Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch
   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch: Destiny
   Keith DeCandido
   December 10, 2013 3:00PM

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny Destiny
   Written by David S. Cohen & Martin A. Winer
   Directed by Les Landau
   Season 3, Episode 15
   Production episode 40512-461
   Original air date: February 13, 1995
   Stardate: 48543.2

   Station log: Two Cardassian scientists are coming to the station to
   deploy a subspace relay on the Gamma Quadrant side of the wormhole,
   which will allow communication through the wormhole for the first time.
   Sisko goes over the security arrangements with Odo (the commander wants
   to make sure they feel like guests rather than prisoners, though Odos
   assigning guards to them is as much for the scientists safety from
   more militant factions opposed to the Bajoran-Cardassian treaty as it
   is anything else), the scientific data with Dax (whos skeptical that
   the relay as designed will work), and, rather unintentionally, catering
   stuff with Quark, who finally has a use for the cases of kanar in his
   store room (though, to his chagrin, its gone bad in the years since
   the occupation ended).

   Vedek Yarka arrives to meet with Sisko and inform him that allowing the
   Cardassian scientists on board will bring destruction to Bajor. Yarkas
   interpretation of Trakors Third Prophecy is that this project will
   result in the destruction of the Celestial Temple of the Prophetsthe
   wormhole. The prophecy speaks of three vipers returning to their nest
   in the sky, which he interprets as the Cardassian scientists coming to
   Deep Space 9, at which point a sword of stars will appear in the
   heavens, the temple will burn, and the gates will be cast open. Kira
   points out that there are only two scientists coming, so that doesnt
   quite track. And, Yarka admits, the rest of the vedek assembly and the
   kai herself dont agree with his interpretationhes gone to Sisko as
   the Emissary as a last resort, but Sisko makes it clear that he isnt
   stopping the project.

   Sisko and Kira greet the scientists, Rejal and Belor, when they
   arrivetheres the formal greetings filled with platitudes, followed by
   a much friendlier conversation where both admit to exasperation with
   their superiors who kept contacting them to emphasize how important the
   mission was.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   After a briefing on the projectwhich includes some snarking between
   OBrien and RejalBelor mentions that a third colleague, Dejar, will be
   joining them. This throws Kira for a loop, as now there are indeed
   three vipers. However, Odo reveals to Sisko that Yarka isnt even a
   vedek anymore: he was defrocked after leading a series of protests
   against the vedek assembly, mostly relating to his opposition to the
   peace treaty. Meanwhile, Yarka fails in his attempts to get Kira to
   convince Sisko to kill the project, even though he insists that the
   Prophets have chosen her for that role.

   Dejar arrives while Belor and Rejal are having dinner with Dax and
   OBrien. Quark brings them some Cardassian delicacies. Only then do
   Belor and Rejal admit that theyre not all that fond of Cardassian
   cuisinebut Dejar makes some pointed comments that reveal a certain
   tension between her and the first two.

   Rejals plans for adjusting the communications equipment are foiled by
   OBriens modifications to same, done to bring the equipment up to
   Starfleet code. Rejal is very dismissive of and snotty to OBrien, and
   they continue to snark at each other throughout the modification work.
   Meanwhile, Belor and Dejara accompany Sisko, Kira, and Dax on the
   Defiant to deploy the relay on the Gamma Quadrant side. When they
   arrive in the GQ, Dax detects a rogue comet that has a high
   concentration of silithium. Kira realizes that this is the sword of
   stars from the prophecy, but her mentioning it out loud has Sisko
   coming down on her like a ton of bricks for talking about it in front
   of the Cardassians. In private, though, Kira does exactly what Yarka
   asked and urges Sisko to stop the mission, given how much of the
   prophecy has come true. But Sisko needs something more concrete than a
   prophecy to base it on.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   One of the Defiants test carrier waves opens the wormhole and causes a
   gravitational shift. They terminate the wave, but this has caused the
   comet to divert and it will now enter the wormhole and the silithium in
   it will collapse the wormhole when it enters.

   Sisko takes the Defiant back to the station, and Rejal reveals that
   there was a less than 2% chance of this sort of thing happening. But
   that wasnt included in the material they forwarded to DS9 because
   Central Commands policy is to not include any possibilities that
   remote, especially if it will make a project look more dangerous.
   (Gotta love bureaucrats...)

   OBrien and Rejal work on adjusting the Defiants phasers so it can
   vaporize the comet before it reaches the wormhole (standard phasers
   would only shatter it into smaller pieces and not solve the problem).
   Rejal is much friendlier to OBrien now, coming on very strong. Turns
   out she mistook his earlier irritability for flirting when it was just
   irritability.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   Sisko is having second thoughts, especially after reading up on some of
   the prophecies relating to the Emissary (some of which hit close to
   home), but Dax convinces him to make his own decisions, not let the
   prophecies decide for him.

