“The Reckoning”
Written by Harry Werksman & Gabrielle G. Stanton and Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño
Season 6, Episode 21
Production episode 40510-545
Original air date: April 29, 1998
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Sisko holds a meeting to discuss how the war is going, ending it by saying that he, Kira, and Jake are taking a trip to Bajor. They’ve excavated something cool in B’Hala and they want the Emissary to see it.
Ranjen Koral leads the three of them to a cavern that’s beneath the city—apparently there was another settlement 10,000 years prior to B’Hala. After it was abandoned, it was buried by sediment, and B’Hala built over it. They found a tablet that is in a very old form of Bajoran, but Koral, Sisko, and Kira do recognize one phrase: “Welcome, Emissary.”
And then Sisko has a vision from the Prophets, who say that the circle is complete and it’s time for the Reckoning. They speak in their usual riddles and hit most of their high points about “The Sisko” and being corporeal and the usual jazz, and then when the vision ends, Sisko gets tossed across the cave.
Sisko brings the tablet to the station and assigns Dax to examine it and translate the writing. Sisko actually considers going to services at the temple, but before he can enter, Worf informs him that Winn is en route to the station. She objects to Sisko taking a Bajoran religious artifact away without consulting the vedek assembly, even going so far as to protest to Starfleet Command, resulting in Sisko being ordered to return the tablet. But he won’t obey that order until he knows what the Prophets expect of him—Dax reminds him that it might be the penance they said they’d exact when they stopped the Jem’Hadar reinforcements from coming through after the minefield came down.
And then Dax gets a partial translation, saying that the time of the Reckoning is at hand and it will endanger the gateway to the temple.
Worf, Odo, Bashir, and Quark discuss the translation, with Bashir being dismissive, Odo being pessimistic, Worf agreeing with the captain and reserving judgment until they have a full translation, and Quark bitching that business is slow. Bashir’s skepticism is leavened by the wormhole opening for the first time in ages, which also shakes the station.
That’s not the only side effect: there’s flooding in the Rakantha Province, an earthquake in the Kendra Valley, and a tornado in Tamulna. Winn demands again that Sisko return the tablet, and this time it has a request from Shakaar backing her up. It’s the first time the kai and the first minister have agreed on anything, and Sisko finally decides to acquiesce, planning to send it back on the morning transport.
Dax has the night to translate more, and she confirms that there will be a lot of suffering suffered by the Bajorans during the Reckoning. Sisko and Kira have a deep talk about Winn’s dislike of Sisko (it’s partly jealousy that she has to share being spiritual leader of Bajor with him), Kira has a deep talk with Winn (where she reveals that she expects to continue to disagree with Sisko, which annoys Kira), and Jake and Sisko have a deep talk about his role as Emissary (and how it’s almost gotten Sisko killed more than once).
Unable to sleep, Sisko goes to the lab and starts yelling at the tablet, saying that he’s tired of the obfuscation, the vague prophecies, the lack of specifics, and he breaks the tablet—only to see two flames, one red, one blue, come out of it and bugger off into the rest of the station.
He summons Odo and Dax to the lab. They find no residual energy, but there’s a power drain on the station. Sisko thinks that this is what the Prophets wanted him to do.
Sadly, explaining it to Winn is problematic, as she doesn’t believe that the Prophets wanted him to smash a priceless artifact of Bajor’s history. He believes that there’s a plan the Prophets have for him, and it included smashing the tablet. To add to his case, Kira becomes possessed by a Prophet and says she awaits Kosst Amojan—identified by Winn as a Pah-wraith who was banished from the Celestial Temple. They are to do battle, and if Amojan is destroyed, it will fulfill Shabren’s Fifth Prophecy: Bajor will enjoy a golden age of peace for a thousand years. The Prophet possessing Kira awaits Amojan’s vessel.
Sisko wants to evacuate the station. Dax and Bashir provide an alternative: flooding the Promenade with chronitons. They can do it slowly so the Prophet won’t be permanently harmed, but will have the chance to flee Kira’s body. But Sisko refuses—he owes the Prophets. And, as Worf later points out, the Prophets are all that’s keeping Dominion reinforcements from coming through.
The station is evacuated, with only a skeleton crew, and a bunch of devout Bajorans (led by Winn) remaining behind. Sisko convinces Winn to let the Bajorans go—but Winn herself refuses to depart. She’s sure that the golden age is upon them.
But then the other shoe drops: Amojan’s vessel is Jake.
Sisko asks that Amojan take him instead of his son, but Amojan tosses him aside. Sisko won’t leave Jake alone, despite the implorations of both Dax and Winn. He orders everyone else to evacuate on the runabouts.
The Prophet and Amojan exchange blasts of energy, which takes its toll on both Kira (bloody nose) and Jake (veins popping on his forehead). But then Winn goes to the now-abandoned Ops and engages the program that floods the Promenade with chronitons, ending the battle before it can finish.
Sisko visits Jake in the infirmary and apologizes to him, but Jake knows that the Pah-wraiths needed to be stopped, even if it meant his death.
Kira expresses confusion at why the Prophets chose her—Odo opines it’s her combination of faith and humility regarding that faith—and then she castigates Winn for stopping the Reckoning, meaning the evil that the Prophets could have stopped wasn’t actually stopped. Yes, the earthquakes and floods and tornadoes have receded and yes, the Emissary, his son, and the station were saved, and Kira’s sure Winn will take full credit for it. But even the Prophets don’t know what will happen next.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko is given an impossible choice: let the Reckoning play out and let his son die, or save Jake’s life. He decides to have faith in the Prophets that they’ll save his son.
Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira’s faith is sufficiently strong that the Prophets choose her as their vessel. Odo tells everyone in Ops that she would be willing to die for the Prophets, though he later admits that, for all that he respects her faith, he still wishes the Prophets had chosen someone else.
