Hadar” was my first DS9 episode. I hadn’t meant to watch it; I’d intended to tape the re-run of Next Gen that was on before it but failed to set the VCR correctly. When I realized that the Sci-Fi show I had wasn’t the one I wanted, I decided what the heck, I still have an hour to kill, and sat down and watched this one.
It’d be too much to say I fell in love with the show from this episode, but I was intrigued. I liked watching Sisko and his son, I liked the adventures of Jake “Not Wesley Crusher” Sisko and Nog “I’m not Wesley either” as they realized they were hopelessly out of their depth, and I liked Quark saving the day in what I even at the time I suspected was a perfectly Quark-like way. Both the Jem’Hadar and Eris were intriguing villains. I decided to tune in next week to watch the “resolution” of this whole Jem’Hadar/Dominion storyline. Little did I know…
The galaxy is far too huge for any power to control “most of a quadrant.” I mean, a quadrant is a full 25% of 400 billion stars, i.e. 100 billion stars. That’s… let’s see… a whole bunch. Even Borg territory, the most expansive in the known galaxy, is shown in the available maps as only covering maybe, oh, a fifth of the Delta Quadrant at most.
Heck, as I often point out, the idea of a space power having a continuous territory at all is rather ridiculous considering the vast distances between planets. Practically speaking, your nation’s territory would be the planetary systems it controlled and the travel lanes between them, with the humongous emptiness between them being left alone since it’d be too much trouble to patrol it. So territories could interpenetrate quite a bit.
38. Lisamarie
Well, I’m not been too serious but I do agree that the Romulans or Cardassians would not take too kindly if the Dominion started sending ships through their space. Or actually would the Feds if the Dom decided to send a 100 ship fleet to Earth but claimed it was exploration, they just like to explore en-masse. I know, I know its not really equiavelent, but you have to wonder about the Federation’s constant mantra of exploration. Say a foreign power does claim some seemingly empty space. That power has been around the GQ for millenia, the Feds are just newcomers. Does the Federation have the right to dictate who owns what in the GQ after just arriving on the scene?
As to the incompetance clock. Sigh…
40. ChristopherLBennett
It does seem odd, but practically speaking, the Dominion does, very forcefully, ask the Federation to stay away. Given that the Federation compromised with the much weaker Cardassians (the DMZ treaty), and the equivalent Romulans (the NZ treaty), and the Klingons in the past (the old Klingon NZ) and the Sheliak, it seems very bizarre as to why they should want to antagonise the seemingly more technologically advanced power.
@41: I don’t think the Federation is trying to dictate anything, not in this episode. Here, the Dominion was completely unopen to negotiation. They made it clear that they were setting examples with the hostages (though it was really to introduce a spy into the Alpha Quadrant). Again, it’s been two years and the Federation has met no sign of an overarching government…given that misunderstanding, upon their discovery by the Dominion, any rational power should attempt to negotiate with them or communicate with them. But as we see, the Dominion ISN’T just learning about them now…they’ve had time to spy on them and find out all about them. Yet they’ve made NO ATTEMPT to communicate with them before now…and their first attack was to slaughter a colony and destroy a bunch of ships. It’s almost as if the Dominion wanted to go to war and conquer them, but do it under the guise of defending their territory.
If I recall correctly, the point of “The Search” was for them to find the Founders, in order to attempt negotiations. But I guess we’ll see later this week (we haven’t had a chance to watch it yet since someone else had already checked that disc out of the library).
@42
Agreed, but I am thinking more about what occurs after The Search, not what happened before. Of course the Federation had no inkling about the Dominion in the GQ before this epsiode. Or at least how they felt about Federation incursions. But once the events of The Search are over…and the Federation still insist on entering the GQ, even though the Dominion explicitly tell them not to…. While its all empty space, there is a fair point that the empty space in the GQ is really “in the Dominion’s sphere of influence” or some such. Much more than an organisation which is 70,000 light year’s away. (An analogy would be if New Zeland wanted exploration rights around the Shetland islands. Its not even local to the governments of the area). If the seemingly only major empire in the GQ asks them to just get out, why the discrepancy compared to the Federation’s dealings with the Sheliak or the Klingons/Romulans/Cardassian’s/etc? I wonder is there pressure being brought to bear on the Federation Council from the Bajorians. The Wormhole was their major economic asset post-occupation. closure of the wormhole would hit their business’s pretty hard. Maybe pressure from the Ferengi too based upon their trade agreements with whomever those aliens from the GQ were.
@43: Why in the world is it “a fair point” that the Dominion alleges control over a whole quadrant? If the Klingons or Tholians invade a Federation world and assert without evidence that it was really in their territory all along, do they have “a fair point” just because they claimed the space was theirs?
And the Dominion did not “ask them to get out.” The Dominion intended all along to invade and conquer the nations of the Alpha Quadrant. Their claim that they were defending their territory against incursion was a lie, a pretense to conceal their true, aggressive intent. They were already seeding spies and infiltrators in our quadrant before this episode even happened. So it’s preposterously naive to talk about them as if they were somehow the wronged party legitimately defending their territory.
@44
“@43: Why in the world is it “a fair point” that the Dominion alleges control over a whole quadrant? If the Klingons or Tholians invade a Federation world and assert without evidence that it was really in their territory all along, do they have “a fair point” just because they claimed the space was theirs?”
