More Tosk

[Timo]

They completely failed to control the space around the wormhole mouth, despite being motivated to control it. Moreover, they failed to stop the runabouts of our heroes from reaching many planets they formally did control. Clearly, "space control" wasn't something they would have been particularly good at, or even interested in.

Would the Dominion really have "lots of space"? The slower-than-usual hero starship easily and quickly reaches their seat of power in "The Search" and "Broken Link" alike, despite starting out from outside Dominion-controlled space. It's a longer trip from Bajor to Earth, it seems.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trek Survivor]

I really enjoy season one, and "Captive Pursuit" is a great example of why.

 

[Crow T. Robot]

If he does ever come up again, I'd love to see him have become a hunter of the Hunters. That's definitely the best way to survive; eliminate those trying to eliminate you.

 

[tomalak301]

I would have liked to see more different GQ species. After the first season we pretty much only saw Founders, Gem'Hadar and Vorta with only a handful of exceptions. It would have been nice to see more examples of how people lived under the Dominion. Not just civilizations destroyed like in The Quickening, civilizations which toe the line too.

Tosk probably died shortly after Captive Pursuit though.

Same here. Would have loved to see more races who had a negative and positive relationship with the Dominion. We kind of did with the Dozi and Karamma, and the race from Sanctuary, but it would have been interesting to meet more races who actually kinda liked the Dominion through the Vorta.

As for Tosk, would have loved to see more Tosk. He was a very interesting character.

 

[UnknownSample]

In that episode, I wonder how the viewers at home were managing to be spectators of all this. Did Tosk and his hunters have implanted cameras? Can you shoot a video feed through the wormhole? Couldn't his pursuers find Tosk through someone at home watching his broadcasts and passing the info on to them ?

 

[JRoss]

I met the actor who played Toskala. It was Scott MacDonald, the same guy who played N'Vek in Face of the Enemy, Goran'agar in Hippocratic Oath, Dollies in Enterprise and Rollins in Caretaker.

He was a cool guy. Signed my CCG Goran'agar card for ten bucks at the first con I ever attended. I was a broke teenager way back then (2001), and he noticed I had a N'Vek card on me and signed that for free.

I wish we had seen more Tosk, too. Would have loved to see him as a character in the card game.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In that episode, I wonder how the viewers at home were managing to be spectators of all this. Did Tosk and his hunters have implanted cameras? Can you shoot a video feed through the wormhole? Couldn't his pursuers find Tosk through someone at home watching his broadcasts and passing the info on to them ?

I didn't get the impression that the "hunt" was broadcast for all to see. The point was simply for Tosk to survive, it wasn't important for him to be seen doing it.

I'm sure the Hunters had some way of tracking Tosk, but it wasn't like it was on the space-Internet (that I could see).

 

[STEPhon IT]

How interesting it could've been if it was broadcast for the Hunters' race to see? Those Helmets they wore looked advanced; it's possible and I'm opened to the idea.

 

[UnknownSample]

No people would invest them selves so heavily in anything like this hunt, if they couldn't see it.

 

[somebuddyX]

I haven't watched Captive Pursuit in ages but I still remember that being one of the best of DS9's first season. One crazy idea I'd been thinking of was what if some characters had been trapped in the Gamma Quadrant at the end of Season 5 after the wormhole was mined and had to build some alliances, and now I think it would be neat if Tosk and O'Brien met up again to undermine the Dominion from within. In the same way I think I'd liked to have seen, say background cameos of the Hunters or Dosi or Karemma somewhere in the real show in later seasons.
There was a fan story universe called Star Trek: Renegade (no s) and the crew had a liberated Tosk as a member of the crew, which was an interesting play on the "warrior race" type character, who felt like an old man or elder at say ten years old or something.
I remember rewatching "Vortex" and thinking of the similarities between Croden's changelings myths and the Founders and whether they were related. The fact that they both lived on planetoids in nebulas might just be a nice callback out-of-universe or there could be something more to it in-universe.

 

[STEPhon IT]

No people would invest them selves so heavily in anything like this hunt, if they couldn't see it.

It's what fascinates me about these aliens because they would. I'm curious what their world is, and they've never been identified which increases the mystery of Tosk and the Hunters.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If he does ever come up again, I'd love to see him have become a hunter of the Hunters. That's definitely the best way to survive; eliminate those trying to eliminate you.

Tosk described the hunt as "the greatest adventure one could ever desire." He was actively enjoying the whole thing.

I mean, Tosk's not out for revenge or anything like that. He wants to be hunted - to survive as long as he can. That is literally all that any Tosk ever does, or wants to do. It's what they were MADE to do.

(That's how the Dominion works, after all. Every race has a specific function that they were engineered for. The Tosk are no different.)

 

[STEPhon IT]

So when it comes to the Gamma Quadrant, for some, there's nothing beyond the tired old Dominion? That part of the galaxy has nothing which could possibly be separate from that boring Federation threat. The Hunters and Tosk showed a lot of promise where there are vast alien races who may have a different point of view on life.

Sadly, it has to fit into that little box called the Dominion.

 

[UnknownSample]

This whole hunt thing seems just about as exciting for me as Monty Python 's International Hide and Seek competition.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wouldn't have suspected that the Hunters and Tosk are members of the Dominion if the showrunners behind DS9 hadn't already pointed it out. Not only the fact that "Broken Link" and "The Search" were both supposed to have Hunters in it, but also the similarity of the Tosk and the Jem'Hadar.

 

[Timo]

No people would invest them selves so heavily in anything like this hunt, if they couldn't see it.

Umm, what people are investing in it besides those who can see it with their very own eyes?

That's how all real hunts go, anyway. You buy the weapon and the funny hat, suffer in wet forested misery be it on horseback or under a ghillie suit, hear somebody else score, and then have watery beer or centuries-old whisky and boast about it all. Televising it would take all the fun out of it - it's you out there having the experience, not the undeserving audience.

Sure, you can take a camera with you. But the point is to make others jealous, not participants.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[UnknownSample]

The hunt is not for the benefit of this tiny group of hunters. Their whole society has it ingrained into their culture to follow the hunt. Tosk wouldn't go along with it, or consider it all an honorable thing, if they were just a bunch of a-holes with guns...

 

[Timo]

Umm, what? They are a bunch of assholes with guns. It's just that it's a national sport. But that doesn't mean it would be either practiced by everybody or spectated by everybody - there's no mention of spectating there. The only "public display" will be the exceptional one of parading the captured Tosk in shame, after the hunt is over.

Quite possibly hunts are fairly private things, just as this one involving a posse of just three hunters. But quite possibly there's some variety to it, too. The hunters admit to liking variety; despite the O'Brien/Quark exchange, they probably wouldn't think highly of any "rules" to the game, or other such rigidity. It's not another Classic Trek monobloc culture, not necessarily - it's just a hunting party.

OTOH, what the Tosk "considers" is just built into him: the Hunters made him. Not just his body, but his considerations as well. He may have free will, but it's primed a certain way.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Isn't the Tosk hunt like Japanese whaling? Only eaten by old men, but publicly supported as a matter of naitonal pride?

 

[Timo]

We never see the Hunter public. These three guys we do see could be the foxhunting lords of the place, actually loathed by the majority; middle-class recreational killers, half-heartedly supported by the top echelons for populist reasons; riffraff whose 1% moral code hinges on the hunt; or a society-pervading religious movement. Or something else altogether, for all we know - because we really know nothing.

Timo Saloniemi