Three months after a possessed Gul Dukat killed Jadzia Dax and sealed the wormhole, life on Deep Space Nine has changed. Kira, the acting commander, is upset when Admiral Ross informs her that the Romulans will set up a station office, while Sisko has retreated to Earth to contemplate a way of contacting the Bajoran Prophets — the aliens who reside within the wormhole. When the vision of a woman's face, buried in the sand, appears to Sisko, he sketches her, and Jake recognizes her from one of his grandfather's photos.

Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko)
Rene Auberjonois (Chief of Security Odo)
Nicole deBoer (Ensign Ezri Dax)
Michael Dorn (Lt. Commander Worf)
Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko)
Colm Meaney (Chief Operations Officer Miles O'Brien)
Armin Shimerman (Quark)
Alexander Siddig (Dr. Julian Bashir)
Nana Visitor (Colonel Kira Nerys)

Brock Peters (Joseph Sisko)
James Darren (Vic Fontaine)
Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun)
Casey Biggs (Legate Damar)
Barry Jenner (Admiral Bill Ross)
J.G. Hertzler (General Martok)
Megan Cole (Senator Cretak)
Aron Eisenberg (Ensign Nog)

• Season 7 Premiere Episode, Part I.
  
• This episode introduces Ensign Ezri Dax, who appears at the very end. (See the next episode for more information.)
  
• Kira has been promoted to Colonel in Sisko's three month absence.
  
• The woman, Sarah, was Joseph Sisko's first wife, and Ben's mother. She left two days after Ben's first birthday. Joseph raised Ben with his step-mother as his real mother. Joseph gives Ben a locket of Sarah's which has an ancient Bajoran inscription: The Orb of the Emissary.
  
• Bajor's fourth moon is Derna, which is uninhabited. The Romulans want to set up a hospital on Derna. The "hospital" is emitting high readings of trilithium isotopes, which indicates Romulan plasma torpedoes.
  
• Worf is worried that Jadzia isn't in Sto-vo-kor, where honorable Klingon warriors go when they die. To ensure she makes it, Martok and Worf plan a mission to destroy a Dominion shipyard in her name.
  
• A cult that worships the Pagh-Wraiths attempts to assassinate Sisko.
  
• O'Brien and Worf mention Lt. Barclay from the Enterprise and his "Three Musketeer" holodeck program from the TNG episode "Hollow Pursuits".
  
• Megan Cole previously played Noor in the TNG episode "The Outcast".