Deep Space 9

... and that's why Voyager was the beginning of the end.

With TOS, and TNG, they swapped crew members around until they got it just right.

With DS9 they grew and changed the characters, rather than swapping them out. But, they worked with it until it was just right.

With Voyager, the majority of the characters were exactly the same from the first episode, til the last episode.
Of all the concepts that scream for an arc driven series, traveling home through the delta quadrant should have been it. The episodic nature of the show, and the fact that none of the characters had any depth is what got me to tune out.

The fact that Voyager followed DS9, only demonstrated how weak a show Voyager was.

Perhaps my views on Star Trek are different than a lot of you men, due in part to my female perspective, and be-that-as-it may, not better or worse than your own.

I concur that DS9 has some really excellent episodes, characters and plots although it is not my favorite series. I absolutely LOVE Quark and Garak, and the expansion on the Ferengi culture, the interplay between Odo and Quark, the whole funny interplay of Kira gestating the O’Brien’s baby, the beautiful father-son relationship between Sisco and Jake, the very fun Klingon episodes and my favorite self-aware Vic Fontaine holodeck program episodes. There are many more great ones.

What I didn’t like about the show was the never-ending and sometimes plodding Bajoran religious focus and CONSTANT war stories between the Cardassians and Bajorans and/or The Dominion/Gem Hadar and Federation…god that got so boring after a while. I never really understood how a race as obviously advanced as the Changlings supposedly were, could be so obtusely set to waging such a brutal war and to what end? What I’ve always thought was so special about Star Trek is that it was focusing a view of a world that had gone beyond petty superstitions, primitive religions and saw the nonsense of wars fought in vain. Yes, that might be a bit didactic, but I loved Trek for that. The Changlings, above most races, should have been way beyond war.

Anyway, DS9 is excellent Trek and science fiction, and I still love watching many of the episodes.

Any word of DS9 and Voyager hitting Blu-Ray next year? There's just two seasons of TNG left to release and Enterprise season 3 is out in January.

I don't know but DS-9 can't be released fast enough for me! :lol

Goonie said:

Any word of DS9 and Voyager hitting Blu-Ray next year? There's just two seasons of TNG left to release and Enterprise season 3 is out in January.

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PotionMistress said:

What I didn’t like about the show was the never-ending and sometimes plodding Bajoran religious focus and CONSTANT war stories between the Cardassians and Bajorans and/or The Dominion/Gem Hadar and Federation…god that got so boring after a while. I never really understood how a race as obviously advanced as the Changlings supposedly were, could be so obtusely set to waging such a brutal war and to what end? What I’ve always thought was so special about Star Trek is that it was focusing a view of a world that had gone beyond petty superstitions, primitive religions and saw the nonsense of wars fought in vain. Yes, that might be a bit didactic, but I loved Trek for that. The Changelings, above most races, should have been way beyond war.

Anyway, DS9 is excellent Trek and science fiction, and I still love watching many of the episodes.

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Why would say that? I don't that think that any species, us or any as yet undiscovered one, would necessarily outgrow war. As long as you have haves and have nots, one group having something that the other wants, or simple fear or hatred of another you're going to have war. In the case of the Changelings, if IIRC, it wasn't a matter of expansion and territory like say the Romulans or the Klingons or necessarily a hatred of "solids", it was a matter of fear and paranoia. They were afraid of us "solids", afraid that we'd fear them more and do something to hurt them or even try to wipe them out so their solution was to create The Dominion and control the galaxy so that no one would ever be able to harm them because they'd be under their rule/control. It's not like they were out to wipe out the Federation & the rest of the Alpha Quadrant, they merely wanted to add the Alpha Quadrant to Dominion and eliminate the threat that they thought that it posed to their existence.

While the Federation may have been perfectly willing to leave the Changelings be the same can't be said of the Klingons and especially not the Romulans and they would have happily committed genocide in order to get rid of the "threat" of the Changelings/Dominion, and unfortunately the Changelings didn't believe or necessarily care that the Federation wouldn't allow that to happen. I don't think that past experience has taught the Changelings to believe that all "solid", excepting those of their own creation, to believe that they don't all believe and behave like the Klingons & Romulans which is why they created the Vorta, Jemh'dar, and the Dominion in the first place, because they almost certainly faced persecution from other Gamma Quadrant species.

PotionMistress said:

What I didn’t like about the show was the never-ending and sometimes plodding Bajoran religious focus and CONSTANT war stories between the Cardassians and Bajorans and/or The Dominion/Gem Hadar and Federation…god that got so boring after a while. I never really understood how a race as obviously advanced as the Changlings supposedly were, could be so obtusely set to waging such a brutal war and to what end? What I’ve always thought was so special about Star Trek is that it was focusing a view of a world that had gone beyond petty superstitions, primitive religions and saw the nonsense of wars fought in vain. Yes, that might be a bit didactic, but I loved Trek for that. The Changlings, above most races, should have been way beyond war.

