SDS9 – S5E2: "The Ship" (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on November 19, 2024.

Sam and Scott recap "The Ship," where the DS9 crew fails at compromise and takes things.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 5 is only available to paid subscribers.

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Transcript

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

This is Southpaw Deep Space Nine Season 5. We are your hosts, Scott and Sam. On this Stardate, November 19th, 2024, we are discussing the ship. Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

Of course I can. The away team is looking for minerals and resources on a foreign planet. Muniz makes fun of Miles and you find that he has sort of a pedantic humor and way of helping Miles. They're doing the same sort of thing, both wearing yellow. Ben really believes that they hit paydirt and

They're going to get some really good stuff here. All of a sudden, a ship crashes. It's a Jem'Hadar ship, and the team walks toward them, guns at the ready. They get to the warship. It's upside down. There doesn't appear to be a hull breach. They enter into the ship. It is all messed up.

They secure, and there's corpses. lots of gem hadar corpses and they've been dead for a while and it appears that they've died from necrosis dampers science happened and killed the gem hadar way before the crash ben is curious and excited to find the ship but is concerned and confused why it's very far from dominion space and um

If they want to grab the ship, the runabout, the tractor beam, is not going to do the job. He calls for the USS Defiant to go back to the Alpha, and they'll be there in a few days. Then we see Odo has Quark and Bashir in handcuffs, and they're brought to Ben's office. Kira is totally flummoxed.

You know, find out that court ordered some regalian flea spiders for Bashir, and Bashir's looking all funny. And they did know they didn't have a permit. It was illegal. Bashir was being altruistic. He wanted the venom to make a circulation drug for Kira, who again is pregnant with Miles and Kiko's baby due to a warp malfunction thing.

You know, plot. But Quark, it turns out that he had smuggled some Regalian liquid crystals to make space Viagra. Kira is fed up and says that, you know, I can't deal with this. I'm going to go to the Gamma Quadrant with the Defiant. We've got to get Ben, and I'll be back in a week.

When we get outside the Jem'Hadar ship, Miles feels that He can get it out by firing some thrusters, but needs to science the plasma injectors. And that's when Worf reports that they found 42 Jem'Hadar bodies and a Vorta CO, probably. Because as we know, the Vorta have a strange relationship with the Jem'Hadar where they sort of control

them and give them the drugs that the Jem'Hadar are addicted to. It's kind of messed up. We hear that another warship has dropped out of warp, out of the sky, and before anyone can do anything, the runabout is destroyed and kills some redshirts. Firefight happens again. Casualties. People die. The team goes inside the ship.

They're waiting for the Jem'Hadar to attack. But they're like, not. What? Muniz is being cheeky, but he is bleeding. And there's a transporter burn, and Muniz just is like, I'm inspired by you, Miles, and I got this. And the Defiant will be there in two days, but they only have one generator.

And Muniz is bleeding a lot, and they turn the power on the ship. They see that the ship is pretty bare bones. They find two headsets that appear to be one for Vorta, one for Jem'Hadar. It seems to be like the Dominion's analog of a viewscreen. And as they're talking, they are interrupted by Kalana,

who is a Vorta in charge of the other warship, calls Ben over the comm, teaches him how to use it, offers to meet him. I was going to say mano a mano, but really more like face-to-face, and they'll both bring one guard. Ben agrees to the tete-a-tete. They meet. Kalana acts very friendly, but

is not really cool with Ben being like, well, salvage rights mean that I have the ship. The ship is mine. She wants the ship. As they talk, a sneaky fellow, Jim Hadar, beans on the ship on some Predator camouflage jam. Ben and Kalana are sharing pleasantries. Ben is offered snacks. He declines.

Kalana wants to offer the ship for safe passage to the Alpha. Ben is increasingly dubious, where Miles is fixing the ship, trying to figure stuff. They notice a sensor device, and the cloaked Jemadar tries to fight, and Muniz shoots him. It's like, what's going on? Muniz realizes he may be dying, and everyone disagrees about his fate.

