Field of Fire (episode)edit

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"Field of Fire"
DS9, Episode 7x13 Production number: 40510-563 First aired: 10 February 1999
←	161st of 173 produced in DS9	→
←	161st of 173 released in DS9	→
	{{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 173 released in DS9 Remastered
←	555th of 727 released in all	→

Written By Robert Hewitt Wolfe Directed By Tony Dow
Unknown (2375)
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After several DS9 crew members are murdered, Ezri summons the memories and personality of Joran Dax to help her find the murderer.

[edit] Summary

Several of the senior staff are gathered in Quark's, toasting one young Lieutenant Junior Grade Hector Ilario for his excellent performance at the Defiant's helm in a recent battle. Eventually, the party winds down, and the (drunk) young lieutenant is escorted to his quarters by Ezri. The next morning, he is discovered dead in his quarters, having been shot through the heart.

Perplexedly, there is no evidence of a forced entry, nor of any entry at all. Even more mysterious is the fact that he was killed, at close range, with a projectile weapon rather than a directed energy weapon such as a phaser or disruptor. The tritanium bullet is matched to a Federation prototype TR-116 rifle, which was never mass-produced, having been abandoned in favor of regenerative phasers. The rifle's replicator pattern, disturbingly, is only available to Starfleet officers. Drawing on his knowledge of 20th century crime novels, Odo notes that there are no powder burns on the body, suggesting that the shot was fired from a longer range.

Ezri is deeply disturbed by her memories of being Joran Dax, who murdered three people, and has a nightmare about the murdered lieutenant and Joran. Upon awakening, she is summoned to the site of another murder, this time of Greta Vanderweg, a science officer. Similarly to Ilario, she was killed by a tritanium bullet, apparently fired at close range, leaving no powder burns. Sisko assigns Ezri to assist Odo with her forensic psychology training.

O'Brien demonstrates the TR-116 on a melon

Later, at Quark's, O'Brien and Bashir are discussing the killer's odd choice of weapon. Davy Crockett's attachment to a particular weapon comes up, and, as Bashir tells an old story about Davy Crockett using frying pans to perform a trick shot, the Chief has an epiphany about how the killer has fired from close range without leaving powder burns. Quickly arranging a demonstration, O'Brien shows how a micro-transporter could be attached to the muzzle of a TR-116 rifle to beam the bullet close to the target, where it would exit with the same kinetic energy. An exographic targeting sensor could be used to scan through bulkheads, meaning the killer could be firing from anywhere on the station, at anyone. Unfortunately, the micro-transporter does not leave enough of a transporter trace to track.

Ezri summons Joran's memories

Ezri redoubles her efforts to find a connection between the two murder victims, but gets nowhere. Hoping to draw on the memories of Joran, she performs the Trill Rite of Emergence to extract and personify him. Joran encourages her to think like a killer, disturbing her deeply. In Quark's, Ezri nearly stabs a man, thinking he's the murderer. It turns out the man (Ensign Bertram) was being pursued by security for accessing the TR-116 replicator pattern. However, he was on Bajor at the time of the first murder, ruling him out as a suspect. Sisko almost takes Ezri off the case, but gives her another chance. Ezri attempts to reverse the ritual and rebury Joran's memories, but is interrupted by news of another murder. Zim Brott, a Bolian petty officer, has been found dead, by the same method.

While searching the latest victim's quarters for clues, Ezri realizes the only commonality between the victims is pictures of laughing people in their quarters. She suspects a Vulcan is behind the murders, reasoning that a Vulcan, sufficiently traumatized, might see the pictures as an unbearable, frozen display of emotion. She comes up with a short list of suspects who fit what she has deduced.

Ezri aims the rifle at Chu'lak.

On her way to review her list and shorten it further, she meets a Vulcan who seems to fit the killer's profile in a turbolift. Checking his personnel file, she discovers his name is Chu'lak, and he has indeed suffered a recent emotional trauma. Using the TR-116 and exographic scanner, she observes Chu'lak looking at her personnel file, then retrieving a TR-116 rifle and exographic scanner, and aiming at her. Although Joran Dax encourages her to kill the Vulcan, she shoots him non-lethally, and rushes to his quarters, capturing him. When Ezri asks Chu'lak why he committed these acts, he replies "because logic demanded it."

