Did The Prophets Know About Sisko Before Emissary?

[Carcazoid]

Short answer? The wormhole is like the Nexus.

[R. Star]

See? The whole "they knew they had to create me after they met me" thing makes no sense.

If Sisko wasn't created by them at first, he never would've met them because he wasn't alive. He can't very well meet them if Sarah wasn't possessed and hooked up with his dad.

So I think it has to be they just chose how to reveal information to him, at the appropriate times, so he could become a better tool for them to use.

[Dream]

Real answer? The writers didn't have the idea that Sisko was half Prophet yet.

[hayesc0]

I thought this was explained well in emissary the prophets are non linear time has no meaning not sure how this is up for debate they found a scientific way to explain how gods could exist

[Ln X]

Timo wrote:

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But the time the Prophets experience cannot be a mere dot or a vertical line on such a diagram, or they would never learn anything, or would learn everything at once. And it needs to loop back on itself in funny ways to explain why Sisko is created only after he is encountered, in terms of the horizontal axis. Still, "funny" by no means equals "patently impossible": functions that loop back are merely more complex than functions that do not.

A far more simpler explanation is that the Prophets were pretending to not understand linear time (or corporeal time or whatever) just so Sisko could understand a little about them. This argument about the Prophet's creating Sisko after their first encounter is totally illogical. The Prophets must have seen a future with Sisko so they picked a present or something to create this future.

What is non-linear time? To be unconstrained by the fourth dimension and move through both space and time unconstrained, to see various pasts, events, presents and futures and to switch between them.

[DWF]

Dream wrote:

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Real answer? The writers didn't have the idea that Sisko was half Prophet yet.

Well they did have different writers in the end than they did in the beginning, we have no idea what Michael Piller intended for the character or the show.

[tighr]

R. Star wrote:

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See? The whole "they knew they had to create me after they met me" thing makes no sense.

It makes no sense to YOU, but that's because you are a linear being with linear time.

Ln X wrote:

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A far more simpler explanation is that the Prophets were pretending to not understand linear time (or corporeal time or whatever) just so Sisko could understand a little about them.

I reject that theory, because we have no proof that the prophets were "pretending" anything. A far simpler explanation is to take what they say at face value, and simply believe that they are capable of these things.

[hayesc0]

tighr wrote:

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It makes no sense to YOU, but that's because you are a linear being with linear time.

I reject that theory, because we have no proof that the prophets were "pretending" anything. A far simpler explanation is to take what they say at face value, and simply believe that they are capable of these things.

I agree cant see how much more easier this could be to understand

[Ln X]

tighr wrote:

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It makes no sense to YOU, but that's because you are a linear being with linear time.

I've got to go with R. Star here, the Prophets can do many things with time, but for them to meet someone they have not met and go back in time to create them? No amount of temporal tinkering can cause that, not even temporal loops because Sisko should not have existed in the first place.

Maybe, just maybe, what Sisko said might have been a reference to how he became half a Prophet in that originally he was just human. Then the Prophets went back in time to change this, but again this doesn't make any sense either because Sisko's actual mother was forced against her will to mate with Joseph. So again, the Prophets must have had a plan before and all this 'Sisko meets the Prophets then they created him' hyperbole is just that.

tighr wrote:

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I reject that theory, because we have no proof that the prophets were "pretending" anything. A far simpler explanation is to take what they say at face value, and simply believe that they are capable of these things.

Of course they were pretending, since at the very least the Prophets encountered Akorem Laan (that famous Bajoran Prophet) about two hundred years before Sisko came to DS9. And don't tell me Akorem Laan was never with the Prophets because it was clearly stated in Accession that Laan went missing in the Denorios Belt. Thus the Prophets had encountered a corporeal being before Sisko, again the Prophets know very much about corporeal time since they've been meddling with it in their efforts to keep the Pah Wraiths at bay.

How do you think the Pah Wraiths were imprisoned on Bajor? By the Prophets going down to Bajor and literally forcing the Pah Wraiths into the Fire Caves. Why did the Prophets send down various prophecies to Bajor which came true? Because the Prophets understood corporeal existence and linear time. And what about the Reckoning? Here was an event foretold in Bajoran religious scriptures for many hundreds of years, and artefacts pertaining to the Reckoning lying around for thousands of years. Why? Because the Prophets placed such artefacts there as one means of trying to end the war between themselves and the Pah Wraiths.

