Star Trek Arcs XIV: Temporal Cold War

Enterprise came around when Star Trek had been on TV continuously since 1987, with one period where there was only one series airing for the length of half a season (the start of Deep Space Nine’s third season) but otherwise two running simultaneously from 1993 to 1999. It was a glut of material, and even with one breaking radically from the mold (again, Deep Space Nine) it became easy to take the franchise for granted, and for the first time there was a sustained reaction of discontent, that in this era never really went away. Enterprise entered this fray, and attempted to have its cake and eat it, too, by being a prequel series that simultaneously looked far into the future, thanks to the story arc known as the Temporal Cold War.

Fans may have disagreed, but I loved the results.

In the first episode, “Broken Bow,” Archer must rescue a Klingon from the clutches of the Suliban, who operated at the behest of a shadowy character never officially named but quickly dubbed Future Guy by fans.

The best episode of the arc came next. The face of the Suliban, Silik, attempts to convince Archer they don’t have to be enemies, but another agent, a human from the far future named Daniels who had been masquerading as a crewman aboard the ship, presents Archer with a counterpoint. The beauty of “Cold Front” is that for a brief moment you really don’t know who to trust, capturing new levels of ambiguity that have often been the hallmark of Star Trek’s finest hours, in a franchise otherwise best known for keeping things pretty straight.

The first season ends and the second opens with “Shockwave,” which sort of mashes the ambiguity back into standard shape, hammering home that probably the whole reason the Temporal Cold War is concerning itself with Archer at all is because of his role in early Starfleet history, and the birth of the Federation itself.

The arc again leaps for greatness in its next appearance, “Future Tense,” which attempts no grand statements, but instead weaves in the Tholians (heh) and simply allows the weird possibilities of temporal shenanigans (including a clever use of repeating time that’s saved as a side element of the plot) to enjoy the spotlight, Archer being frustrated that he has no control of any of it (a metaphor apt for the whole series).

Then the Xindi arc happens and in the third season Daniels again pops up to emphasize Archer’s big future, and in “Carpenter Street” helps him out with a little bit of contemporary time travel (with emphasis on pizza! and Jeffrey Dean Morgan suffering under heavy latex).

The producers got the message that fans weren’t having it, so the fourth season wraps up involvement in the Temporal Cold War with “Storm Front,” which naturally revolves around time travel and Nazis. I always liked to speculate that the head alien Nazi was in fact Future Guy (speculation had always hinged on a Romulan, admittedly). And then the series ends at the end of the season anyway.

Star Trek Arcs XIII: Seska

The two biggest lies in all of Star Trek fandom are that Voyager didn’t do story arcs and that it wasted the potential for drama from the Maquis crew.

In fact both ended up bundled together and the results are still among my favorite arcs ever in the franchise.

Seska’s arc began in “State of Flux” in the first season, in which Chakotay learns the horrible secret of his old friend, that she’s not only not even a Bajoran but Cardassian, and has just made a deal with a faction of the Kazon, the marauding aliens who had caused Voyager hassles since the first episode. Seska betrays everyone and defects, the picture of the nefarious image fans had built up for themselves of the Maquis. 

The best episode of the arc comes next, “Maneuvers” in the second season, which is a straight sequel, in which Seska manipulates Chakotay into a trap. Chakotay himself is never better than in this episode, too, full of dramatic purpose he otherwise tended to lack, being more of a quiet type (which itself is not a problem and in fact, if anything, a welcome change of pace).

The season then weaves a more deliberate arc, sometimes as a subplot or even a single scene, as Seska continues to plot against Chakotay and the rest of the crew, including a conspirator. “Alliances” might loosely be included in this, as it features the secret origin of the Kazon’s troubles, and an attempt to solve them.

“Investigations,” however, reveals the identity of the conspirator (which itself involves a number of recurring characters the series likewise never gets credit for having in the early seasons), and features as its unlikely hero Neelix, with Tom Paris getting one of his periodic shots at playing the uncontrollable rogue fans also always expected.

The arc rounds out the season and opens the next one with “Basics, Parts 1 & 2,” in which Seska and her allies take control of the ship, until finally being defeated.

All of this was received poorly by fans mostly because the Kazon themselves were greeted poorly, considered to be “dirty Delta Quadrant Klingon rip-offs.” Me, I never had a problem with them. So much of Star Trek alien design is similar as it is, a layer or two or three of prosthetics, all variations on a humanoid look…It cost the producers the confidence to pursue further extended arcs (though there were attempts here and there), and arguably led to the minimizing of Chakotay, who was the face of this most ambitious of efforts.

Anyway, Seska was a great character, and the series itself knew that well enough. She had a brilliant reprise late in the third season, “Worst Case Scenario,” arguably the mother of all holodeck malfunction episodes, and then one more time in the seventh with “Shattered,” in which Chakotay (of course) travels the ship when it’s been splintered into different time periods.

Star Trek Arcs XII: Section 31

One of Deep Space Nine’s shorter and yet most impactful arcs involved the introduction of Section 31, a secretive intelligence organization within Starfleet that played by its own rules and was alone convinced of the good it did.

In the sixth season episode “Inquisition,” Luther Sloan attempts to recruit Julian Bashir, who despite a long friendship with the former Cardassian spy Garak can’t bring himself to condone Section 31’s existence, which to this point had been largely unknown outside of its own circles.

