How about some alt. endings for Sacrifice of Angels
- Thread starter Photon
- Start date
I would have had the Sisko sent to the exact same place where the Jemmy ships went. Not because the wormhole aliens sent them there, but because all that firepower releasing into the wormhole caused another anomaly to occur. Then they would have to battle it out the hard way in some weird alternate dimension. The Sisko would have to fight tooth and nail to win that battle, and end up permanently scathed because of it (lose an arm, leg, eye, etc. - and no on-screen cop-outs for it in later episodes, like they did with Nog). Jadzia shoulda died there too.
I probably would've had Sisko open a channel to DS9 and the ships in the wormhole so that he could give a stirring, somber, but still inspirational twenty-minute speech of how hope conquers fear and how preserving the peace is the ultimate way to honor the past.
...and then Sisko torpedoes Ops and saves the day.
...and then Sisko torpedoes Ops and saves the day.
Works for me too, it seems like a clever way to tie the Prophet and Dominion arcs into one. Ira Behr should have considered hiring you.
I've got a coupe of alternate endings.
1. As Sisko passes by the station on his way to meet the Dominion fleet in the wormhole, he beams Morn aboard the Defiant. In the wormhole, Sisko opens a channel broadcasting to the 2800 Dom ships and has Morn talk about his family. The Jem'Hadar and Vorta onboard the Dom ships age 40 years for every minute they have to listen to Morn prattle on about his family. By the time they emerge from the wormhole, they're all dead of old age.
2. In the wormhole, Sisko broadcasts a historical recording of Archer's gazelle speech which causes the brains of everyone on the 2800 Dom ships to explode.
Robert
1. As Sisko passes by the station on his way to meet the Dominion fleet in the wormhole, he beams Morn aboard the Defiant. In the wormhole, Sisko opens a channel broadcasting to the 2800 Dom ships and has Morn talk about his family. The Jem'Hadar and Vorta onboard the Dom ships age 40 years for every minute they have to listen to Morn prattle on about his family. By the time they emerge from the wormhole, they're all dead of old age.
2. In the wormhole, Sisko broadcasts a historical recording of Archer's gazelle speech which causes the brains of everyone on the 2800 Dom ships to explode.
Robert
I'd have had them get through. The Prophets would still preserve Sisko (and his means of physical survival in the wormhole and open space, i.e., the Defiant), but would not take action to halt the Dominion advance, because that's a corporeal affair.
The result of this direction for the series
The reopening of the Dominion supply lines to the AQ would probably lead to the occupation or scourging of Earth sometime in S6.
The event would be shocking, dramatically, but not really as big a deal as it might seem, given the literally hundreds or thousands of human colonies distributed throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and hundreds or thousands of alien homeworlds and colonies that likely outnumber the human plurality. The Federation would still be able to fight and would continue to do so. However, they would no longer be fighting merely a Cardassian Union under efficient Vorta management, but the actual Dominion itself.
Personally, I would toy with the idea of the Klingons acting against type and wavering in their devotion to the fight, facing dissent or even revolution from the silent non-warrior masses that clearly make up the majority of the Klingon population. I've always felt dubious about the monoculture that seeemed to be all we ever saw of the Klingons, especially when, like DS9 courageously acknowledged, it was a corrupt, vicious, and ugly monoculture.
The final arc would likely be about a battle to retake Earth, but I wouldn't change the crux of DS9's ending to the Dominion War. The Dominion surrendered because of the Founders' plague, and the act of mercy which allowed Odo to cure them, and that was great stuff. The Cardassian rebellion, and the Cardassian sacrifice, are also perfect, especially Garak's homecoming.
Why this might have been better, emphasis on might...
