“Rocks and Shoals”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Michael Vejar
Season 6, Episode 2
Production number 40510-527
Original air date: October 6, 1997
Stardate: unknown
Station log. Sisko and the gang on their commandeered Dominion ship are fired upon by two Dominion ships that have actual Jem’Hadar on them. O’Brien still hasn’t been able to restore main power, but now they have to escape their pursuit. Sisko finds a dark matter nebula nearby, and they head toward it—but then the helm console explodes, injuring Dax. They plunge into the nebula, crashing onto a planet. The Jem’Hadar break off as soon as they enter the nebula, probably realizing that they were going to crash.
However, they’re not the only ones on that world. Another Jem’Hadar regiment crashed on the planet as well. Their Vorta, Keevan, is very badly hurt, their communications equipment is fried, and the First and Second are dead, leaving Third Remata’klan in charge of the Jem’Hadar—though Keevan refuses to promote him to First, as he questioned the Vorta’s orders to enter the nebula in the first place. Fourth Limara’son thinks Remata’klan was right to question Keevan, as it was entering this nebula that led to their crash, but Remata’klan says that the Vorta was correct to upbraid him. Only through obedience will one achieve victory, and victory is life. Cha cha cha.
The Starfleet crew crashed in an ocean. As the ship sinks underwater, the surviving crew—Sisko, the very badly injured Dax, Bashir, O’Brien, Nog, Garak, Neeley, and Gordon—manage to swim to shore with as many supplies as they can salvage. O’Brien realizes that he tore his pants, and he bitches about it before realizing how absurd he sounds, thus providing him, Sisko, and Neeley with a desperately needed bit of cathartic laughter. (“I guess I’m really in trouble now, huh?”) They set up base camp in a cavern, heating a big rock with a phaser and drying their clothes on it.
Dax, at least, is in decent shape, as Bashir has been able to repair the damage. She needs rest, but they can keep her lying on a rock in the cavern. They just need to be rescued…
Elsewhere, in another cavern, Remata’klan reports to Keevan that it will be ten days before they can even test the communications systems following repair. Since it will be at least ten days before they’re rescued, and likely longer, he has to ration the ketracel-white. Keevan also reassures them that he is the Vorta—he will take care of them all. (Yeah, right!)
Nog and Garak go off to look for fresh water and edible vegetation—Nog making sure to stay either beside or behind Garak, as after what happened on Empok Nor, Nog won’t turn his back on the tailor. Garak smiles and says there’s hope for the cadet yet.
And then several Jem’Hadar unshroud and take them prisoner, bringing them to Keevan. While Nog is only willing to give name, rank, and serial number, Garak tries to pass himself off as a loyal Cardassian citizen of the Dominion, which doesn’t quite work thanks to the Starfleet combadge he’d been wearing when captured. Keevan then asks if their unit has a doctor, and when Garak answers in the affirmative, it prompts two responses: anger from Nog at his giving anything away to the enemy and affirmation from Keevan that that answer just saved their lives, as the Vorta rather desperately needs a physician. Keevan has the prisoners secured, then orders Remata’klan to find the Starfleet unit, but not to engage them, just locate them.
On Terok Nor, Kira gets up at 0500, smiles at herself in the mirror, gets on a turbolift full of Cardassians and Jem’Hadar, and reports to Ops to start her shift. A Cardassian even brings her coffee. Later, Jake interviews Odo and Kira for a news story that some day may be published, maybe. He asks about facilitators that are being sent to Bajor to help out, as they’ve been cut off from trade. Jake asks how they respond to Vedek Yassim’s criticisms that it’s the first step to Dominion occupation. Odo’s response is that he’s been assured that the facilitators will be unarmed and unaccompanied by Jem’Hadar, but he sounds defensive when he says it. Jake asks about Yassim’s scheduled protest, which Kira and Odo didn’t know about. Kira says she’ll talk to Yassim, and Jake asks if that means they’re suppressing the right to protest on the station. Kira and Odo shut the interview down, thus avoiding dealing with the fact that Jake is absolutely right.
Back on the planet, Gordon reports that Garak and Nog haven’t reported in. Sisko, Neeley, Gordon, and O’Brien start to search, and Neeley picks up the Jem’Hadar’s life signs. Though the Jem’Hadar have been ordered not to engage, Limara’son cries that he can’t take it and opens fire. Remata’klan orders a ceasefire and retreat, but they can no longer shroud because of the lack of white (which is also why Limara’son had a nutty and fired). Keevan wants to discipline the offending Jem’Hadar, but Remata’klan says that he disciplines the men as unit commander (which he did by reducing the Jem’Hadar to Sixth). Keevan is impressed with Remata’klan’s balls.
On the station, Yassim insists that the Dominion is evil and evil must be opposed. Kira tells her that a protest would only make things worse. Yassim asks what they can do to oppose the Dominion, and Kira says there’s nothing the vedek assembly can do—so Yassim asks what Kira will be doing to fight the Dominion, and she says that she can’t. Yassim accuses her of being an apologist for the Dominion, and Kira says that Yassim just doesn’t understand (which is a handy way of avoiding answering the accusation). Yassim says that indeed she doesn’t, and leaves, promising that tomorrow, they’ll both understand.
The next day, at the time the protest was supposed to be, Yassim, with a noose around her neck, jumps off the Promenade railing. Her last words before she jumps are, “Evil must be opposed!” Kira is shocked.
Remata’klan approaches Neeley and asks to talk to Sisko alone. The Third says that they’ll trade Nog and Garak for Sisko and Bashir—they need a doctor for Keevan and the Vorta wishes to speak to Sisko. Sisko views that as an unfair trade—two lower-ranking prisoners for more valuable ones—but Remata’klan insists that they’ll be free to go after Keevan meets with Sisko and is treated by Bashir. Sisko tells Remata’klan about what happened in “To the Death,” and the latter is appalled to learn that Ometi’klan killed Weyoun when the mission ended. But Sisko is unwilling to accept a Vorta’s word that they’ll leave unharmed, but he does accept Remata’klan’s word.
The exchange will happen in one hour. Sisko and Dax are concerned, since the Jem’Hadar outnumber them two to one. They need information, so Nog and Garak are freed and Bashir and Sisko brought to Keevan. Whatever Keevan wants to say to Sisko has to wait, however, as Bashir needs to perform immediate surgery—under the watchful eyes of several Jem’Hadar. But no pressure…
However, the surgery is a success, and Bashir has saved the Vorta—for now, at least. Keevan then wants to talk to Sisko and Bashir alone without the Jem’Hadar, who all leave. Keevan reveals that there is only one vial of ketracel-white left, and there are ten Jem’Hadar on the planet, who will go binky bonkers insane very soon.
Keevan makes an offer. He is going to order the Jem’Hadar to attack the Starfleet base camp—but he will give Sisko the battle plan so they’ll win and kill all the Jem’Hadar before they go binky bonkers. After that, he’ll surrender and hand over the communication system, which Keevan figures will be in better hands with “one of those famous Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators” than a Jem’Hadar suffering withdrawal, and they can all escape.
Well, all except for Remata’klan and his men. A real sweetheart, is Keevan.
