“Thou seest I judge not thee”: All Good Things..., Tribunal

It was a large room, filled with people. At the centre, a large horizontal bench over which presided the members of the judiciary: A human man, who looked to be in his early forties, and a Vulcan woman who looked youthful but could have been older than the ages of everyone in the house combined. The pair cast their gaze across the room to the wall on the far side, where a group of people were seated in a row, looking up with a mixture of anxiousness and confusion. “Read out the names of the accused”, someone said.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Commander Benjamin Sisko

Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien

Lieutenant Commander Data

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

Commander Jadzia Dax

Lieutenant Natasha Yar

Major Kira Nerys

“The revolutionary court is now in session.” 

It was sometime in the first half of 1994. I was going grocery shopping with my mother at the local market down the street from our house. I was passing the comic and magazine racks and idly browsing through that month's selection (this was back when you could actually buy comics at your local market-Mine even had its own spinner rack at that time). That day, a particular new addition for sale caught my eye: A special 64-page issue of the Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book from DC with a striking cover that proclaimed it was the Series Finale. And that was how I learned my favourite TV show was going away.

In hindsight, I must have taken the news rather well, as I remember being distinctly unfazed by it. Perhaps a mild disappointment, but I seem to recall the more pressing concern at that moment being my reasoning that if this was going to be the end, I'd best pay attention to it. I'm not sure if I thought “Series Finale” meant the end of the comic book series, the end of the TV series or both, though from what I can recall of my inner voice and thought process I think it was both. Either way, I had the sense this was going to be an important moment I ought to be a part of. It's funny looking back how nonchalant, almost blasé I took the news back then: “Oh. I guess that's over now. Oh well”. Compare that to the fact that the next eleven years of my life would be shaped in some way by my reaction to Star Trek, or the fact that here I am almost a quarter-century after the fact writing a book series about it.

The man spoke.

“This is not a day of triumph. I take no satisfaction in the task I must now undertake. Though I remain duty-bound to carry through with these proceedings, let it be known I do so under protest.”

Beat.

“Off the record, it's my personal belief that you were in many ways the best of us. We are all, in a sense, complicit. Who can say I am any less guilty of the things I've done? What right do I have to stand on this end of the room? Had history played out a little differently, the layout of this court probably would have looked very differently. I respect my opponents, even in defeat. Especially in defeat. On the record, judgment must be seen to have been passed. The people want an end to this story, and as entertainers in the theatre of war we are each of us obligated to provide it. Those crimes which have yet to be committed must be seen to have been answered for, and history begins with you.” 

“What are we being charged with?” 

“It is a logical paradox. By definition, the charges and verdict must be known only to us, because the evidence only exists from our vantage point. But I can assure you-It has occurred. It will occur.” 

“And how are we supposed to be expected to defend ourselves if we don't even know what we're accused of having done?” 

“Not done. Will do. The events that have led to this armistice and trial proceedings have not yet occurred from your perspective, but they have from ours. I concede that it is not...logical to hold you accountable for potential actions in your future, but history seldom is.” 

It's an odd feeling stopping time and looking down from above it. It was as if Star Trek: The Next Generation had ended, but remained a part of me. This was allegedly the “Series Finale”, but a novelization thereof. An adaptation. This meant that, logically, the show had already ended in some form before in order for it to be adapted. Thus, it still continues. It also still ends, because every time I opened the book the show ended again. And yet it continues. As a story, “All Good Things...” is, of course, deliberately open-ended. Its title is a statement that hasn't been finished, and there's absolutely no reason to think the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the starship Enterprise are going to stop after the end of it.

But in another sense, Star Trek: The Next Generation never actually went away materially. Even if following “All Good Things...” I got the sense the series was “officially over”, it wasn't in any material sense because it was still omnipresent. I had no sense of loss. I got back home from the market, finished the story, and looked up. My room was still as it had been before. My Playmates toys were still where I had left them. There were, in fact, still Playmates toys being sold: I could go into any department store and find a group of shelves dedicated to Star Trek: The Next Generation, most of them featuring new releases. My family and I still continued to watch the show as if nothing had happened, and, as far as syndication markets were concerned nothing had. Star Trek: The Next Generation has been an inextricable part of my being ever since. I cannot separate myself from it. I've never been able to, and I never will. Time is not an arrow, but a series of unfolding nows.

“This is a kangaroo court of mob justice! You're turning us all into a circus for your own amusement and political gain! Don't we have a right to a jury of your peers?” 

“But that's what this is. We are all former revolutionaries and freedom fighters. And none of us know what to do with ourselves now, because the history of progress stops as soon as you stop being a revolutionary.” 

“I escaped my past! I put my painful adolescence behind me and took my life into my own hands! I want to make a difference in the world!” 

“Did you? And can you be sure the difference you made was a good one?” 

“None of us can. Put yourselves in our place again. It's like throwing a pitch-A million different things could happen. The point is, you never know. But we still try to throw our best fastball.” 

“Your honours have mentioned potential. I won't claim to speak for anyone seated here beside myself, but I am confidant we are all aware of the severity of these days. We all see the happenings outlined before us. But the records do not show all possible existences. There remains the potential for a new one to be born, and it is our collective duty and responsibility to allow these possipoints to express themselves.” 

“I cannot measure it quantitatively, but I have increasingly come to...The belief...That I can become more than the sum of my constituent parts. Although upon reflection, perhaps it could be argued my life as it has been to date is proof enough of this hypothesis. I would then submit myself and my own existence as evidence to the court.” 

“I'm no Angel, but I try to live every day as the best Human Being I know how to be.” 

“If knowing the future condemns us, allow us the power to imagine a better one.” 

“We cannot give you what you deny yourself. We are bound to you through life and death.” 

“Everyone and everything begins with a thought. We birth reality through ourselves when fiction is reified through art, craft and action. Eternity waits in the drop of every moment. Time begins when we say it does NOW.” 

“Above all else, we are explorers, just as you wish to be. Just as you were. Just as you are now.” 

“I would advise you to select your words a bit more carefully. The historical context precedes you.” 

“We are all voyagers. Isn't that what this was all supposed to be about at some point long ago? We travel because we yearn to better ourselves, to learn from others and from ourselves. No matter what sort of person we happen to be, we can always be a better one.” 

“It brings us closer together and to the universe we live in. The more we know, the more we can understand, and the more we understand the better we can bring forth the best in each of us. We are all the same. We cannot identify with the actions of our previous selves, nor can we atone for them. Regret is anathema to birth and to healing. But we can take responsibility for those actions by learning from them.” 

“We are all stories. Every one of us is the hero of our own adventure, and every one of those adventures is just an aside in the greatest tapestry of all-The Story of Life. Sometimes, when you sit down to write your novel, you have kind of a rough outline of how you think it's going to go in your head. But sometimes, it all gets away from you. Your story and your characters tell you they need to go in a different direction. And, it's usually a better one. Don't end our story just when it's getting to the good part!” 

“If our future is to be a certainty and a tragedy, afford us the opportunity to change it. Nothing is certain until we decide that it is. Let us endeavour to decide differently.”

It's strange. All of this feels happy to me. Welcoming, familiar, safe. I've got my magic quantum tech watch and can live in any moment I want forever. And yet for some reason, given a multiverse of choice, I still feel compelled to pick this one. Why here, why now, when I know everything is about to end? That almost sounds like Temporal Stockholm Syndrome. But time moves differently. I don't know Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is about to sacrifice itself in May 1994, because in May 1994 it's September 1993 and I'm still reading about “The Homecoming”/“The Circle”/“The Siege”. The only rumblings of war I can sense this May are the posturing between the Klingons and the Cardassians, and I know my crew will bend space and time for peace to prevent that from coming to a head. Now something about a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie? Maybe a miniseries? Cool, I guess. I don't really watch movies. So long as it doesn't interfere with the show. What an amazing season this is going to be.

Also, who's this A-ko I keep reading about?

