“Extreme Measures”

NO! Not Sloan! My most favorite of the "shady" DS9 characters.

I want to see him return in a robot body. Like Mr. Burns did in that "Citizen Kane"-like episode of the Simpsons.

I thought this was O'Brien and Bashir's best episode together and really got at something about male bonding...but as you said it was disappointing from a general plot standpoint.

I have to agree completely with Jammer- this episode was stinker and an extremely sore disappointment. Every single moment in Sloan's head was torture.

What? I loved this one. It explores Sloan's character more, and develops O'Brien/Bashir relationship really well I thought. The whole 'inside the mind' thing was a stretch but I enjoyed it.

As far as "hit & misses" go, this one was definitely a miss. And after a great run of consecutive *quality* episodes, it's all the more disappointing that we have this one to break the pattern, so close to the series' end.

Section 31's actions are horribly unethical, not to mention practically useless. Their intention may have been to prevent the war, but in the end the disease didn't really make any difference (considering that in "Favor the Bold" we learned that Odo's return home was more important to the Founders than conquering the Alpha Quadrant). As such, I have no problem with Sisko's approval of Bashir's illegal actions to save a dying race.

Given the above, I'm not sure what kind of "debate" there could have been between Sloan and Bashir. But anything would have been better than a contrived trip into Sloan's mind. And I would have liked to learn more about Section 31 as a whole. This episode makes me wonder if the entire "changeling disease" storyline was really necessary.

Sisko sure had a nerve railing against Bashir for his manipulations after the events of "In The Pale Moonlight". At least he didn't have the audacity to take some punitive action...giving his support is really all he could credibly do.

Unfortunate in both execution and concept. 31 would not send someone to destroy Bashir's work - they would have to destroy Bashir as well. I mean, if he has figured out the cure once, how could he forget it? He's genetically engineered; he does not forget...

And how could Bashir and OBrien - who were nearly killed because of their knowledge of the Harvester Disaster - not realize that their lives were in danger?

Steve, what exactly would you have wanted Bashir, etc, to say further?

I'm not sure how much more they could have said.

Perhaps you ought to give specific examples(drafts)?

Miles and Julain break into Quark's twice in this episode, once to play darts and then to swipe some booze...where was Quark in these past few episodes?

Jay - I don't know about Quark, but Armin Shimerman was off working on "Buffy".

This was arguably a weak episode, definitely the weakest of the "Final Chapter" episodes but it did have a few scattered good lines and moments that, while not enough to make it a good episode, keep it from being far from the one of the worst ones IMHO (most of the ones dealing with Ferengis or the Mirror Universe). The first part of the episode works well with Kira and Garak bringing Odo back from their last mission to steal the Breen energy weapon and Bashir and O'Brien hatching their plan to capture the expected Section 31 agent (who turns out to be, of course, none other than Sloan). Bashir's rejoinder to Sloan about his protesting the use of the Romulan mind probes as being illegal was clever ("I hope that you can appreciate the irony of that statement!"), as well as his Bond villain-like line about expecting Sloan to "resist until the bitter end" were quite clever. I also was intrigued that there seemed to be a "part" of Sloan that seemed to like Bashir (sort of hinted at the end of "Inter....") and was quite willing to give them the cure once he had made amends-in his mind anyway- to friends and family members in a quite touching scene. Things got a little murkier and less enjoyable when "nice Sloan" was killed by the "bad Sloan" who then promptly disappeared, leaving Bashir and O'Brien lost and confused about where to go to find the information they needed and then getting fooled into believing (briefly) that they were out of Sloan's mind and back on the station with a dead Sloan. The end was a muddled mess with Basir and O'Brien finding Sloan's "office" and sifting through all of Sloan's secrets and Bashir becoming ever so briefly tempted to try and steal more Section 31 secrets at the expense of finding the cure for the Founder disease. Thankfully, O'Brien was there to keep Bashir on track and they ultimately succeeded but it ended up being a close shave. I was happy to see Odo get cured at the end of the episode but I wished that the execution of this episode, as well as the payoff to the Section 31 storyline that started in Season six's "Inquisition" had been a lot better than it end up being.

O'Brien and Bashir's friendship is one of the highlights of the show and it is showcased here.

9/10

If the Founders had all died, I don't think that would have stopped the war. The Vorta and Jem'Hadar would have simply continued the war. The would have searched for the lost Changelings, who were unaffected by the disease.

What makes sense is when the Founders get sufficiently desperate, to offer the cure in exchange for a surrender.

Minds don't work like this. It is impossible to ever go through someone's mind in this fashion having literal conversations with the person. Using some silly plot device doesn't make that ok.

This one began with a good example of "shades of grey" done right. I am talking about Bashir misleading autorithies and getting na ilegal Romulan memory scanner to combat the plans of genocide supported by Section 31.

Sad that it only exists because of very Strong example of "shades of grey" done super wrong. I am talking about the genocide plan itself. Section 31 is tolerated by the Federation. The high officers tried to prevent Bashir from finding a cure to Odo hoping that the genocide would prosper. This is not shades of grey. This is changing the very foundations of Federation and Starfleet we knew in the past.

Writters of DS9 in the end were so disconected with Star Trek reality that they didn't even realize what they have done. Because they not only put this Section 31 monster in the living-room. In the last episode, they made Starfleet accomplice. If did that on purpose, it was offensive to the Trek universe. If not, it was dumb to the point of insanity.

What ruined the ep for me - despite a promising start - was Bashir and O'Brian's response to Sloan's suicide move. The man was willing to sacrifice himself to keep (in his view) the Federation safe. I expected Bashir and o'Brian to realize this and respond with a moment of quiet surprise and respect -- realizing that, guess what, their evil adversary had turned out to be a noble man and a true patriot Instead they made smarmy comments like "He just couldn't bear to let his little secret escape.". I am no fan of Sloan, but I am a great hater of double standards. Heroism is heroism, even when bad guys show it.

I am also not understanding all the talk of 'genocide.'. Genocide is genocide because it targets civilian populations. It is perfectly legit in wartime to kill enemy soldiers. So the question is, are the Founders civilians?

We've seen them spy, infiltrate, and give combat orders. It could be argued, I know, that only a few of them do this, while the rest lie around in the Great Link all day being perfect pacifists. But since they are all Linked and apparently of one mind, and also given the Female Changeling's answer to Odo's question "How many shapeshifters are there?" it's hard to define any of them as individual enough to be truly outside of combat.

Additionally, the reason they're able to stay largely out of the bloody fray is that they deliberately bred slave races to do their fighting for them -- an immoral act and not something they should be allowed to hide behind. As creators and masters of the jem-Hadar, they can all be considered commanders in the Dominion military. Therefore, they are fair targets in wartime.

In fact, I would say killing the founders is far more just than wiping out squadrons of Jem-Hadar slaves who have no choice but to be there, as they have been bred for obedience.

Ugh, I am even more disturbed now that I have made myself watch to the end. Bashir's character is totally bastardized here. This is a guy who risked himself to save enemy Jem-Hadar fighters, who risked himself fighting the Quickening, who has consistently been devoted to saving any life he comes across. But in this ep, he watches Sloan die and all he cares about is "There goes our chance of saving Odo.". Not a hint of guilt about the fact that his actions - luring Sloan to Ds9 and illegally interrogating him - caused the man's death. It seems Bashir sees Sloan not as a human being but merely a data storage unit to be raided and pumped for info. Bashir's "so what?" attitude towards his death would befit a psychotic torturer.

If I thought the writers actually meant to show Bashir losing his humanity as a theme, I would be okay with it. (In fact that would be interesting.) But it's clear they didnt. And the fact that we are expected to condemn Sloan, while accepting Bashir's abusive interrogation of him and feeling a-okay about his death -- is hmmmm highly distasteful.

(Next time, doc, just try water-boarding.)

@Toraya - Let's skip the joke of "illegal" right now... because anytime Bashir attempts to take correct "legal" action against an "illegal" organization he will fail. DS9 has many characters make decisions that are arguably moral but CLEARLY illegal.

That said... it is disturbing, and it is torture, but it is NOT murder. Is our government guilty of killing people who commit suicide in their jail cells? Sloan killed himself for his beliefs and Bashir took "Extreme Measures" for his.

For a genetically engineered brilliant guy, the doctor has always been a little too naive. I think the whole point of the 3 part section 31 arc is to make him grow up. As Sloan said "Men of conscience, men of principle, men who can sleep at night. You're also the reason Section Thirty one exists. Someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong."

My guess is that Bashir will have a little more trouble sleeping tonight, but you expect him to feel guilt that he found a cure for genocide that inadvertently caused the death of one of the men responsible for that genocide?

It gave Bashir more shades of gray. It may even cause YOU to look at him as less "good". But bastardized his character totally? I think that may just be overstating what just happened a bit.

I have to agree with Jammer - I would have enjoyed this episode a lot more had it been much grittier. I agree idea of jumping into Sloan's mind was a bit far-fetched, but I don't really think I'd have minded too much if the story was more fast-paced, instead of it seeming like they were deliberately wasting screen time. I thought the scene where they were lying down talking about "liking each other a little more than their partners" to be too drawn out. It felt like the writers didn't have any more good ideas so they just added a bit of fluff to pad out the episode. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy the usual banter between o'Brien and Bashir, I just don't think it was right for this close to the end of the series.

Section 31 are attempting genocide, and they did it by almost killing one of Bashir's closest colleagues. Unless I'm forgetting one, I don't think I have seen an episode where his ethical and moral state of mind has become stretched to breaking point. Capturing Sloan was a really good premise, but I don't think they pushed it far enough.

I wanted to see Bashir lose his mentality. I wanted to see him completely forget his uniform and finally show the darkest portion of his personality. I wanted to see Sloan writhing on the table for ages and I didn't want Bashir to give a damn about it. I wanted the reason for Bashir having to jump into Sloan's mind be NOT because of some daft suicide attempt, but because Bashir pushed the Romulan mind probe too far and that's what caused his brain death. Then I wanted to see Bashir running like hell through a maze of memories (that had sod all to do with the space station) chasing after a wildly frustrated Sloan who was throwing everything left in his mind at Bashir in a mad bid to stop him from getting the cure. Then I wanted to see him grab Sloan by the neck, whereupon Sloan would appear to finally break down and beg for forgiveness and say "i'm sorry! Here, take it - all of Section 31's secrets," Which of course would be the deception to keep Bashir in Sloans mind while he dies - one of the few things this episode actually got right.

Then I wanted a tormented and guilty Bashir to end up drinking away his problems in Quarks; realising he now has to live with the fact that he literally smashed aside the Hippocratic Oath and practically tortured a man to save the life of his friend. Perhaps Bashir might also have realised that he actually got a perverse pleasure out of it, like he felt he was enacting his revenge on the man who not only almost killed Odo but who represents an organisation that's like a dark stain on the face of Starfleet, AND the worst part of it was that he didn't even realise he felt it at the time.

Also, I agree that the conversation when Sisko found out about the plan was too small. A major discussion about ethics and morality involving all the senior staff in the wardroom might have been nice. Sort of like the one in TNG where they debate the Prime Directive and whether or not they should save Data's friend. Except, obviously in this case the discussion would have to be more heated. I would have liked to see the other characters opinions on the matter, presumably with Worf/Kira saying "Do it, Odo is more important", and the others saying no or being on the fence. Sisko could have ended up saying no, to which Bashir ultimately defies orders ends up torturing Sloan anyway. This could have presented an opportunity for Bashir to be given one of Sisko's legendary "you're-in-the-doghouse-and-you've-got-a-hell-of-a-lot-of-scrubbing-to-do" speeches.

Okay, so I'm really not that sure if all that would be going overboard or not. It's definitely not Gene's Vision, but the DS9 writers haven't been afraid to stray away from it before. I think it certainly would have been a much better episode than the seemingly half-cocked plot we were given.

I liked the episode well enough. I liked Bashir's ruthlessness to save Odo, when he is usually so hesitant to break any moral fiber. I'm not really sure if I'd do the same though, I felt like Sloan's stance was, while cold-hearted, the right one, given that it would save their world. I'm not sure if I'd endanger the life of every person in the world for one friend. But maybe I would, I haven't been put in that situation yet.

Actually I liked the atmosphere of this episode, its very dark and gritty feeling.

But what I did not understand ten years ago and still don't do is: Why would Sloan as a non-expert know the cure of the disease? And why would Section 31 develop an antidote in the first place? To have it as some sort of bribe?

