“The Siege of AR-558”

This was one of the few DS9 episodes that really brought home the Hell that it would have been to be a soldier in the Dominion War. You almost forget that you're watching a sci-fi show.

I also enjoyed Paul Baillargeon's music for the battle scenes.

Given everything we've heard over the last five years about troops being sent and re-sent to Iraq when their tours of duty should have been up long ago, that aspect of this episode in particular really made me wince. Frighteningly prescient.

I agree that the series as whole was prescient to our current time and problems.

Oh PLEASE! While I agree that the episode as a whole was a very good outing to show the bad side of war (-as if there was such a thing as the good side of it!), the guest "soldiers" really annoyed me.

I'm certainly not breaking this down to an argument about Roddenberry-ism, but NEEDED we to see this bunch of action figure caricatures to see, that war isn't good for mental health. Ok, war is dirty, war is terrible, but I mean, come on - the soldier sharpening his knife? The soldier almost shooting a Doctor for trying to change his bandage?

Don't get me wrong - there were a LOT of things in this episode that I liked (or rather: that moved me). I was particularly moved by the musical score - really terrific (although a tad on the melodramatic side, but I like that!)!
But it might be that my role is similar to that of Quarks - I'm simply not militaristic enough to emphasize with some of the attitudes shown. Bloody civilian, eh?

I liked this one a lot- and I liked Quark's role particularly. I must agree with Jakob above that I sympathized far more with his position than Sisko's. His statement 'this is not the Starfleet you know' was a telling wink to how far the war had pushed the show out of the Trek umbrella. However even if I didn't agree with the position, I could sympathize with it, and thought this a great ep.

Although the character inter-play was nice, the basically non-sensical nature of the plot weakened the story fatally.

If the comms array was so crucial, why didn't the Dominion simply nuke it from orbit? Why don't they have any Armoured Fighting Vehicles? Artillery? Why didn't the holograms have phasers? Where was all the body armour? The ubiquitous force fields and dampening fields? And so on. The ray guns were always going to make it hokey but it was made even worse by the Treknobabble anti-personel mines that should have killed everyone long ago. It really needed to have been visualised very differently to make it work.

@John Pate:

1 - It's generally not a very smart idea to destroy something you value greatly.
2 - In ST, the vast majority of warfare is conducted via space combat. Hence there isn't much focus on the land-based stuff anymore.
3 - See #2.
4 - Why WOULD they have phasers? It's not like they could have done any damage with them.
5 - See #2.
6 - yet again, see #2.
7 - "Ray guns"? I take it by being 'hokey', you mean being Star Trek, right?
8 - Um, why? (The mines thing, that is)

Wow, DS9 really does bring out the inner nerd in me...

This and paper moon are two of my favorite episodes of this show. Nog really became one of my favorite characters. He moved me to tears on three ocassions. This one, paper moon and during the speech he gave Sisko about why he wanted to be in Starfleet back when no one believed he was serious about it (sorry, the name of that episode is escaping me at the moment). Nog as a character was wonderfully written and acted.

I love trek in general, but I really do think DS9 was leaps and bounds ahead of all the other incarnations in terms of over all quality.

It's certainly got more of a feel of quality to it than Voyager at this point in the trek time continuum! Actually that's not entirely fair, this runs in parallel with series 5 which was a huge improvement over 4.

To be honest I usually read Lynch's reviews of DS9 (difficult as they are to find these days). I loved this episode though and so after his usual whining and nitpicking I needed a more optimistic review to justify enjoying it ;)

It does seem prescient to the never-ending battles *still* raging on in the middle east today (2 years after the point was made here). Sadly history does repeat itself and in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years I bet the same will be said for whatever is going on then.. if people are still going back watching this stuff.

This episode reminded me that Rodenberry was probably spinning in his grave through much of DS9 with its conflicts, non-perfection and the point about humans still basically becoming animals under the pressures of war. But it was the correct decision as DS9 was a joy to watch, compared to the "new TOS" style of Voyager (which is still good, just not great).

There was, as mentioned, a very slight melodrama to the music that in part made me think "oh please, we're really milking the war movie clone now" but in the end I appreciated it.

I haven't seen the rest of DS9 yet... Ezri needs a personality beyond "being a useless counsellor and recalling previous hosts as if it's news" real soon now before it's too late, and I really hope Nog's leg loss is remembered or else it will seem like a wasted point. I'll be disappointed if he turns up in the next episode running around with a replacement that, gee, is exactly like the real thing!

Anyway, all in all, great stuff. On a 10-scale I'd give it about a 9.5

Ok, trying to compare the war in Iraq to DS9 works on some levels, but not all. In full disclosure I have served four touors there, and am getting ready for a fifth.
I have been in some very isolated places (like AR-558) and maybe it's me, but these people were....soft. Quark was right. Supposed to be out in 90 days? Crying about it? Boo hoo. I did two years straight in Iraq...24 months...and saw people in places that were there for 15 months, and lost a LOT of friends...they did their job and kept morale up. To me the angst was obviously written by someone who had no idea what it was like to serve.

Having said all that, I love this episode. It is in other ways very real. These people are DIRTY...Trek doesn't like to show their people dirty. I liked that. I gasped when the mines were revealed, I liked that moment a lot. I will say, carrying the white around the neck...yawn. Cliche. AND there is NO WAY a Soldier with his experience would wear them on a patrol where silence is key. Anything nonessential goes, especially if it can make noise.

I agree with Carbetarian, Nog is one of my favorite characters, and the three episodes cited are a huge reason. Nog was fun, serious, dedicated and three dimensional.

Just my randome thoughts, worth not even a cup of coffee.

I disagree with that last point - it's one of the most insightful comments I've seen on the site.

You're right, like probably a lot of war dramatization it'll have likely been written by someone who lacks that actual experience. Whether it's the best they could have done without experience I wouldn't know... perhaps being there is the only way to truly understand.

Judging from Trek's history with some of its science accuracy it does seem pretty likely it was put together with enough thought and research to keep most people happy, yet lacks enough that it grates on those very close to the subject matter. The other big Trek reviewer was a biologist I believe and the Fun With DNA always knocked several points off the episodes he reviewed.

Best of luck with your next tour.

This episode I think hammers home just how insidious this series is. Again, if we take it in 20th-century terms, it works. It's a war movie as you say, Jammer; war sucks; it tends to bring out the worst in us if not drive us completely insane; and it seems necessary to our survival. On those terms, this episode is a genre of film and TV that has been done to death and far better in dealing with real wars and battles, can i count the ways? Need I?

The assertion here seems to be that the survival of humanity's evolved sensibilities have depended for a century on un-challenged creature comforts (as Quark calls them). Uh huh. So never mind that to be in Starfleet in the first place, one must be some sort of scientist (even if one is a tactical officer, keen interest in scientific inquiry is a must). Somehow, Bruce-Willis-man had a career as a scientist before sharpening his blade, or collecting bottles of White (vomit-inducing cliché). I think the idea of showing people, star trek people, under the extreme stresses of front-line war is, yes, prescient and potentially moving, but there's no need to throw the pessimism blanket over the whole thing. It just becomes one big sad, depressing exercise.

it seems the writers are pushing for controversy for its own sake. The Ferengi are the voice of Roddenberrian humanism (even though their society's values directly contradict them, so this is a deception) and the humans have reverted to the 1970s.

Execution-wise it's okay. It pushes beyond the point of melodrama too often for my tastes, but the grittiness is certainly a welcome veneer. Ezri is damned annoying; I hate that they sabotaged the welcomed death of Jadzia by bringing her back in an even more irritating form. I guess Kira was not enough woman to meet the casting quota. Sisko is always so damned irritating when he's under emotional stress. It's like watching a trainwreck and not in a good way.

I wish someone would remind someone else that Starfleet officers are not soldiers, they fight when they absolutely must but it's the last thing they desire. Those are values that needn't disappear in wartime. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese nor the European crusaders nor the capitalist american soldiers of our wars lost their respective societies' values under the stress of combat; why should the federation be any different? Ah yes, because the writers like to use childish pessimistic arrogance to sell their product.

I liked this episode it was a good break from space warfare and showed how the ground battles played out whilst they focus on ds9.

Elliot states: Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese nor the European crusaders nor the capitalist american soldiers of our wars lost their respective societies' values under the stress of combat;

Sorry Elliott, but you're provably wrong. The Allied soldiers in Normandy had the bad habit of shooting surrendering Germans. And even if they had a reason to do so, there is still black pages in the US Army's history like My Lai.

History tells us that people do horrible things in the stress of combat, regardless of how justified it might have appeared to them at the time. AR-558 is spot on in its portrayal of this process.

And Nick, you could have looked up who directed this episode before you made your cheap shot about not knowing what it is to serve.

Mart

I didn't say people should lose the capacity to do horrible things under direst--that's not the point. What I said was those people, in spite of being in war zones did not lose the core values of their respective societies--communists were, to whatever extent they ever were, still communists whether or not they were in combat, etc.

I say the same should apply to the Federation; show people in difficult and painful and life-changing situations if you wish, but don't abandon the things which make them unique in the literary universe; let them still be Starfleet humans of the 24th century who believe in a certain ideal. The characters in the episode were indistinguishable from modern American humans and even in that context were a group of clichés. Yet, the episode has the audacity to include the Quark commentary as if to lay claim to some sort of moral backhand at the values which the episode (and this show) are so eager to dismiss and disprove.

"...a portion of Sisko's crew finds itself trapped--unable to beam up..."

Wrong. They had the chance to leave and Sisko decided they would stay and help defend the outpost, even though they weren't obliged to. That's a pretty important plot detail IMHO.

Just a quick thought about Quark's role in the episode.

Did anyone else feel that he was in some way representing the Roddenberryesque Federation and consequently its values?

All that talk about finding ways around fighting and hammering out an agreement brought that to my mind.

What do others think?

Also I agree, stellar episode of DS9, particularly harsh and poignant.

Just rewatechedsthis episode on Netflix. It's a travesty that episodes like these and the Dominion War story arch of DS9 never made in into main-stream popularity. It's such a great show and storyline.

Quark's presence was rather contrived and his role as the non-human observer of human nature was a bit pat, but it was effective nonethelesss. His fierce determination to protect his nephew was one of Quark's finest character moments of the series. It's a shame we didn't get to see more of this side of Quark.

Jammer, your long term plot patrol is a bit off, you wondered if we'd ever hear about the communications array ever again or would it be forgotten like so many other "important victories"...well this episode takes place in the Chin'toka System, the system the Federation took from the Dominion in the previous season finale "Tears of the Prophets", so already the writers haven't forgotten about the other victories, so this would be a bad example to use. Later this season in "The Changing Face of Evil" the Federation loses this system to the Dominion with the help of the Breen.

Quark was a little annoying at times but a few of his little speeches where great. Like the line about taking humans away from paradise and them turning into Klingons was great. Rang true when they turned the mines against the Jem'Hader.
Certainly concur with Nemesis4909 as to how Quark was played in this episode.

Some of the characters were a bit too obvious but, as Jammer says, it tells a simple story effectively. Very good.

One of the most moving episodes of DS9 (strangely enough, I watched this the day after Memorial Day). Definitely up there with the best of the series.

This episode galvanizes my love/hate relationship with Deep Space Nine. My love of the program is in its overall quality of writing, directing, production values and acting. With those I've had no problem with this series. My issue has always been with its undercutting tone towards Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future. In the Original Star Trek, Kirk would admit that his species has had a savage past and still had the capacity for savagery--but they also had the capacity for improvement. On TNG, Picard said they've moved past our bloody past and are working to better themselves still. (And for the record: he nor anybody from the Enterprise-D claimed humanity was "perfect")

Now we come to DS9 and this episode in particular: Quark's speech to Nog about human nature being benevolent as long as their technologies and social structure are intact now reminds me now of Heath Ledger's Joker in "The Dark Knight". Specifically, I'm reminded of Joker in the interrogation room with Batman and him saying: "When the chips are down, these so-called, civilized people will eat each other. You'll see."

But while "The Dark Knight" had the scene with the two ferries not blowing each other up and proving The Joker wrong; Deep Space Nine never offered any similar counterpoint to Quark's claim. Sadly, there was ultimately only one point of view on Deep Space Nine that they ran with for 7 seasons: the whoredom of the human soul is adamantine and they'll never be improvement--ever.

This show was great drama, but its philosophy was pathetic.

If that's your reaction, then please don't ever read something like Orwell or Kafka. You just might kill yourself.

Please.

I've read many authors that have a dim view of humanity, like Aldous Huxley (and George Orwell). I'm not saying that Gene Roddenberry's views are necessarily true to life, but they formed the nerve center of what Star Trek was: a Kennedy-esque new frontier humanistic space opera filled with optimism that was infectious and at times inspiring. It was the nucleus of thoughtful escapist entertainment.

Then came Deep Space Nine's post-modern take on Trek. It was basically: "Hey, Santa Claus isn't real! Give me my Emmy!" Well that never happened--and fans and other viewers left by the droves. I don't think it was the dark, grittiness that hurt the show's popularity ultimately. It was it's iconoclasm with nothing to replace the fallen icon. Ever wonder why Joss Whedon's 13-episode series "Firefly" got it's own theatrical motion picture and DS9 (which ran 7 YEARS) didn't?

As I said, Deep Space Nine was a fine show, but I have yet to hear anyone say how it inspired them in real life the way TOS and TNG has for many people. Many, people like myself simply were put off with Ira Steven Behr pissing in Gene Roddenberry's pool, so to speak.

Hey, remember the first two seasons of TNG? I do. They were when Rodenberry was in control. They sucked. Not entirely due to him. But a lot due to him. And even later in the TNG his rules about no in crew conflict and the supposed enlightenment of humans meaning they didn't care about such stuff as death of their close ones and such stuff strangled effective tv drama in its crib many a time.

Deep Space Nine isn't shitting in anyone's pool. It suggests that sometimes with Utopia comes hidden compromises when Utopia is threatened. And not so hidden compromises.

And people didn't leave because of DS9s different take. They left because there was way more competition. When TNG launched, there was nothing like it on television. Such a high profile sci-fi show hadn't been seen since the 60s. By the time DS9 and especially Voyager came out there were tons of imitators and new sci-fi to follow.

And Joss Whedon's "Firefly" got a movie because it was cancelled. Its story had not been completely told. Hell, its story had barely been told. Deep Space Nine had a complete beginning, middle and end. More than can be said for a lot of tv shows, even the vaunted TNG.

I guess the difference between you and me is I don't care if a TV show is an icon. I just care if its a good story. And DS9 meets that mark.

Here's my big problem with this and other similar episodes across the Trek incarnations - the script may be excellent but it's filled with new characters I don't care about and will never see again. I enjoy a good guest character as much as the next guy, but when they bring in an entire team of them to carry most of the emotional weight of the episode, it just doesn't work.

"(I'm beginning, however, to wonder if making Ezri a counselor was such a good idea; I couldn't help but wonder why she was even on this mission.)"

"The emotional instability of Vargas (Raymond Cruz) paints a compellingly bleak picture. He's full of bitterness and resentment for being essentially abandoned by Starfleet—left to die on this planet. And the moment with Bashir when Vargas tells his story of the bandage and his slain comrade ("I couldn't stand the guy") shows him in a state of mental unease that borders on a nervous breakdown."

Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like a good place for a counselor... perhaps one tasked with a psychiatric evaluation of the garrison... although perhaps an Ezri/Vargas scene might've justified that better than I can.

The best scene of this episode is when Sisko decides to stay behind and assume command of these desperate officers. The expression of relief when the lieutenant says, "You heard the captain. Sir, what are your orders?" was very realistic. I agree with Rick Berman who said that the real life military consultants for the show said that Captain Sisko was the most realistic portrayal of a captain from all the Star Trek Captains.

I think this is one of DS9's very best. I liked the use of Quark and his observations.

Very compelling.

Ironic that Cloudane would compare this episode with the quality of contemporaneous Voyager. The same week this aired, Jammer doled out another 4 stars for "Timeless."

A big turnaround from six months earlier, when Trekkers endured "Profit and Lace" and "Demon" in the same week.

This episode is way overhyped on here. It is pretty average. I agree with John Pate above, the logic of the entire situation is nonsensical. If the array was as important as suggested and the Feds breaking into it so bad the Dominion would have destroyed it from orbit. Whilst the lack of any heavy weapons is silly. Plus the episode was a bit hokey and unconvincing I thought. The guest actors were all stereotypes and obviously none of the major characters would be hurt (Nog doesn't count). The whole thing just ends up being rather redundant. not bad by any means, just solid for me - 6/10.

Well, I'm willing to forgive the lack of scale for an episode like this since it is, after all, a TV show without the kind of budget that would be needed for more expansive production.

Having said that, why exactly does Nog not count? A major recurring character who's been on the show from the beginning, and who suffers an injury with repercussions in later episodes?

How is that redundant?

Ok perhaps saying Nog doesn't count is a bit harsh but he has no real impact on the show's events. I would say that his injury has almost no repercussions - it gets some treatment in one episode and physically he's probably better off with the artificial leg. So basically after that episode he's reset to where he was.

Regarding the budget - other shows of around the same time like Space: Above & Beyond had far more believable external battles. B5 also typically felt fresh whilst Trek constantly reused variants of the 'planet hell' set ad infinitum. Obviously today series like BSG and Game of Thrones completely leave Trek for dust but given tech advancement they're not really a fair comparison.

Regarding the basic workings of the situation however I think they could have engineered the plot to make more sense if they'd have tried - and it isn't hard to synthesize incoming artillery rounds. The existence of those houdini mines themselves shows how technology would have maed the kind of point blank hand to hand combat shown in the episode irrelevent. In fact in Trel they effectively fight using WW1 tactics except without even machine guns! Let's face it 20th century weaponry is more effective than the hand phasers they use in terms of fire-rate and ease of use/accuracy.

I agree that in war it would be difficult to maintain the ideals of Roddenberry, and one would hope that once relieved of duty they would return to that oft-vaunted enlightened human state.

Still, I've said it before, even in the height of Roddenberry there were still some nasty humans and nasty human behaviour about... I think that even Roddenberry himself was not so fundamentalist about this issue as some commenters.

As for this episode itself, I did find some of the "grunts" a bit exaggerated, but of course I'm not a war veteran.

I did think it was necessary though to show that it's not all bloodless space battles in war, and that space geopolitics do have their real life consequences.

When we talk about "the ideals of Roddenberry," let's not forget that his vision of the future included space pimp Harry Mudd and Starfleet war criminal Capt. Tracey. Later, he decided that "humanism" meant children would not grieve for dead parents and that Riker smiling would be unprofessional.

A questionable decision by Sisko not to beam out and the hero aura on main crew members was pretty strong, but I've always enjoyed a good old fashioned hold out. The last 10 mins have some of the best non-ship battles of the series.

8/10

I agree this episode is overrated: it's not bad, but it is terribly clichéd. They didn't do a lot that hasn't been done much better in countless films and books. Quark's presence there was particularly contrived. The tactical and strategic plausibility of the whole situation was laughable.

On the plus side: the Quark scenes were strong, Ezri and her scenes with that engineer were moving (he was a nicely-developed character and seemed much more believably Starfleet than Rambo-man), and I thought the battle scene at the end was executed much better than the usual phaser battles (I wish Eddington's final fight was more like this!)

