Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.

Synopsis: "The Storyteller"

Episode Number: 414
Air Date: 5/01/93

	The episode opens with Sisko dictating his station log. He
has been asked by the Bajoran government to mediate a land 
dispute between two Bajoran groups, the Paqu and the Navot. 
The dispute is serious enough that it may lead to war 
between the two factions. Sisko enters Ops and is briefed 
by Kira on the status of the arriving representatives of 
the two denominations. The briefing is interrupted when 
O'Brien enters, calling for Sisko's attention. Acting 
rather uncomfortable, he requests that Sisko replace him 
with another crewmember as pilot for the Runabout mission 
to which he has been assigned. Siskos questions whether he 
has a good reason for the request, and as O'Brien gropes 
for one, Bashir walks in, searching for the Ops Chief. 
Bashir asks Sisko for more details on his current 
assignment, which involves a medical emergency in a Bajoran 
village, but Sisko has no more information to offer. Bashir 
heads for the Runabout, and O'Brien reluctantly follows. On 
the way out, the doctor tells the Ops Chief that he's 
looking forward to the shuttle trip as a chance for the two 
of them to get to know each other better; the expression on 
O'Brien face indicates that he's not nearly as thrilled by 
this prospect as Bashir is.
	Sisko and Kira discuss the upcoming negotiations over the
land dispute. Kira is concerned that the proceedings could 
turn unpleasant; the two opposing factions come from a 
harsh region of Bajor and are as hard and unyielding as the 
land they live on. Sisko tries to reassure her that he is 
experienced in such matters, and that with Kira's help 
there should be no real problems. They proceed to a docking 
bay to meet the ship of one of the factions' leaders, the 
Tetrarch of the Paqu. When the Tetrarch, named Varis, 
emerges, they are surprised to find that she is a teenaged 
girl.
	In the Runabout en route to Bajor, Bashir and O'Brien sit
in silence. An unusually hesitant Bashir breaks it by 
asking the laconic O'Brien, "Do I....*annoy* you?" O'Brien 
dodges the question. Bashir doggedly continues trying to 
engage him in conversation, without appreciable success; 
O'Brien evades the younger man's verbal forays with poorly 
concealed irritation. Eventually Bashir gives up, though he 
makes one final request: that O'Brien call him "Julian" 
instead of "Sir". O'Brien is less than comfortable with 
this suggestion, but when the time comes to beam the two of 
them down to the planet, he goes along with it -- although 
the name comes out sounding more like a swear word.
	The Bajoran village seems undisturbed when they arrive;
Bashir scans their surroundings and is unable to find any 
sign of a village-threatening health problem. They are 
approached by Faren, the village magistrate, who is very 
agitated; he leads the two of them to a dwelling where an 
elderly Bajoran man lies in bed, being attended by a much 
younger Bajoran. Bashir scans the old man and asks how many 
others are sick; Faren says only this man, "the Sirah", is 
ill -- but that if he dies, the whole village will die.
	Back on the station, Sisko and Kira have brought leaders of
the Paqu and the Navot together for a preliminary meeting. 
The heart of the dispute is an old treaty between the two 
groups, stating that the border between their two 
territories is to be a certain river; the river was 
diverted by the Cardassians during the occupation, and 
lands which used to belong to the Navot are now on the Paqu 
side of the river. Both parties lay claim to the land. The 
leader of the Navot, Woban, is patronizing toward the young 
Paqu Tetrarch, comparing her unfavorably to the former 
Tetrarch, her father; his attitude angers Varis. Quark 
comes by to offer drinks, and presents the girl with a 
glass of juice "for the little lady"; the comment earns him 
a face full of juice from the enraged Tetrarch, who storms 
from the room. Quark, blinking juice from his eyes, tells 
Sisko, "I'm still going to charge her for that drink."
	Outside, on the Promenade, Nog and Jake are sitting on the
elevated walkway, feet dangling over the edge, tossing 
things down at the people passing by underneath. They are 
bored; Jake wants to play baseball but Nog isn't 
interested. Odo comes over and sternly orders the boys not 
to dangle over the railing; they stand up, but the moment 
he leaves, they go back to their former seats. Nog looks 
down and sees the young Tetrarch striding by, and is taken 
by a sudden, strong appreciation for the girl. He runs off 
to try and meet her, with Jake trailing behind.
	In the Bajoran village, the Sirah awakens, crying out about
"The Dal'Rok!". Bashir and the man's young assistant, 
Hovath, move to his side, and the aged Bajoran takes 
Bashir's hand in his, saying, "The Prophets sent you, 
didn't they?" Bashir is puzzled, and after an instant the 
old man releases him, stating, "You are not the one -- it 
must be your companion." He demands to see O'Brien, and 
when the Ops Chief comes over, the Sirah clasps his hand, 
and says, "I knew the Prophets would not fail us." 
Seemingly satisfied, he lets go of O'Brien and dismisses 
the two Starfleet officers without offering an explanation.

