Recap / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S01E01/E02 "Emissary"

Not the smoothest passing of the torch you'll ever see...

Following a 60 year occupation, the Cardassian Empire has withdrawn from Bajor, leaving behind a planet stripped of many of its natural resources and a population scarred by decades of subjugation and mistreatment. The Federation has agreed to help the planet rebuild, and to this end, it will be sharing command of the abandoned Cardassian space station Terok Nor (now renamed Deep Space Nine) with the Bajorans.

Commander Benjamin Sisko is assigned the duty of commanding the station, though it is not an enviable assignment. The station was torn to shreds by the Cardassians before their departure, and the few remaining residents are thinking about leaving as well. The resident Bajorans are largely distrustful of Sisko and the Federation, a sentiment echoed by his willful new Bajoran first officer, Kira. Sisko has his work cut out for him in putting the pieces back together, forging trust between the residents, and building a working space station.

But Sisko has his own problems. He still mourns the loss of his wife at the Battle of Wolf 359, which is aggravated by the presence of Jean-Luc Picard to perform the official handoff. Picard was under the saw of the Borg during the attack, and Sisko still blames him for it.

But everything changes when Sisko takes a short trip around the Bajoran system in a Runabout. He and his old friend, and science officer Dax, discover a stable wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, but on the return journey, Sisko is captured by the aliens who live inside the Wormhole, who dump Dax back on DS9. While Sisko tries to explain the nature of linear time and corporeal existence to the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, the crew on the station must race to move it to protect the wormhole from the Cardassians, who are on their way back with a renewed interest in Bajor.

Sisko ultimately managed to broker a peace with the residents of the wormhole. Along the way, he's also dubbed the "Emissary of the Prophets" by the Bajorans. Finding himself at the center of such momentous events, Sisko reaffirms his commitment to Starfleet and his mission at Deep Space Nine.

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Tropes

• Abandon Ship: Sisko, Jake, and crew of the Saratoga at Wolf 359.
• Action Prologue: Wolf 359. It does not go well for the Federation.
• Actor Allusion: Bashir using Odo to clamp a wound references M*A*S*H, where Rene Auberjonois' Father Mulcahy is forced to do the same thing. ^note  We're talking about the movie here, not the TV show.
• Affably Evil: Gul Dukat. "Evil" might be a stretch based on his behavior in this episode (later backstory will show he was essentially Hitler to the Bajorans), but he is legitimately friendly and respectful - whilst simultaneously making subtle threats at Sisko.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Overlaps with You Cannot Grasp the True Form in a rather hilarious way when you think about it: Unlike most stories, where the aliens take form so the human can relate to them, when the Wormhole Aliens take the humanoid forms, it's not for Ben Sisko's benefit: the whole story is about them trying to figure out him!
• All Beer Is Ale: Recycled In Space with the Bajorans drinking synthale, their version of synthehol. Quark doesn't think much of it, commenting that you should "never trust ale from a god-fearing people." Clearly Earth's monks could teach them a thing or two.
• And the Adventure Continues: A variation as the episode ends with the main characters dealing with the myriad petty issues involved in running a space station, rather than setting off on another adventure.
• Armor-Piercing Response: At their first meeting, Picard notices that Sisko is a barely restrained bundle of rage. He asks the Commander if they've met before (the subtext being Picard inquiring if he has offended Sisko), and when Sisko grits out that he was on the Saratoga at Wolf 359, Picard is visibly staggered.^note Given how much everyone has been reminding him that he isn't at fault for Locutus's actions, this may be the first time that someone besides himself has blamed him for what happened.
• Armor-Piercing Question: During his time interacting with the Prophets, Sisko is repeatedly drawn back to the scene of his wife's death while trying to explain the concept of linear time to them. Despite his insistence that he doesn't want to relive the memory, the Prophets keep asking him one thing:
  "Then why do you exist here?"
