DS9 Stories/News: The Federation Leaders In the Dominion War (3)

Cont.

Site: http://dominion.tvheaven.com/fedpers.html

Captain Sisko’s adolescent son nurtures journalistic pretensions which have on occasion been used against the Dominion. A junior member of the Federation news service, Jake was the only Federation journalist to report on the Dominion occupation of DS9/Terok Nor from behind Dominion lines. Jake’s close relationship with his father and lack of moral fiber are believed to make him a prime candidate for subversion by the Dominion. Jake currently resides on DS9.

Chancellor Gowron

Former Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, Gowron managed to win the highly contended title of worst Federation Alliance strategist during his brief time at the helm of the Klingon’s forces. Gowron ascended to the Chancellorship when he was determined to be the lesser of two evils in contest against the late Council Member Durass’s illegitimate, Romulan conspirator, teenage son. Gowron met his ignoble end in single combat with the redoubtable Worf and was succeeded by Martok.

Chancellor Martok

Current Chancellor of the Klingon Empire and one of its less humiliating strategists. Martok’s long experience as a military commander has granted him some small measure of intelligence and he is considered one of the Federation Alliance’s most dangerous leaders. Martok succeeded Gowron as Chancellor when this honor was thrust upon him by the shirking Worf. Martok’s plebian heritage leads many in the Dominion to hope that the Klingon Empire will falter under his guidance. Latest reports place Martok on Quo’nos hunting targ.

Grand Nagus Rom

Criminal mastermind and underworld ring leader aboard DS9, Rom posed for years as the bumbling brother of a small time hustler while maintaining an unassuming post in the Bajoran Militia as a technician (second class). Rom’s true capabilities were revealed during the Dominion occupation of Terok Nor/DS9 when his sabotage of first the station’s graviton emitter and later the entire weapons array allowed the Federation to retake the station. With his true capabilities thus revealed, Rom cast off his cover and rose through the ranks of the Ferengi to be named Grand Nagus. His notoriously pro-Federation sympathies could mean an end to Ferengi neutrality in the Alpha Quadrant War.

Lieutenant Nog

Starfleet officer and son of the criminal mastermind, Grand Nagus Rom, this young officer has shot through the ranks of Starfleet in only a handful of years, no doubt due to the extensive connections held by his father. Nog currently serves aboard DS9 and the USS Defiant under Captain Sisko. Nog is unfailingly loyal to Sisko due to Sisko’s part in facilitating Nog’s appointment to Starfleet academy and his long standing friendship with Sisko’s son, Jake. His relationships with both Rom and Sisko indicate that Nog may one day grow to be a formidable adversary for the Dominion.

Quark

The small time hustler brother of Grand Nagus Rom, Quark, though possessing the typical Ferengi drive for profit, has been tamed by extensive contact with Federation personnel. His involvement with Major Kira’s terrorist cell during the Dominion occupation of DS9/Terok Nor indicates his lack of love for the Dominion, though his limited talents make him of little threat. Quark is considered most significant only in the extent to which he can be used to reach his brother.

Colonel Kira Nerys

Second in command of DS9 and believed to be a key agitator in inciting the Cardassian riots against the Dominion on Cardassia Prime, Kira has a long history in participating in terrorist actions, beginning with her part in the Bajoran Resistance which rid Bajor of the Cardassians during the Cardassian occupation of that world. Kira is considered dangerous and unpredictable, entirely lacking in moral fiber, and may be the real force behind the occasionally clever tactics employed by the crew of DS9. Unconfirmed reports place Kira near the Great Link following the Dominion’s strategic withdrawal from Cardassia Prime.

Kai Winn

Spiritual leader of the Bajoran people, Kai Winn ascended to this position following the loss of the beloved Kai Opaka in the Gamma Quadrant. Throughout her tenure as kai, Winn maintained a cordial relationship with the Dominion, the warmth of which was tempered only by her unfailing desire to protect her homeland. During the twilight of her reign as kai, Winn fell in with the unscrupulous Legate Dukat who led her to embrace the pah wraiths in an attempt to facilitate the restoration of Bajor. This unfortunate move resulted in Kai Winn’s death at the hands of Dukat in Bajor’s notorious fire caves.