I thought "Nor the Battle To the Strong" was a much better look at this same general theme. Although I did appreciate some of the subtle homages to "Zulu" in this episode, while "Nor the Battle" is more "Red Badge of Courage."

I have to agree completely with Patrick Dodds above:

“As I said, Deep Space Nine was a fine show, but I have yet to hear anyone say how it inspired them in real life the way TOS and TNG has for many people.”

This is one of the most depressing hours of Star Trek ever. And no, I don’t think it’s needed. Unlike many episodes of TOS and TNG, we can watch this same story a hundred other places. We already know this.

Once upon a time in TOS, there was an episode called “Errand of Mercy” that told an incredible tale, especially for that era, of pacifism and non-belligerence. An episode that made you think, made you wonder, and made you consider other possibilities.

Fast forward thirty years, and we now have this.

Gone is the idealism. Enter the cynicism.

Oh boy...

An afterthought:

When DS9 is true to the origins, it can produce outstanding stuff. “Far Beyond The Stars” is undoubtedly one of the finest hours of Star Trek. Perhaps even the most inspiring episode of the franchise.

And there it is: when you watch “Far Beyond The Stars”, you feel inspired. You feel like changing the world ― and for the better.

What do you feel when you watch “The Siege Of AR-558”?

Thinking about "Roddenberrism", I do love that aspect of Trek and it's pretty rare in... anything (nowadays it seems to take dipping into shows for little girls to find a bit of well-written positivity and optimism, and even then it doesn't involve humans!) and thoroughly value TNG for how well it presented it. It's also what I wanted to see Voyager and Enterprise return to.

DS9 was just different. It was without a doubt very "un-Roddenberry" but I think I just switched my brain into a different mode. I do still like realism and grittiness sometimes, especially when it's told well, and most of the time in DS9 I felt it was told brilliantly.

Ideally it should've been something completely separate and not Star Trek, but then it wouldn't have the benefit of all its history setting a foundation for "this is why you should care about these people" (this is a part of where I'm struggling with B5).

=====

Grumpy: "Ironic that Cloudane would compare this episode with the quality of contemporaneous Voyager. The same week this aired, Jammer doled out another 4 stars for "Timeless.""

Heh.... well, both series have their high points and their stinkers. I did feel that DS9 had better storytelling in the long run, though.

@Cloudane; well, that's the point isn't it? DS9 happily gobbled up the Trek legacy's goodwill and nostalgia without the slightest reverence for what that legacy meant. It is a corruption of Roddenberry's fictional world.

Now, one may certainly believe that Roddenberry's vision was flawed, naïve, misguided or Utopian to begin with, and thus regard a corruption as an improvement, but it is unfair to have it both ways, idolising both the original and the mutated version.

Elliott, although I usually agree with you in your criticism against the complete departure of DS9 from the Trek canon, I do not fully understand how should the officers have fought this battle in a way that would please you.

Unless you are mentioning specifically the one-lines written for the additional soldiers featured on screen, once they in fact have talked like current soldiers having proud for destroying the enemy. If this is the point you criticize as being 20th century extrapolated to 24th, then I agree once more.

@Ric :

Well frankly, they shouldn't be very good at it. Starfleet is portrayed as intelligent, witty, curious, open-minded and maybe a tad over-confident. I would not mind if DS9 chose to exploit those qualities in a dark way, making the Federation look weak and unable to defend itself against an intractable foe (though, as others have pointed out, the Dominion is so over-written as to meet fantasy-level super-powered superiority). Instead, the writers decide that Starfleet is something else, a real military made up of hardened soldiers who relish bloodsport on the battlefield. I think it would have been more honest to show the Starfleet officers totally broken by their plight--scared, hopeless and ineffectual, surviving in this place by the flimsiest of technical explanations (like those magical mines). THAT would have been tragic and a demonstrated the potential that a real "dark" Trek could have been. It would have offered a fresh perspective on the idealism of TNG-era Trek without corrupting and mocking that philosophy.

As for the battle sequence itself, the only way to portray it properly and still have the Federation win would involve some sort of Deus es Machina--those mines or a cave-in (like in the similar "Nor the Battle to the Strong." That episode had its own problems, but at least the way Jake behaved was believable.

@Elliott I don't see why Starfleet having "a real military made up of hardened soldiers (...)" departures from the original Starfleet portrayed before. Or corrupts or mock the original philosophy. I think this is a bit too much. From where did you concluded that it did not have a real military? It doesn't make sense with all the wars its has fought in previous Trek. It is not because hardened soldiers were not in explorer missions such as the Enterprise's, that they did not exist, since Federation and Starfleet have been facing wars for a long time at this point. Having hardened soldiers is not being far from the original Trek per se.

However, I totally agree with the continuation of your sentence: "(...) who relish bloodsport on the battlefield". This is what I meant before: the part that is too much for me as well is the portrayal of the soldiers as brute, blood-thirsty, 20th century mariners. This was totally off and, once again, annoying. It seemed like Starfleet teaches one type of philosophy for superior officers and another 20th century-ish to the battlefield soldiers. And this corrupts and mocks the original philosophy.

Said that, I also agree that the magical mines were a poor choice, actually pathetic. And I totally think that Dominion over-written as having silly supwer-powers. Besides, it is also written in a poor one-dimensional way (the Borg were as well in the first appearances of TNG, but it was more reasonable as they were following a one-dimension one-line of program: to assimilate. Even though, they later gained more dimensions as well).

The point is that human nature is human nature. That is kind of what Quark was saying. It doesn't matter hwta philosophy is taught in the academy. In real life situation and especially in their prolonged combat without reserves or break, human nature will assert itself.

@ES:

That assertion is itself a philosophy, a cynical philosophy and one to which Trek diametrically opposed itself. As I said, rather than doing the responsible and respectful thing within the franchise and disagreeing with the philosophy on its own merits and faults, DS9 either ignored, parodied or circumvented the argument.

Cynicism was popular in the 90s and continues to be so today, though thankfully idealism seems to be resurfacing.

It isn't a philosophy. It is human nature and the way we have always and will always be at our base self. Again, that is the point of the episode. Take away our creature comforts and we revert.

Of course it's a philosophy! It isn't automatically true because you or anyone else says it is. It is one perspective on the human condition.

@ES & Elliott:

Although I still don't see why having hard soldiers disrespects the francise, I do see how they being blood-thirsty does. And sorry, this is not in everybody's definition of human nature.

Besides, for god sake. Despite ES realizing it or not, his/her interpretation of human nature is precisely one of the most debated philosophies in the modern political thinking (i.e 17h to 19th centuries). One that pretty much didn't exist before the so called contractualists and one that have been criticized since then. Please, let's not try to naturalize what is one point of viewing - and certainly not the one Trek ever had before or after this episode.

Btw it reminds me of one of the greatest debates between the contractualists. After Hobbes brought to light the most famous and powerful instalment of ES's viewing about the human nature, the also contractualist Rousseau (who had not exactly a super idealistic interpretation of human nature himself, contrarily to what people usually think) gave him back this: he suggested that Hobbes' idea of human nature was simply naturalizing what was the English reality of his century. That was the reception of the idea of human nature that ES thinks as natural, universal and not a philosophy. Rousseau is right. We keep naturalizing our mistakes sort of to justify as species all the sort of horrible things we still do. And in the end, mine criticismo (and also Elliott's as far as I've read) is similar: that DS9 is just extrapolating 20th reality to the future as Hobbes did with his state of nature. But sorry, I digress.

@Elliott, ES, and Ric:

Interesting debate you’re having. If I’m allowed to make a few comments, it seems to me that what Elliott is saying is that the interesting take on ”The Siege of AR-558” would have been to have shown a number of Federation Gandhis, so to speak, having to fight a war they absolutely did not want to have to fight.

I agree that such an approach, not just in this episode, but on DS9 as a whole, would have been far more interesting than what we were given by the producers and the writers. But there is much more to it:

@Ric: ”From where did you conclude that [Starfleet] did not have a real military? It doesn't make sense with all the wars it has fought in previous Trek.”

There can be no doubt that the ”Enterprise”, as the Federation flagship, is consistently described in TNG as a vessel of exploration. ”Starfleet” is another word for NASA/ESA, and ”officers” is another word for astronauts, i.e., scientists. Rather tellingly, not only the ”Enterprise”, but also other vessels of other classes carry the scientists’ families aboard. And while some vessels are more specialized research vessels and others perform also diplomatic duties, nobody will ever convince me that the vessels we see in TNG are military vessels.

Federation vessels pack phasers and torpedoes because there are always asteroids and comets that need to be diverted or blown to pieces out there; there’s always a world you can help by drilling magma vents (or whatever) in their planet’s crust, or by altering the decaying orbit of one of their moons, and so on; and finally ― note that: finally ― because there are indeed a few space pirates out there. But I would argue that the Federation ships having phasers and torpedoes in TNG is as much for civilian uses than it is for self-defense: it does not make them military vessels. Nor does the military rank system Starfleet uses.

We shouldn’t forget that TOS' end product was, in many ways, also a product of its day. Kirk’s crew doesn’t behave the way any real crew would actually behave today – whether aboard an aircraft carrier or the NASA space shuttle ―, not to mention in the future. They act like a 1960s television crew would.

So TNG inherited some things from TOS it couldn’t easily have ignored. But in TNG we finally see a fully developed Federation/Starfleet credo of humanism and pacifism, non-interventionism, etc. It was already very much present in TOS, but in TNG, we finally see crews also behaving in a mostly convincing attempt at future behaviour and psychology patterns:

@ES: ” The point is that human nature is human nature…”
@Ric: ”...interpretation of human nature is precisely one of the most debated philosophies…”

Forget about philosophy for a moment, and just look at history: look at where we were in behavourial terms in 1314, 1664, and where we are today in 2014 ― and try to extrapolate to 2364.

As I’ve written elsewhere, look at how we treated criminals 350 years ago. Look at what were common sights in Europe: burning people alive, dragging them after a horse in the city streets until the horse was just pulling a bloody lump of flesh; impaling them alive; pulling them apart with horses while still alive, or breaking them up after they were executed, and then exposing their body parts in major city crossroads ― bridges, city gates, etc. Yes, there was a time ― until the mid 18th century ― when a child would have passed decaying corpses in the streets of Europe and seen barbaric executions as a matter of fact.

Much the same way, look at what was the reality in Charles’ Dickens day ― and look at how far we’ve come in little over a hundred years. Look at the changes in society regarding the way we treat the poor, the sick, the orphaned ― or issues such as race, gender, religion or sexuality. No one can deny that we have witnessed huge changes in mentality the past 350 years ― or even in the last century.

Can human nature be changed as well, after enough change to the mentality? That is to say, can human nature be subjugated, much like... the Vulcans control their nature? (What are the Vulcans in Star Trek, if not a symbol?)

In the late 24th century, if the evolution we’ve witnessed these last three hundred and fifty years continues, we’ll all be hugging trees and playing with teddy bears and little ponies. That’s the whole point of Star Trek, and especially TNG; Roddenberry’s TNG-Federation is, in a way, John Lennon’s ”Imagine” come true. Rather tellingly, our present-day astronauts are basically already hugging the proverbial cosmic trees and playing with cosmic teddy bears and little ponies: they’re increasingly nerdy scientists, and less and less military men. All the seeds to Roddenberry’s Federation are actually here, on the Earth, today.

Today we more and more often see people giving up perfectly good ― and well-paid ― ”respectable” jobs to embark on quests of ”self-realization”, usually involving some sort of artistic expression or spiritual journey. Money, for an ever-increasing part of the population in the most advanced countries in the world, isn’t really important anymore. Improving oneself is. The seeds of TNG are already here: it’s already happening.

If the trend continues, in the 24th century, astronauts will be nerdy scientists with some very big ships, and some very powerful sources of energy available, perhaps as weapons also ― but still they will be essentially men of science, not military men. And their society will probably be as as far from ours in terms of ethical behaviour as we are from people who lived three hundred and fifty years ago.

That’s the main point of TOS and TNG, and should have been the main point of all Star Trek since. In that respect, TOS and TNG were by far the most realistic sci-fi series ever: they were futuristic in that they attempted to depict a somewhat foreseeable future, not solely in terms of kewl gadgets, but also in terms of mentality changes.

In a real war situation, I doubt that the Federation in the TNG/DS9/VOY era would ever even land troops on a hostile planet: everything would be taken care of from orbit, by those magnificent scientists in their flying machines. In a way, we are also already seeing this today: look at the growing reluctance the Western militaries show in deploying ground combat troops anywhere in the world. What we "civilized" people want is satellite and electronic warfare, drones and remotely controlled machines. We are already witnessing all this today. We don’t want blood on our hands ― not literally, anyway.

I don’t believe the Federation of Picard’s and Sisko’s day would use anything other than robotic troops on the ground on hostile worlds. As such, ”The Siege of AR-558” is an epic fail: it’s a monumental failure to understand the social mechanics and the very underlying mentality that pervades the Federation and its citizens in the 2360s and 2370s as told in TNG.

But the ethical battles of men like Picard in a devastating war of survival would still have made good television, if the producers of DS9 insisted on the Dominion War. It would be interesting, as Elliott has pointed out, to see how these Federation humanists ― those magnificent scientists in their flying machines ― would fight a war they would abhorr having to fight. How would a highly ethical Picard-like character face the realities of the Dominion War? Unfortunately, I don’t know: that story was never told.

And how would primitive grunts fight ”The Siege of AR-558”? I honestly don’t care: it would never happen. Leave that to the robots. ”But we don’t know that the Federation has a droid army”, you say? My point exactly: the Federation has no army. And they would never send a bunch of 24th century humanists to the slaughter.

But if Starfleet could have built around a hundred starships between Wolf 359 in 2367 [39 vessels destroyed] and the battle of the Tyra system in 2374 [112 ships present], I'm betting they could have built many hundreds if not thousands of battle droids, thus avoiding having to put grunts in situations like this one. This episode is, really, nothing but a bad dream.

"I do see how they being blood-thirsty does."

I never saw this.

I don't see it as philosophical. Look at how the US reacted to 9/11. All they wanted was blood and vengeance. Any improvement humanity thought it made within itself went right out the window. This happens on a regular enough basis that it is no longer philosophy.

^^^^
Sorry, ES, but that's not good enough. Human nature is only human nature to a certain point; we can control our instincs, and that's exactly why we have Vulcans in Star Trek. And in the case at hand, the debate is moot, and only possible due to extremely lazy writing. The Federation after 2371 would have built some robotic troops to deploy on places like AR-558, and this discussion would never arise. Only idiot admirals and idiot writers would dream of deploying human grunts against the Jem'Hadar. This is just lazy writing. As I said above, the whole episode's a bad dream.

"Look at how the US reacted to 9/11."

The Federation isn't the US. The US has never stopped being a violent, Colonialist nation, which has covertly or overtly invaded/couped almost a hundred countries in the last hundred years, with a 5 billion dollar designed coup going on right now in Ukraine and Honduras.

The Federation's pushed past this, otherwise it wouldnt be the Federation.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Humans will always be human.

@ES your position is "I don't think my own philosophic view about the human nature is only a philosophic view, is the ontological truth!". Or "humans will always be humans - in the way I think they will - and this is not a philosophy, it is the truth!". So be it. I will not keep debating like this. It is pointless, you will keep just repeating that humans will always be humans, as if this says something.

@Andy's Friend
There is no good reason to assert that Starfleet didn't have any ground soldiers for emergency defense in the past. It is not because we have been watching an explorer ship like Enterprise that having any small number of soldiers would a corruption of the Federation philosophy. This is bad logic: not seeing soldiers in na explorer ship is the obvious right? I mean, even in a scientific ship today you will usually not find military soldiers. Likewise, the fact that the mission of Starfleet is mostly one of exploration and science would not mean per se that the Federation wouldn't need soldiers for defense.

On the contrary, it is quite reasonable that after fighting so many wars, begining with the one against the Klingons in the past, Federation or Starflleet had some soldiers for defense. Example: what if a Federation planet is invaded? I know, you will reply that robots would make more sense. I will come back this in a minute. Anyway, not having the robots as we know they didn't, in your interpretation every battle in their wars were fought by astronauts, to stick to your comparison with the current NASA? It does not make sense. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that Starfleet has any major military objectives, nor that it would be normal to have normal warfare within their philosophy (the first warship was the Defiant, btw). I am just stating that having a few soldiers for defense pourpose is not inherently absurd with their philosophy.

A quick pause: btw, you have mentioned Ghandi. Despite how much I admire Ghandi, and I do, I really think that at this point, people should have knwon better about political movements they think were pacific like Ghandi's and Mandela's, but they were not. That said, I totally agree that the canonical philosophy of Federation was pacifist, idealistic, for scientific exploration. Not this genocide-friendly portrayed in the last seasons of DS9.

Lastly, the robots you have mentioned. It is really amusing how you think having soldiers is nonsense for a Starfleet in war for centuries, but you don't think having robots is absurd in a Starfleet where no robot has ever been seen. Think about it. Do you see any robots in Trek's Starfleet or Federation, besides Data who was the first cyborg? I mean, not only soldier-robots, do you see any? But much more important than that, do you really think that having robots in the future battlefields (or drones today) would really solve the "blood-thirsty" moral issue Elliott and I were talking about? Of course it would not. It would only shift its location. It does not matter if they were human soldiers or robot soldiers in the ground this episode, but the fact that they were employed in a ground battle and, for me, how they were portrayed. It could have been robots beeing commanded in a brute way and the same problem would arise. As in current real life, it does not matter, morally speaking, whether we invade Iraq with human soldiers or drones, but the invasions itself and, after taht, what the human soldiers or the drones will do there.

@Corey You brought a fair logical point. The Federation is defined as being different from what ES believes is the only way possible for humanity to be, no matter if we even believe it is possible to.

"The Federation is defined as being different from what ES believes is the only way possible for humanity to be, no matter if we even believe it is possible to."

The Federation in peace time, perhaps. Again, as Quark said, take away their creature comforts...

You know, it's quite frustrating that so many Trek fans (rightfully) criticise episodes like "Genesis" and "Threshold" for totally botching biological evolution and making it seem silly, but are essentially Creationists when it comes to psychological evolution, maintaining that the human species is a fixed, unchanging and created form, and that suggesting otherwise is somehow blasphemous.

Look, Star Trek is a period piece. If a film-maker depicted the Battle of Hastings or 1812 or the siege of Pompeii with characters which were clearly lifted from the film-maker's contemporary life, should we not criticise the historical inaccuracy? Would we not find his casting and characterisation lazy and uncreative? Would not the illusion be broken by attitudes and speech which clearly didn't belong the the time period being depicted? The same is true for speculative fiction as for historical fiction; these characters and settings are nearly 400 years in the future and the conventions by which we judge our contemporary morality, military policy and general disposition as a species don't suit this future, especially when it had already been established precisely how (speculatively of course) those things had changed.

