#Starfleet intelligence

[ussjoshuanorton]

[idol--hands]

[roguetelepaths]

...so guess who's rewatching star trek discovery

[synelven]

why would someone make a star trek au of their own ocs lol that's so silly.

so agent west is now lieutenant commander west, starfleet intelligence, and dr vasilevsky is now dr vaskil, biotech researcher for the obsidian order (explanation below cut)

starfleet catches wind of suspicious activity around a remote moon that just so happens to be where dr vaskil is conducting her research. west is sent in undercover as a cardassian lab technician to gather information about what they are doing. however, dr vaskil is good at what she does and recognises that west has been surgically altered, so she kidnaps her and nonconsensually reverses the surgery. vaskil inevitably plants some sort of nefarious tech inside her during the surgery that west is unaware of, and does a villain monologue while she's strapped to the table. west manages to escape, but is stranded on the moon for the time being. a game of cat and mouse ensues where the roles are constantly switching. and of course so begins the fucked up psychosexual lesbian happenings

[3x03spring]

they smelled the repressed homosexuality on o'brien and said we neeed him taken under the wing of a crime syndicate member as a double agent

[djevildave]

The 1st episode of Shield Podulation is up on Spotify. We talk S3E9 of #StarTrek #Picard, Vox

[writteninscarlet]

i'm just here following all the star trek blogs because... love. and then i'm like, oh i'll make wanda a verse and i'm like... she would just be a traveller. like join up? starfleet? if she didn't get her powers, she'd be a traveller, baby. explore the universe.

but yeah if she did join she'd be amongst the intelligence officers. she's not going out there and doing stupid shit, but if you need help gathering information she has contacts from many travels. good with a strategy. cool under pressure. is good.

[pitch-and-moan]

Kobayashi Maru

An AI-penned Star Trek prequel that's supposed to be focused on Kirk at the Starfleet Academy (sort of expanding on the time between Kirk meeting Pike and being accused of cheating by Spock.) Unfortunately without actors, the artificial intelligence scrambles for associated references to "Kobayashi" and "Maru" so the film ends up being six hours of a Japanese Scottish Fold cat jumping in and out of boxes in a simulation of a starship bridge.

[roguetelepaths]

The Federation didn't do that, Odo did that. The crew of DS9 had to steal the cure because the Federation wouldn't give it up.

I've seen several cases where people are like "what happens if we meet aliens, and then they see Independence Day or War of the Worlds?"

But nobody seems to think about what happens when the aliens see Star Trek.

The aliens are gonna see these shows made by a bunch of humans but they put putty on some of the humans to make them look like what we think aliens might look like, and we told stories about how those aliens would be our friends and we'd explore the universe with them and find more aliens and try to be friends with them too!

Yeah sometimes they'd be mean and we'd fight but we'd always try to avoid it and even if we fought we'd try to be friends later.

We basically created 900 episodes of a child's drawing of a stick figure of a human and a stick figure of a grey alien holding hands and "best friends" written in crayon.

[admhawthorne]

Ramblings on Kathryn Janeway

I hate it when people criticize Kathryn Janeway by calling her inconsistent thus incompetent. She was not. She was new to the job.

People who are new to something have a lot of growing pains before they come into their own, even if they've done a similar job for years before.

Voyager was her first solo command assignment, and her first mission was supposed to be low hanging fruit. All she had to do was run into the Badlands in this state-of-the-art ship that, in theory, should very easily be able to catch the banged up Ford Pinto of a ship captained by Chuckles.

There was never an intention of sending her on some extended mission in which she was isolated from literally every person in Starfleet Command.

New-to-the-Job people leaders are not left alone to solo command in a vacuum because they still need mentoring and training on the job. Like all people in new positions, they need oversight as they learn and grow. Like all people in command positions, they should have easy access to counseling so they can further develop their emotional intelligence.

She had NONE of that.

What she had was a history in which she was raised by a career Starfleet officer and officer's wife, a solid Starfleet career of her own, and the ethics and morality that comes from those two things combined. In the world from which she came, which was post TNG but pre-Dominion War, she was exactly the right officer to be promoted to captain because she strongly held onto the belief that the Prime Directive was to be followed, exploration to be expected, and people above all else.

However, as she progressed through the Delta Quadrant, she had to learn and come to terms with the fact that all three of those things were no longer absolute in their truth. We see those growing pains in episodes like 'Tuvix' and 'Equinox'.

