The hunt ship seen in this episode is a reuse of the Ktarian starship from "The Game."

At the end when O'Brian offers to walk the hunter and Tosk of the station, where, might I ask, were they going? The hunter's ship was not docked at the station...was Obrian just gonna walk them anywhere?

After Tosk arrives & is placed in quarters, Sisko says that Odo should keep an eye on him. Shouldn't the Head of Security have been notified before Tosk arrived?

The Hunter's sensors come straight down through the station, but the ship seems to stay off to the side of the station.

O'Brien & Quark are talking about rules and Quark starts to say something that sounds like rules are subject to interpretation. If that was what he meant to say, does that apply to the Rules of Acquisition, as well? ;-)

Are we sure these aliens have never visited the Alpha quadrant before? Their ships looked like Tarellian design.

Jadzia Dax says that the Tosk ship matches no identified design - but it looks a lot like the Vulcan ships from Unification.

KAM - It doesn't have that bubble from the Tarrelian ship. I have compared it to the Ktarian ship from The Game and Phil once compared it to the Zalkonian ship from Transfigurations. They're probably all the same model.

One of the hunters says Tosk will be thrown scraps of food but won't deserve them. But earlier on Tosk says he doesn't eat.

Perhaps the Tosk do not eat while they are "running."

During the escape with Tosk O'brien mentions that some of the conduits is made of 2 meter thick duranium-composite wich scanners can't penetrate. I believes he is talking about federation scanners, but i don't think that cardassian scanners is any better. Isn't it a bit strange that the cardassians would build a spacestation with areas that they can't monitor, especially since they have to look out for terrorist-attacks. The only way to make sure that terrorists isn't hiding in these duranium-conduits is to patrol them regularly, and it seems a lot easier just to make them "scanner-freindly".

Here's an idea, why don't they put some scaners inside of the conduits if they can't scan them from the outside?

Phil, from his DS9 Guide; PO#1: When touring the station, Tosk correctly guesses that the infirmary is a health center, even though there are no patients on the beds, and Bashir is just standing there talking with someone. How did he guess this? Sure the beds might’ve given Tosk a clue, but for all he knew, it could’ve been a house of ill repute!
A house of ill repute with beds out in the open and not separated by walls? Good God, Phil, don’t the hookers and johns you know have any shame?
Phil, from his DS9 Guide; PO#3: When Tosk visits Quark’s Quark refers to a holoprogram created by the "Brothers Quark." "Quark" is Quark’s given name, and Quark and Rom’s family name would be "Keldar," the name of Quark’s father.
First of all, Keldar is dead, which Family Business later establishes. Second, isn’t Keldar a given name too, Phil? Since Keldar is dead, and Quark is the elder son that makes him the head of the family.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our captain has informed us that the docking hatch on our ship is incompatible with the one on the station, so sit back, and relax, and enjoy a copy of War and Peace that our flight attendants are handing out while the flight crew builds a new docking hatch…
The opening shot of Act 1 shows Tosk’s ship docked at one of the docking ports on the docking ring. Wouldn’t the docking hatch on Tosk’s ship be incompatible with with the airlocks on the station, given that Tosk’s ship comes from the Gamma Quadrant, and that no one has ever had any contact with that part of space?
I’ll bet every night he just sticks in a tape of "Spock’s Brain," "The Way to Eden," "Cost of Living," "Profit and Lace," "The Emperor’s New Cloak," "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang," "Spirit Folk" and "Fury"
When O’Brien tells Tosk that he prefers at least eight hours of sleep a night, Tosk is surprised that he sleeps "a full third of (his) rotation." How does Tosk know that the rotational period of Earth? We know he wasn’t referring to Bajor’s rotation, since Bajor has a 26-hour day, as Odo established in Act 1 of the episode A Man Alone when he ordered Ibudan off the station in "26 hours," and further clarified by Kira when she told Ghemor that he had 26-hour a day computer access in the teaser of Ties of Blood and Water.
Ironic how most other races NOT afflicted with a deadly illness HAVEN’T gotten all the way to the Gamma Quadrant…
The Tosk Hunter ship is a reuse of the Tarellian ship from Haven(TNG), which was also used as the Ktarrian ship at the end of The Game(TNG).
I wonder if they all look like Judge Dredd underneath?
By making the Tosk Hunter leader the only one to remove his helmet during the episode, the creators saved money on makeup for the other Hunters. Of course, when O’Brein frees Tosk in Act 5, and Tosk dispatches two Hunters, you can see the quite human actors beneath the helmets. When the first Hunter transports to the catwalk, Tosk leaps at him, and when the Hunter falls, and as his head reclines, his chin becomes visible, revealing human Caucasian skin tone. The same things happens minutes later when Tosk drops in on the second Hunter from the passageway above.
Actually, the Cardassians used to monitor those tunnels during the Occupation, but when they discovered Quark used them for his romantic interludes, they all became sick and immediately destroyed all the cameras there
While O’Brien and Tosk crawl through the passageways at the end of the episode, O’Brien said the Cardassians built the passageways out of two meter thick duranium, and that he’s never seen a scanner that could penetrate them (at least until the Tosk Hunters do so). Why would the Cardassians have built passageways that they couldn’t monitor? Wouldn’t this have been an enormous security risk? Couldn’t they have built monitoring devices into the passageways, and link them to the outside so that someone in Ops could scan to see if someone was inside?

