397. For the UniformFORMULA: The Wrath of Khan + For the Cause
WHY WE LIKE IT: Sisko becomes the villain.
WHY WE DON'T: Those ridiculous holo-communicators.
REVIEW: Sisko shows that he isn't just a sore loser when it comes to wrestling and baseball when Eddington returns to the show, and it occurs to me that we've rarely seen this kind of thing in Star Trek. When our heroes have to deal with their failures, it's usually under more tragic circumstances. But no one was killed in For the Cause when Eddington turned traitor. This failure is of a whole other nature. He put Eddington up for a promotion, didn't see it coming (still doesn't, as Eddington secretly sabotaged the Defiant and the station), and maneuvered events so that Kasidy Yates would go to jail. Very personal affronts.
So no, Sisko's not taking it well. But he's not taking it quite as badly as Eddington thinks, or else he couldn't make a believable villain. The interesting thing about the interplay between the two men is that each forces the other to be a hero: Eddington cripples a Cardassian transport to get away, and later, Sisko contaminates a planet's biosphere to get Eddington to give himself up. I'm not sure Sisko is actively OBSESSED with Eddington (or else the last 8 months would have been Maquis-driven), but he does become a priority as soon as he disables the Defiant.
That element of the story creates a nice moment for Nog, who gets to be a living com system (how many ways can you find to use the lobes?). Old school communications and reduced automation make the Defiant create a lot of atmosphere for the episode, a real bustle and plenty of tension. Speaking of communications, the new holographic communicator is less interesting. I'd even go so far as to call it stupid. I understand the dramatic reasoning, especially given the episode's script calling for multiple scenes over the com, but it's awkwardly staged (only Sisko ever sits through these meetings) and thoroughly useless in the world of Trek itself, definitely a gadget I don't care to see in the future. It's the only device not damaged by Eddington? He just stole one himself? Please.
As for Sisko's final solution, at least it's carbon neutral. It's the kind of cowboy stunt you'd expect from Kirk, which Sisko has just met, so it fits. Questionable, sure. But you have to admit that the idea was a lot of fun. We see bluffing all the time. It was refreshing to see a threat actually carried out.
LESSON: Dax and I have similar tastes in literature. Down with Victor Hugo!
REWATCHABILITY - High: Sisko at his most intense. Eddington makes a nice foil for him, adding a lot of texture to a previously unremarkable character.
Comments
Then again, there probably is no way to execute the concept effectively on TV, so it's for the best they left that idea behind right quick.
Incidentally, I also share you and Dax's taste in literature.
Very little of what Eddington says here is wrong, and Sisko is a monster. Consider:
-The only confirmed loss of life in this episode comes when he casually murders the crew of a fleeing Maquis raider. They were running.
-Sisko destroys the home of non-combatants and drives them from their home and the lives they established- considering Starfleet's monstrous and cowardly actions from back in Journey's End, and committing, as the entire Maquis cause demonstrates, the most grievous and horrific crime that can be committed against these people, over a vendetta. (As far as I'm concerned, his court martial should be scheduled directly after Eddington's, but instead, Starfleet says 'well, Eddington poisoned some planets, you poisoned one, they can swap colonists, it all works out,' which is such an imbecilic resolution that I can hardly credit an adult with having written it.
-Sisko risks the lives of the entire Defiant crew taking an unspaceworthy ship out of the dock to pursue Eddington as well, and everyone treats this imbecilic and childish act as if it were a moment of great heroism, throwing a half-crippled ship into battle because Sisko can't wait two weeks.
-Sisko claims that Eddington has become a threat when he attacks the Malinche- but Eddington only attacks the ships that come after him, and after doing so, spares them each time. A dead shipload of Maquis can attest that Starfleet- or at least Sisko- don't do the same.
And even he admits that it's an irresponsible obsession in the Defiant corridors- but Dax just smirks and calls it Curzon-like.