She wasn't inconsistent. She was floundering because what she thought she knew didn't align with her actual reality, and she had no one to turn to for guidance, mentoring, or support.

The Kathryn Janeway we know at the end of Season 7 is not even close to the Kathryn Janeway of Season 1. The older Janeway is road wary, jaded, a little cynical, and, while she still believes in the Prime Directive, exploration, and her people, she has learned through trial and error that all of those things live in a gray area, that it's all relative. It is not an absolute. She hits that stride around Season 6, and that's when you see her start to make command decisions not just on the ideals and principles of Starfleet but on her own judgement based upon the experience she's finally gained as the CO.

In the seven years we watched her, what we saw was her growing into her rank. You don't get promoted and are immediately a well-seasoned, strong, agile commander. A lot of that comes with time, experience, and mentorship. She had two out of three of those things.

All things considered, she was a damned good captain and extremely competent.

[ussjoshuanorton]

We're always looking for new crew. Come check us out on discord and consider joining our game! We're a Starfleet Intelligence ship in 2416, set in a Prime AU (splitting from the Prime universe around the time of the Romulan Nova).

Join us on Discord, follow us on Mastodon, and check out our game site.

[libraflyter]

An assortment of thoughts regarding one of my current fandom obsessions, being Garak/Bashir and all related fanfic and the fic tropes I love

Julian Bashir is Peak Hot Alien by Cardassian standards. Like, yes, he is a weird color and has no ridges, but he’s lithe and lanky and has a great neck. He also likes to argue in public; the average Cardassian thinks “go you, Garak, and if you don’t, I will.”

Elim Garak, when considering the point above, struggles to think Julian is not the perfect honeypot dreamed up by Starfleet Intelligence. Extra points if this is pre-Wire Garak having a future vision and can’t believe someone could fall in love with him and still know him for real.

The idea that Garak’s appeal to Julian is not really the Spy, but someone who sees all of Julian and doesn’t think it’s Too Much but is actually Just Right. Because Dr Julian Subatoi Bashir likes to talk and hyper fixate and argue and most people find that a bit exhausting and/or annoying. But Garak doesn’t; he lets Julian talk and argues back and even if he doesn’t Get whatever Julian is going on about, he still delights in the interaction. (I don’t think badly of Jadzia or Miles or anyone else for their reaction; the point isn’t that Garak is “better” the point is that a key difference between good friend and life partner is someone you synch with.)

A guilty pleasure for Bashir whump where the Bad Guys (usually Dukat or Tain) do Bad Things to Bashir because they want to hurt Garak (emotionally). Tropey and cliche as heck but so entertaining to read. So much whump! Bashir processing the whump was incidental to him and all about Garak! Garak processing same! Ps The world really needs more Tain vs Bashir fics.

Garak being Incredibly Repressed but also So Soft. It’s all in the actions and not the words. Verbally insisting he is above sentiment while doing so much pining. Pure 2005 movie Mr Darcy flexing his hand after holding Elizabeth’s hand to help her into the carriage levels of repressed attraction.

[vintagegeekculture]

Because she was an intentionally mysterious woman initially only seen in a single episode, and before she got an on-air backstory in the recent streaming series, Star Trek supplementary material developed contradictory information on who - or what - Number One, the female first executive officer of the Enterprise, was. To my count, she has four different, completely incompatible backstories in the comics and novels, and this is absolutely unique in Star Trek, which usually keeps it consistent.

Peter David, in his New Frontier novels, identified Number One as a long lived immortal human mutant (like Flint from the original series) named “Morgan Primus” who was an early genius in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, which is why the Enterprise computer has her voice. One of the names Morgan Primus assumed to hide her immortality was Morgan Lefler, and one of her daughters was Robin Lefler, Wesley Crusher’s love interest from the Next Generation Series played by Ashley Judd. Robin Lefler did not inherit her mutant ability to heal all injuries.

Alternatively, the DC Star Trek Comics of the early 1980s said that Number One was from an obscure planet of peaceful, open, friendly telepaths who resemble humans exactly, and that she was present at first contact with Starfleet. They explained that her blunt, direct, undiplomatic manner is due to her being from a telepathic culture that values total honesty. This would make her the first telepath on the Enterprise, with Spock and Arex coming later. Her planet was created before the Next Generation, but her species being a peaceful, open, telepathic race resembling Mediterranean humans who are not well known or commonly encountered in the original series era….well, that certainly sounds an awful lot like Betazoids to me. If this backstory is true, she may have been the first Betazoid seen on screen, in much the same way fans generally believe Trelane was either Q or a member of the Q Continuum.