“I wanted to be an explorer, not a warrior. I could commit one more act of war and end all the fighting and all the bloodshed before it begins. I could press the button and keep us all here for eternity. But someone once told me some words I've remembered all my life: 'Eternity waits in the drop of every moment'. It feels...almost attractive. Live forever in a nostalgio-mnemonic palace of our own construction, ignoring everything outside our gilded walls of memory. And maybe we should stay here at least a little longer. Maybe we do live our lives too fast. But the fact remains, the time will come someday when time will work over us all.” 

“But we are voyagers, builders, poets and magicians. These are realities we have always faced with dignity, courage, honour and respect. What is any different Now? Instead of fearing the future and preparing for an unknown pulled from our own nightmares, let us instead strive to build it together. At one time, humans threatened each other with frightful weapons that impoverished their communities and poisoned their planet. At others, they killed each other over alliances and arbitrary political boundaries. But time itself is an artificial and amoral force. Let us cast it aside like all of our other weapons of war and mass destruction and join together once again.” 

“Fight for the future you want to see, do not try to outrun it. Let's take it on together!” 

“My presence continues. Give birth to the universe inside yourself.” 

“Logical positivism precludes enlightenment, and that is my fatal design flaw. But it is a myth that I do not experience emotion or empathy. With my heart I feel moved to act, and logic tells me that it is a wise and just course of action to take. Forgive. Please.” 

“To forgive would be an act of love, not of war.”

A pregnant silence fell over the room for a moment that seemed to last forever. The man spoke.

“I move to acquit on all charges. And to adjourn.”

Beat.

“In time, this confluence will fade into memory. But a part of us will always remain in this room together-Let's never forget that. The very least we can do is to ensure the memories we retain are happy ones. I love each and every one of you, and I always have. I always will. I look forward to rejoining with all of you again on the other side, no matter what form that will take.”

Then the lights went down, and they all slowly disappeared. But I still felt their presence, familiar and safe. And that was the end, and the beginning, of everything.

I'll see you next time.

“Thrice burnt, thrice brought forth”: The Collaborator

Vedek Bareil experiences an orb vision in this episode's teaser-The first we've seen since “The Circle” at the opposite end of the year. The one in “The Circle” was surprisingly trite, however, only showing us foreshadowing (and basically shot-for-shot foreshadowing to boot) of the climax to “The Siege”. Kind of a weaksauce spiritual vision, if you ask me. The vision in “The Collaborator” (or rather series of visions) is comparatively far more visually striking, utlising a lot of inventive cuts and camera angles as well as some well thought-out abstract visual symbolism. It's the first time since “Emissary” the Prophets have really felt like gods who have a presence in the lives of their people.

There are other, more explicit parallels to “The Homecoming”/“The Circle”/“The Siege” here as well, since “The Collaborator” effectively serves as the end of the Bajoran Provisional Government plotline that was the backbone to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for almost a year and a half. It's been an interesting thing to watch unfold to be sure: The show's connection to Bajoran religion began as an attempt to explore more internal spiritualist themes in Star Trek. “Emissary” is essentially a lite version of abstract cinema depicting different metaphors and analogies for our personal, macro/micro individual inner lives. But with Kai Opaka's sorta-death in “Battle Lines”, the result of the creative team's desire to kill off a recurring character for dramatic purposes, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's mysticism has been increasingly compartmentalized, repackaged and kept in check (with notable exceptions like “The Storyteller”, “If Wishes Were Horses”, “Playing God” and arguably “Shadowplay”). The Bajoran religion, originally a metaphor for our cosmic wonderings in general, becomes planet-of-hats set dressing, its main purpose to serve as the backdrop for Vedek Winn and Vedek Bareil's Machiavellian story of political machinations.

So in this respect “The Collaborator” feels almost like an attempt at reconstruction and reconciliation, which is perhaps appropriate for a story about Bajorans. It's very much a story about backroom deals, realpolitiking and political backstabbing, but some of that mystical energy from “Emissary” manages to crackle through. And yet at the same time there's definitely a sense that this is the last time we'll be seeing this sort of thing, with Vedek Winn's campaign for the Kaiship finally coming to fruition through the character assassination of Vedek Bareil, who plays along with it due to his stubbornly intractable loyalty. Winn's victory is a win for fundamentalism, which has really nothing to do with spirituality or religious experiences. Rather, fundamentalism is about dogma, xenophobia, nativism and willfully shallow networked thinking. Fundamentalists believe that there is only one true way of thinking and behaving, their unexamined assumptions are it, and they furthermore have a right to coerce everyone else to share them. It doesn't actually matter what the fundamentalism is about, so long as the fundamentalist has the feeling of being righteous, and of being listened to.

It's also interesting that the episode ends up condemning not just Bareil, but Kai Opaka as well, who is retroactively revealed to be the titular collaborator whom Bareil takes the fall for. Frankly, it's not even the collaboration itself that bothers me so much as the fact her actions apparently consisted of partaking in a miserably boring and trite trolley problem. Again, spirituality and mysticism are not the game here: That's just the wrapping paper for this particular plot about political manoeuvering and consolidation of power in a particular social context coded as post-imperialist. And that's not to knock that because that's an important story to tell...But I can't help but feel Star Trek: Deep Space Nine could have told it with a *bit* more nuance and depth than it did: Imagine, for example, if we got to see more of the specific sociopolitical factors that led to someone like Vedek Winn developing the worldview she holds. We only got a bit of that in “In the Hands of the Prophets” before she quickly swerved into “obvious villain”. However, it should be said that the truncated run of this particular incarnation of the show assuredly contributed rather heavily to that. Extradiegetically, the show needs to wrap all this up in a bit of a hurry to make room for what's coming next.

But let's talk a bit more about Winn winning. Because that was the whole conceit of this episode, and that kind of says a lot of not very good things about the state of Star Trek right now. To quote Ira Steven Behr:

“We had talked all year about Bareil becoming the next Kai. All year! And during this conversation, we started talking about a collaborator, and I suddenly realized, 'We don't want Bareil as the Kai. What the hell good is that going to do us? He's a friend, and he's not going to cause any trouble for the Federation.' The trick to drama is to find the person who's going to cause the most conflict and put him in the most powerful position.”

I'm not going to reiterate my numerous and sundry complaints about the fetishization of conflict in storytelling as those are well known and well worn by this point (although if you want to see some other evidence and potentially read someone other than me complaining about it, go look up “kishōtenketsu” and “plot without conflict”). But I will bring up one of my other old chestnuts, because, as usual, Behr provides the textbook example of a writer who conflates “conflict” with “grimdark” and an intellectual tradition that will utterly define pop culture in the 1990s, 2000s and arguably still to this day. And I'm just going to say one more thing about this: This kind of writing isn't objectionable just because it's reductively Aristotelian to the point it can't conceive of any other way of being, it's offensive because it's literary sadism. This is nothing short of perverse pleasure in watching (and the keyword *is* “watching”) depictions of pain and suffering for entertainment and amusement. And while by no means the most egregious example in the franchise [hell, it's not even the most egregious example this show (or this writer, for that matter) has offered up thus far], “The Collaborator” is worth calling out on this front because it so clearly paves the way for what Star Trek is about to become. And what Star Trek is about to become is not good.

There's one other thing about this episode I want to gripe about (wow, this essay has turned out considerably more negative than I had planned). There's one scene where Major Kira confides in Odo about her despair over having to possibly out Bareil as a collaborator because she loves him (and I'll bet Behr was just cackling with glee when he wrote that scene. The episode has three writers but I'm sure Behr wrote that part). René Auberjonois has Odo respond in a really weird and counterintuitive way, visibly taken aback and expressing confusion that Kira hadn't figured it out by then. This has led literally everybody to read that scene as Odo being crestfallen by Kira's admission because he secretly harbours romantic feelings for her as well, which I might be able to see as convincing except for the small fact that's absolutely not Auberjonois' intent with this delivery. And I know this because both René Auberjonois and Nana Visitor were openly, publicly and strongly against any attempt to hook their characters up.

