S07.E02: Shadows and Symbols

[John Potts]

Quote

Sisko's quest for the Bajoran Orb leads him to the truth of his existence; Kira sets a blockade against the Romulans; Worf destroys a Dominion shipyard to prepare a place in Sto-vo-kor for Jadzia Dax.

While I had little memory of this episode, on review it's actually really tense. All the three plot threads (Sisko & the Orb, the attack on the shipyard, Kira v the Romulans) help ratchet up the tension and by cutting between them, it doesn't get released until right before the end. Intellectually, I know that they're highly unlikely to allow any of our heroes to fail at the start of a Season (even if I didn't know the outcome) but it kept me watching.

I can't recall if Senator Cretak shows up after this point (I guess I'll find out!) but I thought her "Silk hiding Steel" demeanour was perfect for a high ranking Romulan. I was wondering if Kira's actions here were intended as a call back to the Pilot when Kira similarly faces down an "enemy" force that massively outguns her (and is also saved by the Feds).

The other plots are weaker in that there's no real reason for a lot of our heroes to be there. Worf has to be there because it's Jadzia (though, wow, being killed by a demon isn't worthy of getting into Stovokor? Those Klingons have high standards for their afterlife!) and I guess without O'Brien there they wouldn't be able to tech-tech their solution, but what exactly did Quark & Bashir contribute? Though if Klingons really do eat Gakh for every meal, you have to wonder that Klingons don't suffer from vitamin deficiencies. Similarly, Sisko's quest is pretty much his alone: everyone else just stands around while he does his whole Mad Prophet routine (I guess Ezri DOES get to save the day by actually making it through to Ben to get back into the real world* and ignore the Pah Wraiths' deceptions - Dax avenging her own murder perhaps?). Also, the Pah-Wraith is explicitly referred to as Kosst Amojen, so I'm wondering what exactly its history was given its later significance.

As a Nitpicker, though, I have to say that the reveal of "Sarah's" identity raises real problems with the dialogue in Emissary: the Prophets shouldn't have needed any prompting over who Ben Sisko was, because not only was Sarah one of them, but they'd actually arranged his birth. It's almost as if they had no idea this plotline was coming when they wrote that!

* Obviously, by "Real world" I mean "Fictional world of Trek". And who knows, maybe the Pah-Wraiths vision was the true one and the Prophets' one is the fake - it all depends on your point of view!

[SVNBob]

On 7/18/2017 at 6:36 AM, John Potts said:

As a Nitpicker, though, I have to say that the reveal of "Sarah's" identity raises real problems with the dialogue in Emissary: the Prophets shouldn't have needed any prompting over who Ben Sisko was, because not only was Sarah one of them, but they'd actually arranged his birth.

To quote another franchise, "you're not thinking 4th-dimensionally."

The Prophets exist outside of our timestream, hence Sisko having to explain linear time to them back in the pilot.   Or the poet/other Emmisary that they held onto for a couple hundred years, sent out to the "present", then sent back to his own time where he finished a previously famous unfinished poem.

So for the Prophets, effect can precede cause.  Meaning that they arranged Sisko's birth after he had met them, per our perspective.  The best parallel I can think of is from one episode of Futurama. 

Spoiler

Where Fry does the nasty in the pasty and then turns out to be his own grandfather.

My headcanon for this is that the Prophet that took the form of Jennifer in the pilot (the one that seemed to connect with Sisko first and understand things a little quicker,) is the one that left the Temple to possess Sarah.

[John Potts]

38 minutes ago, SVNBob said:

So for the Prophets, effect can precede cause.  Meaning that they arranged Sisko's birth after he had met them, per our perspective.

Yes, but the Prophets should know that! I can accept that from Sisko's POV, his mother wasn't "Prophet possessed" until now, but from their POV it's always been the case. Effectively, The Prophets don't see time from our limited perspective of a boat drifting down a stream, they see the whole river. Though if that's the case, then episodes where the Prophets change their minds thanks to the interventions of linear beings (eg Prophet Motive) make no sense: they should go, "We've heard everything you have and are going to say, so we've made our decision..."

Spoiler

This is made worse when you consider that, as of the Finale, Sisko is (and presumably, always was) living in the Celestial Temple!

But it's probably my limited linear perspective not understanding the 4 dimensional nature of time and not the writers failing to understand the conclusions of their own dialogue!

