Star Trek: Deep Space Nine/What You Leave Behind

What You Leave Behind
Season 7, Episodes 25 & 26
Airdate	June 2, 1999
Production Number	40510-575 & 40510-576 (40510-749)
Written by	Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by	Allan Kroeker
Stream
← 7x24 The Dogs of War	— N/A
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Season Seven

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What You Leave Behind is the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth episodes of the seventh season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the one hundred seventy-fifth and one hundred seventy-sixth episodes overall.

Starring: Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko)

Also Starring: Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Nicole deBoer (Lieutenant Ezri Dax), Michael Dorn (Lt. Commander Worf), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), Colm Meaney (Chief O'Brien), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Alexander Siddig (Doctor Bashir), Nana Visitor (Colonel Kira)

Special Guest Stars in Alphabetical Order: Rosalind Chao (Keiko), Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun), Salome Jens (Female Shapeshifter), Penny Johnson (Kasidy Yates), Andrew J. Robinson (Garak)

Guest Stars: Casey Biggs (Damar), Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat), Aron Eisenberg (Nog), J.G. Hertzler (Martok), Barry Jenner (Admiral Ross), Deborah Lacey (Sarah), Julianna McCarthy (Mila), Hana Hatae (Molly O'Brien)

Special Guest Appearances: James Darren (Vic Fontaine)

and Louise Fletcher (Kai Winn)

Co-Stars: Mel Johnson, Jr. (Broca), Greg Ellis (Ekoor), Cyndi Pass (Ginger), Kevin Scott Allen (Jem'Hadar), Christopher Halsted (Jem'Hadar First), Judi Durand (Cardassian Computer Voice)

Plot Overview

As the war with the Dominion nears conclusion, the Federation Alliance receives help from an unlikely source. Gul Dukat and Kai Winn enter the Fire Caves to free the Pah-wraiths. Sisko fulfills his destiny.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• The Dominion War ends after the massive Battle of Cardassia (fought in space on the outskirts of the Cardassian system). The Dominion fortified Cardassia Prime and prepared for a siege so great that it would force a pyhrric victory on the Federation Alliance, but Odo links with the Female Changeling and convinces her to surrender. The peace treaty is signed on Deep Space Nine.
• As the Federation fleet was closing in, the Female Changeling ordered the Jem'hadar to massacre the entire Cardassian population in retalliation for their rebellion. The planet was devastated, and 800 million Cardassians are dead.
• Sisko, Emissary of the Prophets, and Dukat, Emissary of the Pah-wraiths, face off in the Fire Caves of Bajor. Thanks to the timelly change of heart of Kai Winn, Sisko is able to lunge at Dukat and throw him and the Book of Kosst Amojan into the fire. Sisko then appears in a Prophet-vision (an empty white room), and is told by the Sarah-Prophet that he has fulfilled his destiny: the Pah-wraiths have been imprisoned within the Fire Caves forever (now that the book is destroyed), and Dukat along with them. Sisko, however, has now become a Prophet in the Celestial Temple (the Wormhole) and no longer exists on the linear realm. However, he appears to Kasidy in a vision and explains what has happened, and that in the Celestial Temple linear time doesn't exist, but "I will be back; maybe tomorrow, maybe yesterday, but I will be back".

Characters

• Weyoun #8 is killed by Garak. Damar's resistance had previously destroyed the Vorta cloning facilities, so the Female Changleing states that he will be the last Weyoun; no more can be cloned, and he's dead for good now.
• Sisko leaves the linear ream to live as a Prophet in the wormhole.
• Odo leaves to return to the Great Link to spread a message of peace and toleration to his people, and that they can co-exist peacefully with the Solids of the galaxy. However, he has to leave his beloved Kira behind.
• Chief O'Brian returns to Earth to take a position teaching Engineering at Starfleet Academy.
• Worf leaves to join Chancellor Martok on Quo'nos as Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire.
• Kai Winn dies. The selection process for a new Kai begins but is left unanswered by the time the episode ends.
• Damar dies, killed during the final assault on the Dominion Headquarters on Cardassia Prime.
• Dukat is imprisoned forever with the Pah-wraiths in the Fire Caves of Bajor.
• Kira, Jake, Kasidy, Nog, Ezri Dax, and Julian stay on the station.
• Ezri and Julian have begun a romantic relationship and look foward to their future together.
• Nog was promoted to lieutenant based on a recommendation made by Captain Sisko due to his exemplary service during the war; it was probably the last order Sisko gave in the linear realm before leaving for Bajor to confront Dukat.
• Quark stays on the station, along with Morn.
• Garak's exile has finally ended, and he returns to a devastated Cardassia Prime to try to rebuild it.

Referbacks

• When Kira enters Sisko's empty office at the end, she finds that he has left his baseball behind. When the station fell to the Dominion, Sisko also deliberately left his baseball in his office. Dukat recognized the meaning in this, and when Weyoun asked him what it meant, Dukat said it was a message from Sisko that he would return (for the baseball). Later, after Jadzia Dax died and Sisko returned to Earth to clear his head, Kira was shocked that he took his baseball with him. Kira explaine that "it means he's not sure if he's coming back". At the end, Sisko has left the linear realm of existence to life as a Prophet in the wormhole, but he left his baseball behind again: he will be back.

Quotes

• (final lines of the series)

Quark: Morn, it's like I always say: the more things change, the more things stay the same.