DS9 Stories/News: Some ‘Deep’ Talk with Alexander Siddig (3)

Cont.

Cairo Time

Jordan Hoffman: So let’s talk about the new movie Cairo Time, which I think is the first time you’ve played a romantic lead, is that correct?

Alexander Siddig: It is indeed, it is. Since I was at school, that’s the first time I’ve played a romantic.

Jordan Hoffman: How much fun is it to woo the hearts of audiences like that? To lay on the charm thick for the sake of the audience?

Alexander Siddig: It’s pretty great. It wasn’t so much, I have to confess I wasn’t really thinking of the audience when I was in Cairo but I – to gaze into that lady’s eyes [Patricia Clarkson] is quite thrilling.

Jordan Hoffman: Your character sort of welcomes this woman into the Egyptian culture and the city of Cairo; how much familiarity did you have with Cairo prior to making the film?

Alexander Siddig: Well, you know it’s one of the places that’s sort of been in my reference library all my life in the sense that I was born in the Sudan which is the neighboring country and up until – I mean forever we’ve had a treaty with Egypt and immigrants come and go; my whole family lived in Cairo for years. And so it was a familiar place and I’d been there in the 80’s as a kid really, so I knew my way around and I felt very comfortable and relaxed there. So it was easy to make the little leap from a Sudanese man to and Egyptian man which I had no problem doing.

Jordan Hoffman: So you didn’t have to think it too much.

Alexander Siddig: No, I really didn’t. It’s a really honest city for all its evils. It can be quite filthy – that’s not exactly an evil is it by world standards. But it lays itself out to you as a tourist. London for example, is an impossible city. You need to know people in London to find out where things are and what’s going on and you can’t make friends here unless you were kind of born here. So, Cairo is much more friendly and available to people.

Jordan Hoffman: So when you were shooting this film, it was a Canadian production, but it’s still a large western production and there isn’t too much of that on the streets of Cairo. How were you treated by the general population?

Alexander Siddig: They were completely puzzled by us. They were like, ‘what the Hell is that?’ they just couldn’t quite make out what weirdness we were doing. This was bigger than an ordinary video camera, we weren’t just saying hi in front of a landmark we were doing scenes, so when they could they would sort of jostle into the frame to get involved. Which was fine on some levels, but as soon as they started looking into the camera and stuff it was a total nightmare.

Jordan Hoffman: So that shot of nearly getting hit by a motorcycle, was that actual?

Alexander Siddig: We really did – well it was a stunt, but the interesting thing was that the stunt guy had never done a stunt in his life – was not a stunt man. He literally tried to run her over. And I must have buried my nails deep into her arm to get her out of the way she was absolutely – she was shaking afterwards. She wasn’t used to that.

Jordan Hoffman: Was it all Egyptian crew? Or was it Canadian crew?

Alexander Siddig: It was a beautiful mix actually. It was a whole jumble of different people. The Egyptians were brilliant, I mean really brilliant; and kind of cool and cosmopolitan and wanted to take us all out to cool places to hang out in the evenings. Egyptians – thank God you know Cairo is not a dry city and is not massively fundamentalist.  It’s got fundamentalist aspects, but you can still have a really swingin’ time.

Bashir and O’Brien

Jordan Hoffman: Who from the old days that you don’t get to see do you like to hang out with the most at conventions?

Alexander Siddig: You know I love hanging out with Nicky deBoer.

Jordan Hoffman: I see.

Alexander Siddig:  She is just hilarious; great, great girl. And um if I see Colm Meaney we’ll have a drink and bitch at each other. That’s all we do. I realize looking back at my history with him, I went out with him twice a week every week for seven years – drinking. Boy, he can pack em away.

Jordan Hoffman: I would imagine.

Alexander Siddig:  And all we did was fight. And I guess that’s what they did on the show too. But we fought in real life all the time. He would set me up, he’d take me to Irish bars where they hated English people. I would think they were being racist about the fact that I’m black and they weren’t. The just hated the English people, they would just hear my accent and they’d – and he just laughed his head off.

Jordan Hoffman: Did you ever actually play darts, though, is the real question.

Alexander Siddig:  No. No. That would be very weird.

Jordan Hoffman: There needs to be a separation between art and life.

Alexander Siddig:  Yes, because that was the only separation, the dart game.