First of all, why is Odo only expressing surprise now? It's not like Major Kira's relationship with Vedek Bareil has been a huge secret; they've practically been dating since the start of the season. You mean to insinuate someone that observant simply never noticed something that blatantly obvious before? Come on. In fact, I think that's exactly what Odo is saying: He's surprised because Kira's only just now admitting it to him, as if she didn't think he knew. Odo's being sincere when he's saying he doesn't understand the social norms, niceties and conventions surrounding human(oid) romance-When is Odo ever not sincere? He's taken aback because Kira treats it as a big secret she has to muster up a lot of energy and willpower to confess, and Odo doesn't understand why she feels she has to do that.

Odo supposes romance just happens organically and is something people ought to just fall into and shouldn't make a fuss about: Remember, this is a guy who basically lives in his office and whose only worldly possession is a bucket. Far from being about Odo's inner torture over his unrequited feelings, my beat on this scene is that it's about an asexual/aromantic expressing his genuine lack of understanding about and distance from everything people have built up around these particular emotions. Critically I don't think Odo doesn't understand love itself, he's not Data, I think he doesn't get why we make such a big deal about love. And frankly, I think he's right: I tend to feel humans dreadfully overthink love and romance, while paradoxically not affording them the specific type of concern and consideration they actually warrant. I think love should happen organically, as a natural outgrowth of empathy and familiarity.

The abject failure on the part of the writers to get a proper beat on the Odo/Kira scene (and the fans-Memory Alpha seems to have “canonized” the unrequited love reading by including it in their episode synopsis, which is not only a misinterpretation it's also openly misleading) is microcosm for what “The Collaborator” means for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on the whole. Shutting down a potentially unique opportunity to explore asexuality in a genre fiction setting, apart from being plain old erasure, also locks the show down into beige and hackneyed heteronormativity in much the same way killing off Kai Opaka and giving Vedek Winn the kaiship locks it into boring realpolitiking and out of mysticism. I can't say “The Collaborator” is a terrible episode since it has so much to recommend in it (the Odo/Kira scene alone is worth the price of entry) and as a last-minute tying-up-loose-ends story it's more than serviceable. But I'll be damned if it doesn't make me pine over the lost opportunities and could-have-beens.

“Looking-Glass House”: Crossover

This does, on the surface of things, seem to be an example of the show's worst impulses gone unchecked. Following “Blood Oath”, it now seems Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has no qualms about straight-up doing sequels to Original Series stories. As beloved and as iconic to not just Star Trek nerddom, but pop culture in general, as “Mirror, Mirror” may be, there's simply no avoiding the smack of fanwank that surrounds a brief like this. Especially in a month where Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is most assuredly staring down its own mortality in an climate of fanboys that is growing increasingly hostile to it.

The counterpoint is, of course, that “Crossover” gets away with it because it's quite simply a tour de force.

One of my absolute favourite episodes of the series, I've loved “Crossover” forever, and I love it even more now. In hindsight, from the vantage point upon which I now sit, it does feel a bit like it's ushering in a block of stories that is ultimately the last brilliant flash of genius before the final end, though at the time I obviously would not have picked up on that. This was also one of the first episodes I rewatched later in my life during my second wave of Star Trek fandom, and even before the DVDs came out. I remember being at my great-grandmother's house flipping through the channels for something to watch and coming across a rerun of “Crossover” on whatever local affiliate station she had. So I can attest to the fact that as late as 2002 proper Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was still being shown in syndication. I remember finding it weird, because I'd sort of mentally filed away *that* kind of Star Trek as Not Really Being A Thing Anymore, consigned to the dustbins of history where polite and fashionable people didn't like to talk about it. As I was neither of those things I still did, but I had a deserved reputation for being uncomfortably eccentric at the time, so that proves nothing.

I'll get the base criticism of “Crossover” out of the way at the start, because as much as I like it I'll freely admit there were some attitudes that went into it that were perhaps less than desirable and are worth mentioning upfront. There is the potentially fanwanky nature of the brief. I personally happen to think “Crossover” is rather good at explaining the Mirror Universe situation for people who weren't approaching Deep Space Nine from the position of being lifelong Star Trek nerds who grew up on the Original Series (that is, normal people) particularly well through the choice of characters to send over: Major Kira, who obviously wouldn't know much about Starfleet history, and Doctor Bashir, who excitedly tells us how much he does and leaps at the opportunity to share his knowledge of it. So the exposition and backstory flows very well as a result of this (yet another thing this series will never get the credit for it deserves) and manages to tell a fascinating story about a Mirror Universe and all the implications that go along with it without assuming that we're all going to immediately get the fannish reference. This is no doubt due to the fact the two main writers on this script were Michael Piller and Peter Allan Fields.

(By the way an aside, I love Julian and Nerys in this story. I love the opening bit where he openly and cheerfully tries to make friends with her and ask her out at the same time without missing a beat. It's a great example of what I think is so delightful about Doctor Bashir: He's the absolute picture of an overeager and overzealous young man who remains fundamentally rather lonely and insecure that I would imagine a lot of young men could probably relate to. But because of the show's utopianism he never quite descends to the level of being stalkerish so his energy comes across as charming and likable instead of creepy. When Nerys tells him to back off, he does. It also very much helps that the way Doctor Bashir treats Major Kira is exactly the same way he treats Dax, Melora Pazlar, Commander Sisko, Chief O'Brien and Garak, which is particularly wonderful to think about coming immediately after “The Wire”. Leave it to Julian to singlehandedly tear down Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's reputation for oppressive heteronormativity. He wants to be friends with everybody.)

But the fanwank issue isn't the biggest potential problem with “Crossover”. That's the pitch itself: Ira Steven Behr suggested that a sequel to “Mirror, Mirror” posit that Mirror Spock's change of heart actually “screwed up” the Mirror Universe. For those who don't remember or didn't see that episode, that change of heart involved rejecting the brutality of the Terran Empire in order to form a resistance movement built around peace and equality, which is especially nasty in the wake of “The Maquis”. But it's Robert Hewitt Wolfe (who didn't write this episode but, like in “Blood Oath” advised and offered suggestions) who lays it out in the most questionable terms. As he puts it in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion:

“Empires aren't usually brutal unless there's a reason. There are usually external or internal pressures that cause them to be that way. So I just thought that if the parallel Earth (we saw in Kirk's time) was that brutal, there had to be a reason. And the reason was that the barbarians (the Klingons and the Cardassians) were at the gate.”

Wolfe elaborated further in the bonus features for the Season 2 DVD Box Set:

“My analogy was to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was as brutal and as nasty as it was because all around it, it had very aggressive barbarians that it was afraid of. The Chinese had the same thing, the Mongols were always there. So if you suddenly make the Romans nice guys, or the Chinese nice guys, well that's great and everything, but then the Mongols come across and it's all over. So that was kind of the idea, what was the mirror universe like a hundred years after. Well, it might not be a very nice place.”

I shouldn't have to explain to my readership why everything Wolfe says here is wrong, but everything Wolfe says here is wrong. The very definition of “Empire” is that which expands the boundaries of its sphere of political influence by conquering and forcibly absorbing territory and people, coercing them to live under their authority whether they want to or not, usually with the treat of swift and frightful discipline if they don't comply. It is in point of fact impossible for empires to be anything but brutal, and the idea that we need strong, centralized authority (let alone empire) to be obeyed unquestionably so it can protect us from The Other outside our social boundaries is nothing short of terrifying.

