"Sacrifice of Angels" Question

[siskokid888]

When the Defiant is in the wormhole faced with hundreds of Dominion ships, Sisko is about to give the order to fire weapons before he is spirited away by the prophets. Was he at that point going to collapse the wormhole? I never really thought about it before, but just seeing the episode recently made me wonder what his intentions were. It wouldn't have made much sense to fire on a couple of the lead Dominion ships - he might have destroyed one or two before being destroyed himself. Collapsing the wormhole would have saved the Federation, despite the fallout from doing it. Any opinions on what he was actually planning to do?

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

That is EXACTLY what he was going to do... if they could not stop the Dominion from bringing down the minefield, the last option was to take the wormhole out itself.

 

[JNG]

Well, I think you are right, and I think it was "The Search, Part II" that had established he would do this if he had no other choice. However, all the other characters in this scene insist on acting as if Sisko has gone bananas and thinks it is worth it to try defeating the Dominion fleet all alone in conventional fashion. Dax is particularly annoying, practically rolling her eyes, and O'Brien says "targets locked," seeming to think that the torpedoes will be used to hit the Dominion ships. The "make every shot count" line is maybe somewhat ambiguous on this.

I can't think of any good reasons why the other characters wouldn't understand that he intended to collapse the wormhole. And if the writers didn't mean the scene that way, well, they should have, and it is probably worth the effort for us to find a way to read it so it makes sense in that context.

 

[TheGodBen]

I don't think he was trying to collapse to wormhole. That would probably have killed the Prophets and when Sisko talks with them they don't seem concerned about that, they are concerned about Sisko ending his own life. It was a desperate last stand; he lost, he knew the Federation couldn't win the war now, so he decided to go down in a blaze of glory.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Yeah, I didn't get that he was trying to collapse the wormhole. I just got that he was going to try taking out as many Dominion ships as he could before he got taken out himself.

Of course, I always thought it would have made much more sense if he'd gone into the wormhole specifically intending to try contacting the Prophets, rather than being surprised and annoyed when they contacted him. After all, hadn't he just been re-reading the prophecies, looking for "encouragement and loopholes" ?

 

[Marie1]

He was indeed trying to shoot the Dominion ships, not destroy the wormhole, as he was specifically targeting the Dominion ships. Also, maybe I'm wrong, but after the events of By Inferno's Light, I don't think the Wormhole could be collapsed, and if so, it would not have been necessary to enter the wormhole to do so. He didn't want to live to see the AQ fall, as the Prophets said, he was trying to "end the game"-his life, not theirs.

 

[siskokid888]

^My memory is probably faulty, but I thought I remembered a conversation from an earlier ep that talked about how to collapse the wormhole. Anyway, if it could be collapsed, that was the way to go at that point, as the fate of the Alpha Quadrant hung in the balance. It seems to me that even if he wasn't sure it could be collapsed, he should have tried, as that would have been more effective then stopping one or two ships. But the line "make every shot count" seems to say that he was about to fire on the ships.

 

[Marie1]

^ You are correct, they both discussed and attempted to collapse the wormhole, but in...
SPOILERS for By Inferno's Light!!!!!!!




Due to sabotage, the ray they put out to close the wormhole had the opposite effect, making the wormhole resistant to attempts to close it. According to O'Brien, they wouldn't be able to shut it down, or something to that effect...


END of Spoilers...

Frankly, I think it was about time the Prophets stopped being so confused and did something helpful... though in the back of his mind, I'd imagine thats what Sisko was hoping for...


And if anyone reads Trek Lit, or hasn't read the DS9 Relaunch lately, I recommend Unity... even if its not canon... *lol*

 

[siskokid888]

^Interesting take, about Sisko wanting the aliens to intervene, although he seemed annoyed ("the Sisko is belligerent, confrontational") when he was actually among them. And the whole firing on the ships thing kind of gets more futile when you think about it - wouldn't it have been better to turn the Defiant into an anti matter bomb and blow it up, destroying possibly hundreds of Dominion ships? Well, the writers can't be expected to think of everything, I guess.

