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Published Jul 16, 2020

Who Will Be First? The Jem'Hadar, Ranked

Who were these troops who created such a lasting impression? Let's find out!

StarTrek.com

Bred to serve as the Dominion's elite soldiers, the Jem'Hadar valued obedience to the Founders and victory over their enemies above all else. While their genetically-crafted nature often left these flesh and blood weapons to appear as interchangeable parts within the Dominion's war machine, certain Jem'Hadar exhibited unique traits that made them stand out from among their merciless peers who plagued the Federation and its allies throughout Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . Who were these intrepid troops who created such lasting impressions on our fandom? Let's find out!

8. Toman'torax in “To The Death”

Our list focuses on individuals, so you may notice that the renegade Jem'Hadar strike team who rebelled against the Dominion, attacked Deep Space 9 , and attempted to repair an Iconian gateway are absent from this group. Fortunately, several soldiers who were dispatched to eliminate the rogues did leave quite the impression. Toman'torax served as the Second under First Omet'iklan on the mission and frequently expressed his desire to subjugate the Klingon Empire. After engaging in a scuffle with Worf, Toman'torax was executed by Omet'iklan for disobeying orders. Although Toman'torax's appearance proved brief, fan-favorite guest star Brian Thompson's memorable performance earned the character a place in our ranking.

7. Virak'kara in “To The Death”

Another member of Omet'iklan's loyal Jem'Hadar force, Virak'kara revealed unusual details about his species's lifestyle in a conversation with Jadzia Dax. While observing Dax at her post, Virak'kara stunned the Starfleet officer by stating that the Jem'Hadar never slept, ate, or relaxed. The stone-faced soldier explained that he and his (all male) comrades could fight within days of emerging from their birthing chambers and rarely lived to be fifteen years old. Despite these differences, Dax and Virak'kara forged a somewhat cordial bond that carried over onto the battlefield during their assault on the Iconian complex.

6. Talak'talan in “The Jem'Hadar”

The very first Jem'Hadar to speak during the species's debut episode, Talak'talan imprisoned Benjamin Sisko and Quark before journeying to Deep Space 9 and paying an unwelcome visit to ops. Talak'talan's cruel and efficient attitude supplied the perfect introduction to the Jem'Hadar as he detailed the unsavory fate that befell the Alpha Quadrant starships and the Bajoran colonists who the Dominion felt had violated its borders. Talak'talan's ability to beam through the station's shields, walk through a containment field, and cloak himself from view highlighted the Dominion's frightening technological advances. Combined with the destruction of the Galaxy-class U.S.S. Odyssey , Talak'talan's ruthless demeanor foreshadowed the relentless foes that the Federation would come to know all too well during the Dominion War.

5. Ixtana'Rax and Kudak'Etan in “One Little Ship”

Unable to receive reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant, the Dominion began breeding additional legions of Jem'Hadar in the Alpha Quadrant. Appropriately referred to as “Alphas,” these specialized troops were evidently intended to supplant their elder predecessors. Ixtana'Rax, an experienced Gamma who was demoted to Second to make room for the Alpha known as Kudak'Etan, believed the new breed to be unproven and arrogant.

Episode Preview: The Jem'Hadar

When their unit captured the U.S.S. Defiant , Ixtana'Rax wisely advised his superior that Captain Sisko surely intended to stall for time and retake the ship. Kudak'Etan's clear disdain for Ixtana'Rax and Gammas blinded him to the truth, an error that eventually permitted the Starfleet prisoners to defeat the Jem'Hadar force. Oddly enough, Ixtana'Rax used his dying breath to defend Kudak'Etan's hubris by asserting that a First is not required to listen to anyone else's counsel. "One Little Ship" proved to be the only episode that shed light on the Gamma/Alpha divide, but it would have been interesting to see the subject explored further.

4. Ikat'ika in “In Purgatory's Shadow” and “By Inferno's Light”

Serving under the Vorta known as Deyos, Ikat'ika commanded the Jem'Hadar who guarded Worf, Dr. Bashir, Garak, and Martok at Internment Camp 371. When Worf was forced to fight Jem'Hadar in hand-to-hand combat scrimmages, Martok revealed that Ikat'ika had been the soldier who inflicted the wound that caused him to lose an eye. Stern and unwavering, Ikat'ika manifested a glimmer of individuality when he pronounced that Deyos did not understand the concept of honor.

When Ikat'ika and Worf finally faced off in a deadly match, the Jem'Hadar repeatedly knocked the Klingon to the ground. Ikat'ika surprisingly admitted that Worf had demonstrated his worth, but the Starfleet officer still refused to submit. Deyos ordered Ikat'ika to kill Worf, but the Jem'Hadar boldly disobeyed his superior by yielding the battle to his opponent. Ikat'ika reasoned that he could not truly defeat Worf, even if he ended the Klingon's life. Ikat'ika's commendable actions helped him land on our list, but they also propelled Deyos to order his execution.

3. Omet'iklan in “To The Death”

The Jem'Hadar who led the team that included Toman'torax and Virak'kara, First Omet'iklan took orders from the Vorta known as Weyoun (Weyoun 4, to be specific!). Omet'iklan cooperated with Sisko during their hunt for the renegade Jem'Hadar garrison, but the First stressed that he despised only his traitorous brethren more than the Federation. However, Sisko's willingness to place his body in harm's way to protect Omet'iklan on Vandros IV appeared to impress the Jem'Hadar.

On the other hand, Weyoun's decision to withhold information about the Iconian gateway from his soldiers angered Omet'iklan, who ultimately killed the Vorta for questioning his unit's loyalty. Despite this unexpected reversal, Omet'iklan vowed to hunt for the surviving defectors and underlined the fact that he still perceived Sisko to be an enemy. Nevertheless, the First willingly restrained his hatred and allowed the Starfleet officers to depart without any opposition.

2. Goran'Agar in “Hippocratic Oath”

Goran'Agar captured Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien when the Starfleet officers visited Bopak III, where the Jem'Hadar First had brought his men to escape the Vorta and break their addiction to ketracel-white. Goran'Agar believed that the planet had cured him of the need for the drug during a previous visit and hoped Dr. Bashir could discover the cause. The First saw his people as slaves to the Dominion and wished to free them from the endless wars that the Founders involved them in. Goran'Agar even questioned the senseless execution of wounded Jem'Hadar soldiers who could no longer fight.

Bashir noted that Goran'Agar seemed to be developing his own moral structure and hypothesized that liberating other Jem'Hadar from a dependency on ketracel-white might encourage them to think for themselves. The doctor felt that his work showed promise, but he eventually realized that Goran'Agar had probably never been addicted to the drug due to a random genetic mutation. As the First's soldiers began to doubt their leader, Goran'Agar chose to hunt down his subordinates rather than let them suffer from the lack of ketracel-white. In a situation that paralleled Omet'iklan's dealings with Sisko, Goran'Agar released Bashir and O'Brien so that the pair could escape. Goran'Agar represented a new future for his people, and it is very possible that he continues to survive on Bopak III.

1. Remata'Klan in “Rocks and Shoals”

The tragic circumstances surrounding Third Remata'Klan's fate has launched this particular Jem'Hadar to the top of our list. Yet another soldier willing to question the Vorta to whom he reported, Remata'Klan nonetheless perceived his obedience to Keevan as the true order of things. Keevan met with Captain Sisko in private, explained that his ketracel-white supply would soon run out, and offered to intentionally send Remata'Klan and his Jem'Hadar unit into an ambush in exchange for a way off of the planet.

Sisko reluctantly agreed, but the captain approached Remata'klan with the opportunity to surrender when the time came to spring the trap. The Third admitted that he suspected Keevan had betrayed him, yet he refused to capitulate or disobey the Vorta's orders. The ensuing firefight wiped out Remata'klan and the remaining Jem'Hadar, and one of the Starfleet guards under Sisko's command also perished. Remata'klan could have avoided the gruesome outcome, but every fiber of his existence compelled him to serve and die at the behest of the Vorta. With such dedication from their enemies, it is a miracle that the Federation and its allies managed to defeat the Dominion after two years of all-out conflict.

Jay Stobie (he/him) is a freelance writer who contributes articles to the official Star Trek website and Star Trek Magazine, as well as to Star Wars Insider and the official Star Wars website. Jay also serves as a part-time assistant and consultant advising many actors and creatives who work on his favorite sci-fi shows and films. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @StobiesGalaxy.

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E26TheJemHadar

Recap / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S02E26 "The Jem'Hadar"

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The group arrives at an uninhabited planet and the boys get to work. Quark is miserable in the wilderness and makes a nuisance of himself, provoking a confrontation between him and Sisko. Nog runs off in reaction to the squabbling, and Jake goes after him. Before Sisko and Quark can come to blows, an alien woman stumbles out of the forest. She says she's running from the Jem'Hadar, who then appear out of thin air and take the three captive. The kids return to find their guardians gone and decide to follow the footprints.

Sisko and Quark find themselves locked in a forcefield cell with the woman, who introduces herself as Eris and fills them in on the Jem'Hadar: They're the feared soldiers of the Dominion. Her homeworld was offered membership, but when they refused, the Dominion sent in the Jem'Hadar to quickly conquer them. Despite this, Sisko begins working on an escape plan. Eris has psionic powers she can use to blast out the forcefield, but they are being suppressed with a collar she's wearing. One of the Jem'Hadar finally comes to speak with Sisko and is blunt: the Dominion will no longer tolerate Starfleet boldly going through their territory.

Meanwhile, Jake and Nog manage to locate the cave where their family members are under guard. They beam up to the runabout to try and get help, but unfortunately they don't know how to disengage the autopilot or the access code to set a new course. They begin ripping things out of the craft but must ultimately try their hand at manually piloting the craft out of orbit.

The Jem'Hadar show up at the station and inform the senior staff that Sisko is being detained for questioning. He delivers a list of ships that have been destroyed for violating Dominion space. Kira is shocked to learn that a Bajoran colony in the Gamma Quadrant was also completely wiped out. Shortly afterwards, the USS Odyssey arrives, a Galaxy-class starship helmed by Captain Keogh, and they begin planning a rescue mission. The Odyssey and two runabouts piloted by Kira, Odo, Bashir, Dax and O'Brien all head into the Gamma Quadrant.

Jake and Nog pilot their partially deactivated ship out of orbit, though not without difficulty. Luckily, the rescue party arrives, and O'Brien beams over to help fix the shuttle. Meanwhile, Quark removes Eris' collar, and the captives make their escape. In space, three Jem'Hadar attack fighters engage the rescue ships. The Dominion's weapons effortlessly pass through the Starfleet shields, and the Odyssey is severely damaged.

In the midst of the fighting, O'Brien transports the captives off the planet. Now that they have what they came for, the rescue ships beat a hasty retreat for the Wormhole, but one of the fighters makes a kamikaze run on the Odyssey and destroys it. Back in the Alpha Quadrant, Quark realizes that Eris' collar has nothing in it but a locking mechanism, meaning Eris could have escaped at any time but did not. That means that the whole captivity scenario was a plot by the Dominion to plant Eris into the Federation as a spy. Eris doesn't trouble to deny it and beams herself away. Sisko grimly notes that Deep Space Nine will be on the front line if war breaks out with the Dominion. He resolves to be ready.