Rewatched this last night. Until they enter Sloan's mind, the episode is great, but from then on it's awful. The idea of entering Sloan's mind isn't wrong in itself, it's just atrociously executed - arguably much worse than in earlier episodes largely set in people's minds like Distant Voices and Dark Page. What could have been a probing, surrealist masterpiece is instead incredibly stilted and slow-paced. Despite the ticking clock, there's no sense of urgency and one awkward, unwatchable scene after another drags on and on - the falling turbolift, Sloan's mortifying "party", the scene where Bashir and O'Brien "die", the "we're still in Sloan's mind!" interval, the misfiring climax in Sloan's "office" - all of it is misjudged and turgid in a way that's really, really unusual for DS9. The writing is disastrous - what went wrong? There's also a lot of really obvious exposition via the characters, explaining things that didn't need to be explained. I also see no need for the unnecessary jeopardy angle - are we really supposed to believe that if Sloan dies while Bashir and O'Brien are connected to his mind, they die too? Ridiculous. Also ridiculous: the fact the "cure" is a four-word sequence of amino acids and Odo is restored to full health in about 10 seconds. What a stupid episode and a waste of potential.

I agree with most of the comments above, including Markus's ("Why would Sloan as a non-expert know the cure of the disease? And why would Section 31 develop an antidote in the first place?") At the end of the day, Sloan is in the right. One way or another, the disease is what wins the war. Giving Odo the cure is absolute madness because he absolutely cannot be trusted around other changelings and has repeatedly been shown to act primarily out of self-interest, unlike most of the rest of the DS9 characters. Section 31's work is what saves the Federation - so to see Bashir and O'Brien capture Sloan, force him into suicide (a foreseeable action) and mind-rape him to save one unreliable, untrustworthy person at the cost of potentially risking millions of lives and the entire future of the Federation/Alpha Quadrant is an appalling writing choice. For instance, imagine there had been a secret changeling on the station that, once Odo had been cured, forcibly linked with him and returned to the Link.

"One way or another, the disease is what wins the war. "

What? Isn't this precisely not true? Odo *sharing* the cure with the Female Founder is what convinces her (in some ubiquitous changeling way) from fighting a futile war to the last man. In one of the few redeeming features of DS9's finale, it turns out that Section 31's touted cynicism is not only unwarranted, but almost prevents the Federation from winning the war.

Now, that does not mean this episode isn't stupid.

"Odo *sharing* the cure with the Female Founder is what convinces her (in some ubiquitous changeling way) from fighting a futile war to the last man."

Correct.

"KIRA: This war's over. You lost.
FOUNDER: Have I? I think you'll find that neither the Jem'Hadar or the Breen will agree with that assessment. They will fight to the last man.
KIRA: And what will that accomplish?
FOUNDER: Isn't it obvious? You may win this war, Commander, but I promise you, when it is over, you will have lost so many ships, so many lives, that your victory will taste as bitter as defeat."

The war was over by this point in the episode. The Founder just has nothing left to lose and decides to go all in with a losing hand.

Odo promising to prevent her entire species from being killed off if she'd end the war early was a good deal to her. I can see her point. All if did was save millions (or billions) of lives though. It didn't change the outcome of the war.

And. In point of fact. Had the changelings NOT been dying, she might not have been willing to suicide the entire Dominion on a lost cause. So Odo giving them the cure may have saved billions of lives that would have been on Section 31's hands anyway.

Yo Elliott.

I said: "One way or another, the disease is what wins the war. "

Your reply: "Isn't this precisely not true? Odo *sharing* the cure with the Female Founder is what convinces her (in some ubiquitous changeling way) from fighting a futile war to the last man."

For Odo to share the cure with her, the disease has to exist in the first place. If Section 31 hadn't created the disease, that situation couldn't have arisen. Ergo, one way or another (whether by the disease destroying the Founders, or Odo sharing the cure with the Female Founder and her having a highly unlikely change of heart because the plot and the episode's time constraints demanded it), the disease is what wins the war.

(Also: "ubiquitous"?)

While DS9 may have quietly dropped the "changeling paranoia" element of the show after By Inferno's Light, it's established in Extreme Measures that Odo is infected with the disease by Starfleet midway during season 4. By that point, we'd seen changeling operatives infiltrate the major races, resulting in the destruction of the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order, the near-destruction of the Defiant (starting a war with a race we'd never heard of before in the process), a bloody war between the Klingons and Federation (the genesis of which the Martok-changeling played a major role in), and the declaration of martial law on Earth and an attempted coup in Starfleet, with Starfleet ships even firing on each other. (In S5 we would see the near-destruction of DS9 and Bajor by the Bashir-changeling.) When this kind of stuff is happening, you need to take major steps - you do not sit and have an ethical debate. You do what is necessary through gritted teeth, like Sisko and Kira do again and again throughout DS9. The choice - insofar as it is a real choice, which it isn't - is one of staying true to some self-aggrandisingly noble set of principles so you can feel good about yourself (because that's what it's coming down to in this discussion) and being completely wiped out by genocidal invaders in the process, or going as far as is required - as far and no further - to survive and to vanquish the threat. Ethics and pragmatism are both very important and go hand in hand, you need to strike a fine balance between the two when people's lives depend on your decision, and it's a line that I think Sisko and Kira do an extremely good job of walking in their decisions throughout the series, which is why I respect them so much.

The fact that shape-changing exacerbates the disease's progression would seem built into its design. With Sisko's "false positive" blood test on Earth and the outing of Martok in S5, it was de-facto established that blood tests for changelings don't work. They're also highly impractical. So, how do you stop genocidal, ruthless and extremely cunning changeling operatives destroying civilisation after civilisation from the inside? Infect them with a fatal disease that worsens the more they change form.

The Founders are enemy combatants, not civilians; when it comes to members of the Great Link, we can't meaningfully talk of individuals - they're a single whole, and the Female Founder is the representative they send out ("the ocean becomes the drop"). And they're genocidal. They view other races as completely worthless. Without them, the Dominion would have collapsed. The disease was right. Giving it to Odo was a stupid risk, as he's a liability, and the only reason the Female Founder had her sudden change of heart in the finale was bad writing (sorry, I love DS9 so much, but it has to be said). It was a cheat. Odo coming home wasn't what made the difference either; the Founders were totally prepared to accept Odo's death in The Adversary and irreversibly cast him out in Broken Link. In S3+4 they effectively treated Odo with as much disregard as they did his solid compatriots; the Female Founder's comment in Favor The Bold that bringing Odo home means more to the Founders "than the entire Alpha Quadrant itself" was the writers shifting stance and giving the Dominion War a future get-out clause.

"Giving it to Odo" > "Giving the cure to Odo"

"For Odo to share the cure with her, the disease has to exist in the first place. If Section 31 hadn't created the disease, that situation couldn't have arisen. Ergo, one way or another (whether by the disease destroying the Founders, or Odo sharing the cure with the Female Founder and her having a highly unlikely change of heart because the plot and the episode's time constraints demanded it), the disease is what wins the war."

Well, no. As Robert pointed out, the war was actually won because the Cardassians turned coat on the Dominion. The disease on the other hand made the Founders nihilistic and thus willing to scourge the quadrant with bitter suffering in a futile attempt to continue the fight. If Odo had not intervened (and been able to do so because Bashir and O'Brien undermined Section 31's efforts), the victory would have been devastatingly pyrrhic. But Section 31's plan was to win the war by killing the Founders off. This plan almost ended up destroying the Alpha Quadrant.

Look, if you want to maintain the modernist-cynical view that Section 31's motivation and related philosophy is "the smart thing" as Laura Roslin would put it, that's fine. But (surprisingly), that's not a view which is supported by DS9's narrative of this particular story. Also, yes "ubiquitous"--ie omnipotent, god-like.

@ Elliot
You say surprisingly, but wasn't Section 31 portrayed as an antagonistic force every time we saw them? Sometimes they shared the same long term goals as our "heroes", but they were usually willing to get there via very different methods.

Pretty much what Niall said, a very clumsy and ham-fisted failure and wasred all the good opportunities that could have been explored and instead going down an obvious and very lazily written, and boring dead end. Zero stars.

Section 31 is always portrayed (even in Enterprise) as a rogue morally bankrupt organization who will do anything to protect the Federation including compromising on the morals that founded the Federation in the first place. We are not meant to sympathize with them, we're meant to root against them. We're meant to be shocked and appalled that such an organization exists at all, much less has been operating in the shadows for well over 300 years. They're villains in this show, and Star Trek in general, make no mistake.

Elliot is correct: the show portrays Section 31 to be well in the wrong on their creation of the cure. And it also shows how the Federation is slowly starting to lose its way because of this war, not giving the cure to the Founders, tying into its main anti-war message of the cost of war: compromising on your principles. As Odo says:

"Interesting, isn't it? The Federation claims to abhor Section 31's tactics, but when they need their dirty work done they look the other way. It's a tidy little arrangement, wouldn't you say?'"

The Federation becomes so desperate in the war that it does the wrong thing and compromises on its values, echoing Sisko in In the Pale Moonlight.

Notice how in the previous season, the female changeling was perfectly content to leave the war to Dukat and Weyoun, concerned only with bringing Odo home. But this season she has her hands in everything. This season there's a pronounced urgency to her effort because she's dying and so are her people. Because the Federation has lost itself, it ultimately ends up being another changeling, the very species the Federation was willing to sit back and let die, that shows the Federation just how wrong they were. Odo gives the cure to the female changeling, which convinces her to call off the war. Odo not only ends up going back to his people and, presumably, convincing them to change their ways, he shows the Federation exactly how this war has come at the cost of their core principles.

The show is very clear on this: it believes that what Section 31 does: creating the cure, and what the Federation does: choosing not to give it to the founders, is emphatically wrong, and that Odo giving the cure to the Founders is exactly the right thing to do. Which ties into the entire reason it told this story: an anti-war message: you lose a part of yourself in war. War changes you for the worse and it takes effort to find your way back to your principles after they've been compromised.

Elliot, you are wrong. Because you want something not to be true, does not make it so. The virus led directly to the end of the war. And had no one intervened, the virus would have wiped out the Dominion.

I am sure the left wing writers didn't intend that, but that's what happened.

Also, I feel some here are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. When you are at war with a despotic regime that wants to annihilate you, you do EVERYTHING possible to stop them. It's called survival. Whether you like it or not, there can be no ethical debates when your entire existence is threatened. And although some here would rather die, the majority do not.

We are not all wet blankets hiding under our beds feeling all superior that we aren't fighting.

Giving the cure to the Founders would never have happened in real life, or indeed in most non-Trek shows. It's just a very silly thing to do. We aren't talking about an ordinary war here. We are talking about a war of survival against a crazy, spiteful race, that started a genocidal campaign.

@DLPB - Elliott is correct. It is you that are wrong. The narrative paints the Federation as winning the war separately from the virus... the female changeling says specifically that. Odo giving the cure stops them from fighting to the last man.

"KIRA: This war's over. You lost.
FOUNDER: Have I? I think you'll find that neither the Jem'Hadar or the Breen will agree with that assessment. They will fight to the last man.
KIRA: And what will that accomplish?
FOUNDER: Isn't it obvious? You may win this war, Commander, but I promise you, when it is over, you will have lost so many ships, so many lives, that your victory will taste as bitter as defeat. "

You'll need SOME evidence to support this virus being the way the war ended. And Sean is correct as well. Every war story in all of Trek boils down to the piece of yourself that you lose in war. The DS9 narrative paints Bashir (fighting against Section 31) as the hero. He's the one that DIDN'T lose a piece of himself in the war.

Men like Sloan/O'Brien/Sisko have picked up dark pieces of themselves to win the war.... and interestingly Bashir picks one up too in order to defeat Sloan (torturing Sloan will haunt him no doubt). Sloan hints that he can't sleep at night, O'Brien hates himself, Sisko can "live with it".... These are ALL stories of the cost of war. And the DS9 narrative paints genocide as going too far, as too great a cost to the soul of the Federation. Odo DOES do the right thing in the end. And no, you don't do everything possible to stop them, war has rules... ever hear of Geneva?

"KIRA: Jadzia. Your questions about my experience with killing. If you're wondering what it's like. When you take someone's life, you lose a part of your own as well."

"O'BRIEN: The man just incinerated, there before my eyes. I'd never killed anything before. When I was a kid, I'd worry about swatting a mosquito. It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you."

"SLOAN: The Federation needs men like you, Doctor. Men of conscience, men of principle, men who can sleep at night. You're also the reason Section Thirty one exists. Someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong. "

"SISKO: A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it. Computer, erase that entire personal log."

@DLPB :

"The virus led directly to the end of the war."

"Led to" maybe, but the only thing that saved the Alpha Quadrant was Odo's olive branch to the Founders. In the end, SAVING the Changelings is what prevented millions if not billions of Alpha (and Gamma) Quadrant soldiers and civilians from dying pointlessly.

I don't mean to be black and white about it--if Section 31 hadn't infected the Founders, Odo would have had no cure to offer, but the circle continues--if her people weren't on the brink of extinction, the Female Founder's tactic may have been less brutal and she may have surrendered once it was clear the battle for Cardassia was lost.

