“Shadows and Symbols”
Written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 7, Episode 2
Production episode 40510-552
Original air date: October 7, 1998
Stardate: 52152.6
Station log: After a summary of “Tears of the Prophets” and “Image in the Sand,” we pick up with Ensign Ezri Dax entering the restaurant and babbling a mile a minute. She was on board the ship the Dax symbiont was being transported on and was forced to be implanted to save Dax’s life—but she wasn’t prepared for joining and she’s having trouble adjusting. She’s taken a leave of absence from her post as assistant counselor on the Destiny and came to Sisko’s hoping her old friend Benjamin can help out. So she joins the planned expedition to Tyree.
On the Rotarran, Worf leads a service to dedicate the upcoming battle to Jadzia so that she may enter Sto-Vo-Kor. O’Brien and Bashir are there alongside the Klingons, and Quark surprises everyone by showing up to join the mission because he loved Jadzia too.
Ever since being joined, Dax has been subject to spacesickness, as the Sisko family learns to their regret (and the regret of the puke-covered control panel). Jake is glad she’s come along, even though she’s rather scattered, because her presence makes Sisko happier.
Ross informs Kira that the Federation Council has sent a protest to the Romulan government’s placing of weapons on Derna. Kira is unimpressed with the back-office jockeying that isn’t actually accomplishing anything, but Ross says his hands are tied. Kira’s, though, aren’t and she intends to blockade Derna to keep the weapons from being activated (the launch sequencers still have to be delivered to the moon). Ross, showing a spectacular lack of understanding of who, exactly, he’s talking to, says that Kira will have a fight on her hands, one that she can’t win. Kira takes command of the blockade—which consists only of a dozen impulse raiders—herself, and Odo insists on going along, because he’s all in love and stuff.
The runabout arrives at Tyree. Before they beam down, Sisko hears a page for Dr. Wykhoff to report to Isolation Ward 4, but only he hears it. Dax and all three Siskos (even Joseph, despite Sisko worrying about how the old man will hold up in the desert) beam down to find the Orb of the Emissary. Sisko sets a brisk pace, which Joseph has trouble keeping up with.
On Cardassia, Damar is showing off Dominion battle plans to a woman he met at a party. Weyoun kicks the woman out so he can discuss the need for the Monac shipyards to increase production by 15% so they can drive the allies out of Chin’toka.
Sisko arrives at what he thinks might be the spot he saw in his vision (he also hears the page for Dr. Wykhoff again). He starts playing with his baseball, which Dax takes from his hand and tosses aside. Sisko, remembering that the baseball fell to the floor before his vision, digs in the very spot where the ball landed.
Ross and Cretak inform Kira that several warbirds are en route to deliver medical supplies. Both Ross and Kira agree that warbirds are overkill to say the least, and Kira fully intends to fire on any ship that tries to run the blockade. Ross’s attempts to broker a compromise are met by the twin brick walls of Cretak’s arrogant assuredness of superior firepower and Kira’s willingness to defend Bajoran territory with her life. Cretak also thinks that Kira is bluffing.
Worf is initially cranky on the subject of O’Brien, Bashir, and especially Quark’s presence, as he wants to get Jadzia into Sto-Vo-Kor by himself. Martok reminds him that there’s a ship full of Klingons helping him, including Martok himself, and Worf eventually apologizes saying that he wasn’t all that thrilled with sharing Jadzia’s affections with others, and thanks them for coming along to help him.
Sisko digs up an Orb container that looks just like all the others. But just as he’s about to open it, he’s back to being Benny Russell—who’s in a mental institution, under the care of Dr. Wykhoff (who looks a lot like Damar) writing on the walls because they won’t give him any paper. Wykhoff wants him to stop writing, but Russell still has stories to tell. Wykhoff insists that he needs to stop for his own mental health. On Tyree, Sisko is in a fugue state holding the box—Jake tries to open the box himself, but he’s hit with an electrical charge. In the vision, Wykhoff hands Russell a roller covered in white paint, urging him to paint over the wall, cover the story, wipe out his “mistakes.” On Tyree at the same time, Sisko starts to re-bury the box. Dax tries to stop him, reminding him that he promised Jadzia he’d make things right. Russell drops the roller and keeps writing, and Sisko opens the box—which also reopens the wormhole.
The Rotarran approaches the sun the Monac shipyards are orbiting. O’Brien and Worf have devised a plan to use an EMP to cause a massive solar flare that will destroy the shipyards. But it requires getting very close to the sun and calculating the exact trajectory of the flare. In a very seriously baked ship, Worf gives the order to fire, but the first EMP doesn’t work. O’Brien has to recalculate before the three Jem’Hadar ships that detected them when they decloaked show up and destroy them. The second EMP works—also destroying the three ships attacking them—and Worf welcomes Jadzia to Sto-Vo-Kor.
The warbirds show up early. Kira makes it clear to Ross and Cretak that she will not back down. (Cretak says she’d hate to see Kira throw her life away; Kira’s reply is that she’s not dead yet.) Emboldened by the wormhole reopening, Kira locks weapons on the warbirds. Cretak winds up blinking and backing down, promising to remove all weapons from Derna. Kira asks Ross what changed her mind, and he says that he said he’d remove them if she didn’t. “What changed your mind?” she then asks, and Ross smiles and says that Kira herself did.
Sisko meets with the Prophets, in the form of Sarah, who says that Kosst Amojan has been cast out of the temple—that is, apparently, the Pah-wraith who possessed Dukat—and also reveals that a Prophet possessed Sarah to ensure that “the Sisko” would be born to fulfill his destiny, part of which was to cast Kosst Amojan out of the wormhole.
Sisko returns to DS9 to great acclaim from every single Bajoran on the station, as well as his crew. Said crew is also rather shocked by the arrival of the all-new, all-different Dax…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The method of causing a solar flare used by the Rotarran was also used by the Enterprise-D in “Descent, Part II” against the Borg.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko discovers that his birth was arranged by the Prophets. As existential crises go, it’s pretty major…
Also Joseph refuses every suggestion to go back to the runabout instead of traipsing through a brutal desert, because he says he owes it to his son to see it through. Plus he probably feels just a skosh guilty about not revealing his son’s true biological parentage…
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Do not play chicken with Kira. You’ll lose.
The slug in your belly: Dax is constantly remembering and/or feeling things from previous hosts: Curzon and Jadzia’s love of raktajino (which Ezri can’t stand), Torias’s final moments before he died in a shuttle crash, Emony’s emotionalism, and Audrid’s love of long walks.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf dedicates a battle to Jadzia’s memory, and even makes nice to Bashir, O’Brien, and Quark. And then when he meets Ezri Dax, his reaction is one of fury, causing him to walk away in disgust. As always, it pretty much sucks to be him.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo gives Kira a copy of Mickey Spillane’s 1952 Mike Hammer novel Kiss Me Deadly. O’Brien introduced Odo to Spillane’s work, and Odo figures Kira would appreciate Hammer’s attitude. (I can’t imagine Kira being all that receptive to the horrific sexism in Spillane’s work, though…)
Rules of Acquisition: Quark insists that he loved Jadzia as much as anyone—more or less—on the Rotarran, and insists on going along for the battle. He gets his hand sliced open for his trouble, and spends the entire time complaining.
Victory is life: The Dominion needs the shipyards on Monac to increase production by 15% in order to take Chin’toka back. Instead, their production is decreased by 100% thanks to the Rotarran blowing them up. Oops.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Odo is all Mr. Supportive Guy for Kira, making sure that she knows what she’s doing and being her conscience, but also being behind her completely. It’s actually kind of adorable.
Keep your ears open: “Is it so hard to say thank you?”
“Don’t do this, Quark.”
“Do what? All I’m asking for is two little words.”
“Be quiet!”
“That’s two words, all right—just not the two I was hoping for.”
Quark bitching, O’Brien trying to get him to stop, Worf backhandedly fulfilling Quark’s request, and Quark bitching some more.
Welcome aboard: Back from “Image in the Sand” are Casey Biggs (doing double duty as Damar and Wykhoff), Megan Cole (Cretak), Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun), Deborah Lacey (actually credited this time as Sarah), J.G. Hertzler (Martok), Barry Jenner (Ross), and Brock Peters (making his final on-screen appearance as Joseph).
Trivial matters: The writing on the wall in Benny Russell’s cell is actual handwriting, chronicling the entirely of DS9 as painstakingly written by members of the entire art department. Michael Okuda used the episode summaries in an early draft of The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion by Terry J. Erdmann (which was being written as the series was in production) as the basis of the scrawlings, and they put up the descriptions of every episode in the first six seasons, so Benny really was writing the entire story of Deep Space Nine.
Just as with the previous Benny Russell story in “Far Beyond the Stars,” Casey Biggs’s appearance in a Russell vision marks his only Trek appearance without prosthetics or makeup.
Kevin G. Summers would write a fantastic sequel to the Prophet vision in this story, “Isolation Ward 4,” for Strange New Worlds IV, a story of sufficient power and impressiveness that it made the preliminary ballot for the 2002 Nebula Awards. It did not make the final ballot, because the Nebulas tend to view tie-in writing as akin to the sputum on one’s shoe, so it didn’t really stand a snowball’s chance in hell of even making the final ballot.
