Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — 7x01 — Image in the Sand

Aired 1998-09-30

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:3.68

Synopsis

Sisko, now retreated back on Earth to gather his wits, meets an old friend.

Filler rating: not filler

Numerous major long term plot threads are serviced here.

Remarkable scenes

Colonel Kira! Complete with a new hairstyle...
Worf's behavior with Vic.
O'Brien sharing a bottle of blood wine with Worf. I love Worf's reluctance. Nice reference to TNG: Hollow Pursuits as well.
I love the scene where Martok asks Worf to join him on a dangerous mission.
Bashir and O'Brien deciding to go with Worf on his dangerous mission to honor Jadzia.
Ezri's appearance.
Morn Appearances; 1. In the bar after O'Brien shares a bottle of blood wine with Worf.

Review

This episode reveals the truth behind Sisko's connection with the Prophets. He's actually descended from one! There's that, and a couple other interesting plot threads. Kira, with her new promotion, is now in command of DS9 and the Romulans have established a permanent presence there. They've also secretly heavily fortified one of Bajor's moons under the guise that it's a hospital. This, of course, pissed off Kira. Also, Worf is angry because he believes that because of the way Jadzia's died, she wasn't granted entry into Sto'Vo'Kor. So Martok, Worf, O'Brien, and Bashir all decide to go on a dangerous mission against the Dominion to honor her memory. Finally, Ezri Dax makes an appearance, the successor to Jadzia Dax. These plot threads are all valid and interesting, but none of them are sufficiently developed in this episode, especially Ezri, who gets a pathetic amount of screen time. The episode was designed to be a cliffhanger, and it was done so in a slow paced, annoying way. Nevertheless, it is a satisfactory beginning to the season.

14 reader comments

What's up with all the zero ratings for this season? Spammers I'm guessing. Inconsistent but still a great opening to the season.
by Psycroptic | 07/14/2012 at 1:52 am

Yes, it appears someone has deliberately been trying to sabotage our good webmasters statistics! Perhaps he can see when all these zero ratings came about and who put them on because all these episodes were rated much more highly before.
by Bernard | 07/14/2012 at 10:07 am

One of many episodes that really ruin the Bajoran prophets.
Let's think about this for a minute: The prophets basically possess a woman, drag her to meet Sisko's dad, keep her possessed until she marries him, gets pregnant, has a kid, and the is one year old. Then finally she wakes up one morning no longer possessed, having had her body used as a walking incubator to give birth to someone. In short, the prophets used Sisko's father to rape her, AND used to give birth to the baby then take care of it for a year. That's disgusting.
It gets worse…I guess. I mean, it might be best to imagine this was like a three year coma she woke up from, though she'd still have had her body changed since she became a mother sometime while she was asleep, but it's been previously shown that people possessed by the Prophets (and Pah Wraiths, basically the same beings except for being evil) are AWARE and remember what goes on while they're possessed. It might be somewhat forgivable if, say, this was a Bajoran who was a very willing vessel for the will of the Prophets, even if she signed on for a lot more than she realized, but this was a human woman who didn't know the Prophets existed and wasn't at all a member of their faith. So they raped a casual bystander just to get Sisko born. AND HE NEVER CALLS THEM OUT FOR IT! Nobody does. It occurred to me the first time Sisko's parentage was mentioned, and never fails to occur to me every time it's mentioned…but it doesn't seem to bother anyone.
The writers originally had the idea that the Prophet temporarily took corporeal form, but nixed that idea-I guess it seemed a bit too confusing about exactly what the prophets were. Somehow they thought this disgusting idea was better-I really don't know what they were thinking. Basically any episode that mentions this plot point gets an automatic 1 from me, no matter how good the rest of the episode is, just for reminding me of that awful concept.
I'm not anti-religion. I like some of the religious plotlines in the story-in fact, as a conceptualization of "plot magic," they're far preferable to technobabble that often does similar things. But that the Bajoran faith is so often idealized even when they're behaving like entitled fundamentalists is really grating. I was able to deal with that from the Bajorans from time to time, but when the gods themselves are horrifying…I really wish they'd just had Dukat kill them all instead of letting the Prophets win.
by Bronn | 07/27/2013 at 5:28 am

