Star Trek Deep Space Nine Ruminations S7E02: Shadows And Symbols

I always thought that ALL the "Benny" visions were from the Pah Wraiths.
Basically it was to instill a bit of "doubt" in Sisko's mind. ("IS this reality, really REAL?") Something he would have automatically rejected out of hand if the previous visions hadn't set the "groundwork".
After all, Pah Wraith's probably plan long term too.

Always great, I work 3rd shift, thanks for helping me, close out Tuesday's in a nice way.

Summary: Sisko searches for the mysterious Orb of the Emissary. Worf, Martok, Bashir, O'Brien, and Quark attack a Dominion shipyard in orbit around Monac IV in honour of Jadzia. Kira confronts the Romulans over their arming of their hospital base. Ezri is welcomed on the station. (Not bad, the desert-scenes and the Klingon-stuff are funny)

Not sure it occured to me before I watched it this time but I was musing on that very concept and was feeling you build to it. The curious thing though, if we take it to its natural conclusion...I think Benjamin learned the wrong lesson from that vision then. Wouldn't surprise me that they were all like 'kick him while he was down' but it ended up not working.

Other thing that I realized watching this is Ezri's experience explains so much about the Trill. Their years of training, picking strong candidates...all to make sure that any host is prepared enough to not lose themselves.

I always wondered how often the Pah Wraiths actually sent visions. Like the vision at the end of episode 6 where a "prophet" tells Sisko not to go to that major battle. Always wondered if that was actually a pah wraith.

What Bajor is to the federation is a liability. Don't get me wrong I like Bajor but that's what they are at this point.
Also didn't they take the ejection from the sun to destroy the enemy from Descent Part 2?

The visions being a Pah Wraiths thing is interesting, especially when we look back at Rapture (?) when Sisko first got the visions and stopped Bajor's entry on the assumption the prophets were guiding him not to... but what if that was a critical junction point and it was the Pah Wraiths guiding things?? It feels like you could then cast all events since then into a very different light. If they hadn't sent Sisko that vision then, would the chess pieces have been in place for them to kill Jadzia? Drive Sisko back to Earth? Maybe, but maybe not.

I doubt the prophets would have compelled Sarah to forcibly conceive Ben Sisko. Sarah was the prophet. We later see Sarah as Sisko's mother when she calls him son in a vision. The "accident" was the closure she needed to return to the cellestial temple. It could have been better to have died of cancer, etc. to make it easier on Ben's dad rather than abandoning him.

I thought the "Bajorian Torpedoe Blockade" was the dumbest plot thread. "Their Ignition Sequencers aren't in yet" was the dumbest thing I heard of from the very first time I watched years ago. Doing the silliest thing they can to make it the cuban missal crisis.
I loved Words apology even though I don't think he had to and Quark was out of line.
Why and how do the Pa Wraiths give Sisko such more better and vivid visions than the Prophets do?

Isn't the shipyard attack going to escalate the war, doesn't every star have to be defended in the Federation now to prevent retaliation in the same way from the Dominion? This is like using nukes and they just lit one off.