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo is still maintaining his gruff exterior for everyone else, but in private with Kira, he’s all gooey and stuff.
The slug in your belly: Dax doesn’t have her best day ever, as she’s forced to translate the tablet and routinely give Sisko advice he doesn’t heed—give the tablet back, let someone else do it, use chronitons to get rid of the Prophet and Amojan, not let his son stay in danger…
There is no honor in being pummeled: For someone who was on Sisko’s side when he let the Prophets give him visions in “Rapture,” and who is generally of a spiritual bent, Worf is uncharacteristically skeptical in this episode.
Rules of Acquisition. Since business is slow, Quark decides that every hour is Happy Hour—at least until business picks up.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Odo and Kira’s relationship is going great guns, with Odo happy to just sit and watch her eat (which probably isn’t perverted…).
Victory is life: Having conquered Betazed in “In the Pale Moonlight,” the Dominion is now establishing a supply line between that world and the Argolis Cluster (established as being part of Dominion territory in “Behind the Lines”), which would give them a path to attack Vulcan. However, the entry of the Romulans into the war in that same episode has led to the Romulans liberating Benzar from the Dominion.
Keep your ears open: “I had a pretty good idea what this was the minute I laid eyes on it. That scan proves it—it’s a slab of stone with some writing on it.”
Dax’s sardonic appraisal of the tablet upon its arrival in her lab.
Welcome aboard: Louise Fletcher returns as Winn, while James Greene plays Koral.
Trivial matters: This episode serves as a kind of sequel to both “Rapture”—in which Sisko located the lost city of B’Hala—and “Sacrifice of Angels”—when Sisko was told there would be a price for the Prophets’ aid in stopping the Jem’Hadar.
Jake mentions that twice in the past year, he’s been summoned to the infirmary to see his father unconscious because of the Prophets giving him “visions or something”—those occurrences happened in “Rapture” and “Far Beyond the Stars.”
The Pah-wraiths officially become recurring antagonists with this, their second appearance after “The Assignment”—also the episode that established that chronitons can harm the wormhole aliens. The Pah-wraiths will be back in “Tears of the Prophets,” and recur throughout the final season.
This is the first mention of the Bajoran religious rank of “ranjen,” which is somewhere between a vedek and a prylar.
René Echevarria did an uncredited rewrite of the script to make the final battle a bit less outré than it was in Bradley Thompson & David Weddle’s original script, originally conceived as a huge, monster-movie-style battle.
Winn admits to Sisko that the Prophets have never spoken to her, even though she claimed in “In the Hands of the Prophets” that they had.
Walk with the Prophets: “The Reckoning must begin.” What a piece of crap.
Okay, we start with the absurdity of the premise. Having already given us the “evil Prophets” in the ridiculous Pah-wraiths, we now get them having a battle of super-powered beings on the Promenade as their ray beams shoot at each other.
And then we have Winn. It’s not enough that Dukat has had all his nuance drained from him in “Waltz”—that, at least, had a reason, if a misbegotten one. But the complexity that Winn had been developing slowly over the course of her appearances is all flushed away in this episode, as she’s set up to be The Bad Guy—even though she’s the one who actually saves lives—and she ends the episode much less interesting than she was previously. Worse, it sets up her absurd arc in the closing episodes of the show, which we’ll get to (and complain about) in due time.
One of my dearest friends was a rabbi, David M. Honigsberg (he died in 2007). David wrote a wonderful sermon that made me look at the famous story of Abraham and Isaac in a new light. David’s thesis was that Abraham failed God’s test by going ahead and trying to sacrifice his son, pointing out that God stopped speaking directly to Abraham, and indeed he had no significant contact with God or any angels, after his failed sacrifice. It’s possible that God wanted Abraham to reject his request, to not put his son ahead of his deity. I’d recommend reading the sermon, because it makes that particular sequence of the Bible a lot less horrible than I’d always thought of it in the more common interpretation, that the supposedly loving Lord of the Old Testament wanted Abraham to sacrifice his son.
And maybe that colors my perception of this episode, because the person who actually saves lives in this episode is Winn, and she’s portrayed as the bad guy because of it. There is something to Kira’s argument—Winn herself said that the golden age would mean no vedeks, no kais, no Emissaries, and that means she’d be out of a job. But Winn has every right to be angry about the lack of gratitude because she saved people’s lives.
Yes, Kira has faith, and yes, that’s important, but that also meant that her being a vessel for the Prophets is legit—as Odo said, she’d die for the Prophets. But Jake wasn’t given that choice—I guess that’s part of what makes the Pah-wraiths evil, they pick someone against their will?—and Sisko is willing to let him die for that, which strikes me as a violation of Sisko’s character. His dedication to Jake has always been a cornerstone, and now he’s wavering in it out of faith for aliens who had to be put in a headlock in order to help Bajor and the Federation and Sisko himself out. (Dax pointed that out to Sisko in the lab.)
One of DS9’s hallmarks has been its complexity, which was at its best only two episodes ago. But this? This is just an insultingly simplistic story of “good” vs. “evil,” and I put those words in quotes because we only know that one is good and one is evil because we’re told it. Yes, the Prophets have generally done good things, and all we know about the Pah-wraiths is that they possessed Keiko, but there’s not enough there to justify the stark black-and-white story.
Warp factor rating: 1
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s Carter-and-Teal’c-focused Stargate SG-1 short story “Time Keeps on Slippin’” can be found in the brand-spanking-new release Far Horizons from Fandemonium Books, currently available as an eBook via Smashwords, Amazon, and Amazon UK (and will be available on Barnes & Noble’s site soon). The print edition goes on sale on the 6th of November.
