I have started watching DS9 again and even 12 episodes in, there are references to events which will occur later in the series. One such example is in "Vortex" when the Rugari native tells Odo that Odo is a Changeling, a term not used before as everyone else calls him a shapeshifter or something along those lines. We also get a fair bit of folkloric backstory which would be solidified and followed up on when the Female Changeling enters the picture. I'm more interested to know if Marco rewatched the entire run of DS9 and picked lines here and there from certain episodes to create his relaunch. In "Battle Lines" Opaka tells Sisko that their paghs will cross again just as Sisko, Kira and Bashir prepare to leave the Ennis/Nol Ennis penal colony. Other than in a vision in "Accession," Sisko doesn't see Opaka again. Was this the reason that Marco found a way to bring Opaka back, to clear that up? Or was he just picking pieces because he thought it would work? I would love to know how he out such a complex tapestry together.
^Well, it wasn't just him. The writers of the books contributed a lot of ideas of their own which affected the direction of the series. I'm sure there was a lot of cooperative brainstorming going on.
Did he not have at least a basic plan beforehand? The timeline before Avatar Pt 1 shows a great many items that weren't in Avatar but were foreshadowing quite a bit of the relaunch. I would have assumed, rightly or wrongly, that Marco did a fair amount of research before contracting authors to start writing the books. As the first books came out in May 2001, I would guess that they were contracted somewhere around May-July 2000, and the show finished in June 1999 but there must have been some talk beforehand about continuing where the show left off. I'm just curious as to whether there really was a grand plan or whether it was just the broad strokes with flexibility like there was with Vanguard.
Well, sure, Marco deserves full credit for guiding and shaping the series, but he'd be the first to insist he didn't do it alone. Editors don't come up with all the ideas themselves; that's what they hire writers for. Even when the editor is heavily involved in shaping the direction of a series, it's still a collaboration with the authors, and the authors' input can change the original plans. It's appropriate you brought up Vanguard, because I can tell you there definitely was a "grand plan" for that, a hefty 34-page series bible that set out the planned arc for the series -- but the actual books had ended up diverging considerably from that plan by the second installment. So even when there is a carefully worked-out plan in advance, it can still change considerably along the way. Because writers have ideas, and writers and/or editors bouncing ideas off each other have even more ideas than they'd have by themselves. Which is what makes it fun.
A 34 page series bible? Boy would I love to get my hands on that. Any idea if they'll make it available to the masses once Storming Heaven comes out? Or if it will be an appendix to said book? Any chance of asking? Who else would love to see it?
^ There's a slim possibility that a peak behind the curtains might be coming sometime around the publication of Storming Heaven...
Me for one ! It would be interesting to see where it planned to go in relation to where it ended up. If not the whole bible, an outline posted here would be great !
Agreed. Love this series. I will take all the material surrounding it I can get. It would be interesting to know how it diverged from the original plan and why. How much of the DS9 ending was decided upon at the time of the pilot? Same question with Vanguard.
I actually just started rewatching DS9 from the beginning two, and I noticed alot of the same things. It really amazes me how seamlessly the books have been able to blend into the shows.
I doubt that any of "What You Leave Behind" had been decided when "Emissary" was written. DS9 premiered in 1993 -- years before it became common for television series to be designed with any long-term plans or series structures. In the early 90s, serialization was not yet widespread, and the majority of TV series were made up as they went along. Shows like Babylon 5 were groundbreaking for that very reason, in fact. (And, hell, when DS9 started, the primary writers were Michael Piller and Peter Alan Fields; Ira Steven Behr wasn't head writer yet, and Ronald D. Moore wasn't even part of the staff.)
IIRC, they hadn't even planned to reveal Bashir was genetically enhanced until they were actually writing the episode where that fact was revealed, so I very much doubt they had planned as far ahead as the finale.
I've already peeked behind the curtains and they weren't ready yet. No one had any clothes on, and there were lots of empty drink cups on the floor.
The events of "The Storyteller" are also pretty important in the relaunch, although it isn't an episode you would say was that memorable.
True, but Marco clearly liked the idea of an orb fragment and there was no orb from this universe it could have come from except for perhaps an eleventh orb, so he made it come from the MU. Quite ingenious, I think.