#just watched Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges

[bumblingbabooshka]

Section 31 is so lame. Like, I can just tell with every word they say that they think they're SO cool and the writers think they're so cool but they're so smug and laaaame I am rolling my eeeyeees

[trekfacility]

just watched the episode "inter arma enim silent leges" and literally didn't understand anything. too many turns and twists and sides and people like what. . am i just like really stupid or what , what was that episode about.......i need a break down of the episode for like a 5 year old's brain

[warsofasoiaf]

What is your favorite Bashir episode and why is it Inter Arma?

Inter Arms Enim SIlent Leges is a good episode, and one worthy of a full episode analysis given its complex themes regarding patriotism and loyalty. It's my favorite of the "serious" Bashir episodes, but it's not my favorite Bashir episode ever. That belongs to the absolutely delightful Our Man Bashir. During many Bashir episodes, his idealism comes into contrast with pragmatism many times such as with O'Brien in Hippocratic Oath. Bashir as a character has a love of espionage, albeit a very romanticized version, and his idealism comes quickly in contrast when he meets the actual nitty-gritty of espionage in Obsidian Order ex-operative Elim Garak and the terrifying fanatical Section 31. Bashir sees it as an adventure, to fight cartoonish supervillains in the holodeck or spar using dialogue with Garak across the lunchtable. Here, like every holodeck episode, the fun and games have real consequences.

Let's get this out of the way first though, this episode is a comedy and it's a very funny one. Bashir is playing a James Bond-esque adventure clearly modelled after the more gonzo offerings from the Roger Moore era. Holodeck episodes can often be used to create completely ludicrous moments that would simply be out of place in a regular episode (Patrick Stewart's noir dialogue, Brent Spiner in an Old West dress). The actors are clearly enjoying the ridiculousness of the plot and play it to the hilt. Avery Brooks is having a ball as Hippocrates Noah as he rants about destroying the world. Nana Visitor gave the worst Russian accent she could and couldn't stop smiling at turning around on the revolving bed while wearing a slinky dress. Just watch as any character, even Andrew Robinson saying the world "molten lava," and watch how much emphasis they're putting on it, to the point where even the protagonists of the episode are hamming it up. When it comes to some creative projects, the fun that the actors are having in the role comes across the screen, and that mood becomes infectious, and Our Man Bashir does that with remarkable gusto.

The opener lets you know that this episode won't be very serious, with Bashir in full James Bond swagger, taking out the evil henchman Falcon with a champagne cork and a one-liner so he can smooch a Bond girl, only to be interrupted by Garak, who has clearly hacked his way into the holosuite to see what Bashir has been doing and relentlessly troll him while doing so. Andrew Robinson has always been a great foil for Alexander Siddiq and the two have great on-screen chemistry in every episode they're in, but this episode really takes the cake with Garak's sarcastic quips to start followed by serious disagreements with to follow. The episode opener even ends with Garak saying: "What could possibly go wrong?" to lampshade how holodeck episodes always are "crew stops in for a little recreation in the holodeck, malfunction happens, hijinks ensue as the fictional becomes real."

Then we have the escalation, where Sisko, Kira, Dax, Worf, and O'Brien all get blown up in a runabout, and their transport patterns are stored in the system computer and routed into the holosuite, turning the characters of Bashir's spy flick into the bridge crew. This is completely BS Star Trek technobabble of course, but it's a clearly transparent framing device to give Bashir and Garak the stakes. They have to continue the holosuite adventure or their friends get dumped from memory and deleted. The holosuite safeties are off, so if any of the characters die, either Bashir or Garak or any of the avatars of the bridge crew taking the characters, then they die for real. It's so blatant it almost feels like a wink and nudge, much as how Kira can't keep from laughing when Bashir, Dax, and O'Brien are shrunk in One Little Ship. Making matters worse, is that several of the characters are scripted to die. Bashir's heterosexual life partner Chief O'Brien becomes his eternal nemesis Falcon. So while O'Brien will play his role and attempt to kill Bashir without a second thought, Bashir can't simply eliminate Falcon because it means terminating Miles. This sets up not only the stakes, but the central conflict between Bashir and Garak: idealism versus pragmatism. Taking out O'Brien is easier, but it means killing him. On the contrast, if Falcon kills Bashir and Garak, the program ends and everyone dies, O'Brien included.

Bashir and Garak continue through the adventure, with Garak frequently commenting on how none of this represents actual espionage work that he performed for the Obsidian Order and that this is all ridiculous nonsense. To Garak, being an operative meant getting his hands dirty and performing morally dubious actions for the good of the state. This is a staple of John le Carre spy fiction and the chief dramatic antithesis of the James Bond motif. In le Carre's works, spycraft was often grossly out-of-sync with the stated moral philosophy of the nation's practicing it, and this is true in our own world, from CIA coups in Central and South America to promote illiberal autocracy to NKVD brutality against the proletariat that they were ostensibly laboring to elevate. To Garak, Bashir's spy program is an insult to the very difficult work that he had to do - Bashir gets a penthouse suite and a sexy valet polyglot genius pilot with a Bond girl name the equal of Pussy Galore or Honey Goodhead, Garak does grunt work as a gardener on Romulus and may or may not have had a hand in the unexplained deaths of multiple Romulans. Garak's life wasn't a fantasy...it was work.

The rest of the spy novel proceeds, with Kira playing the role of KGB vixen Komananov, clearly a stand-in for Russian Bond girls like Tatiana Romanova and Garak as a clearly unwanted plus-one (as Bashir's holoprogram is designed for one participant). They meet Worf as a suave French henchman, where even Michael Dorn's stoic baritone only adds to the comedy. Worf often plays the Straight Man in any scene he's in, but with the added glitz and glamour, he truly pulls off the role of a capable number two man to contrast with Hippocrates Noah's lunacy. This is one of the strengths of the episodes, in taking the characters and using their strengths while getting more than a few to play against type. Dax goes from confident old soul to the naïve Honey Bare, Kira adds a seductive edge while not losing her aggression, and Starfleet Captain Sisko becomes a high-functioning genocidal madman (though given Avery Brook's performance as Joran Dax, it's clear that he can definitely play villains with skillful aplomb). It's this sort of playfulness that maintains the comedy while trusting in the strength of the actors to carry their scene.