Miles is hopeful. Muniz continues to joke. But the bleeding isn't stopping. So they realize that it's very possible that the Jem'Hadar tech has an anticoagulant, which would continue the bleeding. Miles, Jedzia, and Worf are noticing some similarities in the ships, but same, same, but different. And Miles can fix it because he can fix anything.

and Worf is steadfast that Muniz is going to die, and Miles is like, no, and you get a little foreshadowing of some arguing. Kalana and Ben meet outside again. Kalana reveals that there's precious cargo in the ship. They need it. They won't say what it is. They realize that they're at an impasse, and Kalani ends negotiations.

So then guns start going. The ship is showing down. Muniz can't feel his legs. But it's confusing because eulatrium concussion shells are dropping and could easily hit the ship and kill them, but it's like it's not hitting the ship. Kalana is bluffing. She is not going to kill him.

And Muniz is getting delirious, having visions of his family. But they still can't find the cargo. They don't know what it is. The team are bickering. Everyone is getting sick of these games of war. And Miles is given a console that Worf ripped out of the wall. And Worf and Miles continue about Musines' fate. And they fight.

Tensions are high. They're dirty and tired and need to muster what they need. Ben... orders everybody to get back in the game, and orders Muniz not to die. And at this point, the gem Hadar had been blasting for 10 hours. Miles is trying his best to get the ship going.

When they try to take off, the power circuits go haywire. Things get even worse. So they're just going to be stuck waiting for the Defiant. Miles asks Muniz for help. Muniz is dead. The crew is sad. And Jadzia just says we need to get our head in the game, get the ship back to Starfleet.

And we can't let the families of those who have died, die for naught. And then all of a sudden something starts dripping from the ceiling. And one of the bulkheads is a changeling. a founder. We've found the precious cargo, Sam. The changeling isn't attacking. It's dying from the crash.

And as it passes, it cries and makes a noise that Kalana can hear. After the changeling's death, Kalana comes aboard alone and informs Ben that the Jem'Hadar killed themselves for failing their god. And she notes that she did lie. And she says that she really only cared about one thing, which was saving the founder, the changeling.

And Ben is like, you really should have been honest. Because Ben's always honest, you know. And Kalana feared that. they wouldn't be nice. They would have killed the founder. They would have held hostage. They would have used it for bargaining. They would have used it for war. And Ben disagrees, saying that he just wanted the ship.

Muniz and the others died because there was no trust. Jadzia confirms that the Jem'Hadar did unalive themselves and Ben allows Kalana to take some remains of the changeling with her. As they leave, Kalana asks Ben if he believes in anything, any god, and he's like, he believes in a couple things, and she mocks him, like, about duty,

the Federation, Starfleet, and questions, again, if any of this was worth any of it. Both wonder it all. The Defiant comes and tows the ship back to Deep Space Nine. Starfleet awards a bunch of medals and honor the dead. But we see Ben reflecting on the death and pondering more morality and mortality, but really just mortality.

And Jadzia points that there was tragedy, but these people knew the risks. They knew what they were doing. You have to remember that this is sort of like the Starfleet is military. So there are risks in military. And she argues that the ship cost five lives but could save many more.

And Ben feels that it's sad for people to die so far from their home. In The Defiant Cargo, Miles stands sad, watching over the casket of Muniz. Worf enters, he notices the vigil, the Shiva, the moment, and points out that it's very similar to a Klingon tradition, Akvah,

where you keep the body safe on its way to Stovacor. And he offers to help and guard the body, and Miles admits that they would have loved that. War is hell, Sam.

So you're reminding me of something. When Cisco's telling Muniz not to die, it's like the worst coach. Like if you've done martial arts, right? There's like those coaches who are like, just get up. Just get out of that arm bar. Don't lose. Just win. Or if you're doing kickboxing, don't get hit. And Cisco's just like, don't die.

Right? And, you know, what probably Muniz needed was something more care informed. He's going through trauma, something trauma informed, some tenderness, not that type of like instruction, order giving. I know the intent is something, right? I get it. I know it's coming from something because like coaches do that, but yeah. Yeah.

it also shows how military they really are in this show, right? Which I want to get into about the militarism of exploration. So this episode, like the last one, had its fun parts. It was well acted, but also had much more explicit political themes and questions.

There's a lot of exceptionalism when it comes to the Federation and Starfleet. which is just American exceptionalism bleeding through to the writing. The morality is often what we did isn't wrong since we're the ones who did it. That's how the U.S. feels and that's how the Federation feels.