D.C. Fontana’s only Star Trek novel, “Vulcan’s Glory,” was one of the earliest attempts to give the character a backstory, and was the most consequential long term. The first novel set in the era of the first Star Trek pilot with Captain Pike and a young Spock, "Vulcan's Glory" identified Number One as being an Illyrian, a race of human-like beings who specialize in species wide breeding programs and genetic improvement. This genetic superiority is why she was cool, intellectual, aloof, and a bit arrogant. Her nickname “Number One” came from the fact she was the supreme product of the hyper-competitive Illyrian system, and won at everything from academics to athletics. According to DC Fontana, her actual Illyrian name is impossible to pronounce, so when dealing with humans, she assumed the human name “Una Chin-Riley.” Una of course, being “Number One” in Greek.

As DC Fontana is such an important figure in Star Trek history and only actually wrote one Star Trek novel in her life, many future materials used the backstory established in “Vulcan’s Glory,” like the David Stern Pike-era novels of the 2010s....but more importantly, the Discovery and Strange New Worlds series, which canonized the “Una Chin-Reilly” name by using it on screen (I remember gasping when Pike called her Una in a Discovery episode, meaning they were going with the Fontana backstory, a detail that may not have been significant to the casual viewer). Since DC Fontana wrote “Vulcan’s Glory” in the 80s, a lot more information was learned about the role of genetic engineering in the Federation, however, and interesting things were done in that series to bring her in line with everything we’ve learned since in Deep Space 9 and Enterprise about augmentation and the society wide prejudice against it. For example, they established that the fact Number One was Illyrian was not public knowledge, but that she pretended to be human her entire life.

The one person who didn’t see fit to give her a backstory or even a real name was John "Johnny Redbeard" Byrne in his comic series about the Cage era Enterprise, who thought the mystery of the character was the most interesting thing about her, and he was deliberately cagey about any details. To Johnny Redbeard, she was just “Number One.” There was a running joke that every time someone says her actual name, or when we see her personnel file, it was blurred out, or somebody’s thumb was over it, and so on. It was rather like the running joke where Mr. Burns never remembers Homer Simpson's name. Johnny Redbeard loves mystery men and women who don't talk about their past, since that was the characterization he famously gave to Wolverine in his X-Men comics.

The one detail of Number One's past that is clear is that Number One in Byrne's comics is competent, mysterious, and has mystique, certainly, but she is completely human, without any powers. Byrne always got exasperated that his X-Men co-creator Chris Claremont added fantastical and far out details to the background of X-Men characters (like how Nightcrawler's girlfriend Amanda turned out to be a sorceress) because he felt "some people should just be allowed to be normal." Byrne always said his original idea for Wolverine's "true" backstory was that he was a Vietnam veteran in intelligence who volunteered for bionic experiments that wiped his memory, and disliked the idea he was immortal, and vetoed the very, very early Dave Cockrum idea Wolverine was an actual mutated wolverine who achieved sentience and a human shape (which early X-Men comics hint at). Byrne was reportedly enraged that they gave Moira MacTaggart a mutant power, as he saw her as just being a scrappy Scottish housekeeper.

Johnny Redbeard didn’t give Number One a past (other than to show she was on the Enterprise's shakedown cruise with Robert April as a rookie officer), but he did give her a future, as he showed an older Number One as a starship commander in the Kirk era (aging gracefully with a white tuft like Tongolele), and later, a flag officer in the Motion Picture era.

To what extent are these backstories compatible? Well, with what we currently know about Number One, that she hid her true species and status to avoid prejudice, it could be that some of the other versions were tall tales she spread to obscure her true origins. The John Byrne idea she served as an Ensign with Robert April in the Enterprise's very first mission hasn't been confirmed, but hasn't been denied, either. The Peter David "Morgan Primus" backstory is completely incompatible, but perhaps there are some elements to it that are true, like the idea that the early part of her career involved working as a computer engineer in artificial intelligence, which is why the computer has her voice.

[atopfourthwall]

What's your position on Section 31? Because on one hand, you need an espionage and intelligence organization, but on the other hand, unnacountable espionage agencies tend to do more harm than good.

