In the Hands of the Prophets at Memory Alpha

A strange be-robed Bajoran lady is totally pushing her Bajoran religious claptrap in Keiko O’Brien’s classroom and Keiko is not having it.  Is this the new Kai?  Because if she is, she is terrible.  Also she looks more like a person in makeup than any Bajoran so far - come on, makeup department!  This is why Babylon 5 won your Emmy in ‘93.

Elsewhere on the station, Miles is working with his new Bajoran assistant who apparently knows her business.  She is his prize pupil!  But his security tool is missing, so he can’t show her how to use it.

Keiko’s taken her beef with the Bajoran church all the way to Siskotown.  Turns out this lady, Vedek Winn, is not the Kai, but she wants to be.  She doesn’t have a lot of support on Bajor, but Kira’s in her camp. It doesn’t seem characteristically Kiratastic to have her come down on the side of orthodoxy, but I guess that is the role she is playing this episode.

I don’t remember there being a big kerfluffle about creationism in schools in the early 90s, but the Prophets vs. verteron particles debate is a transparent allegory.  Sisko just wants everybody to get along, but the Bajoran is dropping thinly-veiled threats about what might happen if Keiko doesn’t stop teaching wormhole science instead of Bajoran Prophetic Celestial Templeism.

Meanwhile, Miles and his assistant have found his missing security tool all melted up in a plasma conduit with a little bit of the previously-missing Ensign Aquino mixed up inside.  A tragic mystery! While he’s telling his wife about it, a Bajoran refuses to sell him a candy stick - a grave insult! - because Miles’ lady wife won’t capitulate to Vedek Winn’s demands.  Good thing Odo was around, or that vendor might have gotten a surprise visit from Knuckles O’Brien who, after Captive Pursuit, has developed a taste for alien chins.  Dabo!

The Kai wanna-be is throwing down about her religion to Mrs. O’Brien’s students right out on the promenade.  Why the other races’ children even give enough of a rat’s ass to be at this little throwdown is uncertain, but I guess it’ll save us having to see a scene later where the five non-Bajoran kids show up to a mostly-empty classroom.  The Kai stomps off with all the Bajoran kids, which leaves Keiko only a handful of students.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am right there on the same side as Mrs. O’Brien, who feels that religion has no place in the classroom.  This kind of religion-encroaching-on-secular-institutions thing happens in the US pretty regularly.  Every year, it seems, some group or other throws up the smokescreen of “Intelligent Design” “theory” to try to sneak religious beliefs into the classroom.

Sisko has a little father-son chat with Jake and sets a conciliatory tone, namely that just because Jake doesn’t believe a thing doesn’t make it dumb (which I agree with), and that in this specific case, it isn’t that ridiculous to interpret aliens who can see all points in time simultaneously as prophets.  He also says that just because you disagree with something doesn’t make it wrong, which I agree with… somewhat less.

On the face of it, it’s true - we can’t make something not be so simply by saying it isn’t.  But we also cannot make something so just by saying that it is (although when Captain Picard tells us to make it so, we are at least obligated to try), and when you have observable, verifiable facts and data on one side and unsubstantiated superstition on the other, it would be silly to teach the latter in a science lesson.

Sisko and the writers are giving us Star Trek’s can’t-we-all-just-get-along, wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if-everyone-was-nice take on the debate, which I would be right behind if this were about nothing more than peaceful coexistence in a community or about freedom of conscience.

But it isn’t a matter of whether people should be allowed to believe what they wish.  Believe up is down, for all I care.  Believe the sky is green, it doesn’t affect me at all.  Believe a talking snake got a dude in so much trouble with a god that he had to go father a fiercely inbred family in a desert, you’re welcome to it.  This is about what to teach in what amounts to a public school - it’s not really pushing your worldview on someone if that “worldview” is literally a view of the world.  If the Bajorans get to have their religious beliefs inserted into the curriculum as an alternative to science, why don’t the Klingons or Ferengi get to object to what is being taught as ethics?  Why don’t the Cardassians get a say in what is being taught in a Bajoran history lesson?

After dispensing his fatherly lesson to poor older-than-his-classmates Jake, Sisko goes down to speak to a Bajoran spiritual leader, Vedek Bareil, to try find a way to work out the problems at the station.  Bareil, who looks a little like Liam Neeson, seems to sympathize, but he will not help.

