star trek deep space nine vortex

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Such Sweet Sorrow (Part 2)

Unification iii, battle at the binary stars.

The crew of Deep Space Nine are about to embark on a journey that will push the limits of their abilities and challenge their understanding of friendship. When a visitor arrives from the Gamma Quadrant, they bring with them a mysterious vortex that is linked to ancient legend.

Commander Sisko is hesitant to accept this visitor, but Chief O’Brien and his team of engineers discover that the vortex is a type of portal that could allow them to travel vast distances in a matter of moments. With the help of the mysterious visitor, the team embarks on a journey to explore the unknown and find out what secrets the vortex holds.

Meanwhile, Odo’s investigation into a mysterious murder leads him to the vortex, where he finds a group of shapeshifters that have been using the vortex to travel through space and time. As Odo continues his investigation, he discovers that the vortex is an ancient artifact that holds the power to grant immortality.

With the help of the shapeshifters, Odo and the crew of Deep Space Nine begin to unravel the mysteries of the vortex and discover its true purpose. However, the stakes are raised when the shapeshifters reveal that they are searching for the ultimate prize: the secret to immortality.

As they venture into the unknown, the crew of Deep Space Nine must battle their fears and push the boundaries of their abilities in order to protect the vortex and keep the secret of immortality safe. Along the way, they realize that the power of friendship is the key to success in their mission. With their courage and determination, they face the challenge of the vortex and must rely on each other to make sure that they come out unscathed.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Vortex (Review)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the first season. Check back daily for the latest review or retrospective.

Something very interesting happens in the second half of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ‘s first season. It seems like the writers and producers are making a conscious effort to develop the show’s characters, themes and the world that these inhabit. Plot threads are hinted at, only to be left dangling. Ideas are broached, and tucked away for another day. Given that Star Trek: The Next Generation waited until the third season to broach serialisation in Sins of the Father , the approach taken here is quite striking.

These three episodes are more notable for what they set up rather than what they actually accomplish on their own terms. These adventures lay groundwork, or at least hint at laying groundwork, that will pay off throughout the show’s extended seven-year run. Okay, not exactly. There are some redundant elements here that never actually pay off, but Vortex , Battle Lines and The Storyteller all play into the show’s bigger story arc, even if it seems the writers aren’t entirely sure what those story arcs are.

It’s murky out there…

As I noted in Emissary , quite a lot of the shuffling and set-up during the early days of Deep Space Nine didn’t exactly pay off. After all, from the pilot, you’d assume that the show would end with Bajor’s admittance into the Federation. That is – we’re assured – the whole point of the Federation presence on this world. Given the time and energy devoted to establishing Bajor’s history and the need for Sisko to find some measure of accomplishment, the logical conclusion for the show would be the resolution of the Bajoran question.

Without spoiling too much, that isn’t the case. Objectives change, goals shift. Writing is an organic concept, and some times you find that things evolve over time. Elements that you thought would work never really gel, and then those small ideas peppered throughout scripts bloom into something far more exciting than you might have imagined. As the show went on, the emphasis shifted away from Bajor and into other areas, a demonstration that things don’t always play out the way you expect them to.

Putting his necklace on the line…

This makes sense. Deep Space Nine was not planned out from the start. Indeed, there was apparently a great deal of internal debate about how serialised the show should be. Rick Berman wanted another episodic space adventure show, one easier to sell in syndication – an argument borne out by the fact that Deep Space Nine is less like to be broadcast than The Next Generation , Star Trek: Voyager or even Star Trek: Enterprise .

In contrast, Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr wanted more serialisation. Piller argued that a show set on a space station should, by its nature, be more concerned with consequences than a space ship travelling at several times the speed of life. Behr’s influence is all over these later episodes of the first season, and one can see that he’s setting up the show for the long-haul.

Morn again…

However, the point stands that Star Trek had little experience with serialisation when Deep Space Nine started. Ronald D. Moore had helped cultivate extended recurring plot lines featuring the Romulans and the Klingons in The Next Generation , and the first spin-off had developed a charming supporting cast of recurring characters, but the series was still largely stand-alone. The original Star Trek had been so firmly episodic that you could almost watch the episodes in any order without ever getting too lost, with cast and costume changes the most significant evolutions.

So the confusion evident in these early episodes makes sense. Like Emissary , Vortex develops particular threads which ultimately aren’t that essential to the over-arching mythos. The connections between Odo’s search for his people here and the pay-off in The Search are mostly incidental – thematic ties and foreshadowing that is probably accidental rather than anything more concrete.

He’s all ears…

Here, Croden suggests that the shape-shifters ( “ Changelings” , for the first time) live in a nebula, which ultimately turns out to be the case. It’s just a different nebula. When Sisko and Dax make contact with Croden’s home planet, they discover that these aliens have absolutely no interest in meeting the Federation. “We are well aware of the traffic through the newly discovered passage,” their contact points out. “We simply have no interest in contact with anyone from your quadrant.”

To be fair, these aren’t the first xenophobic aliens to appear in the franchise. However, given how tight the Dominion grip would turn out to be, the disinterest shown by this world could easily be motivated by fear. Later episodes would establish that the Dominion rules with fear and doesn’t welcome contact with outsiders, while militantly protecting their own borders. Under those circumstances, you can understand that members would be cautious about inviting guests down.

He caught that brig-and…

These connections feel mostly incidental, and Vortex really feels like it’s just an acknowledgement from the writing staff that they know the question of Odo’s origin is on the table. It’s more of a “we promise we’ll get around to it” rather than “here are some answers” , but that’s very forgivable this early in the game. One of the great things about Deep Space Nine was the fact that it generally did deal with its unanswered questions sooner rather than later.

Imagine how a modern show like Lost would play with Odo’s mysterious past; the writers tie it all up in the first episode of the show’s third season. And that leads to its own organic developments and its own storytelling opportunities. The show would only play with Odo’s back story a few more times before actually addressing the issue, which was a nice touch. The show learned how to handle serialisation relatively quickly.

There! Are! Four! Glasses!

So Vortex isn’t exactly essential viewing, existing mainly to establish that there is actually a mystery. You can feel that watching the episode, which is actually surprisingly straight-forward. We’re almost half-way through the episode before Odo and Croden leave the station, which would seem to put a dampener on the odds of finding any shapeshifters, unless it’s a two-parter. (Which it isn’t.)

However, even if it’s not essential to Odo’s arc, it feels like a valid experiment for the series. First seasons are often quite rocky, as a writing staff tries to figure out what the hell they are trying to do with this piece of television. However, if the show is to improve, there needs to be some hint of experimentation – a willingness to try new things and to take risks with the material.

A simple investigation…

The Next Generation tried that towards the end of its first season and into its second. I’d argue that one of the major problems with Voya ger was that it was far too conservative to ever take any creative risks. Enterprise really came into its own when it dared to try things that hadn’t been done before. And Deep Space Nine spends a considerable portion of its first season trying these new things, familiarising itself with various toys and techniques.

Even in the relatively conventional stories ahead, you can see the writing crew devoting time and effort to figuring out what they want the show to look like. There’s an acknowledgement that it won’t be perfect right away, that it might stumble and it might reach some dead ends, but the experimentation is worth the effort. Vortex isn’t a dead-end so much as dipping a toe in the waters. It isn’t praise-worthy of itself, but for what it represents.

A little piece of home…

But enough of that. What about Vortex itself? It’s actually a pretty solid episode. This isn’t gold-standard Star Trek , but it’s well-constructed and the character dynamics are interesting. It’s a lot stronger than The Passenger and Move Along Home , but it’s nowhere near as good as the show would become. I feel a bit cheeky complaining about how “average” various episodes of this first season are.

Even the worst episodes of Deep Space Nine ‘s first year can’t compare to the clunkers in the early part of The Next Generation , and are generally more interesting than the first-year adventures of Voyager or Enterprise . After watching Code of Honour or The Last Outpost or Lonely Among Us or  Angel One or The Neutral Zone , I would be delighted to find anything half as decent (albeit unspectacular) as Vortex .

Grabbing crime by the throat…

Odo is the central character here. In a way, Odo fulfils the mandatory “outsider” archetype that Star Trek is so fond of, even as he takes it to the logical extreme. Spock and Data fulfilled the role on the two earlier shows, and Odo continues the tradition. He was never as iconic as either of that pair, though. That’s mostly because Deep Space Nine never quite resonated with the public as much as the classic Star Trek or The Next Generation . However, it’s also because Odo is a tougher character to relate to.

Data was an outsider who wanted to be human. He might as well have been introduced in Encounter at Farpoint whistling “If I Only Had a Heart” rather than “Pop Goes the Weasel” , but what are you gonna do about rights issues? It’s flattering to think that this super-intelligent, super-powerful being wants to be like us. Data considers humanity to be worthy of emulation and his ultimate goal – the perfection he strives for – is an innate part of the viewer. Brent Spiner’s performance helps, and the great scripts, but I think Data’s core appeal can be understood in those terms.

