“The Siege of AR-558”
Written by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 7, Episode 8
Production episode 40510-558
Original air date: November 18, 1998
Stardate: unknown
Station log: For reasons passing understanding, Rom is auditioning for Fontaine’s opening act, never mind that it’s a friggin holodeck program. Bashir arrives and takes a set of recordings of Fontaine singing to bring on a supply run to AR-558.
The Defiant heads off, with Quark as a reluctant passenger, sent by Zek to provide a report on the front lines. Sisko, Bashir, Dax, and Nog beam down (along with Quark) with the supplies, while Worf and O’Brien remain on the Defiant. The away team is fired on by Vargas, who saw movement, and who never got the memo that Starfleet officers were beaming down. Larkin castigates Vargas (who rants quite crazily), and then informs Sisko that she’s in command, as the captain and commander who were in charge are dead.
AR-558 was a Jem’Hadar base that Starfleet captured five months ago. They’ve been trying to decode the protocols of the Jem’Hadar communications array on the world, and also have been fighting off the Jem’Hadar’s attempts to take the world back. Their 150-person garrison is down to 43, and morale (as Vargas’s mini-breakdown has amply shown) is in the toilet.
Nog notices that Reese is wearing a necklace of ketracel-white tubes that he’s taken off Jem’Hadar that he’s killed. Meanwhile, Bashir treats Vargas for various injuries, but Vargas won’t let him touch his bandaged arm. Turns out the bandage was made by McGreevy from ripped pieces of his uniform. While McGreevy was bandaging Vargas, he was shot and killed—Vargas didn’t even like McGreevy, and when he was killed was the first time McGreevy shut the hell up, and Vargas won’t let anyone touch the bandage. Eventually Bashir talks him into letting his arm be treated, and then loudly recommends to Sisko that the Starfleet personnel be rotated off the base.
A “Houdini” mine goes off, killing of Larkin’s people. They’re mines that travel in subspace and appear at random, and are therefore impossible to find.
Two Jem’Hadar ships attack the Defiant and beam down ground troops. Sisko orders Worf to take evasive action and then he takes charge of the remainder of the troops—his orders: “We hold.” Sisko, Nog, Larkin, Vargas, and Reese fight off a wave of Jem’Hadar—except they aren’t really there, they’re holograms, sent to determine Starfleet’s capabilities to resist them.
Then another “Houdini” mine goes off. Sisko puts Kellin and Dax to work to stop those mines, and then sends Reese, Larkin, and Nog on a scouting party. They find a garrison of Jem’Hadar and head back—Nog using his hearing in lieu of a tricorder to lead them around—but they’re still ambushed. Larkin is killed and Nog is shot in the leg. Reese gets Nog back to camp, and Bashir is forced to amputate Nog’s leg.
Dax is able to get the tricorder working past the Jem’Hadar interference, and she and Kellin are able to pull the Houdini mines out of subspace (one of them right by Vargas’s head). Sisko plans to use them on the Jem’Hadar when they come through the ravine between the base camp Nog found and the communications array.
They implement the plan, and then they have to wait for the Jem’Hadar. Bashir plays Fontaine’s music to help soothe everyone’s nerves.
Then the mines all go off. And then it’s quiet. Vargas wonders if maybe they got them all with the mines—but then the surviving Jem’Hadar attack.
The firefight is brutal. Kellin saves Dax’s life, only to be killed himself. Vargas is stabbed in the back. For his part, Reese gets a few more tubes for his necklace, and Quark shoots and kills a Jem’Hadar who tries to enter the infirmary, where he’s keeping an eye on Nog.
In the end, they hold. Which, Reese reminds Sisko, were their orders.
The Defiant returns, along with the Vera Cruz. The latter ship has crew replacements for AR-558, and they also take on Bashir and Nog to transport them to a hospital so Nog can be given a biosynthetic replacement leg.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Hilariously, the closest this episode comes to technobabble is the existence of the Houdini mines. We’re never told how Dax breaks through the Jem’Hadar interference, how she and Kellin pull the mines out of subspace, or how they move the mines to the ravine and put them back into subspace without setting them off.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko is concerned in the opening because the casualty reports are getting so voluminous that the names are all becoming a blur. After AR-558 he reminds Kira that it’s important that they not just be names, but people.
There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf (somewhat predictably) tells Sisko at the end that it was a great victory worthy of song and story. Sisko is not all that comforted by that.
