We focus in on Commander Benjamin Sisko, who's on a ship where everyone is dying. He frantically searches for his wife and son. Son is OK, but shit, the wife is dead. He doesn't want to let her gooooO! None of this is funny. Fuck you, Borg.
Cut to three years later. Sisko finds his son, Jake, fishing off of a wooden bridge, barefoot. This is Star Trek, so obviously it's a real bridge, and they aren't on a starship or anything. Jake asks his dad if he wants to go for a swim, but there is no time, because they have to get ready to go to some stinky old space station orbiting the beautiful planet of Bajor. Sisko assures Jake it'll be just like shore leave. He also promises that there will absolutely be lots of kids. Suddenly, somebody from the bridge talks through his communicator badge, saying they'll be docking at Deep Space Nine in seven minutes. Surprise! It was a holodeck the whole time.
I don't understand why people would fish on the holodeck. You can't eat the fish. You can't even boast about how you caught a fish thiiiiiis big, because it's not so impressive if it was programmed that way.
They leave the holodeck and see Deep Space Nine for the first time. Then, the audience sees the Deep Space Nine opening credits for the first time, which start with a big fancy comet that probably cost about a million dollars in 90's CGI. Unlike other Star Treks, there is no spiel about how these are the voyages of anybody, because it's a space station and stays in one place, although they'll be going even further away from Earth than any Star Trek has gone before.
When the credits end, Sisko begins an expository voiceover explaining what the basic mission is: the planet of Bajor is recently recovering from a Cardassian occupation, and the provisional government has requested Starfleet presence in the formerly Cardassian space station, as protection while the planet rebuilds. Ben and Kid Sisko enter the station with TNG's own Miles O'Brien, because that is how you establish cred, and Jake Sisko is still wearing his pretend-fishing coveralls.
The station is a hot mess, because the Cardassians decided to have "some fun" before they left, killing four Bajorans et cetera. They also took all the good stuff from the station. We are informed that most civilians who made their livelihoods aboard the station are packing up to leave, and as evidence, there's a Ferengi putting bottles in a box. Our first Bajoran shows up and makes weirdly significant eye contact while trying to get Sisko into the Bajoran temple. "Another time, perhaps", says Sisko. Oh, Sisko, you don't even know.
The station is too hot, the replicators are stupid, the beds are uncomfortable and Chief O'Brien wants to punch the architect, you can see it in his eyes. Sisko is supposed to go see Picard, but Picard turned into a Borg and killed his wife, so he's a lot more focused on familiarizing himself with his new command. Here's the first in command, Major Kira of the Bajoran militia, and she is soooo mad. See, she's been fighting for Bajoran independence for her whole life, and she's 95% positive the Federation is going to be a new occupying force, but she has underestimated the benevolence of Earth! Sisko specifically requested a Bajoran first officer as a show of good faith.
Then, the Ferengi kid and some thug-looking alien are stealing things so that Odo and the Ferengi can be introduced. The thug alien throws a spiky thing right through Odo's face, so that the audience can see he's a jelly man.
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Quark, the main Ferengi and the kid's uncle, shows up while the miscreants are being apprehended, and Sisko says to lock the kid in the brig, because he has a cunning plan!
Oh, before that plan can be carried out, Sisko really has to go see Picard. Picard can't pronounce Bajor, and doesn't realize that he accidentally Sisko's wife, and when he's informed that Sisko was on the Saratoga, he looks guilty and gets down to the business at hand: the Cardassians are bastards. Picard talks up getting the Bajorans into the Federation: Sisko doesn't think this is the ideal environment to raise a son, and reeeeeally doesn't want to talk to Picard. There's talk of him leaving for civilian service, because that's going to happen.
Well, he walks out on that Borg-getting-controlled-by bastard and back into the Ferengi situation. Cunning plan: extort the Ferengi bartender into remaining on board. Odo doesn't understand why, because Quark is a gambler and a thief: Quark doesn't understand why, and Odo hasn't been able to prove that thief business, but Sisko explains that he's appointing Quark Community Leader, to stay on the station and run honest games, unless he wants his nephew rotting away in jail for a zillion years.
Having cunninged THAT plan, Sisko exits the room, causing Security Chief Odo to remark to Quark, "you know, at first...I didn't think I was going to like him." Odo and Quark are worst friends forever, and both of them have some major first-episode makeup weirdness going on in this scene, especially Odo.
Speaking of Majors, Major
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| She feels his ear up good. |
Then she takes him to an Orb, an artifact of Bajoran religion, which sends him to the beach the day he met his dead wife. Well, she wasn't dead then. He's so happy to see her, but she's really confused until he stops talking as though she's his dead wife. He's just successfully gotten her to go on their second first date when the orb experience ends, and Kai Opaka begins demanding that he find the Celestial Temple before the Cardassians get their dirty lizard hands on it. It's his destiny!
Well, Quark's bar is open for business again. Everybody gets to drink and gamble, which means this station might work out after all. Morn's shoulder appears. Morn is important.
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| MORN!!!!! |
Quark talks down Bajoran ale, saying never to trust ale from a god-fearing people, but I don't blame him for not knowing the history of Earth's fine wines. If it weren't for god-fearing people, we would never have developed champagne, and that would be a tragedy.
Enterprise goes away. Medical and science officers arrive, and Sisko informs us he is looking forward to the arrival of a "very old friend". The medical and science officers consist of a pretty girl with spots, Lieutenant Dax, and a pretty British guy of Arabic ancestry, who has been hitting on her for their entire flight maybe.
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| Pictured: age discrepancy. |
Anyway, Dax is 328 because the worm in her abdomen keeps the memories of its previous hosts, and the most recent one was a dirty old man called Curzon, who was Sisko's buddy. The doctor knows about the worm-in-the-abdomen thing and is totally into it, but probably wouldn't have found it so fascinating if he'd been talking to Curzon. Probably.
