Julian Bashir, Secret Agent

Bashir as a James Bond-esque secret agent

Julian Bashir, Secret Agent was a series of holonovels created by holoprogrammer Felix and starring Julian Bashir as the main character. It was set in the 1960s during the Cold War and featured exotic locales such as Paris and Kowloon. Elim Garak thought it was a farcical version of real-life intelligence operations, but the crew of Deep Space 9 found it diverting. (DS9: "Our Man Bashir")

The plots were often elaborate and barely believable. Every plot involved two women, one of whom was meant to die with the other ending up in love with Bashir, although the choice depended on how the program played out. (DS9: "Our Man Bashir")

One story involved an insane genius, Hippocrates Noah, who believed civilization had become so corrupt as to necessitate a change. Noah's plan was to flood the planet, save for his mansion in the Himalayas. This story of the program was running when the computer stored the transporter patterns in Quark's holosuites. Consequently, the images of the senior staff were imposed over the existing character appearances. Bashir managed to save his colleagues, ironically by carrying out Dr. Noah's plan. (DS9: "Our Man Bashir")

Even after this incident, the program became popular with the DS9 crew. Miles O'Brien stepped into the role of Falcon, this time willingly.

Felix designed another program called "Queen's Gambit" in which Lady Wantsomore "a beautiful socialite" would be brainwashed to assassinate the Queen of England. This time, Bashir had the help of Nigel Dunlap, a agent who comes out of retirement to assist him in stopping the assassination. Falcon also made an appearance in this program. Jadzia Dax was to play Lady Wantsomore and Miles O'Brien was to be Falcon - yet again. O'Brien had become "tired of being the bad guy". Bashir had wanted Odo to play Dunlap, but the Changeling was not interested, despite the fact that he would have been able to "steal" Falcon's girlfriend. (DS9: "A Simple Investigation")

Another story took place in West Berlin, where three MI5 agents had been killed in a suspected Soviet plot, but with several American-intercepted messages routed through Istanbul to an island in the South Pacific suggesting otherwise. Bashir and O'Brien were supposed to play this program, but O'Brien convinced Bashir to play Tongo instead. (DS9: "Change of Heart")

Bashir would later base a character (with a Russian accent) on Kira Nerys. Vic Fontaine used that character as a template to create Lola Chrystal. (DS9: "His Way")

In 2375, Leeta said she thought the program was "ridiculous". (DS9: "It's Only a Paper Moon")

Characters

• Honey Bare
• Caprice
• Duchamps
• Nigel Dunlap
• Falcon
• Anastasia Komananov
• Mona Luvsitt
• Patrick Merriweather
• Hippocrates Noah
• Lady Wantsomore
• Queen of England
• List of unnamed characters

Background Information

Sketch for the "Shoe-gun"

Prop master Joe Longo lists some props from this episode as some of his favorites from the series. He worked with art designer John Eaves to figure out how to make a hidden gun-gizmo "like Maxwell Smart's."

Julian Bashir, Secret Agent is likely a customizable title, i.e. "Julian Bashir" is the title because it is Dr. Bashir's program and it would thus be named differently if owned by someone else. The holonovel was a homage to James Bond, with numerous in-jokes and references embedded in "Our Man Bashir" and occasionally other episodes.

The program is also featured at the beginning of the non-canon novel Hollow Men.

External link

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