The Reckoning

Another episode of the prophets. This time a prophet takes over Kira's body to fight a Pah wraith that grabbed Jake's body. And of course the shootout takes place on the station while both face each other like gunslingers in a Western movie. But instead of pulling their guns they just shoot different colored energy beams at each other which come out of their bellies.

Even worse than those Bajorans still thinking that the prophets are their gods, Sisko is now full on prophet mode, too. Ignore the fact, that this species is just a highly evolved non-corporal life form that exists beyond our definition of space and linear time.

All starts with a stone tablet that is found in ancient ruins on Bajor. Sisko travels to Bajor to investigate but the petroglyphs cannot be deciphered on the spot so Sisko decides to take the whole tablet with him back to the station (I wonder why he doesn't just take a photograph or a holographic image - he did that before with an obelisk he found in that same ancient city in another episode). Suddenly nature catastrophes begin to strike Bajor and the wormhole seems to cause quakes in space. Kai Winn is not amused and accuses Sisko of blasphemy and that he caused all this by stealing the sacred artefact.

And then it is high noon and the energy beings battle each other while Sisko seems just fine with risking the life of his son dying in that fight. It is just really bad.

Kai Winn makes a huge statement in this episode: One that speaks directly to her lack of qualification to actually be the Kai of The Bajora: she has never spoken to The Prophets.

In the first episode where we meet this Bajoran version of a television evangelist, "In the hands of The Prophets", she claims visions from the "Orb" justify her persecution of Keiko O'Brien.

We can now officially ascribe this as a LIE.

She has never seen nor spoken to The Prophets, and in this episode that continues: they basically ignore her completely.

Lies from religious figureheads is certainly nothing new, it is something that we see on this planet constantly especially with the so-called spiritual advisor in the "orange" house (in 2019). A verse from Jeremiah comes to mind:

Jeremiah 23:21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

And Kai Winn embodies this type of hypocrisy where people dare claim to be speaking for a God that does not speak to them. Jeremiah was not the only one who spoke against this kind of hypocrisy, it is all through the Old Testament. And the New Testament.

This episode reveals some of the religious aspects of The Bajoran Religion, also the topic of prophecy. Who are we to say what something actually means? And The Sisko, who had a direct line to The Prophets and spoke to them constantly, doesn't really understand until the last minute what The Prophets were actually saying.

The Bajorans are either going to be destroyed, or they will eat fruit.

Kai Winn interferes with The Prophets, once again.

Of Course, there are going to be some residents of Reddit to come here to IMDb Who are going to start babbling on about filler episodes. In deep space nine, there was no such thing, and one of the aspects of this episode becomes an important figure in the final episode of this season and also of the final season: Kosst Amojan/Amoran: The prophet that was kicked out of the celestial temple.

I'll never buy into this stuff. I continue to say that the Bajoran people are like ridiculous sheep. They walk around the space station, most of them saying nothing, and getting nowhere. Once again the Kai and Benjamin butt heads over their power bases. Ben has brought some stone thing on board. It is very old and seems to have magical powers. Here we go again.

The truth came out with her but I'm not watching another episode with her in it. Period.

What a creepy actress she fits her charachter well. Her personal history makes you wonder why she was ever cast. Creepy.

This episode represents almost everything wrong with DS9 belonging in in Star Trek universe. The Dominion war is the exception but the religious mumbo jumbo is a betrayal of Roddenberry's dream. It also represents how much of a rip off of Babylon 5 the show. With over 25 similarities the show is clearly the result of Trek producers seeing the B5 bible that JMS presented for consideration as new a new series and it being rejected but suddenly DS9 appeared.