Today's Thought Experiment: We're going to assume that everything went well for Kovat and he got to retire just like he wanted. What's he up to these days?
He is cashing in on being the ONLY defense lawyer to ever win a case by starting a game show. "Legal Brief(case)" It's like Deal or no deal except contestants are on trial and in each case there's a different sentence and one case has an O'Brien level release (still guilty though). It's a huge hit.
Has Gul Evek being a crossover character been mentioned? In the space of a year or so he was in TNG twice, DS9 thrice, and finally was in the Voyager pilot commanding the ship Chakotay and his crew were fleeing from at the very the start. It's interesting how much setup the Maquis in Voyager got from the other two series only for them to almost never use it on the actual show that's supposedly starring them.
Such a prisoner exchange is completely unbelievable and would never happen in the real world. WNBA player imprisoned in Ruusia on minor drug possession charges exchanged for arms dealer known as "The Merchant of Death". Dammit.
This is one of those lovely unplanned bits of synchronicity that crops up throughout DS9. it doesn't break an earlier story, it fits in perfectly. Maritza may have consciously known Bajor and the Fed do trials differently but that's not the same as internalising the notion
I do love how eventually, a lot of this sneaky adherence to "order" is going to end up biting the Cardassians in the ass when someone with an even bigger Order-boner than them comes along. Also in hindsight, the fact that Odo, a changeling, defeated the Cardassian justice system could be seen as subtle foreshadowing.
The way you describe Kovat and the Justice system he serves is intriguing. I think you’re spot on with him being kind and grandfatherly, and the system working for a “greater good.” It all reminds me of a quote admittedly from another media source. Though it feels accurate here. “There is a fine line between mercy and cruelty.”
Yes. But the politics of the Federation is to keep peace with Cardassia. So the truth takes a back seat. I'm sure the those back in HQ would have allowed O'Brien to take the fall if it meant keeping peace with Cardassia.
@@Joshua-ew6ks "The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based, and if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform."
THANK YOU!! I'v ehad the same feelings about Starfleet's lack of response to this situation. And there's little mention of everything he went through. Maybe I'm just a petty bastard but I'd be hiring Garrek to exact some revenge on the ones responsible. But that wouldn't paint our heroes in a good light either. Still something would have been nice and the ending is too abrupt. There's no time to deal with the effects of what happened and as I mentioned before it's barely mentioned again.
'A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness.' I feel like there's a parallel here with Star Fleet - at least in terms of narrative. Star Trek generally takes the position that the main characters are part of a force for good. If they alter or significantly affect an alien culture, it's usually treated as the right thing to do. This is because the narrative ensures that unless it's intended for the audience to not be on their side - an action taken on screen by a core cast member is likely to have a justification because that's what the writers have written. Gul Dukat's little quote and your own thoughts this episode made me realize that the Cardassian Union basically takes that narrative justification and attempts to apply it as a practical assumption - not by making sure their actions are justified but by rewriting or ignoring any facts that might contradict them. The same assumptions and trust the audience makes about star fleet because it's a tv show applied to a 'real' organization resulting in a fascist police state
Kovat's speech about having someone to punish for a crime being an uplifting experience for society reminds me so much of certain elements in our own society being frustrated with rights of the accused like innocent until proven guilty, the burden of proof being on the accuser, knowing what the charges are against you, being able to confront your accuser have a distressing tendency to lead to "not guilty" verdicts in sexual assault cases. The recent regulatory guidance to Title IX in the USA returning University procedures in adjudicating sexual assault accusations to where they were before 2016, which look remarkably like the Cardassian "justice" system.
It's also similar to the Japan court system. They have a 99.99% conviction rate. While some attribute it to overcautious prosecutors who won't take it to trial unless they have a 100% airtight case, reality is very different. The prosecutors are apprentices to the presiding judge and the attitude is "since this has gotten to trial, the defendant must be guilty of something". When you have a judge that has a professional connection with the prosecution and a biased attitude towards the defendant, you tend to get a conviction in any case.
Loved this episode. I always wonder what the crew of the Odyssey was doing this week while the DS9 crew was running around. Maybe their doctor was pushing people into some mediocre musical production, maybe their first officer was flirting with the botanist in the arboretum. You should look up the career Captain Keoghs actor had, to say he was prolific would be an understatement.
Basically the Japan court system: 99.999% conviction rate. If you go to trial in Japan, you will be convicted. The Prosecutors are apprentices to the judges and, if the it goes to trial, the assumption is you must be guilty of something. It is just a matter of finding out what you are guilty of.
The flipside of this is that the Japanese court system only has that conviction rate because Japanese prosecutors will only press charges if they're very confident they'll win. Ironically the defense attorneys tend to have the same problems, leading to an awful lot of useless ineptitude all round.
That'll be decided by Patreon vote. The good news is that the last vote (which resulted in DS9) had Enterprise as the second choice, so odds are high it'll be next.