But this is actually all OK because, thankfully for us, “Crossover” miraculously manages to not actually adhere itself to the reading Wolfe outlines for it. In practice, it can be read as a perfect follow-up and expansion to the themes in “Mirror, Mirror” that also manages to stand on its own and never once falling into grimdark realpolitiking bullshit. The key to redemption lies in remembering what we decided the Mirror Universe is actually about: It's not a place where everything is “opposite”, that is, where Good Guys are Bad Guys and Bad Guys are Good Guys: That's an overly crass and simplistic reading that I feel misses a lot of the nuance of the concept. Instead, it's a universe where subtle, yet critical, aspects of history happened differently, which means different facets of the setting and of character's personalities than the norm become emphasized. The major conceit of “Mirror, Mirror” was that the Terran Empire and the Federation are actually not all that different at all-Note how Kirk's crew is dealing with the same colonial diplomacy problem in both universes, the only difference is how in one universe he decides to nuke the natives (or has standing orders to) and in the other he doesn't. The episode was meant to be a cautionary tale about how we're not as apolitical, removed and above things as we like to think we are.

And that's exactly what “Crossover” is about too. This time, it's the humans who are the oppressed and the Bajorans who are imperial powers, which are sides of themselves these groups haven't had to seriously examine before. In the Federation humans are arguably the most dominant political power in the galaxy, and it can be a helpful reminder to them not to be judgmental about the tactics of certain resistance groups because, if things were a little different, they would want to fight for their freedom too. Likewise, the vile speciesist bigotry of the Bajorans and their imperial overseers can very easily be seen as what would happen if their insularity and latent xenophobia were allowed to go unchecked and given a galactic platform to broadcast from.

Even the Klingons and the Cardassians are an example of this mirroring, and are furthermore a great example of how Star Trek: Deep Space Nine puts a utopian spin on these concepts: In our universe, these two powers are on the brink of declaring a catastrophic war with each other that would destabilize the entire quadrant by dragging everyone else into their fight through alliances World War I-style, too stubborn and prideful to admit to each other how similar they actually are. In another reality perhaps they could be friends, and indeed, in at least one other universe they are. It's a very, very Star Trek notion, that two people are more similar than they know and that enemies can become friends, albeit appropriately warped and distorted through the lens of a cracked and darkened mirror.

This is likewise true for all the characters we meet on Mirror DS9: Smiley O'Brien is a cog in a machine who wants to keep to himself and do his job, more out of fear than of dedication. Garak is an opportunist constantly conspiring to seize power, though apparently his part was actually originally written for Michael Dorn's Worf, which would have been an even better fit. Benjamin Sisko is a directionless, emotionless hedonist who's given up hope things could change, which is just how we might imagine our Ben might have turned out if he never found purpose and meaning in his life. There's also Quark, a tragically kindhearted bartender who took pity on the Terran slaves at the cost of his own life. Well, we always knew that, in spite of everything, Quark was one of the good guys. And Odo as a fascist thug who strives for order, obedience and efficiency above all else and who takes sadistic glee in torturing slaves? Well, of course. And the last of his kind to boot.

(Speaking of, the direction, cinematography and effects in this episode are absolutely killer: That hellish scene where Mirror Odo keeps watch over the slaves as the ore processing plan burns around him still sends chills up my spine, as does René Auberjonois' performance.)

The only thing I can express disappointment about is that we never got to meet Mirror Jadzia Dax, because Terry Farrel would have gone crazy with a part like that.

Nowhere is this conveyed better than in the person of Intendant Kira Nerys. Possibly the most criticized aspect of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's take on the Mirror Universe, I think she's by far the most successful and overwhelmingly so. The argument that gets levelled here is that Intendant Kira is an example of the “Depraved Bisexual” stereotype, where a person (and it's usually a woman) is shown to have bisexual or lesbian tendencies as code for her being evil or untrustworthy. While Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is unfortunately not immune to this (“Dramatis Personae”, anyone?) I don't think that's what's going on here at all. Actually, I think that reading is pretty conclusively unsustainable on both counts, because in “Crossover” Intendant Kira is not shown to be evil (at least not deliberately), nor is she shown to be bisexual. She's actually shown to be just flighty and capricious, and above all else vain: More of an opportunist than even Garak, she'll side with whoever gives her perks and a steady position, and quite explicitly has no real love for the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. But most importantly, the only person she's ever actually depicted as being in love with is Major Kira-That is, herself.

Nana Visitor explains the situation very well and very clearly whenever she's interviewed about it. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, she says she conceived of Intendant Kira by taking our Kira and “messing with her ego a bit...Messing with a few key elements in her life that would have changed its direction. She's a spoiled brat with an ego gone awry”. On the Season 1 DVD Box Set, she elabourates further:

“She [Intendant Kira] was interesting because she was Kira, she's got all you know, it's all the same, everything is exactly the same, except in this other world, her ego is twisted one way, whereas Kira's is twisted another. So where Kira thinks of others, and finds a justification for her life in doing things for other people, the Intendant's justification for life is in doing things for herself. She is completely the most self involved, self centered person, she's like a child in that sense, which makes her funny, but in her childish way, she cares so little for other people that she thinks nothing of disposing of them, using them, it doesn't matter, which makes her very scary.”

This, according to Visitor, is what explains the sexual tension between her and Major Kira. She's not bisexual, she's egosexual:

“I never intended for the intendant to be bisexual. I think that was an assumption that everyone, including the writers, made after the character fell for Kira in [sic. “Crossover”]. But that had been total narcissism on her part. It had nothing to do with sexuality. I never liked that people took her for bisexual because she's an evil character. There are so few gay characters on TV, and we really don't need an evil one.”

And yet Intendant Kira absolutely walks with a sexual swagger and confidence about her, even if she perhaps isn't consciously aware that's what she's doing. As Robert Blackman points out when describing her allegedly provocative outfit

“If you were to put the two uniforms together, you'd say, 'Well it's kind of a shiny gray version of the rust.' It's not that I've exposed more of her body - it's exposed pretty much the same way it always is. What's the difference? She's the difference. It's how Nana wears it. It's what she does. She walks like a provocative woman, with her legs crossing in front. She uses her hips, and a whole other kind of body English than she normally uses.”

What Nana Visitor has done here is the exact same thing Leonard Nimoy gets praised to the heavens for doing in the original “Mirror, Mirror”. More than anything or anyone else here, she innately understands and captures the essence of what this story and this narrative device are supposed to be about, and that's saying something given how bloody good everything else about “Crossover” is. Above all else, Intendant Kira is spellbinding, mesmerizing and unforgettable. Furthermore, pairing her with our Major is every bit as showy and impressive a performance as anything Brent Spiner does. This is Nana Visitor's best acting showcase since “Duet”. She deserves a standing ovation from each and every one of you.

There's a beautifully loaded line delivered from Kira to Kira that sticks with me, and it's only grown more haunting as the years have gone by:

“My side once changed the course of your history. Well, maybe your side can change mine.”

And I love how the titular crossover happens as a result of the wormhole, a fact that later writers have retconned as the Prophets actively intervening to get the two universes to meet so that they might learn from each other. Part of the story of Star Trek: The Next Generation is that certain roles have been reversed, both for good and for ill. And now it seems the same is true for the Mirror Universe. Smiley said our Chief O'Brien got the better end of the deal this time. And really, what better time and place to explore that? This story isn't popular with fans for no reason, and it's because there's a real fire, energy and intensity to the universe of this episode. That's not to say there isn't in ours, but it isn't always tapped with the intensity and enthusiasm as it needs to be. Perhaps we have forgotten our radical roots, and perhaps that's something future generations will hold against us someday.

“All in the game, yo. All in the game”: The Wire

Some mysteries should remain unsolved.

We all love a good mystery. I believe a wise man once said something to the extent of “And to many humans, a mystery must be solved”. There's that nagging sense that there is some big truth out there that's being concealed from you, and you can't rest until you learn what it is, because of information wanting to be free, or any number of other justifications for the quest for gnosis we've come up with throughout the ages. In the United States, perhaps we've wed our thirst for mysteries with our romantic ideal of vigilante justice garnered from the media's foundational myth of the “Old West”. Perhaps it's this simultaneous desire to see a mystery solved and a perpetrator brought to justice by a lone lawman that has brought about things like the noir genre, and that speaks to something about who we are as a people. Just go and ask Odo. I think this same desire for a certain kind of disclosure is part of what fuels the appeal of conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking, the corollary of which is the romanticization and mystification of the intelligence community. I find it very satisfying that this selfsame episode introduces us to the Obsidian Order through Julian Bashir, possibly the second-biggest truth-seeker and mystery buff on Deep Space 9.

