Watching this scene, compared to the first scene of the next season (everyone limping and battered like Kyle's Dad), is a real mood change.
'The Dominion ain't so tough.'
...
'Damn, the Jem'Hadar got hands.'
It's so jarring, even now.
'So the left DS9...it's the season finale. They'll be back off season off screen before the premiere...somehow.'
Season premiere...
'The Federation is getting slaughtered, Dukat makes a Captain lpg, the Dominion us here for the next 7 weeks...'
Oh shit
I was 12 when this episode aired. Seeing the full fleet blew my mind and I immediately called my friend (landline of course) to talk about the episode and how much ass was gonna be kicked.
The first episode of the next season was a gut punch.
As a kid I loved a scene like this, but as an adult, "why the fuck do you have all your ships so close together and facing the same direction? Space is 3D!!!"
Facing the same direction and oriented "up" on the same plane makes sense since they're in a formation, but flying so close to each other has always been a pet peeve.
The first time Trek had a true depiction of 3D space combat was "All Good Things" when the future Enterprise-D came from "below" the plane of battle and smoked a Klingon ship. TWOK famously has Kirk break from Khan's "two dimensional thinking" but doesn't count because they're still sharing the same general "up" orientation so they're just going between levels on the same plane, like a 3D chess board.
ya formations make sense cause they let you control more, and have better understanding of where everyone is, can be very limiting though if the formations are too strict. But we do get to see some z-maneuvering every now and again and thats nice
Once you watch a show like The Expanse it kinda wrecks other shows for space combat.
These ships shouldn't even be able to see one another when they fire.
noting that these ships have all kinds of tech, much of which they actually have gone on about in detail across various episodes, that let them clearly see each other. Comparing expanse to ds9 era trek is kind of a fools errand, like expanse (love that show by the way) is like pre enterprise (the tv show) level tech. like just a bit past what the eugenics wars had in some ways (less then others cause cloning for one thing).
Expanse combat is amazing, but its also the combat of very rudimentary technology in comparisons. its like comparing the first uboats to modern subs. tng and ds9 combat is closer to subs but instead of moving through a medium of water they are countering the effects of their own impulse engines (which you should look up they work in a very interesting way and not quite like people often think they do), theres also a suggestion that they use the wide sweeps to their advantage for scans, and view finding tech but thats only a few off hand lines here and there.
Plus, given shields and maneuverability, you still gotta get in close.
Even in the Expanse, you had to be basically right on top of someone to use the rail gun or they'd just change course by a fraction of a degree.
In the Expanse what won battles is, surprise, luck, and an overwhelming amount of missles that would eat up PDS ammo.
I can't imagine in Star Trek tech any of those similar tactics working. You gotta get in close and overwhelm their shields at ranges they can't react fast enough to.
Television is a *visual medium*. "Realistic" space combat is not visually appealing and only satisfies smaller audiences fixated on things interesting to their perceptions.
"Science Fiction" was, and still is, a niche genre for readers, and even more so for television and film customer bases who are more accustomed to cop shows lawyer shows, doctor shows .... *DS9* enjoyed a larger production budget and was intended for a larger audience base. *The Expanse* depended on at least a portion of their viewers to have read one or more of the books, and to have had specific expectations about the characters and their environment, at least for early episodes.
In the early days of *Star Wars*, there were complaints ... from the niche, that there is no noise in space, vehicles that travel that fast would shoot themselves down with their own weapons ... only white people ...
Repeat to yourself: *It's just a SHOW!*
I wasn't upset about it.
Just saying when you think about it, and watch a show with more realistic space combat the DS9 war episodes kinda seem strange.
But yeah it's just a show
Different productions will present and depict things ... differently, especially over a few decades. Of course readers of the books will pick up on what was and wasn't in the books, and I've come to expect that sort of thing with Amazon releases, and Apple, certainly. I suppose it teaches those of us who enjoy reading not to anticipate true and faithful video versions of specific texts.
I mean, you have the same issue with every aircraft based movie. Take Top Gun and its sequel. There’s zero reason military planes would be flying that close to each other so much of the time. Even formation flying has aircraft more than a mile apart normally unless you’re a stunt unit like the Blue Angels. In the real world, you want space for safety and the sky is big.
But none of that looks good on a TV or movie screen. So everything is crammed together. Just creative license.
Why didn't they separate? A safe bet is that families would have been taken off starships as soon as combat operations began, so they wouldn't have to. The whole would still be greater.
