Wrongs Darker than Death or Night

[You_Will_Fail]

So Kira actually traveled back in time and was going to change the entire timeline by killing Gul Dukat? Really? It seems a bit out of character for her to suddenly decide to not only KILL her own mother but also change the entire timeline.

Also is it me or is the whole premise of this episode really stupid? Dukat suddenly and out of the blue brings up the fact that he was living with Kira's mother for 7 years?
As if he wouldn't have brought it up before! PSHT!
Good execution but overall completely absurd.

 

[Admiral Shran]

It makes sense to me that he wouldn't bring it up until he did.

For the whole show he tries to get into Kira's pants; telling her that he kept her mother as a sex slave for seven years wouldn't really help him do that.

 

[Smellincoffee]

It does explain his obsession with her. I suppose the temporal prime directive isn't something Bajoran officers would be trained to be concerned about. The use of the orb of time is a bit TOO convenient, though.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I'm not entirely sure the Orb of Time actually sent people back in time. It may have just showed them what happened in the past (in which case it would be safe and there would be no TPD violation). But then the episode isn't clear on that matter.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm not entirely sure the Orb of Time actually sent people back in time. It may have just showed them what happened in the past (in which case it would be safe and there would be no TPD violation). But then the episode isn't clear on that matter.

Perhaps in Kira's case, but what about "Trials and Tribble-lations"?

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

That's a good question given that tribbles showed up in the 24th century...though I suppose we could come up with some technobabble to suggest that the Orb interacted with the Defiant's systems to allow actual interventions to the timeline?

 

[ALF]

I'm not entirely sure the Orb of Time actually sent people back in time. It may have just showed them what happened in the past.

This. It's like the Q time travel effect or something. I don't think it's meant to tread upon established canon at all. Trek does this pretty frequently.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I'm not entirely sure the Orb of Time actually sent people back in time. It may have just showed them what happened in the past (in which case it would be safe and there would be no TPD violation). But then the episode isn't clear on that matter.

It pretty clearly sent her back in time. She disappears once she saves her mother and Dukat from the bomb for example which is her going back in time.

And its still not a believable concept for me. Dukat never mentioned his relationship with her mother once just because he wanted to boink her. Purlease!

 

[JarodRussell]

I don't understand the title of the episode.

 

[doubleohfive]

I don't understand the title of the episode.

It has multiple meanings and interpretations. If I recall correctly, its attributable as a quote from Shelley. Ron Moore indicates in the DS9 companion that there are few things worse (or, by implication, "darker") than death or night. Among these we can assume the obvious interpretation to be Dukat using Meru as a sex slave, Dukat himself in his role as Hitler to the Bajorans and more importantly the idea that Kira finds herself suddenly willing to kill her own mother. That's some pretty fucked up shit right there.

The Companion also goes further, describing the writers' attempts to outdo each other with inordinately long and overwrought episode titles.

As for Kira not following the Temporal Prime Directive, I don't think, given the subject matter of what was going on, it was foremost in her mind. Kira --particularly on the subject of Dukat-- has never been able to see past her hatred and loathing of him for everything he'd done to the Bajorans. This was just one more nail --and, we can all agree, I think, an egregious one-- in his eventual coffin. More's the pity that she didn't get to off him in the end.

As for whether or not she actually traveled back in time, I always interpreted it to have actually happened, and the orb brought her back once she finished what she needed to do, whether it be finding out the truth, killing her mother, or saving her. The orbs were always presented as avenues to work toward closure of emotional baggage; once Kira had what she needed, the orb brought her back to her present.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

So Kira actually traveled back in time and was going to change the entire timeline by killing Gul Dukat? Really? It seems a bit out of character for her to suddenly decide to not only KILL her own mother but also change the entire timeline.

Also is it me or is the whole premise of this episode really stupid? Dukat suddenly and out of the blue brings up the fact that he was living with Kira's mother for 7 years?
As if he wouldn't have brought it up before! PSHT!
Good execution but overall completely absurd.

Yep. The episode defies any and all logic.

It's hard enough to believe that Kira would not have known by then that her mother was Dukat's comfort woman for seven years but the idea nobody else apparently knew - or at least never mentioned it to her - is idiotic. Kira in this episode is also little more than a shallow caricature of the otherwise complex and multi-faceted character we see her portrayed as in other similarly themed episodes.

