30 Years Ago Today,Deep Space NineMadeStar Trek‘s Deadliest Threat Clear

There is a lot to love about Deep Space Nine before it quote unquote“Gets Good . ”The show’sfirst two seasonsare , in a lot of way , about the things many praise DS9 ’s back half for dealing with : the cost ofcompromising Star Trek ’s utopian futureon the furthest fringes of its final frontier . But even then , few thing prepared its audience for the moment everything changed with the reaching ofthe Dominion War .

While the open volleys of that difference are some of its most famous , for good intellect , the actual turn point that sees DS9 set out to pivot to a warfare basis happened 30 twelvemonth ago today with the broadcast of the season two finale , “ The Jem’Hadar , ” and the start of a Cold War that would soon turn hot , and present Star Trek themost radical challengeto its saint thus far . For the most part , it ’s a Trek episode like many before it . think he was getting a subdued vacation to the Gamma Quadrant with his Logos Jake , Commander Sisko finds himself dealing with the complicated pain of Jake ’s good friend Nog tagging along , and then Nog ’s uncle Quark , hoping to get the Commander ’s auricle , joining uninvited , only for them all suddenly to detect themselves prisoners of a foreign , hostile new race they ’ve never run across before the first night they make camp .

minuscule in the way of resource — Deep Space Nine did n’t have a ship at this point , so our heroes just have their runabout shuttle , and what camping gear they buy with them — and face an unknown enemy with all the power , this is the kind of installment we ’ve seen many times before in Star Trek , as Sisko , Quark , and a possible unexampled friend in a psychical alien woman named Eris who was as well caught fleeing the nominal Jem’Hadar , try and fail to either miss the clutch pedal of their new foe or even associate and understand them diplomatically . It ’s perhaps otherwise the kind of episode that ends with our heroes getting rescued , or separate out , and turn out that Starfleet ’s finest and their allies , even catch unawares and without their common resources , can work together , save the twenty-four hours , and make it out of harm ’s way . They ’re Star Trek submarine ! That is what they do . But “ The Jem’Hadar ” is not a typical Star Trek sequence in what was already not a typical Star Trek show , and while we get that in part , it ’s the climactic plait that work Deep Space Nine ’s bold ploy crystal clear .

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In the climax of the episode , after Sisko has give way to check in with the post , Kira and Odo employment with the Federation to ship the USS Odyssey , and another runabout to the Gamma Quadrant in search of the Commander . They meet up , Jake and Nog delivery Quark , Sisko , and Eris , and a fight breaks out between the Jem’Hadar and the Odyssey . A scrap the Odyssey very quickly starts lose . This too is perhaps expect sometimes — Star Trek has mint of firefights break out where our wedge can seemingly not shoot down a dead reckoning , but their enemy can discover direction to gig through their shield , normally before some cunning techno babble and problem - solving finds a way to sour the odds in Starfleet ’s favor . That does n’t happen here , and then the other shoe drops : as the Odyssey and the runabout begin to move back back to DS9 , the Jem’Hadar ship — unhurt by what piffling the Odyssey could throw away at it despite it being the overpoweringly larger ship — performs a kamikaze charge directly at the cruiser , blowing itself and the Odyssey up immediately . In astonished silence , the remaining shuttles are left to gimp back home .

With one final winding — that Eris was in fact work out with the Jem’Hadar , and is a representative of their share masters in the Dominion , who do not want the Federation encroach on their territorial dominion ; she teleports away to part unknown before she can be delay — the season terminate in this queasy space . Thisone engagement is over , and was arguably over before it even began , but the Dominion will necessarily fall … and Starfleet is clear not ready for what it is capable of .

It is the minute everything change on Deep Space Nine . The show had dire threat before this — the station had been board and occupied in a hostile coup d’etat , Sisko had already deal with the emergence of a raw guerrilla front in the Maquis , open up honest-to-goodness combat injury with the Cardassians . But there is a weight in envision a ship like the Odyssey not just ineffectual to touch the Jem’Hadar , but be take out like nothing , just to send a message that the Federation has no estimate what it ’s dealing with . It ’s an especially stiff message , because the Odyssey is not just any Federation ship , it’sa Galaxy - stratum patrol car , at that point the idealized apex of the sun’s way of Starfleet shipcraft , the vision of its scientific expansionary aims . It ’s not just the good of Starfleet , it ’s the best of Star Trek : the Galaxy - class was the Enterprise . It wasThe Next Generation . And here was its heir show , having alreadydanced with the complicated legacyof its forerunner , blowing that symbol up : what the Federation is , what Star Trek was before this , is not get up for what is to come .

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The impact was made clear when Deep Space Nine returned . We ’re immediatelyintroduced to the Defiantin “ The Search , ” the first Starfleet vessel we ’ve learn on - projection screen explicitly project for combat , a two - part premiere that show even with Starfleet debar its teeth like this , Deep Space Nine ’s hero are still not quick for what the Dominion represent . The next few seasons of the show act a obtuse and sure splintering of the Alpha Quadrant powers as we ’d come to love them over TNG and the opening season of DS9 , as the Dominion ’s agent sowed paranoia and suspicion — the seeming devastation of the Cardassian and Romulan intelligence agencies , a return to ill will between the Federation and the Klingon Empire , brewing military coup at the heart of Starfleet itself .

By the time theDominion War turn hotat the climax of time of year five , Deep Space Nine has all but completed its conversion into the show it is now always lauded for being . But even as it went on to those great heights , there are still few more strong images in the entire series than the Odyssey wind in flame as its hull splinter into pieces — a warning , and a hope that Star Trek would never be the same .

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