Enhanced flow...?

[myselfeneye]

First off, I'm so happy I came back here. Second, as a bit of a continuity nut, I recently watched all the Maquis episodes featuring Gul Evek, as well as the episode which introduced Evek, in chronological order. I've gotta say, there's a nice amount of flow between them all, and it was a lot of fun! I didn't realize the shows were so tightly connected. I knew they were close, but that was a bit of a revelation. I know none of you NEED this particular blow-by-blow rundown of events, I'm just doing it because I love continuity, and it's fun.

1. Playing God--we only see him briefly as O'Brien tries to ask him how to get rid of voles, but we don't get a name...just a suggestion that the Federation withdraw.

2. Journey's End--Picard's got to move on the Native Americans who settled in the DMZ thanks to the treaty with the Cardassians, and Evek makes a mess of things, but eventually lets them stay. Admiral Nechayev also shows up and is treated to some Belarian canapes by Picard. The nice thing is, though, Evek made his debut on DS9 in basically a minute-long scene, and then made the jump to TNG. But it gets better!

3. The Maquis--The treaty goes south as colonists who now live in Cardassian space are attacked and the Cardies try to run them out, and they form a vigilante sect to fight back, aka the Maquis. Evek shows up again as the Cardassian assigned to patrol the DMZ and keep the peace, and Nechayev drops by the station. So she and Evek are obviously the de facto people involved in this particular region and issue, and it's respected by both shows. Also, we see a Native American on the DMZ's council on the Federation side, hearkening back to Journey's End. Brilliant!

4. Preemptive Strike--Things are heating up for Evek as his ship gets battered by Maquis, but the Enterprise swoops in to the rescue. Now we can see how big the Maquis have gotten, and this is where we learn that a lot of people are ditching their posts to join the fight. Ro leaves the ship to fight with them after an initial infiltration assignment.

5. Tribunal--I think Evek was getting desperate. He tried to frame O'Brien for delivering warheads to the Maquis, and we're treated to a mock Cardassian trial, except O'Brien wins in the end.

6. Caretaker--Evek is really desperate now, because he takes his huge unwieldy ship into the Badlands after Chakotay and his Maquis crew, and then it gets crippled. Voyager's sent in to find the Maquis ship, but not before a quick layover at DS9 to rendezvous with crew and an encounter with Quark for Harry and Tom. Both ships are swept away to the Delta Quadrant.

Another nice thing about all this is that Firstborn takes place in the middle of it, between Journey's End and The Maquis, further solidifying the link between the shows with a Quark cameo. I figure Riker must have run up some Dabo winnings during Emissary and Birthright and this was Quark finally making his money back.

After all that, the question I have for everybody is this: Do you think it enhances the experience of watching DS9 from beginning to end to include crossovers, tie-ins and cameos in chronological order? I think it fills in some time gaps quite nicely. I would, at this point, include Birthright, Journey's End, Firstborn, Preemptive Strike, Caretaker, First Contact, Message in a Bottle and Insurrection, including the deleted scene with Quark. I'd love to do a marathon just once which includes all of those.

[Nerys Ghemor]

If I recall, Evek is one of the record-holders for being on the most series. I think only Q and the staff of Quark's can match it.

[myselfeneye]

That's right, Evek, Q, Morn, Quark and his staff have all appeared in TNG, DS9 and Voyager. Although now Riker has been in TNG, Voyager and Enterprise, as has Troi.

I forgot to mention that Preemptive Strike refers back to Journey's End with another appearance by Nechayev and a reference to the canapes...good times.

I see that you do some fanfics, Nerys. It sounds like they're Cardassian-centric. Is that correct? I might check them out. I created a Cardassian for a role-playing game set in the rebooted Trek universe, and a couple short stories about him are on my site.

[Timo]

A couple of nitpicks, though, from a fellow continuity nut:

Native Americans who settled in the DMZ

colonists who now live in Cardassian space

It's vice versa, actually. In "Journey's End", there was no DMZ, only a line drawn in space that would cede the planet of the Amerinds to Cardassia for good. In "The Maquis", there was this Zone where Feds lived on Federation worlds under Federation law, Cardassians (and those Amerinds, unless they reconsidered) lived on Cardassian worlds under Cardassian law, but all these worlds were banned from having military weapons, unlike their counterparts outside the Zone.

Both ships are swept away to the Delta Quadrant

Possibly. But this wasn't necessarily the last chapter in Evek's story...

"Caretaker" does not specifically show Evek's ship being swept away, merely damaged. In "The Voyager Conspiracy", Seven of Nine claims to have evidence of the appearance and subsequent disappearance of a Cardassian ship at Caretaker's array days before the Voyager got there, and further evidence that the Maquis destroyed it afterwards. But Seven is going crazy at that point, and we never get confirmation from original sources (eyewitness Neelix for the appearance and disappearance, Starfleet records supposedly obtained during "Message in a Bottle" for the subsequent destruction at Maquis hands), and both sources appear dubious at best.

For all we know, Evek was killed at the beginning of "Caretaker" - or lived on to fight Klingons, the Alpha Axis, and finally the Dominion, surviving to sire fourteen children and become Minister of Loyalty for the new regime.

...What do the novels say about his fate?

