Dark Reality

One thing I've always had a hard time swallowing about the 24th century as portrayed in Star Trek series and films is that everyone either listens to classical, jazz, or opera. It's hard to believe that rock, metal, rap, and other more upbeat styles have died out with war and poverty. Surely there are still things to be angry and passionate about, and of course there will always be discontents among us.

 

Oh, I know why they use classical, jazz, and opera. It's all about licensing... it's easier for films to license much older music than it is for them to license today's hits. I just always wondered why they didn't ever make their own. Surely the hundreds (thousands?) of people who worked on Star Trek must have included some amateur musicians. Or... maybe they didn't want to try to speculate on what popular music would be like in the 24th century?

 

From time to time, when listening to Nightwish, one of my favorite bands, I imagine them having a place in the 24th century. They're from Finland, and any American who's heard them heard them online or from a friend... they're not on TV or radio, at least not here. (The UK is a different story... their networks play them.) They're kind of like an opera/metal band... I can imagine Worf/other Klingons getting into it, especially after an episode of DS9 where Worf was listening to opera (pretty sure the episode was "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places"). What he was listening to was pretty cool, but could have used some guitar and drum work in there. <_<

 

I also figure those [characters] who like classical music might also appreciate some Led Zeppelin... off camera, where licensing isn't an issue, that is...

 

 

Hardcore Trekkies... don't take this too seriously... It is something I've always wondered, but in posting it, part of me is just playing with possibilities.

Not showing up for me, but I don't have Flash installed... is it something in Klingon that can't be typed out? *confused*

 

"Perhaps today IS a good day to die!"

-and-

"If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand!"

 

both from Star Trek VIII: First Contact.

 

The Robin Hood one was good too. I can't remember the episode title, but that's one of my favorite TNG episodes.

I like some Ferengi episodes... I just didn't care for "Family Business". Quark trying to convince his mother to not wear clothing didn't sit well with me.

 

I'm not able to acquire the two TOS episodes, but I've actually seen the DS9 episode with the original Trek, when it first aired.

 

Thanks for the long post... I'm sure I'll be barreling right through Season 5... at least until I get a job. I may finish out DS9 by the middle or end of November... as for TNG, I'm trying to get 2 a night in when my girlfriend gets off work.

 

Now for the "offline blog" thingy... <_<

 

 

"Apocalypse Rising" kicks off DS9's Season 5. This episode seemed really short, as Sisko, Odo, O'Brien, and Worf invade the Klingon Empire in an attempt to expose... well, a traitor in the Empire, the former three surgically altered to look like Klingons. There was an important scene here, the time every Captain has to put one of his crewmen in line. With Picard it was Data in "Generations"; here it was Sisko and Odo, Odo wanting to back out of the mission and Sisko reminding him of his duty and that nothing can change him being made into a solid. It may have been this episode where Bashir offers to give him a new face, but I looked at some of the last episodes, and Odo's features are never sharpened, so I must not be remembering correctly.

 

"The Ship" was a good episode, for a few reasons, and it wasn't really part of the 'main' storyline. Sisko and a Runabout crew find a crashed Jem'hadar ship on a remote world, and protect it from a Vorta and Jem'hadar crew, with kind of a sad ending.

 

YEAH! "Looking for Par'mach in All the Wrong Places" was a great episode, funny as hell... and romantic, in a... Klingon sort of way. "The House of Quark" (3x03... was it really two whole seasons ago?) was not that good (in my opinion!), but this one was great. O'Brien is probably the luckiest guy on DS9... Now Worf has Dax and Quark has that Klingon woman, but O'Brien has Keiko and Kira, and he's got a kid with another on the way, and having a family has always been one of my life's goals (specifically, up until I fell in love with an Italian woman, I wanted an Asian woman... and as far as kids, I'd always preferred to have girls), so as far as I'm concerned, O'Brien's got it made. And he likes what he does; that's important, too.

 

"Nor the Battle to the Strong"... this is the best Jake episode since... wow, I can't remember which one it was, with the older Jake Sisko (played by Tony Todd) and Ben Sisko kept phasing in and out... damn, went through a bunch of old ones and can't find it. Anyway, it was one of the better episodes. This wasn't quite that good, but it was pretty good, and well worth the time... Probably the best of the four I've watched today, though not as funny as the last one (different kinds of episodes).

 

Now... I seem to remember a poll, about "favorite DS9-era ships". When do we see them? I've seen Defiant, and the Sovereign-class (Ent.-E) was included in the poll... are we going to see some awesome Federation starships at some point?

