#ds9 The Search part 2

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k d e e p s p a c e n i n e created by rick berman, michael piller Female Changeling of The Founders [the search, part ii, s3ep2]

'No Changeling has ever harmed another.' - female changeling [to odo]

[ectogeo-rebubbles]

Mr. Garak, I never knew we thought so much alike.

siskarak textpost memes 10/?

[asexualjedi]

Ok so… Garak dying in Julian’s arms in the group hallucination…. Was that like all Bashir’s influence or is that how the whole crew views them? And if they didn’t before do they have a new opinion on the two?

[directedbyjonathanfrakes]

Sashaying in to break daddy out of mall jail wish a happy 30th birthday to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

[holishkes]

Capping The Search Part 2 for @directedbyjonathanfrakes is making me feral

Sir why are you imagining looking at each other like this

Sir?

SIR?!

[hawkp]

IT WAS A SIMULATION??????? THE CHANGELINGS ARE THE DOMINION?????????????????

[stopthatbluecat]

The Search Part 2 3x02

[rogueyami]

I can't believe that Garak telling Julian that he misses him and their lunches together wasn't real and it was ALL PART OF A SIMULATION NOOOO

And then what had me sobbing was when Garak was shot by a Jem'Hadar, he told Julian he would no longer be able to make it to that week's lunch with him 😭😭😭

[libraflyter]

The best part?

This is not Garak.

This is an illusion created in a Dominion simulation based on their mind probes of Bashir, Sisko, Dax, and Miles to see what they would do if the Dominion came and Alpha Quadrant powers just let it happen.

Their collective imagining is that Garak is a charming, sharp eyed schemer with a mastery in double speak who would ally with them against anything he sees as a mutual threat.

On one hand - this Garak thinks “so much like” Sisko because he is being created by Sisko. On the other - three seasons later Garak fully allies himself with the Federation against the Dominion threat, which includes an episode where Sisko looks to Garak for some very ruthless problem solving.

[id: 10 gifs from season 3, episode 2 “the search, part 2” from the tv series “star trek: deep space nine”, the gifs show elim garak and benjamin sisko sharing a table in the replimat. garak is seated opposite to sisko.

1st, 2nd gif: garak is shown from the chest up, he tells sisko,"if it means anything to you, commander, i happen to share your feelings about this dominion treaty. i've thought about it a great deal, and the only explanation i can find is that our leaders have simply gone insane." he looks like he is holding back a smile towards the end.

3rd gif: switching to show sisko, who smiles slightly, and tells garak, "it seems that way."

4th gif: "unfortunately, there's nothing you or i can do about it." garak looks around as he tells sisko.

5th gif: "i suppose not." sisko agrees, and lifts his mug to take a sip.

6th gif: "after all, you have your orders and as for me, well..." garak pauses to chuckle before continuing, "i wouldn't dream of opposing the wishes of the central command. a pity." he is looking straight at sisko.

7th gif: "i agree," sisko nods, and pauses for a second, "that it's a pity."

8th gif: "i thought you would." garak informs sisko with a smile.

9th gif: "mister garak, i never knew we thought so much alike." sisko tells garak.

10th gif: "life is full of surprises, commander." /id end]

[fortheloveoflatinum]

Watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Part the Second

First impressions of the second half of the movie:

Just what *is* Spock doing?

“Curiosity, Mr. Decker. Insatiable curiosity.” – Spock

And, for that matter, why do all the uniforms look like pajamas?

I love Decker’s relationship with the Deltan woman. How her “vow of celibacy is on file” and the way she tells Kirk this very flippantly upon first meeting him… Yet she seems to want to break that vow with Decker. Somehow, I think ‘the power of love’ is going to save the day.

Let’s all take a break for Spock on his little unauthorized spacewalk. Dun dun dun.

Spock and Kirk holding hands in the sickbay has me feeling all sorts of things. Kirk holding on with both hands, thinking he’d lost his better half – his science officer – his first officer – his partner – ahem – in crime.

