How Would You Change "Deep Space Nine"?

It took me some time adjusting as well, I admit. I mean, Hawk was just such an iconic character.

 

Hey, that's in September 2024. Only 21 months away!

 

More focus on the Dominion War. There were too many stretches where it fell to the sidelines.

 

Even Wormhole aliens are capable of sexual assaults but hey when a production run out of ideas go directly with the biblical plagiarism. The bald headed style felt like aping Patrick Stewart and I couldn't get into this version of Sisko because he was a war time Captain where at one time he rarely saw Alpha Quadrant aliens, and now sees them all of the time which totally destroyed the WHOLE point of the premise.

 

I just wish they kept the threat alive, once they re-took DS9 apart from a few episodes here and there it all seemed to lose it's threat. Doesn't have to be anything major, just keep some systems down because they can't get the parts due to shortages or something like that.

 

Interesting, I came to hear to say "LESS focus on the Dominion War"!

 

We saw how that worked out in Enterprise season 3 (the Xindi arc). Up until that point, I would have agreed with you, but I found myself yearning for some lighter episode when watching that. So apparently, even those 'filler' episodes have an important 'breather' function.

And also, it shows that even in the middle of war, while terrible things are happening, everyday life goes on to some extent.

Weren't the Borg off-limits to the DS9 writers? (Except in the pilot, to establish a bit of Sisko's background). Or, if not-off limits, they avoided them because they knew Voyager would probably start using them sooner or later (the DQ is their home territory after all), and they wanted to go a different direction?

 

I would have liked to see Gawron as a good guy through the end of the war. I wouldn’t want him to have displaced Martok.

 

Another crossover idea: Voyager follows borg cube to the AQ through the transwarp tunnel and fighs the borg cube with Defiant

 

That bothered me, truth be told. Both because Gowron, a valued ally of the Federation, suddenly turned traitor. But also because Martok was simply installed as chancellor. Hardly a proper way to claim the office...

That might not have been a bad way to end "Voyager". Have the final battle feature the Defiant and Voyager taking down the sole Borg cube that gets through the conduit together, then meeting up in Quark's for drinks and jumja sticks with Col. Kira and as many of the remaining DS9 crew as can be brought back for cameos.

Of course, who are we fooling? What we really wanted was to see Harry's double-take when he sees that the kid who was cleaning the bar at Quark's when he left now outranks him.

 

It's not unheard of for someone with good democratic credentials becoming head of government and suddenly turning into an authoritarian. Suppressing dissent, sending any generals who might be able to compete with him on missions where they can't possibly succeed, etc.

 

And don't forget, only a couple years previously, Gowron ended the peace treaty and had a brief war with the Federation.

Like any politician, he did things that suited his power.

 

I’m terrible with titles of episodes but the episode in which the Wormhole aliens (Sorry Kira! They are wormhole aliens to me!) eliminate the Dominion Fleet in the wormhole. It really lowers the tension of the Dominion War for me because it’s just too Deus Ex Wormhole Aliens. And it opens up the door to why Sisko isn’t trying to have them fix other issues.

I would change the couple of scenes where they have everyone talking about how great Sisko is and for some reason have Worf and O’Brian say the most extreme praise. Stop dissing Picard guys!

Other than that I think DS9 is perfect.

I do think it would have been cool, considering Sisko’s loss at the hands of the Borg, to have an episode where he convinced the Borg to go after Dominion technology. Using a hated enemy against a hated enemy.

 

While it's a fair question he has a price to pay. He doesn't want to incur more debt to the weird nonlinear aliens who already make his life very strange.

 

That strategy could backfire, badly! What if they combined their strengths? The Federation barely won against the Borg and the Dominion's Alpha Quadrant outpost when they were working independently. Would they be able to beat a Borg-Dominion combination - all the Dominion's genetic engineering skill and ability to mass-produce their soldiers combined with the Borg's skill in high tech?

 

Also, it's just a bad idea in principle. The Dominion are led by people who have motivations and goals and needs. The Borg are just a force of nature that consumes and consumes and consumes. It would be far more rational to ally with the Dominion against the Borg than to ally with the Borg against the Dominion. You can have peace with the Dominion; there's no peace with the Borg.

 

Does that also mean you think Janeway should have allied with Species 8472 instead of the Borg? Just curious.

(I'll admit though that in Scorpion, species 8472 was just as much 'force of nature' as the Borg were, and they only became 'people' in later episodes).

 

I mean I think you said it there -- as far as Janeway knew, both Species 8472 and the Borg were eliminationist threats to all life in the galaxy, so the calculation is different.

 

Except Janeway was making a deal with a race that killed or assimilated billions just to go a straight path to the Alpha Quadrant. Chakotay was against her idea, and I was completely with him on his argument why it was wrong.

 

If that were all there was to it, I would agree. The complicating factor is that as far as Janeway and the crew knew, Species 8472 both intended to exterminate all life in the Milky Way Galaxy -- "the weak will perish" -- and had a realistic potential to do so (see their military success against the Borg). That does suggest that it's better to back the force that has so far not gone that far yet.

Now, once Janeway learns that Species 8472 are people who can be negotiated with, the calculus changes completely.