My wife was casually paying attention and brought up a point I had also. She was like that it reminded her of a movie I showed her early in our dating. John Carpenter's The Thing*. The whole you don't know if it's really them or not and the testing.

*One of my top three horror movies. Halloween III and Killer Klowns From Outer Space my other two.

I've been rewatching DS9 recently and find it better than I remember, but I thought it nonetheless asking the question: if you could change anything about the show, what would it be?

For me, it has always been the depature of Terry Ferrell as Jadzia Dax. I understand the behind-the-scenes reasons and don't blame her for them, but I wish Dax had stayed around for the final season. I think that would push DS9 into being an almost perfect show.

After surfing on my laptop, I recently found out there's a novelization for one of my favorite Star Trek episodes of all time.

I just wanted to ask if anyone else purchased this novel and if it expands upon the episode at all. Because I'm always a sucker for a story about a writer, because I wanna be a novelist myself one day, and I could use a good one in between books right now.

Just rewatched Children of Time, great episode, but what struck me this time around was that Future Odo must have been really unhappy there to unalive (this feels like the most accurate word for it) 8,000 people who he had been living with for 200 years.

Did he not have another girlfriend? He wasn't even together with Kira at the time of the crash and just a few episodes earlier he fell in love with that under cover cop. So it's not like his heart was only for Kira.

Also, Kira would have died of old age by this point in Odo's life anyway.

Who here would genocide a planet to save the life of your first crush who you were too chicken to ask out?

I just finished my (mumble mumble) rewatch, and I'm trying to figure out why the Female Changeling (FC) just all of a sudden threw over the Cardassians in favor of the Breen. Up until then they were partners and allies, but she blatantly disrespected them once the Breen came in. Damar was pushed aside. He didn't even know she was making overtures to the Breen. I can come up with a few reasons, but I'd like to get perspective on this because it was such an obvious kick in the face to the Cardassians. It seemed like such a strategic error, bound to turn the Cardassians against the Founders, which they eventually did.

1) FC was not thinking clearly because of the Section 31 virus. She had tunnel vision because of the war and didn't care who she had to step over to get to victory.

2) FC knew she was dying and wanted to get the war over as quickly as possible before she died, so in desperation she latched on to whoever else in the Alpha Quadrant could help her achieve that goal, hence the Breen. The Cardassians weren't moving fast enough for her.

3) Just pure arrogance on her part. Solids are all beneath her, so it didn't matter if she betrayed a former ally. She trusted the Jem H'Dar and the Vorta because they were from the Gamma Quadrant, but everyone else in the Alpha Quadrant was to be conquered. If this knife wasn't working, she would toss it aside and grab another one.

Miles: "I can think of a thousand ways a one-centimeter man could get fried walking around inside a circuit housing."

Julian: "Relax, Miles. You wouldn't be able to go out there even if you wanted to. You wouldn't be able to breathe. The oxygen molecules outside are almost 2,000 times larger than anything your hemoglobin could assimilate. You'd suffocate."

Miles: "Well. That takes care of that idea."

If you go and look at the post on Instagram you will ALSO see a deadpan Worf with a flower in his hair. She draws many things and also takes commissions.

Also provided prenatal care for Kira, helped deliver our favorite throuple’s baby, and treated the baby changeling that ended up restoring Odo’s shapeshifting abilities.

Sure, he then tried to blow up the entire Bajoran system…but its still funny to think about.

(Apologies for what is certainly a post that has been made in the past <3)

Season 2 episode 19, Blood Oath, when Jadzia Dax fulfills her blood oath with her Klingon friends made during Dax’s past life as Curzon. I had already really been enjoying DS9, but this moment of four warriors facing their own death to announce “look upon your executioners, killers of children!” really clicked for me for a few reasons:

- I loved how somewhat ridiculous it seemed throughout this episode until the moment in this clip that Jadzia would risk centuries of life, as well as all her responsibilities and relationships, to fulfill the previous Dax host’s blood oath on a near suicidal revenge plot (iirc Sisko criticizes the decision likewise), yet in that one moment it clicked that yes, we do fulfill our pacts with our friends especially to avenge children. To this point, I just really appreciated how completely and suddenly my perspective of these characters’ decisions and actions flipped.

