People,
I started a similar thread in the TNG forum, so I figured I'd do the same here. As I said there, the genesis of this idea was the concept of quantum realities. We've seen two alternate realities for DSN, of course, the Mirror Universe version and the version where they crash-landed on a planet and had descendants because of a time warp.
So I gave some thought to a switched around DSN universe. Some of the alterations are just somewhat logical changes in the choices of the characters, others are big departures. But I thought we could have some fun with this, trying to keep the changes to the original cast and their chief adversary, Dukat.
Here is my first crack:
Commander Jadzia Dax, Station Commander. In this quantum reality, Curzon didn’t turn down Jadzia’s first try at becoming a host for the Dax symbiont. As a result, she started her new life a year earlier. While she started out in the science track, Curzon urged her to try the command path. Finding that her several lifetimes of experience gave her unique intuition into people and command decisions, she served on several starships. She eventually served as first officer on the Saratoga, one of the few ships to have survivors of the Borg attack at Wolf 359. Like the Sisko we know, she also made first contact with the wormhole inhabitants and is hailed as Bajor’s emissary.
Major Odo, First Officer. In this reality, Odo becomes aware much earlier of the Cardassian atrocities committed against the people of Bajor. Instead of becoming a security chief working with the Cardassians, Odo joins the resistance and openly confronts the occupation. His shape-shifting abilities make him a formidable weapon against the Cardassians, who eventually declare him Public Enemy Number One. After rising to the rank of major in the Bajoran resistance, he reluctantly agrees to be first officer to the Starfleet commander of the newly rechristened Deep Space Nine.
Quark, Chief of Security. Quark is not only an ambitious businessman, he learned advanced security techniques from his cousin, a weapons dealer. He traded that knowledge with the Cardassians to become the station’s security chief and sold a majority interest in his bar to ambitious entrepreneur Julian Bashir. During the occupation, he used his position to help Bajorans escape from Cardassia -- for a modest fee, of course. While somewhat morally ambiguous, he hated the Cardassians enough to secretly undermine their grip on Bajor by destroying evidence in cases implicating Bajoran rebels. He has an uneasy working relationship with Commander Dax -- she knows he’s a “crooked cop,” but she needs him to keep order on the station.
Dr. Kira Nerys, Chief Medical Officer. Kira only spent a short amount of time on Bajor. Before she could join the resistance, her parents had her smuggled off Bajor and sent to live with the refugee settlement on Earth. Her foster parents, with help from the Federation, encouraged her to study medicine. She eventually became a skilled surgeon and, once the Cardassians left Bajor, she volunteered to join the Bajoran Medical Corps, initially to help survivors with severe medical problems, and then was convinced by Commander Dax to become DSN’s Chief Medical Officer, where she’d have access to advanced Federation medical technology to help her succeed in her quest.
Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Sisko, Chief Operations Officer. Sisko, with input from his commanding officer, Captain Leyton, was considering a command path career. But he decided that to keep his family intact, he would continue his engineering work and take ground assignments instead. He participated in advanced starship design, including work on the Defiant and Prometheus projects. As a result, his wife never died in the Borg attack on Wolf 359. Then, his old friend Dax said she needed the most brilliant engineer she knew to help her overhaul a decrepit Cardassian station, her new command.
Lt. Miles O’Brien, Science Officer. Encouraged by his former superior officer, Captain Maxwell, and the Rutledge’s science officer, O’Brien became an officer and an assistant science officer. He eventually became a full lieutenant and was assigned to Deep Space Nine, which is an ideal research posting for him now that the first known stable wormhole was discovered. Since his career path was different, he never served on the Enterprise or met Keiko Ishikawa and is still a bachelor. However, he and Dr. Kira have started a torrid affair.
Julian Bashir, Entrepreneur, Ruthless Tycoon. Although Julian underwent the same genetic enhancements, he showed a talent more for figures and business than medicine. Nevertheless, he tried to join Starfleet, but a more observant doctor discovered the tell-tale signs of his augmented genetics, and his application to Starfleet was turned down. Bitter over this setback and holding no great love for the Federation, he learnd of the Ferengi, and became one of the first humans to contact them before even the Enterprise’s first contact, and learn their business secrets. He managed to cheat a DaiMon out of his Ferengi marauder ship, and, with a small collection of mercenaries, began to assemble his vast fortune. He decided that he couldn’t conduct business the way he wanted in the Federation, so he took up residence on Terok Nor after plunking down a small fortune in the coffers of the station’s prefect. He then bought Quark’s from its former owner, renamed it Bashir’s, and made it the headquarters of one of the most ambitious business empires in that part of the Alpha Quadrant. Since the Federation took over, he frequently butts heads with Commander Dax, who he vainly tries to woo, as well as with the other members of the senior staff, with the exception of Quark, his silent partner.
Gul Macet, Former Prefect of Bajor and Commander of Terok Nor. Originally, Macet’s cousin was slated to take over as prefect of Bajor, but the ship he was on exploded due to an engine imbalance. Macet was next in line, according to Central Command’s contingency plan, so he reluctantly assumed his new post. Not as sadistic or as megalomaniacal as Dukat, Macet actually pushed reforms of the Cardassian's rule of the Bajorans. Although it resulted in fewer Bajorans dying during the Occupation, the resistance continued unabated. This infuriated Macet, as he had a grand plan to forge an alliance between Bajor and Cardassia, even hoping Bajorans would serve in the Cardassian Union’s military. His dreams dashed, Macet is bitter over the failure of his more benevolent rule and is fixated on making Commander Dax’s life miserable.
