Did anyone actually enjoy the Prophet/Pahwraith story?

[ReadyAndWilling]

the whole story just seemed so uhh, unnecessary? there was just so much going on with the war, seeing the war from the dominion side, seeing the war from the fed side and all of the dynamics going on at the station at quark's.

whenever anything about the prophets comes up i ALWAYS fast forward through it. i can't be the only one on this? time would have been better spent on the dominion side and the war.

did berman or any of the other writers regret including the storyline?

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Berman never wrote much of anything for DS9.

Anyway, I absolutely enjoyed it.

 

[Bishop76]

Yeah, I didn't love it, but I thought it fit fine. I don't fast forward past it at all.

 

[Deckerd]

The Dukat/Kai Winn sequence was vapid, vacuous, a little nauseating, more full of plot holes than a gruyere cheese and apparently on a extremely dilated timeline compared to the rest of the events. Meanwhile the Dominion are overcome in the most anodyne and dull manner possible, considering their power, intelligence and resourcefulness. Meanwhile everyone else is playing gangsters on a holodeck. To say the end of the last season was a mess is an understatement.

 

[Bishop76]

I actually thought that the end of the Dominion war WAS considerably worse than anything with the wraiths and the prophets.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

The Dukat/Kai Winn sequence was vapid, vacuous, a little nauseating, more full of plot holes than a gruyere cheese and apparently on a extremely dilated timeline compared to the rest of the events. Meanwhile the Dominion are overcome in the most anodyne and dull manner possible, considering their power, intelligence and resourcefulness. Meanwhile everyone else is playing gangsters on a holodeck. To say the end of the last season was a mess is an understatement.

The end of the last season is my favorite part of the entire franchise, so to say I disagree with you is an understatement.

I'm not going to bother defending the Dukat/Kai Winn sequence because it's been discussed to death and it obviously had its flaws; anyone claiming otherwise is oblivious.

Not sure why you think a battle over Cardassia is so bad, though.

 

[toughlittleship]

I never had a problem with it, as it was a great idea to have Dukat be the anti-Christ to Sisko's Jesus.

I liked the resolution to the war as well, as it seemed fitting for Odo to be the one to convince the female Founder to surrender.

 

[Bishop76]

I didn't have a problem with the battle - I had a problem with the female Founder just deciding to surrender. Seemed a bit too easy and cheesy.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Yeah, that's one of the main aspects I liked, too. Having so much ride on Odo, having Kira return to her roots in a poetically resonating way, having one last 'big battle' in the spirit of several other points in the series. It all seemed very fitting.

 

[TheGodBen]

I liked their intervention in Sacrifice of Angels and the Space Jesus Sisko thing, but red-eye Dukat and his "entire universe set in flames" rant was over the top.

I didn't have a problem with the battle - I had a problem with the female Founder just deciding to surrender. Seemed a bit too easy and cheesy.

She surrendered in order to secure the cure for the Link. The entire point of the Dominion was to secure the survival of the Link, for her to keep on fighting and allow her people to die for the sake of vengeance would have flown in the face of what the Dominion was all about. I think that it could have been portrayed better in the finale, but the core concept is sound.

 

[Deckerd]

She surrendered in order to secure the cure for the Link. The entire point of the Dominion was to secure the survival of the Link, for her to keep on fighting and allow her people to die for the sake of vengeance would have flown in the face of what the Dominion was all about. I think that it could have been portrayed better in the finale, but the core concept is sound.

Come off it. They were the most vindictive species I've ever seen, Khan included.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

She surrendered in order to secure the cure for the Link. The entire point of the Dominion was to secure the survival of the Link, for her to keep on fighting and allow her people to die for the sake of vengeance would have flown in the face of what the Dominion was all about. I think that it could have been portrayed better in the finale, but the core concept is sound.

Come off it. They were the most vindictive species I've ever seen, Khan included.

