The Search Pt. II - Whut?

[LitmusDragon]

So I've just finished watching Season 1 and 2 for the third or fourth time, and started on Season 3.

I noticed something watching The Search that I never noticed before-

In part one, one of the major plot points was Odo's resigning as chief of security. This is played up all throughout the episode up until the very last few moments.

Then in part two it's completely forgotten. It isn't mentioned at all, then in House of Quark we see Odo back at his post as security chief as if nothing had happened.

I'm just curious if there's a story behind this. Was part 2 written by a different writing team than part 1? Was that storyline just dropped because there was so much else going on during the episode? Are we to assume that because it was discovered that Odo's people were the founders, that this raised Odo's importance and therefore starfleet decided to drop the whole thing to keep him around?

It's really not important to the overall story but I'm surprised I had never noticed this before.

 

[Kai Winn]

there are more oddities in 'the search'. discussing an impending dominion attack after the destruction of the odyssee in the previous epsiode, bashir states that two hours are not enough to bring in reinforcements from bajor. why not bring them in long ago? sisko had the time to go all the way to earth for one little ship. why not a whole fleet?
why did he order the shields up in the battle with the dominion ships, and not transfer all power to the guns like the captain of the odysee did? the shields were useless against the dominion weapons anyway.
i liked martha hackett, seska of voyager, as romulan in this episode though.

 

[od0_ital]

Sisko decided to keep Odo around. When Odo resigned, Sisko didn't like it. When he turned up at the airlock at the request of the Bajoran government, Sisko knew what was up - the smile with Kira acknowledged that.

It wasn't mentioned in the second part of 'The Search' for the same reason Kira's absence wasn't mentioned - it was part of the scenario the Founders were runnin'.

When "normal" activity resumed on the station, Odo's office was still there, waitin' for him.

Or, real world answer - Rene Auberjonois was in the openin' credits. If they really planned to dump him in the third season, he'd have gotten "Special Guest Star" credit like Jennifer Lien did in the first two episodes of VOY's fourth season.

 

[Timo]

why did he order the shields up in the battle with the dominion ships, and not transfer all power to the guns like the captain of the odysee did? the shields were useless against the dominion weapons anyway.

The shields were useless against Dominion beam weapons - but the dropping of shields, a seemingly sensible power reallocation maneuver, was what killed the Odyssey, as it allowed the Jem'Hadar to ram the starship. Sisko wouldn't risk that sort of an attack after having seen what happened.

sisko had the time to go all the way to earth for one little ship. why not a whole fleet?

Later on in the show, we learn that the station can defend itself against hundreds of starships. If Starfleet predicts the station will fall in a matter of hours, then sending mere starships to defend the wormhole would be both suicidal and useless. Better try some other approach, such as searching for the Dominion leaders to beg for mercy while trying to figure out a way to eliminate them...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

I always assumed the Defiant's shields had been modified to resist Dominion weapons, myself.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Later on in the show, we learn that the station can defend itself against hundreds of starships.
Timo Saloniemi

Actually that was after the station's defenses were upgraded somewhere between season 3 and season 4.

 

[Anwar]

I always assumed the Defiant's shields had been modified to resist Dominion weapons, myself.

They didn't learn how to do that until they found that crashed Dominion warship in "The Ship".

 

[DonIago]

I don't recall that being stated, and would appreciate a citation, but I could be wrong too.

 

[SRFX]

The Search Pt. II is an underwhelming train wreck all over, so specific details need not be concerned with.

 

[Kai Winn]

why did he order the shields up in the battle with the dominion ships, and not transfer all power to the guns like the captain of the odysee did? the shields were useless against the dominion weapons anyway.

The shields were useless against Dominion beam weapons - but the dropping of shields, a seemingly sensible power reallocation maneuver, was what killed the Odyssey, as it allowed the Jem'Hadar to ram the starship. Sisko wouldn't risk that sort of an attack after having seen what happened.

good point, but the defiant is barely 1/10 the size of a galaxy- class ship, is 10 times more maneuverable, posesses three times the hull armour, and has twice the gun power. difficult to hit with weapons, let alone ram attacks. i'm not sure the shields are any good against that, if my memory serves me right, shinzon did not lower his before the enterprise pushed into him at a leisurely pace.