The slug in your belly: Kellin puts Dax to work, using her experiences as Tobin and Jadzia to be all sciencey and stuff. Torias, Curzon, and Jadzia were all in combat in their lives—this is Ezri’s first time.
Rules of Acquisition: Quark repeatedly reminds Nog that he’s a Ferengi and that humans at war—humans who have deprived of their creature comforts—are as vicious as any Klingon, and he should not emulate them. He also rips into Sisko more than once for putting Nog in this situation. But when forced to defend himself, Quark doesn’t hesitate to use a phaser on a Jem’Hadar, either…
We also get two Rules, #125 (“You can’t make a deal if you’re dead”) and a repeat of #34 (“War is good for business,” with Quark adding that it becomes less good for business the closer you get to the front lines).
Victory is life: The Dominion’s technological superiority is seen here as they have subspace mines, use solid holograms as stalking horses, and have a communications array that top Starfleet engineers can’t make heads nor tails of after five months.
Tough little ship: The Defiant makes short work of the Jem’Hadar ship they encounter en route to the base. They have more trouble with the two that attack AR-558, with Worf forced to retreat.
What happens on the holosuite stays on the holosuite: Bashir has to go to Fontaine for a recording of him singing on the holosuite. It’s unclear why Bashir can’t just ask the computer for such a recording—nor is it clear why Rom thinks he can audition for a job that will be assigned to a hologram…
Keep your ears open: “Let me tell you something about humans, nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people—as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time, and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.”
Quark giving Nog the theme of the episode.
Welcome aboard: Bill Mumy makes his first Trek appearance as Kellin. Mumy is best known for playing Will Robinson as a kid in Lost in Space, and he also starred on Babylon 5 as Lennier. Mumy had previously co-written a three-part Star Trek comic for DC with Peter David in 1990, and, after wearing prosthetics for so many years on B5, was only willing to appear on DS9 if he played a human.
Recurring regulars Aron Eisenberg, Max Grodénchik, and James Darren are all here, the former getting quite the spotlight as Nog…
Patrick Kilpatrick plays Reese. He previously appeared in Voyager’s “Initiations” as a Kazon, an episode that also featured Eisenberg as a young Kazon, and which was also directed by Winrich Kolbe. Annette Helde (last seen as Karina in “Visionary,” and who also appeared in First Contact and Voyager’s “Scientific Method”) plays Larkin.
But this episode’s Robert Knepper moment is Raymond Cruz as Vargas. Currently starring on Major Crimes as Detective Sanchez (continuing the role he began on The Closer), Cruz is probably best known as the insane drug dealer Tuco on Breaking Bad, and I’d totally forgotten that he was in this episode…
Trivial matters: The designation of the base, AR-558, actually comes from the production number of the episode.
Reese appears again in the short story “Requital” by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin in Tales of the Dominion War. He was also supposed to be the focal point of a proposed novel by Bradley Thompson called Walking Wounded, but that novel never got out of the proposal stage.
The episode was inspired by the Guadalcanal Campaign in World War II, as well as the movie Hell is for Heroes (Reese and Larkin were named after characters in that film, while Kellin was named after the actor who played Private Kolinsky). In addition, director Winrich Kolbe drew on his experiences fighting in the Vietnam War when he filmed the episode.
For his audition, Rom sings “The Lady is a Tramp” (he mis-sings the final word as “scamp”), and Bashir plays Fontaine singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” while they wait for the Jem’Hadar attack. The latter song was very popular during World War II.
Nog’s recovery from his wounds will be seen in “It’s Only a Paper Moon.”
This episode actually had two opening-credits regulars from Babylon 5 in it, as Patricia Tallman (who played Lyta Alexander on B5) was Annette Helde’s stunt double.
Worf mentions the Dominion’s continued efforts to retake the Chin’toka system, which the Federation captured in “Tears of the Prophets.”
Walk with the Prophets: “They’re not just names, it’s important we remember that.” This is an ugly, unpleasant, obvious, clichéd episode. From a structural standpoint, I find it to be incredibly manipulative: deliberately using Dax, Nog, Bashir, and Quark as the characters stuck on AR-558 and having to get in on the fighting, deliberately leaving combat vets Kira, Worf, and O’Brien out of it. And the guest stars aren’t people, they’re war-movie clichés. We’ve got the junior officer thrust into command, we’ve got the hotheaded young guy who’s losing it, we’ve got the hard-bitten combat vet who’s pretty much lost his humanity, we’ve got the nice engineer who’s lost his faith in himself. None of them are really characters, though—we don’t get to know them very well. Hell, thanks to Vargas’s rant, we know more about what kind of person McGreevy is than we do Reese, Vargas, Larkin, or Kellin, and McGreevy’s long dead.