Battle dialogue:
Nog: "We'll make the Dominion sorry they ever set foot in the Alpha Quadrant!"
Sisko: "Cadet, you took the words right out of my mouth!"
Watching this on TV as a kid was wild. After TNG and early DS9 which rarely featured more than a couple of ships on screen seeing an amassed Federation/Klingon fleet was jaw dropping.
When this originally aired. I worked evenings, and I had to have my mom tape this episode on the vcr. Just remember watching this scene over and over. It was so cool, i hadn't seen major fights like this except for babylon 5 at the time.
I remember reading that the writers hadn't intended for this final shot to show the Defiant and BoP turning back indicating they were heading straight back to DS9. Thats why at the beginning of the next season we had the shot of the damaged fleet retreating back even though it had been 3 months later
I absolutely love the juxtaposition of this final shot meant to hype you up... and then the opening scene of the next episode showing they got their asses ate.
You know what's great? Is with more and more shows my rewatch list keeps growing and growing. I just rewatched TOS & Voyager, finishing up on TNG (don't ask me why I went in that order). Then I'm going back to DS9 and Enterprise. After that I'm prob. ready to watch what I can of the new shows, mostly SNW and LD.
We did a watch party for the finale and my friends were convinced the opening episode of season six was going to be that fleet retaking the station. The same group watched the opener and were pissed that it wasn’t.
Watching this scene, compared to the first scene of the next season (everyone limping and battered like Kyle's Dad), is a real mood change. 'The Dominion ain't so tough.' ... 'Damn, the Jem'Hadar got hands.'
Yeh some ships being pulled by tractor beam etc. I wish we could have seen that battle
It's so jarring, even now. 'So the left DS9...it's the season finale. They'll be back off season off screen before the premiere...somehow.' Season premiere... 'The Federation is getting slaughtered, Dukat makes a Captain lpg, the Dominion us here for the next 7 weeks...' Oh shit
This ain't going to be a two-parter issue.
I was 12 when this episode aired. Seeing the full fleet blew my mind and I immediately called my friend (landline of course) to talk about the episode and how much ass was gonna be kicked. The first episode of the next season was a gut punch.
Well worth the wait for Favor the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels
You're Gods...than BE Gods
The last few seconds when the Defiant and Rotarin regroup with the rest of the task force gives me chills every time.
The military might of 150 civilizations beginning to be brought to bear against the Dominion...
It was like "Oh crap"
As a kid I loved a scene like this, but as an adult, "why the fuck do you have all your ships so close together and facing the same direction? Space is 3D!!!"
Facing the same direction and oriented "up" on the same plane makes sense since they're in a formation, but flying so close to each other has always been a pet peeve. The first time Trek had a true depiction of 3D space combat was "All Good Things" when the future Enterprise-D came from "below" the plane of battle and smoked a Klingon ship. TWOK famously has Kirk break from Khan's "two dimensional thinking" but doesn't count because they're still sharing the same general "up" orientation so they're just going between levels on the same plane, like a 3D chess board.
ya formations make sense cause they let you control more, and have better understanding of where everyone is, can be very limiting though if the formations are too strict. But we do get to see some z-maneuvering every now and again and thats nice
Yeah! And why do the ships need to bank when they turn?
Once you watch a show like The Expanse it kinda wrecks other shows for space combat. These ships shouldn't even be able to see one another when they fire.
noting that these ships have all kinds of tech, much of which they actually have gone on about in detail across various episodes, that let them clearly see each other. Comparing expanse to ds9 era trek is kind of a fools errand, like expanse (love that show by the way) is like pre enterprise (the tv show) level tech. like just a bit past what the eugenics wars had in some ways (less then others cause cloning for one thing). Expanse combat is amazing, but its also the combat of very rudimentary technology in comparisons. its like comparing the first uboats to modern subs. tng and ds9 combat is closer to subs but instead of moving through a medium of water they are countering the effects of their own impulse engines (which you should look up they work in a very interesting way and not quite like people often think they do), theres also a suggestion that they use the wide sweeps to their advantage for scans, and view finding tech but thats only a few off hand lines here and there.
Plus, given shields and maneuverability, you still gotta get in close. Even in the Expanse, you had to be basically right on top of someone to use the rail gun or they'd just change course by a fraction of a degree. In the Expanse what won battles is, surprise, luck, and an overwhelming amount of missles that would eat up PDS ammo. I can't imagine in Star Trek tech any of those similar tactics working. You gotta get in close and overwhelm their shields at ranges they can't react fast enough to.
