The Greatest Generation - A Box that Does the Work (DS9S1E12)

Episode Date: January 1, 2018

When Kai Opaka makes an unscheduled visit to DS9, Commander Sisko, Major Kira and Dr. Bashir take her off the station as soon as possible. But when their Winnebago crashes onto “Planet War,” one of them will be unable to leave. Do humans in the 24th century have super eyesight? Does the promenade have a Claire’s? What’s the greatest amount of emotion depicted in Star Trek? It’s the episode that’s grandfathered into immortality.

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation, Colin Deep Space 9, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pryanaka. Happy New Year, Ben. Happy New Year. I don't know why, but it feels like it's been a really long time since we've done this. I think it has been. I think it's been a couple of weeks. Man.

But to the viewer, that passage of time is imperceptible. Yeah, yeah. We're recording this in November. We're way, way, way ahead. Yeah. We're anticipating a very busy start to the new year. We're coming right up on the launch of Friendly Fire. Yeah.

Our new show with John Roderick, so. It's true. That's really exciting. We also have our very exciting live show at San Francisco Sketchfest. Yeah, I mean, I'm betting that tickets are sold out by now, but we have no way of knowing that. That is an optimistic prediction,

but it would be a correct prediction given the track record we've had with live shows. Yeah, so if you go on bit.ly slash ggff Sketchfest and you see some tickets available, snatch them up. Not gonna wanna miss it. It's gonna be a really fun show. This is a, gotta tell you, like this venue band has a balcony.

Did you see that? We have a fun track record at shows with balconies. Like this is a statistic that I'm keeping track of. We've had, we were making out in balconies. We've had an attempted scarf throw up into a balcony. Yeah. That I that I don't believe succeeded. It's too far away. We're nerds with no athletic ability to speak of. Nerds with blown out rotator cuffs. How did you blow that out Adam? Our first back-to-back double bill podcast

was done at a venue with a balcony. That was our one in Chicago, right? Yeah, and this is kind of like that because we're gonna do our greatest Gen show and then we're gonna run backstage for five minutes and then come right back out and do a second show of Friendly Fire. And it's gonna be intense.

You remember when we got off stage after the Chicago shows, second show, and we were like, let us never do two in one night again. We promised each other been. That was a challenge. And then Roderick was like, hey, do you guys wanna do a double header? Who were like, yes. I was like, Hey, you guys want to do a double header? We're like, yes.

I was like, yes, as long as you do all the work. And here we are. Yeah. The theme of that night is going to be pacing ourselves. Yeah. I don't know if my bladder could stand two straight hours on stage. I'm really glad we're going to have that many intermission. I was thinking about investing in a stadium pal for that show. Sure. I mean, I thought you were going to go straight for astronaut diaper. Stadium pal, it seems like the sort of thing that would make a lot of noise that would be read on the mic.

I thought it would just be like, I would be mid-sentence than I would. Of course I peed my pants. Everybody my age pees their pants. would be mid sentence than I would. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Of course I peed my pants. Everybody my age piece, their pants, it's the coolest. Yeah, I mean, I guess even without the sound of you making water, uh, you yourself would give it away with your extreme sense of joy and relief. Losing, losing my train of thought because I have to focus on something much more important.

Well, it remains to be seen how both our bladders and livers will live up to the challenge of that sketch. No one has ever attempted to sell tickets to a live podcast by threatening to maybe pee on stage. I think Gallagher probably did that, right? tickets to a live podcast by threatening to maybe pee on stage. I think Gallagher probably do that, right? Yeah. Did you have a pod?

He'd fill up a gallon-sized ziplog bag with his urine and then smash it with a giant hammer. The first four rows will get wet. Ben, I was at Disney Land last week and one of the signs on the rides that I went on said, said, you will get wet, you may get soaked. That seems to me like a greatest gen promise. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a commitment we can make to anybody, no matter where they're sitting in the house, you will get wet, You may get soaked.

Well, I think one of the signposts that you might see before watching the episode we're gonna review Ben might be You might get bored. You will get sleepy. Oh This is this is like people are turning on us because of shit like this. People really are. Someone, I don't know if it was on Twitter or somewhere else, was like, boy, you can just hear Adam's resignation in every intro and outro to the show. I'm like, that's not resignation, man. That is not resignation at all. It's me trying to come up with a fun button.

I've got button duty on this show now. After you gave it to me after TNG finished. And my openings are just as punchy as ever, I think. Well, just to provide some clarity and some contrast, I'll say that I think this may be the first great episode of Deep Space Nine. Well, I'm ready to argue that point with you Ben. And I argue a lot of points about season one episode 12. Battle Lions. Do you realize how incredible this is?