No, but the comparison is not apt. Federation space is most definietdly not 70,000 years away in the GQ. Federation space is the AQ (and maybe BQ, depending upon the source). The Federation is 70k light years away from where the Dominion reside.Unclaimed space in the GQ is indisputably closer to the Dominion. From a practical viewpoint, the Dominion has much more “right” to the entire GQ, then the Federation does. Of course the Federation has no desire to own the GQ, whereas the Dominion does. So maybe, it could be argued that the Federation could be defending planets in the GQ from Dominion conquest. Though I don’t think that ever happens. And debatebly the Prime Directive could apply to the entire Quadrant. Or at least some version of it. Maybe.
“And the Dominion did not “ask them to get out.” The Dominion intended all along to invade and conquer the nations of the Alpha Quadrant. Their claim that they were defending their territory against incursion was a lie, a pretense to conceal their true, aggressive intent. They were already seeding spies and infiltrators in our quadrant before this episode even happened. So it’s preposterously naive to talk about them as if they were somehow the wronged party legitimately defending their territory.”
The Jem’hadar soldier has said that they will no longer stand by and allow incursions from the AQ. Now the Federation has no knowledge at this point that the Dominion intends to invade the AQ, though they did want to plant a spy with Eris. So at face value by the end of this epsiode, and whatever the Dominion secret intentions, the Federation has only been forefully asked to leave. And, seeing as how EASY it is to seal off the wormhole, the Federation should not be frightened by any threat of invasion. Collapse the wormhole and the threat is over, for 70 years. And even if a Dominion invasion fleet travelled at conventional warp, who knows what empires are in between the Fedetaion and the Dominion? They might never meet up “normally” again. Certainly the Federation has more to be worried about then a distant empire at the other side of the Galaxy. (The Borg for example, who can get to the AQ without the need of a wormhole).
Eoin8472: Except the wormhole is also of huge religious importance to the Bajorans, and it’s their wormhole, they’ve simply requested that the Federation administrate it. They’re not going to collapse it.
(And if you think religious significance is a silly thing to base policy on, I point you to the ongoing history of the middle east, particularly surrounding the city of Jerusalem…..)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Krad
Oh don’t worry, I agree there on teh religious aspects. But come on, there are also trivial alternatives to collapsing it. Mining the wormhole, stationing a fleet of ships around it, stationing turrets of some sort to not fire on some ships if they absolutedly want to have some travel. Mining the OTHER (GQ) side if the Bajorians want potential Orbs to come through to Bajor and are worried they might get shot at, asking the Prophets to not let ships go to the GQ or come from the GQ. (side-note why is the Celestial Temple a passage-way at all? The Prophets are connected to Bajor, why does their temple randomly also exit in the GQ? Is there another “Bajor” in the GQ? That would have been an interesting story)
Its a natural and very very easily defensible choke-point. Its down to extreme plot machinations and extreme character stupidity/contrivance that the Dominion is really any threat to the AQ. Really, its a massive blindspot in the series.
Stargate Sg1 addressed exactly this kind of problem after their very first episode….
@45: How in the hell does just being close to a territory give you a claim to it? Alaska is closer to Russian (formerly Soviet) territory than it is to the continental United States. Canada and Mexico are very close to the US. Proximity does not confer territorial rights.
And as I said, you’re being staggeringly naive by taking the Dominion’s claims “at face value.” You’re missing the whole point of the series, which is that the Dominion is run by a species whose primary MO is deception. As I said, their claim that they were defending their territory was a lie to conceal the fact that they were already setting a plan in motion to infiltrate and invade the Alpha Quadrant.
@47: The thing to understand, again, is how profoundly wrong it is to assume that the Gamma Quadrant equals Dominion space. There are a lot of other powers in that quadrant besides the Dominion, worlds that the Alpha Quadrant powers have a right to trade and interact with and vice-versa. Restricting wormhole travel to stop Dominion traffic is as problematical as restricting passage through the Panama Canal to halt just one nation’s aggression. That interferes with the free trade and movement of many other, unrelated powers who don’t deserve to be penalized.
This is the trade-off of living in a free society. Giving people freedom means there are openings that aggressors or terrorists can exploit — but go too far to limit such aggression and you end up infringing on the freedom of people who’ve done nothing wrong. So it’s not remotely as simple a solution as you make it out to be, because there are a lot more players in the game than just Starfleet and the Dominion.
@45: How in the hell does just being close to a territory give you a claim to it? Alaska is closer to Russian (formerlySoviet) territory than it is to the continental United States. Canada and Mexico are very close to the US. Proximity doesnot confer territorial rights.
I’m confused then. Should the Dominon be allowed “explore” the outer solar system where the Earth and presumably the Federation have no colonies? Or any inner planets of the Federation? A much better example from Earth would have been China and Taiwin. Or in fact any country and its maritime fishing rights. At a certain point proximity to a powers populated territories does in fact result in a different response than if the same events were to happen well away.
And as I said, you’re being staggeringly naive by taking the Dominion’s claims “at face value.” You’re missing the whole point of the series, which is that the Dominion is run by a species whose primary MO is deception. As I said, their claim that they were defending their territory was a lie to conceal the fact that they were already setting a plan in motion to infiltrate and invade the Alpha Quadrant.
Even if the Dominion was (and they were as you said) flat out lying, so what? What difference does it make? The Federation has many options to nip the threat in the bud by simply blockading the wormhole or collapsing it if they don’t want to take Bajorian issues in hand. Problem solved. At face value, there is no reason to worry about the Dominion. All the Federation has to be, is the least bit competant.
