DS9: Honor Among Thieves

[Arkle]

Can Voyager actually tell a tragic story, anyway?

Drone, maybe?

[Wargriffin]

Unless it effects the founders, I'm pretty sure the Dominion don't care about organized crime as long as they get their cut of the action.

[Robovski]

I don't feel this would have fit into TNG as the whole reason for the exercise is that there are Starfleet officers working for the Syndicate, which would have ruffled way to many feathers then. Bad enough an Admiral has some crazy scheme, but officers? Not on Picard's watch.
It also wouldn't fit into Enterprise as Starfleet isn't developed enough for plausible regular Syndicate interaction that would be needed for such collusion. Voyager it would have to be some other organization and another layover on the trip home (but that's nothing new). That said, I think it could have made an awesome Original series episode.

I very much enjoy this epsiode, even if it is basically DS9's Donnie Brasco, Colm Meanie is a very capable actor and for a fuck with O'Brien epsiode it's a better one.

[goodperson25]

I don't feel this would have fit into TNG as the whole reason for the exercise is that there are Starfleet officers working for the Syndicate, which would have ruffled way to many feathers then. Bad enough an Admiral has some crazy scheme, but officers? Not on Picard's watch.

Officers? I feel I might have missed something in the episode I thought it was just a non specific mole. Also you sure TNG couldn't pull of a mole in starfleet scenario? Maybe not somebody met on Risa, (but then again that could actually be a point in favour) they could always add a bit to lower how corrupt it is (Non at fault blackmail, threats to the mole and/or loved ones, full on ransom, they offered him hostess fruitpies, ect) I don't think the mole is really the point of the episode.

[SlackerinDeNile]

I still to this day don't understand why O'Brien was allowed to take on an undercover role, isn't this kind of thing Section 31's job? I wasn't aware O'Brien had this kind of experience and training or that Starfleet allowed its officers to volunteer for operations completely different to their usual work whenever they felt like it. Are they the FBI or the the space police in this episode?

No, Starfleet Intelligence is one of several organizations that do Intelligence for Starfleet and the Federation. I think their real world equivalent would be ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence. S31 is equivalent to having your intelligence work done by a secret, independent militia/secret society. It always bugs me how Trek fans really assume that S31 really is part of the Federation government, and not a rogue arm of it. Odo was full of shit when he said they were the equivalent of the Tal Shiar or Obsidian Order, as the Federation already has that with Federation Security, Vulcan Intelligence, and Starfleet Intelligence.

The reason why SI is involved is because Starfleet officers are working for the Syndicate.

Why they're hiring O'Brien for this mission? Because he's in the main cast. That's really it. Same reason why Picard, Crusher, and Worf are the ones going on a Black Ops mission in Chain of Command, or having Kirk steal the Romulan cloaking device in The Enterprise Incident.

If you want a Watsonian answer instead of a Doylist one, maybe it's because SI is stretched thin because of the war? Or it could be because Starfleet has overly focused on Jack's of All Trades and this practice has affected their intelligence capabilities?

Either way, O'brien really shouldn't be there, but he is so that they can have this episode.

Okay, thanks, apologies for confusing Section 31 with the more legitimate Starfleet Intelligence.
Also I don't feel it's worth the effort to try and justify bad Trek episodes within the canon and world building, but I guess if you're into that kind of thing it's fine.

Can Voyager actually tell a tragic story, anyway?

Voyager IS a tragic story! *ba dum tish*

[CareerKnight]

1. The Orion Syndicate is working with the Vorta. Like hell they are. One of the things that makes fascism dangerously appealing to people is its focus on law and order, without having to worry about all those pesky rules that make law enforcement's job difficult. Having to go after Al Capone for tax evasion? Screw that, everyone knows he's guilty, why bother building a decent case in court? Just have our brownshirts march in and "disappear" the guy. Whack him, or put him in a secret prison somewhere never to see the light of day again, whatever. Boom, problem solved.

