30 Years Ago, Deep Space Nine Teased A Major Turning Point
The path of the prophets isn't always clear.
The pilot of Deep Space Nine is unusual in that no one particularly wants to be there. Commander Sisko is bitter about being relegated to a backwater posting. Odo isn’t enthusiastic about working with the Federation, and Major Kira is downright hostile about it. It’s just another job for Lieutenant Dax, and an especially demanding job for Chief O’Brien. The one man excited to be working on the frontier, young Doctor Bashir, is portrayed as naïve in his enthusiasm.
Of course, the old Cardassian station above Bajor doesn’t remain obscure for long. The pilot features the discovery of a wormhole to the distant Gamma Quadrant, and that wormhole is occupied by aliens the Bajorans revere as godlike Prophets. Matters are further complicated when Sisko develops a unique relationship with the Prophets, making the Bajorans dub him the Emissary of a belief system he has little faith in.
Much of Deep Space Nine is about Sisko struggling to come to terms with his role as a quasi-savior, which made it interesting when Season 4’s “Accession,” which aired 30 years ago this week, offered him a way out. At this point, almost exactly halfway through DS9’s run, Sisko had come to terms with his role as Bajor’s Emissary, but he still wasn’t thrilled about it. So when a Bajoran named Akorem Laan tumbles out of the wormhole and claims to be the Emissary himself, Sisko is happy to cede the role.
Akorem soon has some big ideas for reforming Bajor.
Unfortunately, Akorem has arrived from 200 years in the past and is shocked to discover that Bajor has abandoned its ancient caste system. Major Kira explains that everyone had to put aside their old identities to resist the Cardassian Occupation, which is a clever enough way to write a new trait into an existing species. But Akorem concludes that Bajor can only heal from the Occupation if it returns to the old ways, and suddenly Kira is struggling to make clay figurines while her “lessers” bow and scrape to avoid inconveniencing her.
Suddenly, no one is happy. Caste-based discrimination will photon torpedo Bajor’s application to join the Federation, which makes Sisko see himself as a failure as both a Federation officer and a friend of Bajor. Kira, for her part, is torn between her faith and her complete ineptitude as the artist she’s “supposed” to be, and when she announces her pending resignation from the Bajoran Militia to go live a quiet life as an apprentice, she doesn’t seem thrilled about it.
Kira prepares for life as a starving artist.
“Accession” tries to ask serious questions about duty and belief, and when you throw in a slice-of-life b-plot about Chief O’Brien readjusting to family life amid his bromance with Doctor Bashir, it’s a lot to cram into 45 minutes. It doesn’t all quite work — as important as the Emissary is, it’s difficult to buy that so many Bajorans would immediately buy back into a decades-old caste system, let alone, in the episode’s darkest moment, commit murder to uphold it. And while Odo points out that Kira’s faith, in asking her to jump from one Emissary to another, “seems to have led you to something of a contradiction,” that contradiction is never really addressed so much as hand-waved away by a quick jaunt over to the wormhole aliens to get everything sorted out.
Akorem realises the error of his ways and is returned to his own time, and “Accession” awkwardly skips over the Godfather-esque implications of Sisko taking his religious rival out on a shuttle ride, then returning alone to announce that the Prophets chose him. As a big swing at faith, it’s about as much as can be expected from a mid-budget, mid-‘90s sci-fi show. But as a halfway marker for Deep Space Nine as a whole, it’s a fitting milestone.
“Accession” was something of a throwback amid Deep Space Nine’s transition from a show about Bajor to a show about the inter-quadrant Dominion conflict, and Sisko’s role as Emissary would grow as cosmic as the stakes. Here, though, a story that opens with him blessing a new marriage with all the enthusiasm of a man going in for a tooth extraction ends with him happily agreeing to attend the Bajorian equivalent of a quinceañera, a small adjustment that goes a long way towards explaining his passionate defence of Bajor in the years to come.
By the end of “Accession,” Sisko is more comfortable with his spiritual role.
As for Kira, while most of her initial antagonism towards Sisko’s role as Federation stooge faded the moment he stumbled into the center of her religion, “Accession” still nods to the awkward realities of having your Messiah be the same man who signs off on your budget reports. Kira works hard throughout DS9 to see Sisko as her commanding officer first and foremost, but you get the sense that she’s going to miss having him as a spiritual leader as much as an organizational one. And when she’s surprised by Sisko’s touching response to her plans to quit, she realizes that she’s also going to miss him as a friend.
That boss/savior/pal relationship would also be important for what was coming, as Bajor would get swept up in grander storytelling ambitions. More immediately, though, Sisko would become just a little more comfortable. Deep Space Nine wasn’t always sure what to do with the Emissary, but in “Accession,” both the show and the character realized that he wouldn’t be the same without the job.
Deep Space Nine streams on Paramount+.
