#DS9 Season 4 episode 2

[mistylacrimosa]

I'm not crying,you are

[alaiis]

Not me crying over Star Trek again

[mylittleredgirl]

buckle up folks, it's deep dive about chakotay hours!

season 2, "initiations"

@isthereintruthnobeauty1968 asked a question about chakotay in this post about the scene above:

for an infamous leader of an anti-federation rebel group he seems to firmly believe in its authority and ideals And to have (at least externally) adjusted to the blended crew seamlessly. what's the deal?

see, i don't think chakotay ever wanted to be a rebel, or even a leader for that matter.

he wanted to be a starfleet officer.

season 2, "tattoo"

chakotay enrolls in the acadamy as a teenager as young as he legally can ("tattoo"). he tells seven ("one small step") that he joined starfleet because of his love of paleontology, and he only turned away from that out of responsibility to the maquis and now to voyager.

[get a snack for this one y'all]

season 6, "one small step"

it doesn't come up often, but whenever chakotay talks about his pre-voyager starfleet career, it's always about first contact or archaeology. in "emanations," he compares their exploration of an alien burial moon to a mission he went on as an ensign, all while demonstrating his anthropology expertise. add that to him nerding out in "blink of an eye," "one small step," the dinosaur episode, and a bunch of other examples, he's a social scientist both by training and by inclination.

in the original star trek, they had an "A&A officer," a specialist in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient civilizations:

tos season 2, "who mourns for adonais?"

we never hear that term again, but that's the role chakotay often fills on voyager, and he's very happy whenever he gets to do it.

now, realistically, i don't know how much time pre-maquis chakotay would have spent in a blue uniform, because those skills would not make him an obvious choice to lead a maquis cell. ro laren sets up his character (unnamed) in tng as a tactical specialist who resigns to join the maquis:

tng season 7, "preemptive strike"

(which is a very polite and noble way to do it, as compared to eddington's defection in ds9.)

if he was in fact ro’s teacher (i think so, despite a stardate conflict in some later dialogue), it seems very in-character to me that chakotay could have started out pursuing a sciences path before showing an aptitude for piloting, strategy, and/or command. given what we know of him, regardless of his own passions or preferences, if a senior officer noticed his skills and encouraged him to change career tracks, he would do it.

teen angst era aside, he respects authority. he argues against dogmatic ideology when it's inflexible to the needs of the moment, but he likes working within a command hierarchy, and for better or worse, he is easily swayed by charismatic leaders.

season 1, "caretaker"

not only does he yield to janeway's authority on voyager before she even asks him to, and then molds himself into the kind of first officer he thinks will help her most, he does the same thing with annorax in "year of hell." tom is the voice of ethical conscience and reason in that episode, and he organizes the rebellion—against chakotay's orders!

there's so much going on here:

season 4, "year of hell part 2"

despite his father's perceptions of him as a contrarian, chakotay only rebels as a last resort. he would genuinely rather not. he clearly talked about the maquis cause with ro and others before he left—and i bet that's why he resigned to a starfleet admiral in person, to make one last appeal. his preference is to try and change systems from within.

not to west wing about it, but chakotay is only The Guy when he has to be—he wants to be the guy the guy counts on.

(hot take: with how he rationalizes the calculated sacrifices annorax is making in "year of hell," i don't think chakotay would have left starfleet for the maquis if it wasn't personal. but it was personal, so here we are!)

maquis chakotay is a disillusioned idealist, but he's never that disillusioned. he believes in the stated ideals of the federation, sometimes more than janeway does.

season 3, "scorpion part 1"

and it's a fundamental character trait that he looks for the best in people and situations, often to his own detriment (tuvok, seska, annorax, that time janeway and tuvok and tom all lie to him for half a season, the list goes on).

and it's easy to see good in starfleet, especially when most of his career was during the height of federation utopia before "the best of both worlds," at which point starfleet remembered it's also a defensive force and started building the defiant—which was the very first starfleet ship ever designed solely for combat.

the cardassian situation in tng is shown as an aberration in a largely peaceful era. the off-screen "border wars" were fought by officers who expected to go their entire careers never firing a phaser.

tng season 4, "the wounded"

for decades since making peace with the klingons, and with the romulans keeping to themselves, starfleet has been mostly goodhearted nerds who are committed to exploring and making friends. even if chakotay was a tactical officer, that was the starfleet he signed up for and served.

and, in fact, the reason why the federation abandoned the colonists in the dmz in the first place and wouldn’t help bajor during the cardassian occupation is because the federation and starfleet are devoted to the ideals of peace and noninterference to a fault.

tng season 5, "ensign ro"

chakotay doesn't object to starfleet's actions, but its inaction.

which, side note, is why janeway's choice in "caretaker" makes it easy for him to rally behind her. by choosing to protect the ocampa, even though it's a huge sacrifice and puts her in a prime directive gray area, janeway specifically addressed the exact trust gap he has with starfleet.

season 1, "caretaker"

that's what he wanted them to do back home!

chakotay defends his starfleet uniform in the kazon scene that inspired this whole essay, and he believes what he's saying, because he's right: that's not what a starfleet uniform represents, either in theory or in practice. especially in the mid-24th century, regardless of the political issues, the federation and starfleet do not conquer planets or enslave alien cultures by force.

(of course, they wouldn't have helped the kazon free themselves either, but that's not the question on the table.)

to op's main question: it's an interesting (or boring?) doylist choice to make chakotay such a platonic ideal of a Starfleet Officer™️ (which, for the record, has always included going off-leash at the expense of one's career whenever ethics overwhelm regulations).

season 1, "prime factors"

star trek went to a lot of trouble to create the maquis for the voyager premise of two crews... and then quickly brady-bunch'd them into one happy family and let deep space nine wrangle the maquis problem instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

chakotay being so willing to put himself and his crew into starfleet uniforms (even though some members of both crews objected to it) cheated us out of some potentially rich drama, but it does hold water with what we see of him as a character on screen, and his relationship with starfleet. it has disappointed him, but he still believes that it's a force for good, and chakotay will always err on the side of seeing the good in something and thinking he can change it for the better from within.