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.

DS9 Stories/News: Birthday Alert – Colm Meaney’s 3 Day Birthday Special

Cont.

O’brien Must Suffer

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O’Brien Must Suffer

http://www.stick-online.com/boards/index.php?topic=2151.0

But you gotta admit, this guy has life tough!

It’s montage of different scenes from different episodes, but it’s suprisingly representative. He didn’t actually commit suicide though.
The funny thing is: the producers deliberately put in at least every season, an episode themed “O’Brien must suffer”
-He gets cloned and his clone is the victim of a conspiracy while he’s held captive on some desolate planet in a cave.
-He is arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and tried for a crime he didn’t commit by a culture whose verdicts are decided before the trial.
-He starts randomly time-warping around during one instance of which he witnesses his own death.
-He is falsely convicted of espionage and in a Matrix/Inception-esque way, he experiences a 20-year prison sentence in a matter of hours by having the experience, stimuli, and such scanned into his mind.
-His wife is possessed by an alien entity who forces him to commit sabotage to his own station, lie, frame one of his friends, and attempt to kill some other non-corporeal beings.

-His daughter was aged(in a time warp, of course) to the age of 18. Without her parents or human contact. She basically becomes this feral monster girl, though they manage to de-timewarp her.
-His other child has to be transplanted into some alien’s womb in order to save his wife and baby after their ship is attacked. The woman happens to be his superior officer.
-On that note, he’s one of the only enlisted people on the entire show who actually ever does anything(besides guards and stuff) so he has to call everyone sir. Including a punk 22 year old ensign.
-He gets stuck in a little metal cargo box for violating some obscure law on an essentialists planet…for over 24 hours.
-The station of which he is the chief engineer has at least 3 minor malfunctions which only he can resolve at any one time and a major failure at least every 3 episodes.
-He’s a direct descendant from one of the High Kings of Ireland…and nobody, fate included, cares.

The woman who falls off the bridge is his wife.

Luck O’ the Irish? Hmmm…this guy is in need of some.

O’Brien Must Suffer

According to DS9 executive producer/writer Ira Steven Behr, “O’Brien is everyman. In a show about humans and aliens, he’s as human as you get.” Similarly, Behr’s writing partner for the first four seasons of the show,Robert Hewitt Wolfe, says, “He’s just a regular guy, a guy doing his job. He’s just the most unlikely of all heroes because he’s a family man with a daughter and eventually a son and a wife and they have arguments and a real relationship, and he’s just a working class schmo, I mean obviously he’s a really bright guy and very good at what he did, but basically, a working class schmo just trying to get through his day.” (Crew Dossier: Miles O’Brien, DS9 Season 5 DVD, Special Features)

The DS9 writing staff had a running joke with a semi-annual “O’Brien Must Suffer” episode. Among these were “Whispers“, “Tribunal“, “Visionary“, “Hard Time“, “Honor Among Thieves” and “Prodigal Daughter“. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) According to Ira Behr, “Every year in one or two shows we try to make his life miserable, because you empathize with him.” Robert Hewitt Wolfe further explains, “If O’Brien went through something torturous and horrible, the audience was going to feel that, in a way they wouldn’t feel it with any of the other characters. Because all the other characters were sort of, I wouldn’t say larger than life, but nobler than life, but O’Brien was just a guy, trying to live his life and so if you tortured him that was a story.” (Crew Dossier: Miles O’Brien, DS9 Season 5 DVD, Special Features)

Those Episodes Were:

Whispers

Episode 2×14

Upon returning from a mission to the Parada system, O’Brien begins to notice the crew acting strange around him and suspects there may be some unknown influence at work.

Tribunal

2×25

When Cardassians arrest Miles O’Brien for working with the Maquis, he’s put on a Cardassian trial, where the verdict is known before the trial begins: guilty.

Visionary

3×17

After receiving a minor dose of radiation poisoning, O’Brien inexplicably begins experiencing a series of jumps into the near future. Meanwhile, a Romulan delegation arrives on the station, expecting an intelligence report on the Dominion.

