The siege of ar558

[Treker]

What a great episode.

I'm just having a bit of a series 7 binge right now.

This was awesome.

Loved the real actual fighting, you just don't get enough of it in the trek. The phaser fights, the death, the noise the screams

Very dark episode, liked Bill Mumy as a guest actor.

One of the best ever.

 

[TeutonicNights]

I think this episode has a few problems.

1) The whole cave setting was kinda cheap.
Why not show a bigger underground structure they were defending (a matte too perhaps).
When there are "real" soldier dramas using beautiful location shots like "Thin Red Line", it makes it all the more obvious "AR" is a bunch of guys in piyamas fighting dudes in rubber masks with plastic toy guns.
Just compare that to "Nor the battle" or "To the death".
In TTD we had those ancient iconian structures, in "battle" you got a glimpse of an underground starfleet installation (plus location shooting). Here, we just have the standard DS9 cave. Also a missed opportunity to show some real cool Starfleet hardware like those hoppers or gunships (or Mechs ).

2)Future combat
I don't buy the combat in this for a second. They don't have drone guns (that would take care of the Jem'Hadar in a second)? Grenades? Force fields? Auto lock-on?They use single raygun shots instead of broad beams, that would incinerate the attackers.
If there was a moment to talk about possible rules of those future wars, this was it. But you can't really have that, if the Jem'Hadar use the Houdinis and their personal cloaks and ammo that leaves an anti-coergulant. So why would Starleet constrain itself?

I realize this was for the sake of looking cool and more akin to today's combat. But considering this is THE strategic important place to hold in this conflict, they should have the hardware. If they needed to have this kind of fighting, they should have tried another setting, like a random squad being pinned down in a jungle or something.
Space:AAB had similar, but better, depictions of future combat long ago.

3) what was the point of it all? We didn't see 24th century combat, the setting was forgettable, humans can get pretty ugly after some weeks in the trenches (who would have thought?)

"Nor the battle" is a much better Trek war episode in my opinion. Jake running away, the soldier shooting himself, Starfleet triage. That was powerful.
A bunch of Starfleet soldiers in a cave? Not so much.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

/\ The Devil in the Dark was just a bunch of guys in a cave, if the writing's good enough you can pull it off!

Personally I think that The Siege of AR-558 is a superb episode and probably one of my favourite DS9 installments. It reminds me of the intensity of The Ship, which is another of my favourites. And hey, Bill Mumy!

 

[Treker]

This was deep in dominion territory and the Defiant was under attack and unable to provide immediate backup.

Is this Quark's 3rd Jem'Hdar kill? I remember he gets the 2 for when breaking the resistance out of lockup during the dominion occupation of DS9. Not that they really explained what he was even doing there too well, just seemed like he was there to annoy Nog the whole time.

Not using all the fancy features of the Starfleet phaser rifle is a bit of a scam, you are right about that TeutonicNights.

I can remember Kira explaining all the multi targeting and spread beam features it was supposed to have.

I think it was supposed to be a struggle, limited resources in a tight situation, the dark and dirty side of the war.

I didn't find the cave setting too cheap, after all they did build the big transmitter thingo.

If you really think about it the JemHdar are very very weak for the big strong genetically engineered warriors they are supposed to be, I mean they made a big point of it a couple of epsidoes beforehand for (take me to the holosweet) that vulcans are 3 times stronger and faster than humans, yet humans like Sisko (an old man) can take on these spiky head blood thirsty psychos in hand to hand combat????

 

[DevilEyes]

yet humans like Sisko (an old man)

I don't remember Joseph fighting any Jem 'Hadar...

 

[Treker]

I mean old as in we know how old Avery is when he is playing Sisko.

I'm not going to just assume he is supposed to be young and strong.

 

[DevilEyes]

I mean old as in we know how old Avery is when he is playing Sisko.

I'm not going to just assume he is supposed to be young and strong.

Um... between 45 and 51?

Looked like a big strong guy in his prime to me, so I'm going to assume that's what Sisko was.

You have a different idea of what "old man" means than most people do.

Unless you mean it as "old man = dad"... Jake could call him "my old man" as in "my dad"...

 

[You_Guyz]

Didn't like the episode too much at all, mainly because I thought it was at odds with the Trek universe, not only for the technological reasons mentioned above but also due to the whole "collecting ketracel white and putting it around your neck" thing. Everything Quark says is also very heavy handed, do we need a big eared alien in Trek to tell us that humans sometimes get bad when they have no food and are tired?
What was the moral exactly, that sometimes was can make people go crazy?

Sorry but that wasn't good enough for me. The anti-trek feeling of the whole episode and the cheapness made me dislike the episode.