Red Ranger
I started a similar thread in the TNG forum, so I figured I'd do the same here. As I said there, the genesis of this idea was the concept of quantum realities. We've seen two alternate realities for DSN, of course, the Mirror Universe version and the version where they crash-landed on a planet and had descendants because of a time warp.
So I gave some thought to a switched around DSN universe. Some of the alterations are just somewhat logical changes in the choices of the characters, others are big departures. But I thought we could have some fun with this, trying to keep the changes to the original cast and their chief adversary, Dukat.
Here is my first crack:
Commander Jadzia Dax, Station Commander. In this quantum reality, Curzon didn’t turn down Jadzia’s first try at becoming a host for the Dax symbiont. As a result, she started her new life a year earlier. While she started out in the science track, Curzon urged her to try the command path. Finding that her several lifetimes of experience gave her unique intuition into people and command decisions, she served on several starships. She eventually served as first officer on the Saratoga, one of the few ships to have survivors of the Borg attack at Wolf 359. Like the Sisko we know, she also made first contact with the wormhole inhabitants and is hailed as Bajor’s emissary.
Major Odo, First Officer. In this reality, Odo becomes aware much earlier of the Cardassian atrocities committed against the people of Bajor. Instead of becoming a security chief working with the Cardassians, Odo joins the resistance and openly confronts the occupation. His shape-shifting abilities make him a formidable weapon against the Cardassians, who eventually declare him Public Enemy Number One. After rising to the rank of major in the Bajoran resistance, he reluctantly agrees to be first officer to the Starfleet commander of the newly rechristened Deep Space Nine.
Quark, Chief of Security. Quark is not only an ambitious businessman, he learned advanced security techniques from his cousin, a weapons dealer. He traded that knowledge with the Cardassians to become the station’s security chief and sold a majority interest in his bar to ambitious entrepreneur Julian Bashir. During the occupation, he used his position to help Bajorans escape from Cardassia -- for a modest fee, of course. While somewhat morally ambiguous, he hated the Cardassians enough to secretly undermine their grip on Bajor by destroying evidence in cases implicating Bajoran rebels. He has an uneasy working relationship with Commander Dax -- she knows he’s a “crooked cop,” but she needs him to keep order on the station.
Dr. Kira Nerys, Chief Medical Officer. Kira only spent a short amount of time on Bajor. Before she could join the resistance, her parents had her smuggled off Bajor and sent to live with the refugee settlement on Earth. Her foster parents, with help from the Federation, encouraged her to study medicine. She eventually became a skilled surgeon and, once the Cardassians left Bajor, she volunteered to join the Bajoran Medical Corps, initially to help survivors with severe medical problems, and then was convinced by Commander Dax to become DSN’s Chief Medical Officer, where she’d have access to advanced Federation medical technology to help her succeed in her quest.
Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Sisko, Chief Operations Officer. Sisko, with input from his commanding officer, Captain Leyton, was considering a command path career. But he decided that to keep his family intact, he would continue his engineering work and take ground assignments instead. He participated in advanced starship design, including work on the Defiant and Prometheus projects. As a result, his wife never died in the Borg attack on Wolf 359. Then, his old friend Dax said she needed the most brilliant engineer she knew to help her overhaul a decrepit Cardassian station, her new command.
Lt. Miles O’Brien, Science Officer. Encouraged by his former superior officer, Captain Maxwell, and the Rutledge’s science officer, O’Brien became an officer and an assistant science officer. He eventually became a full lieutenant and was assigned to Deep Space Nine, which is an ideal research posting for him now that the first known stable wormhole was discovered. Since his career path was different, he never served on the Enterprise or met Keiko Ishikawa and is still a bachelor. However, he and Dr. Kira have started a torrid affair.
Julian Bashir, Entrepreneur, Ruthless Tycoon. Although Julian underwent the same genetic enhancements, he showed a talent more for figures and business than medicine. Nevertheless, he tried to join Starfleet, but a more observant doctor discovered the tell-tale signs of his augmented genetics, and his application to Starfleet was turned down. Bitter over this setback and holding no great love for the Federation, he learnd of the Ferengi, and became one of the first humans to contact them before even the Enterprise’s first contact, and learn their business secrets. He managed to cheat a DaiMon out of his Ferengi marauder ship, and, with a small collection of mercenaries, began to assemble his vast fortune. He decided that he couldn’t conduct business the way he wanted in the Federation, so he took up residence on Terok Nor after plunking down a small fortune in the coffers of the station’s prefect. He then bought Quark’s from its former owner, renamed it Bashir’s, and made it the headquarters of one of the most ambitious business empires in that part of the Alpha Quadrant. Since the Federation took over, he frequently butts heads with Commander Dax, who he vainly tries to woo, as well as with the other members of the senior staff, with the exception of Quark, his silent partner.
Gul Macet, Former Prefect of Bajor and Commander of Terok Nor. Originally, Macet’s cousin was slated to take over as prefect of Bajor, but the ship he was on exploded due to an engine imbalance. Macet was next in line, according to Central Command’s contingency plan, so he reluctantly assumed his new post. Not as sadistic or as megalomaniacal as Dukat, Macet actually pushed reforms of the Cardassian's rule of the Bajorans. Although it resulted in fewer Bajorans dying during the Occupation, the resistance continued unabated. This infuriated Macet, as he had a grand plan to forge an alliance between Bajor and Cardassia, even hoping Bajorans would serve in the Cardassian Union’s military. His dreams dashed, Macet is bitter over the failure of his more benevolent rule and is fixated on making Commander Dax’s life miserable.
Red Ranger