Past Prophecy

The radiation coming off of my friends who are currently watching Star Trek is infecting me with the Star Trek Essay Writing bug again. I was cisgender the last time I watched DS9 and the first inkling that something was off came from Ezri Dax and just how difficult it was for me to arrange a music video around her without breaking into tears. I still frequently talk to my ex about Jake and Kira because those are two of my favorite characters in media in general. More than any other Star Trek, Deep Space Nine is the one that feels like a true exploration of found family. It is a show that directly confronts the hypocrisy that we sometimes saw in TNG head on. The characters are messy, their lives are hard, And we get to watch them live and grow and heal over the course of seven seasons and it all feels so true to life. part of what makes it feel so true is the underlying philosophy of it all which is set up in the very first episode in that magical sequence with the Prophets.

That's what I want to talk about here.

There are very few television shows that I've seen that handle grief this way. There are even fewer shows which approach the subject with this level of intense philosophy. We are watching as Sisko literally talks to his memories and attempts to process them in order to explain them to an alien entity. And the whole thing ends with maybe the most beautiful explanation for how humans experience and express time. Before I get into that, I just want to make sure we are all on the same page.

Right next to the space station is a wormhole. What the characters experience is a space wherein exist aliens known as The Prophets. They do not have a physical form, they do not have a language, they can only represent themselves through constructions of other people's memories. This hole where they reside is a portal where you can cover 70-100 years of warp 10 travel distance in a matter of seconds. (An entire lifetime compressed into a single moment. almost like his life flashing before his eyes)

Now we can get into philosophy. A huge portion of conversation with The Prophets rights around trying to explain linear time to them and they keep saying things he cannot comprehend because it just doesn't make sense. "If Sisko truly is a linear being, he will destroy us! his very existence is a danger to us!" They even go so far as to threaten his destruction in order to save themselves. They are saying all of this with the mouths of all of the people he loves, all of the people who irritate him, all of the people who he hates or who he has duty to protect. Sisko is confronting all of his memories directly and saying that he only moves forward. And they prove him wrong multiple times. They are constructions made of his memories. What he holds within his body is what they can use and they are pulling information from the past. I believe the quote is something along the lines of "And yet you exist here" as they observe Sisko grieving the death of his wife. He cannot travel back in time, so he claims, yet here he is experiencing all of these emotions around this loss that happened in the past. He can go back there. What The Prophets say to him in this moment has stuck with me ever since and I don't go a day without thinking about it:

"It is not linear."

And everything just clicks into place. once they realize he does not experience time linearly, they realize that it is safe for him to be there. And why is that?

It's the memories. If we only experienced time going forward, we would not have memories. Even from a biological standpoint, there is the perception delay between something happening and our senses transmitting that information to our consciousness So we are living in the present using information from the past even from second to second. since the prophets are constructions built from memory, a linear creature would be destructive to them. without those memories, they cannot exist.

So to take a step back and try to summarize this in a more condensed manner, "The experience of memories means that we do not exist as linear creatures. We may physically move forward in time but our consciousness stretches back into the past and forward into the future." whenever you throw grief into this scenario, you start to understand a bit more clearly because, as people will often say, the sadness will always be just as intense, you will just have more time and more experience to reckon with those feelings as they come up. and eventually you reach the point where the memories of joy sit hand in hand with the memories of sorrow and you can re-experience both as fully and deeply as the moment that they happened.

in the television show, we literally see Sisko talking to his memories and processing his grief to reach a new transcendental understanding of the universe and it's something that he explores and develops for the rest of the entire series. by the same token his own memories were threatening to destroy him and that represents where he is at the start of the show. He cannot let go of the anger and resentment and it's eating him up inside. He cannot move forward until he has come to a new understanding.

There's this running thread in the first season I did not catch onto with the first pass but it made me insane on the second. There are so many times where a character will reach out to connect with someone and they will receive the response "some other time" or "maybe another time" and it makes it difficult for the crew to engage with each other fully and start becoming a part of each other's lives. they're always so caught up in these matters that they think are urgent or more important than just sitting down and connecting with someone over a hobby or lunch or even just a conversation. This is why one of my favorite story arcs is the one between Bashir and O'Brien. It is seven seasons of building up such a good relationship that I also think about nearly every day of my life. It is not until these characters Take the time out of their schedules to start making memories with each other that they start becoming real fixtures in each other's lives. There's a reason that people say deep space nine is where Star Trek characters go to bloom and it's because they engage with each other so fully and completely.

