Accession (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

"Accession"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Episode no. Season 4
Episode 17
Directed by Les Landau
Written by Jane Espenson
Featured music Dennis McCarthy
Cinematography by Jonathan West
Production code 489
Original air date February 26, 1996 (1996-02-26)
Guest appearance(s)

"Accession" is the 89th episode of the syndicated American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the 17th episode of the fourth season.

Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. In the episode, Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) is given a much-appreciated opportunity to relinquish the title of Emissary, but soon comes to regret it.

Plot

An ancient Bajoran ship emerges from the wormhole. Its passenger, Akorem Laan, is a revered Bajoran poet who disappeared 200 years ago. Akorem claims to have been chosen by the Prophets, who are worshiped by the Bajorans as gods, as their Emissary—a role thought to belong to Captain Sisko. Sisko, being a human and a Starfleet officer, never felt comfortable being the Bajorans' messiah figure and cedes the title without resistance.

Akorem believes the Prophets brought him back to restore Bajor's traditional caste system, which the Bajoran people abandoned during the 50-year Cardassian occupation so that they could effectively organize a resistance. Akorem tells Major Kira that she must resign her military commission and become an artist, which was her family's traditional profession under the old caste system. Akorem hopes to have the caste system legally enforced by punishments such as deportation. Sisko warns Akorem that caste based discrimination is banned by the Federation Charter and thus would disqualify Bajor from Federation membership, but Akorem trusts in the will of the Prophets.

Sisko has a dream where Kai Opaka, a former spiritual leader of Bajor and an old friend of Sisko's, tells him that he has lost sight of who he is. Doctor Bashir believes that Sisko has experienced an "orb shadow", a hallucination that is known to happen to people who have been exposed to an Orb of the Prophets. Bajorans believe orb shadows are reminders from the Prophets to people who ignore what they've been told in a previous vision.

A Bajoran priest, Porta, murders a fellow priest because his ancestors were morticians and thus he was spiritually unclean. Sisko realizes that Akorem's influence will be bad for Bajor's future and challenges him for the role of Emissary. They decide that the only way to settle the matter is to go to the wormhole and ask the Prophets themselves what they want. Akorem and Sisko enter the wormhole and are received by the Prophets. The Prophets tell them that Sisko is in fact their Emissary and that they brought Akorem to the present to help Sisko appreciate the importance of his role. Akorem repents and asks for death, but Sisko pleads to have him sent back to his own time unharmed. Akorem is sent back to his own era with no memory of what happened to him in the future.

Sisko is once again recognized as the Emissary by the Bajorans, who are happy that they will not have to return to the caste system. This time, he accepts the role happily, now that he appreciates the positive influence he has on the Bajorans. Major Kira, however, notices that Akorem's epic poem The Call of the Prophets (which she remembers as being incomplete) now exists in its entirety, suggesting that Akorem was able to complete his masterwork after returning to the past.

See also

External links

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