   The Defiant heads to the GQ to destroy the comet, but as soon as they
   fire, the weapons array shorts out. The modifications didnt take, and
   only standard phasers fired on the comet, breaking it into three
   pieces. OBrien checks and finds a stupid mistake he madebut Rejal
   then says that it wasnt his mistake at all. Despite Belors attempt to
   stop her from saying anything, Rejal explains that Dejar was assigned
   to the team from the Obsidian Order to sabotage the project. Dejar
   denies it, but Sisko has her confined to quarters.

   Since they cant stop the comets, they can try to encase them so they
   wont damage the wormhole. They can put a warp field around the
   fragments for its passage through the wormholebut the Defiant is too
   large to fit, so Sisko and Kira take a shuttle and use that.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   Dax brings the Defiant to the Alpha Quadrant side, and then the shuttle
   encases the fragments in the warp field. The field doesnt maintain
   integrity, so some silithium leaks through. But once they arrive the
   signal from the subspace relay comes throughthe carrier wave is the
   silithium trail left by the leakage. Kira realizes that the prophecy
   did come true. The three vipers are the comet fragments, the temple
   gates were burned by the silithium, and now the gates are thrown
   open, but not in a bad way.

   OBrien thanks Rejal for revealing the, ahem, viper in their midst, and
   she says that Keikos a lucky woman. Yarka meanwhile apologizes to
   Sisko, and also tells him about Trakors Fourth Prophecy....

   Cant we just reverse the polarity? The Cardassians are intending to
   use soliton pulses as a carrier wave for the subspace signal through
   the wormhole. One assumes these are related to the soliton wave that we
   saw in TNGs New Ground.

   The Sisko is of Bajor: Odo has noticed that Sisko has tried very hard
   to distance himself from his role of Emissary. Later, Sisko does so
   verbally with Kira, saying he doesnt view himself as an icon,
   religious or otherwise.

   Dont ask my opinion next time: Kira admits for the first time that she
   believes Sisko to be the Emissary, and she also provides a nice
   scientific rationale for the prophecies: the Prophets (wormhole aliens,
   whatever) exist simultaneously in the past, present, and future, and
   its been established that they communicate through the Orbs, so isnt
   it possible that they communicated future events to Trakor through the
   Orb he experienced?

   Later, she insists on accompanying Sisko in the shuttlepod. She says
   its to help the Emissary, but honestly? Shes a better pilot than he
   is....

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   The slug in your belly: Tobin Dax met Iloja of Prim, the Cardassian
   poet, on Vulcan, where he was living in exile. When Jadzia informs
   Belor and Rejal of this, theyre impressed as all get-out.

   Rules of Acquisition: We get quite possibly the two best Rules#34
   (War is good for business) and #35 (Peace is good for business),
   which Quark admits are easy to confuse with each other. In addition,
   the original script had a Rule that was not used in the final teleplay,
   but which Ira Steven Behr liked so much, he included it in the books
   The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition and Legends of the Ferengi: Faith can
   move mountains of inventory.

   For Cardassia! The Cardassian science ministry falls under Central
   Commands oversight, but the Obsidian Order is happy to place agents in
   there. The Order was against the peace treaty with Bajor, which is why
   they send Dejar along to sabotage the project.

   No sex, please, were Starfleet: Apparently, Cardassian men flirt by
   being irritable and argumentative. Rejal mistakes OBriens natural
   irritation at Rejal messing with this stuff for flirting.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   Keep your ears open: Therell be no live vole fights on the Promenade,
   Quark.

   I would never be party to anything so cruel and inhumane. But, of
   course, if some Cardassians happened to bring their voles along and
   they happened to get into a fight, I could hardly be held responsible
   for

   Oh yes you could.

   And you will.

   Odo putting the kibosh on Quarks plans for more Cardassians showing up
   on the station, with Sisko putting an exclamation point on it.

   Welcome aboard: Veteran character actor Erick Avari, last seen as a
   Klingon bureaucrat in TNGs Unification I, plays Yarka, and veteran
   genre actor Tracy Scoggins, known for her roles in Lois & Clark: The
   New Adventures of Superman, Babylon 5, and Crusade, plays Rejal. Wendy
   Robie plays Belor and Jessica Hendra plays Dejar.

   Trivial matters: During shooting, Tracy Scoggins wandered around the
   Paramount lot in full Cardassian makeup and frightened kids in buses.
   Security called the DS9 set asking them, Could yall do something
   about keeping your aliens contained over there?

   This episode shows the first practical application of the
   Bajoran-Cardassian treaty signed at the end of Life Support.

   Although David S. Cohen and Martin A. Winer got sole credit (and sole
   benefit of residuals), the script was completely rewritten by Rene
   Echevarria. Cohen said in an interview that Not a word of our dialogue
   made it in.

