Rocks and Shoals

DVD, DS9 S6 (Rocks and Shoals)

Two fantastic episodes one after the other! A season doesn't start better than that. I often think of 'A Time To Stand' as an intriguing window on a new world, the station topsy-turvy and the fascination of dropping in on all these new situations, light on the action for a war episode. And I think of 'Rocks and Shoals' as the reverse: action-packed, but lighter on the mind. It's actually just as deep, with less action than you remember. Those thoughts may come from its primarily location-based story, and the fact that some major events occur, such as the captured Jem'Hadar ship crashing into the ocean of an alien planet, a watery grave for the great prize garnered in 'The Ship,' but it had fulfilled its task, the lives lost in that episode making a difference to the war effort they didn't live to see, so the ship could go to the great scrapyard of the galaxy with honour intact! Not to mention two other Jem'Hadar vessels meeting the same fate (presumably one crashed with loss of all life, as there were two ships chasing, and a Vorta may have been aboard that one also), stranding both Starfleet and Dominion forces in an unknown landscape, and leaving them to work it out. But it's left to our imagination, as often is the case, excepting the great 'Generations' (okay, and the not so great 'Into Darkness'), to visualise the actual impact, excitingly cutting away to the opening music as Garak shouts for the crew to "Hold on!" he being the only one able to see what's coming thanks to the personal viewscreen (even if he does look horizontally when the ship drops vertically - poetic licence).

One of the big things we do see is Dax caught in a blast from her console as the bridge collapses around her. Let's be honest, Season 6 is perhaps both the best and worst year of her life: she gets to marry Worf, both of them surviving the battle to retake DS9, but it's also the season of Dax in distress. Here she's laid out for the episode and we see the vulnerable side of this usual warrior, unable to participate (although her presence, oddly, doesn't do much for the story, though I suppose it adds to the ticking clock of necessary rescue, as well as a counterpoint to the injured Vorta), then we have 'Change of Heart' where she's almost left to die, and 'Tears of The Prophets' where she does. There may be other hardships as well, but we certainly see the weakness of a character so often shown as strong beyond most measure. It's Sisko whom this story (or the planetary portion of it), is all about, rising to the occasion to be The Captain as we look at the underbelly of the war with none of the 'big' figures such as Ross present, and all survival authority on him. This is a good one to show those who may still doubt Sisko could hold his own in a Best Captain contest against his more famous predecessors, as he's in a terribly difficult situation, both physically and morally, thanks to the devious Vorta. But he does have two of the most important elements of a Trek team on his side: the Doctor and the Engineer, both positions whose reputations are noted by Keevan - he needs the skill of a Starfleet Doctor, and knows that the expertise of a Starfleet Engineer will ultimately get him off this rock.

Keevan. He's the next in a line of hypocritical, self-serving servants of the Founders, and also one of the best performances, I feel. Nobody matches the incomparable Jeffrey Combs' Weyoun, but Keevan is probably the second best Vorta of the series. He has such a superior attitude, so cold and calculating, yet realistic, he has no room for the friendly front of Weyoun. The Vorta are more deceptive for appearing so receptive, with even their heads designed to look like a radar dish, always attentive. I say designed because of course they were genetically engineered by the Founders (we never know exactly to what extent, although we do learn they lived in trees and, I think, were ape-like), but we have another self-serving Vorta, and another noble Jem'Hadar leader, which makes you realise the Founders weren't as wise and clever in their genetics as we thought. All Keevan cares about is escaping his soldiers because the ketracel white's going to be exhausted, and just as Goran'Agar of 'Hippocratic Oath' understood, they'll soon be out of control. The difference is that he stayed to give them a merciful death, whereas Keevan is quite happy to up and leave as a POW if it means he survives, even at the cost of all his men.

Remata'Klan is cut from different cloth. Like several of his kind before him (Goran'Agar, Ometi'klan, Ikat'ika), he is proud to serve the Founders, and has much more of an understanding of the word honour, than many a Klingon. His men are already starting to crack with the meagre rations of white, leading to disobedience of the order not to fire on the enemy. You'd expect the man who did this to be summarily executed, but he's allowed to live, and Remata'Klan refuses to name him to the cruel Keevan who probably would have ordered his death. 'Klan would rather accept punishment himself, a noble attribute that gives him added depth of character. But it's more than that, because even when he knows he's been betrayed by his Vorta, he still goes ahead with the attack on Sisko's group - he may despise the Vorta, many Jem'Hadar do, but he also knows that above him he truly serves the Founders. As he says to Sisko, he never owned his own life, so he's not giving it up. Sisko has the suggestion that he allow himself and his men to be sedated and placed in medical suspension when they're rescued, until more white can be found, effectively offering the option of surrender, something the Jem'Hadar would never do. I did wonder why the Starfleet people couldn't just stun them, knocking them out until help arrived, and carrying out Sisko's plan without their consent, especially as their physiology might give insight to the Founders, but it may be that stun isn't enough to take down these genetically modified powerhouses, and kill is the only option.