Back at Ops, Sisko runs up against a Bajoran plague of not wanting to go to work.  He also runs up against DNA evidence that the missing ensign who got all melty in the plasma conduit was actually killed by a phaser.  How that shows up in an analysis of Ensign Aquino’s DNA is unclear, but Dr. Bashir has FUTURE SPACE TECHNOLOGY at his disposal, so we’ll just go with him on this.

Miles has problems of his own - namely the concern that his assistant might be a little flower units for our dear chief!  Get in line, sister!

And his day only gets worse - while he is discussing some new evidence in the slagged ensign’s murder investigation with Odo, the school blows up!  Luckily, nobody was there, but, following an inspiring speech by Sisko, Miles’ apprentice and Vedek Winn share an ominous glance.

She continues looking suspicious while Miles explains the current murder plot theory to Miles.  While she’s doing that, a message from Vedek Bareil comes in - looks like he’ll be coming to the station just in time to probably get murdered!

I mean, that’s how it sounds, anyway, from the little chitty-chat about sacrifice (and the possibility of getting executed) that the Bajoran Apprentice has with Vedek Winn immediately after Bareil’s message.  But her tracks were not covered well enough - Miles finds a suspicious file in the computer and hacks into it with Dax.  It’s an escape route!  The computer can’t find anything super unusual at the escape route’s start, but Miles goes to investigate anyway since it found some sort of subspace phlebotinum.

And what does he find out about this phlebotinum?  It’s integrated into the weapon-detecting technobabble thingy he and his assistant fixed just the other day, when he discovered his missing security tool thing!  SUSPENSE!  He warns Sisko, who spots the assistant moving through the crowd right before everything gets all slow-motion-y.  Mood-building or spacetime anomaly?  They never say.  She sloooowly pulls a gun and sloooowly tries to assassinate Vedek Bareil.

Sisko foils the plot with the most graceless tackle I’ve ever seen on Star Trek, which is saying something.

• Keiko faking suspicion of infidelity just to screw with her husband is one of the things that makes her rad

• Jake is easily 5 years older than any of the other kids in his class

• Miles O’Brien does not misplace his tools

• I’m going to call this type of O’Brien-intensive episde a “high-Milesage” episode, and this is my blog so nobody can stop me.

• Favorite exchange of the episode:

Miles: What was he doing in a runabout at four in the morning?

Odo: Apparently, he was getting murdered.

• Those spiritual types love those Dabo girls.

Duet at Memory Alpha

DS9 has a special visitor today!  A sick person, with a disease called Kalla-Nohra Syndrome, which Kira remembers from her time as a laborer in Cardassian mining camps.  Suspecting it’s one of her filthy fellow travelers, she makes a sojourn to sickbay only to learn the horrible truth:  It’s a Cardassian!  Who could change the channel after a teaser like that?  BUM BA DA BUMMM…  DAAA DA DA DAAA…

Kira says he’s a war criminal, although Aamin Marritza is not on any list of war criminals that Odo has seen and he has seen them all.  Her evidence?  The only way he could have gotten his exciting disease was by working at a horrible prison camp where horrible things were done to Bajorans (who may or may not have been horrible themselves, but that’s no justification either way).

The Cardassian claims he has Pottrik Syndrome, which has similar symptoms to Kalla-Nohra Syndrome and is treated the same way, but is somehow different.  Dr. Bashir, however, won’t back that up.

The Bajoran Minister of State wants the Cardassian, but Sisko is not so sure it is a good idea to give him up.  He gives Odo the investigation and has a lovely little “I’m taking you off the case” conversation with Kira.  I wish Sisko would take this opportunity to call her a loose cannon, but no dice.  In fact, he goes so far as to let Kira appeal to his better half and puts her back charge of the investigation.  Did not see that one coming, actually.  Usually, it seems like asking Sisko to do something is the surest way to get him not to do it.

Under interrogation, the Cardassian admits to being a file clerk at the camp in question.  In fact, if he’s telling the truth, he’s the best filing clerk to ever clerk files.  He even got a special prize from Gul Darhe’el, the Cardassian in charge of the camp, for being such an excellent clerk.  And further, he claims that all the horrible things that happened at the camp were rumors started by Cardassians in order to scare the bejezus out of the Bajorans.

