"Past Tense, Part I" (season three, episode eleven; 2 January 1995): Wikipedia-link.
Commentary: In "Past Tense," Commander Sisko, Doctor Bashir, & Lieutenant Dax are accidentally transported not to San Francisco in 2371, to Starfleet Headquarters, but to San Francisco in 2024, to a subway station. At the time these episodes were written & filmed, 2024 was thirty years in the future; it is fascinating to re-watch them thirty years later, in 2024. To quote Spaceballs:
"We're in Now now."The conflict in "Past Tense" revolves around the Bell Riots, a major civil disturbance in San Francisco's Sanctuary District A, an open-air prison for the unemployed, or indeed anyone caught in public without adequate identity documents. Sisko & Bashir are tossed into the Sanctuary District & initially lay low, to avoid altering the timeline, but Gabriel Bell, the namesake of the Bell Riots, is killed trying to rescue them from being mugged by "Ghosts," the predators of the Sanctuary District. Sisko assumes the name & role of Bell,determined to preserve the timeline, even at the cost of his own life. Dax is found & rescued by a Silicon Valley tech bro. She is the audience's window into the San Francisco outside the Sanctuary District.
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