@47: The thing to understand, again, is how profoundly wrong it is to assume that the Gamma Quadrant equals Dominion space.There are a lot of other powers in that quadrant besides the Dominion, worlds that the Alpha Quadrant powers have a rightto trade and interact with and vice-versa. Restricting wormhole travel to stop Dominion traffic is as problematical asrestricting passage through the Panama Canal to halt just one nation’s aggression. That interferes with the free trade and movement of many other, unrelated powers who don’t deserve to be penalized.
There doesn’t really seem to be any active competing powers to the Dominion, that we know off anyway, in the GQ. But its a valid argument, I guess the Federation doesn’t really have the right to unilaterally make the decision. At some point though, circa season 5?, common sense and self preservation should take some precedence.
This is the trade-off of living in a free society. Giving people freedom means there are openings that aggressors or terrorists can exploit — but go too far to limit such aggression and you end up infringing on the freedom of people who’ve done nothing wrong. So it’s not remotely as simple a solution as you make it out to be, because there are a lot more players in the game than just Starfleet and the Dominion.
Well sure teyhre are a few players like Starfleet, The Dominion and The Ferengi and the Bajorians sure. But as I mentioned, it doesn’t have to be a pernament fire and forget irreversible action. Minefields that have deactivaton codes, fleets that don’t have to fire at everything that moves etc. If tensions get worse, suspend traffic and actually train many many guns/mines at the wormhole with warnings blaring in every language. If they lessen, relax restrictions. Yes, you might say, the Dominion would just fool the Federation, but honestly it should be possible to have almost 100% freedom and security. All it took was some imagination and a basic understanding of spatial physics. The wormhole was a profoundly vulnerable choke point in space. We have airport security. We have queues for trains. We have queues for toll boths. Unless you are an utter unrealistic libertarian, can you really say that that infringes upon freedom?
@49: You insist on drawing a false equivalency, as though the Dominion aren’t the pre-emptive aggressors here. If some power, one that genuinely was only interested in exploration, wanted to explore territory near Earth, then sure, of course, that’s their prerogative. But that’s not what the Dominion wants to do. They want to infiltrate, undermine, and conquer other governments.
And yes, we have airport security, but it’s been taken to a grossly excessive degree out of all proportion to the actual threat and has reached the point of becoming an assault on privacy and individual rights — even a threat to national health, since the X-ray machines don’t have their dosages regulated the way medical X-rays are. Airport security is a classic example of the problems with taking security too far.
@49: You insist on drawing a false equivalency, as though the Dominion aren’t the pre-emptive aggressors here. If some power, one that genuinely was only interested in exploration, wanted to explore territory near Earth, then sure, of course, that’s their prerogative. But that’s not what the Dominion wants to do. They want to infiltrate, undermine, and conquer other governments.
Again, so what? The characters don’t know that, but even if they did, what does it matter? If there was some method to blast everything that comes out of the wormhole at a moments notice, the Federation can have the best of both worlds. It can both explore the GQ and stop any invasion of the AQ. Minefield deactivation or just IFF codes or some such. Who cares if the Dominion want to murder puppies all over the AQ, if they are not in the physical position to do it?
And yes, we have airport security, but it’s been taken to a grossly excessive degree out of all proportion to the actual threat and has reached the point of becoming an assault on privacy and individual rights — even a threat to national health, since the X-ray machines don’t have their dosages regulated the way medical X-rays are. Airport security is a classic example of the problems with taking security too far.
Well, sure, but my freedom/secuirty point is from a phyical dimensions pov rather then the scanning/health aspect. Each one of us steps through a metal scanner (or just a walkway we will say) one at a time. Even if I ,as the bad guy, lift up an AK-47 to spray everyone, lets say there are 10-20 airport securty guys to stop me. Even if an entire army is behind me, waiting to get through, we can only come through 1 guy at a time. Those 20 guys shooting from all angles should be able to stop me and my friends. For a long time. Probably our bodies would pile up in the entrance too. Same as the Dominion ship debris would do. Though not as drastic an effect of course.
@51: You’re forgetting that the Founders’ entire existence is predicated on deception and conceealment. They’re good at finding ways around security scans. Heck, jumping forward to later seasons, the Founders defeated the blood tests so early in the game that it was kind of pathetic that the writers showed Starfleet continuing to use them as if they actually made a difference. Like the farce that is airport security today, it was probably more about creating the comforting illusion of security than actually being an effective deterrent.
What I don’t understand is why you’re so determined to blame the Federation for the consequences of the Dominion’s aggression. Blaming the victim is a disgusting thing to do. It’s like saying that a woman got raped because she dressed provocatively. No. The attacker is the one who deserves all the blame.
I’ve noticed this discussion getting a little heated, and I’d like to step in to remind everyone of our moderation policy and not to veer too far off-topic. It’s fine to disagree, but let’s keep the tone civil and the comments within the scope of the rewatch. Thank you!
@51: You’re forgetting that the Founders’ entire existence is predicated on deception and conceealment. They’re good at finding ways around security scans. Heck, jumping forward to later seasons, the Founders defeated the blood tests so early in the game that it was kind of pathetic that the writers showed Starfleet continuing to use them as ifthey actually made a difference. Like the farce that is airport security today, it was probably more about creating the comforting illusion of security than actually being an effective deterrent.