	As Bashir and O'Brien leave the Sirah's cottage, wondering
about the elderly man's actions, they are approached by 
Faren who asks how the Sirah is. The prognosis is not good; 
the old man is simply dying of advanced age, and beyond 
keeping him comfortable, there is nothing Bashir can do. 
Faren is alarmed -- "We *need* him! The Dal'Rok will be 
here soon!" When O'Brien asks what a "Dal'Rok" is, Faren 
explains that it is a terrible creature that comes every 
year at harvest time, for five nights in a row, and attacks 
the village. Tonight is the fourth night, and the Sirah 
will be required to drive the Dal'Rok away. Bashir is 
doubtful that the Sirah will be strong enough to do 
anything of the sort, and Faren repeats as before that 
without the Sirah, the village will be destroyed.
	On the station, Nog and Jake have located the girl's guest
quarters, though they are unaware of her status. They try 
to taunt each other into ringing the bell, and begin to 
scuffle, then stop as Varis opens the door and sharply 
demands to know what they are doing. After a tongue-tied 
Nog tries to make introductions, Jake takes over that job, 
and the Tetrarch acquires a thoughtful look when she hears 
Jake's last name. The boys enter the room and make friendly 
overtures, suggesting an outing to watch the wormhole, and 
Varis agrees to the trip.
	In the village, night has fallen and, over Bashir's
protests, the Sirah is helped from his house to a rocky 
promontory overlooking the village. The wind starts to 
rise, without apparent cause, as the Sirah begins recite a 
ceremonious litany about the strength and malice of the 
monstrous Dal'Rok. As he speaks, a strange looking cloud 
appears in the sky above the village, and begins to grow 
larger as the villagers cry out in alarm. O'Brien and 
Bashir watch in astonishment. O'Brien scans the clouds and 
exclaims that it doesn't appear to be showing up on the 
tricorder at all. Bashir suggests that it might be a 
hologram, but O'Brien rejects that explanation since there 
is no sign of a power source for it.
	 The Sirah continues to chant, and strange lightnings begin
to flicker around the Dal'Rok. The Sirah calls upon the 
strength and unity of the village to drive back the 
Dal'Rok, and the villagers respond to his words, shouting 
angrily at the apparition. As they do so, a curtain of 
shimmering light forms in the air above the gathered 
Bajorans, and streams out toward the Dal'Rok -- and the 
Dal'Rok retreats before it. But as the Sirah continues his 
recital, he suddenly gasps, clutches his chest, and falls. 
Hovath and Bashir race to his side as above them, a tendril 
of cloud lashes out from the Dal'Rok, striking a cliff face 
and sending several villagers tumbling. Another bolt hits, 
and the villagers begin to panic as Bashir yells for 
O'Brien's assistance with the Sirah. The Sirah calls for 
his successor; Hovath moves closer, but the Sirah pushes 
him away and calls for "the One the Prophets have sent" -- 
namely, O'Brien.
	The elderly Bajoran pulls himself to his feet, with 
O'Brien's help, and tells the bemused Ops Chief to take up 
the ceremonial chant. With prompting from the Sirah, 
O'Brien does so, and the panicky villagers begin to 
reunite. The shimmering light above them reforms and once 
again contacts the Dal'Rok, which shrinks in response until 
it has vanished completely. "The Dal'Rok is defeated!", 
says O'Brien, and the village erupts with cheers just as 
the Sirah collapses -- and dies. Faren presents a stunned 
O'Brien to the villagers as their new Sirah.
	Back on the station, Kira enters Quark's and asks for a
drink. When Quark enquires about the negotiations, Kira 
tells him, "Make it a double."
	In Sisko's office, Sisko confronts the uncooperative young
Tetrarch about the lack of progress in their negotiations. 
Varis does not appear interested in compromise with the 
Navot; in fact, she seems fully prepared to thrust her 
people into all-out war over the disputed land. Sisko asks 
her to make sure that her people are as willing as she is 
to die over that land, and the Tetrarch strides out without 
replying.
	Meanwhile, on the Promenade, Jake and Nog are wondering
where their new friend has gone to. Jake teases Nog about 
his crush and Nog shows flashes of jealousy over Jake's 
easy rapport with Varis. They encounter the topic of their 
conversation sitting in their favorite spot, legs dangling 
over the Promenade, looking downcast. The boys, still 
unaware of her position, ask her what the problem is and 
she explains it in non-specific, oblique terms, saying that 
someone wants to take something from her. Nog suggests that 
she might perhaps find something that she wants to trade 
for the item in question, saying that a situation like the 
one she is in represents an opportunity, and the Tetrarch 
considers his statement.
	 The conversation turns to the topic of parents; Jake
speaks of his father with admiration, and with some 
reservations, Nog also praises his own father, Rom. Varis 
tells them that her parents were both killed by the 
Cardassians, and Jake tells her that his mother was killed 
by the Borg. Varis expresses her appreciation of Jake's 
trust in his father. The conversation ends when Odo appears 
and again chases the youngsters away from their favorite 
perch.
	On Bajor, a worried O'Brien paces back and forth in the
Sirah's house while Bashir comments with evident 
enthusiasm about how fascinating he finds the whole 
situation. O'Brien, irritated, tries to quash the doctor by 
pointing out that the villagers expect him to stop the 
Dal'Rok and he hasn't the faintest idea of how to go about 
it, which could get them all killed.
	Their conversation is interrupted by a parade of villagers
arriving with gifts for the new Sirah, including Faren and 
Hovath. One of the "gifts" O'Brien is presented with is a 
trio of comely young Bajoran women offering, as Bashir puts 
it, "Services," which leads the flustered O'Brien to 
protest that he has a wife and a daughter on DS9. Faren 
says he must arrange for them to move to the village, but 
the Chief insists that he won't be staying. Faren is 
alarmed, saying that if O'Brien doesn't stay the whole 
village will be destroyed; he is the new Sirah, and the 
Sirah must tell the story and stop the Dal'Rok. O'Brien 
objects that he hasn't any idea how to do that, but Faren 
is adamant, and leaves, saying, "May the Prophets grant you 
victory, Sirah." Hovath follows Faren out, but not before 
giving O'Brien a poisonous look. Once they are alone, 
O'Brien tells Bashir that the only way he can think of to 
get out of this mess is to find out what the Dal'Rok is and 
destroy it before it destroys them.
	On DS9, Jake and Nog arrive at Valis' quarters to try and
lure her away to have some fun. She is busy studying maps 
of the land dispute, however, and declines, then asks Nog 
