It’s the re-return of Michael Eddington in “Blaze of Glory”, which is a decent episode that nonetheless falls down on making us care about the Maquis. Then, in “Empok Nor”, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine does a slasher film, to varying degrees of success. Plus! Aw, Nog!
Trekabout Episode 209: Blaze of Glory/Empok Nor
Arvo
-The word “maquis” refers to the remote and inacessable woodlands on the french island of Corsica, where criminals, separatists and outlaws would go to hide from the law.
Eric Brasure
-Ah! Thank you very much. Our listeners always come through with the knowledge.
Mindy
-Meh. Sorry, Eric and Richard. I feel no sympathy for the Maquis as presented by Trek. These are colonies built only a few decades ago in a region far from the Federation, bordering Cardassia. The one in Journey’s End had been there 200 years maximum? These aren’t their homeworlds. They purposefully moved to an area in a politically unstable part of space.
I am with Sisko and Picard. They are full of bullshit. The Federation offered to move them to a new planet. They chose to stay. They understood when they chose to stay that the planets were now in Cardassian control. They knew who the Cardassians were. They signed an agreement that if they chose to stay that they were relinquishing their Federation citizenship. The Federation couldn’t help them because the treaty gave Cardassia control of those planets.
The Federation didn’t force them to do any of these things. That is ridiculous. The Federation offered to move them. They made the choice to stay there under Cardassian control. Nobody was misled. No information was hidden.
They are COLONISTS! By definition, people who chose to wander into space to find a new place to live. I call bullshit on everything they are saying. This was presented HORRIBLY by Star Trek. There is no circumstance in their background that would engender any sympathy from me.
Was the treaty bad? Who the hell even knows?? We don’t know what the terms even were. We never even saw the Cardassian/Federation war. We don’t know what the Federation got out of the treaty. We do know that the Federation is a democracy. As such, I find it ludicrous that anyone would expect me to have sympathy for a group who voluntarily gave up their citizenship and then whined that the Federation refused to protect them, and then chose to ATTACK the Federation.
Nope. It is all bullshit. Have zero sympathy. If they had been misled, then maybe they’d have a case. If the Federation hadn’t offered to help, then maybe. Or if these had been core planets instead of recently developed colonies… I don’t know…. It would change the numbers. The Federation may not have even made that deal.
Based on what Trek presented – Recent colonists, offered help, refused help, were given full information, and made their own choices. Surprise! Exactly what Picard said would happen happened!
I don’t even know why the Federation cared if they were attacking Cardassia! I can’t even believe Cardassia even expected the Federation to deal with that.
The whole thing was bullshit from the start. All to set up Voyager, which did even less with the Maquis than DS9 did.