The way Kirk says Spock’s name is like a prayer on a benediction every goddamn time and no one can tell me otherwise.

I like the parallels. Spock comes back changed… H arrives, changed (and not for the better) in his search for logic on Vulcan. He ignores his friends, he barely responds even to orders. Even Kirk can’t reach him. And then he comes back changed from his mind meld with the living machine, in search of that self-same logic. He comes back changed and charged with emotion, more like his ‘usual self.’ And his usual self is half-human and wholly in love with James T. Kirk, and acts like it. In his search of logic, he acts rashly. In search of his Vulcan side – he acts so very human.

Yup and then he goes and starts to cry off his makeup as if just to prove the aforementioned point.

“Each of us, at some time in our lives, turns to someone… A father, a brother, a God, and asks, 'Why am I here? What was I meant to be?'" – Spock to Kirk and Decker.

I think that for Spock, Michael was that person in his youth. And Jim becomes that person. Spock’s ‘forever person.’

Oooh the sheer idealistic ambition displayed by the Voyager 6 probe… Shame we only got up to 2.

… And once again, the Captains of the Enterprise save the day. Or is it the Power of Love? Either way, planet Earth lives to see another day. Yay!

Also is it just me or is McCoy kind of like a Jovian planet orbiting the binary star system that is Spirk? Like, the tension between them all is palpable, but Spock and Kirk’s chemistry just outshines everything else on the screen. So beautiful and so brilliant.

Caption of the GIF for all the Captains out there who can't see it: Spock is lying prone on a biobed in sickbay. Kirk is already holding his hand, and then ever-so-gently clasps his other hand on the reverse side of Spock's hand. Cut to Spock smiling as much as he ever does, nodding a small lil nod. McCoy is in the background, blinking like a cursor when you're typing and stop for any amount of time. Love the parallels between this GIF and the one below of Julian and Garak holding hands in sickbay in DS9, where Garak holds up his hand from a prone position and Julian slides his hand into Garak's, and Garak wraps his fingers around it. Such sweetness....

[youngpettyqueen]

So I read Revenant because im a jadzia lover & you hyped it up & I really enjoyed it! (If only she was given a plotline with that much agency in the show ugh)

What other ds9 books have you read? Could you elaborate on why you liked the ones you liked if you haven't already? Looking for more recs!

IM SO HAPPY YOU LIKED REVENANT I fucking love Revenant so MUCH it should be required reading for every Jadzia fan its sooooooooooo fucking good

of the DS9 books ive read... A Stitch in Time, Vengeance, Warchild, Bloodletter, The Heart of the Warrior, and The Laertian Gamble. im also almost finished The Big Game. of those, I would highly recommend-

A Stitch in Time: I could say so much about this book, its definitely my fav of the ones ive read so far. an incredibly well-written history of Garak, written by Garak himself, what more could you ask for? this book is a must-read for all Garak fans. its beautiful, its heartbreaking, its fucking hilarious, some scenes are genuinely haunting, its just SUCH a good book

Vengeance: I am the #1 fan of this book ok. Vengeance is solidly written with some of the best character writing for the DS9 cast ive seen so far in the books ive read. the plot is good, the characters are great, pretty much everyone gets time to shine, and we get to explore some really good under-utilized dynamics while we're at it. also, fucking hilarious. laughed out loud so many times. this book reads like a really good 2 part episode, and I cannot recommend it enough

Warchild: want a good Julian story that lets him be angry and upset and cry? want to see Julian at peak defiance and rage? want to get a deep dive into Bajor post-Occupation that is heartbreaking and all too real and at times even hard to stomach? boy, do I have a book for you. this one isnt super highly rated which is a TRAGEDY cause I really enjoyed it

