Opaka Lives

A few days ago I watched "Battle Lines", a first season episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's not a great episode and it gets sillier the more I think about it.

The spiritual leader of the Bajorans, basically the pope, Kai Opaka (Camille Saviola), has a vision. She has to go through the wormhole to the gamma quadrant. So Sisko (Avery Brooks) takes her in a runabout along with Kira (Nana Visitor) and Bashir (Alexander Siddig).

I used to really love the runabouts when I was a kid. I'm not sure why. They're basically really big shuttlecrafts. "Battle Lines" particularly stands out in my memory as one of the few times (if not the only time?) we see a significant portion of a runabout exterior built to scale for a set. And watching again a few days ago, I realised they got the warp nacelle wrong.

The tip should have the glowing red bussard ramscoop. They clearly reused a nacelle from a TNG shuttle.

Yeah, I was a Trekker.

So as you can see, they crash land on a moon. They discover two warring humanoid factions, one of them led by none other than Mike Ehrmantraut himself, Jonathan Banks, in a rock star wig.

He really doesn't distinguish himself in this episode, sadly. It turns out (spoilers) the warring factions can never die because of some nanotechnology in the air. They can't die but can't leave the planet, either, or the nanobots cease functioning. It might've been more interesting if their characters had been more developed.

The Kai gets killed so she gets stuck on the planet. But that's okay with her because apparently mediating between these two groups is her destiny. What's weird is that, after this, the show basically treats the character as dead. A particularly odd point considering there's a lot of drama over the replacement Kai later on.

Everyone knows the first season of DS9 is pretty rough. I'm fighting the urge to skip ahead, though.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available on Netflix in Japan.

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With omnipresent hair the maiden stuns.
The horde suspends assaults against the town.
With movement slowed by massive golden buns.
The plaited beauties craft an army frown.
With vermilion dresses hunters take the hill.
The nervous woman clutched a frightened fox.
With kindness proffered, dinner crashed the bill.
The flooded streets conclude with rainy docks.
With gracious fighters, hills were taken down.
The sample phone was filled with pleading tongues.
With righteous will, the sky deserved a clown.
The ladder squeezed the life from all its rungs.
With rubber hats, the masks were shuttled home.
The time of space concludes with land to roam.