I get what you're going for, but it seemed pretty clear to me in the story that the Prophets merely influenced Sisko's mother without her knowledge rather than force her into actions she was unwilling to do. As such, she probably wasn't aware she was possessed. When she left Sisko's father after no longer being possessed, the story strongly implies that she probably just thought she fell out of love. As such, since she didn't feel coerced by external forces, she wasn't raped.
by Eric Newport | 07/27/2013 at 6:35 pm

I'm in agreement with Bronn in one respect.. I dislike any parts of the story involving the wormhole aliens/prophets from the episode 'Rapture' onwards because this marks the point in the series when the writers make the deliberate decision that the prophets have, do and will continue to take an interest and influence the Bajorans on PURPOSE and not by accident.
This is quite contrary to the initial encounter with the wormhole aliens in 'The Emissary' where Sisko has to explain virtually every concept of linear existence to them! So I guess they were just messing around with him in that episode?
Just to point out, I don't mind if they'd portrayed the prophets as beings that consider the Bajorans to be their 'children' from the start but they didn't. I also don't mind if the Bajorans thinks of the wormhole aliens as prophets (gods) but they aren't really… it's a theme shown time and again in the various incarnation of Star Trek, a less developed race thinks of another more developed race as godlike but in actual fact they are not their gods… except the writers decided from 'Rapture' that the prophets WERE the Bajorans gods and started writing it as such. That is when the prophets storyline turned into absolute drivel and they had to start coming up with obscene ways for the prophets to affect our characters lives. It's ridiculous and it was the worst and weakest part of DS9 by a mile.
by Bernard | 07/28/2013 at 1:16 pm

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment, Keth, especially given the one Prophet that keeps showing up as Sarah Sisko and claiming to be Captain Sisko's mother. It's like she's the one taking credit for creating him, not all the Prophets as a whole subtly influencing one woman. The Sarah Prophet also refuses to share credit with the real Sarah-SHE'S Sisko's mother, not the corporeal woman named Sarah. She also says that Sisko is "A part of her," which doesn't make sense unless she's the same Prophet who possessed Sisko's mother.
I can't say I really see the evidence supporting your version. We haven't seen direct evidence of the Prophets "subtly directing" someone in the story before-they've used orbs, they've used visions, and they've used random electification that makes Sisko have crazy visions. You can argue we don't always see the less overt influences, but if so, you'd think they'd have attempted to give some guidance to Kai Winn at some point, who was genuinely faithful despite her hopeless ambition. Instead they let her experience direct visions from the Pah Wraiths and fall under Dukat's influence. What we have seen, though, is that people can be possessed by Prophets and Pah Wraiths, and they don't even have to be completely willing-like Keiko and Jake Sisko were possessed at different times.
And if this woman just "fell out of love," it's weird that she completely abandoned her baby and made no effort to ever contact him again, isn't it? She lives in the super-ideal version of earth, so it's not like she abandoned him because she couldn't take care of him. She was in a relationship, had a baby, and then walked out one day without ever getting back in contact with the baby-it's really unusual behavior. It makes much more sense that she was possessed, finally woke up free one morning, was horrified at having been raped and used, and ran far, far away, never wanting again to be reminded of what happened to her, especially not wanting to see the baby she was forced to bear.
I can't see it as anything other than the most unfortunate of implications ever conceived of in Star Trek, and somehow nobody noticed or commented on it. That's why I went from fairly neutral about the Prophets, to utterly loathing them.
by Bronn | 07/28/2013 at 9:14 pm

