Line #81 Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E07CivilDefense


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/civildefense.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"Would you allow 2,000 people aboard this station to die simply because you don't like... us?"]]
3
4	O'Brien, Jake, and Sisko are in one of the station's abandoned ore processing facilities, getting started on a project to turn it into a deuterium refinery. While trying to reformat the computer, Jake comes across a mysterious Cardassian file that doesn't want to be deleted. When O'Brien tries to mess with it, the file triggers an old security program that locks down the room and shows them a prerecorded video of everyone's favorite prefect, [[Characters/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineGulDukat Gul Dukat]]. It turns out the computer thinks the trio are "revolting workers." Without the password, no one -- not even the staff in Ops -- knows how to convince it otherwise.
5
6	Dukat's talking head invites them to surrender or be killed. As the clock ticks down, Sisko and the others narrowly manage to find a way out of the room before neurocine gas floods the room. This buys them some time, but they find themselves in yet another dead-end room of the ore processing labyrinth. To make matters worse, the computer notices their escape and raises its automatic security alert to level 2.
7
8	Forcefields appear around Ops, ostensibly to protect the senior staff, but it also means they are trapped there. Odo, who has been trying to help shut down the program, is also sealed inside his office along with Quark, who decided that Odo's office was the safest spot in an emergency. The pair are stuck together throughout the crisis.
9
10	A new strategy for disabling the security program fails when a force field comes on over a circuit box in Ops and nearly takes off Dax's hands. This makes the program believe that Ops has been compromised, so it again tightens its grip, threatening to kill everyone on the habitat ring with neurocine if the "revolt" is not put down soon. Garak, whose old Cardassian codes give him enough access to move through the force fields, shows up in Ops with fresh ideas on how to defeat the program. His first recommendation is to destroy the life support system, preventing the neurocine gas from being released and giving them a new time limit -- 12 hours, then they run out of air.
11
12	As it turns out, even this eventuality was considered by the program. As soon as life support is taken offline, Dukat appears yet again to warn them that they have two hours to halt the imaginary revolt before the station self-destructs.
13
14	Garak is unfortunately limited to read-only access. He is able to see everything that is going on but is powerless to make any actual changes to the program, which at this late stage can only be deactivated by Dukat himself. In desperation, they come up with a plan to spoof the computer into thinking Garak ''is'' Dukat. Before they can finish their plan, the overly-paranoid program once again takes offense to their tampering and responds by replicating a phaser turret in Ops itself. One {{Redshirt}} is cut down before the rest manage to take cover. And if it looks like it can't get any worse... the real Dukat beams in, [[SmugSnake even more pompous than his recording]].
15
16	The program had automatically notified Dukat of the "worker rebellion" in Terok Nor, so he came running. But he's much more interested in gloating and watching the crew squirm than actually helping. When they finally ask for his help, Dukat offers to shut down the program in exchange for allowing his troops to establish a garrison aboard the station. Unsurprisingly, Kira finds death a more appealing choice. Dukat decides to return to his ship to allow them time to think things over, but the security program has surprises even for him. As soon as Dukat tries to radio his ship, he finds he is unable to, and a new recording plays -- this time from his then-supervisor, who gives him a brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech for attempting to abandon his post in the middle of a Bajoran rebellion. The supervisor recording announces that all security codes have been voided, and the self-destruct system can no longer be stopped.
17
18	Now that he's in the same boat as everyone else, Dukat is much more eager to help. Their only option is to try to deactivate the main reactor before it explodes. To that end, they {{Technobabble}} a way to overload the force fields on the station so that they can move freely again, but there's not enough time for them to get where they need.
19
20	As luck would have it, Sisko, O'Brien, and Jake have managed to find their way out of ore processing by now, so Kira informs them of the plan. Damage from the power surge forces them to go through a conduit that is filled with plasma fires. Sisko makes it through, but O'Brien is hit by an explosion and loses consciousness (but survives thanks to a HeroicFireRescue from Jake). With [[AlwaysClose seconds left to go]], Sisko manages to redirect the reactor overload into the shields, preventing the station from being destroyed.