Sisko shares the battle plan. Nog, O’Brien, and Gordon are all disgusted with the Jem’Hadar in essence being led to slaughter, but Garak and Neeley are a bit more sanguine, as there is a war on. Sisko says it doesn’t matter, the decision’s been made, though he does confide to Dax that he’s hoping he can find another way.
Kira gets up at 0500, revolted by the sight she sees in the mirror. She gets on a turbolift where she’s surrounded by Cardassians and Jem’Hadar, and reports to Ops to start her shift. After a Cardassian brings her coffee, she is horrified and has to leave Ops. She goes to the spot where Yassim jumped, and Odo finds her there. She realizes that she’s a collaborator, the very type of person she despised when she was in the resistance. She has to fight back, and Odo agrees to help her. They’ve formed the new Bajoran resistance.
Remata’klan leads his troops across an open plain in broad daylight, where they are pretty much the textbook definition of “sitting ducks.” Sisko calls out to Remata’klan, saying he wants to talk. The Third agrees, ordering his men to hold position and not fire unless fired upon.
Sisko reveals that Keevan betrayed them, but Remata’klan already knew that. Sisko offers to let him surrender—they can put the Jem’Hadar in stasis until a new supply of white can be found—but Remata’klan was not given the option to surrender. His following the Vorta’s instructions is the order of things. Sisko asks if he is willing to give up his life for the order of things, and Remata’klan replies that it’s not his life to give—and it never was.
Sure enough, Remata’klan continues the attack, the Starfleet contingent blows them all away—though Gordon is also killed—and then Keevan comes wandering happily out carrying the comm system. Because he apparently hasn’t been nearly skeevy enough, Keevan doubles down and tells Sisko that if he had just a few more vials of white, the Starfleet crew would all be very dead. Angrily, Sisko orders O’Brien to take the comm system and orders Neeley to form a burial detail.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The Jem’Hadar ship lost main power at the end of “A Time to Stand.” They’re stuck at impulse. It’s been less than three days since then, so it’s unlikely that they’ve even left the solar system. Yet there’s a dark-matter nebula (whatever that is—dark matter was the hip new thing in the late 1990s) that’s somehow, I guess, in the solar system with them? SCIENCE!
The Sisko is of Bajor. Sisko tries to turn Remata’klan against Keevan, but as Sisko himself says, he can’t undo all those years of Dominion conditioning in a single conversation, and in the end, he’s unable to turn Remata’klan, who dies for a Vorta who, as Sisko says, doesn’t deserve the loyalty he’s giving him.
Don’t ask my opinion next time. Kira starts out the episode being someone really unpleasant: she shakes her head and tuts-tuts those crazy vedeks and their silly protests, and how could they possibly consider actively rebelling against an occupying force? That’s just crazy talk. Then Yassim kills herself and she remembers, y’know, who she is.
The slug in your belly. Terry Farrell’s extreme sensitivity to direct sunlight led to the script calling for Dax to be injured so she could stay in the cave where it was dark rather than be out in the oppressive sunlight of Soledad Canyon.
There is no honor in being pummeled. The script called for a final scene with the Rotarran rescuing the crew and Worf beaming down to take them back (and also burying Gordon), but they ran out of time at the location, and director Michael Vejar decided that ending the episode on the closeup of Sisko with Keevan surrendering himself was the much stronger close in any case. So Worf doesn’t actually appear in the episode.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps. Odo actually cautions Kira against active resistance, keeping his role as collaborator to the bitter end, right up until Kira urges him not to put her in a position where she’s fighting him, too. Realizing that she’s the one person in the universe who can probably kick his ass, he relents and joins her in forming a new resistance.
Rules of Acquisition. O’Brien spends the teaser modifying everything with “damn” (the damn gyrodyne, the damn thruster array). When Nog gets into the act, referring to the damn thruster array, O’Brien tells him to watch his mouth.
For Cardassia! The Cardassian Intelligence Bureau has apparently replaced the Obsidian Order after the latter was wiped out in “The Die is Cast.”
Plain, simple. Garak’s story to Keevan is that he’s named Kamar and was captured by the Centaur, which is a good cover, as that ship entered Dominion space recently (in “A Time to Stand”).
Victory is life. Remata’klan says that they’ll hold the world for the Dominion until communications are restored. When Limara’son asks what will happen if communications aren’t restored, Remata’klan’s response is, “Then we will hold this world for the Dominion until we die.” Because that’s what they do.
Keep your ears open. “Lucky for you, it ripped on the seam.”
“So you can fix it.”
“Unlucky for you, my sewing kit went down with the ship.”
“Maybe someone could go get it—the ship’s only about five hundred meters below the surface by now.”
“Now there’s an idea. Cadet, how long can you hold your breath?”
Garak, O’Brien, and Neeley, trying to figure out how to fix O’Brien’s pants.
Welcome aboard. Christopher Shea makes the first of two appearances as Keevan (he’ll be back in “The Magnificent Ferengi”), and he manages the impressive task of being more despicable than Jeffrey Combs’s Weyoun (who doesn’t appear in the episode).
Sarah MacDonnell and Joseph Fuqua play Neeley and Gordon, while Paul S. Eckstein plays Limara’son and Lilyan Chauvin plays Yassim. Plus we have the usual recurring suspects of Aron Eisenberg as Nog and Andrew J. Robinson as Garak.
But the standout guest is Phil Morris putting in a superlative turn as Remata’klan. Morris had already appeared on the original series (“Miri” as one of the kids), in the movies (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as a cadet), and previously on DS9 (“Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places” as a Klingon), and will appear on Voyager (“One Small Step” as a human astronaut).
Trivial matters. Like “The Homecoming,” “Indiscretion,” and “The Ship,” this episode had extensive location shooting in Soledad Canyon. In fact, this episode was actually filmed third (with “Sons and Daughters” filmed second) to accommodate the location shooting. This also caused some logistical difficulties in the writing as there were changes to the station plot in “Sons and Daughters” that had ripple effects on this episode. In addition, it was oppressively hot in the canyon during the three days of shooting, with temperatures getting as high as 128 degrees Farenheit (53 Celsius).
The episode’s storyline was inspired by the film None But the Brave, a 1965 Frank Sinatra movie involving American and Japanese soldiers trapped on an island during World War II.
Nog’s mistrust of Garak is borne out of the events of “Empok Nor,” while Sisko tells Remata’klan about the events of “To the Death” in the hopes of getting him to turn on Keevan.
While this is Neeley’s only onscreen appearance, she apparently remained assigned to the station beyond the end of the war, as she’s in the post-finale novels Warpath by David Mack and Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods. Those novels include a Jem’Hadar assigned to the station named Taran’atar, and many of the images seen on covers of Taran’atar use Remata’klan as reference due in part to editor Marco Palmieri’s fondness for the character.