Spoilers herein!

 

Well, I didn't want to go and make a "TNG Blog" as I did with DS9... yet there are a few questions I have about some of the episodes, which are probably just a matter of interpretation, but in case I missed something, I thought I'd just ask them here. :(

 

1x01-02 "Encounter at Farpoint": In "Star Trek VII: Generations", talking to Geordi, Data recalls a joke. Something to the effect of "The Romulan (? - might be something else) can stay, but the Ferengi in the Gorilla suit has got to go." At least that's what I remember. First of all, they didn't meet the Ferengi until the episode "The Last Outpost", and second, I don't recall any joke like that being told on the "Farpoint Mission", which I can only assume is the "Encounter at Farpoint" episode... since "Farpoint" was really an alien that the Enterprise liberated. Thus I doubt there will be another "Farpoint Mission".

 

1x06 "Where No One Has Gone Before": Surely some of what The Traveler did was recorded. Why didn't Voyager try some of that? The Enterprise-D was able to travel two to three galaxies in minutes (seconds?). Voyager did mess around with a Warp-10 prototype in "Threshold", but that didn't work... but that wasn't the same thing as what The Traveler did. So I didn't have any questions/problems with this episode, only that the results of what happened should have helped Voyager somewhat.

 

1x09 "Justice": This episode has never sat well with me. I guess this isn't so much a question, but more of a "what did you think about the ending" question. Perfect world, until we realize they execute anyone for the smallest offenses, and Wesley accidentally breaks a law and is thus sentenced to death. The problem I have with this episode is that the inhabitants of this world don't properly warn visitors. They're quick to provide a summary of their laws, but they stop short of mentioning their extreme punishments. An ending I would have appreciated more would have been if they would have agreed to warn all visitors of their ways, so it would really be "on them" if something like this happened again, and the Prime Directive could be satisfied. I don't know if warning beacons hadn't been invented, but if it were a Voyager episode, and Picard and Wesley swapped for Janeway and Naomi, Janeway would have posted warning beacons all around that planet warning oncoming ships of the threat. (Granted, Tuvok would probably have pushed for the kid's execution, citing "logic", and Janeway would have had to disregard his advice... what do you think about that?)

I actually wrote this yesterday, as phone lines were out here. A tropical storm headed through here (VBG might be seeing some of that soon, it looked like it was heading up in his direction) and things were bad, but I had my DS9... :) Friday I watched six DS9 episodes, then the usual two TNG episodes with my girlfriend. As I watched the episodes, I kept up a "journal" in realtime... So here's that...

 

 

It's raining, and as such, the phone lines are out, so that means no Internet access for me. So I decided to do something a little different with my next entry, finishing season 4 of DS9. With each episode I watched, I wrote a sentence or two or three about it as I watched them, rather than doing a recap afterwards. The result probably isn't much different, but it seems easier this way.

 

I didn't really like "The Muse". Unlike a couple others that came before it which I didn't care for, I didn't exactly get bored with it, but it wasn't that great overall. I never have liked Lwaxana Troi, and I'm not sure she's in any good episodes. (I said Lwaxana, not Majel Barret [Roddenberry], who I learned a couple months ago plays the voice of the Computer as well... that's a pretty cool "cameo"... I just don't like her Lwaxana character... at all.) Jake isn't so bad, but his side of the episode wasn't all that great.

 

"For the Cause"; now that was a good episode. The relationship between Ben and Jake Sisko has always been well played out, maybe one of the best in the series (along with Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir, but they have fewer episodes). There was actually a little of this in the previous episode, but not enough to make me like it overall. This one seemed longer than others somehow; twice I thought it was over, but then there was another scene or two afterward. The first time it was tying up a loose end, but the second one (the ending scene) came as a bit of a surprise. Is this the episode that is unofficially joined with "For the Uniform" (5x13) and "Blaze of Glory" (5x23)? Oh... It should have gone without saying that Defiant was cloaked in the Badlands, but they didn't say it. Is that bluish glow a telltale sign Defiant is cloaked (like flashing red means red alert)?

 

Now "To the Death" seemed a little short, but I figure that's because it was thick in the beginning, and the ending was rather quick. I've been waiting for this one for a while as the "first Weyoun episode" and it was satisfying. If asked to call this or the one before better, I'd have a hard time answering. I've just watched two very good episodes. B)

 

My record is 5 episodes a day. My girlfriend gets home in 6.5 hours, and I've already watched three. What's the score? :(

 

I've been doing some scanning ahead (muted, just jumping around)... Do they say exactly, why in "The Ascent" (5x10) forward, the uniforms change? Just curious. They drop the TNG uniforms for something newer (what the TNG crew wore in the last three movies). It's interesting to note that for obvious reasons Voyager doesn't have a uniform change. :)

 

I'm not usually a fan of medical drama... never read anything by Robin Cook, but "The Quickening" was a pretty good episode. Not much else to say for it, other than that I hope they come back to this later with a better conclusion for the people on that world...