Even the storytelling is very Western and American in that they do wrong things, but they explain why they feel right about it. This exceptionalism is its own dogma. which even connects back to Cisco. That's what he believes, right? The exceptionalism of the Federation and Starfleet. That's his God.

One of the things Cisco brings up in this episode is salvage rights. You brought that up, which is just the space version of the doctrine of discovery, which Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended. And so if you don't know what that is, that's the law that says once colonizers take something, they never have to give it back.

So the U.S. doesn't have to give anything back. Cisco, who I said in the last episode is willing to do anything for a goal, brought that up, the salvage rights. It's ours now. And it doesn't matter if you do not recognize that law. Members of both sides died, and so did a changeling,

which in this episode wasn't a spy like in the last one, but was in the other role, the other reality of the Dominion God. We are all intersecting identities, and changelings can literally shapeshift into other identities, but one of their primary identities is of a god. So the crew killed a foreign god. something colonizers also did.

And they also defended that by saying it was for the greater good. But the greater good for whom? And who is not being counted? Also, colonizer is the term we use. We liberatory people use. But the West doesn't see it that way. They say explorers and discovery,

which all connects nicely to this episode and the Western view of exploration and so-called salvage rights and the militarism that you brought up of the Federation's exploration, which is how it always was. Exploration by the West was always military and imperial. The episode was also about the idea of property. And to the Federation,

understanding of property is just a given as if private property and capitalism is just a feature of the entire universe. So it's very human-centric, which is capitalist colonizer-centric, which is just capitalist realism.

That's a heavy book.

And not a long one either. So it's an easier read.

Oh, it's a super easy read. And it's a read that I often recommend to people that are like, what's an easy book that is accessible to understand some salient criticisms of capitalism without... Because sometimes Marx is really dense. So I don't always recommend that people start with Marx. You sort of work with the interests that you have.

So if someone's like, dude, capitalism seems to really suck. I'm like, oh, capitalist realism is really good. Even Jacobin has made this little booklet called The ABCs of Socialism that is fine. It's not great, but it's fine. It works. It gets people excited. It gets people asking questions. I know that this is a tangent.

I think what you're saying is you don't need to directly read Marx to get Marx. There's other people who have read Marx and have interpreted that labor theory and criticisms of capitalism and then can put it into ways that suits you. And there's a lot of different ways people have done it.

And there's even a children's book about Marxism. So whatever works.

Right. Also, like, yeah, you can be... A lot of people that are fans of rap music may have never heard Rakim, but they've heard people's interpretations of Rakim or people's interpretations of Jay-Z, who was interpreted by Rakim, or things of that nature. And then you get Jay-Z with one of the greatest leftist raps ever said,

where he says, I'm Che Guevara with Blingon, I'm Complexe. That was really a great rap line. I'm being very sarcastic. I learned the importance and the interest of leftism from reading The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James and And then I was like, oh wait, there's something to some of the tenets that are in here.

And then I read Trotsky and I went through my Trotsky phase and eventually I got to the manifesto and capital. But books from 200 years ago are sometimes hard to connect to. That's why we talk about Star Trek, right?

We're using this show, right? To connect people to radical thoughts. so we're doing a similar work so in service of more not just theory quote-unquote right but theoretical ideas not just within socialist theoretical ideas but other ideas from other domains like philosophy mathematics the main plot revolved around the theory of the prisoner's dilemma so this is a

idea from mathematics called game theory. So what is the prisoner's dilemma? So just like doctrine of discovery, here's another, here's what this thing is. So the prisoner's dilemma is a situation in game theory where two individuals acting in their own self-interest will choose a course of action that leads to a worse outcome for both.

Even if cooperating would result in a better collective outcome. However, the way this episode portrayed it is that the worst outcome was the best outcome and the sacrifices were worth it for the greater good because the U.S. never admits to the prisoner's dilemma and never admits to there being a better way.

Instead, part of American exceptionalism is that all sacrifices are worth it for U.S. strength. And also, worst outcome for who? If it's the worst outcome for the people, especially the people who died, that doesn't affect the powers in charge. So they suffered nothing and got what they wanted. There is no dilemma when you're insulated from the consequences.

