bluebydefault wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:12 am
I think this is one of the reasons its hard to write stories with really powerful creatures or all powerful entities that are suppose to be good but don't really intervene. They could solve all the problems the heroes face and save lives and stop evil but they don't and there is never a really good reason for it. It isn't just with DS9 but with other shows and movies. It usually makes them look like assholes who can't be bothered of there isn't a good reason stated by the writers other than well it does take the drama out if they do solve all the problems.
Yeah, trying to depict beings that are both omnipotent and benevolent in fiction amounts to trying to solve the theological problem of evil, which philosophers have been arguing over for many centuries without any definitive resolution. Fiction certainly isn't going to come up with an easy answer.
You see this problem a lot with amateur or hack writers, where they establish a hero or villain with powers so extreme that they should either win instantly, never be defeated, or at minimum should be doing a hell of a lot more than they currently are. Rules and limitations need to be established early that state why they do not do these things. And as stated above, the Prophets for the first five seasons did have rules but somewhere along the line they were thrown out.
It is also important that you do not go to far the other way however lest we lose audience sympathy. The Ancients from Stargate have a Prime Directive that makes the Federation's look the moral code of the Conquistadors.
We used to argue whether Star Trek or Star Wars was better. Now we argue which one is worse.
This is also why I don't mind the ending of "Sacrifice of Angels" at all. That episode gets slammed a lot by fans for being a deus ex machina, but it's really not, because it actually follows the rulebook. The Prophets don't do anything in that episode that they hadn't been established to be able to do in the very first episode of the series. Flying into the wormhole is exactly what I would have done in Sisko's position.
Yukaphile wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 6:30 am
^ This. Exactly this. We brought this topic up over in the Sarah Sisko discussion thread, that they are so far removed outside the concept of linear time they don't even know what consent is, and thus using an innocent woman to spawn a baby meant nothing to them. That's rape, no matter which way you cut it. I think the line Colonel Tobin had about Darth Nihilis from KOTOR 2 fits the Prophets here.
"It is because he sees planets, stars... not people. To him, the planet below, the station with its teeming life, only that is massive enough to demand his attention."
I think the same applies here.
Yes, it is likely Jake would have died without intervention. However, it was also likely that intervening would have resulted in the Reckoning being disrupted and the natural disasters occurring on Bajor becoming worse instead of resolving. Starfleet doesn't understand the Prophets any more than the Prophets understand humans. So Sisko, balancing his duty as a Starfleet officer against his duty as a father, ultimately decided he had to bet that the Prophet wouldn't kill Jake; at the very least the Prophet wasn't going to kill Jake on purpose, because as an individual he was beneath the Prophet's notice.
Besides the question of what was the right call given that the outcome of either action was unknown when the decision was made, it demonstrates why Sisko is the Emissary and Kai Wynne is not; why would the Prophets talk to her if she doesn't trust their judgement? Which in turn is a damning indictment of her character because she wasn't forced to become their high priest.
I guess fans had a problem because Sisko's motivation wasn't clear enough. Did he deliberately fly into the wormhole to seek out the Prophets, or not? Even SF Debris commented on this. So as presented, it feels like an accident. I think that's what irks so many people.
I still think Winn made the right decision. She stopped the natural disasters on Bajor, and saved a young man's life to boot. And as presented with Sarah Sisko in their later interpretation, the Prophets don't give a fuck about the comfort and well-being of individuals. As I said, they only see planets, stars... not people. The more the series goes on, the less they are presented as a race of enigmatic alien beings and more as just religious deities, and the self-serving, manipulative kind to boot, who don't care about those they lord over.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Yukaphile wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:24 pm
I guess fans had a problem because Sisko's motivation wasn't clear enough. Did he deliberately fly into the wormhole to seek out the Prophets, or not? Even SF Debris commented on this. So as presented, it feels like an accident. I think that's what irks so many people.
I still think Winn made the right decision. She stopped the natural disasters on Bajor, and saved a young man's life to boot. And as presented with Sarah Sisko in their later interpretation, the Prophets don't give a fuck about the comfort and well-being of individuals. As I said, they only see planets, stars... not people. The more the series goes on, the less they are presented as a race of enigmatic alien beings and more as just religious deities, and the self-serving, manipulative kind to boot, who don't care about those they lord over.
Well, in hindsight it was the right decision. However, if it had killed Jake and Kira outright and torn apart the station and led to the natural disasters getting worse, which it could have, it would have been the wrong decision.
I think Sisko and Kira trust the Prophets with Jake. Whether or not they deserve that trust or not is another matter, and I can't think of evidence for a decisive answer, but I think for the story's purpose Sisko and Kira's faith in the Prophets is the important part anyway.
And I think the intention was that, regardless of whether or not Wynne saved Jake, she was doing it because she felt she deserved to be playing an important part. If I shoot someone and a time-traveller pops out of a wormhole and congratulates me for stopping the next Hitler, Stalin, or Sandler, I don't know if I could claim credit when all I knew was that he was trying to bring eleven items through the ten-items-or-fewer lane. Not full credit, anyway.
Of course, Wynne might have convinced herself that her motives were pure. People can be pretty good at that kind of thing.
When I first watched DS9 I wasn't comfortable with the Prophets being such an important part of the story, or with Sisko's role as the Emissary, and I still think it was done pretty messily. But nowadays, with more Trek to compare it to, I find myself appreciating it for being an attempt at doing something different. Spiritual beliefs have been a major influence on humans, for better and worse, and we got to see it play a part in Bajoran society while avoiding some of the cliches.
I'm agnostic. But let's be clear. If God came to me and told me to pull an Abraham, and could convince me that it was him, kill one of my own relatives or friends in his name, I'd say "Fuck you." So... I'm someone who liked the way the Prophets were written prior to "The Reckoning." After that point, it just got stupid.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
(b) There was a good practical reason why they did not flood the station with chroniton radiation. They were afraid that if they ticked off the Prophets, they would stop protecting the wormhole from the dominion. Kai Winn basically risked a Dominion invasion in what she did.
(c) [Off the topic of Winn] The biggest question with the Prophets is why the Dominion never made a chroniton array and killed them from their side of the wormhole, as the Pah Wraiths tried to get O'Brien to do in the first episode in which they appeared.
"You say I'm a dreamer/we're two of a kind/looking for some perfect world/we know we'll never find" - Thompson Twins
Gotta admit, this one has a soft spot in my heart, though I admit its got plenty of issues. As a person of faith, when I watched this as a teen, struggling with doubts, Sisko's willingness to have faith in the reckoning even to the risk of his own son, a clear parallel to Issac and Abraham, made me both awed and disturbed. It had a strong effect on my own perception of my faith, and I can't really find any fault in the supposed shift of the prophets from aliens to gods, when the only thing that really shifts is the perspective Sisko has toward them. To Dax, bashir, and the starfleet cast in general they are no more gods than Apollo from TOS, but sisko learns to see them in a different light.
G-Man wrote: ↑Mon Nov 05, 2018 11:57 am
(c) [Off the topic of Winn] The biggest question with the Prophets is why the Dominion never made a chroniton array and killed them from their side of the wormhole, as the Pah Wraiths tried to get O'Brien to do in the first episode in which they appeared.
The Dominion doesn't know that that's even possible. It's unclear whether the Dominion on the Gamma side is even aware of the existence of the Prophets. There's a number of ways their Alpha forces could have found out about that, of course, but Weyoun doesn't seem to care.
That's something I would have changed, by the way. If the Dominion had had retaking the station to use its emitters to kill the Prophets as a war goal, that would have not only kept DS9 closer to the action, but would have upped the stakes considerably.
