Destruction of the Defiant

Story: The Changing Face of Evil
Written By: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Year: 1999

Worf and Ezri return to the station with news of the Breen-Dominion Alliance. It also gives us some great dialogue between Worf and Ezri (who have now learned to be good friends) about her thing for Bashir (he plays with toys). I love that this episode has a lot of great character moments leading up to the battle scene. The scene where everyone is just doing their jobs preparing for war while simultaneously talking about Bashir losing one of the models of O’Brien’s Alamo Model is brilliant.
The Breen invade the Chn’toka system. It would be a tough blow to the Federation if they were to lose it, so they go to battle, but the battle goes badly. Many ships are lost and the Dominion takes back the system. The Defiant is one of the many lost. It is quickly destroyed, and Sisko is forced to call for abandoning the ship. It is sad to see this ship die.

The other main story is once again between Dukat and Winn. In this episode she requests some texts that are known to be evil and are forbidden to all but the Kai. It worries her main servant. After Dukat acts like an asshole and punches this guy, he does some research and discovers not only is Dukat lying about his name but he reveals to Winn that he is in fact Gul Dukat. It is a shocking blow to Winn, who in trying to prevent her servant from telling anyone, she accidentally stabs him (I think it was an accident it was hard to tell). The blood falls on the text (which was blank when they found it) and it erupts in flames that bring about the evil text. Crazy weird stuff going on here.

Meanwhile, Damar is slowly building a resistance movement against the Dominion, and by the end of the episode he gives a badass speech from a hidden location exclaiming that his resistance has destroyed the cloning facilities of the Dominion (knowing that there could be no more Weyouns if the current one were to die) and that all Cardassians should resist their occupiers. Sisko and Ross decide they need to figure out a way to help Damar, he may be the hope of ending the war.

The twists and destinations in this one are incredible. Losing such a big battle and the Defiant, and what a turn that Damar may be the only hope of saving the Alpha Quadrant.

NEXT TIME: Odo Infected With the Founder Disease