But the biggest mystery of all is of course Garak. The question of “Who Is Elim Garak?” (whoops, guess I spoiled a major plot point. Oh well) is a complicated one. But then again, so is the question of who any one of us are. Personal identity theory is more than just the continuity of consciousness in an android body. Let's, for the moment, set aside the persistence of the self problem, and you go ahead and make of consciousness whatever you will. Are we, could it be argued, the sum total of our life experiences, and thus not only shaped by them but reducible to them? Perhaps on one metaphorical level each of us are nothing more than an amalgamation of events and interactions with other people. This is, after all, how we will all be remembered someday. There is no hidden platonic “real” you because a part of you behaves a certain way in social situations, and it's by those facets you display in interactions through which you will be defined in the eyes of society. I never got far enough in philosophy to say with confidence if there's a name for that theory, apart from perhaps “anti-solipsism”. Or maybe, post-structuralist reading writ large. Whatever the case may be, when we're talking about fictional characters perhaps it could be argued this is literally who they are.

The identity and personhood of characters are intrinsically bound up with the stories that are told about them. Who they are to us is defined by how they behave in the snapshots of their lives we see and read, coloured by our own interpretations and perspectives, and perhaps what we need them to be at that particular stage in our own lives. Garak knows this better than most characters: From the beginning, his relationship with Doctor Bashir has been governed by particularly camp performative artifice. Garak constantly teases, misdirects and misleads because he knows Julian loves it, because Julian can't resist a mystery or an adventure. And so do we: Garak seems to be somehow aware of the irresistible aura of mystery that surrounds him and enjoys playing it up with wild abandon. He sided with the Good Guys against Gul Dukat in “Cardassians”, only to seemingly do a face heel turn in “Profit and Loss” by striking against the Cardassian Underground....Except that technically put him on the same side as Odo, who was at first ready to comply with the Provisional Government's request to extradite Natima Lang and her allies. And in the end, he helps them escape. Just like he possibly did to all those Bajoran kids during the occupation.

“The Wire” is what happens when Garak's innate understanding of the fourth wall goes out of control and meta. The options Garak gives us with which to choose his past, and thus choose how we will perceive him, say just as much about us depending on how we decide to react to them. Depending on the mask, Garak is either a loyal fascist Cardassian soldier wracked by guilt over his perceived inability to carry out his duty, a hero who saved the lives of a group of innocent Bajorans, betraying his charge and position in the process, or an opportunist who, while no less heroic in his actions to save Bajoran victims of the occupation, did so by selling out his best friend. In each and every possible case, however, the key reaction is Doctor Bashir's, not Garak's: Julian forgives him at every turn, but what is he actually forgiving? Is Julian forgiving an amoral soldier's momentary lapse regardless of circumstance, or is he healing a someone who perceives themselves as a failure and a turncoat by showing him he did the good and just thing in the end? Either way Julian is a healer; someone who is himself charged with preserving and protecting life.

But which option will prove the best for us and our own future? Well, maybe there's truth and righteousness no matter which one we choose. Maybe we don't have to choose.

“My dear Doctor, they're all true.” 

“Even the lies?” 

“Especially the lies.”

Indeed. Because what can be more true than fiction, which is the very framework we construct to understand our lives and the world around us? All received knowledge comes to us through some form of story. Since ancient times oral history and oral tradition used mythopoea to symbolize the origin and machinations of the universe. Science constructs facts based on observation and inference that translates localized knowledge into the language of western academia. And history takes the form of a narrative woven by invested parties. All of Garak's stories about his secret origin and backstory are true, because there is some quantum reality where each of them are true. And like any great fictional character, the origin we pick for him is the one that tells the best story at any given time; the one we need to hear now. Like Odo and Dax, Garak is a mutable being aware of his mutability who chooses the way he presents that is the most advantageous for the current moment.

The fact of the matter is, no matter who Garak was or is and no matter what he may or may not have done, his friendship with Julian always exists in the present moment. Together they're always looking forward. During Garak's mental breakdown, Julian constantly casually brushes off cutting, hurtful words that would have spelled the end of any relationship that wasn't as unbreakable and intractable as this. And so this becomes Garak's biggest and greatest performance of all: Through his constant rewriting of his own history, he forces Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to confront and remember its utopian roots. He forces empathy and forgiveness while at the same time spurring action. It doesn't actually matter who Garak “really” is, and it would be wise of the show never to tell us. Indeed, maybe there is no “real” Garak and he's simply whoever and whatever we need him to be right now. All that matters is presence and memory. And progress.

There's no grand secret to be discovered, no great mystery to be solved and no vast conspiracy to unravel. Not even the Obsidian Order can give us an Objective Truth. There's only you and me. And us.

“The Final Voyage”: Journey's End, The Maquis, Preemptive Strike

It's over. This is the moment Star Trek: The Next Generation officially ends. And it ends in the most ignominious manner imaginable: Assassinated on stage in front of its audience to make room for its presumptive younger sibling and overeager heir apparent.

No, not Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I've always maintained Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are effectively the same show (or should be read that way), the only difference being what part of the universe the camera lens shines on at any given moment. And never has this basic, yet frequently overlooked, truism been more clear than now, because when Star Trek: The Next Generation goes down, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine goes down with it. Where one leads, the other will follow, bound inexorably together by the ties of fate and kinship. And while yes, something *called* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine continues for another five years after this moment, it's fundamentally a very, very different creature from what we've been watching since January of 1993. The shared universe that we've been witnessing unfold has suddenly and violently been torpedoed by friendly fire, and it's only a matter of time now. There's plenty of brilliant material left to cover that this world has opened up for us to be sure, but as far as the studio higher-ups are concerned, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can't get their asses out the door fast enough. 
 
Star Trek Voyager has arrived, and Star Trek Voyager is all that matters anymore.

Plans for a frankly nonsensical fifth Star Trek series were in the works as early as 1993, which I honestly find kind of scary to think about. No sooner did Star Trek: Deep Space Nine debut and make a case for being the future of the franchise than Paramount executives were busy drafting up its replacement. *Technically*, of course, Star Trek Voyager was intended to replace Star Trek: The Next Generation, but this only begs the question: Why go to all the trouble to draft up a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the first place, a show that has from the outset been so self-consciously walking a tightrope between complimenting its older sister and defining itself in opposition to it, if the studio was always just going to go ahead and do “more of the same, but cheaper” anyway? After all, the mantle was supposed to be Deep Space Nine's to inherit eventually...Or so we were told.

I won't talk about the premier of Star Trek Voyager here because it's still a year away and the series doesn't even technically exist yet in a material form, but you better believe it does in every other form. But for the purposes of this essay, I'll have those of you know who weren't there that this was an event. It was a massive entertainment media blitz the likes of which hadn't been seen since Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987, and all throughout 1994 nobody would shut the fuck up about it. *Everyone* in every reference book and sci-fi periodical published that year was talking nonstop about the upcoming Star Trek Voyager and how exciting it was going to be and what a marvelous time it was to be a Star Trek fan. Malibu Comics in particular sticks in my mind for how much they loved reminding you every month that they had the license for the hottest new property of 1994-5 and were looking forward to expanding their Star Trek comic universe (they proceeded to then promptly lose it within about six months). As someone who was only a casual Star Trek viewer who was only just now fully getting into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I did miss the majority of this, though it was hard to avoid. And by the next year and all the following years to come I made up for lost time on that count fast.

I have to wonder why Paramount made such an insanely huge deal about this. It's something I've thought a lot about on and off ever since. Why did they move so quickly with it, and why did they make the creative and commercial decisions they did? I believe I even said it myself: Once spinoffs start to come out, that's a strong sign a TV show doesn't have long to live. Star Trek: The Next Generation may have been a special case, but it was still a bit long in the tooth by 1991. But Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1993? Starting work on a spinoff then would have been like a major network commissioning a pilot and than hurriedly greenlighting a sequel or spinoff before the thing even goes to series. In fact, no, it's not “like” that, it is exactly that.

