Chris Talks to Himself

SPOILER WARNING

I just finished re-watching all of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

I've decided the ending was slightly different than what actually appeared on screen: Benjamin Lafayette Sisko died.

When he threw himself off that cliff in the Fire Caves and took Dukat with him, his physical body died; however, the wormhole aliens (aka The Prophets) managed to save his mind/soul by communing with him one last time as he fell. He now lives on forever in their plane of existence (The Celestial Temple/The place inside the wormhole) as a soul. The Prophet told him: "You're with us now." That's what she meant. And because Dukat was always meant to serve as Ben's antithesis, this mirrors Dukat's own death so that he could become an avatar for the Pah-Wraiths: Benjamin had to die so he could ascend to the Celestial Temple.

Despite what he told his wife Kasidy Yates-Sisko, he isn't coming back. In fact, canonically, he never has come back in the last 25+ years of Star Trek. If he was going to, some show/movie between 1999 and now would have mentioned something about it, but they haven't. And because the novels and comic books aren't canon, my headcanon fits. Also, the pseudo-episode for "Season 8" they thought up during the documentary "What We Left Behind: Looking Back At Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" isn't canon either because it was never produced.

I'm saddened by his death and I mourn his passing, but it makes for a more powerful ending than him simply taking a break from our reality to learn from The Prophets. His sacrifice is worth more. The finale is that more poignant. He didn't just save the wormhole aliens, he saved the Universe; at a cost: He had to permanently give up his physical form (Loophole: He could potentially "possess" someone like a Prophet possessed Kira in the episode The Reckoning.)

He eventually will become much like the wormhole aliens due to spending eternity in their plane of existence and experiencing their reality. This means his way of thinking, feeling, and being will change. He'll eventually forget how to experience linear time or what it's like to have a corporeal form. This is to be expected as he will live on forever as a soul/entity/ghost/non-corporeal being. One wonders if this is something the wormhole aliens regularly do: Recruit new members among their ranks by plucking them from their native reality (I'm assuming they have access to more realities than just ours.)

This all recontextualizes the last shot of the finale and makes it more significant: One of the last things we see is Ben’s son Jake looking out one of the windows of DS9 at the wormhole. He isn't just looking at the wormhole. He's looking for his dad. He's looking at where his father now resides; like visiting a deceased parent's grave. Poor Jake: He still ended up losing his dad like in the episode The Visitor and he misses him. Kira tries to comfort him in that shot, but it's hard to comfort someone after they've lost another parent (His mom died at Wolf 359 years before you'll recall.) This is going to be hard on Kasidy as well, as she now has to raise a baby by herself (I'm sure Jake and his grandfather will be willing to help.)

Their grief is a little more complex too, because Ben isn't completely gone: He's just out of reach. The wound of his loss can never fully heal because he's still near. It's similar to how Worf still mourns the passing of Jadzia, but Ezri is still around. Gone, but not completely. It's bitter-sweet. A pain that can't fully resolve itself. Stuck somewhere in-between. Just like Ben.

I started this blog a little over a year ago.

When I began, I posted daily. Now I try to post at least once a month.

That's still a form of consistency, even if the tempo is reduced.

So let's celebrate both the success of consistency, no matter how small; and the milestone.

I tried a few new things in the past year, and I made a few new memories (And habits) along the way.

I still want to keep working on this blog, even if it is only about once a month.

I'm not sure what the next year will bring, but I'll try to share what I can as I go.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I'm a Trekkie.

I don't think I would cosplay it (Maybe I might?), but I do love Star Trek.

It's interesting because I loved it for a few years, then I was just into it, and after recently playing Star Trek: Bridge Crew with some friends a few weeks ago, I rediscovered my love for it. I'm now rewatching all of TNG.

I of course have some series and movies I prefer more than others, but it's fair to say I love most of Star Trek.

The ideas of the Federation and Starfleet are incredible to me: Idyllic, and utopian, but also aspirational.

Bridge Crew does a good job of approximating the experience of being on the bridge of a Starfleet starship and keeps the pressure up throughout. Your success and survival depend entirely on your ability to work together and communicate effectively.

However, while Bridge Crew scratches the itch of being on the bridge of a Starfleet starship, it does nothing to feed the imagination: No real story worth mentioning. That's ok, but it makes me realize we need a Star Trek game with a good story, good characters, and some challenging & serious sci-fi themes. I wish someone could do for Star Trek what Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) did for Star Wars.

Games aside, my philosophy on Star Trek series is as follows: There is no such thing as bad Trek. It's all good, but it's also all different. Each series had a different goal and tone it set out to achieve and that's ok. If they just kept trying to reproduce TOS decade after decade, it would have gotten real stale real quick. By deliberately having different themes each series engaged with, we get to have so much variety to choose from as Star Trek fans. I also think each series targeted a different audience and therefore had to adapt to that audience accordingly. The people watching television in the 60s were not the same people watching television in the 80s were not the same people watching television in the 2000s, and so on: Their views of the world evolved. They evolved and Trek evolved with them.

There is no such thing as "the best" Star Trek series or movie, just your favourite. Mine is TNG. To be fair, it's entirely possible I love it because it was the first Star Trek I was introduced to. I personally think that the idea of choosing Patrick Stewart for captain elevated Star Trek as a whole as well as its ideals. He might just be the most important actor to have ever worked in Star Trek for that reason.

Not much to say, I guess.

Up until a few months ago, I was only learning short-form improv and I think I was ok at that.

I had more recently started learning long-form improv, which is a different set of rules and mechanics.

I decided after my most recent long-form improv course to stop improv for the time being.

Who knows, maybe I'll come back to improv eventually or maybe I'll just move on to trying to learn something else, like the guitar, or Spanish.

I'm not too beat up over it. I'm a little disappointed in myself, sure, but I spent a solid 9 months on trying to learn it, so I think I can let myself off the hook: I gave it a good amount of effort and did a couple of shows.

What's next? No clue. I think I want to take a break until January on extra-curriculars and see where my head is at in the new year.