Star Trek's DS9 Explores Terrorism
When Deep Space Nine (DS9) premiered in 1993 two years after Gene Roddenberry’s death, producers chose to portray a darker and more complex world, in contrast to Next Generation’s optimistic outlook.
In a previous article I examined how Star Trek: The Next Generation began to address the topic of terrorism in the show. By the mid-1990s the theme became much more prominent just as Americans confronted it more and more at home and abroad. When Deep Space Nine (DS9) premiered in 1993 two years after Gene Roddenberrys death, producers chose to portray a darker and more complex world, in contrast to Next Generations optimistic outlook. DS9 depicts a sympathetic Bajoran society which engaged in terrorism to resist the Cardassian occupation of its home world. At first, the Federation appears as a mere bystander that is indirectly affected by terrorism, but as the series evolves the Federation becomes increasingly enmeshed in the terrorist activities of other species as well as its own citizens. In one of the series first terrorism episodes, Past Prologue (1993), Commander Sisko rescues Tahna, a friend of Major Kira who like Tahna was once active in the Bajoran underground. In pursuit of Tahna, the Cardassians hail Sisko and demand that he turn him over to them, claiming that Tahna is a member of a Bajoran terrorist group called the Khon--Ma. Tahna, however, renounces terrorism and requests asylum, and thanks to Kira's impassioned plea to a wary Sisko, he receives it. Kira soon discovers that Tahna plans to blow up the wormhole and thus make Bajor less desirable to both the Cardassians and the Federation. Kira foils this plan, but wonders whether she actually helped or betrayed her people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JDCazdktcc Past Prologue plays on the natural sympathy for the Bajorans as victims of the aggressive and brutal Cardassians to address the ambiguous nature of terrorism. Viewers are left to decide whether Tahna is a freedom fighter or a terrorist. In these early episodes, Star Trek portrays terrorism as a dilemma that largely affects other species, and showed the Federation as attempting to remain above the fray in ways that mirrored the American publics mindset during the early 1990s. More often than not Americans believed that terrorism involved other nations mostly located in Europe and the Middle East. Like Starfleet, Americans found it nearly impossible to appear as a disinterested or neutral party. Late in its second season, the two-part DS9 episode, The Maquis, marked a shift in Star Treks depiction of terrorism: instead of showing the Federation and Starfleet as innocent bystanders, now they were increasingly portrayed as the targets of a home-grown terrorist group called the Maquis. The Maquis are Federation-born colonists who fight the Cardassian occupation of their homes in the Demilitarized Zone after their colonies were ceded by the Federation to the Cardassian Union in the Treaty of 2370. Starfleet Command considers the Maquis to be traitors, while Cardassian officials proclaim them terrorists. When the Cardassian freighter BokNor explodes while departing Deep Space Nine, Lieutenant Dax determines that a bomb placed aboard the ship caused its destruction. Federation officials dispatch to Deep Space Nine Sisko's old friend Lieutenant Commander Carl Hudson to mediate the brewing conflict. Hudson explains to Sisko that the colonists, who now suddenly live in Cardassian territory due to the treaty, feel abandoned by the Federation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42gASOva2Zw When Gul Evek, the Cardassian attaché for the Demilitarized Zone accuses Federation colonists of organized terrorist activities against Cardassians, Sisko replies that the Federation does not conduct secret wars. Evek then produces a coerced confession from a Federation citizen who admits responsibility for bombing the BokNor. Hudson quickly proclaims the Federation colonists right to defend themselves against Cardassian oppression. Hudson soon tells Sisko he is leaving Starfleet to work with the rebels because he believes Cardassiais violating the Federation treaty by smuggling weapons into the Demilitarized Zone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Y0hCzNwMk To end this conflict, Sisko joins with his Cardassian nemesis, Gul Dukat, to stop both the Cardassian smuggling and the Maquis attacks. The two-part episode culminates when Sisko prevents a Maquis attack on a Cardassian weapons depot, but in doing so he lets Hudson escape. The Maquis storyline allowed Star Treks creative staff to explore the thorny complexity of terrorism, including the role of third-party supporters and emerging right-wing domestic terrorism within the United States. A sub-plot of The Maquis episode involved outside groups aiding both sides of the Cardassian-Maquis conflict. Star Treks writers did not have to look far for this plot since by the 1990s Americans were well aware that outside parties armed terrorist groups like Irish-American support for the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. Terrorism by Federation colonists, however, also resembled domestic terrorism that threatened the United States experienced during the 1990s. Bloody clashes between federal government officials and right-wing extremist group, like the 1992 shoot-out between white supremacist Randy Weaver and the federal agents at Ruby Ridge in 1992 to the tragic conflict with the apocalyptic Branch Davidians dominated newspaper headlines in the first half of the 1990s. Complaints of an expanding powerful federal government that to some seemed to have ceded American independence to a global New World Order best exemplified by the United Nations seemed eerily similar to feelings expressed by the Maquis. Even Commander Sisko expressed a certain understanding of the Maquis feelings when a Starfleet admiral told him to just talk to the Maquis. Sisko responded: "Out there, there are no saints just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!" 
