In college, when I had to listen to economics professors, I often thought about this episode. The Great Material Continuum is such a great image of the philosophy underpinning a market economy and a nice summary of demand, supply and price.
Nog: "It's the force that binds the universe together. [...] The continuum is real."
It's a mediocre episode. Boring for the most part. The A-plot doesn't live up to its full potential. I mean, the defecting Vorta could be the key to victory. Why don't they send the Defiant (or other ships) to the rescue? Did Odo even try to send a message back to DS9? Why is that not ending in a skirmish between multiple Dominion and Federations ships? How could they have more important things to do?
Odo isn't very well suited to have a witty conversation about the implications of Weyoun's defection (or the nature of Weyoun's race). Yes, here and there the discussion between the two is interesting (and important information was provided with regard to the founders), but ultimately it's very shallow. If I were Odo, I had so many questions and I would have used the chance to talk to him. On a personal level and on a strategic level. There's no time to waste since it was always possible that the defector was killed before reaching a safe harbor. Most of the time, Odo seems to be blocking all communication attempts. Odo only really opens up to his girlfriend when everything was too late. His final realization is perhaps what summarizes the tragic existence of Odo though. It describes what defines him as a man and foreshadows what will happen to him. Btw, the ice field is (literally) a cool playground. I wonder whether Odo could really freeze to death or suffocate though? In a later episode (Chimera) we learn that shape shifters can fly through space if they want to.
The B-plot, as indicated above, is fun but ultimately totally inconsequential.
Plus, I want Weyoun V back. He was such a character with his hilarious quips and his natural curiosity.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-05-29T04:45:51Z
[8.2/10] Can you trust a Vorta? In almost every interaction our heroes have had with the Founders’ handmaidens, the Vorta have been duplicitous, manipulative, and sometimes downright malevolent. Hell, Captain Sisko himself effectively knew that the Dominion would attack because Weyoun (the fifth one, presumably) assured him that they wouldn’t. Their schemes and two-faced deceptions make them slippery at the best of times.
So when Weyoun (or, at least, a Weyoun) comes to Odo, claiming he wants to defect to the Federation, there’s an inherent tension that carries the episode. Is this a sincere Vorta who’s seen the error of the Dominion’s ways, seeking help from the one Changeling he knows on the other side? Or is this just another ruse in a litany of them perpetrated by the Founders and the adoring servants who carry out their every whim, even ones that betray the trust of those insignificant “solids” on the other side of the wormhole.
I’ll admit, I thought it was a trick, and even when the truth came out, I wasn’t disappointed. Much of that owes to how well the trick plays with our expectations. At first I assumed this was a standard Dominion plot, with Weyoun’s deception likely to emerge at any moment. But then Damar and a different Weyoun (purportedly the seventh one) pop up on the screen, claiming to be after the sixth.
No matter! Surely, they’re just validating the ruse to help convince Odo to accept their Trojan Horse. But wait, here’s a scene with the two of them in private validating what they said to the Constable over the viewscreen, with no reason to lie. Hmm. Well, then, maybe it’s the Female Changeling, using Odo’s sense of honor and compassion against him to prove some further lesson! No wait, here she is, seeming worse for wear, popping up to ask her subordinates where Weyoun 6 is.
On a nuts and bolts level, the episode is smartly constructed, creating every opportunity for the audience to suspect the titular treachery, and then gradually spoon-feeding us little scenes and moments that steadily validate what Weyoun 6 is saying. The progression puts the audience in Odo’s position. We know things he doesn’t, but just as he becomes increasingly persuaded by Weyoun 6’s story of a change of heart, we receive more and more reason to think this is more than just some Dominion trap.
We also hear plenty of reasons to take this situation seriously. There are stakes here! Part of the reason Odo indulges in this supposed defection in the first place, despite his misgivings, is that Weyoun 6 might be able to provide valuable intel to turn the tide of the war. Damar and Weyoun 7 acknowledge as much.
But there’s also abundant tension. You have the natural tension between Odo and Weyoun 6, with odo not being sure he can trust his erstwhile quarry. You have the continuing tension between Weyoun 7 and Damar, with the show strongly hinting that Damar offed his last Vorta handler, and the two having very different approaches on how to treat Odo and the fugitive Weyoun. You have the tension of the Jem’Hadar bearing down on Odo’s runabout. You have the tension of Weyoun 7 and Damar finding an excuse to kill a Founder and trying to hide it from their superiors, only for the Female Changeling to show up.
Everything here is constructed on a razor’s edge, with one wrong move having the potential to wreck everything. That gives even the more humdrum actions a certain charge. And the episode only adds to it as it goes along.
What’s funny is that “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” kind of does the same thing in the B-story, albeit in much more comedic terms. Chief O’Brien reluctantly enlisting Nog to wheel and deal across the Starfleet ecosystem to find him a new gravity net for the Defiant on Captain Sisko’s impossibly compressed timeline leads to a hilarious If You Give a Mouse a Cookie type situation.
Every problem that Nog solves -- connecting personally with the Starfleet quartermaster, for instance -- only leads to more wrinkles and complications. The way Nog’s scheme progresses from a simple bit of schmoozing to earn some favor in the priority list, to lending Sisko’s desk out to an enthusiast, to purloining General Martok’s bloodwine, to engineering the military equivalent of a five-team trade in professional sports is hilarious in the increasingly tangled, baroque nature of his operation.
