How To Fix DS9 Inconsistencies Within 60 Seconds...

Every series in the franchise has some inconsistencies that can be fixed with a quick bit of dialogue. Some shows have this issue more than others.

I have been inspired to play in this field, as I've seen some really great examples of quick dialogue that fixes multiple plot, character, or story issues.

I figure I'd be fair and start with my absolute favorite show in the franchise... DEEP SPACE NINE.



Issue: rogue Jem'Hadar blast away one of the upper pylons in the teaser of "TO THE DEATH". Completely fixed by the next episode.

Here is my solution. (I am going by production order, which I think works better here because if we went by airdate, we run the risk of cutting out some of the fun in the teaser of "THE QUICKENING" with Quark's ads.)

(teaser to "BODY PARTS", Sisko voiceover)
"Captain's Log: supplemental. The final outer latches of the damaged upper pylon have been reattached to the station. Due to the nature of the construction of DS9, which allowed for ease of fitting large components together, the structural damage is already completely done. While the internal corridors will take longer to be fully repaired, efforts are well underway. Despite the damage the rogue Jem'Hadar did to the station, repairs in the pylon should be completed within a month."


How about the rest of you? Any ideas?

Temba, his arms open.

 

Can a mod fix my spelling error in the thread title, please? I have tried to fix it, but I can't. (This is NOT a thread about corn on the cob...)

 

Ok, I'll play. Here's a little modification to Brunt convincing Quark to disrupt the whole Ishka/Zek thing. As is my custom, added dialogue is in boldface.

BRUNT: "She's your mother, Quark, and that makes you responsible. And right now, she's endangering the very foundation of Ferengi society. It's been going on for years, more and more females all over Ferenginar not knowing their place. Believing they should be allowed to wear clothes, leave the home, and earn profit, just like males do."

QUARK: "I knew there were females who felt like that, but I didn't know it was so widespread."

BRUNT: "It's become so pervasive, our whole society is at a planetwide tipping point. I'm telling you, Quark, if we don't put an end to their relationship, you're going to see clothed females walking down the streets of Ferenginar in broad daylight..."

 

"You're not George Lucas! You can't just make up words!"

 

It's not so much an inconsistency, more an acknowledgment of the wider universe.

Ideally a line in either "Blaze of Glory" or "Empok Nor" where the crew talk about the Defiant being in dry-dock for repairs after the Battle of Sector 001. I think "Empok Nor" would work better because then O'Brien could be going on about how the station is falling apart, on top of his ship almost being torn to piece by the bloody Borg, everything just piling on top of the poor Chief and making his life harder (because we all know #OBrienMustSuffer).

Then maybe slip in another line to "In The Cards" or "Call to Arms" about how the Defiant had that 'new starship smell' and that they'd never be able to tell she'd gone ten rounds with the Borg just X-number of weeks earlier (given she's about to go into full-on war that would be very handy).

 

Here's a thought...
1. Flip "In the Pale Moonlight" and "Inquisition", so that the former airs first.
2. In Sloane's "big reveal"...

SLOAN: "I admit it takes exceptional people to do what we do. People who can sublimate their own ambitions to the best interests of the Federation. People like you."
BASHIR: "Me?"
SLOAN: "You have all the qualifications to be a very useful member of Section thirty one."
BASHIR: "A few minutes ago, you were calling me a traitor and now you want to recruit me?"
SLOANE: "The incident with Sisko and Garak and the Romulans made us realize that we need an operative of our own on this station. We can't rely on station commanders and Cardassian tailors to do our job for us."
BASHIR: "Why not Sisko? Or Garak?"
SLOANE: "Sisko's status as a religious icon makes him far too visible for our purposes, and Garak has no personal allegiance to the Federation. But you do. Also, you're intelligent, you're resourceful, you've always been fascinated by covert operations. Why else would you spend so much time in Quark's holosuites playing spy?"

 

Then it should be added in "IN PURGATORY'S SHADOW", because Sisko mentions the 'recent Borg attack' in that episode.

 

I can agree to that. "INQUISITION" would work slightly better, even though it's pretty damn good already.

 

Vorta with psychic powers -> Vorta without psychic powers.

Anyone want to tackle this incobsistency?

 

I'll take a crack at it. (Funny enough, I was actually thinking about this before.)


Admiral Ross: "We did thorough examinations of Keevan while he was a prisoner, and compared those scans to the scans we took of Yelgrun. Neither had any indication of telepathic abilities."

Sisko: "And yet the Vorta Quark and I encountered used what appeared to be a telepathic attack on me. Not to mention it used the same attack on the force field."

Jadzia: "It may have been a specialized version of a Vorta clone. Or an ability only female Vorta are given for whatever reason. Considering the only other female one we encountered was Kilana, it's a possibility, though we never saw her use anything except her soldiers."

Admiral Ross: "Sounds like something we need to find out. I'm going to have to get another interrogation round in with Yelgrun."

 

This is like... wow. It's hard to come up with stuff for DS9. The weapon and supply upgrades made sense, there were no issues with how fast the station could move, two people were required to set the Defiant's autodestruct, and every single character who had a rank received a promotion.

 

I'm actually planning to take a look at this.

I've spent some years with trying to find reasonable explanations for the inconsistences, continuity errors and contradictions in the first three seasons of Voyager and in the books who were made during those seasons. All that can be found on The Kes Website.

But now I'm thinking about doing the same for DS9.

To be honest, I don't thnik that there are too many continuity errors, contradictions and inconsistences in the series.

But there is one which bother's me. Why was O'Brian demoted?