• Arson, Murder, and Admiration: Odo approves when Sisko uses the threat of Nog's incarceration to stop Quark from shutting down his business. Given the amount of times Odo will blackmail or threaten Quark into doing his bidding in future, it's not surprising.
  Odo: You know, at first, I didn't think I was going to like him.
• Ascended Extra: Miles O'Brien ascends to the main cast of this show.
• Author Appeal: According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, series co-creator Michael Piller was a massive baseball fan. This inspired Sisko and Jake's beloved family hobby (and the iconic scene of Sisko using the sport to explain linear time to the Prophets).
• Baby Fever Trigger: A flashback reveals that what inspired Jennifer and Benjamin Sisko to have Jake was hearing two kids happily playing.
• Badass Boast: Kira delivers one to Gul Jassad that makes O'Brien vow to never play Roladan Wild Draw with her.
• Bar Full of Aliens: Quark's is a looted mess when first seen, but 'Community Leader Quark' soon has it up and running again.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Odo. His default form is revealed to be a puddle of golden-orange goo. He is apparently able to change size, shape and mass at will.
  • The Wormhole aliens later revealed to be the Prophets of the Celestial Temple are so completely different from corporeal, linear life forms that it takes them a while to accept that such a thing could exist.
• Bleak Border Base: DS9, especially after the Cardassians trashed it. Of course, all that's about to change...
• Blown Across the Room: Happens to several civilians when the Cardassians attack the station.
• Brandishment Bluff: Unfortunately the Cardassian commander isn't willing to wait for backup and attacks anyway.
• Call-Back:
  • Doctor Bashir expresses doubt that the Cardassians would attack a Federation outpost. Chief O'Brien, a veteran of the Border Wars, corrects him.
  • Before meeting Major Kira for the first time, O'Brien asks Sisko if he's ever worked with a Bajoran woman before, likely referring to Ensign Ro. May double as a Mythology Gag, as the show creators originally intended to have Ro as a main character on Deep Space Nine, but actress Michelle Forbes didn't want to commit to a full series.
  • This isn't the first time that someone uses a low-level subspace field to make a heavy object lighter and easier to push. As O'Brien was still on the Enterprise-D at that point, he may very well have gotten the idea from this incident.
  • The wormhole is stated to be the first stable wormhole Starfleet has encountered.
• Captain's Log: Sisko has a "Station Log", and Kira later does a "First Officer's Log" when Sisko is missing.
• Catchphrase: The wormhole aliens have a habit of asking "What is this?" when Sisko tries to explain linear existence.
• Consummate Professional: Sisko doesn't want this assignment, doesn't want to raise his child here, and certainly doesn't want to be reminded of Jennifer's death by meeting Picard again. But he makes it clear that until he does leave Starfleet, he'll be doing his job to the best of his ability.
• Contemplate Our Navels: The whole long sequence, where Sisko explains the circumstances of existing in linear time to the Prophets, is effectively him trying to get them to understand what a navel is.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Wolf 359, as the viewers of TNG already know. All the Federation ships' phaser fire doesn't even scratch the Borg cube. Said cube, by comparison, fires exactly three shots on-screen: the first one totally disintegrates the saucer section of an Excelsior-class ship; the second catastrophically damages the Saratoga, thus killing nearly everyone on-board, setting off a warp core breach and barely leaving the survivors time to escape; and the third (barely visible through the window while Sisko is trying to rescue Jake and Jennifer) One Hit Kills an Oberth-class ship.
  • DS9 against the Cardassian warships. The station's defenses are almost nonexistent; it has no shields and barely has any weapons. It can barely fire off a single shot at the warships, which fails to do any real damage. Kira was prepared to surrender before the wormhole reopened and Sisko returned towing Gul Dukat's ship, prompting the Cardassians to break off the attack at the realization that Kira was telling the truth about how Dukat's ship disappeared.