 

[Timo]

The firepower of the Defiant has never been quantified, but doesn't seem to differ much from that of the Klingon BoP, another smallish starship type. The strength of her armor has not been quantified, either. Her maneuverability looks average for Starfleet starships - she tends to do a lot of fancy spinning, but any actual course changes appear similar to those made by a Galaxy or Miranda class ship.

Really, I'm not aware of any battle where hostile weapons fire missed the Defiant thanks to her maneuvering... Unless one counts Klingon "spray and pray" fire which isn't meant to connect with every blast in the volley anyway.

It does seem, though, that ramming can penetrate shields. Not only did we get that in ST:NEM, but two DS9 episodes (the latter recycling the footage of the former) showed the Jem'Hadar at their old ramming tricks again, and these were effective against large Klingon starships that had no excuse for not having their shields up full.

OTOH, it must be a matter of balances. Very small vessels or missiles have consistently been repelled by shields - one even harmlessly bounces off the shields of the E-D in TNG "The Hunted". Large ships can ram each other at low speeds despite shields, as in ST:NEM. A medium ship probably needs lots of speed or other trickery to defeat the shields of a large one, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Praxius]

So I've just finished watching Season 1 and 2 for the third or fourth time, and started on Season 3.

I noticed something watching The Search that I never noticed before-

In part one, one of the major plot points was Odo's resigning as chief of security. This is played up all throughout the episode up until the very last few moments.

Then in part two it's completely forgotten. It isn't mentioned at all, then in House of Quark we see Odo back at his post as security chief as if nothing had happened.

I'm just curious if there's a story behind this. Was part 2 written by a different writing team than part 1? Was that storyline just dropped because there was so much else going on during the episode? Are we to assume that because it was discovered that Odo's people were the founders, that this raised Odo's importance and therefore starfleet decided to drop the whole thing to keep him around?

It's really not important to the overall story but I'm surprised I had never noticed this before.

As I see it, I believe Sisko, whom has the final say on who is stationed and who is transferred, kinda knew Odo was going through some issues... much like Kira, O'Brien, Dax and Worf all did in their own ways.... Many of the main characters at one time or another thought about or decided to resign their positions, only to have Sisko assume they'd change their mind and delay sending the resignations or temporarily taking them off duty until they figure themselves out.

I'm sure that if Sisko never went ahead to look for a replacement, Odo wouldn't have had an issue in getting his position back.

Afterall, Sisko always thought highly of his abilities.

 

[Garm Bel Iblis]

and later, it was clear that Odo was in charge of 'non-starfleet' security. Lookat the Ep "Crossifre," sisko states since Eddington is on leave to coordinate with Worf for Starfleet security arrangements.

 

[Nightdiamond]

My impression was that the Defiant was somehow different from the other Starfleet ships- that because it was specially designed to fight the Borg, it must have had either slightly stronger shielding, or just...tough.

They made the Defiant look tougher in episodes like "The Defiant" where it took out larger ships single handedly, and in "The die is cast", where it piled through and destroyed several jam hadar ships, while taking direct hits.

 

[Timo]

Much of this was due to the Defiant being the first hero ship to be actively fighting a war. Earlier heroes had not considered the destruction of enemy ships a virtue, and had never been in a situation where multiple enemies would need to be dispatched of...

When DS9 steered more and more towards combat stories, other ship types were seen performing similar feats of arms. Incapacitating a Cardassian capital ship looked great in "Defiant" - but in TNG, dialogue had established that Picard's ship would have been able to do that to fifteen such ships. We just never saw that because the writing favored noncombat solutions (not the least because combat was expensive to film!).

Certainly the Defiant had above-average armor against the Dominion, because she could some hits in "The Search" already, long before Starfleet would have had a chance to upgrade its shield technology. Then again, Jem'Hadar weapons fire damaged the hero ship in that episode, just like it had damaged the Odyssey in the previous one - and the smaller ship appeared more hurt. So it's difficult to tell.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[G2309]

I think the end of the search 2 was good enough explanation he'd made his decision to stick by his friends despite discovering his own people.