“When It Rains…”
Written by Rene Echevarria & Spike Steingasser
Directed by Michael Dorn
Season 7, Episode 21
Production episode 40510-571
Original air date: May 5, 1999
Stardate: 52684.3
Station log: O’Brien meets with Sisko, Ross, Martok, and Sub-commander Velal of the Romulans, going over the battle at Chin’toka. One Klingon ship, the Ki’tang, made an adjustment to the engines that made it immune to the Breen energy-dampening weapon. All Klingon Defense Force vessels are being similarly modified, but like modifications won’t work on Starfleet or Romulan vessels, though O’Brien assures everyone that they’re working on it. Meanwhile, the Klingons are the only ones who can effectively fight the Dominion for now.
Unfortunately, just the Klingons against the Cardassians, Breen, and Jem’Hadar is pretty long odds. Martok plans to make quick attack runs with small groups of ships to keep the Dominion off balance and prevent them from launching a major offensive.
They’ve also got Damar’s resistance, which is not going as well as hoped because he’s using straight-up military combat tactics rather than guerrilla ones. They need someone to show them how it’s done, so Sisko sends Kira. The irony of her teaching Cardassians how to fight a rebellion using the same tactics she and the rest of the Bajoran underground used against the Cardassians themselves is not lost on Sisko or Kira, nor is Kira thrilled at the notion of working with the man who murdered Ziyal, but she follows orders. At Sisko’s suggestion, Kira recruits Garak to try to locate Damar—he and his people went into hiding after the attack on Rondac III.
Bashir is trying to find a way to improve their ability to replace organs, and he thinks that changeling biology may hold the key, so he asks Odo for a sample of his form. Odo acquiesces by giving him a cup of goo, but he says he wants the sample back when he, Kira, and Garak return—Kira has asked Odo to accompany her, as she feels he’ll be useful.
On Bajor, Winn talks with Bajoran security about Solbor, whom she has reported missing in order to aid in the coverup of her murdering him. She also refuses to let Dukat touch her—she may have gone over to the dark side, but she hasn’t forgotten who Dukat is and what he’s done. Winn also rejects Dukat’s offer to help decipher the text of the Kosst Amojan, as the words are for her eyes only.
Garak has located Damar and spoken with him, and the ex-legate welcomes the assistance. However, while Damar himself recognizes Kira’s skills and the need for her to lead the mission, he’s worried that his fellow Cardassians won’t take orders from a colonel in the Bajoran Militia, as they view the very existence of the Militia to be an affront. Sisko’s solution: give Kira a Starfleet battlefield commission, so now they can take orders from a commander in Starfleet instead. In a similar vein, Odo changes his appearance so that his “clothes” are the same drab green outfit he wore when he served as chief of security under the Cardassians.
Sure enough, Garak’s words are proven right, as Rusot bitches to Damar about accepting help from Kira. For that matter, he bitches about accepting help from the Federation in general—Kira’s team is bringing a food replicator—but Damar reminds him that they have to put old hatreds aside if they’re going to win.
Gowron arrives at the station, ostensibly to award Martok the Star of Kahless, a great honor. However, after a night of drinking and the performance of the ritual—which, to Sisko and Ross’s dismay, includes bloodletting—Gowron announces that he’s taking over the running of the war personally. He couches it in terms of freeing Martok to just be a warrior rather than a bureaucrat, but it’s obvious that he wants the glory of victory. Martok is not at all happy about this, but even though Gowron is more politican than warrior, he is also chancellor, and Martok will obey.
Bashir analyzes the Odo sample, and is devastated to realize that Odo has the same disease that is afflicting the other Founders. He contacts the runabout, informing Kira, Garak, and Odo (en route to Damar’s hideout), and also assuring them that he’s working on a cure. Starfleet Medical did a full workup of Odo a few years earlier, and Bashir can compare those records to the current sample, and it might help him find a way to stop it.
Unfortunately, Bashir finds himself stonewalled. Odo’s medical records are classified, and Bashir isn’t cleared to see them. What’s more, Commander Hilliard sees no reason to give Bashir assistance in an attempt to cure a disease that is ravaging the enemy. O’Brien theorizes that it’s typical bureaucratic nonsense, heightened by the attack on Starfleet Headquarters—as he says, guys like Hilliard are used to sitting at their desks, not under them.
However, it turns out that Sisko has sufficient clearance to see the files in question, and Hilliard is forced to accede to the captain’s request. But when Bashir examines the files, he realizes that it’s not the scan from three years earlier, but a copy of Dr. Mora’s original scan of Odo made when he found him, which Mora shared with Bashir when he first came to the station seven years earlier. Starfleet Medical wouldn’t fake a record like this—but Section 31 might, in order to keep Bashir from finding a cure.
Kira, Garak, and Odo arrive at the headquarters of the Cardassian Liberation Front, a hifalutin name for a big cave. Everyone is guardedly polite to each other (except Rusot, who’s guardedly snotty). Kira then lays out what they need to do: have a decentralized network rather than a single base, cells of ten to twenty people working autonomously, making them harder to track.
Damar’s people are unwilling to attack any target guarded by Cardassian forces, wanting to limit themselves to those protected by the Jem’Hadar or Breen, but Kira reminds them that they don’t have that luxury. As soon as the Dominion realizes they’re not targeting Cardassians, they’ll post Cardassians at every outpost they can. Damar reluctantly agrees, to Rusot’s annoyance.