Nope, sorry; when Sisko says 'it's time I become the villain' in the third act- pointing out that Eddington has spared his life TWICE, but never stopping to think if that means anything about who's the good guy here- my wife and I could only shout 'You have been for the last half-hour of screen-time!' Eddington is entirely right; Sisko betrays his uniform and everything he claims to stand in here, and for me, it taints the character in a way that even Janeway's Equinox-obsession can't equal, permanently damaging the character. (Unless I can write it off by forgetting this episode ever happened, as I'm striving to).
I've just rewatched this episode because it has lots of nice beauty passes of the Defiant and I'm about to build a model kit of it. And I found that this episode is REALLY controversial, for a lot of the reasons Andrew said above. And I'd like to address them, 7 years later.
Regarding the loss of life: The Maquis murdered Sisko's informant. And, in fact, killed him in a far worse way. Also, the Maquis raider may have been running, but that was running after they'd literally dropped a bio-weapon on a planet.
Regarding Sisko destroying the home of non-combatants... Sisko does ask for a "Maquis colony" specifically. Granted, the show was often a bit vague as to whether the Maquis were just the terrorists or everyone who had refused to evacuate. Also, it's not really the "most grevious and horrific crime that could be committed" as there was every chance the Cardassians would murder every one of them if they thought they could (and which they actually do three weeks later)
A lot of this comes down to exactly how big a threat you think the Maquis are. Because this is a 90s TV show there's a lot of "tell don't show because we can't afford it", but as of this point the Maquis are bombing Cardassian planets, and have crippled two Starfleet ships I'm not buying "we only attacked you because you were looking for us" as an excuse. They actively fired on the Defiant after crippling it. And the Malinche also showed signs of being shot.
This is not the noble planet of Native Americans refusing to surrender... this is a terrorist group actively bombing people and dragging the Federation in to a war.
The scene at the beginning is a good example. Eddington shows Sisko all the displaced people, huddled and starving. The thing is, there is literally no reason for them to live like that. They have already been displaced! This isn't their home. Almost certainly the Federation would help them relocate. They're only there because they hope that the Maquis will force a war and then the Federation will get to retake their planets by force.
Regarding Sisko not waiting two weeks... Eddington had started bombing planets. There were no other ships available.
As to the ending... I kinda get the feeling that Starfleet know the whole DMZ situation is a clusterfudge and that there's no good way of dealing with any of it. I can't really see Admiral Nechayev being too upset.
I'm not saying I disagree with all of your points (though I definitely see the Maquis more as an oppressed people fighting back, since the Cardassians were attacking their colonies in the DMZ first; and as far back as The Wounded, not to mention The Die Is Cast, etc., have always been itching for a war; but that's not necessarily germane to the events of this episode- just admitting my biases. I think the Maquis are in the right, as the Cardassians broke the peace and tried to drag the Federation into a war; the Maquis just responded.)
Regardless, you're right that a number of my original points aren't necessarily that strong; Sisko may indeed have had a valid reason for risking taking out the Defiant. The Maquis aren't guiltless here. You do make a number of good counter-arguments that I would indeed concede.
I'm just saying, if the bombing of a civilian population is wrong for one group then it's wrong for the other. If firing on ships in because they're attacking you first isn't justification for one side, it isn't for the other. And if a ship full of people deserves to die for having launched a bomb against civilians... then so do Sisko and his crew.
I will say another difference.. the Mallinche was responding to a fake distress call and was attacked whilst engaged in what they thought was a humanitarian action. The Defiant was chasing after two ships that had just bombed a planet. That's a fairly big difference in intent on the two parties. If the Maquis had shot the Defiant AFTER they'd bombed the planet, that would be different. But at that point the Defiant had done nothing but chase after Eddington. Not to be childish here, but the Maquis literally fired first. :)
The Maquis are kinda in the right, but... it's complicated. On the one hand it would be extremely harsh for the US to hand, say, Texas over to Russia and make everyone move. On the other hand, if doing that stopped the US and Russia from going to war, it becomes a bit more complicated. Is it a worthwhile sacrifice? I dunno. What is their endgame here? Did they think they'd be enough of a thread to make the Cardassians leave them all by themselves? Were they trying to start a war and get Federation backup?
