The Rule

"I will participate in The Game"

THE RULE OF THE GAME :

“Each Person can Speak-Up for Himself ONLY after he has first re-stated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker •accurately• AND to the Other Person’s •satisfaction•.”

BATSMAN: 

Aggressive. Adversarial. 

SISKO: 

Competition! For fun. 

It's a game that Jake and I play on the holodeck. 

It's called baseball. 

JAKE: 

Baseball? What is this? 

SISKO: 

I was afraid you'd ask that. I throw this ball to you and this other player stands between us with a bat, a stick, and he, and he tries to hit the ball in between these two white lines. No. The rules aren't important. What's important is, it's linear. Every time I throw this ball, a hundred different things can happen in a game. He might swing and miss, he might hit it. The point is, you never know. 

You try to anticipate, set a strategy for all the possibilities as best you can, but in the end it comes down to throwing one pitch after another and seeing what happens. 

With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape. 

BATSMAN: 

And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed. 

SISKO: 

That's right. In fact, the game wouldn't be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen. 

JAKE: 

You value your ignorance of what is to come? 

SISKO: 

That may be the most important thing to understand about humans. 

It is the unknown that defines our existence. 

We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. 

We are explorers. We explore our lives, day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. 

And that is why I am here. 

Not to conquer you either with weapons or with ideas, but to co-exist and learn.

[Saratoga - Sisko's quarters]

(Leaning over Jennifer's body.) 

TACTICAL: 

If all you say is true —

 why do you exist here?