how he decides if an opportunity is worth the risk. His 
reply is, "Instinct." Valis considers this and appears to 
come to some sort of conclusion, and thanks Nog, who is 
overjoyed by the attention. Nog suggests they go celebrate; 
he has obtained one of Quark's security rods and thinks it 
would be amusing to swipe Odo's bucket from the security 
room. Valis is puzzled about why taking a bucket should be 
fun, but goes along anyway. The three conspirators head for 
the security office, and Nog sets about breaking in while 
Jake tries to explain to Valis about Odo's shapeshifting 
and his need to return to liquid form periodically -- thus, 
the bucket.
	Nog succeeds in getting the doors open and lets Jake and
Valis in, then scurries into the back room and emerges a 
moment later with Odo's bucket in his hands. On the way to 
show his prize to Jake, he stumbles, and the contents of 
the bucket slop out and splash down the front of Jake's 
clothes in a long white smear. Jake yelps, "ODO!", staring 
down at himself in horror and trying to scoop up handfuls 
of the mysterious substance. Nog begins laughing 
hysterically, and says that it's only oatmeal; he filled 
the bucket from the replicator. Jake is furious and throws 
a handful of glop at the young Ferengi, who fails to dodge 
in time, but keeps laughing anyway. After a moment, Jake 
and Valis join in.
	Their laughter is cut short a moment later when the doors
open and Odo strides in, looking not at all amused. Nog 
makes a run for it and gets past Odo, but is captured in 
the hallway outside by Sisko. Sisko hauls him back to the 
security office and finds Odo standing with Jake and Valis. 
Sisko stares at Valis, who looks down at the floor.
	On Bajor, O'Brien examines the rockface the Dal'Rok
destroyed on the previous night, finding neutrino traces 
that seem to indicate that the Dal'Rok had some sort of 
real substance, in spite of the fact that the tricorder 
showed nothing. Bashir asks him how he stopped the Dal'Rok, 
and O'Brien insists that he didn't -- the Sirah must have. 
O'Brien hypothesizes that the old man may have had a 
control device of some sort. As the two of them head for 
the Sirah's house to search for such a device, a young 
woman stops O'Brien and asks him to bless her baby; O'Brien 
is taken aback and Bashir has to prod him into going along 
with the woman's request. Then a larger group of villagers 
appears and starts to head toward them, calling for the 
Sirah, and O'Brien's nerve breaks; he flees toward the 
Sirah's house, leaving Bashir behind to run interference 
with the villagers.
	In the Sirah's cottage, O'Brien pokes around at the old
man's belongings, scanning them with his tricorder, but 
finds nothing of use. The former Sirah's assistant, Hovath, 
enters, and O'Brien recognizes him as having worked for the 
old man. Hovath states that he was the Sirah's apprentice, 
and O'Brien asks him for the secret of controlling the 
Dal'Rok. The apprentice sullenly refuses to help, to 
O'Brien's frustration and disgust. The angry Ops Chief 
turns his back on the young Bajoran and begins to examine a 
bracelet sitting in front of a wall mirror. Hovath pulls 
something from under his vest and lunges for O'Brien, but 
O'Brien sees the motion in the mirror and turns just in 
time to stop Hovath from stabbing him. The two of them 
struggle for the knife as Bashir comes in the door, sees 
what's going on, and moves in to help O'Brien disarm his 
attacker.
	O'Brien, furious, demands to know the reason for the
attack, and Hovath replies, "You are not the true Sirah!" 
O'Brien stares at the young man, and says, "You won't get 
any argument from me!" Hovath tells them that he had been 
the old Sirah's apprentice for nine years, and that he 
thinks the old Sirah chose O'Brien over him in order to 
punish him. Three nights previously, Hovath had been given 
the opportunity to try and control the Dal'Rok and had 
failed, resulting in several villagers being injured. 
Hovath goes on to say that the bracelet which O'Brien had 
been examining is the key to controlling the Dal'Rok; it 
contains a fragment of an Orb. Many years ago, their 
village had been tearing itself apart with internal 
conflict; the first Sirah had used the Orb fragment to give 
the villagers' fears and hatreds a physical form, and to 
also give them the ability to defeat it. The Dal'Rok is a 
construct of the villagers' minds, but the villagers 
themselves are not aware of this fact. The Sirah's story is 
used as a method of focussing the villagers' thoughts 
toward the defeat of the Dal'Rok.
	Hovath wants another chance to prove himself, and O'Brien
is more than happy to give it to him. But as he is 
transferring the robes of office to the young Bajoran, 
Faren enters and demands that Hovath take them off; he is 
not to be allowed to endanger the village a second time. 
Over O'Brien's protests, Faren arrays the Ops Chief in the 
ceremonial robes and leads him out to do battle with the 
Dal'Rok.
	In Sisko's office on DS9, Sisko and Valis discuss the
incident at the security office. Valis claims all 
responsibility. Sisko is disinclined to let the boys off, 
but Valis tries to defend them. She tells Sisko that her 
motive for associating with Jake and Nog was to find out 
from them what sort of a man Sisko was. Jake's trust in his 
father had given Valis reason to trust Sisko as well, and 
she confesses to him her fears that if she makes 
concessions to Woban, he will think her weak. Her father 
could afford to compromise because Woban feared him; she 
doesn't have that advantage. Sisko encourages her to take 
the risk of meeting Woban's demands halfway. Valis 
considers this for a moment, then says that she has thought 
of an opportunity for both sides of the disagreement to 
profit.
	In the village, O'Brien leads the ceremonial procession to
the site of the battle with the Dal'Rok, followed by 
Hovath and Bashir. O'Brien tries to encourage Hovath to 
fight for his right to be Sirah, but Hovath says the 
villagers will never believe in him after his failure, and 
without their faith he can never control the Dal'Rok. 
Leaving Hovath and Bashir down with the gathered villagers, 
O'Brien ascends to the rocky bluff. The villagers cheer him 
on as he begins attempting to tell the story of the Dal'Rok 
and the village. As he talks, the wind rises as before, and 
within moments the Dal'Rok begins to appear in the sky.
	At first O'Brien seems to be managing, however roughly, to 
perform the Sirah's task. But as the Dal'Rok grows in size 
and menace, the crowd becomes nervous, and Hovath is 
disturbed. "There's something wrong," he tells Bashir. 
Bashir replies that what's wrong is that O'Brien is not the 
true Sirah -- Hovath is. The doctor urges Hovath to seize 
this chance to prove himself, but Hovath remains uncertain.