 

[Marie1]

^ That would be a good idea- if they had planned it, it would have been effective, I think. But they didn't have time to prepare it. I think the idea was for both more ships to break free with them, and of course, to stop the mines from being taken out. Once that failed... well, what was there to do? From a non-Prophet standpoint- you die there, or you die a few minutes later/kilometres later. From a Prophet standpoint- they said Sisko would know nothing but sorry, still open to interpretation, but either he as the Emmissary could call on them to protect Bajor (doesn't seem likely the Founders would allow the Bajorans to worship the Prophets... or kick out the Dominion like they did the Cardassians (kinda).

But wouldn't you be annoyed? Even if to the other species, the Prophets aren't gods, they're still powerful aliens who have decided to influence Bajor, and since they're outside linear time, they must be able to see what the Dominion could do to Bajor. So, they really ought to get moving, and really, it shouldn't have taken Sisko to make them do it... but it was... awkward, I'm not sure how the writers wanted to work it.

If you were the Dominion- wouldn't you worry about returning back home through the wormhole after??

 

[nx1701g]

I always took it as he was going to attack the Dominion Fleet. If he had wanted to destroy the wormhole why not get in there and order Defiant's Self Destruct? It would have had the same effect most likely.

 

[JoeD80]

Yah, I thought it was because he decided it was time to die, and that's why the prophets contacted him too -- they were pissed because he was trying to die even though his job as Emissary wasn't done yet.

 

[Marie1]

I'm not sure it was "time to die" so much as a "going out firing" attempt- and if the self-destruct would shut down the wormhole- wouldn't the explosions of 2 or 3 Dominion ships or however many the Defiant took out before it blew up itself do the same thing?

 

[Hermiod]

^Probably not unless they all suffered catastrophic warp core breaches all at the same time.

Sisko was not trying to collapse the wormhole. Changeling-Bashir's actions in "In Purgatory's Shadow" had the effect of strengthening the wormhole to the point where it could not be collapsed. If you all remember, they were going to try to close the wormhole before the initial Dominion fleet came through but Changeling-Bashir sabotaged the graviton emitters in such a way that instead of collapsing the wormhole's entrance, it made it uncollapsible.

Sisko was just going to do whatever he could to weaken the fleet that was inevitably going to come through. His best hope would be that too many ships were packed in tight together, so destroying one would create secondary explosions which would damage others.

 

[siskokid888]

If you were the Dominion- wouldn't you worry about returning back home through the wormhole after??

That's a good point - thousands of your ships entered the wormhole and never came out, and you are on this side and home is on that side. I would think re-entering that thing would give you pause.

 

[Marie1]

Yeah... there may have been some interesting conversations...

^Probably not unless they all suffered catastrophic warp core breaches all at the same time.

Sisko was not trying to collapse the wormhole. Changeling-Bashir's actions in "In Purgatory's Shadow" had the effect of strengthening the wormhole to the point where it could not be collapsed. If you all remember, they were going to try to close the wormhole before the initial Dominion fleet came through but Changeling-Bashir sabotaged the graviton emitters in such a way that instead of collapsing the wormhole's entrance, it made it uncollapsible.

Sisko was just going to do whatever he could to weaken the fleet that was inevitably going to come through. His best hope would be that too many ships were packed in tight together, so destroying one would create secondary explosions which would damage others.

Thats what I was thinking, unless a reaction is triggered somehow between some of the stuff in the wormhole, but I think our prior assessment is the correct one.

 

[Phily B]

He wasn't going to shoot the Wormhole, he was going to do a suicide run on the Dominion ships. The war was essentially over for the Federation at this point, it was either run and die another day, or die while taking a few Dominion ships with you. The Wormhole was made uncollapseable in one episode IIRC.

 

[Marie1]

But then suddenly Q showed up!!!!!!!!

 

[Plecostomus]

So what would happen if you managed to explode a couple of ships in a subspace tube like that? Would the explosion get compressed and amplify and cause all kinds of havoc with the other ships or possibly render the wormhole un-usable due to severe amounts of explodametric radiation?

One could speculate...

 

[Magisterfrodo]

He was indeed trying to shoot the Dominion ships, not destroy the wormhole, as he was specifically targeting the Dominion ships. Also, maybe I'm wrong, but after the events of By Inferno's Light, I don't think the Wormhole could be collapsed, and if so, it would not have been necessary to enter the wormhole to do so. He didn't want to live to see the AQ fall, as the Prophets said, he was trying to "end the game"-his life, not theirs.

This is what I thought as well.