 

[mattyhugh]

Didn't like the episode too much at all, mainly because I thought it was at odds with the Trek universe, not only for the technological reasons mentioned above but also due to the whole "collecting ketracel white and putting it around your neck" thing. Everything Quark says is also very heavy handed, do we need a big eared alien in Trek to tell us that humans sometimes get bad when they have no food and are tired?
What was the moral exactly, that sometimes was can make people go crazy?

Sorry but that wasn't good enough for me. The anti-trek feeling of the whole episode and the cheapness made me dislike the episode.

Which is why I personally love DS9 the most. I personally make some pretty nasty assumptions about human nature which is very un-Roddenberry. Why I liked Quark's speech is that despite how evolved humanity is, we still are victims of our darker internal natures.

 

[Timo]

But considering this is THE strategic important place to hold in this conflict, they should have the hardware.

Doesn't follow. Nobody KNEW this was a place of strategic importance. Our heroes had absolutely no clue that this would be the case when they went in to resupply the troops there. There were no reinforcements coming, because the troops down there had not been able to communicate their plight or the importance of their position to anybody of significance. How, then, could they have had the necessary gear down there in the first place? Why should they bring infantry combat equipment to a moon that supposedly has no population and thus, if for some mysterious reason happens to be occupied by Jem'Hadar, can easily be sterilized from orbit?

Had Starfleet known in advance that AR-558 would hold an important comm node, they would no doubt have secured it, with more than just 150 troops, and would have sent reinforcements later on. But they didn't secure it, and they didn't send any reinforcements, which more or less proves they didn't think there was anything of value there in the first place, and didn't learn better later on, either.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't have loved to see 24th century infantry technologies and techniques, of course. But I can accept this rationale for why I had to be disappointed.

To be sure, those rifles should already have had an autotargeting feature - Kira says as much in "Return to Grace" - as well as a widebeam mode - which we see in action in "The Adversary". But perhaps you can't autotarget very quickly, and the Jem'Hadar stayed cloaked until reaching the trenches, thus defying targeting till the last second. And widebeam is likely to consume resources (power, equipment lifetime) faster than narrowbeam, and these guys were short on resources.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Rush Limborg]

Some SUPERB moments in this ep:

The scene where Sisko and the others are discussing how to use the Dominion's mines against them.

The camera focuses on Ezri, who looks sick to her stomach at what they're proposing.

SISKO: What's the matter, old man? Don't you think it'll work?

EZRI: ...It isn't that. (her tone changes to false cheer) It's just...a while ago, we'd thought of these mines as...the kind of...ruthless weapons that only the Dominon would use...(tone gets serious) but now....

REESE: They become a whole lot friendlier.

Sisko replies by basically saying that they have to make sure they survive--at all costs.

A great message on the truths of war--and how sometimes, the path to victory isn't always pretty.


A second moment, during the final fight. Quark, you may remember, has been slamming Sisko, accusing him and the others of not caring about Nog, because of the loss of Nog's leg.

During the fight, he looks up...and listens to the phaser fire, and the cries of those who are giving their lives for his freedom...as we see him realize how truly wrong he was to judge Sisko and Starfleet so harshly.

And of course, he grabs a gun of his own, defending Nog from a Jem'Hadar. The camera pulls in, and we see a snarl of enjoyment on his face....


Finally, there is Sisko, looking over the bodies of those who have died, as the battle ends. My particular favorite moment is when the camera focuses on Ezri, cradling in her arms the lifeless form of Kellin, the young man who befriended her, and gave his life for her....

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

The story is what the epsiode is about,those starfleet officers spent months on the frontlines and what they were going throught,1 of the best episodes of ds9.

 

[I am not Spock]

An absolutely superb episode, and one of my favourites. I liked Quark's speech about hew-mons, personally.

 

[Xelo]

I just saw the episode for the first time a few nights ago. Coming near to the end of my first run of DS9.

I liked the episode well enough. I think it tried to show what the Dominion War looks like on the front lines. I can't wait to see what unfolds in the rest of S7.

 

[SRFX]

One of the best episodes of DS9 and Star Trek.

 

[StarryEyed]

I'm one who is usually quick to jump on scientific inaccuracies - especially when it comes to not using tech that MUST exist in the 24th century. I will concede that infantry combat (assuming it is practical at all) would take a much different form from what we see in this episode. The weapons should auto-target the Jem' Hadar, there should be wide-area and personal shields and even more stuff like the Houdinis. Still, I LOVE this episode. I found it very powerful - especially combined with 'It's Only A Paper Moon.'

Sometimes a story is so good, it transcends even the most ridiculous scientific and logical shortcomings. I think this is one of them along with TOS The Immunity Syndrome and TNG The Next Phase.

 

[Treker]

Thanks for all the positive feedback about this ep guys.

It feels good to share my trek experiences