The story of Ezri Tigan being implanted with the Dax symbiont while on the U.S.S. Destiny was told in the stories “Second Star to the Right…” and “…And Straight on Till Morning” by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens in the anthology The Lives of Dax, with another version in Strange New Worlds III in the story “Ninety-three Hours” by Kim Sheard.
Walk with the Prophets: “You have definitely gotten stranger.” This is a much stronger episode than its predecessor, mainly because all three plots come to definitive conclusions. Two of them are even good ones.
Kira’s plotline is pretty straightforward, but it’s worth it just to watch Kira totally own both Cretak and Ross. My favorite is early on when Ross says that it’s a battle Kira can’t win, and you expect Kira to grab him by the lapels and say, “Excuse me, but are you actually aware of the recent history of the planet of my birth and the role I played in liberating it from the evil empire?” Seriously, Kira spent her entire life up until six years earlier fighting a fight she couldn’t win and winning it. And we see how as she goes up against a mess of Romulan warbirds and two interstellar governments with the interplanetary equivalent of a bunch of pop guns and, again, wins. It’s a great moment for a great character.
Worf’s plotline is even more straightforward. There’s a technobabble thing, it goes wrong, there’s a battle, O’Brien fixes the technobabble in the nick of time, gobby gobby gobby. It’s perfunctory as hell, and it’s especially frustrating in that Quark and Bashir—the two outsiders who have the closest connection to Jadzia—don’t actually do anything remotely useful on the mission. O’Brien’s the one who pulls the technobabble trick, but he’s only there out of solidarity with Bashir.
But what makes this plotline worthwhile is Worf’s apology to Bashir, O’Brien, and Quark, because it’s a lovely callback to one of Worf’s earliest scenes of substance. Waaaaaaay back in TNG’s first season, Worf and Wes Crusher had a conversation in “Coming of Age” about the psych test that was part of the unnecessarily complicated Starfleet Academy entrance exam. Worf described his “enemy” as being unable to rely on others, and despite the fact that he was a bridge officer on a starship, that inability was still his enemy.
And based on the speech he gives on the Rotarran, it still is. He wanted to do this all by himself—but of course he couldn’t, any more than he could only rely on himself as one of Picard’s bridge officers. But he finally admits that he appreciates the help. It’s a small thing, and for all I know, Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler didn’t even remember that bit in “Coming of Age,” but dammit, it works. Worf’s character progression has been one of the strongest aspects of modern Trek, and this is a great example of it.
Finally, we come to Sisko’s plot, which gives us only one good thing: more Benny Russell! The scene in Isolation Ward 4 with Russell and Wykhoff is tremendous fun, a natural continuation of what happened to Russell at the end of “Far Beyond the Stars,” and a nice way to seed doubt in Sisko’s mind to keep him from opening the box with the Orb.
Sadly, that entire plotline is just—silly. I won’t beat the dead horse of how the wormhole aliens have been made into supernatural beings of plot movement. Since the Prophets’ relationship with time is weird anyhow, the idea that they went All You Zombies on Sisko and made themselves responsible for his birth so he could introduce themselves to him to do things and—blarg. Head hurts.
I will say it’s a good introduction for the new Dax. The idea that Ezri wasn’t prepared to be joined makes for some entertaining character work, giving us a Dax who is, at once, exactly the same—particularly when she urges Sisko to open the box and not re-bury it—yet completely different from Jadzia.
Warp factor rating: 6
Rewatcher’s note: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no DS9 Rewatch on Friday the 28th of November. We’ll be back in a week with “Afterimage.”
Keith R.A. DeCandido has short stories out in several anthologies right now: “Fish Out of Water” in Out of Tune, a Jonathan Maberry-edited anthology of stories based on old ballads; “Time Keeps on Slippin’” in the Stargate SG-1/Atlantis anthology Far Horizons; “Stone Cold Whodunit” in the superhero anthology With Great Power; and “Undine the Boardwalk” in the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology It’s Elemental. Two stories coming in 2015 are “Back in El Paso My Life Would be Worthless” in The X-Files anthology The Truth is Out There and “Streets of Fire” in V-Wars Volume 3, plus Keith has a short story collection due out from Dark Quest Books called Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R.A. DeCandido. Oh, and he just signed the contract to write a Stargate SG-1 novel called Kali’s Wrath.
Ezri! And Nicole DeBoer does a wonderful job of playing the mix of sometimes confused and sometimes confident (but mostly confused). I’m looking forward to how she continues to adapt as the season continues.
One thing I didn’t think made sense was the Benny Russell bit. So was the “Far Beyond the Stars” vision sent by the pah-wraiths as well? Actually, it’s the whole plotline that bugs me. How did Sisko finding the orb contribute to casting Kosst Amojan out of the wormhole? It’s kind of like a video game. Complete the quest and you’ll get rewarded with the next level even though what you did for the quest had nothing to do with the reward itself. Why was the orb buried on Tyree? It was all just too random.
But Ezri! Yea! (I’ll shut up now.)
“giving us a Dax who is, at once, exactly the same—particularly when she urges Sisko to open the box and not re-bury it—yet completely different from Jadzia.”
Sort of like what always happens when The Doctor regenerates (Doctor Who‘s Doctor, not Voyager’s Doctor of course).
Even if they didn’t remember that Coming of Age bit, Beimler really should have. He was, after all, part of the TNG staff at the time that episode was written.
And good call, by the way. That happens to be one of my all-time favorite Worf bits in the series. TNG Season 1 has superb moments that I feel they balance out the awful ones. That episode, along with 11001001 are amongst my personal favorites, and that Worf speech is a big part of that enjoyment.
I’ve mentioned it before, but Worf also got one of my favorite character growth moments on Nemesis, by putting his distaste for Romulans aside, during the battle with Shinzon, all thanks to a single well written line (that also paid off the Romulan ale scene in the beginning).
Shadows and Symbols is one satisfying conclusion to these stories, especially with Worf and Kira.
And Allan Kroeker directed the hell out of it as well. Well paced, well scored, with some real tension and good performances (I always thought he should have directed Nemesis instead of Stuart Baird; either Kroeker or James L. Conway).
As for Sisko, I’m not as down on the whole desert scenario as you were. Yeah, the simplification of the Prophets really brought it down some points, but whoever decided to incorporate Benny Russell into this particular story made the right call. It gives Ross all the more reason to be concerned with Sisko’s role as Emissary. Ever since Accession and Rapture, he’s been whisked more and more away on these bizarre visions. That has to put his mental state into question.
The good thing is, we get Jake and Joseph to witness Ben’s process. Even though I question Sisko’s decision to allow his aging father to wander in a scorching desert, it makes sense for him to be there.
Where in the Alpha Quadrant was Kasidy, anyway? Shouldn’t she be there?
I just thought of this, but if the Dax symbiont was dying, and Ezri was the only Trill around, can we truly say that was a situation of informed consent? We see the problems Ezri has dealing with being joined and not being prepared, but there’s no indication that she ever would’ve pursued being joined on her own. So she was basically violated in that sense.
@@.-@,
In our culture, yes, that would be a violation.
In Trill culture it may be the custom that if a symbiont is in danger of dying, it is expected that whomever is around is obligated to become a host. I could imagine this leading to some thorny ethical dilemnas.
Isn’t there a period of time in which the symboint can be removed without killing the host? How long did Riker serve as a host?
“as painstakingly written by members of the entire art department.”
Hey, at least they gave them a ruler. Look at all those nice straight lines!
Regarding informed consent, I don’t see anything that suggests that Ezri was forced or coerced into joining. If she was aware of the risks and and the reason for the implantation, she understood the situation well enough to give IC.
Benny Russell. I wanted to like it, but like others, I don’t get it. For the first time in a while, I wished for technobabble. Something, anything, to get me from Sisko to the wormhole reopening. “Because” or “Plot” are not sufficient for me.
Kira. She didn’t get Cretak to back down. She got Ross to leverage SF (and I assume the UFP) to get Cretak to back down. I fully believe that Cretak would have doubled down, had Ross not intervened.
Ezri. I was iffy on her the first time I saw her, but the more I watch her, the more I like her. With apologies to Troi, I would have preferred to see Dax on TNG. Less pushy counselor, more friendly ear. And more sensible clothing (and less mysterious) than Guinan.
@@.-@: Go read the Ezri stories in “The Lives of Dax”. It will make a LOT more sense. I can’t explain it in more detail without spoiling the whole thing.
I had at some point internalized The Prophets causing Sisko to be born as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because they have a weird thing with time the fact they saw “the Sisko” as their Emissary to help save them/the temple/whatever meant he had to be born, but if he hadn’t been born I have to wonder if half the crap with the Pah’wraiths would have happened.
Dukat wouldn’t have gone batshit crazy (probably), Kai Winn wouldn’t have joined the Dark Side as an equally ineffectual and unwanted pawn of the Pah’wraiths, and I’d lay odds life would have gone as it had. The Prophets only got involved because the Sisko showed up–so if he never showed up the wormhole woul dhave stayed closed, the Dominion would have stayed on their side and the Cardassians may or may not have been able to take back Bajor/Terak Nor.
So by the Prophets intervening in a corporeal matter (aka Sisko’s birth, which is a VERY linear thing) they were causing their own Doom.