Okay, I didn’t mind it is as much as you, it’s not one the episodes I skip in my rewatches. Odo trust Kira’s faith even if he doesn’t share it, it’s nice .Winn is her selfish self, and she reveals that she does not have faith, she’s probably super jealous that she was not chosen as the vessel. To her the position of Kai is about power, not about faith. What confuses me about her is that she is not trying to establish a legacy, being remembered as a great Kai. This one act almost certainly ensures that she will be remembered poorly as Kira would definitely inform the government what was at stake and what was prevented by her intereference. I am sorry, saving a couple lives here versus a golden age for your civilization? Especially people she doesn’t care about, which they well know, Kira is right to not give her credit for saving lives, that was not her primary intention in interfering. Also, way to go station security, someone can walk into ops and perform an operation on your computers…yay.
**Spoilers for the last episode of the season**
I wonder if this would have been better as a two parter, hell should have made it the last episode of the season. At least then I would have understood WHY Dax died. Kira vs. Dax – Kira has always believed in Sisko’s role and Dax has always played devil’s advocate REALLY well so have them face off.
With Kira surviving (but just barely) and Dax dying and NO MORE PAH-WRAITHS EVER AGAIN. Or something. I don’t believe in the literal version of the Prophecy saying it would be a “golden age” for Bajor. real life doesn’t work that way and Prophecies are NEVER that specific or literal.
That all said, watching it now – as a mostly agnostic, rather then the catholic I was when this first aired – I understand Sisko a bit better. I understand why he was willing to believe in the Prophets and why he believed they would protect his son. Sisko keeps attributing the Prophets with human things. He believes because he is so important to the Prophets that they’ll keep his son alive because Jake means something to Sisko. He completely misses the point that to them Jake doesn’t really a) matter and/or exist and b) they don’t view time/space as linear so Jake is totes alive somewhere, so why does it matter in this minute/place?
God didn’t want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He wanted to see if Abraham Would do it. It is a testament to his faith in God that he was willing to sacrifice his son for God’s will. God never had any intention of letting Isaac die.
That said, I agree with the rest of the review. It was overly simplistic. We find out later that the Pah Wraiths kinda suck, but they suck because of their disregard for corporeal life. The Prophets don’t have much regard for it either, but they are good because for some reason, they give a crap about Bajor.
Anyone who considers the story of Abraham and Isaac “horrible” needs to read Kierkegaard, instead of just Star Trek tie-in novels…
Once again, Keith, we’re entirely on the same page about an episode. I was annoyed by how heavy-handed this one was with characters giving each other clumsy expository dialogue about how Winn was the Bad Guy — not only did it reverse and undermine all her character development, but it was just so amateurishly conveyed. This was one of the episodes that drove home to me that Weddle and Thompson just weren’t very good writers compared to Behr, Beimler, Moore, and Echevarria.
And yes, reducing the Prophets to just one more race of energy beings with arbitrary power sets was lame and cliched. And reducing Bajoran religion to a simplistic copy of Abrahamic religions with their dualistic view of good and evil — made more literal than ever by having Sisko re-enact the Abraham story even though it’s completely out of character.
And that’s a really cool interpretation Rabbi Honigsberg offered. It makes so much more sense than the traditional “Blind obedience to horrible orders is cool” interpretation, which is basically the mentality behind the Milgram experiment. I’d much prefer a deity that wants to encourage us to develop our own sense of ethics than one that demands slavish, unthinking obedience.
bhaughwout: 1) I’ve read Kierkegaard, thanks. Went to a Jesuit university, took several philosophy — and also theology — classes. 2) This agnostic stands by “horrible” for any story that involves asking someone to kill their own child, especially given the common interpretation of it that thinks it’s an okay thing (this is why I like David’s interpretation better).
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I like to give this one a “Friends” title. This is:
The One Where The Producers Got Tired Of Mailing Cirroc Lofton His Pay Check And Demanded He Show Up To Do Something.
I’ve never thought of this as a particularly strong episode, but don’t have near the problems with it you do. The energy beam battle was hokie, but I get the premise behind it of each person’s faith being tested.
And aren’t you underestimating the impact that the Prophets should reasonably have had on Sisko? They did wipe out/transport away/do something to an entire armada of enemy warships so that his people and his way of life could survive at his request. People have become devout followers of religions for a lot less.
Personally I don’t need a blow-by-blow on why the Pah-Wraiths are evil. The wormhole aliens are supposed to be mysterious and it only makes sense that their adversaries should be likewise.
Besides, the story isn’t about the Pah-Ws, it’s about Sisco becoming a true believer and Winn revealing herself as a cynic. And considering their starting points I find that interesting.
Warp 6/10
I never really felt like Sisko was willing to just let Jake die. The feeling I got was that he was trusting in the Prophets to not let Jake die. Admittedly, the vibe there is still very Judeo-Christian, wherein lies the problem. From my interpretation, anyway, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac came out of his absolute trust in God: even though it made no sense to Abraham, he fully believed with all his heart that God would act for good, and thus obeyed.
The problem with the parallel, to me anyway, is that Sisko hasn’t established that kind of relationship with the Prophets. He has no reason to believe that they would act to protect Jake. Let’s look back: the last time he dealt with them, he had to beg them to save the world that they claimed to be “of”, and even then they insisted that “a penance must be exacted”. (You’d think Sisko might wonder if that “penance” might involve a Prophet blasting his son to smithereens.)
That’s really the problem right there. Near the end of the series, they made the Prophets into very western, good-vs-evil deities, and that just doesn’t line up with how they’ve been before. As a result, you get plots and character actions that just don’t make sense.
LOL, it’s somehow fitting that the director of this episode is named Jesus Salvador (!).
I wonder how the creative team could botch so completely this part of the series. The prophets were always some rather wishy-washy New Age-ish story plot, but the battle of good vs. evil spirits is sooo simple minded and cartoonish, it’s even worse.
My guess would be that the producers had the series come to a big bang in the political department with huge battles between empires, so they wanted to even enlarge the epic feeling by throwing supernatural conflicts in the mix. It’s a pity.