• Aliens Love Human Food : Quark is grossed out by Supreme Chef Sisko's jambalaya, saying that it tastes like it's got dirt in it. To be fair, there are bugs in it. Nog, however, admits to developing a taste for "hoo-man" food.
• Artistic License – Paleontology : While walking through a lush forest with lots of tall trees, Sisko states the planet they're on resembles Earth during the early Devonian period. The first trees didn't appear on Earth until the late Devonian period, and the grass didn't enter the scene on Earth until the Cretaceous, millions of years later.
• Badass Boast : Faced with a new threat from the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko ends the season with one. "If the Dominion comes through the wormhole, the first battle will be fought here, and I intend to be ready for them."
• Black Box : Subverted; Eris and company clearly expected the prisoners to simply accept the "psychic inhibitor" collar as stated when she used powers after having it removed; it really has no working parts other than the lock. This actually works on the humans, but then Quark tries to reverse engineer the "technology" for a quick profit...
• Quark says that his brother Rom is not quite as liberal as he is when it comes to parenting, even though Quark is extremely strict on everything. Not to mention that we've seen Rom is unimaginably liberal by Ferengi standards. On the other hand however, it's also true that Rom is the victim of some serious Early-Installment Weirdness . The Rom we see in his debut episode manhandling Nog and who a few episodes later is quite willing to kill Quark to gain the bar isn't the same Rom that we would become accustomed to.
• Quark's claim that the Ferengi have never engaged in slavery is pretty blatantly contradicted by the fact that Ferengi women are not permitted to learn to read, wear clothes, or participate in earning profit.
• Brick Joke : Suddenly, that runabout lesson for Jake sounds very useful, Sisko.
• Quark tries selling his captors 1,000 cases of Tulaberry wine, the same stuff he was trying to sell to the Gamma Quadrant in " Rules of Acquisition ." Quark also notes that the Ferengi have been trying to set up trade with the Dominion for a while, something first mentioned in this episode.
• Bashir tells Captain Keogh about how they fought the Maquis .
• Cardboard Prison : Sisko points out early on that their captivity is pretty weak — he, Quark and Eris are imprisoned in a single containment field, with no more than four guards on duty at any time. He puts this down to overconfidence on the Jem'Hadar's part. Turns out it was deliberate — they were meant to escape.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass : When Sisko decks a Jem'Hadar guard and then kills him with his gun, it's expected. When Quark pops another guard about to kill Sisko... well, even the commander is impressed.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : The Odyssey , a Galaxy -class starship like the Enterprise -D on TNG, is utterly decimated and destroyed by the Jem'Hadar.
• Didn't Think This Through : Upon beaming up to the runabout, Jake and Nog decide to disengage the autopilot so the computer can fly them back to Deep Space 9. Unable to deactivate it by voice command, the two end up disassembling half the computer system to turn it off. Once the autopilot is finally disabled, Jake tells the computer to set a course back to the station... only to find out the computer needs the autopilot (which is now in pieces) to fly anywhere.
• Dispense with the Pleasantries : Kira chides Talak'talan for beaming into Ops unannounced, but the Third merely gets to the point and says that they have detained Sisko.
• Eris' telekinetic powers are never seen with any other Vorta. She alone was given these powers by the Founders.
• Third Talak'talan is beamed on and off Deep Space Nine with the shield up and also walks through a raised forcefield, abilities that the Jem'Hadar would never be seen using again.
• Eris doesn't acknowledge Odo as a Founder. This is because the decision to reveal the Founders were Odo's people wouldn't be made until the hiatus between Seasons Two and Three. In-story, you could argue she didn't acknowledge Odo to avoid blowing her cover.
• The Jem-Hadar don't have the Ketracel-white tubes trailing from their necks. Those would start appearing in the season three premier.
• The entire plan with Eris doesn't make sense in light of what we would later learn about the Founders. Why set up an elaborate ruse to make the Federation take a Vorta back with them so that Vorta can spy on them when sending in Changelings who could've replaced Sisko and Quark would've been so much easier ?
• Explosive Instrumentation : It only takes a few hits on the Odyssey for consoles to explode all over The Bridge . Then again, she was hit in one of her nacelles, which has been shown to be a potential Game-Breaking Injury .

• False Innocence Trick : Eris claims that her people were conquered by the Dominion. It turns out that they're actually second-in-command after the Founders.
• Fire-Forged Friends : After working together to escape the Jem'Hadar, and getting some grievances off his chest in Quark's case, it's clear that Sisko and Quark have a newfound respect for each other.
• After beaming into Ops, the crew erects a containment field around Talak'talan. To make his threat clear, he then steps through it unfazed. During the battle, the Jem'Hadar weapons effortlessly pass through the shields.
• The Jem'Hadar ship leaving the planet pointedly ignores the orbiting Runabout because it's intended to be used for Sisko's staged escape .
• What starts as a wacky camping trip with Sisko, Quark, Jake, and Nog ends with first contact with the Dominion and the threat of war.
• This episode also serves as the Halfway Plot Switch for DS9 as a whole. While local Bajoran and Cardassian politics and the fallout from various conflicts (Wolf 359, the Occupation, etc) continue to be plot elements, the focus of the show, from this point on, is the friction between the Federation and the Dominion.
• Hypocritical Humor : Quark calls out Sisko for looking down on Ferengi and asserts that Ferengi are the ones on the moral high ground in regards to humanity's darker atrocities. He then excuses himself to pick a lock.
• Horrible Camping Trip : How the episode starts, with Sisko hoping to do some father-son bonding with Jake while out surveying a planet, only to get stuck with Nog and an endlessly moaning Quark for company. Then the Jem'Hadar show up...
• It Has Only Just Begun : Eris' parting words to Sisko: "You have no idea what's begun here."
• Knight of Cerebus : This show was always Darker and Edgier than its predecessors , but the introduction of the Dominion makes it even more so.
• The Mole / Trojan Horse : Eris turns out to be a Dominion spy who's pretending to be a fugitive from them, so that she would be taken to Deep Space Nine. She's discovered before she manages to do any damage, though.
• Meaningful Name : In Greek mythology, Eris is the goddess of discord, as befitting this Eris' status as a mole for the Dominion.
• Mythology Gag : Quark mentions "Vulcan IDIC pins" as an example of the "collectible merchandise" he'd like to market. Gene Roddenberry famously invented the IDIC pin solely for the purpose of selling Star Trek fans a bit of collectible merchandise.
• Name One : Quark challenges Sisko to name one Ferengi he actually likes, but interrupts him before he can actually answer.
• Narrating the Obvious : The executive officer on the Odyssey explains the major casualties and damage the ship is taking. What follows next is the Captain ordering the deployment of damage control teams, an incredibly obvious order the XO would have done before he even reported the damage to the Captain.
• Never Trust a Trailer : Deliberately invoked by the crew, as the destruction of the Odyssey was played up as the Enterprise in the previews. Even with the TNG crew still safe and sound, the Dominion being able to take down a ship just like it speaks volumes about how powerful they are.
• No OSHA Compliance : So a runabout's warp-containment system can collapse just because someone pulls out the wrong isolinear chip?
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore : The crew finally meets this mysterious Dominion and learn in no uncertain terms that they're not allowed to explore through their territory. And the Dominion draws the first blood by destroying the Odyssey .
• Nog is visibly soiling himself when the runabout computer indicates that there's an incoming ship.
• He also freaks out when Jake nearly triggers a warp core breach.
• One Riot, One Ranger : Deconstructed. The Odyssey being a Galaxy-class ship like the Enterprise , it's expected that she'll be able to rescue Sisko and Quark with no trouble and the Jem'Hadar will simply be a Monster of the Week . Instead, the Odyssey is effortlessly destroyed, and the Jem'Hadar go on to be a major arc villain for the entire series. Tellingly, from this point forward Starfleet begins to operate in fleet-sized groups whenever dealing with the Dominion.
• Parrot Expo-WHAT? : Nog, being a Ferengi, has never heard of jambalaya before. "Jamba-what?"
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat : Captain Keogh and Dax get into a round of this prior to leaving the station, with both getting in good hits. Dax tries to offer Keogh some blatantly obvious advice about preparing the Odyssey for combat, while Keogh snarks she should try serving on a starship. Dax smugly says she's happy where she is, implying she thinks the rundown DS9 is a more prestigious posting than the glamorous Odyssey under a man like Keogh.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse : The Jem'Hadar fighters. The Odyssey is no match for them, especially since her Deflector Shields can't block Dominion weapons.
• Plot Armor : Sisko seems conveniently lucky he's able to take on a Jem'Hadar guard in hand-to-hand combat, and that the second guard ran up to him to hit him with his gun rather than fire. But then it's revealed that this whole escape was planned, so the Jem'Hadar presumably sacrificed themselves to allow Sisko to beat them.
• Psi Blast : When Quark removes the MacGuffin protecting themselves from the Jem'Hadar's psychic powers, Eris uses psychic blasts to free Sisko and Quark and even take out some of the titular aliens. Only it was a lie, she's really working for the Dominion and the MacGuffin was fake .
• Ramming Always Works : How the Jem'Hadar destroy the Odyssey , just to prove that they're serious.
• Reasonable Authority Figure : Captain Keogh. He's hesitant to allow the DS9 crew to accompany the Odyssey on the mission to rescue Sisko and Quark because he doesn't like putting inexperienced people in the line of fire.
• Of course, the Ferengi treat their women as second-class citizens . On the other hand, "Hew-Mon" society has done some pretty awful things to women as well... some far worse than anything seen on Ferenginar. Even if the Ferengi treat women like property, at least they value property.
• Sacrificial Lion : The Galaxy -class starship Odyssey .
• Scotty Time : Keogh gives O'Brien ten minutes to find Sisko and get out. Once it's clear that they're outmatched by the Jem'Hadar, he says he only has five minutes.
• Quark, when his sleeve catches fire as he was trying to pick out a couple of bugs from the cooking pot.
• Nog outright shrieks in terror during his freakouts detailed in the Oh, Crap! entry above.
• Shout-Out : When Nog and Jake can't find Sisko and Quark, Nog suggests that they were attacked by a wild animal. Jake points out that the only surface-dwelling animals on the planet are insects. "Maybe they were attacked by a ferocious tree ."
• Some of My Best Friends Are X : Quark says this to Sisko re "hoo-mans".
• Spanner in the Works : Quark's greed and interest in telepathic-dampening technology led him to keep the collar Eris wore. When he scanned it, it led him to realize it didn't have the technology to do as it was supposed to. He promptly told Sisko and that stopped Eris cold.
• This Is Gonna Suck : Sisko is clearly less than thrilled when he learns Nog will be joining him and Jake on their trip to the Gamma Quadrant. He's even less happy when Quark insists on tagging along.
• Vitriolic Best Buds : Odo insists on joining the rescue mission — because someone has to look out for Quark. Kira : Quark? You're joking. I thought you hated Quark. Odo : I do, but I'd rather see him in jail than in the hands of the Dominion. Believe me, Major, if anything happened to him, you'd miss him too. Kira : I'd be willing to take that chance... *pauses and sighs* ...but not today.
• Wham Episode : We finally get to meet members of the Dominion, the Gamma Quadrant power which has been alluded to in several episodes during season 2. Turns out they're not happy with the Federation exploring the Gamma Quadrant, and they threaten to go to war against them if this continues. To back their threats up, they demonstrate their superior military technology in various ways, culminating with the destruction of a Galaxy -class starship.
• Wham Shot : The U.S.S. Odyssey being blown to smithereens.
• You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With : In the end, Eris warns Sisko that he has no idea what the Dominion are capable of.
• Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 02 E 25 Tribunal
• Recap/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 03 E 01 The Search Part I

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine : “Tribunal”/“The Jem’Hadar”

“Tribunal” (season 2, episode 25; originally aired 6/5/1994)

In which, on Cardassia, the truth handles you …

I suppose I should save my thoughts on the second season as a whole for the latter half of this review, but I will say this now: The last few weeks have been one heck of a run. “Tribunal” continues the trend, giving us our first close look at the Cardassian legal system, as well as giving the writers a chance to torment poor O’Brien. The show is getting good at pushing its boundaries, and extrapolating its main ideas until they make sense as a cohesive system. Which is to say, with earlier Star Trek shows, most cultures and conflicts were one-offs. Star Trek: The Next Generation was more aggressive with its continuity, but gave off a constant sense of departure, of problems resolved and left behind. Sisko doesn’t have a spaceship. He has a space station, and that means that even when he beats the Cardassians at whatever game they’re playing—as he does this week—he’ll still have to keep winning again and again and again. I’ve heard that some fans dismiss Deep Space Nine as overly grim, but while the show deals in serious subjects without blinking, I’ve never found it depressing. It’s honest, that’s all. Before this series, the franchise was about the pure utopia of the journey, of constant motion, of seeking and never being entirely satisfied. With DS9 , the franchise creates a home, and then sets to establishing the cost of defending it.

