if Kira had stayed on the BOP at the end of Return to Grace

[Six of Twelve]

I've always thought it would have made an interesting limited mini-series spinoff if Kira had accepted Dukat's offer at the end of Return to Grace and fought with him. Not permanently, of course, but if she'd taken a leave of absence from her job on DS9.

For it to have worked, they'd have had to have made Return to Grace the last episode of the season, and then shown this mini- series over the summer. Six or eight episodes would have been about right.

Of course, TPTB would have never done it for several reasons. It didn't focus on the Federation and would have had no human characters. And they'd have never thought of a summer fill-in mini-series. And the in-show reason would be that the Bajoran government would have never allowed her to go and then return to her old job.

But it would have been something new and different: A renegade ship fighting the odds, with the two main characters former enemies who fought each other, now fighting a common enemy together..

At the very least, there's a book or a fan fiction idea with this.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

If they had gone this route, a mini-series wouldn't have been necessary.

There were lots of B & C storylines on DS9, it could have been done that way.

 

[Finn]

The only way for Kira to do it is for the Klingons to threaten Bajor more than Cardassia ever did.

 

[LeadHead]

There would have had to be a ramp up of Kira being dissatisfied on DS9 for this to be viable. Maybe she felt like Worf was edging her out in the command hierarchy, maybe she had become convinced that the only way to protect Bajor from the Klingons was to help the Cardassians defeat them, maybe like n the Final Chapter, Sisko sends her on that mission to help the Cradassians push back against the Klingons.

If it had come out of the blue, it wouldn't have made much sense. It would have taken something like that to get her to voluntarily commit to working with Dukat long term.

 

[Capn Nick]

Maybe that's what gave one of the writers the idea for the Kira on Cardassia with Damar idea :-)

I think it would have been interesting to follow. I think DS9 could have had a miniseries between each season about different pairs and not gotten boring.

I think though, like others have said, you would have to raise the stakes for Kira. Make it so he was her only alternative to take whatever action she thought was needed for Bajor. It would have set up the tension nicely too when Dukat joined the Dominion and they split paths again.

 

[Paradise City]

Kira would've never entertained going with Dukat no matter how bored she might be on DS9. I think that would be bad characterisation if the writers had Kira being persuaded by Dukat's oratory and chosen to go in that direction with her. If DS9 had of been produced later in the internet era, you might make a few webisodes of Dukat's Bop getting trapped behind the lines and Kira having no choice but to slug it out with him for a few months.

 

[Six of Twelve]

Well, I don't know. Kira seemed a bit tempted there for a moment, even though she knew she couldn't do it.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

At one point weren't they thinking of a Kira/Dukat romance? Which Nana Visitor was hugely opposed to?

I think there was some kind of animal attraction between Kira and Dukat, but one Kira detested the man too much to ever admit or act on. For Kira to stay on the BOP she would have had to be convinced there was a threat to Bajor that the Federation was refusing to acknowledge. Like, if the Federation ceded DS9 to the Klingons like they did in The Visitor future, Kira might have stayed on the BOP.

 

[kkt]

Yeah, it would have been totally out of character for Kira to stay. I think she hesitated in her reply slightly only because she was so surprised at being asked and a little flattered. But never seriously considered it. Only if Bajor was facing some existential threat and for some reason Dukat's BOP was the only thing fighting it.

 

[Capn Nick]

I don't know. I think Kira is hard wired to fight against, for lack of a better word, bullies. I think there is part of her that always craves that sense of clear purpose over the much murkier role she plays dealing with the Federation. I think she would probably never let herself do it, or rationally be for it (unless, as others have said there was a more direct threat to Bajor) but I think her conditioning takes over for a few moments.

 

[Paradise City]

I think Kira is very comfortable at DS9. She's cool with not being a guerilla anymore. She doesn't gag for action. Sure, she wants reprisals for the loss of those Bajoran nationals but she's not so choked on vengeance as to make vengeance her career anymore. She's seasoned enough as a person not to want to do that.

The engine of Kira's thaw with Dukat is Ziyal. Kira sees him as doing the best he can as a dad and Kira warms to that. I think the writers went in the wrong direction frankly. Dukat is the face of a very brutal and hated occupation, Kira sassin' it with Dukat is very incredible. I wouldn't have written it much past Kira barely tolerating Dukat if I was in charge. Kira has no stake in Dukat's little war. It's Cardassia that's occupied, why would Kira just drop her career as a Bajoran officer, to fight on Dukat's side? It's a bit weird and a bit treasonous too. So, I'm glad they didn't go too far down that road.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think some small part of Kira considered it briefly, because as Dukat observed, part of her does long for the simplicity of the way she used to live. Not because of the excitement, because it was intellectually less stressful. Bajorans good, Cardassians bad, fight the Cardassians. No paperwork required, no ambiguity, no having to relocate an old man against his will. We see her having to adjust to the bureaucratic mindset in Progress and cope with her new role but there's still that part of her that hates it.

But it was a case of one voice saying yes and a hundred voices saying no.