Dark Reality

i use software like photoshop,paint shop pro,paint, etc. i do a google search for the pictures i'm interested in and then go from there. i don't try to use screenshots unless i really like it and it's good resoultion. i mostly use photoshop to make my design the size i want so i could make it 1024X768 i or whatever size if i wanted to.i can also resize things to my interest. if you'd like i think the one ds9 design i made it is something you might like not sure on the size. i will send it to you later. if you'd like?

 

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I suppose if you use something that makes 3D models to make the ships, you could make them as big as you want... it would be really nice if ST.com just gave away such models for people to use for such things as wallpapers and screensavers, but I guess they have to worry about copyright issues, as if someone might throw some ST ships in a game or something.

Cardassians are all the same. None will ever be an Okay Guy. But that's my opinion as a Bajoran.

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I'm back to disliking Ferengi... how they would sell out their family and friends... and how Quark and Rom expect their mother of all people to not wear clothes. Females one's own age I can understand, even in a chauvanistic society, but to extend it to the very young and/or the very old is kind of sick... that whole episode "Family Business" grated on my nerves. Least favorite so far.

My girlfriend's been reading this topic (I linked to it in my sig on my own board) and she's never been into sci-fi, but says DS9 sounds interesting. She hadn't seen any of the Star Wars films until I asked her out to see Sith, so she rented Phantom and Clones... She's waiting for me to move in to see the original trilogy. So maybe she and I can watch TOS, then TNG together... and then DS9 and Voyager again (first time for her). Though this wouldn't be at the speed I'm watching them now... maybe one every night or two, so it could be a couple years before she sees it all, but she's certainly interested (and I wouldn't mind going through DS9 and Voyager again, just as long as it's been a while).

3x24 "Shakaar" was really good, I must say. Good Kira episode, really... being that Kira hasn't been too impressive (IMHO) before this (aside from "Second Skin") made it really cool. And Kai Winn gets a little of what's coming to her. As gamers would put it, "pwnt!"

O'Brien and Quark had been discussing the Holosuites, and it would seem that Starfleet personnell have full run of them. I'd think Quark would have a problem with that if he had paying customers, but it's possible Quark only leases them certain times in the evening and Starfleet people respect that and use them at other times. As for the drinks and food, I've been thinking... the Federation is a trade association as well. Even if they don't have money, they still barter goods and services, I would think... it's possible the Federation provides Quark with some of his inventory, excess food or stuff they allocate him and the other merchants in exchange for accomodating the Starfleet people on board.

3x25 "Facets", another great episode, this time a Dax episode. We (sort of) meet Curzon (via Odo), as well as all the others including the insane Hannibal Lecter-esque one before Curzon... through Ben Sisko. And you just gotta love how Ben shuts Curzon up when Curzon brings up a lady Sisko entertained one night/weekend.

Now I'm up to the season finale, 3x26 "The Adversary". Time to meet Dominion Vorta Weyoun...

//edit: Dammit! I read somewhere that The Adversary was the first Weyoun episode... I must have read wrong. Anyway, it was the first Captain Sisko episode and the last Commander Sisko episode (sort of). Good stuff... Now that "Way of the Warrior" is looking pretty tempting. And who knows, I just might watch a sixth episode if "The Visitor" is that good. (So far my favorites are The Inner Light (TNG) and Blink of an Eye (Voyager). The DS9 episode I thought was the fan favorite was 6x19 "In the Pale Moonlight", one I've been looking forward to since I heard about it.

I like Garak... and Gul Dukat.

Shattered Mirror... season 4 episode 20. In some circles that would be considered a lucky episode. Though I wouldn't know anything about that.

I'm going to finish Season 3 tomorrow. Three more to go. I will probably also watch the 2-part "The Way of the Warrior" that kicks off Season 4. Who knows, maybe I can finish Season 4 by the time I leave (Sept. 12).

Oh, I know a few reasons the Cardies are bad news. First that they're modeled after the Nazis, and second for a future alliance I'm not supposed to know about but caught wind of. So my position on them given the episodes I've seen is that they have a very totalitarian society, but get a Cardassian away from Cardassia Prime for a while and he becomes an OK guy.