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There are plenty of reasons to like “Tribunal,” and I’ll do my best to cover all of them, but the one that strikes me most in retrospect is how neatly the episode works to undermine the requirements of its supposed genre. I’m not talking about science-fiction tropes; O’Brien’s arrest, incarceration, and trial all fit neatly into the framework of a courtroom drama, right down to the seemingly friendly prosecution (Makbar turns cold in a hurry, but we’re introduced to her criticizing her colleagues for their poor treatment of their prisoner—she does it because she wants Miles to look good for the cameras, of course), the underdog defense attorney who’s full of well-earned wisdom, and all the expected objections and over-rulings and sudden reversals this sort of story requires. And yet at every turn, these concepts are subverted and mocked. O’Brien and the other people from Deep Space Nine (particularly Odo, who is allowed to serve as the chief’s advisor and de facto defense) continually treat the trial under standard judicial rules, but that’s not how Cardassian jurisprudence works. As we’re informed again and again, when a prisoner is brought before the court on Cardassia, he or she has already been found guilty. The sentence has been decided, and the execution scheduled. The “trial” is pure performance, intended as a way to educate citizens of the importance of obeying the state, and the glory of serving the whole.

This means there’s no outlet for the tension that courtroom drama typically thrives on. At every turn, O’Brien and Odo are thwarted in their attempts to treat the situation in the usual way. No one will tell O’Brien what he’s charged with, no matter how often he asks, and when his attorney, the venerable Kovat (Fritz Weaver, a character actor who, among other things, played a fascist head of state in The Twilight Zone ’s “The Obsolete Man” ), pays him a visit, all the Cardassian offers is platitudes about how much better everything will be if O’Brien just gives in. O’Brien asks him how many cases he’s won, but even before Kovat answers, the question is moot. The judicial elements of the episode play out like a subtle black comedy, as our heroes behave in ways we’ve come to expect from such stories, and the judges and officials throw them back at every turn. We’ve heard many times before of the horrors of Cardassian law, but this is the first time we’ve really gotten a chance to see it first hand. It’s frustrating in all the right ways, to the point where it almost seems like a flaw in the episode that O’Brien is ultimately released. Sisko comes up with the right solution to the problem (i.e. the truth), but there’s something so permanent and awful about Miles’ situation that it’s hard to shake the impression that he’s doomed no matter what anyone does.

Still, as cruelly amusing as this all is, it would be difficult to watch a character we care about get put through the wringer if our heroes didn’t put up such a good show. Much of what makes the Cardassian system run is its ruthless and persistent ability to stamp out resistance through bureaucratic force. Arrest someone, humiliate them, and assure them over and over that their guilt has been verified beyond all doubt, and you haven’t just imprisoned them—you’ve gone a long way toward reducing them, convincing the individual that their self-definition is less important than the definition imposed on them by the state. O’Brien, having been raised in a society where being a person matters more than being a cog in a machine, does what he can to stand up for himself. He’s frightened, but he doesn’t back down until he’s forced to, and you never get the sense from him that he’s even considered the idea that the charges (whatever they are) might have merit. Odo turns out to be a major ally, in an unexpected but entirely sensible twist; he understands the Cardassian legal system better than anyone else on the station, and by getting involved in the case, he at least manages to give voice to the obvious problems with process. This hour could’ve been a depressing slog right up until the end, but the way O’Brien, Odo, and Keiko (watching on from the gallery) show a determined, unified face make it more thrilling and frustrating than grim.

As for the actual story, it’s fine—another example of the Cardassians trying to force the Federation presence out of the demilitarized zone via complicated, outlandish stratagem. This time, they surgically alter a Cardassian spy to look like a former Starfleet soldier named Boone, who served with O’Brien on the Rutledge . While O’Brien is rushing to go on vacation, the fake Boone bumps into him on the promenade, they exchange a few words (Colm Meaney does an excellent, “Oh hey, I have to get going, but I really am delighted to see you!"; it’s a small touch that really fits the character), and Boone records them to use as a security code to get clearance into a weapons locker, where he steals two dozen photon warheads. The idea is to make it look like O’Brien was working with the Maquis, this serving as proof of high-level Federation collaboration with the group. It’s the sort of plan you expect Lex Luthor to scribble down in his notes while watching a James Bond film, and its loopiness is especially obvious when contrasted against the rest of the episode. It works fine for what it needs to do—first get the innocent O’Brien incarcerated, then find an easy way for Sisko to both prove his innocence and force the Cardassians to release him—but it demonstrates one of the ongoing clashes on the show: the way standard genre plotting, with its tendencies towards contrivance and reliance on outrageous shocks, can come up against more ambitious characterization and thematic depth.

Science fiction is the language DS9 uses to tell its stories, and that language can occasionally fall short of the show’s ambitions. Yet, when the two dovetail together, it makes for remarkable television. “Duet” and “The Wire” were so effective because of their twists and big ideas—”Duet” was the first time we heard of the remarkable talents of Cardassian plastic surgeons, after all. But those twists stemmed from character in a way the Boone subplot doesn’t. There’s a brief mention of O’Brien’s well-known hatred of Cardassians, but it’s not really relevant, and the fact that the whole thing is a frame job shifts the focus away from what’s really at stake here. The system doesn’t work because it fakes crimes; it works because it makes every person on Cardassia a tool to be used at the government’s whims. O’Brien gets off on what is essentially a technicality. His release may sow some seeds of doubt among the citizens, but it serves as an anticlimax for an otherwise terrific hour. Thankfully, as anticlimaxes go, this one is easy to swallow; it’s not like I particularly wanted to see Miles doomed to a life of hard labor and occasional torture. Although he seems to view getting a do-over on his vacation with about as much enthusiasm.

Stray observations:

• One of DS9 ’s smaller, but very welcome, accomplishments so far: O’Brien and Keiko’s relationship. Keiko can come across as harsh at times, but their interaction makes sense, and it makes sense that Miles would be drawn to a tough woman. On TNG , their fights were played largely for laughs, but the more we see of them together on this show, the more I like them both.
• The episode goes out of its way to inform us, and then remind us, that Cardassian citizens have a molar removed for identification purposes when they’re children. (Poor Miles loses one of his teeth soon after his arrest.) This pays off when we learn Bashir was able to identify Boone as a Cardassian impostor by his missing tooth. Except 1.) the info is cool enough it doesn’t actually need to lead to anything to be worthwhile and 2.) surely there are better ways to determine someone’s species than just checking if they have enough teeth.

“The Jem’Hadar” (season 2, episode 26; originally aired 6/12/1994)

In which the Dominion makes its presence known…

So, here were at that the real conclusion of season two, with an episode that starts paying off some impressively subtle hints scattered through the previous 25 entries. On its own “The Jem’Hadar” is pretty good—but as mentioned above, I’d like to at least pay a nod to the second season as a whole before getting into the particulars of the finale. To sum up, then: It’s good. Like, “exceeding expectations” good, and in a way that completely caught me off-guard. In my time reviewing various Trek shows, I’ve grown used to expecting a specific kind of excellence; namely, the episodic kind. In reviewing a season of the original series , or TNG , I judged its success largely based on how many good-to-great hours that season held. That’s not to say I didn’t love both shows for their ensembles and respective worlds, but their main value to me was as a sort of anthology with recurring characters. While TNG flirted with serialization, its focus was still primarily on individual stories, and while I got a good sense of Picard’s Enterprise , and how the principals functioned aboard it, the episodes themselves remained by and large standalone entities.

That’s not how Deep Space Nine works. Those earlier shows followed the more traditional television model; DS9 was part of a gradual move to more long-term narrative persistence that came to define the modern television landscape, for good and bad. Here, luckily, it’s entirely to the good. There are a few standout episodes in season two (“The Wire,” “Tribunal,” “Crossover” —add your own in the comments), but what one really comes away with from watching it all is a sense of an ongoing story that’s just starting to get up to speed. Individual hours don’t matter as much as the way scenes of Sisko and others interacting and dealing with life on the station come together; the season is more than the sum of its parts. Which may be one of the reasons that DS9 never seemed as appealing to me as a kid as the original show or TNG . To get the full effect, you really do have to watch nearly everything, because even the weakest hours inform and build on that sense of continuity. Which isn’t to say you couldn’t just wander into some random episode and have fun with it, but one of the great gifts of this medium is investment over time, and DS9 is making good use of it. I look forward to watching each week in part because I just want to spend time with these people in this place, and that’s a tremendous advantage for any series. The flaws are still visible, but as long as the show maintains a consistency in character and detail, they’re not as damaging as they might be. In summary, I’m a fan, and while I’m excited for my next project, I’m also already looking forward to returning to this particular space station soon.

With that said, let’s focus on “The Jem’Hadar,” which serves to begin the Dominion’s entrance into DS9 in earnest. I’m skeptical of cliffhangers, but this one works well because it sets up story problems which aren’t intended to be resolved immediately in the next season’s première. The finale introduces an opposing force which is presumably meant to be with us for a long time, and here’s where all that stuff I was talking about above pays off: Unlike TNG ’s haphazard attempts to lay groundwork for the Borg’s reappearance, the allusions we’ve heard to the Dominion have been both organic and persistent enough to have noticeable effect. When Sisko learns that the race of reptilian soldiers who have taken him and Quark captive are the elite fighting force of the Dominion, this revelation has actual weight to it. I can’t say how effective it would have been if I’d been watching this when it originally aired (I already knew the Dominion was important going into the series), and the episode doesn’t rely on the foreshadowing for most of its dramatic impact. But it still feels like something that’s been planned and built to over time, and that wouldn’t have been possible without DS9 ’s efforts at continuity.

I wish I could’ve gone into this one without any knowledge about the plot, though, because for the first 15 minutes or so, “The Jem’Hadar” looks like it’s telling a completely different story than the one we end up with. Sisko sees Jake working on a science project, decides the project isn’t ambitious enough, and proposes a planetary survey that could also serve (in Sisko’s mind) as a father-and-son working vacation. Jake’s excited, and invites Nog along; Quark, who desperately wants permission to use the station’s video monitors to sell merchandise, tags along as well in a misguided attempt to earn Sisko’s friendship. All of which means that, for a surprisingly long time, the episode keeps it light. We get a lot of humor out of Avery Brooks's slow burn, and the way Quark’s efforts at ingratiating himself are at odds with his basic loathing and mistrust of the outdoors. But Sisko and Jake get a little time together, and Nog manages to impress the older man. Then a telekinetic alien shows up, knocks Sisko down, and gets him, Quark, and herself captured by the Jem’Hadar.

It’s an abrupt shift, although it’s not as though the tone suddenly goes full Schindler’s List . The alien, who calls herself Eris, tells Sisko that the Dominion conquered her home world, and her monologue on the subject is the first real attempt to distinguish the Dominion as baddies: apparently, they first invite new civilizations to join their ranks, and if that doesn’t work, it’s on to brutal domination. Time will tell just what drives them to conquer, but it’s already intriguing how much this sounds like the dark side version of the Federation’s handshake-and-hugs approach. In the ideal future of Star Trek , everybody can eventually be friends provided we’re all patient and understanding, and friendship means unification. It’s a lovely thought, but an optimistic one, and I like the idea that the Dominion could show how such a program could be twisted into, well, assimilation. (Come to think, the Borg are also a spin what the Federation does. Hopefully I already thought of that during my TNG reviews.) While we ultimately learn that Eris is a Dominion spy, pretending to be captive just to get a sense of Starfleet’s power and intentions, there’s no reason to believe that the story she tells isn’t true, and it’s doubtful that the Federation, or anyone else, will be able to find a peaceful means for resolving the conflict that doesn’t mean absolute surrender.

