30th Anniversary DS9 Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

November 22nd, 1994, "Second Sight"

No fiver

The Episode

FENNA: Beautiful, aren't they? I don't think I've seen the stars shine so brightly.
SISKO: The Bajorans call that constellation the Runners. I can never figure out if they're running toward something or away from something.
FENNA: Does that matter? Sometimes it just feels good to run.
SISKO: I never thought about it that way.

For some reason this is the exchange from this episode that I remember the most.

FENNA: Commander of the station. That must be very exciting. All those ships coming and going. Every day must bring something new.
SISKO: It has its moments.

I find this a bit confusing. Sisko doesn't handle the ships coming in and out, that's Kira's job. He handles the station itself and the Bajoran reconstruction (how is that going, by the way? Are the factions at peace now?)

SISKO: Admit it, Chief. If you were on a station where everything worked, you'd be miserable.
O'BRIEN: You may be right, sir. (sparks) But I'd be willing to give it a try.

This is an interesting exchange, but I have a problem. This is year two and we aren't in a state of war right now. Is O'Brien still fixing the station? Did the Circle do that much damage? If the wormhole didn't exist maybe I'll buy that Starfleet hasn't prioritized the station because the Cardassians wouldn't be snooping around and the biggest problem would be the Maquis. But the wormhole DOES exist and DS9 is now one of the most important places in the Federation. The entire station should've been retrofitted by now and all remotely faulty equipment replaced. Sure that would steal "Civil Defense" from us, but it just doesn't make sense.

But at the VERY least, all equipment in Ops should've been replaced with a proper Starfleet computer by now.

SEYETIK: Imagine, reigniting a dead sun. Bringing new life to an entire solar system. Next to that, terraforming planets will seem like child's play.

Reigniting a star seems like it would require a completely different skillset than planet terraforming.

DAX: Nothing important. I have to meet with Chief O'Brien. We're boosting the maximum speed of Seyetik's ship to warp nine point five. If his experiment fails and that sun goes supernova, we're going to need to get out of there fast.

The maximum speed of a ship is determined by MANY factors that can't be altered by a simple upgrade in a matter of hours. You'd have to strip the ship down to the spaceframe, replace the warp core, plasma conduits, warp coils, inertial dampeners, structural integrity field, subspace sensors...

And all of this is pointless because we've been given no indication that a supernova emits anything that can't be outrun by a ship going Warp One. If this thing could destroy subspace a la "Force of Nature", it'd be nice to mention that in dialogue.

SISKO: What would you like to see?
FENNA: Everything.
SISKO: Everything? That's going to take some time.
FENNA: I don't mind, if you don't.

You can walk all the corridors on the 1701 in an eight hour shift. Every corridor on the station would take weeks. Even limiting yourself to the central core would take days.

JAKE: Dad, are you in love?
SISKO: What?
JAKE: You know, with a woman. You're showing all three of the signs.
SISKO: Signs?
JAKE: The ones that Nog told me about. Loss of appetite, daydreaming, smiling all the time.
SISKO: You've been talking to Nog about women again?

What does Nog know about love? I thought that he focused on women to dominate them and get oo-mox. I just checked Memory Beta and nobody ever gave him a girlfriend or wife. Weird.

SISKO: She's really interesting.
JAKE: Interesting, huh? So when do I get to meet her?
SISKO: I think it might be a little early to do that.
JAKE: Why? She likes you too, doesn't she?
SISKO: I think so.
JAKE: So then what's the problem?
SISKO: Well, er, it's just that, er, she keeps disappearing.

Singles with kids out there, what is the standard number of dates before introducing them to your kids? Because it hasn't even been a week yet, and I call that too soon.

SEYETIK: Basically I'll use a remote-piloted shuttlepod to deliver proto-matter into the dead star. This will cause a cascade effect which will transform the star's carbon and oxygen into elemental hydrogen. Then we just stand back and watch the fireworks.

There's another screed I could write about what I think the role of protomatter in the Genesis Device is and how that doesn't translate to reigniting stars, but I'll skip it.