#ds9 meta

[skymallnine]

The real mindfuck of Vorta cloning is that it’s not even like reloading a save. They only remember up to the last checkpoint. From the Vorta’s perspective, the thing that killed them is in their future, not their past.

Maybe they’re considering something, planning something, and they go to sync their brain and suddenly they’re in the cloning facility. Ok, obviously it’s time to reconsider that decision. Or maybe it was a different decision, some long chain of events they don’t have the faintest memory of? Even after they get briefed on some of the missing details, it’s hard to know for sure. Did they do something wrong? Did someone else? Was it completely unavoidable? They never have any deaths to learn from, just a growing and ominous string of births.

Anyway, I don’t think the Founders actually changed the formula between Weyoun 6 and 7. I don’t think they had to. The moment Weyoun started doubting, in the privacy of his own mind, he woke up as a clone. And like all the previous times he was born again, he immediately and reflexively flinched away from that train of thought, along with anything else he was thinking of at the time.

[face-without-a-heart]

I think the problem with Odo’s character is that he’s written to have been a cop on a mining station run by space fascists and operated by slaves, so obviously he has to have done some pretty terrible things, but the show never really wants to address that. In fact, the other characters keep talking about how morally upstanding and fair he was for remaining unbiased while enforcing the laws on a station mainly populated by slaves. In Things Past (really the only episode that even touches on Odo possibly being morally ambiguous for this), it’s treated like a huge deal that Odo may have gotten innocent people killed for trying to assassinate Dukat, but even if they were guilty, does that make it any better? Should people be killed for resisting their own subjugation?

Like obviously Odo wasn’t having a great time on Terok Nor either, but the show is so eager to explore the moral complexity of characters like Kira or Garak, but it’s so hesitant to do that for Odo. He is, by definition, a fascist collaborator, and I’m not sure I would outright call him a fascist himself, but he seems to have picked up a lot of the Cardassians’ ideas about government. There’s a line in one of the early seasons where it’s implied that he has an ongoing argument with Sisko over making DS9 into what’s essentially a police state with 50 more security officers and a curfew. It’s not bad to have a character like this, but it’s strange that it was never seriously addressed in the show.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Something I love about DS9’s framing of Jake Sisko is how he’s consistently positioned as someone worthy of protection, whose survival and flourishing and emotional well-being are of tantamount importance, and whose innocence and vulnerability are precious.

It’s present from all directions in The Visitor. Everybody protectively closes ranks around Jake upon Ben’s disappearance, with those little moments of Dax and Kira and Bashir giving him physical affection and reassurance and Quark going out of his way to be nice to him. Jake’s older self’s protective impulses towards his younger self, as well as his desire to save his father, are the basis for the timeline reset. And then after the spacetime continuum gets wrenched back in line purely to save Jake from the emotional trauma of losing his father, the episode ends with Ben, who’s borne witness to everything and is the only one who remembers it all, continuing that work of shielding Jake from that knowledge.

And then Nor the Battle to the Strong carries on the thread of protectiveness towards Jake, in that case as part of the episode’s deconstruction of military heroism. As he’s marinating in shame over bailing on the mission to retrieve the generator, Bashir apologizes to him and says he was wrong to put Jake in harm’s way in the first place. And then at the end, he wakes up after sealing the cave entranceway and both Bashir and his father are tenderly looking after him, with similar imagery to The Visitor in terms of him being symbolically cradled by the other cast members’ concern for him. He never needs to toughen up or grow out of that need to be rescued - in fact, his fear and panic and feelings of being out of his depth prove to be immensely valuable, as his last conversation with his father emphasizes, because he’s able to bear witness to the experience of the soldiers through his writing.

That comes through in a really interesting way in Valiant as well, with Jake’s emphatic concern for his own survival in the midst of all the culty militaristic weirdness of the Valiant crew:

Nog: You don’t understand, because you’ve never put on one of these uniforms. You don’t know anything about sacrifice, or honor, or duty, or any other things that make up a soldier’s life. I’m part of something larger than myself. All you care about is you.

Jake: That’s right. All I care about is Jake Sisko and whether or not he’s going to be killed by a bunch of delusional fanatics looking for martyrdom.

And I love that exchange not only because it’s a rare articulation of how I would actually feel in a situation like that in a franchise full of characters who are all prepared to sacrifice themselves in the line of duty, but also because in the context of the episode, Jake’s position is actually the heroic one! It’s his sense of self-preservation, and the fact that he hasn’t romanticized the notion of heroic sacrifice, that enables him to see through the dogmatic ideology of the Valiant cadets and recognize how dangerously out of their depth they are. And it’s just a nice articulation of his own worth.

(And of course the Defiant rescues them at the end, because Jake’s grown up now, but he hasn’t outgrown needing his father to save him. And that’s never a shameful thing, but a really beautiful thing, and necessary to the fabric of the show.)

[walkingstackofbooks]

Thinking about the lack of any proper reactions to Julian's enhancements, but particularly about Sisko's in-depth knowledge of 20th century racism and how I wish we'd seen that brought in as part of his response to it all. Because he more than anyone would have an understanding of and feelings about some of the reasons behind historical eugenics, rather than just a fear of the consequences of augmentation, and that would be such an interesting discussion to see.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

Since Bajorans can only enter labor when completely relaxed, I have to wonder what effect that had on childbirth rates during the Occupation. Constant low-level (and high-level) stress equals constant inability to give birth, and the infant can't actually just sit around and wait for relaxation for all eternity. Like, at a certain point, it either needs to come out or die, because being under constant military threat isn't getting any more relaxing any time soon.

