Quodo in Every Episode discussion: "Past Tense"

[chacusha]

This week we have another two-parter, so this discussion will last two weeks until March 30th. This time, we're discussing... episode 3x11/12 "Past Tense" parts 1 & 2!

Episode synopsis: A transporter accident leads to Sisko, Dax, and Bashir being transported back in time to San Francisco in the year 2024, just days before the Bell Riots erupted in one of the city's sanctuary districts. In order to preserve the timeline, Sisko must take the role of Gabriel Bell in a tense hostage negotiation.

What The Boys are up to in this episode: Quark's Obligatory Scene is towards the beginning of the first part -- he uses an emergency channel to call the Defiant visiting Earth to inform them that the Nagus would appreciate the Federation freeing his nephew as thanks for making contact with the Dominion. Odo is on the bridge of the Defiant and is in various scenes reacting to events and findings, and operates the transporter for Kira and O'Brien.

One screencap from this episode:


Transcript:
http://chakoteya.net/DS9/457.htm
http://chakoteya.net/DS9/458.htm

Quodo fics tagged with this episode: None (https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Episode%3A+s03e11-12+Past+Tense+Parts+1-2+%28Star+Trek%3A+Deep+Space+Nine%29&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Star+Trek%3A+Deep+Space+Nine)

Tell us:
- What did you think about this episode?
- Have you written a fic set during/after this episode?
- Do you know of any other fics set in or that build off this episode that weren't linked above?
- What do you see as the Quodo potential for this episode?

Anonymous comments are on, so feel free to chime in even if you don't have a Dreamwidth account! If you prefer, we are also available on Discord:
https://discord.gg/VaCnMYvKu6 (18+ proship Quodo Discord - there is a dedicated channel for this event)
https://discord.gg/Htz4crCdCt (general Quodo Discord)
Event info & rules
Fic masterlist

Comments

[chacusha]

Random thoughts:

- "The same year as it was yesterday -- 2024."

- Bashir's dialogue here about 21st century culture is a bit heavy-handed. Well, a lot of this episode is heavy-handed, but I also appreciate DS9 doing a bit of a departure here and using something a bit closer to our time period than the 24th century in order to critique societal trends (in this case, the way various cities treat the homeless and unemployed).

- I like Sisko and Bashir getting a chance to bond in this one. (Unsurprisingly, most of the fic in this episode's tag is for Sisko/Bashir!) I like how Bashir's consistent instinct is to intervene while Sisko is more cautious. I feel like this is a fairly common trait amongst CMOs -- that they don't really believe in the Prime Directive because it kind of conflicts with the doctor's Hippocratic Oath.

- A rare episode with a one-episode love interest for Jadzia that's also not terrible! (Or at least that's how I interpret this Brynner character.) I enjoy the awkwardness of all these scenes where Jadzia is trying to blend into the times and planet.

- Kira being so self-conscious about her nose cover is adorable.

- I do like the guest characters here and how they all represent a different way of reacting to this situation -- B.C. being cynical and self-interested, Lee being empathetic but having to turn a blind eye to the suffering, Vin being close to the problem and yet not seeing or caring, Webb a community organizer, and Brynner too privileged to be aware of the situation at all.

- B.C. to Sisko: "I really think we should kill this guy." Makes me think of that Steven Universe comic meme. XD

- "I'm not looking forward to explaining this to Starfleet Command." I always kind of wonder about this -- from the perspective of people outside of the Defiant, wouldn't that be the "real" version of history and so wouldn't need to be explained at all? If Sisko didn't raise it, I assume people would either assume he had a doppelganger in the 21st century, or that the "Gabriel Bell" of the past was always actually time-traveling Sisko and therefore nothing needs to be explained? It also makes me wonder how did the stories get broadcast in the first place if not for Jadzia's serendipitous encounter and intervention with Brynner (did the real Gabriel Bell (or someone else that would have been there if he hadn't died) have the ability to get past the lockout?). Anyway, this is why I don't particularly like time travel stories when they're taken too seriously. It's usually hard to make them make sense if you scratch too much, and the contrast between the high stakes and the minimal effort needed by characters to completely fix the timeline just sort of strains plausibility.

- Overall, I'm not really sure how I feel about this set of episodes. I like that it's a bit of a departure from DS9's normal, and this is probably one of the first episodes where I felt like Julian had an interesting role in it (this is probably a very unpopular opinion, but I actually don't have a lot of feelings about Bashir as a character and find a lot of his episodes boring!) -- in particular, I like the Julian + Sisko dynamic in this one. And yet, despite the fact that it's a fairly unique/distinctive episode, I don't find it particularly memorable or anything! That said, I do like the 21st century clothes featured in this episode.


Thoughts on Quodo potential:

- Oh god, neither Quark nor Odo really gets much to do in this episode... That said, I will say it's cute that they specifically cut to Odo to get his eyeroll reaction once Quark explains why he's calling. Maybe something fleshing that moment out a bit? (I didn't notice it before, but Sisko reading up on the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition here seems to be a follow-up to 2x26 "The Jem'Hadar," when Quark called him out for his contempt for Ferengi, which is interesting.)

- Or you could have Quark actually being on the Defiant here? Maybe chatting with Odo while they're waiting for analysis, or schmoozing with Admiral "Droner" Drazman or whatever. (The nagus insisted Quark be there or something lol.)

- Or I guess since Sisko and co.'s time-travel changed the timeline briefly in a way that Odo and others on the Defiant remember but no one else does, you could have Odo discover an alternate-timeline version of Quark (/alt-timeline Ferengi Alliance) and what he's up to in this Romulan-dominated part of the galaxy or something.