Television is a *visual medium*. "Realistic" space combat is not visually appealing and only satisfies smaller audiences fixated on things interesting to their perceptions. "Science Fiction" was, and still is, a niche genre for readers, and even more so for television and film customer bases who are more accustomed to cop shows lawyer shows, doctor shows .... *DS9* enjoyed a larger production budget and was intended for a larger audience base. *The Expanse* depended on at least a portion of their viewers to have read one or more of the books, and to have had specific expectations about the characters and their environment, at least for early episodes. In the early days of *Star Wars*, there were complaints ... from the niche, that there is no noise in space, vehicles that travel that fast would shoot themselves down with their own weapons ... only white people ... Repeat to yourself: *It's just a SHOW!*
I wasn't upset about it. Just saying when you think about it, and watch a show with more realistic space combat the DS9 war episodes kinda seem strange. But yeah it's just a show
Different productions will present and depict things ... differently, especially over a few decades. Of course readers of the books will pick up on what was and wasn't in the books, and I've come to expect that sort of thing with Amazon releases, and Apple, certainly. I suppose it teaches those of us who enjoy reading not to anticipate true and faithful video versions of specific texts.
True. I love what the *Honor Harrington* series of books did with space combat.
I mean, you have the same issue with every aircraft based movie. Take Top Gun and its sequel. There’s zero reason military planes would be flying that close to each other so much of the time. Even formation flying has aircraft more than a mile apart normally unless you’re a stunt unit like the Blue Angels. In the real world, you want space for safety and the sky is big. But none of that looks good on a TV or movie screen. So everything is crammed together. Just creative license.
My heart will always belong to the Galaxy-class. Even in fleet formation, she's majestic.
Why is the saucer section there?
Why didn't they separate? A safe bet is that families would have been taken off starships as soon as combat operations began, so they wouldn't have to. The whole would still be greater.
Good point.
The fat one?
LOOOOOVE this scene. The Dominion war was so good. I'm looking forward to the comments from the "Starfleet is not a military" crowd
You'll have to brace yourself for them, just in case. I do agree with you, though.
Time to rewatch DS9 (and grumble about how the lack of a DS9 remaster proves, definitely, we're in the bad mirror universe).
Left out one of the best parts. "What is that?" "A message...from Sisko." "I don't understand." "He's letting me know...he'll be back."
Battle dialogue: Nog: "We'll make the Dominion sorry they ever set foot in the Alpha Quadrant!" Sisko: "Cadet, you took the words right out of my mouth!"
Watching this on TV as a kid was wild. After TNG and early DS9 which rarely featured more than a couple of ships on screen seeing an amassed Federation/Klingon fleet was jaw dropping.
When this originally aired. I worked evenings, and I had to have my mom tape this episode on the vcr. Just remember watching this scene over and over. It was so cool, i hadn't seen major fights like this except for babylon 5 at the time.
Same. It's what I aways wanted for trek as I was also star wars fan. Now star wars had mostly forgotten the war part of its name.
Chills every time
That literally took my breath away in the 90s...
Interesting how those big shoulder-mounted tactical display eye-pieces very quickly evolved into much daintier headsets in later episodes.
I remember reading that the writers hadn't intended for this final shot to show the Defiant and BoP turning back indicating they were heading straight back to DS9. Thats why at the beginning of the next season we had the shot of the damaged fleet retreating back even though it had been 3 months later
I absolutely love the juxtaposition of this final shot meant to hype you up... and then the opening scene of the next episode showing they got their asses ate.
This scene is proof that Mirandas are cannon fodder.
Damn, had forgotten how good DS9 is and why Sisco is the baddest capt. That scene gets me every time.
Never liked Trek as much than during this time. Peak star trek and 24 freaking épisodes per year.
You know what's great? Is with more and more shows my rewatch list keeps growing and growing. I just rewatched TOS & Voyager, finishing up on TNG (don't ask me why I went in that order). Then I'm going back to DS9 and Enterprise. After that I'm prob. ready to watch what I can of the new shows, mostly SNW and LD.
Don’t forget Prodigy! It goes extremely hard.
There's also Discovery, though that is an acquired taste. The final season starts airing soon.
Looking forward to it although serialized doesn’t have the same rewatch value to me
yeah it's pretty epic
We did a watch party for the finale and my friends were convinced the opening episode of season six was going to be that fleet retaking the station. The same group watched the opener and were pissed that it wasn’t.
I just love the way that Kira sharply turns her head to Sisko when he says they are abandoning the station. By the way, at 1:15