For the uniform

[JoeZhang]

Just caught this episode on the TV while having lunch, it's one of the ones that I missed first time around.

The tree-hugging federation just let's Sisko get away with poisoning the atmosphere of that planet??

Him and Dax have a good laugh about the environmental damage he's caused?

WTF? Is this ever followed up?

 

[Jono]

He only poisoned it for humans. I suspect that Starfleet Command wasn't too pleased with his methods but the action would have kept relations with the Cardassian Union from deteriorating further and in the end I suspect that was far more important then the fact that Sisko didn't get express permission to do what he did.

 

[JoeZhang]

He only poisoned it for humans. I suspect that Starfleet Command wasn't too pleased with his methods but the action would have kept relations with the Cardassian Union from deteriorating further and in the end I suspect that was far more important then the fact that Sisko didn't get express permission to do what he did.

He uses Trilithium resin, which has already been revealed in TNG as a highly toxic substance. The bigger problem is that he's using a biogenic weapon, something that Star Fleet and the federation has always frown upon, the fact that he gets to say "oh well, it would only kill off all the human settlers" doesn't strike me as the sort of defence an officer of the line would get to use at his court-martial.

I just don't buy the laugher and pat conclusion we get.

 

[cwalrus2]

He basically made the settlers switch planets. The Maquis settlers will have to move to the Cardassian planet, and the Cardassian settlers would have to move to the Maquis planet. It may not be "right" but I think the laughter at the end came from the sense that there was some sort of poetic justice from the resolution. The two opposing parties are now forced to swap homes because they couldn't find it in themselves to get along. I'm sure Starfleet wasn't pleased, but the damage was done already.

 

[Timo]

I don't have a problem with the laugh-and-pats conclusion as such: Dax has never been one to stand up for stuffy human morals. He/she and Sisko would probably be the two to see eye to eye on this issue, even if everybody else on the station considered Sisko a monster and deemed his actions tantamount to war crimes.

I belong to the Sisko=monster camp myself, but I see no particular reason why Starfleet would wish to take action against him. It's not as if the Maquis could credibly sue. And the less publicity this blunder gets, the better for Starfleet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Navaros]

The Sisko does what The Sisko wants to do.

Seriously though, I had raised this same question before on Trek boards. No it wasn't ever followed up on in the series, and realistically The Sisko should have been brought up on charges. But then again, due to the other much more shady stuff the Federation is responsible for in Seasons 6 and 7, I guess it's fitting that they don't give a crap about poisoning some planets' environment.

 

[Ah Forgive!]

I always thought of the laugh at the end to be more of an awkward "ha ha, your life and career might be ruined" kind of thing. Didn't they imply that Sisko might get away with it because it was a terraformed planet, and he wasn't ruining its natural state? Plus, I'm sure catching one of the Federation's most wanted fugitives in the process probably bought him some compassion.

 

[Timo]

One wonders if anybody besides Sisko really cared about catching Eddington. The law enforcement system of the Federation isn't vindictive in nature: if it wants to capture an offender, it is for the purpose of holding him for psychological reconditioning so that he doesn't do further harm. So if Eddington simply lies low, there's little point in chasing him.

As far as we can tell, the trilithium dust doesn't harm "ecosystems" - it harms humans, but since it's harmless for Cardassians, its effects must be highly specific. Perhaps something that only poses a threat to the human nervous system or the human lung (in which case it would probably also kill cats and dogs, but not daisies or trouts).

But the poison was suggested to be very fast-acting, as the human colonists immediately went a-scrambling for their ships. It seems extremely unlikely that there would have been enough ships for everybody - so in all likelihood, Sisko killed thousands or more. And so did Eddington, with his nerve gas.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kira Nerys]

This is one of the eps that I wish was followed up upon.Sisko should have some form of punishment.

 

[JoeZhang]

and what if they decided to stay put and said "no this is our home, you've poisoned us, so fix us or we'll die"?

That one would go down a treat with the federation council...

 

[trash80]

The thing i find strange about that episode is that they made a big thing about how crippled the Defiant was (no transporters et cetera) yet referred to transporting the Cardassians off the freighter.

 

[Timo]

Well, they could always have used the transport's transporters.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS KG5]

One wonders if anybody besides Sisko really cared about catching Eddington. The law enforcement system of the Federation isn't vindictive in nature: if it wants to capture an offender, it is for the purpose of holding him for psychological reconditioning so that he doesn't do further harm. So if Eddington simply lies low, there's little point in chasing him.

That said - it is highly probable that there are many other starfleet officers who understand Sisko's fury and Eddington's betrayal.

Trek gets a lot of flak for TNG showing a "perfect" society of humans - but all it really shows is people more consistently open to the better sides of their natures. Psychologically in order to do this they would need to also be conscious of and in control of their bad sides. Sisko's punchbag speech to Dax seems to indicate he is aware of this failing in himself - his later actions with the Vulcans and baseball are somewhat consistent with it too. Lets face it Sisko is an asshole at times, like the rest of us. What makes him a good person is he studies his actions and sometimes realises he was wrong.

But the poison was suggested to be very fast-acting, as the human colonists immediately went a-scrambling for their ships. It seems extremely unlikely that there would have been enough ships for everybody - so in all likelihood, Sisko killed thousands or more. And so did Eddington, with his nerve gas.

I don't believe that for a second - for some reason Trek always espouses ludicrously small capacities for ships - Voyager with 141 people on board for example - you could literally walk around some parts of the ship for days and not see anyone, its massive. A mere 1014 on the Ent-D is similar.

You could probably fit 100 odd people on a runabout, on a decent sized freighter easily 1000+, assuming the Maquis have a decent fleet they could easily evacuate the colony in hours - there would be at most a few thousand there by other evidence of colony size.

 

[JoeZhang]

Check out Sisko the hypocrite! (around 1.27)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HSJtJZLyls

 

[Kirby]

Check out Sisko the hypocrite! (around 1.27)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HSJtJZLyls

Sisko: "We don't put civilians even remotely at risk." - I guess not unless YOU get pissed off, eh Ben?

I always hated what he did in this episode, there is no way in hell he would have stayed out of jail for that.

 

[Timo]

Unless they did a coverup. But it seems a tad difficult to conceal something that involves the complete relocation of two planetary populations... Neither of which is sympathetic to Starfleet.

This episode also marks the first time our heroes (villains?) label an entire planet as "Maquis", or associate all the colonists in the DMZ with the Maquis organization. That is a prerequisite for using orbital bombardment as an anti-Maquis tool all right. But it's not something that would have been supported by previous episodes.

Timo Saloniemi