 

"Body Parts" was, well... a Ferengi episode... And that makes five. One more, to finish season 4... ...and still no dialtone on the line... so on the offline DS9 blog continues...

 

I also found it interesting, on the TNG side, in "Where No One Has Gone Before", the introduction of "The Traveler". One of my favorite TNG episodes is "Remember Me" and The Traveler is mentioned, but I didn't know the significance of it. :(

 

"Broken Link" ...Wow... I thought the end with Odo was shocking, but the bit at the very end with Gowron... Now that's just not right! :) That was a good end to the season. I have to ask, though... When DS9 was actually on, when it was new... I saw an episode where they improved Odo's face. Bashir asked Odo about it in this episode, but he didn't say whether he wanted his face improved, and I thought at one point he did. Is that yet to come?

If you haven't seen the Wikipedia, you don't know what you're missing. It's an online encyclopedia, completely free... but the magic about it is that anyone can (and does!) edit any page. And this works out better than you might think... granted, pages like those on George W. Bush, the Iraq war, Microsoft, and abortion are in constant dispute, but such pages have a header saying so, and anyone else can read "prior revisions". Also, the software is set up so that if a troublemaker goes deleting or otherwise defacing the system, they can be barred from ever editing anything again.

 

But enough about that... Wikipedia is cool enough as it is, and does have entries for Star Trek series, movies, and a few races... but it's not all that in-depth. One day a month or two ago I happened on this: Memory Alpha. It's Wikipedia for Trekkies, using the Wiki software to make a free, online Trek encyclopedia anyone can edit.

 

One use I found for it, I heard the name of the Predator-inspired race in the DS9 episode "Bar Association", but I didn't know what it was... just that it started with an N, and I'd know it if I saw it. So I went to M-A, looked up alien races (from the main page), and spotted it immediately. Try this: Search for "Nausicaan" on Wikipedia. Now search for it on M-A. The difference is pretty clear.

 

It's just an awesome reference, and definitely worth bookmarking.

Now it's my turn to envy you, VBG. I did have the privilege of seeing the original Star Wars, but it was the 1997 re-release. It was pretty impressive, but seeing the teaser for it the year before almost made me have to change my pants! (The teaser where they show the original Star Wars on a little TV, and the X-Wing breaks out onto the big screen.)

 

Yes, Return to Grace was like an Indiscretions, Part II... it took me a minute. I've seen so many betweeen then and now...

 

"Sons of Mogh" was alright, but I didn't care for the ending. Sometimes I admire the Klingons, but other times I don't understand them at all. "Bar Association" was a little better... my favorite part was seeing the Naussicans. I always thought the alien in Predator was cool, and I loved that Star Trek modeled an alien race after it. That may not be canon, but who among us who has seen Predator didn't think that when first seeing Naussicans? "Accession" delved a little deeper into Bajoran culture, and forced Sisko to reanalyze his job as Emissary. I thought the Prophets were a little too straightforward, though.

 

"Rules of Engagement" was awesome, a legal thriller of sorts, and showed a Klingon who wasn't your typical Klingon. He seemed a little smarter, more level-headed than most. I've heard about "Hard Time" before, where O'Brien is forced to 'virtually' endure 20 years of prison, and the effects it had on him. This was a particularly interesting episode, because I'd always wondered how Picard re-adjusted after the events of my favorite TNG episode, "The Inner Light", which used a similar plot device. And most recently, "Shattered Mirror"... awesome action episode, and takes place mostly in the mirror universe to boot. I don't think we've met the mirror Worf before, but it was interesting to see him as a "real Klingon" with honor intact.

 

I'll finish this series, all right... B)

 

And Jo and I started watching TNG last night. We just watched Farpoint last night. I kept listening for the joke referenced in "Generations", but it never came... did they just throw that in or what? Anyway, if she wants to do a Star Trek blog, I'll let her track TNG in her own thread. I've seen most of the episodes and parts of the ones I haven't seen all the way through; I'm just getting them in order. She's seeing all of them (bar a few she must have seen on TV over the past 18 years it's been on) for the first time.