Chief O’Brien is recalibrating something or other.  It’s not important, but I can’t let what might be his only appearance in the episode slide right by.  Here’s where we get to see Star Trek go all “isolate and magnify” on a still photograph and then enhance it.  I’m not willing to buy it on CSI, but I’ll buy it on Star Trek.  In fact, I’ll buy that they can zoom in past someone in the foreground and look at someone behind them because of FUTURE SPACE TECHNOLOGY.

What do they learn?  Their prisoner is (may be) Gul Darhe’el himself!  The butcher of Gallitep (gasp!)  - and he admits it (double gasp!) - and brags about it (rarely-seen triple-gasp!)!  He also belittles Kira’s resistance cell.  Either he’s got some game he’s playing at or he’s just trying to make Kira as miserable as possible.  Or both.  Either way, he’s succeeded at the latter.  Kira’s down in the dumps, drinking blue… liquid and having a little heart-to-heart with Odo.

It’s a good talk, though, because it comes out that there’s no way the prisoner could have known that Kira fought in the resistance.  Even mean ole Gul Dukat, bad guy extraordinaire, doesn’t seem to know what the story is, but it seems the prisoner is not Gul Darhe’el.  In fact, with Bashir’s new evidence from his medical records, it seems like he could be the clerk he says he is, but who for some reason is masquerading around as Gul Darhe’el.

As it turns out, it is Marritza.  He’s pretending to be Gul Darhe’el to force the Cardassians to admit to Darhe’el’s crimes following his inevitable trial and execution on Bajor, but the Major will have none of that dishonest racket.  Unfortunately, while she’s letting him go, he gets stabbed by his crazy Bajoran former fellow prisoner.

Did I mention that?  There was a Bajoran locked up with him for a while early on.  And he’s crazy.  So he kills Marritza with a knife.  Seems like a ploy for cheap tragedy - the story had a tidy ending already.  I guess it’s meant to illustrate lingering Bajoran hatred for Cardassians, but it seems tacked-on to me.  Who’s to say?

• The prisoner wants yamok sauce for his stew.  Where are Jake and Nog when you need them?  I hear they have an inside hookup on that stuff.

• Oh, Gul Dukat.  You’re so rad.

Dramatis Personae at Memory Alpha

Kira doesn’t want to let a Valerian transport dock at DS9 because they used to run weapons-grade Dolemite to the Cardassians when they were occupying Bajor.  I would submit that any Dolemite is weapons-grade.  Kira agrees - she wants that ship outta here in twenty-four hours, an’ twenty-three of ‘em are already gone.

Oh wait, it’s “dolamide.” Way to let me down, Dramatis Personae. Did they want to call it “Dolemite” and run up against licensing issues, I wonder? “Dolamide” sounds like a copout (which is something Dolemite would never do, by the way).

Anyway, since dolamide has a bunch of other uses (though cleaning up the streets with an army of kung-fu prostitutes is, unfortunately, not one of them), Sisko won’t let Kira search the ship without evidence.

Kira’s got Odo looking for evidence of gun-running with the Valerians, Dr. Bashir at Ops for some reason, perhaps to flirt with Dax, and dear sweet Miles is glad he’s not on a boring grain-silo-viewing field trip with his wife and her students.  Am I missing anyone?  Quark is probably at work.  We haven’t heard from Garak in a while, now that I think of it.  I miss that dude.

Our real adventure begins with a Klingon ship returning from the Gamma quadrant way ahead of schedule, and then exploding. It’s together just long enough to beam one lonely Klingon to DS9, who survives long enough to say “Victory!”  Typical Klingon.  I always wonder how they expect me to believe that a species so eager to be dead could have survived so long, but then I guess Klingons are probably full of surprises.

It is quickly established that the dead Klingon (well the one that made it as far as DS9) was the Klingon ship’s first officer, and that the Klingons were on a routine bio-survey.  Routine missions are just about the most dangerous things in all of Trek, so that it exploded is no surprise. Also, something’s got Dax giggly about going to search for the Klingons’ black box and I suspect that it may be the plot.

Odo hits up Quark for some information about the Klingons.  Turns out they were going to bring home something that would make the enemies of the Klingon empire tremble.  Odo is so surprised by this news that he has a shapeshifter freakout and falls down.  Or, again, the plot might involve people acting a little weird.  Also, despite his loss of consciousness, he does not lose his shape.  Nobody comments on this, but I’m relatively certain that we, the viewers, are supposed to notice.  On the other side, maybe the special effects budget ran a little shy and we weren’t supposed to notice.  Time will tell!

