6x09 Statistical Probabilities

[7.0/10] The Prime Directive has taken on some water in the fandom in recent years, and I get it. The idea of letting a natural disaster wipe out a pre-warp civilization, or tolerating grave injustices in other communities is a tough pill to swallow when so many real life catastrophes and injustices are allowed to come to pass in a spirit of “not my place to intervene.”

But I’ve long thought that the core principle behind the commitment to non-interference is a laudable one -- humility. However enlightened we may think we’ve become, however advanced our technology may be, the Prime Directive is a bulwark to prevent us from believing that means we have all the answers for anyone and everyone. It is a guardrail against hubris, from imposing our will on others.

“Statistical Probabilities” isn’t about the Prime Directive exactly. It is, instead, about a quartet of troubled, genetically-engineered individuals, who call themselves “mutants”, sent to be mentored by Dr. Bashir in the hopes that they might hear out one of their own. And indeed, Julian is not only able to connect with them, but help them put their talents to good use, using their insights to find better strategies for negotiations and conducting the Dominion War.

But the episode is very much about the same core value of humility that, to my mind at least, underlies the Prime Directive. Because “Statistical Probabilities” wants to ruminate on why the Federation has outlawed genetic engineering, why those who’ve been augmented are prohibited from certain jobs, and whether all of these rules are still fair centuries after the Eugenics War (a baton that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds would pick up years later.

Frankly, it’s the most interesting part of the episode -- one of those philosophical debates that prompts characters on-screen and the audience off-screen to consider what’s just and fair along the axis of the political and the personal. In a dinner party turned boardroom scene, the DS9 faithful put forward good arguments for the current arrangement.

The points run the gamut. If it were allowed, every parent would feel pressure to put their kid through augmentation so they didn’t get left behind. (Essentially the PED argument.) When it was permitted, it led humanity into one of its worst conflicts, that mustn't be repeated. All the arguments made are valid, but they are, by default, made from people outside of the affected group, save, of course, for Dr. Bashir, who plainly feels a little uncomfortable and othered in his role as “the special exception.”

Enter the “mutants”, who went through botched genetic sequencings as children, and who had complications their parents waited too long to seek treatment due to the legal issues and stigma. The idea of these four individuals, all currently institutionalized and mistrusted due to factors beyond their control, is full of pathos. But the justification they give for their institutionalization is much more straightforward than the complex web of history, practicality, and ethical quandaries tossed around by the DS9 officers. The “mutants’” position is comparatively clear -- they think they’re marginalized because they’re too smart for the normies to handle.

There’s an interesting commentary there, in how marginalized groups can turn the thing used to other them into a badge of honor, or beyond that, an emblem of greatness the mainstream collective is too jealous/afraid of to countenance. While much better adjusted than the quartet from the Institute, Julian himself bristles at having to hide his light under a bushel, or sandbag himself in everything from discussion with his superiors to games of darts lest he exceed his place in the hierarchy. You feel for these people, having committed no crimes and yet being restricted in what they can do with their lives due to outside forces.

There are, however, a few problems with how “Statistical Probabilities” dramatizes that story. For one, the augment quartet are ridiculous, one-dimensional characters. Jack is a motor-mouthed, occasionally violent conspiracy theorist. Lauren is a 1950s pin-up girl who’s horny for everything. Patrick is a grown-up with the disposition of a toddler. And Sarina is the non-verbal, severely introverted character who shows up in pretty much every story about people who are institutionalized. (Speaking of which, maybe Dr. Bashir can enlist Kai Winn to help him out with this one...)

I don’t want to call the four of them cartoony. There is more truth in the actors’ performances than that. But they are undeniable stagey, with mannerisms and affects that feel conspicuous and exaggerated beyond reality. The show wants us to sympathize with them, to feel for them, to maybe even fear and revere them a little, but it’s tough when they, at best, exist in such a heightened reality. Jack, Lauren, Patrick, and Sarina are archetypes more than characters, which doesn’t help us understand or appreciate their plight.

