DS9 S3.E15 - Destiny

Season 3, Episode 15 - "Destiny," or "How To Turn a Prophet"

I swear, Erick Avari is the face of The Actor With A Face I Can Never Place. I've seen him everywhere but I can never remember exactly where and when, until I consult Wikipedia or IMDB, and a light turns on and I go, "Oooh yeah, you DID have exactly three lines in that one episode of West Wing!"

Avari is an effective Vedek Yarka. Like Kai Winn, he's manipulative and zealous. And, also like Kai Winn, he's occasionally right. Yarka arrives on DS9 with a prophecy of doom. Three vipers will return to their nest in the sky and burn the gates of the temple. Yarka believes this prophecy describes the arrival of two Cardassian scientists aboard DS9 as they attempt to set up a communication relay through the wormhole.

It doesn't really matter that there are two scientists, not three. Yarka's conviction and narrative necessity means a third shortly arrives, and she does. When a third "unannounced" Cardassian scientist shows up on DS9, Major Kira starts to believe.

Prophecies always work this way. The best prophecies are like riddles: couched in metaphorical language and open to multiple interpretations, they take on an air of inevitability when events fit into their interpretive mold in retrospect. The most effective prophetic expressions rely on a combination of the listener's faith, multiplied by their capacity for creative interpretation. Humans are pattern-makers. It isn't enough that we receive data; we also synthesize, correlate, measure and interpret data. It's in our nature to create meaning.

There's an entire fascinating subset of study that involves our attraction toward (and need for) prophecy, astrology, and prediction. We're always looking for signs, even if our activities are decidedly secular. We have an entire system of speculation called the stock market, which fluctuates based on (at least in theory) our habit of reading into the tea leaves of contemporary politics. Some people have lucky numbers. Some people go to seances. Some people like to have their palm read. I've personally known people who lived and died based on their faith in prophecy, effectively gambling away huge sums of money on the words of an astrologer.

But that's neither here nor there. This episode is a fairly bland episode wrapped around a pretty interesting question, which is: What was Trakor's Third Prophecy actually trying to say? The question isn't "Was Trakor's prophecy valid?" because we know the answer. The answer is yes. Yes, Trakor had prophetic power; in the Star Trek universe, multi-dimensional aliens who can see the past, present, and future exist. They are called the Prophets and Trakor was one of them.

By the end of the episode, we discover that Trakor's prophecy was true, but cleverly misinterpreted. Yes, there were three vipers--but they were not the three scientists. The three vipers were three comet fragments hurtling toward the wormhole, threatening to destroy it. The "burning" of the wormhole was not its destruction but the physical reaction between the Silithium element and the wormhole itself.

But the bigger question to me is this. If Trakor is a prophet who can see past, present, and future, then how does he benefit from delivering opaque, cryptic prophecies? It makes more sense that he'd just tell you exactly what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and how to stop it.

So it occurs to me that Trakor probably couched his language in metaphor intentionally, because he knew it would be misinterpreted, and its misinterpretation would set into motion a series of necessary events. Or maybe this is Agnes Nutter all over again, and Trakor's prophecies survived three thousand years because Bajorans, like humans, much prefer the opaque and the cryptic to the clear and direct. Nobody wants an accurate prophecy. Those aren't any fun.

Overall, Destiny was a merely okay episode reminiscent of some of TNG's decent one-shots. I really liked our three scientists (or rather, our two scientists and one Obsidian Order representative). Why is there always a representative of the Obsidian Order in every group? Two's company, but Three's being spied on by the Obsidian Order? Is it like that old WoW guild, <And Two Stealthed Rogues>, except it's <And One Obsidian Order Spy>? If the Cardassians had Christmas, would they have their own version of Twelve Days of Christmas where the refrain was "And an Obsidian Order spy in a pear tree"?