The show wrings great comedy from O’Brien rolling merrily along, just trying to do his job, while he gets caught up in Nog’s increasingly elaborate plans. Miles has a certain everyman quality, which makes him a great straight man to react to the more and more ridiculous plots that Nog comes up with, especially when Miles has to deal with the fallout of what’s done in his name.
Of course, that only makes it sweeter when Sisko ends up with his desk and gravity net on his impossible schedule, Martok ends up with some better bloodwine, and Miles comes off smelling like roses thanks to the machinations of his enterprising ensign. The episode does a great job of showing how many dizzying ploys Nog is juggling, to where when they all work out, it’s extra impressive and satisfying.
It’s enough to make you believe in the Great Material Continuum! Some of the fun of “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” is simply seeing Nog apply a Ferengi attitude to the goings on of Starfleet. But some of it is getting to hear the philosophical underpinnings of it. Beyond the amusing homage to The Force from Star Wars, there’s something trenchant and fitting about the Ferengi imagining there being some grand river of supply and demand, want and fulfillment, that balances out the universe.
It’s a surprisingly coherent quasi-spiritual belief system behind Ferengi society. (Amusingly enough, it’s not that far off from one of the theories behind the American system of contract laws.) And there’s an intuitive appeal to Nog’s belief that if he just rides out the great river of want and need, he’ll eventually find his way. It’s a peculiar, but compelling kind of faith.
That's what thematically connects the A-story and the B-story. Both of them give us insight into the lore behind some of the show’s most prominent species. From the mouth of Weyoun 6, we get to hear the supposed origins of his people: a tale of simple forest creatures showing a wounded Changeling kindness and benign elevated for their compassion. We learn about the Vorta’s sense of taste being diminished so that they remain humble and connected to their roots of eating only nuts and berries. And we know that they accept that a predisposition to worshiping the Founders is probably programmed into their code, but they don’t mind, because isn’t that what any god does? (And hey, as with Nog’s theory of cosmological exchange, it's a surprisingly compelling argument!)
More to the point, both stories give us a tale of a true believer, compelled and buoyed by their faith, that their choices will be validated and everything will work out. For Nog, that's “The Great River.” But for Weyoun 6, it’s simply the living deity turned “security chief” sitting across from him in the runabout.
The answer to the question of whether you can trust a Vorta turns out to be, “Yes, when they’re speaking with one of their gods.” In fairness, even then, the Vorta are not above deception when they think it’s for the greater good. We’ve seen another Weyoun infect Odo with a deadly disease, and here, Weyoun 7 rationalizes his way into trying to destroy Odo and hide it from the Female Changeling. But Weyoun 6 is the real deal, and everything he tells Odo is the truth, or at least what he earnestly believes.
What fascinates me about Weyoun 6’s interactions with Odo, and part of what made me suspect all of this was an elaborate deception, is that everything Weyoun 6 says is what Odo wants to hear. Weyoun 6 has the same misgivings about the Founders’ plans Odo does, despite loving them, much as Odo does. He’s turning his back on his people for a larger cause he believes, something Odo can sympathize with. Even Weyoun’s story about the origins of the Vorta reassures Odo that his people can be righteous and kind. You could easily read this as Weyoun 6 lulling Odo into a false sense of trust, only by god, he’s sincere about it all.
So you buy it when Odo reluctantly takes Weyoun 6 as any other prisoner, before steadily buying into the authenticity of his protestations, and ultimately risking his life to protect a Vorta’s. More than that, you buy that he cares about Weyoun 6, that he empathizes with the poor Vorta, that there’s a loyal but conflicted soul, much like himself, in need of assistance that Odo can't help but provide.
Their connection makes it meaningful when, in the end, Weyoun 6 would rather die than let his cause result in the death of one of his cherished gods. It is sorrowful when Weyoun 6 initiates his self-termination device, ending his chance for freedom to earn Odo’s protection. And most of all, it’s moving when all he asks from his shapeshifting benefactor is a blessing.
Odo doesn't’ want to give it to him. He doesn't see himself as a god. He hates this kind of subjugation and programming. He doesn’t want to be elevated over anyone or anything; he just wants to do his job.
But when someone who looks up to you asks for so little, even if it’s something you don’t believe in, how could you deny them? One of the subtlest but most profound moments of growth for Odo is the doctrinaire, rule bound, rigidly moral Changeling bending his personal principles to grant absolution to a dying man who worships him. It is the choice to do the empathetic thing, the sentimental thing, over the principled thing, and that may as well represent a sea change in the constable.
All is not well. Tensions are rising between Cardassia’s leader and the Dominion’s representative. The Founders are suffering from a mysterious disease that may wipe all of Odo’s people out, with the potential to leave him as the last Changeling standing, rendering him alone once more. The Dominion is still knocking on the Federation’s door, threatening to wipe out Odo’s friends and allies.
As another Weyoun famously put it: “gods don’t make mistakes.” But Odo doesn’t know if he did the right thing. Whatever choice he makes, whoever wins this war, something profound will be lost. It is not an enviable position to be in.
And yet, despite it all, he shows compassion even if it doesn’t align with his own beliefs. He grants absolution to a man who wants nothing more, even if he doesn’t believe it’s his to give. In the final tally, he prizes that kind of empathy and kindness, once a nigh foreign concept to the Changeling, even where it makes him uncomfortable to be deified like this. Kira recognizes what it means for him to do all of this for Weyoun 6.
Whether someone like Odo can trust a Vorta remains an open question. But in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” it’s made clear -- a Vorta can certainly trust him.