In the Hands of the Prophets
Vedek Winn, an orthodox Bajoran spiritual leader objects to the way that the children on the space station's school are being taught. Keiko O'Brien, the instructor, refuses to go along with the suggestions made by Vedek Winn. Keiko takes the issue to Commander Sisko who tries turning to Kira but she isn't very supportive of Keiko's insistence that Vedek Winn back off and not insist that she teach Bajoran theology.
Ensign Aquino, one of the technicians aboard Deep Space Nine disappears. What's left of him is found in a maintenance tunnel. Chief O'Brien and Neela, another technician try to figure out what happened.
Sisko goes to visit Vedek Bareil, a Bajoran spiritual leader, who is expected to be elected to replace Kai Opaka. He hopes that Vedek Bareil can help to broker a peace with Vedek Winn. Bareil's views are considerably less orthodox than Winn's but he turns down Sisko's request.
The Bajoran parents aboard Deep Space Nine withdraw their children from the space station's school. Not long after that a bomb goes off in the classroom. No one was in the classroom at the time. Odo begins an investigation into the bombing.
Chief O'Brien gets closer to figuring out what happened to Ensign Aquino only to discover that someone has interfered with the space station's systems. He tries to dig deeper only to find a locked file that he supposedly locked. He unlocks it with some help from Lieutenant Dax. The chief digs deeper and starts to suspect that Neela may have some connection to the locked file and other irregularities recently discovered aboard the station.
Chief O'Brien gets word to Commenader Sisko just in time to prevent an attempt to assassinate Vedek Bareil who decided to visit the station in the aftermath of the bombing of the school.
Thoughts
Vedek Winn and Vedek Bareil made their first appearance in this episode but it will not be their last.
The focus of this episode seems to be religious or ideological intolerance. Vedek Winn is trying to manipulate Commander Sisko, Keiko O'Brien, and others into accepting her objections as reasonable. When they do not give in she tries other methods which also seem to include an attempt on the life of Vedek Bareil.
Neela (who is Bajoran) claims to have acted without instruction from Winn but it is clearly shown during the episode that Winn was behind the attempt to Bareil's life.
This is a very good episode. I place it just behind the previous episode in terms of quality. It felt a little rushed in places but I think that the episode was within the acceptable margin of error.
This is the final episode of this season. I don't have plans to watch any more episodes from this season. I would like to continue watching DS9 but I will probably take a similar approach and not watch every episode in the second season. This season isn't great, based on the nine episodes that I watched, but I can see the potential for it getting better. I'm curious to see where it goes next. The last two episodes of the season are by far the best.
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