And once you start looking for this stuff, it pops up in every element of the show. every single character is coming into this story with very complex memories:

• The Siskos have the loss of their wife and mother that they bring face forward to this space station
• Jadzia dax has I think eight? Nine? lifetimes under her belt at this point. And there are a few that she's still afraid to reckon with
• O'Brien has the entire previous Star Trek series wrapped around his shoulders. He also is bringing a wife and child on board. He's the only one who has both.
• Bashir has a dark past that doesn't come up until much later but he also has this desire to only experience new things and trying to separate that from his past
• It's actually very similar to Garak
• Kira has her past as someone whose entire civilization was oppressed and still is and her history as a resistance fighter struggling for liberation
• and so on and so on and so on

These memory threads are the main story beats for these characters for the entire series. So much time is spent watching these stunted characters try to build structures for the future without reckoning with their pasts and we watch them fail time and time again until they let their history exist in the present moment alongside them.

And we learn about these pasts because everyone on board is interacting with each other and asking questions about them and challenging them and building new memories that connect to the old ones. Isn't that an interesting concept? Building New Memories. Taking actions now with the knowledge that they will exist as moments in the past, fully experiencing the Now so that you can reflect on it as a Then.

For people who have seen the series (I'm trying to be light on spoilers) you will remember the sequence in the finale and how this pays off. How memories of struggle and strife are handled by the crew as their individual stories are wrapping up. It's a very interesting parallel to the first episode and the sequence with the Prophets!!! Remember the Alamo!

Even as I'm sitting here typing this out I'm remembering all the episodes which are about characters who are still living in the past and refuse to accept the present circumstances or people who are trying to change the past in some form or another, having "false" memories implanted within them. I'm thinking about the Bajoran who will not evacuate the planet. I'm thinking about Dax and her relationship to Curzon and the Klingons. I'm thinking about every episode with Jennifer. I'm thinking about "The Visitor." An out of context quote that is fully in context here: Avery Brooks jabbing his finger at his own forehead shouting "That future, it exists! It's real! It's right in here and it's real!"

It is such a wonderful thesis for the show, this idea that you would not exist without your memories, the good ones, the bad ones, the grief and horror and joy and warmth and all of the cold. Your bad decisions and your good ones. every little bit builds up to create you and all of it exists within you. It is what guides you into the future because nothing can exist in the future without having a past and you in the present build that up. Just like The Prophets, WE are constructions of memory. Just like The Prophets, we will be destroyed if no one remembers us. We experience time from the past all the way to the future this way. We project anxiety ahead of us, fear, uncertainty. But also hope, hope is an expression of the future. anxiety is an expression of the future. joy and sorrow are expressions of the past.

One day the ghosts that haunt you will bring you joy. But first you must let them haunt you. One day, you will build something beautiful out of your memories even when it doesn't feel like it in the moment. And that beautiful thing might be "you."

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Or not. I mean, it's just silly space show on the tv. I am, after all, the heathcliff-semiotics girlie. It's the same messages as so much other media, right? You have to go out and EXPERIENCE the world and build up your life otherwise you will just be sad and lonely wallowing in your past. And you can't escape your past, you will always carry it but the New World Outside can make that weight as Light as a Feather (get it? You like what I did there?) A full life with pain and grief and love and joy and anger and peace is so much easier to carry than the heaviness of an empty soul. This is why I always poopoo on folks who say the prophet storyline was their least favorite part of DS9. If you aren't trying to view the show through the lens of the philosophy that the first episode sets up so beautifully, you end up missing messaging. And its because this philosophy is one that is present in so much of the most influential stuff we eat. It filters up through the media because having a core philosophy that you believe has that effect even if you aren't consciously intending it.

I could talk about Neon Genesis Evangelion and how there is no Self without the presence of the Not Self, how we are constituted of the people around us, that the perception of who we are by others and the perception of ourselves from the inside are both The Real You (which is also deeply explored in the game Immortality). I could talk about (uhhh greatly oversimplified) Buddhist philosophy and how the journey to empty oneself is achieved by letting the world impress itself upon you, to let it occupy you, to pass through you. To be a vessel that holds the world as the world is a vessel that holds you. I could talk about Psycho-Pass, Ghost in the Shell, The esoteric side of Tarot, Kirk and Spock Slashfic, online worlds like Second Life and Roblox and Gmod. The process of museum and gallery curation. Turn A Gundam. God, I should go through Turn A again because I bet there's an essay that would form in my gut there too. The reason any of these things carry the meanings that they do is that they all have a strong underlying philosophy and the media that doesn't still leaves a shadow that you can examine in this context.

