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The turncoat officer who stole numerous replicators bound for Cardassia. When the episode first aired, I accepted it as is.
But now that I was fortunate enough to win seasons 3 & 4 of DS9 for $120-some, and I've viewed much of them, the defection rings a bit hollow. First off, we didn't see Eddington that much - maybe eight episodes from both seasons. Given his speech to Sisko in "The Adversary", it seems to me that sometime in season IV he went "off track."
I wish the series had explored this a bit more - in season 3, he was the second highest ranking Starfleet officer on the station, after Sisko. Roll around season IV, and both Dax (a recently promoted officer) and Worf outrank him (even though Eddington was senior to both of them).
I guess what I'm saying is that Eddington's defection could have been foreshadowed so much better than it actually was. I'm dissapointed.
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posted
Yeah, that came out of left field. Eddington's defection was supposed to be shocking, but it just felt... unwarranted, because the story never explained *why* he was so taken by the Maquis' plight, or *why* he was so angry at the Federation.
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Mountain Man
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I agree that the character was one of the most interesting of all. The mysteries of his actions and motives are the reason. A complex Man. A study in personality and reasoning. Worthy of investigation.
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I acn't agree. The most shocking betrayals are the ones with no foreshadowing. I sure was suprised when eddington hosed Kira with the Phaser!
He was a "mole" and the oppournity was so good to steal those Replicators that he decided to blow his cover (leading a double life must ahve been difficult as well).
Some mention of the hardships causd by the loss of the Replicators (in folow-up to the episode)would have been nice though.
Or mabye finding out exactly what the maquis did with two Industrial replicators!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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The simple answer is that the producers never planned to do anything with him until someone had the brilliant idea of writting an episode in which he defected.
Don't get me wrong, I thought the twist was good and the continuing story line solid. But what I would love to see just once in a while in Trek is a little forethought. One of the better things Voyager did (and then dropped) was have a continuing, intentional sub plot running during the second season with Jonas and the Kazon and Seska. I'll grant you, Seska was probably never meant to be any more than an extra when she first appeared, but they did pretty good with her development.
I would love to be able to look back on Eddignton's appearances and see him do things that apparently had no motive when he did them, but then suddenly add up when we find out what he really is. Maybe he's caught doing something and explains his way out of it... reasonable enough. He's a Starfleet Officer. We trust him. So he picks up a stray pad in one episode or sneaks a peek at Odo's console in another... He's our friend... we don't think a thing of it. Until WHAM! It all comes together. That's what I would like to have seen.
quote:I guess what I'm saying is that Eddington's defection could have been foreshadowed so much better than it actually was. I'm dissapointed.
Have you read the DS9 Companion at all, Jeff? They go into a bit of detail about what they'd had in mind for Eddington.
Basically, their idea behind that conversation in "The Adversary" was that Eddington already KNEW that he would never get to make Captain himself (gold uniform aside) because of his role in the Maquis.
I'm not sure that's a complete justification -- I agree, the defection really did seem a bit too sudden and arbitrary. I was shocked mainly because I'd never seen any Starfleet officer shoot a main character in cold blood before. (Yeah yeah, the stun setting is mostly inconsequential, but still...) And of course, I suppose it's understandable to not notice it, if Eddington was supposed to fool Sisko, Dax, Odo, and everyone else so completely. (Or was that just retconning after the fact?)
*sigh* Oh well. I don't mind too much, because "For the Uniform" and "Blaze of Glory" are two of my favorite episodes.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Basically, their idea behind that conversation in "The Adversary" was that Eddington already KNEW that he would never get to make Captain himself (gold uniform aside) because of his role in the Maquis.
Y'now...I just watched that episode the other day and noticed how odd that scene was (once you know about Edditington's seret, that is).
I'd think edditington havinga secret life was always in the cards (at least all throught season 4) but his exact secret might have evolved before he shot Kra.
On a sorta related note, I always thought Cassidy Yates was a changling: She disappears for weeks at a time, got close to Sisko (really close!) and was always asking suspicous questions ("what are all those work crews doing in the docking ring" was a line from WOTW).