At night, Dukat sneaks into Winn’s office and takes a peek at the text of the Kosst Amojan—which immediately blinds him. Dukat’s screams awaken Winn, who goes all Enchanter Tim on him (“I warned you!”). Winn takes great pleasure in taunting the blind Dukat—and the doctors can find nothing actually wrong with his eyes—and then she turns him out onto the street. He will remain there as a beggar until the Pah-wraiths forgive him and give him his sight back.
Seskal and Rusot decide to taunt Odo a bit, wondering why he didn’t resign as a Cardassian officer, and why Kira doesn’t consider him a collaborator just as bad as the ones she killed. Odo and Garak talk Kira into not starting a fight. After Odo calms her down in a supply room, he notices that he’s starting to show the first symptoms of the disease.
Gowron announces to Martok and Worf that they aren’t just going to hold the line against the Dominion, but go on the offensive. They will triumph without any help from the Federation or the Romulans. Martok’s complaint that they’re outnumbered twenty to one falls on deaf ears.
Bashir and O’Brien realize that Odo first got the disease three years ago on the very day that he visited Starfleet Medical. They deduce that Section 31 gave Odo the disease with the intention of wiping out the Founders. That’s why they’re covering it up—they don’t want to stop him from finding the cure, they want to cover up that they created the disease in the first place.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently, the way to defend against the Breen energy weapon is to adjust the tritium intermix in the warp core. At least on a Klingon ship…
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko takes great pleasure in guiding Ross through the more unpleasant aspects of a Klingon ceremony. When Ross complains that his hand still stings from being sliced open earlier, Sisko smiles and says, “That’s what the bloodwine is for.”
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira is less than thrilled about having to teach Cardassians how to do what she did to get rid of the Cardassians, and Rusot and Seskal acting like assholes doesn’t help.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Gowron gives Worf the stinkeye when he first boards the station, but since Martok has accepted him into his House, Gowron is willing to overlook what he views as Worf’s betrayal.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo starts getting symptoms of the disease shortly after hearing about it, which is an amazing coincidence…
Rules of Acquisition: Quark, having heard that Odo was ill, brings coffee to Bashir and O’Brien, since he assumes they’re working on a cure.
Plain, simple: Garak tells Rusot that he’s lucky he and Odo were able to rein Kira in, because she would have killed him. Rusot says he only wishes she’d try, to which Garak can only sadly shake his head.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Bashir thinks Dax has been avoiding him. But every time he tries to confront her about it, he’s called away—including this time to deal with the revelation that Odo is suffering from the disease afflicting the Founders.
Victory is life: The Dominion is mounting an offensive, since two-thirds of their enemy is helpless against the Breen weapon. Gowron thinks this is a dandy time to mount an offensive of his own even though he’s badly outnumbered.
For Cardassia! Damar is open to Kira’s recommendations, and also in general goes out of his way to be accommodating to her—which is good, as no one else is. Damar even thinks to have a cooling unit around for Kira to use, since Bajorans don’t like heat as much as Cardassians.
Keep your ears open: “I need to borrow a cup of goo.”
“Excuse me.”
“I’ll give it back!”
Bashir asking Odo for a sample of his body.
Welcome aboard: Robert O’Reilly (Gowron) and Andrew J. Robinson (Garak) show up for the first time in the closing arc, while Marc Alaimo (Dukat), Casey Biggs (Damar), Louise Fletcher (Winn), J.G. Hertzler (Martok), Barry Jenner (Ross), and John Vickery (Rusot) are back for more.
In addition, Scott Burkholder and Colby French play the Starfleet bureaucrats who stonewall Bashir, Stephen Yoakum plays Velal, and the mighty Vaughn Armstrong shows up as Seskal, his fourth of what will eventually be a dozen different roles on the various Trek series (including previously playing a different Cardassian, Danar, in “Past Prologue”).
Trivial matters: The original plan was for Damar to work as a double agent, pretending to still be Weyoun’s toady while running the resistance, but that meant he wouldn’t interact with any of the main cast, so it was changed to him running an underground resistance. This led to a change in the upcoming “Extreme Measures,” since the original plan was for Kira and Odo to search for a cure for the virus, and it wound up being O’Brien and Bashir instead, since Kira and Odo (along with Garak) were off helping Damar.
Odo was infected with the morphogenic virus when he was on Earth during “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost,” during which he was subjected to many medical tests, any one of which could’ve been a cover to give him the disease. He subsequently infected the Great Link in “Broken Link.” It is likely that Odo gave the disease to Laas in “Chimera,” but the novels Avatar Book 2 by S.D. Perry and Olympus Descending by David R. George III (in Worlds of DS9 Volume 3) established that Laas returned to the Great Link after the war and therefore received the same cure that Odo will provide for the Great Link in “What You Leave Behind.”
Ziyal was killed in “Sacrifice of Angels.” Both Nana Visitor and Andrew J. Robinson felt there should have been a scene where either Kira or Garak or both confronted Damar about that, but it didn’t really fit in the dynamic of the scenes with the resistance.
Velal was mentioned as temporarily replacing Cretak as the Romulan representative on the station in “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges,” and he apparently got the position full-time after her arrest.
The chief engineer of the Ki’tang who discovered how to counter the Breen energy weapon was named by your humble rewatcher in The Klingon Art of War: B’Entra. The same book established that she was enshrined with a statue in the Hall of Warriors thanks to this discovery.
While aiding Damar, Odo “wears” the same clothes he wore in the flashbacks in “Necessary Evil.”
Worf was exiled from the Klingon Empire in “The Way of the Warrior” for not supporting Gowron’s invasion of Cardassia, and Gowron made it clear in “Apocalypse Rising” that the exposure of the Martok changeling did nothing to change Worf’s status. He made part of Martok’s House in “Soldiers of the Empire.”