But thats all utterly irrelevant to the situation as it stood at the end of season 2. The Federation characters don’t know any of that at the moment, they are not clairvoyant. But even without their knowledge of the Dominion’s exact MO, they could ,and should, still take reasonable steps to actually provide security, like as I keep saying, selectively mining the wormhole as there are agressers on the other side. Ones with technology levels greater then their own. And because it doesn’t have to involve actually collapsing it for good, in this situation, the Federation really can have their cake and eait it too. Everyone can get what they want, as soon as tensions die down.
What I don’t understand is why you’re so determined to blame the Federation for the consequences of the Dominion’s aggression. Blamingthe victim is a disgusting thing to do. It’s like saying that a womangot raped because she dressed provocatively. No. The attacker is the one who deserves all the blame.
I presume Katherine’s warning are in regards to the above text. How should I respond to this in light of the moderator warning? Is there any right of reply of this incredibly gross misprepresentation of my opinions. Disgusting mispresentation in fact if the implication about rape is to be left up there. Do I say “I don’t condone victim blaming of any sort?” Will you just say, “But hang on, you want the Federation to leave the GQ after it got attacked and thousands got killed, you must be for blaming rape victims in that case!” Is that really the depths to which we are going to sink? Do you know want me to PROVE I don’t blame rape victims? Probably.
Twenty years later, this is still one of my favorite episodes of science fiction ever filmed. My only nitpick is with people who criticize the destruction of the Odyssey–there’s an edited video on-line of the Enterprise-D fighting the Dominion–which is completely wrong. The whole reason the Odyssey was destroyed was to show that the Dominion were a force to be reckoned with and the heroes we’d just sent off into the sunset after 7 years would have been killed if it were them and not a stand-in. But this raises a criticism I’ve had of Federation ships until the actual Dominion War: They ALWAYS pull their punches in a fight. The Enterprise-D almost never actually moves in a battle; they’re stationary almost the whole time. When the Enterprise or the Odyssey fight, they fire two or three blasts from their ventral phaser array in the same position, while the enemy (be they the illusionary ship in “The Survivors,” Klingons in “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” or the Borg in “The Best of Both Worlds” and “Descent” fire on them five, six or more times while moving all around them). Now granted the Jem’Hadar attack ships are quick, manuverable and heavily-armed, but it would be like someone in a street fight standing still and throwing two or three punches while their opponents kick the hell out of them. It doesn’t make sense.
@55: It makes sense because those episodes were made when they still used motion-control miniatures and it was difficult to show them moving quickly, especially with a model as big as the Enterprise. They could occasionally show a Galaxy-class ship making fast motions if they used smaller models, but they’d established a habit of treating the big E in a more stately manner, more like an aircraft carrier than a fighter jet.
Anyway, there’s no such thing as “standing still” in space, except relative to an arbitrarily chosen point of reference. All that can really be said is that the ship is keeping station with the camera. Although if there’s no apparent motion of the background stars, that means the ship is not turning but maintaining a linear course. (Naturally the stars are so far away that you’d see no motion no matter how fast the ship was moving — the Viper scenes of both Battlestar Galacticas to the contrary.)
Chris-So whenever the commanding officer orders “All stop”, the ship doesn’t actually stop moving and is stationary at a fixed point? That’s what I meant. Another nitpick I have of the Odyssey‘s inept defense is that Galaxy-class ships were said to have a payload of 250 photon torpedoes at their disposal. In future episodes, Jem’Hadar attack beetles as I call them, would be obliterated by two or three of them at the most. Why didn’t Keogh use them?
@57: “All stop” is a pretty meaningless command in space, and its use just shows how lazy TV/movie writers are in researching how things move in space. The only thing it could realistically mean is how it’s used in naval vessels: Shut down all propulsion. But a ship that stopped exerting thrust wouldn’t come to a halt, because it’s in a vacuum and there’s no significant friction to pull it to a stop. It’d just keep going at the same speed and direction it was going when it stopped thrusting.
Sure, you could come to a relative halt in relation to some other vessel or space station or asteroid, but that just means matching its trajectory, going at the same speed on a parallel path. There are no “fixed points” in space. Even the mouths of the Bajoran Wormhole are presumably orbiting the center of the galaxy; that’s the only way the Alpha Quadrant terminus could remain in the Bajoran system over the millennia, because Bajor is itself in orbit of the galactic center. There is no such thing as standing still in space. Or on Earth, for that matter. When you’re standing still relative to the Earth’s surface, you’re actually rotating at anywhere up to 1674 kilometers per hour around the axis of the planet (or slower the farther you get from the equator), moving at 107,200 km/h around the Sun, and moving at an additional 792,000 km/h around the galactic center. Stillness is an illusion.
Fair enough. Stillness may be an illusion but to the perspective of the viewer (me), the Odyssey is at stationkeeping, firing only two or three blasts from her forward phaser array while the Jem’Hadar attack ships weaved and dodged around, continuously firing their phased polaron beams at the Odyssey. The Mekong and Orinoco also weaved and dodged, obviously unsuccessfully trying to draw cover for the Odyssey. If the Odyssey had initiated evasive or attack maneuvers (Keogh ordered “attack pattern delta” at the beginning of the battle, but the Odyssey never actually moved as the Defiant did in “The Changing Face of Evil”, pitch up seventy degrees and hard to port), they probably would have been able to defeat the Jem’Hadar, but of course the whole trope was to take the strongest known ship of the Federation with a Picard lookalike to be smoked by attack beetles while putting up an entirely ineffectual defense.