Everyone’s talking about the Kira/Sisko friction and siding off.  Could what the Klingons found be something that turns people against each other?  Time will tell!

It might also just make people wacky.  Dax is all giggly and telling boring stories that nobody wants to hear.  Odo and Quark seem mostly unchanged - pehaps it’s similar to the aphasia virus incident where Quark and Odo’s brains (or, anyway, Quark’s brain and Odo’s… thinking jam I guess) are immune to some of the weird though-twisting things that happen in Star Trek.

So Kira’s trying to recruit everyone to her side against Sisko and Miles in the Valerian debate, Dax is circling sanity in a comfortable low orbit, Bashir is practicing politics, the Chief is fanatically protecting Sisko, and Sisko is just totally laid back.  Just chillin’ old school. Drawing weird clocks.

Odo learns from the Klingon logs that they found some telepathic spheres that had a record of a power struggle that destroyed an ancient race.  The Klingons, obviously, don’t care.  Joke’s on them!  Or on the tiny little pieces of them that are floating gently through space right now, anyway.

Sisko is apparently not so laid back as all that now that he’s actually BUILDING his clock.  He’d be happy to, if necessary, fight off as many of his enemies as possible by himself and it takes all of Miles’ considerable persuasive skills to talk him down.

There’s been a bit too much crazy time and not nearly enough resolution time.  It seems like they came out to do this episode and got all the way to the studio before they realized that they hadn’t packed enough script.

Odo convinces Bashir that it’d be a good idea to help stop everybody’s brains from going crazy, but the fight that breaks out at Ops (which I keep thinking of as the bridge, even though the station isn’t a ship at all) makes it look like it might be too late!  But more clever maneuvering by Odo gets everybody trapped in Carbo Bay 4 just in time for Bashir’s technobabble field to knock the crazy out of the crew so Odo can flush it into space.

This is the second time in Star Trek that I’ve seen someone intentionally decompress a cargo bay to be a hero (the first was in TNG, to put out a plasma fire), and it seems like just as bad an idea now as it did then.

Apparently Quark was fine because he was never exposed in the first place, since the crazytimes infection took place when the Klingon beamed in at Ops.

The only lingering questions from this episode are these:

Why didn’t Odo get all goopy when he passed out?

And who sends Klingons on a science mission?

Final thoughts:

• I’m happy Sisko was napping at his desk early in the episode, even if it was because of a telepathic space disease.

• The Valerians are flying the same pointy-nosed ship as every other minor race in the galaxy.  It is the gold 90s Toyota Camry of Space.

• I wonder if we’ll see more of Sisko’s clock in future episodes - will it be like Picard’s flute?

When I started this blog, I thought it would be similar to the way I used to make little entries about episodes of TNG on my personal blog while I was watching that, but it’s a bit different.  With TNG, I had seen most of the episodes already.  It used to be on every night at 6 or 7 when I was a kid, and I used to try to watch it as often as I could.  I saw the last episode the first time it was broadcast in ‘94 and I remember being totally crushed that there would be no more TV adventures with the NCC-1701-D.

DS9 was different - new episodes were on late at night, 10pm on Sundays, I think, and the rebroadcast the following Saturday interfered with whatever youth sport I was being roped into at the time, usually swimming.  I saw episodes here and there, but I didn’t even find out the show was over until well after its final episode had aired.

I caught a few episodes when I briefly had cable from 2002-2003, but other than Emissary, everything I’ve seen up to now has been unfamiliar.

In fact, this is the first episode where I actually remember what is going to happen in each storyline.

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The Forsaken at Memory Alpha

• Poor Bashir.  Dude gets stuck with the bad jobs just because he’s an extremely junior officer.

• Considering this is an episode where the main plot involves computer trouble and one of the secondary plots involves Lwaxana trying to get into Odo’s pants (which, grossly enough, are part of his actual body), this episode could have been called HEY LOOK, IT’S MAJEL BARRETT.  I really don’t think anybody would have complained.

• Constable Odo does not have time for romantic interludes.

• In Odo’s humble opinion, most of us humanoids spend far too much time on our… respective mating rituals.