--

tl;dr: chakotay is a starfleet officer by training and at heart, who was temporarily out of uniform because his family and tribe happened to be directly in the middle of starfleet's messiest ethical quagmire.

he made a personal, moral decision to join the maquis, not because he was anti-federation, but because that was the only way to protect federation civilians—which was part of his starfleet oath to begin with. he worked hard when he was younger to earn this uniform and i think, in spite of everything, he feels honestly proud to get to wear it again.

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

VOYAGER DIALOGUE ANALYSIS

fourth show breakdown! if you'd like to see this entire project check out my tag #star trek dialogue analysis, this spreadsheet, or the below posts:

overview // TOS overview // TNG overview // DS9 overview // Enterprise overview // gender analysis // race analysis

this post will give an overview of all the Voyager data i collected broken down by season and character.

cast composition

Voyager starts with the biggest main cast of any Star Trek show in the first season (9 characters: Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris, Kim, Neelix, EMH, Torres, and Kes) with a single cast change in s4 as Kes was replaced with Seven of Nine. this is the first Star Trek show to have the same amount of main characters in each season.

season 1:

like every other season, we start with the Captain having considerably more lines than any other character. however unlike other shows, there isn't a clear secondary character in the first season as all the secondary characters except for Kes, Neelix, & the EMH have roughly equal amounts of dialogue. with the exception of Janeway, all the characters have amount the same amount of dialogue as characters in early DS9 (and more than early TNG).

season 2:

Janeway has fewer lines this season and Kes and the EMH have more but otherwise not a lot of changes. while i haven't specifically measured this (yet), judging by the graphs this season probably has the most equal amounts of dialogue between cast members of any Star Trek season.

season 3:

not a ton of changes from s2 – Janeway, Torres, Kim, & Neelix have slightly fewer lines while Chakotay, Tuvok, the EMH, Paris, & Kes have slightly more. this is the only season Kes appears in where she does not have the least amount of lines.

season 4:

Seven is added to the cast this season and following the pattern of Worf & Ezri's introductions – she has considerably more lines than most of the rest of the cast. Tuvok, Torres, Kim, & Neelix also have considerably fewer lines while Chakotay & Janeway both have considerably more.

season 5:

the EMH and Kim have considerably more lines than in s4 but otherwise, the numbers for everyone remain roughly the same. this is the season of Voyager with the least equal amounts of dialogue for all of the main cast.

season 6:

everyone except Torres & Neelix has considerably fewer lines in season 6 than in nearly every other season, possibly because a lot of episodes in season 6 tend to focus on one-off or recurring characters more than the main cast. this is also the only season where Tuvok has the least amount of lines.

season 7:

everyone except for Neelix has more lines than in season 6, particularly the EMH with over 15 more lines of dialogue more per episode. interestingly, while both TNG & DS9 had pretty dramatic changes in line count from s1 to s7 (going up for most characters in TNG and down for most characters in DS9), the line count in Voyager remained fairly consistent in comparison.

by character:

JANEWAY

while every other Captain besides Kirk generally had fewer and fewer lines as the series went on, the amount of dialogue Janeway has remains farily consistent with only noticeably decreasing in s2 and s3. across the show, she has an average of 69.51 lines per episode with 11,677 lines in all. she appears in all 168 episodes of Voyager and has 57 episodes with 80 or more lines (high line count) and only 4 episodes with 10 or fewer lines (low line count). she has the most lines in The Void with 159 lines (though including double length episodes, she has 282 lines in Endgame).

CHAKOTAY

not a ton to comment on Chakotay's amount of dialogue as it remains fairly consistent throughout the series except for a dip in s6 where every character has fewer lines. throughout the show, he has an average of 34.68 lines per episode and appears in all 168 episodes of the show (5826 lines in all). he has 17 high line count episodes and 30 low line count episodes. he has the most in lines in the episode Shattered with 156 lines.

TUVOK

Tuvok goes from being one of the characters with the most lines in s1 to one of the characters with the least lines by s6 and s7. nevertheless, he has an overall average of 28 lines per episode (4704 in total) across 167 episodes of the show (he does not appear in the episode Life Line). he has 10 high line count episodes and 35 low line count episodes. the most lines he ever has is in Repression with 123 lines.

EMH

the EMH has some of most growth in amount of dialogue from s1 to s7 out of any Star Trek character, nearly doubling the amount of lines he has per episode. overall he averages 35.26 lines per episode (5923 in all). he appears in 164 out of 168 episodes of the show (not appearing in Prime Factors, Non Sequitur, Resistance, or Day of Honor. he has 21 high line count episodes and 47 low line count episodes. he has the most lines in Projections with 166 lines (or Flesh and Blood if we include double length episodes with 183 lines).

SEVEN

Seven is introduced in s4 and has roughly the same amount of lines in her first two seasons and last two seasons with a drop in between. she has an average of 40.81 lines per episode, the second highest in the series after Janeway, (4251 lines in total) over 103 episodes. she has 17 high line count episodes and 17 low line count episodes. she has the most lines in Human Error with 164 lines.

TORRES

Torres is another character who has slightly decreasing amounts of lines across the series with an uptick in s7. she has an overall average of 26.3 lines per episode (4418 in all) across 164 episodes (not appearing in Unforgettable, Living Witness, Riddles, or Body and Soul). she has 12 high line count episodes and 61 low line count episodes. she has the most lines in Lineage with 147 lines.

PARIS

Paris has relatively consistent amount of lines across the seasons (save for s2 and s6 where it dips a little) so i don't have a ton to add. he has an overall average of 31.39 lines per episode (5274 in total) across 167 episodes of the show (not appearing in Sacred Ground). he has 11 high line count episodes and 36 low line count episodes. he has the most lines in the episode Thirty Days with 154 lines.

KIM

Kim has a more dynamically changing line count across the seasons than other characters, getting relatively few lines in s3, s4, and s6 respectively. overall he has an average of 26.88 lines per episode (4516 total) over the course of 166 episodes (not appearing in Fair Trade or Blood Fever). he has 10 high line count episodes and 45 low line count episodes. the most lines he has in a single episode is 178 in Nightingale (the highest of any main cast member in any single length episode).

