“Call to Arms” serves as the fifth season finale and marks the beginning of the Dominion War. Save for some generally weak one off episodes, the Dominion War will become the primary focus for the remainder of the series. There was some resistance by the higher ups at Trek because they were not certain fans would follow a two season story arc. But, as the Borg say, resistance is futile. Thus, my favorite story arc in all of Trek was born.Much of the episode builds up tension. Even the quickie wedding plans for Rom and Leeta have a sense of now or never because of rising tensions between the Dominion and the Federation. The Dominion has been continually sending soldiers and materiel to Cardassia. It has gone well beyond anything necessary for defense. Clearly, the Dominion is prepping for war with the Alpha Quadrant powers.
Starfleet decides they are losing the peace as the Dominion arms for war and makes treaties with powers like the Romulans. The only course of action is to mine the wormhole to prevent any further shipments from the Gamma Quadrant. Thanks to Rom, they devise away to make cloaked, self-replicating mines in order to do so.
The Dominion gets wind of the plan and sends Weyoun to negotiate a compromise on humanitarian grounds. It falls through because neither side trusts the other--and with good reason. The Dominion forces decide to take DS9 by force to stop the mines from being activated.
For the second time in the series, we get a major evacuation sequence with tearful good byes and a dreadful sense certain people will never reunite. The first time this happened was in the second season’s ’The Siege” when a Bajoran coup prompted the Federation to leave. That time around, the writers were trying to stretch a two part episode into a trilogy, so it felt like a lot of filler. Too much sound and fury for an anticlimactic ending. It is done much better here considering the end result of the coming battle.
The plan is for DS9 to hold off the Dominion fleet until the minefield is set for an as yet unrevealed reason, Starfleet will ot send reinforcements. The Dominion begins attacking Ds9 in the biggest battle since the Klingon invasion I the fourth season.
Interesting that DS9 is successful in activating the minefield in the nick of time because Martok and a Klingon fleet serve as the cavalry. With that done, Sisko surprisingly orders the evacuation of all Starfleet personnel. In a Douglas McArthur “I shall return” moment, he explains to the Bajorans and other aliens left behind their mission was not only to establish the wormhole minefield, but act as a distraction while the Federation and Klingons destroyed a Dominion shipyard. The battle has been joined.
As Sisko departs, Kira, Odo, and Quark welcome their new Dominion masters. Thanks to Sisko’s urging, the Bajorans signed the non-aggression pact from the previous episode, but relations are tense nonetheless. The Dominion want the whole quadrant even though they intend to honor the pact for now. Dukat has all intentions of taking his old job back as military governor of Bajor.
“Call to Arms” sets up the dynamics specifically for the first six episodes of the next season. Kria, Odo, and Jake, who stayed behind to serve as a war correspondent, will form a resistance cell to aid the sagging fortunes of the Federation early in the war, particularly when the Cardassians figure out a way to lower the minefield. Some surprising character personality changes will come that will affect the series until the end.
Good stuff.
Rating: **** (out of 5)