   This is Yarkas only onscreen appearance, but he does appear again in
   the novel Objective: Bajor by John Peel.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   Quark serves yamok sauce to the scientists. Back in Progress, he was
   complaining that he had no use for the stuff, so hes happy with the
   peace treaty.

   The GQ relay station will remain intact and useful until In
   Purgatorys Shadow, where it will be disabled shortly after Worf and
   Garak use it to warn the station of a Dominion threat. A new relay
   station is activated after the Dominion War in your humble rewatchers
   novel Demons of Air and Darkness, in which they again use silithium to
   aid in the communications.

   Kiras unwillingness to admit that Sisko really is the Emissary prior
   to this is dramatized in the short story Hamara by Kevin G. Summers
   in the anthology Prophecy and Change, which takes place shorty after
   Emissary.

   Yarka quotes Trakors Fourth Prophecy, but we only get to hear the
   beginning of it: The Emissary will face a fiery trial, and he will be
   forced to choose... This sounds a lot like what Sisko will go through
   in the series finale What You Leave Behind.

   Iloja of Prim is mentioned a few times in tie-in fiction, most notably
   in the Titan novel Taking Wing by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin,
   which includes an interpretation of one of his quotes by a Cardassian
   cadet.

   Walk with the Prophets: Im quite fertileI could provide you with
   many healthy children. I had very little specific memory of this
   episode when I sat down to watch it again, mostly remembering it as The
   One Where Tracy Scoggins Flirts With OBrien, and that only because I
   was never all that enamored of Scoggins. In her defense, she had almost
   nothing to work with in Babylon 5 and Crusade (her role was created to
   fill a void left by Claudia Christians departure), and the less said
   about Cat Grant in the first season of Lois & Clark and Cassandra in
   Highlander, the better. But those two roles wouldve likely been awful
   no matter who played the parts.

   With the distance of two decades, Im much better disposed toward her
   performance here, as well as that of Wendy Robie as Belor. They both do
   excellent work in showing us scientists who are far removed from the
   politics and intrigue we usually get when Cardassians show upthough
   not as far removed as theyd like, as we find out when Rejal outs Dejar
   on the Defiant. However, the back-and-forth between Rejal and OBrien
   is a blown opportunity, as OBriens serious issues with Cardassians
   (first seen way back in TNGs The Wounded, and shown any number of
   times on DS9, most notably Cardassians and Tribunal) never even
   come up. The storyline wouldve played out exactly the same way if
   Rejal had flirted with Bashir, and thats a failure of storytelling.

   Rewatching it now, I additionally remember it as The One Where Sisko
   First Deals With The Fact That Hes The Emissary. The show has mostly
   sidestepped it up until now, with Sisko not really addressing it one
   way or the other. However, both Odo and Kira hit him with it head-on
   here, especially since Yarkas trip to the station is specifically
   designed to enlist the Emissarys support as a last-ditch effort, since
   he hasnt been able to get anyone else on his side.

   This results in two excellent conversations with Siskothe one in Odos
   office where the constable hits the nail on the head regarding Siskos
   discomfort with his role, and then one in the Defiant cabin where Kira
   and Sisko have their first real conversation on the subject of Siskos
   status as a figure in the Bajoran religion.

   Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch on Tor.com: Destiny

   But the episode itself is a little too paint-by-numbers. Theres a
   prophecy of doom, theres a growing sense of urgency as the prophecy
   keeps becoming more and more accurate, and then theres a cheat at the
   end that allows the prophecy to be fulfilled in some way without
   anything bad happening. In this case, its that no one at any pointnot
   Yarka whos been studying the prophecies his whole life, not Dax the
   rationalist, not Kira the ordinary Bajoran, not Sisko the Emissaryever
   once considers alternate ways to interpret, The temple will burn and
   its gates shall be cast open.

   Its nice to see the Bajoran-Cardassian treaty get taken out for a
   stroll, its always good to see the broader range of Cardassians beyond
   the guls, legates, and spies we generally see, and Siskos journey from
   being called Emissary by Kai Opaka to accepting that he is the
   Emissary will be a fascinating journey as the series goes on, but the
   episode itself is a whole lotta meh.


   Warp factor rating: 5
     __________________________________________________________________

   Keith R.A. DeCandido has finally, for the first time since the late
   summer, released a new episode of his monthly (cough) podcast Dead
   Kitchen Radio: The Keith R.A. DeCandido Podcast, in which he discusses
   the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who and reads his Who short story
   UNITed We Fall from the 1996 anthology Decalog 3: Consequences. Keith
   also discussed the Who 50th in this incredibly brilliant (cough)
   article on this here web site, A Moment of Heroism: Thinky Thoughts on
   Doctor Whos The Day of the Doctor. You should all go read it right
   now.


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