NEELIX

as a character with heavy prosthetics, Neelix has considerably fewer lines than the other cast but remains generally consistent through the seasons (with a dip in s4). overall he has an average of 19.68 lines per episode (the second lowest of the show) and 3306 lines in total. he appears in 159 episodes and of those, 11 are high line count episodes and 89 are low line count episodes. he has the most lines in Homestead with 158.

KES

out of all the main cast members, Kes appears in the fewest seasons/episodes and has the least amount of lines with (in my opinion) make her the most underused character on Voyager. she has an overall average of 18.18 lines per episode – the second lowest of any adult main character thus far (after Troi). she appears in 65 episodes across the three seasons in which she is a main character and returns for an additional three episodes as a guest. she has four high line count episodes and 40 low line count episodes. the most lines she has in a single episode is 137 in Before and After.

things of note:

Janeway is the 90s character with the most lines on average (though Picard has more total lines as there are more episodes of TNG than Voyager).

despite having the largest main cast, Voyager characters tend to have more lines on average than both TNG & DS9.

additionally, unlike DS9 & TNG, it's very rare for a character to not appear in an episode (only regularly happening with Neelix, a character that requires a lot of prosthetic work).

unlike TNG (and DS9 to an extent), there is not a clear second lead of the show with Tuvok, Chakotay, Seven, and the EMH each sharing spots for the second most lines depending on the season.

however, Voyager starts out as much more of an ensemble show in the early seasons and becomes less of one as the seasons go on though not to the extent of DS9 (again perhaps because of less serialization).

[notcisko]

Watching DS9 Season 2 Episode 4 "Invasive Procedures" and Quark started fake moaning, and I got a little involuntarily flustered. So, that's where I'm at mentally.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 4, Wave 2, Poll 2

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and round here.

Julian Bashir-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Qualifications:

Disability: Along with being generally awkward with conversation and not knowing how to talk to people, a part of his backstory is that he was “underperforming” in school so his parents got him illegally genetically enhanced to “fix” him (in the show this is treated as a horrible fucked-up thing that they did LGBTQ+: He has a relationship with another male character on the show that everybody behind-the-scenes (except the homophobic producer) treated as canonically romantic. The homophobic producer had to tell the writers to stop putting Bashir and Garak in scenes together because they got along too well and he didn’t want the audience to think they were a couple. The non-homophobic producer said in a documentary looking back on DS9 that one of his biggest regrets about the show is not making the relationship actually canon.

He was canonically intellectually disabled as a child, which his parents attempted to "correct" with illegal gene editing. This eliminated his intellectual disability, but he displays many many autistic traits still (socially awkward, infodumps, hyperempathetic, echolalia, blunt). This lends itself to the popular interpretation that the gene editing couldn't "correct" his autism, but it did change exactly which autistic traits he had. One of his closest onscreen relationships is with Elim Garak, a relationship that both actors have since said is romantic in nature, and Andy Robinson (Garak's actor) has explicitly said he played Garak as being attracted to Bashir. There is also some possible evidence of Julian being trans; in one episode, he says this of a situation in which he had to transfer a fetus from one of his friends into another due to an emergency (paraphrased): "The fetus was in distress, and the only available candidates were Major Kira... and me." This line potentially implies he is capable of carrying a fetus. Furthermore, he canonically has a name that his parents used to call him that he refuses to answer to now (Jules). In-universe, this is due to him finding out about his genetic engineering, but it is very transgender of him.

Propaganda:

- He uses all of his free time to role play historical events with his best friend - He intentionally got one question wrong on his finals so that he wouldn’t be valedictorian - On like 5 separate occasions he gets invited to medical conferences then kidnapped on the way - Season 2 episode 22 “The Wire”

He is so awesome. Very autistic, very interesting character. He's an extremely caring doctor, to the point he once stayed on a plague-ridden planet with no futuristic tech, mixing medicine by hand for weeks in an attempt to cure the populace. Which he succeeds at, by the way!! He also, after finding a rogue group of former enemy soldiers who have managed to kick their dependence on the drug used by the enemy government to control them, Julian agrees to try to formulate a way for all of the soldiers to be free of their dependence. He only fails due to interference. Also, when Garak is suffering withdrawal from a brain implant, he stays by his bedside for days on end, caring for him, and even going to the heart of hostile territory to ask the head of the Space KGB how he can cure him. And that's not all! In addition to being a very dedicated (if often unethical) doctor, he is also a space tennis player! He has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth immediately upon meeting anyone new, and not just because of his canonical foot fetish! I'm not joking about that. It is canon.

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @convenient-plot-device is the second submitter.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus-The Locked Tomb

Qualifications:

She's a lesbian and the author Tamsyn Muir has confirmed she's written as schizophrenic, based on her own experience.

Okay SO Harrow is a necromancer nun who is also a huge lesbian. She spends the books of TLT series being super gay and repressed about her emotions for 1. Butch lesbian Jesus and 2. Human Barbie the death of God. She narrates the second book (Harrow the Ninth) and is author-confirmed schizophrenic. She experiences hallucinations thru the whole book and has since childhood. She’s also WIDELY headcannoned as autistic by the fandom (me too) because. Because she IS SO FUCKING AUTISTIC (source: I am autistic too)

Schizophrenic lesbian with a traumatic brain injury

Schizophrenic and sapphic

canonically a schizophrenic lesbian. neither word is used in series, she isn't in a position to get a diagnosis and queer identities are so normalised in the universe that labels just don't get mentioned, but she is written as both by an author who is also both.

