The Delta Flyers - The Maquis Part I

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This week’s episode, The Maquis, Part I, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, & Armin Shimerman.The Maquis, Part I: The explosion of a Cardassian freighter leaving DS9 makes unlikely allies of Sisko and Gul Dukat as they try to expose a terrorist group.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Tom Paynter, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Randy Hawke, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Stephanie Lee, Izzy Jaffer, Jan Hanford, Sam Mikelic, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, & Jonathan CappsOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Luz R., Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Jenna Appleton, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Sandra Stengel, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Neil McRae, Tim Neumark, Danie Crofoot, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Andrew Cano, Kevin Harlow, & Hailey Lugo, & Chris GarisAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Fillmon, Chad Awkerman, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Justin Weir, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Rachel Shapiro, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Linda Daireaux, Mars DeVore, Robert Allen Stifflerf, Jennifer Vaughn, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cook-Feltz, Karen Galleski, Loretta Reyes, Timothy McMichens, Dawn Colleen Smith, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Carol Ramsey, Willow Whitcomb, Jadzia Mehari, Mo, Leslie Ford, Douglas Lawrence-Plant, & Heather CThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark, Dex, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your hosts for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. For the complete and exciting version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today you won't regret it. Hi, everybody. Hello.

Hello. Hi, Armin. Hello. Well, how are you? Good. Good. I see you're still near the space station right behind you. I am.

I don't ever get off the space station. You don't leave. No. How many years has Quark actually? lived on there before we even see quark that's the question he was there the entire cardassian regime am i right yeah uh in this episode we hear um mark olimo goldacott say that he was uh the the commander for about 10 years i would assume quark was there equally for 10 years and yeah perhaps before perhaps yeah exactly even maybe before he showed

up yeah because the farangi live a very long time actually do they how long very long life span how long like hundreds of years hundreds of years. Wow. You're being, you're being honest with us right now, or is this kind of a jokey, jokey? No, no, no. You'll hear one of the episodes. I don't remember where, but yeah, we, we supposedly live for a very long time. Is it? Well, the question is, Armand, is there any mention of Cork or Rom or Nogg's age at all in the series at some point? Not that I know of. Yeah. Wow. Hmm. We had mention of Tuvok on our show. Yeah. He was like 113 or something. I think older than that.

maybe older than that, yeah, 130 or something like that, 14, 150 maybe. And that's why they hired Tim? Yes, exactly. Here's my question. So Ferengis live hundreds of years. Vulcans live hundreds of years. Symbians go on forever. Yeah.

Why are humans dying off so young, then? Yeah. What's wrong with humans? Just badly formed, you know? Badly formed. Wouldn't you think 300 years into the future, they would have solved all of Earth's or human maladies and gotten past everything as the average. I don't think we've ever seen, at least I've never seen a human die of old age.

They die of phaserburns or whatever, accidents, but I don't think that we ever see them just pass away because they've just gotten too old. Yeah. So maybe they do live. That's true. Interesting. It's true. Everyone we see that dies on track.

It's either an accident or a phaser fire. ton for something or their shuttle blows up their shuttle blow exactly or a bad agent negotiation exactly that too that too exactly we've got a few birthdays yes we do uh this week starting with andrew duncan on september 23rd happy birthday andrew happy birthday andrew happy birthday andrew happy birthday andrew duncan and next up we have the wonderful step lee step lee on September 24th, happy birthday to Steph. Happiest of birthday, Stephanie. Happy birthday, Steph.

And finally, Mary Jack Greer on September 28th, happy birthday, Mary Jack. Mary Jack, happy birthday. Have a wonderful, wonderful birthday, September 28th in Texas. We also have a couple new prophets who have joined us on Patreon at the Prophet Love. Yes, that's right. First of all, yes, let's announce their names. Starting off, we have Francesca Garibaldi.

And we also have Randy Hawk joining us as a prophet. Welcome, Randy. Welcome, Randy. Welcome, Francesca and Randy. We'll be right back after this message from our sponsor. Let's jump right into our post. A true synopsis. Let's start with Robbie and his limerick. Okay, here we go.

My limerick for The Maquis Part 1. A mysterious explosion turns a freighter into debris. Gull Duccott arrives to help solve the mystery. The colonists have some demands and kidnap Duccott to the badlands. And Voyager all happened because of the marquee. Oh. Oh, very good rhyming and very good, very good. Yeah, I had to get the maquis arm.

We were talking about before we started recording. Yeah, the maquis are a big part of. Voyager, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. But it started on Deep Space Nine. I know. So exciting. I wish I'd known that.

You didn't know that? I didn't know these episodes existed. I wish I had when we did the pilot. I would have watched them back then. So this episode marks the very first appearance of the Maquisie. in Mackey Part 1 and 2 but the origins are rooted in the events of the TNG episode

Journey's End which happened literally months before this episode. Journey's End shows a group of First Nation individuals that are living in a certain area that need to be evacuated because the Cardassian border, they're in the wrong side of that treaty

basically so they don't want to leave so yes it's interesting because did you see a spoiler alert but when they're carrying out a body at some point. Oh, yeah. There is a native member of that group that is part of it, which I thought was very interesting.

Did it run through your head? Is this an early version of Chakotay? Yes, it did run to me. Yeah. And did James Crocker have anything to do with that TNG episode? I don't think so. You know what? I'm going to pop it up right now just to see what it says.

Written by Ronald D. Moore, so no there. And directed by Corey Allen is the journey's. end episode. So no. Well, I'm glad to hear Corey was working for TNG because he stopped working for DS9. That's correct. In the first season.

Yeah, he was a big contributor to all the TNGG episodes. And also my teacher, as we've talked about before. Okay. So, yeah, so that's... How's your haiku? Oh, my haiku's good. I just want to say, though, can I... We'll be the judge of that.

Yes. I should have said, my haiku's fine. It's not good. It's just fine. I wanted to finish the stuff. about the marquee. They later appear in the TNG episode

Preemptive Strike. So they appear in a TNG episode that was produced after this D-S-9 episode. Okay? So they're in that. They're also in

several more episodes of Star Trek D-SPACE 9, such as for the cause, for the uniform and blaze of glory. And then, of course, they're prominently

featured on Voyager. So there we go. Yeah. And now my haiku. Let's hear that high-co. And then judge it. I don't want any judgment now.

I said the wrong thing, Robbie. Please. Here we go. My haiku for Machi part one. Bachnor is no more conflict in the DM zone. Bernie led Machi? Nice. Very good.

It's good. With no spoiler alert. Okay. Exactly. Not really. Okay. What's our? our etymology.

Etymology. It's actually quite interesting. The first part is not, but the second part, I think, is. So, from, again, the Oxford English Dictionary, the marquee is a Chilean shrub, yielding valuable fiber and producing berries. That's the non-interesting part that I found. But from the Wikipedia, I found the McKee were rural guerrilla bands of French Belgian resistant fighters during the German military administration in Vichy, France, during World War II. Initially, they were young, mostly working class men who had escaped into the

mountains in the woods to avoid conscription into France's service de Tervais Obigier, which provided forced labor for Germany. They had 25,000 to 40,000 members in 1943. A year later, in 1944, they had 100,000 members. Wow. So there's something about that history and what we're learning about the McKee in this episode that is similar.

Okay. So the name itself has roots in an actual real rebellious. Resistance group then. Okay. Wow. During World War II. All right.

We had some really smart writers. We did. The Star Trek show. I really am always impressed with where they get some of this the names and the way they connect things like i'm sure they were aware of that somebody was aware of that i'm sure there were you know somebody somebody said let's call them this because of this yeah and yeah but i've never heard of that group like it's a very obscure at least to me and yeah well 100 000 members in 1944 uh they had to be

obscure they were a resistance group yes but uh obviously they fought uh you know german control which is exactly what's happening to the McKee and the Kardashians. Yeah, yeah. Let me run through these guest stars real quick. Yeah, it's there. Tony Plana, as Amoros, everyone's seen this man's face before. He's played the heavy and countless numbers of movies and television projects. It's kind of nice.

He's playing a Federation colonist on this one, so not a bad guy, per se, I guess. So that's not. Only because you, you know, that's something I want to talk about during this episode. Sure. Just because his Federation doesn't make him. him a good guy. Got it. Yes.

Okay. Let's be clear about that, exactly. Which is not the case on TNG. That's right. On TNG, if you were Federation, you were always a good guy. You were gold. Absolutely. Golden.

That's great. We have Bertilla Damos as Saskona or Saskana, the Vulcan, who basically is in every scene with Armin in this episode. Bertilla also was on Voyager, Robbie. Do you know that she was a part of the episode Survival instinct, actually? Oh, wow. That's the episode, if you recall, there were three Borg that come on to Voyager's ship that used to be in Seven of Nine's Unimatrix, her own little, yeah, they were still connected.

And ultimately, she said, we have to do the one move, which will only give them one month to live, and they all agreed. We'll have a month of not hearing each other's thoughts, but she played one of the three borgs that were part of seven of nine's, um, nine person, nine Borg group, is that, right? So, yeah, yeah, so the, I don't know what numbers. A non-net. A no-net. That's a nine-person group. Ah. A no-net? Instead of an octet. It's a no-net.

A no-net. Thank you for giving us that. Interesting. No-net. Richard Poe's Avec is Gola Vec. We've already talked about him before. It's a very funny name. Yes. I'll tell you later. Okay. Michael Gravick as William Samuels.

He also appeared on a Voyager episode as well, just like Bertilla Damos. Not the same episode, Robbie. he played on an episode that you should know very, very well. Day of Honor, he played Raman in Day of Honor. And if you recall, this is the episode where you and Torres end up getting stuck in space and not much left to breathe. And at the very end, you say, or she says, I love you. That's where we say, I love you.