We also learn in this episode that the Dominion has been getting pissed off about the Federation’s intrusions into its territory via the wormhole, and that they’ve been planning their response for a while, which gives them an edge. Sisko only gets a chance to speak with one of the Jem’Hadar, an arrogant thug who expresses disappointment that Sisko and Quark aren’t Klingons; the makeup here is impressive, but we’ve had warriors on the series before, and time will tell just how bad these dudes actually are. What’s more intriguing is the way the hour drives home just how little our heroes know and understand about their potential enemy. We don’t even know what the Dominion is , exactly. The Jem’Hadar makes reference to the “Founders,” and while Eris claims those are just a myth, Sisko theorizes in the end that she herself was one of them—but what exactly does that mean? This helps increase the sense that the DS9 crew is about to face off against a threat that may have them significantly outmatched, a sense which is multiplied a hundredfold during the final space battle. After Sisko, Quark, and Eris (who’s still pretending to be a victim) are rescued, the group, along with the Odyssey , a Federation ship which became involved once the Jem’Hadar notified everyone whom they’d captured, head for home. But even though the good guys are retreating, one Jem’Hadar ship does a suicide run directly into the Odyssey (a much bigger ship, by the way), destroying themselves and it instantly. To sum up: Our heroes are about to face off against an enemy with powers they can’t understand, a social structure they know nothing about, and resources they can only imagine. And that enemy is willing to sacrifice itself to kill, simply to make sure they’ve left the right impression.

Well, it worked. I don’t know what happens next, but things look bad for Sisko, Kira, Odo, Dax, Bashir, O’Brien, Quark, and the rest. But that’s very, very good for us.

• Quark’s arguments with Sisko follow the “he’s a dick right up until he says something that really makes you think” model, which always annoys me a little. But Quark sells it well enough; his point that the Ferengi were never as bad as humans in their capitalist phase isn’t a bad one, and, while it doesn’t make up for him being such an irritant for most of the episode, it’s hard to completely dismiss his arguments. Plus, without his greediness, Sisko would never have realized Eris was a fake, so that’s a point for the large-lobed gentleman.
• Jake and Nog’s efforts to operate the runabout by themselves were cute, but came across a little like padding. Also, I’m surprised Sisko didn’t have some kind of fail-safe built into the autopilot that would could return the ship back to the station without him in the case of disaster. I get that he wouldn’t want Jake joyriding with the thing, but would it be that hard to give him a safe way to return home if Sisko wasn’t around?
• I’m going to assume Eris got some info off the station’s computers before she beamed away (and how frightening is it that O’Brien can’t track where the transporter signal comes from?), because otherwise, it seems like she gives Sisko a lot more information about the Dominion than she gets from him about the Federation. But maybe that was the point all along.

Next week: Happy day after the Fourth of July! We’ll return to Deep Space Nine in the fall, but I hope you’ll join me when, starting July 12th, I laugh myself to death with Monty Python’s Flying Circus .

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Jem’Hadar (Review)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the first and second seasons. Check back daily for the latest review or retrospective.

In terms of sheer quality of execution, The Jem’Hadar is probably the weakest of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ‘s season finalés. It lacks the gut punch of A Call to Arms , the shock twist of Broken Link , the atmosphere of The Adversary or even the timeliness of In the Hands of the Prophets . It is, at its most basic level, a story about a disastrous first contact that occurs during a father-son bonding trip that goes horribly wrong, ending with precious little actually advanced.

However, in terms of conceptual ideas, The Jem’Hadar is a game-changer. It is the cornerstone upon which Deep Space Nine would construct its most iconic narrative arc. It caps off two years of trying to develop the Ferengi as more than one-note jokes. It’s a bold statement about the freedom that Deep Space Nine would enjoy with Star Trek: The Next Generation retiring from the airwaves. It cemented the notion that Deep Space Nine never really dealt in two-part episodes to bridge seasons.

For Deep Space Nine , season finalés did not exist simply as pieces of Lego designed to snugly fit those other pieces at the start of the following season, crafting some illusion of continuity flow between two different seasons of television. Instead, cliffhangers on Deep Space Nine changed the rules, shook up the status quo , and teased the changing face of things to come.

To be fair, there’s always some connection between the season finalé and the next season’s opener. In the Hands of the Prophets really set the stage for The Homecoming at the start of Deep Space Nine ‘s second season. Apocalypse Rising resolved the dangling thread from the end of Broken Link within a single episode, while refusing to tidy everything into a neat package. While A Call to Arms shattered the series’ status quo , the first six episodes of the sixth season did work hard to put things back into a form that was almost recognisable. In the third season,  The Search will pick up a lot from where  The Jem’Hadar left off.

In many respects, this is a smart move from a purely practical perspective. While The Best of Both Worlds ranks as one of the highlights of nineties television, The Next Generation had a perennial problem with writing the second half of two-part episodes. Redemption, Part I is one of the strongest episodes in one of the show’s strongest seasons, however Redemption, Part II makes all manner of epic miscalculations. Time’s Arrow , Part I and Descent, Part I both have a certain amount of charm, but suffer from bloated and directionless second parts.

They’ve got her collared…

In contrast, without having to offer set-up that can conveniently be tidied up in forty-five minutes at the start of the next season, The Jem’Hadar creates problems that will linger What You Leave Behind half a decade later. The second half of Deep Space Nine ‘s second season has really been about defining what the show wants to be – about marking out its own territory as distinct from Star Trek: The Next Generation or what would become Star Trek: Voyager . The Jem ‘Hadar does this pretty effectively in a variety of ways. Perhaps the least subtle is the fact that it introduces new bad guys who destroy the Enterprise in their first appearance.

Okay, not the Enterprise. However, the Galaxy-class ship anchored at Deep Space Nine might as well be the Enterprise. A few inattentive viewers who missed Kira’s expository set-up of both New Bajor and the Odyssey might have thought that wonderful sweeping model shot was revealing that Picard and his crew had stopped by the station to lend a hand in this particular crisis.

Everything’s ship-shape here…

Even the names – the Odyssey and the Enterprise – are similar in meaning. Keogh is introduced as a distinguished older “arrogant” captain with a distinctive voice and white hair in the uniforms we associate with The Next Generation . It’s almost a shame that The Jem’Hadar couldn’t find time to film on the bridge set just to complete the impression. During the climax, it looks like Keogh is directing the action from the Odyssey’s battle bridge.

It’s no coincidence that Keogh only seems to have praise for the capabilities of the show’s two characters most rooted in The Next Generation . Preparing to venture into the Delta Quadrant to recover Sisko (… and Quark, I guess), Keogh refuses to let the meddlesome Deep Space Nine crew assist his effort. “With the exception of Major Kira and Mister O’Brien, none of you have had much combat experience,” he reminds them.

Has she seen the Eris of her way?

It feels like a sly acknowledgement that O’Brien and Kira are veterans. Veterans of combat, but also of The Next Generation , in a way. O’Brien was a recurring cast member since Encounter at Farpoint , bumped up to a regular on Deep Space Nine . Kira, on the other hand, was a character who evolved from Ensign Ro Laren when Michelle Forbes declined the invitation to become a series regular. Having Keogh single the pair out as the most valuable and experienced members of the crew cements the suggestion that he and his Galaxy-class ship represent The Next Generation .

Keogh arrives on Deep Space Nine and starts throwing his weight around, dictating terms to the crew and leading an arrogant recovery mission that goes horribly wrong. The show is hardly subtle, but it doesn’t need to be. Deep Space Nine is, as a rule, quite skeptical of the philosophy of The Next Generation . Certainly, writer Ira Steven Behr was less than impressed by the elder spin-off in his brief one-year stint as writer.

“Yes, I’m aware Picard’s seat is much more comfortable…”

However, the destruction of the Odyssey and the visit from Keogh feel somewhat essential to the episode and to the show at this point in time. I don’t normally pay much attention to the whole stardate thing, but The Jem’Hadar is specifically dated so that it begins mere hours before All Good Things… , despite the fact that it aired over two weeks later. The Jem’Hadar is about the show striking out on its own, developing into its own thing.

After all, The Jem’Hadar blows up the Enterprise – or an obvious stand-in for the Enterprise. There’s a sense that the show is asserting itself, proudly defining itself as something unique and distinct – and perhaps something of an underdog. After all, the show’s regulars survive the Jem’Hadar assault on scrappy little runabouts when the Galaxy-class Odyssey gets blown to pieces. Despite Keogh’s dismissive attitude towards the station’s crew, they manage to pull through. They get the job done.

Chasing the Dominion down…

And a lot of The Jem’Hadar is about Deep Space Nine trying to defend itself and its world view. When Dax impresses him, Keogh asks, “Lieutenant, have you ever thought of serving on a starship?” Dax replies, “I’m happy where I am.” It might not be as classy as a starship, but it’s home. Similarly, when Talak’talan wants to gush like a fanboy over the Klingons, Sisko refuses to play into Talak’talan’s geekishness. “I am not interested in discussing the Klingons,” he states, perhaps speaking for the writers facing edicts from above to make the show more “Star-Trek-y” , ironically foreshadowing the network meddling during the series’ fourth season.

In fact, the opening sequence seems intended as a defense of Deep Space Nine ‘s storytelling model, as Jake works on his science project. “That’s it?” Sisko asks. “You’re just going to watch it grow?” He could easily be expressing frustration with the storytelling mode adopted by Deep Space Nine , one favouring arc-building and character development over spectacle and “ wow” factor. “Yeah,” Jake replies, simply. “Pretty neat, huh?” It is pretty neat to watch things grow, Jake. Especially when they turn into something as impressive as this.

Feels like they’re going in circles…

It’s worth noting that this was part of the only stretch during the show’s run where it was the only Star Trek show on the air. From Tribunal through to Past Tense, Part II ,  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the only Star Trek show airing on television. It spent the rest of its run sharing the air with The Next Generation and Voyager . While some might argue this meant Deep Space Nine never really got the time in the spotlight that it deserved, you could also mount a convincing case that the lack of focus allowed it to skirt under the radar and get away with things that the other show could only dream of attempting.

The Jem’Hadar marks the end of Michael Piller’s involvement in the show, as the producer was focusing his attention (with that of Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor) on the launch of Voyager . However, Piller’s influence on the show hasn’t been keenly felt since the first half of the second season, with the aesthetics of producer Ira Steven Behr being pushed more and more to the fore since The Maquis was broadcast.

Things are heating up…

The Jem’Hadar is pretty much a mission statement from Behr. Most obviously, it finally brings the conflict between Quark and Sisko to a head, allowing Behr to explicitly state what he’d been heavily hinting at since The Nagus : the treatment of and attitudes towards the Ferengi suggests that the Federation aren’t quite as perfect and flawless as they might like to think. Behr has been fairly explicit about Sisko’s lack of tolerance towards the Ferengi way of life, and here he has Quark call Sisko out on it.

“You Federation types are all alike,” he insists. “You talk about tolerance and understanding but you only practice it toward people who remind you of yourselves. Because you disapprove of Ferengi values, you scorn us, distrust us, insult us every chance you get.” In fairness, this fits with the general subversion of the “Federation as utopia” metaphor the franchise holds so dear, building off the back of the Federation’s indifference to the suffering of its own citizens in The Maquis .

When the chips are down…

It’s also a none-too-subtle jab at the moral philosophy of Gene Roddenberry’s The Next Generation , where the Ferengi were treated as little more than capitalist stereotypes and punchlines to cheap jokes by the writing staff, the suggestion being that the franchise itself wasn’t as open-minded as it would lead us to believe. Alien cultures were treated with respect, as long as they conformed to values that the writers appreciated or approved of.

Quark mounts a blistering attack on the Federation and humanity as a whole, suggesting that humanity’s self-image and ego might be just a little bit too much. “You know, Commander, I think I’ve figured out why humans don’t like Ferengis,” Quark boasts at one point. “The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi. Greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget.”

A buddy comedy waiting to happen…

However, he pushes it a bit further. “But you’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery, concentration camps, interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you. We’re better.” Much has been made of Quark’s little speech, even though Behr clearly intends at least some of it to be tongue-in-cheek.

After all, Ferengi culture is hardly the ideal that Quark makes it out to be. Rules of Acquisition demonstrated that Ferengi females live in a perpetual state of economic slavery, denied even the right to wear clothes or earn money. Despite his posturing, Quark apparently tried to reverse engineer the collar used to keep Eris in captivity, hoping to earn a “tidy profit.” While there are legitimate avenues for such an approach, past experience suggests that Quark wouldn’t be too scrupulous in distributing it – a tool easily used for oppression.

