Paths Not Taken
Deep Space Nine is replete with paths not taken, in terms of storylines. What if Jadzia really had died in “Change of Heart”? What if they had gone to Sigma Iotia II for the 30th anniversary episode instead of learning about the troubles with tribbles? What if Ro Laren, Sito Jaxa, or Thomas Riker had returned?
One path that was never really taken (and as far as I can tell, never seriously contemplated) is major political drama between the Starfleet and Bajoran crews on the station. Yes, Season 2 started with the extremely underrated Circle Trilogy, but that conflict was Far Away on Bajor (and inflamed by Cardassian influence). Beyond a few differences of opinion here and there, Kira and Sisko never seriously clash, which is a little odd, especially given how much grey area they were working in — a Bajoran-owned space station run by Starfleet officers? “We’re just here to administrate”? What does that even mean?
But there is one exception: “Dramatis Personae”.
Sorta.
The Valerian Situation May Have Been A Vaccine
See, “Dramatis Personae” shows this exact conflict of Starfleet vs Bajoran playing out… but under alien telepathic influence, dramatizing through lived experience the conflict that destroyed a civilization. It’s an interesting blend of real-world details being repurposed into the aliens’ script — the dynamics are the same, even though the particulars are different.
And so we do get a bit of a preview of what this conflict might look like — especially from Odo and Quark, who are unaffected. But, in all honesty, it does feel like a bit of a cheat, since it becomes clear at the end that no one was in control of themselves, whatsoever.
Now, I think this episode actually can be used to explain why we don’t see a real conflict break out on the station. After being released from the alien influence, Sisko and Kira (to say nothing of O’Brien, Jadzia, and Bashir) no doubt reviewed the logs, reports, and Odo’s account of what happened. They would have seen how quickly the situation unraveled. It would be a vivid reminder to them that they are holding this situation together purely by their goodwill and willingness to cooperate.
Rather than exacerbate existing tensions, the events of “Dramatis Personae” may have allowed the Starfleet and Bajoran crews to reap the benefits of the conflict without suffering the consequences. Thereafter, when minor conflicts would arise, they’d be seen in the light of the Valerian Situation, and addressed with that much more urgency to keep things from totally unraveling.
In this way, the Valerian Situation may have been a vaccine that inoculated the crew against destructive division going forward.
A Doylist Commentary
Though (in)famous among the Star Trek lore for its heavy serialization, DS9 should perhaps be equally (in)famous for its lack of planning around its serialization. There was no long-term arc, no long-term vision for the series. Except for a bit in the seventh season, there is no intentional foreshadowing — only post hoc foreshadowing that arises out of a choice to follow up on previous stories. The Dominion War was only planned to last six episodes — right up until it wasn’t. Julian Bashir’s genetic code was utterly normal — right up until it wasn’t. Jed Bartlet didn’t have a chronic illness, right up until Sorkin had the idea for Charlie and the President to be stuck in the residence watching daytime TV — oops, wrong franchise!
Likewise, in the late first season, the Prophets were probably not on the writers’ minds. Even on the (relatively rare) occasion that they decide to tell stories about the Bajorans during the first two seasons, the Prophets are very much a background fixture — a piece of cultural heritage, not active players in the drama. (Contrast that with later seasons when the Prophets begin to have an active influence — everything from “Accession” to “Prophet Motive” to “Sacrifice of Angels” and so on.)
But in hindsight, as I will lay out below, the events of “Dramatis Personae” could easily have been caused by the Prophets, rather than by some one-off alien species from the Gamma Quadrant.
Now, to be frank, I don’t think the writers had decided (at that point) what they wanted to do with the Prophets. It’s only in the context of the series overall that it might seem “in character” for the Prophets to do something like this. At the time, only 17 episodes in, the Prophets were still pretty uncharacterized, and what we had seen of them so far pointed more toward a hands-off approach.
But if they had decided earlier on that the Prophets were going to be active players in the drama of the series, this episode — with only a few minor modifications — could have been used to lay the groundwork for that.