@Ric: Thank you very much for your reply. Your comments deserve further comments, I think. So here we go:

1 ―― You mention the Federation “fighting so many wars, begining with the one against the Klingons in the past”:

You’re right, of course. But I think it’s important to differentiate between what we see in TOS, and what we see in TNG a hundred years later. What exactly do we learn in the early seasons of TNG has happened in the 24th century? The Klingons and the Federation have maintained an uneasy peace since the Khitomer Accords of 2293; the Romulans haven’t been heard from since the Tomed Incident and the Treaty of Algeron of 2311; only with the Cardassians have there been recent conflicts. But the clashes with the Cardassians are portrayed as minor: the number of known incidents are very few, as is the number of ships involved. Tellingly, the ships involved appear to have mostly operated alone (Maxwell’s “Rutledge”, and Picard’s “Stargazer”), not in combined fleets. All in all, the Cardassian War was little more than a series of border skirmishes and attacks on isolated outposts. This was not a major war in any way.

The conclusion is that very little fighting actually took place in the 24th century before the Dominion War. Starfleet numbers were rather modest throughout TNG. Compare Wolf 359 to the grand fleets we see in DS9… This leads us to:


2 ―― You mention several times “ground soldiers for emergency defense” / ”having any small number of soldiers” / “soldiers for defense” / ”some soldiers for defense. Example: what if a Federation planet is invaded?”

I think you’re right to mention ”ground soldiers for emergency defence”, and I’m pretty sure that many (most?) Federation worlds would have some sort of small Home Defence Army ― exactly what you write: “any small number of soldiers” “for emergency defence”, in case for example “a Federation planet is invaded”, or any catastrophic emergency. But what do your own words suggest? That the Federation Home Defence Armies probably amount more to the Kansas and Arkansas National Guards than to the US Marine Corps. They would be, in all probability, home defence forces; not expeditionary corps.

But AR-558 cannot be considered ”emergency defence”. AR-558 was taken by the Federation because of the Dominion communications array there. Those men in this episode were sent there, to hold it and defend it against vastly superior ground troops ― the Jem’Hadar.

Now, if you want to take and secure a very specific, heavily defended enemy position, you don’t send in the National Guard. You send in special operations forces. And all I’m saying is that the special forces of the 24th century would be robotic. What we see in this episode is not consistent with Federation philosophy or technology. Why? Let’s see my next comments:


3 ―― ”It is really amusing how you think having soldiers is nonsense for a Starfleet in war for centuries…”

As we have seen, during the 24th century prior to the Dominion War Starfleet has only briefly been at war with the Cardassians. Nevertheless, I don’t think having soldiers is nonsense for the Federation ― as the emergency defence forces you suggested. But I don’t believe for a minute that the Geordi La Forge soldiers and the Julian Bashir infantrymen of the 2360s and 2370s would volunteer to be sent to a place like AR-558 to be butchered by Jem’Hadar. And I firmly believe that Starfleet would avoid sending humans to a place like that in the first place, exactly to avoid making monsters of them.

I believe that the Federation by the late 24th century quite simply respects its citizens too much to put them in this kind of situation. No one is expendable. And similarly, I believe that the Federation citizens by the late 24th century quite simply wouldn’t want to participate in warfare other than necessary emergency defence. Any serious, offensive ground warfare would, by the late 24th century, involve remotely operated devices, drones, and robotic forces for sure. Unless it couldn’t be avoided, as in say, a huge invasion of Earth, Starfleet would never, I believe, send human beings off to some far away Stalingrad ― or AR-558. That reason alone is enough for me to call this episode lazy writing. Let’s look at little closer at this:


4 ―― ”…but you don't think having robots is absurd in a Starfleet where no robot has ever been seen”.

I think I know what you mean, and unfortunately, that is Star Trek’s fault. What is absurd is sending human troops against a vastly superior foe. We in the West wouldn’t do it today. We certainly wouldn’t be doing it 350 years from now, in a society as ethically and technologically advanced as the one we saw in TNG.

We must remember that TOS was a TV series with a limited budget. That is one of the things I meant with the problems that TNG inherited from TOS. TNG was able to slightly correct some of those limitations, much the same way The Motion Picture altered the way the Klingons look, for example. But Star Trek never had the kind of money necessary for showing non-sentient robots in the series. Coming up with alien props was demanding enough; imagine robots that could actually move. So…


5 ―― …continuing, you also ask: “Do you see any robots in Trek's Starfleet or Federation...?”

No, I don’t. Because as I just said, TOS and TNG didn’t have the money, and (perhaps for that reason) essentially chose to focus on humans: telling stories about the human condition. There are a few episodes of TOS that contemplate the artificial intelligence question, but robots are basically never seen. Do we believe, however, that in Picard’s day there are no robots in the Federation? I don’t. I believe that we just don’t see them, because the stories are about other issues ― us (and the series didn’t have the Star Wars budget needed for droids, anyway).

Now, would it make sense to see some robots in action in a war? Yes, it would; TNG just (wisely) never showed an actual war on the ground, thus fundamentally avoiding the whole issue.

And would it make sense, even if the Federation never had used droids in their previous conflicts, to design some battle droids of sorts against the superior Jem’Hadar? Yes, it would. It would have been the right thing to do from a military perspective. And it would also have been the right thing to do from an ethical perspective. And it could have led to much more interesting philosophical and ethical questions. The failure of DS9 to write such other stories, instead of giving us this WWII cliché, is exactly that: a failure.

Now, I’m not saying that we should rewrite all Star Trek backstory in order to field a Star Wars-like droid army. Not at all. Also, I understand what the writers of this episode were trying to say with this particular story. But the problem is exactly that: as Quark so aptly says, ”But take away their creature comforts...”

This is at the core of the issue here. What Quark says is true of a great many people today. Not all people: there are actually a few Organians living and walking among us. But it is probably true of most people today; look at what happened in Yugoslavia, for example.

The writers in this episode are trying to tell us that it will also be so in the late 24th century. ES in this thread formulates it slightly differently: ”Humans will always be humans”. I don’t agree with ES' particular statement, but I understand Quark’s argument.

The point is, *if* Quark is right about us, *if* Quark knows it to be true, we must assume that everybody must know this. Quark cannot possibly be the only one with this insight into human nature.

And my complaints against this episode are all related to this. As I stated above, the Federation respects its citizens. Starfleet does not want to make monsters of men. And Federation citizens respect themselves. The men themselves do not want to make monsters of themselves. We all know today of the mental injuries suffered by soldiers in war. Quark knows it in this episode in the 24th century. Doesn’t Starfleet Command know, and care? They seemed to do in TNG. They don’t in DS9.

That is the major problem. Admittedly, the Dominion War is on a wholly different order of magnitude altogether than the Cardassian Wars. But this only makes it even more absurd to put humans in this situation, and makes this episode even more grotesquely implausible. We are already doing everything we can today to avoid putting our soldiers in harm’s way; in fact, we’re doing everything we can to avoid having to send in ground troops at all, preferring anything from satellite and aircraft reconnaissance to air strikes, guided missiles, cruise missiles, drones, and what not. This is what we already see today. And now the writers of this episode are trying me make me believe that 350 years from now we would send ground troops against vastly superior alien forces. This is totally absurd.

I normally accept whatever Star Trek serves us as canonical ― the big exception being VOY’s “Threshold”, which was clearly someone’s bad dream. But the whole way DS9 chose to depict a major war is absurd. This isn’t a 24th century Federation conflict: it’s WWII. Yes, we would probably see some kind of “naval” battles again in the 24th century, with huge ships attacking each other as in Midway. But no, we would not land troops on Omaha Beach again.

Maybe Quark is right. Just maybe. Maybe 350 years isn’t enough to make perfect Organians of all of us. Maybe *some* of us would revert to some primitive, “blood-thirsty” condition in situations like on AR-558. Maybe; I don’t know. But that is part of the point: by not sending human ground troops, the Federation would eliminate the problem altogether. The message of this episode should thus have been told in a different way altogether, not by putting 24th century Federation troops in an unrealistic WWII scenario. That is just absurd. That is why I call this lazy writing.

Please note that I believe also that any other species/civilization that had undergone a technological and ethical development such as ours as seen in TNG would also fight their wars in absentia, so to speak: with surrogate armies, with non-sentient machines in lieu of sentient, living beings. Only civilizations with a conspicuous warrior ethos ― such as the Klingons ― would have any reason to still put their citizens in situations of chaos, mayhem, destruction and despair.

I understand that TNG had neither the money nor the inclination to involve the Federation in a major war, and wisely avoided doing so. Unfortunately, DS9 had the inclination to show the Federation engaged in major warfare, but didn’t have the money to do it realistically, according to the technology and philosophy of the Federation: with robotic armies. So instead, we get episodes like this, with WWII warfare and WWII moral lessons. And that’s just… lazy writing.


6 ―― Finally, as you very well ask: ”But much more important than that, do you really think that having robots in the future battlefields (or drones today) would really solve the "blood-thirsty" moral issue Elliott and I were talking about?”

No, not the ”blood-thirsty” issue. Not if the robots were, as you suggest, ”commanded in a brute way”. But by removing the human grunts from this absurd battlefield, it would force the writers to be somewhat more imaginative in their attempt to tell us this message, and deal with the moral issues you and Elliott were talking about. And that would possibly make a much better, more thought-provoking story. Or at least a less absurd one.

Please note therefore that I am not advocating a droid army episode. I just want a story that is coherent with the values of the Federation and the technologies of the 24th century, even if on a limited TV budget. I am normally very aware of, and very forgiving, when it comes to budgetary considerations, because I know Star Trek is of course limited by the value of budgets almost as much as by the talent of the writers. I choose to see Star Trek as parables and allegories ― Elliott’s ”myths” ― and cannot understand the criticisms of some commenters that are wholly budget-related. In this case, featuring a George Lucas-style droid army was of course out of the question. Deploying human grunts, however, is absurd bordering on insulting. If you can’t afford some robots, don’t try to sell us a ridiculous story involving human troops; use your head, be imaginative, figure out another way of telling the story. In TNG we had ”The Wounded”, and “The Pegasus”, for instance. In VOY we had ”Equinox”. In BSG we had another “Pegasus”, and a fantastic one at that. There are many ways of telling similar stories.

That did not happen. Instead, we got this very banal episode, which a few people might mistake for ”deep” and “thoughtful”, but is really nothing that hasn’t been told dozens of times before, and much more convincingly, because those have been more realistic, 20th century stories with 20th century people in 20th century conflicts. As I said, this is just lazy writing.

Anyway, thanks for your reply; I hope this now has clarified my views :)

"I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Humans will always be human."

Yeah, that's why I still rape kids and own slaves. Because it was normal and socially acceptable long ago.

@Corey: ""I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Humans will always be human."

Yeah, that's why I still rape kids and own slaves. Because it was normal and socially acceptable long ago."

-- I promise you this, Corey: if you steal any of my slaves, I'll personally flog and then hang you, and I'll let your body hang for all to see. That is and always will be the only way to treat a criminal who steals other men's rightful property. [What are you saying, woman?!] Sorry, have to go now, my woman is whining about something, have to go and smack her and make her shut up.

Corey, if you think that that was a well thought out comparison, then we really don't have much to discuss.

@ES: "Corey, if you think that that was a well thought out comparison, then we really don't have much to discuss."

I'm not Corey, but whether his analogy is 100% accurate or not isn't the point. The point is that mentalities change, and given enough time, even our most basic reactions and instincts also change. Take away our creature comforts, and we won't behave like we did 5,000 years ago. Take away our creature comforts, and many of us won't behave like we did 500 years ago. If the present evolution continues, take away our creature comforts 500 years from now...

"Corey, if you think that that was a well thought out comparison, then we really don't have much to discuss."

I think the comparison is valid.

"Take away our creature comforts, and many of us won't behave like we did 500 years ago."

Exactly. There's a reason the US military loses about 30 soldiers to suicide a day, and that tens of thousands of troops commited suicide after Vietnam. We even know that most soldiers in war time purposefully dont shoot the enemy (they deliberately miss) and that most killings during wars are done by a small majority. Often, it is simply ideology and superstition (religious, political, economic or otherwise) which sanctions things like mass killings, witch burnings, xenophobia and so forth, though of course not always.

@Andy's Friend I am the one who thank you for the detailed response. This has been a nice debate. You understood my point: I think Federation or Starfleet having only small defense teams of ground soldiers is not exactly a corruption of their philosophy. For localized defense. What I would only add is that I also think it was not exactly too absurd to see some of these guys sent to defend an important facility conquered from the enemy during time of emergency. Like a factory of clones or something.

Again, although I dislike the concept, I just don't think it is atrocious to previous Federation. In fact, think of it: you yourself seem to agree that the Federation and Starfleet have to fight ground battles, have to send someone to take important strategic points in the ground during war. I.e. have to fight specific battles for defense purposes. Your only disagreement is that they have sent humans. I mean, differently from Elliott, for instance, your main problem is not the Federation fighting the war on ground, but fighting with humans. Is more a matter of scientific plausibility than a moral dillema.

Btw, regarding the robots, I should say two things. First, I understood your argument abount budget constrains and I find it to be valid. Even though, one could easily especulate that there may be also moral dilemas in using robots for whatever task wone thinks. In fact, they already exist even today. So I do not know if not having robots in Star Trek is merely a budget issue or a deeper decision as well. That is an interesting question for future debate and one we should search for when we have time. However, in any case, I still think that since you agree that they should need special ground forces for some very special and rare ocasions, the robots would only displace the problem. The moral dilema for me would remain the same. How to fight emergency ground battles, with which behavior.

But now, I totally agree that it would have been a great episode if they had robots or something and discussed what we do with these robots. I mean, it would have been a much cleverer episode. The issue is that it seems that we are asking writers in the 1990s to debate issues from our current time :)
Who knows in a future Star Trek show... I would love to see this drone debate addressed.
In any case, if they at least have discusse in the episode what we are discussing here, i.e. if they have showed de moral dillema faced by the soldiers on the ground to have to do this job that does not fit their philosphy very easily, instead of showing the brute 20th century US mariners....

@ES and @Corey & @Andy's Friend Hahaha actually Corey brought an amusing provocative comparison. And the ironic examples that followed were really fun. But in a serious tone, the really juicy one was Corey's last reply with the war examples. On average, humans behave differently today even in wars. Yes, certainly we see a lot of crap being done in a lot of wars. American soldiers have been doing horrible unthinkable things throughout the world. But even though, the fact that some people can still do the same things humanity used to 1000 years ago does not mean that on average we still do the same from 1000 years ago.

There is a huge difference between the average, or the majority, and individual or minority cases. I mean, if, say, 10% of humanity behave like 1000 years ago, we cannot claim that the whole species is still the same in general, in a whole or as a tendency.

Lastly, well, if taking away confort and stuff makes people (and institutions, what is a diferente matter, but let it be) behave like in the Hobbesian philosophy (which we've learned here that is not a philosophy but the ontological truth...), why the hell the Federation and Starfleet themselves did not change during all the many wars and military crises they have faced before and after DS9? My guess: in reality they were not humans.

I do have some quibbles from a plot standpoint so I'll get those out of the way first:

-Has no one in the Federation heard of artillery? Or tanks? Or bazookas/mortars/heavy weaponry? Or at least 50-caliber machine gun emplacements (well, their phaser equivalent but you get the point)? Or air support? As pointed out in above comments, robotic soldiers/drones or at least robotic assistants would have come in real handy here. They could have at least said 'All our heavy weaponry was destroyed in battle, we're down to small arms' or something like that.
-Speaking of weapons, what happened to the spread setting on phasers that has been around since TOS days? Not using the 'disintegrate' setting can at least be explained by them wanting to conserve power, but given the ground situation I would have ordered the troops to use the spread setting at longer ranges, just to mow down as many Jem'Hadar as possible before resorting to hand-to-hand combat, and switch to regular beam at close range.
-Speaking of Jem'Hadar, I'd like to know how they pose such a huge threat to the Federation based on their tactics here, which essentially boil down to 'charge right towards armed soldiers and get shot'. Maybe they just had a huge number advantage but it still seems like such a waste to me.
-Couldn't the Dominion just bomb the Feds from orbit? Granted they'd want to preserve their comm array but it still bothers me.
-Bashir playing 'I'll Be Seeing You' was effective from an atmospheric standpoint, but downright stupid from a tactical standpoint. As a soldier, you want to be able to hear anything that might indicate how close the enemy is and how many there are.


Don't get me wrong, I still loved this episode and this is one of my all time favorite DS9 eps. Granted, this isn't exactly Roddenberry-ideal territory, but it's still done very well. The atmosphere was very effective throughout, and the characters feel much more substantial than your average redshirt. Quark and Nog's discussion on the human condition was very provoking (maybe because it's unlike anything we've heard in any of the other Trek series), and it was quite a shock to see Nog lose his leg afterward since Trek almost always goes to such lengths to keep the status quo intact. Not so much DS9, though.

The battle was very effective from a purely visceral standpoint despite the plot holes outlined above, and I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. It's brutal to see the somewhat nice guys Vargas and Kellin get killed while the more-than-slightly unstable Reese lives but that only more effectively demonstrates the mindless brutality of war.

Note: Some people might ask why Sisko didn't bring down someone with more combat experience like Kira or Worf. On Memory Alpha, it says "The writers specifically chose Nog, Ezri, Quark, and Bashir as the central characters for this episode because they had the least fighting experience. Characters like Kira, Worf, and O'Brien were purposely left out of the fighting, as they all had combat experience and knew how to handle themselves in such a situation. The writers, however, were more keen on seeing the reactions of people who didn't know how to handle themselves."
In that sense, I guess it was effective, but I would have liked to see Worf or Kira join the party to be sort of a mentor to the others. It would have been a nice move IMO.

Anyone notice how brainwashed Nog is? This kid eats, breathes, and shits Starfleet. He's the kind of guy who'd think a fun night of relaxing involves going over the latest Starfleet regulations. As Vic Fontaine would put it, he's a square. I was literally whooping for joy when he got shot. Take that you little bastard!!

Seriously though, his uncle comes up on the bridge to see him and what does he do? Blow him off and then apologize to the captain for his uncle. I'd be ashamed of a family member for treating me like that, even if you were on duty.

Nog doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the bridge and frankly, he doesn't deserve to be on the show.

A gruelling and effective episode, well directed, does not try to do too much and only veers into cliches occasionally, seems to be DS9s version of Platoon, but it all worked well enough for me, albeit has been done better in other places. Again - the musical score really helped.

BRAVESTARR, I completely agree with you. I hate nog. Quark was obviously scared and nog treats him like crap. Someone should tell him that being loyal to your family is also important in life. At one point he says ferengi just run and hide. On tng the ferengi have a military and don't run and hide. Nog seems to know nothing about his people except when the writers want him to be good at finding things. He treats Jake the same way in a few episodes. Like that episode where nog is fooled into joining a crew of kids and jake points out that the captain is crazy. Nog goes off about how jake could never understand what it means go be a soldier and of course jake is proven correct. I don't understand the nog love from ds9 fans. He's an ass

This episode was boring, melodramatic, and not well executed. It speaks to the ability of pretentious emotion to somehow trick people into thinking that something like this is entertaining.

The music was too much, the side actors were meh, Nog is unlikable as always, and I just don't care.

@Nonya - Are you trolling. Do you like any of DS9? And if not, why are you watching (have watched) 7 years of it??