Section 31 are villains, full-stop. Starfleet already HAS an intelligence organization. It's called Starfleet Intelligence. Their effectiveness is certainly questionable, but Section 31 is essentially a clandestine terrorist organization approved of by members of Starfleet and Bashir was right to want it gone. You can't be preaching a utopia and that you stand for higher morals while tacitly approving of something that breaks all those morals. And as you said: they're unaccountable. Where's the justice for the illegal and immoral things they did? The harm they've caused? And frankly I'm disgusted that modern Trek decided, "COOL! LET'S GIVE 'EM A MOVIE AND RETCON THEM INTO BEING AN ORGANIZATION EVERYBODY KNEW ABOUT!" And no, I haven't watched the trailer for said movie. Fuck that movie, I ain't watching it and I'm not going to watch promotion for it or their fucking people-eating dictator character that everyone on the show declared was cool because she spouted one-liners and wore leather.

[amultitideofdrops]

Random AU because I love alternate character origins/childhood.

Julian grew up on Cardassia, as a ward/totally not adopted child of Kelas Parmak. Let's just say that Cardassia attacked his family's passenger ship on the way back from adigeon prime or something, with Julian being a lone survivor. Tain suspects the reason why the Bashir's took their child to the planet so gets his personal doctor to check the kid- out the secrets of true genetic enhancement are too good an opportunity for the head of the Obsidian Order to pass up.

And soft hearted Kelas obviously gets attached to this soft skinned child way too quickly, and Julian whose brain is overwhelming him and doesn't understand what happened to his parents, is equally quick to cling right back. Kelas dutifully reports back that he's just a normal child, and it was likely one of his deceased parents who was augmented. When Tain decides it's best to get rid of the last bit of evidence of their unwarranted attack on a civilian ship, Kelas manages to convince him to let the doctor keep the child.

(So Tain gets some extra bonus leverage over the person he has to show weakness around, quite a win in his opinion.)

Kelas doesn't know how to interact with children, let alone a human one. So he just tries to be kind and involve Julian in all the things that interest him. Which is just what the newly genius child needs. The two bond easily, though Kelas always has to maintain the facade of this being more a mentor relationship than anything. Keeping a distance around the few Cardassian's who ever see the child. He's taken aback each time Julian gets clingy, wrapping his arms around Kelas' waist and holding on like a barnacle, or small hands gripping near possessively into his.

Julian's nearly as lonely as Kelas is on Cardassia, but they have each other.

He goes once a month to Tain's office, at first just accompanying Kelas on his check ups, but as he gets older Tain asks he makes his own visit, and they play Kotra and Kal-Toj and near a new game every week which he always wins. He tests Julian's Kardassi, and then teaches him Romulan and Vulcan, just to keep his mind sharp he says. He presses large volumes to his hands each week and asks his opinion the next one. Kelas sees Tain's knowing smile as he sees the human off at the end of each visit and despairs.

Of course Kelas still dissents. Of course he stills gets caught. And 15 year old Julian shouts and screams and fights like a vole when they come to arrest Kelas.

Garak's interrogation with the doctor goes even quicker here, unbeknownst to him that the dead stare of his eyes are promising retribution against someone else entirely.

Kelas goes to the labour camp. And Julian, after Tain is overruled by Central Command, is sent home to Earth in a hostage exchange with the Federation.

Julian gets debriefed and counselled to shit, before living with a foster family up until he applies to Starfleet Academy because he never forgot.

(He briefly considered going into Intelligence rather than medicine, as a quicker way to find out what he needed, but if he finds Kelas again he's going to take after him, not the man who locked him away)

Cue the start of DS9- which Julian couldn't apply for fast enough. His superiors are aware of his Cardassian knowledge, but not how he got it, and everyone's just generally thankful they have someone who can deal with the systems and any diplomats that come by.

And how useful for Julian, that the protege of Tain is exiled on the same station, so full of secrets and so willing to approach Julian straight away.

All this to say Julian hatches a plot to honey trap Garak and get information on where Kelas was sent to and how to free him. It's a brilliant plan really, and no his feelings aren't confused on the matter. He's staying up days to help Garak detox from the Wire because the man isn't going to die from hating the cold too much dammit. If he's enjoying the book club discussions it's because it reminds him of the same titles he discussed with Kelas. If he's entranced by the movement of grey hands, he's probably just remembering the blood on them.

Julian eventually plays his hand sometime prior to Improbable Cause, and Garak is both scared and horny, and mostly confused because my dear doctor, what makes you think I'd know where he went?

Idk how this goes for the rest of the middle, but there's some awkwardness in the dominion camp, even more awkwardness between the two trying to reconcile their feelings and their past, and of course post season Cardassia sees Julian and Kelas reunite.

