Spoilers If DS9 Got the PIC Treatment

[Arpy]

What would that look like for you? I love PIC, and I love how much more lived-in it feels than Berman-Era Trek. DS9 felt the most lived-in of the previous shows to me, and I find myself wondering what it would look like today, in HD, with all those diverse aliens we delved into deeper in the series.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Sure. The year would be 2403. The Prophets would finally reveal their plan for freeing the universe from linear time and Sisko would return to help stop them as the only one who can. DS9 would’ve been long decommissioned with Bajor back under “benevolent” Cardassian rule. Why? Because the wormhole had been mysteriously closed for years (in preparation for this Prophet reveal), thus removing the need for what was still a Cardassian mining station, and with Bajor failing to join the Federation, eventually they’d have left the area. Miles and Keiko would’ve been divorced for decades, Jake would’ve remained a failed novelist… Rom would’ve prospered as Grand Nagus, though, steering the Ferengi society away from its focus on capitalism.

 

[Arpy]

PIC is about age, regret, and current events – things Patrick Stewart cares about right now. I wonder if SIS would be about things Avery Brooks cares about. Say the first two apply to him in more or less the same way (though, maybe he cares about comedy and salsa dancing for all I know), and on the subject of the third, he's maybe thinking about Black Lives Matter. Let's also bring into it absentee fathers – something he was concerned about, abandoning Jake in the finale. If this series is SIS (and not KIR or GAR) maybe it's about Sisko coming back and finding it's too late with Jake. Maybe we leave DS9 to end as it did with hope for the relationship, and this parallel universe SIS to be one in which things didn't go well to look at the continuing problem in the real world, instead of not looking at it in the fake one in which everything turned out great. I don't know how that plays out.

What if he comes back to the station and (unlike in What We Left Behind) it's very much in the Federation and everything is going great for it. But no one really thinks about the past in this Prophets-promised Golden Age for Bajor, and Bajorans are losing their cultural identity (repeating storyline?). Worse yet, Cardassian refugees have taken up a lot of synth jobs since the ban, and they're being treated horribly by many affluent Bajorans since the outbreak of a suspected Cardassian-engineered virus released by former Central Command officers disgusted by the vermin who've arisen since the fall of their reich. ...I wonder if we get stories about Post-Modern Neo-Marxists, refugees, BLM, COVID-19 from that lol

 

[no2catsuitKira]

ST:SIS--accepting that name--should include the post-series novels as canon (not the one-shot writers' room season 8), at least through what fans have called the two post-series seasons. I lost touch with the novels after the Iliana Ghemor ones.

With regard to absent fathers, my recollection is that Brooks expressed dismay with abandonment of Kassidy, as she was pregnant. Jake was essentially grown by the end of the series.

The series explored Bajor, Cardassia, and Trill in some depth; visiting those planets again after a generation of growth and recovery, as the case may be, would be interesting. A peek at what the Dominion is up to would also be nice--what ever became of the Vorta? An episode devoted to the station as it undergoes either decommissioning or completion of formal transfer of administration or even a planned reunion celebration at Quark´s would be fun. O'Brien could dislocate his shoulder again after trying an old holosuite program, etc.

 

[Arpy]

Status of the other characters?
Who are the new characters?
Would you want the series to focus on who, and to what extent?

 

[Replica Picard]

I feel like much of the content of the DS9 novels could be adapted except for where they contradict Picard. The only change I would really want (but we don't always get what we want) would be for Kira Nerys to realize that she's really not cut out for a life in the clergy before she goes that far with it.

 

[kkt]

I feel like much of the content of the DS9 novels could be adapted except for where they contradict Picard. The only change I would really want (but we don't always get what we want) would be for Kira Nerys to realize that she's really not cut out for a life in the clergy before she goes that far with it.

Part of what happens during Season 8, if it were ever made, might just be Kira realizing she's not cut out for a life in the clergy and she's got to fight for what's right because that's the kind of person she is.

 

[uniderth]

Spoiler: Not sure if this counts as spoilers.

A super secret Romulan police force are dedicated to destroying all changelings. They fear that Changelings will rebuild the Dominion and destroy the galaxy.

Sisko returns and gets talked down to by the rest of the cast.

A federation scientist has fractally cloned two female changelings from one atom of Odo. Sisko is trying to help the twins return to the Great Link.

The Twins eventually return to the Great Link and help the Founders start to rebuild the Dominion to destroy the Galaxy.