It doesn’t scan…

Spock is an outsider seeking to balance his two halves. He’ll never be completely Vulcan, and The Motion Picture has the character acknowledge that he was wrong to try to purge all emotion so completely. Instead, Spock must reconcile his alien and human natures, and find a balance between the two. He talks a good game about logic and rationality, but Star Trek seems to argue that Spock’s humanity is a valid part of him, and one that must be developed and integrated. He is, as the 2009 reboot notes, “a child of two worlds.”

Odo is the third logical point on that spectrum, but he’s also the one which is probably less flattering to the audience. Spock and Data are both alien outsiders, but they seek to integrate. Data wants to integrate completely, and Spock eventually finds the right balance between “human” and “other.” Kirk’s humanising influence on his half-Vulcan first officer is pretty much endorsed by the show. In contrast Odo doesn’t really want to integrate or to fit in.

A hard cell…

His rigidity is ironic given the fact that he’s a sentient liquid, but Odo feels like the opposite to Data’s desire to completely integrate with human kind. He fits in well among the ensemble of Deep Space Nine , which often feels like the Star Trek show populated by misfits. And Bashir, who would fit in anywhere else, but is a misfit here. It’s something that the show remains true to throughout its run, particularly in its sixth and seventh seasons, and it makes Odo an absolutely fascinating character.

He claims that he can’t approximate a more human face, but we never really see him try. One would image he might at least be able to add a few bumps to his nose to help him blend in better among the Bajorans on the station. But Odo prides himself on his position as an outsider. It allows him to do his job without fear of bias or corruption, making him completely impartial. As the opening scene notes, Odo is a skilled observer of humanoid behaviour (suspect Croden because “he looks away whenever we make eye contact” ) and a skilled investigator.

By hook or by crook…

And Odo hides a secret. He doesn’t want to fit in with the people on the station. He wants to go home. One of the weirdest lines in Emissary comes from Odo admitting that. It’s not that it’s untrue or unreasonable, it’s the fact that Odo actually shared that thought with a colleague which seems strange. Here, he keeps his interest in finding his people a secret from everybody. Croden has to intuit his Odo’s loneliness, something Odo would never admit.

“You know you could use some company, Changeling,” Croden argues when he asks Odo to care for his daughter. “You deny it, but we both know it’s true, or the stone would have meant nothing to you.” Odo’s final act of mercy to Croden and his daughter is delightfully ambiguous. Is Odo releasing Croden because he feels that the man deserves his freedom, or is he doing this so he can’t be guilted into taking the young girl into custody? It’s not every character who can make doing the right thing ambiguous, and Rene Auberjones is superb as Odo.

A deal-breaker…

In fact, the whole of Vortex has a charming ambiguity to it. We do know that Croden is a killer. We never find out what he actually did on his home planet, despite his stories to Odo. His daughter seems to believe that he’s a good man, but it’s hard to believe he’d tell her the truth if he wasn’t. The episode wisely and shrewdly cultivates this murky sense of uncertainty, something mostly unique to Deep Space Nine . Vortex is hardly In the Pale Moonlight , but it’s shrewdly constructed.

Again, we get hints of a deeper relationship between Quark and Odo. Quark is still a crook here, staging a robbery to steal a stolen artefact. And yet he tries to protect Odo from the rampaging Ah-Kel. Rom suggests that Quark might be trying to protect his own hide. If Odo surrenders Croden, then Croden could implicate Quark. However, Quark confesses that this isn’t the case. “Odo would never give up his prisoner. He’ll just get himself killed.” While the episode never states it, one can infer Quark doesn’t want Odo to “get himself killed.”

Shady dealings…

As a side note, after some strange characterisation in The Nagus , Vortex introduces us to the version of Rom who will become a steady part of the show. He’s a bumbling idiot here, with none of the malice and bitterness that led him to attempt to assassinate Quark in the previous episode. It’s a dynamic that works a lot better, even if one wonders how exactly Quark dealt with the fact that his idiot brother tried to push him out of an airlock.

Vortex feels decidedly old-school in execution. One of the things I always liked about Deep Space Nine , and one of the reasons I suspect it has aged better than The Next Generation , is the fact that it has a very “old world” charm to it. It didn’t treat modern pop culture as a frame of reference, and it tended to hark back to more classic genres and sensibilities. The Nagus was The Godfather … in SPACE!!! , and the final few seasons turned into an epic science-fiction World War II saga.

Deal with it…

The show also evoked classic western sensibilities in a way unseen since the original Star Trek . Sisko firing his phaser into the air in A Man Alone to disperse a lynch mob feels like something from a historical film… only with lasers and pyjamas. Here, Vortex plays into both the western genre and the film noir , two genres that were defunct long before the show aired. The plot itself is a giant homage to The Naked Spur , to the point where the staff recruited Sam Rolfe, the screenwriter of the 1953 film, to draft the teleplay.

Ah-Kel’s stand outside Odo’s office and his vow to avenge his brother feels like something from a classic revenge film. It seems like Deep Space Nine exists on the boundaries of the law. “I want to deal with the one who killed my twin,” he warns Sisko. The commander responds, “The law will deal with him.” There’s a sense of conflict, and a hint that things aren’t necessarily stable on this frontier town in space.

Mirror, mirror…

Noir also feeds into it. Croden is an ambiguous rogue, and Odo clearly isn’t impartial in dealing with him. There’s a sense, as Odo talks with Ah-Kel, that the Changeling perhaps feels that the man’s brother got what he deserved. “I am the one whose brother was killed, Commander,” Ah-Kel protests. Odo replies, “You have only yourself–“ Sisko cuts across him, but the sentiment is clear, and it’s strange to hear it coming from a member of the regular cast.

Director Winrich Kolbe, one of the more reliable directors to work on the franchise, and one whose sensibilities always gelled best with Deep Space Nine , clearly relishes the opportunity to direct a noir tale. There are lots of lovely shadowy atmospheric shots in Quark’s, and a lovely use of a mirror in the conversations between Odo and Croden. Kolbe’s work does a lot to cover the fact that not too much happens for the first twenty minutes of the episode.

Grey areas…

There are other nice touches. Building off Move Along Home , we discover that apparently quite a few Gamma Quadrant aliens simply aren’t interested in dealing with Sisko. They head to Quark’s instead. This might arguably count as light foreshadowing of the Dominion arc, with the suggestion that these races are probably predisposed not to trust large multi-racial organisations, but it also does a lot to deflate the Federation’s occasional sense of self-importance.

“He didn’t seem to want to talk much to Sisko when he arrived,” Odo remarks, prompting Quark to offer a perfectly reasonable explanation. “Who would? All those Starfleet officers greeting him at the airlock. It would scare me too. The Federation could learn a few things from the Ferengi about hospitality.” Although he immediately recruits Croden into a criminal enterprise, there’s a sense that he is at least a little bit correct. The first season of Deep Space Nine does a lot to develop Ferengi culture as alternative (rather than inferior) to Federation cultural norms.

Talk about a Vortex manipulator…

I do also like that what little we’ve seen of the Gamma Quadrant seems to be grey. Really grey. It creates the impression that it really is a pretty crap bit of space out there. It brings to mind the notion of survival in a harsh climate, like a new frontier. It also fits the show’s colour scheme. Given that The Next Generation was visiting worlds in primary colours, I like that Deep Space Nine visually distinguishes itself, even if grey isn’t the most exciting of colours. (Hm. Maybe that encourages the writers to stay away from the Gamma Quadrant as a source of generic “alien of the week” stories.)

Vortex isn’t a classic, but it’s not a bad piece of television. Like a lot of these mid- to late-season episodes, it’s a sign that the show is interested in playing with serialisation and developing long-term arcs. Even if it doesn’t really know what it’s going to do with them yet.

You might be interested in our reviews of the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine :

• Supplemental: Terok Nor – Day of the Vipers by James Swallow
• Supplemental: Prophecy & Change – Ha’Mara by Kevin G. Summers
• Past Prologue
• A Man Alone
• Captive Pursuit
• The Passenger
• Move Along Home
• Battle Lines
• The Storyteller
• Supplemental: Terok Nor – Night of the Wolves by S.D. Perry & Britta Dennison
• If Wishes Were Horses…
• The Forsaken
• Dramatis Personae
• In the Hands of the Prophets

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Benjamin Sisko , deep space nine , Dominion , Federation , Ferengi , games , Ira Steven Behr , Michael Piller , Odo , Quark , ronald d. moore , Sisko , Star Trek Next Generation , Star Trek Original Series , star trek: deep space nine , star trek: enterprise , star trek: the next generation , Starfleet , StarTrek , Vortex |

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E12Vortex

Recap / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S01E12 "Vortex"

Edit locked.

Odo is parked in his usual spot at Quark's, grilling the crooked Ferengi over his supposed connection to a ship of Miradorn raiders who have docked at DS9.

Quark insists he's not affiliated with them (and that they aren't raiders). Odo asks about a suspicious customer at the end of the bar. Before they can discuss him at length, the Miradorn twins Ah-Kel and Ro-Kel enter the bar and offer a nod Quark's way. Though he says it's just common courtesy to the bartender, he and Rom quickly shuffle off to the back with five glasses.

