The Son'a...after Insurrection

[dHunter333]

so at the end of insurrection, ru'afo was dead, he was the real reason for the hatred of the bakuu and the creation of the son'a
his brother was shown embracing his mother at the end, "beginning the healing process" said picard

so apparently after the movie, the son'a didnt rejoin the baku (the son'a consist of 3 races, son'a is like a gang or faction? they contain bakuu and 2 other conquered races)

in ds9 season 7 they are mentioned helping the dominion defend a ket white compound

 

[Timo]

We don't know which came first, ST:INS or Season 7 of DS9.

IMHO, the movie only makes sense if it takes place after the war. Neither our heroes nor our villains would have any business behaving like that if the war was still on...

We should probably argue that there were three parts to the species there: the original culture from which the Ba'ku escaped to found their paradise planet, then the Ba'ku on that planet, and then the Son'a who split away from the Ba'ku because of reason X. It would be interesting to know what happened to that original culture. Was it destroyed by the forces the Ba'ku wanted to escape? Or did it survive - and if so, did the banished Son'a go back to that mother culture, or did they form their own enclave?

The Son'a seemed to be tech wizards, capable of outperforming the brightest minds of Federation R&D. That might allow even a very small number of them (a splinter group of the original, mere hundreds of, Ba'ku) to enslave the inhabitants of two planets and to build a power base from which to plot revenge.

One could also argue that the banished Son'a went back to the Ba'ku place of origin, a place reputed to be saturated with evil technologies that the Ba'ku wanted no part of. Such a place would be a likely candidate for enslaving the Ellora and the Tarlac. But would Rua'fo represent them all, or only a faction of them? Would the entire original culture move to the Ba'ku planet after the movie, then?

I rather prefer the idea that the original Ba'ku/Son'a home was somewhere very distant, perhaps even in the Gamma Quadrant (explaining how they knew the secrets of Ketracel White), and that there was no going back to that world. The distress of the banished Son'a would then be all the more acute, their plot of revenge all the more logical and lacking in alternatives.

One also wonders how the Ba'ku banished the Son'a in the first place. I mean, if the former didn't believe in guns and violence, and the latter did, how could the former be the banishers of the latter? Perhaps the Son'a were cast out without weaponry, in a rickety starship (perhaps the one, or one of those, that brought them to the Ba'ku planet originally), and spent centuries trying to build up an arsenal. And in the meantime, the UFP claimed the region of space and blocked Son'a access to it...

Lots of possibilities there. Personally, I'd think the Son'a did join the Ba'ku at the conclusion of the movie, and let the Ellora and Tarlac go their merry ways. The ancestral home in turn was too distant to be involved in any way. And the Federation and the Ba'ku together set up spas and hotels to exploit the benefits of the metaphasic rings. Or if the Ba'ku didn't agree, the Federation came and hauled them all away, as per the original plan, and neglected to tell Picard.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CaptainStoner]

The PC game "Hidden Evil" follows INS, although I don't remember it developing things a lot, it does pick up after the film. And IMO its an underated game.

 

[The Wormhole]

We don't know which came first, ST:INS or Season 7 of DS9.

Insurrection was released December 1998. I think the Son'a were mentioned in the DS9 episode Penumbra, which aired April 1999.

We can infer from this as an indication Son'a activities post-Insurrection.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

We should probably argue that there were three parts to the species there: the original culture from which the Ba'ku escaped to found their paradise planet, then the Ba'ku on that planet, and then the Son'a who split away from the Ba'ku because of reason X. It would be interesting to know what happened to that original culture. Was it destroyed by the forces the Ba'ku wanted to escape? Or did it survive - and if so, did the banished Son'a go back to that mother culture, or did they form their own enclave?

I believe that Ru'afo's banished group rejoined their race's original homeworld and were part of a larger society. It was this society that enslaved those other 2 races and was providing Ketrecel White to the Dominion.

I believe that the culture we saw on Ru'afo's ship probably resembles Son'a culture as a whole. His superiors probably didn't realize just how crazy he was. They may or may not have been willing to turn a blind eye to killing all of the Baku to get the resources they wanted.

 

[Bones2]

I'm fairly sure Insurrection is meant to happen during the Dominion War. Perhaps seeing the Son'a as a faction made up of the 3 races does work best. Or else, not all the Son'a integrated.

Though here's a thing. It's said the Son'a (by which I mean the facelift Ba'ku) had reached the limit of genetic manipulation, and that's why they wanted the ring's radiation, so they could collect it and use it immediately. It's also said that they can't just go and live on the planet, because it would take 10 years before the radiation would heal them. So...what happens at the end of the film? The remaining So'na (those in the film at least) go and live on the planet with the Ba'ku and...what, die because things won't work for at another 10 years?

 

[Alrik]

^

Or was Ru'afo lying through his teeth to the Fed about the 10 year thing to set a sense of urgency? That's kind of how I've alway seen it. Ru'afo isn't exactly the trust worthy type and we did see that the effect on the Ent crew was pretty much immediate.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Well, they had to cut out a line about Jadzia being alive (poor Worf) and certain lines in the movie and on DS9 tended to indicate the movie was set during the war, because Worf would've been with Martok after the war.

 

[Timo]

...But ST:NEM suggests Worf never went with Martok.

And it would be pretty weird if our heroes only sailed around doing cocktail parties, archaeological digs and courtesy calls to their android friends while their non-android friends were dying at the battlefronts. They didn't even mention the war in a single bit of dialogue! What are they, cowardly soldiers or heroically pacifist or people from some sort of a parallel universe or what?

