Capsule Review: DS9 1.12 "Vortex"
Apr. 12th, 2014 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ljwritesSummary: Odo discovers that the key to friendship is racial profiling.
Comments: Well not really, but seriously, on my second viewing I was struck by how Croden would tell Odo every other sentence that "Your people are this" and "Your people are that." Given what we eventually find out about the Changlings this lumping together is perhaps more justifiable for them than most species, but still. It was funny/irritating that Croden could get away with such species reductionism about Odo. Then again the whole franchise is kind of known for this kind of thing.
Given what the series later revealed about Odo's species, it's fun to speculate how much Croden might have gotten right about them. He may well have been right about Changelings being persecuted off his world, since their own history records such events. Their supposedly famed sense of justice is a trickier issue. Given the Changlings' legacies and actions in the show I'm inclined to discredit the whole notion and put it down to Croden making stuff up to reel Odo in. On the other hand, maybe even their atrocities arose from some sense of proportion, if one I am unable to understand. Then again God-logic tends to be incomprehensible to mortals, doesn't it?
I'm not entirely convinced of Croden's story, by the way. IMO it's still possible he was taking Odo for a ride with his story about being a political dissident who was acting in self-defense against the goons of a brutal regime. The guy's talent for "dissembling" was a well-established character trait, after all. Sure his daughter backed up his story that he was acting in his family's defense, but how can anyone know Croden hadn't lied to her? Or that she hasn't sanitized her father's actions in her mind? Or that she hadn't been coached?
Relying on Croden's nonexistent credibility would not have been necessary, of course, if his home government had been just a bit more forthcoming and less dickish. (I was embarrassed for the government representative who talked to Sisko. Forget repression, incompetence alone is reason enough to hope the regime dies a horrible death.) Between some limited corroboration for Croden's version of events and the suspicious way his government clammed up, I don't blame Odo's decision to send him off with the Vulcans.
Although maybe it would have been a good idea to warn them that Croden might be more than a simple refugee and was potentially violent and deceptive? Or, for that matter, to undergo a formal asylum process instead of handing him off to the first science vessel that wandered along? Ah well, maybe Odo handed over Croden's records afterward and/or the Vulcans verified his story via telepathy. Maybe Croden even did some time on Vulcan for the attempted robbery, though his punishment might be more like community service or classes. I think the Vulcan criminal system is likelier to look like, say, Sweden's than the United States'.
Of course this is really an Odo character episode, further developing his sense of honor and his longing to know about his origins. It's really the characters that tie a lot of these Season 1 episodes together before the series gained plot continuity in later seasons.
Comments: Well not really, but seriously, on my second viewing I was struck by how Croden would tell Odo every other sentence that "Your people are this" and "Your people are that." Given what we eventually find out about the Changlings this lumping together is perhaps more justifiable for them than most species, but still. It was funny/irritating that Croden could get away with such species reductionism about Odo. Then again the whole franchise is kind of known for this kind of thing.
Given what the series later revealed about Odo's species, it's fun to speculate how much Croden might have gotten right about them. He may well have been right about Changelings being persecuted off his world, since their own history records such events. Their supposedly famed sense of justice is a trickier issue. Given the Changlings' legacies and actions in the show I'm inclined to discredit the whole notion and put it down to Croden making stuff up to reel Odo in. On the other hand, maybe even their atrocities arose from some sense of proportion, if one I am unable to understand. Then again God-logic tends to be incomprehensible to mortals, doesn't it?
I'm not entirely convinced of Croden's story, by the way. IMO it's still possible he was taking Odo for a ride with his story about being a political dissident who was acting in self-defense against the goons of a brutal regime. The guy's talent for "dissembling" was a well-established character trait, after all. Sure his daughter backed up his story that he was acting in his family's defense, but how can anyone know Croden hadn't lied to her? Or that she hasn't sanitized her father's actions in her mind? Or that she hadn't been coached?
Relying on Croden's nonexistent credibility would not have been necessary, of course, if his home government had been just a bit more forthcoming and less dickish. (I was embarrassed for the government representative who talked to Sisko. Forget repression, incompetence alone is reason enough to hope the regime dies a horrible death.) Between some limited corroboration for Croden's version of events and the suspicious way his government clammed up, I don't blame Odo's decision to send him off with the Vulcans.
Although maybe it would have been a good idea to warn them that Croden might be more than a simple refugee and was potentially violent and deceptive? Or, for that matter, to undergo a formal asylum process instead of handing him off to the first science vessel that wandered along? Ah well, maybe Odo handed over Croden's records afterward and/or the Vulcans verified his story via telepathy. Maybe Croden even did some time on Vulcan for the attempted robbery, though his punishment might be more like community service or classes. I think the Vulcan criminal system is likelier to look like, say, Sweden's than the United States'.
Of course this is really an Odo character episode, further developing his sense of honor and his longing to know about his origins. It's really the characters that tie a lot of these Season 1 episodes together before the series gained plot continuity in later seasons.