Yeah, that's the love you. Who was he, though? So he played the aliens that we were dealing with. They were an alien race that were, their planet was decimated by the Borg. so they were only like 30 ships left of their people and so they had you know and so they came to us for help like hey we need this we need that we need this and Jane was very generous she gives it to yeah he's he's one of the he's the lead alien um wow yeah that he played there so he has a lot of sense yeah but he's in prosthetics the entire time yeah I don't I didn't recognize his face

in this no and so but he's the one if you recall we eject our work core in that episode and they take it away from us, basically, and that's how you guys get knocked into space, because you're trying to retrieve the warp core, and you're trying to stop their tractor beam, but then they do a resonance pulse back through the tractor beam, which then shorts, makes your shuttle implode, and you guys have to be bound into space. We have to load in space and say, I love you, and then almost die. Yes, there you go. All because of Michael Cravick's character.

Star Cross lovers. Star Cross lovers. Literally Star Cross lovers. That's very funny. Amanda Carlin as Cobb. And, of course, Mark Alamo is Golda Kod. There you go. And last but not least, let's say Bernie Casey. Bernie Casey, special appearance by Bernie Casey as Calvin Hudson. Interestingly enough, when he was cast for the role, he was not a fan of Trek, really

didn't know it, but he wanted to work with Avery Brooks, whom he said he admired as an actor, impressed by Avery's performances in Spencer for hire, a man called Hawk. So he really wanted to work with him. But he's also one of the only Star Trek actors to have played a major role in the James Bond film franchise. He played CIA agent Felix Leiter with Sean Connery and never say never again. And he did a great job in that movie. I'm a huge Bond fan. And I thought he did a wonderful job. But before becoming an actor, Robbie, he played sports ball. All right. This man was everything. He was tracking a field championship, professional football player drafted by the Niners, went on to

the Rams. Bottom line is very, very talented. But he always wanted to be known for his artistic side. He said, I'm an artist first, football player second. The only reason why I play football is to pay the bills. If I could make as much money with my art, I would never play football at all. And he chose the Niners because he felt that city would give him more chance to be an artistic. Yeah, sure. So I think that's super cool. He also went on to work for SAG AFRA, and he served in many different positions for the SAG National Board.

And so I was wondering, did you cross paths with him? Now with Bernie Casey, but with Bertilla, who also. served on the national board for screen actors guild yeah uh i did cross many times with bertilla oh oh wow you've met you've you know her personally so that's good um september 19th 2017 is when mr casey passed away at the age of 78 so we've we've lost him unfortunately he's very very good in this yeah yes he really is and it was great to see the scenes with he and Avery. Yeah, they just had a real good chemistry.

There's a flow. There was a flow going on there. It's very palpable. Story by Rick Berman, Michael Pillar, Jerry Taylor, James Crocker, and teleplay by James Crocker. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And directed by David Livingston. David Livingstone.

Yeah. David Livingstone. I thought David did some different things than he normally does in this episode. And I, when I've talked to David. David. He always said he was experimenting. Every episode, he was, he wanted to try something else. He was always pushing himself. And you saw that in this episode. I did. I saw that. There were some extreme close-ups that he took that I don't normally think of for David Livingston episodes. One on quarks, particularly, that one shot where he comes really tight. All right. Well,

let's start with the story here. We start in an airlock. There's some Kardashians going back to their ship we see this Starfleet engineer he looks around he appears after they go inside no one's around he opens a panel to the ship a hatch on the ship and does something to it clearly it looks like he's sneaking around and we've never seen this guy before so it looks shady it looks shady for sure and the fact we've never seen it before also yeah if it's not o'brien it's shady it's shady exactly exactly yes we go into ops and the cardassian ships preparing you to leave dax and kira discussing dating in this scene i love this little back and forth dax is going on on a date with a galamite she says who has a very large brain very interesting we think that you know i

thought at that point oh must be a really intelligent you know conversationalist yeah and then kira mentions that they have transparent skulls she couldn't date someone where you can see their brain. So, yeah, I've never, I would love to see these, what do they call it, Gallomites? The Gallomites, exactly. They don't show the gallomite at all. No, we've never seen them, but we, I can imagine a transparent head. Well, then it kind of reminds me of Mars attacks.

Remember the aliens there had that. That's right. That's right. You could see their brain. Yeah. So I was like, wow, maybe that's, maybe that's what it is, a Mars attacks looking alien. Yeah. Kira also mentions in this conversation that, you know, Dax was.

Well, you know, you date Ferengis. And I'd like to know which Ferengis you're dating. Hello. Which, who was it? Who was it? Well, Dax even says, what do you mean by that or something? And then they get interrupted. So they don't finish that conversation.

But yeah, I thought that was in. And again, Kira's taking a shot at Ferengis. Like, wow. I know. It's very rude. I like Kira, but does her attitude change about Ferengis over the course of the series? Yeah, good question. I don't think so um she seems like she's got the strongest feelings as a character yeah i the very

this this conversation about the galamites i think defines kira's uh point of view about a lot of things yeah if it's not appealing if it's not pretty if it's not handsome it doesn't appeal to her yes i don't i don't mean to put the nod down i'm talking about the character the character yes if it's not attractive, she doesn't care for it. Yeah. She only likes beautiful things. Yeah. Can we talk about... Well, I think Ferengis are beautiful. Yes, so do I.

But she doesn't. But she doesn't. Can we talk about the date that she had? So she went on this dinner with Captain Bode. So interestingly enough, Captain Bode is referenced for the first time in this episode, but he's mentioned again in another episode, a subsequent episode.

With Dax? Well, the episode is Let He, who is without sin, is the name of the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And his name actually causes an argument between Jedziah Dax and Worf. Oh, really? And then he's mentioned two more times in episodes, Resurrection and Penumbra, where his name once again causes an argument, but now between Esri Dax and Worf, because Nicole DeVore has now come. So this person is a point of contention. And we never see him. We never see the, we never see the clear head guy. So I want to see the brain guy. I want to see brain guy. I want to see brain guy. Yeah, me too.

Exploit friends are always a problem. Yeah, always. So as the ship starts to leave, the Cardassian ship begins to leave while they're talking and Daxe sees a problem. She tries to stop them. She calls out to the ship. Stop, wait, wait, wait. But we cut outside,

the ship blows up. I did notice in this very first scene, David Livingston is doing these push-ins during this conversation, which are not normal for David. It's a pretty conventional move that he's right you know the cameras tightening up slowly and dramatically right david didn't do that a lot a lot of other directors did but david didn't and so right out of the gate i was like oh this is different yeah i mean a slow push-in is what you're saying yeah like a dramatic

push-in david just didn't do those he did it on my episode of uh the one where i had to kiss the girlfriend back on earth the one where i find tom paris and marseilles that one um he did it in that one because of the kissing. He started really way far back and pushed it. Slow. So, so, so, so. But you're right. That's not his normal. It's not his normal move. It's a pretty conventional move. And he doesn't do the conventional things. No, he does fish eye

all the time. We know that. He loves that wide angle lens, but he does not move in like that. Definitely not. Agreed. Okay. And he's very good. He's also very good to showing you parts of the station that nobody else has noticed. Yeah. He finds something that the one has seen before and he

gives you a glimpse of it so that you have a better understanding of where, what living on Deep Space Nine is like. He does that in this episode. I think with the Quark's first scene, we'll get there, but he does it right away. Did either of you feel, did you, did either of you buy the fact that that freighter exploded that closely to the station without damaging any part of the station? Literally, they were, they had just left. They were so close.

It was a little close. You would think that there would be massive. Of course, but there was not. It probably did. It probably did. And they just didn't talk about it. Yeah, didn't talk about it,

but I'm sure there were repair crews. All right. I'm sure. I'll go with that. We go in the runabout. No, they missed it. No,

no, they just missed it. Like, Marmon, I'm trying to give them a little break. I know, but I think they missed it. Armand's going to call him out on it right now.

Yeah, clearly. I'm calling Dan Curry right now. Dan, what the heck? You f*** up. You f*** up. Okay.

No, that was close. What's happening in the runabout? Well, we go in the runabout next. And O'Brien and Kira are in there. They're trying to figure out why this thing exploded. They're scanning around space. We see debris in one of the exterior shots.

Debris flying by. But nope, everyone's dead. No sign of explosives either. So, you know, it's strange. It is strange. Another strange thing, Kira is not wearing her bejoran earring in the scene. Whoa. That's a huge.

Yeah. That's wardrobe, right? Armand? I don't know who that is. I didn't have to wear any rings. It's probably props because like watches, bracelets, things like that would be props. Maybe it's makeup or hair, I don't know. It's probably a combo package.

But that's a huge no-no, though. It's a huge. I would think so. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to see Nan on a couple days, two days. I'll ask him. Yeah. I don't know who put the earring on her. No.

I feel like she always wore the earring. She always had a earring. That's very strange. Yeah. Okay. Well, they can't see anything outside in space. We cut into ops. Cisco says there's no word from the Cardassians yet about their ship explode.

Right, which is very strange. And Odo's worried that, you know, an explosion, a Cardassian ship blowing up in Bajoran space is going to provoke the Cardassians into some kind of war. Otis says all Bajoran vessels are on alert for retaliatory strikes. Yeah. That's right. And it does seem like that that's something they would do. So not even hearing from them is very strange.

And the Bajorans are disavowing any responsibility for the blowup. That's right. But Jorans have clean hands on this one. And we find out that's true. They do. O'Brien finds a clue. He says there's some mercassium. Yeah.

Which Cisco explains is a unique Starfleet compound used for shield generators. And they don't share that technology with anybody. Right. So if there's mercassium there, that's very strange. Well, not only strange, but something sneaky is going on. We know. Yes. Yes.

Well, I would Starfleet technology be on that? Cardassian ship. Yeah. Why? We saw that mystery guy in the beginning. Dax says something like, I'm pretty sure it was an implosive protomatter device designed to match the impulse signature. So it was, they were using this Starflea technology and trying to hide it, hide their, you

know, their tracks. So Dax is good. She's got a whole, she's science is very hard. Oh, so much techno babble. So much. Yes. Miles O'Brien says he can find evidence, if that's true. but it's going to take him a little time.

And Cisco's old friend, Cal Hudson, shows up in the middle of this. Calvin Hudson. Nice reunion there. They go inside his office. Disco says, he calls Odo and he says, Lieutenant Commander Calvin Hudson, Starfleet's attach to the Federation Colonies in the new demilitarized zone. Oh, he just introduces him. So, yeah, that's one thing I wanted to point out.