Canon schizophrenia

Canon lesbian with canon schizophrenia

She's a schizophrenic lesbian with a traumatic brain injury

Propaganda:

The Locked Tomb is pretty popular on tumblr but I might as well submit her anyway

She’s a lesbian necromancer nun. She’s a saint and also woke up the death of God, who is a human Barbie, who she is in love with, tho she’s also kind of married to lesbian Jesus. She’s schizophrenic. She’s scrungly. She puts bread in a drawer. She’s even autistic

Harrow first started hallucinating (visual and auditory) when she was ten years old! The traumatic brain injury and seizures are much more recent. Unironically gotta love a pov protagonist who makes you struggle along with her in sorting out hallucination and false memory to figure out what's going on. Also while Harrow's disability shapes the narrative, the book isn't at all about her being disabled. It's a fantasy/scifi gothic horror novel about being trapped at a work retreat with God.

so many women want her but she’s determined to be in love with the soul of the dead earth trapped in a 10ft barbie doll instead. she’s a lesbian disaster and is trying to deal with both schizophrenia and over 200 actual ghosts haunting her.

a schizophrenic lesbian, written by a schizophrenic lesbian! she's in love with multiple dead women, but she's also a necromancer so that's not as big of an obstacle as it sounds. weird little bone-obsessed necromancer lesbian. I care about her deeply

Author Tamsyn Muir has discussed how Harrow's schizophrenia is modeled after her own experiences. It matters a lot in her eponymous novel, where her inability to trust what she sees and hears is compounded by her self-inflicted lobotomy to save her girlfriend's soul from getting absorbed into her own.

Harrow is one of the protagonists of her series & both her lesbianism & her schizophrenia play major parts in the story. The author has spoken about how she wrote Harrow based on her own experiences, and the authenticity comes through strongly. Beyond that, she's a teenage gothic nun in love with a holy corpse & she's the greatest bone magician ever born. What more needs be said.

She's a lesbian, she's psychotic, she has seizures, she faints regularly and can't rely on her own memory worth shit. And the only reason she's not going to kill god is so she and her girl can escape the cycle of violence. Basically, Harrowhark Nonagesimus is the entire package.

Anything Else?:

Listen. Listen. I’m not doing Harrow justice here. I LOVE her (Submitter 2)

The author is also schizophrenic! Which is pretty cool. (Submitter 3)

The author of the series is openly schizophrenic, and has mentioned in interviews that she's drawing on that experience when writing Harrow :) (Submitter 8)

[fast-moon]

I'm 30 years late, but...

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine originally aired when I was 10 years old. I loved Next Generation when I was a kid, so I gave DS9 a try back then... and immediately grew bored of it. They weren't going to new planets or having space battles, they were just sitting around in one place discussing space politics, and there wasn't even anyone funny like Data to hold my attention. So, I stopped watching after a couple episodes.

But, since I keep hearing it ended up being the best Trek seres, I've decided to go ahead and give it a full watch-through. Maybe now that I'm 40 and have more life experience under my belt, I can appreciate it more.

Turns out I do! I've finished the first season, so I'll give a run-down of what I thought of the S1 episodes below the cut:

1-2. Emissary: All right, I actually understand the premise this time which completely went over my head as a kid. The Bajorans were under Cardassian occupation for decades, the Federation showed up and drove them out, now the Federation is in control of the Cardassian space station DS9 to help the Bajorans rebuild and return to self-governance. But wait! Turns out there's a wormhole that goes to the other side of the galaxy here and it's suddenly become prime space real-estate! And the wormhole is inhabited by... mysterious non-temporal entities that spit out a magic orbs from time to time and the Bajorans worship them as prophets.

3. Past Prologue: Garak is queer-coded like whoa and gives Bashir a taste of his own medicine about not respecting boundaries. Is also possibly like a quadruple-agent. And tailors a fine suit. Also, Kira got a haircut. There's rats on spaceships?! Oh, that's just Odo. Okay. Still, the fact that he considered that a convincing disguise means there's rats on spaceships?!

4. A Man Alone: A guy backstabs himself and blames Odo for it.

5. Babel: Poor overworked O'Brien gets so stressed out he starts speaking in tongues. Then it turns out it's contagious. And it turns out that it's because someone sabotaged the station decades ago with a dyslexia virus and then just kind of forgot about it.

6. Captive Pursuit: This actually touches on a moral question I'd been wondering about if we ever end up with sentient AI: If something is bred/programmed to like being oppressed, is it more moral to remove it from its oppression even if that makes it miserable, or to return it to its oppression if that's what makes it happy? This episode chose the latter.

7. Q-Less: A surprisingly boring Q-centric episode whose only shenanigans involved a space stingray Vash was trying to sell off. Q really does miss Picard.

8. Dax: Oh, another philosophical thought-experiment: If you committed a crime and then get reincarnated in a traceable manner and retain all the memories of your previous incarnation, can your current incarnation be held liable for your previous incarnation's actions? This episode decides it doesn't want to answer this because she's not guilty, anyway.

9. The Passenger: Bashir becomes even more insufferable and nobody notices.

10. Move Along Home: Samurai hippies come through the wormhole and demand everyone LARP with them whether they like it or not.

11. The Nagus: Quark falls victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war with Asia". But only slightly less well-known is this: "Never get involved with a Ferengi when profit is on the line".

12. Vortex: So... Odo just lets a guy get away with murder because he has a sob story and claimed he knew others of his kind? Just because he was wanted unjustly on his home planet does not change the fact that he murdered a guy for hire. Also, Odo can get knocked out by a rock?

13. Battle Lines: Remember that "Great Divide" episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender that everyone hated? No reason.

14. The Storyteller: O'Brien goes down to Bajor to fix the pipes, becomes God.

15. Progress: Kira has to go convince a Boomer to leave his land because they need the resources to rebuild the planet, but he's all "I got mine, screw them." She humors his sexist behavior all episode, then burns his house down.

16. If Wishes Were Horses: Bashir wishes for his own personal side-piece Dax, and real Dax is weirdly okay with this because "boys will be boys". The conflict in this episode is literally solved by thinking happy thoughts.

17. The Forsaken: Odo gets sexually harassed so reports it to HR who just laughs him off because they think it would be good for him to get laid. Then he gets stuck in an elevator with his stalker and it's revealed just how physically strenuous it is for him to maintain his human form all day, and yet he has never been afforded any accommodations beyond a bucket to sleep in. This poor space slime, no wonder he's always so grumpy. #JusticeForOdo

18. Dramatis Personae: TNG's "The Inner Light", but stupid. Once again Odo has to save the day because he's immune to the humanoid crazypox that seems to infect the station every half-dozen episodes, and yet they still just can't find it in their effects budget to adjust station operations enough to allow him the minimal comfort of not having to contort himself into human form every day until he collapses just to do his job.