"Also, I feel some here are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. "

Why is it that anyone who doesn't agree with you is just insane? It's pretty easy to stand entrenched in your beliefs when you can easily dismiss any other point of view as just "cuckoo."

"We are talking about a war of survival against a crazy, spiteful race, that started a genocidal campaign."

And so to survive, we take actions that are crazy, spiteful and genocidal? Fantastic.

Galactic war boils down to a big game of "I know you are, but what am I?"

"We aren't talking about an ordinary war here."

What would you consider "an ordinary war" to be exactly? And for the record, the Founders are certainly an evil oppressive power, but until the very end (when Female Founder goes off the deep end), when were they depicted as genocidal? The Founders wanted to conquer and control the Alpha Quadrant, not annihilate it. Of course the Federation should have fought back against a conquering force, but the Dominion was never portrayed as spiteful or genocidal.

"Of course the Federation should have fought back against a conquering force, but the Dominion was never portrayed as spiteful or genocidal."

Even at the end they weren't being genocidal, they were not taking steps to kill every Cardassian in existence. Spiteful, yes (see "The Quickening")... they've been that a lot, but never genocidal. Our first experience with them is having them say how they wanted to bring "order" to the Alpha Quadrant.

@Robert : I'm not sure I'd consider the events of "The Quickening" to be out of spite, so much as an example of the Dominion's extreme punitive system. They were after all meant to be a kind of gibbetted race for the rest of the conquered worlds to observe, much like the races from "Battle Lines."

I'm mostly agreeing with you, I see the Founders much more like you do than DLPB. I just find them a bit more spiteful than you do. The Founders strike me as very "toddler throwing a tantrum" when they don't get what they want :P

See "The Quickening", fighting to the last soldier, obliterating a Vorta science team for failure, etc. Granted a lot of them came from them getting desperate, which makes you even more correct of course... that had the Federation not attempted to kill them all we wouldn't have been fighting such an evil enemy. We made them worse.

@Robert :

It's a small distinction, but I think it's important that all of the Founders' punishments were meant to serve as deterrents to others in the Dominion, like typical fascists. I don't think Stalin sent dissenters to the gulags out of personal spite, but as a political move to maintain control and order. It was only at the bitter end when the Female Founder ordered the pointless destruction of the entire Cardassian population (whom would that deter?) that she crossed into spiteful territory, I believe.

Wow. This is how I see it.

The war isn't over as long as there is fighting. The Founder said that the Jem'hadar will fight until they are extinct basically, so Odo giving the cure to her did in fact end the war. "Fight to the last man" rings a bell. Whether Section 31 intended it that way is besides the point.

As to whether it would be Sloan to come out to DS9? Well, we have no idea how many folks make up Section 31. For all we know, Bashir was Sloan's project and responded in kind to Bashir reporting he found the cure. I don't see it as too far fetched.

I don't need to see Bashir "lose" everything to beat Sloan. I thought wanting to use the Romulan's mind device was far enough.

Sloan's mind was interesting. As was his final attempt to defeat Bashir.

Of course, the Kira/Odo exchanges were heartfelt and touching as always.

I'm not as hard as some I guess. I'll give this one 3 stars. Odo's all better, that has to mean something.

Sloan was built up as the ultimate protagonist. An all seeing, all powerful menacing force secretly guiding foreign policy of the Federation. He was on the cusp of wiping out the founders! Imagine, in a matter of days in the DS9 world, the virus would have done its job and ended the war. The Founder's genocidal war upon the galaxy had caused, we are told, billions of deaths. Would not the wiping out of the Founders justified the methods? .... a question whose answer we are denied as the dynamic duo Bashir and Miles go forth once more into the breach, saving the day. What do we get? Sloan, brain dead...the federation's brightest and monomaniacal, factitious agent, reduced to a vegetable. A cop-out indeed.

The genocide of the founders began before starfleet found the quickening, it's possible this was more a joint section 31 and Tal Shiar plot in response to the destruction of a Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order task force, the bombing of a Romulan Federation conference, the Defiant nearly attacking the Tzenkethi and the destabilization of the Khotomer Accords and Cardassian Union.

but the Dominion was never portrayed as spiteful or genocidal.
-------

You need a dictionary, then.

Here we have another case where the plot had to go ridiculous in order to put Bashir and O'Brien together like some sort of buddy movie.

Back in One Little Ship, they had O'Brien take Bashir with him into the conduit for no good reason, even though oxygen was very much at a premium. And here we have O'Brien announce that he's going with Bashir into Sloan's mind when there was really no reason to believe that the thing Bashir made was a contraption built for two, which doesn't even get into the risks involved for one officer to be now imposed onto two. Yes, Odo is beloved, but there's also a war on.

O'Brien says at the end to Julian "the next time to do this, you're going by yourself". Did the episode writer forget that going along was O'Brien's idea?

The first big misfire of the closing chapter. Funnily enough the capping to the Miles-Julian buddy story actually works OK, but you can't help thinking another vehicle might have been a better choice. And actually, up until they go into Sloan's mind it's working OK. But really? The same old tired walking down corridors in a surreal nightmare. The same old tired false ending. I've hated this plot device in other episodes and I hated it here.

It also jams the other plot lines solid because we get no other idea what's going on in the wider world - and we're close enough to the end that it really matters. Wasting an hour on this seems like a big waste - not least because there was a story worth telling here, just not this way. 2 stars.

Suffice it to say, for now, that I like "When it Rains" and love "Tacking."

I guess the clue to decoding this episode's meaning (or attempted meaning) is in the climax: Sloan attempts to tempt Julian by offering him the full secrets of Section 31, and almost succeeds. This pays off a number of threads from the Sloan/Bashir arc -- Bashir's angry determination earlier in the episode that Section 31 is a cancer which must be removed, Sloan's insistence in "Inter Arma..." that Bashir is a man obsessed with secrets (hence, as he said in "Inquisition," the spy movie fixation), and the earlier scene where "friendly" Sloan tells his friends and family how he has been neglecting them by spending all his time in service to the Federation, and now he sees what he has lost. Miles reminds Julian that they are there for a personal, local reason -- to save Odo -- and Miles keeps Julian grounded so that he does not lose himself in his desire to know. It is the perfect bait, as Bashir says, and O'Brien saves him from it by being mostly immune to this sort of intrigue. It works in part because it highlights some of Bashir's core character traits from the beginning: beyond his ethical opposition to Section 31, Bashir also just desperately wants to *know* things, and is desperate to solve puzzles, to the point where he loses his bearings frequently. It's again a convincing portrayal of genius -- he makes connections so fast, he is so damn smart that he consistently fails to see the trees for the forest. I'm reminded of O'Brien being the counterbalance to Bashir's probabilistic doom in "Statistical Probabilities."

The way this maybe ties in with the broader Section 31 themes is this: when given the opportunity to take down Sect. 31 entirely, Bashir loses track of his own life and of his need to save Odo's life, before O'Brien reminds him. He wants to take it down because he opposes it ethically, but I suspect that it's not even that; Sloan would argue, I think, that Bashir may have his values, but what motivates him even more is the desire to know, and, well, to win. Bashir indicated in "IAESL" that he knew that Sloan was still alive because no fool could pull a wool over Bashir's eyes, and so the personal element of competition is in play as well. Worf has emphasizes Bashir's childishness recently regarding Ezri's feelings for him. And check out the Alamo detail in "Changing Face": Bashir and O'Brien choose a program which is designed to be a lost cause, but Bashir still becomes obsessed with winning ("I just want to win, once!") and then loses one of the tiny figures anyway, missing the little details for the big picture. The implication of all this, I think, is that seeing the whole universe as a sort of game to be won eventually wears down one's judgment and leads to losing oneself and one's loved ones. This is, maybe, what happened to Sloan and the rest of Section 31 -- the reason their actions became more morally depraved is that they became less and less connected to decent individuals (like O'Brien) who could restrain their whatever-it-takes choices.

So as a conclusion of sorts of Bashir's arc and the Section 31 arc and the Bashir/O'Brien buddy arc, the episode does end up making some sense. I say this a little reluctantly, because I really think that the choices the writers made in setting up this episode were bad. The title and the initial setup suggest the question of how far it is justified to go -- Section 31 opts for genocide to counter an evil foe, so when acting against Section 31 what actions of Bashir's are justified? The use of the Romulan mind probes is a particularly unsettling detail, with Bashir willingly adopting methods used against him (or which had been attempted to use against him) against Sloan. He tricks him, puts him in a forcefield, phasers him, and then once Sloan attempts suicide and O'Brien suggests maybe they should just let him die in peace, Bashir decides to invade the man's mind. How far will Bashir go? How far is *justified* to go against an organization that is overwhelming and evil? The worse the actions Bashir takes against Sloan, the more Bashir loses the high ground that he rejects Section 31's methods against the Dominion. But once inside Sloan's mind, this thread mostly gets dropped and the question remains unexamined. This is still not the *very* last word on Section 31 and the genocidal virus they created -- there is still Odo's material in the next two eps -- but the episode sidesteps the difficult issues. It may be reasonable in that there maybe is no clear resolution, but it still disappoints me that the episode punts and then has wacky walking through corridors for 20 minutes and then ends with the implication that the most important issue is whether or not one's love of secrets overwhelms one's connection to one's friends, which is perhaps an important story for Bashir but is not really the most interesting question raised in this arc, to me. If nothing else, Bashir going for Romulan mind probes which are both invasive and, if the subject is unwilling, very painful, and then going to desecrate a dying man's mind to scour it for memories, would be a pretty major violation both of Federation laws (and the spirit behind them) and the Hippocratic Oath, the latter of which does to me seem to be a pretty major thing for Bashir to go entirely unexamined.

The episode feels incredibly padded, which is especially notable given the incredible pace of about "Strange Bedfellows" on, the sllllowww "making a thing to walk in Sloan's mind" montage which apparently represents 17 minutes of work to create a technological mindmeld to a dying man, the endless wandering in corridors, the turbolift scene where Bashir and O'Brien spend a minute deciding whether or not to remove their hands from the railing. Their meeting with "good Sloan" who cannot quite communicate the proper amino acid chain because, really, "some part of me doesn't want to tell you" (!!!), the security guard shooting them followed by the two lying "dying" with a not-wound for minutes, the obvious "we're still inside!" fake-out. None of these add anything to the themes or to the examination either of morality or of Bashir's secrets-obsession, and even as Bashir/O'Brien bonding they are mostly wan -- Siddig and Meaney do bring a certain gentle humour even to the "countdown to lift our hands off the railing" moment, I will grant.

Also of note is that this story also makes no goddamn sense. Why would Section 31 have a cure anyway? It's not obvious at all that they would create something that has a cure which they are aware of. Bashir's whole logic rests on the idea that Sloan would need to destroy the cure in his lab and so would need to know what it looks like, and while Sloan says "You call that reasoning?" we are more or less supposed to assume Bashir is right (since his trap "worked")...but if that's the case, why did Sloan go to Bashir's quarters *first* rather than to the lab as Bashir suggests Sloan would have to? Bashir and O'Brien seem not to consider that Section 31 could just kill Bashir and blow up the lab, and perhaps not send Sloan at all. Bashir's inability to predict that Sloan might commit suicide is also rather a problem. And then there is after this episode: what exactly are they going to do with Sloan's body? The whole story of this episode rests on the idea that Bashir pretending to have a cure will bring a Section 31 operative to the station -- so now that Bashir *actually* has a cure and one of their operatives has died, why won't Section 31 send *another* operative? Sloan's threat to Keiko and the kids goes mostly forgotten, but shouldn't Bashir and O'Brien (and the whole of the senior staff who were aware of this) be afraid of Section 31 retribution?

So the other big element here is having one last Bashir/O'Brien story. Well...it's okay. I do think they should have had another vehicle if they wanted to do one more story, and part of the weridness here is that they have already been best friends for years and years, so having scenes like the "I like you more" one seems...somewhat out of place. What exactly was Julian looking for, in pressing Miles to admit that he likes Julian more than Keiko? Now the thematic connection to the plot is that, as it turns out, it is Miles who can talk Julian out of staying until he dies in a crumbling brain looking at padd after padd. And as it turns out, SPOILER Miles is leaving soon so this actually *is* their last adventure together. The other thing that occurs to me is that Julian may be so insistent because he realizes he is in love with Ezri, and on some level he needs to work out his feelings for Miles before he can pursue that relationship -- in trying to get Miles to admit that he likes Julian more than Keiko, he is actually asking whether it's normal for him to like Miles more than Ezri even though he wants to date the latter. And if he dates Ezri, will he and Miles change? Maybe it is important for him to tell Miles how he feels now before he starts dating and everything is different for him.... The cheesiness of the final image -- where after being invited to dinner, Julian gets a bull's-eye! -- as my girlfriend pointed out plays out as if Julian just got a date, which is weird at this stage of their friendship, which even in season four was established as being basically as important to Miles as his relationship with his wife. It also to me strikes completely the wrong tone in an episode where, yes, Julian cured Odo and that's great, but also there's a man who committed suicide to avoid Julian torturing information out of him with mind-probes, and so maybe a bit less sweetness is desired.