Plus, what the hell were they thinking with that teaser? On what planet was it considered a good idea to waste one of Max Grodénchik’s guest appearances on him singing “The Lady is a Tramp” really really really badly? No complaints about the use of Fontaine in the episode, as Bashir using music to soothe the troops on the eve of battle is excellent, but that opening scene? Sheesh.
But the episode is still a great one, despite the flaws, because it doesn’t pull any punches. For starters, it inverts the clichés a bit by having Nog lose his leg and Reese and several other members of the AR-558 crew survive.
Mostly, though, this episode reminds us that war is awful, it’s unfair, it’s brutal, it’s mean-spirited, and it breaks people. Quark spends the entire episode railing against being forced into combat, and he’s forced to take up arms to protect his wounded nephew. Dax has memories of combat from previous hosts, but it’s not the same thing. Bashir joined Starfleet to heal people, not shoot them, and Nog—well, he has seen combat, but this is the worst he’s had to endure, and certainly has the worst consequences.
Reese sums it up best when AR-558’s replacements finally show up. He sees them, mutters, “Children,” and Sisko says bitterly, “Not for long.”
It’s easy to trivialize war, especially in a science fiction show. When most of the battles take place in space, where models and CGI effects shoot fictional ray beams at other models and CGI effects, and the only consequences seem to be exploding consoles and the occasional extra who’s never a person we actually know flying across the bridge, it’s hard to get too worked up about it. Credit to DS9 for this episode, for “The Ship” and “Rocks and Shoals” and “Nor the Battle to the Strong” and “Valiant” and “In the Pale Moonlight” for keeping their eye on the ball: war sucks. Even if it doesn’t kill you, it eats away at you bit by bit.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido has done quite a bit with the Dominion War in his Star Trek writing career, including the short stories “The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned” in Tales of the Dominion War (which he also edited) and “Four Lights” in The Sky’s the Limit, the two-part eBook novellas War Stories for the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series (which were flashbacks showing what the crew of the S.C.E. series were doing during the war), and an alternate version of the war in A Gutted World (in the Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions trade paperback).
Whew, when I read the first part of the final sectiuon, I thought this episode was going to get a low rating! I guess I shouldn’t have worried, because you’re right. Even with all the flaws, this is a great episode. To quote Sherman: “War is hell.”
First Star Trek really needs to develop some kind of idea about ground fighting of the future and if it makes any sense in 24th century with the weapons they have at their disposal. The phaser rifles literally work like rifles from the 19th century, there isn’t even a machine gun spreading option and the wide field stun we’ve seen in TOS is completely forgotten. This is simply ridiculous.
Second this episode is a classical case of “might look interesting to Trekkies, but in the larger film history context it’s not much”. There are lots of war films since the silent era and making one in the late 90s with all main characters surviving is hopelessly naive. To do it properly you have to kill off a part of the main cast which you can’t do on a recurring TV series basis. Therefore better don’t even try. Star Trek is often successful in assimilating genres but they should steer away clear from this kind of story, it can’t work.
This episode is brilliant for putting a real face to the war. The relatively cushy normal lives that the DS9 crew lead in between major battles can make it easy to forget the gritty tragedies on the front lines. True for the characters, for us as viewers of fiction, and for us in relation to real life wars. Here, they do an impressive job, as KRAD said, of throwing the main characters into the thick of it without pulling punches.
I’m torn between wishing they showed this side of the war more often, and being glad they don’t because this sincere brush of reality is (appropriately) depressing more than entertaining.
I hadn’t noticed that all of the main characters (except Jake) who aren’t in this fray are seasoned combat veterans. That does make it feel a little more artificial. But still, that was partly to get the point across — and at least they had veteran Sisko there to represent the other side to a realistic degree.
Btw, typo in RoA #125: “your” instead of “you’re”
Sadly, what I remember most about this episode is Ron Moore’s IGN interview back before BSG premiered. He recounted an insane argument Ira Behr had with Rick Berman over Nog’s leg.
Behr apparently had to bargain with how much of the leg could be lost to the injury. To be fair to Berman, I get where he was coming from. But Moore also recounted other instances of Berman’s objection to the Dominion War storyline and how he fely the stories were too
depressing or violent
Needless to say, I agree with More’s retort of, “It’s a f***** war! What do you mean it’s too violent?!”