Two other relatively minor points that I’ve just noticed rewatching the battle, both involving Dax and the runabout Mekong. The first is why Dax said something so blatantly obvious and stupid to Keogh over the com when he reports that the phased polaron beam is penetrating the Odyssey‘s shields. “Have you tried altering your harmonics to compensate?” Dax is a science officer on a distant outpost. The Odyssey is a Galaxy-class starship, at this point the strongest, state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line vessel the Federation can field, with the most competent and elite personnel Starfleet can muster out of the Academy. Doesn’t she know they would have already tried rotating their shield frequencies? I know she and Keogh despised each other. Maybe she was trying to troll him?
The second point is that immediately after that, the Mekong and Orinoco tried to drive off the Jem’Hadar fighters from the Odyssey. The Mekong fired at least two phaser blasts at one of the ships. Then the Jem’Hadar fighter turned around and started firing torpedoes at the Mekong. Dax and Odo then complain that their console is dead and their sensors are off-line. What the hell did they expect? If you poke a dog and it bites you, whose fault is that?
I’m fairly late to the party here, but I just want to throw my two cents in on this fantastic episode. I didn’t see this episode until long after I had seen later episodes in the series, so the reveal of the Vorta was not a surprise to me, but it was still an intriguing bit of playacting the Damsel in Distress on Eris’ part.
One thing that appeals to me, in making the Ferengi multifaceted as a race, is that on more than one occasion Quark (or, to my point, the character played by Armin Shimerman – a distinction which will be clear momentarily) has the moral high ground. It’s not often, which makes it all the tastier when it happens. This episode is one of the first examples, but my favorite is “Far Beyond the Stars,” where Not!Quark Herbert Rossoff unabashedly supports Benny (and Kay) while Not!Odo Douglas Pabst toes the company line (while, to his limited credit, at least making platitudes to trying to get Benny’s story published).
And I must say that I love Lsana @39 referring to Jake as “Not Wesley Crusher” and Nog as “I’m not Wesley either.”
I’m doing my own mini re-watch – love going through these columns with each episode!
Something that bothered me about the episode that I don’t see any comments about. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected the Odyssey bridge to have been identical to the Enterprise-D bridge, but they’re not even close. Sure, the flagship might be a little different, but the Odyssey bridge looked to be the size of a shoebox.
You have no idea how silly “Talak’talan” sounds to Spanish readers. Also, Ferengi don’t have slavery? Yes, because their females are SO free. :) And they might not have warfare as in physical violence, but they have social and psychological violence that is supported by law. That is awful too.
@17 – MattHamilton: Google “ninja conservation law”. :)
@25 – Chris: You commenting from krad’s guest room is funny.
@34 – A conquering state that dominates other species is hardly “the lawful goverment”. Not that it makes klingons or romulans lawful, but…
@60 – SethC: To Dax’s credit, some Galaxy-class ships have been known to include untrained kids as part of their bridge crew. :)
Walking through forcefields is something the Borg could do too. Wasn’t Rurigan the first Dominion member DS9 staff met in Shadowplay, KRAD? The crew would venture into the Gamma Quadrant over the next three seasons KRAD, not five, apart from Odo and Kira’s journey to the Great Link in the last episode. Also, the Federation did try to collapse the wormhole in The Search (in a shared Dominion illusion) and In Purgatory’s Shadow, an idea that Kira tried to shoot down but fell on deaf ears.
Perhaps Quark wants to market the collar to slave-traders? That makes his remarks to Sisko a bit loaded, I’d say. 35: I doubt there were a thousand people on the Odyssey when it exploded since they off-loaded non-essential personnel at the station before they left for the Gamma Quadrant.
I don’t think Quark would deal with slavers.
@65 – hmm, I’m not sure about that. I can’t recall if we’ve seen in the earlier episodes that some of the people he did shady dealings with were in fact slavers. But on the other hand, I definitely remember that, for all his culture’s failings, he was critical of the human practice of slavery (never mind that parts of his culture might be considered slavery in its own way) – so it may be that at least the outright trafficking/selling of beings he’d draw as his line in the sand.
@64/David Sim: If you mean that Rurigan’s homeworld was part of the Dominion, that’s right — he left because he didn’t like what Yadera Prime had become after the Dominion took over. However, I think the Dosi in “Rules of Acquisition” were Dominion members — Quark said that Zek dealt with the Dosi in hopes of finding a more important member of the Dominion, implying that the Dosi were less important members. However, Memory Alpha calls them “allies of the Dominion.”
The Hunters from “Captive Pursuit” were going to be established in “The Search” as Dominion members/subjects, with the Tosk being products of Dominion genetic engineering, but this was cut from the episode and never got confirmed onscreen. The novels did establish that they were Dominion allies, though.
@66 – Lisamarie: I mean that while he might do deals with people who are slavers, I doubt he would specifically sell them equipment directly used in slaving.
@@@@@ 68 — Technically speaking, there could be legitimate applications for a collar that can block telepathy that don’t involve slavery. Like, for example, for dangerous prisoners capable of telepathy, or perhaps for people who find their telepathy difficult to control and/or dangerous, either to themselves or the people around them. I’m fairly certain we’ve seen several situations, not just on DS9 but on other Trek shows, where a collar like that would have been helpful in resolving a dangerous situation.
I mean, yes, wearing a collar does bear certain ugly connotations, but for blocking potentially dangerous telepathic abilities, it’s a far more humane option than something more invasive like, say, surgery, with the added distinction that it’s temporary, meaning you aren’t running the risk of permanently crippling or damaging someone by using it.