19. Duet: I am a sucker for "Did the janitors on the Death Star deserve to die?" sorts of moral discussions, and this episode delivered that very well. Also, I'm in lesbians with Kira.

20. In the Hands of the Prophets: Lady who doesn't even have kids at the school nevertheless takes issue that the children aren't being taught in accordance to her religious beliefs. It's been 30 years since this came out and nothing changes.

All in all, a decent season 1. It does show its age in places, especially in its treatment of female characters, and being written before the internet and smartphones caused seismic cultural shifts that its vision of the future failed to take into account. But still, I'm liking it now that I actually understand what's going on. On to season 2!

[walkingstackofbooks]

Season 2 Observations - What the DS9 crew call each other

I'm back with my spreadsheet and armed with new facts. Let's go! (For Season 1 Observations, see here.)

This is a bit longer and there was still more I wanted to include - if you want to check out the raw data yourself, you can view the spreadsheet here!

Sisko

Is slightly more likely to introduce himself as "Benjamin Sisko" (6x) than "Commander Benjamin Sisko" (5x) - though this is often followed in both cases by "of the United Federation of Planets" or something similar.

Kira, Odo and Quark mostly call him "Commander", and rarely "Sir" - all are extremely consistent with season 1. (37:8, 16:2 and 11:0 as compared to in s1 35:8. 15:2 and 9:0)

Miles and Julian are more likely to call him "Sir", but use "Commander" often as well. How often has changed for them both since Season 1: > Julian has moved from using both equally, to using "Sir" twice as often. > Miles has moved from using "Sir" three times as much to almost using both equally (40:35)

Dax still uses Benjamin almost exclusively (24x), although she will use "Commander" on occasion (2x).

Is most often referred to as "Commander Sisko (22x), followed by Sisko (12x) - O'Brien is the only one to use "Sisko" more frequently.

Kira

Most often calls herself "Major Kira Nerys" (4x).

Everyone, apart from Dax, almost always calls her "Major".

Dax exclusively calls her Kira (2x) - Bashir and Sisko have both also called her this (2x and 1x respectively).

Is most often referred to as "Kira" (13x), followed by "Major Kira" (6x) - a change from Season 1 where the "Kira: Major Kira" ratio was 5:18 > Odo bucks this trend: as in season 1, he refers to her as "Major Kira" 2 times and "Kira" only once.

Odo

Introduces himself as "Chief of Security Odo" (2x).

Is called "Odo" by everybody; Kira (7x), Dax (7x), O'Brien (4x) and Quark (24x!!!!) will use this most often.

Sisko and Bashir are more likely to call him "Constable" - 13:8 and 2:1 respectively. > Kira and Dax never call him "Constable" > Miles uses it almost just as much as "Odo" (3:4) > Quark calls him it twice

Is almost exclusively referred to as Odo by everyone - Kira referred to him as "Constable Odo" once, and O'Brien as "the constable" once.

Trends are consistent with Season 1, apart from Kira stopping using Constable entirely, and Bashir, Dax and O'Brien actually speaking about/ talking to him more than two times this season!

Julian

Refers to himself most often as "Julian" or "Julian Bashir".

Sisko, Kira, Odo and Quark exclusively call him "Doctor" - apart from Kira calling him "Julian" once, on his request!

Dax and O'Brien more often call him "Julian" (9:1 and 12:5 respectively) > After Armageddon Game, O'Brien only calls him Julian.

He is still referred to as "Doctor Bashir" most often by Sisko, Kira and Odo

Jadzia still refers to him mostly as "Julian".

O'Brien now refers to him mostly as "the doctor" or "Bashir" (2x each), as opposed to "Dr Bashir" in S1 (2x) > Quark similarly uses "Bashir" most (3x), followed by "the doctor" (2x)

Jadzia

Refers to herself as "Jadzia" most often (5x), but 4 of those times are in the episode Playing God where she is talking in the third person about herself. > She also calls herself "Dax" (2x), "Jadzia Dax" (2x) and when talking to Klingons in Blood Oath, "I who was Curzon Dax" and "You knew me as Curzon Dax".

Sisko and Kira call her "Dax" most often, followed by "Lieutenant" (22:11 and 7:5 respectively). > No change from S1 for Sisko, but Kira only began to call her Dax this season. > Kira also first calls her Jadzia - unprompted! - in Blood Oath. > Sisko only calls her "Old Man" once.

Odo, O'Brien and Quark exclusively call her "Lieutenant".

Julian exclusively calls her Jadzia, but only twice.

Sisko, Kira and O'Brien usually refer to her as "Dax" - the latter two exclusively. > Sisko uses "Jadzia" just as much (6x), but only in the episode Invasive Procedures, when talking about her as opposed to Verad Dax who has stolen her symbiont. > Once again, this is same as S1 for Sisko, but a change from exclusively "Lieutenant Dax" (1x) for Kira.

Julian most often refers to her as "Jadzia" (4x), followed by Dax (2x).

Miles

Calls himself "O'Brien" most often (4x) - "Miles O'Brien" (6x) is skewed because of his repetition of it (4x) under torture in Tribunal.

Everyone most often calls him "Chief". > For Odo, this is equal with "Mister O'Brien" (2x each), and for Quark this is equal with "O'Brien" (1x each).

"Mister O'Brien" is still used at a similar rate by Sisko, being used about four times less frequently than "Chief" in both seasons. Kira only uses it once, in early s2, compared to "Chief" 14x - she used both equally in S1.

Sisko, Bashir and Dax most often refer to him as "Chief O'Brien", a change for all of them from S1. > For Sisko, this is followed by "Mister O'Brien", his most common use in S1. > For Bashir this is followed equally by "O'Brien", his most common in S1, and by "the chief".

Kira and Quark refer to him as "O'Brien" more often.