The twins are trying to pawn off some sort of space Fabergé egg. Quark asks if it was stolen, but the party is crashed before they can make a deal. The quiet customer, an alien from the Gamma Quadrant named Croden, enters the room with a phaser, demanding the item. A phaserfight breaks out, and Ro-Kel is killed in the scuffle. The fight is interrupted by Odo, who was disguised as one of the glasses Rom took into the room.

Ah-Kel is out for blood. Miradorn twins share a deep connection, and he's not going anywhere until he has Croden's head. Odo orders him back to his ship and drags Croden off to the brig.

In the brig, Croden manages to snag Odo's attention when he refers to him as a Changeling. He explains that Changelings come from the Gamma Quadrant but have gone into hiding, and only he can lead Odo to their secret lair. He corroborates his story by showing Odo a pendant with a strange morphing material in it. The material is revealed to be similar to Odo's DNA, a "distant cousin" as Bashir puts it.

Meanwhile, Sisko and Dax head through the wormhole for Croden's home planet. The very cross Exarch demands Croden be returned immediately for numerous crimes on his home world. He implies that Croden is set to be executed on his planet, so the Federation's charges are moot. After a short back and forth, Sisko reluctantly complies.

Odo is ordered to return him. Though sorely tempted to take Croden up on his offer, Odo agrees. Ah-Kel is waiting in the wings to shoot down any ship with Croden on it, so the crew make up a ruse to mask Odo's departure by flying alongside a Rigelian freighter. It works, and the ship leaves through the wormhole.

While traveling, Croden reveals why he's wanted: Back on his home world, he was unfairly declared an enemy of the state, a crime which is punished by the execution of one's family. Seeing his two wives murdered, Croden murdered the security officers with a knife. Odo is naturally skeptical.

Back at DS9, Ah-Kel finds out Croden is gone by threatening Quark for the info. Despite several attempts to stall him, he leaves in hot pursuit of revenge. Ah-Kel quickly catches up to Odo's runabout and opens fire. Odo allows Croden to take the controls and pilot them into a dangerously explosive nebula, the very one where his people are hiding. Ah-Kel follows them into the nebula, and Croden insists that landing on a planet is their only escape.

He sets down on the very planet where he claims the Changelings are at and runs off to find them. The shapeshifter realizes that Croden is pulling his leg and confronts him. Croden admits that Changelings are just a myth to his people, and his key is just something he found. However, there is something precious to Croden on this planet: his reason for existence. Odo allows him to find it.

Croden finds a stasis pod and uses his morphing key to open it. Inside is Croden's daughter, Yareth, his only surviving family. Yareth immediately confirms everything Croden said about his supposed crimes. But their reunion is short-lived, as Ah-Kel has tracked them down on the planetoid and opens fire from orbit. Odo is knocked out by a collapsing rock. Croden considers leaving Odo behind but changes his mind and saves him.

Odo awakens on the shuttle, again under attack by Ah-Kel. He comes up with a plan. Steering the ship into a volatile pocket of nebula gas called a toh-maire, he goads Ah-Kel into opening fire. Just as Ah-Kel fires and ignites the gas, Odo pilots out of it, while Ah-Kel's ship is caught in the explosion and destroyed.

Croden, realizing he's still going to be returned to his home planet for execution, asks Odo to watch over Yareth at DS9. Before Odo can accept or decline, a passing Vulcan science ship hails the runabout. Odo seizes the opportunity and requests the Vulcans give Croden and Yareth a lift to Vulcan. After all, it was a big explosion. He could just say Croden perished in it. Croden thanks him for this second chance and leaves him the pendant.

Beaming them to the Vulcan ship, Odo is left alone to return home. He considers his morphing pendant and muses, "Home? Where is it? Some day we'll know... cousin."

This episode provides examples of:

• All Crimes Are Equal : As Croden tells Odo, on Rakhar there are no minor crimes.
• Crapsack World : Croden's homeworld Rakhar, from what we see and hear of it, is an apparently authoritarian nightmare that would make Cardassia blush; Croden's not even sure why he was declared an enemy of the state, since the security agents who showed up to kill him and his family never bothered to tell him. The Exarch angrily informs Sisko that Rakhar has no interest in establishing any diplomatic relations with the Federation. Further, Croden has been tried in absentia and will be executed upon his return.
• Death Faked for You : Odo chooses to report Croden as having died in the explosion that also destroyed the Miradorn ship, allowing Croden and his daughter Yareth to escape punishment for Croden's supposed crimes (and even his actual crimes, performed out of self-defense and desperation).
• Deliberate Values Dissonance : Rakhar is an isolationist and authoritarian planet. They also practice polygamy.
• Expospeak Gag : When Odo's runabout starts shaking in the nebula. Odo: Computer, what was that? Computer: A temporary loss of stability resulting from the impact of a concentrated plasma charge. Odo: We're being attacked? Computer: Affirmative.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : Odo: I'm a security chief, not a combat pilot!
• Insistent Terminology : Croden doesn't lie. He "Dissembles".
• Sympathetic backstory aside, Croden still gets away with the murder of Ro-Kel.
• Quark is involved in shady dealings that leave several people dead in the original theft of the egg and Ro-Kel dead directly due to Quark's ploy. Although put in a very sticky situation, he ultimately suffers no repercussions.
• Manipulative Bastard : Quark wants to buy a stolen artifact, but plans a ploy to steal the artifact from the thieves so he doesn't have to pay for it.
• Single-Minded Twins : Apparently what all "twinned Miradorn" are. Ah-Kel explicitly says he and Ro-Kel were two halves of a single being and seems to be in actual pain while Odo is interrogating him following Ro-Kel's death, saying he is now "incomplete" and lives only to avenge his brother by killing Croden.
• Stock Footage : The Chamra Vortex is the Mutara Nebula from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , printed upside down and slightly re-colored.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial : Odo rattles off details about the egg's two thefts, obviously suspecting that Quark was involved in both. Rom says the quiet part out loud by denying that Quark was behind both thefts, which makes Odo reply, "What an interesting idea!" A furious Quark immediately chastises Rom for his blunder.
• Sympathetic Murderer : Croden. He apparently killed a number of security guards on his home planet when they came to kill his family , only managing to save his daughter Yareth in the process. He also kills Ro-Kel (who, along with his brother, is pretty heavily implied to be a thief and murderer himself ) during a robbery, but he committed this crime out of desperation, as he needed money for a ship to extract Yareth from her hiding place. Once he's achieved this, he's willing to go home to be executed, so long as her safety is assured. Even Odo, who up until now has had a pretty rigid view of crime and punishment, ultimately decides to let him go free, promising to tell the Rakhari authorities that he was killed in the Miradorn attack.
• Undying Loyalty : Ah-Kel's crew stick with him for his mission of vengeance and ultimately die with him.
• You Killed My Father : Ah-Kel's motivation for pursuing Croden is the murder of his twin, who was his other half. He explicitly states that vengeance is his only reason for existing.
• You Talk Too Much! : Odo : I think I finally figured out what crime you were found guilty of on your world. Croden : What's that? Odo : You talk too much.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S01E11 "The Nagus"
• Recap/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S01E13 "Battle Lines"

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV Series)

Vortex (1993).

• User Reviews
• Croden's performance was quite good. There's a charismatic likable manner about him.
• Odo's performance throughout this episode was great. Odo has his own form of Justice and he ultimately puts his sense of Justice over the order to release Croden to the authorities. I enjoyed the scene in the cave when Odo is hit by a rock and Croden has an opportunity to leave but as he starts to head out he looks at his daughter and then he doesn't have the heart to set that kind of poor example for her and he goes back for Odo. Little moments like that help to round out my star trek meal. I found it quite interesting to hear the stories Croden was telling Odo about the changelings and specifically how accurate they turned out to be.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine : “The Nagus”/“Vortex”

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“The Nagus” (season 1, episode 11; originally aired 3/21/1993)

In which Quark gets an offer he can’t refuse, but probably should have anyway…

The Ferengi are basically awful. There’s no real way to get around this; the entire race is essentially a horrible cultural stereotype repurposed as literally alien, and therefore supposedly rendered inoffensive. I doubt, or at least hope, that this wasn’t done on purpose, unless it’s part of some grand scheme to humanize racial caricatures and thus bring all of us closer together through prosthetics and hammy acting—in which case, bravo. But I don’t think that’s the case, much as I don’t think anyone sat down to create the Ferengi and said to themselves, “Oh man, now I finally have a socially acceptable place to funnel all the horrible things I think about that family who lives down the block, you know the one I mean.” Fiction writing is an act of creation, and in that act of creation, writers use everything they can, especially when inventing fantasy environments. So, every once in a while, you get somebody who maybe isn’t the most imaginative person in the world, and they need to come up with an entirely new creature, and that’s how you wind up with Jar Jar Binks or the frog-like Trade Federation stooges who speak in thick “Oriental” accents. (Sorry, I’ve been re-watching the Star Wars prequels lately.)