Walk with the Prophets. “Our death is glory to the Founders.” Even though I rated it lower than “A Time to Stand,” I honestly think this is the best of the six-part war arc. The previous episode was higher due to an impressive lack of flaws, but this one I subtract a bit because the whole “dark matter nebula” thing is just silly, and Neeley and Gordon just appear out of nowhere, while no mention is made of the woman who walks onto the bridge of the Jem’Hadar ship in the teaser, who isn’t Neeley. Who is she? Did she die in the crash? Who else was on board? There was no indication in “A Time to Stand” that there was anyone other than the regulars on the Jem’Hadar ship, and no indication what happened to that woman on the bridge.
Anyhow, those are niggling points that are enough for me to ding the rating a bit, but this episode is still, in my opinion, stronger, because it shoots higher, and also gives us one of the series’ best creations in Remata’klan, one of the great tragic heroes of Star Trek. Phil Morris plays him magnificently, a warrior with a code of conduct that has been bred into him, but which he embraces because it gives his life meaning. He is a soldier, and more than any other Jem’Hadar in the unit, he believes in what he’s doing. Limara’son can disobey orders and question the Vorta, but Remata’klan knows his duty and he follows it.
“It’s not my life to give—and it never was” is one of my favorite moments in an episode filled with great ones, because that is the great tragedy of the Jem’Hadar. They are not permitted to think for themselves, and even someone as smart and savvy and dedicated and honorable as Remata’klan is subsumed and ultimately killed because of the Dominion’s conditioning. In the other plotline, Yassim blithely refers to the Dominion as evil, and we see it in what Remata’klan has been reduced to, wasting a truly impressive person by sticking him under the thumb of a scumbucket. We also see it in the scumbucket in question, Keevan, who manages the impressive feat of being the most despicable Vorta we’ve seen—and the competition is pretty dang fierce on that one.
Sensibly, the episode, which deals with some amazingly heavy themes, doesn’t lay it on too thick, giving us some of the best conversational humor of the series. Sure, it’s as much a coping mechanism as anything, but it humanizes the characters nicely and reminds us of the difference between the Federation folk and the Dominion folks—since there’s no such banter among the oh-so-serious Jem’Hadar or their slimy Vorta. Whether it’s O’Brien’s torn pants, Bashir’s lovely response to Keevan saying he’s alive (“No self-diagnoses, please, I’m the doctor here!”), or Sisko and Dax’s hotel repartee, it leavens the heaviness of the episode.
Which is especially useful given how heavy the station plot is. It’s impressive that the show manages to turn Kira into an utterly despicable character, and we don’t even realize it. Michael Vejar and Nana Visitor deserve particular credit for the mirrored scenes of Kira getting up and going to work. The first sequence has a very quotidian quality, just a woman getting up and going to work like she does every day. It seems harmless and ordinary and there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong.
And of course, that’s the point, the one that Yassim tries to explain verbally, but only can get through to Kira via her own suicide. The second scene is blocked exactly the same way, but Kira’s facial expressions and body language are very minimally different, just enough to make the turbolift go from crowded to oppressive, the tableau in Ops to go from an ordinary working day to a total nightmare.
Jake is used superbly here, because we’re conditioned to see Kira and Odo as two of our heroes and Jake as the commander’s slightly goofy son who gets the lighthearted B-plots about going on dates and stuff. But Jake’s abilities as a reporter are improving, as he’s spent the last few months cultivating sources. His questions come across as mean-spirited and challenging, and Kira and Odo’s self-righteous anger is of a type we’ve seen from them so many times before that it’s easy to take their side and not Jake’s. After all, Kira and Odo sound so reasonable and sensible when they say that public demonstrations and active resistance will just make things worse.
But as the episode goes on, it becomes clear that Kira has become the thing that she despises. She spells it out to Odo on the Promenade railing where a vedek had to take her own life to remind Kira of what she is. And you go back and watch the scene with Jake again and the first scene with Yassim, and you realize that Kira has become Kubus Oak. The member of the Cardassian-appointed Bajoran government, who tried to come home in “The Collaborator,” was met with opprobrium and disgust by Kira and every other Bajoran, but now Kira is doing exactly what Kubus did. Oh, no, the Cardassians are here to just help us; the Dominion are just sending facilitators, and they’re unarmed! Just some harmless Vorta. (And then we cut to the other plot where we have Keevan to remind us just what the Vorta are.)
To Kira’s credit, she realizes it; to her lack of credit, it takes a suicide for her to figure it out. Yassim is willing to die to keep Bajor from falling under the Dominion’s thumb. Kira used to be willing to do that, too, and if she’s going to come back from this personal abyss, she has to be willing to do it again.
All the characters have to make hard choices, and they all suck, and it’s beautifully done. One of the show’s best, even with that dark-matter foolishness…
Warp factor rating: 9
Keith R.A. DeCandido knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.
I dunno, this was well-made and all, but darn it, I like my Star Trek heroes to succeed at finding a better way than violence. I don’t like it when they’re trapped into having no other choice. And as great a job as Phil Morris does with Remata’klan, it’s hard for me to respect a character who’s so rigid and unbending in his thinking. Okay, he’s a victim of the system, but other Jem’Hadar before him have been able to break free of that conditioning. So he’s ultimately kind of pathetic, however impressive and noble he seems on the surface.
As for the nebula, it is kind of convenient, but it’s not impossible that a star system could have some kind of nebulosity within it. Clouds of gas and dust move through the galaxy and can sometimes engulf star systems, which could potentially be very disruptive to a planet’s climate. (I used this as a hazard in my novel Forgotten History — and actually in Ex Machina as well, though FH actually depicts the same event that was only alluded to in ExM.) And, heck, dark matter doesn’t interact with normal matter except through gravity, so a dark matter nebula could drift wherever it happened to go even if a normal one couldn’t.
Of course, real nebulae are light years across, and star systems are found inside them, not the other way around. But Trek is full of implausibly tiny and dense nebulae. My pet theory is that they’re a hitherto-undiscovered type of micronebula, something that could be the source of the rogue planets and brown dwarfs we’ve begun discovering in interstellar space, objects that were never part of star systems but formed on their own, perhaps from something much smaller than normal nebulae. If they’re small and dim enough, it’s plausible we could’ve missed them until now, just as we’ve missed so many rogue planets and brown dwarfs.
Of course, dark matter is weakly interacting and wouldn’t really clump much, so why it would form nebulae is a question I can’t answer.
I was waiting for them to retake Deep Space 9 with each episode and each episode that came to a close with them still not in control of the station, built up the drama and made the beginning of season 6 the best DS9 had to offer.
It kind of made me wish that they could do that for an entire season or even an entire show…until Voyager came around and then I wished for just the opposite.
This is where it really becomes clear that we’re in for the long haul. Sisko isn’t just going to waltz back to the station and kick the Dominion back to the Gamma Quadrant as we might expect. This just might take some time.
I agree with krad that the initial setup is weak, but after that everything is really well done. It would have been so easy to fix, too. Instead of having the explosion damage the warp drive, let it damage shields or something and have the Jem’Hadar ships jump them and then damage the warp drive.
Another thing that’s well done here is that the two plots don’t really reflect one another or highlight aspects of each other as is so often the case with A and B plots. These are just the things that are happening as the occupation proceeds and our two sets of characters are in different places. The stuff with Kira is also very well done and, as noted, subtle in some ways. I suppose Yassim’s death was based on the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire back in the 60s. And again credit to the production staff for going with the hanging rather than Yassim just vaporizing herself with a phaser or something.