• Deadpan Snarker: Odo and Kira both show extreme skill with this.
• Deflector Shields: "What shields?" That's never a good sign...
• Deus ex Machina: Though Bajor spent years fighting the Cardassian occupation, the people have now turned their aggression to fueling old grudges that were unresolved when the occupation happened. Kira says the provisional government will be gone in a week, as will any Federation assistance, and Bajor will be in a civil war. Then, not only is the Celestial Temple found, but a Starfleet officer is also chosen as the Emissary of the Prophets. This doesn't solve every problem Bajor has, but it makes them willing to accept Federation aid and to talk instead of fight.
• Diverting Power: Miles says he can transfer all available power to the partial forcefields around critical areas, but that leads the docking ring vulnerable. Kira has Odo evacuate the civilians from that area, but some are still injured by Stuff Blowing Up.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Bajor is on the verge of civil war as old grudges resurface with the departure of an occupying power, something that Eastern European countries had to face after the collapse of Communism.
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: Kira warns Bashir about this when he thinks the Cardassians are falling for her bluff. A few minutes later, the shooting starts.
• Downer Beginning: Anything that starts with the Battle Of Wolf 359 can only be this.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In a couple of scenes, Sisko smiles and laughs in a big way that looks odd to a viewer familiar with his cooler portrayal in later episodes.
  • Bashir stammers awkwardly when inviting Jadzia to dinner. Later he's portrayed as much smoother with women, busily dating many of the single women on the station (though mostly offscreen). According to Alexander Siddig, this was a deliberate attempt at Character Development on his part because he knew the series would likely last several years, so he had time to set up a Character Arc.
  • Kira has shoulder-length hair. In the second episode, it's cropped short, and doesn't go back to shoulder-length until the final season.
  • Quark actually has Rom's prosthetic nose, as Armin Shimerman's own prosthetic wasn't ready yet.
  • The bizarre garden / stormy mesa inside the wormhole.
  • The Prophets are depicted rather differently here to how they would be later in the series, and are shown as a race of isolationist Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who don't particularly care about corporeal beings (much less Bajorans). As the series went on, they were developed into Benevolent Precursors who were revealed to have guided Bajoran civilization, and even certain aspects of Sisko's life. Note that this isn't actually inconsistent, due to the nature of their non-linear existence (in fact, Opaka had already said in this very episode that what Bajorans have learned from the Orbs has shaped their theology), but it can come across a little jarring after seeing later episodes, where the show more fully embraced the religious aspects of the Prophets.
  • Sisko talks about his father in the past tense, implying that he's dead. We'll see later that he's still very much alive.
  • The Orbs are introduced in a way that suggests they would be Plot Coupons, with Kai Opaka stating there were nine Orbs which Sisko must reclaim from the Cardassians. This is never mentioned again after this episode except for a brief mention in a later episode as returning the Orbs being something Bajor's negotiating with Cardassia and later Sisko returning the Orb of Time from Cardassia acting as the set up for an episode.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Even Sisko can't restrain a whistle of appreciation at the new body that 'Old Man' Dax is wearing.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Prophets don't exist in linear time. They don't even have a concept for time, and weren't even aware corporeal lifeforms existed.
• Empathic Environment: A literal version when Sisko exits the runabout to find he's standing on a mesa on a dark and stormy night, whereas Dax sees a beautiful relaxing garden on a bright sunny day. It's implied that this has a lot to do with their personalities; Sisko is repressing his grief and anger, whereas Dax's maturity gives her a more amiable personality.
• Enemy Mine: Under the Cardassian occupation, the Bajoran people were pretty much solidly united against them, putting aside old divisions in the face of a common foe. Now that they are gone, those old quarrels are beginning to resurface (Truth in Television, as Earth's own history can attest). Both Quark and Kira fear this will lead to the Provisional Government collapsing and Bajor falling into civil war.