I forgot to mention, "Explorers" is the first episode in which we see Sisko sporting a moustache and a goatee. Jake calls attention to it straight away.

Just watched "Explorers". How can you hate the Cardies after that? Not only do they eat their words, they put on fireworks for the Siskos and presumably give them a lift back to DS9. And O'Brien and Bashir getting drunk together. What a fun episode!

The two-parter "Improbable Cause" and "The Die is Cast" were great, about Garak rejoining the Cardassians, and the Cardassians and Romulans leading an assault on the Founders. That was a nice battle. 150 Jem'Hadar ships... wow.

The mirror universe episode "Through the Looking Glass" was pretty good, about mirror O'Brien kidnapping Sisko to help rescue the mirror Jennifer Sisko, who is still alive. I was kind of hoping he would have brought her back to his own universe... that would have been pretty nifty, if a little weird.

@VBG: It's at 43'11 on my video. Right at the end. During the last few lines between Bashir and Garak before the credits roll.

How do you make your own? Or should I say, from where can you get hi-res pictures of the ships and station to make wallpapers with?

I've made a few by taking screenshots from the episodes themselves, but the quality isn't so good. It looks OK but what I'd really like is a proper 1600x1200 razor-sharp rendering of a ship or station, with some stars and maybe some kind of stellar phenomenon.

Yes, I almost forgot about Nog... thanks for reminding me. At first I thought it was a scam of some sort, but it makes sense... that's really cool if he does join.

That part of "Destiny" kind of reminded me of the line in "Generations", "I hope for your sake you were initiating a Klingon mating ritual." LOL. Ah, it's funny, the different ways of the different species.

Just watched "The Visionary"... pretty good episode, except I got sick in the middle. Though I don't think I can blame the episode for it... every time O'Brien shifted, it seemed to compound this dizziness/vertigo I felt, and about halfway through, I lost it. But I'm fine now.

I've got one more episode, "Distant Voices", until I reach the next mirror universe episode "Through the Looking Glass." ...oh, wait... "Distant Voices"... that's the one I saw part of on TV... heh... and you're right, VBG, I really did like that episode. Now I should be getting to sleep, but that mirror universe episode is VERY tempting...

In "Distant Voices" at the end, there is what appears to be a Jem'Hadar in the mix! Same colored skin, same texture, but more pronounced eye ridges like a Cardassian, I think. But it looked too much like a JH to be a coincidence. At the very end when Bashir and Garak are talking, pay attention to the left side of the screen, Garak's side. At one point he appears behind Garak. But we also see this "extra" socializing and shake someone's hand, so it couldn't be a JH... firstly all they think about is killing, and second they consider all species but JH and Changelings to be vastly inferior. It's like the alien that looks like The Predator... I think that was on Voyager, and then only 2-3 times, but it's obvious where they got that alien.

Well, coming from Voyager, I would be wrong to say that the Star Trek universe is lacking romance... As far as I can tell, Tom Paris got lucky with every main female but Seven... for some reason, he never got lucky there. (I only count Janeway because of the episode where they both "evolve" into reptilian creatures and mate in that form.)

I just mean that when they do imply a romance, it's very toned down.

The only romance-to-be I'm aware of is Worf and Jadzia.

OK, I can see it's a different Vorta... they just look a lot alike... or more to the point, when I saw the Vorta in "The Search" I thought "Hey! I've seen that guy in other episodes on TV... maybe he's that Weyoun guy I keep hearing about."

ST.com is a bad site to visit if you don't want spoilers. You can look up any character and it has a wealth of information, including spoilers. I guess that's the point, and I should have known that going in, but... until I get done with DS9, no more ST.com for me for anything.

You know what's interesting about Star Trek? The episode titles... most of them are so good at telling you what the episode is about, but without spoiling anything. And it's dead on more often than not. Consider, "Heart of Stone". There's a stone-like anomaly affecting Major Kira. The term "heart of stone" could be used to describe the Founders, and it applies to Quark as we see him in this episode as well. Someone at Paramount is brilliant...

