Confined to quarters, Bashir finds that his replicator isn't working. After finally getting summoned to his questioning, he's treated cordially by Sloan, who assures him that the interviews are all just a formality. Sloan inquires about Bashir's incarceration with the Dominion and his work with the group of genetically modified humans. Bashir also learns that the replicators have been shut off to prevent them from being used to send messages to the Dominion or create weapons, but Sloan is happy to take Bashir's breakfast order of scones and tea to be delivered to him.
When Bashir returns to his quarters, he notices signs that someone has been rummaging around. He finally receives his breakfast but discovers that it's actually Worf's meal of inedible gagh. Then he gets a call from O'Brien, who warns him that Bashir is Sloan's primary suspect. When the doctor is brought back for another round of questioning, Sloan takes a much harsher tone, grilling him about possible discrepancies in his story. Bashir protests his innocence but gets tossed into the brig as a primary suspect. Sisko arrives and demands to be involved in all interrogations moving forward to ensure that Bashir receives all his due rights.
During the next interrogation, Sloan lays out a preponderance of circumstantial evidence casting doubt on Bashir's loyalties. Both the doctor and Sisko are forced to admit that Bashir has a history of lying about his nature. Finally, Sloan accuses the doctor of having been brainwashed by the Dominion during his incarceration. The deputy director decides to put Bashir in a maximum security Federation prison for the duration of the Dominion war, but just as Bashir is about to be transferred, he's transported away and arrives on a clandestine Dominion ship, where Weyoun welcomes Bashir home.
Weyoun tells Bashir that he is indeed a spy for the Dominion without remembering it. He gives Bashir some scones and tea and tries to remind the doctor of how they turned him while he was at the internment camp. Bashir doesn't buy it and insists that both Weyoun and Sloan are trying to convince him that he's something he's not. Just then, the ship comes under attack. Weyoun flees as Bashir's friends beam aboard to rescue him. They take him aboard the Defiant, where they treat his abduction as proof that he's a spy. Bashir grabs O'Brien's shoulder for support and notices that the chief's arm is suspiciously healed. When O'Brien fails to supply the correct details about his injury (saying that it was from a game of springball), the doctor realizes that O'Brien, and everyone else on the ship, is a fraud.
The scene melts away to reveal that Bashir has been standing on a giant holodeck. Sloan, now wearing a black uniform, confirms that everything that's happened since Bashir woke up has been a simulation. After retrieving an implant from behind Bashir's ear that has recorded his brain waves during the test, Sloan rules that Bashir is innocent of the charges. Sloan explains that he's not from Starfleet Internal Affairs but from Section 31, the top-secret black ops agency of the Federation. He suggests that Bashir would make a great addition to the team, especially given his interest in spy fiction, but Bashir is appalled by the agency's lack of respect for laws and regulations, and he turns the offer down.
When Bashir arrives back on the station, he tells the senior staff all about what happened to him while everyone assumed he was at the medical conference. Even Sisko can't get a straight answer from the highest levels of the Federation about whether Section 31 even exists, and he shares Bashir's misgivings. He tells the doctor that the next time Section 31 offers him membership, he's going to take it and start spying on them.
Tropes
- All Just a Dream: The whole "internal affairs tries to find a spy on Deep Space Nine" plot turns out to be a simulation Section 31 created to test the loyalty of Bashir.
- Always Someone Better: As Odo observes, Section 31 is the Federation equivalent to the Romulans' Tal Shiar or the Cardassians' Obsidian Order... except everyone knows those 'secret' organisations exist, whereas almost no one knows of the existence of Section 31.
- Armor-Piercing Question:
- When Sloan takes Bashir to task for keeping his genetic enhancements hidden.Sloan: What made you confess? Was it because you realized that it was your duty to be honest with your captain?
Bashir: No.
Sloan: Was it because you felt guilty for having lied to him for so long?
Bashir: No.
Sloan: Then why did you come forward?
Bashir: I was found out.
