Emissary

 My father continues to make improvements and the road that once looked dim is now looking much brighter! I am in transit today to Atlanta, GA for a convention and though I do wish it were a Star Trek convention it is maybe the second best thing, a speech/language pathology convention. I have three jam packed days of learning in front of me and I could not be more excited. I am feeling much better about leaving home too since my dad is doing much better. It is my intention to work out three days over the next few days off but realistically it may just be twice. I’m going to try though!

Today marks the beginning of Star Trek Deep Space Nine and I couldn’t be more excited. I love this series so much and that is possibly because it is so different from the other Star Trek incarnations from the 24^th century timeframe. I love The Next Generation, it was the first of the new era and it was an amazingly well done show. It stuck true to the vision of Star Trek. I find Voyager to be an ok Star Trek show, very true to the vision and filled with unique characters but it never really hit home with me. Deep Space Nine, on the other hand strayed so far from the traditional Star Trek vision. It was a show that had character conflicts at the heart of its storyline; it had deep political and religious issues at the very core of its story. The biggest change though was that it was a really a Soap Opera and you really needed to keep involved to understand where the story had been and was going.

Emissary
The show opens with the battle at Wolf 359, where Picard as Locutus of Borg led an attack against a Federation fleet. On board the USS Saratoga Lt. Commander Benjamin Sisko, the first officer, is trying to flee his nearly demolished ship. While trying to escape with his son and wife his wife is killed by falling equipment. He is forced to grab his young son Jake and get out in an escape pod. Three years later the pair are still trying to come to terms with the loss of Jennifer Sisko but they are distracted with a reassignment to space station Deep Space Nine. DS9 is an old Cardassian station that was abandoned when the Cardassians left Bajor after occupying it for more than 60 years. The station is a wreck but Starfleet has been called in to help the Bajoran provisional government. Commander Sisko begins meeting his new staff including his fiery Bajoran first officer, Major Kira. Kira was a former freedom fighter on Bajor and is not a member of the militia. She is a strong willed woman and tough as nail. While talking about a few issues they are interrupted by a security breach on the promenade. While responding Sisko meets Odo the shape-shifting chief of security who also was the chief of security for the Cardassians. Oddly enough no one seems bothered by this at the moment. A young Ferengi boy named Nog is taken into custody and thrown in the brig. Sisko convinces his uncle Quark, the owner of the local bar to stay on the station and become a community leader. 

Soon after the new Doctor, Dr. Bashir , and science officer Lt. Dax arrive. Dax is a trill and her former host was an old dear friend of Sisko’s. Along with Chief O’Brien of the Enterprise the crew of this station is complete. Soon after Sisko is urged to visit Opaka, the spiritual leader of the bajorans, who informs him that he is to be some sort of Emissary from the prophets to the Bajoran people. She urges him to locate the Celestial Temple before the Cardassians. The Cardassians are looking for this mythical temple in hopes to basically crush the collective spirits of the entire Bajoran race. This is the futuristic equivalent of egging a house and then leaving a burning bag of dog shit on the doorstep. Soon after Gul Dukat, the former prefect of Bajor stops by to visit and warn Sisko that the Cardassians aren’t going to give up that easily.

Dax and Sisko find what they believe to be the Celestial Temple, which ends up being a wormhole that is connected to the Gamma Quadrant. Sisko is kept inside and he meets the “wormhole aliens” who are a group of nonlinear non-corporeal beings who basically are the Bajoran’s Prophets. While inside Dax is returned to the station and once again the Cardassians show up to cause trouble because Gul Dukat’s ship has disappeared in the wormhole and they want answers. Kira, Dax and O’Brien find a way to move the station to mouth of the wormhole thus claiming it as Bajor’s territory. The Cardassians begin attacking the station but Sisko comes back just in time in the runabout towing Dukat’s ship and gets them to leave. The show ends with Sisko agreeing to stay on at Deep Space Nine. Things are starting to look civilized on the station and they are open for business at the mouth of the most important wormhole in the galaxy.

The show has an ok series premiere. It does a very nice job of introducing everyone and providing a lot of back story and history, something that we never really got out of TNG right away. The show is somewhat bogged down by the sequences inside the wormhole as Sisko is doing a lot of talking and explaining that doesn’t really impact the future of the show a whole lot. It was about as good an opening as Encounter at Farpoint really so there can be no complaining. An interesting note here about the Major Kira character is that it was originally going to be Ro Laren as the first officer of the Station but that idea was scrapped. In Kira we see some of the same traits but the character is much more well rounded than Ro.