DS9 S3.E14 - Heart of Stone

Season 3, Episode 14 - "Heart of Stone," or "Using Your Noggin"

What I love about DS9 is its endless capacity to surprise me. I never paid much attention to Nog, but when I did, I barely considered him a character. I'm prejudiced against Ferengi. I've never considered any Ferengi a real character until Quark showed up. Like his namesake, Quark is a theoretical concept that I'm never quite sure really exists. The Ferengi are comical to an extreme, a holdover from Star Trek's campiest roots. Their culture is self-parody and their appearance is designed for comic relief. Quark is therefore the exception that proves the rule: the one well-developed, believable Ferengi with a personality I can relate to.

And as usual, DS9 proves me wrong.

I don't think I've ever cheered harder for any character in Star Trek than I did for Nog in this episode, and I don't think I ever imagined I'd say those words in that order. Ferengi rites of passage into adulthood involve a period of apprenticeship whereby a "newly minted" Ferengi adult bribes his way into working for a mentor. Nog, beaming with pride upon recently becoming a man, designates Sisko has his mentor.

Nog wants to join Starfleet. Sisko doesn't believe it, and frankly neither do I. But I found Nog's enthusiasm so infectious that I couldn't help but smile.

This is neither here nor there, but Nog's rite of passage reminds me a little of the act of taking a spiritual guru in Hinduism. Being accepted by a guru is a form of apprenticeship; in order to formalize the agreement, a young novice traditionally goes around a congregation of friends and family, hands holding out the long hem of his or her shirt, to collect money and coins. This money pays the tithe of the guru's service and formalizes the beginning of their spiritual relationship.

The Ferengi Attainment Ceremony has absolutely nothing to do with the aforementioned Hindu ritual, but the similarities were coincidental enough that they bear mention.

Anyway, Nog really wants to be in Starfleet, and no one seems to believe him. He's willing to put in the work, though. Sisko sends him through a trial run organizing a storage facility, and Nog passes with flying colors. He's got some real talent, but at the same time, Starfleet has never recognized a Ferengi cadet before.

I can't help but respect Nog's determination in this episode. He's determined to be the first Ferengi officer in Starfleet, and it doesn't matter at all that he'd have to break with Starfleet tradition and prove his worth to a group of people eager to discredit him. Why? Because Nog doesn't want to be like his father.

This is one of the most humanizing moments I've ever experienced in DS9. Nog describes his father, Rom, as a talented engineer resigned to a lifetime of menial service to his elder brother, in a dead end job with no prospects, no opportunities for self-expression, no chance to live his best life. Nog's dilemma is the dilemma of any young person trying to be the first in their family to do anything. The first to go to college. The first to buy a house. The first to run their own business.

I sympathized hard with Nog. I think many of us are afraid of becoming like our fathers. Our fathers are usually the first figures of authority we ever know. Growing up, they seem indomitable and powerful. It's only when we become adults that we begin to see them for the flawed human beings they often are. Some of us live in our parents' shadow, wondering if we'll ever live up to their expectations or outshine their example. Some of us spend our adult lives trying to convince our parents that we're worthy of their love. And some of us, like Nog, see our parents as tragic figures; we are motivated to surpass them, and in surpassing them, we redeem them.

The way Nog describes his father is a lot like the way we describe artists, writers, musicians, creative and intellectual people in a society that values the concrete over the abstract, money over art, and trade over vocation. Rom could have been an engineer the way our mothers and fathers could have been artists and writers and musicians, but the rigors of his society and the expectations levied on him by enormous social pressure robbed him of that chance.

I have a complicated relationship with my dad, not unlike the relationship Nog has with Rom. I don't watch Star Trek (or consume any fiction) in order to see myself in that fiction; but the ability to relate to a character on a personal level, the inevitable moment where I understand what Nog and Rom are going through because I've gone through the same experience, creates empathy and attachment--and ultimately, pleasure.

This is a deeply satisfying episode. It's so satisfying that I'm going to save my reader the eyerolling-inducing nonsense of the A-Plot, which involves Odo confessing his love like a teenager with a crush, and an illusory Kira trapped in a rock like a bad metaphor for a captive audience.

I hope Nog has a long and fulfilling career in Starfleet. I wish him the best.