• Ensign Newbie: Julian Bashir, a wet-behind-the-ears, just out of the academy doctor. He's enthusiastic, but also kind of an idiot (pissing Kira off majorly in their first conversation, believing a Cardassian will be reasonable).
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Sisko essentially blackmailing Quark (via veiled threat of imprisoning Nog for thievery) into staying on the station really sets him up as the most pragmatic of all the Star Trek captains.
  • Sisko's initial hatred of Picard over his role in Wolf 359 (though Picard couldn't control his actions) and their later reconciliation was meant to establish that Sisko would be a very different kind of captain and this would be a very different show.
  • Kira Nerys' first appearance has her chewing out a government representative. Loudly, and not holding back on the invective.
    Kira: You are throwing it all away! All of you!
    Representative: You're being a fool!
    Kira: Well, then don't ask my opinion next time!
  • Odo and Quark establish their confrontational yet comic relationship by snarking and snapping at each other.
  • Odo's first appearance has him using his shapeshifting abilities to avoid a flail thrown by a thief he is chasing, then chewing out Sisko for firing a weapon on the Promenade; he doesn't give a damn if the person firing it is the station's new commander, them's the rules!
  • The awkward, stammering greenhorn Bashir is highly competent and assertive when he's actually being a doctor.
• Establishing Series Moment: The opening scene. Every other installment of the franchise opened with an okay situation that eventually goes south. Here, it opens right in the middle of the devastating Wolf 359 battle, signifying a Darker and Edgier take on the mythos.
• Exact Words: A Bajoran monk welcomes Sisko, inviting him into his temple, but Sisko puts him off by saying, "Another time." The monk agrees, but turns up later with an invitation from the Kai.
  Monk: Commander, it is time.
• Explosive Instrumentation: When the Saratoga is hit, almost every console on The Bridge explodes, killing everyone except Sisko and the Bolian tactical officer.
• Fan of the Past: Sisko, due to his love of baseball, which had previously been established in TNG to have died out of the mainstream by the 24th century.
• Fanservice
  • Kira strips down to a tight white top that shows off Nana Visitor's rack.
  • Jennifer is introduced sunbathing in a bikini with her bra strap undone.
• First-Episode Twist: The wormhole's existence.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With:
  • The Prophets' true appearance isn't shown (nor is it ever in the series): when Sisko encounters them, they appear as various people in his life, from Kai Opaka to the crew of the Saratoga, his family, Captain Picard, and Locutus.
  • This also applies to wherever Sisko and Dax find themselves while traversing the wormhole. They each perceive it in different ways — Sisko sees a rocky, stormy cliff, while Dax sees a beautiful sunlit meadow. Sisko is completely confused when Dax talks of how beautiful it is.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The broad strokes of Odo's backstory when he's arguing with Kira about joining the mission to rescue Sisko. He was first found in the Denorios Belt, i.e. the location of the newly-discovered Wormhole. He also has no idea where he comes from or if there are even others like him. Odo naturally feels there's a good chance the answers to those questions lie on the other side of the Wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant. This search will become one of the most crucial storylines of the entire series.
  • Kira's introduction lays down a few things, notably that the Provisional government is unstable and she expects it to fall (and its replacement to want Starfleet out). This ultimately is the plot of the opening of Season 2's three parter.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: An observant viewer will notice that one of the ships destroyed at Wolf 359 is Oberth-class, whose combat capabilities are somewhere between "limited" and "nonexistent". The fact that such a ship is scrambled for the battle shows just how desperate Starfleet is to throw anything against the Borg.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Kira thinks that Starfleet will just take over the same role as the Cardassians in the newly liberated Bajor.
• Funny Background Event: When Sisko explains to Jake that they'll have to rough it for a while (and gets a very unenthusiastic "Okay" in reply), O'Brien is looking out the window and doing his best to look like he's not eavesdropping.
