That's not a spoiler. It's a question.
DS9 in 2013
- Thread starter DS9forever
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I think he's smart enough to distinguish between discomfort and serious problems. In his letter to Kasidy, he specifically identified instances involving serious harm including death as being the markers of the Prophets' vision.
He also has personal knowledge that the Prophets are quite willing to use and discard human lives--his biological mother, for one, is a casualty of their games. Why would he think that his wife and daughter--or his son, or his siblings, or his father--would be immune?
The argument being made, that Sisko was somehow unable to judge the degrees of harm that might specifically come to his family members, at least in part as a result of Sisko's dealings with the Prophets and knowing what the Prophets were willing to do, doesn't strike me as credible. Sisko has a heightened sensitivity to the Prophets, sure, but that's because he knows what they're capable of--at the least--sanctioning.
Sorry. My bad then. I thought that maybe the ending might be that, and that he was implying that it was.
Excellent point. However, I wouldn't refer to their doings as "games". The Prophets care about the Bajoran people as a whole and have a purpose or plan for them. Plus, sometimes they don't cause harm to happen but they allow harm to happen because that individual isn't needed for their purpose. Things may happen to Sisko's family because $*!# happens, but that doesn't mean the prophets caused it or it is a result of his actions, the prophets may just allow such bad things to occur because in their big picture, that one person isn't a concern to them.
Take Sisko's mother for instance, her tragic end happened after she had distanced herself from Sisko and was not a part of his life. So clearly being away from him was not a protection. In fact, being close to him may have been wiser because if she had been close to the emisarry perhaps she would have been protected from harm as the Prophets acted to protect and preserve the Sisko.
Agreed--and even if their purpose for Sisko was done...is that really a reason for shutting him out so completely? For goodness sake--Quark was able to talk to them. Quark!!! Did he have a "destiny" with them we don't know about?
And yet they shut Sisko away?
And yet they shut Sisko away?
Maybe Quark is the reason why the Prophets screen their calls now.
Ouch. No wonder he is taking this so hard. That's gotta smart.
But still--"mission accomplished" or not--why screen Sisko out? Just answer his questions, "for old time's sake".
Of course they don't, since all times are simultaneous to them. As far as they're concerned, they are with the Sisko now, because all times are now. So they'd have no concept of abandoning him.
But the Prophets themselves use the language of a game, in "Sacrifice of Angels".
That lack of concern for the fate of particular individuals if they aren't relevant to their plan--to what they called their "game"--is what Sisko is afraid of.
Who knows? The point is, the Prophets were willing to sockpuppet a woman for the express purposes of creating Sisko and then releasing her when they were done to die a premature death on the other side of the planet. The Prophet that then apparently did the sockpuppeting appeared to Sisko ("Penumbra") and specifically warned him not to marry Kasidy:
Sisko was explicitly told by his own mother that if he disobeyed the wishes of the Prophets in marrying Kasidy, he would suffer.
Is it surprising that, after he experienced the reality of the Prophets first-hand and then when he began to suffer, he decided that they could actually be wholly right?
That dialogue is a callback to the scene in "Emissary" where Sisko used a baseball game as an analogy for explaining linear existence to the wormhole aliens. So the game metaphor isn't theirs, it's Sisko's. They were just repeating back his analogy that his linear existence is like a game. (Look back earlier in the script, and you'll see the game metaphor is introduced in connection with the baseball on Sisko's desk -- presumably because they didn't have the budget to go back out to the ballfield location and shoot the scene there.)
So Sisko is afraid his family will have to face the same trials and dangers of any normal family? Has Sisko not heard the sayings, "Time and unforeseen occurance befall them all", "$#%* happens", and "sometimes bad things happen to good people?"
I'm a religious person but I don't expect divine protection to surround me at all times, so should I leave abandon my family in hopes the devil follows me and then no bad things will happen to my kids?
Should President Obama have his wife and daughters live somewhere in the middle of no where on the west coast so that they are protected in case terrorists try to kill him?
Should Prime Minister Cameron not take his daughter to bars because bad things might happen. Wait . . . bad example.
It's funny, but we don't say 'PM Cameron' or 'PM Brown' - just 'David Cameron' and 'Gordon Brown' respectively, or alternatively, 'the Prime Minister'.
Or "Harriet Jones, Prime Minister"? 
No. He's afraid that if he stays with Kassidy, that Kassidy and Rebecca will suffer far more than a normal family -- that they would be exposed to grave, grave danger that can only be avoided by leaving.
*shrugs* Fair enough, but I think that you should bear in mind that if an American refers to him as "Prime Minister Cameron," most of the time, he/she is just showing the same respect and courtesy towards the United Kingdom and the office of Prime Minister that most Americans expect towards their country and the United States presidency.
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