#036 - Fellowship of the ring-shaped space station

Man, Geordi is just so totally stoked about dropping this big pile of quest exposition that I’m kind of infected with his enthusiasm. I’m excited about how excited a fan-made rendition of a fictional character giving a made-up speech as an NPC is, but I’m the fan who made it.

I don’t even know how to unravel my feelings here.

But, so, yes: granted that Kai Opaka is a lot more sedate and like Zen Master about the whole thing in the actual show, but it was still a pretty blatant quest drop, yeah? They really kind of lay that out there in that little speech under the holographic Bajoran pond.

Next Generation sort of opened up with a series-defining theme in its pilot too but it was a lot more vague and muddled, with that kangaroo court featuring Judge Q being all “humans are terrible” and Picard all “nuh uh, we’re actually pretty okay once you get to know us” and sort of a vague understanding that Picard and his crew were going to figuratively represent the aspirational nature of future humankind. But other than being in tune with the Roddenberrian optimism of the Star Trek premise, even that wasn’t really tied back into the ongoing plot of the show directly until the very final episode seven seasons later.

Whereas DS9 just goes big with the whole thing. Like boom! Intersection of core non-human cultural metaphysics, some truly alien beings, political and social conflicts with the Cardassians, Sisko’s own personal struggles and Campbellian “Unwilling Hero” mold, and the (spoiler alert!) wormhole as a nexus for all these things and further galactic developments later in the show. If that shit doesn’t deserve a grandiloquent speech by the Game Master, I don’t know what does.

So you go, Geordi.