Reviewing the Bell Riots in Star Trek
"dalek" writes:
The Bell Riots are a unique event in Star Trek in that when Deep Space Nine showed them on screen, they were in the future, but that time period is now contemporary. Star Trek has shown time travel to events that were in the past or contemporary when the shows or movies aired, and they discussed future events like the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s but only showed their effects in the future with the original series episode Space Seed and the movie The Wrath of Khan.
The Bell Riots are shown in a two part episode called Past Tense (Part I, Script; Part II, Script) in which a transporter accident sends Commander Sisko, Lieutenant Dax, and Doctor Bashir back in time to August 30, 2024. They arrive in San Francisco, but over two centuries too early. Sisko and Bashir are found by security guards, and because of their lack of identification, they are sent to Sanctuary District A. However, Dax is found by a wealthy business owner named Chris Brynner, who provides her shelter.
There are sanctuary districts in nearly every city, places where people were promised food and shelter while employment was scarce, but quickly became overcrowded and with poor living conditions. The general public is mostly unaware of the conditions within the sanctuary districts, whose residents are prevented from leaving and have largely been forgotten. The residents are referred to by slang terms of gimmies (unemployed people), dims (mentally ill people), and ghosts (people who struggled to integrate and joined gangs). During the Bell Riots, some ghosts and other residents overpowered the guards, took hostages, and seized control of the sanctuary's processing center for incoming residents. Despite rumors that the hostages had been killed, Gabriel Bell prevented this from happening. Bell was able to broadcast from the district and inform the public of the living conditions within the district, which brought the living conditions to the general public's attention and spurred on reforms.
However, when Sisko is attacked on August 31 by a gang of ghosts, Gabriel Bell is killed by a ghost named B.C. while trying to help Sisko fend off off the attackers. This alters the timeline, and Sisko assumes the role of Bell to try to restore the proper course of history. There is no longer a Federation in the 24th century, no evidence of advanced technology on Earth, and there is a Romulan outpost at Alpha Centuary. Chief O'Brien and Major Kira use the transporters to travel back in time to a few points in history to try to find the missing crew members and restore the timeline. The episode's script includes this dialogue:
O'BRIEN: Well, we know one thing. They arrived before the year twenty forty eight.
ODO: How can you be sure?
O'BRIEN: Because we were just there. And that wasn't the mid-twenty first century I read about in school. It's been changed. I mean, Earth history has been through its rough patches, but never that rough.
In the Star Trek universe, 2048 occurs within World War III, which includes the use of strategic nuclear weapons by the United States, China, and Russia. This leads to a nuclear winter and the collapse of society. Past Tense was written to examine the issue of homelessness, specifically that homeless people are moved out of view of the general public and are forgotten about. There is a contrast of the extreme wealth of people like Chris Brynner and the destitution in the sanctuary districts. The story also serves as a warning that failing to address societal inequality may lead to more severe problems in the future, in this case making WWIII and the societal collapse far worse. One of the writers, Ira Steven Behr, commented that B.C. is not viewed as a murderer despite killing the real Gabriel Bell because society forced him into the situation, and he was just trying to survive the conditions in the sanctuary district. In 2021, writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe said about the episode:
"As a writer, all you can do is be a voice in the wilderness, sometimes. You can yell, 'Fire!' but you can't put it out. It's disappointing that we're still grappling with this problem. I certainly would have hoped it would be better by now, and people would be like, 'Ha! Remember that Deep Space Nine episode that said homelessness would still be a problem in the 2020s? They were so gloomy!' But one of the themes of the show is that paradise doesn't come for free. Even if it does get handed to you, you have to continually work to protect it and renew it and advance it."
Deep Space Nine is my favorite of all of the Star Trek series, and these are two of my favorite episodes. Although some people criticized the story for being too preachy and politicized, when it was wrapped up by Sisko, Bashir, and Dax restoring the timeline, I considered it a very memorable and compelling story. World War III, which begins in 2026, is mentioned in multiple series as a disastrous event for humanity, and although I'm not aware of this being shown on screen, this story does fill in some of the prelude up to the war. Have any readers seen this two-part episode? If so, what are your thoughts on this story and the themes it examines?
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