While Sisko is busy adjusting to his former wild and crazy guy mentor being a hot chick, the Doctor, Bashir, is busy offending Major Kira. "Real frontier medicine!", he says excitedly, and then something something adventure, where heroes are made, right here in the wilderness. Way to make a first impression, Doctor! The Major gets right up in his face and tells him to make himself useful.
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| Pictured: abject terror. |
Cut to Dax and Sisko, studying the Orb of the Prophets because he jumped right on that quest. Sisko leaves, and Dax glances into the Orb to see that time Curzon died and Jadzia became a supercool joined Trill instead of a boring regular Trill.Chief O'Brien takes one last stroll aboard the Enterprise, and tries to duck out without saying goodbye to Picard, but Picard follows him down to his favorite transporter room.
The minute the Enterprise leaves, Gul Dukat, former boss of the joint, shows up to say hello and promise he totally wants to be helpful, and totally not threaten Sisko at all. He's curious about the Orb, because he thought the Cardassians had them all. Cardassians discount Bajoran religion as primitive superstition, but the Orbs clearly have special powers, so what's up with that?
Dax has found basically the exact location of the Celestial Temple, because after thousands of years of Bajoran study and a few decades of Cardassian study, nobody else has been able to make the connection that the place in space the majority of the Orbs were discovered, that also has major neutrino disturbances, and where some holy man once described the sky literally opening up, is worth investigation. I guess it took a fresh pair of eyes.
They have to investigate without the Cardassians noticing, though, so they put have Odo sneak on board the Cardassian vessel in a bag of money. The money came from Quark's bar, which Kira and Chief O'Brien shut down while the Cardassians where in the middle of a huge winning streak, so I guess this plan also involves screwing Quark over for no particular reason. Anyway, Odo screws with the Cardassian vessel, and O'Brien transports him back aboard by kicking machines.
Boom! The WORMHOLE opens up! Sisko and Dax are sucked through! They pass all the way to the other side, establish that it leads to the Gamma Quadrant and that it's the first stable wormhole ever, and turn back around. Weird shit happens the second time, though. They find some atmosphere, and then they land, and both of those things are really not normal.
They step out onto the wormhole-planet. Sisko sees a horrible, stormy wasteland, and Dax sees a lush, green paradise with chirping birdies, but they both see a grail-shaped thing that looks like the so-called Orbs (really aren't orb-shaped, by the way). Sisko introduces himself, and then there are lights and crazy everywhere, and the Grail exits the wormhole, bringing Dax back to the station, but leaving Sisko in the pure white light.
Now he has to explain linear existence throught baseball. The Prophets, or Wormhole Aliens, make a big fuss about how he's corporeal and uses linguistic communication. They take the forms of just basically anyone he's ever met. He keeps a very calm head through all this, considering. One wearing Jake's face says "what is this...'time'"?, which is a lot less fun than when a hot green babe asks you to explain about "kissing".
Back on DS9, they're worried about rescuing Sisko, but they are also worried about moving the station much, much closer to the wormhole. After some discussion, it is determined that they can do this with science. Dax, Kira, Odo and Bashir embark on an expedition to rescue the captain: Dax is going because they're bros, Kira because it's her duty, Bashir because he can have some real cool adventure, and Odo because he was found right about where the wormhole opened up and wants to solve the mystery of his existence.
Inside the wormhole, the Prophets, speaking as Picard, Borg Picard, and some baseball player, think Sisko should be destroyed, because he is "aggressive, malevolent, adversarial". He has to argue that he is not the enemy, which is tricky, because first he has to explain what experiences are, and then he has to explain why knowing what experiences are doesn't make him scary.
O'Brien is on the task of moving the space station, which involves arguing with the computer a lot. He has to contend with a lot of science, and fix it by science. Fortunately, the station doesn't tear itself apart.
Kira and co run into Gul Dukat trying to steal the wormhole. Dukat is 100% convinced Sisko is negotiationg for fancy technology in there. Sisko is actually trying to explain about how his wife is dead, and how linear existence works. The wormhole aliens ARE curious about the earth thing called kissing, because it causes pleasure, and wtf is that? The aliens take him back to the day his wife died, asking him why he exists THERE: his dwelling on that memory causes them to believe he's trying to trick them with that pleasure business.
Then they think baseball is aggressive and adversarial. Fortunately, it's metaphorical. I think it's a lot less emotionally fraught to justify linear existence with baseball than just with scenes from your marriage with your wife who died tragically. They still want to keep going back to that wife-dying bit, though.
Dukat got stuck in the Gamma Quadrant when the wormhole collapsed, so now more angry Cardassians are hanging around. The Cardassians give them one hour to surrender, or the station will be destroyed. It's the first episode of the show, so the odds of that happening are not high.
Sisko admits that he "exists" in the moment where his wife died, and starts breaking down. That's not "linear", though, so they finally decide he's OK.
Outside, Kira orders all of their photon torpedoes fired across the Cardassian's bow. This gets them onto the viewscreen, and she uses her scariest pokerface to get them to back down. Although DS9 now has neither offensive nor defiensive capabilities, they made it look like they had some, using science. The Cardassians do open fire anyway, things explode, people are killed, and Kira's just about to call it quits when the wormhole opes up again. Sisko comes back, and he's picked up Gul Dukat somewhere along the way, so the Cardassians stand down.
There are no fatalities, the Enterprise comes back way after the last minute, and Sisko is now the Bajoran Messiah. He doesn't realize that last bit yet, but still informs Picard he's changed his mind about leaving. Quark sexually harasses Kira, gets threatened majorly, and the first episode comes to a close.
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