Odo uses both "Chief O'Brien" and "O'Brien" equally (2x each)

----------------------------------------

Thanks for your interest in this, it's definitely encouraged me to keep going! Not sure if this is the correct tag etiquette, but I thought I'd tag those of you who seemed keen to look at more data - let me know if you don't want this to happen in the future! (Or indeed if you want to be added to the update list!) But 100% thank you so much for your kind comments about this project - I'm glad to see it's not just me who likes to nerd out over cold, hard data! (Also feel free to talk about stuff in the comments, there were so many tag comments I wanted to reply to aha 😅)

@joelleity @elainemorisi @istherewifiinhell @dumbnerd13-42 @yourea--stubborn--man @writteninsilences @worfianism @mickstart @ilovefredjones @tomthefanboy @ds9official @ussdefiant @autisticburnham @daforged @loudfederationscreeching @deepacenine @thethirdromana @tocautiouslygo @transhologram

[stra-tek]

Kzinti and Star Trek

You don't see many Kzinti in Star Trek, and there's a very good reason for that: They're not actually Star Trek aliens, but a borrow from Larry Niven's Known Space series of books. And so Paramount don't actually own them. "The Slaver Weapon" episode of The Animated Series is an adaptation of Larry's "The Soft Weapon"

TAS' "Slaver Weapon" brought lots of Known Space lore into Trek. 4 Man-Kzin Wars were fought prior to the invention of faster-than-light travel, which really doesn't work in Trek where First Contact established, well, first contact and it was between humans and Vulcans after the first warp flight.

We also saw a Slaver, which have a rich backstory in Known Space where they're known as the Thrint and once ruled over the galaxy with their telepathy.

Some of Niven's backstory fits into Trek but other parts don't.

The Man-Kzin Wars don't. That being said, there have been attempts to bring Kzin back into Trek and several references to them. The Next Gen novel "The Captain's Honor" features the M'dok in the B-plot, a feline species who fought 2 wars with humanity one before the founding of the Federation and one after... sound vaguely familiar? They were originally the Kzin, and had name and details changed to avoid potential legal issues.

The Kzin exist in the Star Fleet Battles tabletop gaming universe (which is like a Trek splinter universe, licensed from TOS, TAS and the Star Fleet Technical Manual but nothing else), but they lack the distinctive bat ears.

Starfleet Command, the videogame adaptation of Star Fleet Battles swaps the Kzinti for the Mirak, again to avoid copyright issues.

But then came Star Trek Picard, where in season one Riker talks about an issue with the Kzinti (apparently permission was sought from Larry Niven and given for the mention) and then Lower Decks gave us Taylor, who is clearly Kzinti but likely will just never have anyone say it out loud just to be on the safe side

Oh, and the 1980 Star Trek Maps were cheeky and called them the K'zinti and hoped the apostrophe would make everything okay.

There have been attempts to bring the Kzinti back to Trek, like a planned Enterprise season 5 episode called "Kilkenny Cats" which was almost resurrected as a New Voyages fan film project. Here's the poster, where they'd replaced the Kzinti with the Kytharri (another Kzin-expy from the DS9 "Prophecy and Change" anthology

The "Kilkenny Cats" story read somewhat like a retread of DS9's "Armageddon Game". There were also attempts to get an animated Star Trek movie made called Lions of the Night, involving Sulu and the Enterprise-B dealing with a Kzinti invasion.

Oh oh, and read Ringworld. It's fantastic. And makes one wonder what the Kzin world is like in the Trek world... because they're unable to stop themselves launching violent wars on neighbours which they have no hope of winning, their world is essentially occupied by humans and that's very un-Trek (which of course makes it 10x more fascinating) indeed. How would Starfleet and the Federation deal with such a threat?

[isagrimorie]

i forgot that tilly was asked to be the first officer of discovery in the third season. and, I think how mind-blowing that is. i like discovery a lot but sometimes the writers make truly mind-boggling choices.

i forgot that tilly was just a cadet in s1 and then an ensign.

making her an (acting) first officer, while still an ensign, was a bizarre choice. (harry kim is crying somewhere)

especially since nilsson and rhys take control of the bridge when the command team is out.

unfortunately, the way discovery is configured we don't really know most of the bridge crew.

or, maybe it would have been better if a new character was introduced as their 32nd-century guide and as a temporary XO.

but also, who is the senior staff of discovery? do we know?

i assumed that culber was CMO all this time only to find out from interviews he wasn't the CMO.

stamets can't be the chief engineer since he's science division and he mans the spore drive function and not the whole ship. i assume its jett reno.

who was the head of security when nhan left? is it rhys??? why is booker (who I really like) memory alpha listed the head of security of discovery (season 4)??? he's not starfleet.

i just realized the whole problem why they got tilly as acting first officer is because I don't think any of the writers in seasons 2 to 3 of discovery sat down and solidified the hierarchy on the ship other than captain.

it's so nebulous and it doesn't need to be nebulous.

it's like how inconsistent the ranks are on SNW uniforms.

i know these are nitpicks but these are details that help build out the world. and it's such an easy thing to address too, it's frustrating they don't.

and this is on the discovery writers for not taking the time to iron it out. i understand they want to focus on different people and keep the heroics away from the bridge, other than saru and michael. but that doesn't excuse how lazily they went about it.

anyway this is just a bug bear that I stumbled on when I remembered how tilly was made into acting first officer of discovery. it didn't niggle at me back then but somehow rewatching voyager and a lot of other trek made me realize, I can actually pinpoint the line of command on each show but stumble on it when it comes to discovery seasons 3 and 4.

again, i think this is why season 5 is doing a great job. wilson cruz said that by season 5 he might as well be the CMO, so I'm taking that as canon.

this is what happens when every season and episode is just one story of crisis situations without any standalone downtime episodes.

(this is also a problem for picard s3. it's the single story and 10 episode thing. it ties the hands of writers.)

what i wouldn't give for a discovery episode where the ship is just doing routine maintenance. follow an engineering team down a jeffries tube, watch them have a boring senior staff meeting where all department heads report to michael.

(wait, have we seen discovery do a senior staff meeting scene?)

have rayner sit down and manage personnel.

honestly, i think the trek that does the best in doing personnel, handling extras, and making a realized world is still ds9.

[horrorfilmlesbian]

Ds9 rewatch start of season 4 vibes

Eps 1&2: ❤️ yay ❤️ Worf ❤️

Episode 3: [tears]

[chaos-good-life]

ROUND 7: Julian Bashir's March Fashion Madness!

We are going through the outfits Bashir wore throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to pick the number one outfit! Here are the previous polls:

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Who is ready for Round 7?

