Musings about Our Man Bashir & For the Cause

[Turd Ferguson]

I've been continuing a DS9 watching marathon and over the course of a few days I watched both Our Man Bashir and For the Cause. And, while watching it, I thought of something.

Lt. Commander Michael Eddington, at the time of Our Man Bashir was, I assume, already a Maquis agent. Possibly already contemplating his resignation and dramatic exit from DS9, as per For the Cause.

Now, my thought was, wouldn't Eddington have saved himself subsequent headaches in Maquis dealings in such episodes as For the Uniform and Blaze of Glory had he allowed the senior staff's transporter patterns to simply disperse?

He had to have known that Sisko and co. were vengeful people, and he HAD to know that Sisko would be royally pissed for Eddington's treachery. He would have had time before a replacement command staff had been reassigned to DS9 to bail full-time into the Maquis. I guess, though, that Eddington did actually like Sisko as a person and did what he thought would be right, regardless of the consequences.

But, it just seems to me that Eddington could have saved himself a lot of headaches had he simply not been such a good person

 

[Who_Trek]

Eddington was a rebel and a Maquis, but he wasn't a mass murderer.

 

[Huntingdon]

Or at least - only of Cardassians.

There would be no clear cut benefit to losing the senior staff in that way. With that many deaths there would be bound to be an investigation and it might have turned up something incriminating. Even if it didn't - the new staff team might be worse and even more vigilant/vengeful.

 

[reverie]

As others have said, he's not a killer. Matter of fact, as Sisko said, Eddington sees himself as a hero. I'm sure he was also biding his time there, and killing the senior staff wouldn't have really done the Maquis as much good as what he stole from the transport.

 

[CaptainHawk1]

Eddington was not a killer. He was a highly principled man. His opninon of Sisko was only formed after Sisko went after him unrelentlessly.

-Shawn

 

[LeadHead]

Yeah, Eddington didn't want any of them dead, just that they stayed out of his way. He was a person who still had to face himself in the mirror every morning and care about what he had done. Attacking oppressors is one thing, callously letting innocent people die is another.

Besides, the best way to maintain his cover was to be an exemplary officer. Letting 5 members of the senior staff die on his watch and 5 feet in front of him would have likely been devastating to his career and he would have lost all access to DS9 and many ways of aiding the Maquis.

 

[Timo]

...Also, the crisis in "Our Man Bashir" was the doing of a Cardassian terrorist organization. Defeating the terrorists would be every bit in Eddington's personal interests!

Timo Saloniemi