Was anyone else expecting some big reveal with the Breen?

[t_smitts]

We had Weyoun talking about how their homeworld isn't really the frozen wasteland that had been alluded to in past episodes. We had him wondering what they look like under those suits. We had Sisko and Martok talking about how mysterious they were.

Did anyone else expect there to be some big reveal, rather than just being a new ally for the Dominion?

 

[Use of Time]

It would have been nice. I enjoyed the mysticism of the Breen and its possible that the powers that be didn't want to ruin that. I think the first time they were mentioned on screen was in Generations. The discovery of disruptor fire on the Amargosa observatory had Riker narrowing the list of possible assailants as Romulan, Breen or Klingon. I don't remember any other mention of them on screen until the Dominion War. There is considerable information about them in the Typhon Pact book series but even than there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the Breen.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

I remember Troi mentioning in TNG that the Breen were a species that Betazoids could not detect empathically (this stuck with me at the time, as there was a family in our neighboring school district named "Breen"!). Happened in TNG Season 4 episode "The Loss" (Yes, I did have to resort to looking it up!).

I did expect that we would eventually see a Breen unmasked. But while I would have enjoyed a good and creative answer to the mystery of the true nature of the Breen, I kind of like having the mystery intact out there, teasing at my brain!

 

[Timo]

I think the first time they were mentioned on screen was in Generations. The discovery of disruptor fire on the Amargosa observatory had Riker narrowing the list of possible assailants as Romulan, Breen or Klingon.

Actually, they were mentioned in basically the same context in TNG "Hero Worship", where a mysterious enemy had seemingly raided the research ship Vico. Any "conventional" attack could apparently be pinned on them just as probably as on Klingons or Romulans, suggesting similar tech levels, armaments and aims - something DS9 did ultimately support.

The funny thing is, back in "Hero Worship", an eyewitness story of helmeted raiders seemed to count as evidence against these being the Breen...

The Breen made their first actual onscreen appearance in DS9 "Indiscretion", where they were again portrayed as generally villainous raiders who had captured Dukat's secret lover and a shipful of other Bajorans for slave labor. Supposedly, Kira and Dukat de-masked several Breen in that episode, donning their distinctive suits for infiltration purposes. And still our other heroes seemed to continue believing that nobody has ever seen a de-masked Breen...

This sort of set up two possibilities:

a) An embarrassing continuity error, harshly exposed when the storylines finally gave us solid evidence either for the Breen faces being already known or for them really remaining completely unknowns.
b) A reveal so mindbendingly big that we could easily accept that Kira and Dukat kept their discovery secret from everybody.

In the end, we got neither. But we can sort of go on believing that Dukat and Kira saw something they didn't report forward, for reason X. Perhaps the reveal was so insignificant they never realized they should report it (say, the Breen had wrinkled foreheads). Or perhaps the reveal would have benefited the Federation, while harming Bajorans and Cardassians, and neither of the characters desired this?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Avon]

the breen were vorlons! gasp!

 

[Edit_XYZ]

This sort of set up two possibilities:

a) An embarrassing continuity error, harshly exposed when the storylines finally gave us solid evidence either for the Breen faces being already known or for them really remaining completely unknowns.
b) A reveal so mindbendingly big that we could easily accept that Kira and Dukat kept their discovery secret from everybody.

The continuity error is easy enough to 'fix' with no mindbending reveal needed:

When breen are killed or unmasked, their suits vaporise them so as to prevent others from gaining knowledge about their appearance/anatomy - or, why not, for cultural reasons.

This fits nicely with Weyoun's information - which implies that they don't need their suits to keep cold or that they merely colonized their current homeworld.

 

[timmy84]

The book universe addressed this saying that the Breens body vaporized when exposed to the extreme heat. In the book universe the Breen mystery has been exposed, with almost a complete explanation of Breen goals, biology, and government with the Breen having been the recent villains in the most recent TNG story arc.

 

[JediKnightButler]

the breen were vorlons! gasp!

When you look at a Breen, you see what they want you to see.......

 

[JediKnightButler]

I thought that the Breen looked pretty cool myself and I liked that they remained mysterious through the end of DS9. I thought it was always kind of funny with them speaking garbled electronics and everybody but us (the viewers) knowing what they were saying. I still could never help but think of them as "Boussh"(sp?) from Return of the Jedi. Do the books go into the repercussions the Breen faced following the end of the Dominion War? It's interesting that they chose to flee back to their ships prior to Kira, Garak, and Damar's infiltration of the main Dominion HQ.