While I did find this episode quite jarring at the time (especially back to back on the VHS with “…unto the breach”, another, quite heavy war story), on the rewatch, it’s great. Completely filled with all the necessary “war is hell” film/TV tropes, but a great character piece, and the final standoff to “I’ll be seeing you” is brilliant. Even if you’re waiting for what’s left of the guest cast to start dying as soon as it starts. I was incredibly surprised that Reese made it out alive, and also slightly surprised to see that beyond “Requital” nothing was made of the character further in the books. Seems like he could’ve had a good story to him.
Also some of my favorite Quark dialogue. As much the comedic element that the character usually is, I love the times when Quark gets serious and philosophises about the Federation and humans in particular. Though it almost seems like the writers felt all the Quark seriousness needed to be levied by Rom being INCREDIBLY cringeworthy in the teaser.
This episode does little for me. Sure, it’s effective at showing the horrors and arbitrariness of war and whatnot, but I hate war stories. They’re unpleasant, and they’re all kind of the same. Yes, it’s supposed to be unpleasant and grim and painful, but we’ve already had enough episodes that illustrated that brilliantly, and this just seems like running that point into the ground.
Also, it really strains my suspension of disbelief to see 24th-century combat portrayed as essentially identical to WWII combat. Why do they even have soldiers? Even today, drones are increasingly replacing fighter pilots, and it won’t be long before there are more robots on the battlefield than live troops. The lack of nonsentient robots in the Trek universe is one of its most implausible elements in a lot of ways, but the lack of robots in combat is particularly unbelievable for such a supposedly advanced technology. Even aside from that, why are the soldiers saddled with such inadequate tech? Lemaitre already commented on their weapons, but what about body armor? They’re just wearing cloth uniforms. Soldiers today have all sorts of body armor. By the 24th century, they should all have personal force fields or something.
So the antiquated combat model the episode used is just ridiculous, and literally having “I’ll Be Seeing You” playing on the PA just makes it sillier. Guys, if you want to make a WWII movie, go and bloomin’ make an actual WWII movie. I watch Star Trek to see the future.
Quark’s role in the episode is one of the only things I like about it (Mumy was totally wasted), but I don’t agree with his premise that humans are better when we’re comfortable. If anything, I think adversity tends to bring out our best, most selfless qualities, and it’s when we feel safe and comfortable that we become petty and selfish; when we have more, we get more paranoid about losing it, and when we have no genuine threats to worry about, we manufacture them. Americans have become much more divided and hostile toward their fellow Americans since the Cold War ended. Once we no longer felt we were in the same boat against a common threat, we started to turn on one another over petty differences that we could’ve looked past before.
This episode and “Rocks and Shoals” are amongst the first that come to mind when I think about the Dominion War episodes of DS9. Both are really good, and don’t just end with everything being all right.
I also wondered why Bashir couldn’t just get a recording from the computer.
The other problem I had besides the clich&eactue;s (you knew Vargas was going to bite it) is that Quark really had no reason to be there, besides the script wanting him there.
As for the communications array? I realize the strategic importance of it, but after five months, maybe they could say, “Hey, we gave it our best shot” and then blow the damn thing up. At least then the Dominion couldn’t use it anymore, and they could get the hell out of there.
@2: And that’s kind of a good point about the phasers. Maybe the Dominion wouldn’t try a wide-beam phaser assault, because they don’t want to damage the communications array, but what’s stopping Starfleet?
Anyway, I sort of agree though…there are a lot of flaws, but it was an engaging episode to watch. The script could’ve used some work, but everything else was well done.
I assume the singing in the beginning is there to provide a contrast, show the innocence that is about to be lost. Would have worked better if Rom had shown more interest in singing before this.
BTW, ever notice how Quark always seems to be a crack shot when it comes to the Jem’Hadar? First The Jem’Hadar, then Sacrifice of Angels, and now here!
Great episode, even if the old-school war movie conventions are perhaps a bit obvious. One of my favorite bits of dialogue in this episode comes when they’ve de-cloaked the Houdinis and decide to turn them against the Jem’Hadar. Ezri says something to the effect that until now, they’ve regarded them as the kind of horrific weapon that only the Jem’Hadar would use, and Reese counters that they’ve now become a whole lot friendlier! In war, morality and ethics generally take a backseat to “kill or be killed,” and one’s first duty becomes survival.
#6
Federation drones! Yes, that’s something I think we’ll probably see in the next series… whenever it happens.