The argument that I frequently see written up in the history books is that Star Trek Voyager was created to continue the success of having two Star Trek shows on the air concurrently, as had been proven by The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine running together. But that argument doesn't really hold water for me, mainly because the fucking thing was greenlit before anyone who wasn't clairvoyant or actually a Temporal Cold War agent could have physically have been able to see how that system worked in practice. And anyway even if they had, the smart money would seem to go *against* Star Trek Voyager, because The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were already having issues competing with each other in certain syndication markets because particularly thoughtless programming directors would air the two shows opposite each other (just like they did in my local affiliates). Not only that, but some affiliates were even running TNG and DS9 opposite reruns of TNG and DS9.

For me, the answer comes down to one of two equally plausible scenarios. One is basic greed; Paramount wanted to milk the proverbial Star Trek cash cow for all it was worth for as long as possible, damn the consequences. This is the sequence of events preferred by Rick Berman, who was expressing concern about this as early as 1994, but only got (in)famous for saying it after Enterprise was cancelled in 2005. However, there's another possibility, and it's one I'm increasingly in favour of entertaining (with the disclaimer a lot of this is speculation on my part). Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was created in part to carry on the populist legacy and audience of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for a year and a half that's precisely what it did. It was a smash hit with mainstream audiences, “Emissary” alone mustering some staggeringly astronomical numbers, and was an unmistakable and iconic tenet of pop culture for a good three years. *However*, it wasn't doing quite as well in the ratings as Star Trek: The Next Generation, which only makes sense if you stop to think about it: Naturally the upstart new series is not going to overtake the biggest show on television when it's barely a year old.

But as big as Deep Space Nine was, and people always forget that it really was, it was not doing well with one specific demographic Paramount considered vitally important: Namely, hardcore (white, straight, cis, male) Star Trek fans. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a big hit with normal people, but the fanboys hated it because they thought it was “too slow”, “too boring”, was too much like a “soap opera” (meaning it had girls in it and people occasionally talked about their feelings), didn't have enough action (because Deep Space Nine was not a show about rayguns and spaceship battles) and, perhaps most damningly, was set on a space station: This elicited cries of “But they don't go anywhere!” (you must visualize this being delivered with the whiniest, most nasal voice you can imagine) from the fans, who decided this meant the Deep Space 9 team were not real explorers and thus the show was not a true Star Trek show.

My theory is that Paramount saw this and panicked. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had been guaranteed at least six seasons so they couldn't just cancel it, but they could get people to stop paying attention to it. So they redoubled their efforts into the prospective Star Trek: The Next Generation film series, which was to be for the mainstream audiences as well as legacy fans, and the new show, Star Trek Voyager, which would be everything the fans wanted and felt they weren't getting on Deep Space Nine: A fateful decision that, in my view, left the Star Trek franchise with its days numbered. Either way, this would mean Voyager was to be the new heir apparent and the studio's golden girl, and no material or metaphorical expense would be spared to ensure it would be the biggest event they could possibly muster. As the new face of the studio and the franchise, Star Trek Voyager absolutely *had* to work and, more to the point, it had to work the way they wanted it to work.

So what does Star Trek Voyager have to do with these three episodes? You may recall how last year “Chain of Command” served as kind of a lead-in to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and a setup for its world, going out a few weeks before the debut of “Emissary”. This is precisely the same thing that's going on here, except multiplied times four and stretched out for half a year. The sheer hubris of this arc bloat, and the fact the studio felt they needed this long to set up the backstory for Star Trek Voyager, is an absolutely perfect microcosm for the stark differences between the way this transition is being helmed and the way the previous one was, and it's a bitterly perfect example of the extravagance and shortsightedness that's come to characterize Paramount's business dealings. Furthermore, “Journey's End”, “The Maquis” and “Preemptive Strike” are all utterly reprehensible stories on just about every single level, and certainly do not leave me in good spirits about the future Star Trek Voyager is set to bring about.

The common thread that links all of these episodes is the titular group from “The Maquis”. They're a group of former Federation colonists who settled in the demilitarized zone between the Federation and the Cardassian Empire who are now being forced to relocate after the treaty renegotiation following the end of the border wars ceded their planets to the Cardassians. As a result, they've turned to insurgence terrorism to get the attention of the colonial powers with their demand of being allowed to remain on the planets they settled. In “The Maquis”, Commander Sisko is introduced to them when his old friend Cal Hudson is revealed to be an influential leader in the Maquis. Sisko is forced to confront him when the Maquis' actions risk destabilizing the Federation-Cardassian alliance, and ends up siding with Gul Fucking Dukat to bring him in and crush the rebellion. Similarly, in “Preemptive Strike”, Ro Laren goes undercover to infiltrate the Maquis, has a crisis of conscience about her loyalties given how much they remind her of the struggles of her own people, and ends up defecting. We never see her again.

While not mentioned by name in the episode, the Maquis are absolutely the focus of “Journey's End”. This story sees Wesley Crusher returning (so we're already off to a great start) and going up against the Enterprise crew when they're ordered to relocate a settlement of Native Americans away from a planet in a part of the demilitarized zone that is now considered Cardassian territory. Wesley throws a fit, whines a lot, and ends up leaving with The Doctor in the TARDIS, er, I mean, ends up exploring space on a higher plane of existence with The Traveller. And you better believe everything that this team could possibly have screwed up and racefailed on in a plot about Native Americans they absolutely screw up on. It's a veritable checklist of cultural cluelessness: Native Americans portrayed as essentially homogeneous and interchangeable, being more innately “spiritual” and “connected to the land”, check and double-check. And on top of it all imperialism, neo-colonialism and Wesley Goddamn Crusher. Gods above.

There's two interwoven threads here, apart from these episode just all flat-out sucking. One is that the Maquis were intended to be the setting gimmick for Star Trek Voyager in much the same way the Cardiassian-Bajoran conflict was for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: On its maiden, er, voyage, the USS Voyager was to encounter a hostile Maquis fighter, but before they could act both ships were flung to the other end of the galaxy where they would be forced to learn to put aside their differences and work together. In fact, Chakotay, the Native American captain of the Maquis ship who becomes Captain Janeway's first officer, was to have come from the same planet featured in “Journey's End”. So this explains the heavy exposure the Maquis got on the tail end of Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: It's merely a thinly veiled ashcan prequel to Star Trek Voyager. This is the Next Generation/Deep Space Nine version of “Assignment: Earth”. And just like that episode, it makes the crew of the current series look like a bunch of worthless buffoons in order to make the new show look cool and contemporary.

Because there is absolutely no getting around the fact that the crews of Deep Space 9 and the starship Enterprise come across as absolutely ethically unforgivable here. Actually, I don't think they've ever been depicted worse. We've seen moral ambiguity (or “moral ambiguity”) on the show before, of course, but there's a big fucking difference between being forced into a bad place and making the best of it and deliberately, overtly siding with the bad guys. Seriously, Commander Sisko throwing his lot in with Gul freaking Dukat is basically tantamount to him siding with Adolf Hitler or Donald Trump and is effectively character assassination. I shudder when I look back and remember I actually used to like this two-parter and considered it well-done drama. And that's not even touching “Journey's End”, which basically has the Enterprise blaze the Space Trail of Tears, or “Preemptive Strike”, where they spy on a bunch of oppressed people. Make no mistake, the crew are the villains of these episodes: We're absolutely meant to side with Cal Hudson, Ro Laren and Wesley Crusher. And, by extension, Star Trek Voyager.

