I think of pagh as something like Prana or Chi. I imagine Sam’s program gives off vital signs, so someone sensitive to those vital signs would be able to “read” her.
Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 5x05 "Series Acclimation Mil"
StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 21 hours ago
Does anyone else have any lingering questions or hypotheses around two nonsequiturs in the episode?
- The Bajoran who welcomed Sam said that her “pagh is strong;”
- Jake’s holographic reconstruction called Sam ‘sis’.
I’m wondering why and how the photonics chose the form for Sam - and whether her form is based on a real person - such as Sisko and Cassidy’s daughter Rebecca.
I’m also really wondering how a photonic being can have a pagh…
These definitely seem like things that might be followed up on later.
ShaunKL@startrek.website 11 hours ago
buerviper@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
The Pagh thing to me just looked like it was a traditional form of a greeting with no real meaning behind it.
StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 17 hours ago
That’s how Sam interpreted it, and it’s why she imitated it / mirrored it back.
But what if it wasn’t pro forma?
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 17 hours ago
I’ve never been convinced that the ear-grabbing actually did anything. Bareil certainly had no patience for it.
skfsh@startrek.website 9 hours ago
Tawny Newsome was a guest on the Greatest Trek podcast and talked about the parallel nature of having Jake Sisko in character talking to Sam the character, but also having it be a meta conversation of Cirroc Lofton the actor taking on a kind of mentorship role to Kerrice Brooks the actor, in the way that Avery Brooks was a mentor to him on DS9. This plot is why Sam was cast as a Black woman, to make the relationship between two Black characters be more meaningful to the audience, because the show isn’t just a story between two fictional space characters but also a dialogue and conversation with the Black fans watching it right now. The ‘sis’ thing was part of that.
If I were to extrapolate an in-universe reason, it’s because Sam is developing this bond with her idea of Sisko the Emissary and how he is becoming a father figure to her, as opposed to her overbearing actual-parents The Makers, that she mentally treats Jake Sisko as the brother she never had. And so her vision of Jake addresses her as ‘sis’. He does note that she’s the one in control of how this whole dialogue is playing out.