We all know the first episode of the Dominion War - as the Defiant laid mines across the wormhole, the Dominion, with their Cardassian underlings attacked DS 9. It was a hard fought battle, but Starfleet had to evacuate the station. When they left, Kira and Odo went to the control center and initiated Sisko's self-destruct program. I've been wondering if, to be consistent, they should have done it as Kirk did in "Let that be your last battlefield", which Picard and Riker did a generation later. In other words, Kira should have said, "Recognize, Kira ..." followed by Odo saying, "Recognize Odo ..." And then the station would have blasted the sensitive part to bits. What do you think?
It’s a Cardassian station one century later, no problem if it’s different. In fact the Ent-D can be destroyed by captain and first officer alone and Voyager by just the captain!
Yes, Enterprise in the next gen can be destroyed by the Captain and First Officer, but they still followed a similar protocol, as in "Recognize Picard ... " and "Recognize Riker ..." As for the Voyager being destroyed by Janeway when the Videans boarded, yes, that should have been done with Chakotay.
At that point, the station was not longer under joint control, only under Bajoran control. Whatever Starfleet would should not apply.
The program was named after Sisko and planted by Starfleet. Furthermore, Major Kira was an active combatant during the fight, so she definitely wasn't a neutral.
Sisko designed the program, but Kira was the one who activated it, with her authority as acting commander of the station. However the Dominion wanted more than neutrality from the station, they wanted to operate it. Perhaps the neutrality agreement explicitly did not include the station.
Not to sound like I'm "shutting down the discussion" but my contention would be that as this was a non-standard programme outside of the usually self destruct system then the only rules over activating it should be whatever Sisko/unnamed programmer have installed. If they want a single authorisation then so be it - I don't see how this particular mechanism contradicts anything else in previous or future episodes.
Agreed, but part of the fun of Star Trek is a consistent canon, and, while a self-destruct sequence is not canon, it would still be nice if it was consistent across the story lines.
I agree with your point about consistent canon - my point is that from my point of view this is not outside of canon
This is Star Trek, not Star Wars. The Death Star (or some equivalent) need not blow up at the end of every story. Everyone need not have "a bad feeling about this."
Yup. Worst example of this would be in Insurrection where, my oh my and how convenient, the So'na Collector ship (the movie's alternate half-baked take of a death star) has... drumroll... a self-destruct mechanism, because... the plot needs it, but it's like a Doctor using a scissors to cut up a stethoscope.
The station used a Cardassian computer system, so there's no reason to believe it would operate under Starfleet/Federation protocols in all cases. Perhaps the first thing the "wreck everything" program did was wreck all records of who activated it so that Kira would have plausible deniability.
Well I'm sure the station would likely require multiple codes in initiate a self-destruct i.e blow-up the station. The program was designed to sabotage various systems onboard the station leaving the systems likely how the Cardassian's left when they withdrew from Bajor following the occupation, so was likely written to require only Kira's code.
Come to think of it, why didn't Sisko give that order himself as his last act so that Kira and Odo could deny they ever acted against the new occupants' interested once Sisko had left, just in case there had been an investigation into it?
Perhaps the line before she initiated the program answers that KIRA: Contact the Dominion fleet. Tell them the Bajoran government welcomes them to Deep Space Nine. Bit hard to send a comms when your comms system is fried.
Yeah, that thought crossed my mind. Then again, that message is just a formality, and it probably still would have been way preferable to not send it from DS9 and make excuses on Dukat's and Weyoun's arrival ('we couldn't, as our comm system was destroyed against our will by that evil Sisko!'), than it would have been the Dominion finding out later that it was actually Kira that gave the destruct order in a situation where she wasn't forced to do so.
And you could have written the program to initiate at a certain time unless it received instructions not to. It likely fried every system on the station except life-support. So computer records un-retrievable and it's not like anyone would tell the Dominion who actually gave the order as despite the non-aggression treaty I suspect they really didn't want the Cardassian's, so gave tacit support to the actions taken by Starfleet/UFP.