Back on point, however the Ferengi were originally conceived, they remain one of the low points of the TNG -era Trek -verse, a lot of bad jokes and sniveling tied up under the guise of culture. Even if you put aside the social issues this raises, this presents concerns from a story perspective. There’s no inherent depth in a stereotype. That’s why it’s a stereotype; It’s an idea created to allow one group to make assumptions about another group, and use those assumptions to dismiss that other group’s autonomy. (This is a huge oversimplification, but bear with me.) So when a writer decides to use a race like the Vulcans or the Klingons, it becomes necessary to try and expand the stereotype into something more complex, while still maintaining a basic consistency with the race as originally presented. With the Vulcans and the Klingons, and most other Trek races, that’s not too hard. Stoicism has enough of a historical precedent to be a believable philosophical foundation, and it’s not like the Earth is hurting for warrior cultures.

The Ferengi, though, are greedy, cowardly cheats. That’s really all they have (that and the ears), and when it comes time to make something more out of it, well, it’s pretty hard to find the dignity in a group whose main goals in life are cheating everyone else out of a good deal and getting their ears rubbed. “The Nagus” does what it can with such a limited platform. The Rules of Acquisition, a series of guidelines which drive the Ferengi’s monetarily fixated culture, aren’t a terrible idea, because they at least attempt to make avarice into a value. Having Wallace Shawn play the apparent leader of the Ferengi, Grand Nagus Zek, is another smart move, because Wallace Shawn is great, and he manages to give the role a certain charm. There’s a clever story here, about the limits of power and how it’s better to be a medium-sized fish in a small pool than a big fish in a big pool. And as always, Armin Shimerman keeps finding ways to ground Quark, and make his morally questionable choices into something more complex than simple self-interest. Without Shimerman, this would’ve been intolerable. With him, it’s surprisingly not bad.

It’s still not good, though. The plot: The Grand Nagus arrives on Deep Space Nine, determined to make the most for his people out of the business opportunities created by the wormhole. He brings together a number of powerful Ferengi for a conference on how best to take advantage of the Gamma Quadrant—a place which has never heard of Ferengi before, and has no idea that they might not always be the most trustworthy. At the end of the meeting, Zek announces that he’s retiring, passes the title onto Quark, and, more or less promptly, dies. Initially overjoyed about the unexpected promotion, Quark soon realizes he’s not cut out for a life of double-dealing and backstabbing, especially not when the backstabbers have actual knives. Zek’s son Krax and Quark’s brother Rom team up to take Quark out, but just when they think they have the drop on him (having trapped poor Quark in an airlock chamber), Odo shows up with Zek, who isn’t dead. The true Nagus was hibernating and testing to see if his son was ready for leadership. Krax failed the test, Zek takes back his staff and robe, and everything goes back to normal.

I’m a sucker for political maneuvering, and the few times “The Nagus” deals in back-room deals and handshake negotiations, it’s a decent amount of fun. The idea that Quark would be in over his head so quickly makes sense, and fits in with what we’ve learned about the character; He’s clever, but clever only goes so far. While the episode doesn’t take the Ferengi’s culture all that seriously, it does put more effort into giving them rituals and goals than most any other Ferengi episode we’ve seen in the past (in those, the Ferengi were almost always the obstacle for the main characters to circumvent), to the point where it’s possible to believe them functioning as a culture, and not just as a group of not-all-that-threatening villains. It’s just that, for an hour that’s supposedly driven by Quark’s attempts first to please the Nagus and then simply to survive, our protagonist is curiously passive. He sucks up to Zek, he lords his power over his brother, and then, when the crisis arrives and he faces really danger, he refuses help from Sisko, Odo, and anyone else. The only reason he survives the episode is Odo’s dogged determination to get to the truth. Which isn’t a bad character moment, and it’s also a nice detail in their friendship, but it leaves Quark on the outside looking in.

That would be fine if Quark wasn’t already a somewhat problematic character. The show has given him a few chances to define himself before, but “The Nagus” should’ve been a chance for us to understand what drives Quark, or least give him something more interesting to do than toady up to his customers, trade barbs with Odo, and yell at his brother. It didn’t need to be great drama, but texture would’ve been nice. Instead, he goes through the basic one-two-three routine of the comic-relief stooge. There’s no arc for him, just a bouncing from place to place. At first, I took this as an interesting characterization; Quark isn’t a genius, and he’s better off just running the bar. But it’s not that he’s not a genius (although he isn’t). It’s that the Ferengi aren’t to be taken seriously. This whole episode is a joke, and even when life or death stakes are involved, there’s no reason to care. When TNG poked holes into Klingon culture, it meant something. With the Ferengi, it’s like the entire concept is so ridiculous, the writers have a hard time even caring enough to poke.

The most successful part of “The Nagus” has little to do with the title character, or Quark. Jake is still hanging out with Nog, but the two boys run into a problem when Nog’s father, Rom, demands Nog quit school at the behest of Zek. This causes some friction in their friendship, but Jake decides the best thing to do would be to keep teaching Nog what he learns in school. It’s a sweet, good-natured twist on a storyline that, at least for a while, seemed to be heading towards a more angst-ridden resolution. Sisko is frustrated that his son doesn’t want to hang out as much as he used to, and he’s also hearing from Chief O’Brien (who has taken over the school in his wife’s absence) that Nog isn’t a great influence on the boy. Instead of lecturing Jake on who he hangs out with, Sisko makes an effort (on Dax’s advice) to, well, spy on his son, and finds out about the lessons Jake has been giving Nog. So he finds out Jake is a good kid, and that Nog isn’t too bad himself. It’s a simple story, and effectively finds the best out of two characters we’ve been given reason to doubt. It’s too bad Quark couldn’t have been allowed the same narrative indulgence

Stray observations:

• If Zek is still alive, does that mean the Ferengi who sold his vacuum desiccated remains was in on the joke?
• How the hell does O’Brien have time to teach school?
• We’ve seen Morn before, but I believe this is the first time we’ve actually seen a main character talking to him.
• The riff on the opening scene of The Godfather , with Quark petting some kind of lizard-bladder thing, was unexpected, and funny.
• UPDATE: I originally suggested that the Ferengi were a riff on bigoted concepts of Judaism. Others have pointed out in the comments that I maybe should've done a bit more research before painting with a broad brush. I still stand by my argument of the first two paragraphs; The Ferengi too easily fit into the "ethnic comic relief" stereotypes for me to be entirely comfortable with them, and if they're intended as satire, well, the joke never gets beyond "HA HA LAME." So, basically, they suck, wherever they came from.

“Vortex” (season 1, episode 12; originally aired 4/18/1993)

In which Odo finds he can’t go home again—at least, not yet…

If “The Nagus” tries and fails to give us an idea of Quark’s social life, “Vortex” makes a similar attempt to get into the head of Odo, to greater success. While “Vortex” hints at deeper mysteries and a more complex mythology than the fairly simplistic greedy bastards set up in the previous episode, it’s just as traditional, both in what it accomplishes for the character, and the basic design of the story. To put it another way, “Vortex” is a “hint” episode, offering clues to backstory, but still too early in the series’ run for there to be any real chance that those clue will lead us someplace solid. As such, it’s more interesting for what it says about Odo than it is for anything it says about where Odo came from.

“Vortex” also continues what’s turning into something of a running gag for the series: the difficulties in establishing positive relationships with new races. It makes sense that the wormhole would lead to multiple instances of first contact, and it’s to the show’s credit that this hasn’t always gone smoothly. In fact, I’d say the only time it has gone smoothly was with the Wadi in “Move Along Home,” and even then, the results were confusing, and ambiguous. Sisko’s brief encounter with the Rakhar goes significantly worse. He has a prisoner from their world who needs to be tried for murder and theft, but the Rakhar government—or at least the only guy willing to talk with Sisko—isn’t having it. He wants the prisoner back, he wants him back yesterday, and he just basically hates having to deal with, well, anything, really. So far as I can tell, this is the first official contact between Rakhar and the Federation, but the way this dude acts, Sisko is a telemarketer who interrupted him in the middle of a good lay.

As far as station politics go, though, “Vortex” isn’t about Sisko trying to negotiate the right way to return the Rakharian “criminal” Croden (Cliff De Young, who will always be the dad in Flight Of The Navigator to me) to his people. It’s about Odo deciding just how far he’s willing to go to find out about his past, and just how much he’ll compromise the law in order to protect a good man. The constable notices Croden early in—the guy is an unfamiliar face at Quark’s, which isn’t that unusual, but his nervousness and unwillingness to meet Odo’s gaze puts the shapeshifter on the defensive. While it would be easy to assume anyone would be a little uncomfortable to find Odo giving them the eye, Croden is, indeed, up to something. When Quark goes to a back room to make a deal on a trinket with a pair of Mirdaron, Croden busts up the meeting and tries to steal the trinket. Things go badly, and they get worse when Odo reveals he’s been watching them the whole time, disguised as a drinking glass. There’s a fight, one of the Miradorn is killed, and Croden winds up in the brig. Life as usual on the DS9 , until Croden drops the bomb that Odo’s ability to transmogrify wasn’t new to him. He claims he’s seen shapeshifters before, and has, in fact, been to one of their colonies. He calls them Changelings, and has a nifty locket with a bit of Changeling material inside.

