Logline
Commander Una Chin-Riley faces court-martial along with possible imprisonment and dishonorable dismissal from Starfleet, and her defense is in the hands of a lawyer who’s also a childhood friend with whom she had a terrible falling out.
Written by Dana Horgan
Directed by Valerie Weiss
He was not under investigation for being genetically modified. I think a key aspect of this episode and that episode is that Julian and Una were both under investigation for concealing their status as genetically modified. Neither of them faced any penalty for having the modifications done.
It is only Mr. Bashir who is punished for seeking out and obtaining genetic modification for his developmentally delayed child. Being genetically modified isn’t a crime and I don’t think it was ever depicted as such - but having a genetic modification done is a crime. And having one done on you prevents you from joining Starfleet in some cases. Although for all we know Ilyrians are given exception to genetic modification rules as long as they’re honest about it, but no human has ever gotten an exception so Julian lied to protect his parents and to ensure he’d get into Starfleet.
Una’s testimony included a statement that her 10-year-old friend was arrested along with his parents
Which is insane. Its not my biggest problem with this episode but the revelation that the Federation has had like…violent pogroms against augments with children being arrested and what sounds like ghettos is incredibly bad? Its presented as an example of how “unfairly” augments have been treated, but that’s not unfair treatment, that’s borderline genocidal. It puts a way darker spin on the Federation than I think the writers were intending, like I don’t think even DS9 in its attempts to deconstruct utopia ever implied anything half as monstrous.
My interpretation is that since the planet had just been granted provisional Federation membership, basically the same local government was in charge.