Rewatching “The Visitor” recently, I was struck by how much Jake’s situation in the episode paralleled his situation at the end of the show. Jake is stuck in the real world, knowing that his father is out there somewhere and will be back sometime, but he doesn’t know when. The show even uses the exact same shot of Jake standing there (with Kira at his side) looking out the window wondering where his father is and when he will return. Then I got to thinking about how Ben’s accident in “The Visitor” was caused by the WORMHOLE undergoing a subspace inversion, which somehow interacted with an interphasic compensator to create Ben’s jumping thorough time. So then it occurred to me that maybe the Prophets had caused this accident on purpose. After all, with their ability to see the future, they knew it wouldn’t really result in Ben’s death, but that it would result in Ben learning more about Jake. And maybe that was important to the Prophets for some reason. But I couldn’t really understand why the Prophets would care that Ben learn anything about Jake. We never really got the impression during the series that the Prophets cared anything about Jake apart from Ben. In fact, the Prophets even let Jake be possessed and possibly killed by a pah-wraith in “The Reckoning”. So then, if occurred to me that maybe it was BENJAMIN HIMSELF that had caused the accident. Not at the time the accident occurred, of course, but years later when he was in the Celestial Temple. Follow me on this. After “dying” in the Fire Caves and going to live with the Prophets, Ben very possibly had access to the timestream as the Prophets see it. And maybe he could see in that timestream that Jake had a hard time living without him after he (Ben) joined the Prophets in “What You Leave Behind”. Then Ben realizes that it’s important for him (Ben) to teach Jake how to live without him (Ben) BEFORE that becomes necessary. So Ben, using his “contacts” with the Prophets and their technology or abilities or whatever inside the wormhole, actually worked to create the accident that had occurred 4 years earlier (from his perspective). Although Jake doesn’t remember anything from that alternate reality, Ben does after the accident. And maybe that’s what was important the whole time. And I now propose that may have been why the accident happen in the first place. “Future Ben” (or “outside the timestream Ben”) made it happen so that “regular/in timestream” Ben would think more about his son during those 4 years and not get distracted as much by the crazy stuff that was going on (like the Dominion War). That way Jake would be more prepared for his living the timestream at the end. This new take on the episode really throws a new spin on the episode. As originally shown, it was an episode about how much Jake loved his father, that he (Jake) spent his entire life (literally) trying to get his father back. But with this take on it, the episode was really a sign of just how much (future) Ben loves his son and to what lengths he would go to ensure he was raised into a great young man, prepared to deal with the loss of his father. Also, note how the “subspace fragment” that Ben and Jake went into during the episode looks a lot like the scenes we’ve seen inside the Celestial Temple. Yet another reason to think there might be a connection to the Prophets (and not just the wormhole).
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision I never thought about it that way. Very interesting.
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision None of that happened in Visionary
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision I'm assuming it's a typo for "The Visitor". Anyways, while an interesting theory I think it's a bit of a reach. If, say, Jake had remembered his "life without Ben" from "The Visitor" then this might have more validity. As it stands though, it doesn't track that well, because what was gained by teaching "past Ben" what life for Jake without Ben would be like? In the end, he still leaves Jake!
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision Why's everyone keep saying "He Leaves Jake", as if it was his choice? He fell down the Pit with Dukhat and the Prophets grabbed him, he didn't run off to live with them by choice
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision I just don't see Ben causing something that he knows will bring Jake decades of pain. Even though it is eventually reversed and "never happened" that doesn't mean that Jake didn't suffer horribly for a long time. No, I don't believe that even Prophet-Ben would be so callous as to cause that intentionally.
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision Yeah, sorry about the typo on the thread title. I should have put "the Visitor". I don't know how to fix it now. And as for the whole idea itself, I agree it's just an interesting thought experiment. It doesn't really make sense for "Prophet Ben" to have caused "The Visitor" if nothing really changed for Jake or his younger self. I couldn't come up with a great motivation for why Ben would do this. (Maybe something to do with parrallel universes, where the events we saw were the better version compared to some horrible version that would have happen had "Prophet Ben" not caused the events in "The Visitor".) Still, it's an interesting idea. And it seems like either the Prophets or Ben (while he was with them) could have caused "The Visitor".
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision IM a mod, and they'll fix it up for you. Titles, unfortunately, we regular posters can't fix ourselves, even immediately after starting a thread
Re: Did Ben Sisko cause the accident that took his life in “The Vision Yes, in fact the experiment of "the visitor" makes sense for Ben. The thing that troubled Jake most and influenced his life negatively was the random appearance of his father. Jake was going to be fine and had at some point accepted the death of his father. What destroyed his life was the feeling that he had to rescue his father and had to dedicate his life to that. So Ben could have learned that it would be best to leave Jake alone and not to come and visit him infrequently. Jake would pass a painful period but would then be fine at some point in his future.