It’s hard to get too excited about any of this. De Young is a decent actor, and if he occasionally relies too much on tics and intensity for my taste, he’s fine here (although he looks weirdly dirty in the make-up). But that doesn’t change the fact that anyone who’s ever watched a genre show already knows where this is going. Croden is lying, and the only question is how much he’s lying, and even that isn’t much of a question. When you’re trying to tease out a backstory, you want to tease the audience by offering them more information than you’re actually planning on giving them, while at the same time providing just enough to make sure nobody feels like they’ve been completely cheated. Usually this means some tidbit that pushes us incrementally closer to the main goal. By the end of “Vortex,” we find out that Croden has never actually been to a Changeling colony, and that he picked up the trinket from a salesman. But people really did tell stories about Changelings once upon a time on Rakhar, and the trinket really does seem to be connected to Odo’s people. It’s something, although whether or not it’s enough to justify our time is open to debate.

I’m not sure it’s a great idea to think of episodes of television in brutally transactional terms—I don’t need a certain amount of information provided to me in order for me to feel like I’ve been fairly dealt with. Still, given how much of the story is spent with Odo wondering if he should trust Croden, and Croden offering him (and, by extension, us) more answers than he could possibly imagine, it’s hard not to be let down by how little we get here. So we look to the rest of the episode for sustenance, and there’s some decent bits to chew on, thankfully. As mentioned, Sisko’s interactions with Rakhar fit in well with what we’ve seen of the tedious reality of interstellar communication so far. The Miradorns make for decent villains. They’re a “twinned” race (so I guess they come from the Territories?), and when Ah-Kel loses his partner, he loses more than just a brother; he loses, as he explains to Sisko, his entire reason for being. So he’s really, really intent on getting revenge, which leads to a Wrath Of Khan -esque fight in the vortex that gives this episode its name. Ah-Kel isn’t the most clearly defined character in the history of the show, but he at least has a reason for what he does that goes beyond “EVIL.”

As with “The Nagus,” it’s the small moments of decency that really carry the episode. Croden is lying about what he knows, but he’s at least lying for a reason. Rakhar is, from what we can tell, an awful place, and Croden lost nearly all of his family when he disobeyed the government. He has one daughter left, but he’s hidden her in stasis on an asteroid in the Chamra Vortex. The reason he lies to Odo is so he can get back to his daughter and free her from the statis box; Most likely, he tried to rob the Miradorn earlier in order to buy a ship, but it doesn’t seem like he’s that good at thievery. (Dude is waaaay too chatty, for one thing.) Once Odo realizes what’s up, he’s understandably let down by not getting the answers he wanted, but he’s forced to make a moral choice: Does he take Croden back to his homeworld, where he will be executed? Or does he allow the man and his child to go free? Curiously, up until the end, Odo doesn’t have a lot of autonomy in “Vortex.” While he’s tempted by Croden’s offer, that temptation would never be enough to inspire him to break the law. That’s not how Odo works, but while it’s great that the episode makes an effort to stay true to the character, it leads to him being grumpily sidelined right up until the final scenes.

In the end, Odo figures out how to escape Ah-Kel (killing the Miradorn in the process, leaving a convenient, although completely necessary, absence of witnesses), and he decides to let both Croden and Yareth (the daughter) go. This decision is made easier by Croden’s willingness to sacrifice himself to save both his child’s and Odo’s lives. (This is particularly effective seeings as Odo was trying to take away Croden’t freedom for good.) That’s pretty high up on the Decency Scorecard, so it’s not a shock when Odo, still grouchy, allows Croden to accompany Yareth onto a Vulcan science ship. “Vortex” is, like a great many of episodes we’ve seen so far this season—staunchly mediocre—but its good moments help elevate it from the completely forgettable, and they also serve as a promise that these characters, and this world, are worth exploring.

• At one point, Ah-Kel browbeats Quark into giving up that Croden has left with Odo. Quark’s very real concern that his actions might get Odo killed are more positive character development than anything we saw in “The Nagus.”
• Last week marked (I think) the first official recognition of Morn. This week, we get the first, “Morn won’t stop talking!” joke.
• So Odo can transform himself into anything, regardless of mass. At least, he can transform himself into anything smaller than himself. I wonder if he could do something bigger?

Next week: “Battle Lines” are drawn, and we sit down to listen to “The Storyteller.”

Cliff DeYoung

• View history

DeYoung was considered for the role of Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

DeYoung's motion picture credits included Harry and Tonto (1974), Blue Collar (1978), Shock Treatment (1981), Flight of the Navigator (1986), Glory (1989), Flashback (1990, with Paul Dooley and Carol Kane ), and Wild . DeYoung had supporting roles in Protocol (1984, with Ed Begley, Jr. , Joel Brooks , Kenneth Mars , Jeanne Mori , Chris Sarandon , Gail Strickland , Keith Szarabajka , George D. Wallace , and Paul Willson ), Carnosaur (1995, with John Savage , Christopher Darga and John Chandler ), and The Last Man on Planet Earth (1999, with Tamlyn Tomita , Elizabeth Dennehy , Nancy Hower , Martha Hackett , written by Kenneth Biller , and directed by Les Landau ).

Other television appearances include playing Jay Nemman in the pilot episode of The X-Files (with James W. Jansen ) and also appeared in The Tommyknockers .

External links [ ]

• Cliff DeYoung at Wikipedia
• Cliff DeYoung at the Internet Movie Database
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

Vortex Stardate: Unknown Original Airdate: 19 Apr, 1993

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How Deep Space Nine's Dominion War Nearly Wrecked Star Trek's Utopia

How deep space nine 's dominion war nearly wrecked star trek 's utopia, over five years of hot and cold conflict, deep space nine charted the deadliest war in star trek 's history—one that pushed the federation to its limit..

Star Trek likes to imagine itself as a franchise that is largely above conflict , but it is defined by it : and how its most idealized heroes in Starfleet and the Federation react to, and become shaped by it. While Trek ’s history is littered with devastating battles , few conflicts hold a mirror to Star Trek quite like the bloodiest of them all— Deep Space Nine ’s Dominion War .

As one of the most legendary moments in the conflict celebrated its anniversary earlier this week—marking the airing of “In the Pale Moonlight” , where Captain Sisko sells his soul to bring the Romulan Star Empire into the war on the Federation’s side—we’re taking a look back at the longest game a Star Trek show ever played in setting up what would become one of its most memorable arcs, and a story that would forever shape its legacy .

Although Federation-aligned and independent powers of the Alpha Quadrant had begun colonizing Gamma Quadrant holdings and engaging in trade with the region’s myriad beings almost as soon as the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole in 2369—the first stable wormhole discovered in the Milky Way Galaxy—it was not Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Cardassian Union, or the Romulan Star Empire, nor any of the major military powers of the Alpha Quadrant, that first received intelligence about the Dominion’s existence, but the Ferengi Alliance.

Operating in intelligence secured by the Grand Nagus Zek, the Ferengi successfully entered a trade agreement with a major mercantile faction of the Dominion in the Karemma, in an attempt to secure the Ferengi as a major economic power on the other side of the wormhole. But while their alliance with the Karemma was established, solid intel or interaction with the wider Dominion remained out of reach for the Alpha Quadrant powers beyond intelligence reports from trading Gamma Quadrant species: the Dominion was solidifying its own borders, securing new worlds, and conquering species while lying in wait.

First Contact

Starfleet’s first formal contact with the Dominion set the stage for the scope of the war to come—but open conflict with the Dominion was still several years away. In 2370, after encountering the military arm of the Dominion in the Jem’Hadar, Commander Sisko, Deep Space Nine’s chief Starfleet administrator, and Quark were held hostage as Jem’Hadar forces destroyed multiple Alpha Quadrant colonies as a warning that the Gamma Quadrant was their territory. In an attempt to make a show of force of its own, Starfleet dispatched the Galaxy-Class starship Odyssey as well as several runabout shuttles on an expedition to recover Sisko.

Although Sisko was rescued, the show of force didn’t work. Immediately engaging with Starfleet, the Jem’Hadar’s technology proved more than a match for the Federation’s, with the Odyssey unable to damage the Dominion attack ships. They were no match for the Jem’Hadar’s ruthless tactics either, when the Odyssey was destroyed in a suicide run during the engagement. Sisko and the survivors were left to return to the Alpha Quadrant with a warning: the Federation had no idea what hell it had just unleashed.

A Cold War Begins

The destruction of the Odyssey did not mark the beginning of open conflict, but sparked realizations on both sides of the wormhole— a Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant was not a hypothetical, but an inevitability. The Dominion began establishing simulations for how the various Alpha Quadrant powers would react to a potential Dominion encroachment beyond the Gamma Quadrant. Meanwhile, Starfleet entered production on the first explicitly designed warship in its fleets, the Defiant -class escort, stationing the first of its kind at Deep Space Nine, right at the wormhole’s entrance.

