Star Trek Deep Space Nine: A Nifty Theory, I Think?

This meme more or less describes my relationship with Star Trek. I’ve soldiered through every episode of every series at least once, and when I finish, I just start all over again. I’m not terribly discriminating when it comes to the episodes that I’ll watch either. If they’re next in line, they’re getting watched. What I like about the experience, from a philosophical standpoint, is that as I gain more wisdom and insight, I start to see new things about these shows. That’s one hallmark of great science fiction. If you can go back and discover new things that you never caught before, then it’s great because it generates a relationship with the subject matter.

That said, I did an article not too long ago about Babylon 5, and all its various appendages. It was a really fascinating experience watching B5 from the perspective of a Star Trek fan. One of the primary reasons, as I explained, was the controversy surrounding the timing of the release of Deep Space Nine, and the general belief that the concept was stolen from that of Babylon 5. I’m not going to rehash that here, but what I would like to point out about B5 is that if you watch the main show and it’s movies, you’ll start to get the impression that the entire story was actually about Londo Mollari. It’s an interesting take on the storytelling process, using the one character to channel the ‘bad guys’, and making that character the real focal point of the show.

Now why do I bring this up? There are a couple of reasons. First, it’s been recently announced that the new Star Trek show, Discovery, is going to star a female lead character who is not going to be the captain of the ship. This has elicited grumblings from some people with very little imagination, and even less flexibility. That’s an important point because my second reason for revisiting Babylon 5 is to demonstrate that Star Trek has already used the formula before to great success. We all may not have realized it, but hopefully once you get done with this, you’ll start to see how things repeat in the meridian of time.

DS9 has been my Trek du jour for the last few months, and as I’ve slowly worked through other shows, I’ve also been working through this one in tandem because no matter how great a show is, sometimes you need a short break. Life got interesting as I was watching both Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine concurrently because I started to draw a lot of parallels between the two shows. Now, I’m sorry if you’re quicker on the uptake than I. If you’ve already made these realizations, feel free to take a week off. If not, get ready for some fun!

As previously stated, in B5, Mollari is the focal character of the show overall. It’s important to note that that does not necessarily mean that he was the focal point of each episode, just that in the grand scheme of things, he was the most pivotal character in the cast. All of the bad things that take place in that show are as a result of choices made by Mollari. In much the same fashion, the focal character of DS9 was not Sisko, but Dukat. If you look at the series on the whole, it really makes a lot of sense. Let’s do that. Let’s start at the beginning and look at the show on the whole.

At the beginning of the very first episode, The Emissary, Sisko is given command of space station Deep Space Nine to run in concert with the Bajoran provisional government, which was established following a decades long occupation of the planet Bajor at the hands of the Cardassian military. Guess who was the primary leader of Bajor at the time that the occupation ended? That’s right, it was Dukat. In the season four episode Indiscretion, we learn that Dukat has an illegitimate half Bajoran daughter. That’s not a detail that nails our point to the wall, but it does start to show a trend. As a protagonist, we’re given an awful lot of information about Dukat. Certainly, we’re given more that would be spent on just a minor character, but maybe we’re not given as much as would be given for our focal character yet. Still, it’s a start.

Next, in the episode Return to Grace, we find Dukat captaining a military transport. We learn that when news broke about his daughter, Dukat lost everything, again. He lost a lot of his credibility following the breakdown of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, but he lost everything following the revelation that he has a half Bajoran daughter. We find out that another officer has stolen his wife from him, he’s lost his children, and he’s been stripped of his social standing. By the end of the episode, he’s taken out a few ships that have encroached on Cardassian space, but this is all for not as far as his standing in society is concerned. He does, however, wind up with a sweet, sweet Bird of Prey so that’s something.

There are a few articles lurking around the web that talk about why Dukat is such a great villain and I’d like to echo some of their sentiment here. Dukat was only featured in 35 out of 176 episodes of DS9. That’s just shy of 20% of the total episodes, and yet, his influence can be felt at every major turning point of the series. He really is a great villain in that he wholeheartedly believes that the things he does are for a greater and better cause. His motivations are made pretty clear from the start as well. He simply wants to regain his former glory both within the Cardassian Union and the galaxy at large. He’s a man who’s absolutely driven by his ego in every imaginable way. What makes him really interesting is his willingness to work with his presumed enemies whenever he sees potential gain on his behalf. All of this behavior reeks of a megalomania that’s practically unrivaled in television history.

These points become important when we look at the grand scale of DS9 and the major events that happen during the series. Early in the show, around the third season, there’s a war between the Klingons and the Cardassians. Dukat puts himself at the forefront of this conflict politically in order to garner favor from his peers. When the Dominion first crop up in the Alpha Quadrant, the Cardassians are leery of supporting them. It’s only after Dukat does some political maneuvering and installs himself as a leader in the Cardassian government that Cardassia sides with the Dominion. When that ploy leads to the absolute subjugation of the Cardassian people and the installation of a Dominion controlled military government, Dukat flees to Bajor and attempts a union with the Pah Wraiths in order to turn the tide of war in his favor. It’s this last act that really pushes home my point home.

In one of the best finale moments of all time, Deep Space Nine does a touching walk down memory lane montage where they show some highlights from seven years of the show, and then we’re treated to the entire cast together one last time as they’re given their sendoff into the unknown future. It’s a scene that makes me misty eyed every time I watch it. However, that’s not where the show actually ends. Instead, Sisko has to go to Bajor, to the fire caves to finally put an end to all of the scheming that Dukat has done in the last couple of seasons. At first, I found myself wishing that the show had ended right after the montage, but I realized over time that the show hinges on Dukat and his struggle against Sisko. This really reinforces the idea that although we experience the show through many different eyes during its run, Dukat remains the key thread that holds the tapestry of DS9 together. Sure, he’s not featured in much of the show, but the effects of his actions drive the plot continually.

Perhaps I’m on to something, or perhaps I’m just nuts. But the theory certainly lends food for thought when coupled with the theory that DS9 borrowed heavily from the concepts behind Babylon 5. What do you think? Feel free to weigh in with your own theories!