But that’s okay! They’re basically magic anyway. The twist here is supposed to be that despite the world writing the augment quartet off given their problems and eccentricities, Dr. Bashir realizes that they are stunningly perceptive. A chance glimpse of a speech from Damar (who’s been promoted to puppet king of Cardassia) reveals them able to suss out his entire psychological profile, hidden alliances, and past actions.

It is, in a word, absurd, and that’s before they start making claims to be able to predict the future. I don’t want to be churlish here. Clarke’s Third Law applies here as always. The transporters are basically magic. The replicator is basically magic. Odo’s shapeshifting abilities are basically magic. The Prophets and their vision-granting orbs are definitely magic. So why is a group of augments who can tell everything about a person by hearing them speak for fifteen seconds a bridge too far?

I can’t tell you why, only report that it is. The show pushes things too far, giving the augment quartet effectively supernatural abilities to perceive true motives and hidden facts that leaves the realm of incisive analysis and reaches the level of telepathy or just plain fantasy. It makes their ability to “contribute” seem goofy rather than earned, and it immediately casts doubt when they start claiming to be able to use statistics to predict with certainty how the Dominion War will go, which undermines the point of the episode.

(It’s a whole other can of worms, but there’s also something uncomfortable about how these characters who are coded as developmentally disabled or struggling with mental illness are portrayed as magic somehow but too simple to fully get it. It’s a form of condescension and othering in and of itself, which runs against the sympathetic aims the episode seems to have.)

I want to grant the premise here, but when the augments’ abilities strain credulity even on an outsized show, it’s hard to take the point “Statistical Probabilities” wants to make on the back of those abilities too seriously.

Because Bashir and his new team of advisors discover that, based on their calculations, the Federation will lose the war and suggest that the best option is to surrender rather than risk nine hundred billion lives lost. And against all odds, you feel for Bashir, who feels like he’s banging his head against a brick wall when arguing with Sisko and O’Brien about all this. He thinks he sees the truth, and Cassandra that he is, no one will listen. You don’t have to be a genetically-engineered genius to have experienced times when you felt like you had the right answer but didn’t feel like you could get people to listen.

Julian has the courage of his convictions, but is only willing to go so far. When the augments are tired of being ignored and want to give crucial intelligence to the Dominion in the hopes of a quick end to the war rather than an extended, bloody engagement, it’s a bridge too far for him. He, of course, talks to Sarina into freeing him from captivity when they tie him up for standing in their way, and thwarts the augments from, as Arrested Development might put it, “a little light treason.”

Therein lies the big point. The danger of these augments is not their intelligence, or the societal pressures they create -- it’s their myopic certainty in the rectitude of their conclusions. It’s the danger that thinking you’re smarter than everyone makes you think that you’re right, and worse yet, that it’s incumbent upon you to act in everyone’s best interests, whether the people affected agree with that or not. It is, to gild the lily a bit, a lack of humility.

“Statistical Probabilities” is still a middle-of-the-road episode in Deep Space Nine’s golden era. But I appreciate that point. Bashir points out to Jack that the augments failed to account for Sarina’s actions, so who knows what else they might have missed. The dire predictions of the Federation’s chances are already suspect in their precision, but there’s so many potential confounding factors out there that no one assessment could possibly factor in all of them.

Most of all, no matter how bright you may be, how right you may feel, there are things outside of your purview, beyond your ability to anticipate, that could make all the difference. That recognition of your own limitations, despite your abilities, is one of the key principles behind the Federation. And for a genetically enhanced doctor who feels he has to slow down to let his friends and colleagues catch up, it’s a reminder that maybe the reason he makes sense in Starfleet in the way his quartet of proteges don’t, is that he’s internalized that core value, of having the humility to respect others’ autonomy even in the face of your own certainty, that makes him more than fit to serve.