Monday, March 26, 2012

Perspective on a Human Life

DS9: Facets
This episode is one of the few of DS9's that seems to suffer from the Voyager problem of, well, ADHD. They move through at least three potential episode plots by the time they finish the episode. Sigh.

Field Trip

The Jem Hadar
DS9 #446 Season 2 Episode 26
Aired 6/12/94
Stardate Unknown

Sisko gets home and finds Jake preparing his science project. He is growing Bajoran Katterpods to see which will grow faster. Awesome. Even in the 24th century, we still have the classic BS science project. Ben very diplomatically calls it "low tech".  He tells Jake to pick his favorite project. Jake picks piloting a runabout. Not science. Visit the gamma quadrant? Okay. What would you do when you got there? A planetary survey.

Okay. Jake is super excited.

Ben is excted to go on a trip with Jake. He tells Kira and Dax all about it. Jake comes in and asks if Nog can go with them because otherwise he will do bad on his project and if he does bad he will drop out of school. Ben sighs and agrees.

Nog tells Quark he can't work his next shift right as Odo tells quark he can't use the screens on the promenade to sell merchandise. Quark sees an opportunity...

Credits.

They board the runabout. Quark shows up too, and says he is coming to supervise Nog. They leave. Ben is not happy.

They beam down to the planet and it is all woodsy woods. Quark is allergic to woodsy woods and therefore annoying.

A camp is set up and Jake and Nog start working. Quark is undeterred after Ben says the answer is still no about the monitors.

Jake and Nog keep working.

Ben makes jambalaya for dinner and Nog likes it. Quark dos not. He is cnvinced that Ben is anti Ferengi. Ben and Jake have a slight bonding moment. Quark catches fire. Ben yells at him. Nog hisses and runs off, and Jake chases him, which turns out lucky because that's when Quark calls Ben a bigot and a woman comes running into camp. She flashes some energy at Ben, which knocks him over, and asks how many "Jem'hadar" there are. Ben's all, huh? We're not you're enemy.  She tells them to run. But 6 or so lizard dudes (jem'hadar) appear out of thin air and they have scary guns.

Commercial

Jake and Nog return to an empty camp. Nog wants to beam up but Jake doesn't. They track Ben and Quark with a tricorder.

Quark is pissed. Ben and Quark are imprisoned in a force field with the woman and worried about the boys. The woman tells them the Jem'hadar are the soldiers of something called the Dominion, a name we've heard a couple of times before. Her name is Eris. They plan an escape.

Jake and Nog find Jem'Hadar in the woods.

Commercal

The Jem'Hadar get annoyed with Quark's yelling and they learn that the "Founders" don't want them released.

The Dominion doesn't want any more "Alpha Quadrant" incursions. The Jem'Hadar says he wanted a Klingon to come though so he could meet one. He doesn't like Cardasians. Interesting. And scary how much he knows about the Alpha Quadrant.

Jake and Nog make it to the runabout but they can't beam Ben or Quark up. They can't disegage autopilot to return to the wormhole. A vessel leaves the planet. And so they decide to shut off autopilot.

In OPS, a ship coms through the wormhole and a Jem'Hadar caling itself "Third Talak'talan" comes to tell them they can't use the wormhole anymore. He hands them a list of destroyed vessels that is written on a Bajoran pad... from the Bajoran colony on the Gamma side of the wormhole. All dead.

Comercial

Ben wants to remove Eris's collar and so Quark gets to work on that.

Jake manages to disable the autopilot after almost blowing up the ship. Only problem: now they can't fly the ship.

Back in OPS, they plan a rescue with the captain of the Odyssey, Captain Keough, Dax's arch-rival. The Odyssey, BTW, is a galaxy-class ship. Keough wants to leave the crew of DS9 behind, but they manage to argue their way in. Even Odo wants to go because he wants to be there for Quark. They make it through the wormhole and worry about cloaked ships.

Jake is trying to fly. Badly. He makes it a little way when the other runabouts get there and Miles beams over to help him, so that's a relief.

Quark continues picking Eris's lock on her telepathic surpressor device. He comments on how sophistocated it is, because it's so tiny. He does get it off, and she uses her telekinetic powers to escape. Quark saves Ben during the escape, which is a neat turnaround.

The Jem'Hadar attack, and Miles flies in to beam Ben and co. up to a nice reunion. The Jem'Hadar can cut right through the Odyssey's shields, and when they are retreating they actually do a kamikaze run that hits the engineering hull just behind the saucer section. And then the Enterprise blows up. I mean the Odyssey.

So they make it back to DS9 and as they leave the runabout, Quark stops Ben. He has something to tell him.

There was no telepathic supressor in the collar. Eris is a spy. But she denies being a Founder. She beams out, presumably to a cloaked ship. Ben vows to be ready for the Dominion when they come.

And they will.