That would have had both shock and foreshadowing!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Actually, many of the Maquis Starfleet never seemed like they should be Maquis, if you see what I mean. Really the whole Maquis storyline was a bit botched even before Voyager got their hands on it. . . Because really they were right, dammit! That peace treaty was bullshit. The Federation obviously hoped the Demilitarised Zone would be another Neutral Zone they could just forget about - for many Starfleet it was a Zone Too Far! 8)
Trek doesn't do evolving/foreshadowing/building storylines very well. They tried with the Seska/Jonas/Kazon/Paris thing. To this day no-one can agree how long the Bashir Changeling thing was meant to have been running for - did he operate on Sisko? Did he deliver Kira's baby?
posted
Eddington's defection to the Maquis was a bit easier to swallow than Bashir turning out to be a changling, especially with the whole Sisko operation two or three episodes before we met the real Bashir locked away in a Dominion prision, wearing the outdated Starfleet uni.
I, however, wish they gave Eddington more of a personnel connection to the Maquis or something that would justify his defection in his backstory other than a desire to be Jean Val Jean.
Modern Trek holds onto outdated television storytelling techniques a bit too much at times, especially the lack of foreshadowing. I have hopes that Enterprise will, in this coming season, begin to change a bit they way Trek stories are told.
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The thing I always wondered about changling infiltration was the Martok in 'WOTW'. The more I think about it the more it seems like he WAS a changling, pressing on the battle, but then again he passed the blood-letting test...was that test botched all along or was that the REAL Martok who was lost somewhere in the mix after we first met.
As for Eddington, it wasn't when he shot Kira that gave it away for me, but moreso when he and Odo were suspecting Kassidy as a Maqui conspirator to Sisko. It seemed like such an act, as it was, the first step in what initally let him get away scot-free with the replicators.
Next the speal about not wanting to be responsible for Kassidys safety, duh, so Sisko takes it upon himself to go sealing the deal....the rest has been already discussed. But it was those other little things I could see foreshadowing something at least as much as the way he was acting in "The Die is Cast" and "The Advisary"....
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posted
The idea of having Eddington defect to the Maquis was okay, although it was very over-used by then.
I wonder at which point they have come up with that twist. Eddington had a smaller role than most of the other minor characters of that time (Garak, Nog, Rom, Leeta), he had no private life and maybe this was the reason why he never appeared particularly likeable. So it seems to me that they had no more ideas what he could do (especially since there were Odo and Worf who were doing essentially the same job), and it was the best they could do with him - better than just sending him back to Earth.
-------------------- Bernd Schneider
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quote:Originally posted by Futurama Guy: The thing I always wondered about changling infiltration was the Martok in 'WOTW'. The more I think about it the more it seems like he WAS a changling, pressing on the battle, but then again he passed the blood-letting test...was that test botched all along or was that the REAL Martok who was lost somewhere in the mix after we first met.
The martok in WOTW was the changling. When Worf and Martok meet in the Dominion prison, Martok had only heard of worf- not met him. The blood the changling used in WOTW was probably from the real martok though and just held in a internal pocket of the changling for such an occasion.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Probably in the way that Joe Sisko theorized.
And I suspect that the Seska plotline was planned. It happens early in the series, where everyone is full of bright ideas and enthusiasm.
"Hey, everyone, let's have one of the Maquis turn out to be a Cardassian spy!"
"Cool. But you know what, let's have her in a couple of episodes before hand, as a regular, that way SHOCK WILL HAPPEN!!!"
Possibly they didn't say all three exclamation marks.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: And I suspect that the Seska plotline was planned. It happens early in the series, where everyone is full of bright ideas and enthusiasm.
Actually, it happened when the series was a house divided. Piller pushed really hard to modernize the show somewhat, making it seem more contemporary in storytelling technique, but encountered huge resistance (I'm guessing from Jeri Taylor, who in her own way seems to have gotten Hurley-esque with adherence to trek middle of the road stuff), which is why the arc stuff only takes place over several episodes rather than a whole season. Piller jumped ship after year 2. All that stuff is documented in the CINEFANTASTIQUE and SCI FI UNIVERSE coverage from those years.
While I agree with Piller's notions, the thing is you still need to tell really good stories with involving characters to make the arc stuff live, and most ModernTrek stuff didn't have the meat & potatoes stuff that story arcs work best off of. So it came off more like a gimmick, but was a decent try.
As for Eddington ... my hero. The only human in the 24th century that I wholeheartedly like. I just wish they'd done a lot more shows with him 'at large' after his defection. I'd have had it end with Sisko joining up with him on HIS side, since the Maquis were maybe the only really admirable folk around.
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Except when they murdered people and almost caused a war between the Federation and the Cardassians and then helped Dukat get the Dominion to take over Cardassia, yeah, they were great.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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