He's equal in a way to Cisco in terms of he's responsible for all the Starfleet College or Federation colonies, right? Right, right. He's, that's correct. He's a boss. He's a busman. And Cisco's on a station and Hudson is on land, right? Yeah. But I have to give kudos to both Avery Brooks and Nana Visitor for their ability to spit out their lines, especially their lines that had demilitarized zone in the actual.

oh my god it's so hard to it's hard to say it is very good enunciation though oh he killed it in this episode i was so impressed and demilitarized zone is one of the one of the long like words that can kind of mess around with your mouth a bit you know yeah yeah but david was directing so we can assume you did it 500 times they had ample time to get it correct is what you're saying yeah that is what i'm saying yeah we understand we go and the commander's office next. They're discussing Dax because, yeah, he introduced, I forgot about that,

but he introduced Hudson out in the ops area to Dax. Yeah. He knows who knows him very well. Yes, who knows him very well. But he knew Dax as Curzon. So this is the first time he's like, whoa. But he's excited because they're clearly very close.

As close as Curzon, maybe even closer than Cisco. They did seem very close. Yeah. Very. At that comment where he says like that that woman knows more than me about than my wife, you know, that one comment when he walks away, definitely. And Curzon also has spent a lot

of time with Cisco as well. So, Dax was a lot of them are very close. Yeah, three of them are very close. I just want to share with both of you regarding David Livingstone was at the Big Vegas event. Oh, he went to the convention? Yes, he came up to my

table and he just said, loving the DS9 recap now. Loving it. I mean, he's a massive fan of our podcast. Oh, David. Hi, David, if you're listening. I, David, he love you. He's definitely listening.

We know this about David. He has good taste. He does have very good taste. He does. He does. Very high bar to please David. So inside the commander's office and Cisco's office, they're discussing dax, both the curs on dachs and the Jetsia dax.

And Cals, Hudson's kind of interested in, you know, are you dating? He asks if they're a couple And they have this huge laugh Yeah, there's no answer, just a laugh No, he didn't even say are you a couple He goes, you two aren't like that's how he says it Like you two aren't and he dot dot dot dot And they start laughing

Huge laugh, big laugh It was very funny Yeah, they continue to talk about Jake, their families We see that their families were very close And I want to say something about that I don't think this is the first time in this episode, it may be where they have a discussion about family

several times during this episode family comes up over and over again and it's a tribute to I think to deep space now one of the sub-themes of our show is family and and this this acknowledgement of family not only for for Cal but also later on for Golda-Cott as well and and and for Cisco as well

There's a great sense of family in this. And in fact, some of the McKee, I think, the Samuels who gets, you have to talk to his family about his death. There's a great sense about family in this episode. Yeah. And do you know him well, Gold DeKot, Mark Alamo? Do you have good relation with him? I've known Mark longer than Deep Space Nine. Wow.

Okay. Mark and I did a film in Italy together where we were attached. You've mentioned that, yeah. Okay. Cal Hudson also talks about the colonists that they don't want to leave. These Federation colonists, you know, have built their homes and their families. Right. They've really settled in, and Hudson feels for them.

Like, he gets their point of view. And he thinks that this treaty that Starfleet and the Kardashians made was really bad for these colonists. Yeah, I mean, he makes mention that the Federation abandon the colonies. Yeah. And Cisgo snaps back. abandoned them. What about your presence there? And Hudson's like, no, my presence is a complete joke. They don't even recognize what I'm there for. They don't. So it's, we now know that there's some huge issues going on that we haven't seen before. Well, he, yeah, it's the first suggestion that these

colonists aren't respectful of the Federation or Starfleet in any way, you know, when he says there's nothing I can do. And I will go further. I think it's the first suggestion that the Federation itself is not perfect. There you go. Federation is not perfect. They've abandoned the colonists. I don't think anybody on TNG ever said those words. Right. That the Federation is bad. No. Well, he thinks

this treaty's horrible. Cisco worries that the destruction of this ship, the Boknour, could jeopardize the whole treaty. Right. And Cisco does mention here, he says, as the two ranking officers in this area, that we're in charge of you and I, Hudson, are in charge of dealing with this.

So we realize that, yeah, they're the two that have to deal with it. And they're both worried that they haven't heard from the Kardashians yet. And that's kind of how we end the scene. But, yeah, they're kind of equals, Cisco and Hudson, which is, yeah, interesting. We haven't seen that before, I don't think, another Federation officer in the area dealing with the things that Cisco's dealing with. I don't think we've seen any of them. Except for the pilot.

And it's not quite equals, but we have Picard in Cisco. Right, true. All right. Next up, we're in the promenade. And now we see the same Starfleet engineer from the very, very first scene that was kind of doing some shady business on the Kardashian ship. But now he's wearing civilian clothing. And he meets with this Vulcan woman who's telling him that he has these quarters that have

been arranged for him and he should go there, stay out of sight. until your ship arrives. So we still don't really know who they are, why they're doing this. But he nods, and then the camera sort of pans up, and we now see that there are two aliens with funny, tall hats on that are, like, watching them.

They look like Hooville. It looked like Hovill aliens up. I didn't think it's a big... Fine. They look like Dr. Seuss alien hats, okay? So you're right. Very whovillish. But they hear what's going on,

and they leave immediately. So now we see some, there's some espionage, there's some counter espionage going on as well. And my big question is, if you're going to talk about something secret, why are you in the most public place

in the entire station? You should be in a cargo hole talking about this. You should be in some Jeffrey's tube talking about this, but not here, especially when there's multiple levels. You agree? Yeah.

Sometimes if you're trying to do something sneaky, you meet in like Times Square where there's a million people. So you're not a, you kind of just disappear into the crowd. So maybe that's why they were doing it. Maybe, Armin. And to that end, they're meeting in front of what we used to call the Rosetta Stone. It's the directory for all the shops in the promenade in five or six different languages.

Oh. That's that monolith that they're in front of. So it could be that they're pretending to look up where a shop is and having a secret conversation. So that might be, you know, hiding in plain sight. But it also is David showing us a piece of the promenade that usually isn't focused on, and that's the directory, which I always found really one of the most fascinating things on the station. It's really five or six, and it's written in five or six different languages. Well, I've never heard this reference. Neither of us.

Yeah. Robbie and I have never heard of this before. So you're right. He did showcase a part of the promenade that we never see. We never knew that the Resettosone slash directory even existed until you told us this. No, that's amazing. That's pretty cool. It's right outside the replomat. Everything was, you know, everything was in its place on the promenade.

So nothing really ever moved. And this was always there. It was always in front of the repliment. Yeah. I personally would have met in the, right next to the Davo table where the most noises inside of quarks, that would have been my decision. But you also have the problem. You have to pan up.

You have to have a place where you can pan up. Somebody else can, yeah, kind of see them. Yeah. That's true. I love this directory idea, though. I can't believe it hasn't been used in previous episodes. Yeah, it's in Cardassian. It's in English.

It's in Ferengi. It's in Bajoran. And I, Vulcan, I think, and I don't know what the sixth language is. Wow. That's very cool. Yeah. We jump from this scene to Quarks, actually, where we have a shot of Quark himself, counting his profits, his latinum is in front of him.

And we stay in this same shot when the same Vulcan that we saw for giving this information to our secret person, our secret engineer, is now standing behind Quark. And she's there to basically ask Quark something. And Quark immediately thinks that this is someone who has to, who has a warrant for his arrest. He thinks it's someone from the Vulcan High Command who's here to deal with him because of how he, had a bad dealing with Vulcan's in the past. So there's a lot of misunderstanding going on here. But Orange is out of date. I hear everything up.

I love that. But the funny thing is, Quark, Armin never looks at Bertilla until way later into the scene, until literally, then when he turns to see her, he has this awesome look of, not recognition,

but a look of like attracting. He's, oh, hi. You know, and so hence the love affair or at least the romance is. Well, remember, she's got clothes on, that makes her very attractive. Yes, yes. You can imagine what the opposite would be for us.

Yes. Speaking of wardrobe, at the suggestion of director David Livingston, costume designer Robert Blackman originally designed a much more revealing outfit for Sakona than seen in the episode. However, when Rick Berman saw it,

he told Blackman to tone it back somewhat. There you go. So she had a much more revealing outfit. to begin. I think this is much, well, I can see why Bob might have done the revealing thing because of the writing with Quark's attraction and all the flirting and, you know, that he was kind of leaning into that dynamic between Quark. But I think Rick's right. It's a Vulcan woman who... But it's also absolutely right. I don't want to argue with that at all, but tangentially to that, it's also a Vulcan woman suggesting nefarious ends. That's something we've never

seen on on star trek exactly exactly um bob blackman actually still liked the final version of the outfit because even that version was more bold than anything we've seen on a vocan at the point so that was already because it was very if you noticed it was very slim fitting very tailored i liked this right i saved that outfit for seven of nine yeah it was great well um she has a business opposition in this scene. Yes. She does say to Quirk, I don't care about your past. Right.

Ork is flirting very hard with her. Oh, my gosh. Pours her some Vulcan port, I think. Yeah. Blows the dust off of the top of the... The cliche dust off the top. Yes, it was great. See, this is funny.

This is, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. This is what's so funny because when people think, all right, if it's 300 centuries old, if it's three, sorry, if it's three centuries old, if it's 300 years old, clearly, the Topmaster's thinking, we've got to put dust on it. But if it's that valuable, that thing would be kept really pristine. It's the reality of the situation, right? It would be locked behind a cabinet somewhere. It would be lazy.

Instead, he just reaches down and pulls it out as though, you know, it's just sitting there. It's just sitting there randomly. So that to me was very funny. But yes, there is a business proposition, and that proposition is she needs weapons. She needs, she needs a troop transport. She needs everything. And Hork is completely shocked by this. You're coming to me, you're a gun runner, you're a weapons runner.

So this is very shocking. You did like the oneer, though, Robbie, right, on this one? I don't know if I liked the one. This is where I started saying it's a bold move to play the scene in a tableau. But because of the tight space and the positions they were in, Armin, you had to turn back to her. And so you sort of got upstage there a bit a couple of times. Okay.