...And just finished watching "Destiny"... Good episode for O'Brien and especially Sisko. A step forward in O'Brien's feelings towards "Cardies" and a step forward in the peace treaty, plus more back story on the Bajoran religion. Good episode overall.

Yes, I wrote this as I watched the last couple... better post it, seeing as how some people never leave...

Hey, I Googled Weyoun and pulled up the ST.com page on him... Didn't we see that guy in the 2-part "The Search", the guy negotiating with the Starfleet admiral? I kept seeing his name mentioned in the forums, and once I saw that guy in "The Search" I realized I'd seen him before somewhere... on DS9 on TV.

I specifically remember seeing parts of the last episode I watched, "Life Support" when DS9 was on TV. I remembered the Jake/Nog bits, specifically the double date that went bad. When I watched it earlier today, it was just like "I've seen this scene before". Good episode too, and too bad about Vedek Bareil... not that he was much use other than a love interest for Kira.

Speaking of Molly... this "The Petersons" that Keiko keeps saying she's staying with... Who are they? We've established that all the Bajoran kids have been taken back to Bajor since the introduction of the Dominion, leaving only Jake and Nog to teach. Does this other family also have a pre-school-aged child? If so, why don't we ever see them talking to the O'Briens? Of course they're probably just non-characters, just a name thrown out there to have one to use. A weak point in the story but not in an important area.

I've always thought kids were a major weak spot in Star Trek. Like they would be used mostly as props to help drum up sympathy for the good guys. It's one thing to see a starship with soldiers and the occasional girlfriend get shot up, but if there are children on board it's a little different. They're quick to exploit something about kids as an episode's plot point (the imaginary friend episode from TNG comes to mind) but they seem to get the details all wrong. I didn't really like any of the teenagers (Wesley Crusher from TNG, Jake Sisko and Nog from DS9). They each get a decent episode here and there, but their characters are otherwise uninteresting. With the exception of Naomi (who was born on Voyager and went through a few "stages" of childhood) the others just seem to be "just there". I remember Worf having a son, Alexander, but I don't remember anything happening with him. I dunno... It's like kids are completely different in the 24th century.

Another thing about Trek's future civilization I don't get is the toned-down romance. I mean, wow. The detachment these characters have is amazing. The platonic relationships flourish -- Sisko and his son, O'Brien and Bashir, Kira and Jadzia, Sisko and Dax -- but the romantic ones are very limited. One Voyager episode I really liked was "Night", I think the opener for season 5. The one where they're in the starless space and there is literally nothing but black empty space for several light-years. When they re-enter starry space, I like how they address the beauty of the cosmos that they can see in every episode. If I had my girlfriend on a ship with me, we'd spend a lot of time looking out at the different stellar phenomenon. If on DS9, we'd be one of the couples watching the wormhole open.

Nothing against Trek, because it is so good in so many ways, it's just a gripe I have.

That's exactly what I'm after. I'm thinking 30", but not flat-panel, that's too expensive. A Wal-Mart in NC had some CRT HDTVs around $800-$900, 30" Widescreen. I'm thinking of one day hooking my computer up to that.

Problem with that is, Star Trek episodes are Fullscreen. Oh well, the movies aren't (and I always buy movies in widescreen, because I always knew one day I'd have a wide-angle TV).

Kira and Bashir? No, nothing before this episode. What about Bareil?

Hoping to get back to the Dominion/Jem'Hadar stuff soon.

One thing I'm not believing is Molly (O'Brien's daughter). I have a friend who has a daughter that age, and she never stops talking, even if it's just random stuff. I've never known a kid that age that stayed quiet longer than a minute or so. If the producers intended her not to be an annoyance... well, it's unbelievable for someone who's been around kids that age. But then, in the 24th century, they don't listen to much rock music, civilization is a lot more civilized, so who knows, kids may be better behaved in the 24th century...