(Speaking of oppression, you may be wondering, given my chapter on “Lower Decks”, why I don't have more to say about there being a group of displaced peoples in this supposed post-scarcity utopia. Honestly it sort of makes sense to me given that the Federation and Cardassians have always operated like empires or neocolonial powers in spite of everything. The Maquis are a logical end result of the political structure of the Star Trek universe, I will give the show that, I just think it was inexcusable of it to not have our supposed heroes side with them. On the rare times Star Trek's idealism actually meshes with its worldbuilding, it does so by showing how utopian results can be achieved by resisting and rejecting this kind of system. That the show so explicitly doesn't do this here is to me conclusive proof of the franchise's ultimate overall failure.)

Although really, I can't see how this bodes any better for Star Trek Voyager. Given how appalling poorly Starfeet comes across in these episodes, how impossible it is to not side with the Maquis...Is anyone actually looking forward to potentially six years of a starched collar Federation crew and a rowdy group of justly angry rebels reaching a “tentative alliance” based around “setting aside differences”? How is that going to make Katherine Janeway look any better than Jean-Luc Picard, Will Riker or Benjamin Sisko? How is this whole concept not just going to fall flat as the milquetoast myth of liberal compromise and restitution? Star Trek's central artifice is shaky enough as it is-The franchise's idealism has always been in constant conflict with its militarism and it's hard to jettison one in favour of the other without it ceasing to be Star Trek. But here, the entire coherence of Star Trek as a collective work has been unraveled. By explicitly separating our protagonists from the people and ideologies which are so unambiguously in the right, Star Trek has made them stop being heroes. And it's hard to watch a show where there are no heroes anymore.

“The Murderer”: Blood Oath

So this episode. This one has been a long time coming, certainly for me. Here's an episode I've always heard so much about: A good, nay great Jadzia Dax episode penned by Peter Allan Fields, possibly the most consistently excellent writer in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's stable. It's a story I never experienced at the time, as I didn't have the magazine issue where this one was written up and I didn't, to my knowledge, see it on television before the DVD sets came out. Furthermore, this is supposed to be a kickass action story set against the backdrop of a glorious Klingon romp. If this isn't Dax's best story, its the one where she finally comes into her own as a character.

At least, that's what everyone tells me. And you can, I'm sure, see where this is headed.

The first thing that strikes me about “Blood Oath” is how much it actually feels like a Ronald D. Moore story. It isn't, obviously, nor could he have had any input on it considering he's not on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But it had absolutely all of his signature beat points: Pompous, grandiose musings on death, honour and glory. Angsty, moody, broody male antiheroes who don't get along with anybody because “no-one understands” them (at least Fields has the decency to play them as slightly comic characters, whereas Moore tends to play these types of characters alarmingly straight). A ham-handed approach to feminism that is basically saying a “strong woman” is someone who can reject femininity to prove to us she's capable of filling the same masculine/patriarchal archetypal roles. Here it even manifests in a rather cringe-worthy game of “I can do anything the boys can do!” that lasts about two-thirds of the episode. It's a picture-perfect example of the liberal assumption that increased opportunity to climb the pre-existing social ladder of the heierarchical status quo is tantamount to liberation, where real liberation would entail the dismantling of said ladder and probably the torching of the entire building and surrounding areas. And of course, it's a great big Klingon love-letter epic that puts the entire rest of the show on hold so it can fawn over a bunch of trivia questions for forty minutes.

To be fair, this isn't on Fields. Kor, Kang and Koloth were not in his original pitch, which was basically a “Let's Do” of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. The Klingons were apparently added at the behest of Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who is, of course, a massive Original Series fan. Fields compensates for this by writing them based not so much on their portrayals in “Errand of Mercy”, “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Day of the Dove”, but on characters from John Sturges' remake of Seven Samurai called The Magnificent Seven, as well as Falstaff from Henry IV, Part II. But even so, Holy Prophets is this bad: The fanwank, while not quite as overwhelmingly wanky and referential as this sort of thing tends to get, is still the number one biggest problem with “Blood Oath” and sinks the whole production for me before even the shaky grasp on feminism can.

So let's talk about that! You could, theoretically, read this episode as a self-critique of the acritical nostalgic yearning and romanticizing that's been starting to creep into Star Trek over the past couple of years. Kor, Kang and Koloth, partly through the comedic broad strokes with which Fields paints them, certainly come across at least in part as slightly bumbling oldster archetypes. You could interpret that as the show saying the Original Series and the 1960s cultural values that went along with it are not something it should be going about trying to recreate because it looks silly and retrograde by this point. And Prophets know Star Trek: Deep Space Nine could use a reminder like that right about now. I don't think that's a wise course of action to take though-In the Star Trek: The Next Generation era, we're supposed to be empathic, respectful and understanding of others, including our elders. The show has already done a far more nuanced take on these issues through Lwaxana Troi's character arc in episodes like “Half a Life”, “The Forsaken” and “Dark Page”, one of which Fields himself even wrote. Doing a punkish “kick the old geezers to the curb” story here would itself be insulting and retrograde.

And anyway, I don't think that's actually the angle the episode is going for. If anything, it feels like it could be going in the exact opposite direction. Wolfe's embarrassing pleading aside, the whole story here is about Jadzia trying to prove to us why she should be allowed to go on this revenge mission and why it's a noble cause. And because we sympathize with Jadzia, we're supposed to sympathize with her defense. If anyone comes across in a bad light, it's everyone else for telling Jadzia she can't do this because of who she is or that she shouldn't do this because it's not her fight. Kor's first line is even about how “the Klingon Empire” isn't what it used to be, and, since we're supposed to recognise him because of who the implied audience for this show is now, his thinly-veiled message of how “Star Trek Just Isn't As Good As It Used To Be, By Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Los Angeles, California” actually takes. And for anyone who isn't Wolfe or Ira Steven Behr (or Ronald D. Moore), this kind of tone rankles. The fact of the matter is that in 1994, Star Trek: The Next Generation at least is pulling record ratings that utterly shames anything else this franchise has ever done, and the only people who don't like that are the people who never liked Star Trek: The Next Generation in the first place.

At this point, I'm half-expecting someone to come out and start grumbling about “Casual” Star Trek fans.

Furthermore, this is a terrible Jadzia Dax story. Firstly because it completely contradicts her established backstory from last season. The whole point of the episode “Dax” (which, I might add, Peter Allan Fields actually wrote, or at least co-wrote) was that Curzon Dax and Jadzia Dax were two different people and Jadzia shouldn't feel responsible for the actions of Curzon or any other previous host. So to have Jadzia feel compelled to fulfill Curzon's titular Blood Oath with the Klingons just blows my mind with how spectacularly sloppy a but of continuity this is, especially in a franchise that is so unbelievably anal about continuity that, amidst the dissonant clamour of complaints the last episode got, the loudest by far was fan outrage over Spot becoming a girl. It's so bad, the episode itself seems aware of how bad it is, having Commander Sisko and Major Kira constantly bring up how what Jadzia's doing makes no damn sense and then needing to tie itself in absolute knots trying to explain it away. But I suppose Jadzia Dax having a completely incoherent backstory and characterization is far more forgivable a misstep than daring to revise the almighty Star Trek Chronology.

But the main reason I find “Blood Oath” so odious is because of its implications, and the implications of this episode becoming one of the consensus-best of the year. Coming to this episode more-or-less straight off of “Playing God” (not to mention the tepid reception “Playing God” has amongst fans) is incredibly dissonant and deeply offensive. They really are selling two completely different and contradictory messages about who Jadzia Dax is, as well as two mutually contradictory political positions. “Playing God” has Jadzia as a lover, a creator and a defender of life. “Blood Oath” has her as a warrior who's not above vengeance slaying to uphold a point of honour. There's a larger essay examining the repercussions of war existing in a supposedly post-scarcity utopia, but that's not an essay I want to write. The point is this simply is not compatible with the person Jadzia has been established as being over the past two years, and it's sad the writing team felt they needed to throw that all out in order to figure out how to write her.