Which means either a) Bajoran doctors did an awful lot of c-sections, b) Bajorans made liberal use of artificial relaxants (probably risky? maybe also resulting in death?) or c) a lot of would-be mothers died or miscarried, or some combination of those options. there's probably also a healthy helping of d) lots of abortions.

[fortheloveoflatinum]

Rewatching Star Trek DS9: Past Tense (The Bell Riots)

The thing I love most about time travel episodes is that the future hangs in such delicate balance. Also - the gentle reassurance that we matter. You matter. I matter. This isn't utilitarian calculus; it's a philosophy that holds that we all have immense intrinsic value and are all capable of shifting and shaping the course of the future.

Spock: [to Kirk] Save her, do as your heart tells you to do, and millions will die who did not die before. - Spock in the TOS Episode, "City on the Edge of Forever."

And Kirk, despite everything - despite his love for this woman, despite what his heart tells him to do - knows that in order to save the Federation and the future he has had such a magnificent hand in creating; if he wants a just and equitable future to be forged, it all hinges upon one small, 'insignificant' woman - it serves to show that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few - Kirk lets her die to save those millions of people - but also proves that the good of the few - or the one - can indeed outweigh the good of the many.

It's a simple, human truth that we are all significant in some way. When we go, it's not what we leave behind that matters - it's how we lived.

Captain Picard: Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived. - Picard in the movie Star Trek: Generations.

And in the DS9 episode Past Tense: Parts I and II, this fundamental truth is also proven true. That one person - any person, every person - matters. Not because of the wealth they've accumulated, not because of their fancy house or their six-figure salary or their corner office - but because they smiled at a crying child, because they sparked hope in the hopeless, because they were kind, because they were generous with their time and because they lived to serve the greater good.

Life. It's not about what you own - it's about who you touch. Even transported to a barbaric 21st century too much like our own - with just the clothes on their back - even their combadges stolen - Doctor Bashir and Captain Sisko touch people. Their presence changes things. So much so that the ripples of their actions change the future for every Federation member, because Starfleet is gone and all that remains of it is the crew of the Defiant.

I remember the Ray Bradbury story, "The Sound of Thunder," with its eminent metaphor of stepping on a butterfly and altering the future. But what if we step on a butterfly in the present? Surely, the future is altered. Everything we do - matters. Everything we do has ripples across the timeline of the future. None of us are islands unto ourselves. This tangled web we weave, it's a tapestry and its threads are those of the people we've loved, everyone who we've ever known and whether we were cruel or kind to them matters.

What can you do? Start by smiling. A smile from a friendly stranger can save a life.

Michael Burnham [to Spock]: “There’s a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - Michael Burnham in that one Discovery episode where they go to the future and also there's an epic war going on in the background

Reach for someone, anyone; everyone. Only then can they reach back for you.

Be kind, to the Earth, to each other, to all creatures. Don't step on butterflies or kill bees.

What can you do? Watch Star Trek, and live by Starfleet values. Find a moral compass, and let it guide you. Remember that science and education are the answer, just as much as peace on Earth and - eventually - beyond.

[vaguely-concerned]

the way the wire sets up these two opposing forces in garak's psyche that I think continue to wrestle it out in the background for the rest of the show -- on one side, his father-who-won't-even-acknowledge-that going 'I hope you keep living in shame and despair and desolate isolation for decades to come sport😜' (tain has basically gone 'be so kind as to create a hell of your own making and then stay in there for me, there's a good boy'. and garak has done that. oof. tain made him build a closet in his own head and locked him in it by doing nothing except make it clear he's not allowed to get out because he deserves to be in there. he never had to tell garak to do anything; that's what makes him special. I. am in shambles)

and then on the other side coming in with a steel chair, julian's soft steady voice going 'no one deserves this' and 'I don't want to hurt you' and 'I'll help you through it'.

one side that not only utterly abandoned him to his own misery but engineered it in the first place to control him, and one side that boldly, brazenly, doggedly refuses to abandon him, both on principle and out of personal care, no matter what garak says or does through the episode to try to throw him off. (and accepting the personal care aspect seems to part of bashir's journey of the episode; he has to admit to himself that yeah they are friends at this point. he is not personally watching over this guy while he sleeps like a lanky dweeb guardian angel for purely professional reasons lol thank you for calling his fucking bluff jadzia.) tain and bashir are basically having a quiet faux-affable battle for garak's soul at the end of that ep and while it starts small, down the road it eventually becomes clear julian won. tain gambles that his own influence will always triumph in the long run (he got there first, after all), and he's wrong.

all of this is presumably also why garak writes a stitch in time specifically to julian (aside from all the normal gay reasons) -- at the end of that he all but says that it's partly because he knows in such a deep way that julian would never judge him as harshly as he judges himself. the kindest voice in garak's inner world is julian bashir, that's how deeply he's internalized it. what the fuck. that's one of the most beautiful ways of touching someone's life I can imagine I feel nauseous and disoriented adn I need to go lie down for a while

[ntamain]

Idk just got hit with what a powerful metaphor for transness and specifically medically transitioning Ezri in DS9 could have been. Like you are RIGHT THERE and everybody around you is mourning a person that no longer exists. That CANNOT coexist with you. Like she had to die for you to be able to fully be YOU. And you can feel everyone around you kind of comparing your before and after and the disappointment when you don't measure up in the little time you've had as YOU.

Idk just the concept of being alive but everyond around you kind of wishing you would have never happened like you are now, you know :/