@8: “Personally I don’t need a blow-by-blow on why the Pah-Wraiths are evil. The wormhole aliens are supposed to be mysterious and it only makes sense that their adversaries should be likewise.”
But that’s just the problem. This episode takes all the mystery and ambiguity out of the Prophets by defining them as white-hat “Good” in opposition to black-hat “Evil.” Originally, they weren’t good or evil, simply alien. They could be hostile or cooperative depending on whether you could persuade them to see your point of view. They could intervene beneficially, but they could also do considerable damage due to their lack of understanding of linear beings (as in “Prophet Motive”). That’s mysterious. Making them just the Good side in a Manichaean duality defines them completely and rigidly, and there is no mystery in that.
@9: You’re right that it’s not in character for Sisko to be so blindly trusting, but it just occurred to me: It’s out of character for Star Trek too. ST has always been a humanist franchise, built around the notion that humans are an adult race capable of making our own choices. Multiple episodes, like “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”, and “Who Watches the Watchers?” (gee, lots of questions), have all come down rather firmly on the side that blind faith and submission to the will of a supposed deity is wrong, that people should think and choose for themselves. And Sisko should be part of the same tradition, since — as pointed out earlier — he’s often been the one convincing the Prophets to see things his way, and has never been inclined to just blindly obey their instructions. The fact that Jake’s well-being has always been overridingly important to him makes it even more absurdly uncharacteristic that he would make this choice.
I remember this one, and I remember thinking a Star Wars story had found its way into Star Trek. Oil and water, the two don’t mix well.
@@.-@: I’m not sure what’s most offensive – that you selectively interpreted what Keith said to fit your own Kierkegaard name-drop, that you think anyone reads only tie-in novels, or that you think it’s okay to be judgmental about what other people read in their leisure time.
@11 – That genuine alienness is why I liked the Prophets so much to begin with and why I dislike this episode so much. I could even live with the Pah-Wraiths being introduced if both sides had been kept sufficiently alien. It would have also made the subsequent Cult of the Pah-Wraiths interesting and nuanced instead of just a sad bunch of dupes.
Pah-Wraiths? More like Meh…Wraiths.
I think it’s telling that this discussion is mostly getting derailed to analysis of a Bible story. While about the episode itself, the best defenses that are being offered are mostly, “I wasn’t bothered that much by the episode if you just ignore the cheesy energy ray battle.”
I agree with @9’s analysis. The Abraham story is fine if you accept a certain pre-existing relationship between Abraham and God. That’s not the kind of relationship that Sisko and the Prophets have. If anything, he has reason to distrust the Prophets’ handling of his son.
In the Pah-Wraiths’ first appearance, I said that they were an idea that could have worked if they’d been done with some subtlety — which doesn’t preclude the concept of them being EVIL, as long as there’s some motivation behind it and as long as the Prophets keep the characterization they’d had before (which included not being exactly GOOD). I stand by that statement. Unfortunately, that subtlety doesn’t happen. And this episode is terrible as a result.
I’d like to say that the revelations about Kai Winn’s character are interesting. Sadly, I think her selfish lack of sincerity was hinted all along. Narratively, it did have to be revealed at some point. But it’s not revelatory enough to be interesting.
The episode wanders close to some interesting questions of faith and skepticism, mostly through Kira and Odo. But then it fails to deliver anything worthwhile.
(As for Abraham: God didn’t want Isaac to die. He didn’t even want to see whether Abraham would obey him; he knew Abraham would. He wanted Abraham to learn something about his own degree of obedience. Also, I feel the story isn’t complete from the Jewish perspective; another crucial part is that God wanted Abraham to experience a bit of what it was going to be like for God to sacrifice His son, Christ.
And CLB, you’re right about using our own minds being a good thing, and *blind* obedience being bad. But that doesn’t mean God doesn’t occasionally ask for things that seem to make no sense, not based on “blind” obedience, but on a personal relationship of trust between the parties. I imagine that when Abraham first received the impression to sacrifice Isaac, his reaction was “lolwut? That makes absolutely no sense.” And God responded, “I know it doesn’t, my son, but that wasn’t a random mistaken impression; it really is what I want you to do. And I’m asking you to trust me and do this even though it seems horrible.”)
The one thing that really bugged me in this episode, and hasn’t been mentioned, is that it makes no sense to me that they had to keep the tablet to study it. Take a detailed scan, send it on its way. They were able to find B’Hala using a holosuite representation of the obliesk, what’s to stop them from doing that here? Sisko should have told Dax to take some pictures and send it right back the second Winn asked for it.
Another reason this episode stunk was the whole Gunfight at the O.K. Corral thing between the prophet and pah-wraith. So they’ve been trapped in the same tablet for thousands of years together, and their fight is just a simple brute force shoot-em-up showdown in the street (corridor, Promenade, whatever) to see who’s got the most power? It’s just stupid. Why did they even need the physical bodies? Krad nailed it: “What a piece of crap.”
I don’t know if this episode rates as low as a 1 on its own, but considering the story arc it’s leading up to, 1 seems overrated, -10 would work. The shoot up was stupid, the prophecy made no sense (flip a switch and get utopia?), the earthquakes weren’t exactly explained.
@11 You made a good point about Siskos history with the prophets has been about explaining reality to them, why suddenly assume that this time they know what they are doing?
@7 Using Friends-esque titles is a good call.
To me, it’s “The One where Kira screams NO at the climax“. That’s my strongest memory from this episode.
Terrible show, on every level. Complexity flushed down the drain. And it’s too bad. The premise of putting Jake as a point of conflict with Sisko’s journey as Emissary was always memorable in previous episodes like Rapture.