 

PS - VBG, have a look at this: FlashChat. I have one on my board, but my board's slow and I never see anyone else in chat... the one Invision offers is Java, and suffers from a lot of the problems associated with Java... I thought a Flash based chat would be really cumbersome, but it loads a lot faster than I expect, and I'm on dialup... worse, AOL... check it out, though. It could add a neat new dimension to your site.

I didn't vote... I vaguely remember one Soong (probably Noonien) as Data's creator from TNG... I don't remember another one. I remember Data's brother, Lore... but not a second Soong.

Hey all, I gave in to temptation and started watching DS9 again! It's been about two and a half weeks, but I'm now anxious to get back into it and finsih this series!

 

I don't know when my girlfriend and I will start watching TNG, but I'm wondering if I won't have DS9 finished by then. She works, and I'm still waiting on paperwork from the state (I moved to North Carolina to move in with her) before I can start looking for work. It probably won't be until we're both working and we can work into a schedule that we can start watching Trek together. Plus, I brought about 150 DVDs (movies) with me when I moved in, and there's a lot she wants to see. She is interested in getting into Trek, but it is something of a commitment. Me... I'm at home without her for 9.5 hours each day, nothing to do... there are a few maintenance tasks I must take care of with my website/message board I'm sorta putting off more than I should be, but other than that I have a lot of time. There's only about a dozen to 20 movies I have that I haven't seen, and frankly DS9 is more appealing than most (if not all) of them.

 

I'm on dialup now (Walmart's AOL client... gag me...) so I've disabled avatars, signatures, and images... makes it a lot more dialup friendly. That's one thing I like about the software VBG and I use on our boards (Invision Power Board); you can disable those things. I could take it a step further and hit the Lo-Fi Version button... but that's too much. Makes it a purely text-only board... Not cool... but cool that it's an option for those times AOL is really slow.

 

I just watched 4x14 "Return to Grace", which I enjoyed... another Kira/Dukat episode. Did I mention Dukat is cool? I dunno, in most episodes I like the Cardies more than the Bajorans.

@HRH The KING -- Why animated? I think CGI-enhanced would be cool, but even Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within/Advent Children isn't to a point of realism that would be acceptable to most audiences, and Square/Enix is the best of the best as far as CGI animation in film... Pixar has absolutely nothing on them. The next best I've seen is the French (?) team behind Kaena: The Prophecy (excellent CGI film you may have missed).

 

Starfleet Academy is a military training facility as well as a school. Starfleet is the Federation's military, although in the TNG years they weren't viewed as such. It wasn't until the Dominion that they geared more towards war again.

 

@Manveru -- Star Trek has always been drama. I've only seen a couple TOS episodes, so I won't judge that series, but even during the action in TNG, DS9, and Voyager, it was always more of a drama. It's a futuristic soap opera... I think a lot of fans accept and appreciate that, and even Voyager made fun of Trek as a soap in one episode where Neelix was hooked on a soap opera. What he was observing wasn't much different from the interpersonal relationships on DS9 and Voyager (more so than TNG).

 

@TheUnicornHunter -- What's with the anti-Wes stuff anyway? I don't mean to imply you specifically started that... I do know a lot of fans don't like Wes. But TPTB brought him back on DS9 in the form of Jake Sisko, and again on Voyager, sort of, in the form of Naomi Wildman, so someone at Paramount seems to think it works. Personally Wesley never bothered me, though he was a bit of a whiner.

 

I did not know others had been tossing the idea around. It just makes sense to me. They've really pushed the technological development as far as it's going to go -- any more, and it's going to get silly, or at least incomprehensible to anyone but the most serious sci-fi nut. First TNG had holodecks, then Voyager had the holo-Doc. With every other episode having a hologram from the holodeck steal the mobile emitter, it got kind of confusing. (Voyager should have replicated 150 emitters, had holographic characters made of the whole crew, put the real crew in stasis, and let the holo-characters fly the long journey home... problem solved.) Then you have Photon Torpedoes, Quantum Torpedoes, Multiphasic Torpedoes... Do they ever spell out the differences? Well, they tried something new with ENT, but TPTB didn't think that worked. IMHO all they really have left is the drama.

 

I dunno... I just really like Trek, and I'd watch a new series if they put it out. I couldn't get into ENT, but I'd love to give it another chance someday.

What do you all think would be the feasability of a Trek series which takes place primarily in San Francisco, at Starfleet Academy, and follows the stories of young cadets in their first year, as they go through their schooling, as well as personal relationships? Kind of like a 24th century 90210.