Sloan: And if you hadn't been found out, would you have come forward and told your captain the truth...ever?
Bashir: (Beat) I don't know.
Sloan: I see. - And then when Bashir disagrees with Sloan's philosophy of the end justifying the means.Sloan: How many lives do you suppose you've saved in your medical career?
Bashir: What has that got to do with anything?
Sloan: Hundreds? Thousands? Do you suppose that those people give a damn that you lied to get into Starfleet Medical? I doubt it. We deal with threats to the Federation that jeopardize its very survival. If you knew how many lives we've saved, I think you'd agree that the ends do justify the means. I'm not afraid of bending the rules every once in a while if the situation warrants it, and I don't think you are either.
- When Sloan takes Bashir to task for keeping his genetic enhancements hidden.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Bashir goes full Snark Knight in his second interview, when Sloan asks if he was alone the entire time he was in isolation in the prison camp.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Bashir has always engaged in spy fantasies and been fascinated with being a spy. Both Sloan and Odo remind him of this after Sloan makes his offer.Odo: Congratulations, Doctor. It looks like you're going to get to play a spy after all...only this time, for real.
- Bluff the Impostor: How Bashir figures out that O'Brien isn't really O'Brien, and by extension that the rest of the bridge crew are imposters.Bashir: Your shoulder...it's all right.
O'Brien: Of course it's all right.
Bashir: But you dislocated it yesterday when...you were playing springball.
O'Brien: So? It's better now.
Bashir: You didn't hurt it playing springball. You dislocated it kayaking in the holosuite. You're not Miles. (to "Sisko") And you're not Captain Sisko. He'd at least be willing to hear me out. (to himself) This isn't real. It can't be. - Call-Back:
- Sloan makes references to "Hippocratic Oath," "In Purgatory's Shadow," "By Inferno's Light," "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?," and "Statistical Probabilities" while trying to discredit Bashir.
- One of Sloan's holo-minions refers to the Federation's defeat at the Tyra system.
- Odo refers to the Obsidian Order in the past tense, referencing its destruction three years ago.
- O'Brien's habit of dislocating his shoulder while kayaking featured in several previous episodes.
- Chekhov's Gun: O'Brien's dislocated shoulder. Bashir treats it during The Teaser and tells him to take it easy. Later, when it looks like everyone is turning against him, a desperate Bashir grabs that same shoulder and notices when "O'Brien" doesn't flinch.
- The Conspiracy: This episode marks the beginning of the Section 31 storyline.
- Fantastic Racism: Subverted. Sloan appears to hate Bashir for being genetically enhanced, but judging by how friendly he was to Bashir at the end, it was just an act.
- Flipping the Bird: Walking away from his first encounter with Sloan, Bashir oh-so-casually trails a finger behind him on the console. Guess which finger.
- Foreshadowing:
- After telling Bashir that his trip to the conference was canceled, Sloan says he should be thankful, as his previous trip ended with him being kidnapped by the Dominion. This is after Section 31 has already kidnapped him using the trip as cover, although neither Bashir nor the audience knows it yet.
- When Bashir first awakens to be summoned to Ops by Sisko, he is extremely groggy and feels as if he'd only just gotten to sleep, finding it hard to believe the time the computer gives is accurate. On first viewing this would seem to just be the common trope of feeling you've been asleep less time than you actually have been, but it comes out during The Reveal that Bashir was beamed out from his bed to the holodeck and thus really didn't get more than an hour of sleep—deliberate on Section 31's part as a means of inducing stress. Also see A Glitch in the Matrix below.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: Just before he is summoned to his first interview with Sloan, Bashir accidentally knocks the pen from his padd onto the floor. As he's bending down to retrieve it, a very eagle-eyed viewer will notice the pen fade away just as he's reaching for it. He doesn't get to investigate further due to Chandler's appearance, and when he returns later and searches again, the pen is back, but he doesn't pursue it due to noticing Kukalaka has been knocked over (thus revealing someone has been rummaging in his quarters).