Deep Space Nine itself became the center of Starfleet’s plans for an early military footing. The Federation’s presence on the station was increasingly militarized even beyond the Defiant ’s stationing there, fortifying the station with increased defenses, and the establishment of a series of relays and listening posts on the other side of the wormhole as an advanced warning system. However, beyond the military might of its Jem’Hadar forces, the Dominion had another trick up its sleeve: a quasi-intelligence branch of changeling agents, preparing to infiltrate branches of each Alpha Quadrant power.

The Fall of the Obsidian Order

The Alpha Quadrant’s own intelligence agencies attempted to combat changeling subterfuge with increased security sweeps and detection, but the Dominion pivoted its earliest infiltrations at two intelligence targets in particular: the Romulan Tal Shiar, and the Cardassian Obsidian Order. Spurred by the discovery of a plan by Cardassian intelligence to assault the changeling homeworld, Dominion operatives lured the Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar into a joint operation in the Omarion Nebula in 2371—where a massive force of Jem’Hadar ships decimated the Cardassian-Romulan task force.

With the Tal Shiar badly damaged, Romulan planning to the war pivoted to neutrality, staying away from engaging with the other Alpha Quadrant powers. But the destruction of the Obsidian Order crippled Cardassia’s power structure: without the threat of the Order policing dissidence, Cardassia itself was facing a power vacuum prime for the Dominion to capitalize on.

Emboldened by the success at the Battle of the Omarion Nebula, the Dominion moved further into destabilizing the Alpha Quadrant. Infiltrating the upper echelons of Klingon Command under the guise of General Martok, a changeling operative influenced Chancellor Gowron into making public moves to seize Cardassian territories while the Union was distracted by internal conflicts. Drawing condemnation from the Federation, Gowron reacted by shattering a tentative peace between the Empire and the Federation that had lasted for nearly a century by formally pulling out of the Khitomer Accords that had established the Klingon-Federation Alliance.

Given free reign to effectively continue a war of attrition against the Cardassian Union, Gowron’s warmongering provided two advantages to the Dominion: the Klingons badly, badly damaged the Cardassian Union, itself already weakened by the civilian government’s overthrowing of the Cardassian military command’s rule over the world. But the Federation’s distraction by the Klingon powers also gave Dominion agents an opportunity to repeat their successes within Starfleet Command. After a changeling agent bombed a conference in Antwerp, dissident voices in Starfleet Command attempted to stage a coup d’etat—however, it failed after being exposed.

The Dominion’s influence in the Klingon Empire, however, allowed it to attack the Federation even without infiltration from within. The Martok agent convinced Gowron, emboldened by successes against the Cardassians, to begin staking claim on existent Federation territories in late 2372, formally beginning a new Klingon-Federation war.

Invasion and Union

Although a cease-fire in the conflict between the Federation and Klingons was secured relatively quickly after the exposure of the Martok agent, the ensuing chaos—as well as an attempted Borg assault that vastly damaged Starfleet’s military strength in Sector 001—had primed the Alpha Quadrant for the Dominion. Half a year later in 2373, the Dominion reaped the seeds it had sown in years of infiltration and subterfuge. With Cardassia drastically weakened through internal and external strife, a beleaguered Gul Dukat entered negotiations with the Dominion to formally develop an alliance, allowing the Cardassians to stage key territory retrievals on the Klingon front with Dominion backing. Plans by Starfleet to seal the Bajoran wormhole and cut off any threat of a Dominion invasion were thwarted by an agent posing as Dr. Julian Bashir, DS9's Starfleet medical chief, who successfully managed to stablize the wormhole’s integrity even further—allowing the Dominion to regularly transport a steady stream of supplies and military power to Cardassian space.

Growing tensions and small border conflicts on the fringes of what was now Dominion-Cardassian territory saw the Federation and Klingons bury the hatchet formally, with the Empire re-entering the Khitomer Accords. But even with one wound patched up, war was now inevitable, and Starfleet launched a plan to mine the space around Deep Space Nine and the Bajoran wormhole, effectively delaying further transport of Dominion materiel into the Alpha Quadrant. A field of self-replicating mines pushed the Dominion into action, sending a message to Captain Sisko and Starfleet at the station: disable the mines, or the Dominion and Cardassians would take Deep Space Nine and do it themselves.

Starfleet made its first humbling gambit: just days later, an overwhelming Cardassian-Dominion force assaulted Deep Space Nine, but not before the mine field was armed—and not before Starfleet withdrew from the station entirely, leaving the Bajoran security forces staged there to welcome Dominion control. In exchange, the distraction caused by the Dominion pressing so much of its Alpha Quadrant forces into action a Deep Space Nine allowed a joint Starfleet-Klingon allied force to invade Cardassian space, destroying a key Dominion shipyard and hampering initial production efforts of Alpha Quadrant-made weaponry.

On stardate 50975.2, the Dominion War turned hot.

A Sacrifice of Angels

Although the sacrifice of Deep Space Nine in exchange for mining the Bajoran wormhole was a key early victory for the Federation-Klingon alliance, it was pretty much the only one in the opening months of the war. Klingon and Starfleet forces were regularly pushed into retreat on all fronts, overwhelmed by the Dominion’s sheer numbers and their superior technology. Morale began to plummet—especially after a devastating battle in the Tyra system all but destroyed Starfleet’s Seventh Fleet, losing nearly a hundred ships and thousands of officers in a single engagement.

But while large scale conflict was going badly for the alliance, small-scale operations and individual skirmishes played to its military strengths. Small task forces managed to infiltrate Dominion space and successfully destroy significant amounts of the Dominion’s supply of Ketracel-White, the drug that sustained the Jem’Hadar as an effective fighting force, creating a supply crisis, while others sabotaged major sensor arrays to stem the flow of Dominion intelligence.

The War Digs In

The Dominion kept pushing, encroaching closer and closer to core Federation worlds like Vulcan and Bolarus. And as efforts back in the Bajoran system to disable the minefield around Deep Space Nine began to bear fruit, Sisko realized the Federation needed a win to steady morale and to avoid what was increasingly looking like a devastatingly swift loss to the Dominion: take back the station where the war had first begun in the first place.

Despite initial resistance from both the Empire and Starfleet Command, Operation Return was put into action in late 2374, securing an overwhelming victory for alliance forces. Although the mine field was ultimately destroyed, Deep Space Nine was retaken, and nearly 3,000 Dominion warships traversing the wormhole were mysteriously vanished away by the entities—believed by the Bajoran people to be their spiritual pantheon, the Prophets—that called it home. Having withdrawn ships from various fronts to defend DS9, Dominion advances on Federation and Klingon space were stalled throughout the Quadrant, and Gul Dukat, broken by the death of his daughter during the attack on DS9, was captured by the alliance, leading to new leadership in the Cardassian wing of the Dominion under Damar.

A Pale Moonlight

The third major battle for Deep Space Nine lead to a slowdown in the overall arc of the Dominion War, as both sides consolidated forces and territories. Formal peace talks even began between the two sides, but eventually stalled out. With direct access to the Gamma Quadrant now barred by the wormhole’s inhabitants, the Dominion ramped up direct production in its Alpha Quadrant holdings, stemming the Ketracel White shortage crisis through a trade agreement for a version of the drug developed by the Son’a. Its strength restored, the Dominion launched a surprise assault that put the Federation on the precipice: distracting alliance forces, an invasion fleet from the Kalandra sector managed to occupy Betazed, the homeworld of a major Federation member, in just 10 hours, successfully repulsing multiple Starfleet attempts to retake the world.

Through Betazed, the Dominion was on the doorstep of the heart of the Federation—attacks on Vulcan, Bolarus, Andor, Tellar, Alpha Centauri, and even Earth were now on the table. Once again on the back foot and with the war ramping up again, the alliance needed a win. As presented in one of the finest hours of all seven seasons of Deep Space Nine , “In the Pale Moonlight,” Captain Sisko, working with the Cardassian tailor Elim Garak, successfully managed to stage a deception for the Romulan Star Empire, assassinating a Senator carrying forged evidence of a Dominion plan to invade Romulan space. The Romulans took the bait, formally entering the war on the side of the Alliance—and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer.

Turning Tides

The opening of the Romulan front gave the Federation opportunity and space to reach out and secure diplomatic ties with smaller besieged powers in the Alpha Quadrant, to gain access to further staging grounds and material support. Bolstered by the significant military power Romulus brought to the table, a clear pathway to the end of the Dominion War was laid out by alliance command: a direct invasion of Cardassia, the heart of the Dominion’s stronghold in the quadrant.

As 2374 came to a close, the Alliance began striking its first major offensives into Cardassian space, taking the highly contested Chin’toka system as well as Kalandra—which would eventually lead to the liberation of Betazed months later. Consolidating the new flashpoints on their fronts, the Klingons successfully managed to launch several deep-strike raids into Cardassian territory, destabilizing military infrastructure even further. Section 31, the secret intelligence wing of Starfleet, also successfully developed and laced the changeling homeworld’s great link with a morphogenic virus, greatly destabilizing their security and ability to conduct sabotage and intelligence gathering operations.