I know how the Ship makes it to the nebula on only impulse. The same way that the Millenium Falcon makes it to Lando’s Place without hyperspeed. They engaged the cut-scene drive! It’s powered by Scriptonium.
I loved this episode, but I do have a complaint about Kira’s plot. I think she shouldn’t have snapped out of it for another episode. They should have held the Vedek’s death until end of Act 1 or even end Act 2 of the next episode and really showed us Kira the Collaborator happily humming along in her groove, making conversation with that Cardassian who got her her coffee. It just feels too soon to break out that great big personal realization, it should have been left to nurture a little bit. Have her spend this episode cracking down on Jake more, do more to stymie the Vedeks, give some more justifications. Then give her the whammy.
@@.-@: But if you don’t have Kira’s whole journey within the same episode, then the parallelism between the two montages is lost. Not everything has to be fragmented between different episodes. Even in a serialized arc, there’s value in giving each installment its own beginning, middle, and end.
This episode did more for the Jem’Hadar than two seasons of Voyager couldn’t do for the Kazon. Good character development always sustains a plot. Remata’klan is my favorite Jem’Hadar character (It’s not my life to give is one of my favorite Trek lines), and Keevan is the creepiest Vorta they ever created.
To me, Rocks and Shoals is by far one of Ron Moore’s best efforts in his Trek career. Granted, it feels like a The Ship retread at first, but it pays off. I think that was the reasoning for shoehorning tertiary Starfleet characters out of nowhere. An attempt to mine that well.
I’m not as down on the nebula plot as the rest. At this point, I’d long accepted Trek wasn’t always 100% accurate on the science and astrophysics department. And it’s not nearly as grating as some of TNG’s technobabble sins.
I was impressed they were able to secure Mike Vejar at all for this episode. 1997 was an incredibly busy year for both him and Jesús Treviño. This must have been filmed while he was shooting the Babylon 5 TV movie In the Beginning. And he still had time to shoot Year of Hell – Part 2 after this. And Rocks and Shoals still shines. The Kira daily coffee scenes are the best example.
To me, this scores a 10, easily. Especially given that Sons and Daughters follows this one. Now that one was a promising story filled with potential for conflict, brought down by Marc Worden’s awful performance.
How exactly is the dark matter nebula any sillier than all the other negative-space-wedgies every Trek crew encounters every week? I mean it didn’t make time run backward or create a pocket universe, or even knock out the holodeck safeties. Worth an objection on an astronomic basis sure, but downgrading the whole episode?
Personal headcannon: “Warp Drive down = only able to go a _little_ faster than ‘c’, but not Warp Factors faster.” Going interial-less with full impulse is going to push you against the light-speed barrier pretty quickly.
If that isn’t the case, it would take a hell of a lot longer than 19 years to get _anywhere_.
Still a lot of handwavium to go around, of course. :-)
To be honest, the dark nebula thing didn’t bother me as much as the usual “let’s ignore that planets are big” thing. Two ships crash on a planet, two days apart, and just happen to be within walking distance of each other. That kind of stretches credulity.
Other than that, I generally agree with everything here, but I think you are being a bit hard on Kira. Remember that she has been asked by the Emissary no less, the person she believes speaks with the voice of the prophets, to keep Bajor out of the conflict. And the Dominion don’t behave like the Cardassians, they don’t blunder in, throw their weight around, kill anyone who stands in their way. They are more insidious, they creep in by increments while you’re not looking. They hide behind a veneer of reasonableness. To give Kira her due, once she is shocked into realising she has been shunted over to the wrong side of the argument, she pretty much immediately decides to act, and damn the consequences.
Good episode. Really enjoyed Kira’s revelation to herself. And the Jem’Hadar are always interesting to me.
I never stop to criticize Trek for its depictions of nebulae. Its best movie features one as a dense thunderstorm. Yeah, it’s unrealistic. And it’s an awesome, beautiful thing to watch.
I struggle with this. I do not have a problem with those who work for an occupying force, but they must not consider themselves immune from the violence that will be brought by resistance forces. Work in what capacity though? Not actively harming their countrymen is my limit there.
Also, the Dominion is not an occupying force, Bajor asked for this, yes, as an act of self preservation, under threat of invasion even, but nonetheless, there is a treaty, and Kira is therefore a terrorist from this point forward.
Given that the Founders engineered the Vorta to run their empire for them, you have to wonder why they made them so utterly untrustworthy. I wonder if anything ever gets done in the Dominion without a Founder present to keep the Vorta on the same side.
@12 That’s the problem with the Founders. They engineered the Vorta to be loyal only to them. They also engineered them to be the perfect people and situation managers. The Vorta are a race of perfect sociopaths.
In a lot of ways, the Jem’Hadar remind of Stargate’s SG-1’s Jaffa.
Both races have been genetically engineered to serve their false gods. And both are dependent on biological supplements (Symbionts and Ketracel White).
In a way, they’re both victims. That’s why Taran’atar is my favorite of the post-serires characters. It was a fascianting idea to take a Jem’Hadar and see if there was any chance of them overcoming their conditioneed nature.
What an amazing episode. This would be the perfect one to show to people who say they don’t like Trek, aside from the fact that this incredibly painful story about Kira wouldn’t make as much sense without the buildup of the previous seasons.
I agree with the commenters above who say the episode shouldn’t be downgraded because of the nebula stuff. If we’re going to downgrade ST because of technobabble, half the series would get dinged.
Also – I’m so grateful that krad mentioned Terry Farrell being so sensitive to sunlight, because I kept wondering what was the point of having Dax lie down in the cave the whole time. (This would be a better reason to downgrade the episode, in my opinion.)
Each time I’ve seen this, I shudder when Kira tells the vedek she “just doesn’t understand”. That’s the moment I realize Kira, of all people, had become a collaborator. Odo’s so interested in keeping order on the Promenade that he can’t help himself, but Kira showed, if nothing else, how insidious the Dominion are. Kira became the very thing she depises, and only through Vedek Yassim’s suicide does Kira realize what she had become. That’s huge, and scary to think where Kira might have gone. Yassim had to die to get Kira off the wrong path.
I disagree with Remata’klan being pathetic. I hate that Remata’klan was so dedicated to the Founders, he’d let himself be killed for a scumbucket like Keevan. Sometimes you can break through that Dominion condition in one conversation, but most of the time you can’t.
The whole episode is a testament to the insidious evil of the Dominion, a magnificent hour.
This is a powerful episode in one of the best arcs of the series.
Kira was in an impossible position, IMO. Not only did she, personally, want to protect Bajor and keep it out of the fighting, but she also had her commanding officer AND Emissary to the Prophets tell her to remain neutral. The occupation of the station (excuse me, Weyoun) was nothing like it was under the Cardassians, and I imagine she thought biding her time until the Federation came back was the way to go – at least until it became apparent that it would take months or even years for that to happen. She was like the apocryphal frog in the boiling water, not realizing how bad things were until the vedek got her attention.
@14: I’ve seen a number of people suggest Christopher Judge as their mental casting for Taran’atar.