Or I’m over simplyfying matters way too much…
Keith, I’m surprised you didn’t bring up what’ s by far the most problematical thing about the idea of the Prophets possessing Sarah to engineer Sisko’s birth. Namely, they took a woman, robbed her of the ability to control her own body, and sent her to have sex with a man, get impregnated by him, and bear his child, all without her consent. The whole thing was a supernatural roofie. Basically what this reveals is that Ben Sisko, our beloved hero, was conceived through an act of rape. And that is a horrible, awful, terrible decision on the part of the writers. Sisko shouldn’t just have said “This isn’t easy to accept” — he should’ve gotten furious and railed at them for the unforgivable violation they imposed on Sarah. How can we see the Prophets as benevolent deities after learning that they essentially endorse sex slavery? On top of all the other reasons this was a bad plot development, it’s morally reprehensible.
And it underlines the fatal flaw of having an all-male writing staff — that there was nobody around to tell them what a terribly sexist choice they were making, basically defining Sisko’s mother as nothing more than an object whose body and entire life had no value except in service to male characters.
As mentioned above, there are similar questions of consent raised by Ezri Dax’s backstory, or rather Ezri Tigan’s. I think the Lives of Dax story (and the alternative version in Kim Sheard’s “Ninety-three Hours” in Strange New Worlds III) gives her a little more of a say in the decision to accept a personal transformation in order to save Dax, but the dialogue here doesn’t even address the question of her consent or right to choose. It is rather disturbing when I think about it.
Meanwhile, we also have Jadzia treated in a rather fridgey way, with the consequences of her death being less about her than about how the men in her life are affected by it. Overall, the only plotline that seems to treat women’s agency well is the Kira/Cretak confrontation.
@1: As I think I remarked at the time, my interpretation of “Far Beyond the Stars” is that, yes, it was sent by the Pah-wraiths to dishearten Sisko. That’s the only way I can make sense of it. I don’t see any reason for the Prophets to send him visions that would throw his sense of reality into question and induce a sense of hopelessness.
Still, I have to disagree with Keith — revisiting Benny here served no purpose beyond a mercenary attempt to recapture past glories. It took what had been a powerful story and reduced it to a self-indulgent gimmick. Bringing Benny back only undermined the idea of “Far Beyond the Stars.”
Wouldn’t Ezri being an emergency joining go against what the Trill Joining Association of Jerks were trying to bury about anybody being a viable host?
I wonder if the Prophets being involved in Sisko’s conception was inspired by the Arthur legend. In that story, Uther Pendragon has Merlin help him trick his enemy’s wife into sleeping with him, thus conceiving Arthur.
Is that what the DS9 writers were shooting for? A great man being born from a horrible act? Irony via rape? Illegitimate conception? It’s a weird story beat, back in ye olden times and in the 24th century.
@11 – shhhh … you’re not supposed to remember that. ;)
@10 – Yes, I think you’re right about Benny, both in the story and out. Excellent point about the prophets using Sarah, presumably against her will. That bothered me too, but you did a much better job of putting it into words than I would have. However, with Ezri I never got the impression that she was forced into taking Dax. Pressured by the situation obviously, but nothing says that she couldn’t have refused to give up her life to save the symbiont.
@11 – Clearly there are a number of Trill able to be joined; I don’t recall if there was a biological reason given, but if there was they could just handwaive it as “she got lucky.”
As for the mental and psychological reasoning, well, again, “she got lucky.”
Even if they are trying to limit the joining pool to some arbitrary % of the population, for every applicant there has to be any number of people who would be “capable” but not trying. Ezri is untrained and very young, but otherwise capable; there is cover there to be spun. If she were an infirm screwup then yeah, that would be more damning.
Christopher: You’re right, I should’ve gone into that more, but I was just so frustrated with the inanity of that storyline I didn’t even get into the awful thing the Prophets did to Sarah — which is a violation we’ve seen them perform before, on Zek in “Prophet Motive.” For all that it was played for laughs, their rewiring of Zek’s brain was as much a violation as what they did to poor Sarah. And these are the good guys! Kosst Amojan’s not looking so bad now….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@13: I’d agree about Ezri in general, but in the context of the writers’ horrible treatment of female consent in the other plotline in the same episode, it’s hard not to see a trend.
@16 – Very true.
This episode left way more of a bad taste in my mouth. First, the issue CLB brings up regarding Sarah. Second, to be honest, I agreed with Worf in the beginning regarding Bashir and Quark’s presence on the ship – the whole ‘everybody is in love with Jadzia’ thing was just kind of ridiculous, and I think it was very intrusive of them to invite themselves along on Worf’s grieving process. I mean, yes, he has to rely on others, and in general that’s a good message…but I really did get the impression they were doing it for THEMSELVES, not for him. (Also, it irritated me that Quark gave the final order, in the end). Which is not to say Worf didn’t have some jealousy issues if he viewed friendship as ‘sharing her affections’.
I’ll have more to say about Ezri int he next episode, but isn’t supposed to be some BIG HUGE TABOO for a Trill to meet up with people from their past life? (To say nothing of Jadzia’s situation in regards to Sisko in the first place). I do think the concept of somebody getting joined who wasn’t really ready is interesting though. I assumed she consented, otherwise, yes, that’s also creepy.
I did like the Far Beyond the Stars callback (and I never considered that the pah-Wraiths would have been responsible for the first one) but one little niggling thing. Obviously they wanted to give Casey Biggs a chance to appear (and I did enjoy that), but does Sisko actually know Damar? If the visions are technically drawing from his subconscious, it seems like it would have made mores sense to use Dukat or Weyoun or some other adversary as the psychologist (except of course they already showed up). Maybe even Ross ;)
To clarify my own point about Ezri’s joining: I’m not saying she was “coerced” in the explicit sense, just that the situational pressure that “hey, this entity could very well die unless you give up your life as you know it” impacts her freedom of making that choice. It doesn’t preclude that it’s the same decision she’d make philosophically if she were to ponder it without being in the situation, so it COULD still be her totally free choice…but the fact remains she was not anticipating going down this road with her life and the implication is that “No one’s saying you have to do this, BUT, if you don’t, you’re a total bitch.”
@18: I think the taboo is about being romantically involved with a former host’s partner. It’d be pretty hard for joined Trills on the homeworld to avoid encountering anyone that their previous hosts had known.
Yeah, I went back and checked the script for “Rejoined”, and according to Bashir, the taboo is fairly specific: a joined Trill can’t have a relationship with a lover from a previous life. I’m assuming this means a romantic relationship, since nobody seemed concerned that Jadzia and Lenara were spending time together, only that there was “something going on.” So basically all Ezri is banned from is getting together with Worf. (Which she will in fact do, but briefly, and I don’t expect she went home and told anybody about it.)
@20 – Like Worf? (Or others who may or may not be on the station)
@19 – I agree that there may have been social pressure, but that does not undermine the final autonomy and self-responsibility that she enjoyed. To a similar, but clearly lesser, degree, there is the pressure to contribute to or support social movements you might not normally care about (see any “help the children and puppies” ad), for organ donation, blood donation, etc. Worf was faced with a similar decision on TNG.
I know this is different, but I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that compares to “to keep it alive, you need to have this creature inserted. You’ll have its memories and be influenced by it, and if you take it out, you die.” Still, I don’t think they could have forced her – if nothing else, I doubt Starfleet would have approved of a forced surgery
@10 – The whole thing with Sarah just screams “oh god what were they thinking?” I can’t shake the feeling we’re supposed to feel that Joseph is the victim in this situation; he thought he and Sarah were in love and then one day she just up and disappeared. And I do feel for him, he didn’t know the Prophets had space roofied the poor woman. But his totally normal pain at an ex running off without so much as a word doesn’t compare to what Sarah went through. Who could blame her for wanting to get away from him after the role he played in her suffering?
@22: I’m not arguing one way or another, I just want to put the question out there. Perhaps I should ammend my original statement to say, “So she basically may have been violated in that sense.” And yes, I think if the only reason you donated to the humane society is because someone came up to you on the street and waved a sad puppy picture in your face, then I think someone could fairly call into question your free consent.
As for Starfleet, I never said it was an explicitly forced surgery. Obviously she said “yes” at there in some point, but my question (for philosophical pondering) is whether that was truly a free “yes.”
The other thing about Sarah is, are we supposed to believe her death was really an accident? Or did the Prophets killer her? In any case, it’s clear the writers killed her when she was no longer plot convenient. They wanted some explanation as to why Sisko didn’t try to get her back, so, ‘Oh, he did find her, but instead of her saying “F off” more obviously, she was dead before he even talked to her.”
Which brings up another question…how long was he grieving for her (while taking care of a one-year-old) before moving on and finding his next wife (who also apparently is dead because she’s not plot convenient)? Obviously Benjamin had to be young enough that he didn’t remember the wedding or her sudden arrival and thought it was his real mother. So I was just wondering.
Ross also comes to the same conclusion O’Brien came to at the very beginning of the show.
Don’t play cards against Kira.
I liked that little call back, as it shows how Kira is getting back to her roots (which will happen even more later) after the events at the beginning of season 6, and even in “The Die is Cast” when SHE, and not one of the “starfleet types” was the one to suggest that the cloaking failure was caused by stellar phenomena, as opposed to sabotage.
Disclaimer: I am not a religious person, and my religious knowledge is admittedly lacking; please bear with me if I make mistakes.