Sisko as Noah might be the story's antagonist, but the true conflict in the scene happens with Garak and Bashir as their idealism vs. pragmatism comes to its conclusion. Garak has done a lot of shady business and has accepted that there are casualties in conflicts, and while it's certainly not ideal, in the end it's better to take out some of the bridge crew rather than all of them, and that sometimes you need to cut your losses. While not explicitly stated, chances are good that Garak is remembering intelligence sources that he cultivated that he abandoned when they were discovered. Garak castigates Bashir as living out a shallow power fantasy where he pretends that he's a hero; Garak knows the truth - spies aren't heroes. They do deeply unpleasant work for the benefit of their nation. And so, he says that he'll end the program and save himself, and that Bashir isn't the man he pretends to be and won't stop him.

Bashir refuses to surrender to the obvious choices that Garak and even the program itself asks, as its script demands either Honey Bare or Komananov dies while the other girls gets with the hero. This culminates where to prove his conviction, Bashir shoots Garak non-lethally, proving to Garak that Bashir truly means what he says. In that moment, Garak learns that Bashir was listening to him, that in the course of being a spy, you must sometimes do things that are undesirable and unpleasant in pursuit of the ultimate mission. And so Garak, corrected, can only urge Bashir to "lead on," finally identifying him as a true secret agent, instead of a pretender. In the final climax, Bashir takes Garak's lessons to heart, espousing the need to cut his losses. In a complete twist of the holoprogram's script, Bashir sides with Noah and destroys the world, confusing the actors who genuinely don't expect to win. Bashir knows that the world being destroyed isn't real, only the characters on-screen are, and so he stalls out long enough for everything to be redeemed.

But where Bashir learned from Garak, enough to be a "real" spy to derail the program, Garak also learned from Bashir. About how imagination and playfulness sparks creativity and non-lateral thinking. He offers to join Julian Bashir on his next adventure, and the happy ending is achieved. Idealism is maintained, lines drawn, and the characters grow. If it wasn't for an MGM cease-and-desist, there may have been more spy adventures, but alas, this one was the only one we got on screen, with others only in passing.

It's a highly recommended episode, for my part. It's not the deepest, but it is fun and playful, a good comfort food.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[baggebythesea]

Princess Glimmer and the Day of Many Choices: Save the Bat (16/?)

"DOWN WITH THE TYRANT!"

"You can't kill him!" Entrapta pleaded. "Just look at those cute little ears."

"I think you will find they are perfectly capable to kill me," Hordak rumbled, "and well within their right to do so."

"KILL HIM!" the first in line of the lynch mob shouted.

"But he's chaaaanged," Entrapta promised.

"Which will not wash away the blood from my many crimes as a warlord and invader," Hordak said with arrogant voice, "nor the pain, rage or rightul desire for retribution felt by the survivors."

"Actually, brother, I think crimes commited while brainwashed don't count," the clone who had taken the name 'Wrong Hordak' said with a little wink. "Wink."

"However dubious that defence might be, such comfort is denied me," Hordak rumbled. "I commited the atrocities I did in the name of our father-brother willingly and under no influence other  than my own misguided sense of pride."

"LESS TALKING, MORE BURNING AT THE STAKE," the loudest person in the lynch mob shouted again, a little sprite girl with pink dress and transparant wings.

"SIC SEMPER TYRRANIS!" George the librarian cried.

"ENOUGH TALK! KICK HIM IN THE DICK!" the pink girl cried.

"Noooo, don't kick him in the dick," Entrapta pleaded.

"I'LL KICK HIM IN THE DICK!" the pink girl rushed forward. Hordak watched in contempt as her foot conencted with the crouch area of his power armour.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch," the girl wined. "Did you all see that? That was child abuse! Kill him!"

"Hoooordak," Entarpta wined. "Lets go home and put together an IKEA bookshelf together instead."

"No, my love," Hordak said with stoic voice. "I have to face the consequences of my action."

Entrapta watched him in confusion for a few moments.

"No, you don't," she said after a little while. "I have an hover scooter right here. We could just leave."

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," Hordak proudly said.

"Oooooooookey...." Entrapta said. She looked uneasily at the crowd. "Well, you get on with that, and I'll just step to the side and build a tiiiiiny murder-robot real quick..."

"SILENT ENIM LEGES INTER ARMA!" Geroge cried.

"KILL HIM," the pink girl cried. "BEAT HIM WITH A STICK! FOCUS ON HOW ANGRY YOU ARE WITH THIS EVIL WARLORD AND NOT WITH THE CURRENT WAREABOUTS OF ANY OF YOUR BELONGINGS!" she helped herself to the purse of a fellow mob-member and turned her attention back to Hordak, when she suddenly became aware of three women standing in a half circle around here with arms crossed.

"Eh.... oh, I'm such a sweet innocent girl..." 'she' said with an unconvincing giggle. "Anyway, I think I should get..."

"Hello, 'Flutterina'," Glimmer said.

"Or should we say 'Double Trouble'?" Despara said.

"I'm so happy to bump into you again," Catra said.

"Oh no, I'm not Double Trouble," Double Trouble said with a big grin. "But whoever it is sounds handome. Anyway, I should get going..."

"You are not going anywhere," Despara said.

"Actually, just let her go," Glimmer sighed. "It's not Double Trouble. I suppose this must be the real Flutterina."

"What?" Catra asked.

"What?" Double Trouble asked.

"You don't think Double Trouble would be stupid enough to disguise themselves as the one person in Etheria we recognize as them, do you?" Glimmer asked.

"I suppose that WOULD be stupid," Despara hesitantly agreed.

"Yeah, you are right," Catra agreed with a grin. "Also, there's no chance they would play as unconvincing and obnoxiously as this. I suppose it must be a real child."

"Hey!" Double Trouble protested.

"Not to mention what a lame scheme it is to set up a lynch mob simply as a cheap distraction," Glimmer grinned. "Double Trouble might not be the smartest operator, but at least they're better than that."