@16: I’ve never been entirely able to condemn collaborators, because I can’t blame people for trying to find a nonviolent way to cope with a problem, and because there’s some logic to the idea that as long as an occupation is in place, some degree of cooperation with authority is necessary for basic survival. I guess the slippery slope is when it goes from trying to help your people endure the occupation to trying to help the occupiers facilitate their rule, or just trying to personally profit from the occupation. The former is forgivable, the others not. And the danger is that it’s so hard to see when you’ve crossed the line.
This is my favorite serious DS9 episode. The direction is incredible: Kira’s two mornings have already been mentioned, but there are two more standouts. First, the ship sinking in the distance, and second the way the camera has a closeup on each face right before the Jem’Hadar charge. Sisko doesn’t want to do this, Nog doesn’t want to screw up, Garak wants to get started, O’Brien wants it to just be done already, and Taran’atar is doing what he always knew he would someday do: die for the Founders.
A wise man once said, “Sometimes you have a really bad day, and the only choice you get to make is how you are going to die.” This is Taran’atar’s bad day, and he chooses to die as a Jem’Hadar, true to his salt.
Or does he? Does he even have a choice? Does he choose to die because it is right, or just because he can’t decide otherwise? Is it the path of least resistance, the way running away might be for a human? Is he a hero, or a coward?
That’s the question that ties in so well with Kira’s plot. Which is the heroic course? What she says at first is true: Bajor can’t win against the Dominion. The Founders are not the Cardassians! The Founders were only just stopped from blowing up Bajor’s sun! She is choosing to possibly kill thousands of Bajorans so she can look at herself in the mirror in the morning. Is that a hero, or a coward?
(I do know that the question of Kira, Odo, Jake, and Rom having an effect on the war is answered later, but that’s a spoiler at this point.)
The implausible thing about the dark matter nebula is not that such a thing would be in a solar system, it is that dark matter does not much interact with normal matter and energy (except through gravity). Hiding in one would be about as useful as hiding behind a clear glass door.
The drama with Kira in this episode was incredible; I couldn’t helped but be reminded of the Buddhist monks who recently self-immolated in Tibet (and of course, earlier in Vietnam) when I saw Yassim hang herself. Meanwhile, the Dominion provided us, in the culture of the Jem’Hadar, a viewpoint that was truly alien to our own. Even if it was genetically engineered into them, the Jem Hadar present us with a value system so opposed to that of the Federation, thus doing exactly what good SF should do. We see here the true moral price our characters have to pay to fight the dominion, and it is magnificently acted, directed, and written. Oh, and I absolutely love O’Brien’s line to Nog!
@19: You mean Remata’klan. Taran’atar’s the novel character somewhat inspired by him.
But you make a good point about the comparison with Kira. Both she and Remata’klan feel they’re doing something that they have no choice but to do, but Kira is able to recognize (belatedly) that another way must be found.
@18, Thanks CLB.
Now I’m going to be hearing Teal’c’s voice every time I re-read the DS9 relaunch novels. :)
@18:
I would say there is also difficulty to be found when one is forced to do the second of those things in order to continue to do the first. That particular dilemma is, I think, at the heart of what Kira and Odo face in this episode. Both of them are in their positions because they feel they can somehow help Bajor from within the Dominion leadership on the station, but in order to do so they are helping said leadership.
Also, this is my first post. Glad to finally be caught up with this after rewatching all the way from the start of TNG.
The episode title is derived from the nickname of the “Articles for the Government of the United States Navy.” It’s apparently a paraphrase from Article 4, No. 10 in a list of court-martial offenses that may incur a death-sentence:
“Intentionally or willfully suffers any vessel of the Navy to be stranded, or run upon rocks or shoals, or improperly hazarded or maliciously or willfully injures any vessel of the Navy, or any part of her tackle, armament, or equipment, whereby the safety the vessel is hazarded or the lives of the crew exposed to danger.”
I was wondering just how the title applied to the story, since a perusal of Article 4 doesn’t seem at first to apply to Sisko and his crew, but then it occurred to me that it’s more likely to refer to the actions of the Vorta and Jem’hadar, particularly the following offenses:
“Or, in time of war, deserts or betrays his trust, or entices or aids others to desert or betray their trust;
Or strikes or attempts to strike the flag to an enemy or rebel without proper authority, or, when engaged in battle, treacherously yields or pusillanimously cries for quarter;
Or, in time of battle, displays cowardice, negligence, or disaffection, or withdraws from or keeps out of danger to which he should expose himself;
Or, in time of battle, deserts his duty or station, or entices others to do so;
Or does not properly observe the orders of his commanding officer, and use his utmost exertions to carry them into execution when ordered to prepare for or join in, or when actually engaged in, battle, or while in sight of an enemy;
Or, being in command of a fleet, squadron, or vessel acting singly, neglects, when an engagement is probable, or when an armed vessel of an enemy or rebel is in sight, to prepare and clear his ship or ships for action;
Or does not, upon signal for battle, use his utmost exertions to join in battle;
Or fails to encourage in his own person, his inferior officers and men to fight courageously;”
Follow the link for the full Articles:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq59-7.htm
@22: Whoops! Thanks for the name correction.
@13 Does Keevan really display that loyalty in this episode? Why is he so much less concerned with loyalty to the Founders than the Jem’Hadar, given that he was engineered by the same people?
(And the Vorta cannot be “perfect people and situation managers” if no one trusts them. Having said that, I do feel the Vorta’s flaws reflect the Domionions flaws.)
@23 Indeed.
@@@@@ 25
I think it’s more likely the association of rocks and shoals with shipwrecks, and the more general idea of rocks and shoals being dangers or sources of troubles or difficulties.
I could say that I find Remata’klan pathetic, but in the slightly older sense of the word – I regard him with pity and grief, not contempt. He’s entirely aware of how broken the system he was born into is, how Keevan is entirely undeserving of his loyalty, but he can’t break free. Other Jem’hadar have broken free of the Founders’ conditioning, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that because others did it, he should too. Breaking free of conditioning as powerful as the Founders’ takes a superhuman level of will that not everyone is capable of. Remata’klan came closer than most Jem’hadar, but ultimately he failed because he didn’t have what it takes, and I can’t bring myself to hold it against him.
Thinking about Kira’s role, it occurs to me that she is wrong in that she is not like the collaborators during the Cardassian reign. The Cardassians had conquered and supplanted the legitimate government of Bajor, so their rule was illegal. Therefore anyone helping them was guilty of committing a crime.
In the current situation, the legitimate government of Bajor is in place and the Cardassians/Dominion had been invited to occupy DS9, not forced their way there (yes, I realize the non-agression pact was the result of the imminent threat of the Dominion invasion, but it is still a legal action). Kira isn’t expressly collaborating with anyone as their is no de jure enemy. There is a de facto agressor, but she is undertaking her actions with the knowledge and blessing of the legitimate government. It’s a fuzzy line, but it is a valid distinction.
