If Wishes Were Horses

DS9 Season 1 Episode 15
Air Date: May 16th, 1993

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches, I'd wear one by my side.
If "if's" and "and's" were pots and pans,
There'd be no work for tinkers' hands.

This is a nursery rhyme that suggests that if everyone could get what they wished everyone would be happy. In this episode of DS9, the imagination of the people on DS9 start coming true. Chief O'Brien is telling a story or Rumpelstiltskin to his daughter and Rumpelstiltskin appears. Doctor Bashir is fantasying about Lt. Dax and a version of Dax shows up romantically attracted to him. Captain Sisko's baseball hero Buck Bokai is able to leave the holosuite.

Meanwhile, a rupture in space that threatens to destroy the entire Bajoran sector. They then realize that even this rupture is just based on imagination and they all imagine that everything is fine and the rupture closes. They then learn that the incarnations of their imaginations are actually a race from the gamma quadrant that use this technique for first contact.

Quotes

"I have no time for fantasies." - Const. Odo
"Yeah no imagination, huh?" - Quark
"A waste of time. Too many people dream of places they'll never go, wish for things they'll never have, instead of paying adequate attention to their real lives." - Const. Odo

"Jadzia, I find this difficult to say, but I want you to know, I would" - Doctor Bashir
"Julian, there's really no need to apologise. In a way, I feel as if we've invaded your privacy. We all have fantasies and dreams we keep to ourselves, thoughts that should remain private." - Lt. Dax
"I'm glad you understand." - Doctor Bashir
"Of course I do. I was a young man, once." - Lt. Dax
"So we can put all this behind us?" - Doctor Bashir
"Of course." - Lt. Dax

"This imagination of yours, we have never seen anything like it. It's very real to all of you, but yet it's not. At first, it seemed to us to be a curse, an irritation. That Odo fellow even called it a 'waste of time'." - Const. Odo
"I disagree with him." - Cmdr. Sisko
"I knew you would. I learned that about you, that you can have such an affection for someone you never even met. I wonder if you appreciate how unique that imagination of yours really is." - Buck Bokai
"Not always." - Cmdr. Sisko