An underlying problem with the Dominion War arc was that, even before Tears of the Prophets, even before In the Pale Moonlight, the Dominion was finished. They still had fight in them--so did Nazi Germany in 1943. But they were finished, and so was the Dominion, at least in the Alpha Quadrant. All the Romulans did was hasten the end. The ingress into Cardassian space was going to happen, either at Chin'toka in 2374 or somewhere else in 2375. The Dominion AQ forces were doomed when they effectively lost (an estimated) 90% of their industrial capacity and military might forever, following the Prophets' revocation of their license to use their wormhole for transit of war materiel. What's vital to remember is that no victory, and no number of victories, would reopen the wormhole.
The Breen's job was to reintroduce uncertainty by blundering into a losing war. But, this was less like Japan attacking Pearl Harbor while the Germans were at the gates of Moscow, and more like if Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor after Allied troops had broken out at Normandy. They did their best, but they only prolonged the inevitable, and not for very long, and only because they had a novel weapon which, if they knew anything about Starfleet, they knew would be countered sooner rather than later.
If the final battles in the series are still in Federation space, still threatening Federation worlds, the element of cosmic danger still exists. Sacrifice of Angels sacrificed that element, to the wormhole aliens and, ultimately, to conventionality.
Sorry for this long first post, but I've felt this way about the DW for a while. DS9 was the best Trek ever, and I do like S7, but it still fell off a bit toward the end.
The result of this direction for the series
The reopening of the Dominion supply lines to the AQ would probably lead to the occupation or scourging of Earth sometime in S6.
The event would be shocking, dramatically, but not really as big a deal as it might seem, given the literally hundreds or thousands of human colonies distributed throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and hundreds or thousands of alien homeworlds and colonies that likely outnumber the human plurality. The Federation would still be able to fight and would continue to do so. However, they would no longer be fighting merely a Cardassian Union under efficient Vorta management, but the actual Dominion itself.
Personally, I would toy with the idea of the Klingons acting against type and wavering in their devotion to the fight, facing dissent or even revolution from the silent non-warrior masses that clearly make up the majority of the Klingon population. I've always felt dubious about the monoculture that seeemed to be all we ever saw of the Klingons, especially when, like DS9 courageously acknowledged, it was a corrupt, vicious, and ugly monoculture.
The final arc would likely be about a battle to retake Earth, but I wouldn't change the crux of DS9's ending to the Dominion War. The Dominion surrendered because of the Founders' plague, and the act of mercy which allowed Odo to cure them, and that was great stuff. The Cardassian rebellion, and the Cardassian sacrifice, are also perfect, especially Garak's homecoming.
Why this might have been better, emphasis on might...
An underlying problem with the Dominion War arc was that, even before Tears of the Prophets, even before In the Pale Moonlight, the Dominion was finished. They still had fight in them--so did Nazi Germany in 1943. But they were finished, and so was the Dominion, at least in the Alpha Quadrant. All the Romulans did was hasten the end. The ingress into Cardassian space was going to happen, either at Chin'toka in 2374 or somewhere else in 2375. The Dominion AQ forces were doomed when they effectively lost (an estimated) 90% of their industrial capacity and military might forever, following the Prophets' revocation of their license to use their wormhole for transit of war materiel. What's vital to remember is that no victory, and no number of victories, would reopen the wormhole.
The Breen's job was to reintroduce uncertainty by blundering into a losing war. But, this was less like Japan attacking Pearl Harbor while the Germans were at the gates of Moscow, and more like if Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor after Allied troops had broken out at Normandy. They did their best, but they only prolonged the inevitable, and not for very long, and only because they had a novel weapon which, if they knew anything about Starfleet, they knew would be countered sooner rather than later.
If the final battles in the series are still in Federation space, still threatening Federation worlds, the element of cosmic danger still exists. Sacrifice of Angels sacrificed that element, to the wormhole aliens and, ultimately, to conventionality.
Sorry for this long first post, but I've felt this way about the DW for a while. DS9 was the best Trek ever, and I do like S7, but it still fell off a bit toward the end.
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Damar would have accidentally shot Dukat when he sees Damar (being a soldier all those years and all) and tries to shield Ziyal from him. Thus, Dukat's death is more likely, Ziyal is alive, and Damar can live guilt free from her innocent death and go on to lead Cardassia after booting the Dominion because he started his rebellion sooner.
