Stuck in 2024 San Francisco in the middle of a freshly-erupted riot in Sanctuary District A, Sisko finds himself having to take the role of one of his idols, Gabriel Bell, who had been unceremoniously killed prematurely trying to protect him and Bashir from muggers. Now, he must play Bell's role in protecting the hostages. This objective is complicated by the antics of the trigger-happy ghost, B.C., as well as one of the hostages, guardsman Vin, who is looking to play the hero. Fortunately, Sisko has a level-headed ally in Michael Webb, the father of the boy Bashir helped earlier. Sisko tells Webb to gather more gimmes to help guard the hostages, hoping to keep B.C. and the other ghosts from making the situation worse.
Once news of the hostage situation reaches Dax, she realizes that she needs to help. Against the advice of her new friend, Chris Brynner, she runs off and sneaks inside the Sanctuary. She's quickly noticed by the denizens of the Sanctuary, who steal her communicator but deliver her to Sisko and Bashir. B.C. is shocked that such a classy dame is friends with Sisko and Bashir. She plays along with their aliases and learns that they've been trying to find a way to access the Net so that the residents can tell their stories to the world. Dax realizes that she has just the connection to make it work. She sneaks back out of the Sanctuary and presses Chris to air the residents' message using his system. It's against a law, but Chris lets himself be convinced because of the ratings. A line of residents begins sharing their perspective of life inside the Sanctuary.
Meanwhile, the Defiant crew, having to rely on their own resources, have to Techno Babble a way to send Kira and O'Brien into the past to find Sisko and the others. O'Brien has narrowed down their year of arrival to ten different possibilities. With Kira disguising herself as a human by means of a bandage over her nose, the pair begin hopping from time period to time period putting a call out to their lost comrades. After finding no luck in 1930, 1967, they try 2048 and realize that the Crapsack World is different from what it's supposed to be, proving that the trio were sent to some time prior to that year. They nail it down to three options, but can only take one more shot before they can't use that method anymore, and they luck out by hitting 2024 and successfully hailing Dax.
Sisko and Webb attempt to negotiate with the police, but Sisko knows the SWAT raid is coming and has to prepare for it. Webb sends his son away, and B.C. (showing a brief semblance of humanity) gives Danny his hat. Shortly, the office is stormed, and both Webb and B.C. are killed, while Sisko takes a bullet protecting Vin. Sisko survives, and Vin agrees to let him go and tell the true story of the riot. He agrees to place Bell's ID on a body, allowing the world to believe that Gabriel Bell died protecting the hostages - thus restoring the 24th century for Sisko and company.
Back aboard the Defiant, Bashir treats Sisko's wound and asks him how things could've been allowed to get so bad back then in the first place, but Sisko, to his regret, doesn't have an answer.
Tropes:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Sisko tells B.C., "You get on my nerves... and I don't like your hat."
- Beyond the Impossible: A shaken O'Brien, upon returning from the year 2048, remarks that Sisko must have altered history at some point before that date, because what he saw there was way worse than anything from the Earth history he knows. Considering that 2048 was in the middle of World War III in the "normal" Star Trek timeline, he must have seen something hardcore.
- Bittersweet Ending: Webb and B.C. are killed when the police storm the building. But, history is restored and Sisko reassures Bashir that their deaths would not be in vain.
- Close-Enough Timeline: The timeline is restored entirely, except Sisko's photo is in record as a picture of Gabriel Bell.
- Continuity Nod:
- The boxing poster from the 30s beam-in is for a followup to the same match advertised in "The City At the Edge of Forever," an extremely subtle hint that Kira and O'Brien are in the same era as Kirk and Spock in that episode (who also had to save the Federation from not existing).
- Sisko mentions Buck Bokai, the greatest baseball player ever, whom he met (sort of) in "If Wishes Were Horses."
- Crazy Homeless People: Grady in particular (played by Clint Howard, no less). Apparently one of the "dims," he believes he can turn himself invisible. Though he correctly figures Dax for an alien, and a good one at that.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Sisko has to play the role of a desperate revolutionary in order to stay on the side of the more violent insurrectionists, but also puts him in a position to make the hostage situation known to the city and protect lives when the SWAT team gets involved.
- Death Faked for You: Vin switches Sisko's and Bashir's IDs with two of the casualties to let them walk free.
- Didn't Think This Through: Sisko initially doesn't seem too concerned about passing himself off as Bell, reasoning that he's not in danger since he isn't really Bell. Bashir is quick to point out that no one else knows that.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: Sisko does this to get B.C.'s attention when it looks like he's about to shoot Vin.
- Embarrassing First Name: There's a reason he goes by B.C.B.C.: Biddle Coleridge.Vin: Biddle?B.C.: Hey!
- The Everyman: Sisko invokes this with Webb because he has an honest face and he's a family man (as well as something of a community leader) which makes him a better spokesperson for the residents than himself or B.C.
- Faking the Dead: As the real Gabriel Bell was suppose to die in the rescue attempt and not several days before, when Sisko is shot a guard helps to plant their ID's on unidentified bodies. Sisko was then brought back to the 24th century and his wounds treated.