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (13)

 ”The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

____________________________________

 

Review written by Mary Shaver

 

The Jem’Hadar’s confidence in his abilities and strength are growing rapidly. After leaving the holosuite he and Odo walk along the Promenade and the boy proclaims that everyone is afraid of him and that he could kill any one of them. He seems to grow visibly more menacing and intimidating by the moment. He is also becoming much more self-aware and certain of his place and purpose in the universe. He admits to Odo that he doesn’t think he cares about anything else besides killing and is unmoved by Odo’s assertion that there is so much more to life than that (contrast this to an earlier conversation when the boy confessed to wanting to fight and then asking Odo if that was wrong. Now he had no such doubts or reservations).

 

Their talk is interrupted by the chirping of Odo’s comm badge. Sisko want to see him. Odo instructs the boy to return to his quarters and then goes to Ops. As soon as Odo walks in to Sisko’s office he knows something is wrong. Turns out Star Fleet didn’t buy Sisko’s delaying tactic and a ship is en route to DS9 to collect the Jem’Hadar. Odo feels understandably betrayed. He’s heard the ‘orders are orders’ line before. It does nothing to ease Odo’s mind when Sisko reveals that Star Fleet considers the boy to be a ‘top priority.’ The Jem’Hadar is in jeopardy and Odo feels responsible for his desperate position.

 

Breaking into the conversation is the Jem’Hadar who has matured to the point where he can now shroud himself. He has acquired a phaser and he demands a runabout. Exuding confidence, the boy has become a full-fledged Jem’Hadar soldier. He is even giving orders to Odo. He doesn’t belong on the station and neither does Odo, so they are leaving together. Sensing the danger Odo gives Sisko a long look while assuring the Jem’Hadar that no one will interfere with them. From the way he is waving that phaser around, Odo is rightly concerned that someone will get killed if the Jem’Hadar doesn’t get what he wants.

 

Odo discovers the Jem’Hadar’s plan as they make their way to the runabout. He is returning both of them to the Gamma Quadrant, where their people are and where they belong. Odo protests that neither of them belong there, but it falls on deaf ears. In a last ditch effort to save the Jem’Hadar from himself, Odo makes the extraordinary offer to accompany him anywhere in unexplored space where no one will bother them. Odo has become so invested in the future of this boy that he is willing to sacrifice the only life he’s ever known. Is he making this offer solely for the sake of the Jem’Hadar in the hopes that he will learn about himself and grow independent of his programmed heritage? Or is he doing this in an effort to assuage his own guilt for the actions of his people? Perhaps a little bit of both. Whatever Odo’s motivation, his offer is rejected outright, and worse still, the Jem’Hadar accuses Odo of allowing his mind to be twisted by the humanoids. He already knows exactly who he is and where he wants to be – with his fellow Jem’Hadar. And then he says something that surely cuts Odo to the quick. “I don’t know what these other Changelings are like. But I know they’re not like you.”

 

 “No, they’re not,” he replies unhappily. If the Founders were more like Odo, a race like the Jem’Hadar would never have been created, the Dominion wouldn’t exist and such brutal taskmasters wouldn’t control millions of people. On the other hand, if Odo were more like the Founders, he could rejoin the Great Link with a clear conscious and have the feelings of belonging and acceptance that have been so elusive for him here in the world of the Solids. The sad reality is, Odo is not like the Founders and nothing can change that. Odo looks at the boy and realizes that the gulf that separates them is much too wide to bridge.

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (11)

  “The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

____________________________________

 

Review written by Mary Shaver

The Jem’Hadar boy, now confined in a holding cell, is becoming more anxious and agitated with every passing minute. He begins hurling himself against the forcefield in desperate attempt to escape. On the other side of the forcefield, Bashir tells him his condition is the result of the enzyme that is missing from his system. The boy is belligerent and argumentative with Bashir until Odo arrives. Interesting that the boy denies to Bashir that there is anything wrong with him, but when Odo releases him from the holding cell and inquires about his health, the Jem’Hadar admits there is something wrong with him and catalogues his symptoms to Odo.