I’ll give DS9 a pass though, effects and TV budgets being what they were at the time. But the personal force field is a good idea, and one they could’ve done. If there was one lesson to be learned from “A Fistful of Datas,” it’s that.
I must admit I loathe this episode high above all others in Trek. if I was given one wish that would expunge just one Trek episode, it would not be the Abrams films, nor Shatner’s waiting for god movie, nor that really racist season 1 TNG movie, or any Enterprise or Neelix centered Voyager episode. It would be this one. Not because the episode itself is bad, or because it is depressing, or because the acting sometimes goes into cheeziness from time-to-time, but because whenever it is discussed it brings out the Spacebattles.com crowd. Those moaning minnies comprehensively destroy any enjoyment to be found in this episode. I’m sick of war-snobs and firearms fans and their constant nitpicking. I give this episode a negative score, for not only being unenjoyable, but for creating a new Star Trek meme more annoying than any of the others.
As a great lover of classical cinema I appreciate the DS9 creative team’s obvious fondness for this period. However it’s not wise to appropriate everything out there and to try to make a Star Trek episode out of it.
I think the series is most striking when it’s a Sci-fi series and this includes genuine Sci-fi plots as well as plausible Sci-fi environments. Remaking classic movies within the contraints of a 45 minute TV series with recurring regulars mostly results in shrinked second hand adaptations. If I want to see a war story I watch All Quiet on the Western Front, Westfront 1918, Paths of Glory or Saving Private Ryan. The competition is pretty stiff out there and you can never be half as radical as these films. The same goes for crime films where there are limits. Redoing Rashomon with the obviously innocent and fair minded Riker is positively absurd.
But if you tell stories like Cause and Effect with unique narrative twists or use the power of allegory like in Let that be your last Battlefield or use Sci-fi premises to touch sensitive issues like in Rejoined you have something much fresher and more interesting. But The Siege of AR-558 is just a bad cliched WWWII movie which doesn’t even reach the level of the better conventional war movies not to say anything of those who go for a more radical approach with fragmented narratives, aggressive stylization and which kill off all or almost all main characters.
Respect for classical cinema traditions is great, but sometimes you get this way just pale imitations.
@@@@@ 12 I’m willing to accept lots of plausible explanations regarding Sci-fi, you can technobabble your way out of lots of things as we all know. But here they don’t even try!!! We had wide dispersal stun beams on the classical series and in A Piece of the Action the Enterprise stunned people in a larger area. Just where did this function go? Obviously the writers realized that they had essentially robbed themselves of any gun fights and conveniently downgraded the weapons. Not in fire power but in any automatic mass incapacitation capabilities which is even a step back not only from WWII but also WWI.
If I recall correctly TOS and TNG at least never once showed any infantry ground fighting though the latter hints at it in The Wounded. Then DS9 which wanted to be gritty introduced it and has larger military units running around firing their guns like Winchester’s. Even in 1998 this was absurdly retro. I totally can’t imagine any ground battles with phasers or how tactical actions and strategic planning is supposed to look like when you can hit everything in sight with a single shot. In the episode where they fight together with the Jem-Hadar there was at least some kind of dampening field and one heavily fortified structure of limited size which necessitated a hit team approach, but in the 24th century you mostly should be able to do all the fighting from orbit.
There are simply limits of implausibility and when these are crossed it becomes very difficult to accept the proceedings at face value. BTW
@@@@@ 6 Star Trek does address mechanical fighting with the Dominion’s orbital platforms which inflict heavy damage and casualties on manned ships. As a viewer you can only scratch your head why you have large manned fleets when you can hit them so hard with an automated safety net. I don’t see any way out of this logical dead end.
They probably wish they had really purchased that Echo Pappa 607 from Vincent Schiavelli back in the Arsenal of Freedom..learning drones with force fields may have been helpful here.
I don’t really love this episode…I imagine putting fleet crew in charge of grizzled ground pounders would end up looking a bit more like nu-BSG’s Crashdown planning ground action on Kobol.
I think that Ron Moore is very talented did a lot of great things for Trek but he hung on too long. It felt clear that he and others really wanted to be doing something else at this point and beats like this feel like milquetoast proto BSG shoehorned into trek. Kinda like: “I have a great idea for a gritty historical show on Vikings that does not pull punches on brutality and pilaging, but I am still contracted to write two more seasons of the Muppet Show…so maybe I can make Viking pigs sing while plundering a village during the Roger Moore episode.”