Also (and I think m0vieblog first highlighted this), there's a difference between the Maquis on TNG and VOY and those on DS9. The original ones are afforded dignity. The DS9 ones are often treated as middle-aged men working through a mid-life crisis. Cal Hudson's son had died, Tom Riker was trying to distinguish himself from Will, and Eddington was stuck in a dead end career. None of them are people who are directly affected by the situation in the DMZ, they are just people who think they can swoop in and play the hero.
Compare Eddington in this episode to Kira just two episodes ago. Eddington is all "the Maquis aren't killers", right after basically admitting that they've killed someone. He has lofty, noble ideas about being a freedom fighter. As the episode says, he thinks he's Robin Hood. Kira on the other hand, had no such illusions. She was fighting an occupying force and when confronted with that said "yes, we killed you, because you shouldn't have been on our planet." She wasn't play acting. It was personal, honest and brutal.
And indeed, it is unclear what the Maquis' endgame is. Possibly simple revenge for Cardassian atrocities in the DMZ. Possibly, to become 'too much trouble' sufficient for the Cardassians to leave the region ('after all, if Bajor could do it,' they might say). Or, to continue your Texas analogy- possibly for the same reason a number of Texans and second amendment enthusiasts want to be armed 'in case the government ever turns tyrannical and comes after us'- because somewhere in their thought process, they truly think they can take on that entire massive entity and actually win. :-)
You do make an excellent point about the portrayals of the Maquis (and in fact, from working on an in-depth timeline project, I can also tell you that the dates for Maquis formation and activity between the three series don't really line up, either! :-) ) across the different shows.
I do still think that, much like in Take Me Out of the Holosuite, Sisko does have a bit of a personal obsession that goes beyond the healthy when it comes to stopping Eddington; it feels like the bombings aren't really what incenses him, he just wants to bring in Eddington specifically. One almost wonders if he'd even care if the rest of the Maquis went on doing the same thing once he'd taken Eddington in. :-)
I think, in the end, I don't like Sisko resorting to the same terrorist tactics as Eddington; or more accurately, condemning them as evil yet still choosing to use them. I could see the necessity to prevent more attacks. I could even see the necessity of Sisko 'playing the villain' to take down Eddington with his hero complex. The part that rubs me the wrong way, at the end, is just him and Dax sort of gleefully chortling about it in the end. About 'getting away with it.' If this episode had ended more like In The Pale Moonlight, with Sisko shaken about how far he was willing to go, how much he was willing to become like Eddington for his own 'cause,' it would've struck me far differently. It's just the cavalier attitude that bothers me (well, that and blowing up the fleeing ship. ;-) ). As you said, Kira is frank about this- 'yeah, we used terrorism to drive invaders off our planet.' She owns it. I just don't like Sisko resorting to terrorism, and then walking off chuckling about it, rather than feeling conflicted or guilty about it.
Boil down all the other complaints, and that's really the one that's at the heart of my dislike for this episode. Just this week, I watched Equinox, an episode I had similarly disliked before... but in the end, this time, I realize that Janeway is really haunted by how far she went. And admits in so many words to Chakotay that he'd have been within his rights to mutiny on her. She realizes that she crossed a line, and is really shaken by it. That, to me, would be the right ending for this episode, too. But unless there's something forgetting, it's one that isn't present here. And I think that's why it bothers me.
I do stand my theory that Starfleet will not give two hoots about this though. Sisko bought in Eddington and kept the region as "stable" as it gets. At most, I reckon some Admiral will go "well done oh maybe don't bomb people but cheers for the Eddington thing".
(As an aside, I love the music during the manual launch sequence. So much more interesting that the usual wallpaper noise we get.)