Top 20 Episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine #16: Inquisition

The war with the Dominion is now in full swing, while Sisko and the DS9 crew are valiantly fighting on the front lines, Starfleet Intelligence is busy searching for Dominion agents within their own ranks. For some reason, their leader, Sloane, played by the always awesome Bill Sadler, seems particularly interested in Dr. Bashir. Sloane is almost obsessed in his pursuit of Julian, but Julian refuses to confess, even when confronted with the possibility that he’s a brainwashed dominion sleeper agent.

I’ll let you in on the twist ending now. The whole thing was actually a holodeck simulation, not to interrogate Bashir, but rather, to recruit him into their secret spy organization, Section 31. Section 31 is sanctioned by Starfleet, but they are given a very long leash to do things that don’t always agree with Starfleet principles to ensure the federation remains a power in the galaxy. It’s because of the introduction of Section 31 that this episode is as significant as it is polarizing. Many fans see Section 31 as a perversion of Gene Roddenberry’s ideals, but me personally, I think the idea that the Federation can be just as corrupt as the Romulans or Cardassians allows for more interesting story possibilities and makes the sides of the conflict seem considerably less black and white, something DS9 excelled at.

We've done five of these so far, so next time, we take a break from DS9 to take a look at my favorite episode of The Next Generation