The Siege of AR-558

DVD, DS9 S7 (The Siege of AR-558) (2)

What is it good for? Setting Nog on the path to arguably his greatest episode of the series, allowing Quark to put forth his views on humans, Ezri to learn that having access to a well of past life experiences is a very handy tool to have in the armoury, and Sisko to be reminded once again that the people dying in this war are more than just names or little flags on maps. Turns out war is good for a lot of things. The lessons learned aren't the big song and dance theme, they're almost afterthoughts to the real message, that war is bleak, uncompromising and undignified in its reality. The stench of battle is something rarely visited by our Starfleet friends and family because those dark times are so often removed, the wall of security officers protects a ship and crew, but here we get down and dirty, right in the trenches with those who have been pushed to the end of their tether against an implacable enemy, and all for what? The importance of this communications array wasn't entirely clear from dialogue. It's enough that Starfleet considers it important and the orders are to hold the position. But I find there are a lot of things about the episode that remain loosely defined, which both works in its favour, but also means I don't enjoy it as much as other, more personal war stories from the front lines such as 'Nor The Battle To The Strong,' 'The Ship,' or 'Valiant.'

I'm not sure why the specific characters that are along for the mission are there, other than to make things more difficult. As much as I understand the rationale for not having the toughest characters down on the planet, the Worfs, the Kiras, and the experience of the O'Briens, I can't help but feel that that's the story I'd rather see, in some ways. I want a heroic story of victory at the sharp end where everything seems hopeless and our people beam down and bring the hope with them. But it's not an optimistic episode and there's certainly an argument for it having its place, being an importantly alternative, realistic story to tell on the horrors of war. But Trek, and even 'DS9,' is still about the optimism, the redemption, the hope and healing, so when it goes really bleak it has less of the Trek ring to it. Again, this doesn't mean I think badly of the episode, because I don't - there's a reason that 'DS9' won the Best Final Season poll on startrek.com recently (I voted for it, but that's beside the point), and by a good percentage: the writers really knew what they were doing, and by Season 7 they could reap all kinds of dramatic potential that had been seeded for years. We'd already seen an entire episode devoted to Sisko and his crew taking on Vulcans at a game of baseball! So there was more than enough room for a slot to be taken up by those who were going once more unto the breach, dear friends, taking the fight to the Jem'Hadar, and surviving to tell the tale.

Even the characters that come along for this odd amalgamation of an Away Team aren't necessarily in their usual roles. Nog is the biggie - normally he'd be the ideal guy to be working on the engineering problem, in this case being able to break through the sensor blocks that both sides are using to conceal their positions and numbers, but instead he's brought down to the practical position of using his enhanced hearing to listen out for any Jem'Hadar approaches (though it seemed to me that Lieutenant Larkin, by some honed sense, picked up their coming before he did). That could be another comment on war: that people aren't necessarily going to be used in the way they were trained or the way you'd expect would be to the best use of their skills when the necessary attitude of 'make do and mend' means that whatever needs to be done must be done by whoever's available. And it's nice that Nog's unique Ferengi nature is again called on in his service to Starfleet. One of the best things about the story is the chance for him to confront the differences between himself and humanity's nature through Quark's comments on how they can be more dangerous than a bloodthirsty Klingon when their comforts are removed, as opposed to the Ferengi way of cowering and hiding, something that is detestable to Nog. But Quark also believes that if the Ferengi had been the major power of the Alpha Quadrant they'd have hammered out a treaty with the Dominion and avoided war. I don't think the Dominion would ever have had anything they would accept over complete domination, but then again the resourcefulness and resolve of the Ferengi business mind is a powerful force, and everyone needs something. You only have to look at the true motivations of The Founders to realise they wanted control to keep themselves safe, and if the Ferengi had been able to accommodate them perhaps war genuinely would have been averted without the cost of giving up freedom?