And CLB has a point regarding blind trust. While I love it that Sisko became so integrated with Bajoran culture and religion to the point of truly embracing it, it clashes with the humanist mindset humans are supposed to have at this point.
Fortunately, this episode had no negative effect on the flourishing careers of either Harry Werksman or Gabrielle Stanton, two very talented and hard-working writers.
I have read the alternate interpretation before – I’m not sure I totally go with it. I am admittedly a bit biased in that I don’t think God is capricious or arbitrary and that Abraham’s decision wasn’t so much blind faith/submission, but faith based on his previous reationship and knowledge of God. Also, one of the interpretations I’ve read is that Abraham had faith God would restore/save Isaac in the end, as he says they will both come back. Plus, the additional foreshadowing for Christian typology is seen as the ‘true’ ending/purpose of the story from a Christian standpoint.
I don’t think I twigged onto the connection while watching this episode – if anything, I actually thought about the Christ connection, although the main difference is that Jesus was a fully willing and knowing participant, and Jake was not (except after the fact)…so it’s not really the same thing (the Isaac analogy is probably more apt)…as somebody had pointed out on one of the other episodes, saying the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few is only morally justifiable when the few freely choose the sacrfice.
As for Kai Winn, I was hoping she’d have a bit more of a redemption arc or maybe a little more complex – somebody who is genuinely religious/pious but struggles with their personality flaws – so I was a little irritated with what they did with her character. It seemed to go the standard ‘religious person is just in it for the power’ trope (although I did sense a little genunine sadness at the Prophets never speaking to/selecting her).
I can’t say I have the same strenuous objection to the pah-wraith plot but I think everybody makes good points on that. I wouldn’t been sorry if this sub plot didn’t exist, to be honest.
I don’t think krad intended for this to turn into a theological discussion, but I’m not krad. Still, my perspective on the Abraham thing. The Biblical account, the conversation here, and the linked sermon all downplay the role of Isaac in the sacrifice. As the sermon points out, Isaac was likely a grown man by the time of this sacrifice (he was strong enough to carry what amounted to enough wood for a ram to be a burnt offering).
Unlike Jake and the Pah-Wraiths, Isaac appears to have agreed to be the sacrifice. I think part of the story is intended to show Abraham’s faith in the Lord, but I think it also shows the importance of the family relationship. Being the kind of father that Isaac could say, “God told you to sacrifice me? Okay,” to doesn’t come easy.
Back to DS9, I didn’t like the story, but I give it a pass. Not because of its merits, but because I need something to cling to as we navigate this week’s episodes.
For everyone’s information, I’m under a killer deadline, so there will be no DS9 Rewatch tomorrow, the 28th of October. We’ll be back on track with “Valiant” on Friday. (And, of course, we have the horror that is “Profit and Lace” looming next Tuesday. Hide the kids…)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@20 – I see Winn as a tragic character. She believed her whole life, and while the Prophets didn’t talk to her that didn’t bother her because they didn’t hardly talk to anyone. But then they selected an alien to be their Emissary, and even after she became Kai they still didn’t talk to her. She lost her faith in response to that; whether that’s a failure on her part or perfectly understandable depends, I suppose, on your perspective.
I see her power grab as a direct reaction to the bitterness she felt at losing her faith. She spells this out next season when she says, “I have run out of patience. I will no longer serve gods who give me nothing in return.”
Valiant and Profit and Lace in the wings? Ugh, you sure you’re not just looking for reasons to put those off, Krad? Not exactly a banner week…
Personally, I think the Isaac sacrifice makes a lot more sense if you assume he was an adult rather than a child. There’s nothing in the actual Genesis text that mentions Isaac’s age. Genesis 22:6 points out that Isaac had to be grown enough to carry enough wood to make an offering of a sheep. From personal experience (in the cooking area), that’s a whole lotta wood to carry for an 8 year old or whatever illustrators like to depict him as. If Isaac could carry enough wood to offer up a sheep (or himself), he was definitely strong enough to have resisted Abraham if he’d wanted to.
McKay B already pointed out the connection with Christ. In answer to Lisamarie’s concern, yeah, it’s a lot more meaningful to draw a direct parallel between Abraham’s offering up Isaac as a conscious adult and God offering up Jesus as a conscious adult. Since the Bible never pegs Isaac’s age when it happens (plus the wood factor), I generally assume Isaac was old enough to understand what Abraham was asked to do and Isaac also had enough mature, adult faith to allow his father to offer him up.
As for Kai Winn…argh. I don’t feel as strongly as some do that the Pah-Wraith vs. Prophet conflict was the doom of Deep Space Nine but it caused more problems than it solved. It certainly didn’t do much good for Kai Winn’s character arc (save for that fabulous crisis of conscience moment with Kira deep in Season 7). I can still watch those episodes, even this one. But if they could shoot Deep Space Nine over again, I’d hope they’d skip the Pah Wraith stuff altogether.
First time post and so the mandatory disclaimer: This rewatch series is fabulous, captivating and I can’t rave enough about Krad’s general insightfulness. Please don’t stop until you run out of Star Trek shows.
Ugh. This was one of those episodes where they went with religious parallels, and as it ended, all I could think was, why? It felt like they dumbed down the series with a boring good vs. evil story, when there was so much potential. The closer to the end of the series, the less I like the writing of Weddle & Thompson. But as I’ve said before, the worst is yet to come.
Terrible episode, terrible arc.
Oooo… Valiant… I loved it when it was a movie called “Taps” in 1981 and starred Tom Cruise, Tim Hutton and George C Scott….
@24
I don’t know about Krad, but I thought Valiant was a decent episode. Of course, that’s a discussion best left for next Friday.
And the less said about Profit and Lace, the better. At least for now.