	O'Brien continues to try to tell the story, but as the
lightnings begin to flicker around the Dal'Rok, he 
falters; the villagers, seeing this, start to panic. In the 
crowd, Hovath watches, as Bashir persists in trying to 
convince the Sirah's apprentice to go to O'Brien's aid. 
Bashir suggests to Hovath that perhaps this was all planned 
by the old Sirah; knowing that the villagers had lost faith 
in Hovath's abilities, the old man had selected O'Brien 
instead, knowing that Hovath would have to come to the 
Chief's rescue and show himself to be the true Sirah.
	Meanwhile, O'Brien has been rapidly losing control of both
the Dal'Rok and the crowd as well. There has been no sign 
of the rescuing shimmering lights arriving to send the 
Dal'Rok away. As O'Brien stands helplessly, a cloud tendril 
lashes out from the Dal'Rok and strikes the rocky bluff; 
O'Brien falls, and the villagers give way to their panic 
and start to flee the area in terror. Bashir and Hovath 
charge up the hill, and Hovath snatches the bracelet away 
from O'Brien as Bashir starts to help the Chief up. Hovath 
plants his feet firmly on the rocky bluff, raises his 
hands, and calls out in commanding tone to summon the 
villagers back to the battle. With new confidence and 
surety, he begins to tell the story, and the villagers 
return to listen. Within moments, the shimmering lights 
appear, and flow out to engage the Dal'Rok. As before, the 
cloud gives way before them, shrinks, and vanishes, leaving 
the village safe for another year. The jubilant crowd 
rushes forward to acclaim their new Sirah, as O'Brien tells 
Bashir, "Let's get out of here before they change their 
minds!"
	On the station, the young Tetrarch tells Sisko that she 
has decided to agree to give Woban the disputed land in 
exchange for trading rights to both sides of the river. 
Sisko is hopeful that Woban will accept those terms. Jake 
and Nog come by to wish her good luck with the final 
meeting, and she thanks them and gives Nog a quick kiss on 
the cheek. As she enters the meeting room, Odo collars Jake 
and a starry-eyed Nog and hustles them away, telling them 
that they are going to clean the security room until it 
shines.
	Nearby, O'Brien and Bashir enter through an airlock,
returning from Bajor. Bashir comments that their adventure 
on Bajor will make for a good story to tell around the 
station, but O'Brien is not interested in doing any more 
storytelling. Bashir asks if he can tell it instead, and 
O'Brien says, "Suit yourself....Julian." Bashir says, "On 
second thought, Chief...you don't have to call me Julian." 
O'Brien stops, smiles a little, and replies, "Right you 
are. Sir."