Not to mention that the diplomats would have one hell of a time trying to speak with the Dominion if the war was still on. The last time diplomacy was attempted, in "Statistical Probabilities", it turned out that the enemy didn't really believe in it.

And while I can see Starfleet working with their former enemies, I cannot see them working with their current ones. It was no secret that the Son'a were on the Dominion side when this was mentioned in DS9. Rua'fo would have been shot at sight if he tried to approach the UFP before the war was over...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[LeadHead]

As far as the timeline goes, Insurrection could have taken place almost anywhere in the pre-"Final Chapter" part of DS9 Season 7. Worf's appearances were rather scarce during that time. I think it has been theorized that it took place near the time of "It's Only a Paper Moon." Worf is only present at Nog's retrun at the beginning, and the episode takes place across a significant period of time.

The S'ona were mentioned by Damar and Weyoun n "Prenumbra" having some connection with the Dominion for supplying Ketrecel White. Which should have only been a month or two later.

The PC Game "Hidden Evil" takes plae 9 months after the events of Insurrection. By which point the S'ona have begun to settle on the Ba'ku planet.

 

[The Wormhole]

The S'ona were mentioned by Damar and Weyoun n "Prenumbra" having some connection with the Dominion for supplying Ketrecel White. Which should have only been a month or two later.

In fact, the Son'a producing Ketrecel White was known in Insurrection. It's one of the things mentioned in the info Riker and Deanna read about them in the Enterprise's computer.

 

[Timo]

...Which is why it's quite inconceivable that the movie could have taken place in wartime.

To be sure, our heroes refer to the substance as "narcotic ketracel white", even though we never heard of the Jem'hadar nectar having any narcotic properties. Is this a subtype of standard KW, sold as a narcotic or perhaps as a recreational drug? Or does standard KW really have those effects on humanoids other than the Jem'hadar?

Also, why are our heroes appalled that the Son'a would be producing a narcotic? There's nothing illegal or bad about narcotics as such - to the contrary, such substances are of immense positive significance in medical care. Narcotics misuse is a social problem, yes, but I don't see how the manufacturing of narcotic substances could be blamed for their misuse without further facts.

That in mind, I can only suppose that either the NKW was a substance of great notoriety, known for its misuse and virtually never used in a legally acceptable manner (even though the audience had no way of knowing this) - or that KW in itself was an immoral product because anybody producing it would be helping the Dominion kill Federation children, and the narcotic aspect of the stuff was not what was making our heroes retch.

Another question of some interest is how the Son'a learned to make that stuff. Did they perhaps originate from the Gamma Quadrant themselves? The Ba'ku did refer to having come from quite far away, but they never specified a place of origin.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hober Mallow]

Well, they had to cut out a line about Jadzia being alive (poor Worf) and certain lines in the movie and on DS9 tended to indicate the movie was set during the war, because Worf would've been with Martok after the war.

...But ST:NEM suggests Worf never went with Martok.

Dialog in "Insurrection" would seem to indicate Worf is still stationed on DS9 at that point, which would have to be before the war, unless we come up with some convolution explanation that Worf changed his mind just after leaving the station and had Martok turn around and drop him back off and beg for his job back.

 

[Timo]

...Such as finally recovering from the barrel of warnog from the victory party?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[dHunter333]

it is during the war....the dialogue in insurrection confirms it many times
it takes place when it aired
during mid seaosn 7 of ds9 and mid season 5 of voy

 

[cybersoldier]

so at the end of insurrection, ru'afo was dead, he was the real reason for the hatred of the bakuu and the creation of the son'a
his brother was shown embracing his mother at the end, "beginning the healing process" said picard

so apparently after the movie, the son'a didnt rejoin the baku (the son'a consist of 3 races, son'a is like a gang or faction? they contain bakuu and 2 other conquered races)

in ds9 season 7 they are mentioned helping the dominion defend a ket white compound

There was a game that was an unofficial squeal to Insurrection, it was called Star Trek: Hidden Evil, it showed the so'na, the bakuu and the Romulan.

 

[Timo]

it is during the war....the dialogue in insurrection confirms it many times

Except it doesn't. Number of references to ongoing fighting: zero. Number of combat assignments awaiting our heroes: zero. Number of combat assignments handled by our heroes in the recent past: zero. Number of references to developments in the war: zero.

Number of references to the war in the past tense: one (losses to the Borg and the Dominion are mentioned in the same sentence, in the same spirit).

Number of references to peacetime activities waiting our heroes: two (weeks-long archaeology assignment, of all things, and mediation in a local dispute). Number of references to ongoing peacetime activities for our heroes: two (having a ball in the honor of new entrants to the UFP, and helping study a supposedly primitive culture).

Add to that that Starfleet is now buddies with people who were their enemies in the war, and other stuff mentioned in previous posts. It just doesn't make sense for something this "peaceful" to take place when millions are dying elsewhere and trillions are threatened by death.

And nothing in the movie requires us to believe that. There are ambiguous things there, but not a single phrase that would require us to believe in an ongoing war.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Corran Horn]

Do they not give a stardate at all during Insurrection?

 

[The Wormhole]

Number of references to the war in the past tense: one (losses to the Borg and the Dominion are mentioned in the same sentence, in the same spirit).

Two, actually. Ru'afo makes mention of powers that have challenged the Federation in recent years, he names off the Borg, Dominion, and Cardassians.

 

[JB2005]

"The Diplomatic Corps is busy with Dominion Negotiations"
"And they need us to put out one more brush fire?"