"OK, OK," Double Trouble said and took their own guise. "Just stop. I know you're trying to be smart, but..."

"IT WAS DOUBLE TROUBLE ALL ALONG!" Despara gasped and grabbed the changelling. "I GOT THEM!"

"Nothing to see here," Glimmer said to the mob. "Just bed time for Flutterina is all..."

"I will sing a lullaby," Catra grinned, and the four of them left the scene, where the mob kept trying to work up the courage for someone to be the first to attack the aloof Hordak.

"CETERUM CENSEO HORDAK ESSE DELENDAM!" Geroge cried. "Oh, hey, Bow," he added in normal voice.

"Hi dad," Bow said. "Um... could you stop attacking Hordak, please."

"Now, now, Bow," George chided. "violently overthrowing despots by the means of angry mobs is a time honoured tradition."

"I wrote my thesis about it," Lance added.

"And juuuuuuuuust a little laser..." Entrapta muttered for herself, tinkering with a growing contraption.

"But you can't kill him!" Bow pleaded.

Part 15: https://www.tumblr.com/baggebythesea/712016363195170816/save-the-bat-it-is-next-chapter-will-be-up

[opinions-about-tiaras]

He's right and he should say it.

I am the target audience for Section 31 materiel, and even I want this to die in a fire. Anyone think that's a good sign?

I love Section 31. I consider Sloan to have been one of the best villains in DS9; no Gul Dukat or Weyoun but certainly solidly in the second tier. I think Inquisition and Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges are extraordinarily good episodes, and that Extreme Measures is serviceable at worst.

I even, God help me, have some of the Section 31 paperbacks, which let me tell you are HUGELY VARIABLE in quality.

Moreover, I like Section 31 as an idea. Because they are exactly the sort of manifestation that sort of evil would take in the Federation. (The unending string of Badmirals is another manifestation.) A bunch of deluded, egotistic, "we are sin-eaters, we take this evil upon ourselves to save the good and decent people of our utopia" posers skulking around the fringes of Starfleet, pretending that they're not just criminal terrorists with no official sanction. Even the way they point to a defunct document as justification is very Federation-y; how many episodes of Trek have turned on weird legalisms?

So I am the kind of guy for whom additional Section 31 oriented materiel is targeted at, right? I am who they want watching it and evangelizing it.

And I just fucking look at the trailer for "Empress Cannibalism teams up with the worst the Federation has to offer in a GRAND ACTION SPY ADVENTURE" and I am repelled.

Repelled is the correct word, I think. I look at what this thing is supposed to be and it seems like its aimed at the sort of people who think 24 was a show about patriots instead of traitors. It seems like it is aimed at the sort of people who think the Kingsmen or Citadel or The Campus were great ideas; unaccountable terror cells embedded in quasi-official power structures, what could go wrong?

It's trying to present itself as a fun and sexy spy/action romp with a black ops team wearing cool black outfits and cybernetics and hanging out in nightclubs wearing drip in-between shootouts.

(The fact that this doesn't look at all like Star Trek but rather a rejected concept for a Rebel Moon spinoff is also one of its many problems.)

It really wants us to think "hey, these are cool spies doing cool spy stuff, won't you watch it?"

And... no, I won't, because Section 31 isn't cool.

An enormous number of people in positions to make narrative decisions about Section 31 think that the point of it is "they are a Necessary Evil that makes the Hard Choices that men like Picard or Kirk won't make. Every day is In The Pale Moonlight for Section 31! Isn't that so interesting?"

It isn't, though. It really isn't.

Section 31 are villains. And they're not cool, sexy, thriller-y villains like the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order are, either. Section 31 are supposed to be menacing, but also shabby and a little bit sad. They're supposed to skulk around in their black uniforms doing dirty deeds with flimsy justifications until they get foiled by the actual competent heroes running Starfleet. I love Sloan; but part of Sloan's point is that he presented himself as an awesome master spy puppetmaster trying to recruit top talent into his organization, and he was outwitted by Julian "the worst spy in the galaxy" Bashir and his engineer boyfriend in a trap so simple and obvious that it wouldn't have fooled Garak, an actual professional, on his worst day.

These are people who think Brad Boimler's egoistic transporter clone was a great recruiting prospect, is what I'm saying.

That's what Section 31 is. Anything else misses the point.

This really seems like the final, pathetic gasp of the worst thematic parts of Discovery Seasons 1+2, which were very much "What if Starfleet was bad. What if you could replace a prominent captain with his mirror universe duplicate and nobody would notice because they're so similarly evil? What if they're recruiting Space Fascists as top advisors? What if they bully and abuse each other? Wouldn't that be neat?"

Discovery put that behind itself when it decided it wanted to be Andromeda instead, and SNW decided "no, fuck it, we're just going to pretend that didn't happen" but that evil lives on in the form of this ill-conceived project.

If you want to use Section 31 viewpoint characters in the modern age, your model should be Deedra Meero from Andor. There are ways to do this right. Paramount just has no fucking clue what they are.

I'm upset that the money that went into this could have gone into something like another season of Lower Decks. Or almost anything else on Paramount+. How's being the littlest kid at the streaming services table working out for you there, CBS? I predict that by 2030 you're just going to sell yourself to Netflix or Disney.

"The Federation can only exist if Section 31 does"

I'd like to thank the Academy for saving us from an entire Section 31 series by making it too expensive for Paramount to get Michelle Yeoh for anything more than a TV movie

[subatoism]

God okay so another thing that gets my gears turning is that one bit in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges when Julian says he’s incapable of making a diagnosis by simply looking at a man, to which Sloan replies, “Oh, your genetically enhanced friends determined that Gul Damar killed a woman just by watching him give a political speech. I’m sure you can do better than that.” Which he then very much does.

Because like,, up to this point in the series, I was kind of writing off the discrepancy between the abilities the other Augments have (learning Dominionese in one day, reading Damar’s entire backstory from his nonverbals, etc) and what we see from Julian both before and after Doctor Bashir, I Presume as purely a result of the writing problems that inevitably occur when you throw in a revelation like that so late in a show.