Walk with the Prophets: “You’re going to have to put your personal feelings aside.” On the one hand, this episode feels like “Penumbra” all over again, as it’s all setup. The first four episodes of the closing arc were written at once, and they do kind of form a unit. By the end of “The Changing Face of Evil,” the Breen have joined the Dominion, Damar has broken off, Sisko is married, and Worf and Dax have returned safely to the station.
Now we get some new plot threads started: Kira leading a team to show Damar how to run a resistance, Gowron horning in on Martok’s glory, Bashir discovering that not only does Odo have the Founders’ disease, but that he gave it to them thanks to Section 31. Plus, the Dukat-Winn plot gets a nasty twist as Dukat is blinded.
I listed those in descending order of how interesting they are. Dukat being blinded by reading the Kosst Amojan text is actually kind of fun in and of itself, especially the evil glee Winn takes in it, and also in sending him out to beg on the street. But this is a case where background knowledge and knowledge of what is to come is detrimental, because it turns out that Rene Echevarria did that because the Dukat-Winn plot had nowhere to go until the finale, so the Dukat-goes-blind thing was a way to keep that subplot off stage for the next three episodes until it will be back in the finale. And so instead of leading to the fun of watching Dukat be forced to beg on the streets of the planet he subjugated, it just leads to forgetting about the Pah-wraiths plot. Which is actually okay, as far as that goes, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
Then again, we’ve got our fill of irony in Kira being sent to tutor Damar in how to be a rebel. This entire plotline is just perfect, with Kira coming full circle, as well as showing Damar’s continued maturation. He can’t afford to be the Cardassian thug anymore. Rusot and Seskal do a nice job of being what Damar used to be. All these scenes shine beautifully, aided by some truly stellar performances by a tense Kira, a snotty Garak, a calm Odo, a hidebound Rusot, and a determined Damar to create a lovely stew of tension that you know is going to boil over.
Way back in “Reunion,” Gowron was first described by Worf as an outsider who had often challenged the High Council, and ever since ascending to the chancellorship in that very episode, he’s been more politician than warrior, from rewriting history to glorify himself, as established in “Unification I” to his response to the clone of Kahless in “Rightful Heir” to his manipulating events in general and Worf in particular in “The Way of the Warrior.” Here, he continues his ways, snatching Martok’s glory for himself and then channeling General Melchett with his insane strategy…
That leaves us with the Founders disease which turns out to be an evil Section 31 plot. Y’know, it’s been a decade and a half since I saw this episode the first time, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. It definitely ups the stakes, as Bashir and O’Brien’s fight to save their friend takes on a much more dangerous tenor once 31’s involvement comes into it, and we know how ruthless they are, but—well, it’s still Section bloody 31, which remains a poor plot device and a vehicle for lazy storytelling more often than not. But this plot also gives us Odo angst, which is always fun, and several opportunities for Bashir and O’Brien to sit in a room babbling at each other, which is also always fun. So, y’know, whatever.
The momentum has been building nicely over these first five stories, and that makes this particular setup episode more tolerable, especially since its best parts—the Klingon and Cardassian storylines—are building to something amazing next time…
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Farpoint 22 next weekend in Timonium, Maryland, both as an author and a musician as part of the Boogie Knights. Other guests include actors Tim Russ and Colin Ferguson, author Timothy Zahn, Klingon language guru Marc Okrand, and fellow Trek fictioneers Rigel Ailur, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Dave Galanter, Allyn Gibson, Robert Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, Robert T. Jeschonek, David Mack, Aaron Rosenberg, Howard Weinstein, Richard C. White, and Steven H. Wilson, and tons and tons more.
If Gowron is such a smart politician, why is he planning to do something so obviously stupid?
I acknowledge what you say about the Winn/Dukat stuff (and especially the pah-Wraith storyline in general – I am now beginning to understand the antipathy now that I’ve seen the last episode)…but I will just say that, despite my beliefs on mercy and treatment of the disabled and alla that, Winn turning out Dukat is probably one of my favorite moments in the whole series and a CMOA for her, in my opinion. HA! As I said, in the previous episode, I actually enjoy watching her just be as bitchy as she can be, at least when it’s directed to Dukat (even though I really wanted her character arc to be different). I AM a little disappointed there wasn’t much payoff in the show though; he just strolls back in a few episodes later.
The disease timing is just a bit too convenient for me. Why do the Founders show the symptoms so quickly, but it takes Odo so long? Unless it has to do with the shape shifting or being in a solid vs. goo state? But we know Odo still shifts some of the time, and he still has to regenerate, right?
I really wanted more follow up on Ziyal – that’s another reason I can’t toally fall into the “Damar is so awesome” camp. I mean, he’s awesome, I just wouldn’t want to hang out with him or anything. And I actually totally forgot that Garak would also have some personal reasons to be angry about that too.
ad: Smart politicians do stupid things all the time. Having said that, next time, Gowron’s motives will become clearer, if no less stupid.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Lisamarie: keep in mind that Odo spent the time between “Broken Link” and “The Begotten” as a solid, which probably retarded the spread of the disease. One theory is that he no longer had the disease after being made solid and was reinfected in “Behind the Lines” when he linked with the female changeling, but the problem with that theory is that Bashir is able to trace the path of the disease in Odo back to “Homefront”/”Paradise Lost,” so the disease couldn’t have been expunged. But being made human (since solids are immune to the disease) could easily have retarded its spread.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
This episode may be continuing the setup theme – you really can’t avoid it with such a long arc – but it’s the first one in the closing arc that I’ve actually liked. Emotions start to get heightened, things start to get tense, it’s getting good.