It's something that I plan on really digging into next time I go through DS9 because the more I think about it the more insane I feel because it really is dripped through everything and that sequence in the finale still drives me crazy, it's so good. I love you Miles O'Brien. And your stupid little twink boyfriend.

Okay I think I got it out of my system. The Star Trek Essay Writing demons are back asleep.

Lyrical blocks that did not make the cut but were heavily considered:

But what if all we thought was darkness
Was instead the truest light?
What if all we feared was empty
Was the fullness of our life?
-Thrice, The Dark Glow

The heat from stars
That burned so fierce their fire was spent
Ignites our hearts
Though we stand years of light from them
Their memory burns apathy

Each shining deed will show the way through darkest night
Because I see the path ahead by the light
of Distant Suns
-Thrice, Distant Suns

Is there
A me without you
The you that breathes the sum?
Again, the one from many
Again, increased by one
Is there
A you without me
The me with star swept eyes?
-Thrice, Unitive/East

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So when'd I get so lonely dancing without you?
I forget when I lost my rhythm but
I wake up and I’m still thinking about you
Gone are the days we were the only ones in the room
I look back on a Sunday afternoon
-OTNES, SPIN

Show them what's inside of your head
When you think about your old bedroom
How there was a light through the window
Deep in the night
Couldn't sleep when there was a full moon
Oh, why can't I sleep when thеre is a full moon?
-OTNES, SHOW THEM WHAT'S INSIDE

Redwood dust on your glasses
Ain’t that the sweetest
I caught some feelings
From all of the splinters on
Your fingers, love when they linger
Pull me in close, sayin’ you got my T-shirt on
I don’t wanna be the one that you leave behind
A forest grows, nobody knows
How it stays alive
But if it feels like it should,I don’t mind redwood dust
Clouding my eyes
-OTNES, REDWOOD DUST

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All alone in the universe, I understand
When you're sleeping, I can hold it in the palm of my hand
-Tei Shi, Alone in the Universe

Like a vision
Like a transcendental superstition
You appear in the nick of time
Where have you been all my life?
Want you to take me by the hand and shake me
Shake me to the core again (To the core again)
I still remember, I still remember
How it felt when it all began
-Tei Shi, Twilight

So I lead with my body
Follow with my head
If you got what you wanted
Let me walk away
I'm on the other side
I don't need a kiss goodbye
-Tei Shi, Kiss Goodbye

I wish there was a pill that could make me feel nothing
I don’t wanna be here, I don’t wanna feel nothing
Wish that I could disappear

If you wanna disappear
We can disappear
Into another dimension
Where you still show up and give me affection
I fucking desperately need your attention
Is it still cute how I’m always complaining?
-Tei Shi, Disappear

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.⋆˚☆˖°⋆｡° ✮˖⋆.₊˚✮ °｡⋆°˖☆˚⋆. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁⟡ ݁. ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Star eyes, you can't change the blooming of a red tide
So you've gotta face the knife away
You said, "No more yesterday"
You try to let tomorrow's sun rise
Instead of wondering why
-Magdalena Bay, Star Eyes

Always wanted to believe
In some destiny to guide me
Found no answers in my dreams
No constellations that could show me
-Magdalena Bay, Prophecy

Up until you boa cloud
I didn't know, I didn't know
In your pure perfection, I'll never doubt
Now I know, now I know
Let's lay here just a little longer
Won't you be my prophecy?
-Magdalena Bay, Prophecy

Picture [Kirayoshi]
With pink petals boair
I wanna go there
Train window facing east
And you're always next to me
And I'm next to you
I'm next to you
Meet me in the Swiss countryside
I saw a picture of it today and I wanna go before I die
Big oceans blue, I wanna see all the views
'Cause there's so much to do
And I'm next to you
-Magdalena Bay, Dreamcatching

That girl knew all the ways to blow the whole world apart
Yeah, that was how she was
But two years of dealing with her and lately I've had enough
Of how I was, yeah, I was
Instinctively I know that I've
Been changing all my colours, I
Finally wrung out all the blues
Been sweeping all the corners of
My mind up to the ceiling but it wasn’t all I’d do for you
-Magdalena Bay, Something for 2

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