As a result, this is probably my most hated episode of DS9. There's a good premise in there somewhere - the idea that Kira discovers her mother was a comfort woman for Cardassians has enormous potential - but the time travelling and Dukat angles completely derail it.

 

[doubleohfive]

Found this among some old thread bombs from a few years ago.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

A LOLkat? Yikes!

 

[Vayne]

I thought it just sprang up at a bizarre time, and I don't buy it either...

Part of the reason may be my own ignorance, but I thought it was well established that Kyra was 26 at the opening of the series...and then I thought I understood that Dukat had been on Terok Nor for the 10 years prior to the Federation coming, Bajor taking back the station and the renaming of it as DS 9. So...wouldn't Kyra have been something like 15 or 16 years old when Dukat was on the station...and her mother and father referring to her and showing her as an infant confused me.

So, I know someone else out there must know better on this subject and I am only too happy to be wrong.

Still...I want you, Kyra, so I'm going to tell you all about how much I loved your mom and how good the sex was...

Um. Ick.

 

[Timo]

The episode apparently agreed that Kira was born around 2343, yes. But it also appears to say that Dukat was the Prefect of Bajor back in 2346 already, when Nerys was three years old. That is, about twenty years before the show began, not mere ten.

Nothing in the earlier episodes really establishes when the station was built and when Dukat assumed a posting there. We don't even really know when the Occupation began, and no doubt different parties have different views on that... The weird thing about "Wrongs Darker" is that Dukat looks the same in scenes placed 20 years apart, but that's not unexpected - Cardassians are an alien species. And "Indiscretion" already told us that Dukat had climbed high up the career ladder before being sent to Bajor; he had been a legate once, before being reduced to gul. He clearly wasn't a young man when coming to Terok Nor, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

That said, it is interesting to note that if you look closely, Alaimo's makeup does make him a bit more youthful than normal during the time travel scene. It's harder to tell on Cardassians, but if you get two side-by-side screenshots from the same episode, you can see it.

 

[Gul Re'jal]

Nothing in the earlier episodes really establishes when the station was built and when Dukat assumed a posting there.

Not sure which episode it was, I think The Maquis, Dukat told Sisko that he was in command of the station for almost ten years. So it couldn't have been earlier than ten years before the end of occupation, unless he had some kind of breaks.

I think the timing here, re Kira's age, is an inconsistency caused by writers.

 

[Marie1]

So Kira actually traveled back in time and was going to change the entire timeline by killing Gul Dukat? Really?

Considering all the media about characters going back in time to kill Hitler and the like, I'm surprised it hasn't happened a few times.

Dukat wouldn't have any qualms about sleeping with a mother and then her daughter decades later. Him mentioning that fact had no other motive than to anger her for his amusement.

 

[Timo]

Dukat told Sisko that he was in command of the station for almost ten years.

That is true. But this still leaves open the possibility that he was Prefect for 22 years, just with somebody else working as his station commander (a title he isn't given in "Wrongs Darker") for 12+ of those.

Originally, the writers appeared to have Dukat be a relatively lowly placed part of the Cardassian terror machine - perhaps the last in the line of evil commanders, but certainly not the sole evildoer. But story by story, his authority of evil grew, so that soon enough he was in charge of everything having to do with the Occupation. Only fitting, then, to place him there at the very beginning...

Dukat wouldn't have any qualms about sleeping with a mother and then her daughter decades later.

To nitpick, that only makes him a pervert, not necessarily an evildoer; I know at least two cases of perfectly happy consent on this sort of an arrangement (although the "decades later" bit is skipped for brevity). And while the mother was a case of coercion (which Dukat did his twisted best to camouflage as consensual), all the attempts towards Kira were out in the open, subject to Kira's personal decision.

Him mentioning that fact had no other motive than to anger her for his amusement.

Which is probably the best argument for doubting the veracity of his claim. Kira's ego trip to the past could well be based on a false premise, the Orb helping her cope with that while paying no attention to the facts of the matter. That's what Orbs generally do...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

Just wondering why anyone would take seriously pretty much anything Dukat would choose to say about his background, including how long he'd been prefect...