Putting her neck on the line…

Quark is a hypocrite, and Behr shrewdly realises this. His claims about Ferengi moral superiority are a joke – a clever way of turning moral relativism on its head. (It’s a recurring theme on the show that Quark has far too much faith in the Ferengi system, despite the fact that it does nothing but bring him pain.) Quark’s trust in his belief system is a mirror to Sisko’s increasingly wavering faith in the Federation.

However, that doesn’t mean that Quark’s argument is entirely without merit. The franchise had turned the Ferengi into a bad joke, a bunch of stereotypical capitalists so brazen and so negative that The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy argued their portrayal risked “accusations of racial stereotyping, recalling the role of Jews in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.” The Federation and its values are normative. Its philosophy is arguably imperialist, as various commentators have convincingly argued.

Lighten up!

The self-centredness of the Federation is impressive, and The Jem’Hadar really hammers that home by suggesting the cost of Federation expansion into the Gamma Quadrant. The Dominion has been mentioned repeatedly on the show, since as early as Rules of Acquisition . However, when Eris first mentions the power bloc, Quark is quicker to recognise the name than Sisko.

Despite hints – in episodes like Sanctuary and Shadowplay – that the Dominion was a large expansionist power in the Gamma Quadrant, it appears that the Federation paid no heed to the warnings. The attacks on the ships in the Gamma Quadrant and the brutal murder of the settlers on New Bajor seemed to come out of nowhere, despite the fact that the name of the Dominion has been surfacing for almost a year now.

Breaking on through from the other side…

The Federation just assumed that the wide open space on the other side of the wormhole was free to explore and to tame in their own way. What makes The Jem’Hadar so shocking is the fact that nobody really seemed to expect any of this. The episode opens with Kira boasting about how New Bajor is doing, while Sisko takes his son on a jaunt to the other side of the universe, with no real regard for what else might be lurking out there, no sense that some other entity might exist that doesn’t want them poking around.

In many respects, The Jem’Hadar feels like Deep Space Nine ‘s answer to Q Who? , the wonderful second-season episode of The Next Generation that introduced the Borg to Star Trek . Both episodes are about reminding the crew that the universe can be as dangerous as it is wonderful, and that the Federation is not an unchallenged intergalactic power. There is always a bigger fish, and it’s the height of hubris to forget that.

Caught out…

The episodes also bear comparison because the Dominion are similar to the Borg. Both races are clearly constructed as a dark mirror of the Federation. In the classic Star Trek , the Klingons and the Romulans had been created as stand-ins for external threats – communists and war. With the Cold War winding down, it seemed that The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine could get more introspective. The Federation has always been roughly analogous to the United States, exporting western liberal democratic values, so the Borg and the Dominion are perversions of that.

The Borg are the ultimate consumers. They devour. They digest. They assimilate. Everything becomes one gigantic entity with billions of eyes and billions of arms, all driven by the same purpose, the same pursuit of homogenisation – it’s a dark twist on McDonalds, you can go anywhere in the universe and a Big Mac tastes the same. Except you are the Big Mac. Part of the reason they worked so well on The Next Generation is because they were a distorted reflection of the Federation.

Three is the magic number…

The Dominion is a little bit different, arguably a little more nuanced. Like the Borg, they are a composite race. Star Trek tends to be fond of describing other galactic powers as “Empires” – like the Romulan Empire or the Klingon Empire – but it’s worth remarking that the shows never really dealt with the politics of this arrangement. Up until Star Trek: Nemesis , we never saw a Romulan subject race on screen. Similarly, there’s little on-screen indication that the Klingon Empire is made up of anything other than Klingons.

However, the Borg and the Dominion are more diverse political entities. Like the Federation, they are the result of a process of expansion and inclusion. The Federation is composed of humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Betazoids and so on – however, there is room for diversity and growth. Humans can be diplomats, Vulcans can be captains. The Borg are composed of many different species, all rendered exactly the same – all unique identities removed. The Dominion are the polar opposite. Instead, the Dominion has a rigid class structure.

Deal or no deal…

Although not mentioned here, later episodes would reveal that the Dominion has specifically engineered its subjects to fill particular roles in the organisation. The script alludes to the fact in discussing the Jem’Hadar cloak, even though it isn’t mentioned on-screen:

This is the same kind of invisibility effect used by Tosk in CAPTIVE PURSUIT.  The thought behind this is that the same people who breed the Tosks as gifts to the hunters breed the Jem’Hadar as well.

This sense of structure is reinforced by the suggestion that the Jem’Hadar themselves were named for the Indian rank “jemadar” , a term with its roots in the British rule of the country. “Jemadar” was originally a term used to describe enforcers for local zamidars (often local princes displaced by British rule), but it was eventually adopted as the lowest rank of a Viceroy’s commissioned officer.

You’ve got to be kidding…

Interestingly, the Dominion races introduced in The Jem’Hadar are quite explicitly designed to mirror iconic Star Trek races. The script compares and contrasts them with several major Star Trek players:

The Jem’Hadar are genetically engineered soldiers.  Unlike the Klingons they have no interest in honor or glory.  And unlike the Cardassians and Romulans, they have no love of intrigue or politics. The closest twentieth century analogy would be the professional mercenary, but unlike mercenaries, Jem’Hadar don’t fight for material gain and can’t be bribed or negotiated with. They are the ultimate professionals. And they look scary, too.

Despite the attempt to distinguish them from Klingons, it’s worth noting that the episode also emphasises their similarities. Make-up artist Michael Westmore has pointed out that the designs for both the Jem’Hadar and the Klingons has a decidedly dinosaur influence. Both races are defined by their physical presence. Talak’talan is fascianted with the Klingons (to the point where the script describes them as “his favourite subject.”

Sisko is crossed…

“I was hoping the first race I’d meet from the other side of the anomaly would be the Klingons,” he muses. “I hear that Klingons are effective warriors. What’s that weapon they’re so fond of? The bat’leth?” He reiterates this at the end of the conversation, just in case the audience somehow missed it. “I was really hoping to meet a Klingon.” There are other interesting parallels to be made between the Jem’Hadar and the Klingons.

Despite the script’s assertion that the Jem’Hadar have “no interest in honour” , subsequent characterisation tends to suggest that they do hold true to some values. Indeed, the portrayal of Jem’Hadar seems heavily influenced by western notions of Japanese culture – The Jem’Hadar features a kamikaze attack on the Odyssey,  The Ship features the ritual suicide of the Jem’Hadar after they fail their master and Phil Morris from Rocks and Shoals compared his character to a “samurai.”

I bet the show has been wanting to do that for a while…

Given the heavy influence of western notions of Japanese culture on the portrayal and evolution of the Klingons over the course of The Next Generation , it makes for a pretty convincing similarity. Despite the script’s clear attempt to differentiate them from the Klingons, there’s a very apparent similarity there, the sense that the audience is looking a twisted and dark reflection of a very familiar piece of Star Trek mythology.

The use of the Jem’Hadar, then, seems rather interesting. After all, Klingons aren’t members of the Federation. However, they are an iconic part of the franchise and had been portrayed as a (relatively) reliable ally since the start of The Next Generation . Indeed, early sources – including the episode Samaritan Snare and the guidebook Worlds of the Federation – implied that the Klingons would have joined the Federation by the start of that show. (Apparently Gene Roddenberry believed it impossible for the Federation and Klingons to co-exist without absorption taking place.)

A lot of energy…

However, if the Jem’Hadar are meant to represent the iconic Federation adversaries-turned-allies-and-almost-members, the Vorta are an obvious twist on another iconic species. Pointy ears? Intelligent and sophisticated? Hazily-defined telepathic abilities? The voice of reason? The Vorta seem like a shadowy reflection of the Vulcans, the right-hand species of the Federation. In one of the episode’s nicer touches, Molly Hagan does the stereotypical “curious Vulcan head tilt and stoicism” while watching the cast interact, as if cataloging. (Which, in a way, she is.)

Although the franchise seemed to grow more wary of Vulcans into the nineties, Spock remains the definitive and iconic Vulcan. He’s trustworthy and loyal and honest. The Vorta, on the other hand, are scheming and manipulative. It’s not for nothing that Eirs shares a name with the Greek goddess of chaos on strife, who also inspired the name of the character Valeris in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .

She’s a Vorta, sorta…

(To be fair, the Vorta took quite a while for the writers to figure out. Tellingly, Eris is the only Vorta in the history of  Star Trek to use any form of mental power. The production team apparently tried to book actress Molly Hagan for a number of reappearances, but nothing came of it – meaning that we never got any substantive development of the Vorta until Jeffrey Combs was cast in To The Death during the show’s powerhouse fourth season.)

The Dominion is an imperialist power. “The Dominion decides that you have something that they want and then they come and take it by negotiation or by force,” Eris explains, in what Weyoun would expose as lies in  Faith, Treachery and the Great River . “Believe me, I know. I’ve seen it happen on my own world. Kurill Prime was offered entry into the Dominion. They thought our telekinetic powers would be useful to them.” Naturally, this interstellar organisation doesn’t take no for an answer.

It’s all about chemistry…

“When Kurill refused the Dominion’s offer, they sent in the Jem’Hadar,” Eris explains. “They destroyed our communications centre, they executed our leaders, and before we realised it, they had seized control of the entire planet.” It’s a fairly brutal image, the suggestion of colonial annexation providing a marked contrast to Federation diplomacy. (That said, classic  Star Trek episodes like  A Taste of Armageddon demonstrate the Federation can be quite pushy when it wants something from a smaller power, even if it would seem to draw the line at invasion.)

Indeed, the Dominion are presented as an incredibly self-centred political entity. Talak’talan’s rhetoric is not that of a hostile enemy force, but of an occupant asserting his rights. Beaming into Ops, he matter-of-factly explains, “I’m here to inform you that your commander has been detained for questioning by the Dominion.” The use of the world ‘detained’ implies an unquestionable authority and legitimacy. Ending his brief chat with Kira, he offers, “I hope we won’t have to repeat this lesson.” The Dominion sees itself as a stern father-figure, an absolute moral authority with an unquestionable right to “teach” those less civilised societies valuable lessons.

Proof that O’Brien isn’t the only character who has his vacations ruined…

What’s interesting is that The Jem’Hadar introduces us to the military might of the organisation, but the show has been hinting that the Dominion is more than merely a collection of heavies. The Skrreean, for example, were liberated by the Dominion’s decision to annex their masters’ homeworld. While Rurigan talks about how the Dominion changed his home planet, it’s never explicitly stated it was a full-blown military invasion. The Dosi seem to be either low-ranking members or trading partners with the Dominion, and are allowed to conduct their business relatively independently – the Dosi don’t seem oppressed.

So the Dominion isn’t really a simple two-dimensional villainous force.  Deep Space Nine never really delved into Dominion philosophy or politics, and only fleetingly touched on the organisation’s history. However, it’s clear that they are as much a political threat as a military one. The end of The Jem’Hadar teases that war is coming and that combat is inevitable, but it’s fascinating just how long the Dominion’s game happens to be. Their weapons are more than merely force. Although they announce their presence to the Alpha Quadrant with a series of acts that seem barbaric, it’s already obvious that they are more than just muscle.

This isn’t the end…

The only real problem with The Jem’Hadar is that it feels more like a mission statement than a compelling narrative. It seems like it might easily have been a throwaway episode from the middle of the season, with Sisko and Quark going on a camping trip before being abducted by a hostile alien species. The Jem’Hadar makes some pretty big declarations and hints at the shape of things to come, but it’s hardly a compelling narrative in its own right.

Still, there are worse problems, and there are worse ways to close out a season. The Jem’Hadar exists purely to up the ante, and it succeeds on those terms, changing not only the rules but the game that is being played.