[iMonrey]

It hadn't occurred to me that the revelation of Sisko's birth mother in any way contradicted the premise laid forth in the pilot, but now that you bring it up, it bugs. Besides that, though, it's a little too "Luke I am Your Father" to suddenly "reveal" that Ben's biological mother was (more or less) a Prophet. Too contrived and comic-booky for my tastes. Also? Sisko being flung into an alternate reality in his own mind where he's a mental patient in a hospital and his foes are trying to convince him to erase his real life because it's just a delusion? Not an original idea.

[readster]

On 8/10/2017 at 1:02 PM, iMonrey said:

It hadn't occurred to me that the revelation of Sisko's birth mother in any way contradicted the premise laid forth in the pilot, but now that you bring it up, it bugs. Besides that, though, it's a little too "Luke I am Your Father" to suddenly "reveal" that Ben's biological mother was (more or less) a Prophet. Too contrived and comic-booky for my tastes. Also? Sisko being flung into an alternate reality in his own mind where he's a mental patient in a hospital and his foes are trying to convince him to erase his real life because it's just a delusion? Not an original idea.

Right, I mean if the Prophets live outside of time and space and basically created their own paradox. It still feels weak and how Ben's father was so bent on keeping Sarah a secret since day 1. I mean it was the 24th century, he acted like she had Ben and ran out of him because: "I'm not ready." piece of a baby mama genre that started in the late 90s. Another issue was that Sarah after not be possessed anymore just did go: "Why am I here and why did I have a baby?" Instead of being aware of what happened and just drifted away early on before Ben was two and then have his dad remarry and have his two other siblings that were mentioned (but never seen). 

[Maverick]

My main takeaway from this episode:  Damar is hot as a human.  

[rmontro]

On 7/18/2017 at 7:36 AM, John Potts said:

The other plots are weaker in that there's no real reason for a lot of our heroes to be there. Worf has to be there because it's Jadzia (though, wow, being killed by a demon isn't worthy of getting into Stovokor? Those Klingons have high standards for their afterlife!) and I guess without O'Brien there they wouldn't be able to tech-tech their solution, but what exactly did Quark & Bashir contribute?

I can buy that Bashir was able to fulfill some menial bridge task - he's a Starfleet officer and is genetically enhanced after all.  But you could see that Quark does absolutely nothing - he's just along for the ride.  I also don't remember Jadzia and O'Brien being that close, so I don't know why Worf included him in his accusations that they were all unworthy of her.  In the previous episode, O'Brien said he was coming along to keep an eye on Julian - not because he was in love with Jadzia, like the other two supposedly were.  That sounds suspect even with Bashir and Quark, but whatever...

I didn't feel like I could comment on the previous few episodes because they all felt like they were going somewhere.  

It was odd to see Benny Russell the 50s science fiction writer again here.  It's one thing for him to not be able to get his stories printed because of racism, but now he's in a mental institution?  Weird.  I guess the idea was that the evil Pah Wraith was trying to convince Sisko he wasn't real.  I had heard that they were going tohave DS9 end up as just being Russell's stories, but I'm glad they thought better of it.

[legaleagle53]

On 5/29/2018 at 5:31 PM, rmontro said:

It was odd to see Benny Russell the 50s science fiction writer again here.  It's one thing for him to not be able to get his stories printed because of racism, but now he's in a mental institution?  Weird.  I guess the idea was that the evil Pah Wraith was trying to convince Sisko he wasn't real.  I had heard that they were going tohave DS9 end up as just being Russell's stories, but I'm glad they thought better of it.

That would have been a really dumb move and would have pissed nearly all the fandom off, because it would also have called into question whether TNG, VOY, and even TOS were also products of Russell's imagination, since DS9 was a spin-off of TNG and VOY was technically a spin-off of DS9 and DS9 updated the Mirror Universe from TOS (and there WAS that Tribble episode, too!). Thank goodness indeed that wiser heads prevailed.

[rmontro]

29 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

That would have been a really dumb move and would have pissed nearly all the fandom off, because it would also have called into question whether TNG, VOY, and even TOS were also products of Russell's imagination, since DS9 was a spin-off of TNG and VOY was technically a spin-off of DS9 and DS9 updated the Mirror Universe from TOS (and there WAS that Tribble episode, too!). Thank goodness indeed that wiser heads prevailed.

Agreed.  That particular theory just doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.  Unless maybe Benny died and was reincarnated as Gene Roddenberry.  :)

[John Potts]

20 hours ago, rmontro said:

Unless maybe Benny died and was reincarnated as Gene Roddenberry.  :)

He'd need to fall through a temporal rift first since they were both alive in the 1950s...

[rmontro]

On 5/31/2018 at 8:23 PM, John Potts said:

He'd need to fall through a temporal rift first since they were both alive in the 1950s...

Hey, whatever it takes  :)