Let me just say that I am actually pretty excited to get to Profit and Lace (we haven’t watched it yet) because I am pretty sure this was getting mentioned even back during the TNG rewatch as the pinnacle of horrible Star Trek. I am really wanting to know what could be SO bad that people so uniformly deride it. Like, is it just going to be super cheesy and dumb (Shades of Gray, Sub Rosa – neither of which I realy thought were THAT bad, just cheesy and dumb) with the added bonus of Ferengi hijinks (my favorite!) as the title suggests? Or is it going to be bad in the sense that it portrays the characters in such a way that it does damage to them or the values of the series (Let He Who Is Without Sin, currently in the running for my least favorite ever, or Change of Heart which I pretty much hated thanks to the end) and/or is flat out offensive for other reasons? Is it just completely illogical/contrived/silly? (Confession: I kind of liked Move Along Home because it’s just so bizarre). Or is it just forgettable/boring? (Condidentally, I can’t remember any episodes that elicited that reaction in me, although I know there are some). I’m guessing not the latter since it comes up SO often. I can’t wait to find out! (Yes, this is also the mindset that drove me to seek out the Star Wars Holiday Special).
Please, nobody answer this just yet, I just want to find out for myself! I think it’s the next episode on our DVD.
My point is, if after watching this I don’t want to stab my eyes out, I’m going to be sorely disappointed ;)
I actually rather like “Valiant,” but I’m dreading “Profit and Lace,” having already sat through it in 2004 when gearing up for my Worlds of DS9 novel set on Ferenginar, and ten years isn’t long enough!!!!!!!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Maybe it is because I am a Christian but loving at least to much of the world and even the Jews really is not what I would call the God of the old Testement. Second I never had the problem that many had with the end of the show. The turn to spirituality I liked (I also liked the end of the new BSG) and this was supposed to be the dark Trek (though it wasn’t nearly as Dark or as good as Babalyon Five) until the end it never really became dark.
I have very few memories of the episode, it certainly isn’t one I’ve rewatched, but I do remember being blown away by Cirroc Lofton. It’s a shame he got a chance to show what he can really do in an episode that was otherwise so dire.
Lisamarie — It’s more in the “cheesy & dumb” + Ferengi hijinks category. Maybe a little offensive, too, but not in the character-destroying way. Personally, I liked it much better than Let He Who Is Without Sin. (Which isn’t saying much.)
Oh, God how do I unsee that?
And actually, I found it incredibly offensive. Maybe the worst part is that it was completely unintentionally so? And in a way, character destroying (although in my opinion the absolute worst part was something we have seen Quark do before so…).
Just…wow. I’m actually kind of speechless. I spent most of the episode laughing in total shock that this was ACTUALLY PLAYING OUT BEFORE ME. And if it had just been cheesy that would be one thing but…just…oh man. I found parts of it actually very disturbing and painful to watch. But we’ll get there when we get there…
I’ve liked Valiant since it first came out under the title “Star Wars.” They even got the ending right this time around.
@35 Captain Watters didn’t have the Force as his ally (though perhaps he was hearing the affirmations of his dead mentor in his head)…
@34: Lisamarie, I’ll cop to it. You are not alone in liking “Move Along Home.” I like any race that places such importance on games, and I like the tension throughout. I love the “Allamaraine” girl, too. I can also give it much more of a pass on the absurdity because it’s only the first season – by “Profit and Lace” they should have known better.
@krad, I think you might be interested in the interpretation given by my uncle at my bat mitzvah of God’s silence to Abraham post-non-sacrifice-of-Isaac. He said that that wasn’t a punishment but rather a test, the ultimate test. He bases this on the text’s wording before the sacrifice-of-Isaac section: “After these things, God tested Abraham.” Most people interpret “these things” to mean the events that came before that section of the text. But my uncle cited instances in scripture where “these” is referring to the events about to be told, i.e. the verse is saying “After this whole upcoming section about the sacrifice of Isaac, God tested Abraham.” And that test was divine silence that Abraham had to figure out how to live with.
I always thought that was interesting, given that that is the test of pretty much every person in existence when it comes to God.
I hated this one. I find it interesting that O’Brien isn’t in it—I wonder if the writers found it difficult to write for him in this scenario, as O’Brien would definitely not be understanding of Sisko’s actions. He’s specifically stated that he doesn’t trust the wormhole aliens to take care of his family. He probably would have set off the chroniton flood himself.
It would have been more interesting if they had had the pah-wraith possess a Bajoran child, the parents of whom insist on letting the battle take place out of religious conviction. It could’ve been played as an allegory of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other similar groups refusing lifesaving treatment for their children based on religious belief.
Oh my god!
Where am I?
I appear to be on a motorcycle! But I am flying in the air! Over a water tank! With a shark in it!
The term “character destroying” was bandied about in the posts preceding me. If this episode didn’t surely do just that, I hate to see what is to come. Is it true? Is the best behind me? If so, I will need a few days to be sad. Because this has been such a good television show.
Hahahaha.
Keep going! Also, I’m enjoying seeing all the threads resurrected :)
hahaha, I just realized I was the one who brought up ‘character destroying’, but I was actually talking about Profit and Lace…which you apparently have yet to encounter. Please post your reaction when you get there.
But then I promise it does get better :)
Warp factor rating: -1
Fixed it for you
I stumbled across this discussion a while back when I was lurking around the rewatchs and, having been reminded of it recently, I thought I’d chime in with my two pen’orth. It seems a lot of the criticism is based around people having read that interview where the creators call it Abraham and Isaac and transferred their feelings about the story to this episode. Personally I’m in the “God never wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, He was just testing to see if he trusted Him” camp, but that’s irrelevant because the analogy’s wrong: Sisko isn’t being asked by the Prophets to sacrifice his son. Certainly not overtly, and he doesn’t see it like that. He believes the Prophet will protect Jake, that it will kill the Pah-Wraith without permanently harming its host, which doesn’t even seem naive when you remember that that’s exactly what O’Brien did in The Assignment. I think Sisko’s faith here is consistent with his development in Accession and Rapture, where he moves from respecting the Bajoran faith while remaining smugly apart from it and following the Federation’s staunch atheism line, to accepting that the Prophets have a plan and he has a role in it.