Responding to an old comment but it bugs me a little. Elliot stating the Federation shouldn't be very good soldiers.
They've had their share of wars to deal with and knowing that you don't send starships out into the unknown with people who don't know one end of a phaser from another.
Picard and many others love a bit of target practise with their phasers. The whole federation seems trained in some kick arse mixed martial arts that utilises the double hand blow to the extreme. War games, battle simulations, pugil stick battles etc, etc, etc. This is the behaviour of a people that come in peace but will kick your arse if you get all up in their grill.

@Latex Zebra :

Trek-fu aside, I think Riker's line sums it up :

"combat skills [are] a minor province in the makeup of a Starfleet officer."

To possess the skills of fighting well for a few minutes is not the same as having the psychological wherewithal to endure prolonged combat.

Minor yes but none the less important enough for Picard to agree to the excerise to 'hone their skills' in light of the Borg threat.

These starfleets officers have been honing their skills for months in appalling conditions. Whilst I agree, as said previously, some of the characters are a little ott or chilched, I don't think it is unreasonable for the groups skills to develop over time or that they would have a decent skillset to begin with. If they were crap they'd be long dead.
Every space battle would have been over in seconds and the Federation would have long been overun by hostile forces. They'd never even got as far as the Dominion, the Klingon's would have eaten them years before.

A peace keeping organisation still needs to know how to defend itself. So yes it is a minor province of the make up of Starfleet officer. That doesn't mean it isn't something they don't give their best too. As displayed with Riker's performance in that episode.

@Latex Zebra :

Hmm, I see your point. But, I don't object to the officers developing skills (they are the best of the best after all), more to the psychological endurance they exhibit. Soldiers nowadays go through intensive psychological training and preparation and STILL develop PTSD after tours as short as only a few months. Starfleet officers, whose military training, no matter how expert, is only a fraction of their overall skill-sets, should be traumatised to the point of utter dysfunction. It isn't a question of possessing tactics, weaponry or combat expertise, it's having the *mind* of a hardened soldier which I object to. If the writers really wanted to comment on Roddenberry's prediction of human evolution, this would have been a great place to show how humanity essentially traded in its wartime survivalism (for better AND worse, in this case) for a more evolved sensibility. If could have shown that there is indeed a price to pay for this evolution, but instead, again, we have 20th-century humans with phasers and warp drive.

Elliott, not all Starfleet officers are scientists. There are engineers, doctors, tactical officers, and yes, security officers whose sole job is to keep people safe with military training. The Starfleet officers in this battle are mostly of those later variety, security officers. That is why they joined Starfleet, what they are trained to do. To fight and defend. However, we do see other officers: engineers who are scared and ineffectual at fighting. They aren't trained as well in combat and so aren't prepared for it when it happens. As you say they should be.

Starfleet is a sort of NASA/Military hybrid. It is primarily a scientific exploration organization, but it also functions as a military. Notice that this is not the first time Starfleet has fought a war. And this is not the last. They've fought Romulans in the 22nd century, Klingons on and off for hundreds of years, and the Borg several times including the infamous Wolf 359. Starfleet is not ineffectual in its military duties. Yes, it is more of a science organization, but that doesn't mean it's a slouch on military.

@Sean: as I said before, the issue I take is with the psychological endurance in this extreme circumstance. We have every indication that the Dominion War is more of a drain on Starfleet's resources than either the Klingon or Cardassian Wars. The whole premise of this episode relies on the idea that Starfleet is at unprecedented levels of desperation (thus why replacement personnel had not arrived in so long).

Humans are no slouches when it comes to psychological endurance. Especially if they're trained to fight. Soldiers in extreme circumstances are quite capable when they need to be. And, of course, non-humans as well. Although most of the people in this episode are human. They could have done with a Vulcan in this episode, that's for sure.

Wow, I'll review this tomorrow.

I still say Gene would have approved of DS9.

We didn't start the "war" with the Borg, but we fought it. The ever proper Picard lost it in the battle process as well. If it weren't for Lilly, he might have just lost the battle in FC. Hell, Picard was going to infect Hugh and commit genocide until he heard him say "I".

We didn't start the war in DS9 either. Does anyone for a moment think the Founders could have been talked out of imposing order on the Alpha Quadrant?

DS9 showed us how humans react to war in the 24th century. And the simple fact is, we all will do anything to protect what is ours, and our families. So episodes like ITPM are realistic. All Star Trek incarnations did this. Kirk attacked a Romulan war bird to protect our posts and prevent a war. Picard attacked the Borg, Janeway battled the Borg and Archer Battled the Xindi. The difference is DS9 actually had to deal with a war.

This episode, in the universe that has Jem'Hadar and Klingons as ground soldiers required the Federation to respond in kind. I personally do not think ground soldiers would ever be necessary in the 24th century where star ships are commonplace, but that's not the setting we were given. So this episode is pertinent and situations like this could happen.

While Star Trek is not dystopian, it's not utopian either aside from Earth.

See you guys tomorrow, my Steelers are on.

"QUARK: Maybe, but I still don't want you anywhere near them. Let me tell you something about humans, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time, and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes. You know I'm right, don't you? Well? Aren't you going to say something?"

So, why do we get Quark in this episode and why do we get him saying stuff like this? I think he brings some more realism to this episode. It's not only a statement to Nog to make him maybe open his eyes to what it REALLY means to be a soldier and what by default you may be transformed, but it's a statement to us to bring the soldier/ground troops segment of the war front and center.

This episode aptly depicts war/battle worn/hardened soldiers that have been "on the lines" too long. This makes me think of WWII and the Battle of the Bulge. US soldiers served in the front lines without relief for longer than 5 months to include horrid winter conditions.

It's not so much about the battle as it is about the people in those situations and the decisions they are forced to make. The landscape provides the stage for the impending battle. You can say that’s convenient, but think about it. If it had been any different the Jem’Hadar would have retaken the comm array long ago. They always win the numbers game. It probably makes sense that the comm array is located where it is. It’s an easier position to defend.

There were a couple “tough choices” in this one. First, Sisko’s choice to remain was a huge one. That took some serious guts and was the right choice. They needed numbers. Plain and simple. Even adding inexperienced Star Fleet personnel (not ground troops) was better than leaving these soldiers with an unwinnable task. The presence of “Houdini’s” posed the other. The "Houdini’s" were immoral when they were used by the Jem'Hadar, but once they were figured out they had no choice but to use them to survive. Obviously it had to be done, but it was still a revealing choice to make. War isn’t about the easy choices, it’s about the hard ones. I commend Sisko for making both of these hard decisions.

Nog ends up losing a leg and despite Quark’s constant input, what does he do? He apologizes to his Captain for not getting the job done and takes responsibility for the death of Larkin. Say what you want about Nog, but don’t you dare pigeonhole him as soft, undedicated or unmotivated. I’m very impressed with him. The only thing he lacks is experience. The kid has heart.

I’ll nit-pic this one issue: The Jem’Hadar sending in holograms doesn’t seem realistic. The terrain already forced the conflict to a small area. I don’t think this stunt would have revealed anything anyone with half a brain couldn’t have deduced.

“Hold” is the order. Not like any battle our heroes have sustained or fought before in the series. No chance to fight then retreat, no chance to just outsmart your opponent, no chance to out maneuver them. No shades of grey. Hold, or die.

So the battle ensues…. First the Houdini’s do their part (which was pretty damned eerie) then they fight them off from a distance, then in close hand to hand combat. Of course, we lose SF personnel we just met and our heroes win the day. But this wasn’t just a bunch of ships plowing through other ships, these were people fighting and dying. PEOPLE. I’ve always wondered what the Jem’Hadar loss numbers were. Cannon fodder comes to mind. Even Quark has to gun one Jem’Hadar down.

This episode does everything it needs to do. I got the feeling what I was watching was real. It meant something. That doesn’t happen too often in any series, not just Trek or DS9.

“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.” George S. Patton

(replacements arrive)
Reese refers t to them as childrenn.

“Not for long.” Benjamin Lafayette Sisko

4 Stars.

This is where ST really started to tank...
The same pro-military, anti-trek issues dogging this ep as did on much of ENT.
Nog has been completely brainwashed by military dogma. And everyone is ok with it? (Except Quark to some extension)
Did he have his mind completely wiped by some wicked starfleet computer system? He doesn't even act like a ferengi anymore at all, more the opposite. The character is so changed now the ferengi makeup has become an annoyance. Parrallel to the real world as of now, Starfleet has made Nog the perfect suicidebomber/kamikazepilot/nazi soldier. But hey, in the new Trek, military brainwashing is fine!

1 star

@Andy's Friend:

You made very interesting points. While I don't necessarily agree with all of them; they were still well made and thought-provoking.

However, there is one thing you said which is completely incorrect.

"Money, for an ever-increasing part of the population in the most advanced countries in the world, isn’t really important anymore."

Yeah, about that. Unless you are talking about the extremely-small percentage that is "super-rich;" money is still the most important thing concerning modern life. The huge percentage that is poor are quite obviously heavily concerned with it. The dying middle class is either concerned to not become poor or hastening their own demise with reckless spending. Even the upper-class rich still obsess over money because they know they can lose it easily; not to mention creating an inheritance.

I don't know one person that has given up a well-paying job for "self-improvement" and not regretted it to their core. Money is still the core of our society and will continue to be until we overcome our limitation of resources.

I respect your opinions but this part reads more like a teenager's concept of the "adult world."

@M.O.: Thank you very much for your reply. Your comment deserves further explanation, I think. So here we go:

First of all, I think it important to bear in mind our own cultural context. I’m a Southern European, today living in Scandinavia. However, I have also lived in India. Furthermore, I am a historian, and particularly interested in “longue durée” issues ― analyses across decades and centuries. All this of course colours my perception of the world. And because of all this, I have a very good grasp, for instance, of the various speeds at which our societies and mentalities are developing in various different parts of the world.

Now, please read the full paragraph, and read it in context. I was describing how Western mentalities have developed in the course of the past 350 years, and extrapolating to another 350 years in the future. I described social issues such as crime and punishment, gender issues, race, sexuality, and so on. The trend is undeniable.

I then touched upon the issue of money.

Here’s the paragraph again, this time with asterisks to emphasise what you should consider:

“Today we *more and more often* see people giving up perfectly good ― and well-paid ― ”respectable” jobs to embark on quests of ”self-realization”, usually involving some sort of artistic expression or spiritual journey. Money, *for an ever-increasing* part of the population *in the most advanced countries in the world*, isn’t really important anymore. Improving oneself is. *The seeds of TNG are already here: it’s already happening.*”

I fail to see how you can dispute any of this.

I am not saying that people in the Western world don’t care about money anymore. I am saying that *more and more people* in the most socially advanced societies on Earth ― places like Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, & Switzerland, the social avantgarde of the world, or the future of tomorrow, if you will ― are realizing that money isn’t all that important.

As little as 60-80 years ago, to give another “longue durée” case, your average, European middle class familiy would seriously consider any significant expenditure before spending their hard-earned money. And what might such significant expenditures be? A new suit, or a new dress, or a new pair of shoes. The very fundamental things, which were of a higher quality then than they are today, and much more expensive, in relative terms. This is not no mention serious expenditure such as say, a new dining set of table and chairs for the dining room.

Today, every middle-class and lower middle-class family in the Western world spends money on things that 60-80 years ago would be considered excessive if not extreme self-indulgence ― and quite often considerable sums at that.

60-80 years ago, the question was thus *whether* and *when* to buy a new pair of shoes, and whether buying a new surcoat for the winter was really necessary. Today, the question is *which* and *how many* gadgets to buy.

What I am thus trying to illustrate is that money isn’t really that important anymore: many more people than ever previously take it for granted, and many more people than ever before spend it without thinking twice. We haven’t come to a replicator society yet, but we’re definitely closer than we were at the beginning of the 20th century.

And in the most developed societies on Earth, people have begun to realize that earning more money is less important than spending your time with your family and friends and doing the things you enjoy in life. More and more people I know decline a promotion, for instance, because the salary increase quite simply isn’t worth the extra time you’ll have to deduct from the activities that truly matter to you. These people don’t strive to earn more money to buy bigger cars and TVs, they strive to spend more time doing what they enjoy.

Similarly, more and more people agree to less hours of work and a salary decrease in order to be able to spend more time doing just that ― what they enjoy in life besides their work.

All this would be unimaginable as recently as 60-80 years ago, when money was a more important driving factor in society than it is today.

Hence my final phrase in that quote: “The seeds of TNG are already here: it’s already happening.”

This is an undeniable trend. I fail to see how you can deny this.

@Andy's Friend - "Today, every middle-class and lower middle-class family in the Western world spends money on things that 60-80 years ago would be considered excessive if not extreme self-indulgence ― and quite often considerable sums at that."

To offer a counterpoint. Luxury has gotten cheaper but necessity has gotten more expensive. Lower middle class people can often afford luxury items but a 3 bedroom house in a decent area and healthy foods on a regular basis are unaffordable. But that smart phone and flat screen are cheaper than ever. ::shrug::

We can't truly be approaching TNG levels of post scarcity when we can't afford the luxurious retirements, size of houses and quality of food that our grandparents had (whilst feeding 3x the number of children).

And our cheap gadgets, coats and shoes will run out when China decides that sweat shops are bad.

Think about it like this, if we paid the Chinese workers who built your gadgets what the minimum wage in Scandinavia is your historian salary would be lucky to be able to buy a calculator, let alone a smart phone. The cheap luxury goods thing you site is a false reality and the floor can come crashing down from under us at any time.

@Robert: Sorry, Robert, but that is simply not true. Our grandparents spent far larger sums on the very necessities of life than we do today. Please investigate relative costs compared to income. This can actually still be seen today: Southern Europeans for instance spend a *far* larger amount of their income on fixed expenditure - rent, mortgages, utilities, food, etc. - than Northern Europeans, who have a far higher real income; that's why many in Northern Europe can afford say, holidays overseas three times a year, which very few in Southern Europe can. But as a whole, the Western middle class has a *much higher* purchasing power today than it had a hundred years ago. Although I agree with your "quality of food" argument: there's no denying that a hundred years ago, foodstuffs were of a higher quality than today's mass-produced, semi-synthetic swill. They contained higher levels of natural toxins, but that's nothing a proper handling of the ingredients won't take care of. Today, you have to go to the countryside, or pay premium prices in specialist stores in the urban centres, to buy the real thing. But I have a feeling that that is about to change as well. Again, here in Scandinavia people have begun spending less on gadgets and appliances and more on premium foodstuffs as a percentage of income, simply to get a richer experience in life - while in Southern Europe people still have to spend ridiculous percentages of their income on everyday, low-quality supermarket food products. Some places are just closer to the post-scarcity world of Trek than others. May I ask where you live, by the way? It's always nice to talk to people around the world; I actually think people should mention where they're from, because sometimes it helps to explain our very different outlooks. Living in Scandinavia, I see nothing outlandish at all in the "Utopian" TNG universe, for instance: it's the natural evolution of what's happening here.

@Robert: I didn't read your last comment, as I was answering you. So here's my reply to that :)

The truth is that the main reason for the depth of the economic crisis in Southern Europe these days (apart from absolute inepcy by their various governments for decades) is exactly because hundreds of millions in developing countries have begun to close in our Western living standards. Of course this has its price; however, it won't be Scandinavia who will pay it, as these countries have the most educated and flexible workforces and labour systems in the world; there will always be room for investments here.

Nay, the ones paying the price are essentially, and very severely so, the Southern Europeans, who are stuck in the middle: their workforce isn't qualified enough, but is too expensive compared to many others around the developing world. So we're witnessing, and will continue to do so for several decades, a gradual levelling in the world. Nothing odd about that; and because it's gradual, systems will eventually adapt. In Northern Europe, we're witnessing a gradual but fundamental change to a wholly tertiary sector- oriented economy: the highly skilled Northern European worker loses his job to two Southern or Eastern Europeans, and then one of these loses his job to five Chinese - and then these get a salary raise and motivate further investment in Northern Europe (and elsewhere). Recently, Chinese Suzlon placed their wind energy laboratories in Scandinavia - quite simply because this is where the cutting edge knowledge in the field is. And this is how Europe and North America must compete in the future; we can't compete on salaries.

It's a gradual process, but eventually things will level. I'm not worried at all for my salary; it's more the unskilled Southern Europeans or Americans with four kids I feel sorry for. But then again, if their not being able to afford shiny fancy gadgets means more chinese families can have a decent standard of living, I can't say I truly feel sorry for them either. But this is a rather difficult debate, because there is of course a difference between not being able to buy shiny gadgets to your kids and not being able to buy them food at the end of the month. I suggest we go back to discussing Trek :)

@Robert :

Your "false reality" argument is not to be ignored, but you missed something crucial here; the actual cost of producing an iphone or similar gadget is much lower than the retail price would suggest. Thus, while we certainly have to stop taking advantage of cheap (and especially slave) labour, if we both paid those workers a decent salary *and* stopped paying the cats at the top of the food chain exorbitant and undeserved salaries, the net result would be a society which most closely resembles what AndysFriend is describing goes on in Scandinavia. Here in America (and especially here in San Francisco where nearby Silicon Valley is the Ur of most said gadgets), the tech-folk and business elite live very much like the average Northern European middle class family because the US' economic model is so outdated, purchasing power depends on extreme economic disparity. But like in most things, this is no longer the 20th century and the US is no longer the trend-setter. I just hope we catch up soon.

Interesting arguments you both make! And Andy's Friend, I wasn't so much concerned with your salary, but merely worried for a world in which all human lives (including those in developing countries making all this stuff) are treated with the dignity that people where you live are treated. I've been to Scandinavia, those people are well served by their governments... at least that is my perception.

I live in NYC, and I assure you I paid more for my crappier house than my grandparents paid for theirs, even factoring in inflation. And it took me 2 salaries to do it instead of 1... as such I also pay obscene amounts for childcare.

Over here there are people that overdo on the luxuries, but from where I sit even cutting out on luxuries would not make day to day costs any better. It's my perception that this is generally true in large US cities, though it may only be where I sit!

As to going back to Trek, I will end with... I hope you're right, because Gene's vision is a place I'd like to live someday.

And I REALLY hope Elliott is right! :)

How did we get on economies again? :-) Especially reviewing this episode?

Great episode!

My only nitpick is one of scale:
1) If it's so valuable, why didn't the Jem'Hadar blow it up (just like any other asset that's in enemy hands)? Preferably from orbit.
2) It's the most valuable real estate in the sector (what, several solar systems?) and Star Fleet can only defend it with a lousy PLATOON? And with no air support, armor, etc? Even today's 3rd world country would put together a better defense than that.
3) The casuality list: Kira says it's got 1730 names on it. At the height of WWII, Germany was loosing a MILLION men a year; or 20,000 a week. Presumably Star Fleet -- at least during a war -- is a lot bigger than the Wehrmacht. 1730 is extremely light casualties for a war you're loosing.
The whole war seems like a minor border skirmish rather than a threat to the whole Federation.

Maybe DS9 does have the Roddenberry ideal, and we've "evolved" beyond the ability to defend ourselves ;-)

In TOS - A Taste of Armageddon, Kirk gives General Order 24 to Scotty -- to destroy all life on the planet. Seems pretty barbaric, even by 20th century standards. While TOS shows a greatly improved society overall, Starfleet clearly had a strong military component -- here's a General Order for planetary annihiliation that can be given by a starship captain -- and a starship equipped to do it.