• Game of Nerds: Sisko's love of baseball is established when he uses it as a metaphor to explain linear existence to the Prophets. Receives a Call-Back later in the series when they refer to his life as "the game."
• Guy in Back: When Kira orders "Battlestations" when about to fight the Cardassian ships, you hear background voices giving orders such as "Lock on target" with another voice acknowledging the order, and a third voice reporting that her sensors show the Cardassian ships are opening fire.
• Have We Met?:
  • Picard asks this of Sisko.
    Picard: Commander Sisko, welcome to Bajor.
    Sisko: It's been a long time, captain.
    Picard: Have we met before?
    Sisko: Yes, sir. We met in battle. I was on the Saratoga at Wolf 359.
    Picard: ("Oh, Crap!" face)
  • Played for heartwarming comedy when Sisko finds himself reliving his Meet Cute with Jennifer.
    Sisko: It's not every day you meet the girl you're going to marry.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Sisko spends two years in one until the Prophets help him get back on track.
  • Picard is visibly shaken when told that Sisko is a Wolf 359 survivor.
• Humanity on Trial: Not just humanity, but all corporeal beings. Sisko makes the case, and is thus deemed the Emissary.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: The Prophets are non corporeal life forms whose appearance when viewed by corporeal being is based on people known from their memories. As the conversation with Sisko demonstrates, humans and other corporeal beings are just as alien to them as they are to us.
• Idiot Ball: Gul Jassad maintains a grip on one in his negotiations with Kira. He refuses to buy the story that Gul Dukat's ship entered a wormhole that has since conveniently collapsed, and insists that somehow DS9 destroyed it. Later in the episode he is well-aware that DS9's offensive capabilities are non-existent, so he must know there is no way they could have destroyed Gul Dukat's ship, and even if they had, there would surely be some sort of evidence of a ship being destroyed.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Kira is just telling Sisko that Kai Opaka lives in seclusion and rarely sees anyone, when a Bajoran priest turns up with an invitation from the Kai.
• In the Original Klingon: Sisko calls plea bargaining "an old Ferengi legal tradition." The show's later explorations of Ferengi culture will confirm that yes, leveraging an advantage in negotiations (i.e. blackmail) is right in line with Ferengi ethics.
• Irony:
  • Sisko has to explain the concept of linear existence to the Prophets, but when they understand it, they point out that he is not linear, because he is still living in the moment of his wife's death and has been unable to move on.
  • As Opaka points out, "One who does not wish to be among us is to be the Emissary."^note In a meta example, this also applies to Avery Brooks himself — he didn't actually want to play Sisko, but his attempt to sabotage his own audition by acting grumpy turned into a Springtime for Hitler when it got him the role.
• Jitter Cam: Used to show the panic and confusion of the crew of a starship as they Abandon Ship in a crammed Life Pod, leading to a Mood Whiplash effect when the pod shoots free of the damaged spaceship and the camera is abruptly still.
• Kick the Dog: As well as stripping Deep Space Nine of everything of value, the departing Cardassians also looted and smashed up the shops on the Promenade, killing four Bajorans in the process. Captain Picard says they also asset-stripped Bajor during their sixty-year occupation, leaving the planet barely able to sustain its own population even with Federation aid. Control of the wormhole however would enable Bajor to reap the profits of being a Hub Planet.
• Kneel Before Frodo: A variation; when O'Brien leaves the Enterprise (where he had served as transporter chief for many years in TNG), Captain Picard operates the transporter himself to beam him over to the station.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • Gul Jassad's subordinate suggests withdrawing and waiting for reinforcements to retake the station, which Jassad rejects because Starfleet can also get reinforcements in a short time.
  • Despite her Badass Boast, Kira is willing to surrender when her bluff fails and keeping up the fight will only get everyone on the station killed.
• Layman's Terms: Sisko has trouble getting the wormhole aliens to understand linear time until he hits on the idea of using baseball as a metaphor.
• Manly Tears: Sisko cries over his wife's death, and again when the Prophets make him relive it..