 

Trek has always excelled at portraying the relationships between the characters, as well as conflicts... A Starfleet Academy setting would really set the stage for more "friendly" conflicts, and be able to explore all kinds of school-related issues at the same time. We could follow Nog's education; that could be a starting point. Such a series would allow them to use more aliens, much more diversity. There wouldn't be a ship, per se... so it would kind of be like DS9 in that regard... and maybe have something major happening in the background, like an alien invasion (Borg? Dominion?) or something more internal.

 

Trek has probably gone about as far as it can, at least in some peoples' opinions, as far as space travel goes. Where else can they go? It's just an idea, maybe not the best, but I think they could make it work...

Come on... who among us wouldn't (at some point)?

 

I'd see it in the theatre... I've seen all of them since VI: The Undiscovered Country (though I hardly remember that as my dad took me when I was a kid) in the theatre and, even if it reeks of badness, I'd see it because it's Trek. Sounds geeky, but I'm not one to care.

 

I think TNG movies are played out. I don't know how DS9 ends, so I don't know about the feasability of a DS9 movie. Perhaps they should do a hybrid, with the Voyager/DS9/TNG casts mixed on the Ent-E or an Intrepid-class. Like a "new" captain (not totally new, like Chakotay or Riker or someone who's been on a show, but gets promoted to Captain in the movie) and mixed crew. I'd like to see Tuvok and Seven in there, throw in Geordi... maybe have Quark stow away and wind up needed for something... I dunno, but I'd enjoy a new Trek film.

It's highly unlikely that the Borg would join the Federation as a member. They don't play by anyone's rules but their own. They would only consider an alliance if it benefitted them (see Voyager, when Janeway negotiated passage through Borg space in exchange for the weapon to fight Species 8472) and not otherwise.

 

As was said before, liberated Borg aren't Borg, just Borg-enhanced. They're severed from, and therefore do not speak for the Collective.

 

Then again, I think the Borg Collective is really the Borg Queen... So if there were a way to convince the Borg Queen to change her ideology, the entire Collective would change.

 

I always thought the Borg represented "a certain religion" whose goal is to force everyone into their same conservative ideology, and the Borg allying with the Federation would be like this religion which shall not be named accepting people from other religions as more than just cultists and devil worshippers... and I strongly doubt that will happen IRL.

Picard, no contest. Janeway didn't hate the Borg at all, at least not from what I gathered from the series. Let's see... she willingly beams to a Borg cube to negotiate with the Collective for passage through Delta quadrant Borg space, adopts a drone... And let's not forget Seven. Picard would have tossed her out the first airlock.

 

I think there are a lot of people who hate the Borg more than Janeway. I'm sure Seven has some anger towards them.

I liked Star Wars VI (Return of the Jedi) more than most people. The Ewoks didn't really bother me. The space battle and the Luke/Vader scene more than made up for it. I know a lot of people consider Empire (V) to be the best, but I prefer Jedi to it.

 

I don't think any Star Wars film is really bad or worst, though. III would have been better if I'd only seen I and II; knowing what happens in IV-V-VI makes III almost pointless. The events at the end were very cool to watch, but III more so than any of the others had to not only continue where others left off, but it also had to be at a certain point by the end. It was a lot more restrained, there weren't a lot of surprises.

 

Isn't it nice how I just stopped dead in the middle of Season 4? Right in the middle of the whole series. I'll finish Deep Space Nine one day. Really, I will. But in going back and watching TNG with my girlfriend, I'll remmeber all the classic (to me) episodes, then DS9... because eventually we want to get to Voyager. I'll see if I can't con her into starting a TNG blog, then a DS9 blog, then a Voyager log. I'll do one as well, except for DS9, in which case I'll just continue this one if we're all still here by then (this board, you people... Susan, sea trooper, and VBG mostly)..

Good idea on integrating them. I bet the stardates will still be out of order... but that way they'll be closer.

 

@VBG -- DS9 may have a few serious advantages over TNG, but TNG is really the "start" of the era which later encompasses DS9 and Voyager. And I will show her the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror before either DS9 Season 2, or right before Crossover.

 

I had to reference back to my DS9 collection; the 2-part "The Maquis" is in Season 2, and we'd have to watch that before starting Voyager, as that's where the Maquis started.

 

I can encourage her to post here... maybe open up a thread in the personal logs forum and call it a Star Trek TNG-DS9-VOY blog. I think we will both use forums a little less when we move in together, since we use them (mine anyway) to keep in touch. We both have other forums we visit, but at least for the first couple months I think both of us will be less active on the forums we visit.