...there's nothing to come off of; the entire purpose behind the Dominion becoming so ruthless was so that the Changelings would feel safer. They no longer trusted solids after mass persecution so they decided rule with an iron fist would ensure their survival. But seclusion and survival were the two most vital keys to their whole plan. They took a preemptive strike mentality and ran with it. When they got burned they stopped.

In order to survive.

 

[Trek Survivor]

The worst part of DS9 (and I include "Let He Who Is Without Sin") was the whole dreadful prophets/Sisko's Mum strand of the story. It near-ruined season 7, and took what was an interesting facet to the character - Sisko as emissary to the Bajorans - into horrendously c**p territory. Can't get over how much I disliked this part of it all - not least that it completely contradicts what is, IMHO, one of the best episodes of the entire series - "Emissary".

As for the pah wraiths bit... eh, I was a bit indifferent. Mind you, I'm in the minority who thought DS9 as a show reached its peak in season 4-5 and then RAPIDLY went downhill. Behr's Babylon 5-envy got a bit too heavy going and the series suffered.

 

[TheGodBen]

Come off it. They were the most vindictive species I've ever seen, Khan included.

The female shapeshifter was certainly vindictive, but not to the point where she was willing to allow her entire species die in order to fight a war they were certain to lose.

Like I said, it could have been handled better in the episode. In the final version she comes out of the link with Odo as a changed person, pleasantly willing to go along with his plan. It would have been better if she had been bitter and desiring vengeance for what Section 31 did, but she reluctantly went along with Odo's plan to secure the survival of her people. That would have made it seem less like Odo had brainwashed her and it wouldn't have come across as such an easy conclusion to the war.

 

[Deckerd]

I don't buy that. The would have been perfectly safe in the gamma quadrant, with their attack ships making sure nobody got too close to them. Expanding into the alpha quadrant was fuelled by a desire for galactic domination (as their name implies). Other species like the Romulans managed to keep everyone out perfectly well.

Every race gets persecuted at some point.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

The Dominion feared the chaos of so many solid races that was the Alpha Quadrant, just as they'd feared the chaos of so many solid races that was the Gamma Quadrant before they got their reactionary hands on them all. It's a vile thing, but it doesn't cancel out the baseline desire for survival about all else. It's an insane little thing, but thus it ties directly into it.

Like I said, it could have been handled better in the episode. In the final version she comes out of the link with Odo as a changed person, pleasantly willing to go along with his plan. It would have been better if she had been bitter and desiring vengeance for what Section 31 did, but she reluctantly went along with Odo's plan to secure the survival of her people. That would have made it seem less like Odo had brainwashed her.

Aw, hell, I wouldn't even say that. I never saw her as emerging a changed person. The woman was calm in the depths of the abyss she'd gotten into and tranquil because, well hell, at least her people would live.

 

[Damask]

I enjoyed the Prophets and their interaction with Sisko and Bajor. The Pagh-Wraiths I thought were a mistake. The Dominion should have always been the opposites to the Prophets and Kai Winn should have been replaced by a Founder.

As for the Founders themselves, in the sixth season the female one said that returning Odo to the link was more important than the Alpha Quadrant. If one Founder was important that yeah I buy the whole surrender aspect.

 

[Deckerd]

If it was that important to them, you'd think they might have paused for a nanosecond to consider his reasons for staying away from them.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

It's a one-track mind kind of thing. You're now criticizing the Dominion far beyond just the finale, so really I'd say your problems with them extend to the whole thing.

 

[sonak]

I never thought the prophet/pah-wraith stuff fit well into Star Trek. It was a bit too on-the-nose angels vs. demons Abrahamic religions stuff.


I mean, "fallen prophets" kicked out of the paradise of the "celestial temple," whose main visual motifs are FLAMES and RED EYES?

And Sisko's birth arranged by the gods to be a future savior?



sheesh. This is why I preferred old-school DS9 with its old-school prophets, who were merely incorporeal wormhole aliens who had little understanding of the affairs of the Alpha Quadrant.