SDS9 – S5E12: "The Begotten" (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on February 16, 2025.

We recap "The Begotten," where crimes against humanity are committed on a baby in the guise of touching parenthood.

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

You can also listen to this episode directly from your favorite podcast player by following these instructions: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212055866-Subscribe-to-your-Audio-RSS-link-on-the-Patreon-app

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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 start date, February 16th, 2025, we are discussing The Begotten. Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

Surely. Odo is at the infirmary for a bad back. He has a pinched nerve from standing too straight. What worked for him when he was a changeling is different now that he has a spine. Quark recommends doing sexy hollow sweet yoga. Bashir recommends going to do aerobics with Worf. Quark also says he has something to sell him.

Then Odo says he's not interested. So Quark asks if he could reach out to Dominion contacts. Odo's ears are perked and says, what's going on? So Quark has to sell him for a few strips of Latinum, a dead changeling in a small container. But Odo's like, that changeling's not dead. He's like, oh, okay.

So a couple more bucks. Odo says it is living and there's no need to get the authorities. It is a baby. And in the infirmary, Ben and Odo talk, and they watch this sickly, discolored, infinite changeling, who I'll be calling Baby C because it's fun. Odo promises that the guy is harmless.

Odo says that when he was discovered, he was just as small, and he grew as he learned, and shapeshifting creates growth. Bashir is able to see that The baby C has gotten severe tetrian radiation and will need to be purged with an electrophoretic diffuser.

Ben asks Odo to raise the baby, Changeling, baby C, and teach it to be chill. It is recommended that Mora, the Bajoran doctor that discovered Odo and raised him, come in. And Odo is not really into it. Bashir asks if Odo is interested to know that Kira is actually giving birth, but Odo is so transfixed.

And much like playing Brahms on headphones on a pregnant tummy, Odo talks to baby C and promises not to make the same mistakes. Odo is kind and thoughtful and patient and says Mora was never interested in him and did not talk to him for a long time. They go on a little adventure.

Then we get to the bee story in a birthing room. We see soft music, burning incense, a Bajoran midwife, a bunch of musical instrument, percussion instruments played by miles and Keiko. It is Kira time. Bashir checks in. Miles is having a lot of trouble with the rhythm and is frustrated by how long it is taking. And, um,

making people tense. And Bashir reminds him that this birth, the Bajoran births, are about relaxation. And if you don't relax, it's not going to be chill. And Miles also knows that Kira won't relax until her boyfriend Chakar arrives. And he's hours late. Then we see Odo bringing baby C to the replimat and talks to him.

Worf thinks he's talking to a drink. Back in the chambers, Odo lets the baby loose on the table and promises to do better than Mora. And then Mora shows up. They talk about birthing as a science versus art. Mora was on his way to Earth to talk about changeling tech,

as he's one of the first doctors to really understand them. And Maura picks up an instrument to try to examine the baby. And Odo snaps. He is like, you are not going to experiment on baby seat. And Maura's like, look, I'm going to give you some advice. I think you should. I think the temperature is not right.

Remember, I know a little bit about all this. and Odo does agree to read some of the information that Maura has made, you can tell that he's getting angry. And Maura, in a very sanctimonious fashion, decides to stay and continue to observe and almost passive-aggressively curious about Odo's gentler approach. And

at this point will not acknowledge the damage that he's caused. Back at the birthing room, Kira was in labor for way too long. The body can't make a baby come back tomorrow, but it has to be done the Bajoran way. Kira's boyfriend is chided for being late, and Miles is told to learn to play the instrument right.

Odo uses therapy to explain shapes to Baby C, and Baby C does not move. Odo tries to talk about shapes nerdily. As he does it, he passively, aggressively talks about Mora torturing him as a baby for science. None of it is seeming to work. There's a montage. Mora has noted... Very little growth.

And Odo has really not made much progress. The frustration simmers and then erupts into an argument that is very heated. Sisko then interrupts and tells them Starfleet is going to come soon. They're going to want to communicate. They're probably going to take the baby. Figure this out. Figure stuff out before this happens.

And Moore cites the pressure that he faced with Odo during the occupation. And they propose to try maybe some invasive methods. You know, maybe perhaps a little unethical science testing. With the time creeping, they start with a little electric shocks, a little Milgram study, will you? BBC moves a bit. Then back to Kira. O'Brien massages her legs.

Shakar suggests them going to a performance. The men bicker again over how to relax, but Kira realizes that she's in labor. They argue her over who will take her to the burning room, and Kira is so frustrated she goes by herself. Meanwhile, Odo is using Mora's device to help the infant hold shapes.

He admits that he once refused to hold the shape to deny Mora the satisfaction of doing so. Mora is wistful and says the baby C might even thank Odo one day or leave like Odo did and not send a letter. As they turn to leave, the infant then forms a shape, twists towards Odo, and mirrors his face.

And everyone is overcome with joy. As they are excited, Mora offers to celebrate while Odo is like, no, I have to go work. But Mora admits that he was wrong. Odo has formed a connection to the baby sea. Odo and Mora admit that they do care about each other. And Mora...

blames that maybe Odo's disposition is because of the prodding, and Odo thinks that he may have always been this way. They have a champagne toast as to celebrate Akira's birthing. The men are kicked out of the room for bickering. Kork shows up to his bar, and Odo is drunk and happy and buying drinks for him and Kork.