The Odo/Kira scene at the beginning is lovely, and also sets up the idea of how much one is willing to be emotionally exposed (to underline the later Bashir/O'Brien feelings confessional); it has the weight of a real goodbye both because they believe it is the very last time they will see each other, and because we know that the series is coming to a close anyway. Following up on what Peter G. pointed out in the "Chimera" thread about Kira being interested in looks, her saying to Odo that she does not care how he looks (even if he is diseased and his skin is flaking away) is quite touching. At this stage, too, Odo still needs to maintain his dignity -- is this a reasonable desire to protect himself from emotional agony at the end, or Odo still unwilling to let Kira get close even at the end, perhaps not believing that she really will continue loving him to the bitter end?

I'm not sure whether I'd say 1.5 or 2. I guess it does enough things effectively to earn a 2, but I do consider it a major disappointment.

You know, 1.5. I don't like this one.

@William B

"The whole story of this episode rests on the idea that Bashir pretending to have a cure will bring a Section 31 operative to the station -- so now that Bashir *actually* has a cure and one of their operatives has died, why won't Section 31 send *another* operative? Sloan's threat to Keiko and the kids goes mostly forgotten, but shouldn't Bashir and O'Brien (and the whole of the senior staff who were aware of this) be afraid of Section 31 retribution? "

I never thought of that, but it's a great point. The writers are trying to reinforce *too heavily* that Sloan = Section 31. That couldn't possibly be true, right? I mean "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" throws out the idea that Sloan made Section 31 up, but then it's revealed that was part of a hoax to throw the Romulans off the trail of the group.

So, I don't know, maybe Sloan was a radical operative within Section 31? When Sloan died, the more moderate members were in power and they gave up on the whole "Poison the Shapeshifters!" plan. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me, although I wish the writers addressed it.

I also don't like this episode, much for the reasons Jammer and William B have stated. It spends too much time in Sloan's head at a point in the series where the things going outside his head are more interesting.

I don't really think they should be afraid of retribution. Killing O'Brien's kids to what? Make him sorry about what he did in the past? That requires a lot of cleanup and isn't that efficient, especially since they are unlikely to tangle with O'Brien again in the future.

No, the one who should be worried is Odo. But perhaps the short answer is that if Bashir tells enough people the cure and puts it in enough places set to go off when he dies, etc. that it's too big of a thing to contain.

Section 31 is really going to just let Bashir and O'Brien force one of their operatives into suicide? I don't actually think they will kill Molly or Kirayoshi, but they should probably eliminate Bashir at least given that he might have found something out (and nearly did) that could undermine their organization.

You know, I'm beginning to see what the argument between Sloan and Bashir is really about. It's not about some villain within the Federation, nor is it about the corruption of Bashir. It's about the narrow mentality some people have about what Star Trek is supposed to be about when confronted by a darker or more complex angle to the realities Starfleet faces. Sloan is to DS9 what Bashir is to TNG; Sloan to Ira Behr's vision what Bashir is to Star Trek purists who think DS9 has betrayed core Star Trek values. Bashir's outrage is their outrage, and Sloan's reasoning is the counterpoint that DS9 brought to TNG.

When Sloan says that Bashir is actually a dangerous man, this thought should really be taken more seriously than the episode gives it credit for. Bashir, even in the face of a genocidal implacable foe, is still more concerned with abstract principles than saving lives (and preserving the Federation). This doesn't mean that Bashir is wrong, per se, but he is shown repeatedly to be rather inflexible in his views - even when those views conflict with his orders or with Starfleet directives. As Sloan earlier mentioned, there is something noble about taking the moral path regardless of circumstance or advantage, but what is moral? Is it 'moral' to sacrifice lives to an ideal?

A repeated motif in DS9 is how inflexibility and inability to adapt will destroy a people. In the wake of the Occupation we see Bajorans too inflexible to learn how to rebuild their world; they devolve into old vendettas and rivalries and want to be revolutionaries. Cardassia can't recognize that its power base can no longer sustain expansionist policy, and cannot accept that its role isn't as a mighty ruler. The Dominion is the prime example of this, where the people who can change into any shape are the least flexible of any race, unable to overcome prejudices and fears that go back thousands (arguably millions) of years.

The greatest example we have of a civilization that can adapt and learn to re-mold itself is the Federation, exemplified in DS9 by Sisko in his dark turn and his allegiance to Bajor, by Kira in her becoming a builder instead of a fighter, by Worf in finally overcoming his romantic notions of what the Empire is, and obviously big changes for Odo and Quark even though Quark's changes aren't given the screen time they deserve. But although Bashir becomes grim and loses his innocence, making his character arc the most apparent visually, his almost child-like principles seem to have never wavered right from the start. Is this a good thing? Is Worf merely making a joke when he comments about how Bashir plays with toys? There is a sort of almost desperate need to keep childish innocence about both O'Brien and Bashir, especially in Season 7. Could Sloan be right that this is a dangerous thing for people of real responsibility? What if Bashir had been commander of DS9 - would there be a Federation left?

And this goes back to my broader comment about fans who insist on Star Trek conforming to Gene's vision of perfect people who never do questionable things. I would argue that this view of Humanity's future itself would be a dangerous thing. To think that people will cease to be complex and have darkness in them is the kind of whitewash that can lead to failure to recognize bad things that are happening. It's like a group hypnosis where no one will recognize the elephant in the room. Sisko announces this elephant in The Maquis with his "It's easy to be a saint in paradise" speech, and that speech to me is the plain essence of DS9. Failure to recognize that truth sounds to me like a dangerous, almost fundamentalist set of blinders. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a DS9 fan, and consequently I agree with Sloan. Not that everything he does is awesome, but rather that monolithic unchangeable views are never a good thing.

Incidentally, while some above have commented on the fact that the Changeling virus never really helped the Federation, my inclination is that this conclusion was not what the writers were going for. When making a strategic assessment I can see why some viewers might feel that cornering the Founders only made them attack sooner and harder, and that this could have hurt the Federation, but based on how the story is told it seems evident to me that the intention was that the virus was the real linchpin in convincing the Founders to surrender, since it gave Odo a reason to go back to them and offer the cure as an olive branch from the Federation. Maybe the writers didn't succeed entirely in making the virus key to the story, but its effects did seem to be key as we saw the demoralization of Weyoun seeing the Founder waste away. Fight or no fight, the Dominion was about to fall because of the virus. Without the Founders behind them the Jem'Hadar would have turned on the Vorta in an instant.

It's my view that Section 31 played a major role in winning the war for the Federation, and that the moral issues to be weighed are not whether their actions were successful but rather whether they were acceptable. To argue that they weren't useful anyhow seems to me a massive dodge of what the real issue is.

@Peter G., I think I largely agree with your assessment about what the story is about. I would add that the episode is clear that Bashir's big problem is his obsession with taking down Section 31. We can argue whether or not Bashir being willing to risk killing Sloan and raining destruction down on himself in order to cure Odo is justified or not, but for the most part I don't think the episode seriously disagrees with Bashir on this point. Bashir and O'Brien risking their lives (and Sloan's) because they care about Odo is not about abstract principles but about personal connection, and even Sloan (albeit in his dream) acknowledges that he has lost something fundamental in his life by denying the personal in favour of defending the Federation. However, Bashir gets caught up in taking down the whole organization and it nearly kills him. The implication I think is actually that while Bashir genuinely cares about Odo, and I think is also genuinely horrified by Section 31's actions, some of it is actually still a game to him, which he wants to *win*, and when he gets in that mode he is both easy for Sloan to manipulate and, indeed, dangerous. I think that Bashir's abstraction is a strength and weakness throughout the series, and the show does tie his idealism to his abstract rather than concrete, ends-oriented thinking, along with the implicit suggestion that he (the one character from the original cast lineup who fits in on TNG, c.f. Birthright) represents something of a TNG mentality. And yet I think Bashir caring more about his patients than about whether or not people are dangerous is not the same flaw, and is really something that the show views as complex but IMO mostly supports and celebrates (Bashir's willingness to treat Garak in The Wire despite not knowing what evil lies in Garak's past, in addition to the Odo material here).

On the last point, I agree to a point that it is a dodge of the issues to say that the changeling virus was ineffective and thus that it was wrong, rather than whether or not it was wrong given that it was successful. But it's not, to me, entirely a dodge to examine this. It is like doing a torture narrative: the most central case against torture, to me, is that it is unacceptable to inflict serious harm on another, but whether or not it is actually effective IS STILL RELEVANT. People do bad *and ineffective* things all the time, and the idea that in the 24th century secret organizations beholden to no one will suddenly become immune to making gross errors in judgment even beyond moral errors strikes me as its own kind of idealist; secret organizations tend to make big mistakes because they can cover them up. I don't mind the idea of Sloan as a hypercompetent agent because it fits in with Bashir's medical hypercompetence and the general Trekkian conceit that people tend to be better at their jobs than people are now and whatnot, but I think that there is room to acknowledge that organizations with no oversight will tend to make big strategic errors as well as cross moral lines.

As something of a TNG person, I am ambivalent about the portrayal of Bashir as basically the sole person who objects to Section 31 strongly enough to want to put effort into opposing him and him being a naive fool who is partly in it for the love of secrets and puzzle-solving abstraction anyway. On the one hand, the show points out flaws in the main characters generally and I do think that Bashir's humanist belief that Odo deserves to live is supported. On the other, it seems to argue that there is no reasonable objection to genocide under these circumstances, nor to a secret organization with no responsibility to any democratic institutions, which is not both foolhardy and childish. That said, I suppose I'm not all that confident that I'm not a childish fool, so maybe Behr's characterization is fair.

@ William B,

Bashir certainly does care about his individual patients, but we may note upon observation that his 'caring' about them tends to be of the more impersonal variety, just as Odo cares about solving crimes but no so much about the individuals he helps when solving them. Contrast Bashir with Dr. McCoy, who had a true human connection to his patients almost invariably, and laughed with them and gave them reason to hope and get through it. Even McCoy's 'tough' attitude was a way to help patients get through the worst of it. But Bashir is more of a technician, where his way of helping is by being smart and succeeding, *knowing* he's done the right thing. The success condition is therefore mostly in Julian's head, rather than in his connection to his patients, and this theme is also focused on intently by the series. We're shown repeatedly that Bashir is far more interested in feeling smart than in connecting with others, and evidence of this is not only his penchant for repeated trips alone to the holodeck (until S7) but his desire to succeed as we see in The Quickening. In that episode we're given a first-hand view of Bashir wanting to be smart rather than humane; he wants to explain away the peoples' fears rather than sympathizing with them. That's why he doesn't understand Trevean and why his resolve is shattered when Trevean has to come in and clean up his mess.

So while Bashir does care about helping, it always seemed like it was more about the idea of helping rather than care for the individuals involved. In Odo's case we know for sure he does care about him, but how much of this cause is purely personal concern for him, and how much is theoretical outrage? Bashir wants his answer and Section 31 is standing in his way, so he's going to best them and get it by any means necessary.

"It is like doing a torture narrative: the most central case against torture, to me, is that it is unacceptable to inflict serious harm on another, but whether or not it is actually effective IS STILL RELEVANT. People do bad *and ineffective* things all the time"

This is true...now. But while some things won't change in the next 300 years some will. I have a hard time believing that the Obsidian Order was wasting its time using "ineffective" interrogation methods. When Garak says that he could have gotten information out of anyone, I believe him. The fact that intelligence agencies currently use methods that are both morally questionable, illegal, and ALSO ineffective just means to me that they are sloppy (like the Tal Shiar). I don't think it should be assumed that techniques like this *need* to be sloppy, it's just that they are right now. I'm also not entirely convinced by claims made that torture is ineffective; this seems like a good line to sell the public but I feel like 99.9% of people would break without much ado under the right conditions. But that's a side issue; the main issue is that I don't really believe that intelligence agencies 400 years from now would be using incompetent methods of extracting information. That being said, the worst of what we see from Section 31 doesn't really involve torture but rather intrigue and the plot to commit genocide, both of which obviously could be effectively executed without the need to discuss whether or not it is possible to do those things (the analogy being whether it is actually possible to forcibly extract information from someone). Whether committing genocide is itself a good strategic move is more akin to discussing military strategy than the effectiveness of methods. Once it's establish that the bomb works, or that the virus works, how to deploy it is another issue entirely. In DS9's case it's counterfactual to suppose what would have happened if the virus had never existed.

I'm sure most people do break under torture, but the issue is the reliability of the information provided--to what extent information is accurate versus what the interrogators want to hear. But that's neither here nor there. Regardless I don't think that it is necessarily wrong to say that an organization can make poor judgement calls even in the future.