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I liked watching the characters go through all that.

Kira was a bitter vengeful militia member who hated all Cardassians, and who could blame her, but through her forced dealings with the Cardasians, she began to see that some had more to them than she thought. Also, many Cardasians were already regretful of the occupation of Bajor, but began to understand even more so what they had done when the Dominion took over Cardassia.

They all learned so much about other people, and more importantly, themselves.

As for the Founders, I think they saw themselves as so far superior, they didn't think of the inhabitants of the Alpha quadrant as much more than animals to be subjugated and used as they saw fit.

The vision portrayed in the other Treks is nice, but there will always be a Ferengi element, and a few people who see themselves as Founders to go around. I don't know if that level of utopia is attainable.

Star Trek has always been a story about humanity but while it showed this wonderfully evolved society that humanity was to become, the aliens often served as an allegory for humanity, often representing different groups or aspects of society or human beings in general. In some cases these species are so extreme in their makeup that they’re almost caricatures of those aspects.

In TOS, initially the Romulans and then eventually the Klingons were symbols of the Soviet Union and imperialism. Eventually, the Klingons change and represent our thirst for war and conflict.

The characters from Cheron (black on one side, white on the other) were very obvious caricatures for racism.

Later the Ferengi represented greed and capitalism in excess. They were a mirror that amplified those qualities in us.

The Bajorans represented our spirituality… at times the corruption of that spirituality by lust for power.

The Cardassians initially came in without being flushed out much. They were simply a previous enemy in some border conflicts that gave Obrien something to finally do other than energize. Later, the Bajorans are introduced and the Cardassians become allegories for the Nazis in WWII. They’re arrogant, seeing themselves a superior species. They pride themselves on efficiency. The occupation is depicted as being very much like the holocaust… all of this even comes about because the military takes control during an era of deep depression on Cardassia.

The Dominion was initially thought of as being the anti-Federation. It’s a group of systems made up of various species held together not by understanding but by fear. One of the things I find interesting about the Founders as that the shapeshifters are the least flexible of all. They were unable to see past their own desire for order and their own fears. So much so that they would do whatever it took to achieve their goal. In the long run, compromise and understanding were never an option. Control was all that mattered.

rodneyfaile said:

I liked watching the characters go through all that.

Kira was a bitter vengeful militia member who hated all Cardassians, and who could blame her, but through her forced dealings with the Cardasians, she began to see that some had more to them than she thought. Also, many Cardasians were already regretful of the occupation of Bajor, but began to understand even more so what they had done when the Dominion took over Cardassia.

They all learned so much about other people, and more importantly, themselves.

As for the Founders, I think they saw themselves as so far superior, they didn't think of the inhabitants of the Alpha quadrant as much more than animals to be subjugated and used as they saw fit.

The vision portrayed in the other Treks is nice, but there will always be a Ferengi element, and a few people who see themselves as Founders to go around. I don't know if that level of utopia is attainable.

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I agree. Part of what made DS9 so appealing to me was that it really went into the conflicts in a way which hadn't really been examined before. Or rather, at a much deeper level. For example, Undiscovered Country ends with the Khitomer Accords, but doesn't go into how the Federation and the Klingons actually get around to co-existing. DS9 showed that conflict and made it very real. It's kind of like how Game of Thrones has this whole back story and history with the Mad King that predates the events of the show. The Cardassian occupation serves the same narrative purpose for DS9. It anchors all the characters together.

darthgordon said:

Star Trek has always been a story about humanity but while it showed this wonderfully evolved society that humanity was to become,

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Wonderfully evolved society that humanity has become? I don't know if you remember, but under Gene's guidance, this wonderful society was so arrogant it practically labels our own current society as so infantile that everyone in the future wonders how we could have ever survived the 20th century. And the three 20th century humans who the crew are basing their conclusions on? A mother, a financier and a country singer. No mention of Hitler, Stalin or other societies who choose to live in such hurtful life styles that are totally against Gene's vision. No, no. People with our world views are the irredeemable primitives that make us all look bad. Because when it comes to the super optimistic vision of an angelic humanity, the first thing you should expect is constant condescension towards anything that's different.

darthgordon said:

the aliens often served as an allegory for humanity

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I LOATH this argument with a passion. It not only reeks of the type of condescension that everything should be about us, but it's also a lazy excuse to make something sound more clever than it actually is. No matter how you look, every story ever written can be looked at as an "allegory" to something since we have tons of real world examples for these stories to relate to. Like let's say I wanted to write a story about an alien civilization that just suffered a massive natural disaster that they're incapable of handling themselves. The federation needs to assist but the devastation is so great that there's no way this alien society will be like it was before. Am I writing this because I want it to be an allegory to the many natural disasters that have happened around the world like Haiti or Japan? No. I'm just writing a story about suffering aliens who need our help! That kind of thing is universal for all kinds of living things. Just because my story is like something doesn't mean I'm trying to be all meta about it. And the reason why so many things in Star Trek are more human than alien? Because humans are writing the show!

