DS9 "The Reckoning"

[Durandal_1707]

I want to know is how did a Prophet and Pah-Wraith get into that stone and into that city. They are non-corporeal beings and can't exist outside of places without some sort of host body. That brings up a theory of mine that the Prophets was using Sisko to set things up for his eventual arrival into the wormhole.

A wizard did it.

[Yukaphile]

That's pretty much the explanation you have to accept with the Prophets, it's magic. And it makes me think back to what Chuck had said in his follow-up video to the Dominion War arc, on why the Prophets were so hard. In a series of, supposedly, strict rationalism and science, this is why.

[Durandal_1707]

The Prophets were completely fine for the first five seasons, because they had really clear and well-defined limitations. Their powers, compared to many established Trek super-beings (especially the Q), were fairly reasonable, and all related to the extra-dimensionality of the space-time pocket they lived in. In the first five seasons, we saw that they can:

- See the past and future, by virtue of living outside time.

- Open and close the wormhole, a portal from their home to our space-time continuum.

- Talk to you, if you go into their home.

- Send you to various points in time from their home, if you go there.

- Mess up your shit if you come into their home with hostile or annoying intentions.

- Send communication devices through the wormhole (I'm lumping the Orbs and the "Rapture" zappy thing together here) to try to learn more about this weird linear-time dimension they've found, and communicate with the locals.

They're basically explorers, just with a really alien point of view. That's extremely Trek.

It's only when the writers started throwing out the rulebook that they became magical, around the time this episode came out. Suddenly the Prophets don't have any of their former limitations:

- Need you to use an Orb or travel to their home in order to talk to them? Not anymore! Now they can just give people visions whenever they want. There's even gonna be a subplot now about Kai Winn being pissed off that they haven't done it to her.

- Don't understand or experience linear time or change? Now they've got a very linear existence in which they are always fighting each other, kicking each other out of the wormhole, coming back into the wormhole, trapping each other in artifacts, and generally undergoing all sorts of state changes that require linearity.

- Can't leave the wormhole? Now they sure can. And they can possess people and carry out all sorts of convoluted linear machinations clear on the other side of the Alpha Quadrant.

What are the Prophets' limitations in season 6-7? After this episode, they pretty much are magic.

[Yukaphile]

As others have said, it might have had to do with the departure of... was it Wolfe?

[Deledrius]

The Prophets were completely fine for the first five seasons, because they had really clear and well-defined limitations.

[... Lots of good stuff ...]

What are the Prophets' limitations in season 6-7? After this episode, they pretty much are magic.

I think you nailed this pretty solidly. Good examples.

[Durandal_1707]

As others have said, it might have had to do with the departure of... was it Wolfe?

That was me. I don't really have any evidence for it (other than Wolfe being co-writer with Behr for most of his episodes prior to Season 6 and thus presumbly being pretty influential), but it sure does feel like things took a turn for the weird shortly after he left.

[name_here]

I think Winn did the right thing here. Kira, the religious fanatic, thinks she was wrong, and while her reasons were wrong, her actions DID save the life of a young man. I can't blame her for that when Sisko, his so-called father, wasn't doing anything. And yeah, I think their actions with Sarah prove that he would have been dead meat if that Prophet had won.

I think at best she did the right thing for the wrong reasons, and Sisko was thinking straight. While Jake was obviously in danger there's at least some reason to think that the Prophet would be a bit careful with the Emissary's son, while there's some risk that if driven out by a brute-force radiation blast the Pah Wraith would murder him out of spite before leaving, and beyond that with the Prophet winning the worst-case scenario would be Jake's death, while if the fight is disrupted it risks the duo relocating to random people on Bajor and ending up devastating a huge chunk of a major city if they opt against just resuming a beam duel.

[PapaPalpatine]

I always thought evacuation was a sensible precaution under the circumstances. If you know there's about to be a throwdown between two supernatural entities, it's best that there not be a whole bunch of innocent bystanders to get underfoot. Have all non-essential personnel and civilians temporarily leave the station until the big title bout is over and then it's business as usual afterwards.

[Yukaphile]

I don't think the Prophets would care if an innocent died. They sure as hell were willing to use an innocent woman simply as a brood mare to spawn Sisko. She was a pawn to them. I have no doubt Jake would have died.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think Winn did the right thing here. Kira, the religious fanatic, thinks she was wrong, and while her reasons were wrong, her actions DID save the life of a young man. I can't blame her for that when Sisko, his so-called father, wasn't doing anything. And yeah, I think their actions with Sarah prove that he would have been dead meat if that Prophet had won.

For one thing, I think you're too harsh on Kira. She's faithful but she's hardly a religious fanatic. Any fanaticism or extremism she displays is related to her actions as a freedom fighter rather than her belief system. It's a bit rich to call anyone a "religious fanatic" in the same paragraph where you praise a religious leader who literally had people murdered so she could win a theological argument.

Jake said that Cisco letting the fight continue would have been the right choice. And remember that whole prophecy about this fight deciding the future of Bajor? Could be some considerable unintended consequences for that whole thing.