 

[chrinFinity]

I recall an episode where Worf tells a tale that once upon a time in not-so-recent history, the Klingons sent an entire fleet to conquer the Breen homeworld, and the Klingon fleet was never heard from again.

From that point forward I was expecting the reveal to be that the Breen were actually differently-motivated Klingons with their own offshoot culture (sort of like the Romulans are for the Vulcans). Something like, victory at all costs and we'll gladly shoot you with your back turned, plus we run away from fights when the odds are bad (honour be damned). Honestly, the story would have practically written itself.

I really wanted an episode where Sisko is captured by the Breen at some remote location, and they mind-sift him and find out some "valuable intelligence" that could tip the balance in the Dominion War. The episode culminates in Sisko having some sort of personal confrontation with the Breen leader, in which he or she (plus one or two of the guards or aides) takes off their mask, the Klingon face is the sudden reveal, and the dialogue goes something like this:

SISKO: You're Klingons!

BREEN: Yes, Captain. We are descended from warriors of the Second Empire, we conquered the Breen centuries ago.

BREEN LEADER BRANDISHES [BREEN DISRUPTOR PISTOL]

BREEN: Unfortunately you won't be reporting this discovery to your superiors.

SISKO: I've never met Klingons before who murder unarmed civilians, destroy helpless ships, and hide their faces in battle. What would Kahless think?

BREEN: Kahless was a fool! His ideology, his sick obsession with honour beyond reason, has held Qo'noS back for generations. Klingons are warriors by blood, Captain. And as I'm sure you will agree, there are no rules in war. You created false evidence of a Dominion plot against the Romulans, to manipulate them into joining the war. You may have destroyed our transceiver array, but as soon as we return to Dominion space, your deception will be revealed, and your alliance will crumble.

[BOTH REACT TO SOUND OF DISTANT EXPLOSION. THE DECK SHAKES]

SISKO: Don't bet on it.

Then the Defiant shows up to pound on the Breen ship, some conduit behind the wall in the room blows up which knocks out the guards and distracts the Breen leader, Sisko wrestles the gun away from him, manages to beat the hell out of his former captor, and then escapes the Breen ship before it explodes. Defiant picks him up, they're all happy to find him alive, and he talks about his discovery with his staff but they all agree to keep the secret in order not to de-stabilize the Alliance... because Gowron is a dick and would go off half-cocked, I guess, or maybe because there's a story reason why Sisko exposing what he learned about the Breen would also expose his Romulan trickery.

Of course, they never took this approach in the TV series, and from what I understand from hearing about the Typhon Pact books this possibility is shot out of the water (but please don't spoil me on it, I'm just finishing the fourth Titan book now, and I'm reading Destiny next, so I'll probably get to Typhon Pact in a couple weeks).

 

[R. Star]

Some things are just best left unknown because explaining them just undermines them. Klingon ridges comes to mind.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The reveal should have been they were the most beautiful race in the galaxy, seeing as most bad-guy species have grey skin, spikes/horns, sharp teeth, etc.

 

[DS9Continuing]

The book universe addressed this saying that the Breens body vaporized when exposed to the extreme heat.

More specifically, one of the Breen species vaporizes in normal temperatures. In spoilers just in case:

Spoiler: Breen explanation in the novels

The Breen are not one species but a group of them (hence the state's title, Breen Confederacy). This helps to explain the seeming inconsistencies in their descriptions over the years - what people were seeing was different species. But they all wear the same suit (or at least it looks the same from the outside) to hide their differences from each other as much as from outsiders. The type Kira and Dukat encountered were Amoniri, made of compressed gas which evaporates in normal temperatures, which is how they didn't know what they looked like.

The reveal should have been they were the most beautiful race in the galaxy, seeing as most bad-guy species have grey skin, spikes/horns, sharp teeth, etc.

Again in the novels, the Tzenkethi have been described this way, looking not unlike vari-coloured Taelons.

.

 

[Timo]

When breen are killed or unmasked, their suits vaporise them so as to prevent others from gaining knowledge about their appearance/anatomy - or, why not, for cultural reasons.

This explains nothing, as it still leaves Kira and Dukat aware that this happens to unmasked Breen - which is not what Worf continues to believe. Instead, he believes this:

Ezri: "I wonder what the Breen look like under those helmets?"
Worf: "They say no one has ever seen one and lived to speak of it."
Ezri: "Maybe they're all furry. It's supposed to be very cold on Breen."
Worf: "One thing is certain."
Ezri: "They're horrible cooks?"
Worf: "They are dangerous."

