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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch: “Battle Lines”

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch: “Battle Lines”

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch: “Battle Lines”

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Published on June 5, 2013

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“Battle Lines”
Written by Hilary J. Bader and Richard Danus & Evan Carlos Somers
Directed by Paul Lynch
Season 1, Episode 12
Production episode 40511-413
Original air date: April 25, 1993
Stardate: unknown

Station log: Dax and O’Brien have found some old files from when the Cardassians had the station, including some of Dukat’s notes on various members of the underground, Kira among them. (Kira is less than thrilled to discover that she’s listed as a minor errand-runner for the terrorists.)

Kai Opaka has come on board, to finally take Sisko up on his offer of a tour. It’s the first time she’s ever set foot off Bajor, and Sisko, Kira, and Bashir (she came aboard on a medical transport) take her to the Promenade. She asks to go through the wormhole, and the three of them take her on the Yangtzee Kiang.

On the other side of the wormhole, Kira detects a subspace communication—it’s just statistical data with a request for a reply. Sisko intends to follow up later when they don’t have the Bajorans’ religious leader in their runabout, but Opaka points out that she doesn’t get out much.

However, when they investigate, they find a moon surrounded by satellites—one of which fires on the runabout, forcing it to crash land. Opaka does not survive the crash; Kira is devastated. She holds Opaka’s hands and starts the Bajoran death chant.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Battle Lines

Bashir detected life on the moon, and Kira’s funeral ritual is interrupted by the three of them now being at gunpoint. They’re taken to a cave where they’re interrogated by Shel-la, the leader of the Ennis. His people are at war with the Nol-Ennis.

Kira, it turns out, was also injured in the crash, but she’s been hiding it. As Bashir treats Kira, Shel-la reveals that this is a prison planet. Just by being in the Ennis compound, the Nol-Ennis will think that the away team is on the Ennis side. They also don’t have any medical personnel, and Bashir agrees to treat their wounded and give them some first-aid training.

The Nol-Ennis attack. Sisko, Bashir, and Kira stay hidden—at first. Kira then breaks cover and uses her phaser to start a rockslide, which ends the battle. As they tend to their wounded, Opaka walks into the cave, alive and well. Several other people who were killed in the fighting also get up, fully healed.

With Sisko and the others three and a half hours overdue, and Odo being bugged by Opaka’s people every five minutes or so, Dax and O’Brien take the Rio Grande to search for the away team. They try to trace the Yangtzee Kiang’s warp eddies.

The Ennis and the Nol-Ennis are ancient enemies who have fought the same war for generations, for reasons no one even remembers. The leaders of their world sent them all to this moon as punishment, injecting them with artificial microbes that keep them from dying. The war simply goes on and on and on. They don’t even bother with proper tactics anymore, for what would be the point?

Sisko then offers Shel-la a way out: he’ll take anyone who wants to leave when their rescue shows up. But the offer is for both sides—Sisko convinces Shel-la to set up a meeting with Zlangco, his Nol counterpart. However, those talks go very poorly, and a fight breaks out.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Battle Lines

Opaka and Kira have a heart-to-heart on the subject of Kira’s violent past and her desire to move beyond it. Meanwhile, Bashir has gotten the runabout computer running, and his analysis reveals that the microbes are environment specific. If anyone with the microbes is removed from this ecosystem, the microbes stop working, and they instantly die. This applies to the Ennis, the Nol-Ennis, and Opaka.

Dax and O’Brien find the Yangtzee Kiang thanks to O’Brien pulling a piece of technobabble out of his ass and set a course for the prison moon. They avoid being hit by the satellites, and then manage to punch through the interference to contact the surface. O’Brien and Dax work on a way to make transporters work.

Opaka knows she’s supposed to stay on this world before Sisko can even tell her about the microbes. She knew when she came through the wormhole that she wouldn’t be coming back. Her place is to stay on this world and help these people heal.

O’Brien and Dax launch a probe to lure one of the satellites out of orbit, which pokes a big enough hole in the satellite field for O’Brien to beam Sisko, Kira, and Bashir up.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity?: O’Brien hits on the notion of how to find the Yangtzee Kiang by the best way to find a needle in a haystack: use a magnet. He says he can use a differential magnetomer. When Dax tartly points out that she’s never heard of such a thing and asks what it does, O’Brien sheepishly says he’ll let her know as soon as he makes one.

Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira goes on an emotional rollercoaster in this episode: first finding out that Dukat viewed her as a minor operative who ran errands for the important people, then helping give the kai a tour of the station, then going with her to the Gamma Quadrant, then watching her die, then watching her be resurrected. On top of that, she shows great frustration with the Ennis’s lack of decent battle tactics (and won’t be dissuaded by Sisko’s barking admonition to stay the hell out of it), and is guilted into admitting to Opaka that she’s not sure if she can be forgiven for her life of violence.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Battle Lines

For Cardassia!: Dukat left a bunch of his files just sitting around in the computer, which Sisko figures might be a useful look into the Cardassian mindset.

Keep your ears open: “’A minor operative whose activities are limited to running errands for the terrorist leaders’?”

“Major, when you’re through feeling underappreciated, perhaps you’d join me in welcoming the kai aboard.”

Kira being outraged, and Sisko deflating her pissiness.

Welcome aboard: Camille Saviola returns to the role of Opaka following “Emissary,” while the great Jonathan Banks plays Shel-la. Also Paul Collins plays Zlangco and if you look carefully, you’ll notice regular stuntwoman/actor Patricia Tallman as one of the Ennis.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Battle Lines

Trivial matters: This marks Kai Opaka’s final present-day appearance onscreen. She’ll be back in “The Collaborator” and “Accession,” in both cases as an orb-related vision. Opaka will return to the Alpha Quadrant in the novels Rising Son and Unity by S.D. Perry (after succeeding in uniting the Ennis and Nol-Ennis). She appears in several other books, including the Terok Nor novels Night of the Wolves and Dawn of the Eagles by Perry & Britta Dennison (taking place during the Occupation), the novel Bloodletter by K.W. Jeter and the short story “Ha’mara” by Kevin G. Summers in Prophecy and Change (both taking place between “Emissary” and this episode), and the novels Fragments and Omens (the Bajor novel in Worlds of DS9 Volume 2) by J. Noah Kym and Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods (both taking place after her return to Bajor).

Opaka gives O’Brien a necklace for Molly early in the episode. It’s never referenced again onscreen, though O’Brien discusses it in the novel Lesser Evil by Robert Simpson.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Battle Lines

This episode marks the fifth and final episode directed by Paul Lynch. While he directed five of the first dozen episodes of the show, he’d never direct DS9 (or any other Trek show) again. To be fair, the poor man was probably exhausted, given that he directed as many episodes in two-thirds of one season of DS9 as he had in five seasons of TNG

It’s also the first DS9 credit for both Hilary J. Bader and Richard Danus, both of whom contributed to TNG. Bader will be involved in the writing of three more DS9 episodes, and also write for the Star Trek Klingon CD-ROM game, including the lyrics to the Klingon warrior’s anthem, which was later used in “Soldiers of the Empire.” Danus would later write the story for “The Sword of Kahless.”

The Yangtzee Kiang is the first runabout to crash. It is not the last.

Walk with the Prophets: “Your pagh and mine will cross again.” The one thing I intensely dislike about this episode are the scenes on the Rio Grande with O’Brien and Dax. Allegedly, Dax is the science officer, yet every scene on the runabout plays out like a Doctor Who episode with O’Brien as the brilliant, eccentric Time Lord with Dax reduced to the “what’s that, Doctor?” role of the companion. Dax does absolutely nothing useful in the episode, leaving all the heavy lifting to O’Brien. It’s an appalling use of the character who’s supposed to be the science officer.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Battle Lines

It’s actually more annoying in retrospect, knowing that Dax would be allowed to actually function as a science officer. When I first watched this episode two decades ago, I was wondering if it was either a) sexism thinking that only the man could actually Do Science while the woman stood by helplessly or b) lack of confidence specifically in ex-model Terry Farrell’s ability to sound smart, since the episode had two really strong female characters in Kira and Opaka.

However, that’s really the only stain on this episode, which is not a great episode by any means, but a pretty decent, if standard, science fiction story. I like the fact that Sisko offers to rescue them, Prime Directive be damned, justifying it while biting Bashir’s head off when he makes a snarky remark on the subject.

But every attempt Sisko and later Bashir make to improve the situation fails due to the combatants’ inability to see beyond their own conflict. They won’t accept Sisko’s offer of leaving the planet due to an unwillingness to let their people out of hiding where the other side can find them. Shel-la will only accept Bashir’s offer of reprogramming the microbes if he can use it as a weapon.