Also, from memory alpha, here's a quote from René Echevarria, Executive Story Editor: "We originally thought that Sarah was a Prophet – there was no human woman involved. But we ultimately nudged the idea into something a bit more oblique, saying the Prophets could take over another person's form."
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Image_in_the_Sand_%28episode%29
So even the WRITERS thought they were telling the story about a being taking over a woman's form, so that she could have sex with the right man and give birth to the baby. Yuck!
Deep Space 9 is usually a smart show about recognizing implications in its continuity-that's why I really like it, and think it's overall better than Voyager. Garak goes nuts when he realizes he's basically acting like a traitor to the Cardassian people to whom he'd been loyal, Worf is forced to deal with the fact that he's isolated from other Klingons, Nog had an emotional crisis about losing his leg that didn't even end when he got a replacement leg (one of my favorite episodes-Nog probably experienced the most character growth during this series of any Trek character ever written), and Sisko was forced to deal with the dual problems of being a religious icon and a Starfleet officer. But somehow they missed this? Despite it coming up repeatedly in several episodes?
I'd like to pretend it never happened, but they keep reminding us about it later.
by Bronn | 07/28/2013 at 9:55 pm

There's no evidence whatsoever to support your claim that what happened to Sarah was abuse. You're basing all of your conclusions off of wild speculation based on a whole host of assumptions that the story doesn't go into at all while ignoring the two most obvious pieces of direct evidence contradicting your hypothesis: 1. the characters in the story didn't see what happened to her as abuse, and 2. as you yourself just stated, neither did the writers.
Don't get me wrong. I'm with you on the storytelling related to the Prophets being annoyingly arbitrary and vague at times and this episode is no exception. But you really are just projecting this abuse hypothesis onto a story that didn't intend that interpretation at all, which is kind of ridiculous given that the other interpretation fits just as well if not better.
Sure, they could have made it more explicit, and they certainly should have. But the slightly sloppy writing here pales in comparison to several much more heinous examples elsewhere in the series. It seems odd to pick on this episode when there are so many other worse examples throughout Star Trek of vague and arbitrary plots leaving things open to interpretation in unintended ways.
by Eric Newport | 07/29/2013 at 5:30 pm

How can Worf smashing up a virtual holosuite bar be cause for complaint? It's a programmed environment that can be reset at the touch of a button!
by L | 08/13/2013 at 8:44 am

"1. the characters in the story didn't see what happened to her as abuse, and 2. as you yourself just stated, neither did the writers."
That is a very strange argument for concluding that what happened wasn't abuse.
The fact that neither the writers nor the characters considered what happened to Sarah to be abuse does not mean that is it wasn't.
It is amazing that it never even crossed their minds that a women being possessed then forced to have a baby against her will was wrong. Because Bronn is so obviously right with this regard - it is clearly very, very wrong.
I find it incredible that no one at any stage of production said or thought this: 'Wait, this is Star Trek, the core values of which are things like respect, understanding, fairness and freedom. Here we have gods - and not just gods but good gods, the good guys - taking over a woman's body and making her have sex with a man and give birth against her will. Are we insane?'
And it clearly is against her will - the clue is in the word 'possessed'. Also she leaves once the prophets let her go and doesn't want anything to do with her son, so it wasn't a case of somthing like Possession Stockholm Syndrome (that is, she didn't come to accept and like the situation she was in after a while, thinking it was all for the best in the long term).
This is the only logical interpretation of events and I fail to see how anyone could rationally argue that what the prophets did to the poor woman did not constitute a heinous crime. It would surely be illegal on every planet in the universe. It is, in essence, slavery.
To claim that it wasn't abuse because the writers didn't consider it to be abuse is the same as claiming that Tintin in the Congo is not racist on the basis that Hergé didn't consider it to be racist. (It clearly is by the way - don't know if Tintin is popular in the states?)
(Disclaimer: I am in no way accusing Kethinov of anything at all here, in case someone jumps to that erroneous conclusion)
The prophets are without a doubt the worst thing about this series. Space Religion is also where BSG went so catatrophically wrong in the end, quasi-religious nonsense that is both offensive and annoying.
…
Apart from all of that (!) I really enjoyed the first two episodes of this series. Some great stuff involving Quark, O'Brian and Bashir ('The Three Musketeers'), new Dax is pretty cool and I loved the Romulan treachery. I bloodly love the Romulans full stop.
Also anything involving Weyoun is gold - especially liked the scene when he said "charming woman" about Damar's mistress with such earnestness a few second after threatning to execute her!
by Selador | 09/19/2013 at 11:25 pm