- Good Is Not Soft: Section 31 is capable of anything, but all to defend the Federation.Sloan: We search out and identify potential dangers to the Federation.
Bashir: And once identified?
Sloan: We deal with them.
Bashir: How?
Sloan: Quietly. - Got Volunteered: Bashir refuses to join Section 31, but Sloan doesn't take "no" for an answer. Sisko convinces Bashir to go with it so he can be The Mole in Section 31.Sisko: You said that Sloan tried to recruit you.
Bashir: I turned him down.
Sisko:' He doesn't strike me as a man who takes "No" for an answer. And next time he asks you to join his little group, you will say "Yes". - He Knows Too Much: Subverted. Sloan tells Bashir a good deal about Section 31, but returns him to the station when it's all over. Bashir threatens to expose him, but Sloan knows he has little reason to worry because Bashir can't prove a thing. (He's proven right when Sisko inquires about Section 31 and fails to get a straight answer.) Not to mention, Sloan now considers Bashir a fellow Section 31 agent, whether Bashir likes it or not.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: The real uniforms of Section 31 appear to be black leather, a fittingly ominous outfit for such a morally ambiguous organization.
- Homage: Sloan's first interview - in which he's very genial, lobs some softball questions, and then asks one final question just as Bashir is walking out the door - is lifted right out of the Columbo playbook.
- Humans Are Special (or rather The Federation is Special): Part of a DS9 theme of putting a different spin on this to the older TNG style. The Federation is special not because it's the only major power not to have a secretive spy organization like the Tal Shiar or the Obsidian Order, but because it's the only one whose organization is so good that two hundred years after its founding, its existence is still completely secret. Whereas the aforementioned spy agencies/secret police conceal their methods and membership, their existence is deliberately well-known so as to inspire fear. Section 31 on the other hand acts quietly and efficiently to eliminate threats to the Federation from behind the scenes. Being known would mean that said threats could figure out ways to counteract Section 31. In a later episode, Section 31 further highlights their superiority by installing their mole as the Chairman of the Tal Shiar.
- Impairment Shot: When one of Sloan's mooks gives Bashir some Instant Sedation.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Sloan admits his failure on this point, as he didn't know about O'Brien's latest kayaking injury and therefore didn't add that to holo-O'Brien.
- Insane Troll Logic: Sloan suggests that Bashir was turned into a sleeper agent for the Dominion while in captivity, and doesn't even remember or realize it. Later he brings up when Bashir tried to help a group of Jem'Hadar break their addiction to ketracel-white. Sisko points out that happened long before Bashir was in Dominion captivity, but Sloan claims it shows Bashir has demonstrated sympathetic tendencies to the Dominion in the past; no one brings up that this evidence not only doesn't gel with Sloan's earlier accusation that Bashir is a sleeper agent, but pretty much contradicts it with him pivoting to the idea of Bashir being a willing spy. Not to mention that breaking the Jem'Hadar of their ketracel-white addiction would've caused considerable damage to the Dominion, since the Jem'Hadar were deliberately engineered with that addiction to make their Super Soldiers more controllable. Thus, Sloan accuses Bashir of having been a Dominion sympathizer for having attempted what amounts to grand-scale sabotage of the Dominion's military.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When Bashir calls out Section 31 for ignoring the laws of the Federation, Sloan rightly points that Bashir broke the law to save lives himself by lying about being genetically enhanced.
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: How Bashir describes Section 31. Sloan doesn't exactly dispute it.
- Kidnapped While Sleeping: Bashir is beamed from his quarters to Sloan's holodeck while he's asleep.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Various plot holes in previous episodes are used by Sloan to throw doubt on Bashir's version of events.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Everything from the "recall" to "Weyoun" onwards is Section 31's holodeck to make damn sure of Bashir's loyalties.
- Manchurian Agent: Sloan's apparent suspicion that Bashir is one of these kicks off the plot.
- My God, You Are Serious!: Bashir, when Sloan spells out why he wants him for Section 31.