Quark knows it's safe to insult Klingon who is wearing a federation uniform

Ok...didn't have much to say about the previous episode, this one though ...I remember HATING this episode when I first saw it...20+ years later I really like this episode. Lets start with the Romulan Kira plot. I'm curious as to WHY the Romulans felt the need to put weapons at their hospital. Its not like it would really make THAT much difference if the Dominion made a serious play for the station. I mean each time the station was under threat in the past there had always been time to get the non essential personal and civvies off. And any serious attempt to take the station wouldn't be easy to hide and the Dominion would have no problem just obliterating that moon. Sure they'd take some losses, but Jem'hadar are easily replaced...in fact the Jem'Hadar are probably more easily replaced than the ships they are in. My main point is I don't know what the Romulans were trying to achieve here in the first place. Now I TOTALLY get why the Bajorans are all NOPE about the whole thing. Those weapons have the range to hit Bajor easily since Bajor has no real planetary defenses and these are modern weapons designed with modern penetration aids to ensure hits, both in bypassing direct defensive systems like shields and point defense fire and indirect defenses such as electronic warfare, jammers and decoys. They don't really bring it up too much in Star Trek, but I would hate to be a sensor operator during a battle with the Dominion having to see through the electronic soup that both sides are putting out to give your own weapons officers good targeting information. Bajor has none of that. If the Romulans decided that they wanted Bajor, they would have Bajor just with these weapons.
Now the lets get Jadzida into stovekor plot. You were talking about technobabble and how this is a Grey area. I think it's fair when talking about a sci fi setting with tech we don't have yet that very FEW things aren't technobabble. For instance, every time they use the transporter to beam someone out of danger is technically technobabble. The difference is ACCEPTABLE technobabble and not acceptable. That difference comes from two sources, first actual physics, the amount of effort the creators of a work go to in establishing the tech and how much EFFORT we see on screen by the characters to make it work. Take the last battle you complained about. How much less annoying would have been if O'brien had to beam down to the power station to disable it? I won't go into details on how I would do that, this comment is going to be long enough as is, but I think something like that would have made a difference in the acceptability of the technobabble solution. Instead in the episode we got he just taps a few keys and win. It feels more like he put in a cheat code and I think that is where the REAL problem is. Where the plan with causing a massive CME to destroy the ship yard is acceptable because of the established science that getting close to a star is bad and that stars do this thing with zero help anyway. Then is the fact that its the whole plan from the word go, its not a response to a complication, as with the defense satellites. That makes a big difference too. In addition to the very real sense of danger in the entire sequence, its not just the Dominion they need to worry about, its the star itself. The helmsman makes ONE mistake and its all over for them. I think that is why THIS works while the other doesn't. Now that it took out the whole ship yard was a bit silly and it would have been better if the EMP had just severely damaged it making take weeks or months to get it back to preattack production. It would be a major victory still but a bit more realistic and it would have given a ticking clock for the writers to play with. Such as the disabling of this ship yard gives the Alliance openings they wouldn't have otherwise and gives them a push to drive harder than they would otherwise. Like we have an opportunity to actually win the war outright instead of white peaceing our way out, which would be n a loss by any measure.
I don't have much to add to the Sisko parts of this episode, Ezri is adorable in her parts and it does what it needs too. However...Benny. I think he was always a creation of the Pahwraiths. The first time they did it was to get his guard lowered for THIS time. The Benny visions are SO different from how the Prophets communicate with Sisko that I have a hard time believing it was ever them. Enjoyed it and looking forward to your thoughts on the rest of season 7.

It seems that there is a person / two people who automatically thumbs down LR ruminations. This is the 10th video I've watched within 12 hours of posting with 2 thumbs down.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I blame Rick Berman.

As I recall, DS9 had a counselor as early as season 4's Hard Time, when O'Brien gets ordered to see counselor Tellnori at least 3 times a week. But yeah, the crew could definitely use another skilled therapist during this war.

"We have to consider author intent in mind..." - Laughs in reloaded

I hate everything to do with the path wraith.

This is a phenomaly good episode, and one of the best episodes of anything ever. If someone asked me what 1 episodes encapsulates everything good about DS9 it would be this one. War, politics, two different brands of spirituality discussion, sci-fi schticks like blowing up stars, friendship, family, love, duty, this episode has it all!

Are you sure that was just a vision Sisko was getting?

Just as a suggestion for a new Loreium for how you described Worf's reaction to Ezri? I suggest Clara Effect.

To me, this is the end of Kira's arc. We see here that she has gone from being a bitter terrorist to being a truly Picard-esque leader, fully capable of filling Sisko's shoes while he was away, which she of course will have to do in the future. In fact, take note that when later in the season (SPOILER, flee now) when she get's a Starfleet commission, she's given the rank of Commander, which is the rank Sisko held for the first 3 seasons of this show.

Of course, Kira isn't Sisko or Picard. She's less pragmatic, more rigid in her beliefs, and as a bajoran she also has her faith. Actually, I think her command style is most like Kirk's. Kira has faith in the prophets, Kirk had faith in himself. I would've loved to see an entire series with Kira in command. She would've made a nice addition to the roster of Trek captains. Personally, I already think of her as being on that roster.

Either way, this is definitely the end of Kira's arc. She spends the rest of the season seemingly... I guess I want to say "above the fray". She's almost a Mary Sue for the rest of this season; totally self sacrificing, few mistakes, etc. It's been earned after all the brutal things the writers have put her through, and all the growth she has had, but my point is that said growth is a thing of the past. She's fairly stagnant for the rest of the series

The Prophets communications are very to the point. One on one. No matter what image, place and time they choose. The Pah Wraiths communications are long form. In a dreamlike reality (if there is such a thing?). Virtually indistinguishable from true reality. Your deductions are spot on and really bring in to focus the different communication techniques both entities use. Thank you Lore for your thoughtful insights, RNB

Will you be doing a rumination for Take Me Out To The Holosuite?