Some months ago, I wrote this in a post abou the subject:

I've been looking at Miles O'Brien's career in Starfleet and I get the impression that he must have been demoted at some tpoint in his career. I've been trying to sort it out with the help of Memory Alpha but haven't found the definite answer yet.

In the first season of TNG he's actually an ensign with one pip.

In season 2 of TNG he has two pips on his collar and is adressed by Riker as Lieutenant.

He wears the pips of Lieutenant until season 6 of TNG when he all of a sudden is wearing a single hollow pip which obviously is the rank of a Warrant Officer!

He continues to wear that single hollow pip during the first seasons of DS9, actually joking that "if Nog graduates from Starfleet Academy, I must adress him as Sir".

In season 4 of DS9 he gets a new rank insignia, reminding of a Sergeant's insignia.

So what did poor Miles do to be demoted? Did he spike Picards Earl Grey with Irish Whiskey? Or did he reveal Riker having an affair with some married female Ensign?

And why that new rank insignia in Hippocratic Oath. Was he demoted to Sergeant by Sisko for throwing some tool at Jake when Jake failed to obey him or what? Or did he cough in the wrong tune on a Friday morning briefing?

Miles, Miles, Miles, what have you done?

Now, that mystery would be a perfect issue to start with, isn't it?

 

O'Brien's rank has been an issue since TNG, so I can't call out DS9 for it because they at least kept him as 'Chief'.

Regarding the new insignia in the beginning of season 4, it's very possible Starfleet simply changed the pips for non-commissioned officers. That's how I view it, anyway.

One other possibility is that the new insignia was a promotion, from 'Senior Chief Specialist' (mentioned by him in "SHADOWPLAY") to whatever is above that rank as a non-com. (This fits because both Dax and Bashir were promoted at the same time, which was right after Sisko became captain. Another reason why Sisko is my favorite... he promoted his people in a reasonable timeframe.)

 

Yeah. I like William Sadler, and I agree with Odo that it's no great surprise that the Federation has its own covert organization. But I think it's ridiculous that they're introduced... and one episode later, Sisko is doing what should be their job. Ideally, I would have flip-flopped the episodes AND had Bashir participate in Sisko and Garak's play, so that when Inquisition happened, it would be easy to see why S31 were recruiting Bashir. But in general, I'm trying to stick with "band-aid" issues, or things that could have been fixed with minimal fuss. Writing Bashir into "Pale Moonlight" would have taken some doing.

That was just a badly handled retcon. It's a little like how, in the first two Harry Potter books, Harry never notices that several times a year, two-thirds of the kids at school go strolling off to Hogsmeade.

 

Thank you.

Adding Bashir into "IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT" also causes problems for next season's "INTER ARMA ENIM SILENT LEGES". That was an excellent script, and Sloan's speech at the end to Bashir about how Bashir would play the game but only to a point and how the Federation needed men of principle and conscience like him would have to have been taken out completely, and that would have been a shame because that analysis of Bashir is precisely spot on.

 

I found the Section 31 plot very interesting and I'm not surprised at all that the Federation had such an organisation which could do the "dirty work". I mean, the Romulans have the Tal Shiar and the Cardassians had the Obsidian Order.

And in the world today, every country seem to have their own security organization.

Sloane was an interesting character and I found it a bit sad that he was killed off. Such a character should have been preserved for future series, movies and books.

OK, I can agree that Section 31 would have been a better "tool" for arranging the events in the episode In The Pale Moonlight but I guess that it became a more dramatic effect to have Sisko arrange it.

That event is sometimes discussed here and there are many who think that Sisko's actions are very far from Star Trek's ideals.

But I must admit that the action was right, no matter if if had been Section 31 or Sisko who did it. If I was the President of an independent nation, threatened by a genocidial enemy who would wipe out my country and its population if they won the conflict and the only thing I could do to prevent that would be to stage a false operation whoch made another country to enter the war on our side-then I would do it!

As for your comment on O'Brien's demotion, it's a good explanation for the event in the Gray Universe.

But for the Star Trek universe, I would like to have something more dramatic, like being demoted for spiking Picards Earl Grey with Irish Whiskey, revealing Riker having an affair with some married female Ensign, throwing some tool at Jake when Jake failed to obey him or for coughing in the wrong tune on a Friday morning briefing?

Something must have happened during his career on the Enterprise and I'm gonna find out why.

 

Okay, here is an explanation. (For fun, of course.)

O'Brien beamed Picard back as a preteen in "Rascals". Picard becomes an adult again, but still stomps his foot around and tells O'Brien he will make him pay for that experience.

2 episodes later (in-universe), he ends up at Deep Space Nine with a single hollow pip instead of his two solid ones. Plus his yearly torture episodes. (Three times in season 2, with "ARMAGEDDON GAME", "WHISPERS", and "TRIBUNAL".)

 

"The Emperor's New Cloak" - Ira and Hans realise that they already showed the Mirror Universe having cloaking devices four years before and so come up with some other macguffin for the Ferengi to bring over.
"The Dogs of War" - Rene and Ron realise that they already said the Dominion was founded 2000 years ago in "To The Death" and so cross out 10000 years.

 

Any episode after "Hard Time", when we're wondering why O'Brien isn't suffering from permanent PTSD. Just stick this conversation in somewhere...

SISKO: "I'm impressed, chief. Given the ordeal the Argrathi put you through, you've recovered surprisingly well."

MILES: "You can thank Julian for that. He managed to devise a therapy to target the implanted memories."

SISKO: "I thought it wasn't possible to erase them completely."

MILES: "Oh, they're not gone, not completely, but... it's kind of like the way you feel after attending an Irish wedding... you know it happened, but it's all a blur."

SISKO: "Well, whatever he did, it's obviously worked."