- No Such Agency: Section 31, since the birth of The Federation.
- Out-of-Character Alert: After Bashir is rescued from the Dominion, nobody on the Defiant gives him the chance to explain himself and won't consider the possibility that Sloan is the traitor replaced by a Changeling. It was one of Bashir's clues that they weren't real.
- Perp Sweating:
- Subverted in Sloan's first conversation with Bashir, in which he's fairly amiable.Bashir: You have a good bedside manner. Actually, when I came in here, I half suspected that I would be interrogated under a very bright light.
Sloan: (chuckles) Not this time. - Played Straight, however, in subsequent interrogations where Sloan really tears into Bashir.
- Subverted in Sloan's first conversation with Bashir, in which he's fairly amiable.
- Perp Walk: Bashir is made to walk across the Promenade in cuffs, with everyone watching.
- Renegade Splinter Faction: One supposedly dating back to the founding of Starfleet. Section 31 is unknown to and autonomous from the rest of Starfleet and the galaxy at large, and does not answer to any other branch in the org chart. It's implied that some of the higher-ups at Starfleet Command are aware it exists, and help cover up its activities. It neutralizes threats to the Federation by any means necessary.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The central conflict at the end is whether the ends justify the means. Sloan defends his ability to simply ignore Federation law when he feels it necessary to preserve the Federation and save lives. He notes that Bashir must agree with him to some extent given that he lied to become a doctor and join Starfleet.
- Secret Test: It's implied that one reason why Section 31 puts Bashir through the simulation is to see whether he has the qualities required of their own agents: intelligence, attention to detail, ability to work under stress, etc. So if he turns out not to be a spy for the Dominion, they can try to recruit him themselves.
- Spanner in the Works: O'Brian's shoulder injury is what ultimately exposes the holographic simulation. Sloan and Section 31 didn't know about it (which is justified, as the injury occurred mere hours before they abducted Bashir and after their simulation had already been programmed). Sloan admits to Bashir that if they had known about the injury, they'd have programmed it into the simulation.
- Utopia Justifies the Means:Sloan: We deal with threats to the Federation that jeopardize its very survival. If you knew how many lives we've saved, I think you'd agree that the ends do justify the means. I'm not afraid of bending the rules every once in a while if the situation warrants it, and I don't think you are either.
- Villain Ball: This is acknowledged in-universe when it's pointed out that Bashir was only able to escape from the asteroid prison because Garak and Worf's runabout was left in transporter range of the facility without even being powered down, much less destroyed.
- Villain Has a Point: Sloan pointing out how Bashir condemns Section 31 for breaking the law, yet he himself did the same thing when he lied about his genetic enhancements while tying to get into Starfleet Medical. As Sloan argues, does Bashir really think any of the countless patients he's treated and saved over the course of his professional career give a damm that he lied to get into Starfleet?
- Virtual-Reality Interrogation: An almost flawless example, save for that one bit about O'Brien's shoulder.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: When Bashir is being taken to his first interview, he and the Intelligence Officer escorting him have to flatten to the wall as someone rushes past them with a large piece of equipment that is apparently part of the investigation. This equipment is never seen again, which is especially puzzling given that the whole scenario is fictional; as everything that happens was a decision by Sloan or his people, shouldn't it all contribute?
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Bashir is stunned that an organization like Section 31 could exist within the Federation.
- You Don't Want to Know: Comes up twice when Sloan gives Bashir the overview of Section 31:Sloan: We seek out and identify potential dangers to the Federation.
Bashir: And once identified?
Sloan: We deal with them.
Bashir: How?
Sloan: Quietly.
Bashir: So if I had been a Dominion agent, what would've happened to me?
Sloan: We wouldn't be standing here having this conversation. - You Have to Believe Me!: Bashir trying to convince the bridge crew that he's not a traitor, until he figures out that they're not really the bridge crew.
- Your Favorite: Weyoun saying "Do you remember when I first offered you scones back at the camp?" to Bashir.