And then the worst meet the parents dinner you can imagine happens.

[walkingstackofbooks]

We all know Richard and Amsha were awful parents in DBIP, but here are some things that stuck out to me when I re-watched it:

(You may recognise this as a series of posts I made last year - sorry, I just found them and wanted to collect them all in one place! 😊)

1. Richard's insecurity over Julian's enhancements

Over time, I've come to assume that this was more in my head than in canon. But not, it's right there on the screen and it makes me furious. A long time ago, I mused that Julian's image of himself as "unnatural" might have come from the unknowing, offhand comments of playground bullies, but actually... from these conversations, I think Richard himself could well have described Julian's intelligence as "unnatural" during his childhood.

"We're not as bright as he is. We don't have your gifted intellect so we can't see the perfectly obvious." "You're so smart. You know so much that you can stand there and judge us. But you're still not smart enough to see that we saved you from a lifetime of remedial education and underachievement!"

He just cannot stand Julian being able to hold his own in an argument. His own intelligence is such a point of pride that he cannot allow his son to be smarter than him, despite him literally desigining Julian that way. He claims that genetic enhancements are nothing to be ashamed of - that, if anything Julian's "a little more" human for them - yet he's constantly putting Julian down for using his intellet in any way that Richard disagrees with. ("You could've done research back on Earth. I told you that five years ago." AS THOUGH JULIAN DIDN'T KNOW THAT.)

2. Richard's arguing tactics

It managed to surprise me, somehow, how it really is Richard instigating the arguments, with Julian making sarcastic reponses for as long as he can before he resorts to yelling. In both conversations, however, once Julian starts shouting it's made to seem like he's the one being unreasonable. And honestly, I don't think it's an overstatement to call it gaslighting.

In the first conversation, when Julian storms out, Richard calls after him "No, let him go. He can barely stand to be in the same room with us!" - implying that there's no good reason why Julian should want to leave (there is), and that it's Julian's fault for getting angry with them, rather than being based on their actions. He also repeatedly twists Julian's words, making them into attacks against him, implying that Julian is selfish and thoughtless ("We could go to prison, Jules. Have you ever thought about that?") in a way that's either completely unevidenced -- or, again, dismissive of any grounds Julian might have even if it were true. (RICHARD: You don't trust us? AMSHA: He didn't say that, Richard. RICHARD: No, but that's what he meant, isn't it? You think we're going to slip up, say the wrong thing, get us all in trouble.)

Later on, when they're discussing what they're going to do about the reveal, Richard tells Julian "You'd better change that attitude right now if you want to hang on to your career!" and "Well you'd better grow up right now or you're going to lose everything!". At this point, Julian's made it quite clear that he doesn't want to go through the courts, yet Richard insists on continuing to portray this as something Julian needs to do for himself, rather than something that Richard wants to do. And Julian calls him out on it -- "You mean, you're going to lose everything"... But how many arguments did he have to try to fight as a child before he learnt to spot Richard's blame is misplaced?

Other rotten implications in this scene:

the idea that Julian's being childish for taking the decision to resign form Starfleet rather than fight any judgement that came his way (it's not);

that even his "gifts" don't make him as clear-sighted and smart as Richard (gah, see part 1);

and through it all, again, that he's the one being unreasonable.

3. Amsha's manipulations

Oh, she's just awful. First off, it was really noticeable how much she forces Julian to hug or touch her -- the first scene in Sisko's office, in particular, when he's so clearly uncomfortable.

And then she tries to make herself into this mediator, but she's not a good one. She loves Richard -- she talks about his stacks of drawings like their endearing, she's very affectionate with him, and while she will say something if she thinks he's going to far, I don't think it's necessarily because she disagrees with him, but because she knows how he said it will send Julian away. But she also is, in a way, happy to make out that Richard is the "bad parent" to keep her position as the neutral, loving parent intact. She makes Richard 'apologise', she takes none of the blame for the genetic engineering -- once again, I am going to call this behaviour gaslighting. Amsha is constantly manufacturing this image of her own reasonableness and love for Julian as opposed to his father's tendency to fly off the handle, and this is supposed to absolve her of any reponsibility she has for neglecting Julain's needs.