I held back from commenting after reading the post this afternoon because I wanted to see what others thought. I find that CLB expressed similar opinions to mine, in that the episode does little for me, and Quark is the true highlight of it. I prefer character development to a whole lot of Fighty McFightsalot stuff, and Armin Shimerman turned in a great performance here. I wish we could have had a bit more of that and less of the battle. Ah well – can’t win ’em all.
Love the still of Rom in this post, though!
I generally agree with CLB and others, with one exception – while I generally agree with Quarl, his comments shouldn’t have happened. As soon as the Defiant started getting beat up and Worf said he only had a few moments, Siskos should have had them beam Quark off the planet. Battlefield is no place for an undertrained and unhappy civilian. Quarl should have learned about the Nog-leg after the battle, with Worf and O’Brien.
@6: Yeah, on the whole I agree, humans bring out their best selves when they’re under stressful life conditions rather than in times of relaxed prosperity. (On average. Either end of the spectrum brings out the best in some people, and the worst in some others.) But this doesn’t make me less interested by Quark’s monologue, because it’s an alien perspective that doesn’t have to be true in order to be interesting.
It does make me wonder a lot of things about Quark’s real values and early experiences with humans, though.
It’s especially an interesting philosophy to hear when juxtaposed with Quark’s talent for shooting down Jem’Hadar as cited by @10. Is his uncanny record against them just luck, or is he actually an ok soldier but just despises fighting unless he finds his enemies utterly unredeemable? Eh, an interesting thing to consider, but probably not consistent with all precedents (he didn’t seem too disturbed when he accidentally stabbed a Klingon to death, and while we never see him getting along particularly well with Klingons, I don’t think he regards them on the same level as the Jem’Hadar).
Anyway … antiquated war techniques aside (and it would have been nice to see more futuristic tactics that still mean “war is hell”), I find this episode good just because of the character portrayals — not just Quark.
Bashir doesn’t get much development, but it’s nice to get a 3rd (?) look at his medical expertise when he’s in a situation that’s serious enough that his considerable ego gets completely thrown out the window. Likewise, Sisko doesn’t change much, but it’s good to see again that he really deserves his captaincy, both in terms of his own fighting abilities and his ability to lead and manage troops who are strangers.
Dax’s situation here is a unique and interesting one. I guess they don’t really come to any profound conclusions about it, but then, that’s true of most of the other Trill-specific dilemmas too.
But Nog gets some important development and gets set up for Paper Moon … spoiler alert, I absolutely adore Paper Moon.
War is Hell especially during WWII. If you’ve seen any old war movie you have this episode covered. Quark has no good reason to be there what so ever, but will get the job done to protect his family. I felt sorry for Nog and think how his ptsd manifest in the future is different and interesting. It also gives Vic’s a reason to be around.
TOS showed one side of a sort of infantry battle at the beginning of Arena. The landing party are ambushed by Gorn troops and manage to find a photon mortar to drive off the still unseen enemy. I can put down part of th Starfleet personnel inadequate arms (beyond production limitations) to the fact that they are primarily doing intelligence work that was expected to be done quickly and did not have full support whenthey got stuck there. The whole thing is about making exceptionall bloody campaigns in a war over some territory that no one would care about outside of the strategic needs of the moment.
This is one of my very favorite DS9 episodes! I understand about the realism concerns for a future warfare that other readers cite. But, try to imagine a scenario where things really breakdown (and all technology, even in a far-flung future, is prone to this). What you’ll be left is the heavy sweat and blood that is the true cost of war, and what better way to dramatise this than through the Siege of AR-558?
This episode, deep in the war, is showing is this dark side of war –something never before attempted by any Star Trek show at this scale. Military Science Ficiton was given a gift when DS9 committed to a full, large scale interstellar war (which fans wouldn’t see come again until the days of the reimagined Battle Star Galactica).
Why do they even have soldiers? Even today, drones are increasingly replacing fighter pilots, and it won’t be long before there are more robots on the battlefield than live troops.
@6: Ironically, one of the reasons the Star Wars prequels got so much heat was due to the use of battle droids as cannon fodder against the Jedi instead of real people. Too artificial for some people.
Of course, that was the whole point in that particular situation, since it paved the way for stormtroopers, who were able to decimate the Jedi.
Whenever I think about 1998, I remember it as the year of war stories. Not only we got AR-558, but we also had both Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Thanks to a coincidental Dominion War taking place around the same time, Ira was able to produce this.
Definitely clichéd, but I think it works beautifully. I’d argue that we could have had Kira and Worf, but only if they were as affected by the action as Quark, Nog, Sisko and Dax were. Imagine Worf’s courage being drained by the situation. That would have been an interesting story. Kira, not so much. We already know how she reacts to desperation.