The Dominion, however didn’t go down without a fight. As the Alliance encroached further, Dominion command entered an alliance with the Breen Confederacy—something it had kept secret from its Cardassian allies, promising the Breen several Cardassian systems in exchange for their loyalty. As the Dominion ignored the Cardassian’s requests for support against the Federation and Klingons, fractures began to grow between the two entities. But the Breen’s surprise entry into the war in 2375—by launching an unprecedented shock bombardment on Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, the first hostile assault on Earth in centuries—as well as the use of powerful new weaponry that allowed them and the Dominion to almost completely eradicate Alliance forces holding Chin’toka to put the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans on the defensive.

A Revolutionary End

Another lull in the war’s grander momentum after the second battle of Chin’toka allowed the Alliance to recover its lost military power and develop a counter to Breen weaponry—but it also gave the increasingly disenfranchised Cardassians a chance to undermine the Dominion from within. Left ignored after the Dominion’s pact with the Breen, Damar staged a rebellion against their former allies—one that, while swiftly put down, managed to put the Dominion and Breen on the back foot, withdrawing from much of their holdings to consolidate power directly around Cardassia.

Although Cardassian dissidence had been largely quelled, however, it wasn’t eradicated—with the Alliance sending operatives to help Damar respark a popular revolution on the world, distracting the Dominion long enough for the Alliance to gather its forces into one final effort, the plan that had been its dream the year prior: the invasion of Cardassia Prime.

The Final Battle

With the local uprising successfully putting Cardassian under a power blackout, Alliance forces entered Cardassian space in late 2375, engaging Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen forces. A Jem’Hadar attempt to quell rebellion on Cardassia, killing millions of civilians in targeted bombings, saw the Cardassian fleet break away from the Dominion and Breen, fracturing their tentative defensive lines and giving the Alliance direct access to the planet.

Forced to accept terms of surrender—in exchange for a cure for the morphogenic virus now ravaging the changelings and their homeworld—the Dominion stepped down, and several days later, its leadership signed the Treaty of Bajor on Deep Space Nine, formally bringing an end to the Dominion War. The remaining Dominion forces retreated back into the Gamma Quadrant, and Deep Space Nine’s Bajoran security forces officer, the changeling Odo, returned with them to deliver the morphogenic cure directly to his people’s homeworld.

The Legacy of the Dominion War

Meanwhile, while most perfunctory borders of space occupied by the Alpha Quadrant powers prior to the Dominion’s invasion in 2373 were restored by the Treaty of Bajor, the quadrant had undergone a significant rebalancing of power that would impact interstellar events for decades to come. The near-total destruction of the Cardassian Union created a power vacuum in its former territories, while the Breen, albeit humbled by the Dominion’s retreat, had established its expansionary goals as well as its significant military threat. The aftermath of both its initial war with Cardassia and then as part of the Alliance diminished the Klingon Empire’s own status as a major power in the quadrant for the next decade, as it looked internally to reconsolidate and rebuild—leaving the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation as the defining players in the Alpha Quadrant.

Although the Dominion War had brought with it a sense of uneasy diplomacy that was unprecedented in either faction’s history for centuries, tensions between Romulus and the Federation would renew shortly after—amplified first after the Reman commander Shinzon staged a military coup in 2379, attempting to attack Earth in the process, and then six years later, when a secret sect of the Tal Shiar dedicated to the destruction of synthetic life staged a terrorist attack on the Utopia Planitia shipyards at Mars, largely destroying a Federation taskforce intended to aid with evacuation efforts intended to save the populations of Romulus and Remus before their system’s star went supernova. After the attack the Federation decided to formally halt attempts to help the Romulans and Remans, leading to the near extinction of both sibling species when the Romulan star went supernova in 2387.

Although major conflict on the scale of the Dominion War would not return to the Alpha Quadrant for many years to come, its scars lingered for decades, especially as the Federation and Klingon Empires became the de facto remaining powers by the turn of the 25th century. For now, it remains what we know to be the bloodiest conflict in Star Trek ’s history—one that challenged the very ideals of its entire utopian dream to their very core.

‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Best Crossover Character Changed the Show Forever

It also results in some of the best relationships within the Star Trek universe.

The Big Picture

• Worf's arrival on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine deepened the exploration of Klingon culture and his personal identity.
• Worf's relationship with Jadzia adds depth to his character and highlights his humanity.
• Worf's struggles adjusting to life on DS9 test his loyalty, friendship, and honor.

Worf, son of Mogh ( Michael Dorn ), is a beloved character initially introduced to audiences in Star Trek: The Next Generation , known for his battle-hardened stoicism and the comedic relief that his upright and rigid demeanor brings. Worf crossed over to Deep Space Nine in the fourth season, much to the delight of Star Trek fans. Initially, his arrival on DS9 allowed the show to explore the Klingon Empire in-depth by extrapolating his inner conflict between his roles as a dutiful Federation Officer and a fierce Warrior of The Klingon Empire.

However, Worf's presence on DS9 would also forever change the series , allowing a deep exploration of the machinations of the Empire through its saga with Gowron ( Robert O'Reilly ). His relationship with Jadzia ( Terry Farrell ), a Trill learned in the ways of the Klingon, would help highlight Worf's humanity, act as a romantic counterpoint to his rigidity, and provide context for the curious observer. Jadzia and Worf are similar in some respects, as they both have multiple identities to reconcile. Jadzia would be the first non-Klingon woman that Worf could be with in the traditional sense, giving a vulnerability to the character that would carry on throughout the series and provide a deep richness to DS9 that helped cement it as a critical series in the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

In the vicinity of the liberated planet of Bajor, the Federation space station Deep Space Nine guards the opening of a stable wormhole to the far side of the galaxy.

What Is 'Deep Space Nine' About?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the fourth series in the Star Trek universe, created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller . Deep Space Nine ran from January 3, 1993, to June 2, 1999, for 176 episodes over seven seasons. It was the first Star Trek series to be created without the involvement of series founder Gene Roddenberry , the first to be set on a space station, and the first to boast a Black captain in Benjamin Sisko ( Avery Brooks ). The series follows the exploits of a hybrid crew of Starfleet and Bajoran officers on the titular space station, in orbit above Bajor and adjacent to a wormhole leading to the distant and mysterious Gamma Quadrant. Starfleet has come to oversee the transfer of power from the oppressive Cardassian Empire to the Bajoran civilian government, which has been under the heel of the Cardassians for some time.

The series is much darker than its predecessors . At one point, Major Kira Nerys ( Nana Visitor ), the first officer of Deep Space Nine, is a Cardassian prisoner of war, and even Sisko himself saw his wife killed during a Borg raid on a space station. The currents of trauma that run through the ensemble invoke feelings of loneliness, desperation, and fear, which the characters must overcome in typical Starfleet fashion. The well-roundedness of the characters makes them very compelling and adds a layer of sophistication to the series, which, while present in its predecessors, came into its own during DS9 and became a recurring theme on the show.

One particular theme that runs through Deep Space Nine is the duty to one's station and the duty one has towards one's individuality. This exploration of where duty and individuality meet is present in many characters. Take Odo ( René Auberjonois ) , for example, a Founder separated from his people and planted firmly in the camp of the Alpha Quadrant. In contrast, his people wage war on the planets of the Federation. Odo must choose between his people, Starfleet, and his cultural identity and individuality. So, too, must Kira, whose hatred for the Cardassian is a defining feature of her character, and who has to learn to overcome this so that it does not interfere with her duties to Starfleet. This war between the Founders, their allies, and Starfleet is the primary conflict in the series . They are a formidable race of shapeshifters backed by the Jem'Hadar, a warrior race of beings whose soul existence is to crush opposition. They are a tough, genocidal race, terrifying in their methods and fearsome enough to give the Klingon Empire a run for its money.

Worf's Arrival Changed 'Deep Space Nine' for the Better

Worf joins the crew of Deep Space Nine during the feature-long premiere episode of Season 4 in "The Way Of The Warrior." At the beginning of the episode, the Klingon Empire, led by Gowron, shows up at the space station to aid them in their fight against the Founders. This is a serious boon for Starfleet and the Alpha Quadrant, as the Klingons are such fearsome and brutal fighters that they may tip the balance of power throughout the war. But they push things too far, illegally searching Bajoran ships and starting a war with the Cardassians, whom they believe to be comprised of the shapeshifting Founders. Worf is brought to gather intelligence by reaching out to the Empire. He is very close with Gowron, who has absolved Worf and his family of their generations-long disgrace. Worf learns of the Klingon plans to invade Cardassia and must choose between fulfilling his duties to Starfleet or joining Gowron in battle. Worf's choice to maintain his honor by remaining in Starfleet is a moral choice that tests his individuality against those of his bloodthirsty cultural traditions.