No, of course you don't. So the cold open here is DAX and O'Brien have found some files encrypted in the command computer or something. And one of them is like a dossier on Major Kira that was kept by the previous occupant of Cisco's office, Guildoot Cut. And they let her read it and a nanowisitor

has, you know, a fun little character turn where she's like, oh, I don't care what those assholes wrote about me. I'm a big girl commander. Then she like storms out of the office a second later and is very insulted that they did not rate her as being much of a much of a threat to them. A minor operative whose activities are limited to running errands for the terrorist leaders. Major. I was super disappointed that they didn't punch into the obvious Kirin Naree's glamour

shot that they had in the file. Yeah. Like, that was a full on mall photograph of her. Yeah. Do you think they have a glamour shots on the promenade? How about they do? Like, if you go to the, if you go to the dry cleaners or promenade, they have head shots of all the command staff.

Well, I was thinking like, like in a strip mall, you'd get the glamour shots store where you'd go in and you'd like wear a feather boa and they'd shoot you through like four promised filters. And that's the picture that would be on your husband or wife's desk at work. Yeah, I guess so. It's depressing to see how far laptops are scheduled to backslide in the 24th century.

Because I'm sitting here recording my side of this show on a laptop that's like substantially less than an inch thick with like a super high res bright beautiful color display Cisco's got like got like a nine inch screen on a three inch thick piece of shit dude you're getting a Dell I wonder if iSite has gotten so much better in the 24th century that it means Cisco doesn't need to lean into his screen like he clearly would have to if he had modern I cite like yeah totally lean back in his desk chair in a way that would make what he's looking at on screen completely Allegable to you and me Eagle I Cisco doesn't need to lean in yeah, this is all just some some fun and games that is quickly derailed by the announcement that Kayao Paka has made

a unannounced and apparently unaccompanied visit to Space Station Deep Space 9. She has just like popped up like the doctor was like digging out some medical supplies from a shuttle and she just like hops out and is like, hey I'm here. Tell Cisco, want a hang? She's the most important person on Beijor and yet like to be totally unaccompanied, she's never left Beijor which was a bit of trivia about her that I found surprising. She somehow escaped the protection of her secret service, which you know she has. She has no valleys with her. She has no dick valleys, Ben.

Have you ever seen those documentaries that Oliver Stone made about Fidel Castro? No. They're like, there's two of them and they're really weird because he's just, it's just Oliver Stone kind of in conversation with Castro in Cuba. And they're subtitled, but there's also an interpreter there, like translating for Castro. So you get the English two ways, and it doesn't always agree. Very distracting films. But I was struck by a sequence in one of them where Oliver Stone and Castro are just like walking around in the streets of Havana, like greeting people and like talking to people. And you know, George Bush was president when I saw this film and it was very like striking,

like, you know, George Bush cannot possibly just walk around on a street outside somewhere. Well, sure, it's because he couldn't read street signs. George Bush cannot possibly just walk around on a street outside somewhere. Well, sure, it's because he couldn't read street signs. Sure, right. But, you know, like Castro's safety was so insured in Havana that he didn't feel like worried about like walking around outside, you know? This was before that one video

that surfaced if him falling off stage, right? Mm-hmm. But, I just thought it was interesting, the idea that the essentially the Pope of Bejor like has this kind of is like brimming with this kind of confidence. Like the Bejorians are like not a homogenous group of people that all agree on what's good for Bay-Jour. You know, like, but she is like, they do all agree that Kayaopaka is great. Even though she looks like a Shrineer Pope. Shrineer Pope, who's just off work from her job at the Renfare.

Hey Ben, you know where you can find Oliver Stone films at the video store? Where Adam? Back into the left. Oh no. Tickets still on sale for San Francisco Sketchbest and a full two weeks of the best in comedy featuring yours truly, Adam Pranaka. Amazing that a comedy festival would even allow us to be associated with them. I'm pretty sure that joke unwound the offer that they extended to us. Yeah, if you look in the contract,

there's some specific language forbidding that kind of thing. That's a good thing to speak. So the cat comes to very tightly. Oh, it's tight, it's a ramble on about something everyone knows. So, so Opaca is pretty keen to get a load of the wormhole. And they're like, oh, well, that's too bad. Like, we'd show you out the window here,

but there's not really any ship scheduled to go through it today. So, there's nothing to see. And there's kind of like a couple of beats of uncomfortable silence. And then Cisco looks around and he's like, prepare the young Sikyon for launch chief. Kiran and I are taking the Kai through the wormhole road trip

They're like get the run about with the with the rag top The thing gassed up Yeah, this thing going O'Brien doesn't go on this trip But he sort of like reddies the winabago for for their journey and And he sort of runs into Opaaca outside the door. Opaaca like Stairs deeply into his eyes and she's like you have a tremendous pain in your soul, don't you? Takes off her necklace and gives it to O'Brien to give to his daughter

not really having the heart to tell him that soon he'll only be seeing her like every second Tuesday. I mean, like, this is yet another moment in this show that is just like an RPG where there's kind of a talismanic object given by one character to another. And I'll be interested to see if they pay that necklace gag off. I mean, you know, it's not like she just picked that up at the clairs on the promenade on her way there. That thing's important.