This episode gives us more in-depth understanding of the race than most, as we're permitted to see Jem'Hadar-only scenes, with 'Klan talking to his men. We see his leadership ability, his understanding of the Vorta, and we see some of his men as vulnerable. They were never the Borg, but the Jem'Hadar were always the toughest race out there, considered almost mindless, with no understanding of the greater concepts of life that everyone else feels, but that isn't true, the best of them exist in this state, yet they excel anyway. And if you can bring us around to sympathising and respecting them in an episode, you're a great writer indeed! The ending wasn't as emotionally rimmed as might be thought, in the vein of 'The Siege of AR-558,' but we see the toll it takes on the Starfleet crew as they're forced to shoot down the brave, but foolhardy attackers. 'Klan demonstrates that Jem'Hadar are far from mindless, but tactical and with great courage. We already knew their loyalty was vast - it was Weyoun's fatal mistake to question this in 'To The Death.' Here we see the waste of war. It's underlined for Sisko by the death of one of his security officers, Gordon, the only Starfleet casualty in that final battle, another life taken senselessly for no gain. But as Sisko had reminded them all earlier as the morals of slaughtering the soldiers is debated, they are at war, Sisko is Captain, and he makes the decision. Even if he gives 'Klan the choice to live.

Because we're given more insight into the Jem'Hadar through personal scenes, we learn the term for something as old as their first appearance back in the Season 2 finale: 'shroud' is how they describe their mysterious ability to cloak themselves. I like that even though these are basically enemy foot soldiers, we can learn more about them and their terminology, especially for something that was never explained. It could be a technological enhancement, but more likely from the way they admit to being unable to do so when they're lacking white, is a natural, or genetic ability that requires the drug in their system, or possibly needs high energy levels. Something else seen for the first time, but on the Starfleet side, is what 'Enterprise' would become infamous for: underwear! These were new uniforms so we hadn't had the chance to see their construction, but here we see the various aspects that make up the current Starfleet wardrobe: the outer garment is more like a jacket that can be undone at the front, underneath are the departmental coloured shirts and collars, and going further, since the crew were wet through and had to warm up (in the tried and tested 'phasering a rock' tradition that stretches back to 'TOS'!), and get dry, they strip down to their blue underwear, though keeping the dignity of the characters we only see them gathered around the campfire rock in medium shot and low lighting! But in all seriousness it's good to have further details about things we take for granted, and it's always good for realism to see characters in a difficult physical situation such as having to swim to safety.

Not that there's much swimming, Nog being the only one to doggy paddle to shore. He and Garak make a good team, one straight as a rod, all fresh Starfleet rules and procedure, the other galactically-wise and cunning, the first not turning his back on the other, literally, since Nog still has great reservations about the Cardassian tailor from his experiences in 'Empok Nor.' It's the important difference to other Trek series' that such events are remembered and spoken of and make the characters act differently than they otherwise would. It means that event really happened, and signals that this is a real universe where what happens to people leaves an impression on them. It also gave Garak the chance to repeat his slightly patronising congratulations of there being 'hope for you yet,' as he said to Bashir, his first protege, way back in 'Distant Voices.' Having Nog become his protege might have been an interesting avenue to take the character, as it was something that never happened and I feel Garak got a little lost after Ziyal's death and Sisko's anger at him at the Romulan incident, so that by early Season 7 he didn't have so much spice to his character on an ongoing basis. Here, he's great as a member of the crew, something similar to what he did in the last episodes of the series, being part of a group rather than the individual spy.