Finally, having solved the murders and come to terms with her memories of Joran, she successfully returns him to his normal place among her memories of Dax's previous hosts.

[edit] Memorable quotes

[edit] Background information

The working title of this episode was "The Killer in Dax"
With David Weddle, Bradley Thompson and Ronald D. Moore all busy trying to salvage "Prodigal Daughter", with Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler working on "The Emperor's New Cloak", and with René Echevarria working on "Chimera", Ira Behr found himself in a situation where he needed an episode, and had no-one to write it. As such, he contacted his old writing partner Robert Hewitt Wolfe and pitched an idea about a serial killer sniper being loose on the station. When Wolfe agreed to do the script, Behr foresaw the episode as an Odo show, but as Wolfe explains, "I felt we'd seen the constable investigate this kind of thing before. I wanted to use a character whom we hadn't seen spearhead an investigation. That gave me a chance to do something with Ezri." Wolfe decided that if Ezri was investigating a murderer, it might bring out her memories of Joran, and she comes to realize that if she embraces these memories, they may help her stop the killer. As such, in Wolfe's first draft, Ezri creates a hologram of Joran, but he quickly realized that this limited the character, and so he decided to go what he refers to as "the Trill mumbo-jumbo route." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

John Eaves concept art for a TR-116 rifle

Jeff Magnus McBride, who had portrayed Joran in the third season episode "Equilibrium" proved unavailable to reprise the role for "Field of Fire". According to director Tony Dow, the casting process was very specific; "Joran is a pretty complex character. The actor had to play him with a sort of crazed unpredictability, but he couldn't be such a jerk that Ezri would just put him back in the bottle. Leigh didn't have the scariness of appearance that we'd initially anticipated, but he's such a terrific actor that it worked out well." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
When prepping this episode, Tony Dow was instructed to watch the fifth season episode "The Darkness and the Light", as "it had the same sort of mystery feeling, with a renegade who kidnaps Kira. Ira told me that it was really the only other show of this type that they'd done. There isn't much personal violence on this series, so when it does occur, it's something to be reckoned with. My objective was to create an atmosphere of apprehension and a bit of panic about what was going on." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
Early in the episode, Hector Ilario tells Ezri that she's very beautiful, to which she responds, "And you're very drunk." He then says, "But in the morning, I'll be sober - and you'll still be beautiful." This is likely a reference to the apocryphal, usually misattributed Winston Churchill conversation with socialite Elizabeth Braddock. When he was criticized for being drunk, he responded with some version of the famous quote "Yes, my dear, and you are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober."
Ezri refers to Hector Ilario as an ensign when they are leaving Quark's even though Bashir says he's a lieutenant and he wears the rank insignia of lieutenant JG. However, she doesn't specifically call him an Ensign. She comments that she has escorted many drunken ensigns to their quarters in the past and Ilario is a junior officer.
The male Bolian is described as being survived by a wife and co-husband. Some fans took this to mean that same-sex marriages were given legal recognition in the future. It could also refer to polyandry (more than one man being married to the same woman).
This episode represents our third encounter with Joran. As well as "Equilibrium", he also featured in the third season episode "Facets", where he was 'embodied' by Sisko.
After this episode aired, a number of fans questioned the believability of having a Vulcan serial killer. Wolfe however says that the very point of the episode was bound up in this 'twist'; "What would be the biggest surprise to a regular Star Trek fan? No one's going to be surprised if a Bajoran or a Cardassian or a Romulan is the killer. But a Vulcan serial killer? That'll make you sit up and take notice. I wanted to show the psychological strains of the War are far-reaching. If you've got a Vulcan who's cracking under the battle, that says something." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) does not appear in this episode.
A script for this episode was sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay. [1]

[edit] Video and DVD releases

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 7.7, 5 July 1999.
As part of the DS9 Season 7 DVD collection.

[edit] Links and references

[edit] Starring

Avery Brooks as Captain Sisko

[edit] Also starring

[edit] Guest stars

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Season 7

Next episode:
"Chimera"

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