DS9 S02E13 & S02E14

In this installment:
(viewed Sunday, July 27th)

Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S02E13 - "Armageddon Game"
Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S02E14 - "Whispers"

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"Armageddon Game"

• The T'Lani cruiser seen next to the much smaller Danube-class runabout (which we later find out is the USS Ganges) is one of many redresses of the studio model originally built as a Talarian observation craft for the TNG episode "Suddenly Human".
  
  
  
  (Left: Tamarian observation craft, TNG "Suddenly Human"; Right: T'Lani cruiser, DS9 "Armageddon Game")
• The episode opens with Dr. Bashir's chief medical officer's log, which he describes his and Chief O'Brien's mission to help two alien species (the T'Lani and the Kelleruns) destroy their stockpiles of a deadly bio-weapon:  "Harvesters", nanobots capable of disrupting the genetic structure of their victims.
  
  Seems like a pretty standard mission, to me.  What could go wrong?
• It's a trap!  More importantly, it's a trap where the Kelleruns are using energy weapons that will eventually be adapted into the rifle carried by Jem'Hadar soldiers ;)
  
  
  
  (image from The Art of Star Trek, courtesy of Ex Astris Scientia)
• We've established two things:
• Chief O'Brien's love for combat rations is particular--he likes Federation combat rations, dontchaknow?
• If you're going to get marooned on a planet devastated by war and have to find a way to survive, there are worse people with whom to form your post-apocalyptic survival team than a genetically-engineered genius doctor and scientist, and a combination engineering guru and grizzled combat veteran.  BASHIR/O'BRIEN 2016.
  
• Aww, I think this is the episode where Bashir and O'Brien become besties.
• "It's no secret that your assignment to the Station hasn't been conducive to your marriage."
  
  "SAY THAT AGAIN?!?"
  
  "Why don't we just forget it?"
  
  "That's the first intelligent thing you've said since we got here."
  
  Smooth move, Bashir.
• See?  This is what happens when you help a bunch of jerk-hole aliens destroy their stupid biological weapons:  Your best dude gets infected with nano-bugs.  I think we all saw this coming.
• This episode is pretty much the only time I'm even slightly sympathetic to Keiko.  She may be pretty much the worst person in the history of people, but it's always a bummer when you've gotta tell someone that their significant other got vaporized by a radiation pulse.
• Sharing your college diaries with a woman you're relentless chasing to help her "understand you better?"  How is it that, even in an episode where everyone thinks he's dead and is all sad about it, Bashir still comes off as creepy?  :P
• "To our dear, departed comrades.  We may have had our differences, but I'll say this for them--and it's the highest praise I can offer:  They were good customers.  They always paid their bar bill on time."
• The 57th Rule of Acquisition:  "Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them."
• Chief O'Brien never drinks coffee late in the afternoon.  It keeps him up at night.
  
  Duh, guys.  Duh.
• "It's not enough to destroy the Harvesters.  We must ensure no one can ever recreate them."
  
  "The only way to do that was to eliminate everyone who possessed such knowledge."
  
  Well, that's not an incorrect statement.  A little cold-blooded, perhaps.  But not incorrect.
• So long, USS Ganges.  We hardly knew you.  But don't worry, your old pal USS Yangtzee Kiang is waiting for you in Runabout Heaven.  And you'll have plenty more company soon enough.
  
  Because seriously.  You guys are just gonna drop like flies.  LIKE FLIES.
  
  
  
  USS Ganges
  2369(?) - 2370
  RIP
• "You know, Mrs. O'Brien, they say that when two people face death together, it creates a bond that cannot be broken."
  
  Translation:  "Me and your husband are going to be best friends forever, whether he likes it or not.  Be prepared to be jealous of our friendship here in a couple of seasons."
• "Miles, you never drink coffee in the afternoon."
  
  "Well sure I do!"
  
  "You do?!?"

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 "Whispers"

• Ooh, two O'Brien-centric episodes in a row!  I know not everyone likes him as much as I do, but he's my favorite character on DS9 and probably one of my favorite Trek characters overall.  I enjoy any chance they give him for extra screen time, even if it's in (what I remember being) a mediocre Season 2 episode :)
• Our runabout of the week for this episode is the USS Rio Grande, the only one of Deep Space 9's original three runabouts (the other two being the Yangtzee Kiang and the Ganges) to still be with us at this point in what is only the show's second season.
  
  
  
  USS Rio Grande:  Lone survivor of DS9's original pack of runabouts
  
  If my memory serves (which it often does not), I believe the Rio Grande actually survives the entire series.  I think it does crash at one point though, but I think they also use it in the final season at least once.  If I were a less lazy man, I would simply read the Memory-Alpha article that I literally linked just up in the previous paragraph.
  