I like intrigue, so I like that the morphogenic virus comes from Section 31. Yes, they are a very convenient plot device, but they do exist; that there is a division of Starfleet happy to commit genocide is cool. I can come up with a whole lot of interesting story in my head for that – especially since it requires a great deal more planning than Kevin Uxbridge snapping his fingers and killing all the Husnock. If there’s TrekLit on S31 and the morphogenic virus, could someone please point me in that direction?
Kira and Odo in the resistance cell start to get interesting, too. The drama eases a bit once she gets her A/C unit, but I like her getting angry enough to throw things. Kira’s always had anger issues, but she’s learned to control herself – and yet what she’s been asked to do has obviously got her under so much stress that there are more cracks in the veneer.
And I dearly love Robert O’Reilly as Gowron. It’s the eyes, of course, but it’s also the crazy. He’s always just on the precipice, you know? And then he goes and buys his crew Hallmark ornaments.
To answer my own question via Memory Beta, it looks like Hollow Men by Una McCormack is the only one that touches on the creation of the morphogenic virus.
I loved putting Kira in charge of the Cardassian resistance. Not only was the irony amazing, and the full circle it provided her (and Cardassia) was some great storytelling, but also because it gave Kira the character (and Nana Visitor the actor) some great stuff to do. I feel like for a lot of Season 7 Kira wasn’t much more than Odo’s girlfriend, so seeing her really take charge here was awesome.
-Andy
Obviously the virus’ kill switch was triggered in Odo by him learning that it existed.
There was the Buttmonkey-O-Brian episode where he discovered at the end that he was a clone of the real Chief and that he was made as a bomb which would detonate at some peace talks (or some such). In the original Philip K Dick short story that it was based on the trigger for the detonation was him realising that he was in fact a clone (didn’t end well). Perfectly logical see.
170 rewatches down. Four to go.
Having Kira go back to her terrorist origins and teach the Cardassians the necessary tactics is one of the best examples of the show coming full circle. Definitely one of the best plot developments DS9 has tackled, with some truly great conflict, heightened stakes and superb character work.
Winn blinding Dukat was the most blatant Deus-Ex Machine I’ve ever seen on this show. It pays off to plan your story arcs in advance. I find it pretty stupid for them to realize they didn’t have enough material for 10 episodes that it would required such a blatant course correction. Then again, serialized storytelling was still in its infancy, especially for the Trek writers.
I was also pretty glad they decided to give some real closure to the Klingon arc, which began almost a decade prior to these final shows. It makes sense, given how influential the Klingons became to DS9 as a whole. With Voyager being the only 24th Century show left, there wasn’t going to be another chance at seeing this thread revisited, although Voyager did get a beautiful B’Elanna character piece in season 7’s Lineage.
Correction: Deus ex Machina
@9: Well said. My other correction would be that it wasn’t Winn who blinded Dukat, it was the Pah-wraiths. Or the book, if you think books are into that.
There is also the fact that viruses mutate over time as they respond to antiviral drugs or natural antibodies. If one fo these mutations had caused a new and more virulent strain of the virus to develop in one of the other changelings, since the last time Odo linked with the female changeling, then she would have it, but he would not. Hence she ends up showing the more serious symptoms earlier. The fact that he is not part of the great link effectively acts as a firewall.
On the subject of this being a second setup episode: As I recall, at the time, the first four episodes of the arc were actually described in the TV listings as “Part 1 of 4,” “Part 2 of 4,” etc. So while we tend to see the final arc as a single 10-hour piece, it was originally approached more as two arcs in a row, although only the first quartet were actually listed as “Part X” in an arc. And really, I always felt that “Changing Face” seemed more like the beginning of a new arc than the conclusion of the previous one. I guess it was both, a transitional piece.
And Eduardo, I have to disagree about serialization being in its infancy. Serialized storytelling has been around since before television even existed. It was how Charles Dickens wrote his novels. It was how many radio series like Superman were written, and how soap operas were written on radio and TV. True, it was something of a novelty in the ’90s for prime-time, adult-oriented adventure drama series to adopt a serialized approach, but that doesn’t mean that serialization itself was a brand-new concept.
Besides, even these days, when serialization is more commonplace, there are still shows that have trouble balancing their various story threads and often set them aside arbitrarily for a while before returning to them. Grimm, for instance, is quite bad at advancing its arcs. They set up a thread early last season about the lead character having some weird, troubling aftereffects from a transformation he’d been through, then just let it fizzle for the rest of the year, then briefly touched on it a couple of weeks ago, and now they seem to be ignoring it again. They just have too many things to juggle and I don’t think they have any actual resolutions planned out for any of them.
@9/10 Correction to the correction, that would be Diabolus Ex-Machina.
Just an interesting aside to the numbering question: Netflix has Penumbra-The Dogs of War labeled as Part 1-8. The season 7 DVDs, on the other hand, don’t label them as “parts” at all.
I’ve always been bothered by the timing of Odo’s sickness. I know the hand wave was that he was shapeshifting more frequently and that accelerated it, but the idea that he’d had the disease for years and it starts showing itself just days after he finds out strains credibility to a pretty extreme degree.
Yeah, I’ll agree that several of the threads of this final arc (the nine-piece arc, I guess) felt crammed in and like they were not very well planned out.