Not to say that given their histories, the Cardassians/Dominion should be welcomed with open arms, but Kira is not actually helping to conquer/subjugate her people, since the ones at war with the Cardassians/Dominion are the Klingons and Federation, not the Bajorans. She may like the Klingons and Federation, but they are not her people
@31: The problem is that while that may be technically true, it’s ultimately just an excuse not to act to make things better. Not actively doing wrong is all well and good, but it doesn’t help make things right.
@32 But if her actions are done in Bajors name, then any act against the Dominion is a betrayal by Bajor of the non-agression pact.
OTOH, if Bajor is loyal to the pact, an act against the Dominion is a form of betrayal of Bajor.
@33: By the letter of the law, perhaps, but the whole point of Kira’s arc here is in recognizing how naive it is to equate that with justice. People can come up with all sorts of rationalizations for washing their hands of responsibility and doing nothing, but that’s why so many injustices and atrocities are allowed to get out of hand. It’s only the people who look for reasons they should act who can stand against the tide of apathy.
I think the whole thing would have been clearer had at some point Kira (or anyone) made the point that the Bajoran government would be in a difficult place if there was an out and out rebellion. Kira almost explains that to Yassim (The “you don’t get it” non-argument) and would be correct in doing so. While the advisors the Dominion is sending are unarmed and might be a prelude to annexation, an armed rebellion might give the Dominion the impotus to launch said annexation. I think I’d like it better if Kira had made the distinction that she was fighting because it was the right thing to do and that there were risks either way. The way the episode presented it seemed simplistic- dominion bad, bad must be fought, ergo dominion must be fought.
It’s actually a much more nuanced discussion frought with danger since starting a resistance not only puts the resistance members lives on the line but all of Bajors.
Well, thanks for teaching me what “quotidian” means, Keith.
One of the things I’ve always like about the Jem’Hadar is that most of the time, they can’t be reasoned with. On occasion, of course, they can. Goran’Agar from “Hippocratic Oath” had his genetic abnormality, Omet’iklan from “To The Death” seemed to find some respect with his temporary comrades in arms (plus the mission was to kill the rogues, not Starfleet), and Ikat’ika from “In Purgatory’s Shadow”/”By Inferno’s Light” saw something of a kindred spirit in Worf. But then you have the kid from “The Abandoned” and Remata’klan here, who can’t be talked down, who can’t be reasoned with by human logic. There’s something frightening about that, and like Keith says, it shows just how despicable the Dominion is in essentially creating and enslaving these sentient beings to be such obedient, effective killers.
The idea of the Jem’Hadar being in the same star system as the Ketracel White facility is a bit strange. I suppose it could be a really big system, but still, if your facility is in the same system as a Class M planet, why isn’t the Dominion at least monitoring that planet? Plus, if full impulse is one quarter the speed of light, it wouldn’t take long to get past a planet at Neptune’s distance anyway. If it’s not that fast, it has to be close since TMP and “By Inferno’s Light” indicated starships try not to go to warp inside a star system, so you’d need some propulsion to practically get you clear (which is an odd rule anyway, considering how much empty space are in planetary systems as well as the fact that we’ve seen ships go to warp in a planet’s atmosphere). Just another plot-convenient inhabitable planet to crash on, I suppose.
It kind of reminds me of all of Germany’s nonagression pacts preceeding WWII.
Not to say it’s fair to equate the Dominion with Nazi Germany as this is war and not genodice.
But it might be a fair example of why honoring a nonagression pact could be a dishonerable endeavor.
“To sin by silence when one should protest makes cowards out of men.”
@36: Actually a quarter lightspeed isn’t full impulse, it’s just the maximum recommended impulse velocity for normal operations. After all, there’s no friction to speak of in space, so you don’t need thrust to hold velocity, only to accelerate. So if your impulse engines are active, then you’re increasing your speed. A quarter c is the preferred maximum for most purposes, but in an emergency you could keep thrusting and accelerate as close to lightspeed as you could manage, provided you didn’t mind a bit of time dilation.
But you raise an interesting point. If they were managing, say, half lightspeed for two days, then they would’ve gotten a light-day from their starting point, which is about 173 astronomical units. That’s actually a sizeable distance on the scale of a planetary system. Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause, the outer edge of the Sun’s magnetic envelope, about two years ago at a distance of 121 AU, and there are plenty of binary star systems whose component stars are dozens or hundreds of AU apart, with each star having its own planetary system.
So it’s definitely possible that they could’ve gotten out of the system they were in and crossed to its binary companion, a companion that had its own separate planetary system and just happened to be passing through a dark-matter nebula.
@37: Spoiler alert, but the Cardassians might disagree with you about the “not genocide” thing.
@@@@@ CLB 36…
So when the Captain orders quarter impulse, would he be ordering the ship to use a quarter of its thrusting capacity, or go to 1/4 of the 1/4 lightspeed “Speed limit” ?
I always assumed that the command “Full Impulse” referenced a maximum allowed speed to be reached at impulse drive (due to time dilation most likely) not the thrust that was used to get there. Otherwise, as you said you’d eventually keep accelerating as well as the fact that different ships would have different drive power, so ships in formation at a specific speed would be a total disaster…
@39: Well, “impulse” isn’t a unit of speed, it’s a reference to a type of engine the ship has. So I’d assume “quarter impulse” means firing the impulse engines at a quarter of their full power, which would mean accelerating steadily as long as the drive is in use — although many writers wouldn’t realize the distinction between acceleration and velocity.
There’s a common fan myth that “full impulse = a quarter lightspeed” because of a misreading of a passage from the TNG Technical Manual. On p. 78, it talks about the problems of time dilation and clock miscalibration, and adds, “It is for this reason that normal impulse operations are limited to a velocity of 0.25c.” Yet in the very next paragraph it says “Current impulse engine configurations achieve efficiencies approaching 85% when velocities are limited to 0.5c,” and three pages earlier, it says “High impulse operations, specifically velocities above 0.75c, may require added power from the Saucer Module engines.” A quarter lightspeed is just the preferred maximum for normal operations — it’s like 35MPH for a car. So I’ll never understand how fandom could’ve misread that so completely to believe it’s supposed to be the maximum.
“I always assumed that the command “Full Impulse” referenced a maximum allowed speed to be reached at impulse drive (due to time dilation most likely) not the thrust that was used to get there. Otherwise, as you said you’d eventually keep accelerating as well as the fact that different ships would have different drive power, so ships in formation at a specific speed would be a total disaster…”
I’m sorry, that doesn’t follow. First off, what’s wrong with continuing to accelerate? That’s how spaceships with powerful enough engines would normally operate — accelerate for the first half of the journey, then turn around and decelerate for the last half, probably with a period of coasting in between at maximum feasible velocity (which might be determined by anything from available fuel to the drag and friction of the interstellar medium).
Second, it certainly wouldn’t be hard at all for different ships in a formation to calculate how much thrust they’d need to use to accelerate in sync. Presumably a little math would not be beyond a highly trained starship crew or their onboard computers.