Give your daughter this appointment for her first ear piercing at deep space clairs. It's just, it's, it's, it's ROM with like the ear piercing gun. Every Farengy watches the ear get pierced and just cringes They like instinctively cross their legs. Yeah Oh man, I never thought about that getting your ears pierced for a friend You must just be the worst thing in the whole wide world. Yeah, I don't think we've seen that no pierced eared forangus world. Yeah, I don't think we've seen that. No pierced eared for ringes. But the guy is is seeming a little like distant a little withdrawn. Somebody says that she seems really preoccupied and you think they'd set her up with like a a Pope mobile runabout, right? Yeah. A lot more a class enclosure. Yeah, it's it's just the regular one and

Yeah, like she thanks them for for letting her her you know for indulging her with the road trip they go through and They're picking up some like distress signals the second they get to the other side of The wormhole and they're like well, we should like drop a probe and head home. And she's like, well, don't do that on my account. Like, I came for an adventure guys. Like, let's go see, let me watch you star fleets in action. Like in a horror movie, this is the scene where they drive past a hitchhiker.

And the two people in the front seat are like, well, it's a good thing we don't pick up hitchhars. And the new person in the back is like, well, maybe they just need to ride to the next town. It'd be fun to have someone else to talk to. Yeah. Smash cut to extremely scary person sitting in the back seat with everyone. The head toward this planet. And they're picking up like a network of satellites in orbit,

which would indicate some sort of civilization down on the surface below, but the scanners don't work that good. And one of the satellites comes out and meets them and is sufficiently powerful that it knocks the run-about out of the sky. And they do a classic star trek plummeting through the clouds cut to black crash sound effect. All this show is willing to show you are the bangers being dropped on the run about. It never shows the the process of the crash land.

Yeah. This is an episode that at one point. It never shows the process of the crash land. Two expensive things. This is an episode that at one point shows the process of one of the satellites taking out a Starfleet probe by just showing it represented by Nintendo NES level graphics on a screen. Oh, God, I know. Like, these probes are, you can argue the most important things in this episode. We never see one.

Yeah. Oh, Paka during the crash landing is loving it. Everyone's know how they cut back to her and she's like smiling with the confidence of someone who's like enjoying an amusement park ride. Like, yeah. Sort of enjoying the tear of it, but knowing that at the end, like the bar's going to come up and she's going to go get an elephant ear or something. Yeah, she's like licking her lips. She's like, oh man, should I make a funny face for the part where they take a picture of you? Her enjoyment does not last long. They blow the explosive bolts on the escape hatch of the runabout and scramble out onto planet anybody canyan and the guy is like just clicking to life and Bashir attempts to

do some some chest compressions and and she shuffles loose this mortal coil mortal coil. I'm sorry. Ben, I'm no medical professional, but Bishir mentions that she has fractured her cervical spine. And I get to say, I don't think chest compressions are a good idea with a patient who's injured in that way. Yeah, I do, how similar are bejorins on the inside to peoples?

Well, I don't know. Because we know that like, klingons have like multiple hearts, right? Like you can't stab a klingon on the heart and have that kill them. The ground doesn't look very soft. If you're just going to press on an old lady's chest, who has also broken their back. Yeah. I think you got to... Like, why doesn't the runabout have the kit that you find in a shopping mall today? Like, the... With... You put the patches

on the heart attack, victims chest, and then the box just sort of does the work. They need a box that does the work, because Beshear with only a tricorder, like, they didn't pack for this trip well at all, then. No, and, like, they're going on a road trip with an old, and they didn't bother to bring any, like, heart medication or whatever. Beshear has talked a lot of shit about how deep space nine

is his opportunity to make a hero of himself because of all the frontier medicine he'll be doing. Like, come on man, Trichorter is not going to cut it. Yeah, this is like, this is tan amount to like slapping kaiopaka around with a wagon wheel. Like he doesn't have the tools or the knowledge to savor. We witness another death in this scene, Ben, RSVP Yangtze Kang. Yeah. But the guy's death is an opportunity for Nana Visitor to do some like real big grief acting. And this really gave me goosebumps. I think she did a great job

with this scene because she's kind of doing death rights. She's saying some prayer and the bejure in language as she deals with the pain of losing this important spiritual figure in her life. It's like, I don't know, like Cisco and Bashir are like, whoa, you know, like it does not mean the same thing to them, but it doesn't really matter to Kira. Like she really throws herself into this. I was also thinking that Alexander Siddick

and Avery Brooks were also looking at each other in the scene like, whoa, because like, Nana Visitor here is willing to ugly cry and as great as she is in this scene like she really gives TV acting more than TV acting asks of her in this scene and in many others you know like she's really willing to go there in a great way that really really makes you sit up I think. Yeah, she's dedicated to this character in a way that like, if you think back to like early TNG seasons, especially season one, I feel like to a certain extent, everybody in the main cast is like, all right, when is this going to be over? Like,

there's pilot season coming up, like I want to, I want to try out for a real show. pilot season coming up, like I want to try out for a real show. What was the greatest amount of emotion shown on TNG? I'm struggling to come up with an example that goes as far as Kira does in this moment. Yeah, I mean. Like even when Tasha Yard died, no one cried to my knowledge. No, they had stunned silence, I think. When Tasha Yard died, no one cried to my knowledge. No, they had stunned silence, I think. When Rikers driving the ship through Wolf 359,

no one's crying, then. No. Mostly people were pissed at Admiral Halsey. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe Admiral Halsey went to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror and was like,

fuck, fuck! Fuck! Yeah. I am so ill equipped for this moment. Fuck! Oh, God! Well, there it is. Can you imagine the panic shit that Halsey took before World 3.5.9?

