has abstract
| - "When it Rains..." is the 171st episode of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the fifth of the final nine-episode arc of the series. This episode was directed by Michael Dorn (who also played the role of Worf in the show) and written by Rene Echevarria. It was first aired in broadcast syndication on May 3, 1999. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the crew of the Starfleet-managed space station Deep Space Nine near the planet Bajor, as the Bajorans recover from a decades-long occupation by the imperialistic Cardassians. The station is adjacent to a wormhole connecting Bajor to the distant Gamma Quadrant; the wormhole is home to powerful alien beings worshipped by the Bajorans as the godlike "Prophets". The later seasons of the series follow a war between the United Federation of Planets and the Dominion, an expansionist empire from the Gamma Quadrant, which has already absorbed Cardassia; the Dominion is ruled by the shapeshifting Changelings. This is the fifth episode of the nine-episode concluding story arc of the series, which brings the Dominion War and other story elements to a close. In episodes preceding this one, Gul Dukat, the Cardassian who governed Bajor under the occupation, disguised himself as a Bajoran and won the favor of the ambitious Bajoran spiritual leader Kai Winn, seducing her to the path of the Prophets' evil counterparts, the Pah-wraiths; the Cardassian leader Damar has launched a rebellion against Dominion rule; and the Changeling Founders of the Dominion have developed a mysterious illness with no known cure. This episode advances those plot lines, as Dr. Julian Bashir discovers that DS9's security chief Odo, a rogue Changeling, has been infected with the Founders' disease; Starfleet sends DS9's Bajoran second-in-command, Kira Nerys, to assist the Cardassian resistance; and Winn turns Dukat away. Meanwhile, the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, an ally of the Federation, assumes personal command of the Klingon war effort. (en)
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