Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Cleverly Turned A Medical Mistake Into Character Development

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In the early episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," the character of Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) was depicted as something of a charming lothario. He flirted with any young woman who happened to pass by, and was especially fixated on Lieutenant Dax (Terry Farrell), the station's science officer. That character trait was eventually abandoned, however, and Dr. Bashir was allowed to grow up a little. His transition from youth to adulthood bucked franchise norms, which tended to keep its young characters young and immature for longer than was logical. 

But back in the show's first season, Bashir could be a little bit insufferable. He even had a very, very odd pick-up line that he used more than once. Most notably, in the season 1 episode "Q-Less," which provided one of the franchise's best Q moments, Bashir is seen having dinner with a pretty Bajoran woman (Laura Cameron). He regales her with a story from his days at Starfleet Medical School, explaining that he was merely the salutatorian of his class and not the valedictorian because he made the simple mistake of confusing a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve during the oral exams. Bashir tells this story while seductively stroking his date's hands. Somehow, she is charmed. 

Of course, no doctor, no matter how incompetent, would confuse a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve. This gaffe — as related in Terry J. Erdmann's and Paula M. Block's book "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Compaion" — was pointed out to "Deep Space Nine" writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe by his wife Celeste. Celeste was studying to be a veterinarian, and she knew that Bashir's nerve bungle was nonsense. Wolfe heard his wife, and later wrote an episode that explained, explicitly, that Bashir actually got the question wrong on purpose. 

Dr. Bashir actually first mentioned the preganglionic fiber/postganglionic nerve story in the show's pilot, "Emissary." It came up a few times in conversation throughout the early episodes of "Deep Space Nine." To offer a brief layman's explanation (as I am no doctor), preganglionic fibers are strands that connect a ganglion to the central nervous system, while the postganglionic nerves connect ganglia to sense organs. They are very different, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe's wife knew it. As he related: 

"My wife is pre-vet [...] and every time she saw 'Emissary,' or heard Bashir's line about mistaking a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve, she'd say 'They're nothing like each other! No one would make that mistake!'" 

In response to this gaffe, Wolfe would go on to write the episode "Distant Voices." In that episode, Dr. Bashir is psychically attacked by an alien named Altovar (Victor Rivers), forcing the doctor into a coma. While unconscious, Dr. Bashir dreams that Altovar is stalking and killing all his friends on Deep Space Nine, who are clearly standing in for aspects of his personality. Altovar, reaching deep into Dr. Bashir's mind, finds that Bashir deliberately missed the preganglionic/postganglionic question during his exams to avoid the pressures of being the best in his class. Bashir didn't like the idea of living up to too high a standard, you see. Altovar's specific line was "Preganglionic fibers and postganglionic nerves aren't anything alike. Any first-year medical student can tell them apart. You purposely gave the wrong answer." 

Letting Altovar point out that Bashir got the question wrong on purpose, Wolfe said, "was my way of saying, 'Well, okay' to Celeste."

"Star Trek" writers are very smart people, but they aren't all science and medicine experts. Indeed, "Star Trek" tends to employ a separate team of tech experts to fill in all of the franchise's notorious technobabble, or "treknobabble" as it is sometimes called. For the episode "Emissary," wherein Dr. Bashir first swapped out the preganglionic fibers and postganglionic nerves, the studio had Rich Sternbach, Michael Okuda, and Naren Shankar on hand, and it was the former two who made the initial mix-up. 

According to Judith Reeves-Stevens' book "The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," "Emissary" teleplay writer Michael Piller originally wrote Bashir's line as "I confused the MEDTECH with MEDTECH during the orals, or I would have been first." Trek's writers would often insert the words "TECH" or "MEDTECH" into their scripts as placeholders, knowing that one of the show's technical consultants would fill it in later. According to a memo that Piller received, it was indeed Sternbach and Okuda — the pioneers behind the LCARS system — who suggested "preganglionic fiber" and "postganglionic nerve." Clearly neither Sternbach nor Okuda knew much about medicine. That is an elementary mistake.

But "Distant Voices" — which aired in the middle of the show's third season — finally covered the gaffe. Bashir didn't make an elementary mistake; he deliberately got a (very obvious) question wrong as a means to reduce expectations and keep the pressures in his life low. It's a good dramatic plot point, and a way for Robert Hewitt Wolfe's wife, Celeste, to rest easy. 

"Star Trek" doesn't make mistakes. It just has plot points it hasn't explained yet.