And I wish that he had covered some of this, especially since the scene was very much about when you finally did turn and see how beautiful she was and you got attracted and all. Right. It would have been nice to see both eyes on you instead of kind of, it was sort of profilingy, but even more three-quarter back of your head almost sometimes. Fair enough. But they do, Cork does want to go have dinner and discuss. Yes.

Is this where he talks about drinking and dancing? No, but he does cite a rule of acquisition. Never start a business negotiation on an empty stomach. That's a great rule of acquisition. That should be for never start anything important on an empty stomach. Never have a conversation with your wife on an empty stomach. It would be good for any situation, practical. I have been told by several teachers of MBAs, of what is it?

Business. Business school? Sometimes, infrequently, of course, but sometimes they use the rules of acquisition as a textbook in their classes. Whoa. Pretty cool. They did not know that. Armand, do you remember at the end of the scene

when you turned back, he said something about melting her Vulcan heart? And it looked like, again, the camera sort of pushed in. Way in. Yeah. Way in.

It almost looked like he were looking at the camera. You know, I'm sure you weren't. Where else can I look? Exactly. I mean, the lens is right there. So I probably was looking at the camera.

Probably. Or close, but it was. I don't think he brought. broke the fourth wad and he looked directly into it. No. I don't recall that. I'm sure you didn't consciously do it. But the way that that shot was designed in that tight space, yeah, it almost looked like

a Ferris Bueller moment, like turning to the camera, I'm going to get this lady or something. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny. Okay. So you didn't like it. You felt there should be more coverage is what you felt. I did.

I did feel that way. And there's a couple other scenes where these oneers, he did a lot of oners in this episode. Yeah. So really, this was an experiment. This is an experimental episode for him. He was trying a lot of different things. I thought so. Yeah.

Seemed to me he was, yeah. Okay. We are in the, we're in a habitat corridor at this point, and we see the same gentleman, our mysterious engineer from the beginning in his civilian clothes. He's walking along the corridor, clearly going to his quarters where he's supposed to hide out until the ship comes. But now we see one of the tall hat Dr. Seuss aliens show up, the female, and she, she, kind of drops her purse and whatever her little carry-all and that's when he suggests oh let me help you and when he leans down we see a hand come out of frame from out of frame and basically is it a hypospray it looks like a hypospring yeah something in the neck knocks him out yeah yeah so he's

dragged away out of there and this is another almost wonder did you did you notice that like there is one quick cutback to the dr sus lady but the whole his whole entrance his fall, the dragout, everything was all in one shot. One shot. So, yeah, up to this point in the last, let's say, three minutes or more, four minutes of the show, there have been three shots. And do you think the cutout is to allow the stunt person to do the fall and be dragged out? No, I think that was the actor. You think so, okay.

I think that was the actor, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, because he was already down low, like on his knees getting, helping the Dr. Seuss lady. So he just had to fall a few feet. I think it was him doing it. But then he's dragged out. Then he's dragged out. I wasn't sure.

That's why I asked. Yeah. There's a couple people that did their own stunts. I feel like Mark Alimo did one later on where he gets phased and falls kind of. Are you sure that's him though? Because I looked, I thought it was Morga. I did. I don't know.

Okay. I think it was him. I think that's good. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. But if it was him, boy, he did a great job.

I mean, he literally did a like a belly flop into the. pull is what he was doing. Yeah. He flew and landed flat on his stomach. There probably were pat, we're jumping to the later scene, but there probably were pads on the side when Mark Alima did that. And there's another actor, first team are doing stunts. The guy, the colonist, he jumps over the table later on.

That was the actor. Tony Plano? You think that's Tony Plano actually jumping over? Absolutely it was him. Oh my gosh. There's a lot of that in this episode. Maybe David was trying that too, like trying to talk the actors and do your own stuff. Let's see how it goes.

Yes. That's him as line producer, not his director. We'll save money on the... We'll save so much money. You don't need a stunt double. Going to Cisco's quarters next. My first thought when I saw this scene was great lighting. Always great lighting.

Marvin Rush did a great job in Cisco's quarters here. It's that grading, isn't it? It's the grating that's above in that or whatever it is, causing those little shadows going on. The shafts and the darkness and dark corners, it was great. Dukata's sitting there, though. He made his way into... to Cisco's quarters somehow. I'm going to say that for me, watching this scene, I could not take my eyes off of either actor.

I felt that they played very well off of each other. I felt that both actors were present that day when they worked on this scene. They knew their lines and they went in there and they knocked it out of the park. I agree. They knocked it out of the park. There was a third entity there as well. David is quite famous for doing lots of takes. These two actors were quite famous for not wanting to do much.

Do a lot of takes. Oh, interesting. Maybe David intentionally was trying to push them a little to get, like, do even, you know, directors do that sometimes. I did that with Scott Bacchola in Enterprise. I pushed him to give me some lighthearted stuff, trying to get him to laugh sometimes that he wanted to play things real serious. Right. Interesting. Well, anyway, Cisco's concerned about Jake when he first walks in because Ducotte's in there.

Again, reference to family. Yeah. Yeah. He's concerned that Gull Dukot did something nefarious with Jake. And so he calls Kira, you know, locate Jake. I want to know where he is if he's okay. Well, he could have did that himself. He could have just said, computer, tell me where Jake Cisco is.

Yeah, he could have. No, because Jake doesn't wear a comm badge. Oh. Wait a minute, but he did give him one in the last prior episode. But is he wearing it? But is he wearing it? Yeah. I mean, one of the things that sometimes characters do is in order not to be traced,

they rip the comm badge. That's right. That's right. So maybe he wasn't wearing it. I have something like a com badge in my wallet. It's a little find me card. And I put it in my wallet and I can, because I lost my wallet a few months ago. So now I have a find my wallet card. It's like a comb badge. I have one of those in my luggage and Apple trackers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the tags. They work well. It's like it's like com badges have come into real life. They have. Like that whole Star Trek game. They're real. Yeah, they're real. Duccott admits that he snuck on board that the officials don't know he's here but he does tell Cisco he knows who did this who blow up the ship and he needs Cisco's help

and a runabout to go to the demilitarized zone and it ends in a 50-50 which David Livingston I love this that shot when they're nose to nose do you remember that shot the two of them I love that I wish that there had been a close-up of Cisco though at the very end I wanted to come out of that 50-50 and just see Cisco's face.

Isn't it better this way, Robbie? I mean, the whole episode is the confrontation between the Kardashians and the Federation. So in a sense, that's subconsciously giving you the fight that this episode is about. Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, I just wanted, because I think DuCott's got the last line,

he says, not so demilitarized, I'm afraid, which is a very ominous sort of thing. And I wanted to see Cisco's reaction of that last line. Like, what do you, you know who did this? You're telling me there could be terrorists or war or something. I wanted to see his face. Is Descartes line on a single or is it on the 50-50? It's in the 50-50.

And it's strong 50-50. I wouldn't take that out. Right. No way. It was great. Okay. The putting down a federation. Duccott tells Cisco that Cisco is an honorable man,

but there are members of his brethren that are willing to blow shit. ships up. So we're getting this point of view, granted, it's from Golda Kott, but we're getting this point of view that the Federation isn't, you know, perfect, isn't all it's cracked up to be. I, as a Ferengi, love that. Right. I also like, I really loved when he said, I know you to be an honorable man.

Yeah. He said that in a very authentic way. He did. I did not think, oh, he's just playing him or, no, trying to manipulate him. No, it was very real. It's like an opponent at chess. You may not like them, but you have to give them credit for how well they play the game. Yeah.

When Mark Alimaux said, I know you're an honorable man. Like, there was some moments that just felt very real and natural and authentic. I, again, don't know for sure, but I think that subtext was there. Yeah. Well, whatever subtext was there, this was my favorite scene in the entire episode. It was great. It was a great scene. Yes, I'm probably with you there.

It was one of my favorites for sure. We come in the runabout. Mark Alamo, Dukon is complaining that he doesn't have any controls. My panels are dark. Like, shouldn't I have lights on or what does he say? My controls aren't illuminated. Shouldn't we both have controls? He's trying to get some control.

It's very funny. It is funny. But I know why he didn't get it is because Cisco is assuming that that Descartes has no idea what's going on with that Starfleet interface of like what to hit, what buttons or whatever. But then later we find out from DeCat that clearly they have, you know, intelligence and they, he knows everything about this and that their vessels are already five years ahead of Starfleet's vessels. Did you, Armand, when you played on the show, because I've never realized in this scene, And Cisco talks about Cardassians being famous for their photographic memories. Never heard that before. This is the first time I heard.

Okay. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that's a newbie. But then it does go into a little bit. Maybe photographic memory was an exaggeration because it does talk about putting Cardassian children in intense mind training programs. At four years old. Yeah.

Well, actually, I don't remember exactly, but I seem to want to think that Andy said that once. Either he said it on the program or he wrote it in his knowledge. novel one or the other but about training cardassian children's minds to to be very well very sharp yeah very sharp yeah i think doesn't doesn't ducate say something like intelligence is valuable education is valuable joy joy is vulnerability he does say that yeah yeah it's very powerful line education of power joy is vulnerability it could be a rule of acquisition uh yeah they they were saying in the interwebs that that line, that bit of dialogue there is in reference to Orwell's 1984.

Oh, interesting. Again, the writers are pretty smart fellows. Very smart, yes. They have a lot of resources, like history and literature and things they pull from and put into Star Trek. It's great. They pick up a distress call. There's a Federation merchant vessel

that's being attacked by two Cardassian warships. And we see on the panel, on a little panel, I love the, the computer is showing like a Cardassian symbol and a Starfleet symbol. Like, it's pretty clear. Yeah. It's like. Thank you, Dan. Yeah. Thanks, Dan.

Or was that Mike and Denise, maybe? It could have been Mike. Could have been. Yeah. But to be clear, Robbie, there are not warships. They're actually small Cardassian shuttles. We found out, right? They're actually Cardassian shuttles from Cardassian settlers.

That's not the word. Yeah. Colonists. Yeah. Yeah, all the ships. Like, I think the, what was the one that being attacked? The merchant ship. The merchant vessel has weapons on it.

