Star Trek: 10 Episode Spoilers Hidden In The French Translation

In season three, episode seven of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Commander Sisko, crew, and station inhabitants must battle for survival against a Gul Dukat-designed computer program originally intended to quell any revolt by Bajoran labourers when Deep Space Nine was still Terok Nor.

The original title in English plays on the fact that the Cardassians aboard Terok Nor – and especially Dukat – were insidious enough during The Occupation not only to install a complex and potentially deadly computer program for their own ‘defence’ but, as per most totalitarian regimes, reversed the impetus to that of defending the Bajorans from themselves. The Bajorans, who, would merely have been defending their claim to some basic civil rights.

Given the more we learn about Dukat as the series progresses, he may well have believed his own deranged promises. He definitely had a messiah complex. In the present of the episode, Dukat is forced to defend himself and his incompetence aboard a station that is now under the purview of the Bajoran civilian government and, of course, the station’s current civilian population must be protected from harm.

It may be for these complex reasons that the translator of the episode chose not to pursue the direct route. Depending on context, ‘civil’ would also be translated as ‘civique’ [civic] in French. Nonetheless, ‘Destruction imminente’ [‘Imminent/Impending Destruction’] is arguably a rather blatant spoiler and does nothing to encapsulate either the political intrigue of the episode or Dukat’s duplicity. It is, ultimately, a rather cold, matter-of-fact description of what is a very strong episode.