Which, yeah, I still think it is that. But in-universe, it makes the question of how Julian has so thoroughly managed to hide any signs of his augmentation this whole time much more immediate. Obviously this is something that a lot of other people have already examined, and probably more eloquently than I can, but I just want to work through my own thoughts on the topic.

So, assuming that Julian has roughly the same intellectual capacities as the other Augments, there are a couple possibilities:

[1] Julian is a brilliant actor. Since the very beginning of the show, he has been subtly playing up his own spotty observational/deductive skills in certain areas specifically to maintain his cover. This, of course, has profound implications for interpreting almost any scene he is in pre-DBIP (and particularly for all of his relationships with people who only ever see this persona). I mean god!! Confronting how complete an enigma the real Julian Bashir is if you accept this interpretation makes me feel insane.

But it also says something about all of his scenes after DBIP: That he can’t let it go. Can’t drop the façade, either because it’s ingrained habit to pretend or because he still believes (rightly or wrongly) that displaying his full potential will eventually lead to Starfleet changing its mind about letting him go free. Like, this guy is 3x more traumatized than he appears at any given moment.

[2] Julian intentionally avoids knowing/paying attention to things.

Not when it comes to medicine, for the most part. Sacrificing the well-being of a patient to keep his own secret is absolutely antithetical to his core values, and I’m unwilling to entertain the idea that his fundamental motives are a falsehood. At the very least, if he did ever hold himself back out of fear and put someone else at risk by doing so, it would eat him alive for the rest of his life. So that’s a whole ‘nother level of trauma that the show never gets a chance to address.

But, anyway, he avoids thinking too hard about what he’s capable of— forces himself not to think through problems that it would be suspicious for him to solve; possibly even denies himself access to information that it would be alarming for him to memorize too quickly which, given his deep curiosity and hunger for knowledge, would be an almost painful act of self-denial. And, again, this behavior is so ingrained that he keeps doing it even after his secret is out. He doesn’t even think to try doing what the other Augments have clearly demonstrated they can do (at least, not outside the events of Statistical Probabilities, which may have actually reinforced his self-limitation given how all that turned out).

So, yeah, both of these options are just absolutely fucking tragic and make me want to cry but I cannot stop thinking about either one.

[featherquillpen]

DS9 Meta: Midnight Invitations

Dr. Bashir, a spy appears in your quarters in the middle of the night and offers you a mission. What do you do?

I just watched "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" and I have a lot to say about the parallels and contrasts between Sloan and Garak, which are implicitly called to mind by the structure of the episode.

Like Garak, Sloan is a spy and an assassin. Like Garak, he appears in Julian's quarters in the middle of the night to invite him on a spy mission. But while Garak's midnight invitation fills Julian with excitement, Sloan's elicits only contempt. This is despite the fact that Sloan works for the Federation and Garak during the time he brought Julian on spy missions was affiliated with an enemy power.

I think part of the difference is a matter of time and experience. When Garak used to bring Julian along on spy adventures, Julian had more of his James Bond spy fantasies intact. He was able to find romance and excitement in it more readily than he can at this point in S7, when he's seen so many of the costs of war and skulduggery. But I do think it's more than that. Even now, in S7, I think that if Garak showed up in Julian's quarters at midnight again, the way he once did in "Cardassians," and invited him along on a spy mission, he would go willingly and it's not just because Garak is a hot lizard.

Whenever we talk about Garak, I think it's incredibly important to consider words vs actions. Let's think about what Sloan and Garak say to Julian in this episode. Garak says to Julian at the beginning that he should become more cynical and stop believing in the Right Thing all the time. Sloan says to Julian at the end that he works for Section 31 to protect men like Julian who do the Right Thing. If we go by what they say, then Garak is a Cardassian patriot (which, according to Admiral Ross, is a very dangerous thing) who wants Julian to abandon his principles and embrace cynicism, while Sloan is a true Federation believer who wants Julian to live out his principles.

But we can't trust what spies say. It's their actions that speak their true intentions.

Sloan views Julian's principles as nothing more than tools to manipulate him with. He uses them as pivot points in his complex gambit to shift the Romulan government in his favor. He uses Julian to act against his own principles. He doesn't even respect Julian's skills, not really. The mission was never about using his doctorly diagnosis skills on Koval, or his augmented memory. It was about using his fundamental decency to screw over Senator Cretak.

Garak involves Julian in his spywork in a way that shows great respect for Julian's skills and his principles. He involves Julian in missions to save Deep Space Nine from destruction, twice over, and to help out war orphans, all of which is in accordance with Julian's principles. And Garak doesn't just make use of the skills that everyone notices in Julian - his technical skills as a doctor - but also his quick intellect. He relies on Julian's wit to uncover Dukat's plot with the war orphans and dramatically reveal it in front of everyone.

Julian knows which of these spies actually respects him. No wonder, then, that he reacts so differently to their midnight visitations to his quarters.

I found this episode very stressful to watch, because the Dr. Bashir we first met was a James Bond fanboy who went heart eyes over a spy flirting with him at the replimat, and now that he's become a real secret agent, it's horrible, and maybe now he can begin to understand how Garak got so messed up.

[nannyfeline]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Essential (to me) Episodes (+Garak)

I’m starting a rewatch of Deep Space Nine, but I’ve already seen it all the way through three times, so this time I’m focusing on just the “essential” episodes (plus the Garak-heavy ones).

This is a consolidated list of the episodes I’m watching so I don’t have to keep cross-referencing six other lists whenever I go to choose the next episode to watch. I’m putting this here for me to use, feel free to use it as a guide if you like or ignore it completely. 

Season 1

Episodes 1 and 2 – Emissary: The first episode.

Episode 3 – Past Prologue: Bajoran terrorists are a thing. Garak is introduced. He makes a pass at Bashir.

Episode 13 – Battle Lines: Space pope goes to space.

Episode 19 – Duet: Cardassians and Bajorans (but not Garak).

Episode 20 – In the Hands of Prophets: Nurse Ratched is Vedek Winn and she bad.

Season 2

Episodes 1, 2, and 3: The show becomes reasonably good. There’s an attempted coup on Bajor, and the station is “abandoned.” 