You might be interested in our reviews of the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine :

• Supplemental: Mike W. Barr and Gordon Purcell’s Run on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Malibu Comics)
• Supplemental: Myriad Universes – Echoes and Refractions: A Gutted World by Keith R. A. DeCandido
• Supplemental: The Lives of Dax: Reflections (Jadzia) by L.A. Graf
• Supplemental: Worlds of Deep Space Nine: Unjoined (Trill) by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
• Supplemental: The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Una McCormack
• Rules of Acquisition
• Supplemental: Terok Nor #0
• Second Sight
• The Alternate
• Armageddon Game
• Playing God
• Profit and Loss
• The Maquis, Part I
• Supplemental: The Maquis – Soldier of Peace
• Supplemental: A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson
• Supplemental: Mirror, Mirror #1 – Fragile Glass
• Supplemental: The Next Generation – Dark Mirror by Diane Duane
• The Collaborator
• The Jem’Hadar

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13 Responses

In the TNG episode Samaritan Snare when Wesley asked Picard “was this before the Klingons joined the Federation?” I always thought that “joined forces with the Federation” would have been a better choice of words. I disagree with Gene Roddenberry’s assertion that absorption into the Federation is the only way the Klingons would ever make peace with them; they’re far too militaristic for that.

I’m glad Darren that you likened The Jem’Hadar to Q Who because I feel the same way. Both episodes are game-changers that redefine either series and neither is ever the same again.

Thanks David! There is also something creepy (and Borg-esque) about the idea that the only way the Federation can peacefully exist is to “absorb” its enemies instead of finding common ground with them.

Much like Michael Eddington told Sisko in For the Cause. That type of character assassination never assailed TNG’s safer horizons.

“Similarly, there’s little on-screen indication that the Klingon Empire is made up of anything other than Klingons.”

Honestly? It’s best to assume that is actually exactly how it is. That Klingons gave up on the worlds they conquered after events of Undiscovered Country (or at least sent their native populations somewhere else) and now the Empire just consist of colonized worlds. Otherwise, it makes our heroes look like, frankly, pretty shitty people for being friends with unapologetic assholes like that.

To be fair, I think The Mind’s Eye makes it clear that the Klingons are still an imperialist power into the twenty-fourth century, in that it concerns a rebellious colony. (And there’s a sense that it’s “colony” in the imperial nineteenth century sense, not in the more idealistic twenty-fourth century sense.)

I honestly think that’s an interesting point that the franchise never properly explores, the compromises inherent in making peace with the Klingons, whose values are so anti-democratic in nature. Deep Space Nine broaches this a few times, but never really dives into what happens when the Federation is forced to confront the fact that the Klingons are not a nice society.

(For example, although House of Quark confirms that the Empire is very misogynistic, Sisko never has to deal with it head on, it’s just taken for granted. The closest thing to a true clash is probably Sons of Mogh, when Worf almost helps Kurn commit ritual suicide, and Sisko makes it clear that multiculturalism does not extend that far.)

It is certainly a nice extrapolation of the idea of the Federation as a twenty-fourth century United States. Are alliances with countries that violate civil rights and which reject basic human rights justifiable in the pursuit of stability and peace?

One thing bothered me aside from the telekinetics: Shouldn’t Eris be programmed to rever Odo in the last scene? Or did she just not recognize him to be a Founder? (Or, less nerdy: Was this aspect of the Vorta not developed then by Behr & Co.?). Also I found the Jem’Hadar’s technological superiority a bit much in comparison with later seasons.

What I like about this episode is that despite its dark content there were a lot of comedic scenes and small touches. Odo and Kira discussing Quark, Quark’s hysterical reaction to nature, Odo & Nog dissecting the autopilot just to find out that this way they cannot automatically go to the wormhole, and so forth.

Reportedly, the decision to make Odo a Founder only occurred in the gap between the second and third seasons. Behr and Piller decided it while plotting The Search, I think. A lot of Deep Space Nine’s big plotting twists seemed to be developed like this, which is not the worst way to plot a story – it means that the twists always serve the individual narrative at least.

That makes sense, thanks. Regarding your last statement: Yes! Though Babylon 5 for instance was cut out from the start I guess and they still managed to tell good stories that seemed not to diminish the individual episode for the sake of telling explosive cliffhangers or killing off characters.

Markus, it’s Jake and Nog who disassemble the autopilot. Although, I agree that they go to all the trouble of disabling it, only to find the Runabout won’t fly them back to the wormhole without it.

Uhm… of course it was Jake and Nog. My mistake 😉 Too many short names.

The female Vorta in this episode shares her name with the Greek goddess of strife, Eris, who threw the golden apple into the party on Olympus and kick-started the events that led to the Trojan War. The Trojan War directly led to the events of The Odyssey, the name of the galaxy-class-starship which was destroyed in this episode. Coincidence?

(I’m not the first person to figure this out, but I haven’t seen anyone comment on it here).

I don’t think any of DS9’s ‘season finales’ really rank up there with the greats, outside of Call to Arms and the first hour of What You Leave Behind. In The Hands of the Prophets is quite good as well.

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• The Inventory

Deep Space Nine Was Getting Good Long Before the Dominion War

Star trek 's compelling exploration of the stress points in its utopia didn't start when the dominion showed up— deep space nine was cooking long before that..

A lot of Star Trek opinion is based on the paradoxical idea that the series within the franchise simply “get good” at some point. TNG ’s not TNG until Riker has a beard , we say, ignoring all the fantastic ideas the series got into before that. The idea of Trek shows usually having a dodgy first season has been thoroughly refuted at this point in the modern renaissance, and was arguably not entirely true even before that.

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And then there’s Deep Space 9 —simply exquisite, remarkable television, perhaps the franchise’s darkest, finest hour ... but only, we’re to believe, once the show begins tackling the Dominion subplot and its eventual escalation into all-out galactic war. Except I’ve been revisiting the show from the beginning recently, and cannot help but think that such a framing does DS9 a huge disservice. While the Dominion War forced open the cracks in Star Trek ’s idealized world, those cracks have always been there, and DS9 was prying them open with gleefully gritted teeth from the get-go.

I already got an inkling of this revisiting the debut season of the series last year for its 30th anniversary—and found remarkable gems in a season that most Trek fans tell you is not worth checking out beyond the establishing premise of the show. But season two really picks on up on the threads laid down across season one of the various tensions still at play in the messy story scenario DS9 found itself a home in, where most other Star Trek series simply moved on to the next adventure: what happens when a society is saved from violent oppression, and Starfleet steps in?

From the get-go, we see the tinderbox of the various struggles Bajor’s Provisional Government faced establishing itself in season one—an issue we mostly saw explored through the eyes of Major Kira and her own exasperations with both Starfleet and her past as a resistance fighter—explode in season two, as the machinations of Vedek Winn (the always remarkable Louise Fletcher , lacing every utterance of “My child” with more venom than thought humanly possible) set the stage for a coup attempt that sees Deep Space Nine become a battleground long before the show became the “war show.” Settling the Bajoran coup d’etat early on in season two likewise creates a ripple effect throughout the stories being told, ones we really begin to see reflected in the two-part storyline “The Maquis.”

A fascinating mirror to the tensions of the Bajoran/Starfleet conflict of season one—the idea that people are looking at our heroes and asking them what the point of them being here on the frontier is really worth—“The Maquis” explores the establishment of, and the beginnings of wide-scale dissent with, a guerrilla group of Federation colonists in the demilitarized zone established between the Cardassian Union and the Federation. Starfleet’s diplomacy re-drew lines of territory between the two powers, changing the control of colony worlds in that area of space and uprooting the lives of civilians—not members of Starfleet, just beings from the Federation and from Cardassia alike—without a care in the world. It’s that careless degree of thought and consideration is really what comes through in “The Maquis”—we’ve seen Starfleet officers humbled by hubris before this in Star Trek , but rarely has Starfleet as an entity, and even the Federation, been portrayed as so ignorant as they are in these two episodes.

Commander Sisko and his team investigate reports of conflicts between Cardassian and Federation colonists—including a terrorist attack on DS9 that destroyed a Cardassian ship—with Starfleet’s liaison to the region, Calvin Hudson. As they do so, the terrible plight civilians on both sides are facing, from the Cardassian military commander’s subtle attempts to destabilize the region further and play intra-command politics, to Starfleet’s attempts to police from afar, becomes incredibly clear. But as the revelation of the Maquis’ existence (and the twist that Hudson himself has resigned from Starfleet to aid them) emerges, and tensions begin to ramp up towards open conflict, DS9 bares its fangs directly at Star Trek ’s utopia in an absolutely stunning scene in part two of “The Maquis.”

Recieving a meeting in person with Admiral Nechayev in his office on DS9, Sisko, already reeling from his old friend Hudson’s betrayal, can barely contain his disdain when he’s simply told by Starfleet that if he establishes a dialogue with the Maquis, they will remember that they are citizens of the lauded, grand Federation, and the day will be saved—and that because it’s all that simple, he’ll be getting no extra help from Starfleet beyond such sage advice.

The second Nechayev leaves his office—and crucially, a likeminded Kira enters— Avery Brooks unleashes himself . We’ve known up to this point that Sisko is not a man afraid of throwing a few punches, literally or otherwise, or that he’s willing to keep his sense of justice in check, but even for all the traumatized disdain he had for Jean-Luc Picard in DS9 's premiere , we’ve never seen him unload on Starfleet like he does here, blasting the Federation for looking outside its window and nowhere else. “It’s easy to be a saint in paradise,” he rails, “but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there, in the demilitarized zone, all the problems haven’t been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints: just people .”

Star Trek has always characterized itself as a series about people—about the best and brightest of ourselves going out into the stars to explore, to defend innocents from justice, to preach and practice the ideals of their post-war, post-scarcity, post-shades-of-grey utopia. But in one stirring speech, DS9 puts forward that these are the people that Star Trek should never have been about: it’s the people on the fringes of that society, shaped by the decisions of its leadership, and never supported to put those decisions into practice, only judged when their world doesn’t match up to the well-maintained gardens of Starfleet Academy, the pristine hallways of its San Francisco command center, or even the plush carpet of a Galaxy-Class’ bridge . What on earth are those people meant to do when things go wrong?

“The Maquis” is a fundamental stepping stone to the stresses Deep Space Nine would explore with the Dominion, starting shortly after in season two’s finale, “The Jem’Hadar.” Already having shown just how good Starfleet Command is at letting down its own people, in giving the Federation a seemingly overwhelming foe in the Dominion’s titular footsoldiers, we see how thoroughly unprepared the Federation has been left. But its hubris and ignorance was not established in its response to the Dominion, and the war that was to come—it was established where Deep Space Nine has always worked best: in the muck of it all, on the edge of the galaxy, with the people trying so hard to do the good work with the little they’ve got. And that was something it was doing from the very beginning .

Deep Space Nine is available to stream now on Paramount+.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

Star Trek: DS9 Predicted The Klingon-Cardassian War 2 Years Earlier

• Deep Space Nine accurately predicted the Klingon-Cardassian War two years before it occurred in season 4, destabilizing the Federation's relationships.
• The addition of Worf to the DS9 cast in season 4 marked a reboot for the show, improving public perception significantly.
• The conflict between Cardassians and Klingons in Garak's novel led to devastating losses for Cardassians, eroding their culture and autonomy.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine predicted a war between the Cardassians and Klingons two years before the conflict broke out in DS9 season 4. The Klingon-Cardassian War was a flashpoint in the conflict between the Federation, their allies, and the Dominion. Instigated by a Changeling infiltrator within the Klingon Empire, the war between the Klingons and Cardassians raged between 2372 and 2373 . The bloody conflict was a successful attempt to destabilize the Federation's relationships with its allies, and was a key moment in the lead up to DS9 's Dominion War .

The conflict with the Klingons was so severe that it inspired Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) to have Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) assigned to DS9 full time as both an advisor and tactical officer. The Klingon-Cardassian War, and the addition of Worf to the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in season 4 was a soft reboot for the show, that led to a significant improvement in public perception of DS9 . However, a throwaway line in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 22, "The Wire", predicted the whole conflict, even before DS9 's writers conceived of the Klingon-Cardassian War .