It’s funny that this is one of only two appearances Camille Saviola made as Opaka in the first season, because if you’d asked me for my recollections of the character it would be that she appeared more than twice. It’s a tribute to Saviola that she imbued the character with sufficient gravitas to make her character seem like more than a two-episode guest shot in the first season.

In general, what elevates this episode from its standard space-opera-ness are the performances. Besides Saviola, Nana Visitor really sells Kira’s emotional turmoil. Her devastation upon Opaka’s death is palpable, without ever spilling over into melodrama, ditto her catharsis with Opaka later on, as she’s forced to admit to how much of herself she sees in the Ennis and Nol-Ennis. Nobody ever went wrong casting Jonathan Banks, particularly as an embittered warmonger (nobody sneers better than Banks), and Avery Brooks does a nice job of trying to find a solution to the dilemma (and also not being at all afraid to wade in when combat breaks out around him).

The whole “I knew this was my destiny” nonsense from Opaka is kind of irritating, though it does seem like fitting work for someone who held Bajor together during the Occupation.

A solid, strong episode with some good character work for Kira, and which sets up lots of future plotlines regarding who the next kai will be.

 

Warp factor rating: 6


Keith R.A. DeCandido reminds everyone that his newest book, the short story collection Tales from Dragon Precinct, is now on sale.

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Keith R.A. DeCandido

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Keith R.A. DeCandido has been writing about popular culture for this site since 2011, primarily but not exclusively writing about Star Trek and screen adaptations of superhero comics. He is also the author of more than 60 novels, more than 100 short stories, and more than 70 comic books, both in a variety of licensed universes from Alien to Zorro, as well as in worlds of his own creation, most notably the new Supernatural Crimes Unit series debuting in the fall of 2025. Read his blog, or follow him all over the Internet: Facebook, The Site Formerly Known As Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, YouTube, Patreon, and TikTok.
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11 years ago

It really bugged me when Golin Shel-la said that the Ennis abandoned directed energy weapons centuries ago because they are not damaging enough. A phaser cranked up to the “vaporize” setting is not damaging enough? If someone got vaporized, would the nanites reassemble all the molecules? Nonsense! Perhaps the dampening field on the prison moon that prevents the runabout’s transponder from working also prevents a phaser from delivering enough energy to vaporize a target, but that’s not explicitly stated. Even without phasers, I can think of some pretty ghoulish ways someone could be killed on this moon. A prison moon where convicts are condemned to eternal punishment is the basis for a pretty good sci-fi story, but this one falls apart from poor execution.

Sisko struggled to maintain his command authority in this episode. After the crash, Kira went into her “I don’t really work for you” routine. Sisko in turn chews off Julian’s head over an offhand comment about the Prime Directive. That seemed a bit out of character.

I didn’t like the way the writers removed Kai Opaka so early in the series. I thought that Camille Saviola was pretty good in that role and that they could have gotten a lot more mileage out of that character. I suppose the writers had to move her out of the way to make room for Bareil and the Kira-Bareil romance storyline.

Finally, I’m surprised that neither Kira nor Sisko was held accountable for losing the Kai during a poorly-planned and ill-considered sightseeing cruise through the wormhole. This was an episode that had some potential but suffered from poor execution. The midseason slump continues.

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11 years ago

I liked Kira’s journey in this episode, but it seemed to me, while not melodramatic, per se, it was a bit overacted. Especially any part where Kira had to show grief (at Opaka’s death, or her realization of her true nature).

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TBGH
11 years ago

I would have given it an 8 or a 9. This is the episode that convinced me DS9 would be worth watching for the long haul. Finally a scifi show that addresses religion without those following the religiion being brainwashed, ignorant savages, or on the path to superbeings of pure thought.

Kai Opaka does make the episode, and while now Dax’s interaction with O’Brien is jarring, at the time I was thinking she was more of the theoretical physicist mold who can’t do engineering in the real world.

To me it most shone in its reflection to similar episodes in TNG where a ‘special mediator’ is used to forge peace between foes with generations of warfare. DS9 acknowledged it’s not that simple and set up for faith and patience to succeed (presumably in the future) where cold logic could not.

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11 years ago

So no one from either of the warring factions ever came up with the idea of wounding someone so badly that the microbes/nanites could not heal? Decapitation comes to mind. Incinerating the body while the victim was unconscious, etc. It seems like they would have long ago resorted to that, and annihilated each other, for the most part.