Having read over these comments about Sarah’s loss of autonomy, and descriptions of it as a violation and rape, I am left thinking of a particular incident that feels similar. Redlander notes (@12) a similarity to Arthurian legend, but I feel like a Biblical reference might be just as apt.
Was it not a violation, or even a rape, for God to have caused Mary to conceive Jesus? I know Joseph was not the father in that situation; God did not force Mary to sleep with Joseph and become pregnant by him, but an “immaculate conception” was still forced upon her. Sisko was the child of Sarah and Joseph, but only because he had to be – the Prophets, despite being godlike (to the Bajorans, anyway – as we established in the “Image in the Sand” comments, the writers have effectively made them gods now), couldn’t actually cause the conception to take place as God did to Mary.
But the parallel I see is a rape from a godlike being causing a pregnancy that leads to the birth of a holy man. Again, I am not well-versed in religion, but I wonder if anyone else draws this parallel…
@27: Actually the Immaculate Conception does not refer to the conception of Jesus, but to the conception of Mary. She was conceived without the stain of original sin, by special dispensation from God, so that she could be a suitable vessel for the son of God.
Anyway, the Bible seems to say that Mary gave her consent — sort of. According to Luke Chapter 1, the angel Gabriel came to her and said that God had chosen her to bear his son Jesus, and that her whole not-knowing-men deal didn’t matter because the Holy Ghost would come knock her up. So up to that point it’s rather presumptuous. But then Mary says “Be it unto me according to thy word,” which seems to suggest that she had some say in the matter. No telling what would’ve happened if she’d said no, and I guess you could argue that she wouldn’t have dared say no to God. But at least she was told in advance that she’d been chosen and at least nominally said “Yeah, okay.”
Which seems to me more like Ezri’s situation than Sarah’s. Ezri had this life-changing decision thrust on her and was probably under a lot of cultural pressure to agree, given the importance of symbionts in her society, but she had at least nominal consent. Sarah apparently had her body taken over without her prior awareness or permission.
And lo, it was in the “Shadows and Symbols” rewatch that I thought my religious knowledge was lacking, and so it was shown to be! For others know the Bible far better than I, and the tree up which I was barking was indeed a false one.
(Thanks for the correction!)
Edit: I see you added a bit about Ezri, so I’m glad the connection was there, though in a different way than I expected. I actually enjoy when religion is portrayed in fiction (even if I don’t necessarily get the references right), because it allows us to examine the ethics of religion from a safer perspective.
It may well be that Trills are raised to hold the symbionts in such high esteem that they’re more than willing to take on one unexpectedly.
In fact, if memory serves, they were taught that the symbionts were a scarce commidity and only special people could join with them, so someone might well jump at the unexpected opportunity to host one due to an emergency situation.
But I think my first thought is what actually went on in this case.
I did a SNW story (not chosen) on Sarah being forced to be with Joseph and what happened when the prophets let her go.
As for Kira – you GO girl! My favorite part of the story.
I actually preferred Ezri to Jadzia. Jadzia started out well in DS9 but turned into – well, I don’t know – kind of silly and shallow. Ezri was more serious and more vulnerable.
@30: I would’ve liked to see a Strange New Worlds story (or something) about Sarah and her perspective on events. She deserves to be given a voice and an opinion.
Tbonz beat me to my point which is that the symbionts are treated with such high regard that Ezri Tigan wouldn’t mind being joined even if she was unprepared. It very well could be like having a random opportunity to join the royal family (I’m not saying that symbionts or royalty, rather that joined trill seem to be in a frequently desired social strata). Ezri might not have been prepared for a joining but she probably wasn’t against it
Unlike Sarah. Ugh. Such a bad plotline. No reason why the box is on tyree- it just is. No explanation of why it lights up the other orbs- it just does. And like that- Siskos got his groove qback. I think if rather have found out that a prophet had arranged the situation of sickos birth rather than just take over a body. Why not put Sarah in a position to fall in love and give birth to Ben rather than the creepiness than it was.
And if you needed a plot line for Siskp to get his groove back, why not have Ben show up at DS9 and try to explain to his loyal crew why they need to steak the defiant and sneak onto a card assian moon rather than random planet you never heard of before or since. Yes it’s the ploy of Star Trek 3, but it’s a better plot line.
also am I the only one who thought that Jake wanted Ezri along bc he had a crush on her. Whereas Jadzia was I reachable due to age gap, Jake and Ezri are probably only a few years apart. It could have given Ezri a chance to show her competence as a counselor to fend off Jake (separating out feelings of desire for her versus lingering feelings for Jadzia) rather than debut as a total mess.
Ok. I’ve been thinking, and I can reconcile the Sarah plotline to get it to work a little better.
Sarah wasn’t Sarah.
So the nonlinear Prophets had a bit of paradox – they needed Sisko to open the wormhole (which at this time really isn’t a wormhole anymore, is it?), but they also need him to be born. Being so wise, they knew what kind of woman gets Joe excited. Being non-linear, they also knew when Sarah would die. So, one of the prophets came to Earth in the form of Sarah from Australia and got together with Joe. After Ben was born, it left, for the good of The Sisko. They knew that Joe wouldn’t be able to track down real!Sarah until after she was dead, leaving him to grieve for a woman he really didn’t know. Thus, the wormhole alien could and did give consent, and Sarah was not mistreated in any way. Works for me.
@25 – I am curious to hear from a licensed child psychologist about that. I assumed that Joe was already remarried and when he located Sarah, he was just looking for answers or a friend from that time in his life. There was a girl I was close to while I was in Scotland…more than 11 years ago now. I thought we were pretty good friends, but things got a bit complicated that many moons ago. I am happily married, but I still try to look her up on occasion – she was a friend, and I think good friendships are always worth salvaging. In the likely event my assumptions are wrong, I would like to know how soon after Sarah dying he would have had to married Mama for Ben not to have noticed.
@CLB, glad you got here before lisamarie. I can already hear her sighing about that.
Have we ever seen Jadzia give any opinion on where she’d like to go after death, or even if she believed in an afterlife? Because I think it’s strange that Worf assumes that non-Klingons will or can enter Sto-Vo-Kor, rather than whatever afterlife they may believe in, or would want to. Unless Jadzia has already stated to Worf that she has no problem going there, Worf’s quest to make sure she enters Sto-Vo-Kor comes across to me as potentially overriding her own wishes on the matter.
@34 – Without knowing more about how it all works, I don’t know if I take issue with that.
Either SVK is real or not. If it isn’t, this is something that helps Worf both greive and live his beliefs and causes no harm to Jadzia. If it is real, then either Jadzia now forced to enter SVK or has now obtained the necessary requirements to enter of her own choice.
If she is not forced to enter SVK, then all Worf has done is give the the ability to make the choice, either while she was alive or at some point in the afterlife, to enter. If she is forced to accept the mission and enter SVK, then we may have a problem.
If there are multiple real afterlives, and Jadzia is forced into SVK, I’m concerned about consent. If SVK is the only real afterlife, and she is forced to enter, I wouldn’t be tickled, but I suspect her love and respect for things Klingon would lead her to prefer SVK over Gre’thor.
I make no judgements on the reality of SVK, but I have doubts that anybody would ever be forced into SVK. Partaking of glory is an honor, and those who would reject that honor have no place in glory.
@32: StarTrek.com claims that Ezri was born c. 2354, which was just a year before Jake.
@33: That could work as a retcon. Or it could be revealed that the Prophet gave her a choice — showed her what would result from sharing her body for a time and got her consent to do it. (Maybe she was at a bad place in her life at the time and could’ve used a vacation from herself for a few years.)
But the problem is that they didn’t do those things. They could have told this story in a way that wasn’t rapey, but it didn’t occur to them. We can try to fix it after the fact, but that doesn’t change the fact that the writers made a huge mistake.
So I’ll be honest, the Sarah violated thing was not something I considered before, but I think there is s lot of truth there. But this leads me to ask…
Shmi Skywalker?
@37: I don’t think Shmi is quite the same thing, because there was no intelligent being that consciously chose to impregnate her, just the mass of midi-chlorians operating according to destiny or cosmic forces or whatever. (Although apparently it was in reaction to Darth Plagueis’s efforts to take control of the midi-chlorians en masse, sort of a cosmic immune response to his attempted infection of the Force.) Also because, unlike Sarah, she wasn’t mind-controlled and forced to have literal sex with a stranger.
Come to think of it, given that Shmi was a slave, we should be relieved that she could say with confidence that she hadn’t been impregnated by a man. Slaves generally aren’t afforded a lot of control over their bodies.
In addition to the whole voilation of Sarah, I also did not like that this episode made Sisko the Chosen One. So far, it has seemed like he is the emissary because he entered the wormhole and taught the Prophets about linear time. So he earned the position. Alternately, you could argue that it was just luck that he was the first to enter the wormhole and talk to the Prophets, that works for me to.
What I don’t like is the suggestion that only a child of Joe and Sarah born in this specific time could be the Emissary. Makes you wonder what else they have been doing, did they cause the war that killed Sisko’s first wife to ensure that he got sent to DS9? Did they get the Cardassians to attack Bajor so that DS9 would be built? Once you open the door to hidden intervention in human affairs anything is possible.