I can't agree or disagree about Kirk and Spock because I'm not familiar with TOS. I like Spock but only because of assumptions about him because he's Vulcan (and from the movies).

"Fascination" was an interesting episode where Lwaxana Troi's crush on Odo is projected about the station, and everyone has a crush on everyone else. Here's what I can remember:

The two-parter "Past Tense" was pretty good, a time-travel episode.

Offtopic: My latest desktop environment. I don't like changing my wallpaper, but when I do, I move everything around. No default settings for me. And sorry about the size, that's actually the setting I use (19" monitors rock).

Yes, TNG is the original Trek to me, that's what I grew up on. And I did watch "Defiant" and I'm glad I did! It was a great episode. It furthered the relationship between Dukat and Sisko, which was an aspect of the 2-part "The Search" that I enjoyed. And of course I enjoyed seeing the return of Thomas Riker. Jonathan Frakes is a great actor, IMHO underrated because he's a human. After all, Data and Worf stole the show, and Geordi's visor and Troi's.... outfits... drew attention as well. But I always thought Riker made an excellent commander. TNG will always have the best captain/commander, IMHO. They just did a great job across the board.

Yeah, I'm a TNG fan.

"Living Witness", that's what it was called! No, it's not a true mirror universe episode, but the way Voyager was portrayed hundreds of years into the future was very much like the mirror universe.

So far I have only seen Mirror Mirror and Crossover. Crossover was good, but Mirror, Mirror is better... I don't much like TOS, but that was one episode that was pretty good from the original series. Though I'm looking forward to more DS9 mirror episodes, and wish there had been more of them. I didn't even know about the mirror universe until after I started watching and talking about DS9.

Ah, I was wondering who this Weyoun person is!

"Civil Defense" was alright. A fun episode as far as figuring things out. Pretty much good for all characters. And "Meridian" was OK, for a romantic episode. I have to admit, that planet was like a dream.

What was important about "Second Skin" was it may be the first time Kira accepted that Cardassians aren't all bad. It seems Cardassia Prime is like a futuristic Nazi Germany, but the longer Cardassians are away and are allowed to think on their own more, they become better than that.

Another four episodes today, and it's only 8:45AM... Should I be embarassed? I may watch one more, 3x09 "Defiant" is next. Sounds like a ship episode.

Does "Anything" include

I did watch "Equillibrium" yesterday, but I was dead tired afterwards, and there were no replies yet, so I waited. It was a good Dax episode, but I will be confused if they reference this lost host before Curzon. I don't even remember his name... but that melody was beautiful. I wonder if it was composed for Star Trek, or if it's part of an existing classical piece.

"Second Skin" was really good, but "The Abandoned" was a lot better -- my favorite of the third season so far. Good Jake episode, and that's kind of rare. It was also a good episode for Odo and Sisko, and for the back story on the Dominion and Founders, so as far as what seems to be the "main plot" now (the Dominion) this is a more important episode.

But that's not to say "Second Skin" wasn't any good, because it was. It's mostly a Kira episode, and Kira isn't one of my favorite characters. That aside, it was pretty good as far as plot and the surprise at the end -- it wasn't as predictable as others.

I agree about Janeway and Chakotay... Hooking Chakotay up with Seven at the end was kind of tacky. I would have much rather see Janeway and Chakotay happy together and Seven wind up with Harry. (And Harry get promoted.)

And yeah, I tolerate Jake as well. Like I said, "The Abandoned" was a good episode for him. And it's been a while since Kira really had that chip on her shoulder, but she just hasn't become very interesting. Oh well, there's still almost 5 seasons to go, hopefully that will change.

Seen two and I can't wait to get to the third one: 3x07 "Civil Defense".

Another thing that really bothers me about Endgame is that it doesn't answer any questions, like what becomes of the Maquis crew members and what happens to Seven. I also think they should have shown some reunions, like Naomi meeting her father and Tom Paris and Adm. Paris resolving their differences. Maybe it should have been a three-part... or an eighth season with them back in the Alpha Quadrant... Voyager home wouldn't have lasted long, but it could have taken the time to explain some things.