The problem is that “full impulse” is a filmic shorthand, meant to get an idea across to an audience rather than having any firm technical meaning. The phrase only appears once in the TNGTM, on p. 25 where it says “accelerations considerably in excess of 1,000g are not uncommon when under full impulse power.” (By the way, at 1000g it would take over 2 hours to accelerate to a quarter lightspeed, so I think they’re softpedaling the acceleration somewhat there.) Which does make it clear that they’re defining impulse power as a function of acceleration, not velocity. Because thinking in terms of fixed velocities is Earthbound thinking. Travel in space is about accelerations. A steady speed is just coasting. Why settle for coasting if you have the power to keep accelerating (and decelerating at the other end) and shave off more travel time?
If I were one of the DS9 writers, I’d be thanking the likes of Michael Okuda every day I came in to work. You couldn’t write a scene without that manual nearby. No wonder Michael Piller made both him and Sternbach Technical Consultants.
@1: I like that our Star Trek heroes SOMETIMES can’t find nonviolent solutions, or otherwise fail. That means that each new episode has more suspense, not knowing whether they’re going to succeed or not. And this was a good episode for Sisko to fail (through no fault of his own, and with survival still achieved through violent means).
@37: Also, even before what CLB spoiled, I’ve seen very little to convince me that the Dominion doesn’t have a long history of genocide in the Gamma Quadrant.
@41: Rick and Mike were illustrators and technical consultants on TNG from the very beginning, hired based on their experience on previous Trek films, while Piller didn’t come aboard until two years later. Their work on DS9 (and VGR and ENT) was a continuation of the work they were already doing for TNG.
@43
I know, but I believe it was Piller who decided to give them the official title. They weren’t credited as technical consultants on the first two seasons of TNG, only as illustrators.
@25 – That was a really interesting observation
This is one of my favourite episodes of Deep Space Nine and Remat’iklan is such a stand out character. The crew find themselves in an impossible situation and their reaction doesn’t compromise the values of 24th century humanity. They don’t want to slaughter the Jem’Hadar, even if they’re the enemy and even knowing the Jem’Hadar wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter them. O’Brien is the one with the most front line war experience amongst the Starfleet crew and he is the one expressing how abhorrent it is to just shoot them down. As it stands even to the last minute Sisko tries to find a solution and ultimately it costs him the life of yet another member of his crew.
The B story on the station was also very good. Kira’s dilemma was fascinating especially given her background and highlighted the tightrope she was walking. Her first duty was to Bajor and even Sisko had told her to keep Bajor out of the fighting. Nobody had to like it but as Quark pointed out this wasn’t like the Cardassian occupation; Bajorans were free to come and go as they pleased. Fighting against the Dominion would have jeopardised Bajors security and any act of violence would likely have caused the kind of reprisals which would have lead to the Dominion occupying the planet and neither Starfleet nor the Klingons would have been in any position to help them. Kira was not a collaborator by any means but her belief that she had become one was entirely understandable.
I wish we’d got to know more about Mavek, the Cardassian who made her coffee every morning.
I too felt some sympathy for Kira. I am not at all disputing the brutality or evil of the Dominion (especially given Remat’iklan’s fate and conditioning, or the idea that their deaths are what bring the Founders glory, instead of living their lives) but can it technically be considered an occupation? They have a treaty with Bajor, and Cardassia is part of the Dominion. Since the station is not Federation space, I am not sure it is really an occupation.
Plus, it’s all well and good for her to protest to Dominion (and of course I’m glad she is) but she IS putting other Bajorans at risk. Is it truly worth the suffering her people will endure if the Dominion decides to retaliate against Bajor for not honoring the pact? It’s easy to say yes, it is, since they are evil and there’s also no gaurantee they would continue to honor the treaty once they had a good foothold. But it’s a little harder to say in practice if you have children or loved ones who will bear the consequences, etc, and it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security because nobdoy is being overtly oppressed/bullied.
@2 The writers of DS9 wanted the retaking of the station to play out over an entire season but TPTB of Paramount said no to that. The compromise was allowing a six-episode arc in which Sisko and the Feds reclaimed DS9.
[krad- Odo, Realizing that she’s the one person in the universe who can probably kick his ass, he relents]
Really, KRAD, REALLY? Ya think so? Not like instead, Odo loves and respects her more than his own people and life than to be her enemy at this juncture?
@40 The Star Trek Encyclopedia has a nice chart comparing warp velocities that unambiguously gives full impulse as 0.25c. The entry on impulse drive also says, “Normally, full impulse speed is one-quarter the speed of light.” So it’s a bit more than a common fan myth.
@49/laconicsax: I wouldn’t call the Encyclopedia chart’s listing “unambiguous,” because it seems to contradict the fuller discussion in the TNG Tech Manual by two of the same authors — so there’s plenty of ambiguity between the two.
But as you say, the entry says that “Normally” that’s full impulse. That alone tells you that it’s not an absolute, and it’s consistent with the TNGTM’s explanation that 0.25c is the typical preferred maximum but it can be exceeded when necessary.
The problem is that “full speed” is a nautical term that laypeople can misunderstand. Full speed does not mean the highest possible speed, just the highest normal, non-emergency speed, the fastest speed that a ship can maintain indefinitely without difficulty. It’s surpassed by “flank speed,” which is the true maximum velocity of a vessel when you push it to its limits. (Although the maximum velocity of any ship is theoretically just under the speed of light; again, any spacecraft will accelerate when thrust is applied and will only hold a constant speed while coasting.)
So when the Encyclopedia calls that impulse velocity “full impulse,” it only means that it’s the normal preferred maximum speed, the “speed limit” rather than a limit on possible performance. But since most fans aren’t sailors, they mistakenly assume it means “maximum achievable speed.” Basically, it was a poor choice of words by the Encyclopedia‘s authors, because it’s misleading.
@50 My point isn’t that it’s a hard limit (it obviously isn’t, especially given what’s shown on TV and in film and it’s hard to believe that all starships and shuttlecraft would uniformly zip along at an identical sublight speed), but that it isn’t simply a fan myth.
You said that the idea is “a common fan myth” coming from “a misreading of a passage from the TNG Technical Manual” and that’s merely incorrec – it’s been published in more than one official source. the Encyclopedia and Voyager Techical Manual both say that full impulse is 0.25c and leave it at that.
@51/laconicsax: Yes, I am aware that I was incorrect about the origin of the false belief. The post you’re addressing is one I wrote nine months ago, and I discovered that error not long thereafter, as I recall. But there are still plenty of fans who misunderstand what the term “full impulse” is supposed to mean, incorrectly assuming that impulse engines are incapable of going any faster. Maybe the Encyclopedia is responsible for creating that misapprehension by choosing its terms poorly, but the fact remains that it’s still a false belief.
The way to respond to learning that something is incorrect is not to get defensive and say “It’s not my fault” and try to justify one’s error. That doesn’t do any good, because it doesn’t correct the error. It doesn’t matter where the error comes from; it just needs to be recognized that it is an error, so that it can be replaced with a truer understanding.
If someone looking for an answer finds it in an officially endorsed technical manual or encyclopedia then it’s not “defensive” to point out that that it is not a “fan myth” among those fans who have relied on that answer, however incorrect it may be.
