Is DS9 really Star Trek??

[archeryguy1701]

Festivus Toad! said:

Kegek Kringle said:
Yes it is, for the same reasons that Voyager is Star Trek: It's part of the Star Trek media franchise. It has Klingons, Romulans, transporters, the Federation, Starfleet, and so on. That it undermined Roddenberry's utopianism is unarguable, but so is its status as a Star Trek product.

I've uncovered some startling evidence to corroborate your claim:

It seems that, indeed...it is Star Trek.

And, IMHO, some of Roddenberry's ideas weren't all that great. Really, how watchable would another show where everyone got along all the time without any conflict be?

Why do I get the feeling that you photoshopped that in?

 

[RandyS]

HRHTheKING said:
Yes it is Star Trek.

And it's the best of Star Trek.

Agreed. Right along with TNG.

 

[Eminence]

anti-matter said:
As far as an imaginary universe goes... what did you think of the architecture of Cardassia Prime?

I loved Cardassian architecture--the sharp angles, successful use of arches, circles, and other semispherical shapes, plus the way the Cardassian color palette complimented these...all led to an appreciable unique mathematical symmetry.

One set I was a bit eh about though was Dominion Headquarters, especially at the very end of WYLB. Dominion HQ's could have been bigger and badder to begin with, but when the final war moment came in WYLB, when Odo beams down etc...I don't know, it just, after all this build up, had a sense of...."The founder will see you now," like a drs office or something. I mean, the founder was even sitting behind a desk, as if she was taking an interview. Ever since then, I've never really liked that room.

Overall though, Cardassian architecture is my favorite of all the AQ species. Cardassian literature on the other hand...

 

[intrinsical]

DS9 is a show that focuses a lot on social commentary. For example...

Many Bajoran episodes focus on both positive and negative effects of religion on governance.

"The Circle" arc in particular, really talks a lot about disenfranchising a segment of the population, its impact, and how revolutions can be subverted by third party nations.

Home Front/Paradise Lost - The effect fear could have on leaders of a great nation.

Siege of AR-558, Its Only A Paper Moon and several war episodes all give perspective on the impact of war on individuals and highlight that war is not glorious nor honorable. (Sometimes, I just wished they used Worf to highlight this point instead of characters like Nog)

Exploration of the effect individuals can have on society at large - Odo in "Children of Time", Sisko in "In The Pale Moonlight"

So, DS9 is not Star Trek eh??

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

HRHTheKING said:
The question that really should be considered is whether "a Trek ideology" actually exists at all.

It's a good question, and I think there is no such thing as a Trek ideology.

The original Star Trek was a science-fiction show that tackled social issues, which is what sci-fi literature did in the 1960's anyway. Later, Roddenberry developed his ideology of a perfect future for "The Next Generation", a future where conflict no longer exists, and he pretended that's what Star Trek had always been about, but really, it wasn't. "Deep Space 9", much like the original series, was a sci-fi show that occasionally tackled social issues, and both "Voyager" and "Enterprise" were sci-fi/action/adventure shows. Unless you look really hard, I don't think there's a unifying ideology at work all throughout the franchise.

 

[DWF]

The Mirrorball Man said:

HRHTheKING said:
The question that really should be considered is whether "a Trek ideology" actually exists at all.

It's a good question, and I think there is no such thing as a Trek ideology.

The original Star Trek was a science-fiction show that tackled social issues, which is what sci-fi literature did in the 1960's anyway. Later, Roddenberry developed his ideology of a perfect future for "The Next Generation", a future where conflict no longer exists, and he pretended that's what Star Trek had always been about, but really, it wasn't. "Deep Space 9", much like the original series, was a sci-fi show that occasionally tackled social issues, and both "Voyager" and "Enterprise" were sci-fi/action/adventure shows. Unless you look really hard, I don't think there's a unifying ideology at work all throughout the franchise.