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go 
overboard.


Hawthorne's Deeply Spaced Reviews: "The Storyteller"
Review by Jen Hawthorne

Well, here I am again with another very late review. Sorry,
folks; it's that time of the year.  The synopsis and 
review for this week's episode, "Progress", should be along 
in a day or so, and after that, God and my thesis advisor 
willing, things will be back to normal for the duration of 
the season.

I'm beginning this (lamentably late) review with another
editorial comment.  I've decided that giving the episodes 
a rating on a 1-10 scale is just plan inadequate, so I'm 
not going to be doing it any more.  I want to replace it 
with some other sort of rating system, but I haven't 
decided what it will be yet. I may be experimenting with a 
couple of different ideas before settling on one, so bear 
with me. (Does anybody actually pay attention to these 
things anyway?)

One-sentence opinion summary:  As a stand-alone episode,
it's fine;  as part of an ongoing series, it gets high 
marks for character interaction but a big, fat, wet 
raspberry for continuity -- or lack thereof. (The fact that 
I expected it doesn't help much.)

There are SPOILERS below! You have been warned. Ye who
enter here, all hope abandon of remaining unspoiled.


"Que Sirah, Sirah...."
	 -- not quite Doris Day

Okay, I'm going to get this out of the way real quick and
then I won't say anything more about it.

No follow-up from last episode's events. Not even a passing
mention. Tonstant Watcher Fwowed Up.

Right.  So, ignoring my disappointment over the total lack
of continuity here (even the necklace from "Battle Lines" 
was irrelevant...Sigh...), I liked "The Storyteller."  Not 
without reservations, of course (I always have 
reservations, though I rarely buy a ticket ;-) but I 
enjoyed it.  As is fairly standard for DS9, the main 
plotline -- The Life O'Brien -- was stronger than the 
subordinate plot with the land dispute, but at least the 
two plots were connected thematically this time, if not 
linked through any events in the episode itself.  And some 
of the character interaction bits between O'Brien and 
Bashir were priceless.  But more on that later; first I 
need to discuss the theme, in order to support my 
contention that the two plotlines actually were related.

The two stories, that of Hovath in the Bajoran village and
that of Varis on the station, are basically the same 
story, told in parallel. Both involve a young person thrust 
into a position of heavy responsibility having to struggle 
with those responsibilities, and managing to do so with a 
little help from the DS9 crew.   The underlying theme here 
is the relationship of young to old -- energy versus 
experience, instinct versus reason, idealism versus 
practicality. This shows up in many of the relationships 
depicted in this episode, most noticeably in Bashir/O'Brien 
and Varis/Sisko, but also in Hovath/Sirah, Hovath/Faren, 
Varis/Woban, and the kids/Odo. And, as in real life, the 
relationship between the two is sometimes adversarial, sometimes 
supportive; sometimes the young and old conflict with each 
other (inevitably and necessarily) and sometimes they work 
together to the advantage of all (which should happen more 
often than it does in American society, which is too 
stratified along age lines in my opinion -- but I'm 
digressing.)

Oh, please don't anyone get upset over my referring to
O'Brien and Sisko as "old" -- I should perhaps be saying 
youth versus maturity instead of young versus old, but the 
latter comparison is more succinct.  Age and youth are all 
relative, anyway.  I don't consider either Sisko or 
O'Brien, or the actors portraying them, to be old by any 
absolute measure.  It's only by comparison, all right?

Interestingly enough, the theme breaks down toward the
resolution of the plotlines -- or does it?  We see in both 
cases that the critical insight to the solution of the 
problem comes not from the voice of wisdom --O'Brien and 
Sisko -- but from the voice of instinct -- Bashir and Nog, 
two characters I wouldn't have expected to be in the 
position of providing the answers, on first consideration.  
But in both cases, although the seed idea was provided by a 
younger character (relatively speaking, again -- Bashir's 
not *that* young) it's the older one that provides the 
practicality.  It's Sisko who gives Varis the confidence to 
risk appearing weak before her opponent, and it's O'Brien 
whose attempt to control the Dal'Rok in spite of his almost 
certain failure shows Hovath that he needs to be similarly 
courageous -- O'Brien could just have beamed the heck out 
of there and left the village to deal with the Dal'Rok on 
its own, but instead he chose to stay and *try*, quite 
possibly at the risk of his own life.

So maybe the point being made is that while important ideas
can and do come from inexperienced voices,  it takes 
wisdom to turn ideas into successful action.

