DS9: End of Season 2 “The Jem’Hadar”

Date: June 27, 2020

Season 2, Episode 26

Musical Accompaniment: No music today, was instead listening to TV in the background.

Interstellar News: Today was a long fucking day.

Favorite Quote:

Quark: The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi. Greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget.

Sisko: Quark, we don’t have time for this.

Quark: But you’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you. We’re better. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lock to pick.

Quark making a hell of a lot of good points.

So what had happened was…: Sisko is excited to spend some quality time with Jake in the Gamma Quadrant except Nog and Quark come along as well. Quark, like me, is allergic to nature and is having a hard time camping, but the boys are making progress on their science project. The boys go off to complete another survey and a woman named Eris attacks the camp, but suddenly they’re all surround by a group known as the “Jem’Hadar” and put in confinement. The Jem’Hadar are the soldiers of the Dominion who is run by the Founders and Eris is apparently on the run from them. Quark picks her lock so she can help them escape confinement and they run away hopefully to be rescued.

Meanwhile Jake and Nog come back to an empty campsite and decide to beam up to the runabout once they realize they’re outnumbered. On the station one of the Jem’Hadar beams aboard, breaks their containment field, explains that they’ll never see Sisko again, and tells them to stop using the wormhole before he beams out. Thankfully the rest of the DS9 crew is coming with enforcement from the Odyssey. They help out Jake and Nog, and beam up Quark, Sisko, and Eris but the other ships are under heavy fire. They retreat back to DS9 but the Odyssey is hit by a suicide ship and all hands are lost. Back on DS9, Quark realizes the lock on Eris wasn’t what she said it was and reveals her to be a Dominion spy. She transports out, O’Brien is flummoxed as to where and how, and the rest of the crew is just as speechless.

…”I don’t know any trees that wear boots.”: This reminds me a lot of what happened to the Enterprise when they encountered the Borg for the first time and found out they were woefully unprepared. Q may have been an arrogant ass hat, but he did have a point that Starfleet and the Federation were out exploring the galaxy without being really prepared for what was out there. The ways where it is different are actually really good.

We’ve got Nog being hysterically panicky, Jake trying to be cool under pressure but so fucking thankful when O’Brien shows up, and Quark actually having a good idea for a change that isn’t below board. We have an articulate enemy that knows more about us than we know about them, but also one who is purposefully brutal to make a statement. Where the Borg just destroyed everything in their way, the Dominion very carefully plans their moves and know just how to get the attention of those they are after. Pretending to be stuck in confinement and then breaking out at just the right time, acting the victim to gain their trust and access to things, and name-dropping (“I really wanted to meet a Klingon”) about a race that’s not part of the current crew is absolutely page 101 out of the “better than you bad guy handbook”. What started as a way for Sisko to spend more time with his boy, turned into an intergalactic incident of gigantic proportions… they even blew up a ship that looks just like the Enterprise because they could! That means this was an awesome end to the season and an excellent episode, and I’m super pumped to begin Season 3 tomorrow. 9 phaser shots in honor of the Odyssey and her crew. Also, may I say, poor Morn.

TA Out!