Episode no. Season 3
Episode 26 Featured music Jay Chattaway Production code 472 | Directed by Alexander Singer Cinematography by Jonathan West | |
Written by Ira Steven Behr
Robert Hewitt Wolfe | ||
"The Adversary" is the 72nd episode of the syndicated American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the season finale of the third season.
Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. In this episode, Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) and the Defiant crew must stop a Changeling infiltrator attempting to start a war between the Federation and one of its neighbors.
Plot
In a ceremony in the station's wardroom, Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) pins a new pip on the collar of his father's, Commander Benjamin Sisko’s, uniform marking his promotion to the rank of Captain. Visiting Ambassador Krajensky then tells Sisko that the Tzenkethi, an alien race with a history of hostility toward the Federation, have unseated their ruler, the Autarch, in a coup d'etat; Sisko, a veteran of Federation/Tzenkethi conflicts, opines that the Autarch will not be missed, and while Krajensky concurs, he warns that the Autarch's replacement might renew anti-Federation hostilities. He says Sisko is ordered to bring the Defiant on a "saber-rattling" mission along the Tzenkethi border. Along the way, oddities occur on the ship and the crew suspects there may be a Changeling infiltrator. It is revealed to be Krajensky, but it is too late; he has already sabotaged the ship to the point it could instigate a war. After hours of searching, the crew tries to find the infiltrator with blood screenings but are unsuccessful. Sisko readies the ship's self-destruct while Chief O'Brien (Colm Meaney) tries to override the Changeling's systems. Constable Odo (René Auberjonois) fights the Changeling in main engineering and ends up killing him (becoming the first changeling to harm another). It is then revealed that the real Ambassador Krajensky was kidnapped and replaced (by his Changeling counterpart), the report of a Tzenkethi coup was false, and the entire affair was a Dominion plot to destabilize the Alpha Quadrant. Back at Deep Space Nine, Odo reveals the cryptic message the Changeling said before he died: "You are too late. We are everywhere."