@@mjbull5156 yeah and that's annoying. The Cardassians abducted a federation citizen outside their space, that should be treated as an act of war. I mean imagine if North Korea boarded an american cruise ship in the pacific and abducted some american citizens on the claim they were spies?
This just proves that Star Trek works with Horror-Logic in the background. You go into enemy territory, you leave the kid at home, you have every intention of gittn' bizzay. Look what happened.
I don't remember anyone even broaching the topic of stealing O'Brian back via teleporters in this episode. That really annoyed me. At least in TNG they didn't know where the people they needed to rescue were. Here they know exactly where O'Brian is, know he was taken illegally from Federation space (aka kidnapping), and know that Cardasian's justice system includes casual torture and execution.
3:10 you mentioned murdered civilians and i believe you're refering to the colonoies that have formed the Marquis . - i do think its worth repeating that those colonists where warned about the dangers and offered relocation by the federation. With regards to O'Brien, this is a direct violation of the federation's or Bajor's borders (its unclear which in the episode) including the illegal abduction of a starfleet crewman - whilst not as morally objectionable as what the Cardagins are doing in the DMZ, this is a direct challenge to the federations authority (either directly or on behalf of Bajor) and not responding is not really an option if you wish your borders to be accepted in yhe future.
I recall being annoyed by this episode, specifically Starfleet and the Federation's inability to protect two of its citizens in Federation space from abduction by a foreign power. In my book, that's an act of war.
I do like how the DS9 crew do actually consider that O'Brien might be guilty (particularly given his past). Also, it seems inconceivable that the Cardies would broadcast trials live - surely this is a recipe for determined rebels to make a last (albeit doomed) cry of resistance?
I always assumed that the federation chose to placate the Kardashians because of the Dominion threat. When the Klingons attack they can hold this up to show how [insert value, I'm not touching that 😂] they are. But ducat flipped of course so Cisco had to pale moonlight the situation.
I always assumed that it was a member of the Marquis who, quite rightly, did not want to be dragged into yet another Cardassian plot to justify having them wiped out/removed.
And once again, I'm left wondering: do Cardigan females just have that blob in the middle of their foreheads naturally blue, or do they use some sort of cosmetic to make it that way, like eyeshadow (blobshadow)? And, re: Fritz Weaver - is that Cardigan wearing.... a CARDIGAN?!?!?
So I just went down a rabbit hole. I looked through all the Cardigan women I could see on Memory Alpha and I saw only one who did not have a blue spoon, the orphan girl Garak and Bashir spoke to on Bajor. This suggests to me that it is likely a trait that only comes later in life, likely signifying sexual maturity. There are three other Cardigans that were of special interest to me. Mila, Tain's housekeeper, had a faded blue spoon. She doesn't seem the type that would be wearing a lot of cosmetics. Seska's spoon was faintly blue even before all her Cardigan features came back. Kira Nyres as Iliana Ghemor had a blue spoon. It seems unlikely that the surgeons would have put cosmetics on Kira, and even less likely that Kira would have done it herself. Different Cardigans have different intensities of blue on their spoons so I think it's a natural feature that is sometimes exaggerated with cosmetics. Like how human lips are reddish, but can be made redder with lipstick.
@@AngerAndScience Garak's spoon is blue once, when discussing how Odo makes a drink as an extension of his body to as to make it appear as though he is drinking and then later just before the Klingons beat him up in 'The Way of the Warrior'. While it appears to be a more feminine thing, it it not, apparently, exclusively a feminine thing.
Why did Mukbang recognize Pitta Chips? Do all Cardigan judges know the faces of all Cardigan secret agents? That's not a very secret agent. Or did she know his face because he was relevant to the current case. In which case, she knew that the trial was bullshit. It makes a lot more sense to keep that information from your judges so that they can have plausible deniability and if they are a true believer then you don't threaten their belief.
On the one hand I see your point about plausible deniability, but on the other hand it's also useful to have a judge in a case like this know enough to be able to step in and shut down any testimony or line of questioning with the potential to reveal the truth.
I was always bother by what the Cardies WANTED out of this one. Their stated goal was to embarrass the Federation...but HOW does this do that? The very moment the Fed's demand to know how they got their evidence, which is just as easy to manufacture as the 'judge' claims that evidence for the defense is, given they did manufacture it, there's no way this will do any of that. Heck, they're lucky that the Federation is currently in a good mood/peace times. The Federation of just a year or three later would have taken this as an act of violence, and would have responded in kind. Heck, even the 'current(Prodigy/Picard) era' would see it less as a reason to give ground, and more as a reason to invade Cardassia with a strike team to get back the most important man in Starfleet History. What I'm saying is, if this was an Obsidian Order op, no wonder Tain came out of retirement, after these witless bums almost dragged the Union into a fight it CANNOT win.
Honestly, the cardassians are so unsubtle about this in this episode it's a wonder nobody comments to the effect of "...Do you really think your citizens are that stupid?"
this episode, makes me so angry- i have an over developed sense of fairness; to the extent i caused the local council to revamp the system, so anyone, could get to the staff window before they called the next person, by publicly calling the system discriminatory and ableist
