| Deep Space Nine | |
| 1 & 2 | |
| Emissary | |
| 46379.1 | |
On Stardate 43997, Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise was kidnapped for six days by an invading force known as the Borg. Surgically altered, he was forced to lead an assault on Starfleet at Wolf 359.
Wow! Combat, you wanted combat in a Star Trek episode, you got it! The Borg are back, but this time from a new perspective. Ben Sisko is on the USS Saratoga and they are having a bad time. But it was a bad hair day for the entire Federation, so who can complain. Ben can and does when his ship suffers a direct hit and everyone is forced to evacuate. He makes it out, and so does his son Jake, but unfortunately his wife Jennifer had a crushing appointment with a piece of superstructure. As the Borg destroys the rest of the fleet, Ben punches out.
Three years later he is transferred to the outpost, Deep Space Nine...
A new series, a new look, and for no readily appearant reason, new uniforms. Commander Sisko is met at DS9 by none other than Miles O'Brien, who has transferred series to be the full time Chief of Operations.
Deep Space Nine is an abandoned Cardassian outpost orbiting the planet of Bajor, but it looks more like a wrecked shopping mall. This isn't acutally a Federation operation, they are only there in a supervisory role. Haven't we heard that line one too many times before? No matter, those being supervised resent it too, and the chief resenter is Major Kira.
While we're at it, lets introduce the rest of the gang. We have Odo the ILM morpher and Quark the happy Ferengi. The Federation medical contingent is made up of Dax the Trill, and Dr Bashir the geek - he is probably going to become the Wesley clone. But enough of the introductions, on with the plot...
Sisko meets with Picard, and he's not happy. He has memories of Locutus and none of them good. The Bald Avenger clearly never got enough therapy as he starts pouting. He then tells Sisko that his job is to ready the Bajorans for entry into the Federation. What fun!
To get some old time religion into himself, Ben beams down onto Bajor to meet with Kia Opaka. She is the planet's spiritual leader, and says that she can bring them back from the brink of civil war if he can find the Celestial Temple and retrieve the missing MysticSaltShakers™ that the Cardassians took.
A dose of the salt sends him back onto a beach in his past... and then back. Nine Shakers have been found in the last 10,000 years, but unfortunately they have only one. Ben, it's your destiny... Oh, goody.
Here come the Cardassians. They are clearly the bad guys now, having ousted the Romulans as Chief Naughty Aliens. Having all that glue on your head would be enough to make a saint testy, so it's not surprising that they are tense.
Dax thinks she knows where to start looking for the Temple, but the problem is how to distract the Cardassians? Easy, Odo turns himself into a bag, smuggles himself onto their ship, and messes with their sensors. Wow he's not only a morpher, he can change mass too! That has got to be useful. With no further distractions, Sisko and Dax are off to see the Wizard...
Let's reach out and touch sombody. Only let's make it a long way away, 70,000ly away in the Gamma quadrant on the other side of the galaxy to be precise. Have they found the first stable wormhole? Probably, but this one's special, its got an atmosphere! It also doesn't want to play with Dax, and so it conjures up another MysticSaltShaker™ and sends her home. It has other plans for Ben...
Kira is now thinking like a politician. If they can just move the station to the mouth of the wormhole, then they can stake a claim to it. In the process they might be able to rescue Sisko too. O'Brien proves his technological genius by doing the impossible and taking them there. Unfortunately the Cardassians get there first, and they go inside to look around.
Inside the wormhole are the most mystic, non-corporeal aliens we have ever seen. They don't understand a linear existance, and think that Sisko is a threat. He tries to explain what it means, but isn't very good at it. He keeps coming back to the battle at Wolf 359, much to the confusion of the aliens, and the distress of himself.
More Cardassians! They're like flies at a picnic - you get rid of one lot, only to find more turning up to replace them. This lot are looking for the ones who fell in the hole. But as the mystic aliens conveniently filled it up, they think that the station managed to destroy their warship. "Shields up!" orders Kira. "What shields?" replys O'Brien. This could be a short series indeed.
Kira doesn't want to go down without a fight, so she fools their sensors into thinking that they are fully equiped to handle any skirmishes that might crop up. The problem with bluffing is that occasionally your hand gets called...
When it looks like there is no choice but to finally surrender, the worm-hole reopens. Out pops Ben Sisko the tow-truck operator. He found the Cardassians on the other side and thought they might need some help, so he gave them a tow.
With that crisis averted, and with the knowledge that the aliens have allowed access to the worm-hole for everone, Deep Space Nine looks like being a centre of interest in this part of the galaxy. Now all they need is for some adventure to occur!
