Deep Space Nine-Eleven

So a couple weeks ago I was watching the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine two-parter episodes Homefront and Paradise Lost. Both episodes are, of course, considered highly prescient in the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington by followers of the child molesting Satanic Prophet mohammed (worms be upon him as God damned him and his followers to burn in hell). As everybody and their dog knows, this happened on the 11th of September (a day the derka derkas picked with a certain historical flair) which quickly became dubbed "9/11" and was subject to a ton of numerology and pop culture evaluation.

Anyways, as I mentioned, the two parter is famous for predicting the response to 9/11 five years earlier.

Homefront and Paradise Lost finds Earth dealing with the aftermath of a horrific terrorist attack. According to Sisko, “A crime like this hasn’t been committed on Earth in over a hundred years.” Innocents are killed. More than that, the changelings are explicitly responsible. In the wake of the attack, more hawkish members of the military seize upon the opportunity to grasp power. Civil liberties are trampled, draconian measures are introduced. “With a Starfleet officer on every corner, paradise has never seemed so well-armed.”

Paradise Lost even demonstrates of the chilling effect of fear, the way that the immediate response to a horrific trauma is to seek security at any cost. While Joseph Sisko was a voice of reason in the face of the increasing militarisation of Homefront, the staged attack upon the power grid scares him into submission.

Of course it's always easier to look at this as an abstraction when you're removed from it. I haven't the energy to look it up, but I'll almost guarantee you that Darren Mooney was fully in favour of all the COVID rules and restrictions (as Mark Steyn noted the Patriot Act was a dry run for the Emergency Act), Ireland had to offer [and you would be right! -ed], and plenty of disdain for anybody who tried to look at the event from a different perspective despite him being all lofty on his perch in the post:

Building off themes that have been seeded throughout Deep Space Nine since the beginning, Homefront and Paradise Lost really engage with the idea that Starfleet is not the be-all and end-all of the larger Star Trek universe. There is not one right way to engage with the universe. The Sisko family is proof of that, with Joseph operating his own restaurant and Jake becoming a writer. The Sisko family provides quite the contrast with the Crusher family over on The Next Generation, where it seems that the only alternative to a Starfleet career is godhood.

During his big argument with his son in Homefront, Joseph draws attention to the fact that Starfleet is not an absolute; it is not the only lifestyle choice for an adult in the twenty-fourth century. “I didn’t take an oath to Starfleet,” Joseph advises Ben. “Neither did Jake or your sister or anyone in your family. We have rights, Ben, including the right to be as stubborn or thickheaded as we want.” There has often been an unspoken assumption that Starfleet is synonymous with mankind in the Star Trek universe.

Indeed another Star Trek media review (who occasionally had Mooney on as a guest), the Pensky Podcast look back at the pair of episodes brought up the public backlash behind the Boston Marathon Bomber lockdown -- as a pair of Boston boys, Wes and Clay were quick to defend what everybody else agreed was stupid and heavy handed and objectively failed to do what it was supposed to do when it was a guy breaking the strict letter of the law who found the fugitive. It's easy to think everything about 9/11 was an overreaction, but as Mooney might have done [no, absolutely 100% positively did, the leftist hypocrite... -ed] with the Wuhan Flu it seemed like a good and indeed popular idea at the time and in the place most impacted by it.

Anyways, the big thing I noticed about the episode, which I don't think anybody has noticed, is the 9/11 numerology at the beginning of the episode Homefront:

SISKO: Constable, take a seat.
ODO: Of course.
WORF: Ten minutes ago we received a recording of a high level diplomatic conference that took place between the Federation and the Romulan Empire on Earth a few days ago. Computer, begin replay at time index five nine eleven.

Yes, that's 5911 or five 9/11.

9/11. Aired in January of 1996.