• Mind Screw: The Prophets sequence looks like one... until you understand the argument and why it is presented as a conversation superimposed on events of Sisko's life; it's how the Prophets are able to communicate with and relate to this alien human.
• Mirror Character: Sisko and Picard are both severely traumatized by the Borg and Wolf 359. Picard was assimilated and forced to share his Starfleet knowledge, which was subsequently used to annihilate the armada at Wolf 359, where Sisko loses his wife.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • From the Jitter Cam on the Escape Pod to the sudden smoothness when it shoots clear of the Saratoga, then from the battle of Wolf 359 to Jake fishing at a peaceful river on the holodeck three years later.
  • Sisko is puzzled but quite happy to meet Jennifer again, then has to return to the present where she's long dead. Later when he's using scenes from his past to communicate with the wormhole aliens, he keeps moving back-and-forth from happy times with Jennifer to her death. It takes a while to sink in that he's the one doing this, not the aliens.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: The episode features a subplot in which Captain Sisko's interactions with the decidedly non-linear Prophets allow him to gradually accept his wife Jennifer's death.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Initially, Sisko is far from enthused at the fact of being assigned to command a border post in the middle of nowhere, and is considering retiring from Starfleet. However, he makes abundantly clear that, until his walking papers come through, he will continue to carry out his orders to the best of his ability.
• My Greatest Failure: Sisko finds it impossible to get past the death of his wife, and requires outside intervention from the Prophets to move on with his life.
• Never Give The Commander A Straight Answer: Kira calls Sisko telling him there's something on the Promenade he might want to see. When Sisko arrives, he finds Community Leader Quark's gambling establishment in full swing.
• No Kill like Overkill: The Borg has the USS Saratoga helplessly caught in a tractor beam with its shields down, after shooting it once causing catastropic damage, including to the warp core, which will cause a warp core breach in a short time period that will destroy the ship. This occurring while its surviving crew is evacuating from the ship in lifeboats. Instead of leaving it be to explode on its own, the Borg decide to shoot at it again, destroying Saratoga before the warp core breach does it for them!
• "Not So Different" Remark: When Sisko protests that the Federation is only here to help Bajor, Kira says the Cardassians said the same thing when they first occupied the planet.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Captain Picard of all people exhibits a restrained one once Sisko tells him how they met.
  • This is Kira's reaction when O'Brien tells her that DS9 doesn't have shields.
  • Sisko has an amusing moment when the wormhole aliens ask him to explain baseball.
• One-Hit Kill: The first shot from the Borg cube blasts an Excelsior-class into scrap metal. The second shot inflicts catastrophic damage to the Saratoga. When an Oberth-class explodes in the background, one can easily assume (given its Butt-Monkey status and limited combat capabilities) that it also went down with one hit.
• Opening Scroll: The episode begins with one regarding Wolf 359.
  On Stardate 43997, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise was kidnapped for six days by an invading force known as the Borg.
  Surgically altered, he was forced to lead an assault on Starfleet at Wolf 359.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot:
  • Bashir's "frontier medicine" comments, as well as referring to Bajor as "the wilderness", really rub Kira the wrong way.
    Kira: This "wilderness" is my home.
    Bashir: (awkward stammering)
  • Sisko's meeting with Picard also counts, though Sisko probably didn't regret it until after meeting The Prophets.
• Our Doors Are Different: The Cardassian-designed doors on the station airlocks look like a massive cogwheel that rolls aside to open.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: In-Universe—Sisko and Dax comment on how different the Bajoran Wormhole is compared to all the others. This becomes a major plot point when they find out where the wormhole came from. From a strategic point-of-view, it's the first stable wormhole ever encountered, which means it's suddenly made Sisko's quiet backwater pre-retirement assignment an interstellar hotspot.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: The baseball scene with the Prophets.