21
22	!Tropes in this episode include:
23	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Dukat towards Kira.
24	* AirVentEscape: Jake uses an old processing shaft to escape the ore refinery; as the defense program was designed when Terok Nor was still active, it was assumed that the mining facility would be in operation when it was activated, so the shaft should have been pumping molten ore.
25	* AlwaysClose: Sisko disarms the self-destruct with seconds to spare.
26	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Garak is scandalized that Dukat, formerly the murderous dictator of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, would hit on Kira when he's a married man. (Or maybe he just ''pretends'' to be scandalized; it's possible he just wanted to embarrass Dukat and knew how disgusted Kira would be at the idea of Dukat being interested in her.)
27	* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: Kira aims her phaser at the door to Ops -- while Bashir is still in the line of fire. Does she really find him ''that'' annoying? No surprise that the two redshirts manning the life support station are in such a hurry to get away when Kira takes aim at their console later.
28	* BlackComedy: The complex series of security failsafes the Cardassians left on [=DS9=] quickly becomes absurd, especially since each one is accompanied by a pre-recorded message from Dukat and is usually triggered by trying to bypass the previous security measures. And each time a new level is triggered, the danger and risk to the current crew grows more and more serious. This reaches its zenith when Dukat tries to transport off [=DS9=] and is stopped, and a pre-recorded message for ''him'' from his superior plays accusing him to trying to flee the rebels that have taken over the station, so they've disabled his security codes for trying to abandon his post.
29	* CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker: It says a lot about Dukat that he saw fit to delegate the task of handling riots to a recording of himself. He shows up later because he got a distress call from himself.
30	-->"ATTENTION, BAJORAN WORKERS..."
31	* CowardiceCallout: Dukat quite hilariously gets called a coward in a pre-recorded message left by his former superior Legate Kell, which was meant to be triggered if Dukat ever attempted to abandon his post -- even though the station is no longer Cardassian-run, most of the message's content still fits the current situation which led to Dukat unwittingly triggering the message, and Dukat is rendered speechless afterwards.
32	* CrazyPrepared:
33	** Cardassians tend to plan ahead, and Gul Dukat's counterinsurgency program was ready for pretty much every possible scenario. The only one it didn't account for was the failure of the self-destruct mechanism, as the program presumably shuts down on its own after the reactor overload fails to destroy the station.
34	** Likewise, Dukat's superiors programmed in a response to Dukat attempting to flee the station, having suspected that he would try to save his own hide if the Bajorans got the better of him. The transporter is blocked and Dukat's codes are rendered void, locking in the station self-destruct while telling him to die like a Cardassian.
35	* DeadlyGas: Sisko, Jake, and O'Brien barely escape a room full of deadly "neurocine gas." Kira then shoots the life-support system to stop it from spreading gas all over the station.
36	* DeadpanSnarker: Garak, par for the course.
37	-->'''Kira:''' Any luck?\
38	'''Garak:''' Plenty, Major. [[BaitAndSwitchComment Unfortunately, all of it bad]].
39	* DidntSeeThatComing / DidntThinkThisThrough: Garak hits Dukat with this, accusing Dukat of being so short-sighted that he never considered that his superiors may have made their own additions to the program.
40	* DissonantSerenity: Dukat strolling about the command center talking while everyone else is hiding under any available cover. (Then again, he knows the replicator is programmed to only attack non-Cardassians.)
41	--> '''Dukat:''' ''(sighs)'' Let me guess -- someone tried to duplicate my access codes, hmm?
42	* EveryoneHasStandards: Garak is disgusted that Dukat, a married man, is apparently flirting with Kira and trying to impress her.
43	* EvilIsPetty: Dukat takes a moment to laugh at the sight of Garak crouching for safety and to knock Sisko's baseball off of his desk.
44	* FacePalm: Odo does this when Quark accuses him of dooming them to die in the security office due to Odo's unwillingness to kowtow to the Cardassians during the Occupation.
45	* FailsafeFailure: {{Invoked}}. Dukat's former commanding officer had placed in a program that, should he attempt to bail from Terok Nor in a time of crisis, all failsafes would be disabled and he would be stuck waiting to die as the station self-destructed.