Bloodletter: lets hear it for a good KIRA CENTRIC STORY which has some INSANE stuff going on in it. I love Bloodletter its dark, its tense, its got some INSANE side quest stuff, and best of all its Kira centric and really dives into her and her psyche early on in the show. again, not a super highly rated book, but a really good read imo

those are the ones I would recommend of the ones ive read!! hope this is helpful in your search for more DS9 books to read <3

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 S2 E21 - The Maquis (Part 2)

Before I destroy this episode, I also enjoyed this one. I'm very dissatisfied with the ending but it was overall a very good episode and there were some fantastic moments. Also I want a Dukat/Sisko team up show where two enemies have to work together to deal with various issues and they still hate each other by the end of the show but it's fun to watch them also be buddies. Frenemies if you will.

On to the recap though.

I'm kinda pissed Hudson got to live. I really wanted Dukat to reach across the console and just fire on the fucker. Hudson is so far gone that only death is going to stop him.

I'm also kinda pissed the Sisko didn't tell the Admiral about Hudson when she showed up.

I'm also also pissed at the Admiral thinking that ANY terrorist group would just stand down after being talked to.

I 100% agree with everything Sisko said in his Earth is a Paradise speech that he spewed to poor unsuspecting Kira. He hit the nail on the head about how those who are living within any issues just assume that other places live the same way or can change super quickly to do so. None of the folks living on Earth (in the far far future) understand a second of hardship at least not to the extent that half of the species we come across do. They're living in pure Heaven while a majority of the universe is still fighting to live. And in some ways their ignorance is deserved, no one SHOULD have to go through war, have to starve, have endless crime, or other horrible things. But that doesn't mean that the Admiral isn't blind to it.

When the Cardassian Command showed up I knew they were throwing Dukat under the bus because that was the easiest thing to do. They wanted to blame him and let him die so that they could continue their attacks but I'm super happy that Sisko saw right through that. I was afraid he was going to be too optimistic about the whole deal and take them for their word.

The fact that Dukat can resist a mind meld was fascinating to me but honestly should have been expected. The Cardassians are known for their torture methods so of course he'd be able to block his mind.

Dukats discomfort after realizing that his superiors left him to die was fun. Especially since he had just given a whole speech about how Cardassians don't make mistakes and how trails are decided before they begin, so if he had one he'd be on the losing side. What I liked most about this scene, though, was when Sisko left and said that Dukat would have save Sisko if the situations were reversed. In that moment Sisko chuckles because its such a bizarre thing to say but Sisko actually believes it and then the camera pans to Dukat doing the same. I think Dukat, in that moment, realized that he probably would have. Not for sentimentality but rather to hold it over his head, but he'd still do it.

Another thing I liked was the scene where they're trying to find the ship that might be smuggling weapons in for proof and Dukat has to intimidate the Captain into letting them search the ship. In that moment Sisko is pulling ever diplomatic Federation line he can and then Dukat stands up and essentially outs the aliens crimes. During this specific conversation Sisko ends up slowly smirking. The thing that got me though was Kira's admiration. It was so clear that she was uncomfortable every second of it but a part of her was having an internal conflict of how badass Dukat was in that moment. She'd never say the words out loud but they were there lol

And Quark, out logicing the Vulcan? It was a beautiful thing to see. He might have help start all of this and he is certainly not the brightest of bulbs but its rare to see someone change a Vulcans mind, even just a little.

8/10 - this probably would have been a 9 for me if they actually killed Hudson lol

[thegeminisage]

ok, it's star trek update time. tonight we watched ds9's "playing god" and tng's "eye of the beholder."