Sisko does convince the twins to not rebuild the Dominion, but dies in the process. The twins transfer his consciousness into the Great Link and Sisko is now a changeling.

#theromulanswererightagain

 

[Orphalesion]

But no one really thinks about the past in this Prophets-promised Golden Age for Bajor, and Bajorans are losing their cultural identity (repeating storyline?). Worse yet, Cardassian refugees have taken up a lot of synth jobs since the ban, and they're being treated horribly by many affluent Bajorans since the outbreak of a suspected Cardassian-engineered virus released by former Central Command officers disgusted by the vermin who've arisen since the fall of their reich. ...I wonder if we get stories about Post-Modern Neo-Marxists, refugees, BLM, COVID-19 from that lol

I'm not gonna lie, I'd find those dynamics very interesting.

 

[Arpy]

I like that Stewart only would do PIC if it were different from TNG. (I would have loved more TNG, but there was a high probability of failure there, so I'm all for them trying any number of somethings different if done well.) I imagine Brooks wanting something similar. So in my above idea, I made the Bajorans not so much the baddies, but the problematies. It isn't that people turn bad, but they can lose perspective. The Cardassians have been plenty bad, so I would like to see other sides of them, while maintaining their distinct idiosyncrasies as well. I don't want to see them blandly go General Victim, but it'd be just tedious if they went Wounded Viper Awaiting Vengeance – that's just keeping them innately bad. (Dude, look in the mirror.)

PIC explores ancient civilizations and catastrophe. (I maybe feel Galactica here.) The Bajorans have had civilization for 500,000 years. Maybe we learn more about that and how they didn't conquer the galaxy in that time. Synth wars of their own? Nuclear war? Religious Dark Ages? The Prophets only started coming to them, what 10-30k years ago? Why then? And when they say they are "of" Bajor, what does that mean? Are they indeed Bajorans from the distant future? Or, dun-dun-dun, the past?

What's become of our friends over the last 20 years? Are Miles and Keiko remarried? (How's that for a kick to the gut?) Maybe Molly and Kirayoshi are main characters in this series. And the baby Kasidy was pregnant with?

 

[Sidewinder]

Just curious, why is everyone breaking The O'Briens up?

 

[Arpy]

Someone upthread mentioned it, and although it horrified me, I remembered all the Torture O’Brien episodes and figured okay. Especially as complex shit happens in real life and whatever fiction can do to help people through that I think is a good thing. DS9’s the grayer series, right? Well, have at it.

 

[Arpy]

Also, I don’t know how well the Cardassian idea works for Black Lives Matter stories. I mean, the Cardassians are more German than African-American. The stories would be profound but I’m not sure if quite near enough the mark.

 

[Relayer1]

Avery probably wouldn't do it so the focus would have to shift.

Quark has moved on / expanded, (per Picard) so my take would be that Miles retired to Bajor and is probably now teaching engineering and a local councillor. Kira is quite senior in the militia and/or government, Bashir is a senior lecturer at Starfleet Medical and Dax a ship captain recently assigned back to the sector.

I'd start Episode 1 with Dax's ship ferrying Bashir back to Bajor to oversee some serious medical situation.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

What’s crucial for maximum PICness here is to break up many (but not all) notions of “happy endings” one might have imagined for certain characters and situations, so the show has a Ray of Light to move towards. Hence my completely arbitrary O’Brien divorce scenario, the Federation stepping away and Bajor moving back under nominally benevolent post-Damar Cardassian rule: you just think of classic episodes where the characters are in a dark(ish) place before the inevitable reset button is pushed and simply remove the reset button.

 

[DarKush]

What would that look like for you? I love PIC, and I love how much more lived-in it feels than Berman-Era Trek. DS9 felt the most lived-in of the previous shows to me, and I find myself wondering what it would look like today, in HD, with all those diverse aliens we delved into deeper in the series.

Loving these ideas everyone. Don't agree with them all or the underpinnings behind some of them, but still I like how much thought is being put into this. I like the reversal with the Cardassians and the Bajorans. As you pointed out, the Cardassian and African-American comparison doesn't really work, or would work well, however a Weimar Germany comparison could, where the Cardassians are still grappling with their defeat and some are not taking it too well, while others are trying to adapt to their new/different place in the galaxy as best as they can.

Crazy thought just came to me when you mentioned Kassidy and Ben's child. This could've been a good role for Sonequa Martin-Green, playing the daughter of the Siskos. Discovery could've been the DS9 successor series. DISCO Klingons could've been Cardassians.