 

As for her favorite between SW I, II, and III... I didn't ask. Maybe when we've seen all six I'll ask. Personally my answer would differ each week. Some days "A New Hope" is my favorite (and it probably always will be) but other days it's "Attack of the Clones". Depends if I'm in a new trilogy mood or an old trilogy mood. And I like the "other two" in the original trilogy a heck of a lot better than the "other two" in the new trilogy. I liked Ep. III a lot less than most people.

any tips?

 

Click For Spoiler

Slow down, you're going to finish it too quickly!

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Like hell I will... I did not watch any DS9 episodes yesterday. I woke up at 7pm the day before yesterday, worked a grave shift (actually half swing, half grave), and stayed up all day until 9pm. (It was my last day at that job... Monday I'm driving across the country for a week.) Too tired to watch any DS9.

 

So far today I've watched one, Crossfire. I have to say it was pretty good, though I hated seeing Odo get trampled on. I've come to like Odo a lot more, he's actually pretty cool.

 

I may watch another one later, depends on what all goes down today.

 

Oh yes! One more flaw in the asian sets... See, sometimes they finish a bit early. Before the credits would even start the episode stops and returns to the menu. The most noticable one is the Paradise Lost one where it ends when Sisko is still in the Admiral's office. I guess it's a pretty big flaw but it only happens to a few episodes. :(

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That would tick me off. Actually I think one of the Voyager episodes I watched did something like that, ending before that last Berman/Pillar credit. I didn't think it was far away, but still was a little disappointed.

 

I actually don't know what I will do when I move. I may stop watching DS9 because my girlfriend is interested in seeing them all, so we may watch them in order (TNG-DS9-Voyager). So I may watch seven seasons of TNG, then start over on DS9 (encouraging her to watch as many as she can in my absense, with the exception of favorites I'll note) and then we'll catch up to where I am now, and continue through, and then I'll watch Voyager with her.

 

Guys, I will make her a Trekkie if it's the last thing I do. :( Actually, she hadn't seen any of the Star Wars movies before this year, and saw I and II when I asked her out to III, and can't wait to see IV, V, and VI. I'm sure she'll at least enjoy TNG, love DS9, and like Voyager.

Oh, I'd feel a little betrayed if someone showed me the last episode. I haven't seen "What You Leave Behind" but I would prefer to see it at its proper place in the series. It's sweeter that way.

 

@VBG - How about trading Second Skin for Indiscretion? Second Skin was a great episode, they both were, but I really liked seeing Kira change her mind, if only temporarily, about Cardassians and Dukat. They are very close, but I think I prefer Indiscretion.

 

Also Invasive Procedures or Facets (preferrably the latter) would be good as they really show you the Dax character, and how she is missing the whole symbiont or in the case of Facets, just the Curzon memories. And "Curzon Odo" was priceless. I hope they do a flashback episode where we see Curzon Dax in the flesh... they make him out to be so cool, like a super Han Solo, but other than in Facets, we haven't actually met him yet.

 

All you need is to be curious, you'll be hooked before long. I changed my profile to show Deep Space Nine, not Voyager, as my favorite series, and I mean it. Just about anything good people say about DS9 here is probably (if not for sure) true. :(

Oh, that's interesting. :lol: I didn't realize. I did however realize Tony Todd played the elder Jake Sisko in "The Visitor". My brother and I remember him from his role in Candyman, a scarier-than-most gore/horror flick. When I told my brother that Tony Todd guest-starred on Deep Space Nine, he asked if it was a Halloween special. When I told him what it was, he was a little disappointed.

 

I just watched the two parter Homefront and Paradise Lost. The Dominion invade Earth... Or do they? Great episode(s), kind of reminds me of when I read the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy (includes Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger, excellent movies you may have seen) as they included a lot of political and military drama. And seeing 24th century San Francisco is always a treat.

Interesting question, I would just assume that while they are in the link they are still "solid", meaning that they aren't broken into little pieces but rather are a blob unto themselves. They are interconnected to all of the other changelings and can communicate throughout the link but their entity exists in one place as opposed to being split up into thousands or millions of little bits spread around the whole link... if that makes sense. lol

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I think I agree with this. I believe that the changelings all melt together. Consider, if you will, a huge transporter buffer. We know that they can usually only hold 5-6 or even less, and only for a short period of time. Imagine a transporter buffer that can hold a thousand with no time limit. To use the more familiar Federation terminology, assume the thousand Federation officers beam into the buffer for a period of 8 hours. Their data (both biological and neural) is all mixed up in there, but there's a file that says what belongs to whom. When the transporter goes off in 8 hours, they all re-energize. This is actually how a computer's hard disk works as well. All the data fragments together, but the file allocation table (FAT) keeps track of what files hold which data in which sectors, on which plates, in the hard drive. (Your hard drive has 2-5 3.5" steel plates, data stored on both sides, and the readers kind of look like record player arms.)