 

Bashir needs to run more tests to help him replicate the missing enzyme. The boy resists until Odo says he should agree. At once he becomes compliant and cooperative. Bashir leaves to retrieve the equipment he will need and Odo makes some friendly overtures to the boy. When he offers to show him around the station the Jem’Hadar defers to whatever Odo wishes. This isn’t what Odo wants – he wants to know the boy’s wishes and desires, and is somewhat startled when the boy jumps out of his chair, gets right in Odo’s face and announces that what he wants is to fight. Not Odo, but everyone else. He asks Odo if that is wrong and rather that criticize the boy’s choice, Odo suggests they find other interests. He then tries to get the Jem’Hadar to relax and even encourages him to smile – something Odo himself hardly ever does. Perhaps in this instance the Constable should take his own advice!

 

Chief O’Brien thinks he may have found a supply of the drug needed by the Jem’Hadar to replace the enzyme missing from his system. Odo joins him in the salvage ship to examine the container. O’Brien wonders aloud why the Founders would engineer the Jam’Hadar to be addicted. Odo’s explanation illustrates the stark difference between himself and his people. What better way to ensure total control over the Jem’Hadar, as well as guarantee their loyalty, than to addict them to a drug that can’t be replicated and that only the Founders can provide? Odo understands all too well what it is like to be controlled by others and now vehemently opposes the idea of exercising control over anybody (well, except perhaps Quark!). When O’Brien comments that it seems like a cold-blooded thing to do, Odo responds with a hint of sadness in his voice. “My people don’t have blood.” And this, perhaps is as good an explanation as any for why the Founders have no compunction about enslaving others. Is Odo wondering if the basic and fundamental differences between his people and the solids prevent his people from having any feelings of compassion for beings who are different from them?

 

The drug found in the salvage ship works and introduces into canon the vial of what will become known as Ketracel White, and the tygon feeder tube that delivers the drug into the Jem’Hadar’s carotid artery. Revived now and at full strength, the Jem’Hadar now poses a huge potential danger to the station’s inhabitants.  When the boy requests and then insists that he stay with Odo in his quarters, Odo is initially uncomfortable with the idea, and then sees the value in having the Jem’Hadar with him. Not only will it give him a chance to work with the boy and help him move beyond the limitations of his programming, but it will also assure a measure of safety to the DS9 personnel.

 

In Odo’s quarters, the Jem’Hadar is enthralled by Odo’s Changeling abilities. When Odo points out that some shapes are more difficult to master, like the humanoid face, the Jem’Hadar challenges him to explain why he would want to look like a humanoid since he (Odo) was better than them. Odo’s explanation that being different is not the same as being better confuses the boy who admits he instinctively knows that he is inferior to Odo, but superior to everyone else. Odo attempts to re-wire the boys ‘hard-wiring’ by telling that they are all equal and that he needs to ignore his instincts because they are wrong. Rather than accept Odo’s words however, the boy instead concludes that he must be defective because he also knows that Odo can never be wrong. Odo stubbornly persists, insisting that he is not infallible and urging the boy to begin to think for himself. Odo might be realizing that he’s in for an uphill battle, but he isn’t about to give up. He asks the boy what he wants, not what he thinks Odo wants. After a moment’s reflection, the Jem’Hadar says he wants to know more about his people – who he is and where he came from, something Odo can certainly relate to. Odo shares with the boy his own history of being orphaned, found and raised by aliens, and their common connection of not knowing who his people were or what they were like.

DS9 Stories/News: The Magic Of Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Ritual Magic and The Storyteller

Source: http://bajorron.blogspot.com/2012/02/magic-of-star-trek-deep-space-nine.html

The Sirah and the Dal’Rok:

Deep Space Nine’s First season episode The Storyteller is an interesting one for several reasons. Characterwise, this is the first episode which sows the seeds for Bashir and O’Brien’s future friendship. The main storyline happens on Bajor, but rather than showing us a Bajor under the guidance of the Prophets, it depicts a rural Bajoran village where perhaps older customs survive of what could be called a more Pagan past.

The storyline in brief: Bashir and O’Brien beam down to a village which is in trouble: it is under attack from a creature called a Dal’Rok and the only way to fight this entity is under the leadership of the Sirah, a Storyteller. Bashir and O’Brien witness an attack and the defense, upon which the Sirah collapses, but not after naming O’Brien as his successor. The next evening, the Dal’Rok returns and O’Brien sets out to fight it as he has seen the Sirah do it, but he fails in his attempt. Then Hovath, the young original apprentice Sirah takes over and succeeds in chasing off the entity and is thus appointed as the new Sirah, letting O’Brien off the hook.