In the past we've heard Quark say things that suggest he has a sneaking admiration for the Federation, such as his famous conversation with Garak in 'The Way of The Warrior,' but in this episode he's talking specifically of humans. That's another specific choice they made in the makeup of the characters defending this post: they're all human, and apart from Ezri, Quark and Nog, so are the relief force. Why was this direction chosen? Perhaps because it's easier to identify with human characters? I'm not sure it is, but their inhuman attitudes, affected psychologically by their long and nasty tour on this rock, are more grisly to us because of their humanity. A great moment comes at the end when Reese, the hulking monster that is as far from Starfleet as you can get while still maintaining a professional attachment to the organisation, throws down the knife he's been carrying as a focus for the brutality, as if discarding the deeds and leaving both behind him. These important character moments aren't as strong as they would have been if we'd got to know the guest characters better, but we're left on the back foot by seeing a little of these unbalanced soldiers still wearing the rags of their uniforms, so again, it's to the story's advantage not to go the usual route of exploring and humanising them. It also adds to the uncertainty of war and death, anyone a potential casualty. It wasn't the battle that shocked, though, it was Larkin's sudden demise, shot in the back as she made her return to camp after a scouting expedition into Jem'Hadar territory. Sudden and shocking, without warning.

The Jem'Hadar don't even seem themselves, and I don't know if this was a symptom of the planned, but not really carried through idea that Alpha Quadrant created Jem'Hadar were stronger, more tactically keen and felt themselves superior to the common Gamma Quadrant variety. I first noticed it in the attack to discover the strength of Starfleet's numbers - at first I assumed these were soldiers ordered to walk into the barrage of defensive fire, sacrificing themselves for The Founders' plan as they've always been shown to do, their lives worthless to them. But it was actually holographic projections, which makes the Jem'Hadar seem more calculating. You can also see these Jem'Hadar have the ivory crest that I believe denotes them as Alpha Quadrants. In the battle they didn't appear to be quite as devastating a fighting force, although it was dark and difficult to keep track of what was happening in the skirmish so we don't get to see their hand to hand tactics or whether they actually use the cruelly bladed instruments of death they were drilling with. On the other hand, Sisko went into full rage mode like I don't think we've seen since he first took them on at the start of Season 3 ('The Search'), but even the wild, desperate fighter that he is was knocked unconscious by these guys - the season is definitely uncompromising when we've had two episodes in succession where each of the toughest warriors is knocked unconscious to the floor (last time it was Worf, this time Sisko).

Continuity plays its part in my enjoyment of this episode: Tricorders don't seem to get much play on this series so it seemed to me as if the slimline version we see here, and which I think came from the 'TNG' film series, may have been making its debut, I'm not sure. I thought it was 'First Contact' that created that look, but 'Insurrection' would have been in development around this time. It's just that I don't remember seeing such compact, sleek Tricorders in on 'DS9' before. One thing that makes a comeback for sure was the bladed Jem'Hadar weapon I mentioned, which we see them training with when Nog and his party scout out their base. As I say, I don't remember seeing it in action during the battle, but in the flurry of action I may have missed it. This particular weapon I don't think had been seen since Season 4's 'To The Death,' as the pulse rifles became their usual method of attack, something that may have done something to make them slightly less fearsome as an unstoppable fighting force. I also liked the link back to our earliest exposure to Dominion technology, the circular holding cell with short and stumpy vertical lighted rods making up the perimeter, something used again in the prison camp where Worf fights them repeatedly in 'In Purgatory's Shadow'/'By Inferno's Light' of Season 5. Here it acts as the base to the tall array this action is all about defending. I thought Vargas' black battle uniform with the division stripe around it was the same as we'd seen in 'Nor The Battle To The Strong,' probably the closest episode to this one in situation, though approached very differently.

Both stories are about Starfleet in a military setting, with soldiers and strategies for a ground war, quite removed from the usual 'safe' and impersonal starship battles that we're far more familiar with. This time it's not Jake in the firing line, as Quark highlights to Sisko when he's ordering Nog out on the scouting mission which loses the young Ferengi his leg. It's also very different from the last time those three characters were thrown together for an adventure: way, way back in the finale to Season 2, 'The Jem'Hadar,' where the Sisko boys, Quark and Nog, went out for a camping trip and ended up captured by the soldiers it was named for. A lot has changed since those simple days - Sisko's even tougher, Nog's a Starfleet officer, and Quark, though he's still complaining, is much more about the care he feels for his nephew than his own concerns. In a season in which the barkeep was largely sidelined (I think Nog had more drama than him, unthinkable in the early years), it's good to have him along, and he even gets his own hero moment when he's watching over Nog in the makeshift Infirmary and whirls to shoot an encroaching Jem'Hadar that reminds you that there's much more to him than running and screeching. Maybe if he hadn't had Nog to protect he would have hidden somewhere, but he didn't even think about defending them both, it was pure instinct and not particularly Ferengi instinct.