Yes. They're kind of surprised. Yeah. And these little transport ships, the Cardassian ships, have weapons that they shouldn't have. They should not have. So the whole thing seems, yeah. Right. Because when they talked about armed.

with Gaylor-class phaserbanks. That sounds like what you would arm a massive Cardassian warship with, but yet it's on a Cardassian shuttle, a tiny little shuttle. It just doesn't make any sense. They're like, what's happening here? Well, they go to warp,

to go try to help them out. They head towards the ships. The ships have these unusual weapons. They try hailing them, no response. Dukot even stands up, personally calls the Cardassian ships. Yeah. And they don't respond. He gives them like his command code to authenticate who he is still nothing nothing and suddenly a federation ship

arrives cisco does not recognize it it looks like an old starfleet courier ship or something some old rickety sort of random vessel that shows up but guess what yeah it attacks the cardassian shuttles destroys them we see the little on the on the mike and denise okuda playback we see the Cardassian ships and the I like the symbols. Yeah. The symbols were funny. But that new Starfleet ship is, like you said, it's a modified support courier

ship. So again, another ship that does not have armament, but it has photon torpedoes. So, huh, go figure. Yeah. And Dukot even says at the end of the scene, he says, well, it looks like they've started their own war out here. So, yeah. Yeah. We're heading towards the

marquee reality. We'll be right back after this message from our sponsor. I did have something that when you talked about joy, I was struck by the dialogue. DeKat says joy, as we mentioned, is vulnerability. Cisco says what? And DuKat says of Cisco,

that he is the most joyless and the least vulnerable human he knows. And I don't know if that's DuKat speaking or whether that's the writer speaking. But somebody was speaking there. Yeah. Interesting how, I mean, writers definitely take from their relationships with actors off the set and what they see the actors doing on the film, the footage, the dailies. And they sort of mash all that into how the characters develop. And so I'm sure there's things in there that are, yeah, how the writers felt about all the characters in some way. Certainly the relationship between Quark and Hoto grew out of what the writers saw in Daly's. what they saw yeah yeah for sure all right quarks cafe we got a nice private dinner yeah very fancy dinner arman that's the fanciest dinner i've ever seen on star track i think it's the most

colorful dinner i've ever seen on star trek as well my goodness it was beautiful we quark spent a lot of money clearly he was either you were madly in love with this woman you just met or you thought this deal was going to make you tons and tons of money. A Ferengi and a Vulcan having a business deal together? Unheard of. Yes, spend a little money. You know, break out the good wine. Absolutely.

Yeah. Was that Rom serving the wine? No, again, that's David Levinson. Broik, who's it? It was always there. It was always there and is my standing as well. Yeah, I couldn't tell, because he came in. There was one moment where he was like pouring the wine between the two of you.

You were trying to talk romance around. That was a fun bit. that statement. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, Quark explains that for Ferengi starting a new business venture calls for celebration. He does share in this scene. There's 285 rules of acquisition. She says it sounds kind of like the Vulcan Bill of Rights, which I thought was an interesting, you know, a little nugget. This is where she reveals she needs weapons, lots of them, the transport ships. This is where all that comes out. And Quark is shocked. Oh, I said it too early then on the other scene. You did. You did. Oh, yeeks.

that's all right yikes okay but it comes out eventually that's what she wants but she says to the rules of acquisition that you know it's a code of behavior for business negotiations she recognizes it and praises it um thank you thank you saccona thank you saccona and quark says that's logical yes yes go ahead this i notice in the scene i'm going to keep jumping on it it was a long oner until it cut this whole dinner it pulled back out of the table it held the table of the two shot. David Levinson was coming in and out of this shot. It didn't even cut until after you start talking about rules of acquisition.

We were a minute or two into the scene before. I would assume David trusted us to, you know, hold the focus for as long as that. This one I liked a lot. I mean, and again, it's just all subjective. It's my personal taste. Everybody's got, you know, different opinions. But I liked this one a lot. I liked the way that it held that tableau.

And as David Levinson came in and out, and you saw the interaction in the two shot, it was great. And he gave it some action by having David Levinson, Broick, come in and serve so that there is action, even though the two main characters are not really doing anything but sitting there. Very smart of David. Very smart, yeah. But David Levinson only came in to give you drink, not her, which was interesting.

He does work for me. He is your employee. Just to give David kudos. Yeah. David always, when I came back from makeup or wherever, and David had done the blocking, the camera blocking, he was invaluable for telling me what the camera was going to do, what the director and the DP were going to do. He was a godsend for seven years.

Wow. Well, he went above and beyond. Yes, he did. Literally, when Robbie and I would walk onto the set, our stand-ins would be like, okay, you're up, and they wouldn't sit there and tell us anything. We would just kind of fill in, right? They might say, hey, you're going to be doing this, this. But it's very rare that they would talk about where the camera would be with us.

So it sounds like Levinson did all his homework and was very, you know, he gave you every detail, which helped you. He did. And he helped me a great deal. It saved a lot of time, a lot of energy, because I didn't have to relearn what was happening. David has spelled it all out for me. Yeah. Good job, David Levinson. Good job, David.

It's interesting because stand-ins, that position, is hired by, they are hired by the DP. what the DP does that yeah I thought it was the first AD that hired that they will they will go find options for the DP but the DP is the one that says I want this person to stand in for because they want height and skin tone and all kinds of things okay so the standings really work for the DP and they know that like you know especially I've done shows with DPs multiple shows with the same DP and they bring the same standins from show to show wow so the standings so the And Vendons often feel their bread is buttered with a D.P. So for them to go above and beyond and give you all that information, Armand, is not required.

It's not part of their job. Exactly. Yeah, it's really going above and beyond and to realize that you can be helpful to the actor, so helpful by passing those things on. Yeah. And it's great that you had the same stand in Armin for the whole run of the show. I had three or four different stands. And eventually they were awarded him by giving him some lines. Yeah, which is he deserves the right thing.

He deserves it, yeah. Out of that beautiful dinner scene, beautiful dinner scene, this was the close-up, I think, on Quark, right, when you realize that she's going to pay in Latinum. Yeah. But also, he realized when she says, you know, she needs guns, phaserbanks, photon torpedoes, troop transports, and a number of cobalt thorium devices. My list is quite extensive. I said, this is very anti-Vulcan, as we understand it.

Yeah. And certainly took Quark and Armin by surprise. I think Quark is so intrigued with this Vulcan lady. This is something else. This is, he's never encountered this sort of Vulcan before. Armand, when did we just do the episode where the love of your life came back? Yeah, that's profit and loss. Profit and loss.

Yeah. And that was recent, wasn't it? Yeah, that was the last episode I did with you. It was two episodes ago. I was thinking in this episode when Quark, and it's on the page, so you play it beautifully. But I was like, how can they just two episodes back have had the love of his life? And now he's... Well, you see this as a romantic relationship.

I see this more as a business relationship. Oh, business, really? Yeah. So all the flirting is really... I mean, yes, he's flirting. But that's what one does in business. Yeah, true. You use whatever you can to make the deal better.

I don't think, yes, yes, he was, he wants to break her Vulcan Heart. I think he says someone who wants to soft melted or soft melted. Yes, he wants to do that, but that's quark all over. But I think, for me anyway, it's more of a business relationship and personal relationships are secondary. It's a Ferengi, after all, business is most important. Most important, sure. And at the outset, at the outset, when you look at the combination of, you look at the combination of a frangy male and a Vulcan female of the thought process is you're not going to

say this is the couple that we would think would be a couple right you don't but in reality if a Ferengi's main primary goal is to conduct business the Vulcans when they speak it is all business if you talk if their way of speaking is so direct and to the point and business like they are the ideal people for phrengees to deal with and for frangis to trust because they're not beating on it sorry sorry for frangy to deal with even plural even if you're talking about rangy is no ass

and I apologize armand you have corrected me on this already one time and so it'll take me a few times to get it so from this point four seasons to go you'll get up I'm hoping this time will be the time that I stop making that mistake but thank you for correcting me listen Michael Doran always said for rangies too so you know you're in good company oh so the klingon said it too all right yeah yeah armin did you ever do etymology of the word ferengi yeah i have did we do it on the show no what is it then do you know

it off the top of your head where did it well there are there are ferengi is is uh in different languages has different meanings in in germany it's cottage cheese uh in the south pacific this is a really good one in south pacific ferengi means stranger. Oh, interesting. Any other languages besides those two? Those are the only two I know of. I'm sure there are other languages, but those are the call on the way.

A stranger who's cottage cheese? A stranger who eats cottage cheese. Because of the teeth. I'm sure it's because of the teeth. You can't eat hard food. Very funny. All right. I was wondering if you were going to say, well, it was a resistance group in World War II.

in Switzerland or yeah no the only resistance group I remember is me and Max and Aaron that's the resistance you were the resistance trying to get through with those federation types my god we had a hard war to fight oh I oh my goodness all right we are we right now we go to we go to a meeting house on volon three yeah don't we don't we have a do we have an exterior shot of the establishing shot of the big wide shot of the yeah the Maki settlement right we have that Okay, so that actual, yeah, that actual settlement, gentlemen, is a reuse of the map painting used for Tall Signa 5 in the TNG episode, The Ensign of Command. So that exact exterior shot of the establishing shot of the Maki colony or whatever it is, the meeting area, is used before on TNG. It's funny that you say that, I don't know how many years before they had used it.

But that particular one I looked at and I went, oh, boy, that's dated. It looked a little, you know, old-fashioned, I guess. Matt Painty, yeah. And the fact that it came from an episode of TNG, maybe years before, makes sense then, you know, because technology was changing every year very fast. We were into CGI stuff on our show in the first, you know, a few seasons in. Can I give you the air date of that TNG episode to corroborate what you just said? Yeah.

October 2nd, 1989. Wow. So there you go. 80s special effects. 80s tech. Yes. 80 special effects. Yeah.

That's funny. So who remembers that? Is that something that, who does that? Does Dan remember that? Does David remember that? When they're prepping the episode? Yeah. They probably go in, my guess is, my memory is we'd prep the episodes, all the

departments would turn in budgets, and there was always a visual effects budget that would come in. And there was always a meeting right before prepped finished where we'd all sit down in the conference room with a visual effects budget and we'd have to cut things. Maybe a scene had six phaser shots in it. Can you do it with three? Yeah, sure. Okay. You know, establishing shot of this Volon three meeting house. Well, we don't have the money to do a whole new one.