Did TNG have this? Don't know. Someone above argued for widespread robots on the grounds "the fact that we didn't see robots doesn't prove they don't exist". Much the same could be said for the military arm of Starfleet -- you really can't argue "If it didn't appear on TNG, it wasn't common in the Federation." Did we ever see an episode focused on a planet where the Borg landed drones to assimilate a large population?
We know OBrien was a hero of Setlik III, so there's at least ground (human) troops there.

Reading the comments in this thread reminds me why so many Trek species come from Planets of Hats. Humans who lose sight of their values while trapped on a war-torn moon? A Ferengi who isn't greedy for profit? A Jem'Hadar who isn't completely loyal to the Changelings? A Cardassian who opposed the Bajoran occupation? A vedek who doesn't believe in grabbing earlobes?

It's almost as if DS9 has been suggesting since day one that a population is made up of individuals and not pieces of a one-note hive mind.

Snark aside, this is a fantastic Dominion war episode - maybe the best the show has ever done. Also, like Jammer said, the hidden star may be Quark. He works so well because of how much we've seen of his values to this point. Could any parent (or uncle in this case) watch their child casually go to battle like this without saying what Quark said? I really, really love the scene with Quark watching over Nog and then shooting that Jem'Hadar. Nog would have died if he was alone, but he never would be alone as long as his uncle was there. Also, notice how Quark doesn't even mention whatever purpose Zek gave him. Awesome Quark story here, of all things. Shimerman plays the hell out of it.

4 stars easy. Top 10 episode of the series easy.

As others have more eloquently and extensively discussed above, this episodes strains credibility of upholding to the Trek ethos in so many ways. The subspace mines were novel, but utterly pointless as a weapon of war - perhaps suited for terrorism purposes?

Of course, we have all grown to accept with Trek (and indeed with any sci-fi), its a product of its time. This episode was written before the advent of the War on Terror, before drones, before massive surveillance technologies were widely understood in the public consciousness. Indeed, many aspects of our current society make Trek's so called utopia seem down right quaint! Surely, if this episode were written today, the ground battle would have been fought by robots, lasted a mere few minutes (probably occurring off camera and mentioned only in passing), and absent of any individual human heroics. Lets face it, autonomous robots are so efficient they're boring. It's much more dramatic to watch grunts sweat and bleed and taking potshots at each other with manual aiming laser rifles. ;)

Great discussion guys. This is why I love Trek!

To Andy's Friend:


And in the most developed societies on Earth, people have begun to realize that earning more money is less important than spending your time with your family and friends and doing the things you enjoy in life. More and more people I know decline a promotion, for instance, because the salary increase quite simply isn’t worth the extra time you’ll have to deduct from the activities that truly matter to you. These people don’t strive to earn more money to buy bigger cars and TVs, they strive to spend more time doing what they enjoy.
----

I am reminded of TOS The Cloud Minders...which is far from the utopia striven for by the Federation. Much of Scandinavia economy is hitting the ropes, including wealthy Norway whose welfare model is running up against falling oil prices and declining reserves. ---and lets not even mention the contentious issue of immigration. Indeed, most of the EU could end up in full blown deflation.

The world is well on its way toward ten billion people, most of whom will continue to struggle and scramble to achieve what they see is their fair share. The world is indeed richer, but more unequal than ever.

I myself am part Norwegian, but mostly Canadian; Currently living in Egypt (a heavily populated developing country of 90 million, 40% of whom live on $2 a day or less).

The optimist in me says, if we can just get off this rock, Star trek utopia may just be within reach. Long live and prosper.

Tuco Salamanca!!!

I found this episode powerful and compelling. I don't agree with those saying that we didn't need to be shown all that.
Why not? This is DS9, this is life.
That is why DS9 is so different than the other Star Trek series and why many of us love it so much.

@WCrusher: "This is where ST really started to tank...
The same pro-military, anti-trek issues dogging this ep as did on much of ENT. Nog has been completely brainwashed by military dogma. And everyone is ok with it?"


This episode doesn't strike me as pro or anti-military.

To whatever degree you believe (like Quark) that the Federation never should've gotten involved in this war, the fact is they are in the middle of a war. Wars involve soldiers. And as Star Trek episodes go, this episode comes the closest to capturing both the dark brutal reality of what soldiers are asked to do and the costs they must pay (physically and mentally).

What bothers me the most about Star Trek is the hidden antiseptic way that skirmishes, battles, and even entire wars are fought. Wars are fought safely off-screen by faceless soldiers/victims that are never shown and whom we never care about. When battles are fought by the Enterprise or Defiant or whatever other Starfleet ship is involved almost always win. Entire colonies might be destroyed, entire fleets might be wiped out, but all the people we care about always survive. Even when Spock dies at the end of Wrath of Khan, Kirk risks his career and life to get his best friend back (no such sacrifice is attempted for any of the other trainees killed in that battle though).

Heck, the entire joke about the "Red Shirts" in Star Trek revolves around the idea that somebody has to die to make the plot remotely believable or dangerous, but never anybody we know or care about. Dozens of Red Shirts die forgettably or unheralded in conflicts while the main characters chuckle and make wisecracks

To me, this too conveniently parallels how wars are fought in our present-day world. Battles go on every day, but they are fought on what might as well be a foreign planet by nameless faceless "Red Shirt" soldiers whose stories we will never hear or care about because they don't directly affect us. Oh sure, many of us do empathize and even respect the sacrifices they make in a general human way, but since it's not us or people we have a direct connection to, it's not the same. It's why 1730 people are killed in one light week, yet DS9 fans only get worked up over the death of one Jadzia and the injury to one Nog.

For my money, this is the episode among all others that brings the plight of the Red Shirt (and to a certain extent, our own military) into better perspective. War is not pretty. It isn't always fought by balding Shakespearean actors in a plush command center ordering someone to press a button which fires an energy beam which instantly/painlessly kills a thousand people. Victims (on both sides) are not just plot devices involving nameless characters that nobody directly cares about.

In the TOS episode "Arena," over 500 Federation Colonists are killed by the Gorn, along with several Enterprise Red Shirts....and all anyone can talk about is the cheesy costume worn by the actor portraying the Gorn. 500+ Federation citizens died in the conflict of an episode has become quintessential part of Star Trek lore as mostly a joke. DS9 shows an episode where maybe a dozen officers get killed in conflict in addition to the 107 killed prior to the beginning of the episode, and this is supposed to be the poster child for this series being anti-Trek/anti-Roddenberry. The only difference between the two episodes (aside from the 400 fewer characters killed at AR-558) is that one episode showed the brutality and attempted to make you feel pain for the victims and the survivors, while the other sloughed off the widespread death and destruction as a forgettable afterthought.

If Star Trek's "Utopian" vision is simply defined by ignoring or not caring about the horrors of the world/galaxy, then that's not a universe I wish to ever live in.

Some excerpts From Memory Alpha that I think address some of the criticisms posted here:

-According to Ira Steven Behr, "I felt that we needed to do it. War sucks. War is intolerable. War is painful, and good people die. You win, but you still lose. And we needed to show that as uncompromisingly as possible. War isn't just exploding ships and special effects."


-The writers specifically chose Nog, Ezri, Quark, and Bashir as the central characters for this episode because they had the least fighting experience. Characters like Kira, Worf, and O'Brien were purposely left out of the fighting, as they all had combat experience and knew how to handle themselves in such a situation. The writers, however, were more keen on seeing the reactions of people who didn't know how to handle themselves.

-Director Winrich Kolbe had fought in the Vietnam War, and he allowed his knowledge of combat to influence his direction of the episode; "The images you see are trenches of churned-up dirt. The battleground always looked like there was absolutely nothing there that anyone could ever want. Yet people were blowing each other to smithereens over this land. I wanted AR-558 to be that type of battleground, a totally nondescript piece of real estate that didn't deserve one drop of blood to be shed for it. It shouldn't say anything to the eye or the mind except that we were there because somebody had decided to put a relay station on this rock." Kolbe goes on to say, "We wanted the siege scene in "AR-558" to convey the psychological impact, and not come across like a shoot-em-up. What I remember from Vietnam is sitting in a ditch somewhere and waiting. It's the waiting that drives you nuts. You know they're coming. You can hear them. You can feel them. When you have to wait, your mind plays tricks on you, and you hear things and you see things, like Vargas, who's about to explode. Once the battle starts, your adrenaline kicks in and you have an objective. But when you have to wait, time just slows down to a crawl." Kolbe felt that the battle for AR-558 had a great deal of similarity with the 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh, a battle which was won by the Americans, but the strategic significance of which is still debated to this day.

Brian S. - Mon, Feb 23, 2015, 8:11pm (USA Central)

Wow, amazing post!

Thanks.

Director Winrich Kolbe had fought in the Vietnam War, and he allowed his knowledge of combat to influence his direction of the episode;

I knew it. Someone had to have had combat experience or had to be really close to it to have written such a magnificent episode. It was so realistic in the state of minds of the vets that had been there for 5 months.

I have known people who have served in Vietnam also and when they talk of the battles (whenever the will) it reminds me of this episode. Being pent down in rice paddies, with gunfire going on all around you, being outnumber by the enemy, yes they got desparate and did some horrific killing. I forgot one extra thing; their enemy looked like the ally.

I am glad Roddenbury's Star Trek has been questioned. It was a great ideal initially, but it had to evolve into some reality. As long as you have species who differ from your philosophy and are willing to take you rights and lives from you, there always will be wars and no amount of diplomacy will stop them. Like the Dominion.

1968 Battle of Khe Sanh. Btw, that is where my brother was killed in 1968.

I hope you realize the US forces bombing and invading countries after countries are here represented by the Jem'Hadar.

As someone who believes in the sanctity of life, I was so disappointed with this episode. It should have ended with some kind of big realization/step towards establishing peace (although REALLY that history should have been evident by now as it usually is in TNG). If we can't do this in a hypothetical, more -evolved future, then when?

It was so utterly terrible to have war basically affirmed in the stupid way it usually is - grieve for the dead, and continue fighting as if that makes ANY sense.

Previous episoddes have given us insight into Vorta, Jem'Hadar, and even the Founders as 'people'. Here the Jem'Hadar are just cannon fodder.

What is the 'worse future' if the Dominion wins? That 5/9-month situation is bad enough for those people isn't it? And I notice that a war veteran/experienced soldier posted here saying those people were whining, and he had done 2-year stints in Iraq. THAT is the failure of our society already.

I also just looked up the My Lai massacre. How/why can we possibly endorse scenarios where human beings get pushed into this kind of destruction with themselves and other human beings? Science fiction is about finding ways BEYOND that.

I watched this episode again about a week ago. I still love this one. Although the ending was very sad, I enjoyed every second of it. I still wonder why Quark was there, except to try and demean the Federation. After all of this time he still thinks the Federation and the Dominion can come to some agreement other than victory for either side. Quark is still such a coward that he is trying to convince Nog to hide under a rock. I would think by now since Nog has joined Starfleet and drinks root beer, Ishka wears clothes, earns profit and talks to strangers, Rom, married a Bajoran, started a union and works for Starfleet, Quark should know his family has forsook all of the the Ferengi way of life.

I didn't like this episode.

From the outset it was just set up to end in the battle. That's kind of lazy in my eyes. It starts with the that communications array. Couldn't it be beamed out to be studied somewhere save? And what is its value? It's never explained. Since the Dominion knows the Federation has access to it, they will have changed all their codes and taken that array out of the network. By now, what good is it?

This, like many of the war episodes, could have been much more powerful it was tied into the actual arc. Make mention of the array being captured in an episode beforehand. Make mention of the array being held and being put to great use in an episode afterwards.
All these standalone war episodes can't impress me.

The Jem'Hadar assault was just bad. First of all, why don't they ever use their cloaking devices when they attack? They only use them to ultimately decloak and take prisoners. In frontal assaults, they stay uncloaked. Even if for some plot-convenient reason they cannot fire while cloaked, they should stay invisible as long as possible.

Then it was the typical case of our heroes being unkillable. Even Sisko, who was on the ground with a Jem'Hadar aiming at him, somehow survived. And you knew none of them would die from the beginning. Likewise you knew most if not all of the other soldiers seen so far would die. This predictability kills any suspense for me.

And what about the actual onslaught by the Jem'Hadar. At one point they overrun the defensive line and they seem to outnumber the Federation soldiers. Yet somehow those oh-so-deadly genetically engineered super soldiers still don't come up victorious against a bunch of worn out soldiers and scientists.

Finally: DS9 IS NOT PRESCIENT. People should stop making a fool out of themselves by claiming it is. DS9 made lots of use of historical conflicts. The reason you think it applies to our times so well is simple: HISTORIC RECURRENCE.

@harry - I agree with many of your points, especially the later ones (this episode wiped have been a bigger gut punch if we lost one of ours... like Nog, though I love Paper Moon), but I don't think the people saying how well it applies to our time are necessarily imbuing the writers with prophecy as much as marveling that a 20 year old series had become more relevant.

truly a great episode, i think every science fiction series can be nitpicked for realism. it doesn't matter about the viability of the mines or the reactions of the jem hadar soldiers. it works brilliantly as a character study during a brutal conflict. this and the follow up episode, its only a paper moon, ranks as two of trek's best.

About as dark as it gets in Trek world, and when Quark says "This is not the Starfleet you know" you know what mood is being created. And yet this also leaves no page of the Big Book of War Cliches unturned, from the characterisation, to the plotting, to the score.

Despite all that, it still works. And it does because it's down in the mud and has consequences - even if convention says we can't lose a major character, the fact that one can be badly injured still comes as a shock. And not least because that characteristic Ferengi scream is not being used for comedy this time. Quark's standout speech hits the nail on the head. We know war is hell - sometimes we need to be reminded though. 3.5 stars.

Can an anti american half pacifist like this episode. Yes he can ! If I wanted to dislike it I could probably find several reasons but chose to like it. It is different, it is dirty. Except for Sisko it is the softie part of DSN9 who has to rice over their limits. They do it well. Quark who sometimes just have to be a funny ridiculous character serves us with various serious concerns. Sometimes it gets a little bit pathetic but not disturbing.

I am going to just cover a few things, because I don't feel fully confident about this episode.

1. On Quark's speech about human values, I think that it's generally appropriate for Quark's character. To some degree it may have been intended as a slam on the TNG-style presentation of the Federation by the writers as (well, Elliott mostly) interpret it. I get that criticism and I share it somewhat. Still, unlike other episodes where Quark maintains Ferengi superiority, like "The Jem'Hadar," here he does get countered by the narrative, first by Nog somewhat dismissing Quark's suggestion that the Ferengi would definitely have been bale to hammer out a peace agreement, and second by the fact that Quark shot very quickly, surprising himself, when Jem'Hadar did come attacking in the Infirmary. Quark's belief that because the Ferengi can stay neutral that everyone could gets punctured by the realities of their situation. Conversely, I do tend to think he is right that the Ferengi would be *more* likely to find a way to resolve the Dominion conflict peacefully than the Federation, because the Federation has built-in values of justice in a particular way more strongly than Ferengi society does (they are willing to accept inequality on larger scales, for one thing), because Ferengi, especially Quark, are not as proud and do not consider "cowardice" that great a sin; and further because, well, the depiction of the Federation's handling of the Dominion in this series makes Quark's point for him. I tend to think that DS9 as a series didn't do a good enough of *portraying* the inevitability of the Dominion war from the Federation's side, with "The Search" being really the only genuine attempt of the Federation to reach out for peace (and incidents like "To the Death" where they worked together being mostly incidental blips); if the Federation wanted to avoid the war, they did not particularly show it. And in Nog's response, we also get something of the converse -- sure, maybe the Ferengi could have gotten a peace treaty, but would the cost have been too high? Is there a moral obligation to fight?

2. I did find the episode's cinematography and score quite effective. Kolbe does a great job and this is one of the better directed episodes I can recall. By contrast, I felt that "Nor the Battle to the Strong" had long periods of dead time and did not particularly suck me in, even as I appreciated what it was attempting (and recommended the final product). As a depiction of war-as-hell this is, I think, important for the show for which much of the conflict has seemed bloodless. The use of Vic's song didn't quite make sense -- don't they need quiet? -- but the mood was right.

3. I mostly did not find the guest stars compelling. Vargas' extreme jitters and nearly shooting Bashir for trying to change his bandage and the dude with the ketracel-white necklace seemed very much stock characters without much justification -- and without much attempt to adapt common War Movie cliches to the specifics of this setting. (Since I made a point for this above "Nor the Battle..." just above, here is a point against: the gallows humour of what the best way to die would be in "Nor the Battle..." struck me as more believable than any of the guest star material in this episode while also being grim and somewhat horrifying.) I don't know exactly what I wanted from these characters but this wasn't it. On the other hand, I did like Vargas' "I hated the guy." The engineer that Ezri bonds with I thought was fairly well portrayed in a quiet, low-key sort of way, as well as the platoon commander.

4. I agree that the set-up here does not really work. For one thing because, as Andy's Friend e.g. pointed out, it is weird to think that in the 24th century there would be ground troops everywhere rather than robot armies, without much justification for the use of human troops. More to the point, the idea that there was no possible way to rotate them out or even replace the dwindling numbers of troops seems implausible if we are to accept the value of this equipment, *and given what we see the rest of the time* on DS9. That "It's Only a Paper Moon" gives Nog apparently indefinite time to get over his injury underscores how vastly different the rules are when the series wants to make a gritty brink-of-destruction show versus when they want to make a station-set emotional or lighter show.

5. This episode makes me wish "Valiant" hadn't happened all the more, because Nog's hero-worship of the crowd here makes a bit more sense to me if he has not really been with other at-the-lines battle-hardened people before, and has not also seen a whole shipful die brutally. Still, I can overlook that aspect and see that Nog's admiration of these battle-hardened soldiers as consistent with his desire to prove himself and to represent all the values that his uncle doesn't. It is worth remembering that Nog's embarrassment at Quark has been present for a very long time -- I'm thinking of his reaction in "The Jem'Hadar" -- and his dismissing Quark's concerns as mostly cowardice fits right. And then he gets shot. That Nog has not actually felt battle touch him that personally before is also believable (though, again, the impact would be stronger if not for "Valiant" happening, blah blah blah), and Quark's genuine, touching desire to watch out for Nog's life and perhaps his "soul" as well is appreciated.

