It starts out with a typical philosophical discussion between Quark and Odo. Then branches out into family programming, some baseball simulation software that Quark has obtained due to Sisko’s interest in baseball. Then we move offer to Dax and Bashir’s conversation at a table in the Bar. Juilan is striking out again with Dax, to continue the baseball metaphor. Dax goes to command, and is asked to look at an unusual energy reading. Then we see O’Brien reading Rumplestiltskin to his daughter. It may be this scene where we termed her miracle-gro baby because she’s like 3-4 when her age should be 1.
Oh, Rumplestiltskin shows up in her room! I remember having watched this one, too. So, a baseball player followed Jake home the the holo-suite. And copy of Dax that likes Dr. Bashir shows up as well. So here’s something interesting the baseball player has been dead for 200 years, but he played in the ’42 world series. This is the 24th century so 2300s, late 2300s in fact. That would mean he died in the late 2100s. I guess he could have been really really old when he died and he played in 2042. I think baseball died out around that time according to an episode from the first season of Next Gen. Oh, Data said the TV didn’t last much beyond 2040, not baseball. Although it’s hard to imagine professional baseball still being a thing without some form of broadcasting it, it’s still possible. So he could have played in 2042 or 2142, we’re not entirely sure.
Then Dax2 disappears, when Bashir[1] says he doesn’t have time for it. Odo reports that it’s snowing on the promenade, and Sisko declares yellow alert on their imaginations. They figure out this unusual energy reading is some sort of subspace disruption and send a (class IV) probe to investigate. The snow disappears but there’s a goomgee jackdoor, which in reality is just an emu. Oh yeah, everyone starts winning at the casino! Heh. “Ladies and gentlemen, and all androgynous creatures, your attention, please!” shouts Odo, who then asks them all to refrain from using their imaginations. I remember that line, very funny.
The wormhole is amplifying the rupture. And Dax2 comes back to call Dax1 a cold fish, and I literally laugh out loud. I remember that. The computer finds a record of a similar rupture in the previous century in the Hunoli system, not to be confused with the Canoli system. When the rupture expanded the system was destroyed. Dun dun dun!
Half the people have of DS9 have now reported manifestations of their imagiganations (as opposed to figamentations). I like how this panel is ergonomically curved.
Rumplestiltskin is fascinated how O’Brien’s imagination gives him a power that terrifies O’Brien. and they find out the the hole is getting larger, like Leon from Airplane. Sisko and the baseball player talk some baseball, and they did kill the game, cutting his career short, because people didn’t have time for it anymore. They share a touching moment. We then find out that Rumplestiltskin, Dax2, and the ball player are some sort of group trying to find information out on the station dwellers. Curious.
The subspace anomaly continues to expand, while the station crew discuses trying to seal it with the same kind of torpedo that cause the previous one to destroy the Hunoli system, but today’s technology is better and cannot possibly fail, or the rupture will destroy Bajor anyway if they don’t do anything. Kira imagines some explosion and a screaming flaming man, but it goes away. We’re all fine here now.
“Imagination, heh!” says Odo, who then imagines Quark locked in his cell. Baseball will probably save them all, but the rift expands 27%,[2]. All must stare at the pretty rift while they plan to blow it up.
Ka-bewm! Looks like everybody is doing to die, but aha! they imagined the rift all along. However, it was the aliens doing it all along as an experiment to figure out what imagination is, and in the end they were saved by baseball, I think.
Final Grade: B
This was a very enjoyable episode, a bit weird and technobabbley, but fun. I’d like to do a better analysis, rather than what is basically summary of the plot with a few comments. Eh, hopefully I’m doing well enough at these. Thank you for reading.
1. I guess this is as good a place as any for this anecdote. Around this time (1993) we were playing Lemmings, and they have a “basher” power. When playing the game, we’d point our where to bash and say, “bash here.” or “Dr. Bash Here.”
2. 27! Weird Al Yankovic’s favorite number.