I Didnt Know Where Roddenberry Got The Name Klingon In Star Trek Until Now

Ds9 predicted star treks klingon-cardassian war 2 years earlier, "who wins" "who do you think".

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 22, "The Wire" centers on the friendship between Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) as DS9's chief medical officer fights to save the Cardassian tailor's life. With Garak's condition stabilized by the end of the episode, Garak and Bashir resume their weekly lunch dates, where they discuss the merits of Federation and Cardassian literature. Garak lends Bashir a novel set in a potential future where the Cardassian Union is at war with the Klingon Empire . When asked by Bashir who wins the war, Garak wryly replies " Who do you think? "

"The Wire" is a pivotal episode for Garak and the Cardassians, as it introduces the Obsidian Order, and officially names the Cardassians' home planet as Cardassia Prime.

The Cardassian-Klingon war in Garak's novel was not intended as ominous foreshadowing by writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe. Instead, it was a joke about how Garak saw his taste in literature as more refined than Bashir's, despite it being jingoistic propaganda about the Cardassians' superiority over the Klingon Empire. It was only later, when Rick Berman suggested adding Worf to the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , that the idea of a conflict between the Klingons and Cardassians was devised as a way to justify bringing Michael Dorn's beloved Star Trek: The Next Generation character aboard .

Garak Was Wrong, The Cardassians Lost The Klingon War

"please, doctor. spare me your insufferable federation optimism. of course it will survive, but as not the cardassia i knew.".

The war between the Klingon Empire and the Cardassian Union effectively came to an end when Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) negotiated for the Cardassians to join the Dominion. In the short term, this meant that the Cardassians were able to repel the Klingon forces with the help of the Jem'Hadar in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 15, "By Inferno's Light". In the long term, it led to a longer conflict that ultimately decimated Cardassia Prime. The alliance with the Dominion cost the Cardassians dearly, as their autonomy was eroded by the tyrany of the Female Changeling (Salome Jens) and Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs).

Garak and Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) aided the Cardassian military in rising up against the Dominion in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's finale, but their former allies unleashed devastating reprisals against Cardassia Prime. Eight hundred million Cardassians died, a combination of the losses incurred during the Battle of Cardassia, and those incurred by the Dominion's violent reprisals. Gul Dukat may have secured the Cardassians a momentary victory in the war against the Klingons, but he signed the death warrant for eight hundred million of his fellow Cardassians and erased much of the culture, art, music, and literature that was so beloved by Garak.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are streaming now on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, Ren Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

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The Abandoned

• Episode aired Oct 31, 1994

Odo tries to change the nature of a rapidly maturing Jem'Hadar infant Quark finds, while Sisko tries to break his son's relationship with a 20 year old Dabo girl. Odo tries to change the nature of a rapidly maturing Jem'Hadar infant Quark finds, while Sisko tries to break his son's relationship with a 20 year old Dabo girl. Odo tries to change the nature of a rapidly maturing Jem'Hadar infant Quark finds, while Sisko tries to break his son's relationship with a 20 year old Dabo girl.

• Avery Brooks
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Michael Piller
• Rene Auberjonois
• Alexander Siddig
• 10 User reviews
• 5 Critic reviews

• Commander Benjamin 'Ben' Sisko

• Constable Odo

• Doctor Julian Bashir
• (as Siddig El Fadil)

• Lt. Jadzia Dax

• Chief Miles O'Brien

• Major Kira Nerys

• Jem'Hadar Teenager

• Alien High Roller
• Jem'Hadar Boy
• Star Fleet Crew Member
• (uncredited)

• Bajoran Woman

• Holographic Warrior
• Michael Piller (showrunner)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia The infant Jem'Hadar appears quite human, and only develops the traditional scaly appearance as he matures. In an interview, make-up artist Michael Westmore explained that was because there were restrictions that forbid applying glue or makeup to an infant. A small prosthetic was applied to the infant actor's forehead with KY jelly, which was easily removed after filming.
• Goofs In the infirmary, when Bashier is administering the ketracel white, he first says he will start with 2 milligrams and then bumps it up to 3 cc's. These are not the same measurements. Milligram is a mass and a cc is a volume. Assuming the density of the white is the same as water, a cc would equal 1 gram of white or 1000 milligrams.

Mardah : First rule of dabo is, "Watch the wheel, not the girl".

• Connections Featured in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: What You Leave Behind (1999)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Dennis McCarthy Performed by Dennis McCarthy

User reviews 10

• planktonrules
• Dec 20, 2014
• October 31, 1994 (United States)
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The Vorta were a humanoid species genetically-engineered by the Founders of the Dominion to act as field commanders, administrators , scientists , and diplomats . The Vorta saw themselves as those who "served the Founders."

• 1 History and sociology
• 2 Physiology
• 4 Food and beverages
• 5.1 Appearances
• 5.2.1 Origins
• 5.2.2 Evolution
• 5.2.3 Trivia
• 5.3 External links

History and sociology [ ]

The Vorta believed, perhaps apocryphally, that they previously existed as small, timid, ape -like forest dwellers living in hollowed-out trees to avoid predators , of which there were many, on their homeworld . Legend has it that one day , a family of Vorta hid a Changeling from an angry mob of " solids " that were pursuing it. In return, the Changeling promised that, one day, they would be transformed into powerful beings and placed at the head of a vast interstellar empire that would stretch across the galaxy . ( DS9 : " Treachery, Faith and the Great River ")

Apparently in fulfillment of the Founders' earlier promise, the Vorta were genetically changed by them into humanoids and were employed at the highest level of the Dominion, as the Founders' tools of conquest. Perhaps the most important of the genetic alterations made to the Vorta was an intrinsic belief that the Founders were gods . This ensured the Vorta's absolute obedience to the Founders. ( DS9 : " Treachery, Faith and the Great River ") Weyoun, while speaking to a Founder would typically assume a submissive posture, holding his hands down by his sides with palms faced out and slightly bowing his head . ( DS9 : " Call to Arms ", et al. )

Because of their high status within the Dominion, many species mistakenly assumed that the Dominion is led by the Vorta. In reality, the Vorta merely acted as its administrators, commanders, scientists, and diplomats, operating under the authority of the Changeling founders. Owing to their position in the Dominion hierarchy, the Vorta also served as the commanders of the Jem'Hadar . A single Vorta commanded each Jem'Hadar ship and the Jem'Hadar First was directly responsible to that individual, though the other Jem'Hadar were instead responsible to the First. The Vorta were tasked with the distribution of ketracel-white , a drug that ensured the loyalty of the Jem'Hadar (although it had been indicated that this was not entirely necessary). ( DS9 : " To the Death ")

Other Vorta were doctors . By 2375 , Weyoun had a team of Vorta doctors working night and day attempting to find a vaccine for a morphogenic virus afflicting the Founders. At one point, the Female Changeling decreed that they were to document their research and should then be eliminated and replaced by their clones. She felt that perhaps a fresh perspective might speed matters along. ( DS9 : " Penumbra ")

Physiology [ ]

Vorta had pale skin , violet eyes , and elongated ears that were completely joined to the rest of the head. The Founders altered the Vorta genome to include a sense of hearing greater than that of most other humanoid races, but they had comparatively weak eyesight. Vorta were immune to most forms of poison ; Weyoun once observed that this trait "came in handy as a diplomat." ( DS9 : " Favor the Bold ", " Sacrifice of Angels ", " Ties of Blood and Water ")

Eris using her telekinetic abilities

At least one Vorta agent, Eris , was capable of generating powerful blasts of telekinesis , similar in strength to a standard-issue phaser set to stun. It is unknown how widespread this ability is, though it does not appear to be all that common. ( DS9 : " The Jem'Hadar ", Star Trek Adventures - Alpha Quadrant )

Vorta only had a limited sense of taste and aesthetics. They enjoyed kava nuts and rippleberries , as they purportedly did before they were genetically engineered, but little else. Vorta generally had no appreciation for art . ( DS9 : " Favor the Bold ", " Treachery, Faith and the Great River ")

Unlike the Jem'Hadar, there were both male and female Vorta in service. If a Vorta was killed, they could be replaced with a clone , which retained all the memories of their predecessor through an unspecified process. Vorta clones could occasionally become defective, taking on different personality traits than those of their predecessors ( see Weyoun 6 ). ( DS9 : " Ties of Blood and Water ", " Treachery, Faith and the Great River ")

Vorta regarded their previous incarnations as distinct individuals from themselves, referring to previous clones by number or as "my predecessor". Even non-defective clones would exhibit slightly different personalities to other incarnations of the same Vorta. For instance, while Weyoun 4 found the ritual distribution of ketracel-white tedious, later Weyouns quietly reveled in the power it gave them; and Weyoun 5 was more introspective and philosophical than other Weyouns, openly musing on the will of the Founders and their choices in engineering the Vorta. ( DS9 : " To the Death ", " A Time to Stand ", " Favor the Bold ")

In the event of capture, Vorta were expected to commit suicide via their termination implant . Vorta were told that this death was quick and painless, but this proved not to be the case. ( DS9 : " Treachery, Faith and the Great River ")

• See : Unnamed Vorta

Food and beverages [ ]

• Rippleberry

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

• " The Jem'Hadar " ( Season Two )
• " The Search, Part II " ( Season Three )
• " To the Death " ( Season Four )
• " The Ship " ( Season Five )
• " In Purgatory's Shadow "
• " By Inferno's Light "
• " Ties of Blood and Water "
• " In the Cards "
• " Call to Arms "
• " A Time to Stand " ( Season Six )
• " Rocks and Shoals "
• " Behind the Lines "
• " Favor the Bold "
• " Sacrifice of Angels "
• " Statistical Probabilities "
• " The Magnificent Ferengi "
• " Far Beyond the Stars "
• " One Little Ship "
• " Honor Among Thieves "
• " Inquisition "
• " In the Pale Moonlight "
• " Tears of the Prophets "
• " Image in the Sand " ( Season Seven )
• " Shadows and Symbols "
• " Treachery, Faith and the Great River "
• " Penumbra "
• " 'Til Death Do Us Part "
• " Strange Bedfellows "
• " The Changing Face of Evil "
• " Tacking Into the Wind "
• " The Dogs of War "
• " What You Leave Behind "

Background information [ ]

Origins [ ].

The Vorta were initially conceived as rugged space traders, what Ira Steven Behr has referred to as " Brian Dennehy -types." ( The Birth of the Dominion and Beyond , DS9 Season 3 DVD special features) He elaborated, " At the beginning, we thought the Vorta were going to be big burly kinds of humanoids that looked like Brian Dennehy or Bob Hoskins . But it didn't work out like that. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 154))

Robert Hewitt Wolfe speculated that the Vorta supplied the Hunters with genetically engineered Tosks . ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 154)) Wolfe also described the Vorta as "the nice guy [merchant]s who would have sold anti-gravity tanks and phaser rifles to the Mongol s in the 1500s ." ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 113 , p. 67) Additionally, he explained, " They were supposed to be kind of sexy, and ingratiating, and a little oily. " Wolfe wrote about the Vorta in an early Dominion-defining memo, at which point he knew that the Vorta (and the Jem'Hadar) had been genetically engineered by the Founders. " I think, to a certain extent, the Vorta's ability to pull the wool over people's eyes is due to a bit of genetic engineering, " Wolfe speculated. " On the other hand it's training, but I think if they do have any kind of psychic ability it's looking at someone and knowing what they want, and what their motivations are. They can then turn around and exploit those things. " When he wrote the memo, Wolfe was entirely unsure what the Vorta were like before their DNA was altered by the Founders. " We didn't know what the Vorta started out as, " he noted. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 13 , p. 57)

The Vorta makeup took approximately two and a half hours to be applied. " And yet when you see the Vorta it doesn't really look all that complicated, but it is, " remarked Weyoun actor Jeffrey Combs . He further explained that the look of the Vorta was a collaboration between the makeup and hair departments, and that traveling back-and-forth between the two was what made the process longer. Combs opined that the Vorta makeup was easier to wear than the Ferengi makeup. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 61) He also stated about the Vorta makeup, " [It] was quite comfortable. It was a longer makeup, because hair was involved. " Unlike the Ferengi makeup, the Vorta equivalent allowed the wearer to hear quite well, as the Vorta "ears" actually were small holes. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 17 , p. 19)