Hard Time

4×19

Convicted of espionage, Miles O’Brien is given the memories of twenty years in prison in a matter of hours. Returning to DS9, O’Brien finds he cannot shrug the memory of his awful experience or rid himself of the guilt he feels over the death of his cellmate.

Honor Among Thieves

6×15

O’Brien, working undercover for Starfleet Intelligence, befriends the man he will have to betray.

 

& Then, there is “Time’s Oprhan”

An accident on the planet Golana sends Molly O’Brien through a time portal three hundred years into the past into an uninhabited world. Beamed back too late, Molly returns to the present eighteen years old with no immediate recollection of her life or her family.

DS9 Stories/News: The Blasian Narrative, Doctor Julian Bashir

Source: http://blasiannarrative.blogspot.com/2011/09/star-trek-doctor-julian-bashir.html

by Ankhesen Mié

Let’s go back to DS9 for a moment, shall we?

Sudanese-born, England-raised Siddig el Fadil portrayed the boyishly handsome, genetically enhanced, yet socially naive, British-accented Doctor Julian Bashir.  By about the fourth season, the actor felt forced to change to a stage name, “Alexander Siddig”, because people were having trouble pronouncing the five syllables in “Siddig el Fadil.”

Keep in mind, the man’s full name is Siddig el Tahir el Fadil el Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim el Mahdi…and people were bitching about “Siddig el Fadil”?

*exasperated sigh*

So anyways…there’s that right there to begin with.

Pros:

1) Julian Bashir is an example of what I call “using an actor as the message, not the writing.”  In other words, the writers didn’t cast Fadil and then put words in his mouth to send a message.  His casual, series-regular presence is the message.  You can cast an Asian man to simply play a character.  His being Asian doesn’t have to be the point of the character (unlike with Sulu in the 1960s).

2) Siddig el Fadil was gorgeous; as a young girl, I primarily watched DS9 just to see him (the show so deep it went over my head at the time).  So not only was the Asian actor just playing a regular guy (hear tell, ’tis an Asian actor’s fondest wish in the West), but he was hot, and obviously meant to be a delectable piece of eye candy.  And the British accent totally helped.

3) Dr. Julian Bashir was just that, a doctor, and a damn brilliant one at that.  But we also got to know his hobbies – springball, tennis, darts, battle reenactments in the holodeck, spy stories and debating the merits of literature.

4) DS9 introduced the organization Section 31, the baddest, shrewdest, rogue organization in the Alpha Quadrant, reportedly designed to protect the interests of the Federation by any means necessary.  They put the Cardassian Obsidian Order and the Romulan Tal Shiar both to shame…and they recruited Julian Bashir for covert missions.  This is important because while his coworkers viewed him as a youthful, naive, sometimes annoying young man, Section 31 recognized what the audience eventually recognized: Bashir had a keenly analytical, shrewdly suspicious mind with an impeccable attention to detail.  In short, he was the perfect operative.

5) Bashir was most definitely sexual; we saw him numerous times with very beautiful women, ranging from fellow Starfleet officers to sexy Dabo girls.  The show even ended with his being in a long-term, committed relationship (Sulu and Ensign Kim never got that).  Made sense; a man that fine and in his prime wasn’t going to stay single for long.

6) One of the celebrated themes of DS9 was bromance, and we saw Bashir involved in at least two bromantic relationships, which Fadil and his castmates played to hilarious perfection.

Cons:

1) Despite all its brilliance, DS9 often screwed up and primary example of that was revealing that Bashir was a genetically enhanced human being, and that he owed his phenomenal intelligence and exceptional hand-eye coordination to genetic tampering.  It was also revealed that he was basically mentally impaired as a child, and when his parents simply refused to accept him as he was, they broke the law and basically had him rebuilt.  They then re-enrolled him in a new school with falsified records.

Actor Fadil was surprised with this information years into the show; it literally just popped up in the script one day, not having been an original part of his characterization.  It was a pointless subplot which, in a way, took something from Bashir.  It made him extra annoying in a non-cute way, and portrayed his family in an unnecessary bad light (they claimed they did it for his own good, not theirs).  At the subconscious level, it also seemed to tap into the notion that Asian students are basically drones whose academic dedication is unnatural.

At the same time, it was sort of amusing at to think Bashir had politely “dumbed” himself down for years, and passed amongst people as “normal.”