@35
I think Worf’s desire to ensure that Jadzia gets to Sto-Vo-Kor is an indication of one or the other or a combination of two things. First, Jadzia herself, as you suggest, may have desired it. We know that she had a Klingon godchild (as Curzon) and joined a quest to seek vengeance for the death of that godchild and Kor and Koloth’s sons (as Jadzia). We’ve seen her interacting with Klingons in a very Klingon fashion in numerous episodes, so she may well have desired a place in the Klingon afterlife. She may have expressed that to Worf, or he may simply have intuited it from their relationship. It also may be an indication of how much Worf saw Jadzia as Klingon, as well as his own desire. I think it is likely a combination of both — that Jadzia would have seen it as appropriate, as well as Worf seeing it as a way of recognizing that Jadzia was truly Klingon in some way.
Christopher: Thank you for reminding me of Kim’s story in SNW3. I remembered it after I watched the episode, but was off doing other things at the time, and promptly forgot about it when I sat back down at the computer to finish the rewatch. The trivial matter has been adjusted accordingly. Derp.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m just riffing, but…
It strikes me as possible that one can belong to more than one afterlife. She can be in Sto-Vo-Kor and in the Trill beyond, and our heaven/hell, and whatever else is possible. Souls don’t have limits, do they? There may be requirements for getting into Sto-Vo-Kor, but I wouldn’t think it’s an exclusive contract that prohibits a soul from also being elsewhere.
@33: But isn’t the Prophets’ whole shtick that they don’t understand corporeality?
@39: I think you have to look at it from a nonlinear-time perspective, sort of like the Bill & Ted “Let’s remember to go back in time later and set this up so it’ll be here now” trick. Yes, Sisko informing them about corporeal existence was something that just happened, but it was important to them, so they needed to ensure that it just happened, and thus they went back later to set it up.
It’s the same with the Orb being buried right under where Ezri randomly threw the baseball. The baseball wasn’t guided there by magic or destiny; it just landed somewhere random. But since the Prophets experience all times simultaneously, they saw where it would land in the future and arranged to have the Orb buried there in the past. Cause and effect are reversed.
Basically, destiny is an illusion resulting from the ability to observe the future outcomes of arbitrary events.
@41: Of course, Kim’s “Ninety-three Hours” depicts Ezri’s joining differently than The Lives of Dax does, but part of the fun of not having an overarching “Expanded Universe” where everything’s in the same continuity is that you get to see alternative ideas about how the same event happened. Besides, I just think of the two stories as being “true” in alternate timelines.
So much going on. Where to start commenting.
You guys have made a great case for why the Sarah plotline is morally and causally reprehensible. (@33 is a great attempt to save it from most of the moral problem, although you still have identity theft.)
But even putting aside the plot holes and the rape issue (which bothered me a LOT), just in terms of symbolism and literary quality, am I the only one who thinks the female figure the Prophets used to guide Sisko in visons should have been Jennifer? It just makes more sense to me. It bookends so well with how Sisko was grieving for her at the start of Season 1. And it would allow him to have had a normal birth process, without all the awkwardness retconned into his (previously adorable) relationship with his dad.
Also I was bothered by the video-gameness of finding the Orb solving all the problems. And the lack of connection between this and the other Benny Russel visions. Need more answers, please. I think the Benny Russel thing could have been a brilliant move, if they had just provided some kind of information about how the Pah-Wraiths had taken over the visionary mechanism or something. (Having them in charge all along doesn’t quite work, based on how Sisko felt like he had learned something wholesome at the end of Far Beyond the Stars. Although having the visions in that episode come from mixed sources could have worked.)
Quark, Bashir, and O’Brien bug me. But at least Martok is awesome as usual, guiding Worf’s development along smoothly without feeling contrived.
Kira … I’m glad I’m not the only one who idolizes her, with this episode (other than her hairstyle) being a good demonstration of why. Am I the only one who has a feeling that the Season VII Summary Favorite “Don’t Ask My Opinion Next Time” is going to be “Do not play chicken with Kira. You’ll lose.”? Great summary. :-D
I do wish they hadn’t continued the process from Tears of the Prophets of turning Admiral Ross into a dingbat, weak-character politician, though. Even if he does come out on the right side here in the end. Other than that, this was a very strong B-plot, except for the part where it gets stretched across two episodes.
Ezri having to take on the Dax symbiont never bothered me. Clearly she didn’t want to, but I can’t imagine she was forced into it. Sometimes in situations of life and death, there’s something we don’t want to do that any decent person obviously will do anyway, of their own free will. (Kinda reminds me of Kira taking on Keiko’s pregnancy actually.)
Finally, am I the only one who thought Sisko’s “fugue state” in the 24th century was … melodramatic? Over-acted? It particularly bothered me how he expressed (very valid) concern for Joseph’s health hiking across a harsh desert one minute, then couldn’t care less about his father’s holding up five minutes later. Doesn’t seem like the sort of trance that “the good guys” would put on their Emissary. For that matter, why did Joseph even come along on the whole expedition? It’s never dealt with again. It didn’t really have any narrative purpose, except to let Joseph absolve his (retconned) guilt over keeping Sisko’s parentage a secret.
am I the only one who thinks the female figure the Prophets used to guide Sisko in visons should have been Jennifer?
@45
Ideally, yes. That should have been the case, and it makes the most dramatic sense as it harkens Sisko’s journey all the way back to the pilot.
Production-wise, that might be a can of worms best left closed. At the time of the pilot, we couldn’t quite tell, but when Jennifer returned for the Mirror Universe episodes, it was visibly clear: Felecia M. Bell is a rather poor actress, with limited range, and nowhere near on Avery’s level.
In the pilot, she had the benefit of having Patrick Stewart plus a solid cast playing fellow Prophets, and with Avery carrying most of the emotional baggage, therefore she didn’t stand out as much. Had they used Jennifer as a vessel in subsequent episodes, Felecia would have really brought the Prophets’ credibility down.
@45: Having Jennifer be Sisko’s guide would’ve been a good idea, but unfortunately, sometimes story decisions in TV are based on actor availability rather than the good of the story. If Felecia M. Bell hadn’t been available, they would’ve had to create a new character to take her place anyway. (In fact, I wonder if that could be what actually happened. The Sarah thing is such a bizarre retcon that it feels like it could be a substitute for some other plan that fell through.)
As for “Far Beyond the Stars,” my take is that the Pah-wraiths intended the visions to dishearten Sisko, but it backfired and he managed to find something positive in it despite their best efforts. So he defeated their attempts to break his spirit, both then and in “Shadows and Symbols.”
@45: I generally think about half of Sisko’s soliloquys are over-acted. It’s part of the charm of Avery Brooks, though. Half the time I think he’s one of the finest actors ever in Star Trek, and half the time I think they’re going to need a new set to make up for all his scenery-chewing.
LOL. Oh dear, I guess I have a reputation. Well, I suppose if nothing else, I will ensure all the denizens of Tor.com know the true definition of the Immaculate Conception. Thanks, CLB ;)
More to the point, regarding Mary, at least in Catholic tradition, the general veneration accorded to her is prety much predicated on the fact that it was free will. Otherwise it is meaningless.
As for Sarah, the identity theft version maybe isn’t quite as skeevy but then that means Sisko is half Prophet which…eh. I also liked it better when Sisko was the Emissary despite being an outsider (although as others have brought up, that’s how it was, but then due to the non linear time they intervened to makes ure it happened, although 39 makes a good point about the possible implications).
Jadzia and SVK: How do the Trill treat the idea of the afterlife and souls (if they do at all). I would presume that both the host and symbiont are their own soul, so each host gets its own place in the afterlife? I also make no judgment as to whether or not Sto-Vo-Kor is real, and if it is, if other afterlives are real, but I could totally buy that Jadzia would be all for it (and probably Curzon, although I doubt death by ja-whatever it is gets you a spot, lol. Or does it?) and that Worf knew it. I also thought it was rather touching that Worf would view Jadzia as being worthy of it.
Thank you for the clarification on the taboo! I suppose that makes more sense. Ezri – I generally agree that it was free will, even though a high stress situation. I think in general, a person (especially a Starfleet officer) is going to want to save a life if they can, and a Trill would probably also have cultural beliefs about the symbiont and its value. But for example, if a child fell in a river, and an adult jumped in afterwards, I don’t think we’d question their consent, even though it is not something they would want to do and risks their life, and there probably would be some censure on a person that would refuse to do it, even if that is their free choice. Joining is perhaps a bit different in that it actually alters your being, but I don’t know we have anything analagous.
ETA: Regarding Shmi, I suppose it depends on how sentient you think the Force actually is. I think of Shmi’s Force ineduced pregnancy more akin to something like a force of nature – not something she chose, but not something resulting from an action somebody chose to inflict upon her (although that also depends on what you view Darth Plageus’s role in the whole thing was too).
@49: I’d think that the Trill would consider a host’s afterlife to be his/her continued existence within the symbiont, since that is a tangible reality. If they already know a host lives on in the symbiont, what reason would they have to develop any other belief? Although that leaves the question of what they believe happens to unjoined Trill.
So there have been efforts to show, in Enterprise and other places, that the warrior caste is simply the dominate class in the Klingon Empire, but there also lawyers, scientists, etc. Since these Klingons may not have eaten the heart of an enemy, or are as likely to die in glorious battle, do they get into SVK? Or are they simply doomed? Are there other happy Klingon places to go for good scientists? Do the Klingon lawers even believe in SVK?
