Something occured to me while I was responding to something else in another thread.
The 2,600 Jem'Hadar ships that were stopped by the Prophets in "SACRIFICE OF ANGELS"... what if they were the actual 'locusts' that Sisko saw in his vision in "RAPTURE", and not the ones seen a few episodes later heading to Cardassia in "BY INFERNO'S LIGHT"?
As far as we know, the Prophets don't destroy... they simply displace in time. (Like Akorem in "ACCESSION".) What if those ships were sent to a much later future and wreaked havoc on Bajor, fulfilling the actual visions Sisko saw? Those ships coming out of the wormhole would have no idea the war was over, but seeing DS9 gone or changed or something not right, they decide to go to Bajor instead. And then they'd head to Cardassia, their original destination, thinking that's where the answers are now located. The locusts would still be going toward where Sisko saw.
The thing that made me wonder this is that Sisko's vision would come true regardless of any actions... only the timing would be different. If Bajor did join at that time, they most certainly would have been occupied as soon as the war started. And as the events played out, those 2,600 ships would be looking for what happened and they would target the closest planet... Bajor.
While it can be argued that his orb experience in "RAPTURE" helped Sisko piece it all together, it is still visions and not direct communication and it's all a matter of interpretation.
Look at "DESTINY" in season 3. That prophecy went exactly as predicted. Just happened thousands of years later from when the prophecy was written down.
Another possibility: could Sisko staying with the Prophets and keeping those ships there for eternity be the 'penance' that he was supposed to go through? Sort of like Lazarus in "THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR", fated to keep a madman bottled up for eternity to save everyone else.
The 2,600 Jem'Hadar ships that were stopped by the Prophets in "SACRIFICE OF ANGELS"... what if they were the actual 'locusts' that Sisko saw in his vision in "RAPTURE", and not the ones seen a few episodes later heading to Cardassia in "BY INFERNO'S LIGHT"?
As far as we know, the Prophets don't destroy... they simply displace in time. (Like Akorem in "ACCESSION".) What if those ships were sent to a much later future and wreaked havoc on Bajor, fulfilling the actual visions Sisko saw? Those ships coming out of the wormhole would have no idea the war was over, but seeing DS9 gone or changed or something not right, they decide to go to Bajor instead. And then they'd head to Cardassia, their original destination, thinking that's where the answers are now located. The locusts would still be going toward where Sisko saw.
The thing that made me wonder this is that Sisko's vision would come true regardless of any actions... only the timing would be different. If Bajor did join at that time, they most certainly would have been occupied as soon as the war started. And as the events played out, those 2,600 ships would be looking for what happened and they would target the closest planet... Bajor.
While it can be argued that his orb experience in "RAPTURE" helped Sisko piece it all together, it is still visions and not direct communication and it's all a matter of interpretation.
Look at "DESTINY" in season 3. That prophecy went exactly as predicted. Just happened thousands of years later from when the prophecy was written down.
Another possibility: could Sisko staying with the Prophets and keeping those ships there for eternity be the 'penance' that he was supposed to go through? Sort of like Lazarus in "THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR", fated to keep a madman bottled up for eternity to save everyone else.
