Second Skin (DS9 episode)

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
"Second Skin"
Kira is told she is actually a Cardassian
Episode no.	51
Prod. code	451
Airdate	October 24, 1994
Writer(s)	Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Director	Les Landau
Guest star(s)	Andrew J. Robinson as Garak Gregory Sierra as Entek Lawrence Pressman as Ghemor Tony Papenfuss as Yeln Cindy Katz as Yteppa
Year	2371
Episode chronology
Previous	"Equilibrium"
Next	"The Abandoned"

"Second Skin" is an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the fifth episode of the third season.

Quick Overview: Kira is kidnapped by the Cardassians and told she is actually an undercover Cardassian agent.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Major Kira comes across a computer file that contains prison records. It lists her as a prisoner at a Cardassian facility ten years earlier. Having never been in prison, she decides to look into the matter. On her way to Bajor she is kidnapped.

Kira awakens on Cardassia and is welcomed home. When she looks in a mirror, she is shocked to see that she looks like a Cardassian. A Cardassian man visits her and tells her she is his daughter, Iliana, and that he will help her recover her memories. The man, Tekeny Ghemor, describes how she joined a long-term undercover operation with the Obsidian Order. She was surgically altered to look like a captured Bajoran militia member named Kira Nerys, and had her memories blocked and replaced with those of Kira. She was then sent to Bajor in Kira's place to act as a spy. Her mission is done and Ghemor tenderly welcomes her back to her home and family.

Kira will have none of it. She is certain of who she is and is disgusted to think of herself as a Cardassian. When she is shown the dead body of a Bajoran named Kira Nerys, she insists it is a fake. Still, she begins to have doubts. Despite her confusion, she hangs onto her identity and tries to escape. The Cardassians want to probe her for the information she gathered during Iliana's mission masquerading as Kira, and she is quickly caught.

Ghemor is distraught that his daughter does not remember him. He offers to help her escape to avoid harsh interrogations that the Obsidian Order will certainly inflict on her to extract the information. Ghemor is immediately taken into custody by the Order. It is now clear that the Order was using Kira to get Ghemor to reveal himself. By making him think he had his daughter back, they were able to get evidence that he was a dissident.

Odo, Garak, and Commander Sisko arrive in time to prevent the Order from taking Kira and Ghemor away for punishment. Back at Deep Space Nine, tests reveal that Kira is definitely Bajoran. Ghemor understands that she is not really Iliana, but is still sad to bid her goodbye.

[edit] Trivia

In reflecting on this episode, writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe has said that he prefers an alternate ending in which Kira's true identity could not be confirmed. According to Wolfe, such an ending would have given Kira a choice between living as a Cardassian or a Bajoran and helped her realize that "your identity is who you are, and it doesn't matter how you get there."^{[citation needed]}
When Ghemor compares Kira to her (supposed Cardassian) mother, Kira angrily replies that her (real) mother starved to death in a Bajoran prison camp. Later, in the 6th season episode "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night", she learns that her mother's life took a different path.