10 Star Trek Episodes Based On Real-Life Events

Call To Arms is the final episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's fifth season, depicting the station being overrun with Dominion and Cardassian forces, Starfleet retreating from the Bajoran sector and the destruction of the Torros III Dominion shipyards by the Federation-Klingon taskforce.

This episode has several real-world inspirations. The Starfleet retreat was inspired by the events on Dunkirk beach in 1940, where thousands of British troops were evacuated as the enemy closed in around them. The fall of the Philippines to Japan in 1942 also served as inspiration, yet it is perhaps most directly parallelled by Napolean Bonaparte's pyrrhic victory at Moscow on 7th September 1812.

Napolean had begun his invasion of Russia and aimed for the battle at Moscow to be a decisive victory for the French. Though his side did indeed win the day, it was nowhere near the crushing blow that he had meant it to be. The Russian Army withstood the onslaught and despite retreating, they left 35,000 French dead, wounded or captured in what has been described as the bloodiest day in history to that point.

Napolean is portrayed by the Dominion here, taking control of the station while losing fifty ships in the attack, along with the shipyards. One has to wonder if General M.I. Kutuzov, commander of the Russian forces, also left a baseball for Bonaparte to find.