“Far Beyond the Stars” is episode thirteen of season six of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Major Kira is telling Sisko that the Defiant spent six hours looking for the USS Cortez, but did not find any survivors – Sisko had known the ship’s captain for a long time. The Dominion War might not be as active as it was, but ships are still being lost and patrolling the Cardassian border is dangerous. Sisko is concerned that people had decided the war was over after the station was recaptured. It seems that Sisko’s father is also on the station for a visit. His first ever trip away from Earth. Sisko’s father is concerned for him, and Sisko himself is unsure how much more of this he can take. So he’s considering stepping down.
As Sisko’s father is about to leave the office, Sisko sees a man through the doors. The man was dressed in a suit and hat that looked like they came from the middle of the 20th century. Hardly standard wear on DS9. When Sisko leaves the office, the man is not there, and no-one else in Ops saw the man. Next, Sisko is in the corridor with Kassidy Yates when he sees a baseball player, and Kassidy does not. Is the pressure finally getting to much for Sisko?
When Sisko follows the baseball player through a door, he ends up on what looks very much like a 20th century New York street. In the middle of the road. Where he gets hit by a cab. Sisko comes round in medical, where Dr. Bashir tells him that he is showing the same readings as the ones when he was receiving visions about Bajor’s future back in “Rapture”. Perhaps these are the same sort of visions as those. When Bashir tells Sisko to take a look at the readings, the pad turns into a science fiction periodical – Galaxy – and Sisko is once again on mid 20th century Earth, this time in a suit and hat himself.
Sisko, who now seems to have become totally involved in the vision, seemingly accepting it as reality then gets greeted by O’Brien. Who also fits into the period. They arrive at their office, that of another science fiction periodical, although not one in the same league as Galaxy.
Sisko’s station colleagues, and a few others he knows, either work at the office or interact with him in some way – and all are human, even if they are not in Sisko’s reality. One of them, has a drawing of a space station, DS9. Although Kira and Sisko, or Kay Eaton and Benny Russell, are writers, neither are going to be included in the photos of the authors – due to their sex and race. The other writers don’t really agree with the policy, one which Odo, the editor – or Douglas Pabst – is more accepting of.
The majority of the episode takes place on 20th century Earth, where the characters all have different relationships to the ones they normally do – and look rather more human than usual. Benny starts writing stories about DS9, but getting such published, where a ‘coloured man’ is the captain of a space station, in a culture where Benny can nearly get arrested by the police for wearing a good suit is trickier. Benny starts seeing visions of the people in his stories, and a preacher – Sisko’s father – keeps talking to him about the Prophets.
All told, a bit of a weird one.