One thing I always thought of in the scene when Bashir asks Odo for a sample of himself to help unlock the key to quick organ regeneration is, did the writers forget about the hospital scene in Star Trek IV?
McCoy gives the dialysis patient a pill and just a short time later, she’s grown a new kidney!
I would just like to point out two things:
1: We DO get Kira and Garak calling out Damar regarding Ziyal’s death: the moment when Kira walks in on Damar and Garak after he was informed of his wife and children being executed by the Dominion. I think that’s in the next episode, though.
2: Just to add to the pantheon of KRAD’s “sex on a goddamn stick” moments: Kira, wearing a Starfleet uniform. That is all.
In my personal book of rules for Survival on Deep Space 9, number 1 is “If you have to travel by runabout, always take the Rio Grande.”
Number 2? “Do NOT antagonize Kira Nerys. It will end badly for you.”
@13: I know that, and I agree. I was mostly referring to prime-time television, as you’ve mentioned. At this point, besides DS9, I can only recall X-Files and Babylon 5 as the only examples which really defined serialized sci-fi at that time (which Voyager should have tried a lot more).
Jeremy: Yes, that’s next episode, but that scene was not about Ziyal. We’ll get to that on Tuesday….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@21: Can’t wait…because I could have sworn Ziyal was the knife Kira was twisting in Damar’s back in that one scene…
…but we’ll hold that thought for tuesday. Slapping a “to be continued” on that one.
Jeremy: That’s one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the history of Trek. Trust me, that conversation is about The Dominion now:Cardassia now::Cardassia then:Bajor then, not about Damar and Ziyal.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@23: In that case, I’ll be waiting for it to pop up in the next Keep Your Ears Open, because it’s one of MY favorite back-and-forths, too.
I think, if you squint, you can get the exchange to fit Ziyal, even though the actual target for discussion is how the Cardassians treated Bajor (in both cases, the line of something like what kind of monster kills innocent women and children works).
Rancho: you have to squint enough to ignore what Damar actually says that Kira’s reacting to, since he’s talking about a state that gives permits the murder of women and children and people giving those orders, neither of which actually applies to someone taking it upon himself to murder someone. Damar’s talking about state-sanctioned brutality, not personal brutality. To apply it to Ziyal utterly misses the point of what’s being said.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@26: No, Damar wasn’t talking about Ziyal — but Kira was. That’s the whole point of the scene: Damar is condemning the killing of innocents without realizing the hypocrisy of what he’s saying, and Kira reminds him of the innocent blood on his own hands. She’s not limiting it exclusively to Ziyal, but I’ve always seen that as part of the subtext of the exchange.
@26 and @27: I think Nerys was definitely addressing both Ziyal and the Occupation as a whole. It was definitely a pivotal moment for Damar, as he realizes that hypocrisy, which finally pays off in the next episode, with the whole “need to forge a new Cardassia” line.
@3 Point! Maybe it’s not so much about Damar’s rise to awesomeness, then, but his crawling back to being a tolerable huma… Er… Sentient being.
@@.-@ Does that create the possibility that Odo actually infected and killed the infant changeling in The Begotten?
@18 point 2: Quite.
The thing about 31’s involement in the virus I liked was the dramatic irony.
The Founders spent most of the show crowing about how superior they were to Solids…and they didn’t realize that said Solids finally managed to come up with a way to best them.
The blinding of Dukat may be a Diablolus Ex Machina, but since they are litteraly trying to invoke evil gods it actually correct for s Diabolus Ex Machina to happen.
What did you expect evil gods to reward you with? Cupcakes?
Evil cupcakes?
@29: Holy shit…Odo infected the infant changeling.
I did not see that one coming, but you’re absolutely right, Warren: it’s entirely possible.
Whoa.
The infant changeling died, right? Before restoring Odo’s liquid state, that is.
I do find it rather convenient that Odo infected the Female Shapeshifter back in the season 4 finale, but didn’t show signs of the disease himself, while every other Founder suffered throughout season 7. Presumably, the disease had a two year incubation period, which for some reason became three years for the original carrier.
I also find it ingenious that during seasons 3 and 4, the Founders basically did some minor infiltrations, which led every major Alpha Quadrant power to take hideous precautions. And in the end, as soon as allied with Cardassia, and war broke out, they never resorted to further infiltrations ever again.
When I watched this episode the first time I yelled at the tv “Da** it, now he’s to important to kill!” about Damar. My roomate just rolled her eyes and walked away. Since Winn didn’t kill Dukat the last episode like I wanted I thought it was funny he was struck blind. It was very old testament, but I really wanted to see him suffer. I can’t wait until the next episode because this one is just build up.
@28 – I don’t think there is even a subtext of Ziyal. I see two points that Kira was hitting:
1) the targeting of those who were not part of the uprising. I’m sure Cardassia targeted the families of Bajorn Resistance members.
2) the casual brutality of the Occupation. The Cardassians didn’t view the Bajorans as worth consideration, and now the Dominion was doing the same.
I think you can make a case that Ziyal was being addressed as she was an innocent (although she wasn’t, she participated in the final sabotage by helping free Rom), but I think you have to work real hard to make the argument as it is so minimally and tangentially related.
@34, My take has always been that Odo was never meant to become infected; they couldn’t risk him succumbing before he’d infected the Link. The alterations to his bio-chemistry in “Broken Link” and “Begotten” probably undid whatever modifications 31 made to prevent Odo becoming infected.
As to the incubatory period, 31 also probably thought they had more time to prepare for an invasion, or that it would take time for the virus to disseminate across the Link. I doubt they foresaw a Dominion coup on the level of Dukat’s actions.
