Keiko is understandably peeved about Winn trying to run rough-shod over what she can and can't teach. Kira on the other hand supports Winn, noting this is a Bajoran station. Sisko is stuck in the middle, trying to keep a lid on the situation.
Miles meanwhile has been feeling off lately. One of his tools has gone missing, and he seems to be getting a little too close to his attractive Bajoran assistant Neela. And to top it off, Ensign Aquino has failed to report for duty. Eventually, Miles and Neela find him... as a gray bit of sludge in a plasma conduit. All signs point to an accident, but O'Brien isn't convinced.
Winn's message meanwhile has been spreading throughout the station. Bajoran vendors refuse to sell to Starfleet members, and Winn has gotten all the Bajoran parents to pull their children out of school. With the threat of the classroom being emptied of all but five students, Winn suggests a "compromise": Keiko doesn't have to teach their spiritual beliefs...she just has to stop teaching about the Wormhole (and anything else that contradicts Bajoran scripture, like evolution). Keiko refuses, saying that her job is teaching information, not hiding it. And so, the parents take their kids away.
Sisko seeks some advice on Bajor by visiting Vedek Bareil, a moderate voice challenging Winn's orthodox sect and currently leading the race for Kai. Bareil wants to help, but he knows politics. He knows supporting Sisko at this time could sink his chances for Kai. He says he'd love to help... if he makes Kai.
Back on the station, Aquino's "accidental" death isn't holding water. He was incinerated at 4:00 AM. Despite his last log entry, his turbolift log traces him to one of the runabout pads, nowhere near the plasma conduit where he was found. And Bashir's investigations reveal he wasn't killed in the conduit. He was already dead when incinerated, by a phaser set on kill.
Meanwhile, Odo observes the growing presence of Bajoran fundamentalists coming onto the station. After questioning Quark on his knowledge of the incident, the constable is presented with new evidence by Miles: Tampering was discovered at Runabout Pad A. Aquino's body, however, was discovered on Pad C. Odo deduces that the murderer was trying to procure a Runabout, was discovered by the unfortunate Aquino, and killed him. As they discuss it, a massive explosion rocks the promenade.
The (thankfully empty) school has gone up in flames. With the incident, Vedek Winn tries rallying the Bajoran residents against Sisko, but Sisko shuts her down hard.
O'Brien meanwhile is closing in on the killer of Aquino. Doing a bit of digging, he finds a secret program that has deactivated the weapons sensors on the promenade just in time for Vedek Bareil to arrive on the station after hearing news of the bombing. And there's only one person with the skill to do this: Neela.
Indeed, Neela is among the crowd there to greet Vedek Bareil when he arrives. O'Brien manages to get word to Sisko , who foils Neela when she tries shooting Vedek Bareil. Neela was working for Vedek Winn, intending to assassinate him and eliminate her competition for Kai.
Unfortunately, Neela claims she worked alone, and Winn gets away with attempted murder. Afterwards, Kira is sulking on the bridge. She's distraught that Winn is nothing but a power-hungry crook, but she finds a bright side. A year ago, she was a freedom fighter with no real direction. Now, she's working with Sisko on a space station protecting her home. Progress is a blessing in and of itself.
- Kira: "I don't think that you're the devil."Sisko: "Maybe we have made some progress after all."
Tropes
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Sisko, maintaining a moderate perspective on the issue, makes the point that since the Prophets are Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who exist outside linear time, thus for them seeing the future is as easy as it is for a normal humanoid to remember the past, "prophet" is an accurate term to describe them. When Jake questions him further on it, he clarifies his point - that regardless of whether one believes in the Bajoran religion or not, the Bajorans shouldn't be thought less of for having it.
