'Empok Nor' is not Deep Space Nine's 'Lower Decks' episode

The point of Empok Nor was not about focusing on the unsung heroes.

2018 Star Trek Convention Las Vegas
2018 Star Trek Convention Las Vegas | Gabe Ginsberg/GettyImages

Star Trek: Lower Decks does something few entries in the Star Trek lore have ever done; shone the light on the less dignified positions of a spaceship. Running a spaceship is like a town of sorts. You need everyone from the mayor to a janitor to ensure the city runs right. A Federation starship is much the same.

All sorts of positions exist, from the dignified captain to the helmsmen all the way down to ship officers who clean for the most part. Lower Decks looked at some of those positions that did the work you don't normally see in a Star Trek series. It was a solid concept that found a small fanbase, but it wasn't the common story type that Star Trek dived into.

In fact, really only the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Lower Decks" looked into the concept. Serving as the namesake for the later series, the episode looked at the less-than-refutable the Federation starship Enterprise-D. It did a marvelous job of looking at those who are working their way up the ranks, hoping to hold a position of more authority and prestige eventually.

It's a premise that more and more people like to see, but it's not one that has been routinely looked at through the other franchises in Star Trek's canon. Star Trek: Voyager did more than you realized, but that was largely it.

You could find a few episodes across the canon aside from Voyager that explored the concept, but the one you can't claim was a "Lower Decks" type episode is that of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "Empok Nor".

Cafe.Biz called "Empok Nor" Deep Space Nine's "Lower Deck episode" but it's not. Even a little. The episode in question sees Miles O'Brien, Nog, Elim Garak, and four characters whose names you'll never need to remember; because they all debuted and died in this episode. Each of these characters was created to serve the cause of the Red Shirts; to die for plot purposes.

Just because they were of lower status as far as ship ranks are concerned, doesn't mean they represented the concept of the "Lower Decks"; a story that focuses exclusively on the unsung heroes. Which isn't what "Empok Nor" focused on.

Instead, the episode focuses on concepts like xenophobia and rage. It makes for an entertaining and enthralling episode in its own right but due to the concepts that are explored in this episode, it's inaccurate to call it a "Lower Decks" episode.