Summary
Kai Opaka, the spiritual leader of the Bajorans, comes aboard the station and requests a tour from Sisko, but during the tour she subtly asks him to take her through the Wormhole. Against his better judgement he complies, and he, Bashir, Kira and Opaka travel to the Gamma Quadrant. There they receive a distress signal from an unknown source. Opaka tells Sisko not to hold back on her account, so the group goes to investigate.
They find a planet with a network of satellites, one of which is malfunctioning. The runabout approaches the planet and one of the satellites attacks it, forcing them to crash land. Opaka dies in the landing, which devastates Kira; however, her mourning is interrupted by a group of people called the Ennis.
The Ennis explain that they are at war with a group called the Nol-Ennis, who could attack at any minute. They take Sisko, Bashir and Kira to a cavelike dwelling and as predicted the Nol-Ennis attack within minutes. Many of the Ennis are killed fending off the attack, but after the battle Kai Opaka enters the cave, regenerated by some form of extraterrestrial nanotechnology. The same technology revives the Ennis and Nol-Ennis, but rather than a blessing it is a curse: Both groups were sent to the planet as punishment for centuries of conflict, doomed to die over and over.
As Dax and O'Brien search for the group, Sisko gets the Ennis and Nol-Ennis to agree to meet in an effort to negotiate peace. Meanwhile, Kira must face her personal demons: years of fighting the Cardassians on Bajor have taken their toll on her and she has known nothing but violence since she was a child. However, while Kira is reconciling her problems, the Ennis and Nol-Ennis refuse to fix theirs and resume fighting.
The groups are revived once more and return to their respective camps, but by this time Bashir has discovered that the technology keeps those it revives (including Opaka) from leaving the planet. O'Brien and Dax find Sisko, and Opaka informs him that she will stay with the Ennis and Nol-Ennis. She says it is time for them to begin their healing process just as Kira has begun hers. Meanwhile the Ennis and Nol-Ennis resume fighting. Before O'Brien transports Sisko, Bashir, and Kira to the runabout, Opaka tells Sisko that her work is there now, but reassures him that their paths will cross again.[1]
Errors and Explanations
The Nitpickers Guide for Deep Space Nine Trekkers
Plot Oversights
- Sisko managing to land the runabout close to the only inhabitants. He probably aimed for that location after the satellite system attack.
- Apparent use of directed energy weapons by both sides, despite Golin Shel-La claiming the Ennis stopped using them centuries earlier. The two sides could be using projectile weapons firing miniature tracer rounds.[N 1]
- The combatants on both sides not resorting to methods such as decapitation or cremation to kill their opponents, which would prevent the nanites from resurrecting the deceased. The nanites could be programmed to induce temporary paralysis, to prevent use of these methods.
Equipment Oddities
- Apparent lack of restraints on the runabout. Any restraint system could have been disabled by the attack from the satellite system.
Nit Central
- BrianB on Wednesday, April 14, 1999 - 1:06 am: Why doesn't Star Fleet send scientists to learn this secret of Immortality? It may not be possible to duplicate the effects.
- Julian really seems to give up quickly when he finds that these people won't survive if they leave the moon. (In The Quickening, he stayed on the planet until he found a cure.) He doesn't consider, for example, keeping them in a simulation of the moon's environment (like the suits the Breen wear when they're not on their ships) until he can find a way to cure them. Any attempt to remove them from the moon, in order to either transfer them to a simulation of the moon, or place them into stasis chambers, would kill them outright.
- Finally, when Sisko holds his feeble attempt at a peace conference, the factions agree not to bring any "firearms". Apparently it didn't occur to him to ask them not to bring swords either. This would have led to a boycott, due to their precived need to bring some form of weapons to defend themselves.
- The runabout is going to crash onto the moon and Sisko ejects the anti-matter pod. Presumably he does this so it won't rupture on impact and explode on contact with matter, but where does the ejected pod go? Does the ejection send the pod into space (where it becomes a navigational hazard) or does it just crash down onto the surface of the moon (where it may burst and explode on contact with matter)? Maybe it self destructs after travelling a set distance.
- Josh M on Sunday, September 10, 2000 - 4:22 pm: Why exactly did that guy say that energy weapons aren't damaging enough? Don't they have a vaporize setting? Wouldn't that put those tiny machines out of work really fast? Or are they that good? There may be something in the enviroment that prevents energy weapons from working at full effectiveness.
- Jesse on Thursday, July 21, 2005 - 4:19 pm: When the runabout is about to crash, Sisko ejects the antimatter pod. A good precaution (though as KAM pointed out earlier, it creates a few questions). My question is, why didn't he dump the matter too? As I understand it, Starfleet vessels use an isotope of hydrogen as their fuel supply. Hydrogen is extremely flammable. It's like a fighter plane crashing with a full load of fuel: even if you survive the crash, you won't survive the resulting explosion and fire. Cybermortis on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 - 9:40 am: Hydrogen is used in the warp core of ships, but its also used to fuel the impulse engines and power generators. If Sisko dumped the hydrogen as well as the anti matter he'd have had no power and no engines/thrusters, and therefore no control at all while attempting to land. Hydrogen is only explosive when mixed with an oxidiser (Oxygen for example). On its own its quite safe, unlike jet fuel today.
Notes
- ↑ Mark Wells submitted this query to the Nit Central board for the episode on Wednesday, June 30, 1999 - 2:56 am:
Sources
| Deep Space Nine Season 1 |
| Emissary I Past Prologue I A Man Alone I Babel I Captive Pursuit I Q-Less I Dax I The Passenger I Move Along Home I The Nagus I Vortex I Battle Lines I The Storyteller I Progress I If Wishes Were Horses I The Forsaken I Dramatis Personae I Duet I In the Hands of the Prophets |