My interpretation of the prophets is that they do have a "before" and "after" in some sense, otherwise Sisko couldn't have "taught" them about linear time. Learning implies going from a state of not knowing something to knowing something.

I think they just don't experience linear time. To them, time would be just like a direction in space to us. The future and the past still exist to them, but aren't really distinct. They're just like north and south. Another direction they can move within.

I want to offer a perspective on the Kira-Romulan-arc that isn't mentioned yet:

With the Romulans entering the war and even before all that, with the Dominion as such a major thread, the alpha-quadrant-factions have kind of lost their identities and became sort of homogeneous. Now there are blue and red and green ships, all fighting together and they get along. The Bajorans sitting on the sidelines in all that.

This episode however (not very subtle if I may say so) shows them, as they were intended. The Klingons cling on (pun) an suizidal mission, the Romulans deceive and when that failed, try to force their way to a more powerful position. The Bajorans defend what they think is right in a desperate rebellious move and the federation steps in, bc they acknowledge that the actions of the Romulans were wrong to begin with.

It's just that one episode, but it shows, that they're still very different factions with very different agendas working together and just barely going along. This is re-establishing all of their identities on the narrative level.

Blockade Plot: The politics make sense, the standoff interesting - basically the wormhole gives Kira that extra sense of hope to stand firm.

Sto'Vo'Kor Plot: I like how Worf tells the other guys that they come up like living presences in his conversations with Jadzia. It's also understandable that he feels irked by them being there too. Rare apology. How did they escape the sun explosion?

Emissary Plot: Puke on the console, niiice. Can't say I envy the many experiences she's having, but it's refreshing to have a character that's new to herself as well as new to viewers. Sisko's birth history would wreck a person's identity. Poor corporeal mother, gee. Poor Sisko's dad too, and Sisko too. Ben Russell, nice to see that again, but now it's pegged as the false vision. Will have to look at those stories on the walls, well done whoever wrote it all. I would not have liked the 'It was all a dream' nature of a Ben Russell concept, so good that it was false.

Dax was good at first, then eye-rollingly annoying once they got to the desert.

“I already did it, so I might as well do it.”
🤣

It's only the Prophets that are keeping out Dominion reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant. The Prophets are of Bajor. Bajor is EVERYTHING to the war effort. I'd argue that Bajor is more important to the war effort than even their Romulan military allies. Not to mention that Bajor owns Deep Space Nine, which I've been led to believe on multiple occasions is the most strategically important piece of real estate in the war effort.

This definately is a strong entry for Nicole DeBoer! I allways liked Ezri and welcomed her into the family. The fact, she is a councellor allways was very interesting to me and I do like what they do with that!

Of course the circumstances of Terry Farrells exit are a damned shame and Rick Berman can go screw himself for that!

Either way. I feel like any comparison between Jadzia and Ezri is just unfair. I find comparisons between people very messy anyways. It is quite easy to do and I understand, why we as human beings tend to compare, as we try to wage in our experience. But it almost every time comes at the cost of the moment and at the expense of the person, right in front of you.

Not to mention the 6 seasons vs 1 season familarity advantage.

FYI, Ezri Dax is an ensign, not a lieutenant. So roughly the same level of seniority as Nog.

One thing that bugged me is Quark complaining about Gach. Literally all Ferengi food is comparable to Gach, but makes me wonder why it's the primary food of a warrior culture like the Klingons.

Vis a vis sarah Sisko: My headcannon apologist sees it Sarah Doe was out in space in a non starfleet capacity, and found that ancient bahoran necklace which had a prophet inside it. The prophet showed Sarah that she dies in a shuttle accident, so Sarah chooses to be a vessel for the emmisary and then face her inevitable fate, leaving the necklace behind for Ben as a gift from her and the prophet.

I've got a couple of problems with this episode. One is man that Ezri Dax has got a big league arm on her. She tossed Sisko's baseball a hundred yards! Another is how was nuthouse Benny able to write 10 feet high on the walls of his cell without a ladder?
These are continuity issues to be sure but, they never should have made it to production.
And the list goes on...

Liked the end, where Sisko makes his triumphant return. It reminds me of Vedek Bareil's almost identical arrival in "In the Hands of the Prophets", and shows how completely Sisko's perspective has changed.