A few weeks after DS9s two-part episode The Maquis, TNG offered its own examination of these renegade Federation colonists in Preemptive Strike (1994). After the USS Enterprise interrupts a Maquis attack on a Cardassian vessel near the Demilitarized Zone, Cardassia declares that it will take matters into its own hands if the Federation does not force the Maquis to uphold the peace treaty. Starfleet command sends Ro Laren into the Maquis community as an undercover operative, but after witnessing a Cardassian attack on local leaders she decides to join the Maquis and betray Starfleets plan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic5quwFt9WI Like DS9s handling of the Maquis-Cardassian conflict, Preemptive Strike paints the Cardassians, who are developing a biogenic weapon to use against their enemies, as treacherous and evil, thus making the Maquis that much more sympathetic. Yet at the same time, Starfleet and Picard regard the Maquis as traitors, which obliges viewers to question their sympathy for the Maquis. TNG writers further blur the line between just action and terrorism when Ro, a Starfleet officer like Lieutenant Commander Hudson in the DS9, turns against Starfleet and betrays Picards trust. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRxPjJ8VlyE As TNG left the airways in 1994, DS9 continued to explore the Maquis-Federation struggle. One significant episode, For the Cause, explores the feelings of disaffected Starfleet officers who side with the Maquis. Starfleet security officer Michael Eddington arrives onboard Deep Space Nine to protect a Federation shipment of replicators to the Cardassians from possible theft by the Maquis. When later lured away from the station, Sisko learns that Eddington was a Maquis spy who stole the replicators from DS9 and gave them to the Maquis. Reflecting the ambivalent view of the Maquis two Starfleet characters disagree about whether the Maquis are terrorists. Worf contends that the Maquis are little more than terrorists and criminals who lack honor, while OBrien suggests that they are just fighting for something they believed in. Eddington, however, shifts the blame to Starfleet and the Federation: "Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibeD29dvPzw While the Maquis storyline disappeared from DS9, it was central to Star Trek: Voyager. In the 1995 premiere episode, Kathryn Janeway commands Voyagers mission to capture a Maquis ship when some kind of displacement beam hurtles the two ships into the Delta Quadrant. Now 70,000 light years from home, the two crews must merge into one and work together if they wish to return home. The primary storyline during the shows first year was the crews struggle to overcome mutual feelings of distrust and betrayal. Unlike the more pessimistic DS9, Voyager holds out the promise that terrorists like the Maquis can be reintegrated into Starfleet, perhaps reflecting the hope that right-wing militias could likewise successfully rejoin mainstream America. While the theme of terrorism in Star Trek emerged slowly, by the mid-1990s it was a central focus of DS9 and the last season of TNG. What made Star Trek's handling of it so compelling was writers were willing to explore those who engaged in terrorism including domestic terrorists. My last installment will turn to Star Trek Enterprise which could not escape the subject of terrorism when it took to the airway in the wake of the September 11th attacks.