In the seventh season episode “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” (in times of war the law falls silent) Bashir again runs into Sloan, realizing that Starfleet, in its increasing desperation during the Dominion War, has knowingly embraced Section 31’s questionable tactics. Fans as eagerly embraced this second spotlight as they had the first, both serving as pinnacle demonstrations of the morally gray areas so often associated with the series.

Late that season, Bashir confronts Sloan directly in “Extreme Measures” when he realizes Section 31 was responsible for a genocidal plague inflicted on the Founders that has inadvertently (?) also infected Odo.

Section 31 shows up in the fourth season of Enterprise, with the revelation that Malcolm Reed once worked for Section 31. Captain Archer takes a dim view on the revelation when Reed struggles to come clean in “Affliction”/“Divergence,” in which we meet his former handler Harris.

The idea is reprised on a far grander stage in Star Trek Into Darkness, in which we learn Admiral Marcus is also a part of Section 31, and thinks of nothing to use it in an attempt to launch all-out war with the Klingons.

Section 31 factors heavily into the serialized storytelling in the second season of Discovery, which features Agent Leland and new recruits Mirror Georgiou and Ash Tyler. There remains in development a full Section 31 spin-off which at one time was speculated to feature Georgiou and Tyler, although developments since that and the third season have perhaps complicated things.

With the movie appearance and heavy presence in and potential spin-off from Discovery, Section 31 has turned into as significant a development of modern Star Trek as anything else you could name. A certain step away from the original hopeful vision of the future Gene Roddenberry envisioned, Section 31 instead of a contradiction often serves to distinguish the enduring morals of the main characters. When Bashir or Kirk reject its tactics, we cheer them as heroes. When Mirror Georgiou embraces Section 31, we’re not surprised. When Tyler finds a temporary refuge in his crazy life, we can even begin to see it in a different light. In modern Star Trek, too, is the ability to see the good even in the bad (a legacy dating all the way back to “Balance of Terror”).

Star Trek Arcs XI: The Dominion War

Now, to this day when Star Trek fans think of extended arcs they really have just one in mind, and that’s Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc. 

The war itself doesn’t begin until the end of the fifth season, and I’ve broken it down to thirty-six key episodes (six of them consisting of two-part episodes with the same name, although the series features multiple two-part episodes with separate titles, including in the war arc). Since this one’s so long I won’t waste much time with preamble or dwell much on any one installment, instead a brief note on what it contributes to the arc.

At the end of the second season, “The Jem’Hadar” at last let’s us see the Dominion after many previous references to what dominates the other side of the wormhole introduced in the first episode, the Gamma Quadrant equivalent to the Federation. It ends with a big swerve when we learn that the Jem’Hadar are mere foot soldiers, and that they are controlled in part by the Vorta.

The third season begins with the two-part “The Search,” which serves the dual purpose of exploring the initial ramifications of contact with the Dominion as well as revealing the truth of shapeshifting Odo’s origins: he hails from the Founders. As in, Founders of the Dominion…

In “Improbable Cause”/“The Die Is Cast,” factions within the Romulan Star Empire and Cardassian Empire attempt an invasion of the Gamma Quadrant, and are met with a spectacular and definitive defeat.

The season ends with the further threat of Founder infiltration in “The Adversary.”

The fourth season begins by ramping up the threat in the two-part “Way of the Warrior,” in which the Dominion manipulates the Klingon Empire into war with the Cardassians.

In “Homefront”/“Paradise Lost,” the Founders infiltrate Earth and sow chaos within Starfleet itself.

In the fifth season premiere “Apocalypse Rising,” the true identity of the Founder infiltrator within the Klingon Empire is finally revealed.

Later, we meet the real Martok (the guise of the infiltrator dating back to “Way of the Warrior”) in a Dominion prison camp also hosting the remains of the Romulan/Cardassian fleet, as the Cardassians officially join the Dominion during “In Purgatory’s Shadow”/“By Inferno’s Light.”

Then, in “Call to Arms,” the season finale, the station is evacuated and the war begins.

The sixth season kicks off with the famous six-episode continuous arc, the first real extended serialization in franchise history: “A Time to Stand,” “Rocks and Shoals,” “Sons and Daughters,” “Behind the Lines,” “Favor the Bold,” and “Sacrifice of Angels,” which of course culminates in the retaking of the station.

The season continues to explore the war in a variety of ways from that point. “Statistical Probabilities” is a pessimistic view of its eventual outcome. “Waltz” sees the psychological fallout for Dukat. “In the Pale Moonlight” is probably the single best episode of the whole arc, in which Sisko grapples with his conscience.

Finally, in “Tears of the Prophets,” the biggest casualty of the war occurs: Jadzia Dax.

The seventh and final season continues and concludes the war. “The Siege of AR-558” is a straight-up war story, complete with a post-traumatic stress fallout follow-up, “It’s Only a Paper Moon.”

The final ten episodes of the series are a second grand serialization: “Penumbra,” “’Til Death Do Us Part,” “Strange Bedfellows,” “The Changing Face of Evil,” “When It Rains…,” “Tacking Into the Wind,” “Extreme Measures,” “The Dogs of War,” and the two-part finale, “What You Leave Behind.”