Kork is confused, and Odo just thanks Kork because... Baby C has brought meaning to his life to make him feel connected like he has not since he lost his connection to the Great Link. He feels less lost. The goo has changed everything. He feels alive and feels less bad that he's solid because he has meaning.

Odo is then called. The baby is dying. In the infirmary, they all try to figure out what is going on. Back in the birthing place, the men out of the room, Keiko, Kira, and the midwife, have a moment and it's clear that the baby is to be born soon.

And Kira offers that if the guys can behave, they can be present. A healthy baby boy is born. At the infirmary, they realize that there's nothing more they can do about baby C. and offer Odo to have a last few moments. As Baby C lay dying, it morphs into Odo, and Odo is a changeling again.

Shakar leaves and offers to hang out again with Kira. Maura and Odo share their real feelings and offer that Baby C saved their life and saved their friendship in many ways. Odo and Kira run into each other, both feeling like childless parents and agree to take a walk.

So, Odo is a rigid changeling. This duality is something this show has explored and adds more nuance to. He has this rigid posture that's hurting his back, yet he's a changeling, right? So the show has played around with this a lot. And it vaguely reminds me of Cold War vibes. Odo is transparent, rigid.

He is who he is. He's a conservative. Changelings can hide among us, can pretend to be anything. I won't dive too much into that because this was just a very short scene to kind of give you that kind of funny duality about Odo. Now, like the last episode,

this episode hit for me politically and this time as a parent, which is also political and entrenched in political theory. But unlike the last episode, I agree less with the politics of this episode. DS9 doesn't just make points and tell you to figure out for yourself how to feel about it.

It often tells you how to think about it or how they feel about it. They do this not just with writing, but with music, lighting, how the shot is set up, the acting. All these things are meant to shape your emotions, who you root for, care about, how you should feel, and more. This isn't unique to DS9.

This is storytelling and its power. And this is why we talk about Western media and how it shapes and tells stories. So there's the way the show wants me to feel about Dr. Mora and how I actually feel. And now knowing more about the context and background, I know Dr. Mora was a comprador and a liberal fascist.

So let me expand. Not everyone suffers during occupation and colonialism. Compradores are those people who benefit from colonialism or occupation and work with those foreign organizations. They're the ones who often complain about how communism hurt their families because they benefited from the previous system. Scientists in particular have often been Compradores.

There were Koreans who benefited from Japanese occupation. Same with some Vietnamese people during French and U.S. occupations. there were Chinese during British occupation. And there's still compradores who work with the U.S. in Latin America to Africa and throughout Asia. Compradores and collaborators are very related and often overlap. Dr. Mora sounds a lot like Dr. Moreau. and H.G.

Wells' character that experimented on living beings to create his own creatures. He didn't care about morals or ethics and thought those things had no place in science. And that's how a lot of scientists still feel. The idea is, if you can do it, do it. Ethics be damned, and that's how the West has defined science.

There's a lot of overlap between Mora and Moreau. Like they pretend to be parents, but they see their creatures as its, as things, as experiments, not as valid, sentient beings that are also precious and deserve care. Mora's idea of science aligned perfectly with Cardassian values. Maura even at one point says, spare the rod, spoil the child.

He's far from gentle parent or trauma-informed, care-informed, or even an ethical scientist. He's deeply fucked. This whole situation is deeply fucked. Maura is an abuser, manipulator, and gaslighter, and he uses the baby to manipulate and win Odo over. So together, they force this baby...

to do things and change, not for its sake, but because of what they wanted. They harmed it. And if you think about how the baby died, what kind of quality of life did they allow baby C to have? You're supposed to feel bad for Odo and relate to Mora, but I only felt bad for the baby changeling.

Furthermore, they never addressed if their constant oppression, experimentation, torture of baby C is what eventually killed it. If there was an investigation, first question would be, what did you do to it? And they did a lot. It's pretty obvious. But they won't investigate because no one sees BBC as valid, even if they pretend to.

The episode framed this fascist, non-consensual, unethical torture and experimentation on a living, sentient being as parenting. But you also saw how the pressure from the Federation, who in this episode was the proxy for the Cardassians, led to Odo having to give up his humanistic values on parenting and go the way of Dr. Mora.

And Mora was more than happy to oblige. Odo became Mora. This was not parenting, not even shitty parenting. It reminded me of human zoos that the West had. Shame on everyone, including Sisko, who is supposed to be the loving father. I feel like Rom would have tried to rescue the changeling if he was there.

So in researching Dr. Moreau and what the inspiration was, whether it was Dr. Moreau, I saw some spoilers. But it only confirmed my feelings about him, which I've been pointing out from season one. There was also a second main plot. It didn't feel like a subplot because it got equal weight and time.

