Synopsis: A transporter malfunction sends Commander Sisko, Lt. Dax, and Dr. Bashir back in time to San Francisco in the year 2024.
This episode, through the mechanism of time travel, illustrates James Hillman’s acorn theory, that we all contain an inner daimon with all the knowledge we need to become who we are destined to be in service to the anima mundi, the soul of the world.
In “Past Tense, Part I” Commander Benjamin Sisko, Lt. Jadzia Dax, and Dr. Julian Bashir, do not beam down to Starfleet Command, but to San Francisco of 2024, a time when homeless individuals were contained in what was called sanctuary districts and access for all information is available on the equivalent of the internet. Sisko and Bashir end up in a sanctuary district and Sisko, being a student of Earth history, realizes that the Bell riots, named after Gabriel Bell, whose efforts resulted in the safety of hostages that will be taken in the hostilities that are going to occur in the next few days at this exact location. When Bell is killed before the riots begin, the timeline to the future is broken. In “Past Tense, Part II” Sisko assumes Bell’s name, even though he also knows that Bell did not survive the insurrection. His actions lead to the restoration of the timeline, without loss of his life, as Bell’s identification was placed on someone else who had already died.
Leaving behind how accurate the creators of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were at projecting the future out thirty years from the time this episode was produced, Sisko taking on the personage of a past leader and hero, was him acting in alliance with his own inner daimon, whether under his own name in his own century, or the name of a hero from Earth’s past. He could no more keep himself from being a leader than Bashir could keep himself from trying to heal. It is who they are and who they were meant to be in any era. This is the power of being in touch with one’s inner daimon, and how when we do, we are led to our own inner truth of what will make us feel more whole and put us in service to the anima mundi.
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