Or maybe I'm stretching the metaphor far beyond its
intended reach. Who knows? :-)

As another minor digression, given what I perceive as the
theme, it's a bit of a shame that there wasn't a place for 
Dax in this story, as I'd think she'd be a perfect voice 
for some interesting insights into the matter, given her 
dual nature.

Now that the theme has been established, it's time to look
at the way in which it was elucidated. The Dal'Rok plot 
held together quite well, on the whole; in particular I was 
very happy with the explanation presented for why the Sirah 
picked on O'Brien in the first place. It made a great deal 
of sense, and given that being the Sirah looks to be at 
least 50% showmanship, I could see the Sirah picking such a 
theatrical way to go about making his point, instead of 
just taking Faren aside after Hovath's failure and saying 
"Look, it's him or nothing, give him another chance." This 
latter solution probably wouldn't have worked, either, as 
it wouldn't have provided *Hovath* with the self-confidence 
the job required, although getting Faren off his case might 
have helped.

I would have been a bit happier with a more coherent
explanation of the Dal'Rok, but there's another metaphor 
in here I'll get to in a moment that excuses this somewhat 
in my eyes.  Also, as my friend Charles who was watching 
the episode with me pointed out, "Couldn't they just beam 
the bracelet out of there and then the Dal'Rok wouldn't 
manifest?" Maybe this wouldn't have worked -- for plot 
purposes, it *couldn't* have worked -- but it would have 
been nice to hear them consider just destroying or removing 
the bracelet and stating a reason why it wouldn't work. 
Also, I thought that O'Brien should perhaps have protested 
more loudly to Faren about Faren taking the robes away from 
Hovath and giving them to O'Brien instead, given that it 
was the safety of the entire village at stake, but I can 
write that off as O'Brien giving Hovath a chance to stand 
up for himself, which he really needed to do.

As for the metaphor I just mentioned:  I've read in the
magazines that one reason the show's producers decided to 
have DS9 start out as such a wreck was that it was 
reminiscent of LA after the riots.  I couldn't help 
thinking of that when Hovath began to recount how the 
village had almost been torn apart by internal hatred and 
strife, until the first Sirah used the bracelet to give the 
hatred and fear a visible form -- and then called upon the 
unity of the village to drive it back.  Seems to me there's 
a message in there somewhere.  (And not just for LA, but 
for Bosnia, and many, many other places around the globe, 
too. Not that anyone's likely to pay attention :-(

Lawrence Monoson did a fairly good job with Hovath, though
nothing spectacular.  I don't have too much to say about 
his performance; since all of his scenes were with O'Brien 
and Bashir, he was thoroughly overpowered by Colm Meany and 
Siddig El Fadil and just kind of got lost. Kay Kuter was 
fine as the Sirah; unlike Monoson, he had sufficient 
presence to hold his own against the regulars.

As for the Varis plot, it was a trifle slow, but had some
very good moments in it. I enjoyed the portrayal of Jake 
and Nog's friendship very much; they actually sounded like 
real teenage boys! I was pleasantly astonished.  The source 
of the problem and the resolution of it were reasonable too 
(though I've seen the exact same "divergent river" problem 
in a book (Misty Lackey's "Arrow's Flight"), although the 
solution was different.)  The only real problem with this 
subplot for me was that Gina Philips didn't quite carry off 
her role.  Her movement and expression were fine, for the 
most part, but the line delivery was often less than 
perfect.  And it would take a fair amount of ability to 
bring across what I saw as the central conflict of the 
character -- a girl thrown into a position of 
responsibility too young, having to be adult and mature 
beyond her years and yet wanting to be a kid, too.  I 
suspect it may be difficult to find an actor of that age 
capable of bringing this kind of subtlety across (though I 
may be doing an injustice to teenage actors, I wouldn't 
know.)

Character exposition in this episode focused on O'Brien and
Bashir, with some good time also given to Jake and Nog, 
and a little bit to Sisko.  Dax got one line, Quark got 
only a few more (but one of them was a beauty :-), Kira was 
around but didn't do much, and Odo got two or three small 
scenes with the kids which were nice and great fun but 
didn't show us anything new.

I'll admit it right up front: I adored the O'Brien/Bashir
interaction in this episode, and I'd love to see more of 
it in future episodes. Particularly good were the early 
Runabout scene and the later one in the Sirah's house with 
the worried, agitated O'Brien pacing back and forth in 
front of an annoyingly relaxed and cheerful Bashir.  I 
thought the two actors played off of each other 
wonderfully; things like the tone and inflection of 
O'Brien's voice when he said "Julian" (mimicked perfectly 
by Bashir in the final scene, to my great amusement) and 
the look that Bashir gave O'Brien when trying to get him to 
bless the Bajoran woman's baby just made the episode for 
me. Credit goes to the writer, too, for some really nice 
dialogue in these exchanges.