It also allows a grim bit of revenge had the Founders gotten their reinforcements through the Wormhole last season. If the UFP goes down, at least 31 has the satisfaction of knowing the Founders will be following them into hell not too long afterwards.
Perhaps, based on one’s natural ability to fight the virus, one shows symptoms at different rates? This was certainly true in the early days of the HIV epidemic, when some infected people became sick very quickly and others carried the virus for longer with fewer symptoms.
I like @37’s theory that Odo was supposed to be some sort of Typhoid Mary and had an altered version of the disease that wasn’t supposed to kick in for a long while, if ever, and the mucking about with his form from the other Founders somehow brought it to the surface.
@39, That theory’s always seemed to make the most sense to me.
31 would have no way of knowing how long it would take for Odo
to link with another Founder again. They were probably banking on the Link hauling Odo in for his actions at the end of Season 3, but knew that it could takes years (the Founders are long-term oriented, after all).
Yeah, they could program the virus to not affect him until years later…but that seems too risky because, again, they would have no idea when the next link would occur.
@36: I think, conversely, that one would have to “work hard” to justify why Kira wouldn’t be thinking of Ziyal at that point. Ziyal was someone she cared about deeply, and Damar killed her. The political context is irrelevant, because this is about Kira’s personal feelings. There is no way Kira could look at Damar and not be affected by her memory of what he did to Ziyal. That’s not the sort of thing she could forget. Forgive, maybe, but not forget, not ignore. It would inevitably be on her mind when she was with him, no matter what they were talking about.
Sorry, I’m with Rancho here — Kira’s response was to Damar’s line about the state giving orders to kill innocent people. Kira’s response is to remind Damar that his people gave those orders on Bajor all the time. Damar looks angrily at her and walks away, prompting Kira to say that saying that was stupid — if this was about Ziyal, Kira doesn’t have that regret in the least.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@41- That’s the thing – I can see how Ziyal’s death feeds Kira’s anger and I’m sure she thinks of her when she sees Damar, but I don’t see it being part of her statement. Remember, nobody gave an order to kill Innocent Ziyal. That death was Damar deciding to kill Resistance Ziyal.
@42 – Was Damar angry? I thought he was chagrined. He knew what Kira meant and I think this put the Old Cardassia into perspective for him, which he was struggling to face. I think Kira read it as anger, but I don’t think that’s what it was.
@43: See, I don’t see it as being about the precise hair-splitting details of the words and events. It’s about the characters and their emotions. Like I said, I can’t see Kira not thinking of what Damar did to Ziyal every time she looked at him. They could be having a conversation about their favorite flavors of ice cream and Kira’s anger at Ziyal’s death would still be coloring her words. That’s how subtext works. It’s about what characters feel, not what they say.
Christopher: Yes, and I maintain that Kira wouldn’t have felt an ounce of regret if it was Ziyal she was talking about.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@34: The Cardassian defector in the episode “Change of Heart” claimed to have intelligence on how many Founders were in the Alpha Quadrant and what they were up to. Assuming he wasn’t lying, that makes it sound as though the Founders were still doing infiltration missions throughout the war. (There was also a reference in the episode “In the Pale Moonlight” to the Federation shipyards being rebuilt. Since the main Federation shipyard is at Mars, a world that was never attacked by the Dominion fleet, those shipyards were probably sabotaged by Changling infiltrators.) Most likely we just don’t see any Changling infiltrators during the war because none of them are operating near Deep Space Nine.
@46: The Federation actually has quite a few known shipyards:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Federation_shipyards
They’re disproportionately concentrated at Earth, Luna, and Mars (I suspect some of the ones listed there are alternate names for the same thing), but there are also mentions of yards at 40 Eridani (Vulcan), Proxima (presumably Proxima Centauri), Antares, and Beta Antares (whatever that is).
I’m not sure how Odo could’ve infected the baby changeling as he was a solid at the time and never linked with it. Second of all, the baby changeling’s symptoms were nothing like the symptoms shown of this disease. Most importantly, one of the symptoms mentioned by the Salome Jens changeling in an upcoming episode is that she lost the ability to change form. Since the baby changeling changed to goo and linked with Odo, changed him into a bird, and then restored his state to that of a changeling before it died, I would say that it most definitely was not dying of the same disease.
@47: Interesting. Still, it sounds as though most of those shipyards are in systems the Dominion fleet hadn’t attacked as of “In the Pale Moonlight.” (They definitely hadn’t attacked the Sol System by that point, and I don’t believe they would have attacked Vulcan or Proxima Centauri yet either, since it was mentioned in that episode that it was taking Betazed that would let the Dominion threaten those two systems.) As such it still seems likely that the damage to the Federation shipyards Vreenak cited must have been caused by Changling infiltrators.
@48: :)
Going by earlier discussion, Odo was infected before being made a solid in ‘Broken Link’. Does that mean the virus was purged from his system, or are solids capable of being carriers? Linking, as in ‘Broken Link’, most likely disseminates the virus more readily, but is it necessary?
TBH I can’t remember all the symptoms of the disease, beyond ‘looking a bit sweaty and flaky’, or the second-by-second account of events in ‘The Begotten’. But perhaps, as an infant with much less mass, it succumbed quickly before many symptoms could manifest?
(A chronological checklist of symptoms could easily sound like that Blackadder episode: “First you get REALLY ANGRY! Then you start to, um, forget… what it was… Then you jump in a corner.”)
Did *it* change him into a bird? Did it know what a bird was? Or was that Odo using a kind of a metaphor at the sudden return of his shapeshifting abilities?