2) Bashir was often described as “annoying” by the other characters, and the older I get, the more I see why.  But I feel there is writing in conflict on the matter; while he’s supposed to be young and naive and eager to please, there’s also this very grave, mature, classiness which Fadil exudes that I feel defines the real Julian Bashir.  One who witnesses much pain and suffering, whose entire career is based on alleviated suffering, and whose compassion is utterly and consistently outstanding, cannot also be naive.  That’s contradictory and self-defeating.  If you’re witnessing births, deaths, and maintaining confidentiality for so many different people, you can’t be too clueless about the universe.

3) Bashir was irritatingly arrogant about his abilities sometimes, which I also feel is contradictory writing, because at times it seemed he was willing to put lives at risk or prolong suffering…simply to prove he could be the one to save them.  No…no, no.  The writers really needed to pick one.  And if they need flaws to balance out his virtues, arrogance was a really poor choice.

Final Verdict:

DS9 was, IMHO, the best of the all Trek series, so I don’t have too many complaints about this character.  One of the things Fadil said he really liked about his role was that people were so fascinated with his character – personality, how he was written, etc. – that they didn’t focus obsessively on his ethnicity.  When people told him or when he read rave reviews about the show, no one ever said how much “they liked that Indian doctor” – they just said they liked the doctor and were in awe of how he was written and portrayed.  This is, I think, a testament to the often excellent writing on that show, and the convincing work on Fadil’s part.

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Celebrity Guest Pictures (18)

Martha Hackett as T’Rul in two Deep Space Nine Episodes “The Search Parts 1 & 2″

Martha Hackett (born 21 February 1961; age 51) is an actress from Boston, Massachusetts, best known for her role of Seska on thirteen episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. She also appeared in two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a Romulan, portrayed a character in a deleted scene of the Star Trek: The Next Generation finale and provided her voice in five Star Trek video games.

Her entry into the Star Trek universe came when she auditioned for the role of Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Although she didn’t end up getting the part, which went to Terry Farrell, the producers did like something about her and she was called back to play the Terrellian pilot Androna in the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things…” Unfortunately, her storyline was cut from the final production. An image of her was printed in the Star Trek Monthly issue 26 and her costume from this appearance was sold off on the It’s A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

A few months later she was called in to play Subcommander T’Rul, a Romulan on Deep Space Nine, in the episodes “The Search, Part I” and “The Search, Part II“. It was then a director called her, saying they wanted her for a role coming up later that season, on the new Trek series Star Trek: Voyager.

Subcommander T’Rul was a Romulan officer temporarily assigned to the USS Defiant, in 2371, to operate and guard a cloaking device her government had loaned to the Federation for covert exploration of the Gamma Quadrant.

Upon being introduced by Benjamin Sisko to the senior staff of Deep Space 9 she bluntly told him that she “was not here to make friends”.

T’Rul was the first Romulan character to appear in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is unknown what happened to T’Rul after the Defiant returned to Deep Space 9, as she is not mentioned or seen again after “The Search, Part II“, nor is it made clear why the notoriously secretive Romulans no longer had an operative to guard the cloaking device.

…

Annette Helde appeared as the Romulan Karina in DS9 Ep “Visionary” as well as a guest role in DS9 Ep. “The Siege of AR-558″ as Lieutenant Nadia Larkin

Karina was a Romulan diplomat in the Romulan Star Empire in the late 24th century.

In 2371, she and Ruwon traveled to Deep Space 9 to receive Starfleet‘s intelligence on the Dominion. The sharing of this data was part of the deal that had been agreed upon earlier that year. The Romulans had installed a cloaking device on the USS Defiant to help the ship to penetrate Dominion space and make First Contact with the Founders. Secretly, a Romulan warbird was also sent, under cloak, to the station.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

Karina was played by Star Trek regular Annette Helde.

Annette Helde (born 14 November 1956; age 55) is an actress who appeared in two Star Trek spin-off series and in Star Trek: First Contact. In addition she voiced a character in the 1996 video game Star Trek: Klingon.

Lieutenant Nadia Larkin
DS9: “The Siege of AR-558“
DS9: “It’s Only a Paper Moon“