Rom isn't on the mission, understandably, but he does get a memorable moment in the teaser singing 'the lady is a 'scamp'' to a bemused Vic Fontaine (I'd never really thought about it, but it's said that the songs he sings are four hundred years old, though I tend to think of them in terms of real time of being forty years between them and the production of the series, so it was good to be reminded of Trek's actual era rather than getting mixed up with its production in the 1990s or 1960s, etc). On the surface the teaser has no bearing on the rest of the episode, seemingly an excuse to include some brightness in a depressing story, but apart from the fact that any opportunity to include Rom and Vic should be taken, it's a useful callback to civilisation when the haunting music of Vic singing is played out over the base as they await an inevitable Jem'Hadar attack. But even more important, it provides a route for Nog to take after this episode with the story of how he had to deal with losing his leg and retreats into Vic's world. Anyone who moans that Trek's background music was merely aural wallpaper, should give this episode a listen. Aside from Vic's song, the beautifully melancholy score that plays over the battle was judged to perfection, adding so much to the action sequence, though I always remember it as being in slow motion (probably thinking of 'Rocks and Shoals' where they experience a similar Jem'Hadar attack).

It's strange hearing Bill Mumy as Kellin (not to be confused with the 'Unforgettable' Kellin from 'Voyager,' who was she again?), as this is the first time I've seen the episode since watching a good proportion of 'Babylon 5,' the 'sister' series to 'DS9,' a rival that began at the same time, but which also shared a few actors between them (such as Tracy Scoggins coming to 'DS9' to play a Cardassian, and Majel Barrett appearing on 'B5'). A series that wasn't anywhere near as good, but the character Mumy played, the Minbari Lennier, was one of the best of that series. Like the other characters we could have got to know Kellin a lot better which would have made his death more tragic. As it is, in the confusion of battle I didn't entirely get the gist of who was definitely dead or not, and it feels more like you're there, all up close and personal, and in the dark, not something easy to follow, suiting the style of the episode. The moral issue of using the Dominion houdini anti-personnel mines that can float in and out of subspace didn't really seem to be an issue, merely another weapon in Starfleet's arsenal to lighten the ranks of attackers, practical concerns overriding the distaste of such vicious weapons, though again it's thanks to the engineers who are able to take control of them. Worse than IEDs, these things are so nasty because not only do they appear out of nowhere, but the place you thought was safe and clear earlier is in reality no safer than anywhere else, playing into the mental trauma of this battlefield. You'd have thought Ezri's counselling skills would have been a key skill, but she ends up helping Kellin with engineering problems, just as Nog and Bashir are being soldiers, the characters' roles adding yet more unsettling approaches to an unbalanced situation.

If Quark didn't know it already, there appears to be major downsides to being a favourite of the Grand Nagus (probably mentioned partly as the rationale for Quark's presence on the mission, but also to jog viewers' memories, readying them for his appearance in the near future). He starts out his usual grumbling self, and it should be no wonder: the last time he was on the Defiant he ended up having to work with James Cromwell to defuse a torpedo (Season 4's 'Starship Down'), so he's not likely to have very happy memories of the ship! Though Worf's role is small in this one, I did like that he supported Quark when the Ferengi was in his world. I mean literally supported him: when the ship is under fire from a Jem'Hadar vessel Quark starts reeling, but the burly Klingon is there to stop him toppling over. I think it's the professionalism that Worf displayed that stood out, since we know how little he can stand the guy, and what better way to close out this review than in pointing out another unsettled and antithetical moment in an episode that is full of them. It isn't traditional Trek, but neither is it traditional 'DS9,' and this leaves you feeling slightly rattled in the way a good war story should, whether it be from the various devices they used, or the constant grim blackness. I've always thought the indoor cave set being the setting took away from the action, but the enclosed nature of it adds claustrophobia, and while the oncoming Jem'Hadar horde isn't nearly as awe-inspiring as it would have been in an outdoor location shoot, I doubt they had the budget to film an entire episode at night.

****