I agree that Bashir cares in a more detached abstract way about his patients, though I brought up The Wire specifically because I think he was especially motivated due to his personal connection to Garak, and in particular his willingness to continue to help him regardless of what he had done. I do think that Bashir's reliance on his intellect as his primary source of deriving meaning from his life contributes to his habit of living in his own mind that you mention. I like to think that this is not entirely a matter of some intrinsic difficulty caring about others but partly a product of believing himself worthless except in his intelligence, which he wasn't born with anyway, with early alienation from "Jules" and a life spent regretting the non intellectual pursuits he felt he had to leave behind (tennis etc.). His relationship with Miles is presumably so meaningful because it seems likely he never had "normal" boyhood friendships, being likely isolated from his peers first by being far less and later by being far more intelligent than them.

"I agree that Bashir cares in a more detached abstract way about his patients, though I brought up The Wire specifically because I think he was especially motivated due to his personal connection to Garak, and in particular his willingness to continue to help him regardless of what he had done."

if you watch the episode again and focus on Bashir I'm not sure you'll come out feeling like his main concern was for Garak as a person. There is something about Bashir becoming close with Garak that strikes me as appropriate in hindsight, because both of them are consummate professionals that put their work ethic above their personal feelings. Throughout The Wire Garak tries incessantly to rile Bashir up with various stories about himself, and to make him question his intent to help Garak with characterizations of himself. But Bashir was, if anything, unmoved by Garak's admissions, and remained implacably focused on completing his task, which was to 'fix' Garak. This strikes me as a very Garak-like way to proceed with a task; leave personal feelings out of it and complete the job. It is, in fact, Bashir's *refusal* to connect with the personal stories Garak is telling that enables him to remain so implacably committed to healing Garak, even to the point of flying a runabout right to Tain's house (!!!). I mean, this surely cannot be merely Bashir caring that much about his patient; it's not just above and beyond, it's straight-up driven. Now that I think of it I can see how this aspect of Julian, along with his isolated world of imagination, could appeal to Garak on a personal level since the two of them have these things in common.

For all Garak says of Julian's misguided principles and naive notions, I think he saw a lot of similarity between them in their impersonal approach to their work, their pride in their skills, and their tendency towards isolation.

Anyway, while Bashir is obsessed with finding cures to the point where he fails to see his patients, he also does invest many of his patients with very intense focus and feeling, though intiially it is abstract. That he frequently fails to notice what his patients actually want is a sign that much of this is about him -- Melora, Garak, Goran'agar, the woman in The Quickening, Sarina -- and yet in each case I feel that Bashir does genuinely feel a connection to them. In some cases the connection is mostly in his head, but there is a sort of desperation there for someone to return signals he's putting into the dark. Jadzia remarks on his clinginess and persistence as well, of course. It's possible that Bashir is unwilling to connect to others except on his own terms, of course, in which case his aloneness is "his own fault," and he is certainly egocentric, but I largely think he wants to be able to connect to others but feels constantly isolated and is paranoid of rejection even from his closest friends. Much of this is because he is "closeted" because of his genetically engineered secret, too, though I think part of "Inquisition's" power for me comes from Bashir's fears of everyone abandoning him (and him *deserving* this) persisting after that is revealed. This also links him to Odo, who also to some degree wants to connect to others but does not know how and so settles for problem solving as an attempted substitute for interpersonal connection.

In the cases of Melora and Selina we see what happens when Bashir does actually connect with a patient; it overwhelms him and his idea of what's going on gets way out of control. Maybe part of it has to do with what we normally call overthinking situations, where for a genetically engineered mind might mean the equivalent of eons of ruminating on what small minutiae mean. His relationships with both of these women were clearly mistakes, both professionally and personally.

I agree that his best example of a real relationship with a patient was the woman in The Quickening, but I think part of that had to do with the fact that she was offering herself as his assistant; she was the feeling up support he needed from these people while he was saving them. So although she was not for the most part functioning directly as his patient she was certainly serving up large doses for his ego on a constant basis. The way she made him feel about himself seemed more pronounced than any way he might have felt about her.

It's different, I suppose, with male patients, and on the few occasions when he had a significant male patient (Bareil, Sisko, Odo) his role in helping them was mostly relegated to being a plot point. Even his feelings about Bareil becoming a robot seemed more on principle than anything to do with Bashir's personal feelings about Bareil, whom he didn't really know.

One reason why I think Jadzia and Bashir wouldn't have worked that well is because she was never going to feed into his ego or his sense of being smart. She was always the type to show off and take the superior position socially, and would never give him the satisfaction of him looking smarter than her. I think this situation would have been self-defeating for Bashir in very short order. Contrast with the more humble and meek Ezri, who we could legitimately see as admiring Bashir for his gifts whereas the competitive Jadzia would only rarely, if ever, have done so.

"When making a strategic assessment I can see why some viewers might feel that cornering the Founders only made them attack sooner and harder, and that this could have hurt the Federation, but based on how the story is told it seems evident to me that the intention was that the virus was the real linchpin in convincing the Founders to surrender, since it gave Odo a reason to go back to them and offer the cure as an olive branch from the Federation."

Surely if this was the case, then we must credit Bashir and O'Brien as being correct in curing Odo, since Section 31 seemed intent on letting him die rather than using him as a bargaining chip/overture. Unless Section 31 planned to let Bashir get the cure from Sloan. Given that the Federation was intent on Odo not curing the others (and it had seemed as if going to speak to the Founder directly was a spur-of-the-moment decision by Odo on the Defiant), at the very least Section 31 and the Federation's judgment must have been wrong in wanting to withhold the cure under all circumstances once the Founders were infected, whether or not it was good judgment or not to infect them in the first place. This is part of what I have a hard time understanding about that moment in WYLB; Odos overture to the Founder relies on convincing her that the solids are not as big a threat as she imagines, but he also presumably carries with him the information that the Federation infected the Founders, before the war started. Presumably within the Link Odo could either omit the information he did not want her to know or, more likely, was able to communicate his ambivalent-positive attitudes (the Federation may have infected us in self-defense but there are Federation solids who have helped me and given an offer of surrender they can be trusted). I like to think that Bashir and O'Brien's willingness to risk their lives to save Odo did help Odo make the case for solids and for the Federation's trustworthiness in not only not invading the Gamma Quadrant Dominion location but apparently in restraining Klingons and Romulans from doing so as well.

I certainly agree that Melora and Sarina were mistakes, professionally and personally...though I think that the implication is that he did actually help Sarina with his treatment, though the relationship was a major error (and conversely, that Melora may have been helped by the relationship in a small way even though his attempts to fix her "condition" were a mistake). I mostly wanted to say that Bashir does want on some level to connect to others, but I think he does not know how and is totally overwhelmed when the prospect presents itself. I will be on the lookout for to what extent his feelings are personal next time in The Wire. I do agree that there is a tendency to want a kind of hero worship in his patients (and anyone he connects to).

To be clear, I agree that Bashir was initially primarily concerned with bringing down Section 31 rather than with Odo, and it was O'Brien who had to remind him at several points in the episode (in the initial darts scene and then when Sloan tempted Bashir with information at the end) what their actual priority was. In the end I think it is important that for his flaws and his tendency to abstraction over immediate, interpersonal concerns, Bashir does actually agree with O'Brien and views saving Odo as a more immediate and important goal than Section 31. One could say that even this is just a function of Bashir being convinced that it is better to fight a battle that is possible to win and that curing Odo is itself a way to thumb his nose at Section 31, but I tend to view the two goals -- saving Odo, defeating Section 31 -- as mostly distinct, and while his natural inclination is to give up on his patient for the broader goal he ultimately does believe that saving Odo is a higher calling, even if it has to be O'Brien who reminds him of it.

Given that Odo having the cure helps save tremendous lives, I think that the narrative does support Bashir and O'Brien saving Odo, which is on some level what I think is evidence that there is good in Bashir's tenacity and idealism, IF he focuses it on specific and achievable good. He has to give up on destroying Section 31 to save Odo, but he is willing to risk a lot to save Odo partly because he does care about Odo as his patient and his friend/acquaintance and partly because he does think what was done to Odo is wrong and is motivated to do something about it. To me the story overall is about the importance of tempering idealism and abstract principles with a pragmatic recognition of reality and to recognize which part of one's "idealism" is actually a kind of egotism. "The Quickening," IMO, was similar in that Bashir's initial approach was proven wrong, but when confronted with his errors he decided to continue trying to accomplish difficult/impossible feats and eventually succeeded in doing good, albeit on a much different scale than he had originally believed himself capable. So I think that some of Bashir's impersonal abstract principles are still shown to be valuable rather than purely ego-driven. Or at least I hope so. On that level, I think Bashir does adapt; it is Sloan who fails to adapt and not only dies in the process, but dies trying to prevent Odo from getting the cure that allows him to end the war (or, at least, significantly reduce the fatalities).

@ William B,

"Surely if this was the case, then we must credit Bashir and O'Brien as being correct in curing Odo, since Section 31 seemed intent on letting him die rather than using him as a bargaining chip/overture."

Section 13 may well have been planning on holding the cure over their heads once they were in a more vulnerable situation. Odo, after all, didn't offer it until the end either. However what I do agree with is that while the Founder did finally agree to accept the cure and surrender, it was only because it came with Odo's assurances, which she trusted. I think that no matter what Section 31 or the Federation said to her the female Changeling would never have trusted them, even to her own detriment, and would have allowed her race to die rather than accepting their terms. If there's any truth to this then the reality is that Section 31 did give Odo the tools he needed to convince the Founders to surrender (the survival of the Link), but what they wouldn't have realized was that only Nixon...I mean, Odo, could be the one to offer it to them. In terms of Extreme Measures I think the moral would be that both Sloan and Julian are right, in different ways, and that the Federation needs both kinds of men. They need the Siskos as well as the Picards.

"while his natural inclination is to give up on his patient for the broader goal he ultimately does believe that saving Odo is a higher calling, even if it has to be O'Brien who reminds him of it."

Agreed. Bashir has a strong Human sense at the end of the day, but his fixation on his intelligence and success constantly blind him. I think you said it best when you suggested that by altering who he was at a young age be basically became his genetic modifications, since the old Jules was deemed unacceptable to his parents. His identity would afterward be rooted in a combination of hiding who he was while also going to excess in trying to get others to recognize his gifts. His early scene with Kira in a runabout telling her she should be impressed with him, that he impresses himself; that has always been DS9 gold to me.

"To me the story overall is about the importance of tempering idealism and abstract principles with a pragmatic recognition of reality and to recognize which part of one's "idealism" is actually a kind of egotism."

This is good. It reminds me of a point made in TNG's Family, where Robert correctly points out that Picard didn't merely suffer a defeat but was humbled in a way he never had been before. Even despite having been changed by being stabbed by a Nausicaan, Picard's moral sense still seemed to be wrapped up in his ego, and it's telling that after having his ego shattered he briefly begins to contemplate working on the undersea project back on Earth. The Borg represented not only the antithesis of his values, but of his sense of his own superiority. He was helpless before them. In Bashir's case it's different, since Bashir's ego going to excess isn't merely an issue of stubborn pigheaded pride but, as Sloan mentions, is legitimately dangerous both for Bashir and his friends, and even for the Federation.

@Peter G.,

It would make a lot of sense for Section 31 to be holding the cure out until such time as it could be used as a bargaining chip. This would actually resolve some of the *practical* concerns I have about this plotline, too -- first of all, why they *have* a cure so readily (rather than, say, merely information on how the virus was created which could maybe lead to a cure). Second, given that Odo was apparently infected in Homefront/Paradise Lost, while all-out war looked likely but may in principle have been preventable, it makes some sense to have a sort of reset button available in the event that peace is possible (which would be disrupted if the Founders found out that they were infected and, more to the point, somehow found some evidence of who infected them). I'm not sure how much stock to put it in given what evidence is on screen, though at least the existence of a cure somewhat supports that interpretation.

"However what I do agree with is that while the Founder did finally agree to accept the cure and surrender, it was only because it came with Odo's assurances, which she trusted. I think that no matter what Section 31 or the Federation said to her the female Changeling would never have trusted them, even to her own detriment, and would have allowed her race to die rather than accepting their terms. If there's any truth to this then the reality is that Section 31 did give Odo the tools he needed to convince the Founders to surrender (the survival of the Link), but what they wouldn't have realized was that only Nixon...I mean, Odo, could be the one to offer it to them. In terms of Extreme Measures I think the moral would be that both Sloan and Julian are right, in different ways, and that the Federation needs both kinds of men. They need the Siskos as well as the Picards."

I agree that that's probably the overall message of the text, and a good way to put it.