We could have had Jake also, given his experiences back in season 5 alongside Bashir.
As I recall, Ron Moore’s argument was that the original draft by Ira and Hans actually had Nog losing both his legs. And they compromised by having him only lose one. Gruesome or not, I can still recall Aron’s painful screaming without even rewatching the episode. That’s my strongest memory from this one.
The way that they fight isn’t even World War II… it’s pure line of sight rifle fire. There is no artillery, no personal defense fields or armor, no air support… it’s napoleonic war with semiautomatic beam weapons. I get that they are keeping this simple, but Star Trek should stick to spaceborne combat (which it doesn’t do realistically, but we’ll let it go). I get war is hell but they could have done it with a space crew. Perhaps a Starfleet ship that’s been out a little too long. One that starts firing on surrendering Cardassian vessels or something like that. It keeps it in a familiar genre that they do alright rather than mucking about this way.
@20 – Your comment makes me think about Space: Above and Beyond. It was a great show that was transparently trying to be WWII in space and suceeding. It was not perfect, but it was a series that was really growing into its own and, aside from effects (which are less important in my old age anyway), holds up really well now. That show lasted a single season during DS9’s run and eventually got the FireFly treatment from Fox. It did not have Trek’s following or budget, but it knew what it was trying to be.
The more I think about AR-558 the less I like it. TOS did a much better ‘war is hell’ episode in ‘A Taste of Armageddon’. Episodes like this just feel like Trek is compromising itself for some watered-down grit. Like a shot of pure grain alcohol…with only the slightest hint of coconut juice…and a pinch of sugar…and some bannana…and some ice…blended…with a little umbrela….consumed straight from a ketracel white tube of a dead Jem’Hadar.
This episode kind of left me flat at the end – the episode wasn’t bad or anything but, it just seemed like a blatant ‘war is hell’ type of message that didn’t really advance the plot or develop any of the characters. I think this kind of episode might have been better at the beginning of the war plot (and honestly, it’s a bit of a niggling dissatisfaction to me that Star Trek has a huge war plot to begin with) because I never got the impression that Sisko et al DIDN’T realize war was hell.
Also, Quark being there totally suspends disbelief. He had a flimsy excuse for being there in the first place (plot wise) and the fact that he wasn’t beamed back when combat started is almost criminal. I think CLB has it right to an extent – I’ve been doing some reading about how stress can actually be a good thing and there is certainly a level of challege/adversity we need to spur us on and be our best. But there’s also a level of privation that is flat out dehumanizing and I think that’s what Quark is speaking to here.
Other than that, I actually didn’t quite agree with him constantly niggling Sisko over sending Nog into combat. He’s a soldier, that’s his job, and Sisko can’t give him special treatment.
I also agree they should have just cut their losses and blown up the array at the end, and then gtfo.
Other than that, I actually didn’t quite agree with him constantly niggling Sisko over sending Nog into combat. He’s a soldier, that’s his job, and Sisko can’t give him special treatment.
@25: In human terms, yes. If Quark were more in tune with Starfleet ideals, I might have understood your disagreement. But given he’s a Ferengi, and a pacifist and protective one at that, I actually understand his hesitation in letting Nog take risks in this war.
Quark despises violence of any sort, even if it’s a war. That’s what led him to betray Gaila in the season 5 arms deal. And we’ve actually seen him take a similar position against Sisko before, back in the second season during their first meeting with the Jem’ Hadar.
And Nog’s been ripe for this event. Ever since the Red Squad debacle in last season’s Valiant, we’ve seen the signs. His desire to be utterly loyal and recklessly brave made him a prime target for this sudden trauma.
To me, Raymond Cruz will always be the poor Chupacabra guy on that one episode of The X-Files.
I found the device used to force Quark to tag along to be forced beyond believability. Certainly someone of Feranganar has some sort of battle experience, or other qualification that would make him a better fit than a squirrely bartender.
Other than I reallyenjoyed this episode.
Raymond Cruz will always be Ding Chavez to me, from the Tom Clancy movies and games.
Not to sound like an apologist, because I didn’t much care for the script on this one, but I can totally see why they wouldn’t have all of the advanced tech on this planet. I mean, sure, personal shields vs. cloth uniforms aside, not having expensive shield barriers during wartime makes sense. You can only deploy so much tech to so many different places.