- Artistic License – History: Keiko, in an obvious fit of pique and ego, changes her lesson plan to teach about Galileo striving to preach the truth of heliocentrism against the awful persecution of church doctrine (not-so-subtly drawing a comparison between the famous scientific martyr and herself). Except that Galileo 1) wasn't the first to venture the idea of heliocentrism, 2) actually denied really believing in heliocentrism when pressed by the church, and 3) the church largely treated him with kid gloves due to his age, infirmity, and the fact that he cooperated with them willingly the entire time. Additionally, the church wasn't dead set against heliocentrism (Copernicus, who developed the theory, was a Catholic priest after all), and a number of Galileo's detractors came from within the scientific establishment (heliocentrism would overturn 1,500 years of established science dating back to Claudius Ptolemy). Moreover, it was an attempt to reinterpret The Bible, as well as mockery of the Pope, that really got Galileo in hot water with the church. A better example would have been the Scopes trial.
- Big "NO!": Sisko while stopping Neela from killing Bareil.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Neela, who was introduced as a helpful and eager junior engineer. Too bad about that whole "fanatic assassin" thing.
- Boldly Coming: Well, not quite. O'Brien finds himself buzzing from the seductive looks that his Bajoran assistant Neela gives him and has to calm himself down afterwards, but they never cross any lines.
- Broken Pedestal: Kira looked up to Vedek Winn and even supported her becoming the next Kai, up until the whole "coax a fanatical follower into attempted assassination of a rival Vedek" thing.
- Corrupt Church: Vedek Winn uses her position as a religious leader to maneuver herself into gaining more power, influencing one of her followers to kill a rival so that she can take his influence in their order. Due to her true goals, how much she even believes in what she preaches is questionable.
- Curse Cut Short: Keiko stopping Miles from telling a rude Bajoran salesman where he can stick one of his jumja sticks.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sisko when Bareil refuses to get involved at this time.Bareil: The Prophets teach us patience.Sisko: It appears they also teach you politics.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The debate between Keiko and Winn is a rather direct parallel for the debate between evolution and creationism in America. Keiko mentions evolution when listing future topics that will contradict Bajoran scripture. Sisko also points out parallels to heliocentrism and Galileo, though this is Dated History.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": Sisko's reaction to Vedek Winn calling him "Emissary":Sisko: I wish you wouldn't call me that. I'm "Commander Sisko." Or "Benjamin," if you'd prefer.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Vedek Winn walks into Keiko's classroom and politely accuses her of blasphemy, establishing her condescending and passive-aggressive personality.
- Vedek Bareil dispenses with the practice of cupping Sisko's ear when they first meet on Bajor, a traditional greeting by Bajoran holy figures. This act impresses Sisko, who confesses it makes him uncomfortable, to which Bareil wholeheartedly agrees (which helps establish Bareil's moderate position compared to the much more fanatical Winn). Notably, when Vedek Winn tries to greet Bareil in this manner after his arrival on DS9, Bareil can be seen intercepting her and clasping her hand.
- Everything Sensor: No doubt the explanation for Bashir's diagnosing Aquino's death by phaser by examining his subsequently, and very thoroughly, plasma-incinerated remains. For perspective, imagine identifying the cause of someone's death by examining their cremated ashes.
- Found the Killer, Lost the Murderer: Sisko apprehends Neela before she can kill Bareil, and both Sisko and Kira know damn well that Winn is pulling her strings. Unfortunately, they have no hard evidence, and Neela claims that she acted alone, so Winn gets away.
- Foil: Vedek Bareil and Winn representing the moderate and extremist arms of the Bajoran religion.
- Friendship Moment: At the end of the episode, Kira and Sisko have a little heart-to-heart.
- Happily Married: O'Brien once again proves that he's completely devoted to his wife — he resists the flirtations of his attractive assistant, nearly knocks a Bajoran merchant's head off for insulting her, and generally stands by her throughout her difficulties.
- Heel Realization: Early in the episode, Kira supports Winn and her orthodox views. After the assassination attempt on Bareil, she gives it a serious rethink.
- Honey Pot: Implied. Neela's flirtatious attitude toward O'Brien appears to be part of her cover to slip under his radar.
- The Informant: Quark would gladly sell out any of the killers he knows if he could, but none of them have taken credit for Aquino's death.
- Karma Houdini: Vedek Winn gets away with planning to murder Vedek Bareil, due to Neela claiming she acted alone. Though her chances for Kai appear to be shot for now.