The writers also did a very nice job of differentiating
between the two characters not only in terms of attitude, 
but also in terms of their approach to the problem and 
their particular strengths or weaknesses in dealing with.  
Bashir, short on experience, was perfectly willing to 
believe that O'Brien was in fact special somehow -- the 
Chosen One -- and that this would give him whatever 
abilities he required to deal with the Dal'Rok, an 
unjustified belief that could have been disastrous. (The 
slight case of hero worship that Bashir supposedly has for 
O'Brien might well have something to do with this; for that 
matter, he came across as actively *disappointed* that 
O'Brien turned out not to be the True Sirah).  O'Brien, 
who's been around, knew better than to make such 
assumptions, and approached the situation from a practical 
standpoint -- something's happening that I don't understand 
and it's important to figure out what's causing it and why, 
and here's how we're going to go about it.  On the other 
hand, O'Brien was nearly hopeless when it came to dealing 
with the villagers and their expectations of him, while 
Bashir coped with it without difficulty.  This might be an 
explanation of why the old Sirah settled on O'Brien and not 
Bashir as his successor; Bashir's more outgoing personality 
and (somewhat overdeveloped) sense of self-importance might 
actually have allowed him to do the job, and the Sirah's 
plan required someone who was sure to be a failure at it.

I was particularly pleased that Bashir got some much-needed
quality time here.  With "Battle Lines" that makes two 
episodes in a row; I hope this is a trend.  The writers 
seem to be getting a feel (at last) for how to properly 
balance this character between his two aspects, and I 
couldn't be happier about it. The "Do I annoy you?" 
conversation with O'Brien seems to indicate that Bashir is 
picking up a certain degree of self-cognisance which is 
primarily what the character needs -- the awareness of your 
own weaknesses as well as your strengths.  It may be a 
little fast -- that kind of introspective ability isn't 
gained overnight -- but then again, he's supposed to be 
pretty quick on the uptake, and besides, the character 
really needs it. (Though not too much of it or he'll lose a 
lot of what makes him fresh and interesting.)  At the same 
time he's still making some very believable mistakes -- 
trying to force a friendship with O'Brien instead of 
letting it happen naturally if it's going to, and insisting 
on O'Brien calling him by his first name even though 
O'Brien finds it uncomfortable.  But here again, he figures 
this out by the episode's end and corrects the mistake, so 
he's not totally hopeless after all. (Insert Robin 
Williams' voice saying, "He *can* be TAUGHT!" :-)

A minor digression here since it fits: my pal Charles,
mentioned above, and I were watching reruns of earlier DS9 
episodes just before "The Storyteller" came on, and one 
episode we watched was "The Passenger" because he hadn't 
seen it yet.  Now, as you know if you read my review of 
that episode, I strongly disliked Bashir's opening smug 
speech about his own brilliance because I thought it was 
totally unrealistic dialogue. Charles said he thought 
Bashir was doing it deliberately to twit Kira because he 
knew it annoyed her; I was of the opinion that Bashir 
wasn't sufficiently self-cognisant to be able to do 
something like that.  I still don't know if I believe that 
he could be, but the Runabout scene with O'Brien at least 
makes it a possibility (slim but real.)  It would certainly 
be an amusing sort of thing for him to start doing, 
although doing it with Kira might be dangerous if she 
caught on -- or if she didn't, for that matter...

O'Brien also did well in the characterisation department,
of course, though he wasn't as badly in need of it as 
Bashir as he has all of his previous TNG history to draw 
on.  The way he was totally at sea when dealing with the 
worship of the villages was great and extremely 
appropriate; O'Brien is a very practical, nuts-and-bolts 
sort of man, and this kind of religious mania on the part 
of the villagers must have seemed like complete lunacy to 
him. And Bashir's willing agreement with it was sure to 
drive him straight up the nearest wall; several times he 
seemed on the verge of grabbing the doctor and giving him a 
good shaking, while shouting "Will you STOP talking about 
this Sirah nonsense and help me figure this out?!"  That 
degree of baffled frustration is so at odds with the calm, 
controlled demeanour everyone on TNG has most of the time 
that it really makes me appreciate DS9. And as I said 
above, O'Brien was truly being selfless in his willingness 
to stick around and at least *try* to control the Dal'Rok; 
it wasn't part of his assignment, and it was likely to get 
him hurt or killed, and yet he was willing to stay in the 
village and take a shot at it. O'Brien comes across as a 
good man to have at your back in a tight situation; not 
calm, perhaps, but steady and dependable, and solid as a 
rock.  Again, the contrast between this and Bashir's more 
mercurial nature works really well for me and I hope we get 
to see more of it. The ending of this episode may indicate 
that O'Brien will be cutting Bashir a little more slack in 
the future, while Bashir may be figuring out how to keep 
from driving O'Brien to distraction. We'll see. (At the 
risk of sounding repetitive, I'll reiterate that this would 
be a case of a little is a good thing, a lot would ruin the 
relationship completely, so I hope they exercise some 
care.)