46	* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: The program offers the chance to surrender, but the officers who could confirm that surrender aren't present, so the computer interprets such attempts as false and continues with its countermeasures.
47	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Jake and O'Brien wonder how workers could have survived when the refinery reaches such high temperatures, and O'Brien imagines that many ''didn't''. In the end, O'Brien passes out while crawling through an extremely heated tube and would have died had Jake not saved him.
48	* FromBadToWorse: The entire episode in a nutshell.
49	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Several times, while the main characters are discussing how to get out of the mess they're in, the recording of Dukat continues to prattle on in the background, encouraging the "rebel Bajorans" to surrender, warning them how dangerous and barren Bajor is compared to the [[BlatantLies good life they have on Terok Nor]], insisting the other Cardassian officers won't be as lenient and merciful as he is...
50	* HeroicFireRescue: Jake pulls O'Brien out of the burning Jeffries Tube.
51	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Dukat visits the station to gloat when he learns they triggered his automated security system, but then finds himself trapped as well when he tries to leave, which the computer interprets as an attempt to [[DirtyCoward abandon his post during a time of crisis]].
52	-->'''Garak:''' Even your own computer program turned against you! I always said your shortsightedness would be your downfall.
53	* InterspeciesRomance: The Cardassian Dukat is revealed to have a VillainousCrush on the Bajoran Kira. The feeling is decidedly one-sided, as Kira will always find Dukat to be loathsome. Previous episodes of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' have shown other Cardassians with the hots for Bajoran women, [[spoiler:and later in the series it's revealed not only that Dukat has a half-Bajoran daughter, but Kira's ''mother'' was once his consort]].
54	* {{Irony}}: Garak lampshades the irony that the one place in the galaxy that still recognizes his access codes is a Bajoran space station.
55	* JerkassHasAPoint: Dukat calls out Kira for her willingness to destroy the station (thus killing thousands of innocent people) just to prevent the Cardassians -Gul Dukat in particular- from re-establishling a presence on the station.
56	* LastSecondWordSwap: When Dukat asks Kira, "Would you allow two thousand people aboard this station to die simply because you don't like... ''us?"'', he was clearly about to say "me" but changed his mind at the last instant.
57	* {{Lockdown}}: The whole point of the counterinsurgency program.
58	* NameOne: Quark challenges Odo to name a more devious Ferengi than him. Odo responds with Grand Nagus Zek, Daimon Tye, Quark's brother Rom, his uncle Frin, his cousin Gaila...
59	* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
60	** Each time the heroes think they've figured out a solution, the security program thinks [[MovingTheGoalposts it has to get even tougher]] on the "Bajoran workers."
61	** Lampshaded by Quark when Odo realizes that the Security office has a separate power system that is designed to keep Odo locked in his office when the station is ready to self destruct.
62	---> '''Quark:''' It's because they knew you were an honorable man. The kind of person who would do the right thing regardless of the circumstances. And now, your integrity is about to get us both killed. I hope you're happy.
63	* NoOSHACompliance:
64	** Kira is able to shut down the entire life-support system... by shooting one console.
65	** The audience learns that Cardassian forcefields are designed to be lethal (or at least have no safeguards to limit the amount of energy flowing through them). The reason they aren't on [=DS9=] is because the Federation wisely disabled that "feature" when they took over.
66	** The appalling working conditions that existed during the occupation are showcased in this episode.
67	---> '''O'Brien:''' I heard stories that the temperature in here reached 55 degrees. [[note]]Celsius. That's 131 in Fahrenheit, roughly the temperature of Death Valley, California. [[/note]]\
68	'''Jake:''' How could the Bajoran workers survive that?\
69	'''O'Brien:''' A lot of them didn't.
70	* NoodleIncident: The bad blood between Dukat and Garak is first mentioned, as it involved the former's father.
