

   HARD TIME - Initial Pitch 






All right, here's the original pitch, revised story after they requested
revision, plus some comments. [NOTE: It helps, reading the following, to
imagine it being read aloud -- it was written to be pitched.]




Injustice (Outline)


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
While down on the surface of Bajor together, O'Brien and Dax are attacked
by a crowd of rock-throwing Bajorians. In protecting Dax, O'Brien kills one
of their attackers.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
We come back from break and find that O'Brien has been charged with murder
-- manslaughter, to be precise -- under Bajorran law. The crime happened in
Bajorran territory, and despite Sisko's objection, the principle has been
established that Starfleet personnel are subject to Bajorran law. O'Brien
is tried, and convicted, based on falsehoods directed against him by the
Bajorrans. The sentence comes back: Ten years imprisonment. Because O'Brien
is a Starfleet officer, the sentence is "commuted," as a courtesy to the
Federation. While a Bajorran with this sentence would serve the entire ten
years, O'Brien is sentenced to a more humane alternative:  rather than ten
years, O'Brien is to spend a week being punished. But the week will pass in
a virtual reality where memories of ten long years of imprisonment are
recorded into O'Brien's brain. Sisko protests, but to no avail; it's either
this, or the actual ten years. Even O'Brien finally agrees that it's the
only course available; and he reports to serve his term.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
When we return from the break, a week has passed, and O'Brien is returning
from ten years imprisonment. Intellectually, the others understand this;
but emotionally, they can't. It hasn't happened for them. O'Brien returns
from his jail term an almost radically changed man. He reports for duty ...
sullen, angry, and hostile, exactly as someone might who had spent a decade
of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. And though everyone
attempts to be supportive, he's clearly unstable and slightly paranoid. He
resumes his duties, but there's a violent edge to him that did not exist
previously. He spends only part of one night at home with Keiko and Molly
before moving out into his own quarters. Keiko can't draw him out; he's
uncommunicative with her, as well.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Finally Dax goes to O'Brien and attempts to reason with him. At one point
she even makes the mistake of pointing out that what happened didn't really
happen ... and O'Brien completely flips out. He's just spent ten years in
prison because he made the mistake of protecting Dax, and here she is
trying to tell him that nothing happened, really ... They don't know. It
was real, he tells her. It was as real as she is, sitting there across the
way from him. He tells of the days that stretched into weeks, into months,
and into years, as the decade crawled by. He paces back and forth in front
of Dax ... five paces, turn ... five paces, turn ... until it becomes very
obvious to all of us that he's pacing off the dimensions of his cell. No
one came to visit him in his prison, he tells her; and the rage mounted in
him, the anger over the injustice visited upon him. It was so real he could
not tell it from reality ... and still can't.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Dax asks him what he means by that -- and he tells her that he escaped
once. He broke out of the prison, and stole a shuttle and escaped to DS9.
And you turned me back over to them. And they put me back in my cell. Don't
you understand, I've been back already. And I'm not sure this time is real
either.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
O'Brien reports to Sisko, at Sisko's request. Sisko tells him that he's
being relieved of duty -- sick leave -- however long O'Brien needs it.
O'Brien protests, tells Sisko that the performance of his job is the only
thing that's kept him from going completely insane; it's the only thing he
takes any pleasure in. Sisko responds that that is, quite exactly, the
problem.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
O'Brien goes on a binge. A drunken spree on the promenade, culminating in a
night at Quark's. At the night's end, Quark suggests to a cheerful, drunken
O'Brien if Keiko's not being cooperative, perhaps O'Brien should try one of
Quark's private holodecks ... and the thought of even entering a holodeck,
in his current grand drunkenness, sends O'Brien wild. He strikes Quark, and
starts a fight where he manages to not hurt someone seriously only by
purest chance. Odo shows up and puts a stop to it -- and takes O'Brien into
custody.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
We return with O'Brien sitting in a jail cell, while Odo sits on the other
side of the force field, watching him with his usual lack of expression.
O'Brien tells Odo, very simply, "I don't know what's real any longer. I
don't know what to believe. I think I'm still being punished." Odo's
response is, quite predictably, that O'Brien is punishing himself; and Odo
rather wishes he would stop. It's unpleasant to watch. Odo releases O'Brien
into Dax's custody. Dax and O'Brien walk together a while, talking. Dax
tells O'Brien, quite gently, that the time he spent in prison has made a
fool of him. The purpose of prison, quite plainly, is punishment; and when
the punishment is an unjust one, it preys on you. You were punished
unjustly, O'Brien. Accept it. It is a part of life. It happens, and there
is nothing left for you to do about it ... except stop punishing yourself.
When she's done speaking to him, he finds himself at the door to his
quarters ... his and Keiko's quarters. Dax stands there looking at him, and
says quietly, "Stop punishing yourself," and turns and leaves. And after a
moment O'Brien goes inside.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
There is a tense moment inside; Keiko is ready for bed, and it's obvious
she's been crying. She's not crying now. She asks Miles what he wants, and
Miles, obviously still torn between his anger and his need, says finally,
"I want to come home."


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The next scene is later. O'Brien and Keiko are in bed together, afterward,
and O'Brien sits up in bed when his daughter Molly enters the room. She
explains that she had a nightmare, and asks if she can sleep with them
tonight. O'Brien looks at her, and says, "Sure, come to bed. I had a
nightmare too," he tells her, "but I think it's over."




&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
This is the exact outline from which I pitched. It helps to remember the
context in which this was pitched: DS9 was about 3-4 episodes old at the
time. The people to whom I pitched the preceding, Robert Wolfe and Evan
Somers, liked it a great deal . . . and nothing happened for about three
years, until this story's setup appeared as the starting point of Evan
Somers' Voyager episode "Ex Post Facto."


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The following is the revised outline. A couple of the changes we discussed
for the story were -- in context -- interesting. They didn't want me to use
the original setup, of Miles being convicted of murder; Robert suggested
that Miles be convicted instead of some alien crime, e.g., "walking on the
grass." (His exact words; they made me cringe.) And he didn't want to use
the memory implantation via microchip technique (his own suggestion, back
when); instead he wanted to have Sisko go to the aliens who had convicted
O'Brien, and convince them that they had convicted him unjustly -- give a
speech on Truth, Justice, and the Federation Way, in other words.


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Why those two particular changes? (Others made perfectly good sense, being
dictated by changes in the show since the time of my original pitch --
e.g., the subplot with "Kasidy Yates," Benjamin Sisko's new girlfriend,
though they ended up not using it.) They didn't want to use the
manslaughter storyline, or the "microchip memories" bit ... because it
would have reminded viewers of Evan Somers' Voyager episode. Robert
Wolfe's exact words: "There was that Voyager episode."


&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Robert also suggested that, instead of focusing solely on the fairly simple
and intimate story of O'Brien's readjustment to being "outside" again, we
have O'Brien lose it and decide to blow up the station instead. I wasn't
thrilled with the suggestion, but I went along with it.



TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO