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11 years ago

Re: #3.

The religious aspects of DS9 have one huge problem though. Is it still faith when you know for a scientific certainty that your gods exist? Once the wormhole is discovered, and its residents are contacted, it’s not really a matter of faith for the Bajorans any more. They know their gods exist, where the orbs came from, etc.

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11 years ago

I, too, always have a moment of weird realization/rememberance when I’m reminded that this was only Opaka’s second appearance, last real-time appearance, and second of four overall. As a character, she looms large over DS9, maybe in part because of her pivotal role getting things started.

Sometimes, I think I suffer from “small-universe syndrome” in my own mind, because I’m also a little annoyed that Opaka suddenly decides, even before knowing she has no real options, that her life’s work will now be to help these aliens-of-the-week. From any logical standpoint, it’s a noble and laudable goal–but I don’t really CARE that much because we just met these people. It’s rather like when Kirk sacrifices himself to save aliens-of-the-week we never even see in Generations. It’s heroic and selfless (if you leave aside the question of whether it was at all necessary), but my fan’s brain is just disappointed.

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11 years ago

When I did my own rewatch last year, I was surprised that this episode was only the second appearance of Opaka. And reading this recap, I’m surprised again. Even after death, her character is such an important part of the series that she ends up being remembered as showing up more than she really did.

ChristopherLBennett
11 years ago

@2: Funny, my recollection was that this was the episode where Nana Visitor’s acting finally started to impress me. As I said in the comments for “Emissary,” I felt her performance there was kind of superficial, but here she conveyed more intensity and depth.

And I prefer the idea of Kira being a minor footnote in Dukat’s records to the later retcons about their relationship, which got rather too small-universey.

Overall, this episode didn’t work well for me. I was never that fond of Saviola as Opaka, but it was strange that they dumped the character so quickly. The DS9 Companion says it was basically to defy redshirt syndrome, having the sacrificial non-regular in the runabout be someone important that the audience would never expect to see killed rather than just Ensign Neverseenbefore. But that doesn’t seem like enough reason in itself to eliminate someone set up as such a major recurring character.

The episode also commits what’s already a common sin in DS9: introducing what should be a revolutionary, civilization-shaking technology and then never mentioning it again. We’ve already had insta-cloning and a technology to preserve the mind after death; now we’ve got nanites that can cure all injuries and make people immortal! Sure, these ones were programmed to shut off if they left the planet, but that implies that others could be programmed to work anywhere. So why didn’t the Federation immediately track down the race that stranded these guys on this moon and learn about their cure-anything medical technology? Why isn’t every power in the galaxy trying to acquire it from them? Good grief, between those three technologies, death should’ve been virtually wiped out by the end of the series. The entire nature of existence should’ve been transformed. Yet instead these technologies were completely forgotten, without even a good reason being offered for their abandonment.

And yes, I hated how Dax, the brilliant, 300-year-old scientist, was reduced to second banana to O’Brien, the working stiff who was just very good at his job. In addition to the implicit sexism, what bothered me was the writers’ confusion of theory and practice, physics and engineering. What O’Brien was doing here was based in theory, figuring out the underlying physics of the situation. That’s different from the job of an engineer, which is based on applying known physics in practical form. Dax should’ve been the one who came up with the theory about magnetic resonance, and O’Brien should’ve been the one who, once she’d explained what was needed, figured out how to build a gadget that would do it.

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Ashcom
11 years ago

I have to say I very much enjoyed this episode because of the way it dealt with a series of problems with no real solution. Instead of the usual science-fiction “deus ex machina” technobabble way out, it basically just finished by acknowledging the lack of solutions and saying “this is the situation, it is what it is, now we just have to deal with it.”

That said, it does ignore one glaringly obvious problem, which is that Kai Opaka is not lost. She’s alive, and everyone knows exactly where she is. And regardless of her personal wishes, surely the provisional government would not be content to simply give up on such a powerful symbol of their newfound freedom. And yet, seemingly, they are. They just shrug their shoulders and say “oh well, i guess we need a new Kai then.”

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11 years ago

I’ve always wished they had Opaka appear more before killing her.
While Camille Saviola was excellant, we still know the character is important because we’ve been told she’s important, rather than being shown. It would have been nice to build the character up a bit before just killing her off.

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