I do not find Remata’klan pathetic at all. He exists for a purpose, and more than any other Jem Hadar, he is loyal to that purpose and to his duty. From our perspective his duty is an immoral one, because it supports an immoral cause. But from where he stands, it is not his job or his place to question the order of things or to undertake personal journeys in ethics. He does what he was meant to do, and he does it magnificently. One of the finest guest acting performances in the entire DS9 canon, IMO, and underneath all that makeup and costuming even. Wonderful stuff.
Re: the rocks and shoals title, I think it has a nice double meaning. As for the plot down on the planet, it refers to the shipwreck and the rocky terrain. And as applied to Kira’s situation on DS9, it applies to the idea that by collaborating, she’s moving closer to what someone else might define as “intentional or willful” harm to the federation’s cause. (See Russell H’s post above.)
Is there a Cardassian Intelligence Bureau or is it some of Garak’s BS? Phil Morris’s turn as Remata’Klan is so different from Thopok – he’s my favourite of all the Jem’Hadar. 4: Kira’s status as a collaborator will pop up again in Sons and Daughters when she’s at first flattered by the dress Dukat picked out for her, models herself in the mirror (mirrors again) and chucks it away disgusted at herself – eternal vigilance.
David Sim: Since Cardassia is part of the Dominion, the Jem’Hadar would be fully aware of what replaced the Obsidian Order in Cardassia, so that can’t possibly have been Garak’s BS.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
There were many things to love about this episode but one thing that really stuck out was how part of it looked more like a feature film than television. The cinematography and editing were truly outstanding. I also thought the hanging was done immensely well. It was horrifying, but you didn’t actually see it. That can have much more impact than onscreen gore.
My one puzzlement is a continued ST series one. How do they fall from space onto the planet…and have anyone survive? This is often happening with ships and shuttles alike. In an airplane, you have a chance to at least glide, but with these ships, if you have no power, you have nothing. There’s no wing providing any sort of lift, and often everyone walks away with only bruises!
@56 Presumably the hulls are made of material which is resistant to damage like heat of re-entry and impact damage, and internally there are inertial dampening systems to soak up things like sudden and terminal stops.
There had to have been some power, because the lights were still working, so it’s possible the inertial dampeners were still functioning, in which case, they could easily have survived the crash.
Of course, this is a Dominion ship, so I doubt there’s all that much concern for safety and stuff, since the Jem’Hadar are disposable and the Vorta are replaceable.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
It’s almost painful to watch Kira slumping into work depression and it’s played very convincingly.
Of course the hanging scene is like a punch in the face. But, the rope was much too long. With a fall that far, her head would’ve been torn right off her torso.
This is perhaps my favorite episode of the entire series.
This is one of my favorite episodes. Remata’Klan is an awesome character from the moment he refuses to reveal the man who disobeyed orders to the Vorta and demands to take the punishment on himself; it’s a picture of true leadership. That makes it all the more tragic and awful to hear him say “He does not need to earn my loyalty; he has had it since the moment I was conceived.” and to hear him renounce ownership of his own life. The Jem’Hadar deserve so much more than to be on the lowest level of the Dominion’s quasi-religious hierarchy but that’s where they are.
I think to compare Kira to Kubus Oak is a bit harsh. This Occupation is in the very early stages and, even though its outcome is predictable, Quark and Odo rightly point out that it is not as bad, at least not yet. Kira has not been asked to send Bajorans to the mines as slave labor as Kubus was – she has not become him and this episode shows that she cannot. It’s sad to see her stumble even this much after the life she lived in the Resistance but the conditions are different and it’s only a momentary stumble.
The characterization of the Jem’Hadar – in DS9 generally, but in this episode particularly – has always highlighted on of Trek’s true strengths – portraying the characters, whether our heroes, or various guest characters, or even the ‘evil aliens’ – as actual people. The Jem’Hadar would have been so easy to just portray as one-dimensional killers. They were born and bread for that role. But Remata’klan shows that they can be so much more, that they aspire for something to give their lives value and meaning, like anyone else. There was a passage in the novel of this episode that has always stuck with me, from right before the Jem’Hadar go to their deaths: after talking to Sisko, Remata’klan returned to his men and said, “The reports will say that the Vorta lied, the Vorta cheated, the Vorta betrayed, but the Jem’Hadar obeyed to the end and stood strong in our vow. Our lives are worth that….”
This is more than devotion to duty. Remata’klan wanted to make a point for the entire galaxy to see – that the Jem’Hadar are strong, and not just because they can kick your ass from here to Tuesday. And he was relying on Sisko to publish it.
Two quick comments on this one:
1. “The Order of Things” would have been a much better title for the episode as it captures the essence of both parts of the plot.
2. I don’t think Keevan was quite as much of a scumbucket as you portray. After all, he does describe exactly what will happen once the Jem’Hadar run out of White. I think his sending them to their deaths reflects an almost Klingon sense of honor (better to die fighting an enemy than to turn on each other). In a lot of ways, it is how the Jem’Hadar would prefer to go out.
“Skeevan”.
I agree with every point krad made in his review except for one: I do not see Kira’s actions as indefensible. The Federation advised Bajor to have a non-aggression treaty with the Dominion because they knew they would be slaughtered by them (or at least occupied) if they went to war. The Federation is unable to defend Bajor in its current status. No other alien races in the Alpha Quadrant seem willing to defend Bajor either.
Kira knows this, so she thinks it is better for Bajor to remain on the Dominion’s good side as much as possible.
We (the audience) know the Dominion cannot be trusted to uphold their agreement, but looking at the situation from a Bajoran perspective, Kira’s decision to ally herself with the Dominion and Cardassians temporarily does make sense until they are able to defend themselves against them more robustly.
Lockdown Rewatch. A fascinating episode in both plot strands , Kira’s nightmare position on the station ( I would not want her job at that time) and the stand off on the planet. A lot of rightful praise for Phill Morris and Christopher Shea here but huge praise for Avery Brooks in this episode he was outstanding, especially at the conclusion,the pain and anger on his face when Kevan saunters though the dead Jem Hadar with not a care in the world was an incredible piece of acting in a wonderful episode of Television. I have no hesitation in awarding this a 10.
I have to agree with CLB that the Jem’Hadar leader comes off to me as a rather pathetic figure. I’m not sure if that is what the show was going for here, but this episode really illustrates what the Klingons mean when they say the Jem’Hadar have no honor. To willingly give not only your own life but the lives of the men under your command in perverse obedience to a treacherous leader, just because it’s the way things are, makes all of your deaths meaningless.
Still, heck of an episode. I don’t like my Star Trek to be regularly this grim, but still.
I had this on in the background while working this weekend and found myself coming back to one of my favorite exchanges of the series, let alone Trek.
“You tied me up and threatened to kill me.”
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
Never fails to make me start snickering.
Yeah, it’s black comedy given what happened in “Empok Nor”. But I like to imagine just how many times over the years Garak’s had to use that particular defense.
You know, Sisko could have proposed his alternative strategy to Keevan, instead of to Remata’klan. Or after Remata’klan said no, even, he could have said “okay, go get Keevan.” Remata’klan had already displayed a willingness to contemplate an alternate course by agreeing to talk to Sisko; he wasn’t ordered to talk to him, but he did so. I think Sisko gives up too easily here.