I think it would depend on what they liked otherwise. Does this hypthetical friend love TOS, TNG, Voyager, and/or Enterprise? Or do they hate Star Trek altogether? Or just not care for it?

 

I agree with "Data", I would start them at Emissary and work forward, skipping any that I don't like, of course. If I wanted to hook someone, I'd want them to want to continue, and not have anything spoiled.

 

And as they're 45 minutes each, you can get more than 8 episodes in. 8 episodes is only 6 hours... if they gave me 8 hours only, that would be 10 episodes, but if they'd give me another 15 minutes, I could get an 11th one in there. :lol:

 

I give my answer from experience. I used to think DS9 was the weakest link in the Trek franchise. I'd seen maybe 3-6 episodes, scattered about, and I just couldn't identify with any of the characters. But then I started watching it, and 2-5 episodes in, I decided it was worth continuing. Now halfway through season 4 (and thus, halfway through the whole series) it's my favorite. Not just because I'm watching it now and it's exciting, but because it's a little deeper than Voyager and a lot deeper than TNG. This is the kind of story/series I like.

 

Making someone a Dax fan is no challenge... Jadzia rocks. Now try making someone a Rom fan, or a Jake fan. They're just not as easy to like (IMHO) as Sisko, O'Brien, Bashir, Odo, or Quark. Kira and Nog are OK, but I like the previously named five plus Dax a lot better. And Dukat... the villain you love to hate.

Oh, OK. I just meant it's already my favorite.

 

The girl was 19? She could have passed for 13 and kind of acted it.

 

I didn't recognize the alien with Quark in Starship Down. This guy?

 

I'd been meaning to check out the Video Vault but didn't want to watch any before I completed the series, just in case. Speaking of which, I actually have a DS9 video on my computer, done to "On My Way Home" by Enya. Look for it on filesharing if you have broadband. I don't know what the filename is as I rename most of the files I download for conformity, but a search on Enya videos will probably bring it up. AFAIK there is no official video for that song, so if you see it, that's probably it. The file is 29.5MB, if that helps.

The Torrents come with tons of extras. I've never watched any of them, I'll have to someday. Especially the crew dossiers.

 

 

I only watched one DS9 episode the day before yesterday, and I think that was Hippocratic Oath, because then yesterday I watched four episodes (Indiscretion, Rejoined, Starship Down, and Little Green Men). This morning I watched The Sword of Kahless and Our Man Bashir. So I guess I've been busy. :lol:

 

Yeah, I was wrong about "Hippocratic Oath", but it was still a pretty good episode. I would have liked to see them bring that one Jem'hadar back to DS9.

 

Indiscretion was really good, Kira and Dukat being forced to get along on a rescue mission. I was a little disappointed in one part... ...Kira is asking Dukat about a 13-year-old girl on the passenger manifest, a half-Bajoran, half-Cardassian girl (his daughter, actually), and I'm thinking 13+6=19 (the ship had been "lost" for 6 years), but then we see the girl's actually only 13, so Kira must have already added the 6. (That or Paramount was hoping we'd add 13 and 6...) :P

 

Rejoined was pretty good. I thought I read somewhere that they did a same-sex episode of TNG when Roddenberry was alive, but after he passed on, what I read was that they shelved the idea and never went back to it. So even though Dax the symbiont is technically neither gender and Trills are essentially bisexual in nature, but it was still a surprise to see two women kissing on a TV show. Not that I have a problem with it, and I'd think in a utopian future where all prejudices seem to be extinct (within the Federation anyway) it wouldn't matter to them, either. It's just not something I was expecting.

 

Starship Down was good, for a pretty much straight action episode. Defiant vs. two JH ships in a gas planet with no sensors. Kind of like a submarine battle in a movie like The Hunt for Red October.

 

Little Green Men was really good. I don't know if you noticed, or maybe I'm just trippin, but when the Ferengi spoke, it was completely garbled. No telling what they were saying. But when the "Humons" spoke, it seemed like the second to last letter of every word was beeped out, or some other simple edit. I thought I could almost make out what they were saying. Are they suggesting that the Ferengi are smarter than the "Humons" or was I hearing things? Good, funny episode overall.