It's just more complicated than you guys are making it out to be.
Your whole argument is based on the faulty assumption that Sarah exerted no free will while she was "possessed." That's certainly possible, but the opposite is equally possible. The episode doesn't tell us one way or the other.
What exposition the episode does give us uses language like the prophets "shared" her existence and "guided" her to Joseph. That's not unilaterally coercive. She may have had a choice in the matter.
For all we know the prophets may have "possessed" a dozen different women before one was sufficiently moved by their influences to willingly enter into a relationship suitable for their goals.
Since it's clear that the writers did not intend the actions of the prophets to be interpreted as abusive, I think we owe them the benefit of the doubt of the more generous interpretation, while also criticizing them for not making the more generous interpretation more explicit.
A nuanced position is called for here, folks.
by Eric Newport | 09/20/2013 at 2:27 am

I just don't think it's sufficient to say that the writers and production staff didn't think it was offensive to conclude otherwise. I mean, the writers probably didn't think Angel One was offensive, even though it was.
This also isn't the first time in the TNG era we've seen aliens forcing impregnation and everyone pretended it was okay-look back at TNG's "The Child." The writers apparently had NO problem with Troi getting raped and knocked up by an alien influence, since we were supposed to think that was a fairly benign alien in that episode. The writers missing the implications of their story is something that happens sometimes, especially when there is a group of male writers creating what would be a serious woman's issue. They didn't possess Joseph Sisko so he could knock up Sarah-which would have been infinitely less invasive-they had a woman knocked up and possessed throughout her pregnancy.
And again, I think the implication is fairly clear. We've seen direct evidence of people being possessed by Prophets and Pah-Wraiths-Kira, Jake, Keiko, and Dukat by the time THIS plot point is introduced. I don't see why we shouldn't interpret this as being basically the same thing. If they wanted to clarify this point, they could have just had the real Sarah show up at some point, but she ran away and had nothing to do with Joseph or Ben Sisko the rest of her life…which is essentially what a rape victim would do. It's harder to imagine a woman actually abandoning her son and never making any attempt to contact him again than it is to imagine that she was used against her will.
That's why I hate this plot point. They could have at least TRIED to do something that wouldn't offend my sensibilities so much. They did not.
by Bronn | 10/27/2013 at 10:54 pm

It's equally valid for me to say that you should at least try to imagine other possible interpretations which wouldn't offend your sensibilities.
In this thread I've laid out several alternative interpretations that are equally valid and less offensive. None of them are ruled out by the established facts of the plot.
If you still choose to believe there's only one possible interpretation, then that's your problem, not the episode's.
I think we can all agree that the episode should have made it more clear. But you're jumping to conclusions.
by Eric Newport | 10/28/2013 at 9:01 am

Sisko´s birth is controversial and deserves a more thorough analysis than simply saying "his mother was forced by the prophets to be raped". At least one motif behind the Sisko/emissary story is that he is a messiah for the Bajorans. One may interpret some actions of the wormhole aliens as wrong. However, if time has no meaning, and the existence of Sisko was inevitable, do categories like good or evil matter at all? Anyway, it is a pity that the fan rating of season 7 has been spoiled by improbable counts of "0" for every single episode.
by peterwolf | 01/22/2014 at 9:18 pm