I liked how What You Left Behind did explore their child, and I was okay with their conception, though I would be okay with their child being female as well, to differentiate the character even more from Jake or even Ben for that matter. In any event, if Brooks wasn't present, perhaps Penny Johnson Jerald could do some cameos when she's not working on the Orville.

 

[Jayson1]

It's been 20 years since Sisko left and My idea is Sisko returns to find Bajor a dead planet. It was destroyed by a Disease that had been created when the Cardissians were strip mining the planet and though they thought a cure had been found it still came back and ravaged the planet. Sisko shows up naked with memory lost issues on the mostly abandoned Deep Space Nine station except some Bajoran refugees were Kira has sort of been in charge taking care of them. She and her people nurse him back to health and his memories start to return. He asks about contacting the Federation but all worlds in the Alpha Quadrant try and stay away from the system because the few Bajorans alive are like Leepers and people are afraid of being infected. But she does contact Bashir who has left Starfleet and is one of the people who are willing to risk his life and come help the Bajorans no matter what. Bashir shows up and then Sisko finally gets a new memory. He has returned to lead the Bajoran people into the Gamma Quadrant to a alien planet out their were a cure exists but they will need a ship. Bashir contacts Section 31 who he works along side with sometimes even though he isn't a full member or anything like that. Nog is now working with them who has become bitter because his wife was killed over something he blames Starfleet for. Nog sends them a cargo ship and then they head off. Sisko and Kira and her people. Bashir and Nog stay behind because the show is going to be mostly about Sisko's role as Emissary.

Anyways along the way they run into trouble from various aliens who used to be under the thumb of the Dominion but now war has sprung up as the Dominion mostly keeps to itself due to Odo talking them out of controlling solids. Taran-a-tar from the books hooks up with Sisko and joins forces and he is basically the last Jem Haddar alive. Dominion no longer needed them so they stoped making them along with the Vorta clones as well. They eventually find the planet and it seems the local aliens requires a sacrifice for the cure. Sisko dies for real and KIra and her people are given the cure. But then we cut to a grave were it seems SIsko and Cassidy's daughter died years ago when she was only 15 and she crawls out of it to find Jake standing over her and then telling her that she is the new Emissary and was informed of this by his Bajoran wife who has a connection to one of the Orbs and they need to go to DS9. Then that leads to season 2.

Jason

 

[TheSeeker]

Guys and Gals, please use the spoiler code if you're going to reference specific points from Picard. There's nothing major in here, but there are enough tidbits to give some story elements away, and that would be a real bummer for anyone wanting to go into Picard with a blank slate. Just to be safe I'm going to go ahead and add the spoiler prefix to the thread title.

Thanks!

 

[Qonundrum]

Just curious, why is everyone breaking The O'Briens up?

Because everyone else is doing it in real life and they need someone they can "relate to" instead of being surprised by, inspired by, in awe of, someone who's actually different and interesting?

Or like how millions of people loved smoking half a century ago. It's seemingly a "hipster lemming philosophy".

 

[Arpy]

Because everyone else is doing it in real life and they need someone they can "relate to" instead of being surprised by, inspired by, in awe of, someone who's actually different and interesting?

Or like how millions of people loved smoking half a century ago. It's seemingly a "hipster lemming philosophy".

If you want to be inspired, watch TNG. But, no, seriously, the O’Briens divorcing goes back to the many deaths and tortures and trials of Miles in the series. He’s not even “our” Miles (he died of radiation poisoning) but one from a parallel universe. Another one we thought was him was actually a replicant/synth who as killed before being activate to assassinate a peace delegation. Miles convicted and sentenced to decades of barbaric imprisonment where he served out his term and murdered his cell mate over a misunderstanding. He was abducted, beaten by Cardassians, had a tooth yanked out, and set up on a planetary show-trial to be executed. Other stuff.

Ronald D. Moore spoke about the joke of let’s torture O’Brien episodes. The gods find reason to torture O’Brien again. I’m not sure what would be more of a shocker or painful (for us), having both he and Keiko remarried with kids, or just her and him seeing someone on the regular but kind of listless and unhappy, trying to be in his kids’ lives and regretting the past.

Of course we love the man, so he’d have a hell of a season (maybe he’s the one who saves main character Kirayoshi when he’s in a bad place despite having argued with him earlier.......or maybe the season is about Molly and Kirayoshi going after to save him and a lot of this stuff is flashbacks) but until then, it’s trouble for O’Brien. Again.