• ODO’S IMPORTANT DS9 LIFE LESSON: Procreation does not involve changing how you smell or writing bad poetry or sacrificing various plants to serve as tokens of affection.  This is good news and it will save us a lot of time!

• A bi-polar torch has its good days and its bad days, you know how it is.

• BONUS LIFE LESSON from Lwaxana: When it comes to picnics, the only thing that really matters is the company.

Federation ambassadors on DS9!  Obnoxious ones!  They’re here to go on a fact-finding mission to the wormhole.  Totally sensible!  Look how well that turned out for Count Opakula.  One of them is Lwaxana Troi, too, so sending them to the Gamma Quadrant might be considered an act of war.

Here’s a Star Trek character being uptight about sex.  Apparently it’s only some races that are comfortable with the idea of ugly-bumping.  Others consider it an extremely impolite topic of conversation!  The trick is guessing which ones are which.  The ones that think it’s a big deal are usually the ones who have been hidebound and uptight the whole episode, or, if it’s still early in the episode, it’s a sure sign that they will be. In this case, it is the lady ambassador who isn’t a proscribed weapon in the war between the sexes, i.e. not Lwaxana.  Dr. Bashir suggests they visit a holosuite (not intending anything sexual, although the holosuites on DS9 usually get put to naughty use) and she gives him a look like he just suggested she kill her own clone.

When Lwaxana’s fancy comb is stolen at Quarks, Odo finds it for her. Ambassador Troi immediately develops a crush on our dear constable.

Speaking of crushes, Miles is having trouble with the computer on the bridge - Cardassians apparently operate like Microsoft in the protecting-users-from-themselves (whether they like it or not) department.

Lwaxana Troi’s crush on Odo is completely delightful.  When I was a kid, I used to hate the crap out of Lwaxana Troi, but as an adult I find her to be more fun than a barrel of extremely fun monkeys.  I’ve heard that the set was always a party when Majel Barrett was around, and I can believe it.

The other ambassadors, meanwhile, are making a nuisance of themselves at Ops when an unexplained alien probe comes through the wormhole (like there could be another kind of probe coming through the wormhole, come on).  Uncharacteristically for a Starfleet officer, Sisko does not want to bring it immediately on board and rub his face all over it.  His caution won’t do him any good, but it’s nice to see.

Troi and Odo get stuck in a turbolift at the start of a series of system failures (system failure number two: transporters).  There seems to be no explanation for the system failures, but since the Cardassians run technobabble through their other technobabble, Odo can’t even escape by shapeshifting.

I think the turbolift breakdown plot is just a way to isolate Majel Barret from the rest of the cast (except the sacrificial shapeshifter) to allow her to happily and charmingly devour as much scenery as she would like without derailing the rest of the show.

Back at Ops, O’Brien can’t figure out the problem, but he is starting to realize that the computer doesn’t want him to leave it alone.  Computer, I know how you feel!  Miles thinks downloading data from that probe that just showed up might have something to do with it.

Trying to get rid of the data proves problematic, too.  The comms and the lights are the next victims of this attention-hungry invasive program.

Meanwhile, several hours later, Troi has finally finished talking about her and would like to hear about an oddly damp-looking Odo - damp because he’s running up against the outer edge of his 16-hour being-solid cycle.  He doesn’t want to change because, as he says, it is a personal matter.  Odo is a man’s man and does not want to display weakness in front of a known lady.

Attempting to distract the computer causes it to sound like GLaDOS from Portal and then to try to blow up part of the habitat ring where the ambassadors and doctor happen to be.  Fortunately, having compared it to a puppy, Miles is able to “build a doghouse” for it.  Most technical problems in Star Trek only exist until you find a metaphor for them that, when extended, provides a metaphor for a solution (the solution itself does not necessarily need to be found, just the metaphor).

In the turbolift, Odo and Lwaxana share a touching moment of friendship before he becomes a puddle in her dress.  That sounds a lot dirtier than it actually is.

The ambassadors, having been hidden away in a Jeffries tube (or the Cardassian equivalent) by Dr. Bashir, got sooty but were not harmed by the explosion, and have all gained a new-found respect for Julian.  Whether any of them learned a lesson or not is unclear, however.

Nobody ends up going through the wormhole and Miles, in the end, gets to keep the puppy.

