Thursday, June 27, 2024

Section 31: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-2024)

Episode o' the Day
"The Sword of Kahless" (season four, episode eight; 20 November 1995): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "The Sword of Kahless" is a great exemplar of why I'm just not that fond of the Klingons. I find them mostly uninteresting adversaries, whose chief virtue is hypocrisy. Jadzia Dax, her old friend Kor (returning from season two's "Blood Oath"), & Worf go on a quest to find a long-lost Klingon artifact, the eponymous Sword of Kahless. They find the sword in the Gamma Quadrant* & are pursued by Toral, son of Duras (returning from The Next Generation, though played by a different actor). During the pursuit, Kor & Worf turn on each other, each plotting to ride the prestige of having returned the sword to seize power within the Klingon Empire. They fight & might well have killed each other, but Dax stuns them with her phaser. There are no non-corporeal lifeforms manipulating Worf's & Kor's emotions; there is no hidden device manipulating Kor's & Worf's brain waves. They are under no mind control or outside influence, they turn on each other within minutes of finding the Sword of Kahless out of sheer lust for power & prestige (what the Klingons call "honor," though Klingons rarely act honorably). Back on their runabout, the trio beam the sword into interstellar space, believing returning with it would plunge the Klingon Empire into civil war.

*Did the "Hurq," the otherwise unknown aliens who pillaged the Sword of Kahless from the Klingon homeworld one thousand years ago, have early access to the Bajoran Wormhole?

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