@30/doompaul: What does “expensive” mean in a replicator-based, moneyless, post-scarcity society?
ok. fair enough. I suppose if you can replicate replicators, my point may well be moot.
While it is true that adversity (especially in common goal) brings out some of the best of humanity, Quark is also very right that humans can be just as vicious as a Klingon in rage, and a simple/common case of that is to take from humans their familiar civilization and comforts.
I also much agree that while it was great to have Quark in this episode, it made no realistic sense for him to be there.
One nit to pick with the review
‘What happens on the holosuite stays on the holosuite: Bashir has to go to Fontaine for a recording of him singing on the holosuite. It’s unclear why Bashir can’t just ask the computer for such a recording”
There is nothing in the scene that says Bashir has to go to Vic. I find it very likely that Bashir was visiting the holo program and had a thought about getting a recording of Vic and just asked him for one. I’m sure he could’ve gotten the recordings from the computer, but it seems just as plausible that he would’ve just asked Vic.
Vic is on Quark’s holosuite, not on the station’s network.
The good thing about this episode (together with “Paper Moon”) that it’s really the first Trek episode that deals with the consequences of war directly with some of the main cast. It’s one thing to kill off characters that are just disposale ones from the very start, but it’s another thing to injure characters that we see every week.
During the “Nog trading” episode I felt the writers did a rewatch of M*A*S*H (there’s at least one episode where Klinger or Radar do a similar trade run to get needed supplies). Good to know it’s not the only idea they got from that show.
Actually, it’s not. There was Season Five’s “Nor to the Battle Strong” that featured Jake Sisko and Julian Bashir. I see that Bashir is in “
This is another version of “Nor to the Battle Strong”, but with different characters . . . complete with the Vietnam War movie cliches. I’ve seen other Trek episodes and movies that have gritty situations. But they didn’t have to cling to cliches straight from “Platoon”.
@6: Drones have their uses, but there will never, ever be a full-fledged replacement for flesh and blood human beings on the ground, if for no other reason than the need for quick and creative tactical judgments.
@29: Having Cruz play that freaked-out, PTSD-ridden soldier actually works well in that metatextual context, because we’ve seen him before in multiple action movies as this professional operator. When the guy from A Clear and Present Danger and The Rock is the one teetering on the knife’s edge of a breakdown, it adds this subconscious layer of tension to an already bad situation.
@38/Devin Smith: As I understand it, drone aircraft today are usually remote-piloted by human operators, so human judgment is still in the picture. And even saying “drones have their uses” proves my point — that it makes no sense for a 24th-century military to use zero drones of any kind and regress to 1940s combat tactics, only even more primitive because they’ve forgotten the concept of body armor.
Lockdown Rewatch..
Tuco from Breaking Bad and Better call Saul. Lol.. nearly fell out of my chair.., the third Better Call Saul actor I think on this and the Voyager rewatch I have come across along with Jonathan Banks and Michael McKean.
…..okay so it’s cliche agogo time but it’s still a good episode, I know some people aren’t going to like it as it’s as far from Gene Roddenberry’s vision of Trek as it’s possible to get, but once you commit to a war story arc then you have to go to some dark places, like here and In The Pale Moonlight.
I remembered this being a strong Sisko and Nog episode but it’s also a strong episode for the other three regulars on the planet, Quark is great here and a reminder he doesn’t just have to be there for comic relief, Ezri probably has her best episode to date and on this watch I realised how good Alexander Siddiq was in this one. I didn’t pick up on it first time around, but I put that down to still being really annoyed with Bashir after the events of Chrysalis, here a reminder of what a good doctor he actually is.
A good watch and a strong 7 out of 10 for me
Apart from it being a cliche war story, my biggest complaint about this episode is that it’s so dimly lit that I can’t see what’s going on half the time. But overall it was alright.
Whenever I rewatch Deep Space Nine, I always think that it was a stroke of genius to put this episode immediately after “Once More Unto the Breach,” which very much frames war as glorious.
One of the soldiers goes around handing out spare power packs just before the battle, one per person. I would imagine that continuous firing or widespread beams would drain the power of the phasers faster so maybe the reason they were shooting individual shots was to save power. One line from Sisko would have explained that.
I liked the episode quite a bit despite its issues. The thing that bothered that bothered me the most, though, was the soldier keeping the vials of White as trophies. It’s not so much that it is unseemly for starfleet personnel (though it is); it’s that the vials appear to be in working order, making the soldier a walking White buffet. For all anyone knows the enemy troops on the planet are running low and those vials could be very valuable to them.