@49 There is definitely a good side to that reputation; a post by you is ussually bonus content as far as I am concerned. I really appreciate what you bring to each discussion.
As for the episode – I’ll also second the notion of liking Ezri better. I liked Jadzia too, they were able to do a lot of interesting things with Ezri. In a way Dax is a character that begs for recasting and I am glad they got to explore it (I think Terry Farrell was right about how Jadzia shoulddie though). Dax also opens a cool possibility for nu-Trek with McCoy…but I really doubt we would see that.
@51: I think you’ve got the makings of another few IKS Gorkon novels there – I would love to read about non-warrior Klingons. Somebody nudge Pocket Books to hire our humble rewatcher to tell the story…
@46, 47: True, Felicia Bell may have been both undesirable and inconvenient to bring back to the show. But as Ishka, Ziyal, and this episode’s Cretak prove, bringing back Jennifer wouldn’t have to mean bringing back Bell. I wish they’d gone that direction.
@54: Given all the prosthetics involved, secondary alien characters aren’t that hard to recast. Unless they pay attention to the credits, the average viewer might not even notice Ziyal had three different performers. But everyone would instantly notice if Jennifer, a human character, was played by a different person.
@55: Audiences have dealt with recastings many times before — Darrin in Bewitched, Rudy Wells in The Six Million Dollar Man, Jennifer in Back to the Future, etc. Sometimes shows are pretty blatant about it; the first episode where Martin E. Brooks appeared as Rudy Wells opened with a “Previously” segment showing clips of Alan Oppenheimer as Rudy Wells, and I believe Oppenheimer’s first episode in the role featured a recap shot of Martin Balsam as Rudy in the pilot.
@56: True, but I personally still prefer not to have a show recasting midway through, even if it’s a minor role. I feel it takes you away from the reality of that universe far more than any plot hole. At least with rubber-faced Cardassians and Ferengi, it’s harder to tell if it happened at all.
@56: I think you mean Jennifer in Back to the Future.
@58: He meant Elisabeth Shue. She played Jennifer in Back to the Future, replacing Claudia Wells. And it also stood out (although Wells had good reason to drop out).
@59: I did mean to say Jennifer, and I got the character’s name mixed up with the actress’s. It’s fixed now.
Now that The Force Awakens teaser trailer is out, I’m reminded that the SW Episode I teaser was first released while DS9’s final season was airing (along with ST Insurrection playing in theaters).
It’s ironic that this new teaser came just as the rewatch reached the same DS9 season.
For that matter, there’s the recasting of Elizabeth Weir in Stargate, the recasting of Saavik after The Wrath of Khan, the recasting of Rhodey after the first Iron Man film…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Lisamarie: Sisko has met Damar at least once before, in “Apocalypse Rising” (they even have a conversation), plus it was established in “Statistical Probabilities” that Damar sends out regular propaganda updates on behalf of the Dominion to the Alpha Quadrant in his role as puppet governor, so Sisko has seen quite a bit of him since he took over from Dukat.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Thanks! I knew somebody would remember :)
Looking at my last comment, it looks like my browser ate all the line breaks. Yikes. It wasn’t supposed to be a wall of text. It should be fixed now.
@50 – Interesting – I never took the symbionts continued existance as a continuation of the hosts’s existance in the sense that the host was alive in a real sense, just that the symbiont now has its memories, wisdom and perhaps its personality has been influenced. But, if I’m a host, and I die, I don’t expect to consciously still be around in the host but to be…well, either nothing, or in some kind of afterlife. But it’s very possible this has been explained in some episode and I’m just forgetting about it.
@52, Aw, shucks :)
I can buy that the Trill might see the symbiont’s continuing in a new host as a form of afterlife for the deceased host. After all, that was the purpose of Kataan sending out the probe – to live on in Picard. And so too, perhaps, for the citizens of Omicron Theta programming their journals into Data. So we’ve had “I live on through you” in other Trek cultures, why not the Trill?
@64: Maybe it’s true that only the memories are preserved, but if we’re talking about how the Trill’s beliefs in the afterlife would’ve likely evolved, then the early Trill who devised their religious traditions millennia in the past wouldn’t have had the context to let them make that distinction. They would’ve seen that the identities of former hosts lived on in the symbionts, and that awareness would surely have shaped their beliefs about the concept of life after death. If they invented the concept of the “soul” (or something analogous) at all, then they would’ve invented it in the context of their knowledge of symbiosis, and thus would probably have defined it as the part of a host that lives on in the symbiont. After all, why would a culture that has concrete evidence for an actual form of resurrection/reincarnation have the need to concoct some more abstract equivalent?
In other words, we see a distinction between the soul and the memories because we’re projecting our own assumptions and ideas about souls onto Trill culture, but it makes no sense to assume their assumptions and ideas would be identical to ours, because they would’ve been shaped by their own circumstances.
@66: I don’t think the Kataan probe was seen as some kind of literal soul preservation — just a historical record so that their culture and their way of life would not be forgotten. Sort of a much fancier version of the Sounds of Earth records on the Voyager space probes.
@67: Oh, fair enough. I’m just riffing on possibilities. We didn’t get a new rewatch due to the holiday (entirely fair), so this one’s still knocking around in the ol’ noggin, prompting ever-stranger ideas of alien afterlife.
Another human Trek recasting for the list: René Picard.
Regarding the Kataan, for me at least, that doesn’t really count as an afterlife…it’s great if people remember you but at least for me it’s only satisfying if you’re somehow conscious of it (I guess I’ve never been one for the ‘they’ll live on in our hearts’ sentient) or at least exist in some way.
Regarding the Trill, I think that is certainly possible, and I could definitely imagine a concept of the soul living on in the symbiont, although that does make me wonder what they think of unjoined Trills, or what happens to the soul of a Trill once they join, or if a joined Trill has multiple souls of all the former hosts (and current host), or if they combine into one mega soul, or if the soul of the host (assuming they are still discrete) leaves this mortal coil witht the host. Hmm :)
@69: My point is, you can’t assume people from a foreign or alien culture have the same concepts and preconceptions that you do. They might not even have a concept of a soul, and if they do, it’s ethnocentric to assume their definition of the term would map exactly onto yours. I’m approaching it anthropologically, starting from first principles and thinking about how their own distinct experiences and nature would shape their conceptions about life, death, and consciousness from the start. So given that they had a concrete, observable, provable form of life after death, they might not have conceived of a more “invisible” form. But if they did, it would surely develop in reaction to the existence of symbiosis, and thus would probably have some notable distinctions from the way we singleton humans define a soul.
@@@@@ 70
On the other hand, your suggestion does leave open the question of what sort of afterlife is available to unjoined Trill, as you noted in one of your earlier comments.
If the only way of getting an afterlife is to be a host to a symbiont, then that adds one more reason for a Trill to desire hosting a symbiont. That would track with the fact that we know that revealing that almost all Trill were suited for hosting rather than just a select few was such a threat to the stability of their society. I could even imagine that a sense of the “chosenness” of certain Trill could be used to justify some of the societal structures that underlie the host-symbiont selection system.
So then, would Trill who would never host a symbiont come up with some sort of alternate afterlife? Could they have arrived at some other system to live on after they physically die? Since we know from Ezri that some Trill are just fine with the idea that they will never host a symbiont, if the society is at all concerned with an afterlife, that suggests that some sort of alternative might exist.
However, maybe they aren’t really concerned about it at all. Just because most human societies have developed some sort of religious system built around metaphysics and often including an afterlife doesn’t mean that it would be universal among sentient life. Perhaps unjoined Trill are just fine with the idea that one life is all they have, even though they know for a fact that some Trill do continue to exist in some fashion after their body dies.
@71: Granted, the Trill establishment would have a vested interest in promoting a belief in an afterlife for unjoined Trill as a way of keeping them complacent about the limited opportunities for joining. If the masses believed that joining were the only way to escape death, it would probably make for much fiercer competition for joining and lots of revolts against the joined elite. So there probably would be some kind of belief in an afterlife for hosts.
@49, yeah, I suppose it is a reputation, but to be honest, and now offend everybody else here, your posts, along with a couple others, are the only ones I look forward too (on the flip side, there are only a couple that I roll my eyes when I see).
I’m disappointed I didn’t see, or maybe I glossed over, any mention of Aunt Vi on Fresh Prince. That was my Darren moment when I was growing up.
Going back to the Trill afterlife, I think it is some more than memories that live on in the symbionts. When Jadzia does her whole meet the family thing, the hosts can interact with her in a more complete way than just memories could enable. Still, I think most stable free societies believe in some level of equality for all in the afterlife – which raises in my mind the chance that some level of conciousness remains in the symbionts while the soul behaves in the same way for joined and not alike – be it an atheistic nothing, religious heaven, or something in between.
Maybe the joined have some sort of non-destructive soul ripping, unlike Awakening, Horcruxing, or Dark Oculating, for the joined?
@73: “…the hosts can interact with her in a more complete way than just memories could enable.”
Do they? It’s often said (and was said in “Facets”) that a person is nothing but the sum of one’s memories. And in any case, those memories were “running” in the brains of the volunteers for the zhian’tara. So if there were any other necessary thing to be added beyond memories — e.g. the necessary neural-net “program” for interpreting and synthesizing those memories into a cohesive personality — maybe it was the temporary hosts that provided it.
