And good evening once again, Trekkers, Trekkies, Treknecks, and Conversationalists all across the Final Frontier! I, El Rushborg, HAVE RETURNED! Okay. I'm wondering if you guys can help me out on something. See, I'm doing a sort of "unofficial reaserch project" on the DS9 Relaunch series. Currently, I'm curious as to the exact circumstances of Ezri and Bashir's break-up (in "Unjoined"). I confess I have not yet read the tale--the retail stores don't carry it, and I have yet to find a used bookstore with it....(*sigh*) Memory Beta's kinda vauge, so...perhaps if someone could fill me in?
Memory Beta is probably vague because the story itself is kind of vague. The break-up comes in the aftermath of the upheavals on the Trill homeworld over the affair with the parasites. In the course of that crisis, Dax and Bashir took wholly opposite approaches. Bashir wanted to help the people on the street - Dax wanted to run off and find the root cause of the trouble. The two of them ended up pretty much at odds throughout the crisis. It's not that this one event led to their break-up, so much that it was simply the latest, greatest example of a problem that had plagued their relationship since it began. They have great affection for each other, but they're simply not a good match. With Dax's increased confidence and explorations of her previous hosts, and Bashir's innate arrogance and superiority complex, they've spent their entire relationship arguing and making up. The actual break-up is basically a mutual agreement - they pretty much agree that it's just not working and they'd be better off as just friends. At least so it seems at the time. Later, in "Wounds," Bashir seems to blame Ezri a little more directly. And I've speculated that one of the reasons Ezri decides to transfer off DS9 is to help her make a clean break from Bashir.
I usually don't--at least, if there's a chance I can get the product in question at a used bookstore for cents on the dollar.... For now, though, I'm just trying to find out as much as I can about this particular story arc--in the event of story ideas of mine coming to the surface, and all that. Usually, Memory Beta is sufficient to supply my Trek-related needs, but in this case.... BTW...isn't "Wounds" an SCE/COE E-book? Is Bashir in that one, then?
Yes, it's a two-parter starring Bashir and Lense. It's available in the recent CoE: Wounds print collection.
Fearful Symmetry implies this too, just a bit, when Bashir has a moment of wistfulness towards Ezri. That would be an interesting reason, if that's where the story's going. Course, for all we know, Bashir dies in her arms sometime between now and then.
Well, in "The Calling" Garak says something along the lines of "I believe you're still alive", and thinks he meets him in the Vinculum... . It's implied, I recall, that Bashir's now working on something rather sensitive (I like to think with the Kirk Cabal against Section 31).
It's a very vague implication, so don't get too excited. I hope that the DS9 relaunch, when it gets round to 2380, will remember what "The Calling" hinted at. It might not, of course.
Oh? Nice! Hey...is it, by any chance, along the lines of James Bond's reunion with his long-lost love Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies? ("Tell me Julian, do you still sleep with a phaser under your pillow?") Sans Paris's slapping Bond's face, of course....
Hmm...or maybe (irony of ironies), he's on an assignment for Section 31 once again? I tell ya, for all his talk about hating the Bureau's guts, he sure seems to work with them a lot....
The Calling? What book is this then? Not Mr Mack's first original story and wholly unStar Trek novel? You must be getting confused with Destiny, but I don't recall Bashir being mentioned at all during the trilogy.
The Deranged Nasat does not get confused when his precious continuity is at stake . "The Calling" is a short story in "Prophecy and Change", written by Andrew Robinson. It's a sequel of sorts to the incomparable "A Stitch in Time". Bashir is mentioned and sort of-possibly-maybe appears.
Hey, here's a question...after the break up, do Bashir and Ezri ever share any scenes, or is it strictly proffesional? And...consider this exchange in "The Dogs of War": EZRI: Y'Know...why we might be holding back: The friendship. BASHIR: You're right...why jepordize our friendship...by trying to turn this into something else? EZRI: I've made that mistake before.... BASHIR: Yes--and once you've crossed the line.... EZRI: You can never go back. BASHIR: And if it doesn't work out, we can never be friends again. EZRI: I can't bear the thought of losing you as a friend.... BASHIR: Neither can I. So...how goes their friendship after the break-up? Is it as they feared?
So far they haven't really had any scenes together. I think they're avoiding each other. However, they ended "Unjoined" by affirming their friendship.
This isn't even Lit-canon, never mind show-canon, but... I've been tweaking certain aspects of the stories as I plot out the books into screenplays, as if they were season 8 and 9. I've added various subplots, shifted things around, and this is what I've come up with. 902 - "Unjoined pt 2" - Dax and Bashir mutually agree to a breakup. 904 - "The Officers' Club" - subplot: Bashir is leaving to go on his vacation to Earth, and Dax doesn't want him to go. She fears he's only leaving because of her - and in a way, he is. If they're going to break up, it's best that he get used to not having her around all the time. A months-long trip home will do that. 913 - "Malefictorum" - subplot: the "Burning Hearts of Qo'noS" subplot from This Grey Spirit. Dax comes to Bashir and says the "Jadzia would see this as an instruction manual" line. Bashir interprets this as flirting, and maybe it is. 914 - "Lost Time" - subplot: Dax relays Soloman's final report on the Empok Nor business to Bashir. She points out that the alt-Da Vinci's science officer was Jadzia. The implication is a kind of "what might have been" feeling. 915 - "Wounds" - Bashir mentions the mixed signals he's getting from Dax - the flirting, the mentions of Jadzia, the not wanting him to leave. Is she having second thoughts? Does she want to get back together? When he goes missing, Dax wants to go on the search mission, but Vaughn won't let her. When he's rescued, she pretends to be over the whole thing, but privately breaks down in tears. 920 - "Slave" - Dax mentions her consideration of a transfer to Sisko. Part of the reason is that, after the business in "Wounds," she realizes she can't be around Bashir anymore, seeing him getting into danger, and it would be better to be away.
Also...forgive me if I'm wrong, but also wasn't it implied that part of Ezri's reason for breaking it off was that she thought Julian was still using his feelings for Jadiza as well.
^That "explanation" is rather problematic, frankly. Remember, in Avatar, Ezri conjures up Jadzia while spending the night with Bashir. Julian gets pissed, and storms off....