I suppose it could be said that the episode sums up the feeling expressed in a few Voyager episodes that "it's not the destination but the journey". But I think the ending was pretty lacking...

Quark's worth watching, especially when Odo's around or they're togther somewhere. Bashir can be interesting, and the Cardassians (Garak and Gul Dukat) are interesting as well. There's enough to keep me coming back (besides wanting to finish it, of course). I like Worf, so I can't wait till he shows up.

Maybe I will watch "Equillibrium". If I do, I'll be back...

One thing I forgot about The Jem'Hadar and The Search(1&2). In the former, Quark really puts Sisko in his place, about how the Ferengi are actually better than humans. His conclusion is off a little, but his point remains that human hands are far bloodier and dirtier than Ferengi. That Ferengi may be cowardly thieves, they don't have things in their history like slavery, the holocaust, and Hiroshima, not to mention the conflicts that happen in the "future" (venturing into the Trek world). Then in The Search, Sisko pays Quark back good. "Aren't you forgetting something, Quark?" I was hoping we would find out that Sisko had replicated it.

"The House of Quark" was alright. It was funny is what it was. Episodes like this don't always rank among my favorites, but they are fun to watch. And I do like Klingons.

I have one episode, "Equillibrium", to watch before I get to "Second Skin". I think I'll watch those tomorrow. I got three in today, and I have 14 days until I leave, 12 of which I can watch 3 episodes a day... more if they give me days off at work (I've asked to have no days off to save for the trip), so I think I'll be well into Season 4 when I take my break. I'll have to look for work, but I can still probably watch one in the evening...

ABOUT... I meant to type "Is there a thread about greatest (...) villan?"

LOL

I agree about Dukat...

I'm not sure I liked where "The Search" left. I watched the one after it, "The House of Quark" and it didn't answer any questions, just back to business as usual.

So we find out that Odo's race is the Founders, that the Founders control the Dominion, and Odo's people's goals are similar to that of the Borg... to conquer all life and bring order to chaos. And that the Dominion captured DS9's command crew to run a simulation of what would happen if they negotiated a treaty (read: surrender). But then we're all back on DS9 and there's no Dominion threat... yet...

The Defiant was cool. I wasn't expecting it for a while.

I agree with ST on Winn and Dukat. So far I haven't seen anything really bad about Dukat (except a couple times when he was rude... or the Occupation, but like O'Brien said on trial in "The Tribunal", "We all did what we had to during the war." Sure, Dukat did a heck of a lot more than O'Brien during the war, but it's not like Kira wants him arrested and put on trial... she's done this a couple times in the first two seasons.

Is there a thread against greatest (individual, not race) villain? At any rate, Dukat as greatest villain... against who? And greatest as in most evil, most adversarial, or just coolest? As for against who... There's Winn... and who else? Seska from Voyager, but does she count as she's only in a handful of episodes? Same with Q... he may have made an attempt at manners, and he may have shown a human side, but he did introduce the Enterprise-D to the Borg, among many other things. And for all his tricks on Voyager, he never did send them home. So on that count I can't think of him as a "good guy" by any means. Anyway, I don't really recall too many recurring villains (again, individuals) as Trek tended to deal with a different threat each week. But among those that are dirty, I'd prefer Dukat. So far...

Winn is evil... I spotted her for what she was instantly. If the Ferengi represent capitalism, Winn represents people who claim to be religious but just play the religion card to gain power over a group of people. I don't think she represents the views of every spiritual Bajoran (are they all united under the same faith?), she's far too extreme.

Excuse me while I go watch the first two episodes of Season 3, the 2-part "The Search".

@Alterego: Yes, Odo uses his arm sort of like a lasso in The Maquis, Part II. Not sure if that's the T-1000-like ability you mean, but it's the first time I've seen him use his changeling abilities for anything other than going into the bucket or slipping under a door. (Or turning into a toy for the little girl in "Shadowplay" in Season 2.)

Would Quark have sold out Odo? He's sold out the station a few times already. So probably. I didn't think of it that way...