And Dan might have said in that meeting, oh, remember the shot from five years ago? TNG episode Ensign of command. Maybe take a look at that. It's free. We've already done it. So it was probably in that meeting that Dan would say that.

So Robbie, to make an episode fit the budget for that episode, the first area that they cut is always visual effects then? There's nothing else. Well, they cut all the departments get beat up a little bit.

But visual effects always got beat up hard. Because their budget, you know, they come in and they say, here's what you wrote. And here's a budget. for that. Right. And then they have to bring it down always. Always. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So in this meeting house, we see an argument between a Cardassian who will get to know is EVEC and the human

colonists that are there, the Federation colonists. And they're arguing about that battle we just saw. The Cardassian ships coming in attacking the Starfleet and then the Starfleet blowing up the two Cardassian ships. Cal Hudson is there. They're all arguing very, very heated. They're each blaming each other. Cisco and Dukot arrive in the scene. Vec accuses the colonists of terrorist activities.

They angrily deny it. Yvesque has a confession of the attacker of the Bokhner. And we look on a computer. We see him confess. He's been held prisoner. we see him confess he says he regrets doing it um and that's when amoros the colonist leader and we see him what what i remember if we see him sort of reading the confession yeah yeah that that puts into mind is that something he wrote or is it's something he has to recite right

yeah right and it sounded like it was something he had to recite especially that one part arm in what he says like i have been treated well like that bad who writes that that that's that themselves nobody yeah and again he ends it by sending his love to his family yes he does that's right i think he knows what's about to happen of course he does but but the writers made sure family was part of that as well you're right again it's right there well amaros the colonist leader says i want to see him sure i see the confession but i want to see him in person in the flesh and they say oh that's too bad he committed suicide shortly after he confessed yeah they bring in the body that's when Amarose jumps over the table

and I thought that has to... You really think that's the actor. I think it's the actor. I think he did it. I mean, okay. I'm just saying that's so dangerous from that height to... Yeah. To pounce and dive onto another actor, you know.

But it was all one shot. You saw his face. He went up on the thing and it panned over. So I think it was the actor. It never cut. think so okay i don't think so all right well good job tony plana my gosh yeah i think he did that and yeah they're all taken taken out and they take the body out they take the body they do bring in the you know the colonist dead body yeah and they bring this is this is where we see the the native

the first the native american the first nation's right that's right yeah who we all thought hey early chicote maybe so yes and i also think it's interesting the reference the kind of irony of having a Native American colonists who's been kicked out with the history of First Nations tribes and, you know, how they're losing their lands to begin with. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It is a it is a good vehicle to use for that story, I think. I do believe they included him for that sole reason, I think, in that tableau for us to see. Unless they were already discussed in Chacote in the discussions about a Voyager. I think they were actually at that point.

They were already in discussions about that. Reading up about it, they wanted Chakote to sort of do what O'Houra did for African Americans, the inclusion of O'Houra on TOS. They wanted, you know, indigenous people to also feel like they were represented, heard and valued. And so that was the thought process behind Chakotay. I think that the instinct and the,

the impulse is a great impulse, but as we discussed on the Voyager version of this podcast, they did a very bad job with. They found the wrong guy, though. They had the wrong consultant, but they knew. Everybody knew that he was a sham, that he was a fraud.

And that, yeah, anyway, not to revisit our Voyager podcast, but we've already talked about it. I felt like there were a lot of failures on, on a very good impulse to bring a native character into Star Trek.

but not done so well. The intentions were good. They were good to begin with. Yeah, a little later on, we see Cisco staring out a window. I love this shot. Before we do, I just have to share with you why I think Golovec is a funny name. Yes, please. So in Yiddish, I'm sure some of the writers had some connection with Yiddish.

Gaevec means go away. So when I heard Gullivak, I immediately go to Gaevec and just go away. Just go away. That's funny. It sounds like it sounds like go away, you're annoying me. Yes, exactly. That's what it means. Gavec, Gavec, Gavec.

Which the origins of Yiddish come from, Armin. German, German, mixed with anything else? Hebrew. Not necessarily Hebrew. Although one would think that, but no, not Hebrew. German and other dialects in that area of Europe. Okay, so it's basically an offshoot of a German root. There are many, from what I've been told and what I understand,

because I don't really speak any Yiddish, there's a lot of German words in Yiddish that are same, same words. Got it. Okay. Like English and French, for instance. There's a lot of French words that are... That overlap, yes. All righty. All right, a little later on, we're still down with the colonists.

Cisco staring out a window. We see his buddy Cal Hudson defending Bill Samuels, a man who committed suicide. I love this shot, though, with Cisco, the light on his face, looking out the window. Look nice. Seeing Hudson out of focus in the background, you know, passionately defending this man. Was that fair to Bernie Casey? He's got a dramatic speech and he's out of focus. I mean, I always feel, Armin, the scene has a point of view.

Usually in every scene there's a point of view. Some scenes with quark, quark is the point of view of that scene is quark's experience of what happens in the scene. So if it were a cork scene and that was the point of view, the audience was supposed to be in quark's point of view, then letting the other stuff happen around quark out of focus would make sense to me totally. So in this case, maybe it was a Cisco, David was trying to focus in on Cisco's absorbing what's happening here. Because after all, Cisco is number one on the call sheet,

so you want to favor your series regular actor. Yeah. Yeah. And to see him absorbing what Hudson, his friend, is saying, I think there's some value in that. I could see why David did that. And often you'll have those shots, and then you'll have another piece of coverage,

of the other actor in case you want to cut back and forth. But they chose to stay in that shot with Cisco, which I liked. I liked that choice a lot. Hudson's defending Bill Samuels. He thinks the Cardassians have no intention of letting these Federation colonists stay. Cisco wants to take this to Starfleet command to the highest levels. Cal Hudson doesn't really believe that's going to do anything. They kind of start talking about the fun times in their past when their wives hung out together.

They talk about New Berlin and the Mazurka Festival where Cisco wore later hosen. I'd like to see that. I think we all would. And then Cisco says, I still have the hat. So he's got the traditional German hat as well. I just want to bring up, there's a line from Cisco a little bit earlier before that, you know, talk about our wives thing. And he says, not long ago, we caught the Kardashians shipping weapons to the Bajoran extremists through a third party. the Eurydians.

Now, interestingly enough, in the episode, The Circle, it was actually, they thought it was the Eurydians, but in reality, it was the Grissari

who were doing the bad dealings and shipping stuff. So they, so they, there's a feeling that the writers forgot to connect those two dots. Yeah. Oh, interesting.

Oh, yeah. Someone looked back and see who was, yeah, and whoever read through the script when Euridians, because that's the first. But they didn't go to the end of the story. They didn't go to the story,

which is, it wasn't the, was kind of framed, they were framed. It was really the Corsari. So, yeah, so therefore that is kind of what a little inconsistency. Yeah, inconsistency we have there. I just want to see Ciscoe in Later Hose. In Later Hose? Okay. So I have to say it. Hudson does think the Cardassians are breaking this treaty, though, and the colonists have a right to defend themselves. So again, Cal Hudson is defending. He's on the side of these colonists. He seems pretty wound up about it. Yeah. And Cisco doesn't think the Kardashians are.

are breaking the treaty. So again, we have two sides. One gets the feeling that Cisco wants to do the right thing and Cal is cutting corners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're starting to see, yeah, a little bias with Cal there towards the colonists and Cisco's commitment to Starfleet rules.

Ethos, yeah. Ethics. Yes, absolutely. We're back in the runabout again, traveling back to the station. Dukot admits that he knew that they had. had samuels but he did not know that he was dead um right and cisco asks if the bachnor was transporting weapons and duccott says no no absolutely not just gulcide ore and cisco says well maybe they could have delivered the weapons first and then before they arrived at the station and like are you

sure and this is where duccott swears in his children's lives first time we know that you know that He has children. And Cisco asks how many kids? He goes seven. Seven kids. Wow. Yeah. But does he have seven or is he making all that up?

You know? I mean, we don't even, we don't know. We will find out about one of the children. Oh, really? Okay. We will. Thank you for that. Something's going to happen.

And again, family. It's not Federation family. It's a Kardashian family. Right. And it says, I'll swear in my children's lives. I don't think we've ever heard that before that a Cardassian is going to swear certainly on something that's important

to that's what swears or oaths are about about swearing about on something that's important certainly we have that in Shakespeare and what's obviously important to Dakot is his family. Yeah, seven kids though. I like my cigar but I take it out of my mouth sometimes. Thank you, Groucho Marx.

Yes, exactly. Okay, we go back to Quarks. Yeah, Quark is hitting on Ciccona very hard here. Yeah. Cicona comes to see if and when Quark will have these items ready. And he says tomorrow, 1,400 hours, I think. And she says, well, she has his latinum ready to go. And he really wants to mix business with pleasure in this scene.

He does. Which I thought was interesting. Yeah. But that due date of tomorrow is too late for her. She wants it moved up to this evening. Yeah, that's right. That's right. She does give Quark a little hope in the scene, Armand.

Yeah. She's like, yeah, maybe later. I'll have a little pleasure in business time with you. She's working him just like he's working her. Exactly. Exactly. Well, she finds you intriguing quark. So that's the end of that scene with Quark saying, intriguing in a very self-confidence way.

He's very excited about that. Do you think Quark is working her? or does he have real interest? I bought that he had real interest. I think both. I think both. But as I said before, I think the commerce issue is much more important than romantic issue.

There's no reason not to mix romance with business. Right. Well, the next thing is that. Especially if it makes the deal better. Yes. Next up, we're in the promenade. So Cisco and Dakot have arrived back on DS9. They've come out of the runabout.

Interestingly enough, on the interwebs, it says, when DeKott and Benjamin and Cisco enter the promenade, having just returned to D-Space 9 after visiting the demilitarized zone, the chess piece of Descartes' costume has detached itself from the underlying material. I saw that. You caught it.