"Agreed. Bashir has a strong Human sense at the end of the day, but his fixation on his intelligence and success constantly blind him. I think you said it best when you suggested that by altering who he was at a young age be basically became his genetic modifications, since the old Jules was deemed unacceptable to his parents. His identity would afterward be rooted in a combination of hiding who he was while also going to excess in trying to get others to recognize his gifts. His early scene with Kira in a runabout telling her she should be impressed with him, that he impresses himself; that has always been DS9 gold to me."

It's a tough life. I love that Kira/Bashir scene. And I think that high-wire act would wear a person down after a while (as Bashir seems to fall into a real depression as the series goes on, and not, I think, just because of the war); he cannot let anyone know that he was genetically enhanced, but he must justify his worth by using his genetic enhancement or be deemed unacceptable again.

I also wanted to mention that I like that it is O'Brien who reminds Bashir of his more pressing humanist commitment to his friend/acquaintance both because it works in-story and also because it nicely reprises the end of "Inquisition," where it was Bashir's knowledge of O'Brien's shoulder that was his way of exiting Sloan's simulation -- which itself happened because Bashir reached out for Miles as a personal plea.

I like the comparison with "Family." I think it's notable that Picard's experience with the Nausicaans did teach Picard a kind of humility, but it was specifically humility about his youthful daring-do and gave him particular incentive to keep himself (and in particular his emotions) under control at all times, which is another thing that the Borg assaulted and took away from him. While devoting oneself to self-control and sublimating one's passions into one's work are not exactly "easy," they are at least possible, whereas it's unclear what "lessons" Picard can take from his Borg experience that can be implemented directly; mostly what he learns is that there are limits to his power and values even over himself, without any clear indication how to implement this through action. That he is mortal and fallible, not just in an abstract way (which he has surely known) but in a visceral, personal way, is mainly a lesson in worldview rather than in how to behave on a day to day basis, which is much harder.

"Second, given that Odo was apparently infected in Homefront/Paradise Lost, while all-out war looked likely but may in principle have been preventable, it makes some sense to have a sort of reset button available in the event that peace is possible "

Yes, and let's take this even further. At the time of Homefront a faction within the Federation clearly believed that war was inevitable and that the Federation must be prepared for battle. Even the preachers on Risa in "Let He Who Is Without Sin" shared this sentiment, more or less. Admiral Leyton was going to usurp Starfleet and then the Federation via a coup, and he obviously wasn't working alone all by himself. So we have him, who was already planning for war, and Section 31, which was doing likewise. What are the odds that the two plots were unrelated? This is doubly so since Odo was on Earth at Leyton's invitation, and any visit to Starfleet Medical would likely have been either authorized or even requested by Leyton himself.

Could Leyton have been working directly with Section 31? Or could they have been manipulating him as they later tried to do with Bashir? Could his coup have possibly been a Section 31 operation where they were finally going to assert themselves more overtly than ever before? As crazy as that sounds, it's no more extreme than attempting genocide before war has even been declared.

If we are going into full speculation mode, it is also even possible that this was a Founder plot which went badly awry -- we know that the Founders were willing to stir up/respond to and exaggerate *genocidal leanings* within enemy nations in order to cripple them and possibly even co-opt them, regarding the Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order plot. One of the most fascinating and relatively uncommented on elements there is the multiple levels of self-fulfilling prophesy that go on there (which is also a theme in "The Ship," though I think rearranging elements of that plot might have made it more effective) and indeed the whole war arc. Whether the Founders first planted the idea of a secret organization push to genocide the Founders or they were merely responding to Tain, they created conditions where enemies were attempting to destroy them purely as a way to manipulate them...which also justifies the level of force that the Founders use on them. It seems unlikely that the Founders make particular distinctions between "rebellion" and "want to destroy us," but it seems that Founder policy is not only built on protecting against the assumed genocide, but in using that against their enemies, as if they have no idea how to fight a war against solids who don't want to destroy them and so recreate those conditions. The Founders make themselves targets for hatred so that they are under threat so that they use the force, and for most of the series everyone else plays this (possibly even unconscious on their part) game along with them.

Oddly -- and obviously this is veering into fanfic-level speculation -- I could imagine a Founder working in Section 31 (or, more likely, a satellite organization with some ties) on a readily curable disease and on an overthrow of Federation democratic institutions into marshal law by shadowy organization. Perhaps someone closely working in the Federation would recognize how much the Federation's loose (relative to the Empires surrounding it) affiliation of member states depends on faith in Federation values, and showing that member states were not safe from threats within the Federation would lead to dissolution into scattered individual states which would be easy to conquer. It would be along the same lines as the Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar attack -- it takes the form of a genocidal attack against the Founders which is turned against the attackers, "solidifies" (hardy har) the Founders' "moral position" to themselves and probably to the Dominion member states, some of whom probably do believe in the propaganda (certainly it is important to keep the Jem'Hadar and Vorta convinced in the Founders' rightness even beyond being Gods) and demonstrates the futility of going after the Dominion. But then at some point something went wrong, the Founder died too soon, and word never got out to the other Founders that there was a simple cure, nor was the plan to break up the Federation from the inside ever implemented. How independently do the Founders operate when they are in the field?

I will add that using already-placed resentment against shadowy organizations are probably part of the Dominion's expansionist strategy anyway. I can imagine the pitch to Cardassia: the Obsidian Order ruled your lives without your say, and then they tried to destroy us without cause. We had the Obsidian Order as a common enemy. More subtly, they could even add (though doing so in a way that does not ruffle Cardassian pride would take some doing): You saw what happened when you ruled yourselves; you were slaves to others in your society, to secrets. Join with us and we can protect you from yourselves. With Romulus it's different because the Tal Shiar was not wholly destroyed, but they might have been able to identify the destroyed Tal Shiar with a subsection that could be blamed for Romulan woes. Perhaps eventually they would make a similar pitch to the Klingons about the High Council, after eventually Changeling Martok had led them to something of a ruin (never being exposed, of course).

An unfortunate episode where the writers went too far and forgot the basic humanity of their characters.

1 out of 4

Say what you will about this one, it's all worth it for Sisko's reaction to Bashir admitting he obtained Romulan mind probes. That little interaction is worth a star or two by itself.

This episode's plot was a huge disappointment.

Sloan, the guy who is always one step ahead of everyone else, dutifully shows up when they send a fake message that they've found a cure for Odo. Apparently suspecting nothing, he is careless enough to allow himself to get captured, and then killed. This alone is ridiculous. Sloan would've been way too smart to get captured by such a simple deception.

His "suicide device" then takes an hour to finish him off. WTF? Even today, we have cyanide that will kill you in seconds, and you're telling me that in the 24th century they haven't invented a device that will just kill you instantly? Hell, even an explosive that blew up his brain would've worked.

The plot was deeply disappointing and I was really hoping at the end that Sloan would turn up, somehow alive, having outwitted them yet again. But no. He was dumb, and allowed himself to be tricked by Bashir and O'Brien. I'm not buying it.

Well...could 've been worse. Could've been Basir and Ezri trapped inside Sloan's mind. I just re watched this one - and for some reason I thought this would have been a good to bring Terry Farrell back for a guest spot as she distracts Julian. But that's just me.

Let me put the final dagger into this episode. Julian Bashir, our stupid leftist "hero", has decided that losing the war is a risk worth taking in order to save the life of his friend Odo. He makes a grandiose speech declaring that Section 31, and their tactics, are abhorrent to the ideals of the Federation. There is no alternate viewpoint from a neutral source; Miles O'Brien simply agrees on the spot.

Julian then proceeds to enact his master plan for saving Odo... violating the rights, and deliberately risking the life, of another individual (Sloan). So, let's recap what the writers want us to swallow:

1. One individual's life is paramount and is worth any number of other lives—even the annihilation of one's own race via a genocidal enemy. The ends (using a virus to kill the genocidal enemy) do not, and can never, justify the means.
2. One individual is expendable if it means saving a friend.

Those are two completely opposite beliefs. The doctor is willing to kill one person to save one person, but not willing to allow the death of one person to save entire races.

This episode is demented.

@DLPB - Lot of logic leaps there.

1. The Dominion is not typically show to be genocidal. Oppressive, ruthless murderers sure... but genocidal is a stretch.

2. Sloan killed himself. Bashir was not trying to kill Sloan. Yes, there was a risk he might damage him but risking damaging a man committing genocide to stop said genocide is probably a moral calculus that is acceptable.

But more importantly, it's an abhorrent idea that it's a leftist concept that one should be better than the evil, horrible enemy one is trying to defeat. If you have a problem with that idea Star Trek is not for you.

This is not a discussion about ends justifying the means and if we should waterboard a terrorist to extract potentially useful information. This is more like... should we release a virus that would kill everyone in the middle east to stop radical Islamic terrorism.

I shudder to think that anyone watching Star Trek could agree with Section 31. And I say this as a person who often has no problem with the gray actions taken by our heroes and often wishes they would go a drop further.

@ Robert,

While I generally agree with your treatment of the topic, the use of genocide to stop Islamic terrorism isn't a good analogy, because in that case one would be using extreme force to annihilate a foe that cannot possibly threaten the existence of the party employing the genocide. In the Trek world, had the Dominion won I'm not sure you're right about how they would have treated their victims. True, overall they prefer to act as the mafia and take their cut while leaving trade to flourish, but Wayoun straight-up says that the first thing to do after winning the war is to eradicate the population of Earth. This is only not genocide by the technicality that there are humans living elsewhere as well. Plus we heard various of how the Dominion would either wipe out populations ("Sanctuary", "Shadowplay") or else punish them so severely that it was equivalent ("The Quickening").

While I agree entirely with your comments about leftism and Trek, I'm not sure I'd be so quick to condemn Section 31's logic. When Sloan says that Bashir is a dangerous man I do find my ears perking up and wondering if he has a point. Genocide surely has to be condemned as unacceptable, however if one is simply given the choice of "millions of Founders die, or billions of Federation citizens die" I'm not sure how picking the former is such an obvious conclusion. The fact of the matter is that the war was only won because of a Section 31-esque gambit ("By the Pale Moonlight") and because the prophets were able to divert the Dominion fleet. There was no way for Section 31 to foresee either of these events. Also many lives were saved because it just so happens that Odo was able to convince the Founder to surrender. Had Odo been randomly killed prior to that event many additional lives would have been lost.

I don't know that there's an easy answer to how to do the moral calculus when billions of lives are on the line no matter what you do.

1. No leaps at all. The Founder herself states her goal is the total domination of the Alpha Quadrant and destruction of the Federation. They have already killed millions. You're straw clutching again, and you know it.

2. He violated and risked the life of someone. You're again splitting hairs. He also tortured Sloan, whatever mealy-mouth excuse you can give., That actually makes Bashir reprehensible in his own eyes, your eyes, and most people's eyes.

3. This is leftist nonsense. For someone who purportedly respects all sides of debate, and accepts so called "shades of gray" in writing, you do sure come across as very intolerant to views you disagree with.

I'd never want you in charge during war time. You're a dangerous individual, who would willing sacrifice his own race for the "greater good". Except there is no greater good from annihilation and mass death from a deadly enemy attacking for the sole reason of conquering.

I'm not sure how to get you end up with the views you do - because I have a sound and logical mind.

I'm not sure how one ends up with the views that you hold- because I have a sound and logical mind.

- I have a bad cold.

There have to be some lines one is not willing to cross. Torture to stop genocide, I'm ok with. Murdering one dickhead ambassador to save your own people, that's ok too. There has to be moral calculus in every action. Genocide though? That's a few steps too far.

Another nice episode for Bashir. I have said it before but it's amazing how far Siddig and the writers have brought Julian over the 7 seasons. He is cool, calculated, complex, and still very human as his disappointment shows in the latter part of the episode when Sloane dies the first time and his serenity in happiness does when Odo is cured. Far gone is the teenager, gung-ho Bashir of the first couple of seasons. And it's not like the writers did many favors in this episode with some of their writing.

Damar, Garak, Dukat as secondary characters, and Kira and Bashir as primary characters are a major part of the reason why Deep Space Nine was a great series: sound character development within the foundation of great story writing.

I would rate this episode 3 stars at least aimply because the collaboration dynamics of Julian & Miles to solve a complex problem was a pleasure to witness.

Side note: I have to admit I felt a particular pleasure from Julian's verbal berating of Sloan and the latter's obvious distress when he was lying down within the force field and "feeling cornered" as Bashir aptly put it.

this episode was a hugely wasted opportunity to explore sloan or probe section 31 and their twisted sense of ethics, or really do anything - anything at all.

i'm also still kind of hoping for some kind of moral examination of this disease that goes beyond a disgusted "its genocide!!" before the show ends but i guess not. as i was watching the episode i found myself wondering if it could really be considered "genocide" against a people like the changelings that seem so single minded and monolithic in thought and action. the 'founders' as a single entity chose to wage centuries of war on a quarter of the galaxy to keep sapient species under their thumb; they often take pains to suggest there is no distinction between the individuals. if all are absolutely dedicated to the cause of waging war for it's own sake against 'solids', attacking all of them seems like simply cutting off the head of the snake with little moral ambiguity in my book.

i had the time to think this because this was around the time the episode "time looped" to pad its running, and literally waste my time, when it could have been addressing something more interesting.