Over the course of DS9, the evidence mounted that the Prophets actively engaged in the corporeal universe well before Sisko was even born (or even considered by the Prophets). So for the Prophets to be completely confused by Sisko's nature in the light of this only makes sense if they were acting dumb so that as Sisko explained himself, Sisko would start to grasp just a little bit about the nature of the Prophets. And it's clever because the Prophets could have told Sisko everything but they didn't, they gradually moulded Sisko into being their Emissary.

Sisko's first encounter with the Prophets was elaborate and cleverly staged by these non-linear beings, because they had a plan with Sisko all along, he was an instrument to be used against the Pah Wraiths but the Prophets wanted Sisko to be made gradually aware of this.

[lvsxy808]

Ln X wrote:

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Of course they were pretending, since at the very least the Prophets encountered Akorem Laan (that famous Bajoran Prophet) about two hundred years before Sisko came to DS9. And don't tell me Akorem Laan was never with the Prophets because it was clearly stated in Accession that Laan went missing in the Denorios Belt. Thus the Prophets had encountered a corporeal being before Sisko

Raaah! *shakes fist* You're still looking at it from your own linear perspective. Yes, the Akorem Laan incident appears to come first from our perspective, but not from theirs.

1. They met Sisko and learned about the existence of corporeal entities and linear time.
2. They saw that Sisko would be involved in events concerning the Dominion and the pagh-Wraiths.
3. They saw that Sisko was not into the whole Emissary thing, so they went and got Akorem Laan to give Sisko a kick in the pants.
4. They saw that Sisko needed a deeper connection to them, so they inserted themselves into the circumstances of his birth to create that connection retroactively.

Think of it like the whole River Song thing from Doctor Who. Or indeed any Doctor Who situation. Just because things appear to happen in a certain order to outside observers, doesn't mean they actually happened in that order to the people involved.

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[Ln X]

lvsxy808 wrote:

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Raaah! *shakes fist* You're still looking at it from your own linear perspective. Yes, the Akorem Laan incident appears to come first from our perspective, but not from theirs.

1. They met Sisko and learned about the existence of corporeal entities and linear time.
2. They saw that Sisko would be involved in events concerning the Dominion and the pagh-Wraiths.
3. They saw that Sisko was not into the whole Emissary thing, so they went and got Akorem Laan to give Sisko a kick in the pants.
4. They saw that Sisko needed a deeper connection to them, so they inserted themselves into the circumstances of his birth to create that connection retroactively.

You should also have added; because the Prophets met Sisko they discovered about Bajor and sent down the Orbs, which were already in the hands of the Cardassians (???). So in other words the Prophets have already foreseen this event, so they must have known about Sisko beforehand and so they must know about corporeal beings and linear time, and so all along were playing dumb with Sisko just so he could understand more about them and his role as Emissary.

I contend that the whole 'Sisko meets the Prophets so the Prophets created Sisko' is fallacy because Sisko plays an important role in the war between the Prophets and the Pah Wraiths. This war is the key to everything because without it the Prophets would never have set their eyes on Bajor, and Sisko would never have existed. So the Prophets (knowing their enemies were imprisoned and bound to a corporeal existence) would look to the future and see how this war plays out and would have seen a timeline (or more) involving Sisko.

You are also forgetting that Sisko's mum was controlled by the Prophets and was forced into a relationship with Joseph Sisko thus creating Benjamin Sisko. Prophets having no knowledge of corporeal beings = No Sisko existing in the first place!

According to your logic, then the moment the Prophets encountered Sisko and realised there were corporeal beings existing outside of their realm, is when...

(take a deep breathe)

The Prophets decided to banish their enemies (Pah Wraiths) to Bajor (in the Fire Caves) a few thousand years ago, send down the orbs and contact various Bajorans so as to create spiritual literature and a religion for Bajor to follow, plus send down a smattering of artefacts for corporeal beings to release the Pah Wraiths, then the Prophets see that their plan goes wrong and the Pah Wraiths are going to be set free by that nasty Kai Winn, so the Prophets go forwards in time and possess a human woman to mate with Joseph Sisko to create their beloved Emissary who will fix the mess they (Prophets) made in banishing the Pah Wraiths to the Fire Caves...

