You’re kind of touching on good points here and I feel you, so I’m gonna talk about what frustrated me about this episode first.

What would you like them to explore?

Oh, my. There are so many things they could explore I don’t think I could list them all. Here we go though. Is the hunting of non-sentient beings okay? What makes sentient beings different? Where can we draw the line on the values of life and why? If Tosk was raised to be prey, what does that mean about social stratification? If Tosk was raised to be prey, what does that mean about our rights to pursue our own desires versus the desires of society? Tosk felt that his role as prey was a role of honor and that his honor meant more than his own life. What does that say about the expectations society imposes on us? What would have been the right decision for the DS9 crew? To value the wills of a society or to value the rights of a single creature? They’re there for diplomatic reasons, how can they be sure that their overarching mission isn’t going to color their choice? If they decide to value the wills of a society over the rights of a single creature in part because of their diplomatic mission, doesn’t that make them just as oppressive?

Fuck. Those are a ton of questions. Those questions are deep as fuck. Yet none of them were adequately addressed let alone resolved. Tosk went free. For them, the hunt continued. For me, I’m sitting here with philosophical blue balls.

It didn't seem at all odd to me that O'Brien acted against his interest to help Tosk.

It seemed odd to me for two reasons. One, O’Brien is a military man. The military has a chain of command and its instilled in its members that the chain of command shouldn’t be broken for a whole slew of reasons that can be boiled down to “The shit that is going on is bigger than you, and if you don’t follow the chain of command, shit can go sideways real quick and the big picture can become jeopardized.” I mean, the dude should know better. In fact, he did know better because he set aside his com-badge. He didn’t want to face Sisko until after the fact because he knew that if he had his com-badge on and Sisko told him to quit fucking about, he’d give back into the chain of command.

It was also odd because, man, they’re in the fucking military. Disobeying orders and shit has consequences and the bigger the crime, the harsher the consequences. I will admit that’s personal perspective and O’Brien might be a much braver and nobler person than I am. Me personally? It could be the middle of the night, no traffic, no cops in sight, and I still wouldn’t jaywalk across the street for fear of getting a ticket.

That said, he and the DS9 crew know almost nothing about this foreign culture. For all we know, liberating Tosk could be the biggest faux pas ever and now he’s completely fucked up diplomatic relations with an alien species possibly forever. I mean, that’s not the only risk. What if he started an interstellar war and those guys had a fleet so fucking massive that they could basically steamroll the entire Federation like some kind of sci-fi blitzkreig from hell? Then he’d go from “O’Brien the guy who fixes replicators and turbo-lifts” to “O’Brien, the guy who fucked everything up for everyone for fucking ever.”

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I mean, I’m completely fine with sci-fi writers exploring things through metaphor. Hell, I’m fine with the fact that metaphors sometimes go over my head. I’m just saying though, if you’re gonna bring up shit for the sake of exploration, fucking explore it.

For the record, my favorite episode so far is a draw between the Aphasia Virus and the former rebel conspiring with Klingons to make a bomb because he didn’t like the way the war ended.

kleinbl00, I don't want you to feel left out of this discussion. So feel free to chime in with your thoughts.