For that matter, there’s always the possibility that the technology used in such a collar might have a reverse application–that is, preventing the wearer from being affected by telepathy. That could be useful for any job where someone might come under telepathic attack.
Quark’s little condemnation of Sisko is one of the most memorable lines in the whole series to me–it really struck home. And, if I’m not mistaken, inspired the novel, “The 34th Rule,” which was told from Quark’s POV and dealt quite a bit with the anti-Ferengi prejudices of the Federation and Bajorans.
I read the book a long, long time ago but remember really enjoying it, yet I hardly ever see it mentioned in recommendation threads and the like. I can only suppose it’s because of how poorly the title has aged….
…
Anyway, the Dominion and Jem’Hadar stuff most definitely was not forgotten. As has already been stated, the long-range transporter does return… and, I would argue, we see other intelligent Jem’Hadar (in the prison camp episodes, in the Iconian Gateway episodes, and several others). Most importantly, Eris’ ability to bypass Federation force-fields came back in a big way–because the Dominion’s ability to bypass Federation shields was a *huge* reason for their early victories in the war. The Federation was at a major disadvantage because of this right up until the Third Battle of DS9.
Arsene: Oh, I adore The 34th Rule. A very powerful book, that….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Was anyone else as bothered as I was that a Galaxy-class starship was destroyed, which was probably carrying dozens if not hundreds of officers, and the crew showed barely any emotion? This seemed a bit unrealistic to me.
Otherwise, the episode was good but a bit predictable.
@72/RMS81: In real life, professionals in the middle of crisis situations generally don’t waste energy getting visibly emotional. They set aside their emotions and concentrate on their professional training to get them through the situation, then deal with their emotional reactions later, after the crisis is resolved (assuming they survive). If you listen to, say, cockpit recordings of airline crews and flight controllers in life-and-death emergency situations, they tend to be extremely calm and disciplined.
Of course, if the shows generally depict the crews getting dramatically emotional when terrible things happen, and this one showed them being more professionally calm and controlled, that’s an inconsistency — but in that case, it’s all the other times that were getting it wrong.
@74 — I wouldn’t have expected them to be dramatically emotional while in the middle of the crisis, but even after they were back on the station they acted like it was no big deal. Perhaps the previous conflict with the Borg that Starfleet had been through numbed them to that kind of death and destruction.
Nothing much to add here, except that only just occurred to me that this season of DS9 is bookended with appearances by actors who played Skeletor.
@75/Richard: Oh, good catch! Frank Langella and Alan Oppenheimer. They’ve also both played Count Dracula — Langella on stage and in the 1979 movie Dracula, Oppenheimer in the 1980 cartoon Drak Pack.
Now that’s trivia……
—-Keith R.A. DeCandido, who looooooooooves trivia……
But wait, there’s more. If we count the opening Circle 3-parter as a single piece, then the “bookending” also includes two actors who’ve played Alfred Pennyworth. Steven Weber (Colonel Day in “The Siege”) voiced him in the recent Return of the Caped Crusaders, and Oppenheimer voiced him in 2009’s Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. (Alfred was also played in The Killing Joke by Brian George, who played Bashir’s father in “Doctor Bashir, I Presume.”)
So the Dracula and Alfred actors are all bat-related? :) And some Skeletor toys’ armor had a bat-emblem on his chest…
Just wanted to mention that Cress Williams, who played our first ever Jem’Hadar, is now starring on the CW in the title role in Black Lightning.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yes, and he’s doing an excellent job.
Quark’s vacation outfit.
I guess this is where I start losing interest. For me, a long winded war against a much much stronger opponent isn’t what Star Trek is about. For me, Star Trek is about space exploration. Something we’ve seen less from in DS9 (because a space station is stationary…), but at least most of the episodes had interesting topics and the underlying idea to explore the gamma quadrant from a space station is nice as well.
But the underlying idea of fighting a war against The Dominion really isn’t appealing to me. If I want to see war in space I watch Star Wars (or Star Crash, lol).
Also, if The Dominion doesn’t like ships coming though the anomalie, why not just stand guard at the exit?
I will continue to watch for a while to see if maybe I am wrong and maybe I’ll like it after all. I started the third season today, but will have to take a break as I will be on vacation for the next 3 weeks.
@72: On the contrary, I remember there being emotion on our heroes faces after the Odyssey got blowed up real good. As I recall from memory, Kira had a stunned look on her face and O’Brien even said in disbelief that there was no need for a suicide run on a fleeing opponent. He seemed fairly emotional to me. However, ChristopherLBennett is correct that as trained military personnel, most of the emotion would be suppressed and then reflected on later.
krad, having watched this episode largely because your THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD portrayal of USS Odyssey – great name for a starship, especially a Starfleet Explorer, absolutely tragic it was attached to a sacrificial lion – I spent a good deal of Captain Keogh’s rather magisterial appearances doing my best not to think of him as ‘Captain Deco’ (also, it’s hard not to read a certain “Just you wait ’till you’re in my chain of command, young lieutenant, see who’s laughing then” undertone in the Captain’s suggestion that Lieutenant Dax might like to try serving on a starship).
Lockdown rewatch. A strong introduction for the Dominion, The Jem Hadar have the best debut of any Trek Villains since The Borg, the interplay between Sisko and Quark is entertainingly hilarious and the late great Aron Eisenberg really starts to establish Nog as a great reoccurring character in this episode.