Episode 5 – Cardassians: Sets up some Cardassian background and has lots of Garak. Also Bashir.

Episode 7 – Rules of Acquisition: I mean, I guess. The Dominion gets mentioned, so sure, whatever.

Episode 14 – Whispers: O’Brien thinks everyone has been replaced by pod people.

Episode 18 – Profit and Loss: Quark, Cardassians, and Garak.

Episodes 20 and 21 – The Maquis: Yeah, sure. It sets them up. They’re important in other series.

Episode 22 – The Wire: GARAK! AND BASHIR!

Episode 26 – The Jem’Hadar: They’re important.

Season 3

Episodes 1 and 2 – The Search: Dominion stuff. Eddington is introduced.

Episode 3 – The House of Quark: Quark and a Klingon get married.

Episode 5 – Second Skin: Cardassians gaslight Kira.

Episode 7 – Civil Defense: Those old Cardassian safety measures on Terok Nor sure are tricky.

Episode 9 – Defiant: Riker and the Maquis. Or is it???

Episodes 11 and 12 – Past Tense: Sisko, Dax, and Bashir are transported back in time to approximately right now (2024, actually), and things are basically fucked but honestly not that different than real life in 2020. (In 1995, it seemed like we would never get to this point. 25 years later, and boy were we wrong. This one is important for understanding some memes, but it honestly may be depressing and triggering here in the summer of 2020.)

Episode 15 – Destiny: Sisko being the Emissary and also talking to Cardassians.

Episode 16 – Prophet Motive: This may be my imagination, but it looks like there could be foreshadowing for “Doctor Bashir, I Presume.” I don’t know, I haven’t rewatched it, yet. I honestly doubt they were thinking that far ahead. I’ll update after I’ve seen it.

Episode 18 – Distant Voices: Bashir is under telepathic attack. Reddit says it’s a good Garak ep.

Episodes 20 and 21 – Improbable Cause and The Die is Cast: Snap, Garak is doing some shady shit. It’s a tough watch if you want to keep Garak in the good guy column. Cardassians attack the Dominion.

Episode 22 – Explorers: Could be more “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” foreshadowing, but probably not. I’ll see.

Episode 26 – The Adversary: Founder infiltrates the Defiant.

Season 4

Episodes 1 and 2 – The Way of the Warrior: Klingons go to war and Worf joins the cast.

Episode 4 – Hippocratic Oath: Bashir’s such a grown up now! Love it! Making big boy choices wrt the Jem’Hadar.

Episode 5 – Indiscretion: Okay, sure, I mean, if you’ve never seen the show, I guess this one is important. It introduces Ziyal. She’s a terrible character, but whatever.

Episode 7 – Starship Down: Fighting the Dominion.

Episode 8 – Little Green Men: THIS IS THE BEST EPISODE! Quark, Rom, and Nog are transported back to 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, and this is the episode that makes me also sort of ship Quark/Odo.

Episode 10 – Our Man Bashir: Bashir and Garak are playing a 1960s James Bond holonovel and have to save the crew when a transporter accident causes their patterns to become integrated with the program. It’s dumb and fun.

Episodes 11 and 12 – Homefront and Paradise Lost: Starfleet violating civil rights a bit to root out Changelings.

Episode 14 – Return to Grace: Cardassians gonna Cardass, I guess.

Episode 22 – For the Cause: Garak and Ziyal become friends.

Episode 23 – To the Death: Sisko and the Dominion work together for a common goal. And we get WEYOUN!

Episode 25 – Body Parts: Quark thinks he’s going to die, so he starts selling off his body parts. Reddit says it’s a good Garak ep, though.

Episode 26 – Broken Link: Odo needs the Founders, uh-oh.

Season 5

Episode 1 – Apocalypse Rising: Whoops, there’s a Klingon Changeling, now.

Episode 6 – Trials and Tribble-ations: Set during TOS “The Trouble with Tribbles.”

Episode 8 – Things Past: Several of the kids, including Garak, are astral projecting to the Cardassian occupation.

Episode 9 – The Ascent: I don’t know, Odo and Quark are hanging out, I guess?

Episode 13 – For the Uniform: Eddington is back.

Episodes 14 and 15 – In Purgatory’s Shadow and By Inferno’s Light: The Dominion’s a’comin’.

Episode 16 – Doctor Bashir, I Presume: Julian’s secret’s out. (My favorite Bashir/O’Brien interaction is in this episode.)

Episode 24 – Empok Nor: O’Brien, Nog, and Garak are scavenging on Empok Nor, sister station of Terok Nor. Spoopy.

Episode 25 – In the Cards: A dumb Jake/Nog fetch quest episode, but Kai Winn meets Weyoun, so… 🤷‍♂️

Episode 26 – Call to Arms: Okay, there’s definitely a war on now.

Season 6

Episode 1 – A Time to Stand: They a’fightin’.

Episode 2 – Rocks and Shoals: Hey, look, the kids are stranded with some Jem’Hadar.

Episode 4 – Behind the Lines: Occupied DS9.

Episodes 5 and 6: Favor the Bold and Sacrifice of Angels: Retaking DS9.

Episode 11 – Waltz: Now Sisko and Dukat are stranded.

Episode 18 – Inquisition: Bashir is accused of being a spy, because why not. Section 31 is introduced.

Episode 19 – In the Pale Moonlight: Lol Sisko is a fascist. Garak helps.

Episode 26 – Tears of the Prophets: The Federation goes on offense.

Season 7

Episode 1 – Image in the Sand: Things just keep going, you know?

Episode 2 – Shadows and Symbols: I’m going to give this one a miss, personally, but it introduces Ezri.

Episode 3 – Afterimage: Poor Garak.

Episode 6 – Treachery, Faith, and the Great River: Weyouns Weyouning.

Episode 8 – The Siege of AR-558: Fightin’.

Episode 9 – Covenant: Dukat is bonkers.

Episode 16 – Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges: Bashir and Section 31.

Episodes 17 through 19: Probably should watch these. Beginning of the end.

Episodes 20 through 24: Getting there.

Episodes 25 and 26 – What You Leave Behind: The finale.