But this was about Kira having a baby and the complicated dynamics of being a surrogate, but also the complicated emotional dynamics that accompany being a surrogate. Odo and Kira bond over this, but really, these are not parallel stories, but they're the opposites. The Kira, Keiko, Miles,

and Shakar story was about doing what was ultimately right for the baby. And the selfish men, Miles and Shakar, who only thought of themselves, were admonished. In the past episode, The Darkness and the Light, you saw how much Kira cared for the baby and how far she'd go to protect it.

So as far as the plot goes, she had the role of the parent. And in this episode, everything was about doing what's best for the baby. Kira's loss makes sense. She was its protector. She was the main character in all those stories. For the baby changeling, no one cared about what's best for it or about it itself.

It was only about the Federation and learning more about it and about Dr. Mora and Odo. The selfish people were not admonished, but instead we were supposed to empathize with them. Kira and Odo are not the same and did not go through the same thing. It was the horror movie version of Kira's story.

It was the island of Dr. Moreau. Except it was shot like a touching and sweet intergenerational parenting episode where having a baby brings a father and son together. Yet despite all that, The baby changeling saves Odo from aging, from mortality, from disease, from pain,

and gives his own remaining life essence to Odo so that Odo can be a changeling again. That made me feel even worse for baby C. But you know, kids will love even abusive parents or whatever proxy is closest to a parent and will sacrifice for them. Scott, I need to know your thoughts and your rating.

So I have lots of thoughts that I sort of sprinkled in there. As a mental health practitioner who's been just disgusted hearing about what things people have done for science, it's just gross. The whole like, oh, well, we'll just do some eugenics for science doesn't make me feel really good.

And I just, yeah, it's just really obsessed me watching this episode. Now I felt like so different when I watched it or like back in the day, I'm like, Oh, it's so amazing how Odo's reconnecting with his childhood and this baby and he's learning how to be a great dude.

And like, he's getting, he's, he's becoming friends with his dad and this is so nice. And that is not the way I feel about it. This go around. I'm just like, oh, this is just like really messed up and makes me sad. And it's sort of like the cycle of bad behavior. So yeah,

I think most people watching the show are just thinking, oh, well, the baby was going to die no matter what. but, or maybe zapping organisms to see if they'll grow is not good for their body. So yeah, like it is true that some really bad things have given us some good things. Right.

But that doesn't mean it's okay. You know, You could say, oh, well, the ski trials taught us more about syphilis, but at what fucking cost? The Milgram study taught people about psychology and about the banality of evil and how people don't become bad overnight. It's a step-by-step process. I could have told you that already.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. great we're just like because what do you think more is going to do when he this is a doctor as a scientist he's going to earth for starfleet what do you think he's going to do you think he's like coming up with awesome things he's probably there

to talk about how to like manipulate the biophysics of their enemy so yeah it's a it's a deeply upsetting episode um it is a nice scene to see Odo become, um, a changing again. I mean, we all, you all figured probably that that wasn't going to last forever. So, you know, when,

when a plot device happens at the beginning of a season or the end of a season, um, you're like, well, this is probably going to change at some point. So we got it. We got it. The episodes are four, but F this episode. F eugenics. And yeah, a lot of fans.

To add on to what you're saying, I remember I was listening to a radio program. It was about the history of scientific ethics. And the history of it isn't that long. And in talking about it, they explain why. Like they talked about the person who came up with Agent Orange.

And very much at the time when people asked him about it or what it was doing to actual human beings, he said, what does that got to do with it? He said, ethics has nothing to do with science. If you can do it, you do it. So when I said that, I was quoting him.

But what these science journalists were saying was like, that was just the way, at least in the West, scientists thought about it. And what they were also saying was like scientific ethics is not a popular class. It's not mandatory. And a lot of people still feel that way.

Even people's favorite liberal scientists and science presenters are deeply problematic. I remember a few times Neil deGrasse Tyson arrogantly talked about politics where he just like, you just have to be scientific, right? You just use the scientific process. You try something and if it doesn't work, you change things.

You don't just go with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think he was trying to criticize Trump and talk about being pro-science and just going by the evidence. But it's like, He's also saying you don't need ethics. You first try the thing and see how it works.

And it's like, no, man, some things are wrong and you don't even try it. That is like the worst way to learn things, right? It's like doing harm and then seeing how harmful it was, right? You can only get to that even if it's a liberal view, if you still think

Ethics has nothing to do with it because ethics is preventative. And he's like, you don't prevent science. You just go with it and then see what happens. Right. But it's like, let's say you go with something. It kills everybody. It's like you can't learn from that and do better next time because there is no next time. Right.

And so I'm bringing that up to say. Even amongst people who you think are good people. who are in science, oftentimes this idea that ethics has nothing to do with it. Any type of thinking about things beforehand has nothing to do with it. You do it and then you let the results speak for itself.

And that is a very dangerous way to approach things. And you've given explanations why that's dangerous. And oftentimes it is not coming from a blank slate or just an open mind. It's often coming from unanalyzed and unprocessed, unconscious sometimes, like very reactionary, colonial, white supremacist ideas that can be embedded even amongst people who are not white.

Because that is the power of hegemony. It makes thoughts seem like they're just natural and the default. Scott, can you tell us about the next episode?

Remember when Eddington joined the McKee?

Until then...