playing god (ds9):

i'm trying. SO SO SO HARD to get into dax and it's just not working

out of the 3 dax episodes we've had so far this one included two of them have been mid and one of them was just slightly better than average mostly for the questions it prompted in my mind palace, not necessarily the questions asked by the episode itself

in s1 dax had basically no personality, but in s2 when she does have a personality it seems to be a different one every time. like in one episode she was very prissy and in others she's just one of the guys! and then at other times she reverts to this very buttoned up bordering on bland science officer from s1 again

and then every once in awhile she'll be like oh yeah i LOVE sex i LOVE being a super hot woman who everyone wants to FUCK!!! i can get whatever i want with my SEX APPEAL even though my hair is WEIRDLY SHAPED. and look i am so happy for her and she should literally get some but it borders on the kind of misogyny that starts genuinely annoying me. it is kind of like that anime trope where the teen boy gets put into a body with tits and he can't stop messing with them. its like. idk reducing her to a body, or reducing her to jadzia's body, which dax is taking for a ride to feel hot and fuckable?? it's very blurry what's jadzia and what's dax

WHICH is the most fascinating part of dax, which is where the trill ends and the symbiant or however you spell it begins, but we don't get into that quite as much as i'd like

anyway i guess a shifting personality is a natural result of living 7 lifetimes but it doesnt FEEL like thats why theyre doing it, it FEELS like they just cant seem to keep her consistent

that said. while i did not like this episode or this little guy dax was showing around i DID like the implication that curzon was actually a huge fucking asshole. i love that he can be loved by many people but was still an asshole. it's complex. and now one of the people he abused (?) or at least was an asshole to is now. his successor. IT'S COMPLEX!!! what are he and jadzia to each other...imagine meeting curzon dax and then just becoming him. that's wild. so, points for that! genuinely. it just feels like the trill thing is fascinating because of trills and not because of jadzia dax in particular. i'm gonna keep trying to like her. maybe once she starts banging worf things will be different

eye of the beholder (tng):

ohhhh i hated this one so much (suicide cw for this one lol)

firstly, i don't trust tng to handle the subject of suicide any more than i trust them to handle multiple personalities, but they tried to very special episode it anyway. all of them were so shocked at the very THOUGHT of it i guess because they eliminated all mental illness in tos?? but it was so funny in the rage-inducing way like "maybe he needed to think of the obstacles in his life as challenges to overcome!" come on.

also lmao picard like ive never had to report a suicide before...........girl you have literally told 2 people to kill themselves

and then they dropped the very special episode plot halfway through for this psychic mystery...

here's the thing. if everyone had been searching for a REASON someone who seemed to be perfectly happy would do this, and in the end the answer was just "nothing was going on, he was just hiding a lot of pain, even if we don't want to believe that" that would have been a STELLAR gutpunch. but there literally was foul play involved

AND NOT ONLY THAT! BUT THEY FAKED ME OUT WITH WORF E DEANNA

my ONLY consolation was that they were finally kissing and then later fucking but NO!!!! all a dream

i was already conflicted because deanna e worf means a temporary breakup from deanna e riker but i wanted it anyway and i was so happy when they gave it to me and then they KILLED IT? maybe the actors hated it because it fucking sucked

like, no wonder everybody let deanna walk around unsupervised when there was a high suicide danger. she was dreaming. no one in real life would ever allow this

i wish also that creepy men would stop coming to deanna's quarters to be creepy to her

final note: was told the creepy man was in spn. clocked him as alistair almost immediately. faceblind WHO

TOMORROW: ds9's "prophet and loss" and tng's "genesis" (dread).

[asexualjedi]

Gasps and cheers when Garak and Bashir are on screen together

[directedbyjonathanfrakes]

[subbyfoxelf]

[tv review] ds9 3x01 & 3x02 "the search" (1994)

3x01 “the search, part 1”

i could quibble about how dumb sisko showing up unannounced with the defiant is, but the truth is it’s an incredibly effective bit of storytelling. everyone’s reactions and the fact that it slips right through the station’s defenses really helps both to emphasize that the ship is built to be upfront dangerous in a way starfleet ships usually aren’t and to solidify the very real shift in stakes & tone the show achieved in the previous season’s finale.