Anyways, I’m not getting up in arms or pressing the issue. I just thought it could have been an interesting, though very minor retcon.
@49: That doesn’t follow, though, because if they have that many shipyards, they probably have more that weren’t mentioned. So we can’t rule out the possibility that there were shipyards in systems the Dominion did attack.
Indeed, think it through. A prerequisite for Federation contact, as seen in TNG: “First Contact” (and in the movie of the same name, assuming Federation policy is inherited from Vulcan policy), is the possession of warp drive and interstellar capability. Thus, it stands to reason that just about every Federation member world would have already been building its own starships before it joined the Federation. Which means that most Federation worlds would have their own shipyards, which could have been destroyed when the Dominion attacked or invaded those worlds.
I also wonder if the Borg razed any of these shipyards during their blitkreig towards Earth in the months before the outbreak of the Dominion War.
With Starfleet’s losses in the running battle and the Dominion takeover of Cardassia, the fleet’s personnel and resources would’ve been spread thin. Rebuilding those facilities would’ve taken far longer.
@51: If the Federation had that much shipyard capacity, I don’t think they would be having the starship production problems that are cited by Vreenak.
Also, just because those worlds once had the capability to produce their own starships doesn’t mean they would maintain that capability after decades or even centuries as members of the Federation. Why would say Risa continue to maintain a shipyard capable of producing military grade starships when the Federation already has a perfectly good shipyard on Utopia Planitia? Risians with an interest in starship design could still work at Utopia Plantia, and the Galaxy class ships produced there protect Risa just as well as ships produced in a Risan yard would, so even though Risa is technologically capable of producing its own starships there is little need for it to do so. Indeed that’s one of the big advantages of being a Federation member. Each world doesn’t have to maintain its own military and military-industrial complex but can instead enjoy the advantages of focusing on the things its best at/most interested in.
@53: “Also, just because those worlds once had the capability to produce their own starships doesn’t mean they would maintain that capability after decades or even centuries as members of the Federation.”
While that’s certainly true, it doesn’t follow that every single one would’ve given up their shipyards except for Vulcan. If even 1 in every 10 member worlds retained an independent shipbuilding capability, that would still give at least a dozen shipyards beyond the ones mentioned onscreen.
@43: Yes, he was angry — but he was also realizing that his anger was because “the truth hurts.” Realizing that perhaps he had no right to be angry at Kira compared to the Bajorans’ reasons for being angry at Cardassians.
I’ve felt that kind of anger where I also know I deserved the harsh criticism, and I totally understand why Damar left the room at that point — he knew his anger would make self-control difficult, but he also knew that he would probably regret anything he said or did at that moment if he stayed near Kira, because she was actually right.
Thinking about Shipyards, it stands to figure that the Federation probably has a lot of them, but we have to remember that starships are incredibly complicated technology. Even if we assume they are being sent out unfinished- missing holodecks, science labs, etc as some of the novels suggest- they can’t just wave a magic wand and create a starship. Considering that Starfleet has lost hundreds of ships in single battles (I seem to recall something like 311 ships being lost at the Second Battle of Chintoka, which probably means about 100+ ships each for the Federaiton, Romulans and Klingons) and you’re on the wrong end of the equation when it comes to ship counts.
As far as each planet having it’s own shipyard, that’s probably true, but they probably are not capable of handling a Federation Starship- most of the ships that were used for early warp flight (and get the attention of the Federation) are small. The Phoenix was a converted missile, which is big enough for it’s purpose, but a hundred times smaller than say a Nebula class cruiser. Those shipyards just probably aren’t equipped to build warships.
@56: Yeah, but it’s unlikely that a world would be admitted to the UFP immediately after its first warp flight. First contact is one thing, Federation membership an entirely different thing. There could be years or decades between those events. So multiple worlds could have developed sophisticated fleets of their own before they eventually decided to join the Federation.
Re: Ziyal – I’m with CLB on this one. My impression when I watched it was that Ziyal was definitely a factor in Kira’s anger. The fact that she regretted the outburst doesn’t mean Ziyal wasn’t subtext. Any regret she expressed later was regret at letting her anger affect the mission. She definitely wouldn’t regret being angry about Ziyal, but it’s certainly possible for her to still wish she hadn’t let it show.
@58: Yep, that’s pretty much my thinking. It’s not what she felt that she regretted, just her timing. In fact, she says exactly that — “I could have picked a better time.”
The way I read it, Damar was on the verge of an epiphany about the wrongness of his past actions, and Kira saw her mistake as being too confrontational, which risked angering him and driving him away from that epiphany. Which, come to think of it, would be exactly the same mistake she made with Kai Winn not long before, pushing too hard when Winn was on the verge of repentance and thereby scuttling the opportunity. Maybe she was worried she’d made the same mistake again.
Oh, I have to agree with krad here – while I certainly agree that Kira couldn’t help but be thinking about Ziyal whenever she interacts with Damar, I believe that comment to specifically be about the paralels between the Dominion as a State and Cardassia as a State and the way it dealt with dissent, and specifically about families/people having nothing to do with the rebellion (as opposed to Ziyal who was actively involved).
But at any rate…it was one of my favorite moments :D
@56: And I just don’t see how those are separate issues. What Damar did to Ziyal was part of the overall atrocities of Cardassia as a state. I don’t get this desire to erect walls between different facets of the same overall phenomenon, namely Cardassia as a military state willing to use violence to achieve its will. Damar killed Ziyal because he believed it to be his duty as a soldier, something mandated by his loyalty to the state. That makes it part and parcel of the same system that was responsible for the general oppression of the Bajoran people, the system that raised and trained Damar to be capable of what he did.
