Progress DS9: 1 - 14

Synopsis

Another split episode with two storylines progressing at the same time.

In the primary narrative, Major Kira is asked to evacuate one of Bajor's moons to make way for a power extracting procedure that will render the surface uninhabitable.  Unfortunately, there are some residents who refuse to leave and Kira beams down to relocate them.

One of these residents in particular, an elderly Bajoran named Mullibok who has lived there 40 years after escaping from the Cardassians, is adamant that he will not leave his home.  Kira stays behind to persuade him.

 In their ensuing conversations, she begins to learn of and appreciate his way of life and the motivations that drove him to this remote refuge, motivations that continue to be part of all Bajorans in the wake of Cardassian occupation.  And yet she also is aware of the danger he represents.  Kira admits to him that to defeat the Cardassians, the Bajoran resistance had to "hang on like fanatics" a phrase that pleases Mullibok because that is his own intention.

Charmed by his determination and fearful to become another Cardassian oppressor, Kira returns to DS9 to plead with the Bajoran government representative.

Bureaucrat: "I wish we had the time to be more delicate, but we don't."

Kira: "So instead we'll act like Cardassians..."

Threatened with being replaced, Kira returns with two Bajoran relocators, but the residents react violently, and Mullibok is hit by phaser fire in the struggle.  Dr. Bashir stabilizes him and Kira again remains behind to tend to him.  In their ensuing conversations, Kira tells Mullibok a story from her childhood about a tree.

Kira:  It was the ugliest, most gnarled and battered old tree I'd ever seen.  Even the birds stayed away from it.
Mullibok: ...but you loved it.
Kira: I hated it.  Because it had grown so huge its branches blocked out the sun for kellipates (miles).  And its roots buried themselves so deep in the soil that nothing else could grow there.  It was a big, selfish, annoying...
Mullibok: nasty...
Kira: ...nasty! nasty old tree.

Bashir reports back to Sisko on the station and he, concerned that Kira might be jeopardizing her career, travels to the moon himself.  It is this conversation that is at the heart of the story, a story that is less and less about the stubborn Mullibok, and becoming more and more about Major Kira.

Sisko: You have a job to do here Major and you're not doing it.
Kira: It's not that simple.
Sisko: I'm not saying it's simple, I'm saying it can't wait.

After a night of growing respect, Major Kira helps Mullibok complete the construction of a kiln but, in the face of Mullibok's intractability, then destroys it with her phaser before setting fire to the cottage.  Kira then beams him off the surface, leaving it free for the energy transfer project to proceed.

Self-sealing Stem Bolts

The second narrative again follows the exploits of Nog and Jake as they attempt to parlay an excess shipment of Cardassian yamok sauce into some kind of profit.  After trading the yamok sauce for self-sealing stem bolts, they trade the stem bolts for land on Bajor's surface.  Nog is unhappy because, living all his life in space, he doesn't understand the value of land, but Jake talks him into it.

Later, Jake and Nog learn that an important development project by the Bajoran government needs their land to get underway, and in triumph Nog sells the land to Quark who is prepared to drive a hard bargain with the government.land agents.

Analysis

Initially, this feels like a light-hearted episode, as the last one was.  But the metaphor inherent in the narrative soon becomes obvious.  Much more than the simple plot is happening in this episode, and it becomes a fulcrum about which the whole narrative of the first season turns.

In a classic TNG story, we visit a world for a single episode, learn of its conflict, which we develop and resolve in about 40 minutes.  Unfortunately these constraints often limit us to simplistic and incomplete resolutions, with the audience left to work out the ramifications on their own.  But the storytelling platform of DS9 is different, not quite as transitory.  It is only on Bajor that we can stay and experience the planet's recovery; only here that we can fully understand the implications of the Federation's actions.

Ironically, It is one of the strengths of being based on a space station rather than a starship.  The captain can't just fly away at the end of the episode and leave the hard work of recovery to the remaining residents.  Sisko wants to make Mullibok's story a starship story; to do the job and leave this little moon. As Kira states, "It's not that simple." 

This is the first turning point of this season.  Simplistic solutions like that of the previous episode, Storyteller will be contrasted with a longer and closer examination of the Bajor reconstruction.

The most interesting thing happening in the DS9 narrative at this moment is the recently concluded conflict between the Bajorans and Cardassians, told primarily from the perspective of the survivors.  Not all survivors were warriors and resistance fighters like Kira.  Others were Cardassian prisoners who were broken by the occupation, and still others fled from the conflict, seeking peace on a remote moon.  This story allows us to see recent history from their perspective.

It also gives Kira her first struggle with wielding power.  The use of power, even legitimate power, can be problematic.  And this conflict does not supply us with easy answers.  Both Nana Visitor and Brian Keith are electrifying and charismatic, they are a perfect match.  Keith had the harder job, making a curmudgeonly character so likeable that the audience sympathizes with him.

This story gives a great opportunity to learn more about Kira Nerys, a character who is quickly taking over the show.  the difference between this episode and the one before it, also a split episode, is clearly evident in the quality of the writing.  While the writers couldn't take O'Brien or Bashir serously, Kira and Sisko are given serious treatment.

Sisko:  You have to understand something Major: You're on the other side, now   
           Pretty uncomfortable, isn't it. 
Kira:  It's horrible...

While Kira is still the main focus of this story, I believe that Sisko reaches a major turning point at this moment.  Until now, Sisko has been an authoritarian leader, pushing people around, as he did with Julian earlier in this episode. In this scene with Kira, he is finally able to strike the right tone, to find a middle ground between concession and direct order.  To work with Kira, rather than against her.  This is the moment when he begins to see Kira as a friend and a fellow team mate rather than a subordinate. And to approach problems more as a local leader and less as a starship captain.

This is also the moment when Kira begins to accept her role as a leader who has to make hard decisions rather than as an agitator and a rebel who can rail against the monsters and burn everything to the ground.  At this moment, Kira is Bajor.  She wants to embrace all of Bajor's children and bring them back to the fold and erase the last fifty years of history.  As Kira herself says, "It's not that simple."

When Kira tells the story about the old tree she is using a double metaphor. The obvious reference is to Mullibok himself, a nasty old man standing in the way of progress.  But even as she is clearly talking about Mullibok, she realizes that she is also talking about the bitterness of the Bajorans. It is hard not to think of WB Yeats poem "The Two Trees" as the writer's reference for this. This tree has grown up in the heart of the Bajoran culture, one of defensiveness and isolation.  And this bitter tree is blocking out the sun of their culture, preventing anything from growing.  She doesn't know if the civilization on Bajor can ever flourish again without cutting it down, or if the tree "had a lot of character" and was worth preserving as part of the culture.

When Kira sets the cottage on fire, she is letting go of the Old Bajor that Mullibok represents.  He moved there 40 years ago, about 10 years into the Cardassian occupation, and built this refuge stone by stone, just as Bajorans have built up their bitterness and anger over the years.  They have become used to their unhappiness and are hesitant to give it up.  Not ready to say that this tough life they have built for themselves should give way to something better for everyone.

 In order for this new Bajor to thrive, it must let go of the old hatred, their old bitterness;  not just at the Cardassians but at the Federation who refused to intervene, at the universe which doomed them to this arbitrary fate.  And this is the choice that is ultimately brought before Kira.  This is the question the story must answer.