[julianbashir]

hi ! idk if u can help me but i rlly want to watch ds9 but just for bashir bc my attention span isnt super good but i rlly like him. what eps would you recommend as like essentials ? tysm for any help!!

hi anon! there’s a fair warning, though: season 1 bashir is like….extremely painful?? i think the writers were still figuring out what to really do with him and he sort of comes off as a douche.

anyways uhh heres my recommendations?? keep in mind you might not understand a lot of the circumstances surrounding some of these episodes as later on the series becomes more syndicated. please if you get the chance please just watch the whole thing the whole cast is really good. also you’ll get more of the scope of his development if you watch the whole series?

past prologue (s1, e3)

the passenger (s1, e9)

battle lines (s1, e13)

melora (s2, e6)

armageddon game (s2, e13)

the wire (s2, e22)

crossover (s2, e22)

civil defense (s3, e7) (not bashir heavy just. shenanigans)

past tense i and ii (s3, e10 and e11)

life support (s3, e13)

hippocratic oath (s4, e4)

our man bashir (s4, e10)

the quickening (s4, e24)

…Nor the Battle to the Strong (s5, e4)

Doctor Bashir, I Presume? (s5, e16)

Statistical Probabilities (s6, e9)

Inquisition (s6, e18)

Take Me Out to the Holosuite (s7, e4) this is just a really fun episode

Chrysalis (s7, e5)

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (s7, e16)

[mysteryofthings]

Weyoun and Damar, the oddest couple: In some other universe, maybe there’s a show that just focuses on Weyoun and Damar squabbling. I would watch that show. There’s little variation in their conversations; Damar drinks, complains, and accedes to Weyoun’s demands, and Weyoun sneers at him with barely restrained contempt. But it’s still delightful to watch. Sitcoms have been built on less.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”/”Penumbra”

Zack Handlen

[everysongineverykey]

i. i just realized that the guy on the right looks exactly like sloan and i don't know what to do

jadzia tapping into her 300 year old reservoir of dad jokes

[sanerontheinside]

Work In Progress: Silent enim leges inter arma for @aidava and @deadcatwithaflamethrower, the two people most guilty for the existence of this monstrosity (without even meaning to be), and for @poplitealqueen with many thanks for encouragement. :)

There’s a chance I won’t have much to show for May the 4th aside from this, but I’m not sure I mind. I will not be posting any of this au to ao3 until a significant portion is done, however, which may take a very long time. Previously introduced under the guise of ‘the frankenAU’, I now give you a relatively polished first chapter: 

In all the time he’d known Maul, the Zabrak had barely spoken two words together. Most of his language seemed limited to snarls and baleful sulfurous-yellow glares. He’d smile back with a curve to his lips all too feral, tip his head in the barest sketch of a nod, all the time waiting. Waiting for his chance to deliver Maul to Sidious as a failure, albeit the result of his own careful, delicate sabotage.

Sidious would know, of course. The bastard always knew. But it wasn't as though he expected to keep both Apprentices, surely. No—survival of the fittest, that was what Sidious wanted. Maul was an excellent specimen, a sterling example of a weapon honed by and tempered with hate and pain. Sidious’s weapon, an evolutionary marvel if your study was pure brute force.

An assassin, but not a successor. Never a threat to Sidious himself.

And that was, in part, the risk of getting rid of him. It would attract Sidious's attention, snap it tightly onto his other pet, show him far too much of the cards his lowly remaining Apprentice held. Maul’s death was therefore never to be risked, unless and until the stakes were high enough.

They certainly were now.

Maul stood in the hangar bay, waiting, far more patience coiled about him and holding him in place than he'd ever thought possible for the Zabrak. He almost felt sorry for what he was about to do—for the meticulous work he was about to destroy. But no, this was a matter of protecting what was his and his alone.

He waited until the very last moment to relax his shielding, letting his rival sense his approach. Outwardly, he smiled at Maul, as friendly as ever.

In truth, Maul’s voice was soft, astoundingly so.  It had a quiet rasp—like a heat haze dancing over coals in a firepit. “What are you doing here?”

“Why, our Master sent me,” he replied cheerily. “To finish the job when you fail, of course.”

Maul’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, nostrils flaring, eyes ablaze, but his voice remained even. “I will not fail.”

He smiled. “Such unwavering conviction. You stand against not one, but two of the best fighters of the Jedi Order. Can you be so certain?”

Quicker than thought, his blade had slipped from its concealed holster in his sleeve, falling into his palm like coming home. Maul met the stroke with a sharp movement of his own, matching him for speed, but with a brow raised quizzically.

“Our Master wants the Jedi dead. This would serve no purpose but to tire both of us out before they arrive.”

Logical, practical. Totally unprepared.

“You're so right.” He grinned.

Spun, tapped his boot, and met Maul’s side with a deft kick to his ankle.

The Sith hissed, mostly in surprise—it wouldn't have hurt him much. In fact, concealed daggers such as these were meant to pass unnoticed, and Maul had acquired a fairly high tolerance to pain under Sidious's gentle ministrations—they both had. The Zabrak twisted around to get a hand into his hair, but he had always been quicker. He'd tucked the blade back into his boot by then, put enough distance between them at a single leap, laughing as he landed softly catlike and well out of reach.

“I'll leave you with that,” he called back. Then he paused, a black-gloved hand raised, cocked his head to one side as if listening. “They're nearly here, after all,” he added softly, with a warm smile. “Do take care to actually kill them this time?”

Maul angrily thumbed the switch of his own lightsaber with an indignant grunt, but said nothing, disengaged his blade and turned around to wait. In seconds he'd fallen into his version of a meditation again, gearing up for a long fight, utterly heedless yet of the venom slowly seeping into his circulation.

Crashing blades, violent red and blazing emerald, Darkness roiling, spilling over into the air and battering against the mind—

Now wasn't the time to be thinking of visions, not when the Force hung still and tense, stretched taut and poised for shattering. It felt like a metaphysical bated breath, paralysed in the face of infinite possibilities flung out in a death spiral. Obi-Wan sank into it, shoving aside the thought that he'd known of this coming moment, that the vision that had haunted his dreams for years was finally happening and he knew precisely what the outcome would be. Foreknowledge wasn't of much help when everything around their opponent was warped and twisted with dire warnings, and the terror of this moment had melted into his bones too long ago to be a distraction.