the fact that the federation’s response to the haymaker the dominion threw at them at the end of the previous season is to beef up their defenses but also to send sisko & co on a very dangerous mission of peace is something i sincerely appreciate. and sisko is fully bought in. he makes no bones about the fact that he doesn’t especially expect the mission to open a dialogue with the founders to succeed, but that doesn’t stop him from being fully committed to that mission. this is peak starfleet imo. i think the difference between ds9 & tng isn’t so much that picard & sisko are cut from entirely different cloths. they’re pursuing the exact same ends, it’s just that the facts of the situation are markedly different.

as we get deeper into the dominion war, i can think of at least one very specific instance where i think sisko makes a choice that picard wouldn’t, and i’ll be interested to see how i feel about that episode when we get to it, but i appreciate that we get a very clear sign that sisko’s values and the federation’s are lined up much in the same way that it was the case for picard. to rise to the kind of position they’ve both risen to really does require being something of a paragon of virtue.

the other thing that really comes to a head in this episode is all the shit going on with odo. when starfleet assigns a starfleet security chief to ds9, he throws yet another of his epic hissy fits over it, and for what feels like the hundredth time decides to resign. kira, obviously not wanting to lose one of her closest friends on the station, manges to maneuver him into at least accompanying them on the mission to the gamma quadrant. and that puts him in position for his plot to continue for the next episode & a half.

the fact that kira really stuck her neck out for odo here and he repays her by effectively kidnapping her & deserting the ship during a crisis is something i feel like doesn’t entirely get dealt with? like, she’s definitely pissed at him when she wakes up in the shuttle, but odo continues to just do all kinds of flagrantly dealbreaking shit on this show and never get taken to task for it. it’s probably one of my biggest frustrations with the show tbh.

but yeah, ending this episode with the introduction of the founders’ (we don’t know they’re the founders yet) homeworld was an incredibly strong choice. this is both a super eventful episode & a super well-made episode. it’s a great reinforcement of how the previous season ended, and a great start to what the show is going to be about moving forward. a-rank

3x02 “the search, part 2”

i’m going to be very honest here, the first time i saw this episode i straight up never figured out that everything going on on the alpha quadrant side of things was a simulation. and because i watched a few episodes of ds9 here & there when it was airing, i knew for a fact that the wormhole continued to be a going concern later in the show, so when sisko & co stole the runabout and blew up the entrance to the wormhole, i was like, “wait, what?”

watching it now, though, there are enough things subtly wrong with this part of the plot that i’m a little embarrassed i didn’t figure it out? like, i think they did a pretty actually great job of balancing not totally giving it away but also making it very possible for a less credulous viewer than me to have figured it out? like, everything is ever so slightly “off,” but in a way that’s subtle enough that you could be forgiven for just thinking the episode is kinda weird?

i fucking love that the simulation totally nails garak, btw. the part where he pretends to betray sisko & co, and tells the bewildered jem’hadar, “you mean no one told you? you see, i pretend to be their friend… and then i shoot you!” just abruptly changing who he’s betraying mid-sentence like one last little victory lap before he guns them down. just fucking pure, uncut garak.

the way this episode totally flips the a plot & b plot is such a wonderful star trekky move. like, you’re kind of wondering why we’re spending so much time on the odo & kira stuff when it seems so much less consequential than the fate of the galaxy type stuff happening elsewhere, and then it turns out all of that was happening in a simulation literally meters away from where odo & kira have been this whole time.

this is just a fucking awesome misdirect that feels so rewarding. and having it turn out that odo & kira have been interacting with the founders this whole time is such a great way to flip the script considering that the other plot has been all about figuring out who the founders were & what they wanted. it’s such a great way to have these plots intersect.

this two-parter had a lot to accomplish, and i think it accomplished it about as well as it could have all things considered. especially in this era, it was really hard to change the entire trajectory of a television show in a way that feels natural & true to that show’s core identity, and i think they pulled that off admirably here. they cemented the seismic shift that happened at the end of the last season, and actually double downed on that with the bombshell that odo’s been a founder all along. this is truly great television, and more importantly truly great star trek. a-rank