The rubber armor even catches a few times in the actor's lower arm as it swings while he walks. I didn't know what was up, but it looked weird. Like, I saw the thing, it wasn't tight to his body. It was like flopping around. It was flopping around. So you caught it, Robbie.

You caught it. And why didn't David, Ken? that. Well, that's the thing. If David did 18 takes of that, don't you think he would have saw that thing flopping at one point? Or he would have felt it. Judy Brown would have, Judy Brown, that's her responsibility is what. She was the script coordinator. Right. Somebody should have seen that. Maybe it was just that one take. Maybe it was just that one take, the one they used. Yeah. Well, maybe the editor didn't see it. Maybe they, they could have made a note, like, oh, the costume was bad, and he didn't see the note and use that take. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, essentially, in this little quick walk and talk while we see the uniform doing weird things, Flocking around, Cisco does offer a guest suite to Descartes until he has to go back to Cardassia when they settle up where, how he's going to get back there. Cisco even says, I'll have a security guard sent up there to meet you. And there's a little funny thing with DeCott saying, well, can we make it not a Bajoran security card? I was the commander here. And some of those old Bajoran deputies were here when I was over them and being basically a tyrant, we're guessing. So he wants someone from Starfleet. So Cisco goes, that's fine.

And they split off and Descartes leaves. And Cisco heads off to wherever he needs to go to. He's going to ops next. Yes, he's going to ops. He goes to ops. Cisco returns, Miles begins to tell Cisco what he's learned. But Cisco already knows it. He's like, I've got some answers for you.

And Cisco says, it was an implosive device. Yes, yes, sir. It was. But not only that, Cisco's. Not only that, it was a federation implausentice. Yes, sir. I love that. Yeah.

It's funny. I just want O'Brien to say, why am I even working? Why? For the residuals. For the residuals. Clearly. Literally. Cisco already knows everything that O'Brien has figured out.

He asked for them to get Starfleet command on subspace and goes in his office. Yeah. And there's some very loaded looks between Miles and Kearly. at the end of that scene. Yeah. Yeah. Is this where he's, what's the shot of him screaming and yelling in the office and we don't hear? That's the one.

It's coming up later. It comes like, oh, no. It's not this one now? Oh, I thought it was. I thought it was. I thought it was this one. Okay, that's not it. All right.

Not quite yet. Yeah. Kira has a look with Miles, very loaded, and then she goes inside to talk. We cut inside the commander's office. Yeah. Kira comes in. She asks what she should say to the Bajoram provisional government. and he says tell them about the Boknor,

but there's no threat of Cardassian reprisal to Bejor. They don't need to worry. Kira's very worried, though. She asks if there's going to be a war. Cisco says, not if I can help it. That's my hero, Cisco. He's going to stop the war single-handedly. He doesn't need O'Brien to figure out the clues.

He doesn't need anybody. He's going to stop the world by himself. And Kira says, I know the Kardashians can't be trusted to keep their side of the bargain, Cisco says, so you suggest that the Federation not keep our side of the bargain either? I thought that was really quite good. And indeed, partisanship is one of the main themes of this episode. And here we see, Kira being, as usual, and rightfully so, partisan being very anti-Kardassian, and Cisco is trying to keep the peace by trying to

evaluate both sides. Right. Yeah, Kira definitely. breaks it down. She's like, what do I tell the Bajoran government? And you guys, then she gives Cisco advice. You know, you should, Starfleet needs to side with its own people. These Kardashians are bad. Yeah, she's definitely dividing people up into teams. Yeah. And Cisco is saying, nope, we're going to keep our side. We want peace. We want everybody to get along here. And again, if I may, quote, again, I think a very powerful line. Kyrr says, I can tell you the Cardassians are the enemy, not your own colonists. And if the Federation cannot understand that,

then the Federation is more naive than I already think it is. That's when Armand cheered at the screen. Oh, I cheered. Oh, I threw confetti, absolutely. Go, Kira. Sturley. Arman's got a birthday party hat on with a little thing. He's like blowing that.

It's coming out. He's so excited. I'm watching this. Starfleet is more naive than I always. already think it is. Great line. Really is. Yes, she is.

And then Cisco pushes a button. He opens the door. He doesn't even ask her to leave. No, he's like, pushes a button and looks at her. Did Janeway have a button to push her, to open her ready room doors? No way, dude.

Well, if she did, she never used it. It was one upset. Yeah, maybe. So for Cisco to just push the button and not say get out, but yeah, he basically said, Gavec to her, right? Gavek, Gavek to her. Gavek then not visitor.

All right. That's funny. Well, we cut into a corridor next. We see a Starfleet guard who arrives to relieve the watch at DuCott's quarters. Another Starfleeter there. And as that the watch guard is distracted, we see a Vulcan hand come in, a Vulcan neck pinch gets him right through his clothes, by the way. I didn't know Vulcan neck pinches could work through uniforms. But Sakona is a very powerful female Vulcan.

So maybe she has the ability to go through clothing for some reason. Maybe. Okay. I don't know. I've never even thought of that detail, but in this shot for some of it was like, it was, that was the clothes. That wasn't the skin. But anyway. Pressure points.

You can get there without Ashavie touching the skin too. Yeah. So we have that. Cicona and this, this new guard, her buddy. They call for, yeah, the fake guard. They call for Dukot. They tell him that a Cardassian. ship is here and they found another bomb and Cisco wants him to

come investigate yeah come check it out right airlock 11 Cisco's going to meet you there yeah liars lies all lies we go to the airlock federation lies federation yes but this even if it's well you're right it's faux federation but yeah foe federation lies as well yeah yeah well we go to the airlock They arrive. No Cisco. Duccott realizes he's been tricked. Amarose arrives.

There's a bit of a fight. Dukot, he's got some moves. Yeah, he doesn't want to get, he's not going to go easily, right? He does the back hand. Well, he knocks out the lady. He knocks out. He's the back end. Then he does a, which is.

Yeah. It's sort of a forward heel, heel punch is what it is. Yeah. He'll the heel of the hand punch. And hits her square in the face, knocks her back. Right. But this is where you say that. This is actually Mark Alamo that did that stunt because I thought I was watching a face.

He was running at camera. You saw his face. No, but it didn't. I froze it. I was like, no, that's just makeup on someone else, I thought. But maybe one of us is right. We know that. I'm going to give Mark Alamo the credit. Credit for that crap fall that he did. That's what stuntmen, you know, sad to say, that's part of their job. They're not supposed to get credit. We're supposed to think it's the first teamers doing it. Well, you know what? Now that I think of it, Rob, Just the way he fell

I can see Mark Alamo saying I'm going to make this a little different and he looked like he was an Olympic diver the way he just spread his arms out and went like that and splatted right there so maybe it was Mark Alamo but he fell off camera so there could have been pads for the actor off of it

Oh there had to be pads It didn't look like he felt ever to me It looked like he fell right on His feet were still on Okay Go back and look at it I'll look at it again Listeners

this. Please settle this for me and Garrett. Thank you. And they will. Yeah, he gets, he gets shot in the back. Yeah. Shot in the back by Starfleaders. Well, they couldn't shoot him in the front. There was nobody in front of it. That's right. That's true. But he's running away. Yeah. It's just not. It's not fair. No, it's not fair. But again, the full federation. They're not so nice. We go back to ops. Cisco is having, this is where Cisco is office. That's right. He's having this heated argument

with someone on his monitor and everybody's standing there the whole group is standing down in ops looking up at him honestly they look like they were posing for a cast photo just the way it was set up he all did look like that very symmetrical

and I was like oh they're just waiting for they're waiting for Avery to get done and then he's going to come in and join the cast photo and then they're done but I will say this that that conversation is with an admiral and that conversation was actually included in the script, even though you did not hear it.

The entire conversation is in the script. So, yeah, there you go. Yeah, the whole thing is in the script. And it's basically a conversation with Cisco getting scolded hard. He's being reprimanded. He's being reprimanded hard. And he's pushing back pretty hard and defending himself, saying we did everything.

We're doing everything we can. So it's heated. Is it better, guys? Do you think it's better that we don't hear what's happening? Is it more powerful? that we don't hear the actual lines? I don't. Again, you understand my point of view on this.

I would like for Avery to be scolding Starfleet Command. And you'd like to hear that. You'd like to see coverage of that. Yeah, but we got that. I mean, we got that point of view. You can see that he's heated about this conversation. And we assume he's talking to Federation, so command. So one got that.

But, yeah, I would have liked the icing on the cake as well. To see the whole thing. We may not use this. Can we read this? Can I read this with you, Robbie? Yeah. Can you be the Admiral? This is the off-camera that we never saw?

Yeah. You're going to play Cisco? Yeah, I'll play Cisco. Here we go. I'm hoping I don't have to remind the Admiral how many people pass through here during a week's time. It's not possible to keep tabs on every single person while they're on the station. If I didn't know you better, Commander, I think you were making excuses.

I'm not making excuses. Would it be in keeping with Federation policy to frisk everyone who steps through our airlocks to search every room of every visitor during their stay? Of course not, but with two kidnappings and a ship being destroyed in all in less than one week's time, obviously your security measures leave something to be desired. Security on this station is by the book, our security program and the officers who work in it, our first rate. Then what were they doing when all this was happening? We here at Starfleet are watching how you resolve this situation very closely, Commander. We think it might be prudent to replace this chief of security you have. Odo is both highly intelligent and extremely thorough. He's the most qualified person I have for the job.

Still, it would be a concrete example that you are taking active measures to resolve this situation and to make sure it doesn't happen again. I stand behind my chief of security 100%. That may be a mistake, Commander. Then it's my mistake. Then let me make my point again. Starfleet is very unhappy that this happened. We want this matter taken care of immediately.

I don't have to remind you how this reflects on your position. We're doing everything we can to apprehend the kidnappers. Don't bother me with details. Just clean up your mess, commander. And quickly, before this becomes a permanent stain on your record. Do I make myself clear? Yes, sir. End of scene.

That's fascinating. Fascinating. It is fascinating because I hadn't even read this. I saw it, but I skipped over it. It's all about Odo. And that's why Odo is so wound up. He's hearing. He could hear what they were saying.