@74 – fair point. I hadn’t thought about that undefinable “spark of life” coming from the temporary host, but that is a valid and viable scenario. It would also ease concerns about the joined/not joined dynamic in how a Trill afterlife icould be structured.
@75: I’m not sure a “spark of life” is necessary. There are computer programs (at least in SF, and to an extent in reality) that can simulate a real person’s responses and personality based on recordings of their writings and speech in real life, and that can give a convincing impression of being real people without actually being sentient or self-aware. We’ve seen this all over 24th-century Trek with holodeck characters, with the Leah Brahms simulation in “Booby Trap” being exactly the sort of personality model I’m talking about. That was just an extrapolation from her writings and public appearances, but it seemed real enough for Geordi to fall in love with it.
So the appearance of life does not necessarily imply the “spark of life.”
@76 – I thought one of the issues with the Brahms simulation was that it didn’t act like the real Brahms. When she and La Gorge met, nut only was he not used to interacting with the real person, but her personality was different than the holodeck recreation. Other than Moriarty and The Doctor, I can’t think of any simulations that were self-aware.
In the case of the past lives, I’m not sure if there is a way to tell (although, it would have been fun to see another cast member play the Jadzia role in Ezri’s zhian’tara) if they were acting based on memories or really self-aware. Although, ok seem to remember Joran threatening to kill Sisko if the brig forcefield was kept in place – but I’m probably wrong. Even if I’m not, I’m not sure that it is conclusive evidence of self-awareness.
@77: “Prove to the court that I am sentient.” It’s a difficult question to answer. If you didn’t know better, you could be convinced that a well-programmed, nonsentient holodeck character was a real person — as seen in episodes where characters are fooled by holodecks, e.g. “Future Imperfect.”
Basically it boils down to the Turing Test and why it doesn’t actually work as proof of consciousness. It’s not that hard to fool someone into believing they’re talking to a real person even when it’s just a set of programmed responses.
I always found it odd that they brought on a new Dax in the first place. As long as they were bringing in a new character, why not bring in a new character? Aren’t joined Trill forbidden from having anything to do with acquaintances from former hosts anyway? Surely there must be help on Trillium for joined Trill who are having trouble adjusting (and you would thing a Counselor would be trained in exactly that,) why would everyone decide that stepping into Jadzia’s shoes is the best thing for Ezri to do?
@79: See comments #20 & 21. The ban is only on romantic involvement with former lovers/spouses.
And Ezri explained that she didn’t feel the Trill Evaluation Board was helping her much, since they were geared more toward preparing candidates before joining. It’s rare for someone to be joined without a ton of preparation, so it’s not something the Trill have a lot of experience dealing with. Ezri felt she’d be better off reconnecting with her old friend Sisko.
To me, bringing in a new Dax made perfect sense. I mean, as soon as I heard, back before the series premiered, that one of the regulars would be a joined Trill, one of my first thoughts was, “Well, if the actress ever leaves, it’ll be an easy part to recast.” The potential of bringing in a new Dax and exploring the transition was there from day one, built in to the character, so why wouldn’t they have acted on that potential when they got the chance? It was the natural, even inevitable path to take.
@77 “Other than Moriarty and The Doctor, I can’t think of any simulations that were self-aware.”
Vic was self-aware too. Even able to turn himself (and the holosuite) on and off. Maybe he doesn’t quite count as a simulation (Was there supposed to have been a REAL Vic Fontaine? Didn’t he talk about Sinatra and stuff, as though he were a historical figure?). Of course, if REAL is the issue, then Moriarty doesn’t count, since he is fictional character.
CLB@70 – I definitely get your point and think it is a good one, which is why I always appreciate your posts. I am definitely aware that my own views on the topic will influence how I conceive of such things, and so in a way, that is what makes it so interesting to think about how others would that are coming from a totally different experience…although maybe its my own views that make the ideas of souls/afterlife so interesting in the first place. To me, it’s a very important thing. Others might not care at all.
That’s actually why, I think, it’s hard for me to be satisfied by a conception of souls/afterlife in which symbiosis is a key or required element, because the vast majority of Trill are unjoined. So, for me, it’s a very unsatisfying worldview if only a small proportion of your population get a shot at an afterlife. Which is not to say that their society may not have developed in such a way that they don’t really care if they get an afterlife or not. I’m aware that it’s my own self with its cultural baggage that is unsatisfied by the thought.
@73, thanks :)
It’s a shame that the next post is tomorrow, this has been an engaging conversation but will whither and die as we move on the to outrage over plot convenient mental health management and military deployment during wartime. Of course, if krad decided to hold off, I’d be just as sad.
@81- that’s a tough one. Vic is aware he is a hologram and has no desire to achieve humanity – he is content withing the bounds of his programming. The other two were aware of their nature, but had a human desire to expand beyond their limitations. Assuming that we cant get a mobile emitter until the 29th century, who is more “human”?
@78 – that’s where I start to fall off the rails. I agree good programming can fool the observer, but I’d like to think there is something greater which distinguishes life from the imitation. That isn’t to say that artificial life couldn’t develop, that Data and The Doctor can’t be treated with the same respect as any other living being, but that those developments were the exception rather than the rule. And while I recognize the inherent conflict in my vision, it’s hard to shake.
@83: I’m just saying that it’s premature to believe in a construct’s sentience based solely on its appearance of same. It would take a more careful analysis to distinguish a convincing simulation from a genuine consciousness.
And I resist using “life” interchangeably with “consciousness” or “personhood,” because that’s biocentric. There are tons of things that are alive but have no consciousness, and I don’t believe there’s any reason a sufficiently complex AI couldn’t have consciousness. So using the terms interchangeably confuses the issue, I think. If we’re talking about consciousness, then it’s a matter of the complexity of the neural architecture and the processes running on it, regardless of whether the substrate for that architecture is made of meat or silicon or optical fibers. The “something greater” is the emergent complexity arising from that architecture, in the same way that life itself is an emergent property arising from basic chemical processes that combine to produce something greater than the sum of its parts.
I don’t need to believe in some specific magic “spark” or secret ingredient or divine intervention that’s added to that complexity. To me, the idea that the fundamental laws of the universe enable and even encourage the simplest of processes to create greater complexity through their interaction, that the tendency toward life and consciousness is built into reality itself, is transcendent enough.
Wow. heavy religious discussion on this one that I don’t dare touch with a ten foot pole. But I will say this:
“Hey Damar! We need to build a shipyard!”
“O.K. Wayun, let’s do it! It may be the kanard talking, but let’s build it right next to the sun!”
“What could go wrong? Sounds great!”
groan.
Back when I first saw this episode, re: Joseph Sisko’s age making it difficult for him to walk that far, it immediately seemed to me that it would have made more sense for him to wait on the runabout until they found the spot, with them then sending him the coordinates for him to transport himself there.
On the Sarah rapey thing, why is it assumed that the writers “made a mistake”? Why is there a presumption that the wormhole aliens should have been written to conform to our moral ideals? Yes, pursuant to my moral code, what happened to Sarah equates to a physical violation. But I’m not a wormhole alien prophet thingie. As someone noted, there are definite biblical parallels here, and although SIsko doesn’t equate to the son of God, I do think that perhaps the Book of Job is instructive here. I can see some wormhole alien tut-tutting any objections and paraphrasing “where were you when I created the heaven and the earth?” This is science-fiction, and we’re being asked to invest our interest and emotions in a story involving near-autonomous God-like beings. And the thing about Gods is, they don’t answer to beings that are not Gods.
I don’t think anyone is saying the writers didn’t intend to make it a rapey thing, only that they made a mistake by choosing to make it rape. Chris himself says in comment #10 that Sisko should have been furious about the Prophets violating Sarah; that wouldn’t be incompatible with the writers saying the Prophets do not conform to our morality or do not understand the sanctity of a person’s body and mind.
By not making anything out of it on screen, it’s almost as they’re condoning it, they’re underplaying how bad a thing it is.
No one is saying the wormhole aliens should conform to our morality. No one’s even saying that the wormhole aliens are necessarily out of character or wrong by their own lights. But the fact that nobody has a problem with the wormhole aliens kidnapping a woman and forcing her into a relationship against her will in which Joseph Sisko had sex with her against her will (not that Joseph had any knowledge of it, but still) is, frankly, appalling. It’s not that the wormhole aliens did that, it’s that everyone seems to be okay with it, even though Sarah herself obviously wasn’t, given that she left Joseph the microsecond the Prophets stopped controlling her…….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Just rewatched this one last night. One thing that struck me odd is that a Klingon would consider this a worthy battle for a soul’s SVK inclusion. Yes, they caused a lot of damage, but I don’t see a Klingon getting all excited about letting a solar plume do their work. They didn’t even fight the Jem’Hadar ships that came after them, they just took the beating then let the star do the work. All they did was get hot, beam stuff at the star and go home.
