Children of Time

"Children of Time"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 22
Directed by	Allan Kroeker
Written by	Gary Holland Ethan H. Calk
Production code	520
Original air date	May 5, 1997 (1997-05-05)
Guest stars
Gary Frank as Yedrin Dax Jennifer S. Parsons as Miranda Davida Williams as Lisa Doren Fein as Molly
Episode chronology
← Previous "Soldiers of the Empire" Next → "Blaze of Glory"
List of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes

For the group of Doctor Who characters with the same name, see Companion (Doctor Who).

Children of Time is an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the twenty-second episode of the fifth season. It has an average fan rating of 4.2/5 on the official Star Trek website as of September, 2009. It is notable for beginning life as a fan-submitted story idea by Ethan H. Calk.

Plot

The starship Defiant is caught in a type of "quantum-bubble" surrounding an inhabited planet. After investigation, it is discovered that the inhabitants are the descendants of the Defiant's crew. Generations of descendants have been living on the planet for many years and their own history began when the Defiant tried to escape from the bubble. Instead of passing through its energy barrier, the ship was thrown back in time two centuries and crashed with no hope of contacting the Federation or repairing the ship. Faced with that reality, the small stranded crew of the Defiant (including Dax, Sisko, O'Brien, etc.) decided to remain and establish a society.

Unfortunately, the stranded Major Kira died a few weeks after the crash due to neural damage she incurred on the bridge when the ship was passing through the energy barrier at first (entering the bubble). Doctor Bashir did not have the required medical equipment on the Defiant to treat her.

The society presented to the crew of the Defiant includes mostly the descendants of the original inhabitants. The only original "colonists" are Odo, whose Changeling physiology gives him greater longevity than the rest, and the Trill symbiont Dax, in a new host, Yedrin Dax, descendant of Worf and Jadzia Dax.

The crew is forced to choose between repairing the Defiant and escaping the situation (wiping out their descendants and everything they've built), and remaining, allowing the Defiant to crash and letting things evolve as they have been presented to them. After much discussion, they choose the latter. Unbeknownst to them, however, the future Odo, wishing to prevent Kira from dying, changed their flight plan. Instead of flying through the spot in the atmosphere that will cause them to be flung back in time, they escape from the bubble, and wipe out their descendants and the colony they had built.

External links

• Children of Time at the Internet Movie Database
• "Children of Time" at TV.com
• Children of Time at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Children of Time at StarTrek.com