Timo Saloniemi

[lvsxy808]

Timo wrote:

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...What do the novels say about his fate?

He appears briefly in A Stitch in Time, as having survived both the events of "Caretaker" and the Dominion assault. He's working with the anti-Federation Directorate. I think that's his only appearance though, and he doesn't appear in any further Cardassian stories, AFAIK.

.

[myselfeneye]

Timo wrote:

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A couple of nitpicks, though, from a fellow continuity nut:

It's vice versa, actually. In "Journey's End", there was no DMZ, only a line drawn in space that would cede the planet of the Amerinds to Cardassia for good. In "The Maquis", there was this Zone where Feds lived on Federation worlds under Federation law, Cardassians (and those Amerinds, unless they reconsidered) lived on Cardassian worlds under Cardassian law, but all these worlds were banned from having military weapons, unlike their counterparts outside the Zone.

Possibly. But this wasn't necessarily the last chapter in Evek's story...

"Caretaker" does not specifically show Evek's ship being swept away, merely damaged. In "The Voyager Conspiracy", Seven of Nine claims to have evidence of the appearance and subsequent disappearance of a Cardassian ship at Caretaker's array days before the Voyager got there, and further evidence that the Maquis destroyed it afterwards. But Seven is going crazy at that point, and we never get confirmation from original sources (eyewitness Neelix for the appearance and disappearance, Starfleet records supposedly obtained during "Message in a Bottle" for the subsequent destruction at Maquis hands), and both sources appear dubious at best.

For all we know, Evek was killed at the beginning of "Caretaker" - or lived on to fight Klingons, the Alpha Axis, and finally the Dominion, surviving to sire fourteen children and become Minister of Loyalty for the new regime.

...What do the novels say about his fate?

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to say that they had settled in the DMZ. Obviously it wasn't the DMZ when they settled there. Nonetheless it was pretty cool to see one of them later on in the DMZ council in DS9, and to think Chakotay may well have been from the same planet.

I also didn't intend to suggest that Evek was swept away by the Caretaker. I meant the Maquis ship and Voyager. I figured it was more or less the end of Evek's career patrolling the DMZ, firstly because it's the last we see of him, and secondly because every time we've seen him up to that point we've seen him do nothing but mess things up.

On another note, regarding the deleted scene with Quark in Insurrection...I'm very disappointed! I bought the special edition of Insurrection, and it's not on there! Any ideas where I can see it?

[Timo]

I also didn't intend to suggest that Evek was swept away by the Caretaker. I meant the Maquis ship and Voyager.

Sorry, my mistake there!

I figured it was more or less the end of Evek's career patrolling the DMZ, firstly because it's the last we see of him, and secondly because every time we've seen him up to that point we've seen him do nothing but mess things up.

Good point. Then again, his survival till that point might tell of good connections, ones that would continue to protect his career...

Timo Saloniemi

[myselfeneye]

This is true. And he may actually have stuck around to give the Maquis hell a while longer, but was just out of the picture as far as the regulars of DS9 were concerned. They had the Dominion to worry about. There was still the whole subplot with Eddington, however, who was mysteriously absent for most of the episodes of third season when he should have been around. This also makes me wonder what happened to that guy Primin from earlier on who appeared twice and never came back.

As far as Evek, it definitely made sense to pull him from the DMZ once the Cardassians joined the Dominion and ended the Maquis once and for all. The only problem is that that didn't happen for years after Evek's last appearance.

[cml898]

I don't weave all that stuff in and out of a DS9 watchthrough (particularly the voyager stuff isn't worth it to me) but I do like to watch Journey's End and Preemptive Strike in their proper places. Also before any DS9 watchthrough I make a point to watch The Wounded, Ensign Ro and Chain of Command.

By the way, I never realized Evek was in Playing God. I'll have to watch for it when I get to it on my current watchthrough.

[tighr]

The Cardassian ships from Voyager Conspiracy was probably one of the big plot threads that would have made that show a lot more fun. I know there's a lot of folks here who are big fans of Equinox, but I think that a two-parter where they come across a Cardassian ship doing the exact same thing they are, trying to get home, would have been epic. Think of the plotlines that you could have weaved! Federation, Maquis, and Cardassians, all enemies of each other, all trying to get to the Alpha Quadrant.

Then again, if the Voyager writers had actually tried to do that, they would have failed and given us a lame episode, so I'm kind of glad they didn't. Better to leave it in the realm of fanfic.

[myselfeneye]

Well yeah, considering how they failed just at reminding us every once in a while that Maquis and Starfleet don't get along. Seriously, they integrated in, like, two episodes. DS9 treated characters realistically. When they shouldn't have gotten along, they didn't. Many a subplot was centered around that, and it worked great. Voyager was all "let's be friends" pretty much immediately.

[tighr]

myselfeneye wrote:

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Well yeah, considering how they failed just at reminding us every once in a while that Maquis and Starfleet don't get along. Seriously, they integrated in, like, two episodes. DS9 treated characters realistically. When they shouldn't have gotten along, they didn't. Many a subplot was centered around that, and it worked great. Voyager was all "let's be friends" pretty much immediately.

30 years from now, when Voyager is 50 years old, someone will probably attempt a reboot/reimagining. Hopefully they have a better "endgame" planned.