However one thing always annoyed me about this episode when I first watched it was Dax’. comment to Keogh about transferring the civilians from the Odyssey to DS9 before going through the Worm Hole, it gave the game away and from that point I knew the Odyssey was doomed, why not just separate the Saucer? Or in fact why mention it at all? it would have had an even greater impact if you knew the Odyssey had been lost with all hands, men women and children included, the Enterprise never evacuated civilians before engaging the Borg. A minor quibble I know but it annoyed me at the time.
@86/chadefallstar: The Enterprise was never shown stopping at a space station before engaging the Borg, so they didn’t have the chance to evacuate the civilians.
But yeah, they definitely should’ve separated the Odyssey‘s saucer. The problem is that the only miniature that could separate was too big and unwieldy and nobody wanted to use it.
@86: In The Best of Both Worlds Part 1 when Riker and Shelby were debating her plan to separate the saucer section, Riker opposed the plan because the Enterprise might need the extra power from the saucer section. That suggests that Galaxy class starships are more powerful when the two parts are together, and thus it makes more sense for the Odyssey to off-load its civilians in advance and face the Dominion at full power rather than to separate the saucer section and take on the Dominion in a diminished state.
@88/bguy: “Riker opposed the plan because the Enterprise might need the extra power from the saucer section. That suggests that Galaxy class starships are more powerful when the two parts are together”
Which doesn’t make sense, and highlights the disconnect between the original TNG developers’ concepts and the later showrunners’ approach. The entire thinking behind the Galaxy class’s separable design was that the stardrive section was specialized to function independently as a combat vessel. So it stands to reason that it would’ve been designed to be more combat-effective without the saucer — faster, more maneuverable, more powerful because all its warp power was going into the leaner, more specialized battleship rather than the life-support and equipment needs of the humongous saucer. If it’s weaker without the saucer, it defeats the entire purpose of the design. Nobody makes a gun that’s weaker when it’s out of its holster. It’s an illogical retcon.
@88: Yeah, the whole saucer separation thing has never really worked for me. The only real advantage is offers is giving the enemy a second target to fire at. Beyond that, it’s a “Master of None” scenario: each section neither has the power or durability as the combined ship, while at the same point not being maneuverable enough to avoid incoming fire.
Also, speaking of things that aren’t working, has anyone else been encountering issues with comments not loading recently, particularly on the older posts? When I go to the page for the “Homeward” review, for example, the comments there simply don’t show up.
@90/Devin: “Yeah, the whole saucer separation thing has never really worked for me. The only real advantage is offers is giving the enemy a second target to fire at.”
That’s not how it’s supposed to work, though. Look at the two times it was used. In “Encounter at Farpoint,” the saucer was separated during a high-warp pursuit and left way behind at impulse while the pursuer chased the battle section at warp. By the time it caught up, the saucer was far behind and out of danger (though it would’ve been stranded in deep space if the stardrive section hadn’t survived). And in “The Arsenal of Freedom,” the ship retreated from a drone attack, left the saucer behind at a safe distance, and then returned to the planet to do battle with the drone. In neither case did the saucer remain in the arena of battle.
The ideal situation for saucer separation, as I said in comment #25 nearly seven years ago, would’ve been exactly the one we saw here with the Odyssey, but ironically never saw on TNG: the crew knowing in advance that they were heading into danger, and thus leaving the saucer section behind at a safe port before proceeding into combat. Failing that, the “Arsenal” approach would’ve probably been the usual: face an attack, withdraw, leave the saucer somewhere safe, go back and finish the fight. (Assuming, of course, that the fight was necessary, e.g. to rescue an away team, and couldn’t just be retreated from altogether.) Separating in the middle of combat as in “Farpoint” was the least ideal option, but at least in “Farpoint” they had the advantage of it being a warp pursuit, so the saucer was out of danger in moments. I’m not sure they would’ve done a separation if both ships had been at impulse.
“Beyond that, it’s a “Master of None” scenario: each section neither has the power or durability as the combined ship, while at the same point not being maneuverable enough to avoid incoming fire.”
I don’t agree. Think of it like a horse pulling a carriage. If you hop onto the horse and cut it loose from the carriage, that’s much better for combat purposes, because it’s faster and freer to move and has more of its power available for action because it isn’t expending it on pulling a dead weight.
Again, the intent was that the saucer would not remain in the combat area, or would never enter it to begin with. However, if it got caught in such a situation, that’s why it had those big phaser strips all around the top and bottom faces. And of course the light, fast, maneuverable battle section would’ve been there to fight off the attacker, the active defense to supplement its passive defense.
“Also, speaking of things that aren’t working, has anyone else been encountering issues with comments not loading recently, particularly on the older posts? When I go to the page for the “Homeward” review, for example, the comments there simply don’t show up.”
That does happen sometimes with this software, which has always been unreliable. I think that clearing your cache or logging out and back in might help, though sometimes you just have to wait for it to sort itself out.
@89: It’s not exactly unheard of for militaries to come up with an idea that they think is really great, incorporate it into their equipment, and then find out that it doesn’t really work that well in practice. Take the classic example of the Royal Navy’s battlecruisers in World War 1. They were designed with really light armor because Admiral Fisher believed it was more important for them to be fast and that “speed is armor.” That theory was proven spectacularly wrong at Jutland where the British battlecruisers went up like roman candles fighting against their more heavily armored German counterparts because as it turned out speed wasn’t armor, armor was armor.
