Sacrifice of the Angels Ending A Deus Ex Machina?

[Knight Templar]

Deux Ex Machina or not. It was very poorly conceived and written.

[sonak]

Knight Templar wrote:

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Deux Ex Machina or not. It was very poorly conceived and written.

Yep. Having your protagonists bailed out by a miracle from "the Gods" is pretty much "how NOT to write drama 101." A lousy end to the arc.


(again, this is not the same situation as in "Q Who." In that case, Q was the initiator of those events and the episode really revolved around his challenge to Picard. The Dominion War and occupation arc was not caused by the wormhole aliens.)

[Pavonis]

Technobabble is just Trek's usual version of a deus ex machina.

"If we discombobulate the tetryon resequencer, we can overload the forehead aliens' bioeliminator matrix and that will allow us to escape!" "Hooray! You saved the day, just when we were going to all die!"

At least "Sacrifice of Angels" had some character development related to it's ending.

[toughlittleship]

Each to his own I guess. I liked Sisko's appeal to the Prophets. "What about Bajor? You can't tell me that Bajor doesn't concern you. You've sent the Bajorans orbs and Emissaries -- you've encouraged them to create an entire religion around you. You even told me once that you were 'of Bajor'. So don't tell me you're not 'concerned' with corporeal matters".

[Knight Templar]

One thing that gets me and why the "appeal to the prophets" doesn't work is that Sisko IIRC flat out lied to the prophets.

IIRC, he said that Bajor would be destroyed if they did not act.

By whom?

The Dominion had control of the Bajoran system for months and did little to the planet. Odo himself remarked that it was a relatively mild occupation.

So obviously the Dominion had no plans to destroy Bajor.

Does anyone really believe the Federation was going to destroy it?

[Pavonis]

Physically destroy Bajor? Or destroy the Bajorans? It's not as if the Dominion wasn't going to become a heavy-handed oppressor eventually. They leaned on the Cardassians until they ended up massacring them. What would they have done to the Bajorans? Leave them alone?

[Knight Templar]

Pavonis wrote:

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Physically destroy Bajor? Or destroy the Bajorans? It's not as if the Dominion wasn't going to become a heavy-handed oppressor eventually. They leaned on the Cardassians until they ended up massacring them. What would they have done to the Bajorans? Leave them alone?

They massacred the Cardassians after the Cardassians openly rebelled violently against the Dominion.

There is no evidence at all that the Dominion was going to bother the Bajorans much or that they even considered them worth much effort.

Weyoun specifically shot down Gul Ducats presuming that he was going to retake Bajor (after taking Terok Nor) and resume his role as overlord there.

[Christopher]

Knight Templar wrote:

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There is no evidence at all that the Dominion was going to bother the Bajorans much or that they even considered them worth much effort.

You're wrong there. Don't forget -- in "By Inferno's Light," half a season before "Sacrifice of Angels," the Changeling Bashir attempted to blow up Bajor's sun in order to take out the allied fleet that stood in the Dominion's way. So Sisko wasn't lying. He knew for a fact that the Dominion was willing to destroy Bajor altogether if it served their purposes. Given the strategic importance of the Bajoran system, as the bottleneck through which all Dominion fleets would have to pass to reach the AQ, it was likely there'd be massive battles there in the course of the invasion, and the Dominion wouldn't care if Bajor suffered collateral damage in the process.

[Sykonee]

Bajor signed a non-aggression pact, which in Dominion speak basically means, "Don't bother us, and we won't wipe you out. Oh, by the way, don't mind all the military and administrative personnel we're dropping off in your neighbourhood."

[Christopher]

Sykonee wrote:

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Bajor signed a non-aggression pact, which in Dominion speak basically means, "Don't bother us, and we won't wipe you out. Oh, by the way, don't mind all the military and administrative personnel we're dropping off in your neighbourhood."

Not that the Dominion would've actually honored any nonaggression pact that got in the way of its intentions, any more than the United States ever honored its nonaggression pacts with Native American nations.

[Knight Templar]

Christopher wrote:

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You're wrong there. Don't forget -- in "By Inferno's Light," half a season before "Sacrifice of Angels," the Changeling Bashir attempted to blow up Bajor's sun in order to take out the allied fleet that stood in the Dominion's way. So Sisko wasn't lying. He knew for a fact that the Dominion was willing to destroy Bajor altogether if it served their purposes. Given the strategic importance of the Bajoran system, as the bottleneck through which all Dominion fleets would have to pass to reach the AQ, it was likely there'd be massive battles there in the course of the invasion, and the Dominion wouldn't care if Bajor suffered collateral damage in the process.

That was before the Bajorans had signed a treaty with the Dominion.

all on screen evidence is that the Dominion fully intended to honor its treaty with the Bajorans.

[Christopher]

Knight Templar wrote:

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all on screen evidence is that the Dominion fully intended to honor its treaty with the Bajorans.

Oh, yeah, right, like the way they "honored" their treaty with Cardassia. Come on, you can't seriously propose that the Dominion could be trusted to keep its word. Whatever deals they made with hated, inferior solids were just convenient lies to serve their long-term objectives. They didn't give enough of a damn about solids to care about keeping their promises to them. Not to mention that the Founders' whole approach to dealing with other life forms was built around deception.

[Tiberius]

Maybe so, but I don't think that the Doms would have done anything like that until their voctory in the AQ was assured.

Why show yourself to be untrustworthy when there are still cultures you might want to form an alliance with? The Dominion never started to ignore its treaty with Cardassia until they were desperate.

[Christopher]

^But Sisko wasn't talking about the short term. It doesn't matter whether a world is destroyed a year from now or a hundred years from now -- it's still just as unacceptable. Especially when you're talking to beings for whom time has no meaning.

[Tiberius]

But the point was that if the Dominion had a non-aggression pact with Bajor they wouldn't abandon it until they had no other choice.

If they did, then they'd be abandoning it shortly after making it, and then there would be no such pact with the Romulans and the Breen probably would have thought twice before allying themselves with the Dominion too.

I think the Dominion was counting on the foot-in-the-door they already had with the Cardies.