6. On that note, though, while Quark has speeches about how war makes people bad and bloodthirsty, and while Vargas and the ketracel-white guy seem unbalanced, the episode does not seriously wander into morally murky territory for the most part. The closest is the almost-debate about the invisible mines, which I appreciated both for being raised by Ezri and for being quickly dismissed, proportionality in war and all that, and, of course, the mines are only being deployed on soldiers and not civilians.... The main evidence that the souls of the people here were in danger is the ketracel-white necklace, which is a grim detail, yes, but I am not sure that I even believed there that this guy particularly liked killing Jem'Hadar. Given that there are episodes in which truly immoral actions are undertaken as part of the war, it is a bit of a shame that Quark's concerns that Nog will become monstrous or something come up in an episode that does not really bear it out. On that note, the Jem'Hadar are particularly faceless here, and I feel like even making the enemies attacking Cardassian -- who might have families and lives outside of combat -- might have brought out Quark's point about Nog's soul more and the concern about using the mines, etc., a little more clearly. The Jem'Hadar's bred-for-combat, live-for-victory, genetically-engineered-and-trained-to-feel-no-mercy, etc. are something of a fantasy enemy who are specifically designed (by the writers of the show) to be dehumanized, and, to the extent that they are humanesque, for them to *like combat* so much that it's not much worth worrying about shooting them down. To be clear, this episode didn't *need* to make us feel bad for the enemy, but having an enemy who were maybe just as reluctant to be in this situation as our heroes would have made Quark's horror that Nog was admiring the soldier more effective, I think. But anyway, armchair writer, etc.... The point for Quark is not really that it is bad for Nog to kill people for the sake of the people who will be dead, because we already saw in "Business as Usual" that Quark is pretty willing to put dead people out of his mind if there are a small enough number of them and he cannot see them; it is the idea of the impact on Nog that concerns him. So that is still maintained, it's just...I dunno, I feel like this (and Bashir's line about having joined Starfleet to save lives) would have more impact if the enemy weren't bred-for-combat goons.

7. Sisko deciding to stay is a pretty heroic moment for him. My girlfriend immediately pointed out that he also chose spontaneously not to bother trying to have Quark beam up to the Defiant, though, which...yeah. I think the justification is that the Defiant needs to get out of there fast and that the time to beam up anyone at all would be equivalent to the time to beam up all of them, etc. Still, it occurs to me that Quark is actually both civilian and foreign ambassador and so protecting him actually should be a high priority.

8. Please, don't let Rom sing again. How much did Bashir have to pay to book the holosuite time for Vic to record himself singing with no one there, I wonder?

9. Whenever Sisko reads the casualty reports, I wonder if he only reads the Federation ones, or reads the Romulan ones too.

Anyway I give this episode 3-3.5 but I am undecided on exactly where I land. I do think it's a strong show, as I said, and maybe I will return and attempt to dig in to other aspects I neglected.

Right, okay, so a quick summary:

It is true that the humans in the future are not all that recognizably Federation (the guest stars, I mean), and that weakens this episode as a way of imagining how the war would affect the *Federation*. We also see all these characters as faits accomplis, rather than seeing how they change over time.

But second, given that the episode is going to show humans being gritty, it is a bit weird that nothing here is that bad. OK, so that guy has a ketracel-white necklace -- that is really, uh, tacky. It clashes with everything. But no one seriously feels bad about killing Jem'Hadar in this episode, and to some degree why should they -- the story has set them up to be impossible to reason with, people who unlike our brave heroes want to be in combat situations, etc.

I am not claiming I have the answers and know how to avoid war. But it seems to me that the episode wants to say that war is bad because it transforms people into bloodthirsty killing machines...but then it does not actually depict that. They lose sympathy for their enemy and cease to see them as human -- but hey, the Jem'Hadar actually *are* exactly what people always believe the enemy really are. To some degree, this is true in "Nor the Battle to the Strong," too, where the Klingons love battle, but that episode had a somewhat different focus (more on cowardice in the face of battle than the gritty reality of people losing it in combat) so that it wasn't as damaging.

Quark's points about humans cracking under pressure or whatever don't turn out to be relevant, because the humans here did pretty okay. Nog does not even have to fire on an enemy, having lost his leg -- which, absolutely, is traumatic for him, but removes Quark's worries from the table. In a way then the episode's main point may just be that war is hell, and that it is important to remember that every casualty matters. Can't argue with that, I suppose.

I'll add that Reese (Ketracel White Necklace guy) throws his knife down when they leave AR-558. He is the only main guest star who survives the assault, but the ending is oddly hopeful that he will be able to recover from what happened. The episode is actually pretty optimistic about human endurance in a combat zone, and Quark's case against humans in stressful situations is something that, I think, the episode ultimately rejects (though it considers it) -- despite Vargas shooting at the beginning, they held ("those were our orders, sir"), people did their jobs, no one massacred anyone wrongly, Sisko does care about Nog despite Quark's accusation otherwise, Reese says "the kid did all right" and so they are genuinely open to being impressed by bravery in new recruits, Quark did shoot the Jem'Hadar despite his claim that the Ferengi could have resolved it peacefully, the children who arrive will grow up ("children." "not for long."). Humans like Vargas have mental health difficulties but they don't actually stop them from doing their jobs. I bring all this up because I think that a lot of people interpret this episode as "siding with Quark" that humans can't function without their creature comforts, etc., but I think that the episode argues the opposite. This is not a My Lai massacre situation; there is not much genuine critique of humans in the face of war, but something of a grim celebration of endurance, in which arguably the things that so terrify Quark about the humans here -- their nastiness, their violence, their having killed people -- are "confirmed" as being understandable and perhaps even necessary adaptations to allow them to withstand combat. I elaborate on this not because I agree that the characters in this episode should be emulated, but that this seems to be what the episode's story bears out. It is actually a pretty conservative story, and I am trying to say that without judgment (pro or con): it says, "This is the way people respond war, and this is why." It avoids directly glorifying war and shows its tremendous personal cost; it also accepts war as a necessary evil and human responses to war as largely timeless and immutable and, while ugly, still ultimately heroic. We can agree or disagree with the episode's take, but I believe that this is what the episode presents.

(For what it's worth, I *would* prefer an episode that offered critique of how we deal with war now, or more strongly showed the soul-cost that Quark was talking about, or attempted to imagine a 24th century reaction to battle stresses that would illuminate the modern world more. I do like the episode as it is nevertheless, and find it powerful, though I am left feeling that it reaches for something more than it arrives at.... I still can't settle on a rating.)

Probably 3.5 -- whether or not I agree with the focus the episode chose, it is very well-told and gripping, and the importance of "war is hell and every lost life matters, even if it is necessary" still can't be understated. I think Jammer's "A gritty, engrossing, simple, and powerful tale of combat" is on the mark here, though I won't go full 4 for various reasons (mostly that the guest stars still seem a bit too much like stock characters).

The standout scene in the show is when Sisko orders Nog out to do recon and Quark asks him if he'd so easily send Jake out to die. This moment is apparently meant to show that Quark doesn't understand that Nog had undertaken to risk his life for a greater good, and that Sisko is, in a sense, honoring Nog's desire to serve the Federation by using him to his greatest capacity.

However the beauty of this moment is Sisko's reply, which is meant to answer Quark's challenge, actually reinforces it as far as I'm concerned. Sisko calmly tells Quark that Jake didn't join Starfleet, and that therefore the hypothetical of sending him out to die is not relevant. But the amazing irony is that Sisko was pushing Jake hard to join Starfleet in the earlier seasons and simply took it for granted that there was no nobler calling than to enlist. Note that there were always others ways to serve the Federation than by joining Starfleet, but a career officer would certainly be expected to have a bias towards Starfleet. And now look at what happened to the peaceful Federation - thrust into a dirty war with millions of casualties on both sides. This is what Sisko wanted for Jake, although he didn't realize it at the time. In other words, if Jake hadn't 'disappointed' his father by deciding he didn't want to join Starfleet, it would be Jake on the front lines right along with Nog, maybe crippled or dead as well. It's very cute in peacetime to tell someone you'd like him to serve his country, but when there's a war on suddenly it looks more like a possible death sentence as just one more name on a long list of casualties. I find it hard to believe that Sisko would be pleased to know Jake was out there too, even if he might be proud of it. It's not altogether clear that Sisko's brushing off of Quark's concern isn't somewhat hypocritical.

Imagine what Sisko dreamed of for Jake's future in Starfleet: exploring strange new worlds, learning about science, meeting friendly new people. I bet he didn't say to himself "you know what I really want for my son when he grows up? To be in a hellhole afraid for his life for months at a time, probably to die ignobly in the end for his troubles." But that's the reality of being in a military organization, and Quark's challenge to Sisko really illuminates some of the naivete that the TNG had shown by trying to pass off a Starfleet career as being a dream come true that only the best of the best can hope to achieve. It should be seen as being a lot scarier than that, despite the fact that it could bring wonders as well.

Speaking of which, a lot of commenters above seem to be under some kind of weird impression that most of the soldiers on AR-558 were Starfleet officers, which the script never mentions. That's probably because most of them are NOT officers, but are either enlisted men or infantry units not directly a part of Starfleet. The Trek shows never get into this but basically if Starfleet is the equivalent of the navy or NASA then there must be some counterpart to ground forces like the army. I never saw anywhere that Starfleet had infantry divisions, which means to me that those must be trained somewhere else. So for those who think that enlightened scientist/NASA types who are supposedly the bulk of Academy graduates don't fit the bill for these groundpounders, that's because they never went to the Academy or studied science. They are soldiers who went to boot camp and were then shipped out. They're not just gritty because they're in a war; they're gritty because they're a completely different animal than polished academics who went through officer training. O'Brien speaks about this regularly enough that the difference should be evident, and from what he's said about how much he ISN'T a soldier, it's about time we saw what his soldier counterparts looks like. It's no surprise he wouldn't want to become like these guys. It would make me want to be an engineer too.

Truly one of the best episodes of DS9 and great development for Quark Ezri and Sisko. a minor complaint for me is that the Star fleet soldiers? I'll call them soldiers don't have helmets(I don't expect them to stop a phaser but to at least protect against shrapnel and head blows) I liked Quarks interactions with Sisko and Nog it showed me that he really cares about his well being and that he stayed by his nephews side during the battle rather than trying to hide. 4 Stars

Rewatched this ep again. Still a great ep and a lot to like, but I love how the Starfleet soldiers conveniently forgot about the "wide field" setting on their phasers. Also, the "vaporize into nonexistence" and "one shot levels an entire building" settings.

Let's just call a spade a spade. The reason Quark is so compelling in his arguments about humans becoming like Klingons is it's a perfect example of how people rationalize being flatly racist. Quark's just a racist and cultural elitist. He's always been racist. Of course, he's right about Klingons, because they're a savage race full of temperamental morons, as science has proven. But he's dead wrong, of course, in that humans could ever be like those primitive, cookie-scented mongrels. Genetically, due to skull structure, that would be impossible. The same way it would be impossible that a focused Cardassian brain could ever become as complacent as a scattered Bajoran one. These matters are predetermined. I don't mean that to sound racist. It's just simple physiology. As simple and predictable as a Bolian trying to develop a proper Tongo strategy. Don't get me wrong; Bolians are good at some things and I've got Bolian friends. They certainly do their best, unlike Lurians.

JD, I'm not following you at all. Quark is a racist?

It felt like an episode of something else that happened to occur in the Star Trek universe. So even though it was well-executed, it felt off as a Star Trek episode. During the battle in particular I noted that the orchestral, epic music was really grand and profound, but it was SO not Star Trek. I would probably deduct a star for that.

Am I the only one who noticed that the engineer who dies is Will Robinson from Lost in Space (which was TOS rival back in the day)?

This episode is in my top 5 of the whole series. It's expertly written. I applaud the writers for going to a place that very rarely is shown in the Star Trek universe. The horrors of war. The Dominion War dominated the DS9 story line as we all know, and I think it was brilliant to show an episode from this perspective. The scene with Quark and Nog at the beginning, was tremendous. It's those little stand out scenes, that tend sneak up and surprise you. That's what I enjoy so much about this show. You could be moving along, business as usual watching an episode, and then bam, they hit you with something like that. They've obviously done land based, hand to hand combat themed episodes in the past, but for some reason, this episode struck a chord with me. It packed an emotional punch. Perhaps watching Nog, a character I grew to admire more and more as the series progressed, so valiantly help the team, only to lose his leg, got to me. He represents the viewer in a lot of ways. Very well done. This one was a pleasant surprise when I first saw it.

I reference to NCC-1701-Z's comments about not using phasers on the most powerful setting the answer is easy. They were stuck on that rock and using the most powerful settings takes more energy. If you have a limited number of bulles, and don't know when more will be arriving, do you use full auto? The didn't mention it but they did have a scene where the ketrisil white guy was handing out extra charge packs for the phasers.

You win a No Prize, JR!

...but that would've been a great point to raise in dialog. Have a Niner ask why they don't use maximum power, and a shellshocked vet replies that they'd be defenseless while recharging. Illustrates the contrast between comfortable UFP thinking and desperate survivalists.

I always love how people think that in 10,000 years of recorded human history we have always seen groups of humans going to war against others... yet in a mere 300 years we are supposed to evolve past all of that and somehow stop aggressive non-human empires from attacking us by using our wits and not our weapons. No more military apparently.

Humans are humans, and it will take a lot more than 300 years to evolve the worst of humanity out of us. Trek fans pull their hair out over DS9 because humans fight, and cheat, and some are greedy, and they kill, and go to war... like somehow it will all be gone just because humanity finds out there is life outside of our planet.

I tend to think the opposite: that genetic and computer singularities will make whatever exists 300 years from now psychologically unrecognizable to present humans.

The genre is full of improbable conceits. It may well be that we will never exceed lightspeed, for example. It might be just flat out impossible, even to beings millions of times more intelligent than we are. Conversely, genetic engineering has a good chance of absolutely exploding intelligence, as does advances in artificial intelligence.

Every time I watch this episode I can't finish it. It just doesn't hold my attention. I'm not entirely sure whether that has something to do with the lighting, or the pacing, or the fact that most of the main cast in this particular episode are people I'm not ever going to see again, so I can't get invested in them. I agree with the premise and what it's trying to convey, but not the execution.

As far as I can tell this episode has some great lines (such as Quark's speech to Nog about hew-mons becoming savages once they're deprived of their comforts) but it seems rather overrated. Each to their own, though.

I'm a pretty big fan of DS9, and saw this episode a few years ago when it came on Netflix, and remember liking it. I'm sorry to leave such a negative comment. I'm sure there are a lot of fans of this ep.

1. Premise-
I'm really confused as to what's going on here. Why is each side transporting company sized elements down to an asteroid/moon? I understand why Starfleet people would be there on the ground, but any battle should happen above. If the Dominion wins that, then they would go down and wipe out the ground personnel. Conversely, The defiant just watches a transport unload a bunch of Jem Hadar. The Defiant has enough firepower alone, to wipe out every living thing on a planet. I watched the first few minutes again, but no reason is given

2.Cliche
This is what really got to me. The whole episode is one giant cliche, made up of dozens of smaller clichés. Literally everything is standard fare war movie. There's a guy sharpening his "non SF issued knife." There's the crazy guy who not only pulls a gun on a SF officer and Doctor, he's responsible for a friendly fire incident! What the hell? And when he talks about his bandage, it's a cliche of cliche "I hated him. He was always talking. Then he was dead, and wasn't talking no more." There are many more. OMIGOSH, it was too too much.

3: Contrivances
Why is Quark there? Would the president of a foreign nation send his son in law to this place? For??? I think he's just there to call the Feds hypocrites. He does that a lot now. Why is Nog so contemptuous of Quark all of the sudden? And why is Ezri there? Oddly enough, her and Engineer dude are the only moments I enjoyed. Even though Ezri came with Expo dumps about her past. Which is I guess what this episode truly lacks: Any form of subtlety.

Lastly, I like Vic, but the opening scene with Rom took me straight back to the 90's. Like back when I used to watch TV... I seriously got that feeling in my stomach. Let's call it "acute temporal effasia."

P.S. There's a little known Voyager episode called "Nemesis" That handles this subject Much better. It has a really ambiguous ending(in a good way), and doesn't slap us over the with "World War II: Star Trek Version: Hollywood Edition.

I admire what this episode tried to do, but I am with others like Mike Satirano: its reach exceeds its grasp.

Here is one thing that really bugged me, and this criticism goes beyond this one episode to all of Trek. The main cast on DS9, with the exception of Kira, Worf, and O'Brien have never been in a war that we know of. Sisko may have participated in starship space battles but what the hell does he know about soldiering on some dirty planet? Before coming to DS9 he lived most of his life on starships, which might as well be luxury liners. Even DS9 with its holosuites and replicators is hardly the trenches.

My point is starfleet officers or not, these people should be unprepared for this kind of war. They should be a little soft.

Yet it seems an ironclad rule of Trek that our main crew must be as tough or as badass as anyone they encounter. Will Riker can slug it out with Klingon Warriors. Jadzia can fight hand to hand with Jem Hadar.

Because yes, the Jem'Hadar may be genetically engineered soldiers bred to fight, committed to die, and trained since birth to be soldiers, but why should that give them any kind of edge against people who spent most of their lives sipping replicated tea while piloting starships from cushy leather seats?

And Dax symbiant or not - Ezri should be about as useful in a ground war as Quark - or me. No. Freaking. Way!

1. What is Quark doing there, other than acting as a one-man Greek chorus?

2. The characters are caricatures from war movies and the plot is ripped from the same. Heck, Nog even loses a leg!

3.
Lt. "What are your orders, sir?"
Sisko: "We hold!!!!!!"
Lt. "No shit, moron. That's been our mission since before your pampered ass got here. I meant what are your specific orders for our immediate next steps?"

3.5 The femoral nerve doesn't extend to the calf.

Solid 2.5/4 stars.

Quark would not disparagingly compare humans fallen on hard times to Klingons. The implication is that if a human is desperate enough they'll kill their own grandmother for a piece of bread. But Quark likes Klingons. He was married to one. Also, Klingons don't act that way. We've never seen Klingons as individually bloodthirsty. Sure, they like a good brawl but they're disciplined soldiers, not murderers.

@Quarkissnyder

Well, Klingons do turn to violence to solve nearly every single one of their problems, so I think Quark's metaphor is apt. Heck, Quark had to engage in mortal combat just to have a chance with Grilka.

@Chrome

But they don't act dishonorably.

Honor or no honor, let's face it - Klingons are bloodthirsty. Worf and several other Klingons have stated outright that killing is in their blood, and genetically speaking this may well be the case. An entire culture based on violence didn't just spring up out of nowhere.

Incidentally, I think Ezri's later point about Klingon 'honor' is not only accurate but probably could be expanded to suggest that honor never was what it was purported to be. Look at the Klingons in TOS. They are deceptive, wily, and will try any trick. The occasional Klingon did seem more honorable (Kang) or more blatantly valorous (Kor) but overall they were no great shakes in the morality department. Then switch to TNG where in "Heart of Glory" we're not exactly looking at paladins there, then we get Duras, K'mpec and the corrupt council and finally Gowron who isn't even that bad but certainly doesn't live up to the theoretical model of honor.

So when categorizing Klingons as "bloodthirsty but honorable" I think it's fair to basically excise "honorable" from that algorithm and call a spade a spade and say that Quark is accurate to use them as a baseline for unadulterated violence. I mean, their party games aren't even all that different from the Nausicaan dart game.

Not a fan of this at all this is not Trek this is say a war sci fi. I ashamed of the positive commentary. I have no issue with gritty military sci fi but that's not the point or purpose of Trek.

What a cynical and degraded age in which we live that people are so entranced by violence and a nodding yet enthusiastic acceptance of this notion man is but a beast in clothes!