And by the same token it’s easy to imagine that when the Galaxy class starships were first being designed that some clever Starfleet admiral thought it would be a really useful ability for the ships to be able to drop off their saucer sections, only for the actual Starfleet captains who ended up commanding the ships to learn in the field that having the extra power from the saucer section available was almost always much more useful. That would hardly be unrealistic. It would just mean the saucer separation capability was a ship design theory that just didn’t work out in practice.
@92/bguy: I just don’t buy the “extra power” idea. The stardrive section has the warp engines, the antimatter reactor. The saucer just has a few old-fashioned fusion reactors. That’s at least an order of magnitude less powerful.
Also, the whole idea was not to take the civilians into combat. Risking their lives just so you can have a bit more power seems to defeat the whole purpose. It’s just another example of how the later showrunners glossed over the whole idea of the civilian complement aside from a few scattered individuals like Guinan and Keiko.
@92/93:
I agree with CLB on this one. Although I do like how bguy summed up British battlecruisers: “…as it turned out speed wasn’t armor, armor was armor…” I got a chuckle out of that
I just rewatched this episode. And where you thought “Odyssey and the Runabouts” would make a good band name, I was more thinking “Sisko and the Boys”.
Also, how did I miss the fact that Herman’s Sensitivity was the Vorta?
Surf Wisely.
I love these reviews and the comments, but it’d had been nice if throughout the rewatch, there had been a rule of not mentioning what will happen in episodes to come. As it is, I will have to stop reading them until I’m finished watching the series. And yes, I know DS9 aired 20 years before the rewatch, but still I’ll bet I’m not the only one reading this on their first watch.
Finally inspired to comment here after reading (and re-reading) KRAD’s rewatches and everyone’s comments from TNG and DS9 up til now. I especially look for CLB and Lisamarie’s comments as I often agree and/or learn something new from you two, and from KRAD of course. This episode was the first time I’ve held my breath in suspense since the Borg first showed up. Seriously great episode- loved the Jake and Nog scenes. I teach middle school and they remind me so much of real students of mine. I have always been a TOS and TNG fan. Tried to watch DS9 with a cousin when it came out but while he became a die-hard, I gave it up basically because it wasn’t TNG. Being older now, having watched TNG in order an embarrassing number of times, I’m thinking now I could be fan after all. Didn’t like Sisko’s shoutiness initially, but that’s toned down, I’m enjoying both the character and Brooks much more, and Dax and Quark have become favorite characters. Of course O’Brien is the best.
I had the misfortune to rewatch Shades of Grey recently (introducing my kids to Trek) and thought Nog’s “maybe it was a vicious tree!” was a funny, if perhaps unintentional, throwback to how Riker wound up in sickbay…
Aww, thank you for the comment :) It’s really fun how long lived these comment threads have been!
My younger sister (she’s 13 years my junior and in her mid twenties) told me she recently started watching TNG which is kind of great.
I forgot to say how cool the Jem Hadar were! Scary, very scary, but cool. Too bad they faded into the background in later seasons. (Now that I’ve finished the series.)
I loved the sense of scale with the ships in this episode. The Odyssey and its runabout “satellites” flying in formation was especially cool.
I’m of two minds about the introduction of the Dominion. On the one hand, I think that they’re probably the best single thing that Deep Space Nine contributes to the overall Star Trek mythos, and that the war arc with them is fantastic. I’m genuinely surprised that there has been basically no follow-up on them for the last 23 years. On the other hand, I don’t like how much the introduction of the Jem’Hadar marginalises the previously established arc about Bajor’s reconstruction (to the point that the series doesn’t even establish whether Bajor ultimately joins the Federation, the mission that Sisko was originally sent there to accomplish).
Anyways, it’s amusing that this episode completely changes the status quo and introduces the main villain for the rest of the series, and yet the only thing that I consistently remember about it is Quark rhetorically owning humanity.
@101/jaimebabb
I’m actually glad that the Dominion have been left alone. I’d hate to see the day where the Dominion fall into Borg territory. Voyager really delved into overkill with them to the point where they were no longer menacing.
@102/Thierafhal – The problem with the Borg is they were set up to be both uniformly and maximally hostile to our heroes at all times and also nigh-invincible; so the options for bringing them back were always either (1) Don’t or (2) nerf them. The Dominion doesn’t have that problem.
@62:
Something that bothered me about the episode that I don’t see any comments about. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected the Odyssey bridge to have been identical to the Enterprise-D bridge, but they’re not even close. Sure, the flagship might be a little different, but the Odyssey bridge looked to be the size of a shoebox.
Yeah, that”s always bothered me, too. But it’s not hard to guess why they didn’t, or couldn’t , use the Enterprise-D Bridge set.
According to Memory Alpha, “The Jem’Hadar” was filmed in mid/late April 1994. Concurrently, production over onTNG had just wrapped only a month earlier and they then proceeded immediately into filming Generations.
So, the Enterprise-D Bridge was likely unavailable to the DS9 production crew due to the filming schedule and its redressing (though it wouldn’t have been destroyed at this point, as the 1701-D crash scenes weren’t filmed until mid-May 1994).
Sucks, but it’s the nature of TV/Film production and scheduling logistics.
Cress Williams’ appearance is a Robert Knepper moment for me in the wake of his recent turn as Jefferson Pierce. I was quite surprised to see his name in the opening credits.
Some variation of the Geneva Convention must survive in Federation law because otherwise the Orinoco failed to deploy its most powerful weapon against the Jem’Hadar: piping Enya’s “Sail Away” into their audio systems on repeat until heads explode in short order.