Throughout the series, Worf meets Deep Space Nine's chief science officer, Jadzia Dax, a Trill and the host of the symbiont that once belonged to Curzon Dax . Due to the Dax symbiont carrying all its previous hosts' memories, Jadzia can tap into Curzon's familiarity with Klingon customs. The characters are exciting foils to one another. Worf is glib, stoic, and utterly humorless, while Jadzia is more irreverent and open, owing to the many past lives she recalls through her symbiont. However, the two also have more in common than one might think ; they are both people who have multiple identities. The critical difference is that Jadzia has reconciled her identities, while Worf remains at odds with his.

Jadzia is the only person aboard Deep Space Nine who can genuinely understand Worf , and it is this factor that blossoms their innocuous meeting into what may be one of the most fantastic love stories ever told in the Star Trek universe. Their connection is marvelous as their conflicting natures are both points of contention that allow for humorous moments where Jadzia's tenderness assuages the beast within Worf. It is delightful to watch Worf babysit chief operations officer Miles O'Brien's ( Colm Meaney ) daughter, paving the way for the couple to conceive a child of their own — which is made all the more tragic by Jadzia's murder and Worf's spiral into despair.

Worf Had a Difficult Time Adjusting To Life On Deep Space Nine

Initially, Worf has his former Enterprise crewmate O'Brien to help ease his transition into life on the space station. The two were close, and their relationship strengthened on The Next Generation , after Worf helped O'Brien's wife Keiko ( Rosalind Chao ) give birth to their daughter. When Worf joins the crew of DS9, O'Brien is among the first to receive him to help him acclimate — introducing him to Doctor Julian Bashir ( Alexander Siddig ), a rival suitor for Jadzia's affections and eventual boyfriend to Ezri ( Nicole de Boer ), who becomes the host of the Dax symbiote after Jadzia's untimely death.

O'Brien is the only person Worf can genuinely confide in after the death of his wife, and he heartbreakingly confesses to his friend that he fears Jadzia's soul may never make it to Klingon heaven because she hadn't eaten the heart of her enemy after a night of too much blood wine. Worf longs to be with his wife in the afterlife, making Ezri's relationship with Bashir a sore point for the commander. But Worf eventually becomes a friend to Ezri, who, in effect, helps Worf to properly grieve Jadzia's death so that he can move on and step up to be the man that the Klingon Empire needs.

It isn't an easy transition for Worf after he accepts the commission of Special Operations Officer on Deep Space Nine — yet Captain Sisko has incredible foresight when he offers Worf the position. He sees Worf as a profoundly knowledgeable and capable military strategist whose intuition and extensive knowledge of warfare, particularly Klingon warfare, would greatly benefit the station and Starfleet. This position puts Worf in direct opposition to his people and weighs heavily on his mind. By siding with Sisko over Gowron, Worf again sees himself as an outsider among his people . His frustrations are palpable, but he can sublimate these into his work and subsequently earn a place of deep respect in Sisko's heart. It is summed up rather nicely between the two with a hearty handshake when Worf accepts the role of Ambassador to the Klingon homeworld.

Until this point, Worf wants to restore his family's honor, and ironically, he loses it again while pursuing what he believes to be honorable. Here is the show's crux: how far someone is willing to go to do what they believe to be correct. Sisko tests the bounds of his morality while making difficult choices about defeating the Founders. Odo turns his back on his people. On the fringes of the known universe, a brave crew of deeply traumatized heroes will learn exactly that. Worf's crossover on Deep Space Nine marks the point where the series descends into a dark rabbit hole spurned on through the fog of war, but it also results in some of the best character relationships within the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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Star Trek Easter Egg Calls Back to a Forgotten Deep Space Nine Episode

The latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery does a less corny version of a goofy classic from Deep Space Nine.

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This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine earned its position as a favorite series among fans because of its more complex take on the franchise’s themes, thrusting the United Federation of Planets into a huge war that tested its moral compass time and again. But even at the height of the Dominion War, DS9 also found time to follow Jake and Nog’s search for a baseball card and to check in on a holographic Rat Pack lounge singer.

But even within that wide range of possibilities, the season three episode “Facets” stands out as an oddball. Written by René Echevarria and directed by Cliff Bole, “Facets” introduced the Zhian’tara ritual, through which Trill hosts find closure for their symbiotes by spreading host personalities to others.

Although “Facets” isn’t exactly a “Sub Rosa” level embarrassment, it is a weird episode that mostly went unmentioned in the larger canon until Discovery reintroduced the Zhian’tara ritual in the season four episode “Choose to Live.” In that episode, the Guardians of Trill use the ritual to separate Grey from the Tal symbiote carried by Adira and into a Soong-style golem. As usual for Discovery , writer Terri Hughes Burton and director Christopher J. Byrne emphasized the emotional over the goofy, not invoking the sillier parts of the idea.

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That’s not the case for this week’s Disco season five episode “ Jinaal .” When Burnham and Book’s search for the secret of the Progenitors brings them to Trill, they find a guide in the form of Jinaal Bix, a host from 800 years ago. Through Zhian’tara, Bix allows Jinaal to embody Dr. Culber, who takes the duo to the next clue.

The stakes of “Facets” weren’t quite so high, and fittingly, neither was the episode’s tone. Jadzia sends the minds of the previous Dax hosts to Quark, Bashir, Leeta, O’Brien, Odo, Kira, and Sisko, who all take on new personalities. O’Brien becomes nervy and scared when Tobin possesses him, while the maternal Audrid softens Quark’s hard edges. The murderous Joran transforms Sisko into a Hannibal Lecter type, making malevolent observations through an invisible holding cell wall.

The most outrageous of the transformations involves, fittingly enough, the shape-shifter Odo, who takes on the identity of Jadzia’s most immediate predecessor Curzon. Although a gregarious man in his life and a close friend to Sisko and the Klingon Martok, Curzon’s joi de vivre makes him selfish, fighting to hold on to his new life. Due to his shape-changing abilities, Odo undergoes a more thorough transformation, as he and Curzon blend into a single being. This new being happens to look a lot like Odo performer René Auberjonois , giving the actor a chance to work with less make-up.

Culber’s transformation isn’t quite so dramatic. The change to Jinaal gives Culber’s actor Wilson Cruz the opportunity to be a swaggering charmer instead of the empathetic physician he usually plays, as well as the opportunity to compliment his own (admittedly very impressive) physique.

Unlike Culber, Auberjonois and Avery Brooks (Sisko) go hard into playing off-beat characters. Never one for subtlety, Brooks chews all the scenery available to him as the evil genius Joran. He never makes for a credible threat (contrast his presence to that of Brad Dourif’s killer ensign Lon Suder in Voyager ), but he is fun to watch.

Likewise, Auberjonois takes advantage of having his face freed from most of the make up he wore on DS9 to mug at every opportunity. Drawing from his many years on stage, Auberjonois exaggerates every gesture. It’s not quite as obnoxious as Brent Spiner ‘s performance in “Masks,” The Next Generation ‘s spiritual predecessor to “Facets,” but it does feel like it comes from a different show.

Which isn’t always a bad thing. Every Trek series has dabbled in other genres, from the gangster episode “A Piece of the Action” on The Original Series to the zombie thriller “Impulse” on Enterprise . Discovery continues that tradition with its current season and episodes like “Jinaal,” showing that Star Trek can handle a wide range of tones, and even get really goofy.

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Star Trek: Discovery is streaming now on Paramount+.

Joe George | @jageorgeii

Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!

Star Trek: Lower Decks is ending, but at least Strange New Worlds will journey on

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Star Trek: Lower Decks is, depending on how you look at it, the most ambitious TV show that Star Trek has ever done. Informed by an incredibly deep love for (and knowledge of) the vast universe of Star Trek lore, the animated series proves that “Star Trek comedy” is something that can actually exist (beyond episodes of Deep Space Nine where Quark runs around in a dress, anyways), showing the up-until-now only ambiguously demonstrated fact that it’s possible for Trek to have a genuine sense of humor about itself. And now, sadly, it’s ending, as Variety reports that the show’s upcoming fifth season will be its last.

Created by Rick & Morty writer Mike McMahan, Lower Decks last aired new episodes last October, continuing to tell the story of the U.S.S. Cerritos, one of those Starfleet ships that’s usually doing the other jobs while vessels like the Enterprise are out saving the universe. The series stars Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, and Eugene Cordero, playing four lower-ranking members of the Cerritos crew who end up bonding as friends. The show’s fifth (and now final) season is expected to air before the end of 2024.

It’s not all grim news in Star Trek land, though: Lower Decks’ Paramount+ sibling, Strange New Worlds , has been renewed for a fourth season, ensuring that the other most joyful Star Trek show currently running will get at least one more run of shows. Starring Anson Mount as Trek pilot character Christopher Pike, and Ethan Peck as a younger version of Spock, the show is a deliberate throwback to the early days of the franchise. It’s also a genuine blast: Quick-moving, smart, and fun, it’s the kind of show that can, say, accommodate a bona fide crossover with Lower Decks , showing that the two series’ loving but reverential attitudes toward Trek canon arepleasantly simpatico.

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