The Sirah in action:

This story has a number of interesting Ritual Magic concepts weaven into it. For example: why does O’Brien fail? There are several reasons for that. Yes, he does not know the entire story, although that seems hardly necessary: all we see the Sirah and Hovath do is tell the villagers that they can defeat the creature. But in their cases, they speak with conviction and in magic as well as anywhere else, Words have Power proportional to the conviction with which they are spoken. Magic is not about ‘just speaking the right words and then something will happen, Harry Potter style’, it is about giving words as much power as possible, and that power comes from the conviction of the speaker and from his or her energy. We see O’Brien struggling to speak out the words while he himself barely believes it is going to do any good (nicely played by actor Colm Meany as well!). And his words dissipate into thin air, nothing happens, the magic does not come about and the Dal’Rok keeps attacking.

Incidentally, what is this Dal’Rok? We are informed that the tricorders do not register anything, yet we see something happening, and what is more, we see some attacks that are convincingly real. So what is going on here? My guess would be that we are dealing here with a thought form that has gained a more or less corporeal existence. Probably as a result of repeating this ritual over and over again for many years- a sure recipe to increase the power!- the image has gained so much energy that not only has it become visible to outsiders, it is also found to be interacting with the material environment. Our magical literature abounds with examples of the very same thing: elementals, golems, homunculi, etc. all “conjured” up by the imagination and subsequently energized to such an extent that it gets a “life of its own”.

Hovath (played by Lawrence Monoson):

The fight against the Dal’Rok indeed looks very much like a time-honored ritual, with certain fixed stagesin it, the use of certain words of power and with a more or less hierarchical structure: it is the Sirah and the Sirah only who leads this ritual and is able to direct the energy of the villagers into a concerted defense against the Dal’Rok. He is the High Priest in what looks suspiciously like a ritual to reinforce the village identity by defeating a common foe. In order to become Sirah, a candidate has to undergo a test: he (or she?) should be able to direct the ritual and direct the power single-handedly. Miles O’Brien clearly fails at this test: he does not have the necessary training, he does not have the faith and as an outsider he is also not connected to the village’s group mind. Hovath is and has all those things, so at the end we see him take charge of the ritual and bringing it to a good end, thus finalizing his own initiation as a Sirah. Which brings a final question to mind: what if the old Sirah had staged all this as an initiation ritual for his successor, with O’Brien as the unknowing catalyst? We’ll never know…

DS9 Stories/News: Of Trek and War (1)

Source: http://www.goth.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14138&f=20

This is based on an idea from DarklyInclined, who was wondering how I might rate the rather protracted Dominion War featured in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine versus the one-season Xindi conflict (a subset of the much larger Temporal Cold War) as shown in Star Trek: Enterprise. I thought I’d also open the topic up to other wars in Trek, since those two weren’t quite the only wars shown in all of the series.

This will be a lengthy post. I’ve been working on it for a while now. I tend to write essays instead of simple replies; apologies in advance. Non-Trekkies who don’t really give a shit might want to head for another thread. For those Trekkies not well-versed in the subject matter, I will include links to pertinent data where applicable. Those who do choose read this, please bear with me.

You could make it more fun by taking a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage anytime I bash Rick Berman & Brannon Braga (two of Trek’s longtime writers/producers, both of whom were blamed for Star Trek’s demise and the early cancellation of Enterprise, if not the near-total downfall of UPN itself) or anytime I mention Ronald D. Moore and Ira Steven Behr (two longtime Trek scribes who later moved on to Battlestar Galactica on SyFy) in a positive light. You’ll be happily plastered by post’s end.

Which did you think was done best: the Dominion War from DS9 or the Xindi conflict from Enterprise (or a different conflict featured in one of the other series, like the Klingon/Federation Cold War from TOS or the brief war against the Klingons in DS9 that served as a prelude to the Dominion War)?

Or, for a much more broad, open-ended question (if it suits you): do you think Star Trek handles a mature subject such as war well or poorly?

Dominion War

If you really don’t care about my lengthy diatribe on the Dominion War vs. the Xindi conflict (maybe because you didn’t live your entire life in your parents’ basement and you actually did have a social life), just skip past this and post your response already. Otherwise, feel free to keep reading.

Eh..?