It was total evacuation, wasn't it? Good Lord, like I've taken some panic shifts before our live shows before that felt fairly gripping but nothing that's Halsey level. No, no. Even you can't rise to Halsey level panic shit. Thank you, Ben. Kira is having this moment and it kind of gets interrupted because low rent, Mickey Rork and his buddies come out of a cave nearby.

And we get to know these guys. These guys are members of a group called the Ennis, and the Ennis are some bad mammajamas that are really surprised to have any kind of strangers on their planet. They're also pretty surprised that these strangers don't know anything about them. surprised that the strangers don't know anything about them. There's some kind of, so you don't know anything about the punishment. If you haven't realized where it wore. All right, well that's interesting. Anyways, we'll protect you from our hated enemies, the no-laneness. A brutal enemy that attacks at whim.

Cisco is like, hey man, we gotta stay out of that kind of shit. Like, we're not really interested in that. We're waiting for our rescue party. They'll be along shortly, but we gotta doctor with us, and he'll look at that weird patch of flesh on your forehead if you need. Silence of the land. The leader of the anus is played by Jonathan Banks, Ben, sort of a that guy of through the years, most notably from Breaking Bad. He's Mike Arman trout.

I'm not a fan of Breaking Bad, so I didn't recognize him from that. To me, I thought they made him up. Like, if you're just sort of spitballing what the makeup and costuming is going to be for Golan Shilah, Bolling what the makeup and costuming is gonna be for goal and Shilah. I think you probably hold up a picture of Khan just before he sets off the Genesis device on the reliant. Like he's totally lazy-eyed and his hair's kind of on fire and like half of his skull, his scalp was peeled back. Yeah, his hair is nicely on fire in this episode. I will say. A little more of a hair part than you want. If you're styling your own hair, I think.

Yeah, you gotta like, use a little list of a wrist twist when you're parting your hair, because that is doing some damage. Sometimes you don't wanna cut the comb through your own hair, you wanna use your fingers to do the part. A little bit of a messy part can look nice. Right, it looks a little, you know, a little spritzotura, a little, a little, you know, dashing unevenness.

He might take some notes from Dr. Bashir. He's got a dashing, disheveledness to him. Yeah. So Bashir starts, starts doing some, you know, some laying on of hands, trying to help out these people, and sort of like mid conversation, the Null Ennis attack. And it's like, it's another one of these deep space nine gun fights where nobody is behind cover, and everybody's just kind of shooting Willie Nilly and And I was like I was like oh come on guys and then the reason for this fight being this this way is actually revealed Like Kira is like what the fuck is wrong with you guys?

You don't have any strategy for like guarding your territory You don't have systems in place for like alerting people like deeper in the caves that the people at the front of the cave are getting attacked. Like what is your problem? You're not trying to hide from each other. Like it's fucking laser tag or something. Yeah, like they get through this battle and the only people left standing are Kira, Bashir,

and Cisco. Like literally everybody else is dead or dying. And they're like standing around. Bichir is like a chicken with his head cut off trying to decide who to treat first. And they look up and into the cave walks the previously dead Kayao Paka. Through out Star Trek, I feel like there's a real lack of people acting surprised when it's appropriate to be surprised. They're looking at zombie kaiopaka and no one goes holy shit! Or like killer!

Kill zombie, oh, fuck! Like, like, there's never that moment, and I feel like that would be totally grounded in reality. Like, it's okay to act crazy when something crazy happens. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's a moment of awe. And like, maybe the most odd person in the scene is opaca. Like she walks in like wide eyed and like almost jaw dropped. Doesn't make a lot of sense to her. She turns to Bishir and she's like, I don't know what you were thinking back there with

those chest compressions. Extremely painful doctor. They're like, Kai, Kai, what do you remember about what happened? She's like, okay, well, we came out of the sky, we crashed. And then you guys pulled me out, and then I was like trying to breathe, but this asshole just kept slamming his hands into my chest. And- Did you know my body was on top of a couple of rocks?

A moment later, all the other dead people start waking up to him. Yeah. Also, to medium-surprise by everyone. Yeah. And so what we learned is that the punishment that this guy had alluded to is that they have eternal life and they're kind of doomed to just fight this war with each other forever. And anytime they die, they come back alive, which is why they don't care that much about

strategy or tactics in their war, because none of it really matters. And so the idea of living forever, being is it, is a special sort of awful? It's an insanely bleak idea for Star Trek and I mean, it's, it, it's sort of confounds reason, but I think that there's like sectarian violence all over the world that's sort of like this where it's just like, guys, like this is something that your great grandparents were pissed off at each other over. Can we just like drop the thing? But it's like, you know, somehow, somehow you can't. And like, it's the worst punishment. Yeah. It is, it's like, they can't die, but they also can't really win. Like, there's no, there's no resolution because all they can do is is make each other more and more miserable.

I wish we got the Groundhog Day montage of all the ways in which they tried to get out of this arrangement. Well drowning didn't work and neither did fire. Jonathan Banks tried to cut his own hair with an ass, and that's why it looks that way. I thought they would have been more scarred for a people that have lived for hundreds of years being unable to die. I wonder if they looked like this when they got there, you know, like they were already scarred from their from their war on their other planet. They come from a planet where they were engaged in a sectarian conflict for generations and generations, and it sounds like

the kind of world government, some body that was above the level of this conflict, just kind of like solved the problem of these two groups of people hating each other by shipping them all to this moon and making an example out of them. Like if you guys can't resolve your problems nicely, this is what will happen. Go to Kata, to Kata, to Kata, to Kata. So.

So Bashir figures out that people on this planet are filled with a form of Nanite that sort of like resurrects them on a cellular level. Yeah. That's the that's the reason they keep dying and waking back up again. Gotta get some of those nanites. It seems like one of the things that's never mentioned is like how this power seems like something that that may be able to be lever, but no one ever considers that, right? Like it is a form of punishment and punishment only.

Right. But it sure seems like if you could save someone's life in a constructive way, this might be worth researching. Well, and it's also a punishment that only works if they keep being brutal to each other. You know, like the hardness of it kind of is couched in their mutual hatred. Yeah, they've never tried diplomacy, I guess. Yeah. Diplomacy's for quitters. Yeah.

So meanwhile, Dax and O'Brien have piled into one of the other runabouts and had through the wormhole to look for them. Because the government back on Beijor is basically flipping out. They're like, yeah, so our spiritual leader apparently got in a winnebago with like a handful of people from your space station and went to the opposite side of the galaxy. And we haven't heard from her, and we're really fucking worried. I wish we saw the FaceTime of the Panicked Security Officer in Kayaopaka's room with the the Ferris-Bueller dummy sitting up in its bed.

And a snore machine on. We've been duped. I feel like this would have been an interesting opportunity to do a little exposition about where Bay Joris at in terms of capabilities. Do they have ships? Is the military organization that Kira is a part of equipped enough to put a hard target search together?

It seems like this would be something that they would want to devote some resources to, but they kind of cruise past that. And it's up to miles and dax in a runabout to solve this problem. So they head through the wormhole and they find the like warp trail and they're the wormhole and they find the like warp trail and they're you know searching searching the system where the gang sea ken went missing and they find this this moon that everything's taking place on but O'Brien realizes that the network of satellites is something that they've got to be pretty worried about because the, you know, since the last run about went down, they have to assume that something, something in orbit of this planet is, is shooting down planes.

Oh, Brian's really the hero of this episode. He, he pulls up without a satellite shooting down his run about. He's the one that's tasked with figuring out how to penetrate this shield of satellites. I feel like this is like TNG style problem solving, like he's kind of like pulling out the data in Jordy Playbook and coming up with a cool technological solution on the fly. Cisco the entire time is filled with the confidence of someone who believes in his heart that O'Brien and Dax will save his ass. Our rescue is not going to take years, days, weeks, maybe, but they will find us.

And then they'll penetrate the defense net and transport us out of here. Yeah. He's like making promises based on the premise that Dax and O'Brien, who he has not yet talked to, will be there soon enough. He's like, we'd be willing to transport all of you away from here. That's what you want. Listen, everybody, I know that you're fighting.

I know that you've been fighting for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, for as long as any of you can remember. But what I propose is that we take you all away from this place, we can put the NS on one planet the null Ns on another you guys can live out the rest of your natural lives and then die normally and and stop you know this horrible Bleak ass shit that you guys have been up to for all this time. I Don't expect you to understand this but no one is as motivated as someone who's in the midst of

marital estrangement. Man up there in that runabout works the longest hours of anyone on the station, because he doesn't want to go home. If anyone could save us, it's Miles O'Brien. Trust me on this. The Ennis and the Nolanists are like, like, listen man, you seem pretty cool. I think it's cool that you flipped that chair around and sat on it backwards and everything,

but we don't really know you. So how can we trust you? And especially the N.O.L.N.S. guy, he's like, you've been hanging out with these N.S. ass wipes for days. Like, how do I know that this isn't just a trick for them to draw all my people out into the open and then slaughter them painfully?

The Noltenes really look like team Daniel Boone to me. Daniel Boone versus the road warriors. They've really chosen their sides with costumeing here. It's like Daniel Boone fucked one of the rebels from the beginning of Star Wars. Sure. Yeah, so this like first attempt at diplomacy by Cisco devolves into them just cutting each other up

with knives on sticks. And in the midst of the fight, like somebody's about to throw a hatchet at Cisco and Bashir saves Cisco just barely. And it's like, hey man, we can't afford to die here. I just figured out something about science. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha No time to explain right now. You don't really need to justify saving Cisco's life here. Yeah, I sort of presupposes that Cisco believes he's gonna live forever on the planet.

Yeah. Even though that part, like, he'd never express his that idea. No. And that should have been something that he asked when Kyle Paka showed up. Like, that would have been my first question. As soon as we see kaiopaka, I would have turned to the doctor and been like, so can we all live forever on this planet?

Yeah. I'd want to know that right away. Do you want to make an assumption like that? You want to know for sure if you're going to be grandfathered into immortality. Right. The problem here is that the nano robots that are making everybody resurrect rely on something about the local ecology of this planet to work. And anybody that has died here that's taken off the planet will succumb to the death that they already died. So they can't leave with opaca and they're like oh shit like who's gonna tell her It's gonna be a really awkward conversation Yeah, and so it's Cisco and not Kira that does Well, he's like about to and she's like I'll be staying commander and they're like what?

And she's like listen like I'm a spiritual person. Like, I, like, prophecies have been, have been telling me that this is going to be what I did my entire life. And I think that Opaq is, like, I think that one thing that I never loved about deep space nine was how much it is about religion and faith and spirituality, which are, you know, things that I, you know, at various times in my life have had great reverence for and a total lack of respect for and something in the middle. But it's like I don't personally have a, like, like a major, high holiday services around the high holidays with my wife, but I don't like consider myself Jewish or a Christian or really anything. So like it's always been a little bit of like a thing that bugged me about the series is that that it took Trek, which wasn't ever much about that

and made it a lot about that. But in Kyle Bucca, she says something like pretty early on in the episode, this is like me testing a prophecy. Like prophecies are not always super clear what they mean, so you have to test them, which is not so much religion as it is science. And it made me kind of understand the Bajurian religion in a different way. And like, you know, I don't think the Bajurian religion

is ever like totally fleshed out. But it made me think that maybe it's more of a wave for a people to be spiritual and have the kind of community benefits of religion without it having a supernatural aspect. They know that the prophets are some external force, and they choose to talk about them as prophets, but they're not rounding them up to just like some kind of all thing that is you know, that has an unknowable agenda and can't be like understood from a scientific perspective. I think my issue with it is similar to your issue with Q in that creatively

the idea of of religion or spirituality resolving story problems. Right. Super, super catchy to me. Yeah, totally. And like, so if you're trying to break an episode like this and you get to the end and you're like, well, with a figure like Kayaopaka, let's just have her say that it's part of her predestination and leave it at that. Like, that is a very easy, neat way to resolve this.

That is a little too much of a gift that the idea of religion can give a character on this show. You know, like in harder sci-fi, I think it asks you to create more, like create the answer out of science. That's sci-fi. I would agree with you, except for the way Camille Sevilla plays Kayopaka in the last scene. Really makes it about her making an active choice.

She's been a religious leader and has kind of risen to the top of her game. And now she wants a real challenge kind of thing. And so she's like her reason for staying here on this planet is not, I'm gonna die if you take me away. It's I want to attempt to build bridges between these two people that hate each other. And when they beam up, they cut a close up of her face, and it's pretty clear to me at least that,

like the gravity of this choice that she's made is kind of washing over her. Like she's made a really intense career move here. Yeah, but what choice did she have? It wasn't a choice. It's, it's die or stay. Right, but she's made that, she made the choice before she knew that.

That's why I think it's so interesting. I feel like if they came to her and we're like, hey, listen, like bad news, but we can't, we can't leave with you. And she's like, oh, well, I guess I can like, find some good in this by, you know, devoting myself to building peace between these people would have been a cornea ending to me.

Yeah, that's true. Still a fair amount of corn in the ending of this episode. She puts Kira in a real awkward position because he's like, hey, when you get back to Bajor, tell all of our people that I did this willingly. Yeah, don't kill the messenger there. They'll take your word for it. You're Kira. A minor operative.

There's a lot of like spiritual enabling that Kiyopaka does with Kira. Like there's a scene where Kira is like going hog wild about like teaching the people out of fights and like let's get these guys trained up and ready to kill. And Kayopaka like sort of brings Kira to her to kneel in front of her and sort of like pulls an epiphany out of her ears, the way that like a grandpa pulls a quarter

out of a grandchild's ear. And it's never really explained, but it looks like a kaiopaka like has the power of touch. You got the touch. You got the power. To sort of touch epiphany. Yeah. And so, Kira just sort of looks up and is like, oh, I finally get it. Like, I understand what my nature is and I understand why I act the way that I do. And I'm wondering if someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with Deep Space 9, like whether or not we see a real pivot in Kira's character after that moment, because it appears that she had

a profound epiphany in that scene. Right. That she's like a creature of violence and that, you know, she's been in denial about that in the post-war period. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the other interesting theme that the Episode explores is like how set in their way the The Ennis and the Nol Ennis are like when they when

Bashir realizes what the nannights are and is like oh like well, maybe I can figure out a way to cure them Like the Ennis guy like the only thing he can think about is like we'll use it on the other the other guys, and then they'll die, and they'll all be dead, and we'll win. Like, that's the only way he can like conceptualize using a medical intervention. You know what's so fucking weird about that reaction? Is that, you know, earlier on in the episode, Golan Shalat seems to need the idea of death, like as a form of peace.

Like, oh, God, finally, like, like this, there's this, this dream of ours that we've had a finally dying. And what he's given the idea of that, that he immediately perverts it into a weapon, is so weird to me. Right. It's like, it's like the, uh, the greatest gift he could give the bad guys. Yeah, so what does he really want? Does he want to die or does he want to win the war? Because if he were to win the war, then what, would he want to die right after and die a winner? I don't get it. Yeah, I mean,

but that's the thing about some of these, like, these conflicts that, like, if you're not in them, it's, it's really hard to empathize with the, like, the point of view of the people that are. Yeah, did you like this episode, Ben? I really did. Like, I don't, I, I obviously don't think it's a perfect episode, but I thought it had a bunch of really interesting ideas in it had a bunch of really interesting ideas in it and a bunch of great performances. Like I think for the first time, Bashir is starting to seem like humanized

and not just like there to be a creepy weirdo character. I like the roles that a lot of the characters got. And I like the roles that a lot of the characters got. And I like to like set up some interesting premises and really chewed on them. I think I like the episode too. I really like what it did to O'Brien. It elevated him out of Chief O'Brien, Deep Space Nine janitor,

and turned him into like a competent engineer person. Yeah, yeah. To the utter exclusion of DAX, who really does nothing except ride shotgun in this episode, she does nothing here. Yeah, and I think this is quark even in the episode? No, I don't think so. Not that I can remember. Not memorable if so. I thought that the leader of the the Noel Ennis might be Neil

Breene. Do you know about Neil Breene? Tell me about Neil Breene. Neil Breene is a guy who he's kind of like the a little bit like the guy that made the room. He's like a crazy weirdo that has sort of an unknowable provenance and claims to like be an architect and real estate agent but is now making like vanity project feature films that he you know writes

directs and stars in. They've reviewed a couple of his movies on and they've reviewed a couple of his movies on the Flap House here on MaximumFund.org. And I've only watched one of them fateful findings, but it's like a really fucking unbelievable artifact of the ramblings of a crazy person. And the leader of the Nolanist looks just like him. But it's not him. No, certainly it is not. All the way to the summit of Bitpart in DS9. Well, that's how you know you've made it.

Yeah. Adam, should we check our inbox if we have any priority one messages? You know you've made a P1 message if we read it, Ben. Let's see what we got in the box. The only way to find out for sure. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.

I need a supplement on that. supplement on that? supplement. supplement. Yes, extra. Stop a month. Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. And we have a couple of priority one messages here. First is from Austin Harper.

Hey, we know Austin. Yeah, he's the mod of our Facebook group, right? Yeah, and it is for everybody And it goes like this Goes like this resin pleveem both seem like great guys, but the rascals can go fuck themselves Hashtag team pleveem for life PS Everybody is welcome in the Facebook group whether you're a team Plavim or if you're wrong.

Hahaha! Very good! Damn! Wow! If I was just wondering where Team Plavim was, here they are! Yeah, I feel like there could be a real schgishome in the Facebook group after this. Well, when you're on, when you've picked a faction and then aligned yourself with a mod, it's a pretty powerful ally thing. Yeah.

Doesn't, doesn't rascals have their own Facebook organizing committee now? They do, but I don't know if they've wrangled a mod in with them. Maybe that's who the GOOTCH is. Get out to the GOOTCH. Hey, it's good a time, is any. It's a thank Austin for the great work he does maintaining the Facebook the Facebook group uh... no kidding we don't deserve it more than uh... Facebook group janitor that's for sure the miles of brian of our Facebook group

that's awesome then our second priority one message is from amelitas for andrew message goes like this your bravery than warf wiser than peccard and sexiers and Riker, and with a better beard. You're a better cat, dad than data. And the best dad in the galaxy, we're five years into our mission,

and the sky's the limit. You're my best friend and I love you. Happy anniversary. Oh! I wish I could write an anniversary card as eloquent as that. That's great. Yeah, that's awesome.

It's beautiful sentiment, Emily. You're a lucky dude, Andrew. Yeah, seriously. You count your lucky stars, dude. Well, if you'd like to send a priority one message, it's really easy. You go to maximumfund.org slash jememboTron and commercial messages are 200 bucks and personal messages are 100 bucks and they are a great way to support the production of the greatest generation.

Colin, Deep Space Nine. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Sure did. It's another one of the timestamp Shimodas. Oh yeah. Ben, those are our favorites.

Some of our favorites, I think. If you scrub to 40 minutes and 30 seconds, it's a scene where Kayaopaka has sort of embraced the gravity of her circumstances. She's like, well, maybe it's time for me to be here and counsel these people. And then she says, it is time for these people to begin their healing process. And then they rack focus to a lady behind her. This lady behind her is like, fuck you.

I don't need your help. Stay out of our business, lady. That look on her face? I don't know how you direct that out of someone, but like, these people do not need or want kayo bakas help. I thought that moment was like, just a glaring emotional misfire It stuck out like a sore thumb to me. So that lady in the background who doesn't want any of her damn help is my drug Tramota nice

Well speaking of people in the background I'm giving mine to Kaya Paka for her performance in the The runabout is going down scene. There's a, I will also give you a timestamp. If you go to 10 minutes and 25 seconds, Cisco is in the foreground and Kayopaka is in soft focus in the background kind of praying, but also just lickin' her chops. And anticipation of this crash. What? Gets a big ol' lick on those lips.

Oh, she does. What is up with that? She's like, num num num num num num. Yummy crash. That atmosphere's gonna cook us alive. I love the taste of my shattered vertebrae. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why?

Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne.

On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the space weirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Camille Nanjiani.

I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Well, rats, hey, they're wrong. Gotta count you in line.

These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing me need to get on this. Gotta get on the ark. It is about about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually,

we're podcasters. Yes, probably. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ona Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing Next episode is season one episode 13, the storyteller. Against his will, O'Brien becomes the spiritual leader of a

Bajoran village and the only one that can save them from a destructive energy force. Oh, goodie. Yeah. I've long wanted an O'Brien as Christ allegory. Yeah, I mean, I think it's time. It's something we've both suspected for a while. All right, shall I generate a random number to determine if we are going to be

getting housed in this episode? Ben briefly described the rules one more time, if you would. So the number of... We have a one out of the number of episodes in a season, chance of drinking for any given episode. Not episodes remaining in the season. Total number of episodes in the season. I think that's where a lot of people are getting hung up. Yeah, yeah. We never said that thing about it would be episodes remaining, but somehow, somehow that's what got out there.

So for the purposes of this season, we're going a one in 15 chance. And I'm generating the number and it is a 10. So once again, we will be having a mostly dry episode. Hashtag never dry. Adam, before we, before we close this out, this is long, long overdue, something that, something that was sent in in October. And I totally forgot to play it on the show until now, but listener Jake sent in a kind of a mashemup song based on the song The Cisco Kid by War where he dropped in a whole bunch of deep space nine sounds and it's real fun.

So we're going to play that after the credits here on the end of the episode and stick around for it. It's really fun. What an inspired combo. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, if you're inspired by anything we've said on this show. I would encourage you to talk about it and one of our many social media outlets, we've got a Facebook page and a Reddit group and we're on Twitter.

Probably more than as healthy these days. Find us over there using the hashtag GreatestGen, find a friend over there. We hear all the time about what great places these are We can find a friend over there. We hear all the time about what great places these are to chat and hang out and escape from the nightmare that is daily life. Yeah, the social media has not been a fun place to be but for the greatest jet in community of late. And so we want to appreciate all of you guys for being such a positive force in our lives. And we'll train, be a positive force in your lives

as a big thank you for that. Really appreciate all the support the show gets at maximumfund.org slash Donate. We cannot keep doing the show without listener support. We really appreciate that. Yeah, we should thank doing the show without listener support, and we really appreciate that. Yeah, we should thank Dark Materia for our theme music and Adam Ragusia for a growing number of song clips that are taking over deep space 9 version of the greatest generation in a great, great way.

And we'll thank the folks at MaximumFun.org who provided a time of support for the program as well. So if you need a new podcast in your life, and the greatest generation, the greatest discovery, and the upcoming friendly fire, aren't going to fill all the holes in your listening schedule, I would highly recommend checking out some Maxwell and Fun Podcasts. They're great! Fill all your holes! That's a man saying.

So, I'm stepping on your afro. I gotta give it the right energy, Ben. I don't want to sound like I'm a hostage here. With that we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9. An an episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9 that turns the lowly lava lamp into a scary antagonist. I'm a feminist. Okay, let's do it! I'm tired of being called! I'm Captain Benjamin Sisco And I couldn't be happier I recapped in Bishop in Cisco. And I couldn't be happier. Congratulations.

Things got a little tense there for a while. Come, never got me a damn thing. This is gonna keep the Father brand of mine. You cannot deny this is gonna. This is gonna keep the Father brand of mine. That's what this is all about. The system of people, what the brand of life. You are absolutely right. The system of people, what the brand of life.

That's enough. Listener supported.