The only flaw, of course, is that Sisko doesn’t know the Prophet will win, in which case the best way to save Jake and everyone else is to use the chronitons anyway. Of course, that’s kind of an argument he’s already had: He made the decision to let the Reckoning go ahead despite the consequences before he knew Jake was a participant and in a way the situation hasn’t changed: The Prophet wins and everyone’s alive and happy, the Pah-Wraith wins and they’re all screwed. Also, there’s Kira’s argument at the end that no-one knows what will happen now. I’m not sure if it’s ever made 100% clear on screen that the Pah-Wraith that Winn effectively sets loose here is the same one that pops up at the end of the season, but I believe that was the intention, in which case far from saving lives her actions ultimately lead to the death of Jadzia, and of Fala and Solbor in Season 7, and possibly other people we didn’t see.
One aspect I do agree with the rewatch on though is the undevelopment of Winn. The character we first met in In the Hands of the Prophets and who recurred in Season 2 probably had faith very deep down but was essentially a political animal willing to abuse her faith in order to get power. Thereafter she followed the same trajectory of Dukat, with Life Support and especially Rapture showing her as more than that and bringing her to a deeper understanding with Sisko… so it definitely feels like a regression to have her here and in Season 7 going back to sticking two fingers up at the Prophets because they’re not paying her enough attention. That said, the fact she does change sides again right at the end (albeit mainly because the Pah-Wraiths treated her the same as the Prophets and made the undeserving alien their favourite child) means I’m never quite willing to cheer her demise.
Plot letdowns of the overall role of The Sisko aside, the reason everyone condemns Kai Wynn is because the prophet battle represents a test of faith that she fails miserably. Sisko isn’t a “star fleet officer” in that episode, as he’s fond of saying, but the emissary and a believer in the prophets. Rather than acting by the book and following his duty to protect the people of the station, he’s willing to risk his son in the belief that the prophets will be victorious and ultimately save them all.
Someone has to foil that since they can’t actually have DS9 blow up, and neither can the Prophets just win and make everything all right. So the writers expose Kai Winn for what she seems to have been all along: petty, self-interested, and ambitious. She may have saved lives, given that the destruction of the station and the death of Jake were never guaranteed (how often are the prophecies misinterpreted in the show), but she still directly disobeyed the word of God, and it doesn’t get any worse than that.
God. Abraham. Dan Simmons.
Been there. Done that.
I like Kai Winn in this episode. I thought she was the hero, despite Kira accusing her of something else. The way I see it, the reckoning envisioned by the prophets is like an old Gods way of thinking. as if there ever is pure good versus evil in the universe. And who really believes in a 1000 year reign of peace in this universe, as if that would or could ever happen just from one cosmic battle? To me, Kai is actually taking the humanist approach, that one cannot sacrifice one’s own child (Benjamin’s son Jake) for the sake of some imagined utopian future (not done through humanoid agency but by some arbitrary cosmic realigning of the universe). There must be some other way.
It’s not clear at all that Jake would have survived or that the Prophets would have protected him. He was close to dying and the Prophets (who have their own interests) never said that they could or could protect the opposing host.
Kai’s motives may have been mixed, but I suggest that part of her motive was a concern for Benjamin and Jake.
In the Old Testament story, God initially asks Abraham to sacrifice his son to show his faith, but in the end God prevents the killing. Many have interpreted this a humanist shift in ancient culture and religion from an awareness that it is unethical to offer human sacrifice.
In the end, I found Kira to be too much of a religious fanatic in her naive hope for 1000 year reign of peace and blessing, whereas Kai, who had also believed in that vision, was willing to forego it for the sake of not completing the sacrifice of Benjamin’s son.
I like Kai Winn in this episode. I thought she was the hero, despite Kira accusing her of something else. The way I see it, the reckoning envisioned by the prophets is like an old Gods way of thinking. as if there ever is pure good versus evil in the universe. And who really believes in a 1000 year reign of peace in this universe, as if that would or could ever happen just from one cosmic battle? To me, Kai is actually taking the humanist approach, that one cannot sacrifice one’s own child (Benjamin’s son Jake) for the sake of some imagined utopian future (not done through humanoid agency but by some arbitrary cosmic realigning of the universe). There must be some other way.
It’s not clear at all that Jake would have survived or that the Prophets would have protected him. He was close to dying and the Prophets (who have their own interests) never said that they could or would protect the opposing host.
Kai’s motives may have been mixed, but I suggest that part of her motive was a concern for Benjamin and Jake.
In the Old Testament story, God initially asks Abraham to sacrifice his son to show his faith, but in the end God prevents the killing. Many have interpreted this a humanist shift in ancient culture and religion from an awareness that it is unethical to offer human sacrifice.
In the end, I found Kira to be too much of a religious fanatic in her naive hope for 1000 year reign of peace and blessing, whereas Kai, who had also believed in that vision, was willing to forego it for the sake of not completing the sacrifice of Benjamin’s son.
That was a really anticlimatic battle. Energy beams shooting out of bodies… And that’s it? Sisko just standing by because “he trusts in the prophets”? If I wanted to see TV shows about religion, I’d just watch some “Hour of Power” or “Bible TV”, and not a Sci-Fi show.
If we read Genesis 22:12 and Genesis 22:16-18, this was a one-time test from a God who had no intention of letting Abraham carry through in sacrificing his son. Abraham did not fail the test as it says in Genesis 22:12, and Genesis 22:16-18 makes it clear that God was pleased with his obedience. He would not and did not let Abraham kill his son. He did not want the sacrifice of a person. He wanted obedience. There is no need to try and infer a meaning from a passage that is black and white.