• Percussive Maintenance: How O'Brien gets the transporter to work when pushing buttons does nothing.
  O'Brien: Dammit, what's the problem? (kicks the console, and Odo materializes on the pad)
• Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: Chief O'Brien finds himself dealing with the station's Master Computer which insists on shutting down his Crazy Enough to Work procedure. O'Brien orders his men to do the procedure manually, then tells the computer that they need to have a talk...
• P.O.V. Sequel: "The Best of Both Worlds" didn't actually show the Battle of Wolf 359, just the Enterprise flying through the resulting Derelict Graveyard. This is the first (and thus far only) depiction of the battle.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Bashir, when Odo gets squeamish about using his bare hand to clamp a woman's damaged artery: "Hold...it...there."
• Put on a Space Station: Chief O'Brien and family (at least from the Enterprise Crew's point of view).
• Rapid-Fire "Yes!": Heard in the background at Quark's. Apparently, somebody had a good game of dabo.
• Reassigned to Antarctica:
  • Benjamin Sisko views being assigned to Deep Space Nine as this. He's still recovering from the loss of his wife, and now Starfleet wants to put him on a defunct space station on the frontier, formerly run by Cardassians, to help the survivors of a brutal occupation. It's far from the ideal environment for a widowed father to raise his son, and he's very displeased about it. Sisko openly considers his resignation from Starfleet in protest when speaking about it with Captain Picard. Considering Sisko's last two assignments were starship development at Utopia Planitia on Mars and XO of a frontline starship, command of DS9 does seem like a step down.
  • Kira has been assigned as Bajoran liaison officer to Starfleet, a job she is completely unsuited for given her lack of diplomatic tact. Within minutes of meeting Sisko, Kira shares her suspicion that she was assigned to Deep Space Nine because it's as far away as the provisional government can send her.
  • Inverted with Bashir, who willingly chose the assignment, hoping for a life of adventure out in the wilderness. Kira is not amused, especially at hearing her homeworld being called "wilderness".
• Red Alert
  Kira: Red alert. Shields up.
  O'Brien: What shields?
  (Oh, Crap! look from Kira)
• Retcon:
  • A minor example; the USS Melbourne (the ship Riker was meant to command) was a Nebula-class ship in "The Best of Both Worlds" but changed to an Excelsior-class one in this episode, as the model was more detailed for the closeup where the Borg destroy it. The ship was never definitively identified as any particular wreck in the original episode, so it's not a major issue.
  • Also, "The Best of Both Worlds" strongly implied that the Borg left no survivors. This episode shows that a handful of people were able to get away.
• Scenery Porn: Even though the buildings are wrecked, and in spite of the other horrors of the Cardiassian Occupation, Bajor is still obviously a beautiful planet.
• Scotty Time: Exaggerated—moving the station across the Bajoran system would take two months, but O'Brien has to make it happen in just one day. Explained by technobabble about reducing the inertia of the station—making the six operational maneuvering thrusters sufficient to move it.
• Screw Your Ultimatum!: Gul Jassad gives Kira an hour to surrender the station. An hour later, Kira responds with six photon torpedoes.
• Schizo Tech: The monks have databases and holographic concealed entrances.
• Shame If Something Happened:
  • Sisko puts on a faux-sympathetic tone to Quark when discussing what a tragedy it would be if Nog spent the best years of his life in a Bajoran prison camp. Of course, if Quark agreed to stay and provide much needed services to the station...
  • Gul Dukat makes a point of reminding Sisko that he's commanding a remote and ill-defended outpost far from the Federation fleet, while the Cardassian border happens to be a lot closer.
• Sincerity Mode: When Sisko is negotiating with Quark, the latter minces no words in why he's anxious to leave.
  Quark: The Bajoran Provisional Government is far too provisional for my tastes. And when governments fall, people like me are lined up and shot.
• Special Edition Title: The opening credits do not show the wormhole, in order to not spoil it before The Reveal.
