Equilibrium (''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'')

"Equilibrium"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Episode no. Season 3
Episode 4
Directed by Cliff Bole
Story by Christopher Teague
Teleplay by René Echevarria
Featured music Jay Chattaway
Production code 450
Original air date October 17, 1994 (1994-10-17)
Guest appearance(s)

"Equilibrium" is the 50th episode of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the fourth episode of the third season. This episode is centric to Station Bridge crew, with several guest stars. Specifically, it focuses on the Trill character Jadzia Dax, and the mysterious occurrences that begin to occur to her. This episode also further explores the Trill alien species, especially the nature of their "symbionts".

It achieved a Nielsen rating of 7.4, which is an estimated percentage of viewership out of the total number of U.S. households.[1][2]

Background

The Trill aliens were introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation in May 11, 1991, with the episode The Host (Star Trek: The Next Generation). The Host was directed by Marvin V. Rush and written by Michel Horvat. They return as one of the prime characters of Deep Space Nine, with Jadzia Dax. Dax is sort of implanted biological computer that stores the memories of previous hosts, this provides an enhanced capability but can cause personality confusion and interesting social situations. On Deep Space Nine the Trill alien uses one (not all in fact most Trill don't) and many episodes explore the situation; major Trill episodes prior to Equilibrium include Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) (S1E8), Invasive Procedures (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) (S2E4), and Blood Oath (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) (S2E18)

Plot

At a dinner party, Jadzia Dax toys with a piano and finds herself playing an unfamiliar tune despite having no musical training in this life nor in her previous ones. Later, she experiences odd mood swings and hallucinations of a masked figure. Bashir finds that these symptoms are linked to the symbiont in her belly. According to Dax's medical history, a previous host experienced similar symptoms when he went into a six-month coma. Sisko and Bashir take Dax back to her homeworld, where Doctor Renhol of the Trill Symbiosis Commission stabilizes Dax's symptoms. But Dax relapses, and experiences a new hallucination of Trill hospital guards accosting her. Frustrated, Sisko, Bashir, and Jadzia visit the caves where unjoined symbionts are spawned to consult the caretakers. A caretaker there believes that Dax's problems stem from memories of one of her symbiont's previous hosts.

Sisko and Bashir identify the musical tune Dax heard in her hallucinations as a composition by a Trill named Joran Belar. When Dax sees his photograph, she experiences another hallucination of the masked man murdering someone, and when she rips off his mask she sees Joran's face. She then goes into neural shock and is hospitalized. Doctor Renhol plans to remove the Dax symbiont, which will kill the host Jadzia. Sisko and Bashir revisit the spawning caves, but the caretaker there has been scared into keeping quiet. Bashir finds that the Trill government deleted information on Joran Belar from its records. However, they manage to contact Joran's brother, Yolad, who says that Joran was a candidate for being joined with a symbiont. According to the official report, Joran was rejected due to his violent temper and murdered the doctor who evaluated him, and was then killed by hospital security. However, Yolad doubts this story, because he remembers Joran telling him that he had been successfully joined. Sisko and Bashir deduce that Joran was one of Dax's previous hosts, and to cover this up Joran's files were altered and Dax's memories of him were suppressed.

Sisko and Bashir confront Doctor Renhol, and accuse her of letting Jadzia die in order to protect an even darker secret. The Trill government claims that only one in a thousand Trill are fit to be joined with a symbiont. If a symbiont is placed in an unsuitable host, both host and symbiont will die in days. Joran was judged suitable and given a symbiont, but by the time his psychological problems were discovered, he had been carrying the symbiont for months. This showed that the criteria for being joined are excessively stringent. Renhol admits that nearly half of all Trill can host symbionts, but if the truth came out the small supply of symbionts would be fought over fiercely, jeopardizing their welfare and destabilizing Trill society. The only way to stabilize Dax's mind would be to allow her suppressed memories of Joran to resurface. Renhol removes Dax's memory blocks after Sisko agrees to keep the truth secret. Dax recovers and comes to terms with her disturbing new memories.

Arc significance

References

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