Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 4x22 For the Cause

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#1

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
10 PM Eastern - 7 PM Pacific

“I know you. I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes. Open your eyes, Captain. Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We’ve never harmed you. And yet we’re constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we’ve left the Federation, and that’s the one thing you can’t accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You’re only sending them replicators because one day they can take their “rightful place” on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you’re even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You’re more insidious. You assimilate people and they don’t even know it.”

#2

Phew, finally made it home from work… remind me again that I love my job and that’s why I was working 11 hours today :wink:

Starting at 23 minutes after the hour should anyone decide to join me

#3

Ben and Kassidy, brown chicken brown cow…

#4

Ooh this one’s about Maquis and Klingons and Cardassians and the DMZ, huzzah!

#5

Uh oh, Kassidy’s in trooooooooooooubleeeeeeeee

#6

Yay Ziyal!

#7

Mark Gehred-O’Connell’s original inspiration for this episode was the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. Specifically, Gehred-O’Connell was surprised by the reaction of the American people; “for the first few days after the event, everyone was so sure that it was foreign terrorists. Anyone who appeared Middle Eastern suddenly was under suspicion for no reason at all.” As it transpired, the bombing was carried out not by a Middle Eastern terrorist but by Timothy McVeigh, a white American. This led Gehred-O’Connell to speculate what might happen if a terrorist attack took place on Deep Space 9; “in a situation like that, who would they immediately suspect? What if it turned out to be the last person in the world to come to mind? I just wanted to play with that idea. And it ended up being a story where Kasidy Yates turns out to be the number-one suspect.” (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) Only a few remnants of this idea remain in the final episode, but the notion of the perpetrator of a crime being the last person you suspect is still to be seen in the Eddington defection plot.

Interesting, I didn’t make that explicit connection with the plot - but it is a common practice to consider that the “other” must have done the evil and not “one of us.” Sigh.

#8

Garak and Ziyal. The two (part)Cardassians of DS9.

#9

oh cool this is a RDM episode

#10

Ah, Kassidy calling in a favor. Oh, my.

#11

I’m anticipating a bit, but:

Eddington’s final speech in this episode demonstrates Deep Space Nine’s move away from the idyllic Federation seen in both The Original Series and The Next Generation. This speech builds upon Sisko’s line “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise” from “The Maquis, Part II”, Quark’s speech from “The Jem’Hadar”, the ‘hell on Earth’ of “Past Tense, Part I” and “Past Tense, Part II”, and the “paradise never seemed so well armed” line from “Paradise Lost”. Of special importance in Eddington’s speech is the line “Nobody leaves paradise,” implying nobody should have any reason to leave it, nobody should want to leave it, precisely because it is a paradise, and if somebody does want to leave, then obviously, there is a problem somewhere. This recalls Ira Steven Behr’s use of the quotation from Harold Pinter and the notion that what may appear to be paradise, actually has weasels under the coffee-table (see ‘Background Information’ for “The Maquis, Part II” for more on Pinter). Taken together, all of these examples serve to further Behr’s examination of Gene Roddenberry’s utopia and his idealistic view of the future. Eddington’s speech however, especially his comparison with the Borg, is perhaps the harshest indictment of the Federation yet seen.

I think part of why Deep Space Nine is my favorite of the franchises because it’s precisely this idea that the Federation may be utopian in its way but it’s not paradise.

This dialogue with Worf and O’Brien about freedom fighters/terrorists is good. And Eddington without a personal opinion? Uh, oh. “Doing my job like a Starfleet officer” well technically…

#12

subterfuge!

#13

oh, Cardassians.

And boo Eddington.

#14

And Garak reveals something… or does he!?

#15

and Kassidy does the honorable thing

did she run the ship herself? Then why is there crew?

#16

Interesting camera work as they take Kassidy away