I’ll open the discussion with my response…

…

I think Deep Space Nine handled the Dominion War fairly well. They didn’t just rush into it head-on. The writers gave it a great build-up, slowly tip-toeing into it, mentioning the Dominion here and there throughout Season Two (the Dominion were first mentioned in “Rules of Acquisition“, a Ferengi episode, no less!) before introducing us to their foot soldiers, the genetically-grown Jem’Hadar, in the Season 2 finale. Even after that, the Dominion didn’t quite take center stage yet, opting instead for a Cold War against the Alpha Quadrant powers, during which they covertly started two wars involving the Klingons – a war between the Klingons and the Cardassians (which the Maquis would get involved in) and renewed hostilities between the Klingons and the Federation. After destabilizing the Alpha Quadrant’s major powers, the Dominion finally invaded. Brilliant tactic! By then, the Federation was so shell-shocked from having to deal with wars on all borders (save the Romulan Neutral Zone) that they barely had the resources to fight the Dominion, a nigh-unstoppable force compared to the Federation.

Jem’Hadar

The Dominion seemed militarily superior in all respects: non-stop construction of warships while the Federation was still trying to convert aging exploration vessels into battleships; they could grow Jem’Hadar at an exponential rate (and even tailor-make them for warfare in that part of the galaxy) while Starfleet couldn’t recruit new officers fast enough; the Dominion were united while Starfleet was divided between the pacifists and the war-mongers (usually represented by a shadowy “rogue” group of Starfleet Intelligence called Section 31, a sort of Starfleet “Men in Black” that utilized very dirty tactics like assassinations, cover-ups and even genocide to preserve the Federation; this was the series’ attempt at exploring a darker side of Starfleet that I, for one, appreciated). Good mix of drama, tension and action all around, plus it was an interesting examination of the Federation through darker lenses than we’re used to.

Section 31

While Deep Space Nine’s executive producer, Rick Berman (Roddenberry’s hand-picked successor), wanted the Dominion War to last only three or four episodes tops, DS9′s lead writers – Ira Steven Behr and Ronald D. Moore (themselves chosen by Berman for their outstanding work on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, both of whom would later helm the Battlestar Galactica reboot and create its prequel series Caprica) – conned him into allowing the Dominion War to play out until its “natural” end, which came during the final episode of the series. Say what you will about the Dominion War as a storyline and how it diverges from Roddenberry’s utopian vision of the future or about Deep Space Nine as a series, I think the Dominion War worked successfully (mostly), given its purpose as a method of deconstructing Roddenberry’s notions of the Federation as a utopian society. Ira Steven Behr re-imagined Deep Space Nine as a darker, grittier version of Roddenberry’s vision, and given how the series was written before that (set aboard a Cardassian space station by Michael Pillar – the brain behind some of the best TNG episodes ever, including “The Best of Both Worlds” – who imagined the series as a “frontier town in space” filled with broken individuals, former terrorist “freedom fighters”, orphaned aliens and unscrupulous bartender/merchants), the series worked well as such. The Dominion War, while I admit it was rather protracted (and ultimately weakened the hell out of Season 7, when the writers had to figure out a quick way to end the war in only one season after building the story arc to be a lengthy epic), worked overall as the ultimate test of Roddenberry’s dream.

When such a dream – the notion of humankind striving to better itself through peace and cooperation – is threatened by outside forces, what will humanity endure to protect it? The approach to this was very realistic, from the major portions of the story (“Operation Return“, the re-taking of DS9 after it was taken over by the Dominion) to the humdrum day-to-day stuff (Sisko’s grim ritual of posting casualty reports from the war every Friday). Ultimately, the war took a bitter toll on everyone involved, especially Captain Sisko; he would later commit acts that many Trek fans consider cardinal sins against Roddenberry’s lofty ideals – specifically helping a former Cardassian spy murder a Romulan senator in cold blood and blame the Dominion for it in the masterpiece episode “In the Pale Moonlight” – just to bring a quicker resolution to the war by bringing the Romulans into it. By the series’ end, the Federation is saved, and all the major goals of the series – bringing an end to the Cardassian threat and putting Bajor on the fast-track to membership in the Federation – have been met, along with the added bonus of creating a tentative peace between the Federation, the Klingons and the Romulans. Additionally, Ira Steven Behr was able to inject a bit of Judaism into the story through the Bajorans and their Emissary (messiah figure), Benjamin Sisko, whose story arc Behr based loosely on Moses.