There is no dilemma for the hegemon. You always win. So by sacrificing a god and some DS9 crew members and Jemadar child soldiers, remember their children, the Federation got a dominion ship. It was worth it for them. According to Starfleet, the problem wasn't the decision, but your emotional proximity. This is something they unpack at the end.

Which begins to poke holes on this charade of explorers. Sounds very imperial. But see how subtle U.S. gaslighting is even in the lefty shows? They eliminate alternatives. Leaving you just with, well, it's human to feel bad, but that's what had to be done.

It's great insofar as you feel mixed feelings about it, but the decisions are never questioned. Our feelings are questioned. The problem isn't the decisions, but your emotions. Procedural fascism, as you put it, Scott. Then all the extras they killed in this episode.

Five red shirts and like 70 or so Jem'Hadar.

Yeah. So why you make a feel for extras only to kill them? I was actually tearing up for the extras. I was tearing up especially for Moon Yeats, which by the end felt cheap because they were sacrificed for the greater good of the Federation. Just fodder for the machine.

There's even a joke about it that you just mentioned, how extras are just fodder for the show, the red shirts.

Mm-hmm.

And then Worf and O'Brien's relationship. In this episode, it was tested, but it grew. Worf is not care-informed. Actually, nobody in this episode was care-informed. Maybe O'Brien was the most care-informed out of the bunch. But what we did see about Worf is that despite not showing care, he does no solidarity. Yes. You could build something with that.

This was a very tough episode to watch because much of it made me uncomfortable. It was weird in that it was fun, but also uncomfortable. The crew members also began to turn on each other and show more of their uglier sides, and they didn't really have much care to begin with.

And there was no alien gamma ray bombardment that made them act this way. They were just acting this way because of the stress. It was a strong episode because of all these complexities and the acting. But that doesn't mean it was a morally good episode. And that seems to be what makes DS9, DS9.

The so-called good guys aren't so good. And in this episode, the Vorta were humanized. So the so-called baddie isn't all evil either. You really got to see where she was coming from. And if you remember from the past episodes, there was a lot of fucked up things that the DS9 crew and the Federation did to the

Dominion as well. So you could see why she actually is justified in not trusting Cisco and the Federation and DS9.

Right, because if you are not part of the same team as Ben, does he really have your best interests at heart? The answer is probably no.

He, to you, is your boogeyman.

Yeah. Also, when he's talking about salvage rights, I feel like he would also argue for eminent domain or something, you know?

Which, there was an episode about that. We talked about that, about DS9, too.

Yeah. It's complicated.

So, Scott, what did you think of this episode? What did you think about the acting in particular, especially from some of the guest stars and minor guest stars like Extras? And how would you rate this episode?

So I rate this episode a 3.5. I thought it's not... I don't consider it a major mythology episode, but I do like... I like the world building. I think when you get to see and understand... some of the complexities of the characters. You're sort of seeing this friendship develop between Worf and Jadzia.

You're seeing Ben show his more complicated side. You have Miles, the curmudgeon, really caring about somebody. And they did a really good job of making me upset about a red shirt.

Yeah. They made him so damn likable. And he even, like, while he's dying, saved O'Brien, right? Mm-hmm. Man, A-plus in everything good that you could do. They kill him off like that, man. And in such a sad way, he's, like, hallucinating. And, like, man, like, why are you doing that to our emotions?

So this episode had a lot of moving parts. I think when...

The notion of how five lives could be worth getting an enemy's ship just is a really upsetting thought for me. It's like we died, but now we have a spaceship from our enemies. Yeah, I don't know. It just made me sad.

They also killed off one of the cooler looking extras, right? One of the aliens that was on the ship that was like flying around the planet for them that looked kind of like a fish. I was like, oh, this is a really interesting looking alien. Oh. It's like, don't get attached. No, you can't.

And that maybe is for me like some foreshadowing, right? Like maybe like... You know, these kind of things are going to happen more in this series because we didn't really have to deal with that too much in the earlier seasons. But, you know, maybe this is starting to become the new norm. So I shall wait and see.

Exactly. Can you tell us about the next episode?

Worf.

Until then...