@VBG: Yeah, I watched Mirror, Mirror as an "intermission" between Season 1 and Season 2. It was pretty good, and it did help explain a couple things in "Crossover".

I do have to take back what I said about Cardassians; after seeing "The Tribunal" it seems they're pretty bad after all. The characters Gul Dukat and Garak are all right, but the Cardassian government is just horrible.

Just finished watching "The Jem'Hadar" and the one before it. So now I'm done with Season 2.

Overall Season 2 was great. There were a few episodes I did not care for, but there were some really great ones as well. Better yet, the last episode practically promises that it's going to get a lot better with the introduction of the Jem'Hadar. I didn't think the Dominion Wars were going to be started so soon, but watching them destroy that Galaxy-class ship... you could just tell watching O'Brien and Sisko, "it's on"... Especially O'Brien because he served on the Enterprise-D, basically the same ship.

I had been wondering what the relationship between the Dominion and the Jem'Hadar was, this last episode pretty much sums it up. The Dominion are sort of like an evil Federation, almost like the Terran Empire from the mirror universe, and the Jem'Hadar basically do their dirty work.

I can smell lots of good action up ahead. So far they're at a pretty serious disadvantage. But this is just great, because in TOS there was the trouble with the Klingons, but Borg aside, the TNG generation was pretty peaceful. Now the Federation's at war... I think I'm about to find out another reason so many people here prefer DS9.

I, too, was confused. Bashir scanned him, and he came up normal. It really makes you think... Bashir gave him a clean bill of health. They can DNA-scan people and check one against the other (Adm. Janeway in Endgame, for example), so they had to have known O'Brien was a clone. So I think, maybe they did know, but Bashir was told to play it cool.

I believe they've done cloning before in the ST universe.

Here's my explanation, retelling the episode with spoilers "as it happened" (as I understand it, anyhow):

Brilliant episode.

Yes, passed it as a matter of fact. "Crossover" was a very good episode. Though I was a little disappointed in the ending... I would have loved to see Quark's reaction when Kira told him that the mirror Kira had the mirror Quark executed. Or, though not as important, Bashir telling Odo that he had shot and killed the mirror Odo.

I can't wait for the other mirror universe episodes. I wish they would have done a couple on Voyager, as well. The closest they got was the one that takes place 400 years into the future and has a "backup" of The Doctor brought online by a society that thought Voyager was evil. As their history holonovels played out, we saw sort of a mirror-universe Voyager.

Speaking of which, would one shot really kill Odo? You'd think like the T-1000 in Terminator 2, weapon fire would just pass through him and leave a hole, which would promptly close.

Actually that was one aspect of "Invasive Procedures" I liked, the changing of the people by having/not having the Dax symbiont. And I totally saw it coming, when the "bad guy" starts remeniscing with Sisko about the old times. They really didn't need Odo to save the day in that episode... Dax itself did most of the work. (It? He? She?)

I also watched "The Collaborator" in which Vedek Winn becomes the new Kai (sp?). "Kai Winn"... I feel like throwing up. B) Well, not really, but it would seem the Bajorans/Vedeks/Assembly forgot about Winn's actions when the school was blown up because Keiko O'Brien wasn't teaching the kids the Bajoran religion. And we learn why the previous Kai stayed behind on that prison world in "Battle Lines" (back in Season 1). She could justify what she'd done during the Occupation, but once that was over and there was a relative peace, she couldn't really stay on Bajor. Bringing the teachings of the Propets to the Gamma quadrant was a good way she could self-exile and maintan her sworn duty to the Prophets. At least that's how I read it.

Two more episodes of season 2, the last being "The Jem'Hadar". I've seen them on the show a couple times, but I don't know anything about who they are or what part they play in the current Bajor/Cardassia/Marquis politics, or the future Dominion War.

Scotty/Relics, easy. I loved that episode, and it had my favorite Scotty line. Something to the effect of The ORIGINAL Enterprise, N-C-C-1-7-0-1 and no bloddy A, B, C, or D.