O'Brien was also miserably bad at trying to be the Sirah,
and as I've said in earlier reviews, I truly like the fact 
that the DS9 characters are allowed to be just plain *bad* 
at some things;  it makes them much more human.  (If you 
prefer your Trek character to be superhuman paragons, as I 
think some people do, then we just have different tastes; I 
find superhuman paragons dull.)  O'Brien, being a man who 
deals with solid, practical matters, wouldn't be the type 
to be any good at theatrics  -- it's too close to lying, 
and O'Brien is honest and straightforward almost to a 
fault. It's eminently reasonable that he would be no good 
whatsoever at trying to pretend to be something he's not, 
and I really liked it.

Jake and Nog were also drawn very nicely in this episode. 
Their friendship has a realistically imperfect edge to it; 
they like each other, but they also argue and compete and 
pull jokes on each other. Very appropriate for a couple of 
teenage boys.  Cirroc Lofton did his usual excellent job of 
making Jake a likeable screen presence and his scenes with 
Aron Eisenberg's Nog worked quite nicely, although some of 
them were a little hampered by the limitations of the 
actress playing Varis.  In particular, I really liked the 
scene with Odo's bucket and the oatmeal; Jake's panicky 
reaction to the thought that he might have Odo splashed all 
over him was great.  I thought it was a little odd that 
Jake and Nog didn't seem to know that Varis was the 
Tetrarch, but maybe they just never got around to asking.

Short Takes
===========
-- Some of the crew finally get down to Bajor and interact 
with the locals. It's about time.  More, please? (Yes, I 
know they need to use the standing sets as much as 
possible. But I can ask, can't I?)

-- One nice subtle point I noticed on re-watching the
episode is the way that the relationship between the Sirah 
and Hovath, his apprentice, was *shown* and not told in the 
way the two character interacted. It looked to me like the 
two character had a strong father-son relationship before 
things were disrupted by Hovath's failure and the Sirah's 
illness; the body language and little touches between the 
two of them worked well.

-- Odo calls Jake "Mr. Sisko," not "Jake". He did it in
"Move Along Home", too. I don't know exactly why, but that 
just seems to *fit* Odo very nicely.  I like it.

-- Even adolescent Ferengi like humanoid females, it seems.
I still find the Ferengi fascination with humanoid 
females to be a bit hard to swallow, but at least they're 
being consistent.

-- So we've all heard that "Starfleet is not a military
organisation", but I sort of wish they'd clarify the 
"officer" situation a bit more. For example, O'Brien makes 
a big deal over Bashir being his superior officer, and 
calling him "Sir" and all that, but his attitude toward 
Bashir while down on the planet (and in general) is 
anything *but* subordinate -- in fact, O'Brien's clearly 
the one in authority in that situation, to the extent that 
anyone is, and he doesn't even bother with token deference 
to Bashir.  Yes, that's in character, and I'm not 
complaining about it in that regard, but where exactly is 
the line drawn? Bashir's not likely to object, of course, 
but if a by-the-book Starfleet officer happened to be 
present, would O'Brien be up on charges of insubordination? 
(It's not relevant -- which is why it's down here and not 
up above -- but I still wonder.)

-- Although I really liked the whole gift-giving scene, I
have one qualm about it.  The bit with the three Bajoran 
women, while funny, was bothersome to me for two reasons. 
The implication is strong that they're being presented for 
the new Sirah for the purpose of sex. First of all, this 
makes Faren a pimp, and yes, I'm being purposely indelicate 
here. It implies that some version of the "droit de 
seigneur" is being exercised in this village with regard to 
the Sirah -- did the old Sirah also get his pick of the 
village girls? Okay, they were offering themselves 
willingly, it appeared; it still smacks of exploitation.    
Second, it's distinctly at odds with what's been said about 
Bajoran women on the show.  Now, there's no doubt that not 
all Bajoran women can be like Kira and Ro, but I did get 
the impression that the societal attitude toward women was 
not the sort that would lend itself to this sort of 
attitude.  I'm not going to rant and rave about this, but I 
did want to point it out, and put in a plea for maybe a 
little more sensitivity on the part of the writers to 
scenes like this.  (If you're planning on sending me mail 
telling me I'm a feminazi, don't bother, I'll ignore you.)

-- A friend of mine (someone other than Charles) said that
the scene in the Nagus that stuck with them the most 
strongly was the one of Dax helping herself to Sisko's 
stew, but that he didn't know why; similarly, one of the 
scenes that really stuck with me from "The Storyteller" is 
the one with Bashir chomping on that whatever-it-was while 
O'Brien paces, and I don't know why either.  (No, I wasn't 
hungry when I watched the episode; I had just finished 
dinner, so there :-) For some reason I just can't figure 
out, it seemed very *right* for that character to be 
munching away while O'Brien paced -- and talking with his 
mouth full, too.  (Just what was it he was eating, anyway? 
It was too small to be an apple. Any guesses? Random 
curiosity strikes again...)


Next Week: Hmm.  It's the Shore Leave Where No One Has Gone
Before on DS9.  O'Brien sees leprechauns and Bashir 
finally gets into a clinch with Dax, or someone who looks a 
lot like her, at least.

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne.  All rights reserved, 
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.