3 stars. A very involving episode

We saw a lot of battleship battles but not as many combat action between soldiers. This was one of the better ones. It's not excellent or a classic though. The Hispanic Starfleet officer's acting was awful. That didn't help. I was disappointed that the dominion communication device had no payoff in some way

I liked that the series continued doing daring things. Here with Nog losing his leg. It was a shocking moment. The subspace mines were very Dominion thing.

I also enjoyed Quark in this episode. The way he showed his affection for Nog and laying into Sisko. I even enjoyed the haunting music by Vic

Well this episode should certainly settle the "is Starfleet the military?" debate.

I do not think it gets better each time I view it but you appreciate it others. Now, the 4 time, I liked it more than the other times. I t manages to show characters and Nog, Quark and Ezre really manages to define and underline who they are. In the matter of Quark you even get to believe that his Ferengi fasade that he puts up only is there to cover that he has a heart. The four guest actors also make convincing appearance, perhaps Vargas the least. There is a lot of philosophical and moral issues in it and it is Quark who delivers it. He stands for the conscious in a contrast to Bashir , Sisko and company who delivers what is necessary. This episode is good because it lets the character to swap and show another side of themselves without exaggerating to much.

Really strong war episode that ultimately helps makes the casualty list more meaningful for Ben Sisko who goes to fight on the front lines. The message is clear that after such a long war where the casualty list was turning into a blur, the names now have more meaning when people you were fighting beside turn up on it. Overall the atmosphere and tension of the war and waiting for combat was on point.

This one reminds me of "Nor the Battle to the Strong" except with Nog taking on Jake's role on the front lines of the war (and of course Jem'Hadar instead of Klingons).

Again I'm wondering what Quark is doing on the away mission. He doesn't seem to have any role to play other than emphasizing the human cost/tragedy of the situation. He has no business challenging Ben Sisko who orders Nog to go on the scouting mission. But his role also brings out the dedication in Nog who (albeit a bit cliche) apologizes to Ben Sisko after getting shot and questioning if he completed his mission.

This one's even a bit surreal for a Trek episode in its great portrayal of the war on the ground. The 3 guest actors were good as hardened front-line warriors -- they've been defending AR-558 much longer than anticipated with no end in sight. The episode managed to create a the right weight -- an excellent musical score really helped.

The actual battle breaking out was typical heroic stuff and it seemed like Sisko was a goner but then he blacks out and wakes up and finds out they held the base...somehow. Looked like there were more than enough Jem'Hadar who had broken the lines -- so not sure how the battle was won.

3.5 stars -- terrific episode, gripping, realistic and impressed that DS9 could depart from typical Trek to pull it off. There are the usual cliches (including Ezri Dax and an engineer striking up a good working relationship and then the engineer gets killed, etc.) Nevertheless, I think DS9 needed an episode like this with an actual ground war as opposed to more spaceship battles. Easily the best episode of DS9 S7 so far.

Edouard
Fri, May 29, 2015, 6:08pm (UTC -6)
I hope you realize the US forces bombing and invading countries after countries are here represented by the Jem'Hadar.
-------

Whereas the Middle East became Islamic due to a gust of wind. You should be glad that the US is the world superpower and not Pakistan or North Korea. But, whoops... more self hate and delusion from a lefty.

This episode is a typical S7 outing... CRAP. Without logic. As someone above points out, it is jam-hadar packed with every silly cliche in the book. There is no suspense, because the writers shoe-horned in all our heroes and didn't have the guts to kill any of them off. What was the point of setting up a deadly opponent if you are then going to hamstring them when the plot inconveniences you? This rubbish has always bothered me, but it will bother an audience growing up to A Song of Ice and Fire even more.

It would help if the writers had really studied proper conflicts and the politics of war... but they've simply brisked over it in some shitty academic book or other. That's why the O'Brien trial in Cardassia was so abysmal, too.

maintaining that the human species is a fixed, unchanging and created form,
-------

Errr.. that's because we are, Elliott. Scientifically, our genetic code is essentially unaltered. A human today would be able to produce offspring with a human 300 years from now. You're supremely delusional if you think even 1000 years has any meaningful effect on human biology and mental state.

Even the lion rips the deer apart. Conflict, tribalism, aggression - are all built into us. If we one day genetically alter ourselves, then, yes, there would be a real evolution in what it means to be human. But Trek doesn't subscribe to that, so your beliefs are just simply wrong.

The Siege of AR-558 is definitely one of best episodes of DS9.

It's also a necessary episode in context of the Dominion War because it would have been a real oversight not to have an episode that focused on the troops on the ground doing the fighting. The war wasn't just limited ships firing at each in space.

It was nice to see some characters like Reese who really look like soldiers and could fight. A common fault seen in TNG and DS9 was many of the Starfleet personnel in security or in combat roles don't look intimidating or capable of fighting.

Nog really grew as a character as a character here and in following episodes. He does earn the respect of his comrades. When he gets shot he lets out this high-pitch scream which is effectively chilling and doesn't sound human.

The music here is first rate. Its subtle but hits the right emotional chords.

How many people attend Starfleet?
Hundreds of ships destroyed.
Millions of casualties.
Starfleet Academy is apparently the one and only school in the entire galaxy to attend if you want to be on a spaceship. Versus 1000s of universities just on Earth in our present day.
Are there 200,000 graduates from Starfleet every year?

Just one long boring cliché we've already seen thousands of times in other places. Definitively a skipper. No stars from me.

#teamelliott

The impressive thing for me about "The Siege of AR-558" is how effective it is despite all the clichés. Very few things about this episode are truly original, and yet, I found incredibly powerful and gripping. It does a great job at truly showing the human cost of the Dominion War in a way that fun space battles can't. While the show is travelling thematic ground that one could argue is already covered by episodes such as "The Ship", "...Nor the Battle to the Strong", and "Rocks and Shoals", I find this to be a message that doesn't really get old fast.

4 stars.

I found the episode extremely boring. It just seemed like an excuse to get in some action scenes. Once again, Quark is here for no reason at all. And he shouldn't be there per Starfleet regulations. And once again Nog, who's had what, a semester at the academy? And is now being assigned to deep space battle missions? Makes no sense. I don't despise Nog, but it's one of those completely illogical things that grates on me. I really just can't see someone with that limited of experience being assigned to some of these missions. It's not like Wesley fighting the Borg - they didn't have much time to prepare for the Borg, but they're in a war, a long war, with the Dominion. Certainly someone with more experience should be a bridge officer. If they want to keep sticking Nog in these incredibly difficult situations, perhaps they should transfer the Mary Sue worm to his belly.

Social evolution, as referenced in many comments above, MAY reduce underlying primal survival and aggressive traits. Primarily due to preferential breeding choices, but only to a very limited extent. The prevalance and intensity MAY be reduced. However to act as though those underlying traits wont exist in the future is ludicrous. Quarks speech though perhaps not fully realized, from the 20th/21st century perspective, is certainly realized within the 24th century federation ideal.

as to the "robot/drone army" arguments, such would violate the 24th century ideal far more than ground troops. Not to mention any such soldiers/weapons would almost certainly violate any number of internal/external federation treaties.

No SOCIALLY advanced civilization would use such weapons/soldiers. Because weaponry of such a type diminishes the cost of war. The less war costs the more viable a solution it is.

That likely seems insane to most readers, however consider this, the defiant is the FIRST federation WARSHIP. Though most federation starships are really just mobile military (civil defense if you prefer) research bases (they have less defenses and weapons, but are more powerful). This is in keeping with the defensive militarism of a socially evolved culture. The federation clearly has weapons of mass destruction or technologies easily adapted as such (genesis device) and STANDARD (okay relatively standard) torpedos that can be made into planet killers (Omega-VOY). Not to mention they can replicate bioweapons, if they choose, pretty much on demand. Notably, with the exception of the section 31 virus, those tactics are never used even when losing.

Federation questionable tactics/technologies are used by individuals and organizations as the war progresses, but not adopted to any further extent (shipyards and ketracel white facility come to mind). those actions should be judged keeping in mind that the founders/dominion attempted to supernova bajor's sun, using a federation proto matter technology before the war actually began.

Yes of course the technologically advanced federation COULD deploy a drone and robot army, much like the dominion deploys the biological equivalent Jem'Hadar. But they wouldnt. at least not until their bellies were empty ... really empty .. and a least a fortnight sans sonic showering.. minimum.

its intimated that the federation could (but never would) wipe out the klingons and romulans and definitely the cardassians, but as an enlightened civilization they prefer peace treaties allowing for the eventual and inevitable root beer infiltration. The federation is like the vulcans of ST: first contact, but with hugs though still kinda condescending.

I think this episode was really well executed. Yes we've seen this type of war story before in other fiction, but here it was brought to the Trek universe in an impactful way.

This is one of the few episodes in which Paul Baillargeon produced something that was even remotely passable for a musical score, as opposed to utter garbage. He has ruined every other episode he's scored for me, taking me right out of the action with meandering melodies during action sequences that seem more suited to an afternoon picnic, and that suck all the tension out of whatever is happening on screen. These were still present in this episode, but at least he managed to write one motif that *matched the tone of the scene it was accompanying.* No amount of criticism I can level at him seems like enough given the apalling nature of his efforts.

I'm not going to get into the debate over to what extent this undermines Trekkian philosophy/idealism. Although, my view is more along the lines of Yanks and others like him who express that Starfleet has always reacted in a similar way: being willing to do battle to safeguard Federation lives. DS9 just gets more in our face about it, because there is a protracted war. I do think Quark's ideas about a negotiated settlement are too simplistic. This would have been the Federation's first choice too, but I think Yanks was right that the Dominion was unyielding. There was no reasoning with the Founders anymore that there was any chance of reasoning with the Borg. They both want to impose their form of order on the Galaxy.

I see people above complaining about the lack of "heavy weaponry", including artillery, armoured troop carriers, etc. But these are redudnant, given the stated capabilities of even the smallest of hand phasers. I used to read the TNG Technical Manual and remember it describing the settings 1-8 of a phaser Type I (the small "cricket") and the additional settings 9-16 of phaser Type II (which is the pistol grip or dustbuster style: the usual sidearm that we see on screen). Settings 1 through 3 were light to heavy stun, and anything above that was a kill setting. I can't remember when vaporization kicks in, but it must be below setting 8, because a type I hand phaser can vaporize things. For the higher settings, the manual described how many cubic metres (or was it kilograms?) of solid rock could be vaporized per second on that setting. So these are absurdly-powerful weapons. But you guys probably want canonical sources for that, so here are excerpts from TOS "A Piece of the Action" and TNG "Frame of Mind" (I got these from Trek transcripts: I hope they are accurate. They do accord with my memory, which is why I sought out these episodes in the first place.)
-----------------------------------------------

From TOS "A Piece of the Action"
-----------------------------------------------
KALO: Hey, Boss, this here's a heater, and I don't know what this is. (tosses them to his leader)
OXMYX: Let's see how this thing works.
KIRK: Don't do that. You could knock out the side of the building.
OXMYX: That good, huh? All you have to do is give me about a hundred of these fancy heaters and we'll have no more trouble.
KIRK: Out of the question.

From TNG "Frame of Mind"
-----------------------------------------------
RIKER: If this is a knife, what happened to Mavek?
SUNA: It's very complicated. I'll answer all of your questions, but first I want you to put that down.
RIKER: No. If this is a real phaser, then I was on the Enterprise. But I fired it on myself, so I should be dead. None of this is real. I'm setting this to level sixteen, wide field. That should destroy half of this building. Unless, of course, this isn't a real phaser.
(Riker fires at the wall, which shatters to show the audience watching the play.)
--------------------------------------

So it has been established in Canon that hand phasers have tremendous destructive power. You wanted "heavy weaponry?" It doesn't get much heavier than that. And keep in mind that in the Siege of AR-558, everyone had *Type III* phasers (the rifles) which are even more powerful. You should be able to easily take down an (unshielded) aircraft from the surface, or destroy a whole encampment with one of them. Arguments that machine gun emplacements would have been more effective are specious. I even saw someone above complaining that phasers have a poor "rate of fire" compared to 20th-century weaponry. Umm, they are beam weapons. They fire continuously. "Rate of fire" is not a relevant metric, because they don't fire discrete packets of anything. No, the problem is not with the phasers themselves. It's with how they are depicted being used on screen. Did our heroes put their rifles on setting 16 (or higher) on wide-beam and take out the entire Jem'hadar platoon as it approached? No. Why? Because this is completely impractical for storytelling. Every Starfleet officer is essentially carrying a Weapon of Mass Destruction as a sidearm, as infeasible as that is. Short of very powerful personal forcefields (like the Borg's) there would be no effective defense against them. So, in reality, firefights like the type that we see in Trek episodes where our heroes dive behind rocks or trees or bulkheads for cover would never take place. No person-to-person firefights would take place that didn't end in a massacre, and maybe even an environmental catastrophe.

Granted, there could be some kind of interstellar Geneva convention stating that vaporization settings won't be used in person-to-person combat. Hand phasers are still incredibly useful as tools for generating heat and excavating tunnels. But giving soldiers WMDs, and then simply prohibiting their use seems extremely dangerous/unwise. That's a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of every single Starfleet officer and enlisted man. And there would be no way of guaranteeing that hostile forces would abide by these rules. No, it seems clear that the original intention, going all the way back to TOS, was for infantry, and for warfare on planetary surfaces in general, to be outmoded concepts. But then the producers decided there needed to be firefights for the excitement, and they were stuck in an untenable situation.

@11001001-

"I think this episode was really well executed. Yes we've seen this type of war story before in other fiction, but here it was brought to the Trek universe in an impactful way."

Yeah, exactly. There's always novelty in transporting another genre to Star Trek, like the noir in "Necessary Evil". I don't think this is as good as that, but it's an extremely impactful episode despite being blunt. It's better than "...Nor the Battle to the Strong", which I also think is effective, but rather more clunky and forced. You could feel the writers straining to fit the war movie genre into Trek. Here, it seems more natural, even if it's cliché.


"I'm not going to get into the debate over to what extent this undermines Trekkian philosophy/idealism. Although, my view is more along the lines of Yanks and others like him who express that Starfleet has always reacted in a similar way: being willing to do battle to safeguard Federation lives. DS9 just gets more in our face about it, because there is a protracted war. I do think Quark's ideas about a negotiated settlement are too simplistic. This would have been the Federation's first choice too, but I think Yanks was right that the Dominion was unyielding. There was no reasoning with the Founders anymore that there was any chance of reasoning with the Borg. They both want to impose their form of order on the Galaxy."

I think the point that DS9 is making isn't that humans are awful or anything like that, it just doesn't take the evolved form of human behavior as a given. The utopia depicted in TOS and TNG is still an achievable goal worth striving for, but doesn't come without its challenges. That's why I have no problem with Quark's speech here, or O'Brien's speech in "Hard Time". In fact, I'm actively in favor of them and think they're both an example of DS9 proving its critics wrong.

Really quality episode. Parts even seem feature film quality. Takes you into war and what that means. AR-588. Not even a cool name like Hamburger Hill. Could be one of 588 similar battles. Nothing pretty. Just the cost. Any fellow Trekker that reads this that has or does serve- you are appreciated. Live long and prosper friend

Good ep. I liked Quark especially. Shimerman is great. I liked his concern for Nog and when he shot the Jem Hadar.

Brooks does well, eschewing the scenery chewing for a subtler performance.

Good job building up tension and holding my interest despite some mediocre battlefield cliches.

I also wanna say: I like Vic Fontaine. That's right, pally, I said it.

Above average for season 7. Not boring, but not 4 stars. The “war is he**” theme has been done so well in so many places that there is nothing new or insightful here, nor does it advance the characters or story arc. I enjoyed seeing Sisko kick butt; he is the Trek captain most like Kirk. Other than that—well, I already know that war is he** and don’t need a bunch of red shirts to tell me again.

Clever use of the Ferenghi wail scream. Usually its for something daft like an ear infection, but this time, well Nog just lost his leg. That initial rush of cringe, followed by "hang on, that really means something this time".

Watching the show for the first time in 2019, I was really starting to lose interest by the end of season 6 and the awful Star Wars wanna be two parter that started this season. Im glad theyve had a great run of episodes and diving back into the Dominion War in a less silly and more intelligent way.

A standout episode for Aron Eisenberg who sadly has passed away. Rest in Peace.

The siege of ar-558

This episode reminded me of the old TNG episode where the enterprise crew encountered the automated weapons salesman on the deserted planet selling automated weapons (arsenal of freedom). The entire planetary population (apparently) was wiped out by the automated weapons but the salesman kept trying to sell those weapons by demonstrating their functions to the enterprise crew. We all got a good laugh at how pathetically foolish those warlike people must have been. Fast forward to the dominion war.
In some respects war is like golf. In the end they don’t ask you how, just how many. When you are in a fight for the survival of your way of life, where the cost of losing means the loss of freedom it is wise to win at any cost short of the way of life you are trying to preserve. Agonizing over how and how many enemy you kill, maim or leave diseased is counter productive - like using the Houdini mines. As they and 'arsenal of freedom' demonstrated, an automated weapons system would have been more effective than ground troops firing the 24th century equivalent of a rifle. The houdini mine wiped out 2/3rds of the federation forces and a 1/3 of the jem hadar.
I bet those troops that were stuck there suffering battle fatigue would not be laughing as smugly up their sleeve as we were at a computerized salesman selling an arsenal of freedom.
In the world of star trek war is bad. Money is bad. Multiculturalism is good. And yet they demonstrate time after time how wrong they are - by their own terms and rules.

Another episode I’ve got mixed feelings about.

As usual, the less said about the Vic Fontaine elements, the better.

Beyond that, this is the usual DS9 interpretation of war: poorly equipped infantry end up in short term hand-weapon shootouts and struggle in hand-to-hand combat, and in doing so throw away virtually every lesson learned in the last century of industrialised war. The only real “future war” element is the presence of invisible, randomly drifting mines, which are taking their toll both physically and mentally on the soldiers stuck defending this bit of land.

To be fair, the depiction of the effects on these soldiers is well handled and sympathetically portrayed. But it’s still frustrating to see how utterly /stupid/ this vision of future war is, especially since it which carries all the way through the rest of the season.

(And can we please please please stop putting humans in direct hand-to-hand combat with all these theoretically superior alien races? It makes things increasingly farcical…)

There’s also the odd juxtaposition of how the episode portrays the communications array as vital to Starfleet, while simultaneously abandoning the ever-decreasing group of increasingly fatigued soldiers tasked to defend it. In a war where battles involving thousands or millions of troops are routinely mentioned, couldn’t the Federation have sent a few reinforcements along with the supplies delivered by the Defiant?

I also have to question Quark’s presence on the mission, and the way that the writers tried to use him to provide a commentary on the barbarism of Humanity. It was overly facile, and arguably does Humanity a misservice: as with the medics we encountered in Nor The Battle To The Strong I’d prefer to think of the soldiers as volunteers who have accepted the need to make personal sacrifices to protect a greater good, rather than savages descending back to some barbaric state. After all, the former is in keeping with the traditional perception of the Federation as a post-scarcity society where everyone can choose how to better themselves and/or contribute back to society.

Conversely, Nog’s role is a lot stronger; the way he tries to live up to the perceived expectations of the soldiers is believable, and for once, something happens which can’t be immediately hand-waved away with a simple reset-button. Instead, it actually sets things up for a surprisingly effective episode a few steps down the line.

