Hippocratic Oath -- Episode Summary

 The Actual summary of the Star trek Deep Space Nine Episode Hippocratic Oath

Bashir and O'Brien have concluded a bio-survey in the Gamma Quadrant. They pick up a subspace magneton pulse. While investigating, the shuttle crash lands and they are taken prisoner by a renegade group of Jem'Hadar. Its leader, Goran'Agar, got free of his addiction to ketracel white on this planet, the drug that makes them dependent on the Founders. He's brought a group of Jem'Hadar to be cured too, but the planet's 'magic' doesn't work on them. He asks Bashir to help before their supply of white runs out. While the doctor wants to help them, O'Brien is adamantly opposed. Meanwhile, back on the Deep Space Nine station, Worf spots a known criminal in Quark's bar. He thinks the Ferengi is plotting something and is getting increasingly agitated by the way Odo handles security on the station. Worf decides to take matters into his own hands.

My Summary of the episode

Among Star Trek fans this episode serves to empathize the difference between Doctor Bashir and O'Brien's approaches. Frequently the only question stemming from it is whether O'Brien was justified in doing what he did at the end.

Having learned a thing or two about TNG O'Brien since first watching the episode I know his straight-forward 'he's the enemy' perspective actually is true to the character. And personally I love every moment Julian learns another way in which the Jem'Hadar leader is different and this is something he wholeheartedly believes in and could follow. What makes everything work in the end, even after O'Brien destroys his research forcing his escape is the moment he tells Bashir why he did it. It wasn't because he wanted the Jem'Hadar to die or because he was a solider. It was because it was the only way he knew to save Julian's life. He flat out says that "Whatever else you may think of me or what I did; I hope you understand that." Which clears the air and makes forgetting this 'overstep' not only possible but the most natural thing in the world.

I was always with Bashir and O'Brien's stance always seemed unnatural to me. If his attitude here throws you for as much of a loop, watch the season 4 TNG episode 'The Wounded'. O'Brien is a solider who has seen war and sees things with the simplicity of a solider. Adding all this together and the entire episode is superbly crafted and deeply awesome.

Hippocratic oath notes (both mine and Internet Movie Databases)

The writers saw the B-story of this episode as an important indication of how DS9's Worf was going to be different from TNG's Worf. As Ronald D. Moore explains, "He used to be a cop, more or less, on the USS Enterprise-D, but it's not going to be like that anymore. We wanted to keep emphasizing, 'this is not TNG. The station doesn't work like the Enterprise. Worf is going to have some troubles fitting in, but he's going to learn.'"

This episode came from two separate story pitches by two different writers. The first, from Nicholas Corea, was based around the story of a group of Jem'Hadar who were trying to free themselves from their addiction to ketracel-white, the first time the name is used. Previously, it had been described as a "missing enzyme" in "The Abandoned" and simply as a drug to which the Jem'Hadar are addicted in "The Die is Cast". The second, from Lisa Klink, was about O'Brien and Bashir taking opposing sides in a conflict on an alien world - O'Brien sided with the natives, Bashir with the non-natives. The producers liked the idea of Klink's concept, putting O'Brien and Bashir on diametrically opposed sides, but they felt that the details weren't quite right and they got Klink to re-pitch the story several times with different plot elements in place. Producers referred to her story as their The Bridge on the River Kwai episode, and they likened Bashir to Col. Nicholson, the character in that film played by Alec Guinness, who effectively helps the 'enemy'. The problem with Klink's story was that producers couldn't decide exactly what it was that Bashir was trying to do for the enemy, what was causing the conflict between himself and O'Brien - what was the 'Bridge'? Eventually, it was René Echevarria who suggested putting Klink's story together with Corea's, thus providing the Bridge - Bashir was trying to help the Jem'Hadar beat their addiction, and O'Brien was against this idea.

In an interview with the official Star Trek website in 2011, director Rene Auberjonois thought this episode was the one that stood out the most for him out of the eight he directed throughout Deep Space Nine. – constable Odo directed 'Hippocratic Oath' and 7 other episodes When Sisko explains to Worf how Deep Space Nine is different from the Enterprise, he says "Let's just say DS9 has more shades of gray." His sentence has a double meaning. He is talking about DS9 as an in-universe place (in contrast with the Enterprise), but also about the TV show itself, which famously had more moral ambiguity than Star Trek: The Next Generation (where Worf says he "always knew who were my allies and who were my enemies").

When O'Brien confirms Goran'Agar's question about being a soldier, this is in reference to O'Brien's service during the Federation-Cardassian War, and the Setlik III massacre, mentioned in "The Wounded".

...O'Brien's attitude of the Jem'Hadar being the enemy as well as seeing things with the straight forward simplicity of a solider in the first place make a lot more sense if you've seen 'The Wounded'. At this time they were not yet at war with the Dominion and it seems rather out of character for O'Brien to be seeing things in such absolutes.

There's a degree of irony with the moral dilemma faced by Bashir and O'Brien - Bashir, despite being a character created for the more morally ambiguous series 'Deep Space Nine' - with many "shades of gray" as Sisko says - takes the more tolerant and forward-thinking attitude with the Jem'Hadar, whereas O'Brien, who served on the Enterprise with the famously tolerant and forward-thinking Jean-Luc Picard on 'The Next Generation', is the one that takes a more hostile and narrow-minded view to the issue. Bashir behaved far more closely to what Picard would have approved of, rather than O'Brien. The storyline of this episode has parallels to the TNG episode 'I, Borg' (1992), which had a very similar moral dilemma.

...While this may be true, I personally don't think it's very ironic which side they fall on. Dr. Bashir is trained to provide help to anyone who needs it. Whether they are 'the enemy' or not. He is led by compassion and his human heart which gets him into trouble or some kind of hot water all the damn time on the station. O'Brien is pragmatic and thinking bigger picture, and his belief that Bashir's bleeding heart might get them into serious freaking trouble is realistic for someone who works with machines and was once a solider himself. O'Brien might have served under Picard absolutely was the most compassionate and philosophical leader in all of freaking Starfleet. Bashir's attitude IS one of the moral shades of gray. His attitude is what presents the moral dilemmas with which the characters of Star Trek Deep Space Nine are so often faced.