Okay. Well, that makes sense. Because Odo does seem to be a little bit more wound up than normal, right? Because he's like, if you gave me enough people, I need 50 more people underneath me. Deputies isn't that part. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Now, I would differ with you, gentlemen, and again, from my point of view, which is warped, I understand that.

But it's him, the pejoran police force, complaining about what the orders he has to take from the overlords, from the Federation who are telling him what he can and cannot do. That's, without knowing what you just read, that's what I saw when I was watching this scene. Okay. Yeah, you're talking about the Odo scene, right? Yeah, Odo's anger is, yeah, you're tying my hands. You're tying my hands. These Starfleet rules. The Federation rules, yeah.

I think it's interesting that Starfleet, if he can hear what they're saying to Cisco, that they're attacking, you know, fire your security guy. Even doubly so, then, Armand, because what do you mean they're criticizing me? They're saying, I can't do a good job. Well, you know, that's what's motivating his anger about. They're tying my hands and they're trying to get me fired. And then he says, and then he recommends certain things that would be very stringent, very onerous. And he said, life would be better on the station.

And then Kira says, and you remember this, Kira says, yeah, except if you're a Bajoran. If you're a Bajoran, exactly. Yeah. So again, this partisanship, this partisanship that is now exploding in this episode, people are taking sides and defending their side, not really caring to hear about what the other side has to say. Yeah, but at the beginning of the scene, Robbie, it's, it's, you know, the lines, Bashir says, well, what do you think they're telling him? And then Kira says, well, two kidnapping, ship exploding the course of week. I'm sure they got a few things to say. I don't think they actually hear any of that.

Hear any of that. They just see his. So maybe not. Yeah. Interesting. But clearly, Odo is not happy with all the Federation handcuffs that he has to put on to do his job, right? Yeah, he's very, he's very angry. Cisco does finally come out.

I loved David Livingston's coverage of Cisco here. It is a super low angle. It makes Cisco look so heroic. We see the top of the set. It's not a low angle tight shot. You see his body, his power.

You see all of him. It was great. It was great. Yeah. Cisco comes out. He wants to try and trace where Descartes was taken, find the warp signature, the ship that took him. They do realize that it was a false registration. This

ship, this Cardassian ship. It wasn't registered as the correct ship. Cisco sends out a subspace message to everyone in the area to look out for this ship's warp signature. He tells Bashir and Kira to come with him. But before Kira can walk away, she says, hold on

and she gets a call. There's a group taking responsibility for Dukot's kidnapping. They call themselves dot, dot, dot. And she turns the Maki. Very dramatic moment to reveal the key yeah it was cool but since they were led by bernie i wanted her to say the bernie or the kc something

like that the marquis from belgium and france the marquis yeah that's that's when that's when uh be the marquis from world war two the belgian and raleigh he would come up with that little random detail right there yes it didn't have much to do in this episode no he didn't no i kept thinking boy he had so much time off he was he must have been doing fun things not having to come to work he was doing games i'm sure he's playing gaming his butt off yeah playing video games all right we go we go in the uh the runabout again they're trying to find ducotte um o'brien says they they changed course like cisco thought they would he does track that he sends the

coordinates um kira says that they went to the badlands this is the first time we we hear about the bad land. Yes. And these are the exact same bad lands that they chase, remember, Gullavec is chasing Chocote's Machis ship into the badlands. Voyager also goes into the badlands. Into the badlands. And then this is where we get sucked across to the other side of the galaxy.

Yeah, this was where the badlands is where Voyager started. Our story started. Well, our voyage started in Pork's Bar actually. That's true. Thank you very much. To be honest. That's true. That's true.

With low by crystals. It's funny. is the trio that began Voyager. It's Cork, Harry Kim, and then Tom Paris coming in to save Harry Kim from Cork. Right. That's the beginning of Voyager right here on this podcast. We are the originals. We are.

Well, Cisco explains about the badlands. First time this is ever mentioned in Star Trek. He explains it's right along the Cardassian border that ships avoid it because of the plasma storms and that ships have been lost there. He throws that little nugget out. Yes. I wrote down, oh, really? Yes.

But Cisco says follow this trail that O'Brien's found. They've got to get Galdukot back by any means necessary. They do locate the ship. Only human life signs. No, Kardashian life signs. So Cisco says, let's beam down. And they locate the ship. Before you go any further.

Again. You're right. He says, yeah, Cisco says, we're going to get Dukot back by any means necessary. I used to use it. And Bashir says, even if we have to fire on our own people, and Cisco pointedly does not answer. He does not answer. I noticed that, too. That's a change in course for Star Trek.

Yeah. The other thing, guys, just rewind a little bit, in the runabout, we have Bashir there. And as they're going along, I'm thinking there's no need for Bershear to be pushing buttons. What does he do? He's a doctor. So I kept thinking, he's going through his TikTok feed. He's doing social media. He's clearly doing something.

He's playing video games. He's playing a video game in the runabout. Yes, yes. I mean, I understand when they get close to where they're trying to find the colonists or whatever, he might be like searching and looking for, you know, life signs. I get that. But in the very beginning, when they first take off, there's nothing for him to do. But yet, you know, Sid's back there pushing every button. I'm like, okay.

Very funny. I will assume that he has a lot to do in the next part, the second part. I would assume that. I don't remember, but I assume that. Yeah. If he's specifically on this mission, he's got to, they're going to do something. But to ask both, ask you, Robbie, what did you think happened to Golda Kott? There's no Cardassian life sign there.

So did they drop him off somewhere? where is he then that's the thing that yeah that yeah you know but it is they say the ship signature goes to this asteroid they find it on an M-class asteroid Cisco says take us there um

they scan yeah no Cardassian life signs so but they got to follow the ship maybe that'll lead them to the next step right at least the people piloting the ship should know what happened to the car yes yes exactly get some information take us to the next place

Yeah. They'd beamed down to this beautiful jungle set. I really know. On an asteroid? Yes, on an asteroid. That's right. It's a lush asteroid. They said it was an asteroid.

They did. Where's all that foliage on an asteroid? But it's possible. It's still possible to have life on an asteroid like that. No, it was. It was lush. It was lush. It was beautiful.

There was like fog mist. You need water. You need water to have that kind of foliage. Okay. That set to me, Robbie, reminded me of the Voyager episode where the holodeck characters

have become sentient. The Federation holodeck character do you remember the it was the oh my gosh what are the huge big tall aliens that were firing at us all the time of the hunter species

yeah yeah so they had they had used remember they had used our holodeck technology to make war games and things for themselves but not on Voyager this is elsewhere on a planet but all the holodec characters had become sentient and rebelled against them.

And it was that same jungle lush setting when they were in the water where they come out with those with their, yeah, yeah, like the apocalypse now moment. Yes, I thought it was the same set. I honestly did.

It could have been. Yeah. Since they reused the same visual effects from 1988 or whatever. Yeah. I'm sure they would reuse the set too. Most definitely. Well, anyway, cool set.

They start walking through the set when suddenly they're surrounded by civilians, armed civilians pointing weapons at them. and there is Cal Hudson. Out of uniform. Artist. Yes. Artist and sports ball star himself right there. Yep.

And they are in a pickle. They are. It is a pickle. They are in a pickle to be continued. I see one disaster after another keeps bringing us back together again. I love that line. Yes. We'll be right back after this.

message from our sponsor. Beam, lesson, moral for Robbie McNeil. I wrote down the saying, don't let one bad Apple spoil the whole bunch. And the reason I wrote that down is because Cisco's effort here is to stick to Starfleet principles and not let, yeah, maybe there are some, you know, Starfleet that have gone off the rails, but he's not going to abandon. and his principles. He's not going to let it spoil the whole bunch.

He's going to try to stick to his principles and hopefully that'll see him through. So I don't know. Okay. That was as close as a good. What about the scene between him and Dukot in the runabout where Cisco does not allow Duccott to see that there is a partisanship there. They don't trust each other. Certainly Cisco doesn't trust Duccott and I don't think Dukat trust Cisco.

So there's a partisanship there that is prevalent throughout the entire episode. I'm going to get to that in a moment. So go ahead. Okay. Well, that was as close as I. I didn't really have a good theme, but I just admired Cisco trying to stick to ethics and morals and his ideals in spite of all of this stuff kind of revealing itself and falling apart. Where's the rest of his crew while they're watching him argue with Starfleet are not sticking to their. ideals. They are very partisan, each picking sides about which side they're on.

Armand, do you have a theme moral? I do, and obviously it's partisanship. So, and I got a quote that I think spells it out for me exactly. It's by a man named James Harvey Robinson, and the quote goes, partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that our duty is to be one or the other to be on one or the other. And I think that's what I see in this episode. People saying it is our duty to be on one side or the other and not to listen to the other side, which Cisco is trying to do. Interesting. Yeah, that reminds me of just philosophically this whole idea of dualism that there are two sides to everything, as you said, in your quote, there's right and wrong

or that there's good or bad, you know, if you can let go of this sort of dualistic thinking and just say things are what they are. Yeah. And we're, you know. And it punctures the balloon of federation excellence. Yes.

For one of a better term. And I, I for one, think that's an asset to the franchise to say, no, the federation isn't perfect, but they're trying their best to do this as well as they can. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Karen? Yes. Mine is more about just the Federation colonists and the Cardassian colonists fighting each other right now. And I just say the lesson, violence begets violence.

Somebody needs to have the courage to stand up and stop this cycle of violence. Great. That's the lesson. That is great. That's great. What is the Patreon theme? Let's see. The Patreon poll theme slash moral lesson of this episode, as submitted by Becca Stilo, or Becca Steele, is, powerful people are often not the ones who have to live with the consequences of their decisions. So true. So true. There we go.

All right. Well, that is our recap and discussion of this episode. So thank you, everyone, for joining in on this one. Please join us next time, and we will be recapping and discussing the part two of this episode, The Maquis, Part two. And that will be with Terry. But we want to thank Armand for joining us on this one. My pleasure. I really like this episode a great deal.

Agreed. Me too. Agreed. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material, which will also include the three of us and our ratings of this episode from 1 to 10. So you get to find that out. So thank you for all of our Patreon patrons. For everyone else, we'll see you next time.