In the first episode of the sixth season of Deep Space Nine, apparently, I’m also unready for the Dominion War. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
Trigger Warning: For talk of warfare and imperialism.
Wow, Deep Space Nine is not even remotely fucking around, y’all. NOT EVEN REMOTELY.
Terok Nor
Three whole months, y’all. THREE WHOLE MONTHS. And “A Time to Stand” gives us an idea of the surreal, dystopian nightmare that is life about Terok Nor. What’s most eerie about it can be described best in Quark’s words. This is not the most violent occupation we’ve ever seen on Deep Space Nine or Star Trek as a whole. That is by design. If you examine Weyoun’s behavior, he’s obsessed with diplomacy. He wants everyone to be friends. He wants everyone to get along! But it’s all about using that kind of social awkwardness to get precisely what he wants. So yes, the Cardassians have not reinstated some of their more heinous polices, and no, no one is being brutalized onboard the station. That makes this occupation all the more terrifying to me, though. Weyoun wants to give off the appearance of fairness, despite that everything the Dominion represents is about as far from fair as you can get.
So the whole situation is especially bizarre for Odo and Kira because it’s the Cardassian occupation of Bajor all over again. This time, though, they have more freedom to mount some sort of subversive rebellion, to work within the framework of this occupation to amount some sort of change. Of course, the frustration we see in “A Time to Stand” is due to the fact that Odo and Kira don’t feel like they’ve been able to accomplish anything to stop the Dominion. Again, I’d say that’s because of the way Weyoun designed all this. By not allowing the Cardassians to do anything drastic or violent, people like Jake, Odo, and Kira have less to react to, less chances to complain, less opportunities to turn things in their favor.
But with the Bajoran forces back on the station, and with Jake incentivized to find a new way to write his reports for the Federation, and with Odo on the Ruling Council, maybe this is how they’ll pull it off. Maybe it’s the start!
The Dominion War
Okay, I do love split timelines / plots like this, so SIGN ME UP. Plus, it allows us to see two sides to the Dominion War, and guess what? THEY’RE ALL FUCKED UP. Season six of Deep Space Nine is already a grim affair. The Federation is losing the Dominion War, and they’re doing so badly. The opening of “A Time To Stand” shows us the ragtag fleet that’s survived three months of fighting, and it’s not long afterwards that we learn just how badly the other fleets are fairing. We get an insight into how this is affecting various parts of the Federation. We see the exhaustion and poor morale aboard the Defiant. When Sisko reaches out to his father, there’s confirmation that Federation news services are reporting dire circumstances, giving Joseph Sisko a reason to be terrified of what’s happening.
Everything felt off in this episode, and I couldn’t place it until the credits started rolling. I’m so used to Deep Space Nine being centered in a single location that I was unnerved by the idea that most of the cast – Sisko, Jadzia, Worf, O’Brien, Nog, and Julian – were now being sent around to fight the Dominion War. And if the end of this episode is any indication, this is not going to be the only time this happens. In short, the writers have committed to the Dominion War, and I AM SO EXCITED.
It’s not the only thing they’ve committed to. Worf and Jadzia are still getting married; Julian no longer has to hide the fact that he’s genetically modified. (Which makes me feel complicated things, given that I read some of the great criticism on the post for “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” It’s fair to say that giving one of Star Trek‘s only men of color a genetic enhancement to explain his brilliance is a bit suspect.) And the time has come for the Federation to start getting dirty. The mission at the center of this episode will absolutely lead to members of the Jem’Hadar dying. How many? Who knows at this point? But something that was previously off-limits before (in a larger sense, that is) is now active policy. It’s not that the crew of DS9 have never killed anyone before; it’s just that they’ve never quite been on the offensive like this.
And my god, WHAT AN OFFENSIVE IT IS. They bomb a Ketracel White facility while in the Jem’Hadar ship that Sisko captured last season. It is all suitably awkward and horrifying, like when that one Federation ship fires upon them BUT THEY CAN’T DO MUCH ABOUT IT. What if the Jem’Hadar ships that passed by them went and destroyed the Centaur? And they were responsible since they took out the weapons array? OH GOD, THIS IS SO UNCOMFORTABLE TO THINK ABOUT.
But you better believe I didn’t expect this show to go all Voyager on these people. They’re now stranded in Dominion/Cardassian space… seventeen years from home. okay WHAT. WHAT THE HELL. HOW DARE YOU OPEN THIS SEASON THIS WAY.
The video for “A Time to Stand” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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