The field hospital scrubs from the season 5 episode "Nor the Battle to the Strong..."

Vs.

THE original Deep Space Nine uniform, as seen through midway season 5

May the best fit win! Posting Round 8 next.

[elderly-worm]

Okay so I haven't trawled the tag but a friend told me that a new short film is being touted as canonizing Spirk, and I felt the need to compile a quick... not rebuttal per se, but provision of some much-needed context.

Disclaimer 1: I do think that the same clip of film can mean different things when aired at different times, and in the social context of the 2020s the new clip, despite showing stuff we've seen from Kirk and Spock before, means something potentially gayer than what we've seen before, since authorial intent is a thing and like... 2020s writers know what they're doing when they do That.

Disclaimer 2: I'm not the biggest TOS guy in the world (DS9 is my home turf; I've seen all of TOS and the movies once each, plus a few rewatches of certain episodes), but I thought I'd make the post in case assertions that Spirk has gone reach people with even less TOS knowledge than me and start being taken at face value by folks who don't realize Just How Gay Kirk and Spock have always been.

So.

Before you, oh imagined tumblrite with interest in the canonicity of Spirk but little contextual knowledge, applaud the newfound canonicity of such an important ship, I beg of you to take the following four instances into account. [Keep in mind through all of this that some sources say that Vulcan spouses kiss one another by touching the tips of two fingers together]:

Season 2, Episode 1, "Amok Time", 1967. Spock believes himself to have killed Kirk and tries to resign from Starfleet only to have Kirk reveal that he is alive. https://archive.org/details/star.-trek.-tos.-s-02-e-01.-amok.-time. See timestamp 46:58-47:39.

Season 3, Episode 24, "Turnabout Intruder", 1969. Kirk, transferred into a woman's body, convinces Spock that, contrary to appearances, he is in fact himself. Spock tries to break him out and they hold hands for a second amid the turmoil as the woman who has stolen Kirk's body tries to stop them from regaining control. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7q3l7t See timestamp 28:25-31:49.

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture", 1979. Spock, having briefly fused minds with an artificial intelligence named V'ger, is recovering from psychological overwhelm and tries to explain the experience. https://youtu.be/lxTaW8L_Pxo?feature=shared&t=113 The whole clip up to timestamp 2:50 is relevant, but note in particular 1:55-2:18.

"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", 1982. Spock sacrifices himself, dying of radiation poisoning to save the rest of the ship and crew. https://youtu.be/fHAOWLhrxhQ?feature=shared&t=101 See timestamp 1:40-4:56.

And finally, the new short film causing the uproar:

Now, by all means: draw your conclusions.

[spockvarietyhour]

In season 2, [Co-creator Ronald D.] Moore told Inverse:

Actually, I did spend some time thinking about that and in my head. None of this has been set down, I haven’t talked about this formally. But in my head, The Wrath of Khan is the first Star Trek movie [in the For All Mankind timeline]. They probably did the Star Trek: Phase II show that has always been talked about. The original Star Trek went off the air before the Apollo II landing. ... In my version of history, Paramount does make the Phase II show in the mid-seventies. And then they transitioned into Wrath of Khan and not Star Trek: The Motion Picture, because of the run of the lengthy and glorious, and critically acclaimed run of Phase II, it’s a year later that The Wrath of Khan comes out. But it’s still The Wrath of Khan that we know and it was essentially the same story. I love The Wrath of Khan and I couldn’t bear to change that. So it’s the same thing.

"Based on Moore’s explanation, Star Trek seems healthier in For All Mankind’s ’70s and ’80s than it was in our timeline, yet this also led to fewer iterations of the franchise. Does any version of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, or Enterprise exist in this alternate reality? Ron Moore worked on both Next Gen and DS9, so he may want to avoid references to versions of Trek he worked on."

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

ENTERPRISE DIALOGUE ANALYSIS

fifth and FINAL show breakdown! if you'd like to see this entire project check out my tag #star trek dialogue analysis, this spreadsheet, or the below posts:

overview // TOS overview // TNG overview // DS9 overview // Voyager overview // Enterprise overview // gender analysis // race analysis

this post will give an overview of all the Enterprise data i collected broken down by season and character.

cast composition

Enterprise is the only show i'm looking at that has a consistent main cast for all of its seasons. it's also the shortest Berman era Trek show with only four seasons (and 99 episodes) and with the smallest cast: Archer, T'Pol, Tucker, Sato, Reed, Phlox, and Mayweather. according to the producers, there was an effort in Enterprise to recreate 'the triumverate' style of cast from TOS with Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker as main characters as opposed to the more ensemble style of TNG, DS9, and Voyager. (and they did succeed, whether or not that was a good thing.)

season 1:

we can see the differences from DS9 and Voyager right off the bat in season 1 with Archer having far more lines than any other Captain of this era and with a clear division between the primary characters (Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker) and the secondary characters (Sato, Reed, Phlox, and Mayweather), resembling the divisions in s1 of TNG. this is also the only season where Phlox has the least lines.

season 2:

while most Star Trek shows seem to have characters getting more equal amounts of lines as the series goes on, this is not the case for Enterprise with the difference between the primary & secondary characters being even more stark. and Archer, now in his second season, still has more lines than any other Captain of this era (the closest someone comes is Picard in s1 of TNG with an average of 90.4 lines per episode.)

season 3:

Archer does follow the pattern of Captains getting fewer lines as the season progresses but still the divide between primary & secondary characters endures. it is interesting to note that this is arguably the first entirely serialized season of Star Trek (while DS9 experimented with serialization, they still had one-off episodes in their later seasons) though everyone still has roughly the same amount of lines from the mostly non-serialized s2. Mayweather's 10.17 lines has the fewest lines out of any adult character in this era Star Trek. this is also the only season where T'Pol has the second most lines.

season 4:

not a ton has changed – Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker have fewer lines than in previous seasons but still considerably more than the others who have roughly the same amount of lines as the previous two seasons.

by character:

ARCHER

while if we include TOS, Kirk has more lines, Archer still has by far the most lines of any character from this era of Star Trek with an average of 86.68 lines per episode (Janeway & Picard had about 20 fewer lines and Sisko had 35 fewer lines). that said, because Enterprise has considerably fewer episodes than the other Trek shows of the era, he only has 8581 lines in total. he appears in all 99 episodes of the show with 61 high line count episodes and 0 low line count episodes, the first character since Kirk & Spock to never have 10 or fewer lines. the most lines he ever has is 154 in The Expanse (or 220 in Broken Bow if we include double length episodes).

