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Ties of Blood and Water

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Production Number: 517
Original air week: 4/14/97

Written by: Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Teleplay);
Edmund Norton & Robbin L. Slocum (Story)
Directed by: Avery Brooks

Guest Stars:

Lawrence Pressman as Tekeny Ghemor

Marc Alaimo as Gul Dukat

Thomas Kopache as Taban

William Lucking as Furel

Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun

Spellings: "???"

Notes:

Follow-up story to "Second Skin".

The Author's Keyboard:

Robert Hewitt Wolfe:
Tekeny Ghemor visits Kira on DS9. Dukat also pays a visit. Plus three dead guest stars!

Program Highlights

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE: "Ties of Blood and Water" -- The imminent death of Kira's Cardassian "father" rekindles memories of losing her real father.

TV Guide Ad

FORGIVE--OR FORGET?
Can Kira put aside her own hatred
to help her dying Cardassina "father"?

TV Log Listing

Kira's Cardassian "father" is dying/STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE.

DETAILED REPORT

Kira meets Tekeny Ghemor, a known Cardassian dissident, hoping he will lead the opposition to the Cardassian/Dominion Alliance. Ghemor reveals he hasn't long to live but he may still be able to help Kira's cause with a Cardassian ritual in which the dying reveal secrets to their family to use against their enemies. Since Ghemor apparently has no living relatives, he asks Kira, who the Cardassians once kidnapped and surgically altered to look like his long-lost child, to be his ""daughter"" one last time. Sisko points out that this is an incredible opportunity to learn Cardassian secrets. Kira reluctantly agrees to the task.

Kira sets up at Ghemor's deathbed, where they begin. Ghemor struggles against agonizing pain to share his secrets, and Kira struggles with memories of her own father, Taban, and his death by the Cardassians years before. Meanwhile, Gul Dukat arrives via Jem'hadar battleship, demanding Ghemor's return.

Dukat and his Dominion cohorts board the station and go to Ghemor, who refuses to leave with them, even when Dukat tempts him with a reunion with his real missing daughter, Iliana. Later, Dukat tells Kira that Ghemor is not the man she thinks he is -- he participated in a notorious massacre at a Bajoran monastery, and proves it by handing her Ghemor's military file.

Returning to Ghemor, Kira angrily confronts him and, despite his apologies, leaves him to die alone. Odo reminds Kira that Ghemor was only nineteen at the time of the massacre, then suggests Kira might really be upset about something else. Kira again recalls when her father was dying, and remembers leaving to fight with his attackers instead of staying by his side as he wished. Bashir interrupts her with the news that Ghemor will be dead within the hour.

Kira refuses to go to Ghemor's side, then again thinks back to the past, and remembers returning from battle to learn that her father died calling her name. The memory is too much -- Kira goes back to Ghemor's bedside and takes his hand, finally able to help him to die in peace. As a final gesture, she takes Ghemor's body to Bajor and buries him next to her father.
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