- Failed Future Forecast: Zigzagged. Vin's offhand remark about the 1999 Yankees would prove true when they won the World Series in that year, after having one of the best regular-season records in baseball history the previous year. (The '98 Yankees would be thus be the more logical choice for "greatest of all time," but Vin may have had sentimental reasons for picking the '99 team.) Played straight with the 2015 London Kings, as Major League Baseball has yet to expand outside North America — although a "regal" team, the Kansas City Royals, won that year, and so they did somewhat elliptically get it semi-right.
- Fatal Family Photo: Averted with Bernardo, but the point is still driven home when he shows Bashir the photo of his wife and kids and says that he knows they're wondering if he's ever going to come home again.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: An accidental version, with B.C. being so aggressive and violent that everyone around him (Webb, Sisko, and Bashir) comes off as more palatable.
- Guile Hero: In order to save the situation, Sisko has to be violent and threatening so that B.C. will respect him enough to listen, but also reasonable and clear-thinking enough for Webb, Preston, and the hostages to trust him. It's a VERY thin tightrope, but Sisko walks it skillfully.
- Heel Realization: Vin has one when he sees the corpses littering the streets of the "pacified" Sanctuary District and wonders how they could have let it happen. He promises Sisko and Bashir that he will make sure the public learns the truth about what happened.
- Hollywood Hacking: Averted. Public opinion changed when the residents were able to get around the government lockout on the Interface (implied to be some kind of television/internet combination) but Sisko and Bashir don't know how it was originally done. Jadzia accomplishes it by talking Brynner into giving them access.
- Idiot Ball: Sisko, usually a sharp customer, apparently didn't grasp that he would need to die to maintain Bell's story. Bashir has to explain it to him for the benefit of the audience.
- Jerkass:
- The unseen governor, whose response to the situation is to declare he'll form a committee (which Sisko points out is just refusing to do anything), and is the one who makes the police go in shooting.
- Vin and B.C., continuing from the previous episode. Vin is rude and confrontational, even when the unhinged B.C. is holding several people at gunpoint, and says that the only reason people end up in the District is because they're "losers."
- Just Following Orders: The SWAT leader tries to use this to justify their storming of the building, but Vin sees right through it.
- Mood Whiplash: After a very tense and emotional scene with a shotgun wielding Sisko, we cut to... O'Brien and Kira arriving in 1967 and getting flowers from some hippies.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After the shooting stops and they're able to leave the building, Vin looks at the bodies covering the dirty streets and asks how they could have let this happen.
- Oh, Crap!: O'Brien and Kira, when they start beaming out in front of two hippies.
- Pet the Dog: B.C. gives Danny his hat when he leaves and tells him it looks good on him.
- Police Brutality: The SWAT Team barges into the sanctuary district to "pacify" it by shooting everyone in sight. One of them even tries to shoot Vin as he tells them they're alright.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The police negotiator tries to be one, but she's hamstrung by orders from above.
- Rubber-Forehead Alien: Made particularly noticeable in this episode, where Kira is able to disguise herself as a human simply by putting a bandage on her nose and saying she broke it.
- Sarcastic Confession: To convince Grady to give her commbadge back, Dax tells him she's an alien here to protect the Earth from its enemies. Grady happily hands it over to her.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Jadzia convinces Brynner that giving a public voice to the injustice of the Sanctuary districts is worth risking his broadcast license.
- Society Is to Blame:
- B.C.'s comment that "if you treat people like animals, you're gonna get bit." After introducing him as a gang leader and the killer of the real Bell, this episode hints that he wouldn't have become such a thug if he hadn't been shoved into the Sanctuary.
- The fact that people with criminal records aren't allowed into the Sanctuaries. The "ghosts" only become criminals after living there.
- Somebody Else's Problem: Bashir says to Lee that it's not her fault that things are the way they are.Lee: Everybody tells themselves that. And nothing ever changes.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Kira is so self-conscious of her Paper-Thin Disguise of a bandage over her nose that the moment someone crosses her path, she turns away and blurts, "I broke my nose!"
- Taking the Bullet: Sisko jumps in front of Vin to keep him from being killed by the trigger-happy SWAT team, but the wound isn't fatal.
- This Is Gonna Suck: After finding that, while history is restored, Gabriel Bell now looks exactly like him, Sisko says that he is not looking forward to the debriefing from Starfleet Command.
- Too Dumb to Live: Vin is uncooperative and insulting for most of the time he's a hostage, prompting B.C. to comment "I really think we should kill this guy." Sisko has to slam Vin into the wall to make him shut up.
- Totally Radical: The phrase "check your e-mail" seems to mean "get a clue."
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out the fate of Chris Brynner. Did he get in trouble? Did Dax even thank him before vanishing from his life forever?
- Would Hurt a Child: Of the injured and dead on the "pacified" Second Street, at least a few are children. Webb clearly anticipated this being the case, as he sends Danny home before the fighting starts.
- You Already Changed the Past: It's an Ambiguous Situation, but the idea that Sisko was always Bell is left open to interpretation. It seems unlikely, though not impossible, that Bell managed to access the interface where Bashir and Sisko failed.