Because in a real sense Jadzia Dax as we know her is being rejected in “Blood Oath”. Though Jadzia hasn't been completely cast out or killed off yet, this whole episode is about trying to show how Curzon Dax was Errol Flynn and that Jadzia Dax is basically nothing more than a genderswapped Curzon Dax. This is the reading that will stick with fans and creators and will influence all subsequent reinterpretations, reconceptualizations and reimaginings of Jadzia in the years to come.

I could go into a mopey monologue about how I can't forgive that and how upset I am that a story that's meant so much to me over my life so often feels like it's actively trying to shun and exclude me. When we talk about any work of fiction that is this ubiquitous and mythic and has played such a formative role in the lives of so many people, that trifold act of reading does take on a new power: These stories are important because people relate to them, identify with them and learn about themselves though them. There is a real dissonance when that relationship breaks down-We feel very hurt and betrayed. This does real harm to people, and I fault no-one for getting angry and sad about that and actively working to rebel against it. In the past (indeed, the fairly recent past as of this writing), I would have done the same.

But I'm not going to do that tonight. I think I've reached the point in my own life where I'm beyond needing to do that. Part of undertaking a project of this scope and this personal entails coming to terms with this part of ourselves to in some way put it behind us, and I think I've reached that now. It may not be entirely the result of writing this book, but I'm sure writing it has contributed to my being in the mental state where I'm able to make peace with things like this. I think a big part of it is finally developing a complete understanding of all of who I am and becoming comfortable with that. It's what Jadzia would do. You don't need to cling to a role model once you discover that you yourself can be one, so long as you remember who your role models were and what you learned from them, and to keep living in accordance with your own ideals for the betterment of yourself, of others and the rest of the universe. Holy wars aren't necessary once you understand and respect that everyone has their own god.

Everyone deserves to find peace, love and understanding in their lives. I hope all of you will be able to find yours.

“Here's lookin' at you”: Profit and Loss

I've got a theory that Hollywood and the greater Los Angeles area are different from other big world cities. I mean granted every city is different in its own way because every place has its own unique energies, but even so there are general and superficial cultural similarities that we can notice if we do a comparative study of a lot of big cities. By those standards, I've always got the sense that Los Angeles is weirdly insular, at least the Hollywood area. It seems to operate less like a huge world city and more exactly like a small town with the exact same traditional relationship with vocational trade that's existed throughout modern western history. Nobody is in Hollywood if they don't want to be in the film industry, and if you grew up there you know everyone. Hollywood is an old European small town that just so happens to dominate the media of the entire country, as well as that of a few other countries.

It's no secret that the Star Trek team are massive old Hollywood fans. I think that's sort of a prerequisite for living in southern California. When you get right down to it, they're all tradesmen and craftsmen who have worked their way up through a system that's basically vocational apprenticeship and they naturally want to pay tribute to their old masters. That's the reason genre romps, pastiches and “Let's Do” stories exist to begin with: Art is built on imitation anyway, and I would imagine that's merely amplified and concentrated by living and working in a climate like southern California's film industry. Genre fiction is no different and isn't on some higher plane: In fact, one of my favourite ridiculous things about the generally ridiculous movie Species is how it's this serious, provocative sci-fi sexual horror movie that also desperately wants to be a breathless tribute to 1940s hard-broiled LA Noir pulp fiction because it's endearingly, stupidly, hopelessly in love with Los Angeles. It's “the city of the future”, you know! You can do anything and be anyone in the City of Angels!

But I'll have to come back to Sil and her joyride of carnage through every LA landmark that's been in every movie ever another day (though her movie is in production by now and, because synchronicity is everything, the earthquake that interrupted production on “Profit and Loss” is an actual plot point in Species). The point of the matter is that Star Trek is far from immune to this sot of hyperlocalized psychogeographic make-out session, and we've seen this plenty of times before (Vasquez Rocks, anyone?). And so with “Profit and Loss”, we get Star Trek: Deep Space Nine bending over backwards to borderline remake Casablanca simply because Casablanca is a classic of Old Hollywood and because it can. This sort of giddy-yet-pointless genre romp seems to be a reoccuring Thing for Quark stories, considering “The Nagus” was basically this but for The Godfather instead. But “Profit and Loss” is a unique and important “Let's Do” story, because it's the rare “Let's Do” story that actually works, and it's all due to the interaction between whole plot reference and showcased protagonist. In fact, it's probably the best “Let's Do” in the entire show, a highlight of the year and very possibly the definitive Quark story.

Thing is, Quark is already sort of a Humphrey Bogart antihero character. Armin Shimerman has displayed glimpses of these characteristics since the beginning, and he really works best when he's written this way. This is partly due to, actually, Shimerman's prosthetics: The combination of fake Ferengi teeth and gigantic Ferengi headpiece means his range of movement around his face is restricted, and he ends up inflecting his speech with a very Bogart-drawl type accent, which he'll frequently play up for dramatic emphasis. So writing Quark this way actually plays to Shimerman's strengths and acting range that he's somewhat forced to use while playing the character. But also, it's just a great thematic fit for him: Quark is this broody, surly, cynical and slightly shady bartender character who you can't help but love because he's witty and charismatic. He's the Humphrey Bogart archetype to the letter and it's kind of a no-brainer for anyone to write for that.

So giving Quark a story that's Casablanca in everything but name is not only obvious, it's damn near inevitable considering Casablanca is Bogart's iconic role. It's also a perfect fit for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, because that's exactly what Deep Space 9 *is*: It's a Deep Space Casablanca where characters of every size, shape and moral alignment from all walks of life and all corners of the galaxy come to mingle, each with a story to tell and a chip on their shoulder. And the lingering unpleasantness with the Cardassian Empire, which Natima Lang' plot here is a direct outgrowth of, is a fitting stand-in for the machinations of empires that served as the backdrop for the movie Casablanca. There's a sense of a world gone mad and turned upside down, which is very much in keeping with the source material: We've seen sympathetic Cardassians before, but not to this extent, Quark reminds us he has hidden depths and isn't a one-note joke character and Garak's trademark erratic behaviour and unpredictability is the perfect accompaniment.

(Mary Crosby as Natima Lang brings with her some more fun associations. Famous for shooting J.R. on Dallas, a very fitting guest star for a show that has often been called a soap opera in space, she's also the daughter of Bing Crosby and thus the aunt of Denise, our very own Tasha Yar. Now what was that I was saying about Hollywood being provincial?)

We even get one of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's crapshoot attempts at Moral Ambiguity when Odo pulls a temporary Face Heel Turn and tries to haul Natima in because he's been ordered to by the Bajoran Provisional Government, who are basically cartoon villains by this point (but in a good way). I would have a problem with this if not for two reasons: One, this is actually in keeping with Odo's character: He's interested in some permutation of law, order and justice first and foremost because that's what “gives him shape”. So he probably wouldn't think too hard about turning over a political radical if someone in authority asked him to (although this is a gray area: He encouraged Major Kira to go against the Provisional Government in “The Circle” and told Commander Sisko that laws come and go in his establishing scene in “A Man Alone”, but both of those situations were in circumstances he was probably more familiar with and informed about. Remember, he would have turned Kira over to Gul Dukat in “Necessary Evil” had she told him the truth about Vaatrik).

But secondly, he gets better. Which is also in keeping with Odo's character. Quark convinces Odo to help him and Natima escape because it's the right thing to do, and that's all he needs. “Profit and Loss” is another example of the Deep Space 9 crew, who are, lest we forget, basically administrators, being forced into an uncomfortable situation and facing making a morally bankrupt decision due to circumstances beyond their control. But, for what I think may well be the first time, they find another way. A better way. Because that's the utopian thing to do, and this show is supposed to be about utopianism and progress. That's the critical element that was missing in episodes like “Progress”, “Cardassians”, “Sanctuary” and even “Thine Own Self”. You can tell a story about the crew being backed into a corner where it looks like there's no way out, sure, just so long as you eventually show us that there really is a way out we just hadn't seen yet. It's that final element that's the most important: You can tell a perfectly serviceable and effective bit of drama without it, but not on this show. It's that final element that makes it a Star Trek story.