Following our embarrassing failure to in any way mark the passing of Majel Barrett, Trek’s first lady, last December 18th, we have now heard more sad news and we are actually reporting it this time:  Ricardo Montalbán, also known to Trek fans as Khan Noonien Singh, passed away today at 88.  Let us all clench our fists and scream KHAAAAN in his memory.

[Via Reuters]

Here is the deal guys. Here is why I fell down on the job.

“Justice” was actually so bad I couldn’t bring myself to finish watching it. I had the DVD out for like six months. Then when I did feel bad because I had taken literal months to finish watching it and tried to start over from the beginning, well, that’s what did me in.

Here’s what I remember: Yar and Geordi go down to this planet of semi-clad jogging blondes. The people of this planet, the Edo, really like to have sex. A lot. Riker leers a lot. So does Yar, really. Worf makes Klingons seem like the least badass by just being uncomfortable.

But why focus on the adults on a sex-planet when we can focus on everyone’s favorite character, Wesley Crusher? Yeah, the initial away team report is that it’s a planet full of beautiful people who spend most of their time makin’ love, so the best thing Picard can order is for Wesley to go down and see if it’s appropriate for children. So he runs around throwing a ball with some scantily clad pre-teens. What fun!

Apparently, the Edo were big fans of 18th century social theorist Jeremy Bentham, because their planet is one giant panopticon. There’s no crime because every transgression is punishable by death, and the rules are enforced in randomized punishment zones, so you never know if you’re being monitored or not.

Hey, guess where Wesley is when he trips over a fence and falls through a greenhouse? Guess what is basically against the law? DING DING DING DING.

There’s a whole moral struggle about violating the Prime Directive (uh, didn’t they kind of start out doing that by visiting an obviously technologically inferior/pre-warp planet?) to rescue Wesley from a massively unjust law violated in ignorance where the Edo straight out tell Picard to just beam up and scram. There’s also another thing that I’ve totally ignored, a subplot about an invisible space station above the planet that sends out an orb that knocks out Data and scans him and is apparently the Edo god. I didn’t get to the resolution there before my stamina broke. According to Memory Alpha, there isn’t much else. There’s some speeches about what is and is not just and Wesley doesn’t die and the Enterprise skeedaddles.

I will try to do better next time.

If Wishes Were Horses at Memory Alpha

• Constable Odo has no time for fantasies.

• Today’s Important Lesson might have come from Quark this time, in conversation with Odo rather than from Odo himself: A true entrepeneur knows how to sniff the wind!

• Dr. Bashir, space troubador, is not skilled in the arts of romancing Jadzia Dax.

• Dr. Bashir sleeps with his uniform on. What a professional

• The more times people say “Rumpelstiltskin” around Rumpelstiltskin, the happier I become.

• Seeing Sisko plexing during a stressful scene made me do the smiles

• Wouldn’t “visual scanners” just be cameras?

Oh, DS9. Opening up with a few innocuous slices of life. Who would ever suspect that they would become important during the episode proper? The secret answer is “everyone who has ever watched Star Trek, ever,” but it’s still cute anyway.

We open with Dr. Bashir flirting with Dax, Jake going to play holo-baseball, and sweet Miles telling little Molly the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Shortly after, we find Rumplestiltskin in Molly’s room, a famous baseball player following Jake home from the holosuite, and fake Dax waking Dr. Bashir up with kisses.

The fake Dax, the baseball player (Harmon Bokai), and Rumpelstiltskin all appear, to Dr. Bashir’s instruments, to be totally real.

Real Jadzia takes imaginary characters coming to life with aplomb, and as soon as Bashir gets serious about the problem, his imaginary Dax disappears. Meanwhile, snow falls on the Promenade. Snow gives way to a large flightless bird, which gives way to some serious winning streaks at Quark’s dabo table. Odo’s response is to order everyone to stop using their imaginations. This seems like a typical cop move. Oddly, when Quark gets distracted from his fantasy babes by his patrons’ dabo successes (oh yeah, Quark has fantasy babes), they fail to disappear. Maybe Bashir is better at ignoring his fantasies than Quark?

Oh, but fake Dax is back. Why? To trade insults with real Dax!

It seems like some sort of space anomaly (of course!) is causing people’s imaginations to come to life. While that’s being investigated, the figments hold a little figment parliament to figure out of their experiment (doubtless one to learn more about these strange creatures aboard the station) is going well.