Still, overall it makes for a distinctly moving episode.

A lot of commenters raise the valid question "Why doesn't the Dominion destroy the array from orbit?".

In a real war if they would have that a final option if they can't retake it.

But whatever. I'll let that slide. I'll accept the very loose logic that "it's too important to destroy".

What bugs me is this... why do the Jem'Hadar come through that cavern at all?

Perhaps my memory is just poor (which is possible) but I don't recall them ever explaining why the Jem'Hadar can't just transport into the camp.

Does the camp have a force field? If there is then clearly there's an opening in it right where that cavern is. So if there's an opening, they should be able to use a transporters :/

People question why Quark is here... he says it’s because of Zek. It seems reasonable to me he’s there because he’s scared for Nog. While not stated on screen, it seems a reasonable guess Zek may have given Quark information that spooked Quark. Quark complaining to Dax is just his normal bs/rationalizing/anxiety.

The only thing missing here is Garak, but I guess you can only cram so much second-tier character development into one episode. I'd like to hear the verse in Worf's song about the courageous Ferengi scout who should have been in a classroom and his fiercely protective uncle.

Paul Baillargeon's score was dark and brooding, and the strings set the tone of resignation to an endless battle as well as Beethoven could have.

One of my favorites.

I don't know what to call the best part of this cavalcade of moments that ooze talent, but the one that stood out for me was Armin Shimerman's take on Quark here.

It seems like DS9 can almost never resist trying to play Quark for laughs, make him the spineless, conniving wretch, the coward, the honorless swine who we love to hate...

But Quark, in this episode, isn't screaming for his Moogy or making ear jokes. I've never seen Quark so deathly serious as he is here, and some of his points are fairly good ones.

The final scene in the infirmary where Quark guns down the lone Jem Hadar to penetrate the encampment and lets out a bloodcurdling scream as he does so hearkens back to his and Ziyal's jailbreaking the Resistance last season (I think it was?), but instead of being seen as funny, here it doesn't seem so much like a fluke of the writer or a comedic riff... Killing people actually disgusts Quark, a character we've come to know as being depraved in so many other ways.

That's good. That's deep. I wasn't expecting that.

@MidshipmanNorris

Cirroc Lofton and, before he passed, Aron Eisenberg had a DS9 rewatch podcast which Cirroc is continuing. Not long ago he had a panel discussion (so a zoom chat) with Armin Shimmerman and Robert Hewitt Wolf about the creation of Quark "from page to stage", and what the writers script versus how Armin interprets it. You may find it interesting. They talk a lot about Quark's comedic role versus his serious moments.

It's called "The 7th Rule" and the video is something like "Armin Shimmerman - From Page to Stage"

What a magnificent episode! Sisko, Bashir & Nog did a damn good job with their roles and the scream from Nog caught me totally off guard that I had to rewind. What a beautiful performance by the leads!

I had to scroll quickly through less than stellar comments from a few, and constructive critique is always good - but it sadly does not describe the ramblings of a guy on this and many of Jammer's DS9 reviews (back in 2014 for the most part) who for the life of me, I cannot understand why he is even in this forum to whine, criticize, and meander into topics that I'm sure he feels intelligent talking about.

I loved Armin so much in this one. Quark went through so many emotions, fear, anger, rage, his typical skeptical observation, and most especially love for who he would certainly call his idiot brother’s misguided son. I yelled when he downed the Jem’Hadar soldier.

I really wish it could have been 10 minutes longer so we could see Quark deal with his PTSD.

Awesome episode. I found it genuinely tense and scary, as the Federation soldiers waited and waited for the inevitable attack. Great supporting cast performances, especially the Vargas character, real and gritty. Loved the low lighting and music.
Great Quark episode. I love Quark, this is one of my favourite Quark stories.
Bravo!

Quark is really the star of this episode. It explores something about him: he's basically true believing Ayn Rand Libertarian, and he's not a hypocrite about it.

He embodies the ugly parts of that philosophy, certainly, in that he believes in utter freedom for businessmen to exploit employees as much as possible so long as he doesn't block them from simply quitting and going work somewhere else. Anything goes short of slavery, in other words.

But he also has a Libertarian's contempt for giving your life for some collective cause, or for taking the lives of others, thereby utterly depriving them of the freedom to do business forever. As someone above me said, killing disgusts him to his libertarian core. It makes him a surprisingly nuanced character in a world where most people are either new age hippy embodiments of nobility, or fascists.

Nice storytelling, but TERRIBLE premise and action.

Why are soldiers in Star Trek worse equipped then mid-20th century troops irl (not TODAY's troops, mind you, 1950's ones). Where's the body armour? Where are the personal shields? Why don't they use wide-beam phasers during the Jem'Hadar charge? If they did, they would have suffered ZERO casualties, and wouldnt' need mines at all.

Fed phaser rifle is supposed to have 16 fire modes (Kira mentions that during one episode). So why aren't they using any of them?!?!

And WHERE THE HELL IS THE TR-116?! Seriosuly? A sniper weapon capable of shooting through solid surfaces using a holotargeting array would have been PERFECT for picking the Jem'Hadar off all the way from our base camp to theirs. Plus since it uses BULLETS; it wouldn't be subject to any dampening fields or jamming.

Bottom line. If the Fed soldiers used even 1/10th of the technology that SHOULD have been available to them, this wouldn't have been a battle. But Jem'Hadar target practice.

2 stars. And that's only for the story and the characters, and the overall grittiness of it. But the execution is pathetic.

IMO "Voyager" did this episode better with "The Chute" and "Nemesis". "DS9" also did this stuff better with "Valiant", "Rock and Shoals" and "Nor the Battle to the Strong". In all the aforementioned episodes, Starfleet officers are forced out of their comfort zones, trapped in little battles (delivered on a shoe-string budget), and principles are tested. In some cases, those who glorify combat are critiqued.

I'd say the best thing about "Siege of AR" is Nog, his arc, his acting, and the way he is lit (some beautiful blacks and silvers, falling upon his beshadowed face). Quark gets some great dialogue too, but as is usual with an Ira Behr script, he receives no pushback. His thesis - that humans become savage when removed from techno-civilization - is allowed to hang as a criticism, when it should be an endorsement of the Feds; humans are savage, so therefore build better/utopian institutions. And by extension, war is barbaric, so fight it like a real far-future, enlightened Federation.

This episode, of course, can't show a "realistic" and "believable" Federation fighting a high-tech ground war. That's too expensive (and Behr's always been more interested in WW2-era motifs). Or is it?

You can cut costs by having the communications array be underground, shielded, and interfaced with only via a large control room. The Feds are holding this room. The Dominion are bombing the shields repeatedly from orbit. The shields wink-out at unpredictable, split second intervals, allowing small groups of Dominion shock troops to beam in, or the Dominion to beam out Federation personnel (and dump them in space).

You can collapse the whole battle to a single room, with the Feds manically using their science and ingenuity on one hand (must keep shields working! Must technobabble way to prevent the Dominion beaming down with complex weapons!), and the Dominion relying on brute force and numbers to win.

Eventually the Feds give up acting cute, and go full Viking, smelting bulkheads to create spears and swords, and burning corpses to fuel phaser packs. The episode then ends with Nog willingly sacrificing his left leg to fuel a O'Brien made chain-gun which converts carbon into rapid-fire phaser bursts.

Or something like that.

"Eventually the Feds give up acting cute, and go full Viking, smelting bulkheads to create spears and swords, and burning corpses to fuel phaser packs. The episode then ends with Nog willingly sacrificing his left leg to fuel a O'Brien made chain-gun which converts carbon into rapid-fire phaser bursts."

Haha ok buddy I may not like your politics but damn I'd watch your version of the episode any day. Your idea of using Nog's leg for weapon fuel reminds me of the Druug from Starcon2 burning their crew for fuel - fucking awesome.

I actually like the idea of treating this ep as a style episode paying homage to WWII war films. It may not be as sci-fi as a futuristic battle could get, but much like episodes such as His Way and The Visitor it tells an important world-building story using an approach that is something unique within the series and self-contained. It's not like other DS9 episodes in either tone or content, nor is it meant to be. I like that DS9 tried different stuff from time to time, whether it was the mirror episodes, the James Bond adventures, heck, even the Ferengi 'comedy' episodes. The latter may not always be good but at least they developed a sub-genre with the idea of mixing it up. That's a smart choice, if perhaps imperfectly executed in the case of the Ferengi. And another one like this is In the Pale Moonlight, which is also a unique style episode. Personally I think this one is very strong, but it's definitely true that when a show does something 'different' it perhaps risks alienating a purist.

@Peter G.
"I actually like the idea of treating this ep as a style episode paying homage to WWII war films. "

Agree the homage seemed definitely to be there but which conflict was it. Possibly Guadalcanal? Which was 6 months, rather than the stated "5 months" with no relief. The supply problems could be from many wars, but to my mind brings up the provisioning failures of the Alpine front in WW I. (Can't we get a cup of coffee up here? It's cold and there's a battle going on !)

In this episode we see pretty shameful troop deployment and treatment by the Feds!

'Apocalypse Nog'
or
'Heart of Quarkness' ?

'the holo, the holo'.

It's not really the case that the Roddenberry view is "optimistic" while the post-Roddenberry view is "cynical". In fact, it's the other way round.

The Roddenberry view is that this utopian future came about because humanity experienced a fundamental change, a transition from homo sapiens that has walked the Earth for best part of 100,000 years to homo superior, an evolved species purged of the failings of the old model.

What this implicitly says is that this utopian future isn't for the likes of us. We're homo sapiens. We could never built a society that good. But that's a cynical view. The Roddenberry view is that the future is great because homo sapiens was expunged in favour of our elven descendants. That's not optimism. That's the thinking of a Moore era Bond villain.

The post-Roddenberry view is that the utopian future is one made of people like us. It promises the hope that despite our flaws, we can still build a great future. That's true optimism.

And as for how regressive these soldiers are, they may be traumatised and war-weary and rather grumpy, but we don't see them acting like brutes, getting into pointless fights for the sake of edginess, acting nearly as racist to Ferengi as almost every other human in TNG or DS9, let alone engaging in actual atrocities. Those closest we get is Reese macabre hobby of collecting trophies from slain foes. But Reese still does his duty, carries Nog back when he was wounded and in the end discards his knife when it comes time for him to move on from this life.

And really, despite being an archetypal grumpy grunt, he still comes across as more amiable than the smug elves from season 1 TNG.

Several things.
- Homo Sapiens exist far longer than 100.000 years, certainly more than 300.000 years.
- The people we see on Star Trek are Homo Sapiens. Roddenberry believed that with the right incentives Humanity could overcome it's shortcomings and not build but live in an utopia. Your interpretation is baffling.
- What's with all the elf hate? Did an elf kill your family?

@Glom: Humans, whether sapiens or superior, are fundamentally imperfect beings, and an imperfect species cannot create a perfect society. You couldn't get just two Commies, two libertarians, two free-market votaries, two fascists, or two anarchists to even theoretically engineer a perfect society; you're never going to get billions of people to do it: not through persuasion, not through coercion, not through medication, not through bribery. Can't be done; won't be done. We'll keep trying. And failing. Life is a cycle, as is history. Absolutely everything that happened in history will happen again, in one form or another. "Never again" is a hysterically laughable impossibility.

(And yes, modern humans have been around for ca. 150,000 years.)

As far as the episode, it was simultaneously gritty and gripping on the one hand and pointless and absurd on the other. It certainly depicted pretty well the various tensions and frustrations, "mental health problems," macabre nihilism, persistence, selfless sacrifice, and frivolous levity of those who know they may die any minute. Quark particularly shone through.

The ep. also, true to Trek form, had some gaping plot CHASMS that greatly detracted from the above "message." The Federales could easily have been obliterated from a Jemmie ship above, for one thing. The Jemmies could have outflanked them, either along the back of the mountains or by an assault from the ridges. Those "airmines" being programmed to go off when there's "a lot of movement"... - how the heck does that work??? Surely you mine the ravine, wait for the Jemmies to fill it up, and *then* detonate them all (or half), thus ensuring *everyone* in said gorge goes kablooie! You then do the same with the next wave, if you have enough mines. What is this: amateur hour!?!

The, what was basically, Jemmies storming the Feds' ramparts just made me laugh, even with the admittedly superb musical accompaniment to the scenes. Trench warfare in the 24th century!? No artillery, not even some phaser cannon or sheet? They were just missing bayonets. Give me a lunch break; heck, give me the rest of the day off. Preposterous.

I give it 2-1/2 stars.

Powerful, well done war episode, reminiscent of “We Were Soldiers”. Only thing missing was Sam Elliott barking out, “ Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves!”

I thought Raymond Cruz was great as Vargas, bringing the same kind of intensity to his performance as we’ve seen from him in Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul.

Aaron Eisenberg was terrific, as usual, can’t believe how they turned Nog from an annoying caricature into someone we all care deeply about.

And great to see Lost in Space alum Billy Mumy in a Starfleet uniform!

Well, We were soldiers, a movie a hunky guy with blue eyes made me watch, is not like this episode at all. The only similarity is that a smaller force is defending against a larger force. In We were soldiers we had elite units, which were part of an occupying army, attack the forces of a third world country which consisted of mostly volunteers just defending their homeland. The attacking elite units had total air and artillery superiority and it wasn't a siege situation. That elite unit was part of a force that killed several million people while occupying that third world country in a war the superpower had started/taken over from France.

In this episode on the other hand we have a smaller average soldier force of an inferior power defending against a superior force of genetically engineered soldiers sent by a superior power. This all was part of a war in which the Federation was invaded and lost considerable territory.

We were soldiers also featured one of the dumbest scenes in movie history. When all the women are together one soldier wife asks "why the dry cleaner has a shield "whites only". Who has only white clothing?!" .... Maybe stop drinking fabric softener, girl... Oh and the scene where Mel Gibson says, in a church no less, that god should not listen to the heathen prayers of the enemies and that they will murder them all or something. Yikes. Thanks Mr. Gibson.

I like the concept of a "All Quiet on the Western Front" style episode to show the madness of war. But this DS9 episode didn't work for me. For starters it was too obvious...a message show should be subtle and at times use analogies to make its point allegorically for a stronger subconscious resonance. It felt liked a used car-salesman who was trying to hard to sell you that car.

The other point was how un-"Trek" this episode was on a technological front. We've previously seen that in Trek it's not difficult to wipe out an entire planet from orbit. The concept of hand-to-hand combat was so cringe...especially when in previous episodes we've established that wide-beam phaser setting are possible. Where are robots? Microdrones? Area of effect weapons? I know transporters weren't possible here, but they are one of the most effective weapons starfleet has and yet they rarely use it as such. Given Trek's level of tech, in reality most planets in an interplanetary war would be obliterated from light years away with faster than light missiles.

@Smith
It has several important difference to "All Quite on the Western Front" which are important reasons why this episode was also more of a failure for me. I sometimes wonder if it actually anti war.

- All Quite is written from the perspective of a German soldier and the soldiers on the other side are shown as Human who suffer equally. The Jem Hadar are more like Marvel's faceless murder armies. Killing them is not portrayed as something morally wrong.

- In All Quite almost all main characters die in battle.

- All Quite ends with the death of the protagonist and the death is contrasted with the day being peaceful. It is literally "All Quite on the Western Front". It also happens one month before the end of the war which makes it extra pointless.

- This episode ends with victory in the big battle in which all enemies are killed. That gives it kind of a weird pro war vibe at the end. One of the main points in All Quite was that even victory was pointless because after the first line of defense came just the next, after the second line came the third and so on.

So the Dominion can make invisible anti-grav mines that kill at random, but they simply send in the Jem'Hadar to attack on foot? No artillery, no armor, no vehicles, just their own bodies? Same with with the Starfleet personnel... you're telling me that there's no difference between their space fleet officers and their ground personnel?

No force fields around the compound? No personal force-field for soldiers? No torrents or automatic targeting machinery? Just Starfleet officers in their cloth uniforms shooting phasers? Yeah okay.

I did like this episode but in terms of depicting the "realities of war" it was pretty low budget. For an enemy as insidious and sophisticated as the Dominion, I had always imagined that their ground-level wars would be totally hell because of whatever ground tech they would unleash. This made them look ineffectual.

@AeC To mention the invaders (who may have been innocent soldiers) but to not mention the invaded? The Iraqis have suffered a lot with the imposition of Saddam and his removal by the same country.

It made no sense that in five months they couldn't do anything to get into the Dominion comm system. We saw that it didn't take the Federation too long to study the Jem'Hadar vessel from "The Ship" and figure out its controls. Why would the communications array be completely incompatible with the knowledge they gleaned from that ship?

It was completely irresponsible of Sisko not to beam Quark back up to the Defiant. He was a civillian. His original reason for being there was contrived but tolerable. Keeping him on in an active combat zone when there was a chance to beam him out was way beyond the pale.

It also strains credulity that these people have been stationed here for five months with no reinforcements while the Starfleet officers on DS9 have time for fun diversions like "Take Me Out to Holosuite." I loved that episode, one of my favourites on Star Trek, but an episode like "The Battle of AR-588" makes no sense coming just a few weeks after one like that. If the Federation is THAT pressed for people, the crew of the Defiant would never have any downtime at all.

Great episode. And I’m surprised at all the comments panning it for being “just” a war/fighting episode. Seems to miss the point. Like the baseball episode a few back, like the episode with Odo’s and Kira’s first date, like “The Visitor” way back, like so many episodes, the point here seems to be that in one context after another, real person-to-person connection saves the day.

Sisko gets that as soon as he beams in and sees the strung-out soldiers, because he’s a good captain and he thinks hard and pays attention. So he chooses to stay. But he *really* gets that at the end, in a whole ‘nother way, by an order of magnitude, in another dimension. Because by then he’s walked around in someone else’s shoes. And he knows people behind the names. Once again. He’s had to re-learn what he knew early in the war, because it had gotten beaten out of him by repetition.

And isn’t that what all the tomfoolery about Roddenberry’s “vision” really is? That we become a civilization freed from the confines of petty prejudice and unjust grievance by seeing the personhood in every one? In other words, it’s not a grand, sweeping political movement that takes over, it’s one personal connection after another, multiplied by millions. We have to keep choosing betterment, over and over, individual after individual. There’s no one-and-done grand slam into utopia.

Just rewatched this for the first time in many years (decades?) and had forgotten how strong Quark's speech about humans changing when out of their comfort zone was. It's only a few lines, but possibly some of the most apt to show how he was still worried about Nog's involvement in Starfleet.

So so episode to me. I've just watched it and it feels like it tries to surf on the same wave as Saving Private Ryan which was release not long before, by showing the harsh reality of war (blood and amputations, basically) like all other war movies did since Spielberg's. That was fine, but the plot had too many weak points to me, as mentionned by others.

- why not bombing the whole thing from the sky ?
- why the Jem Haddar do these rush-attack ala Wold War I ?
- why didn't the Dominion trigger the mines? They were so many.

I'd give it a 6/10.

About my previous comment, I've just read a quote from scenarist Hans Bleimer and he said they were not aware of what Private Ryan was as they conceived this episode before the release of Spielberg's movie. So my bad. It still seems this remark came often enough that he had to tackle it.