 

The Sword of Kahless was a good Worf and Dax episode, though no hint of a romance; they and Kor (the Klingon introduced in 2x19 Blood Oath) find the "first" Bat'leth (sp?) used by the first great Klingon warrior, the famed Kahless, and of course they all get greedy over it (Worf and Kor, and some other Klingons who show up). Good ending, but kind of unbelievable. Someone will go back and get it.

 

Our Man Bashir... Nice James Bond tribute. Actually there was a movie called "Our Man Flint", which I haven't seen, but if it's anything like this, then it itself is a Bond tribute, so it's a tribute to a Bond tribute, if not a Bond tribute itself. :P

@ddillard: After this what? I'm not sure at what point... the introduction of the Jem'Hadar? the Defiant? Worf? "The Way of the Warrior".... but at some point I think I crossed into "Ninerhood" or at least I can now admit that DS9>VOY. TNG will always be the one I grew up on... I'd rather watch DS9 than TNG, but I think TNG will always be my favorite for much the same reason TOS is for some.

 

I think (predict) that you guys gave away "Hippocratic Oath" when you said it was a "good Jem'hadar episode". The hippocratic oath is that oath doctors take, known for the last three words: "Do no harm". So from what I know and have read, it sounds like an episode where a JH is injured and Bashir treats him or doesn't, and his oath comes into play... but that's just a guess.

 

Seeing Worf for the first time on DS9 was awesome. He wasn't and isn't my favorite character on TNG, but IMHO he's the best Klingon they made and a great addition to the station, That he's going to hook up with Jadzia is practically a given, considering she likes Klingons and hasn't gotten too attached to anyone yet. (Go Worf!) But I thought he winds up with Troi at some point...?

 

I think the thing about DS9 is you have to watch most if not all of it. If you miss the first episode where he becomes the Emissary and Jadzia Dax is introduced, they show the transplant and all... I think if you miss that one, your experience will suffer for it. Likewise if you miss any of the Kai Opaka, Vedek Bareil, Vedek/Kai Winn episodes, you don't get what's going on with Bajor, and that's really important. There are a lot you can miss and still get 100% of the main story. Episodes like "The Visitor" and "Family Business" can be the best to some people, but I could have skipped them and not missed anything major.

 

Perhaps someone should write up a guide for watching DS9 or Voyager with only watching key episodes that mattered to the main plot. DS9 would have more than Voyager, but it would be neat to see a guide which lists the episodes you must watch, then some which would be helpful, and then a breakdown of episodes by main highlighted character that you can watch (or not watch) if you have a favorite or least favorite character.

 

I like what they did with the theme music... not how they changed it, but rather than have the same monologue in the beginning, they just have a nice musical piece accompanying the visuals. Just the intro, it's hard to decide between DS9 and Voyager. Both have a lot of nice stellar shots, and ship shots. But in Voyager, I felt that there were too many exterior ship shots versus exterior station shots in DS9, so on the rare occasion I watch the intro, it's neat seeing the station close up. And I think the asteroid/meteor flying in is a bit cooler than Voyager going around the sun. And the ending... Voyager going to warp is no different than the same shot in TNG... but DS9 shows the runabout (or is it Defiant) going into the wormhole... slightly better, I think.

 

When you guys watch these, do you watch the intro? If so, do you watch it all the time? If not, how easy or hard is it for you to skip it? Since I'm watching them on the computer, it's just a matter of turning off fullscreen (double clicking) and advancing the video past the intro. Sometimes I over- or undershoot it, but I like to hit it on the final Berman/Piller credit, just before it fades. I wish there were a quick way to tell it to advance just so far... figure out the length of the intro, pause it when the intro is about to start, and simply hop over it.

 

Gonna go watch some more DS9 episodes... Here's hoping for no Lwaxana Troi episodes, as little spoken lines by Rom as possible, some cool battles, and Worf kicking some JH *buttocks*... Oh... watched six of them yesterday... that's a new record. Though I'm not sure how proud I should be of having spent 4.5 hours in front of the computer watching digital video... ...oh well, it was fun.

Ah, so I have a ways to go before I reach the Weyoun episodes.

 

"The Visitor" was pretty good, but is nowhere near my previously stated favorites. It's amazing how they can make an episode like that which completely exists outside of the normal realm of Star Trek. Simply amazing. A good episode, but not the best.

 

"The Way of the Warrior" on the other hand... Damn, that was awesome. The space battles. The Klingons. Worf. The changed theme music. I never noticed they changed the music. DS9 is getting really good.