I’d think a Klingon would at least want a good bit of nasty hand to hand combat for it to count as a worthy mission for their purpose, or at least a space battle against overwhelming odds where they personally destroy a lot of enemy ships. *shrug*
Ken: if it was peace time (or what passes for peace time for Klingons), maybe, but they’re in the middle of a protracted war, and this was a victory against a particularly nasty enemy that furthered the cause of the war. So yes, it’s more than sufficient, giving the context.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
And this is where my re-watch of DS9 ends. I had forgotten how much I hate season 7 and all the magic/ religious stuff. I hate that we had to loose Jadzia, a brilliant character and Jadzia/Worf dynamic. Furthermore, Ezri has no reason to be on the station, she has to find out who she is now that she’s joined and not be on the place where Jadzia lived, where her husband and all her friends are, that was lame writing. DS9 was my favorite series until the finale of season 6. I watched the first two episodes of season 7 to see Worf getting Jadzia to Sto-Vo-Kor. Real or not it was a beautiful segment and it shows the deep love of Worf for his wife. Damn you Rick Berman and the writers.
@85 Regarding the shipyards; I don’t recall them saying how far the yards were from the sun, only that it was orbiting it. It could easily be a hundred million kilometers. If the solar flare was large enough, and without an atmosphere, the flare would have been just as destructive. So, I don’t think it was a poor choice to put the yards in that location.
Regarding Joseph Sisko; I’m seeing a lot of comments about Ben allowing his father to come. Where, exactly, does Ben derive the authority to tell his father where he can and cannot go?
I know we tend to take that attitude with elderly parents. I did it to an extant with my Dad, but only after he was physically unable to walk without aid. I made those decisions for my mother when she developed dementia. But if they are of sound mind, then they have the choice.
Lockdown Rewatch.I like Ezri, Nicole Deboer is a fine actress who in my opinion should have had a more Stella career than she went on to have. Also to be blunt I think a lot of the opinions on Dax are based on the Male gaze of “who do you find the most attractive, Terry Farrell or Nicole Deboer?” This is unfair as both give excellent but very different portrayals of the character. However, if you want my take on that Nicole definitely pushes all the right buttons for me :)
I didn’t rate this episode as highly as some seem to do Quark behaves like a dick on the Klingon ship which makes no sense as he has dealt with many Klingons by now and was technically even married to one, The Cuban missile crisis allegory should have gotten a full episode to itself, what we did get was good but felt shoe horned in, as for the orb plot it’s a mess, the parentage of Sisko storyline is just horrible, The great Brock Peters is totally wasted in both parts of this story he really might as well not have been in part two, the only fun bit of the entire plot thread was Jake obviously crushing on Ezri in the shuttle craft, The expression on Siskos face during this is absolutely priceless.
Personally I found the ‘Far beyond the Stars’ call back a bit off, it slightly diminished the memory of one of the great Trek episodes for me, although I have not read the tie in story mentioned in the main review which might make it mean more if I did
The best part of this episode, as it would be many times this season, was the Damar and Weyoun scene, Cassey Biggs and Jeffrey Combs just play their characters contempt for each other beautifully.
I could only give both both parts of this story a 4 .
L…….
@94/chadefallstar: “Also to be blunt I think a lot of the opinions on Dax are based on the Male gaze of “who do you find the most attractive, Terry Farrell or Nicole Deboer?” This is unfair as both give excellent but very different portrayals of the character.”
Luckily, I found them both equally gorgeous in different ways, so the male gaze cancels out in the best way possible.
Honestly, I find the Trill to be pretty icky. The idea that several people essentially give up their lives so that some otherwise useless slug can tool around the galaxy for several hundred years is supremely creepy and seems like a gross cult to me. How would this relationship have even developed? Some Trill a thousand years ago just found an eel in a mud puddle and decided to surgically implant it into someone?
It seems likely that Jadzia Dax would have appreciated having an invitation to Klingon Heaven, but Jadzia Dax isn’t dead. Jadzia is dead and has been for a long time.
@96/Michael Booth: I would assume that both symbionts and hosts evolved to coexist over millions of years, which is why they’re so well-adapted to each other. Something must have happened relatively recently on an evolutionary scale to diminish the number of symbionts or increase the population of hosts, resulting in the imbalance of numbers.
I mean, we do it too. The mitochondria in every cell in our bodies are symbiotic organisms that were originally separate and have their own independent DNA. And then there are our intestinal flora, the community of microbes that play an important role in our digestion and health.
@97 The mitochondria is interesting, but I think it’s ultimately a pretty far stretch. Mitochondria, afaik, exist in the cells of every complex organism on the planet (or at least most of them). I also don’t think they exist as their own independent organism out in the wild, though I imagine there are bacteria that are similar. We also can’t live without them.
I didn’t think the joined Trill went back nearly far enough for it have resulted from evolution. I can’t really wrap my head around how that would work since the joining requires a surgical operation. Is there some natural way that it can happen? And it seems like if they evolved to have this relationship, they wouldn’t be well adapted to live unjoined. Or is the inside of a Trill body a similar environment to whatever pool of water the symbiont can also live in?
It seems much more likely to me that this is the result of some horrible scientific experiments that have since been obfuscated through religious dogma and forgotten.
Honestly, I find the ickiness of it to be more in some of the moral implications of it than the body horror aspects. In particular Ezri saying she had never even wanted be joined but Dax was dying and she was the only Trill around so she felt obligated to destroy her own mind to save it struck me as extremely problematic. Though I think it will make for an interesting character.
I’d also like to add that I think the issue is a different sort of sexism of a teenage boy variety. Jadzia Dax is a tough, confidant, easy-going action girl who fits alongside Major Kira. Ezri Dax is a much more emotional, unsure,. and less violent character that is more likely to be confused for weak.
It’s a bizarre storytelling choice too because as far as I can tell, there’s no reason for it other than to make sure they don’t have to develop the character. “She was a body they possessed and then she ran off in order to die horribly off-screen so Sisko can’t ever talk to her.” There’s no reason she couldn’t have been a willing vessel or just someone the Prophets created to conceive Sisko and then return to the Wormhole afterward.
@98/Michael Booth: The operation could just be a safer and less painful way of doing something that formerly happened naturally, like delivering a baby with a C-section. Maybe, as with childbirth, natural joining was strenuous and sometimes fatal to host and/or symbiont, and modern technology lets it be done more safely. After all, evolution doesn’t care about individual survival, only statistics.
After all, why would the hosts even have symbiont pouches if they weren’t evolved to hold symbionts? Okay, the pouches could have originally served some different anatomical function and been repurposed, as often happens in evolution, but it would probably take millions of years for the pouches to adapt as fully as they apparently have.
TNG: “The Host” implied that the humanoid hosts had limited intelligence, that it was the symbionts that gave them human-level intellect, though DS9 retconned that along with virtually everything else about the Trill. The whole idea of the Trill was to present us with a situation that initially seemed like icky body horror — a sluglike parasite infecting a humanoid and controlling them — and then challenge our preconceptions by revealing that the part that looked like us was just a shell and the sensitive soul that Beverly fell in love with resided in the icky parasite. That’s the Trek approach, to challenge our fear of the different and strange and show us that it’s benign rather than monstrous, as with the Horta or the Companion.
“In particular Ezri saying she had never even wanted be joined but Dax was dying and she was the only Trill around so she felt obligated to destroy her own mind to save it struck me as extremely problematic.”
“Destroy?” No, that’s not how it works. It’s a blending, not an erasure. We’ve seen in the zhian’tara and in Discovery‘s depiction of the Tal symbiont that the host personalities live on within the symbiont even after their death. They’re normally merged, but they can still manifest themselves individually. So it’s more like an ongoing group mind meld than Borg assimilation.
And Ezri’s situation was clearly defined as exceptional, an emergency situation. Is it any worse than, say, Captain Pike feeling obligated to expose himself to deadly radiation to save a group of cadets, or Spock feeling obligated to do exactly the same in TWOK? (Holy cow, I never realized that Spock’s sacrifice may have been directly inspired by Pike’s. That’s surely a coincidence, but it works perfectly.)
To throw my own thoughts on the subject, I think the question is how much you consider it is within a person’s rights to challenge their bodily and mental autonomy. One of the subjects in Picard season 2 is Jurati commenting on the fact that the Borg DON’T need to assimilate people against their will since unlimited knowledge and near-immortality would appeal to at least a significant portion of the galaxy’s population even if it did come with the fact that you would be permanently connected to a hive mind.
In the case of the Trill, you transform your mind by becoming part of a much-much smaller collective of several individuals that provides you with additional memories and life experiences of the best of Trill society. For some people that is a terrifying prospect while others find it to be intriguing. I also think it’s more interesting than the “Trill hosts are just bodies for the slug.” Stargate-SG1 went along with this in the Tok’ra.
@101/C.T. Phipps: “I also think it’s more interesting than the “Trill hosts are just bodies for the slug.””
In some ways, yes. But I like the idea of a pair of symbiotic species where one half is the brain and the other is the brawn; it’s interestingly alien.
And the idea in “The Host” was to subvert expectations and human biases, by showing that the personality of Odan was completely separate from their humanoid body. But that probably works better for a guest star in a standalone story than for an ongoing regular character.
Until I rewatched this episode, I had quite forgotten that Picard season 2 is still only the second worst retcon related to a captain’s mother. Seriously, are we sure that the Pah-wraiths are the evil ones? How much worse could they possibly be than the Prophets?
I love Krad’s callback to TNG’s “Coming of Age!” I hadn’t made that connection, but intentional or not it’s a great bit of character continuity for Worf. It’s ironic that I hadn’t thought of the connection considering it’s actually one of my favorite scenes in all of TNG! Not to mention one of the more palatable bits of season one Wesley Crusher!