Maybe the Cardassians had built scanners into the inside of the conduits, but during the evacuation of the station just before "Emissary" they decided that the scanners were really valuable, ripped them out of the conduits and shipped them back to Cardassia Prime. O'brien did mention that the Cardassians took anything of value with them.

Of course they did leave the transporters, computers, replicators, the retinal scanner from "Q-less" etc. But maybe these things aren't as valuable as scanners in the eyes of the Cardassians. Hm....

If that were the case, Starfleet would've installed their own scanners.

Yes maybe they would at a later time. They've only occupied the station for 136,1 stardates at the most(end of "Emissary" - start of "Q-less"). Since they probably isn't concerned with terrorist attacks these scanners wouldn't be a must-do priority. During the "changeling-scare" things would look very different.

My post from June 18th was more a attempt to describe a funny scene i couldn't help imagine while reading your (Luigi Novi) post from June 14th. Remembering how much Cardassian hardware there was left on the station despite O'briens statement from "Emissary" I couldn't help imagine Dukat standing in OPS during the chaotic evacuation yelling to his officers: "Never mind the computerhardware and the transporters. It's the SCANNERS, we need to get all scanners with us. Do you here me: ALL OF THEM, ALL OF THEM."

According to the DS9 companion, the Tosk are genetically engineered by the Dominion as a reward to those hunters. I forget why exactly and I don't feel like getting the book and looking it up at the moment.

nonono, people.

O'Brien's comment has nothing to do with whether there are working scanners within those conduits as he speaks does it?

All he is saying to Tosk is that they cannot be scanned from outside, i.e. from the hunter's ship.

That can be true and it would not rule out the possibility of Cardy scanners every 2 feet WITHIN the conduit.

Or am I remembering O'Brien's words wrongly?

HOW did Tosk access a FEDERATION computer (Alpha Quadrant) when he was from the Gamma Quadrant? Not to mention the computer coughs up SENSITIVE info on the whereabouts of the weapons!

I guess Cardassian stations use the IFOS as well. It really is quite nice of them. After all, nothing is more rude than having a computer that an invader is unable to use without a hard to break code or something.

Sisko says that Tosk is the first visitor from the Gamma Quadrant...well...sort of...just during the Federation's occupation of DS9...actually, Odo is the first.

Yeah, but at this point in the series, they don't know for sure that Odo came from the Gamma Quadrant; it's just the explanation that best fits.

I'll buy that.

Odo isn't a visitor. He lives there.

Anyone else out there with the Season One DVDs missing title credits for this episode and "Q-Less"? My copy is completely lacking title credits for both eps.

My disc is OK. The problem may be one of the following:

A. Dirty DVD player lens. Invest in a CD/DVD cleaner disc & use regularly in the DVD player. Clean the tray with a hankerchief & if need be get a can of air and spray directly into the player with the tray open. (Or blow into it)

B. Dirty DVD. Use a linen hankerchief or a piece of toilet paper with a little isopropanol on it and wipe the DVD from dust particles & other crud. REMEMBER to start from the center and go outward. (You can also spray the isopropanol directly on the DVD without damaging it)

C. There is one chance in a million that you got a defective DVD as well. Save your pennies & buy a new collector's set if the previous solutions do not work.

Also, the problem may be with the DVD player. I had to buy a new DVD player because it had problems playing certain DVDs

Me too. I have an Apex 1201, and it freezes for no good reason.

I have a JVC DVD player. It works perfectly

The hunters claim to honor the Tosk, but I notice that they seem to load themselves down with weapons and gadgets to counterract all the Tosk's skills and abilities. Not having seen the start of the hunt, I can't be certain, but it seemed as if the Tosk was set loose empty-handed, depending on his skills to acquire useful items along the way. He didn't seem to have any weapons when he arrived at DS9, but when he grabbed one from a fallen hunter and returned to his ship, he had a specific rack to place it on.

These hunters are certainly focused. Popping up unexpectedly in a whole new quadrant, they can't even be bothered to make a token greeting to the inhabitants. Apparently they regard any resistance from outsiders to be an exciting twist on the game--and presumably they try to leave quickly enough to ignore any injuries or deaths among the outsiders.

I always wished that O'Brien had responded to Tosk's farewell with a bit from the Vulcans: "Live long and prosper...and then die with honor!"

Did the Hunters believe themselves to be in a new part of the Galaxy(until informed of such)? Tosk didn't know until Sisko told him.

This is in the DS9 Guide but I'll point it out here- You can see one goof in the scene where O'Brien and Tosk crawl out of the innards of the ship. Scott MacDonald (the actor playing Tosk) accidentally kicks Colm Meaney in the head, and Colm grimaces at him, but had to keep going with his part since the director didn't call cut.

*Extract from DS9 Security training program*

...When facing opponents equipped with arm mounted energy absorbing rods it is vital that you should aim for the arms. At no point is it desirable to aim at a part of their body that this type of system can't protect, such as the legs....


I've heard of people with a glass jaw, but I've never heard of one with a glass shoulder. When Tosk jumps out of the conduit he lands on one of the hunters shoulders and the hunter goes out like a light.

Observation; Since neither the Hunters or Tosk pass any comments about Odo we can assume they've never run into Changelings before.