Are there no vulcans on DS9? We've seen them in the corridors.

There is an entire planet full of Bajorans who fought in the resistance. Why does it have to be Kira?

What about that lone founder that came through DS9 a while back. He linked with Odo. Is he dead now?

“They’re gonna genocide US so we have to genocide THEM FIRST.”

The fact is the Federation by way of Section 31 had already planned to kill off the Founders before there was even one mention of eradicating the population of Earth. Nobody mentions how many the Klingons killed to build their empire. The Federation takes no genocidal action against the Cardassians who enslaved the Bajorans. The Founders are conquerors and when we meet them they have planets under their control so they do not kill every race they meet. They only kill those who don’t submit to them or defy their rule.

This is what happens in an environment of constantly escalating violence and it’s sad that even now we haven’t learned.

The Federation infected the Founders with a deadly disease. Hmmm I guess a group of nearly omnipotent beings with entire genetically engineered races that service their xenophobic conquests is going to take that in stride and surrender. I mean of course WE wouldnt surrender, we’d be angry and start wrecking stuff. But the enemy is different they’re weak cowards who would never command their millions of brutal and perpetually loyal slave soldiers to continue fighting until everything and everyone was dead. No siree!

In the minds of some, the conditions of war justify every action. Torture the enemy soldiers. Rape their wives. Desecrate their dead. Steal their possessions. Take their children as slaves. Burn their crops and houses. KILL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. What does morality mean if you’re dead, they say. Our lives are at stake this is no time to stop and quibble about you know... remaining human even under duress so that life is worth living when the war ends. No anything and everything that can demoralize, humiliate or eliminate the enemy is acceptable. Anyone who disagrees is a masochistic effeminate cuck.

Now the enemy is eradicated but you are an animal with a mind twisted by fear. You’re a practiced murderer, gang rapist, vandal, arsonist and thief. How are you supposed to fit into a “civilized” society with values like cooperation, kindness, justice, mercy, tolerance (not to mention property rights) and other weak attitudes? You can’t and you’ll end up in prison, on the street or perched on the top of a building picking off passersby with a rifle. The worse way you’ll end up is dead by your own hand.

DS9 is great to watch but it’s obviously a product of the 1990s. It does not show any better vision for the future which is what Star Trek was supposed to be about (I thought). I’m supposed to believe that in all the time between the airing of the show and it’s own time period that the best solution to conquest violence humans have come up with is genociding the conqueror race with a bioweapon. We already invented that before I was freaking born. It’s boring and unimaginative and stolid and so unTrek.

As much as I love DS9 the overarching plot is men from the 1990s acting out their fantasy of being Alan Moore style dark heroes in a complicated time. Being moral and idealistic had become infeasibly corny. Every man had to do a few unacceptable things (like try to rape Silk Spectre) and then feel broody and moody about it later. The idea that we might evolve beyond screeching, gang forming chimpanzees who eat our own feces is now too cheesy and childish for the popular imagination.

It’s far more fun to think of ourselves as chimps who kill and then feel a bit sad about it and write dramatically in our diaries that murder is bad but if it suits the greater good we must do it and bear the eternal burden of sin. People who want to do the right thing even in terrible circumstances are the REAL bad guys.

What I hate about this episode is its pseudo-neuroscience. The mind is not a VR system you can jack into. Our minds are combinations of things we sense and what we remember and know all loosely tied together. Since Sloan was basically dead, even if you could jack into a mind, he wouldn’t have a mind to jack into. Dead people don’t have minds. That tiny bit of activity would not be enough to conjure up the immense details we see, maybe it was enough to keep Sloan feeling his legs.

"As much as I love DS9 the overarching plot is men from the 1990s acting out their fantasy of being Alan Moore style dark heroes in a complicated time. Being moral and idealistic had become infeasibly corny. Every man had to do a few unacceptable things (like try to rape Silk Spectre) and then feel broody and moody about it later. The idea that we might evolve beyond screeching, gang forming chimpanzees who eat our own feces is now too cheesy and childish for the popular imagination. "

Lol....what? "In the Pale Moonlight" was all about how hard it was for Sisko to make a tough choice, and the effects it had on his conscience. No offense, but I think you seriously misinterpreted key parts of the show.

Disappointing episode coming after "Tacking Into the Wind" -- surprised also that here's an episode just about Section 31 and O'Brien/Bashir having buddy moments. Surely some of the other plots could have been advanced as subplots here.

The whole idea of going in dying Sloan's mind to try to find a cure for Odo's disease is interesting sci-fi (also because maybe Sloan's mind is trained a certain way for guarding secrets) but it's out of place here and it doesn't work. Some bizarre things happen while in Sloan's mind but it's nothing that hasn't been seen/done before whether through dreams or forcibly -- "Hard Time" for O'Brien comes to mind.

And the moral/ethical dilemma is swept under the rug here. I guess since it's dealing with Section 31, you don't need morals or ethics? The series doesn't put an end to Section 31, which I'm fine with -- I wasn't moved at all by the decision Bashir takes to finally focus on the cure and forget about taking down Section 31 as O'Brien urges him to do. Yes Bashir's life's been made hell at times due to Section 31, but he's been singularly focused on curing Odo of late.

The other thing that bothers me is how quickly the cure works for Odo -- we've seen this kind of thing before -- the miraculous and quick-working cure. Just a quick injection and he's fine -- lickety-split.

I did enjoy the buddy-buddy moments with O'Brien and Bashir -- the part where they're both shot was a bit long but it was lighthearted and sincere. So I think that's what I take out of this episode mostly. 2 buds on another adventure together, some male bonding. But not what's needed at this stage of the series with so much more important stuff happening.

Sloan was a minor recurring character and so getting a better understanding of his life was interesting but not really needed -- might have been better to keep it a mystery.

2 stars for "Extreme Measures" -- would have been more interesting if somehow Bashir/O'Brien could have dealt with Sloan in real life rather than the mind-reality gimmick. Sisko allows some unethical and illegal stuff to go on but that isn't the focus here either and "In the Pale Moonlight" saw the series cross that barrier long ago. So many things just didn't work here despite an interesting premise.

One of the questions that is raised is why, with all the resources of the Dominion, could the Founders not cure themselves? Consider as well the fact that the Dominion was clearly advanced in the field of genetics as evidenced by the creation of the Vorta and Jem'Hadar and in episodes like Quickening. You would think the Founders could cure anything cooked up by mere humans.

But this is where the irony of the Founders comes in. They are shapeshifters, but rigid and unmoving in their thinking and self conception, just like the empire they built. The Founders are both the greatest strength of the Dominion (with their awesome shapeshifting abilities) but also its Achilles heel.

Given their status as Gods, one would imagine that experimentation or even the most rudimentary study of their genetic makeup by the Vorta or others would be sacrilege in this society of rigid hierarchy. One does not study the genetics of one's Gods. Until the morphogenic virus, the Vorta scientists probably had never even seen changeling DNA. They were probably starting from scratch not even understanding the basics of what they were up against.

One can imagine that as Shapeshifters, medicine as we understand it would be unnecessary, almost beneath them. The Founders would have no need for such knowledge. They studied the genetics of solids but likely not themselves. Again, it goes to their rigidity - they believed themselves to be perfect, the pinnacle of evolution - why would they tinker with perfection?

So the Founders were the perfect target for this kind of weapon. It probably didn't even take a great genius to create the virus - just access to a changeling subject, which Section 31 had.

Hahaha! I just noticed something in the dialogue I never did before:

BASHIR: You came here to destroy the cure, so somewhere in that brain of yours is the information that I want.
SLOAN: You really expect me to tell you?
BASHIR: No. I expect you to resist 'till the bitter end.

Do you see it? This is a Bond villain exchange, with Bashir now playing the part of the villain. It's almost a direct copy-paste of the classic meme. Funny that my ear didn't catch this before now. It's tough to quite hear it as a reference because either the director or the actors make the choice not to play it as an overt homage, but I think it's what the writer had in mind. It's a really strong statement that between Our Man Bashir and now Julian has changed so much that not only is he willing to entertain a Garak-like point of view but in a practical situation will unironically play the villain's part, knowing that the goal is worth doing what no doubt many others would call criminal.

I guess the highlight for me in this episode, and previous, is Sisko's willingness to make some very difficult decisions in wartime.
However, like in I, Borg, I think it's ridiculous and very unrealistic that they'd kill their chance to annihilate an extremely hostile enemy. Neither the Borg nor the Dominion are specifically genocidal, but I'd expect living under their rule to be worse than death. Both are amoral groups. War is about survival. And it is hell - preferably upon the enemy.
I thought the plot was fairly dull, but I never liked Bashir, and I hate that he's suddenly sooo in love with Ezri. It just seems very Hollywood. And senior staff really shouldn't date. I really don't know what to make about his excellent conversation with O'Brien (honestly I don't know how O'Brien puts up with him). To a certain extent I've always thought of Bashir as a repressed gay man, and I think it could be interpreted that he's breaking through that repression in his honesty with O'Brien. I don't mean that in any kind of malevolent or bigoted way; sometimes it's very hard, especially in a traditional family, to be comfortable with one's preferences.
Something else that's been bothering me for the last few episodes, is Miles ever going back to work? He just seems to be hanging out a lot.
Finally I can't say enough about Nana Visitor - I've seriously loved her acting in this final arc.

I foolishly stopped watching Deep Space Nine in the 3rd season because I found it too boring, compared to Next Generation and then Voyager. Go easy on me, I was only 12 at the time.

Flash forward four years - a friend of mine and fellow Trekker all but begged me to tune into the last several episodes of the show because he said the war arc was incredible. I had also lost my interest in Voyager by this time, so my distracted mind did not follow his request until this episode, sadly.

Given the weak, buddy-comedy dialogue alone in "Extreme Measures," it convinced me of the delusion that I had made the right choice to discard DS9, and I didn't bother to watch the remaining two episodes. It didn't help that I was ignorant of Section 31 and Sloan. This episode was just a mess and pales in comparison to every other one in the final arc. It's a shame it took me 15 years to give DS9 another chance, but better late then never!

Watching and commenting:

--I've never found the romance between Odo and Kira very compelling, but I do like the love between them, which is both believable and moving.

--This reminds me of this old, cheesy sci fi movie that Nancy Reagan was in, called Donovan's Brain. They keep this dead guy's head alive, and somehow the brain's consciousness gets into someone else's brain . . . eh, I don't really remember anything else. But it suddenly came to mind. Nancy plays one of the two scientists in the lab.

--Ummm, Sloan's death bed musings and regrets? Can we get to the cure, please?

--"I don't believe this!" says Miles. I don't, either, Miles.

--Man, this is getting pretty silly.

--Are they still in Sloan's head? Why did they wake up for no reason? Ah ha. So they're still in his head.

--A disappointing outing so close to the end.

--Well, this is a pretty nice bargaining chip for the Federation, no? Having the cure?

What have you done with Spock’s brain?

Extreme measures

Bashir and obrien reluctantly confess to sisko their plan to lure a section 31 operative to ds9, fearful sisko will do what duty demands of him and quash their plan on moral and ethical grounds. They needn’t have worried. Sisko lost all authority to question someone else’s morality and ethics back in 'the pale moonlight' episode where he betrayed his oath, was an accessory to murder, and bribery to cover it all up. At least star trek had the grace to leave the scene without sisko saying a word about bashir's and obrien's plan.
During the plan's execution trouble befalls and it looks as if our heroes will fail - and die. They have a bromance moment in which bashir points out that obrien likes him more than he likes his wife. I had to laugh. We have all met obrien's wife.

BANG! After several interesting episodes in which things began to gather steam for the Grand Finale, the SD99 train hits a major clunker and nearly disrails.

Where to begin?

The idea that Bashir and O'Brien would concoct a plan to lure in a Section 31 operative is sketchy, but given the corner that the writers have painted them into, understandable. But from there...

First, they finally inform Sisko of their plan, and that they basically plan to kidnap a Federation civilian and torture them using an illegal Romulan device. Naturally, Sisko shrugs and leaves them to it, without even a cursory check as to how this fits in with the hippocratic oath Bashir took when he became a doctor. Somewhere, the body of Doctor McCoy is rotating fast enough to power a class-10 forcefield.

Surprisingly, a Section 31 operative then appears, in the shape of our old friend Sloane. Who is promptly stunned and dragged onto an operating table. McCoy's body is now spinning quickly enough to drive a Galaxy-class starship along at Warp 7.

Better yet, Sloan then triggers a suicide mechanism. Which Bashir - with all his love of overly melodramatic spy-capers - didn't see coming. Obviously, faced with a dead body, the only option is to buckle down and go for a full-blown mind-rape.