Conflict between people existed on TNG, it's conflict between Starfleet personal that Gene Roddenberry wanted to get taken of the running of the show. And there was plenty of conlfict between Starfleet personal it just didn't interfer with their jobs or their relationships while at work.

 

[Jax]

I will always appricate Gene for creating Star Trek buts lets face it, his work was hit and miss cause TOS was canned after 3 years and was lucky to get 3. TNG didn't hit its stride until 3rd season but then his death followed shortly after and that mean't, what most people call the golden moments of TREK, he had no part in.

DS9 is TREK and moved with the times, we needed smething new and got it and oh boy wasn't it good

 

[indranee]

DS9 was more like TOS than any other Trek series, IMO. so, yes, it is Star Trek.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

DWF said:
Conflict between people existed on TNG, it's conflict between Starfleet personal that Gene Roddenberry wanted to get taken of the running of the show.

It's a moot point considering that all the main characters were Starfleet officers.

 

[Cyke101]

It's been said here already: DS9 does a heck of a lot of exploration, but from the social commentary side, since it's the greatest intersection of cultures out there. It proves that you don't need a ship to be an explorer.

With the tone and the logic of the topic, I could see a similar argument about how Voyager isn't really 'Trek' at all: the ship is coming BACK to Earth, rather than going forward like all the other shows. But still, Voyager is exploring in its own right, which is always at the heart of Trek.

 

[DWF]

The Mirrorball Man said:

DWF said:
Conflict between people existed on TNG, it's conflict between Starfleet personal that Gene Roddenberry wanted to get taken of the running of the show.

It's a moot point considering that all the main characters were Starfleet officers.

So the solution on DS9 was to decrease the number of main characters in Starfleet and to set the series outside of the Federation a pretty easy solution to the problem of no conflict between Starfleet personal.

 

[Navaros]

DWF said:

So the solution on DS9 was to decrease the number of main characters in Starfleet and to set the series outside of the Federation a pretty easy solution to the problem of no conflict between Starfleet personal.

Somehow I doubt that would have stopped the DS9 showrunners who ran the show while Berman was mostly busy with Voyager. Chances are they would have injected interal conflict into the show anyhow even if they were all Starfleet, because they know it makes for good stories and good TV.

But if the case as you've stated it is correct, it's still great. Good on them if they used that as a workaround to the silly "no conflict policy". The end result is that the DS9 character interactions (...and, relating it back to the topic of this thread, just like those on TOS...) are far more compelling, entertaining, deep and rewatchable than those of TNG or VOY. That end result is the only thing that really matters; not if they had to use a clever workaround to the bad policy in order to achieve that end result.

I recall intense conflict between Starfleet officers on DS9 anyhow, like O'Brien vs. Bashir in "Hippocratic Oath", Sisko vs. Bashir in "Statistical Probabilities" etc.

 

[DWF]

Navaros said:

DWF said:

So the solution on DS9 was to decrease the number of main characters in Starfleet and to set the series outside of the Federation a pretty easy solution to the problem of no conflict between Starfleet personal.

Somehow I doubt that would have stopped the DS9 showrunners who ran the show while Berman was mostly busy with Voyager. Chances are they would have injected interal conflict into the show anyhow even if they were all Starfleet, because they know it makes for good stories and good TV.

But if the case as you've stated it is correct, it's still great. Good on them if they used that as a workaround to the silly "no conflict policy". The end result is that the DS9 character interactions (...and, relating it back to the topic of this thread, just like those on TOS...) are far more compelling, entertaining, deep and rewatchable than those of TNG or VOY. That end result is the only thing that really matters; not if they had to use a clever workaround to the bad policy in order to achieve that end result.

I recall intense conflict between Starfleet officers on DS9 anyhow, like O'Brien vs. Bashir in "Hippocratic Oath", Sisko vs. Bashir in "Statistical Probabilities" etc.

As there was on TNG as well between Shelby and Riker in Best Of Both Worlds, