SDS9 – S3E25: "Facets" (Audio + Transcript) (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on February 29, 2024.

Sam and Scott discuss "Facets" and the philosophy of identity, consent, and white supremacy culture.

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Transcript

[Note: Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors.]

We are back with Southpaw Deep Space Nine Season 3.

If you don't know what SDS9 is,

It's Southpaw's completest DS9 watch-along show, where we watch every episode, recap it, and analyze it.

We are your hosts.

Oops.

No, I'll- I'll- I fuck with wind chimes, bro.

We are your hosts, Scott and Sam.

Scott is someone who's watched DS9 more than once, whereas I'm someone who's casually watched some episodes when it first aired in the 90s.

But this is my first time watching each episode in earnest.

One of the cool things is, this also gives us different perspectives.

After we watch each episode, we come together and talk about it.

Scott gives us the play-by-play along with his insights while I analyze scenes that stuck out for me from a political perspective or a media studies perspective.

We are discussing episode 25, Facets.

Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

Yes, but first, for some reason, like when I hear the word facets, it makes me want to do like

a snap poetry like slam like with a beret like facets faucets classics what's but that's not really what's going on here but look life is art so nog you know who uh ram's son who

is also Jake's best friend.

He's getting ready for some tests because he wants to join the Federation, which means he has to do Starfleet, and there's a bunch of stuff, and has been practicing simulations in the holosuites to get his scores right.

Jake shows support.

Nog is going to take summer classes, and he wants to be the first Ferengi member of Starfleet.

Quirk is a super hater about this.

He thinks the idea is silly and asks Jake, the aspiring writer, if instead of, you know, writing novels or whatever, would write Holosuite programs, because that's where all the Latin is.

Jadzia asks the squad to meet with her.

The seven closest people, according to plot for this episode, to her are Quirk, Bashir,

Leader The Dabo Girl, O'Brien, Odo, and Kira, and Ben.

She asked them to be part of Jiantara, which is a trill process.

Yes, this is a trill episode.

in which she will meet former hosts of the Dax symbiont outside of Dax.

There's like this weird sort of thing where these guardians separate the persona from the symbiont and she can talk to them and this is something that all people who are part of the symbiont do.

If they agree, again, they will lend their body to allow the previous host to kibitz and gossip for a little bit.

Quirk tries to say no, but Jazzy uses her feminine wiles to get him to agree.

And Ben, of course, agrees to take on the murderous artist Joran, who we met in the Season 3 episode Equilibrium, where we learn of the complications of his existence in the Dax experience and how the Trill tried to hide him from the Dax story.

On the Holosuite, we see Miles testing Nog in a surprise stress test, but it's on Deep Space Nine, and it's not what Nog has been practicing, and he panics.

But O'Brien's like, yo, this stuff is stressful.

This is how it's supposed to be sometimes.

Like, chill out, bro.

The guide, the guardian of the Trill who helps the Zhiantara is kind of quiet but also passive-aggressive because it seems that Dax has been holding off on doing this and we're not sure why.

We'll probably find out later.

Arise to the Zhiantara in Dax's quarters.

He does start the ceremony transferring Leela into Kira.

And Jadzia feels this interesting missing piece because she's not used to having Leela not part of her.

And as you remember, Trill people have, you know, some of them have symbionts implanted.

The symbionts can live many lifetimes, and when they combine with the new host,

Both are sort of changed, and the Guardian does a test to make sure the memories have transferred, and Leela remembers her Lashian Tower with Curzon, and Jadzia feels strange to not have her in there.

And Jadzia notices she has some mannerisms in Leela that she embodies.

Like that Leela walks with her hands behind her back because they used to talk with their hands, which made men nervous.

So she decided to start walking with the hands behind the back, which Jadzia does as well.

And then we meet Tobin, who's embodied by Miles, who's a nervous, nail-biting person who apologizes a lot.

Tobin was working on theorems that Jadzia is continuing to work on.

We see that

Again, it's like this soup.

It's like this building of flavor, the symbiont life.

Emoni is a gymnast in Lita's body who's happy to be in the body she's in because Jadzia is spry and has started to learn Klingon martial arts after the symbiosis and after the symbiosis has become more physical, which Emoni is not surprised by.

Quark is Audred who is a mother and kind character who Quark is not excited to be a part of.

Bashir is Toreus, a pleasure seeker who judges Bashir's dietary needs.

Toreus had a short but enjoyable hedonic life.

Ben decides that to most safely be Duran to be in a holding cell.

As Duran they ask if Jadzia is making music.

Jadzia says she has, and sometimes thinks of him, but Duran is mean and cruel and calls Jadzia an imposter who does not deserve to be Dax.

And for an aside, Avery Brooks destroys this role as per usual.

One day maybe we'll talk about the terrible film The Captains that William Shatner made where he interviews all the captains and

How he cannot keep up with how ill Avery Brooks is, but that's another day.

Duran offers to help Shadzia never have fear and asks to lower the force field.

He tries to push through the field, Duran then pretends to be Ben, gets through the force field, the force field is dropped, they fight, and then Ben comes back.

Okay.

At Quark's, Rom is nervous for Nog, who is being tested.

Rom has even made Nog a special uniform made by Garrick.

And Quark is dismissive, pointing out that, like, look, if he gets into all this, he'll get an outfit.

So chill out.

And no one wants this.

Jadzia does admit that she put off the Zhantara because she feels inadequate as a Dax, which Duran made worse.

But also, you know, she was kicked off of the Symbiont program at first by Curzon.

And then eventually she applied again and then was made a Symbiont with Dax.

And apparently Curzon made Jadzia work very hard to take on the mantle.

Ben says to take it up when they meet.

And as you remember, Ben and Curzon, the previous DAX person, were very good friends.

Ben sometimes calls Jedzia Old Man as a love letter to his friend Curzon.

And then Odo is Curzon, who shows up and sort of puts on like a troll kind of vibe.

Obviously, Ben is very happy to see Curzon, and then Curzon and Odo, the way they mesh is sort of more complex than the other meshing, because I think the changeling nature, so they're sort of like, it's sort of like a Super Saiyan fusion dance, and Curzon asks about Yates to Ben, the possible love interest of Ben, and he's like,

Chill out, guys.

At Quark's, Odo Curzon confuses Quark and when Jadzia comes through, changes into a more comfortable outfit and Ben goes to look at Nog's test results.

Jedzia keeps on trying to ask Corazon about the Symbian process and why he was so hard on her, but he changes the subject, he wants to go play games, and we find out that Nog has failed the test and Quark offers surprising reassurance.

A little too reassuring.

Jadzia again brings up the past when she was an initiate and Curzon initially rejected but after the second application Curzon says that he felt bad for Jadzia and because of that Jadzia feels that she doesn't have Curzon's respect and it makes Jadzia question her own respect and that worries that when Curzon comes back it'll affect with her own self-worth.

But Curzon says it's not a problem because Curzon Odo want to stay permanent because they're really enjoying their experience.

The science and magic of this episode is a little confusing, but if Curzon doesn't rejoin Jadzia, she'll survive, but she'll feel a little defeated and she'll feel a little empty.

Jadzia both looks up to Curzon, but also is intimidated and often afraid to confront them.

Ben talks to Jedzie and points out that Curzon was his best friend, but he was crass, crude, selfish, and a habitual line-stepper.

But Theron also was his charm, and that Ben would sometimes push him, and that would create growth for both of them.

And Ben believes that right now Curzon is being manipulative.

Then we see Rom attacking Quark because he realizes that Quark messed with Nog's test and eventually Nog will be able to retest but Rom gets very angry and lets Quark know that like his son and his son's happiness and his son's inspirations and what they want to do is more important to him than even money which is you know

Look, we like Rom.

Jadzia meets with Curzon Odo and insists on Curzon coming back to Jadzia's memory.

We find that Curzon does believe that Jadzia earned her symbiosis and impressed Curzon, who admits that actually he always thought Jadzia was brilliant and beautiful.

The reason Kurzan was difficult to Jadzia at first and washed her out of the Initiate Trill symbiont program was because he was in love with her.

Therefore, he was kind of relieved when Jadzia reapplied because he realized that she deserved this.

Curzon loves Jadzia in a romantic way, and Jadzia explains she loves Curzon too, but as a part of Dax, a different type of love, another type.

Of course, we learn that Nog has passed the actual test and will join Starfleet if he aces the Academy exam, and Odo comes to meet a rejoined Jadzia.

Odo apologizes for his behavior, but Jadzia thanks Odo, as they now sort of understand the joy of being a Changeling, and Odo sort of enjoys the life of what it was like to be Curzon.

So, let's start with the ethics of consent, and there's lots to discuss in the opening scene.

For something to be consensual, you can't use social pressure, group dynamics, manipulation, and especially sexual coercion.

We saw all of that here.

If this was an office, you'd already have so many violations.

Imagine if this was a leftist political organization.

It would violate everything they supposedly stood for.

Why I bring this up is because when coercion, manipulation, duress, and sexual harassment happens in real life, like this scene, for a lot of people, nothing might stand out.

Because people need to do a lot of unlearning first to be educated on consent because it is so normal to violate consent.

Think about the normalcy of people taking discrete pictures of each other

at the gym to make fun of them, right?

That's a total violation, but people share this.

People even who might consider themselves to have liberatory politics might share it because they think it's funny and they want to make fun of somebody.

So you can't learn from there.

You have to first unlearn to get to some kind of neutral point, and then you learn from there.

So there's a lot of unlearning.

And I like this scene because it's not only a teachable moment, a moment of unlearning to discuss,

But it uses all the tactics liberals use, like shame, social pressure, coercion.

All the while, on the surface, everything seems harmless and friendly.

There's always plausible deniability.

Ah, just joking, or I didn't know this meant that.

When you want to invite people to do something that may make them uncomfortable, especially when you might have to temporarily give up your autonomy,

You ask them discreetly and privately.

You give them time and space and you take no for an answer.

It is very interesting that things that when you look at things just surface level, you're like, oh, it's charming and Dax is just taking advantage of Quark being kind of a pest to get him to do this stuff.

But then you're like, wait, this is super manipulative.

Jadzia is

A thousand-year-old, gender-nonconforming, polyamorous genius who basically knows how to kind of win every tete-a-tete they are involved in.

I mean, it's never going to happen, but if I could just get a show about symbionts and now written now with

Just like more awareness of what that truly means.

That would be my Roman Empire.

And while Star Trek Discovery has really handled complicated concepts that the producers of Deep Space Nine even admit in the documentary What We Left Behind that they failed in many ways,

It's exciting to see the new Star Trek shows sort of actually deal with the concepts that are suggested by species and characters like Dax and Trill.

Now, in thinking about the philosophy of symbionts and everybody knows how much I love philosophy and whenever there's a symbiont episode, there's a lot of philosophy going on.

And so in thinking about philosophy and the idea of a faceted identity, it reminds me a lot of the collective pool of consciousness for changelings.

Symbionts are a linear version of changelings going from person to person rather than being able to change at will.

So when the symbiont became Odo, it was like a steroid to both sides.

Like you said, the Super Saiyan dance.

They became the ultimate changeling, not only in shape, but also in lifetimes and personalities.

To your point, Dax Curzon, a symbiont who's a thousand years old, if you think about it, you never are going to have free will with this person because they know so much about every species and every interaction and every behavior.

They're going to social engineer everything to make sure they get what they want.

But now you give this type of being, this kind of like too powerful being, the ability to shapeshift, now it's even more powerful.

So just as changelings are the villains, the super villains of DS9 and this season and maybe future seasons, symbionts could have just as easily done the same thing because they too have that much power.

But in thinking about

Multiple Identities This episode made some arguments about identity and personhood that really, really needs unpacking because like the scene that looked consensual but in reality violated consent in multiple ways, the way this episode defined personhood and a person might sound innocuous or even matter of fact when it's also pretty unethical.

The thing I enjoy about sci-fi is in its futuristic pursuit of science, it makes a lot of reactionary assumptions, which reveals a lot about the assumptions of those who shape media and ultimately our thoughts.

This episode argues that a person is the sum of their memories, but is that true?

From a liberatory and non-white traditional knowledge systems perspective, no.

That assumption is dehumanizing because it assumes we are just information.

But that's really just reducing us to just information, to capital, to be something to be extracted, intellectual property and traditional knowledge to be extracted, medicine to be extracted.

One of the things the Liberation Martial Arts approach has to constantly push back against is the assumption that the body is somehow separate and secular from you or that the body is a vehicle for you and the you is a conceptual mind or collection of memories.

If you take seriously that white supremacy is also a culture, including a set of assumptions,

and that the body is not an apology.

Yes.

This assumption of us being just conceptual minds or information is a key part of white supremacy and Western so-called enlightenment.

Remember, a mind is not an actual tangible thing.

It's an intangible Western conception of the self.

This division of mind and body leads us to quote-unquote beasts from the white supremacist perspective where non-whites, especially black people, indigenous people, are just bodies.

So this episode is nice because it offers several teachable moments and scenes for us to explore more deeply from the liberation politics perspective.

and how liberation politics is different from liberalism, which is also a Western and white invention.

The Liberal Party, like the Conservative Party, are both products of settler colonialism.

However, the explicit theme of this episode is imposter syndrome, and discussions about imposter syndrome can be approached two ways.

The liberal way, whose origins stem from white women not feeling

worthy enough in office settings, but also from the liberatory perspective.

This is how white supremacy marginalized the feelings of Black people, expressing the inferiority they felt from oppression.

For white women, positions of power mean men.

But for non-white people, especially Black people, positions of power means white people, which also includes white women.

White society says a person of power is white, not black.

So imposter syndrome is often an unhelpful and clunky analysis.

A more useful question is, what are the systems or experiences or events that make us feel inferior?

If you've felt like an imposter, it can never be separated from its context.

Nothing about us can be separated from our conditions, situations, and circumstances.

The liberal perspective says it's us deciding to feel like an imposter, when even for white people, it's conditions making them feel like imposters.

Even your conditioning is conditioned?

Yes.

That's from Chameleon Street, one of the greatest movies ever made.

The way liberals assume imposter syndrome works is it's just you acting silly or being irrational or just being too quote-unquote emotional.

This goes back to Western Enlightenment where through that lens, an enlightened and rational person would not feel this way.

Therefore, anybody who feels like things are unfair obviously are not rational.

They're not enlightened.

They're just bodies.

They're quote-unquote beasts.

Nog has parallel experiences in this episode, but what he's feeling is much worse.

But in past episodes, we saw how little grace he was afforded, especially when he wanted to get into Starfleet.

He was met with racism and contempt.

What he was feeling wasn't him being silly and deciding he's an imposter.

He was feeling oppression.

To get into Starfleet, he not only has to be twice as good as humans, but he also has to get past the oppression of adults.

I know people love Sisko and Jake's father-son scenes, but don't sleep on Nog and Rom scenes.

The scenes where Rom went to bat for Nog, I think twice so far in the series, have been some of my most moving father and son scenes in this show.

But also as far as context,

It's the only analog so far for a father of color going to bat for his son of color.

The actors playing Jake and Sisko are black, but the characters of Rahm and Nag, in my opinion, are coded black.

Just like how it's been previously mentioned how Garrick and his relationship with Bashir is coded gay, Odo has previously been coded as a marginalized minority before.

So this relationship between Nog and Rom, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is coded as a family of color dealing with racism and stereotypes, but also pressures from their own culture.

The Nog, Rom, Quark, and Starfleet dynamic pull from two worlds.

Nog is between two worlds.

In this case, Starfleet is white and the Ferengi are literally black and brown.

Another philosophical question about consent came up in this episode.

Doesn't Curzon have the right to metaphorically divorce Dax and marry Odo?

Yes, which goes back to duress and questions about consent that this episode raised.

which leads to the Curzon and Dax love confession scene.

Another teachable moment.

From a 90s liberal lens, much like teen Jake dating an adult woman, Curzon's love for Dax seems cool, but it's not.

It's essentially grooming.

Nineties liberals had wild ideas about appropriate relationships.

And if you think about all the comedies and sitcoms and movies that came out during that time, so much of it was about adult male fantasies about dating high school girls.

Nineties liberals had wild ideas about appropriate relationships.

And today's liberals, I can't say are that different since many already condone a lot if it has to do with powerful liberals they like.

or just to spite conservatives.

But there is no spite ethics.

It's just unethical.

Yeah, I mean, speaking of like artistic darlings or 90s darlings, you know, Seinfeld met his wife when she was 17.

And if you rewatch Woody Allen's Manhattan, it's really gross.

And, you know, we know about his relationship.

So our supposed darlings are not so darling.

And there's some really gross shit that people do.

All those things got bypassed in the past.

Younger people are much more aware of the problems of those things.

And also, somebody like Seinfeld, I think people now are much more aware that this is not a good guy.

And I think a lot of older fans who used to like him have to come to terms with that he is very fascistic in a lot of his beliefs.

And then you go back to the things you mentioned and there has been problems for a long time.

Then you will start watching some old episodes

It wasn't her being inferior.

This elder statesman just liked her and abused his power to get with her.

That's all.

I feel like real-life Curzon would have been on one of those Epstein flights and liberals probably would have still defended him.

But this all tracks that liberal culture hasn't moved that much from the 90s since they still sign off on genocide.

Despite the Nog story being the minor B plot,

Good for Nog for doing well on his test and moving forward in Starfleet.

He's the real hero of this episode and so far, one of my favorite characters because he is such an underdog.

Not just in the text, but also because he's rarely mentioned in the fandom.

He's the other.

But not here.

Not on SDS9.

We like Nog.

So far.

I'm curious what happens to Nog later on in the series.

If he ends up changing or whatever.

I'm just judging him and liking him for where he is right now at this fixed point in time.

But the acting in this episode was a lot of fun.

All the different characters, I think the actors really got to stretch their acting chops, especially to your point, Cisco.

I think that character, especially villains, you get so much meat with that type of character that if you're a good actor, you could do a lot.

Scott, what's your overall grade and thoughts about this episode?

So any episode that gives me DAX is going to get high priority.

And again, all of these ratings are based really only on season three.

So I'm rating this episode high because as we get to the close of this season, I'm realizing that

Next season is really where we start picking up.

I'm going to give this episode a 4, just because I like seeing the Daxes, but it's a light 4.

Season 4 is when things really start to hit a stride.

which will discuss a little bit of the preamble and the foreshadowing when we discuss the season finale next week.

All right.

Scott, can you tell us about the next episode?

It's season finale time.

Until then...