By Owen Quinn author
All photos copyright of Paramount Pictures
When Dax’s scientific curiosity plunges the weary crew of the Defiant into orbit above a world surrounded by an energy field, they are contacted by people with familiar names. Soon, they discover this colony is made up from their descendants. Two hundred years previously, the Defiant was thrown back in time when it tried to go through the energy field only to crash on this world. With no choice but to survive, they settled into this new life. Kira died leaving Odo alone. Now they know they future, the divided crew are split on what to do. Go home to their families wiping the colony from history or stay here and let the crash happen to ensure 8,000 of their ancestors stay alive.
Only Odo is still alive from the original crew and Kira learns a startling secret; a secret that may well bring destruction upon all of them.
Star trek has dealt with many deep and powerful themes over the decades but Deep Space 9’s fifth season episode Children of Time stands today as not only a powerful piece of science fiction but an extraordinary piece of television drama. We have seen dilemmas over one life against millions but here we have a situation so unique that it changes our heroes forever. There is no reset button, no easy answer but the emotional depths of this story stay with you long after the episode ends.
Children of Time is a very unique and integral episode to the show as it takes place in the middle of the Dominion War and as we know the DS9 crew are instrumental in stopping the Dominion from winning and wiping out the Federation. It also brings to a head a story thread involving Odo’s secret love for Kira. Additionally we get a new aspect of Dax and what may have been. All of the characters are put under the microscope as they are faced with letting all of their ancestors die.
The fact that their ancestors are so likeable makes it hard for us as an audience to easily come up for an answer as top whether the crew should turn tail and go home. Now they know what will happen they can now evade that future and continue with their lives. However the cost will be the extinction of this colony.
O’Brien is fully committed to going home as he has a family while Worf would stay as this could be their destiny. O’Brien throws in the fact that Worf rarely sees his son Alexander so it would be easy for him. This is interesting given how little the honourable Worf pays attention to his son. While he tried to be a father on the Enterprise, Worf and Alexander have moved apart. For all his honour speeches and the fact he risked death when his father was accused of being the traitor, looking at his speech in Birthright when he finds out his father may well be alive, Worf’s treatment of his son is shameful. Whereas O’Brien has a young daughter and a son whom he loves dearly. He is happily married and will move heaven and earth to get home.
Kira is happy to accept her fate and when she tells O’Brien that the Prophets will look after Keiko and the kids, he gives her a short answer. This reflects his true feelings about her religion. This is O’Brien at his best. He is the everyday man we know and love who refuses to give up. In the alternate history, he was the last to give up which is very much him but he honoured his lost loved ones by naming his new family after them which is carried on sown the bloodline.
The alternate history of how they survived and grew after the crash is fascinating. Bashir is delighted that his healing skills are something of a legend while such is the power of Worf, there are Klingons both born and those who have adapted the lifestyle and teachings. They live separately to the rest of the colony while Dax meets a future Dax, Yedrin Dax, who has a plan to allow both the crew to leave while maintaining the colony safe behind the planet’s energy barrier.
When the Defiant came through the energy barrier it caused a duplication effect as seen when Kira was hit by a blast of energy. We, as an audience, have seen her split in two for a second before merging back. Yedrin has plotted a course that will send the Defiant safely through the barrier leaving them intact. He is a source of great stories about what happened. Dax and Worf got married, Worf was shaking with nerves and hated the fact Jadzia cut her hair short. All these anecdotes build a lovely picture but when Yedrin is exposed as a fraud, it brings out more in Dax.
Yedrin’s plan will ensure the Defiant crashes and when challenged, he reveals the guilt he feels for causing this in the first place. It was Jadzia’s need to make the next big discovery at any cost that robbed all these people of their home. This is something you don’t really think of but the brilliant Jadzia is so loveable, we forget she has a double intelligence that takes risks to be the first.
Now the choice of letting events happen as before or not is down to the crew.
The other cog in the wheel is Kira played by the wonderful Nana Visitor.
Sadly, the discharge that struck her caused irrevocable damage to her synaptic pathways which, without the medical facilities of DS9, caused her to die weeks later. Her grave is on a hill and she gets a special guide; Odo. But our Odo is currently stuck in liquid form as the barrier cancels out his shapeshifting ability. This Odo is one that has loved for over two hundred years. This Odo has mamanged to improve his shapeshifting and looks more human than before.
But this Odo jas been living with a broken heart for all these years and he takes Kira down to the planet after he tells her that he loves her. Taken aback, she accepts his invitation and visits her own grave. Odo is hopeful they can avoid this future and she and her Odo can finally have a relationship now she knows the truth.
It is an intersting dilemma. Kira’s survival is part of the equation and when Yedrin throws it in Sisko’s face about risking all their lives for just Kira’s, Sisko slaps him down hard. Jadzia and Kira are close friends so it’s startling to see this Dax ready to sacrifice her for the sake of the colony. But it is guilt that drives Yedrin.
Sisko decides that they are going home and as the final day descends over the colony, they find the colonsit planting fields despite the fact they know they are about go be wiped out from existence. The crew help them and when O’brien is shamed into helping by one of his great, great granddaughters and finally interacts with them, he goes to Sisko and tells him, they can’t let these people die. They have to let history take its course. The decision is made to let the Defiant crash as it did before.
With this decision, it would have been cool to see what happens to the rest of the galaxy since the key players of the war are now gone. Would the Dominion win? Would the Federation fall and humanity destroyed a la Star Trek Enterprise’s episode, Twilight? But it also displays the very heart of Trek. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Could you really look at yourself in the mirror knowing you had let babies you had held hours earlier, die in the blink of an eye where lives are never lived? It could also be argued that it also shows the faith the crew have in the rest of the galaxy in defeating the Dominion. Add to that the issue of Ben Sisko being the Emissary of Bajor and soon to be revealed as part prophet/wormhole alien himself. The Prophets let him crash in the first place and never came looking for him or sent any visions. Given Sisko has always been of Bajor, it seeds curious that they could not do something especially as we saw them wipe out an entire Dominion fleet inside the wormhole. We know they have certain time travel abilities given the Orb of Time so it does raise the question of why they never came back for Sisko. It is a testament to Kira’s faith that she chooses the colony over her own life.
But at the last second, the Defiant swerves and avoids the wormhole. In a second, history wipes the colony away. We learn that it was the other Odo that ensured the ship would not crash in order to save Kira. This appals Kira. She had opened herself to feelings for Odo but now all she sees is a man that murdered 8,000 people for her. That is something the Dominion would do just to send a message so how well does she know Odo after all? Is he a lot darker and dangerous than she thought? It’s not the first time she has seen a darker side to him as seen in Necessary Evil and Through The Looking Glass so it is certainly there. This derails any chance of a relationship going forward.
In this case, the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many resulting in mass death. Children of Time is a love story exploring many issues and being the hard hitting show Deep Space 9 always was. Children of Time stands today as strongly as it did when broadcast. A beautiful weave of sci-fi and human drama that shine sbrightly in the Star Trek universe.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 