The Zabrak fought with seemingly no care to exhausting his reserves, relying as much on Force-assisted shoves and Force-propelled shrapnel as on his blade. Obi-Wan had never faced an opponent who fought like this, even when Master Giett had taken it upon himself to humble Qui-Gon and his Padawan together. The Combat Master’s favored Sixth Form relied on its surroundings as much as it did on skill with the blade, but they'd fought in a set obstacle course with no flying distractions. Obi-Wan flashed on a sudden, hysterically pitched thought that if the Combat Master had had the time before his injuries landed him on the disabled list, he might have put them through a course of moving obstacles as well.

A blow to the jaw sent Obi-Wan to the edge of the catwalk, where he desperately snatched a precarious few seconds of balance—only to fall anyway, swearing without any particular sort of malice. Perversely he was almost grateful for that kick, at least when he finally found handholds a couple platforms below. It gave him time to reach out with his senses and reassess the situation above him.

Qui-Gon had taught Obi-Wan to fight, but after the Stark Hyperspace War, the Combat Master had taken to watching both of them in the salles and throwing out commentary and advice. On one memorable occasion, Micah stayed to watch Obi-Wan and Quinlan spar. Quin, as always, fought dirty. Obi-Wan had held up pretty well, but three rounds into their ‘friendly match’ Micah waved him over and pulled him down to mutter a secret into his ear.

“Pull back,” Micah had said, which made no sense. “Take a moment and pay attention to your opponent, look for a pattern. You already know how to trust in the Force, you already know how to move. You don’t need to focus on every individual attack anymore. Pull back, look for anything you can use against him. Look for your opponent’s intent.”

Obi-Wan still hit the mat a few more times that day. But on Yinchorr, that lesson had saved both their lives.

He refocused just as Qui-Gon threw the Zabrak from the catwalk. Obi-Wan permitted himself a momentary spark of glee, sensing a flare of anger and Dark as the bastard fell. Qui-Gon, determined to press his advantage, leapt after him.

Unfortunately it didn't seem that the fall had taken much out of their opponent. The Force told Obi-Wan his Master was tiring fast, but that was no surprise either—conditions may have been better here than on Tatooine, but they'd already faced a small skirmish on the way into Theed. The Zabrak had been waiting for them, with likely nothing else to distract or concern him.

Still, as Obi-Wan pulled himself up and back onto the catwalk, he thought that perhaps the Zabrak’s moves had slowed, or become less precise. He stopped for a split second, pushed away his revulsion at the overwhelming rush of Darkness and forced himself to look at the Sith more closely, hunting for any sign of weakness.

He was surprised to find any. They hadn't managed to so much as tag their opponent yet, but Obi-Wan could sense a tiny thread of pain feeding into the anger. Not even pain—a kind of numb cold. It roused a suspicion in him and he looked again, desperate to find anything that might give them the upper hand. He studied the movements, compared them to the memory of their opponent’s dance at the outset. Was it his imagination, or was the Zabrak favouring his right more and more often?

He was also giving ground easily—far too easily—and drawing Qui-Gon along with him. It should have been obvious, yet Qui-Gon kept letting him do it, pressing forward in a relentless attack. Obi-Wan had a sudden sharp awareness of the possibility that he might not be able to catch up.

Sith take it, they could take him if they just stayed together.

A leap upward took him to the right level, but even with the brief (and dubious) reprieve, Obi-Wan could not hope for Force-assisted speed. Lungs burning, he ran after his Master, dimly realising that the Zabrak was leading them to the shielded power generator, and that he wasn't going to make it.

He skidded to halt between the first and second shields just as they cycled closed around him. Far ahead, one final barrier remained between his Master and the Sith. A pity these shields couldn’t hold back the buffeting waves of Darkness that tangled the Force around him—the chaotic threads were physically distracting. Obi-Wan had the dim sense of prickling on his skin, like the memory of blistering heat, and wondered what Qui-Gon, so deeply entrenched in the Living Force, must feel. He watched, almost in disbelief, as his Master deactivated his blade and dropped to one knee, to meditate in the face of this jangling discord.

It was difficult to say at that moment whether meditation would help in the face of this raw discord, or not. Perhaps it was good manipulation, convincing their opponent that they were not as far-gone after all: his Master wore serenity like a cloak, even like this, winded from a long fight and preparing for one last burst.

But they had been a team for nearly a decade, and Obi-Wan knew without a doubt that this short reprieve would not be enough. He reached for the bond—

And ran up against a wall. Tight shields locked his Master’s mind away from him, as they never had before in any fight they’d faced together.

It didn’t just hurt, it burned with dismissal and a baseless lack of trust. Obi-Wan felt a surge of something that tasted like anger and channeled it outwards as a distraction, turned back to hammering against his Master’s shields because that was all he had left. He had no weapons in his arsenal against this. He’d never experienced this kind of deliberate disconnect.

The emptiness where the training bond had been was cold and glaring, now completely impossible to ignore. All that remained to him was the hope that he would be fast enough to reach his Master when the ray-shields cycled off.

Qui-Gon was all too keenly aware that he was running out of time. The Sith had drawn him into the heart of the city’s main generator, to the melting pit of the reactor—boxed in, Qui-Gon thought. Behind him, he heard his Padawan pacing. They were both riding the ragged edge of exhaustion, as their opponent had clearly intended. But so long as Qui-Gon stood between him and Obi-Wan, so long as he had the strength to—at best—kill, and at least—maim the Zabrak, he had no further care for what happened to him.

So long as Obi-Wan was safe, and alive, nothing else mattered.

But at the moment he had the frustrating feeling that nothing he did or tried seemed to matter, either. The Zabrak deflected his blows almost as easily as swatting away an insect, and on the occasions that he’d met with Qui-Gon’s elbow or knee intimately, he’d brushed off the pain like water. He’d slowed down, but not by much, as if the pain kept him going. It was enough to be concerning: by now Qui-Gon’s lungs burned, his arms ached, and he felt as though he were moving through a haze. If he were to draw on the Force, even for one hard shove, he would have no strength left for anything else.

