The gift that keeps on giving...
...to the wormhole in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
You see a bit of it here in the opening credits (towards the end), but you may want to watch the show itself to get better shots of it. The pilot is particularly recommended.
As is the series itself. DS9 got short shrift, sandwiched between the mighty Next Generation and the insanely shiteous Voyager, but was/is a tremendously interesting show. The entire arc of the story is centered around the apotheosis of Benjamin Sisko, or the realization of his alien/godhood identity in the context of the show's mythos.
DS9 is essential religious - based on the worship centered on these disincarnate, interdimensional aliens.
As we discussed in a previous post, Sisko was conceived by a human father and a human mother who was possessed by a Prophet walk-in, an eternal, interdimensional being who controls the wormhole in the proximity of Bajor, a planet liberated by the Federation from Cardassian occupation.
David Icke fans will note that the Cardassians are a reptilian race of alien humanoids.
Interesting parallels here- we see the similarity of the Norway missile to the wormhole, and the Moscow pyramid (whatever it was) to the hovering pyramid in Immortal - and both stories deal with alien walk-ins worshiped as deities.
More interesting parallels- in the DS9 episode 'Rapture', Sisko rebuilds the Prophet's monolith (CE3K style), and gets zapped and endowed with psychic and healing powers (Alien Dreaming-style, I might add).
'Rapture' marks a turning point in the storyline, in which Sisko begins to take his role as 'Emissary of the Prophets' more seriously.
He also discovers the lost underground Bajoran city of B'hala while under the influence of the monolith (which is not unlike the gateway pillar dredged up in Alexandria last week).
If 'B'hala' sounds vaguely familiar, it's because the lost city of Shambhala was reportedly found, which we looked at just over a month ago.
You'll notice the presence of Kai Winn in the trailer, who is Sisko's own Sarah Palin in the series.
Of course, we first looked at DS9 in the context of Obama, who owes his Senate election to a timely release of the divorce papers filed by Jeri Ryan, who played Seven of (the) 9 on the aforementioned atrocity Star Trek: Voyager. Things were a lot different then, weren't they? A billion-dollar, star-studded campaign raised Obama to near-messiah status, something that seems hard to believe just over a year after his election.
Now, even Will Smith has to distinguish between Obama and "the idea" of him in Oslo. Obama isn't seen by anyone as a messiah these days- other than Wall Street, that is.
Maybe that's the real connection between Sisko and Obama. They're both fictional constructs.
UPDATE: As a bonus, a magnificent shot of old Sol, courtesy of Yahoo...