So when I see aliens who share the same things we do, I don't look at it like "Wow. These aliens represent the spiritual side of humanity!", I look at it like "I guess the concept of spirituality isn't restricted to just humans".

Jeyl said:

I LOATH this argument with a passion. It not only reeks of the type of condescension that everything should be about us, but it's also a lazy excuse to make something sound more clever than it actually is. No matter how you look, every story ever written can be looked at as an "allegory" to something since we have tons of real world examples for these stories to relate to. Like let's say I wanted to write a story about an alien civilization that just suffered a massive natural disaster that they're incapable of handling themselves. The federation needs to assist but the devastation is so great that there's no way this alien society will be like it was before. Am I writing this because I want it to be an allegory to the many natural disasters that have happened around the world like Haiti or Japan? No. I'm just writing a story about suffering aliens who need our help! That kind of thing is universal for all kinds of living things. Just because my story is like something doesn't mean I'm trying to be all meta about it. And the reason why so many things in Star Trek are more human than alien? Because humans are writing the show!

So when I see aliens who share the same things we do, I don't look at it like "Wow. These aliens represent the spiritual side of humanity!", I look at it like "I guess the concept of spirituality isn't restricted to just humans".

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Note, in the post you quoted it says, "often served as an allegory" not always. Like it or not is the truth, TOS is replete with such allegories from the previously mentioned Cheron to the Yins & Yangs, hell, Klingons were an allegory for the Soviet Union. Later on with TNG any number of aliens were used for allegorical purposes due to Gene's restrictions and utopian vision of where humanity would be in the future.

Riceball said:

Like it or not is the truth,

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Yeah, and when Gene Roddenberry wrote his own episodes in to be allegorical...



they were anything but subtle. Yep. With absolutely no influence from Earth, Gene thought that the American way was so awesome that the very words in the Constitution, both in language, font and style is universal. If Star Trek being an allegory is the most important part of what makes it Star Trek, why are episode like "Omega Glory" never as popular as "The Trouble with Tribbles"? The only thing you can conclude on how "The Trouble with Tribbles" is an allegory is that we used horny rabbits to root out Russian saboteurs who were trying to sabotage our grain supply.... I don't think that ever happened.

Not even worthy of a facepalm...

How about :facepalm :facepalm

darthgordon said:

Not even worthy of a facepalm...

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Ok Jeyl, nobody said that every single episode of TOS, or TNG, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise for that matter, were allegories, just that it was part of parcel of Trek to commonly use aliens as allegories. Yes, sometimes even in Trek a fish was just a fish.

IMHO I loved DS9. While TOS AND TNG have a special place in my heart, my favorite series was DS9. I liked the development of the characters especially Nog (As mentioned earlier). I loved the rise of the dominion and the start of the Dominion War. My favorite Episode is when the Dominion "Bombs"the Earth Peace Conference. It was an excellent example of a government using fear to get changes they wanted. Out of all the Treks I have watched DS9 compleatly through the most. In fact this thread is making me want to begin the series again. Lucky I have them on DVD.

Donberto17 said:

In fact this thread is making me want to begin the series again. Lucky I have them on DVD.

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Just wait. When Season Six of Star Trek: The Next Generation is released, it will showcase Deep Space Nine for the first time in High Definition. A taste of things to come?

If DS9 is going to be done in HD, the original artists are ready.

Jeyl said:

If DS9 is going to be done in HD, the original artists are ready.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJs0-hhOZFQ

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I can't put into words how awesome that looks.

You know, there's only one thing about all the battles that bugged me. They said they built only 6 Galaxy Class starships. The Enterprise-D was never shown and later was destroyed outside of the DS9 world. I think I recall the USS Galaxy being destroyed in TNG. Then they had #3 blow up in one of the first excursions into the Delta Quadrant. so, we're down to 3... yet I see those guys all manage to be in all the big battles, and survive.

And none of them got rid of their saucer sections either!!!

I know that 99% of the FX shots (ships) in TNG-HD were the original miniatures re-composited for higher resolution, but the latter seasons of DS9 had quite a few CGI battles that were most likely only rendered for SD. If they're going to re-do those then my personal wish is that they add a few Ambassador class ships in (they were good enough to fight the Borg). After all, they were rolling out Mirandas and Excelsiors for the Dominion war, and they were much older. Heck, I'd even like it if they CGI'd a couple of the Wolf 359 ship classes - anything that replaced the Frankenfleet monstrosities would be good. Being able to see an Intrepid saucer glued onto a Maquis raider in HD wont do anything to improve it.