Being so early in the series, they probably would have opted for something a bit more mysterious, a bit more Twilight Zone. Something like this:
An Alternate Story
The Klingon ship returns from the Gamma Quadrant, with everyone aboard comatose from personal combat injuries, save one, who beams to Ops before promptly collapsing into a coma himself. O’Brien detects that the ship is about to explode, but manages to beam out the warp core just in time for it to spectacularly explode, some distance away from the station. The episode continues on unaltered from there.
Then, instead of finding the energy spheres on a distant world that they identify as the former homeworld of the Saltah’na, the Klingons find the energy spheres on Idran, near the far mouth of the wormhole. They aren’t able to identify the civilization of origin, but Odo’s ear perk up when he hears them describe the spheres as being “hour-glass-shaped”. Cut to a scene of Odo standing in the Bajoran temple, contemplating an Orb. He shares this revelation with no one.
The rest of the episode continues unchanged, until the last scene. Kira has her heart-to-heart apology with Sisko, and Sisko teases her about letting the mutiny slide “this time”. She mentions that the Klingons have all recovered and are on their way home to recuperate, and then heads back out to Ops as Odo enters. He is very unneasy and explains that he has something he needs to share with Sisko, something very delicate and potentially inflammatory. Sisko gently tells him to go on.
ODO: “Sir, in reviewing the Klingons’ logs, I discovered an… alarming coincidence. As you know, the Klingons discovered the telepathic energy matrix on an abandoned planet on the other side of the wormhole.”
SISKO: “Yes, in the Idran system.”
ODO: “That is correct. What I did not put in my official report… is that the Klingon science officer described the devices they discovered as being ‘hour-glass-shaped.’”
camera on Sisko’s face as he reacts
ODO: “As you have experienced first hand, Bajoran orbs do have telepathic capabilities…”
SISKO: “And Idran is not much farther away from the wormhole than Bajor is. Which means, it’s possible that this entire affair was somehow caused by the aliens who live in the wormhole.”
ODO: “You can see why I said this was potentially inflammatory. The Orbs may be instruments of alien influence, used for nefarious purposes.”
SISKO: turns to look off into the distance, maybe out the window “I’m not so sure about that. Bajoran history is replete with personal accounts of Orb encounters that were revelatory, life-changing, and overwhelmingly for the better.” turns to look back at Odo, looking him in the eye “And my own experience with an Orb suggested nothing nefarious.”
ODO: still skeptical “But you don’t deny that the Orbs may be influencing people and events.”
SISKO: starts to speak, but pauses. He comes around to the other side of the desk, to stand next to Odo, and look out at Ops — at Kira specifically. “Maybe. But in this case, perhaps they helped us out.”
Odo looks out at Kira as well, and then they both look at the Starfleet and Bajoran crews working together — O’Brien with his Bajoran technicians, Kira planning duty rosters with Dax… every team in Ops integrated with Starfleeters and Bajorans alike.
Sisko and Odo share a look as we fade out.
If they had done this, it would have laid the groundwork for any number of other stories throughout the series. It would have heightened Sisko’s arc as a skeptic disbeliever turned Emissary. And, combined with “Duet” and “In The Hands Of The Prophets”, would have made for an informal “three-part season finale” that recapitulates the main ideas of the First Season, which I think would be pretty awesome.
[continued below]
A Watsonian Theory
As you can see above, it actually takes very little to suggest (from an in-universe perspective) that the Prophets may have been the agents behind the Valerian Situation.
We know that the Prophets have the ability — both through the Orbs and through direct interaction in the wormhole — to influence people telepathically. The most obvious example of this was when they “de-evolved” Zek in “Profit Motive,” but we also see things like the “Orb Shadow” events, and of course Orb Encounters themselves.
It’s possible that the Prophets themselves created the telepathic energy matrix, set it on the Klingon ship, and then let events carry on through there. (The energy spheres on Saltah’na being implanted memories.) Their objective would have been to indirectly bolster the relationship between Sisko and the Bajorans by allowing them to “get it out of their systems” — inoculating them against further conflict.