So, it appears there are two sides to the Damar/Ziyal conflict. I’m not sure how the blue and red chest beams will be divided between Keith and Christopher, but I look forward to a thoroughly unsatisfying outcome when the Winn/Dukat duo pop out of nowhere to try and refocus our attention on them.
@59: Oh, interesting. I had considered how Kira’s outburst with Damar was similar (too direct) to her recent experience with Winn — but I hadn’t thought about the possibility that Kira was drawing a connection between the two, and recognizing a past mistake in a later action. Development abounds!
Fortunately, Damar is more mature and/or humble than Winn, and even though Kira’s outburst angered him, he still channeled that anger towards remorse for his own atrocities, rather than lashing outwards. Perhaps he even understands Kira’s personality enough to realize that he really shouldn’t expect anything less-direct from her …
Uh, HUGE plot hole that somehow got missed:
The doctors can’t find anything wrong with Dukat’s eyes…not even the fact they’re Cardassian eyes. It’s like they just looked at him and were like, “Eyes? Yeah, they’re still in his head on that face thing he’s got…he’s probably fine!”
Also remember Solbor mentioned he *had* Dukat’s DNA sequenced. The way he said it strongly implied he wasn’t the one who did it (not to mention he’s no scientist or doctor himself), so you’d think somebody would’ve asked where he got the sample and why it was so recent.
You’ve got doctors examining Dukat along with a recent sample of his DNA lying around (presumably nearby; after all, how many doctors does a Kai rely on), but nobody figures out who he is.
Are they Cardassian eyes, though? If we’re going to buy the fact that a surgeon is able to completely transform him into a Bajoran (by appearances), I assume his eyes were touched too.
And perhaps they did take some routine blood/urine tests, and that’s what Sobor had sequenced, but that type of analysis isn’t typical.
(That said, it does beg the question if Bajoran doctors have technology similar to Federation tricorders, which I assume WOULD pick up his signature automatically – since I am pretty sure we’ve seen them do things like that before).
Sadly, the whole timeline gets completely messed up here. Odo got infected back in season 4. But in season 5, we see an “alternate timeline Odo” in “Children of Time”. He has been living on that planet for 200 years. But he shows no signs of the illness. How should that have been possible? Either he was infected as late as Paradise Lost, or he wasn’t. But he must have been, because he infected the Founders in Broken Link.
Or did “Children of Time” happen before this? But then Kira’s statement that she and Shakaar aren’t seeing each other anymore doesn’t make sense because it would mean that huge parts of season 5 must have been taken place before “Homefront”, which can’t be, because they refer to things happening in season 4 in season 5.
Or the third option: “Children of Time” never did happen.
So, either the writers overlooked this, or it was a mistake they willingly made for the greater plot.
@66/waka: Maybe something in the environment of the planet in “Children of Time” cured Odo of the disease. Or maybe he got the disease and the people there found a cure.
67. ChristopherLBennett: But then “future Odo” surely would’ve mentioned something to “present Odo” about it. It’s not something you would just forget, even after 200 years.
The revelation that Section 31 created the Founder plague is problematic for me. One thing that we’ve known about the Founders, pretty much since its earliest appearances, is that they are masters of genetic engineering: they created the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar in their anatomically modern forms; they inculcated in each a biological urge to worship them as gods; they created the Quickening. The Federation, by contrast, not only severely restricts development of genetic engineering, it also knows so little about Changeling physiology that Bashir, in the first season, isn’t even able to tell Odo whether he’s healthy or not; they simply don’t have enough datapoints about how they work biologically.
This being the case, I can’t imagine how Section 31 could possibly engineer a virus for use against the Founders that the Dominion itself would be unable to cure.
@69/jaimebabb: The Federation doesn’t ban all genetic engineering, e.g. on plants, animals, or microorganisms, and it doesn’t ban gene therapy to treat medical conditions. It only bans genetic augmentation of humans or other sentients. So it doesn’t lack knowledge in the genetic sciences, it just doesn’t use them to create superhumans.
And I assume that the creators of the virus built on Bashir’s own studies of Odo over the course of the series. He may not have known much about Changelings in the first season, but his knowledge advanced over time.
@69 @70
This ties in with what I was wondering while watching this episode for the first time last night. Why does Section 31 creating the virus necessarily entail that they know a cure? Is there any reason to suppose that the virus would jump species from the Founders to one of the Alpha Quadrant species? If not, why bother looking for a cure rather than just making sure various possibilities the Founders would look at are not a cure?
@71: It’s a good question. We can suppose, maybe, that in the 24th century understanding of infectious diseases is such that any known pathogen can be reverse-engineered into its own cure or vaccine?
@71/rwmg: “Why does Section 31 creating the virus necessarily entail that they know a cure?”
Because it means they know how it works, how exactly they designed it to attack Changeling biology. Knowing the precise mechanism behind the attack is the best way to know how to counteract that mechanism.
“Is there any reason to suppose that the virus would jump species from the Founders to one of the Alpha Quadrant species?”
Is it wise to assume it wouldn’t? We don’t only take precautions against things we know will happen, but against unlikely things that would be disastrous if they did happen and are thus worth guarding against just in case. Better to put the effort into developing a precaution you never need than to be caught defenseless when the unexpected happens.
“If not, why bother looking for a cure rather than just making sure various possibilities the Founders would look at are not a cure?”
Isn’t that a good reason in itself?