Why is it Deep Space "9"?

[toughlittleship]

Does anyone know how the writers chose "Nine" as the number of the station? Is nine the coolest sounding number?

[CorporalClegg]

There were other deep space stations mentioned in TOS and TNG. I'm pretty sure TNG got through DS7. Nine probably seemed most likely to be next in line.

[Lindley]

Deep Spaces 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were sabotaged and destroyed. Deep Spaces 6, 7, and 8 all disappeared without a trace 24 hours after going operational. To this day no one knows why....

[CorporalClegg]

[R. Star]

Random number selection.

[Christopher]

toughlittleship wrote:

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Does anyone know how the writers chose "Nine" as the number of the station? Is nine the coolest sounding number?

According to what I read in one of the making-of books (probably The Making of STS9 by the Reeves-Stevenses, though I'm not up to searching for the exact reference), the name Deep Space Nine started out as a placeholder -- just something one of the producers tossed out as a working title when they needed to call it something for reference, not something anyone really liked. But they got into the habit of using it and never thought of a better alternative, and past a certain point everyone was calling it by that name and they were kind of stuck with it. So the number wasn't really chosen for any good reason; it just kind of happened.

CorporalClegg wrote:

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There were other deep space stations mentioned in TOS and TNG. I'm pretty sure TNG got through DS7. Nine probably seemed most likely to be next in line.

Not really. There was a "Deep Space Station K-7" in "The Trouble With Tribbles," but that's as close as they got. And all the references to "Deep Space #" stations in TNG came along after DS9 was created. So DS9 was the very first station to be referred to by that specific naming pattern.

[ZeNd]

DS9 sounds the coolest.

[Dream]

Because the name Babylon 5 was already taken.

[R. Star]

Dream wrote:

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Because the name Babylon 5 was already taken.

B5 started on February 22, 1993 with it's pilot. DS9 started on January 3, 1993. So that's over a month ahead... to say nothing of the fact that B5 waited a full year after their pilot episode thingie before they aired weekly.

[Lance]

Does it say something about the Federation that, while the cardassians gave the station the moody name 'Terok Nor', the best that Starfleet could come up with was a generically bland sounding letter/number designation?

Mind you, I suppose that 'Terok Nor' could simply be Cardassian for "Subspace Outpost 232", or something.

[Christopher]

R. Star wrote:

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B5 started on February 22, 1993 with it's pilot. DS9 started on January 3, 1993. So that's over a month ahead... to say nothing of the fact that B5 waited a full year after their pilot episode thingie before they aired weekly.

Well, actually JMS was developing B5 for five years before the pilot got made, and he did pitch it to Paramount. But that doesn't make it any less ridiculous and wrong to accuse DS9 of ripping off B5 just because they were both set on space stations. There used to be a good Usenet post by Robert Hewitt Wolfe that systematically demolished the accusation, which was preserved on Google Groups and which I had bookmarked for easy reference, but now I get a 404 Not Found for it.

[timelord1010]

That's why I print to PDF any web pages I think are important. Too many pages have "disappeared" on me in the past.

You would think a organization like Starfleet would have multiple Deep Space stations out on the edge of Federation space. I guess if we had a TV series going now Deep Space Nine would be changed to Star Base since Bajor is supposedly a member of the Federation now.

[Melakon]

Lance wrote:

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Does it say something about the Federation that, while the cardassians gave the station the moody name 'Terok Nor', the best that Starfleet could come up with was a generically bland sounding letter/number designation?

Mind you, I suppose that 'Terok Nor' could simply be Cardassian for "Subspace Outpost 232", or something.

Weren't all Cardassian stations named ____ Nor? Though I can only remember Empok Nor. So Nor might be an equivalent for starbase.

[Lance]

^ I do like the sound of that. 'Terok' and 'Empok' might be representative of the region of space they are located in. A sort of geographical marker. So 'Terok Nor' might mean "Outpost (in) Terok".

[Skywalker]

Because if they called it Deep Space 10 every character would have turned into a lizard.