  I guess I'll just be surprised.  NO SPOILERS ABOUT WHICH RUNABOUTS CRASH, PEOPLE.
  
  ;D
• It's always a little strange to me that there are ever this little side missions where a single crew-member will take a shuttlecraft or a runabout off by themselves to go do something. It makes narrative sense, as it gives them a chance to get that character off by themselves and to have interesting things happen to them. 
  
  But from an in-universe perspective it makes absolutely no sense to ever send anyone anywhere without at least one other person.  And usually they do send two-person teams (or larger) on the shuttle/runabout "side quests"...but there's more than one time (on TNG and DS9 especially, and I'm sure they did it at least once or twice on VOY and ENT) that someone's just going off on their own in a little spaceship and just rolling the dice that they don't run into trouble.
• "I've got to try and set the record straight about the last 52 hours..."
  
  Oh, a flashback episode.  These are always either awesome or really terrible.
• "Coffee, Jamaican blend.  Double-strong, double-sweet."
  
  Chief O'Brien seems to be one of the only DS9 characters that doesn't favor raktajino, the Klingon coffee popular with so many of his comrades.
• "Did you have sweet dreams, darlin'?"
  
  "Go away!"
  
  "Don't I get my morning kiss?"
  
  "No!"
  
  Molly O'Brien sucks almost as bad as her mom.
  
  It's okay, Chief.  I'll keep rooting for your family to be killed in a shuttle crash on one of their frequent jaunts back-and-forth between the station and Bajor or Earth.
• Everybody is kind of being a d*ck to O'Brien.  I mean...moreso than usual.  That's no fun (or a lot of fun, depending on your perspective).
• The Paradans stink when they get mad?  Got it.
• "You're sense of humor seems normal enough."
  
  "I don't have a sense of humor."
  
  "How's the sex life?"
  
  "I don't have a sense of humor."
• See?  She doesn't even like fricandeau stew.  WHAT A MONSTER.
• I think it's kind of adorable that they thought they could hide computer files from Miles Edward O'Brien, super-engineer.
• "I'm glad your back, Odo."
  
  "We'll get to the bottom of this."
  
  Sure.  Sure we will.
• The 194th Rule of Acquisition:  "It's always good business to know about new customers before they walk in your door."
• O'Brien's still got a few tricks up his sleeve.  SMOKE BOMB!
  
  
• "It'll be okay.  Just surrender to them and you'll be fine."
  
  Pfft.  Like Miles Edward O'Brien ever surrenders, kid.
• "If you check your systems, you'll see that the mooring clamps are already unlocked and your tractor beams are offline.  O'BRIEN OUT."
  
  /drops mic EJ-7 interlock
• The beam weapons fired by Deep Space 9 on the fleeing Rio Grande are green--what we're used to seeing with disruptors rather than phasers. 
  
  
  
  Well, that's not a phaser beam.
  
  One might think that perhaps this early in the Federation's stay aboard the station, they might not have had time to replace any existing Cardassian armaments with their own, but there are two problems with that hypothesis:
  
  
  1. Because the Cardassians were handing Deep Space 9 (then Terok Nor) over to a hated enemey who had just defeated them by way of a grueling guerrilla war, I think it's highly unlikely that they left any functional Cardassian weapons systems on the station.  I think it's safe to assume that they either dismantled them and took them with them, or disabled them.
  2. The principle Cardassian warships shown in Trek (the Galor class and its rarer cousin, the Keldon class) are usually shown using similar weaponry to Starfleet ships (e.g. phasers and photon torpedoes), so it's safe to assume that their space stations would do likewise.
  
  In either case, it's the most minor of nitpicks. Even familiar Starfleet ships are shown through the various Trek series firing their weapons from incorrect positions on the hulls (such as sensor domes or deflector dishes), and sometimes firing beam or projectile weapons of differing (i.e. incorrect) colors.  So the fact that they threw some green ray-gun blasts shooting out of DS9--especially early in the series when they were still establish their own internal canon?  Not surprising at all.
  
  Edit:  I've just checked, and although Cardassians definitely use both phasers and photon torpedoes, the officially-listed primary armament for the Galor class is a "spiral wave disruptor".  But either way, it shoots red crap and not green crap.  That was my point :P
  
• What a second...two O'Briens?  This episode just got even better!
• The decision to call the copy of O'Brien made by the Paradan government a "replicant" was apparently an intentional homage to the film Blade Runner.