The team is rounded out by the two security guards, Neeley and Gordon, somewhat less smug, but still as tough as those in 'Empok Nor' - but there's not too much to be self-satisfied about when their ship's sunk, stranding them. But everyone has their purpose, since with the Jem'Hadar possibility around every rock, they had their task laid out: keep everyone else alive. Gordon's death would have had more impact if he'd gone out saving someone, but instead it emphasises the futility of the situation they're in and makes an impact in a different way. Bashir, as well as making escape possible by curing Keevan, seems much more himself than he did in the preceding episode. In that, he was exercising his genetic super-abilities as ship's mobile computer, but here he's in the proper environment of a frontier doctor. O'Brien is fairly muted for the Chief, especially given his history as a soldier, and now that I think about it, it would have given the story added edginess to it had the recall of 'Empok Nor' included him as well as Nog, perhaps seeing he and Garak fighting side by side. But you can only do so much in a forty-five minute episode, and he wasn't selected as the focus, even though he was no less important, being the one that saved them by fixing the Dominion communications equipment.

The planetary saga, though, was far from the only draw of this episode, as life back home on DS9 is just as affecting, but on a far more personal level. Life on the station has become routine for Kira, the weeks and months having rolled by, so she's shocked by the end of the episode that she allowed herself to get comfortable with the Dominion occupation. So much so that she was prepared to stop a legitimate protest against four hundred Vorta facilitators coming to help Bajor get its economy moving again (it was certainly a high number, as there are usually so few of them in proportion to Jem'Hadar, so if there are that many Vorta, how many Jem'Hadar can there be? At first I was thinking the facilitators would be made up of Vorta, Jem'Hadar and maybe some other Dominion races like the Karemma, but it's made clear they're all Vorta. They could be cloning them in the Alpha Quadrant). Kira's sudden realisation comes in the form of Vedek Yassim, a woman who chooses suicide as her mode of protest. Regardless of whether that was an acceptable course of action or not, it jerked Kira out of her complacency so hard that had she been a pendulum she'd have crashed out the other side of the clock - she warns even Odo not to get in the way of her absolute determination to fight the Dominion, when he urges caution. All the grey in the series that had built up over the years particularly affected the Major, because her former, bitterly hated enemies came to be accepted, grieved for, friends with, even able to laugh with Dukat. For all that muddiness, Yassim's death acted as a clear bell in her mind, the catalyst for action - at first, it sounds like she's planning to go it alone, you half expect her to strap on explosives and guns and take out half the Jem'Hadar!

Jake, too, had his part to play in the drip-drip of warning signs, not taken seriously by Odo and Kira, merely becoming a way of getting news about things he's heard, his journalistic ambition swept aside - Odo even points out that Weyoun still isn't allowing his articles to be sent out, but that doesn't stop Jake from pursuing his goal, the mark of a true Sisko! As the second step of Odo's descent, after joining the ruling council of the station (it's weird to have an episode which doesn't feature Weyoun, Dukat, or Damar, although they're all talked about in some way), he's the one who isn't immediately twisted around in his point of view by the suicide, because he's always been about justice and order above rules and regimes. You sense he'd have been quite happy for things to continue as they were if Kira hadn't been fired up, and would certainly have been dismayed that a Vedek was able to carry out such a demonstration on his Promenade, under his watch (it does make you wonder how she was able to smuggle that rope in and tie it to the railing, but I would guess it was hidden under her robe, and she may have had accomplices making sure she was able to go through with it). But once Kira makes her decision he'll go along with it, though as things progressed, he'd be less opposed, than neutral in the coming episodes.

The quality of an episode doesn't rest purely on the shoulders of the main cast, but the excellence of the guest stars, and, on top of beautiful location shooting with those stark, white rocks and chalky water, the impact of the episode has more power thanks to Phil Morris' great version of a Jem'Hadar leader, perhaps the most noble example of his race that we saw. Morris had a long history with Trek, I think I'm right in saying he was in the 'TOS' episode 'Miri' as a child (his sister Iona definitely was), but had more recently played Thopok the Klingon, and the man Quark must fight in 'Looking For Par'Mach in All The Wrong Places,' and would go on to play John Kelly in 'One Small Step' on 'Voyager.' But he's a well known guest actor, even to the modern era with his role as Clark's helper on the later seasons of 'Smallville.' His appeal made the thankless loyalty, unworthily given to Keevan, even more tragic. Christopher Shea as Keevan would return later in the season, and appear as other characters in both 'Voyager' and 'Enterprise.' Both these people were iconic in the roles of this episode, Remata'Klan the ideal opponent for Sisko as he was a thinker, yet both men military-minded, getting into the psyche of the race - they were bred with unquestioning loyalty, and even their lives aren't their own (when 'Klan uses the word 'conceived' it must have been just an expression, as they're engineered!). The ending is rather downbeat, with the callous Keevan walking through the recent battlefield carrying his little suitcase with no regard or understanding of what happened there. But he'd get his comeuppance tenfold!

*****