Normally I’m pretty wary of theories like this — “xyz happened because the Prophets did it” or “because Q did it”. But the confluence of alien telepathic influence, the presence of the wormhole, and the direct impact on the good of Bajor — which the Prophets take an active and repeated interest in — makes it seem a little bit less arbitrary.
Put In A Different Light
I’ve written before about how the Prophets are underdeveloped as characters, and how there is distinct benefit to retconning things as being caused by them. Previously I had described how the idea of a Prophets-influenced Rom serves to put the Prophets in a bit of a different light, moving them from this ambiguous portrayal wherein they are maybe good “people” (and maybe they aren’t), to a slightly more positive depiction wherein they really do “care”. Tying them into Rom’s story arc gives us more to judge them by.
Tying the Prophets into the Valerian Situation also gives us more to judge them by. In contast, though, this would put them in a more ambiguous light. Yes, the crew of DS9 learned their lesson and made sure to play nice together, ensuring that The Sisko would stay around long enough to do his The Sisko Thing.
But. Um. All those Klingons. Yeah, they died. Lots of stabbing, big boom.
To be honest, I don’t think this is entirely out of character for them. Don’t forget that they also had no problem overwriting Zek’s personality, they had no problem using Akorem Laan to send Sisko a message, they had no problem hijacking Sarah Sisko’s body, they had no problem winking thousands of Dominion soldiers out of existence, and they apparently had no problem with the Occupation of Bajor. These Klingons were among the most innocent bystanders, especially when the severity of their fate is considered, but it wouldn’t be wildly out of character for them.
Am I planning to add this idea to my personal headcanon? Probably not. It paints the Prophets as just a little too Machiavellian for my tastes. But, if some tie-in author ever decided to run with it, I wouldn’t dismiss it as outlandish.
In Conclusion
“Dramatis Personae” is a good example of an early DS9 episode, in that it has lots of really interesting pieces that almost fit nicely into the overall lore of the series, but which just ever so slightly miss. “Past Prologue,” “A Man Alone,” “Captive Pursuit,” “Battle Lines,” and “Second Sight” are other examples of this — we can recognize the common ideas that these early episode share with later, more developed storylines, but they don’t quite sync up.
Which is fine. One thing to say about DS9’s first season: it is, by far, the strongest first season of any of the Berman-era series. It doesn’t have too many great episodes, but basically the entire season is solid. None of the episodes I’ve named are particularly “bad”, just sometimes less interesting. The fact that they don’t “line up” as well as they might with future episodes isn’t really something to complain about — just to note.
I do wonder sometimes — what would DS9 have been like if they had planned things out more? Obviously there are some days (like today) when I say, “Ugh, it would have been so awesome if they had done more to tie in the First Season. Sometimes it feels like the show didn’t even start until Season Three!” And then there are other days when I wonder if maybe the reason it worked as well as it did is precisely because they didn’t plan it out. Maybe that’s the secret.
Oh I love this explanation, thank you for writing this all up!
With regard to their relative level of machiavellianism, I think being able to see clearly all the consequences of all their decisions makes it both a given that they would be more machiavellian as well as making it fairly ethically “clean” so to speak. We as humans can’t see the consequences of our actions so we have just to rely on what our ethics tell us is the right course, since we don’t really have a better guide. The prophets, otoh, do have a better guide, and we do have a fairly broad evidence base of them seeming genuinely to care about the wellbeing of, at least, the Bajoran people. So for me anyway, I am happy to assume that their judgement was sound, being that they are operating with a level of knowledge and within an entire framework that is completely unfathomable to me and I can’t really assess any individual decisions they make fairly.
Oh huh, that’s a really interesting idea about the implications of Machiavellianism for nonlinear beings. I really like the possibilities that affords for the Prophets – I’ve long had mixed feelings about interpretations that give the Prophets agency because… like… they don’t seem to necessarily making the Best Choices, but maybe it’s different if they know how it all works out.
M-5, nominate this comment by @lwaxana_katana for an insightful remark about the implications of nonlinearity on Machiavellianism. Ah wait, we haven’t got that set up yet… well, we’ll get to that!