I’m willing to be open-minded about this particular episode as a violation of Sisko’s character considering that, in “Tears of the Prophets,” Sisko chooses Starfleet over the prophets. In this episode Sisko seems very zealous, which might be after seeing what the prophets did to the 2800 ships coming through the wormhole. No one can argue that there are many people who love their “god” so much they are full of faith and trust. If we can accept that Sisko was really changed after “Sacrifice of Angels,” his character here and his trust that his son would be protected makes more sense. Even Jake acknowledged that Sisko made the right choice.
There are people who want power and get jealous when they see those who have more faith than them, so I personally saw Kai Winn’s attitude here as logical. I have no doubt in my mind that she really was jealous at Sisko’s faith. Perhaps she even feared this would cost her some respect, maybe people would respect the “Emissary” more than her because of his faith. Even if part of her intention was to save lives, it wasn’t her entire motivation. Kira was right, Sisko was willing to sacrifice his son, Sisko had a stronger faith, and Kai Winn couldn’t stand that
I strongly disagree. Winn doesn’t care a wit about Sisko or Jake. Her only concern is herself and her position. It was killing her that Sisko’s faith was stronger than hers and his faith would lead to the Prophet’s victory over Kosst Amojan. That an alien could speak to the Prophets and she couldn’t offended her so deeply she couldn’t allow it to continue.
I don’t have as much concern over the Prophets/Pah Wraith arc as many. But I do think it was rather simplistic and a bit to Judeo-Christian.
I liked this episode better than Keith but each time Winn brought up wanting the tablet back I thought “Sisko, just scan the tablet and make a hologram of it like you did in ‘Rapture’. You’re only interested in the inscriptions and if you need anything else you can just beam down to Bajor in like five minutes!”
Bajor is too far away for transporters. It takes 3 hours to reach by shuttle, according to numerous references throughout the series. No one ever transported between DS9 and Bajor throughout the series.
However, you have a point he could have scanned it and produced a hologram. Of course, in that case, he would never have broken it and the Prophet and the Pah Wraith would not have been “released” and led to the reckoning. Which may or may not have been a good thing.
@53/costumer: After all this time it had never occurred to me that they never transported down to Bajor but you’re absolutely right. I can’t believe I missed that.
Sadly it doesn’t change how manufactured the conflict is with the tablet. Sisko HAS to bring the tablet up to the station instead of just scanning it because it drives the conflict between him and Winn for the first half and leads to him destroying the tablet, triggering the conflict with the Pah-Wraiths in the second half. It’s one of those cases where a character does something because we otherwise have no story, which is just lazy writing.
Lockdown rewatch..
And after six and two thirds seasons of mainly progressive brilliance we reach the episode where the show stepped off a cliff.. and it’s those damm Pah Wraiths again..
This is a complete mess form beginning to end, Sisko behaves ridiculously, Louise Fletcher reverts to full on Cruella Deville mode as Winn.. and keeps the boo hiss turned up to eleven for the rest of the shows run. Colm Meaney wisely is absent, Bashir is becoming really annoying with his last word comment in the meeting role, Odo and Kira are a bit embarrassing as the loved up couple.. only Cirroc Lofton is convincing in Jakes pre possessed scenes in his concern for his father’s health.
There are still a few great episode or come but after “In the pale moonlight” this is an altitude sickness drop in standards that the show struggles to recover from.
Keith, during my DS9 rewatch, I’ve been periodically checking in on your posts. I’ve been surprised because there are episodes that I think are great that you haven’t ranked very well. As for this one, I agree but I don’t quite hate it enough to give it a 1.I’d give it a 3 or 4.
I can appreciate what Behr was trying to do here–to create a biblical story. I’m not fond of that and wish he didn’t but he was trying to do something dramatic—an epic Good vs. Evil; God. vs. The Devil so I’ll give him props for effort.
I get what you’re saying about Winn–logically, you’re right. She was saving lives. And if she was Worf, or Dax or anyone else, it’d be alright. But she is supposed to be spiritual leader of Bajor. That means she is supposed to be on the side of the Prophets. As spiritual leader, she should’ve had faith that the Prophets would persevere. Her lack of faith is what makes her the villain here. Plus, I don’t think she did what she did for a noble reason. She could argue that since that was the end result. But I think in her heart, she did it out of selfishness.
I am a bit confused – the artefact is supposed to 30,000 years old but then later Sisko says the Prophets and the Bajorans have had a relationship for “over a thousand years”. While 30,000 is certainly over a thousand they seem to be different orders of magnitude. Having known somebody for 30 years feels quite different from knowing them for over a year.
@57/rwmg: In the original script, Sisko’s line is “stretches back thousands of years.” I don’t know why they changed it to “over a thousand” in the final episode, when it was established as far back as “Emissary” that the Orbs had been appearing for ten thousand years. Maybe it was just a line flub that nobody caught.
This is actually one of my favorite episodes. Winn is a coward and a hypocrite. She’s always been more of a politician than a priest, and this episode shows how little faith she has. As a religious person, the fact that Star Trek not only managed to do this, but to give it actual weight is a darn sight near miraculous to me. I could talk about this episode forever honestly.
But the thing that I really can’t accept here is that Kai Winn wandered into Ops, found a computer that was still online (despite “everyone ababdoning the station right now, people”) and left wide open without the need for password, and figured out how to release the Time Rays.
Kai Winn? Sure she might be insidiously sharp about some things, but if she found her way into my drip sprinkler system control box, she’d get my lawn blinking “12:00” in no time. We’re lucky she didn’t make popcorn, or trigger a self-destruct, putting this episode out of its misery.
Ok I’m done. Bleh
“We’re lucky she didn’t make popcorn…”
How would that be worse?
I was imagining her filling the entire Promenade with it :)
Okay maybe that would have been better after all.