Destiny
(Star Trek - Deep Space Nine episode production code 461)
written by David S. Cohen & Martin A. Winer
Trying to get Starfleet personnel to take her thoughts seriously,
Major Kira puts forward the theory that the information in
this episode's prophecy traveled backwards in time via the
Wormhole Prophet Aliens' ability to see all of time at once.
Attempts to latch onto pre-ordained futures are at the heart
of most of Star Trek's screw-ups in the time travel arena,
(particularly in Trek's coveted philosophical arena),
so we basically get another bout of the same here in this
episode.
Predictions are often spouted clumsily whether on Star Trek or
elsewhere. As here in this episode, they tend to not leave room
for choices to lead to an unlimited number of other sets of
circumstances. For example, how important should it be that
the vipers come in a group of three? The Cardassians easily
could have sent any other number of scientists, and the
completely random fragmentation of the comet could easily
produce many separate pieces. The fact that we end up with only
three does in fact stretch credulity considerably. In the more
elegant view of universes budding and branching off of each other
endlessly, how many different possibilities should the Prophets
have seen to tell the ancient Bajorans about?
In a rather clumsy way, it is implied that Sisko has a big important
choice coming up in which he will shape events, but all other
choices by everyone else seem to be implied to be unchangeable.
Not very elegant.
What saves this episode - and in fact makes it quite excellent -
is that it is a very real examination
of what one can do in the face of such prophecies and those
who believe in them religiously. If I was in Sisko's place,
I'd thank Erick Avari's Vedek character for the information,
and inform him that I'd be genuinely more vigilant while
proceeding with the Cardassian project, which is a fair balance
that should provoke fewer impassioned arguments from him.
He does accurately alert everyone else towards dangers that
they would have been unaware of otherwise.
But are the Wormhole Prophet Aliens
and any real time-traveled information actually involved at all?
Even this could be a matter for speculation. Going any further
than a bit of extra vigilance is uncalled for.
The best bits are the wonderful lines Dax has when she asks
Sisko what he would do if he hadn't heard the prophecy at all.
His response is immediate and decisive, and all the useless
idle second-guessing stops. The plot moves forward. It's a very
beautiful template for what to do after a thorough exploration
of the issue. Nice.
O'Brien also has some very memorable interactions with the
Cardassians this episode. Good stuff.
In the end, this is a very satisfying episode, which gets my
blessing. Nice one.
Visionary
(Star Trek - Deep Space Nine episode production code 463)
story by Ethan H. Calk
teleplay by John Shirley
Deep Space Nine was quick to jump into yet another story
with time travel and predictions. It does at first look as
though it is going to play things very safely and stick to
a single line of time, with our protagonists discovering events
slightly out of order. But things get much more complicated
as the story progresses.
At first, there doesn't seem to be much room left in anyone's
thoughts for the concept of events playing out differently
to the way O'Brien sees them. But, the only event that appears
to play out identically through both O'Briens' experiences
is the bar fight. The dialogue surrounding Quark's maintenance
request is quite different each time we go through it.
Of course, once O'Brien sees himself die in the future,
we know the freedom to choose a different path will be exercised.
The episode suddenly has to expand its view of time a little,
and is the better for it. Still, a direct acknowledgement
of things going a different way feels as though it has been
skipped over.
In any case, the viewer becomes quite accustomed to seeing
O'Brien skip forward five hours into some alternate possible
future and then skip back into what we can only assume to be
the same point in time, space, and choice that he left from.
It feels comfortable and safe.
I began to take issue with the episode when O'Brien gets to the
point where he wants to jump into the future on purpose.
First of all, why do it with some half-baked radioactive
poison running through your body? Why not employ some refined
version of the engine mix formula that debuted in
"The Naked Time" and
got reused to good effect in
"Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home"?
The Starfleet personnel also seem a bit dim when it comes
to other sources of information other than from O'Brien's
time traveling. You've got Romulan guests on the station,
and you detect an invisible quantum singularity orbiting the
station. Knowing how Romulan ships are powered, as evidenced
in the sixth season Next Generation episode
"Timescape", how can you not expect that the singularity is
the warp core of a cloaked Romulan ship? The crew really seemed
to be unnecessarily daft about this point. Whether or not
they needed to know that it started to fire on the station
may be debatable; they certainly only ended up with an unproven
theory about what the Romulans were up to in the end.
"I hate temporal mechanics."
"I hate temporal mechanics."
One of the most potentially cool things about this episode
is the surprise mind-bending swap we get at the end. We are
definitely in the realm of alternate timelines and branching
universes when the O'Brien we've been following all along
comes face to face with what would be commonly termed
as "his double" were this an episode of the series
"Sliders".
For the first time
in this episode (and this is supported by the slightly different
method of time travel involved), we have to assume that
in addition to moving into the future,
O'Brien has slid sideways onto a timeline that did not branch
out of the one he just left, and that he encounters a version of
himself who has not already had this latest peek into the future.
That's not too hard to believe, since this particular peek
kills him.
In fact, there is massive intrigue and viewer interest generated
in exactly how much of his past this new O'Brien shares with
the one we've been following, since he ends up replacing our
O'Brien. Fans of "Sliders" love to speculate that this may
have happened to regular character Professor Arturo in
"Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome",
but here in this episode of Deep Space Nine, there is no doubt.
The writers chose not to press the usual reset button,
and went with something far more cool and intriguing. Nice.
In fact, it triggers memories of the DS9 season two episode
"Whispers" and all the trouble that Keiko, Molly, and the rest of
the station would have in accepting a new version of O'Brien.
Will the same play out here, or will the events of this episode
be forgotten in future stories?
Of course, if the new O'Brien shares a completely identical
history with our O'Brien prior to the beginning of the episode,
and this event is never mentioned in any subsequent episode,
it may all boil down to the same thing as having the reset button
pushed. Except for the fact that the ride has been much more
thought-provoking. In some ways the writers were spared a more
detailed investigation of temporal mechanics, since O'Brien
was no expert and gave us some nice character moments instead.
And there's always the danger that the writers wouldn't truly
get the concept well enough to articulate it any better.
By and large, this is a worthwhile foray into the world of
time travel on Star Trek, though ultimately not one of its
all-time greats.
These Deep Space Nine Season Three time travel stories
are available on DVD.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the desired disc format
and location nearest you for pricing and availability:
Region 1, NTSC, U.S.
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