This episode has 4 stories in one. 1) Sisko commands a starship, a prototype called "The Defiant" designed specifically for battle. With the new threat of the Dominion from the Gamma Quadrant, the crew plans ways to defend themselves in case of an attack. The station will obviously be the first stop for a quadrant takeover. The Defiant will be taken through the wormhole to find the founders of the Dominion in hopes of forming peaceful negotiations to avoid war. One option discussed to avoid the conflict is to collapse the wormhole.
2) A Romulan officer is working with the Federation to supervise the use of the cloaking device in which The Defiant has been fitted. Later in the episode when talks are scheduled, the Romulans aren't invited, sparking a threat from the Romulan officer stating that being shut out of the talks is an act of war.
3) Admiral Nechayev and Commander Eddington exhibit odd behavior to Commander Sisko and the rest of the crew upon their return to the station. It made me think of the TNG episode "Conspiracy." However we learn that it was all an illusion perpetrated by the founders to test the crews reaction to a peaceful handover of the station and Bajor's sovereignty by The Dominion. The Jem'Hadar's sensors were powerful enough to pick up warp traces in space and were able to disable The Defiant's shields and cloak. The crew, with the exception of Odo and Kira, were taken hostage, rendered unconscious, and brought to a planet in the Omarian Nebula and fed the simulated scenario via brain probes.
4) Odo and Major Kira are in another section of the ship when it is attacked. Odo, brooding over a demotion from Starfleet, is now being drawn to the nebula but isn't sure why. After the ship is attacked, the next thing Kira knows is she and Odo are on route to the nebula via a runabout.
It is here at this nebula on an a class-M planet where we finally learn of Odo's heritage. He meets his like---shapeshifters who explain to him that some infants were sent out to various sectors in the quadrant to learn what's out there and report back many years later. Odo's appearance was unexpected, earlier than usual. He also learns a startling and painful truth---his people are the founders of the Dominion!
Odo manages to convince them to release his Federation friends by showing them that they, the Federation and the Bajorans, have treated him with respect and like an equal. The founders reason for forming the Dominion was to turn the tables on the "solids." Having been abused by humanoids in the past, they decided to take control and have dominion over them in their own area of space.
This episode was riveting, engaging, and contained a few plot twists and surprises.
For one, I didn't expect to see the Jem'Hadar waiting on the other side of that locked entrance to the subspace interference that kept Kira from contacting the crew.
And imagine my surprise at learning not only about Odo's people, but that they are the feared founders. They are so obscure to the rest of the quadrant that many species even doubt their existence.
It had been around 20 years since seeing these episodes and I had forgotten most of them. I was wondering where the direction of the Federation was going when Sisko and crew fought against the Admiral and Starfleet Command---until to my relief see that the rebellion against the Federation itself was all part of the simulation.
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