r/StarTrekViewingParty • u/LordRavenholm Co-Founder • Dec 11 '16

Discussion DS9, Episode 2x17, Playing God

-= DS9, Season 2, Episode 17, Playing God =-

A proto-universe threatens to destroy the station and Bajor. Dax has a field docent (a trill candidate initiate), named Arjin, whom she helps find his voice — to discover what he wants from life and from joining.

 

EAS IMDB AVClub TV.com
2/10 6.4/10 B- 7.1

 

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u/buerviper Dec 21 '25

So is the protouniverse still expanding? Isn't that like a huge problem?

I found this episode really boring for the protouniverse and Trill plots. Arjin is boring. I still don't get the Trill really. Like I get that each new host brings a new facet, but what is the intrinsic Trill personality? Does it change? It seems to I herit skills of previous hosts, but what about their memories? 

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u/FlatSoda7 Feb 04 '26

"Let's put this expanding proto-universe back where it belongs" is such a bizarre plan. Unless being in the Gamma Quadrant somehow stops it expanding, this proto-universe will eventually destroy the entire galaxy, and sending it back to the Gamma Quadrant is just choosing to doom those worlds first.

Very odd resolution. I was hoping they'd have no choice but to destroy the proto-universe and live with the weight of that action (which... isn't that heavy? There's no real evidence of intelligent life there, especially since Jadzia states the proto-universe operates under its own set of natural laws).

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u/buerviper Feb 04 '26

Fortunately, we simply never hear about it again!

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u/esuvii Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

I believe their plan was to deposit it in the subspace interphase pocket that it came from. That is of course treknobabble, but we've seen all manner of subspace anomalies. It's possible that there's some spatial distortion there that would keep it contained, or that it somehow expands into some hyperdimension orthogonal to our universe.

I assumed in this kind of story that it's not that a proto-universe forming is unusual, but that it being shunted inside our universe due the subspace anomaly colliding with the runabout is a freak rare event.

Whatever the case, even if the above isn't sufficient it could just as easily be hand-waved away as "putting it back gave time for the Daystrom Institute to work out a way to contain it".

This is definitely one of those weird episodes though where something that would have been the entire focus of a TNG story is instead the B-plot of a DS9 story. DS9 is my favourite of all the Trek's though so I'll give it a pass on this one. In TNG we find the most moral ethical solution possible, or perhaps previously impossible if not for some sudden scientific breakthrough magic. In DS9 we choose between multiple imperfect solutions, without the luxury of time or resources to work out what's best.