She wasn't an innocent, she was a traitor.
Damar would still feel guilt because he just accidentally killed his mentor, a man that Damar admired and respected. A man that Damar believed in. Also given that he was trying to kill Ziyal he would not have got the forgiveness that Dukat eventually gave him as I doubt Ziyal would give it since he was killing to kill her and he killed her father. If she had lived she would have come to see not only Cardassia under the rule of her father's killer but him answering to her mother's killer, the Breen.
But I think she did the right thing, and really all she did was make Hasperat and shoot a door. Rom was about to be killed, so it was right that she tried to save them. And Kira was also her "family" and the Dominion may have decided to off her too. She may have been a traitor to a puppet government under the Dominion, but not to what Cardassians became, nor to those trying to protect the AQ from the Dominion. She saved millions of lives, they didn't know at the time the Prophets would intervene.
From an overall point, Dukat had so many Bajoran's killed, and she knew in the end that her father wasn't really capable of showing mercy, even tho as her only living real family member she loved him. But I'm sure she would have gotten over his death after the terrible things her father was responsable for, and Damar could redeem himself by being a better ruler and righting the wrongs. And Ziyal would have seen that eventually too.
From an overall point, Dukat had so many Bajoran's killed, and she knew in the end that her father wasn't really capable of showing mercy, even tho as her only living real family member she loved him. But I'm sure she would have gotten over his death after the terrible things her father was responsable for, and Damar could redeem himself by being a better ruler and righting the wrongs. And Ziyal would have seen that eventually too.
A rebellion that was born out of the Cardassians losing its position in the Dominion. As Damar points out to the Breen the Dominion sang Cardassia's praises and then stopped because the war was taking longer then they thought, which they blamed the Cardassians for. The war was taking longer because the Dominion was isolated from its power base in the Alpha Quadrant. That was done by Sisko but was aided by the fact that DS9 could not engage the Defiant, which might have stopped it from entering the wormhole. The station weapons were offline due to Rom, who was freed by the actions of Ziyal and Quark.
Back to the original topic... What about having Sisko collapse the entrance to the Wormhole? The show never used it once the War started anyway. That takes care of the Dominion fleet, and adds plenty of dramatic tension between the Emissary and Kai Winn. Either that or have Kira collapse the entrance. There's plenty of dramatic potential there, as well.
Sisko has a sudden epiphany and explicitly orders all ships to be generous with their missiles. Five seconds later the Dominion fleet is wiped out. They all head happily to DS9. The minefield is down, but so what? More generosity sends the the Dominion reinforcements packing.
Dominion officials and ships trying to escape the station are all destroyed or captured. The Dominion blow up the station, no doubt after a heated exchange between Weyoun and Dukat. So scrap Weyoun #something, founder, Odo, Kira, Dukat, etc..
Using Sisko's new found tactical wisdom the war ends sometime next year in a short series of crushing victories against the Dominion.
When the war is won, SIsko takes his loyal fleet and takes over a few planets and turns them into a personal fiefdom and he lives happily ever after.
Iirc, after Changeling-Bashir's actions during In Purgatory's Shadow, the wormhole couldn't be collapsed (except by Pah Wraiths, I guess, as in Tears of the Prophets).
The Pah Wraiths closed the entrance, rather than actually collapsing it. And if the Pah Wraiths could close it, than certainly the Prophets could, too. That brings us back ito Sisko having the Prophets act as a deus ex machina again, but least there would be some repercussions from this sort of ending.
Perhaps... though I don't think the rebellion wouldn't have happened if Ziyal had remained alive. For that matter, if she had, Damar would have had a bold example- if she could go against everything to save her friends, then he could do the right thing for Cardassia. Plus, I have every confidence that Quark could've found a way to get them out on his own. Really, it was being a good cook... j/k.
In "Emissary" we saw that the Prophets were more then capable to making the wormhole "disappear".