So, we're still left wondering why Ezri is ignorant and why Worf is either ignorant or lying to Ezri.

Enforced ignorance, that is, a conspiracy, seems to be required as an element here. The incredible melting Breen would not appear to call for a conspiracy, though...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Edit_XYZ]

When breen are killed or unmasked, their suits vaporise them so as to prevent others from gaining knowledge about their appearance/anatomy - or, why not, for cultural reasons.

This explains nothing, as it still leaves Kira and Dukat aware that this happens to unmasked Breen - which is not what Worf continues to believe. Instead, he believes this:

Ezri: "I wonder what the Breen look like under those helmets?"
Worf: "They say no one has ever seen one and lived to speak of it."
Ezri: "Maybe they're all furry. It's supposed to be very cold on Breen."
Worf: "One thing is certain."
Ezri: "They're horrible cooks?"
Worf: "They are dangerous."

So, we're still left wondering why Ezri is ignorant and why Worf is either ignorant or lying to Ezri.

Actually, my explanation is consistent with this dialogue as well, Timo:
No one has ever seen a breen; seeing vapors =! seeing how a breen looks like - not even in the general vicinity.

Worf - and Ezri - knowing breen are vaporized upon death or unmasking would change nothing to the quoted dialogue.

 

[Timo]

That sounds pretty convoluted. Worf knows Breen evaporate at exposure => he quotes a rumor that Breen appearances are kept secret by all the witnesses dying before they can report?

Sure, witnesses dying would help keep the secret, any secret. But it's really quite irrelevant if there's nothing to witness. Which means Worf doesn't know that the Breen cannot be de-helmeted and witnessed, or Ezri doesn't know this and Worf likes to play up the mystique.

We may argue that neither Kira nor Dukat were UFP or Starfleet personnel, and that neither Ezri nor Worf come from a Federation member species, which gives us the opportunity to assign "national" motivations for secrecy for each of the characters. But that takes some doing. Or we may find arguments for why Ezri and Worf would be especially ignorant individuals. Heck, we may even say they are talking for the benefit of the inevitably eavesdropping Breen! But simple explanations based on the true nature of the Breen are basically still out of the question, due to the wording of Worf's ignorance/deceit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Did anyone else expect there to be some big reveal, rather than just being a new ally for the Dominion?

No. They were too tertiary to expect that.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

That sounds pretty convoluted. Worf knows Breen evaporate at exposure => he quotes a rumor that Breen appearances are kept secret by all the witnesses dying before they can report?

What are you even talking about?

Worf: "They say no one has ever seen one and lived to speak of it."
Worf simply said that no one saw how a breen looks like. That is it.

As for the rest - the conspiracy theory has as much weight as an urban legend.
Maybe the breen kill all who saw them, maybe no one managed to see them in order for them to bother, maybe they just do not care either way. None of these possibilities contradicting my explanation in the least, Timo.

 

[Timo]

Worf: "They say no one has ever seen one and lived to speak of it."
Worf simply said that no one saw how a breen looks like. That is it.

Sure. And it completely contradicts the idea that Worf would know what happens when one removes the helmet of a Breen. Worf is the stationmate of the officer who de-helmeted a Breen (and captured and/or killed dozens more, at close range, while fully in liberty to examine her captives or victims afterwards) and very much lived to tell the tale. There's no "they say" to that story - it's not "they", it's frigging Colonel Kira! There's no "witnesses could tell if they lived" to that story, either.

We're still very much stuck with Worf not knowing what Kira saw, or then knowing but lying his eyes and ears full. Which is odd and calls for an explanation, quite regardless of what the Breen look like and whether they melt when revealed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Librarian]

SISKO: You're Klingons!

BREEN: Yes, Captain. We are descended from warriors of the Second Empire, we conquered the Breen centuries ago.

BREEN LEADER BRANDISHES [BREEN DISRUPTOR PISTOL]

BREEN: Unfortunately you won't be reporting this discovery to your superiors.

SISKO: I've never met Klingons before who murder unarmed civilians, destroy helpless ships, and hide their faces in battle. What would Kahless think?

For every Klingon soldier killed, two hundred civilians will be executed.

Ah, Klingons. So fond of honor when it suits them, and not when it's inconvenient.