If Wishes Were Horses

In Quarks, Odo sits in his usual spot at the bar… looking over the few customers that dot the establishment. The pair talk about imagination and holosuites, Odo saying he doesn’t have time for it. Jake enters with a baseball bat and mitten and heads for the holosuite. Quark discusses family holosuite entertainment, a lucrative opportunity!

At one of the tables, Bashir and Dax are having dinner… and Dax once again rebuffs his advances. She leaves for Ops, where we find Sisko and Kira concerned about increased thoron emissions in the plasma field. Dax sets to work investigating if it is going to cause a problem.

In the O’Brien’s quarters, Miles is telling the tale of Rumpelstiltskin to Molly. Keiko and Miles leave their daughter to sleep, but she comes out and says that the creature is here. Miles enters to discover a fairly acurate recreation of Rumpelstiltskin sitting on the bed.

O’Brien calls for Sisko, who’s in his quarters… and on his way out he’s interrupted by Jake who is accompanied by Buck Bokai – a famous baseball player from the holosuite.

In Bashir’s quarters, the good doctor is sleeping when a hand starts running across his face. He wakes and is startled to discover Dax hovering over him, after briefly fighting her off, he begins to kiss her. Suddenly, Kira calls for all senior officers to report to Ops.

In Ops, Sisko introduces Bashir and Dax to Buck Bokai and Rumpelstiltskin. Bashir’s Dax has no idea about thoron emissions, and we realise why when the real Dax comes in from the turbolift. Bashir examines them, and they all appear to be real… Bashir’s Dax tries to get him back to bed, but he turns away from her and she disappears.

Odo calls from the Promenade, where it’s snowing! Sisko suggests bringing in all security officers and calls for yellow alert. Back in Ops, Bokai has disappeared too. The real Dax discovers a wavefront moving towards the station.

In Quarks, Odo suggests everyone refrain from using their imagination… only to be responded to with laughter. Quark appears, with two women hanging off him, and after Odo finally gets through to him he realises that everyone is winning!

In the science lab, Dax and Bashir investigate the wavefront which has become a rift. After grilling him about Dax #2 being overly submissive, the other Dax appears and begins to have a go at the real Dax being such a cold fish.

The imaginary figures meet together and discuss their people, something suggests these figures are more than just from the imagination of our officers. After launching a probe, they discover this phenomenon is similiar to another event that happen several years earlier, the senior staff decide to try detonating a pulse wave torpedo again… in the two hundred years since the other event advances have been made in the technology.

After some more imaginations from Kira – where lower pylon one is destroyed, and Odo – where he’s finally arrested and detained Quark, the torpedo is launched but has no effect on the rift. In fact it has the opposite effect, and a shockwave hits the station causing severe damage.

After chasing their tails, where nothing is working, Rumpelstiltskin appears and offers to solve the crisis, for the cost of Molly (just like the story.) Sisko then realises that the rift is just another imagination. After believing that there is nothing out there, and there is no threat to the station… everything and everyone disappears.

In his office, Sisko receives a final visit from Buck Bokai – who explains they are aliens that appear in various forms to learn about other cultures. In a final gesture, Bokai gives Sisko a baseball and disappears.