Neither. Sisko was the Emissary, plain and simple. Kira was/is the Hand of the Prophets which was the title she was given in Warpath. Vaughn to my knowledge has no title or special standing with the prophets and probably acted as an orb shadow. Mike
Most death in Trek is like the 72 hour flu. It takes a bit longer but most recover, especially if you're a major character.
But (unless I missed something) Vaughan wasn't killed. Sure, his body died, but his conciousness had vacated that months ago. His 'essence' was last seen saving Kira wasn't it ?
Which makes me wonder.... did the Prophets hold on to that last bit of Elias just to save Kira when she needed to be saved? And then let him go? It wasn't untill that happened that his body finally passed away. I think we have seen the last of Elias, atleast for now and the future. There are still plenty of decades worth in which he worked as a SI operative, just think of the amount of stories that can still be told about Elias Vaughn, the SI agent.
You know, I only just realized that DRGIII has, with his last three novels in the 24th century, been responsible for the death of quite a few big Trek characters namely: Spoiler: spoilers about death of some characters Elias Vaugh Joseph Sisko Kira Nerys Sela I did the spoiler tag since there are still people who haven't read it yet. In any case, some might consider two of these to be in a state between death and somewhere else (), but I doubt we'll see one of them ever again. The other, perhaps....
No way Kira is dead. I mean, if she was, then what was the point of having Vaughn cling to life for so long and come to her rescue? Pretty much the same thing that happened to Sisko at the end of WYLB, happened to Kira. She may be absent from "reality" for a while, but I'd count on her still having a role in the saga of DS9. Maybe not in the next book, or the one after that, but she'll be back, in my opinion.
Yeah, if I recall right, Vaughn died in physical reality and had only an echo/Orb shadow inside the wormhole... but Kira was actually, physically inside wormhole space when the entrance closed off. It's a totally different situation. There's no reason to think she's dead any more than Sisko was dead when he was trapped in the closed-off wormhole in "Emissary."
Perhaps that's why I added a wink in my post?? I didn't want to go to deep into it, because of not wanting to add spoilers. But since that has happened now, I might as well add my two cents. I certainly believe Kira is not dead. She is most definatly with the Prophets. However, right now, I'm not so sure if she's coming back or not. I kind of have the feeling she might actually stay with them for the long run. Don't why, a gut feeling. I do however, believe that Vaughn is dead. Some people may feel he could return some way, since his essence saved Kira. But I really think that's it for him.
I hope Sela isn't dead either. Somewhere within this ice cold being must be her Humanity but the books generally depicted her as incapable of a full heel-face-turn. Although Indistinguishable from Magic was the first book in a while to make her sympathetic, Imho.
I see nothing to be gained from reversing DRGIII's decision to kill her off in Raise the Dawn, and would view it as a pointless reset button.
That was actually one of the things that made the character of Sela so interesting to me. She walked into the Enterprise conference lounge, lays out her life story, and then tells Picard "never doubt" that she is fully Romulan, when, on his part, all he has is her word that she even is Tasha's daughter and that her outlandish story is true, that she is not a piece in some greater Romulan plot. He had no reason to doubt in the first place, but she had to say that. It was a story thread that seemed to be begging to be picked up on, but TNG never did and quietly swept Sela aside. That said, though, I can't really picture her character arc ending differently. She was stuck in that moment that she called for the guards, got her mother found out and executed, and made her choice to be nothing but Romulan. That moment defined her life, and she couldn't move past it. More, she refused to. If she had, it would have been her admitting that she was wrong about the Federation, that she had made the wrong choice to embrace her Romulan heritage and shun all things about her that was human. That was the whole point of her 'patriotism.' Her actions were made on the basis of 'if we do not balance the field, the Federation, the humans, will use their advantage and wipe us out.' If she admitted that she was wrong, that the Federation wouldn't take that step and make a preemptive strike on the Empire, then she would be admitting that there was something about the Federation that was better than the Romulans, that they were genuine in their beliefs and attitudes of peaceful coexistence, and that meant that she had made the wrong choice in getting her mother killed and staying with her father and the Romulans. That was why being sent to the Federation was her fate worse than death - it would have been coming face to fact with the fact that she was wrong. Given the set up, I can't picture her story ending differently. I found her intriguing enough that I would like to see an alternate storyline where she comes to accept her humanity, but I can't see how the story of Sela as told here could have ended differently.
I truly hope that Sela does remain dead. As said above, I found her interesting, and character that I loved reading, but she could end nowhere else. The Romulan Empire is changing under Kemmemor, and although it remains to be seen in how far those changes will have a permanent effect, people like Sela will have no place in it anymore. That Sela's life would end like it did (rather taking her own life then living in an Empire she could not support) makes sense.
Just finished RTD this past weekend, albeit reading the last two chapters a bit out of order and I'm just getting started on Brinkmanship. Plagues of Night seemed rather disjointed, but worked well to establish the main plot. Spoiler: Odo I'm curious as to why the story left Odo with him believing Kira might be dead. Kira just miraculously reappears Sisko's ready room to tell Ben and Kasidy they can be together without worrying any warnings from the Prophets. Spoiler: Section 31 It still left plenty of ambiguity about the extent of Sarina's loyalties to Section 31. Was telling Julian that she was really working to bring down the organization one year after the events of Zero Sum Game part of L'Haan's plan? What's most intriguing is that they're still together two years after ZSG.
I don't believe Kira was actually, physically there in Sisko's ready room - it was a Benny Russell-style vision, not objective "reality." But yes, that would seem to confirm that Kira still "exists" in some fashion or other. But maybe Sisko just didn't stop to tell Odo that before he rushed home to Kasidy. .
Perhaps he did tell Odo. But remember, Odo never put as much stock and faith in the Prophets as Kira did. I don't think he'd believe she would actually live among them know.
I finally got to read Dawn, and really enjoyed it. (No surprise there.) I do have a question, and I apologize if it's been discussed to death. (I did search the thread and couldn't see anything, so...) On page 332, Sisko and Akaar are discussing the Typhon Pact wormhole: So am I crazy, or is this a hint towards what will happen to Romulus? The idea that we may get a real reason behind the simplistic "Then the star went supernova..." routine from ST11 fills me with nerd glee. No spoilers if this has already come up in Brinkmanship though, please. I'm starting that this week.