Doctor McCoy's body has now turned into a quantum event, collapsing space-time and threatening the stability of the entire quadrant.

This isn't a good episode, nor does it attempt to explore any moral ambiguities or philosophical discussions. It's just... dirty.

Plus, there's a pretty major question at the end of it all. Just what did they do with the body? Did Quark end up serving a "special" stew for a few days afterwards? Did they just stuff it out of an airlock or feed it into a deliberately misconfigured teleporter? After all, in the future, there's so many ways to illicitly dispose of a body...

On a more serious note, half the bridge crew were standing there when O'Brien and Bashir finally wake up in the real world, next to the dead body of Sloan. Thereby making Sisko, Ezri and the rest an accessory to conspiracy and murder.

But this is Star Trek, and DS9's reset button is ready and waiting. Odo gets his cure, Bashir gets to go back to paying lip service to his oath and not a single word is said about their actions or the consequences thereof.

Which doesn't give me too much confidence for the rest of the series...

It seems to me that when Menosky, Behr and Wolfe wrote “Distant Voices,” they made someone promise way back then that they’d use this “walking through the subconscious” idea as a cool callback at the end of the series, regardless of what else is going on around it. That’s the only reason I can wrap my head around why they would put all the other plot lines on hold basically for this mediocre outing so close to the finale. If this were anywhere else in the season it would be 3-3.5 stars, but man the show runners stumbled a bit here at the end. I’d give it 2.5 because it is definitely better than average and still fun to watch, it’s just not necessary for cool callbacks and buddy romps.

Excellent review, abysmal episode. In very bad taste at the least. I wonder if the original script was as dark but more self aware, and this was a botched attempt to tone it down? I wouldn't have minded a real buddy episode - like a look at their holodeck adventures - but not inside the mind of a dying man. Disgusting. Bashir should have lost his medical license and everyone involved ought to have been court martialed.

“Thanks Muffin.”

My problem with this episode is that the cure to a disease which utterly stumped a genetically engineered doctor and the entirety of all Dominion resources was 7 less ingredients than the recipe to KFC.

"My problem with this episode is that the cure to a disease which utterly stumped a genetically engineered doctor and the entirety of all Dominion resources was 7 less ingredients than the recipe to KFC."

My head canon for this is that when you genetically engineer a virus in the 24th century, right down to its atomic structure, there is a perfect cure that can be easily derived but you need to have the virus's original "source code" to figure it out. Otherwise, you are stuck trying to reverse engineer the thing which is very hard to do.

The ingredients were like an encryption key, perfectly coded to the virus. They were unguessable because in of themselves they had no obvious connection to the virus. The "cure" in this sense could have literally been the KFC spice mix.

Fair enough Jason R - thanks for sharing :)

Bashir genetic enhancements letting him control his own vital signs is quite the ploy convenience stretch and strains credulity....even more absurd is that he could do it for O'Brien as well, who invited himself without Bashir even saying he could do so.

"Extreme Measures" at several points resembled to my mind TNG's episode "Emergence" --the one where the Enterprise D develops its own consciousness. It took the form of a locomotive.

Here we have Sloan, in place of a starship or a locomotive, in the final 43 minutes of what I interpret to be his neuron circuit parting fire-off, sharing his essence with a decidedly cruel Dr. Frankenstein Bashir and the doctor's solicitous assistant Igor O'Brien.

Any treatment of consciousness, particularly one which explores it through a human encounter with 'the beyond' ( or better, 'the pre-beyond') is bound to come off as a bit absurd. At the same time, the episode skirts the boundaries of poignancy, as the dying adversary grapples with himself to show his humanity to the people who have maneuvered him into a situation where he felt compelled to take his own life.

It is an ambitious undertaking to be sure, and unfortunately, not always handled so expertly. Like "Emergence" consciousness (or rather spent consciousness) plays itself out through abstractions (Bashir even uses that term) like the turbolift jerking around spasmodically. This, sad to say, made me think that Sloan just belched or something like that. I felt embarassed while watching because I had broken faith with the noble intent of the writers.

At the same time, the insertion of lines like "Thanks, Muffin" spoken by "friendly Sloan" to his long suffering wife, as she hands him the tablet with the anti-virus that will cure Odo, showed that the writers were capable of breaking faith with themselves. "Friendly Sloan" is phasered by "unfriendly Sect. 31 Sloan" a split second later. I knew at this point that things were not going to be pretty. And the pseudo wake-up section, engineered by the consciousness of the dying brain-scrambled Sloan was a travesty.

Non-sequitor comment: The wounded buddy heart-to-heart scene reminded me alot of the next to last scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid an ancient film about the Ancient West. Speaking of Westerns:

A good friend of mine always tells me how he hates director John Ford, because he inserts what he thinks is humor at some point in super-serious movies like The Searchers, where the humor is inappropriate and the scene as written is downright lame anyway. "Extreme Measures" suffers from this same problem at some junctures, as the writers occasionally seemed to be channeling "Weekend at Bernie's" or something of that kind, when they originally led us to expect that they were interested in the last moments of an individual's existence (parallel to Odo's) with its moments of sadness, fear, regret, and attempts to demonstrate that life had not been wasted.

Clearly it's no time to joke around, although the dropping of the normal brain and its replacement with the brain of Abby Normal might have occurred to the writers. If so, I'm glad that they exercised restraint.

I thought that Sadler played Sloan extremely well, but that he was let down by the confused mission of the writing staff. Essentially I find myself with Jammer on this one, but a notch above his rating. Mine being at 2.5 stars.

Sigh2000, you're right, this is strangely parallel to "Emergence".



This was definitely mostly tired retread off cliches.

I could have done without the the tired faux peril "if we don't make it out of his head before he dies, we die too!" Really?


This one just screams budget, including the lengthy Julian/Miles corridor scene. There are not cuts, and the dialogue was trying to reuse the hilarious scene from an earlier episode where O'Brien got stuck saying "Julian, people either love you or hate you. When I first met you, I hated you. And now...."


The pitch sounds good.

* We need a cheap bottle episode because of the other very lavish episodes we are doing

* Bring back the popular Sloan

* Another Julian/Miles romp

* Get the Odo cure

Hah, I guess I'm the only one who really likes this episode.

I like some things. I like Sloan's trap for Julian at the end, of giving him his secrets, and Miles' role as Julian's conscience/connection to the everyday world rather than the information/spy/hero fantasy, dragging him out of there.

For some reason, I find it hilarious that Sloan's first name is "Luther". Maybe because "Sloan" is a pretty cool name, and "Luther" not so much.

It's not completely horrible by any means.

It's definitely a bit of a warmed over premise, but the big problem is that the series closing arc (once again) comes screeching to a near halt. In this case, we're on the ten yard line and an extended Julian/Miles buddy plot is so our of place.

It's not helped by Siddig and Meaney coming across as bored. Everybody (except Sadler) seems to be phoning it in. Julian's discover they are still in Sloan's head and explaining that to Miles feels like "oh, hmm, I guess that's the next plot turn".

I enjoyed this one to be honest!

Anything with Sloan and S31 is good to me though!

This episode’s symptomatic to me of a lot of the frustrations I had with late-season DS9. I thought the concept was quite good; I’m a bit of a sucker for the “explore people’s minds” episodes, plus I thought it was a good commentary on Bashir’s evolving character that he’d stoop to intrigue for a cure.

But the writing. Oh the writing.

The dialogue is inexplicably horrendous in MANY of these Dominion arc episodes, even when the plot is great.

I can’t listen without picturing these characters pasted in a comic book with speech bubbles. It’s as if a little boy who likes sci-fi action stole some good ideas from an adult and wrote the story.

I think the opening where Bashir and O’Brien play darts is a good example. Both actors feel completely stilted as they give lines layered with bad exposition and overwrought with good guys vs. evil villains laziness. I half expected Sloan to be wearing a cape and mask.

It’s a shame, because I’ve watched the series a few times and my appreciation of these Dominion arc episodes has diminished with each watching as the shoddy execution becomes more apparent. I guess I loved the story too much to notice the first time through.

Jammer, I must have a completely different taste than you do, because this by far was my favourite episode of the story arc. While I like the culminating tale that leads to the end of the series, I like the "brothers" O'Brien and Bashir having the banter and adventure that I always found amusing. Also, I like the whole "in the mind" thing. And I guess I'm slow, but I did not realise that the two were still in Sloan's mind at first. I actually thought they would have to use a Vulcan to mind meld Sloan or something

"You just want to some because you don't want captain Sisko to find out what we are doing." Bashir to O'Brien.

I wish the writers would make it clear what that was supposed to mean. O'Brien does not want to be around to explain that is happening? But Sisko knew right away. It's things like this which are frustrating about DS9.

Anyway a great classical Trek episode.

Correction the sentence was: "You just want to COME because you don't want captain Sisko to find out what we are doing."

I like this episode and seeing all those comments disliking it just goes to show how we like Trek for differing reasons.

This episode was old school Star Trek.

What they experienced in Sloan's mind was the creation of his subconscious. A bit like a dream created by the brain. Dreams are odd and that place was how his brain decided to deal with them in there. Perhaps there was a part of him that really wanted them to know the cure.

"Well, one thing is for certain."
"What's that?"
"This isn't going to be easy."

Holy @#$%&! Yaweh, who wrote this dialogue? Get rid of these Screenwriting 101 rejects, the technobabble, and the endless scenes of Bashir and O'Brien saying "I dunno" while looking like deer in the headlights, and this episode could have been cut down to 20 minutes in length. If ever an episode screamed for a B-story to help fill out the time, it's this one.

Also, a pathetic farewell to William Sadler as Sloan.

So, let's do a real quick takedown of the logic and ethics here.

You're fighting an existential war of survival and find a way to kill your enemy's entire commanding echelon. That, somehow and for whatever reason, constitutes "genocide." Genocide is bad, m'kay. Pfuy! So, you engineer a kidnapping and forced interrogation, using a highly illicit device as much as sadistic joy to do it, in order to save a buddy of yours. That will almost certainly have the incidental effect of thwarting the annihilation of your enemy's commanders thus prolonging the war and costing hundreds of millions of lives. Oh, and your subject ends up (very foreseeably) dead in the process. Is any of that bad? Not at all! I mean, you're going to save that one friend you care about! And what's the one kind of boat that can never ever sink? Frieeeeeeend-shiiiiiiiiiip.

Frick me backward. This is too retarded for words.

They also resuscitate Sloane in order to be able to interrogate him, which is illegal even today under international law. Oh well, never mind. Remember, kids: We're not like them! Except when we are. But we always have a Good Reason®.

The opening quote in Jammer's review says it all and is spot-on. Bashir, Smiley, and their ilk are the biggest danger to any civilization. We saw college campuses full of similar morons during the Cold War: the bien-pensant useful idiots who would have prostrated themselves to an ideology and system every bit as murderous and destructive as Nazism. We see even worse today. The academia, the media, city halls, school boards, state and federal government, government agencies, even the private sector are full of anti-Western traitors who stand for absolutely nothing except driving another nail in the coffin of the Western civilization, any way they can. Yuck. Yuck them, yuck Bashir, yuck Smiley. The saddest thing is that such scum is portrayed as virtuous and likable, and their actions defended by many.

The three-way high-tech mind-meld trip? Just... No comment.

With 3-1/2 minutes to go, lo and behold, they cure Dodo and even have time for some witty repartee. I also don't know why those two don't just get a room already.

Negative four stars. Not only is this an insult to what's left of the viewer's intelligence (I, for one, am close to becoming a turnip after the abominations of this season in particular), but it also sends a very misleading and negative message. It's like the whole thing was written by Schwab or Soros. BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! 👎👎👎👎

“I’m a doctor, not a screenwriter!” This ep feels like the kind of fan fiction I might’ve written in high school. And the crawling around in someone’s mind belongs in the game Psychonauts, not Trek.

The convo in the hallway about O’Brien liking Bashir more than his wife sounds like it was lifted from the Laurel & Hardy film “Their First Mistake”:
Stanley: “What’s the matter with her?”
Ollie: “Oh, she says I think more of YOU than I do of her.”
Stanley: “Well you do, don’t ya?”
Ollie: “Well we won’t get into THAT.”

Well I guess Laas is dead then (the Changeling from "Chimera").

@Elliott & @Robert:

Elliott, Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 1:20pm (UTC -5): Odo *sharing* the cure with the Female Founder is what convinces her (in some ubiquitous changeling way) from fighting a futile war to the last man.

Robert, Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 2:09pm (UTC -5): Also: "ubiquitous?"

Elliott, Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 6:31pm (UTC -5): Also, yes "ubiquitous"--ie omnipotent, god-like.

Alex (2023): "Ubiquitous" means "existing everywhere," not "god-like." In big cities, telephone booths used to be ubiquitous – yet not "god-like."

You need a dictionary, Elliott!