The earliest defining moment of DS9

[JirinPanthosa]

I recently started another run-through of DS9 from the start, and I noted what I think is the first time DS9 really becomes DS9.

In Battle Lines, the conversation between Kira and Opaca when she doesn't want Opaca to think she's a violent person, and she tells her that she can't move forward until she accepts the violence that is part of her.

I think that episode set the tone for the entire development of her character and the entire presentation of Bajor. Before that the series had the premise set up but didn't do much that couldn't have happened in other Trek series. We knew what Bajor had been through before then, but it wasn't established as the anti-Federation ally of the Federation, and the later episodes in season one solidified that theme.

When was the first moment of DS9 that you think really established the feel of the series, separate from other Treks?

[teacake]

SISKO: What is the point of bringing me back again to this?
JAKE: We do not bring you here.
JENNIFER: You bring us here.
TACTICAL: You exist here.
SISKO: Then give me the power to lead you somewhere else. Anywhere else.
OPAKA: We cannot give you what you deny yourself. Look for solutions from within, Commander.
SISKO: I was ready to die with her.
TACTICAL: Die? What is this?
JENNIFER: The termination of their linear existence.
(and she puts her hand on his cheek)
TACTICAL: We've got to go now, sir.
SISKO 2: Damn it, we just can't leave her here. Oh, no!
SISKO: I never left this ship.
JENNIFER: You exist here.
SISKO: I exist here. I don't know if you can understand. I see her like this every time I close my eyes. In the darkness, in the blink of an eye, I see her like this.
JENNIFER: None of your past experiences helped prepare you for this consequence.
SISKO: And I have never figured out how to live without her.
JENNIFER: So you choose to exist here. It is not linear.
SISKO: No. It's not linear.

This to me is the first defining moment of DS9

Every character in the show struggles with where they choose to exist emotionally and psychologically and how this prevents him from moving forward in life. Some come to this understanding (Bashir, Rom.. just to name two) and walk out of how they defined themselves or allowed others to define them into a new way to exist that is more of a choice rather than a reaction. Some are unable to do this and instead their being stuck psychologically becomes a cancer that consumes them (Kai Winn).

Bajor itself struggles with whether it defines itself as by the Occupation or whether they will embrace their future in the Federation and take on a newer and forward looking identity. They have to learn like Sisko that you don't lose the part of yourself that brought you so much pain when you walk into your future, you take it with you but it no longer defines you to your detriment.

[Mage]

"On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints — just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!"

[Relayer1]

Progress. It was a clear sign that there was 'more' to DS9 than the rather dull first season initisally promised. Much more...

[Use of Time]

I think that conversation begins and ends with the discovery of the wormhole and the Prophets in the opening episode. It puts DS9 on the map, would ultimately be the doorway to one of their biggest enemies, and serves as a spiritual catalyst for the showcased species of the show. (Bajorans)

[blueziggy]

"a federation ship, with a cloaking device?"

thats when the show changed for me. but not just the show. the galaxy and the federation itself changed.

sure the galaxy was pretty rough to begin with. lots of species with bad attitudes. the federation though always faced them with ships more designed for exploration and science. bringing in the defiant showed just how worried the federation was about the dominion and how its thinking changed.

[Dick_Valentine]

I think it was having the Federation command character become the emissary to the Bajorans, after years of "do not interfere" being rammed down our throats you suddenly had the added complication of an alien race worshiping our lead.

That, and when Sisko met Picard, you expected it to be a buddy-buddy "good luck out here in the Frontier" speech full of camaraderie from two experienced officers wishing each other well as we'd seen a few times before. (In the same way they got McCoy in to give his "blessing" to the new ship and in that way pass the torch from TOS to TNG )

The fact that Sisko was downright rude to Picard made you do a mental double take about the series that was in front of you.
Yes, they made up by the end of the episode but that scene was a powerful indicator that "This isn't TNG"

[snakespeare]

I do like the early seasons, but the day Worf showed up was what really made it work for me.

[Surak of Vulcan]

The Jem'Hadar and The Search, Parts I and II, definitely marked that Deep Space Nine was going to be something different and those episodes would define Deep Space Nine for the next three-four years.

[Sykonee]

I was only vaguely paying attention to Trek at the time it first aired, but the Occupation Arc stuck out for me as something that made DS9 distinct from what came before, if anything because it pulled off a three-episode arc, lending the series to serialization. Trek just don't do d'at!