And all of this without altering anyone's perception of the timeline and keeping the timeline utterly seamless and continuous.

Now I ask of you, does that make any sense?

The bottom line is this. The Prophets banished the Pah Wraiths to Bajor and imprisoned them in the Fire Caves, now the Prophets could only have done this if they went down to Bajor to do the deed. And if they went down to Bajor they would have seen corporeal beings. But there's more...

If the Prophets know of only nonlinear time and were bound to that existence, how come they decided to venture out into the corporeal realm to imprison their enemies? Because they knew about linear time and corporeal beings all along. And just because the Prophets can choose to see the past, present and future, so they can pick one point in this infinite timeline (and its various threads) and see where it leads to in a LINEAR continuous fashion, or they go backwards to reach a different point and a different present/past/future.

Remember nonlinearity has both linear and nonlinear components.

[lvsxy808]

Ln X wrote:

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You are also forgetting that Sisko's mum was controlled by the Prophets and was forced into a relationship with Joseph Sisko thus creating Benjamin Sisko. Prophets having no knowledge of corporeal beings = No Sisko existing in the first place!

I'm not forgetting, I'm just contending that we don't know for sure that Sarah wasn't always Sisko's mother in all versions of the timeline. Maybe a woman named Sarah always hooked up with Joseph, had a baby and then thought better of it and ran. Maybe the Prophets thought, "Oh, here's our shot" and took over Sarah knowing that it was an easy get-out once the deed was done, and their aim was not so much to create Sisko altogether but just to instill a Prophets-sensitivity into the already created Sisko.

Or maybe they really did create him, just like they said, but...

Ln X wrote:

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And all of this without altering anyone's perception of the timeline and keeping the timeline utterly seamless and continuous.

I guess this is the key point to this, IMO, because this is exactly what happens in "Accession" re the unfinished poem. I have to conclude that, yes, the Prophets are capable of doing all of that without utterly warping the timeline because that's just how they roll, given the example in "Accession." Akorem "had always" gone missing, until he reappeared in 2372 and Sisko convinced them to send him back, at which point he "had always" been there and finished his poem. And yet Kira remembers the old version, so the timeline had kinda-sorta been changed, but not completely.

Likewise Sisko "had always" been created by the Prophets, but only "after" they learned about his existence. I guess it's just one of those things I accept, and it makes sense in my head, even if I can't clearly explain to others why it makes sense to me.

Like in VOY "Time and Again," where Janeway creates the time explosion that destroys the planet, even though she would never have been there if the time explosion hadn't already happened. A weirdo time paradox that resolves itself at the point of the explosion. Sisko himself is a paradox that resolves itself at the point of "Emissary."

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[Ln X]

Well I'm still sticking with my view of the Prophet's master plan regarding the containing of the Pah Wraiths, and analysing the various pasts and futures to both protect Bajor and keep the Pah Wraiths incarcerated. I also believe that what the Prophets don't know or can't see they can't manipulate, so if they had no need for an Emissary figure then Sisko would never have come into existence. I also believe the Prophets can't keep manipulating a huge amount of events in the past without changing or causing a future timeline to splinter into various pieces.

Aside from what happened in Accession, this was a rather small event of the Prophets merging different timelines together into one. However there must be limits to this without dangerous temporal conundrums forming and ripping space/time into shreds. At any rate it seems the Prophets are the self-appointed temporal guardians of the universe, so maybe it explains Voyager...

[AloriaDax]

Of course they knew. In Image in the Sand (I believe) Sisko and Sarah talk about how they arranged his birth. The question is (for me) was Dukat's birth arranged in a similar way by the Pah Wraiths? The Prophets knew that at some point some evil dude would come along and release the Pah Wraiths from their prison and so they arranged Sisko's birth so he could stop it. I often wonder, did the Pah Wraiths do something similar? They chose Dukat as their emissary, was that decision made before his birth? Or was he just the right guy for the job because of who he was?

[The Mirrorball Man]

AloriaDax wrote:

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They chose Dukat as their emissary, was that decision made before his birth? Or was he just the right guy for the job because of who he was?

There is no "before": the Pah Wraiths are not linear.