But that's not the only unusual thing occurring around DS9. People's imaginations appear to be running wild and summoning all manner of things. Jake has been followed out of his Holo-Suite game by Buck Bokai (Keone Young), a baseball player for the London Kings... who's been dead for over 200 years. Quark has beautiful women hanging on each arm, which is good for him, and all his customers are winning at dabo, which he doesn't like so much. And Bashir? Well, he's summoned Dax. A Dax dead-set on humping his brains out. The real Dax actually finds this mildly amusing. Odo, on the other hand, is stuck on the ass-end of this imagination fest, dealing with blizzards and wild animals appearing on the promenade. Though he does find amusement in imagining Quark locked up in a cell.
While the apparitions of Buck and Dax are treated with amusement, Miles is understandably worried about having a child-stealing imp hanging around him. Meanwhile, in a potentially lethal distraction from the wish shenanigans, a rift has appeared near the station — the same of kind of rift that destroyed an entire system some years ago. And it's growing.
Luckily, the rift is a semi-solved problem, and the crew is fairly certain that they can fix it with some Techno Babble torpedoes. As Miles goes off to jerry-rig a solution, several imaginary figures convene away from prying eyes to marvel at what sorts of things the people on the station are imagining. It seems these things do have some sort of motive after all.
The crew prepare to launch the torpedos to save the station, but they have no effect, and the rift continues to grow. Rumpelstiltskin finally steps forward, volunteering to save the station if O'Brien will offer his wife and child. O'Brien sputters in disbelief, but before he can make this Sadistic Choice, Sisko announces that he's figured it out: The rift is just another figment of their imaginations. There was a minor sensor blip that someone imagined might be a rift, and then people imagined it getting bigger and the station being in danger, and so on. He orders the crew to ignore the rift completely, and the rift vanishes. With that, all the imaginary figures vanish.
Later, Buck comes by for one last visit to Sisko. He's part of a group of aliens that followed one of their ships through a wormhole and they found themselves fascinated by imaginations of the station's inhabitants, something they apparently lack. After the standard Humans Are Special speech, Buck tosses Sisko his ball and vanishes.
Tropes:
- Continuity Nod: "The Big Goodbye" mentions that Joe Dimaggio's hitting streak had been broken. This episode establishes that it was broken by Buck Bokai.
- Brainless Beauty: Bashir's imaginary version of Dax has none of her technical expertise but is just as attractive.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": A supposed alien species, Gunji jackdaws, are clearly emus without any kind of adornment. Furthermore, it's a bizarre name for such a bird as jackdaws are small (approximately 9 ounce) corvids, while emus can become over 100 times that weight.
- Call-Forward: Quark proposes devising a holographic playmate for Odo and swirls a glass while suggestively offering that they could "intermingle" long before the concept of changelings linking (and its sexual connotations) became canon. Ironically, Odo dismisses the notion with disgust.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Bashir doesn't immediately accept "Jadzia's" advances (it's actually the imaginary Dax) because she's acting so differently than before, he initially believes she isn't feeling well or that he's hallucinating. He only gives in when his tricorder scan indicates nothing is wrong with either of them. As much as Bashir desires Jadzia, he won't take advantage of her.
- Complete-the-Quote Title: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
- Famous, Famous, Fictional: Tris Speaker, Ted Williams, Buck Bokai.
- Fleeting Demographic Rule: The episode bears striking resemblance in premise to the very early TNG episode "Where No One Has Gone Before". The writers were aware of this and figured that "it was six years ago and on a different show."
- Friend Zone: Jadzia places Julian firmly here, to his great chagrin.
- Game of Nerds: Sisko's love of baseball is further explored. The episode ends with Sisko receiving the baseball that would sit on his desk for the rest of the show.
- Hypocritical Humor: Dax assures Julian that she doesn't blame him for his private fantasies which are likely out of his control, and says that she actually feels as if it's her who's wronged him by impinging on his privacy by seeing Fantasy Dax. Then, after a brief moment of silence, she gripes "She's awfully submissive, isn't she? Is that what you want me to be?"
- Insult Backfire:Odo: You're disgusting.
Quark: It's a living.
(a minute later)
Odo: You're still disgusting.
Quark: Till the day I die. - The Internet Is for Porn: This episode is the most explicit so far in portraying the Holo-Suites as little more than a sci-fi bordello. When Odo finds out that Jake is going there regularly, Odo gets alarmed, but Quark assures him it's just to play baseball. Even though the show usually speaks around such things, Odo clearly discusses the "sexual" nature of Quark's standard service.
- Limited Wardrobe: Bashir apparently sleeps in his uniform, with his communicator still pinned to his chest. At least he took off his shoes. This isn't the first time in the post-TOS era where characters do this.
- Not So Above It All: Even Odo allows himself a small moment of fun in imagining Quark locked up in one of his holding cells."'No imagination' indeed!"
- The Oner: The opening scene with Odo and Quark is just shy of two minutes, thirty seconds without any cuts.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Dax is more amused than annoyed at her imaginary counterpart, until the other Dax starts chastising her for not appreciating Bashir, calling her a "cold fish."
- Sadistic Choice: Rumpelstiltskin offers to save the lives of everyone on the station... if O'Brien will sacrifice his family.
- Sequel Hook: Before leaving, the being in the form of Buck Bokai hints that they might return. They don't.
- Shout-Out: Harmon "Buck" Bokai is a reference to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
- Techno Babble:
- The closest explanation to all this we get is "Elevated Thoron emissions."
- And spoofed in Kira's notable line: "Perimeter sensors are picking up a subspace oscillation. What the hell does that mean?"
- Weaksauce Weakness: Defied—Rumpelstiltskin hates hearing his name spoken aloud, but he doesn't self-destruct anymore.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The whole episode in a nutshell.