[R. Star]

Sykonee wrote:

---

I was only vaguely paying attention to Trek at the time it first aired, but the Occupation Arc stuck out for me as something that made DS9 distinct from what came before, if anything because it pulled off a three-episode arc, lending the series to serialization. Trek just don't do d'at!

They did the first three part episode arc back in season 2. The Homecoming, Circle and Siege. While it was quite average, it did show DS9 was willing to go long term with continuity and story telling instead of the TOS/TNG style of random encounter of the week.

[Sykonee]

Star Grinch wrote:

---

They did the first three part episode arc back in season 2. The Homecoming, Circle and Siege. While it was quite average, it did show DS9 was willing to go long term with continuity and story telling instead of the TOS/TNG style of random encounter of the week.

Fack me, I totally meant the Circle Trilogy. Why I typed Occupation Arc, I've no idea.

[bbailey861]

teacake wrote:

---

SISKO: What is the point of bringing me back again to this?
JAKE: We do not bring you here.
JENNIFER: You bring us here.
TACTICAL: You exist here.
SISKO: Then give me the power to lead you somewhere else. Anywhere else.
OPAKA: We cannot give you what you deny yourself. Look for solutions from within, Commander.
SISKO: I was ready to die with her.
TACTICAL: Die? What is this?
JENNIFER: The termination of their linear existence.
(and she puts her hand on his cheek)
TACTICAL: We've got to go now, sir.
SISKO 2: Damn it, we just can't leave her here. Oh, no!
SISKO: I never left this ship.
JENNIFER: You exist here.
SISKO: I exist here. I don't know if you can understand. I see her like this every time I close my eyes. In the darkness, in the blink of an eye, I see her like this.
JENNIFER: None of your past experiences helped prepare you for this consequence.
SISKO: And I have never figured out how to live without her.
JENNIFER: So you choose to exist here. It is not linear.
SISKO: No. It's not linear.

This to me is the first defining moment of DS9

Every character in the show struggles with where they choose to exist emotionally and psychologically and how this prevents him from moving forward in life. Some come to this understanding (Bashir, Rom.. just to name two) and walk out of how they defined themselves or allowed others to define them into a new way to exist that is more of a choice rather than a reaction. Some are unable to do this and instead their being stuck psychologically becomes a cancer that consumes them (Kai Winn).

Bajor itself struggles with whether it defines itself as by the Occupation or whether they will embrace their future in the Federation and take on a newer and forward looking identity. They have to learn like Sisko that you don't lose the part of yourself that brought you so much pain when you walk into your future, you take it with you but it no longer defines you to your detriment.

Eloquently said - and I wholeheartedly agree.

[Ln X]

For me it hast to be Duet, before this all the previous episodes strayed into well-trodden TNG territory or were too timid and didn't make bold leaps forwards.

Duet changed all that, for starters it focuses solely on two alien characters who drove this episode forwards, and TNG has NEVER done that before. Secondly there is a level of psychological and emotional insight that TNG only occasionally achieved. TNG sided with the humans one way or another, but in Duet you begin to understand just a fraction of what the Bajorans went through, you sympathise with someone other than the humans which makes a nice change. Kira's passionate account about the liberation of the Gallitep labour camp is so powerful because she descends into near hysterics.

There are some seriously raw emotions, and the 'villain' of this episode, the disguised Marritza, you almost want to hear more of his brutal and frank opinions because the episode isn't biased towards him or Kira. It's a clash of opinions, of facts and of accounts, and it's allowed to happen and it's allowed to run its course. Finally cumulating in what I see is a major breakthrough for Kira's character; she finally differentiates between those Cardassians who committed all those terrible things against her people, and the ones who did not.

It's classic Roddenbury stuff, except it's between two alien species and the episode is totally unrepentant and in the greater scheme of things the schism between the Bajorans and the Cardassians still remains, but this episode tells us that maybe there will be reconciliation but it will take a hell of a long time before this happens (i.e. the Bajoran who murdered Marritza).

For me Duet was when DS9 truly showed its potential; it started to really focus on the people, and move away from this planet-of-the-week, travelling-through-the-stars format which TOS and TNG were so heavily bound to.

[R. Star]

^
This. Well said, sir.