Costume Designer Robert Blackman dressed the Vorta in sophisticated costumes which had details that were very alike. A typical Vorta suit included an asymmetrical tunic with unusual fabrics, and a wide, shawl-like collar. ( Star Trek: Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier , p. 202)

Evolution [ ]

Following " The Search, Part II ", the Vorta seemed to disappear for a while. This was because the DS9 writing staff was extremely busy with other things. Since the Vorta were considered vital to future stories, though, they were eventually brought back late in DS9 Season 4 , as a way of keeping the Founders mysterious and withdrawn. " It was necessary to see the Vorta again, as the conduit between them and the Jem'Hadar, " explained Ira Behr. That idea led to the possibility of the Vorta having enmity with the Jem'Hadar, and vice versa, which inspired the return of the Vorta in " To the Death ". ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 168))

Before portraying Weyoun in "To the Death", Jeffrey Combs had never seen a Vorta. " I had no idea what a Vorta looked like until the makeup was done at 6:30 in the morning, when I looked in the mirror, " he recalled. [1]

Jeffrey Combs was, however, instrumental in developing the Vorta. " I kind of had a lot […] [of] input into kind of discovering and fleshing out who this species were, " he remembered, " and how they carried themselves, and how they operated and deceived and reassured you and had you… killed. " [2] Combs enjoyed influencing "what this whole race of people is, what the Vorta's values are and what makes them tick." ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 33 , p. 48) Writer Terry J. Erdmann noted about Combs, " He's one of the reasons the Vorta became so important. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 17 , p. 92) A specific example of how Combs influenced the Vorta was by deciding that, via their body language, they "put people at ease." ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 32, Nos. 4/5, p. 83)

While working on "To the Death", DS9's in-house writers formed the opinion that the Vorta were a significantly more fascinating species to explore than the Jem'Hadar, as Jeffrey Combs later explained; " That's when they realized that, with Weyoun, it was much more interesting to examine the keepers than it was the Jem'Hadar themselves. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 123 , p. 65) In fact, once "To the Death" introduced the character of Weyoun as played by Combs, the DS9 producers found difficulty with thinking of the Vorta in any other way. This impacted the species when it came time to cast other Vorta roles. " It's really tough to find actors who can play the many colors that he [Combs] gives it, " Ira Behr lamented. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 372))

Although Weyoun dies in "To the Death", establishing that the Vorta were genetically engineered, in DS9 Season 5 installment " Ties of Blood and Water ", allowed the writing staff to bring the character back as a clone. " As the writers would have it, they merely decided that the Vorta are aliens very adept at cloning, " noted Jeffrey Combs. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 60) Concerning how the advent of Vorta cloning techniques facilitated the return of Weyoun, Ira Behr commented, " It seemed like a viable way of doing it. " The idea of introducing cloning into Vorta society also fit well with the Founders having been established as skilled at genetic engineering. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 442)) Yet another reason why the Vorta cloning idea was conceived was that the writing team felt it was a way they could distinguish the Vorta from other Star Trek species. The change was therefore one of multiple ways that the writers tried to distinguish the species of the Dominion as being unique. ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 113 , p. 67)

Although the fact that a Vorta clone retained the memories of their predecessor wasn't initially established, Jeffrey Combs suspected at the end of the fifth season that this was the case. " The Vorta have probably succeeded in being able to clone with everything intact, including memory, " he reckoned. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 60) Bradley Thompson later hypothesized, " We assume […] they download their memories every so often into some kind of 'brain jar.' It's just like backing up a computer program. You still have what you had the previous time you backed it up. But if you had a bad disk or something like that, it's going to be a corrupted copy. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 618))

In an ultimately unused line of dialogue from the first draft script of "Ties of Blood and Water", Weyoun commented, " The Vorta will soon be a common sight in the Alpha Quadrant. "

Jeffrey Combs was of the opinion that a less serious aspect of the Vorta was introduced in "Ties of Blood and Water". " [We learned] that the Vorta […] have a sense of fun. They do love games, " Combs observed. " That's the one thing that I'm exploring – their genuine joy and a childish enthusiasm for everything. So at least we got that conveyed in that episode. " Similarly, Combs thought the absolutism of the Vorta mindset was explored in subsequent season five episode " In the Cards ". " I think that you see the lethal side of these [Vorta], " he said. " They'll hold no quarter. They won't take any nonsense . " Suspecting that the Vorta and the rest of the Dominion were manipulating Dukat when they form an alliance in the fifth season, Combs stated, " I don't think the Vorta trust anybody […] The Vortas [sic] are very gentle and pleasant cobras. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 29, Nos. 6/7, p. 60)

Just before DS9 Season 6 began airing, Ira Behr declared that the Vorta would be significantly more fleshed out during the course of the season. " This season we're going to be working on the Vorta, " he predicted. " We haven't even touched on the Vorta all that much. " By this time, Behr also felt that all the other Vorta were far less satisfying characters than Weyoun. ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 30 , p. 11) On the other hand, fellow writing staffer Ronald D. Moore commentated, " I think we have started to realize that the Vorta are more fun to play with because the guy holding the leash on the dogs at his command is very interesting. " ( Star Trek: Communicator  issue 113 , p. 67)

Some new details regarding the Vorta were added, through the characterization of Weyoun, in a six-part Dominion War arc at the start of the sixth season. These facets of the species were introduced by the show's writing staff and Jeffrey Combs. " They explored the Vorta a little bit more, " said Combs, " and through me, let some of their weaknesses be known. " Speaking from the perspective of the Vorta, Combs referred to these vulnerabilities as "chinks in our armor." ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 68) The inadequacies specifically included "poor eyesight and no sense of aesthetics," stated Combs, who went on to comment, " I thought that was just great. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 43 , p. 22)

Vorta-playing actors Iggy Pop and Christopher Shea as Yelgrun and Keevan in DS9 : " The Magnificent Ferengi "

At the end of the sixth season, Jeffrey Combs was extremely pleased with how the DS9 writers were continuing to develop the Vorta. " Through their writing they are really exploring who these guys are. That's great, " he commented. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 68)

Much of the workload which Makeup Supervisor Michael Westmore had to contend with during the seventh and final season of DS9 consisted of manufacturing Vorta ears for the character of Weyoun (along with Klingon foreheads for Worf ). ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 594))

In an initial form of the story for DS9 Season 7 entry " Treachery, Faith and the Great River ", it was eventually revealed that the Vorta were intended to be replaced by a new Dominion race of warriors named the Modain, resulting in "the phasing-out" of all the Vorta. As the story evolved, the concept of a Modain hatchery developed into some references to the Vorta cloning process, although the idea of the Vorta being replaced by the Modain was essentially discarded, instead changed into the replacement of Weyoun 6 by Weyoun 7. ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 617))

The notion of revealing some backstory about the Vorta, in "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" (in whose title the word "faith" was intended to refer to the Vorta religion), was thought up by Ira Behr, as a way to deepen Weyoun 6's backstory. " Ira finally hit upon the idea of telling the story behind how the Vorta formed their alliance with the Founders, " David Weddle recollected. With a shrug, Behr himself explained, " The episode called for it. I like to get the audience thinking one way about a character or a race, making them think that these are definitely the bad guys. Then you slip something like this in so they have to reevaluate the opinion you've already given them. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (pp. 618-619))

Jeffrey Combs was appreciative of how much insight into the Vorta was provided for viewers in "Treachery, Faith and the Great River". [3] He elaborated by saying that one thing he highly valued about how the species was developed in that episode was how he was " able to bring to life all that backstory, of where the Vorta came from, and why they are so beholden to the Founders, and why they are so ingrained in their loyalty to them. " Combs added, " I was learning all along with everybody else. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 32, Nos. 4/5, p. 83)

The Vorta backstory in "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" was also popular with several of the DS9 writers. David Weddle reminisced, " It was brilliant. It was the one thing that we needed. " Ira Behr commented about the Vorta, " These are still the bad guys, but now, at least, you understand something about why. So I just loved that the Vorta, this calculating, Machiavellian race, started out as Hobbit-like cute little creatures who were genetically altered and directed to do these horrible things. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (pp. 618 & 619)) However, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who had left the series by the time "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" was in development, got the mistaken impression that, prior to their contact with the Founders, the Vorta were non-sentient "squirrels!" He remarked, " I thought [that] was pretty funny. " ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 13 , p. 57)

In an ultimately unused line of dialogue from the first draft script of " The Changing Face of Evil ", Damar remarked, " Actually, every Vorta I've ever met is exactly like [Weyoun 8]."

Jeffrey Combs suspected the Vorta were too clever to be affected by the destruction of their cloning facilities. " If you don't think that the Vorta are clever enough to not put all their cloning eggs in one basket, you're sadly mistaken. They're out there somewhere! " he exclaimed. ( Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 17 , p. 18) Combs made much the same statement to Ira Behr, later recalling, " I said to Ira, 'If you think that the Vorta have all their clones in one basket, you've got another think coming.' " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 708))

At one stage, Jeffrey Combs pointed out that the Vorta were generally extremely graceful, contemplating, " Grace is very important to the Vorta. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 35 , p. 35) On another occasion, Combs drew a parallel between the Vorta and "corporate middle men." Concerning how the Vorta were able to charm people into forgetting their own aims, Combs mused that the Vorta were akin to " the guy from the corporate office who comes into the branch, and looks over the books, and reassures everybody that there is no problem, and leaves. Then the edicts come down, and the hammer falls, and they don't understand what could have happened because everything went so well with the audit. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 68) Combs believed that the Vorta being "very comfortable in a system of hierarchy" was significant to "the very essence of the Vorta" and went on to remark, " That's why they are where they are, and that's why the Founders put the Vorta in the position that they are in, because of that strange ability. " ( Star Trek Monthly  issue 43 , pp. 22–24)

Molly Hagan was pleased that she was the first Vorta: " I immediately began working on a physical gesture that would indicate when I was using my telekinesis. I thought it could become the defining gesture of my people, like the Vulcan 'Live Long and proper' hand gesture . So, I came up with a motion where both my hands looked like they were taking energy in from my body before I pulsed it back out through my hands. It reminded me of something I saw Bruce Lee do. It never got used because a) they had great special effects and didn’t need me to do any gestures to sell 'my powers' and b) they were concerned that any future Vorta may not be able to replicate it. I was beyond disappointed. It was a thrill to get to meet Mike Westmore, let alone have something designed by him on my face. I was so excited to have my face cast done in the workshop where they imagined and created all the appliances. I loved my wig, loved the prosthetics and loved the beauty makeup they put on over it all. I thought I was so pretty. And the contacts! I loved the contacts. It made me instantly feel 'other.' That is the beauty behind getting an opportunity to wear a Mike Westmore design. The outside helps the actor create an internal experience that they would not otherwise have. It makes the acting better. " [4]

Ronald D. Moore once speculated, " Even the Vorta know that Starfleet engineers can do just about anything. " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (p. 500))

Ira Behr characterized the Vorta as "the most untrustworthy guys" in the galaxy. Behr also described the Vorta as "one of the most immobile of characters" but having a "demented quality." Behr referred to Weyoun and Yelgrun as possessing the latter characteristic and, when interviewed, he suggested, " Think Caligula! " ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion  (pp. 703 & 517))

In an interview StarTrek.com apparently conducted with the adult Horta from TOS : " The Devil in the Dark ", the Horta claimed it was occasionally mistaken as a Vorta, though they look nothing alike. [5]

Jeffrey Combs and Christopher Shea played Vorta and subsequently portrayed Andorians . Both actors also had multiple roles on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Star Trek: Voyager , and Star Trek: Enterprise . ( Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection , issue 55, p. 18) Likewise, Vorta-playing actors Dennis Christopher and Christopher Shea additionally portrayed Suliban in ENT : " Detained ".

External links [ ]

• Vorta at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Vorta at Wikipedia
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)