So he did not risk it.

As the ray shields slammed closed he stopped, and immersed himself in it instead, letting it flow through him as he had not in the last weeks. Always on the move, in a harried, haphazard rush—how had he permitted himself to forget this? The Force reached back for him, cradled him, held him. Five shields behind, Obi-Wan was desperately calling into their bond, trying to break though his Master’s shields. But Qui-Gon didn’t dare drop the barriers between them—he could not, not without betraying his intentions.

Oh, gods, Obi-Wan, I’m so sorry.

Damn the Force and the visions it had plagued his Padawan with, and to hells with so-called ‘fate’, Qui-Gon thought. The Force could do what it liked with him, but not with his Padawan.

Down on one knee, finding a moment of calm in a sea of chaos, Qui-Gon ignored the Sith pacing before him and breathed. He needed clarity for what he was about to attempt. He could not, would not fail, because failure meant the life of the man behind him.

You offered me your life on Bandomeer, he thought. This time, let the gift be mine.

When the ray-shield cycled open, he was ready.

It was a struggle, forcing his body out of the stance he’d used for years and just for one moment, to fall back into drilled-in habits, into a form he’d hated so much. Where Ataru was an attack, pure, straight-forward, Makashi was a fast taunt, a cat toying with a mouse. His Master had always pointed out his weaknesses like that. But it was worth it for the flash of surprise, for something that tasted like fear in the Force; fear that the Sith had not taken the full measure of his opponent. It was worth it, for that one risky lunge, landing a hit and shearing through the saberstaff and slicing easily through muscle as his momentum carried him forward.

Perhaps Qui-Gon should have expected the blow to his unprotected side. He’d certainly landed a damaging hit, but the Sith remained stubbornly standing, while he found his vision greying and his knees folding under him. There was hardly any pain, only numbness and confusion as he wondered how the hells it had happened he’d managed to catch a blow from the Sith’s reverse-grip, and furthermore why his opponent hadn’t moved. The Zabrak was just standing there, glaring down at him with those burning, corrupted eyes.

The cry startled him, and Qui-Gon shot upright, like a wire had been pulled taut through the top of his head. Obi-Wan. That awful cry, it was his voice, and with it an outpouring of anguish that broke through the barriers in Qui-Gon’s mind like nothing else could have. He nearly blacked out from the pain of it, but grit his teeth and snarled up at the Sith. For Obi-Wan’s sake.

The Zabrak only smiled.

I am going to kill him, the dark thing said in a voice too soft to be real. I will take great pleasure in making you watch.

Black spots were dancing in his eyes, grey touching the edges of his sight. But he was a Jedi Master, gods damn it all, and unconsciousness could bloody well wait. He wasn't about to let this thing anywhere near his Padawan.

Pushing away the rising, tingling cold, Qui-Gon pulled the Force to him with a last prayer for strength, and lunged forward, rising up from his knees with a terrible cry of his own. The Sith parried the onslaught rapidly, poorly-masked surprise turning quickly to annoyance. Qui-Gon even managed to push him back to the melting pit before the shields started to cycle again. But rather than allow his attention to be divided between two opponents the Zabrak simply stuck out his hand and brought the Force to bear, sent Qui-Gon flying across the room and into a wall. It knocked the remaining breath out of him, and he slid down to a crumpled heap on the floor, unable to do any more than gasp and watch with stunned horror as Obi-Wan dueled the relentless monster.

He wondered if it would have been better if he could not see. Watching, hearing this duel was a torment all its own. The Sith certainly meant to make good on his word, his own injuries notwithstanding. Qui-Gon couldn’t fathom how he still fought. When his Padawan vanished into the melting pit, Qui-Gon almost gave in to the pain clawing into his consciousness and let go. Only the sight of the Zabrak, still standing at the edge of that pit and toying with his prey, convinced Qui-Gon that Obi-Wan had managed to find some sort of handhold.

Qui-Gon was fighting his own losing battle with unconsciousness. He spared a moment’s irritation for the distasteful thought that he might be killed in his sleep, put out of his misery like some wounded beast, by an opponent just as injured; and all for nothing, if Obi-Wan did not survive this. Unbidden, the thought crossed his mind that it would be better to be one with the Force than live in a world where his Padawan was dead, and the manner of his own death was irrelevant.

This dark spiral was interrupted, however. At his side, under his heavy hand, Qui-Gon suddenly felt his lightsaber twitch. He pried his eyes open again, loosened his grasp on the weapon. Now it seemed to take monumental effort to simply lift his hand and free the blade to move. But something that dangerously resembled hope awakened in him, forced another breath of air into his lungs and then another, as his lightsaber began to creep across the polished floor with gentle clacking.

There. In a brilliant emerald flash, Obi-Wan flew up out of the pit, twisting in midair to land behind the startled Zabrak. Qui-Gon heard the gasp torn from the Sith as the blade sliced through him, watched him fall, then let his head drop back, eyes falling shut.

It felt like he’d been unconscious for hours when he heard Obi-Wan’s worried—desperate—voice calling him back. It felt like swimming through thick mud, but he fought it, fought to force his eyes open and look at his Padawan and see him.

Obi-Wan’s face, pale and tear-stained, slowly came into focus above him. He blinked, once, twice, willed his eyes not to roll back. His Padawan was alive, but distress was printed in every line of his face. He couldn’t leave him alone now. Qui-Gon wanted to say something, but his tongue felt thick and immovable.

In the end he simply threw an arm around quaking shoulders and pulled his Padawan into a tight embrace. Obi-Wan collapsed against him, trembling with exhaustion. Hot tears leaked from his eyes, a bitter reminder of the fear that had gripped him only moments ago.

I’m here, Obi-Wan, I’m here, he thought, softly sending the words down their reopened bond. He fought to keep his eyes open, desperately clinging to every word his Padawan poured into his ear even if his mind was too sluggish to comprehend the meaning of them anymore, muttering thanks to the Force over and over until he was too tired to do even that.

Obi-Wan was alive. That was all that mattered.