The figments somewhat complicate the evacuation of critical areas, which is done to prepare for the crazy plan to take out the space anomaly. With rays? Special pulses? Some sort of field? Nope! Torpedos! Leave it to those peacenick starship crews to direct a subspace pulse through the main deflector or that crap, station crews just blow shit up.

This occasionally causes problems, such as the thing you are shooting torpedos at exploding and your station getting caught in the blast. Of course, if the subspace anomaly itself is imaginary, then none of that matters! Neat and tidy.

Oh, and the figments? Totally space explorers who have never seen anything like this strange emotion you humans call “love” the capacity for imagination before. Dabo!

Progress at Memory Alpha

• When a lobe tingles, it means only one thing: Opportunity! Or frostbite.

• The captain of the trading ship Nog is trying to sell all the Yamok sauce to is surprisingly one of the more believable characters in the show so far. I am totally sold on that guy being an alien space captain.

• What’s the opposite of a luddite? Like the kind of person who is to luddites what luddites are to technology? Because Star Trek is that.

• Today’s Important Life Lesson might be that there is a real distinction between stem bolts and self-sealing stem bolts.

• On the other hand, self-stealing stem bolts can’t be that important if even Miles doesn’t know what they are.

• I know he’s still just a commander, but I grow more and more certain that Sisko is my favorite captain. (Don’t tell Jean-Luc!)

• I’m not clear on how much money 5 bars of gold-pressed latinum is. Is it a lot?

Today’s adventure* concerns a power transfer from one of Bajor’s moons to Bajor. Why? Because in the SPACE FUTURE, it is much easier to get energy from millions of miles away than it is to get it from where you are. Of course, that energy, which is going to heat up a bunch of bajoran homes this winter, comes from a place where other bajorans are living. Dax and Kira fly by to check it out and find some people still living there, so Kira goes down to have a chat with them.

Up on the station, Nog has the idea that getting 5,000 wrappages of Cardassian yamok sauce will make them wealthy. Hoping to sell them for 5 bars of latinum, they are disappointed to find that the only captain on station that does business with the Cardassians is not carrying any latinum. But they trade their sauce wrappages for 100 gross of self-stealing stem bolts. I am excited about these nonsense objects!

The family of bajoran farmers that Kira is supposed to evict is fighting back hard. Their primary weapon? Supper! I wish people who disagreed with me would do so by offering me suppers. Life in the future is so much better than now! The old man in charge, in between talking about how long it will take roots to soften, explains that he has no interest in leaving his farm because he is a typical stubborn Star Trek rustic archetype.

Wondering what self-sealing stem bolts are? So is everyone else.

Kira, back on DS9, is trying to convince the bajoran minister in charge of the energy grabbing operation to use “phased energy” something something to get the energy so the locals can stick around, but frankly I am way less interested in the stubborn rustic main plot than I am in the Nog and Jake’s Big Business subplot. When that fails, she goes down with a couple of goons to convince them to leave, which is obviously a great idea that could not possibly result in any old men getting totally shot. OH WAIT!

Meanwhile, Nog and Jake have traded their 100 gross of self-sealing stembolts for 7 tessipates of land.

The upside to the Kira/rustic plot is that, when she decides to stay on the planet and take care of the old got-shot guy, we get to see Sisko throw his weight around in a very Siskoish fashion. When he explains to Bashir that he told the minister that Kira would be remaining on the moon for a couple of days at Bashir’s request, Bashir responds that that is not true. Sisko simply tells him to “make it true,” and then waits quietly for Bashir to tell him what he wants to hear. Sisko gets shit done! I love that about the guy: He gets that he is in charge of DS9 and that Starfleet Command is far away. That done, he goes down to the moon himself for a third-act game-winning heart-to-heart with big K. He leaves Kira to think about it, but we all know he has totally won this one. Dabo!

Back upstairs with the Nog and Jake, we learn that the Bajoran government wants to build a reclamation center on a certain piece of land. GUESS WHICH ONE! While Quark is trying to find out who owns the land, Nog drops the “we’ll sell it for 5 bars of gold-pressed latinum” bomb on him. A victory for team precocious youngsters? Looks that way!

Incidentally, Kira convinces her old man buddy to leave his moon by burning his house down.

* Or what would have been today’s adventure if today was May 9, 1993.