71	* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Dukat offers to deactivate the station's self-destruct in exchange for allowing his soldiers to establish a garrison on the station. When Kira refuses, Dukat reminds her that there are many more lives than her own at stake. She also points out that neither the Federation or Bajor would ever honor a deal made under duress, but Dukat knows that it would be extremely difficult to push them out once they're already there.
72	* OhCrap:
73	** The look on Dukat's face when he finds out that his security codes have been voided.
74	** Earlier, Garak's expression when his attempts to break through Dukat's security codes failed.
75	* OnePasswordAttemptEver: Well, actually two for Dukat's security program, but the idea's the same.
76	* OpportunisticBastard: Dukat is happy to exploit the crisis to try and extort his way into getting a Cardassian garrison stationed on Deep Space Nine.
77	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Dukat gets a fairly spectacular one from his former commanding officer. It leaves him, for once, at a complete loss for words.
78	-->"Dukat, if you are seeing this recording, it means you tried to abandon your post while the station's self-destruct sequence was engaged. That will not be permitted. You have lost control of Terok Nor, disgracing yourself and Cardassia. Your attempt to escape is no doubt a final act of cowardice. All fail-safes have been eliminated, your personal access codes have been rescinded. The destruct sequence can no longer be halted. All you can do now is contemplate the depth of your disgrace... and try to die like a Cardassian."
79	* {{Redshirt}}: The poor schmuck who gets vaporized by the replicated DeathRay.
80	* SelfDestructMechanism: Part of the security program, and the last problem for Sisko to deal with.
81	* SimpleSolutionWontWork: When Sisko tries to do as the Dukat recording says and surrender on behalf of the "Bajoran workers" to end the lock-down, it naturally doesn't work, since there's no Cardassian security on the station to surrender to anymore.
82	* SmugSnake: Dukat is at his most smug and self-important during this episode, cheerfully gloating about the situation, believing that only he can resolve it. When he tries to leave everyone to stew for a while, he ends up being trapped on the station, no longer in a position to fix the crisis, in exactly as bad a position as the people he was just mocking, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking subject to Garak's barbs]]. The rapid shift from his smug self-assurance to [[OhCrap realising how screwed he is]] is hilarious, made even more so by the fact that Dukat clearly ''knows'' how much he's made an ass of himself.
83	* SnarkToSnarkCombat:
84	** Dukat vs. Garak. Kira and Bashir repeatedly tell them to shut up.
85	** Odo and Quark also go a few rounds while trapped in the security office.
86	* TickingClock: The security program delivers a series of time limits before calamity. The crew defeat each threat in the nick of time.
87	* {{Troll}}: Dukat is clearly enjoying himself strolling around Ops while everyone else hides from the phaser. He even invites Kira into Sisko's office to talk, seemingly "forgetting" the phaser is there before he stops it.
88	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: All O'Brien wanted to do was set an unfamiliar program aside. He had no idea it would trigger this episode's problems.
89	* VengefulVendingMachine: The replicator creates a phaser in Ops and starts shooting people. Now ''that's'' vengeful.
90	* VillainousCrush: Dukat clearly has one on Kira. Garak bluntly points this out, and takes great delight in mocking him.
91	* WorthyOpponent:
92	** Quark expresses this sentiment towards Odo, stating that if there were a slave revolt in progress, it's not surprising that the Cardassians would lock Odo in his office: Odo's sense of justice and morality would prevent him from automatically siding with the Cardassians. Subverted a moment later, as Quark follows this up by chiding Odo for those traits potentially getting them killed.
93	** Odo praises Quark for his deviousness, until it turns out that he was just being nice in what seemed like their last few hours of life.
94	* YouKilledMyFather: Implied to be the source of Dukat's loathing for Garak; apparently, Dukat's father trusted Garak, which led to a trial, and given the Cardassian justice system, more than likely an execution. Garak seems to feel that the elder Dukat brought it on himself, which (unsurprisingly) doesn't mollify Dukat.
95	* YouTalkTooMuch: Thanks to his pre-recorded security program, Dukat can speechify everyone to death without being anywhere near them.
96	--> '''Sisko:''' You know, I never knew how much this man's voice annoyed me.

Context Recap / StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E07CivilDefense