Basically, if the Orion Syndicate are helping the Dominion take over the galaxy, they are the dumbest crime ring ever. The chances of the Dominion allowing their operation to continue without an iron boot coming down on them 5 minutes after they take over are about 0.0000%.

2. The Federation diverts essential personnel from a critical outpost during wartime to fight a crime syndicate. Like hell they do. Can you imagine something like this happening during, say, World War II? Recalling officers from the European theater to fight the Mafia? And officers with no relevant training or experience, at that. In real life, the US worked with the Mafia in its effort to liberate Italy. Because when the stakes are that high, the rules are different. Hell, even Stalin can become an ally against a grave enough threat. There's no way that they'd actually take people away from the war effort to fight these lesser threats who, in all honesty, should be on our side, at least for now.

I can see the Dominion holding their nose and working with the Orion syndicate to get what they want ... and then disappear them into the night the moment they're in control of the Alpha Quadrant. But you're absolutely right the syndicate is dumb as shit for aligning with them, and Starfleet's priorities are really, really skewed for them to take time out of their war effort to try to deal with a crime synidcate. I could understand if they knew all along they were running guns for the Dominion but O'Brien's contact seemed really shocked that was the case. Maybe it was an act and they did suspect as much and that's why, but otherwise this is stupid.

One thing to keep in mind is not everyone in universe knows the Dominion as well as the main characters do. I'm sure the Federation isn't keeping it quiet but a lot of people outside the Federation are going to dismiss it as propaganda (plus the Vorta are practically bred to tell people what they want to hear). Basically if you want to call the Orion Syndicate and Dominion working together bs then you have to call bs on the Romulans signing a non aggression pact with them cause any argument against the former can be applied to the latter with only minor modification. Another important thing to remember is we don't know what the deal between the two was. Maybe the Dominion just offered money in which case yea the Syndicate is being pretty short sighted but then again if simple greed wasn't a good motivator for them then they probably wouldn't be criminals. On the other hand maybe the Dominion may have offered them a lot more such as (off the top of my head) getting exclusive trade rights in their territory once the Dominion takes over the alpha quadrant, allowing them to charge the occupied populace whatever they want.

As for O'Brien, as other have said its just cause he's a main character (and probably the best choice out of that pool). Main characters do everything is something that comes up a lot in Trek and while this episode might stand out in that regard cause the entire episode is built on it, its probably not the worst example in Trek. Heck it might not even make the top five. At least the episode attempts to explain it instead of just pretending its perfectly reasonable like it so many other cases.

[Darth Wedgius]

I think there's one good reason for this to be an episode of DS9 rather than TNG, Voyager, or Enterprise. I think DS9 did a much better job with a mix of dark and light in its characters. The one who vouched for O'Brien is shown to murder someone in cold blood, and who values his family more than anything. He sees what O'Brien did as a death sentence for himself (whether it really was or not doesn't matter). What does he do? He more or less wishes O'Brien well and heads off to die.

Voyager and Enterprise had weapons developers who were appalled at what they'd accomplished, but they developed weapons for what they saw as noble purposes -- a necessary evil at worst, at least while they were developing them. I can't see them as flawed as this character from DS9. Ro Laren betrayed Picard, but saw it as the right thing to do at the time, and even Riker sympathized,

[RobbyB1982]

Can Voyager actually tell a tragic story, anyway?

There was that time where the entire ship of Voyager clones died one by one until they dissolved into unidentifiable goo, and the real Voyager passed them by without ever knowing what happened.

[Robovski]

Can Voyager actually tell a tragic story, anyway?

There was that time where the entire ship of Voyager clones died one by one until they dissolved into unidentifiable goo, and the real Voyager passed them by without ever knowing what happened.

Practically ran over their squished remains on the highway. Kinda undermined the tragedy.

[drewder]

So talking about the girl that bilby gets for O'Brien it seems like in Gene's ideal future ideas such as not cheating on your wife would have gone away as humanity evolved.