- Madness Mantra: After Neela is captured, she keeps saying, "The Prophets spoke! I answered their call!"
- Magic Versus Science: Discussed. Keiko's teachings of the wormhole are secular in nature, with the Prophets referred to as "wormhole aliens" or "entities". Winn takes umbrage with these teachings, declaring them blasphemy, and tries to force Keiko to teach her students about the wormhole through a lens of spirituality, or else force her to quit teaching altogether. Sisko suggests that Both Sides Have a Point, and it's not for him to say who's right and who's wrong. It's muddled by the fact that Winn's faction is considered somewhat extremist even by her religion's own standards; Bareil and his faction think her objections are just stupid.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Neela tried to cover her tracks by altering Aquino's log to make it appear like he was going to repair the power conduit where he was found. However, she didn't or couldn't alter his turbolift record, which tracked him to the runabout pad where he was actually killed.
- Mandatory Line: Quark only has one brief appearance to deny that he knows who killed Aquino. In an inversion, Nog is conspicuously absent from the non-Bajoran students because he has nothing to do in this episode, so the showrunners didn't want to pay Aron Eisenberg for an appearance.
- Manipulative Bastard: Vedek Winn. She cultivates a religious conflict on the station simply so Sisko will reach out to another religious leader to help fix it, all so she can use the opportunity to kill the other leader once the situation gets so bad that he visits Deep Space 9 personally. She not only manipulates Sisko and Bareil, she covertly sabotages key systems on the station to facilitate her plans: if not for O'Brien noticing a missing tool from his toolbox, she might have succeeded. Either way, she gets off scot-free.
- Mathematician's Answer:O'Brien: What was Aquino doing at a runabout pad?Odo: Apparently, he was getting murdered.
- Meaningful Background Event: When O'Brien tells Sisko about the gadget he found at Pad A, Neela is in the background trying to look like she's not eavesdropping. She then goes to Winn and tells her that Starfleet is figuring out the plan.
- Mobstacle Course: Sisko has to shove his way through a big group of people to get to Neela before she can murder Bareil.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Noted by Sisko when Winn accuses him of being a Dark Messiah. As the Bajorans on the station have become Fire-Forged Friends with the Starfleet personnel, they know them well enough not to believe the accusation.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Vedek Winn is a clear master of this, mixing in insincere apologies, unreasonable demands and back-handed compliments.
- Patrick Stewart Speech: Mixed in with a good dose of "The Reason You Suck" Speech, when Sisko tears down Winn.Sisko: The Bajorans who have lived with us on the station, who have worked with us for months, who helped us move this station to protect the wormhole, who joined us to explore the Gamma Quadrant, who have begun to build the future of Bajor with us, these people know that we are neither the enemy nor the devil. We don't always agree. We have some damned good fights in fact, but we always come away from them with a little better understanding and appreciation of each other. You won't succeed here. The school will reopen. And when your rhetoric gets old, the Bajoran parents will bring their children back.
Winn: We will see. - Reassigned to Antarctica: Threatened by Sisko when several Bajorans fail to show up for duty claiming "illness". He says they better have a miraculous recovery, or they can get better on their way to their next post.
- Red Shirt: Poor Ensign Aquino. Never even got to be alive onscreen.
- Spanner in the Works: A literal version; the unraveling of the Evil Plan starts when O'Brien notices one of his tools missing.
- Suicide Attack: Neela planned to use the transporter pad to escape after killing her target. When that plan is foiled, she's ordered by Winn to go ahead regardless. She's captured alive, but it's doubtful the Bajorans would be merciful to someone who assassinated a popular Vedek.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Vedek Bareil "accepting" Sisko's invitation to tour the station.
- The Triple: Bareil explaining to Sisko why the Vedek Assembly will not meet with him:"Some fear you as the representative of a Federation they view as godless. Some fear you as the Emissary who walked with the Prophets. And some fear you because Vedek Winn told them to."
- Wrench Wench: Neela is an experienced engineer and also a very attractive young lady. When she flirts with O'Brien, he's visibly shaken. And this is a guy who was only annoyed when three beautiful Bajorans offered to be his sex slaves a few episodes ago.