In my view, Amsha only interested in making Julian return her "love" for him (and to a lesser extent, Richard's too). In that second conversation, she initially makes a small plea for him to "listen to his father" (causing Julian to physically move away from her hand on his shoulder) -- and then allows them to continue with their argument, until it gets to the point where Julian implies they're both unloving. Her anger clearly takes Julian aback; she's the one here who attacks his feelings as unreasonable and makes him back down into silence. And then her entire argument is all about her feelings. To paraphrase: "Watching you struggle made me feel bad."

Then she says this: "You can condemn us for what we did. You can say it's illegal or immoral or whatever you want to say, but you have to understand that we didn't do it because we were ashamed, but because you were our son and we loved you."

i.e: "I know you think it was wrong, and I'll even let you say that, but you are not allowed to think that we don't love you."

And if Julian has to believe that his parents' motive was their love for him, then, actually... is he really allowed to condemn them? Or is that just lip service, again, to make Amsha sound reasonable and accommodating?

4: Their 'apologies'

Both times after they argue, his parents then approach him to apologise/make amends. I've always previously assumed this was abnormal for them due to the situation, but I'm starting to wonder if actually this was quite a regular pattern that Julian grew up with. Both his parents clearly want to see themselves as "good people", and so I can imagine them feeling the need to make these lip-service apologies that --presumably, if he's made these same arguments to them before -- end up meaning very little.

Did he learn as a child that shouting was the only way to get them to listen, if only for a little while? Is he used to apologies lasting only for a short while before his parents return to the status quo?

There are imo a number of factors leading to his unusually impassioned defence of his father in the final scene, but I think this could play into it. Agreeing to go to prison is the kind of apology Richard can't just take back a few days/weeks/months later when he starts to remember how 'unreasonable' Jules was being and wonder why he agreed to it when he was in the right. I can imagine one of Julian's first thoughts being "what happens when he changes his mind?"

(Also, it has to be mentioned how shit an apology the first one was. "It's a stressful time for all of us and maybe I said some things I shouldn't have." MAYBE?? Fuck you. Really.)

[Heading towards headcanon territory: Amsha's behaviour, as previously discussed, is another reason why I wouldn't be surprised if the argument-apology model was frequent, because whether or not she's consciously aware of her manipulation, it's an excellent way to control Julian's feelings. It gives her the power of being the mediator; it puts Julian in the position of either accepting it and showing forgiveness, or sounding unreasonable. We never see his actual reaction to their 'apology', but we know they don't think there's anything too unusual about the hologram simply standing there - and Amsha feels quite at ease to reward her unresponsive 'son' with a kiss. Idk, but it seems like they expect Julian to reluctantly accept their apology, and even if he doesn't, they're now in position to absolve themselves of any reponsibility because 'at least we tried'.]

5: Their disregard for Julian's wants

I feel like the previous points have covered this to an extent, but there's a big one which, previously, I've managed to overlook.

At the end of the second conversation, Amsha, in all her reasonableness, finally seems to start listening to Julian. She's shared her feelings, assured him they love him, and asks him "What do you want to do?", to which he, of course, responds with a weary "Nothing".

AND THEN THEY COMPLETELY DISREGARD THIS.

AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BASIS FOR JULIAN'S FORGIVENESS OF THEM?!

I mean, luckily for Julian, it worked out. But they had no basis to assume that Sisko could do anything, and they had no right to go behind Julian's back in the way that they did!

And this is something I've said before, but I also HATE how it's framed that Richard is going to prison "in exchange" for Julian's career. Why should Julian have to bear any of the responsibility for Richard going to prison, when it was Richard's choice to do something illegal that carries a prison sentence? But as it is, Julian would presumably be portrayed as unreasonable if, after this 'sarifice', he didn't forgive his parents and 'accept their love'. Gahhhhhhh. It's just another, horrible manipulation -- and while I don't believe his parents had that much power over how it played out, they must have been going into Sisko's office with some sort of similar agenda on the cards.

["He pleads guilty to illegal genetic engineering and in exchange you stay in the service."

Writing this post, and thinking about this quote, has started me wondering how exactly the conversation went down, because "I'll come quietly if you let him stay in Starfleet" isn't exactly a flex. Unless, of course, Richard has threatened to make this a very embarrassing, public, courtroom drama for Starfleet if the plea deal isn't made -- exactly the type of fuss Julian explicitly didn't want.

I know that Sisko's very good at making his case, and it might all have been his influence. But I can't help wondering if that was the only reason "Richard pleading guilty" would be seen as a good enough reason to acquit Julian, when whether he did or not, they now have evidence of his wrongdoing.]