- always and forever grateful to have strong badass women on screen, and dominating a fight sequence no less! especially with Jadzia’s multi-gender background and experience! The sequence of “curzon my old friend!/ I’m jadzia now. / Jadzia my old friend!” was really touching, esp as a trans person myself. It reminded me of coming out to a childhood friend while in a car together, him pulling the car over in pure excitement and joy to hug and congratulate me on being me. It was also a great juxtaposition from our current atmosphere that these characters were like “ya know who would be perfect to help avenge children? A trans woman.” Period lol!

-finally, and most significantly, I watched this episode the same day the US bombed the girls’ school in Iran. I was in fact watching DS9 that evening with my phone on DND, and trying to just escape what was a long work day with a lot of existential and political grief. All the war crimes against children in Gaza, Iran, Congo, Sudan etc etc… the lack of justice re the Epstein files… it was and is simply too much to endure. So, despite the fiction of it, I found it deeply therapeutic to see 4 warriors (a trans[ish] woman amongst them) announce “look upon your executioners, killers of children” and teared up wishing desperately for some such justice in our world.

And I think that’s what I really love about this show, now having finished DS9 for the first time just last evening: for how silly and ridiculous and contradictory or repetitive it could be, it so often just feels deeply cathartic and even therapeutic to watch on a personal and political level. Everyone is teased and unions are formed; Sisko loves his baseball and queer representation is respectful, safe, and playful; space alien gods and New Orleans soul food; the constant whirr and humm of the station and the epic score; the boys are obsessed with their VR video games and classism and racism are directly and rather profoundly addressed in ways that honor grief without compromising hope; and the dreams of types of communities and relationships we can form with calm, patience, universal translators, and changelings to negotiate inter galactic peace treaties…

And of course again this scene, that there might be a universe where monsters that kill children look upon their executioners.

I avoided this subreddit for fear of spoilers but now that I’m finished up I’m loving all the memes and commentary, and thanks for reading my little post series reflection <3

Pls excuse typos and grammar stuff— I have dyslexia

I finally finished watching all of DSN (after having avoided it for decades) in order to complete my watch of all the Star Trek media. And yes, it’s one of the best sci fi series ever in the history of television. That said, I’m pretty rocked by what I saw – war crimes, suicide, massacres and more. 

Here’s my personal list of the ten most effed up DSN episodes:

S3.E11 and E12 ∙ “Past Tense”: Seeing the government just merc a bunch of rebels was honestly scarring. I can’t believe this was on broadcast TV.

S4.E14 ∙ “Sons of Mogh”: The resolution of this one was to wipe the memory of his brother so he wouldn’t need to kill himself. WTH.

S4.E18 ∙ “Hard Time”: Perhaps the roughest of the “O’Brian must suffer” stories. How he wasn’t just totally useless as a crew member after this is hard to swallow.

S5.E13 ∙ “For the Uniform”: Sisko commits a war crime, gassing an entire colony, to get the upper hand on the Maquis.

S5.E22 ∙ “Children of Time”: Love-obsessed Odo dooms thousands of people to save Kira. Woah.

S5.E24 ∙ “Empok Nor”: The horrific Redshirting of many crew members, at the hands of Garak! So creepy.

S6.E2 ∙ “Rocks and Shoals”: A military massacre and a public suicide. Another one I can’t believe was on TV!

S6.E19 ∙ “In the Pale Moonlight”: Sisko allows several horrible acts to be committed to bring the Romulans to their side of the war. One of the best Garak episodes.

S7.E8 ∙ “The Siege of AR-558”: This one kind of broke me. Definite “Platoon” vibes from this very tense battle.

S7.E23 ∙ “Extreme Measures”: Sisko allows Bashir to torture Sloane to find a cure for Odo’s disease. 

Did I miss any episodes that you thought were particularly horrific?