T'POL

T'Pol as first officer has either the second or third most lines per season with the most in s3 and the least in s4. on average she has 44.02 lines per episode (4358 in total). she appears in all 99 episodes of the show, with 6 high line count episodes and 0 low line count episodes. the most lines she ever has is 98 in Doctor's Orders (or 114 in Broken Bow if we include double length episodes). despite being arguably the second most important character to the show, she is the first main character to never have more than 100 lines in an episode since Tasha Yar & Katherine Pulaski in TNG.

TUCKER

Tucker acts as the third part of the Enterprise triumverate and thus has relatively equal amounts of dialogue to T'Pol with an overall average of 46.03 lines per episode. he appears in all 99 episodes of the show (Enterprise is the first show where at least three characters appear in every episode). he has 11 high line count episodes and 4 low line count episodes. the most lines he ever gets is 145 in Shuttlepod One.

SATO

Sato is the first of the secondary characters from Enterprise and this is evident by her amount of dialogue which sharply decreases after s1. her overall average is 15.99 lines per episode (the second lowest of any post-TOS Star Trek character) and appears in 93 of the 99 episodes. she has 2 high line count episodes and 54 low line count episodes. the most lines she ever gets is 127 in Vanishing Point.

REED

like Sato, Reed starts out with a higher average in s1 and that drops significantly in the next seasons (but not by as much as Sato). his overall average is 26.37 lines per episode (2611 lines total) and appears in 95 episodes. this makes him the most used of all the 'secondary' characters in Enterprise. he has 2 high line count episodes and 18 low line count episodes. the most lines he ever has is 167 in Shuttlepod One, the most of any character in a single Enterprise episode.

PHLOX

Phlox doesn't necessarily follow the pattern of the other secondary characters as he has a lower line count in s1 and a higher line count in seasons 2 and 3 but overall he still has an average of 20.22 lines per episode (2002 total) across 92 episodes. he has 3 high line count episodes and 40 low line count episodes. the most lines he ever has is 161 in Doctor's Orders.

MAYWEATHER

frankly, when i started this project i went in with the assumption that Mayweather would have the least lines and generally be the least used character across all of Star Trek and i was right. he starts off in s1 with a low amount of lines compared to other adult characters from other series and it continues to drop off. overall he has the lowest average of any adult character 13.39 in Star Trek with even Wesley beating him with 13.67 lines per episode. he appears in 90 episodes, the least of any Enterprise character, and only has one high line count episode and 51 low line count episodes. the most lines he ever has is 125 in Horizon. despite not having many lines overall, he does end up having more lines in a single episode than T'Pol.

things of note:

Sato & Mayweather (and Phlox to a lesser extent) are the least used characters in both Enterprise and this era of Star Trek as a whole.

T'Pol is the only main character in TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise who never has more than 100 lines per episode (despite having a lot of dialogue overall).

Archer is undoubtedly the character with the most dialogue and screen time per episodes he's in across this era of Star Trek (and only rivaled by Kirk in TOS).

Enterprise's shift towards serialization in the latter half of the show didn't really seem to affect the amount of dialogue each character got.

while Enterprise was never really an ensemble show, it drifts further and further from being an ensemble as the show goes on.

[star-trek-dumb-comics]

Ranking the star trek openings (of series I've seen) bc I have nothing else to do :

1- TNG season 1-2

Perfect 10/10. Love the Patrick Stewart narration. The music is just straight up happy juice every time I hear it. Makes me really eager and energetic and gets me in the mood every time. Only downside is that I think it shouldn't be used as a end credit music, because it create a pretty jarring mood whiplash with the endings of some episodes

2- TNG season 3-7

Pretty much the same, except I like the sorta "reverb" sound and chords of the first one better.

3- Lower decks

The theme song slaps sooo hard it was one of the few things that kept me watching in season 1 when back then I really didn't like the show. The visuals are pretty fun as well and look very good

4- TOS season 1-2

This may just be nostalgia speaking but the relaxed and content "home" feeling I get when I hear this theme is unparalleled. Also I like how short it is, which means I almost never skip it even when binging.

5- TOS season 3

It's really almost on the same level as the first one but I like the singing a bit less than the instrumental. But idk the blue letters do look a bit better

6- Voyager

Voy may be mid, but it does have a dope opening music. Really engaging and emotional. The visuals are fine but the ship just doesn't look as good as Enterprises sorry

7- Enterprise season 1-2

Okey HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME OUT. The visuals are really cool, and this opening would have made top three if they used Archer's theme instead of Faith of the heart like they planned at first. But hey. Ik the song is bad but like Enterprise itself, I have developed a weird fondness to it. I went trough the classic arc of hating it - liking it ironically - liking it unironically back when I first watched the show. Now I just sing along and almost never skip it.

8- TAS

this theme funky af

9- SNW

Still not decided on my feeling about this theme (like the show itself funnily enough). Feels nostalgia baity with the TOS remix but at the same time it is different enough from the TOS theme to be its own thing, and it sounds pretty good. Very cool visuals and love that they brought back the opening narration.

10- DS9 season 4-7

This may be my controversial opinion of the day but as much as I love DS9 I don't really like the opening. It feels dragged out as fuck and the visuals aren't very engaging (+ that meteorite looks ugly as shit sorry). Idk it's the one I skip the most often. This version feels at least a bit faster that the first one but the trumpets are slightly offbeat which is kinda infuriating.

11- DS9 season 1-3

Its sloooooooooow

12- Enterprise season 3-4

Really don't like how they remixed it. I don't even want to sing along, the added rhythm section is so distracting.

Edit : I wanted to add the first Disco theme since I've watched most of season 1 but I have no idea where to put it. I really like the music and the visuals but it just feels like it belongs to a completely different show than Star trek. Even the little TOS notes at the end feel out of place.