• Spinoff Send Off:
  • The episode starts with the Enterprise-D docked with the eponymous station. Captain Picard appears and the new Commander Sisko promptly tells him how much he hates him. Sisko has some epiphanies, makes peace with Picard, and Picard gives him his blessing.
  • It literally happens to TNG semi-regular Chief O'Brien, when he's sent to DS9 by Picard himself, who wishes him well on his new assignment.
• Spoiler Opening: Averted - The station is in orbit around Bajor at the beginning; its move to the wormhole entrance is reflected in the opening credits of every episode except this one.
• Stable Time Loop: The pilot sets one up for the series: the Prophets exist outside linear time. And it's implied that much of their actions stem from what Sisko, the first linear being to meet them, told them about themselves. They at first know nothing of the Orbs or the Bajorans worshipping them as gods. It's only through Sisko that they learn this, and proceed to act accordingly, sending their Orbs out in time. Which in turn is what allowed Sisko to find the wormhole and meet them in the first place. Later episodes would show this runs much deeper.
• Thermal Dissident: Sisko notes how ridiculously warm it was in the station. O'Brien notes it is because the Cardassians, the previous owners of the space station, prefer it much warmer than humans.
• Time Dissonance: Big time with the Prophets: they believe that which is is no different from that which was or that which will be. The first time they encounter Sisko and are introduced to the concept of corporeal life and linear time, they are completely confused and think Sisko is bullshitting them.
• Too Proud for Lowly Work: Subverted. One of Sisko's Establishing Character Moments is when he begins to win over Major Kira by showing he's not above literally rolling up his sleeves to help her clean up the mess the Cardassians left of Deep Space 9's promenade when they pulled out, subverting her expectations of senior Starfleet officers.
• Trash the Set: Inverted. The station is a mess when Starfleet arrives, and is gradually cleaned up over the course of the episode in particular, and the first season in general.
• Tranquil Fury: Sisko is just barely restraining his hatred for Picard when they first meet.
• Trojan Horse: Odo disguises himself as the bag that Quark gives the Cardassians so they can take their winnings back to their spaceship.
• Unprocessed Resignation: Picard claims he "didn't yet have a chance" to inform Starfleet about Sisko's stated plan/request to resign his commission rather than take command of the station. He still takes a moment to confirm Sisko is sure about his choice to stay and take on the important assignment before agreeing to forget it entirely and wishing him luck.
• Vertical Power Play: As the Federation takes control of the recently abandoned space station above Bajor, Commander Ben Sisko inspects his command post, and notes that it's set on an elevated platform. If Sisko wants to interact with his Bridge Bunnies, he must descend five or six steps to do so.
  Sisko: Set way up high, where everyone must look up to him. Typical Cardassian architecture.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: When the Cardassians first came to Bajor sixty years earlier, they claimed they only wanted to help. They lied. Understandably, Major Kira has some issues with believing in the Federation's good intentions when they claim the same thing.
• Welcome Episode: The episode concerns Sisko arriving at DS9 and getting settled in, allowing the show to introduce its setting and characters through his eyes.
• Wham Line: "Resistance is futile." The opening line of the series instantly puts us right back into the darkest hour of the Next Generation era up to that point. TNG viewers immediately know what's coming, that it's not going to end well, and it will set the darker tone that will become part and parcel of DS9.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Inverted. The wormhole aliens consider Sisko, and other corporeal lifeforms, destructive pests when they first meet.
  Prophet!Picard: We seek contact with other lifeforms, not corporeal creatures who annihilate us.
• What the Hell Are You?: Prophet!Opaka asks Sisko this when he first enters the Celestial Temple.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Sisko pulls this on Picard when they meet due to his lingering bitterness over Locutus' involvement in his wife's death. He later realizes his mistake and squares things with Picard.
• White Void Room: With an closeup on Sisko's head... then his face... then his eyes... then just one eye.

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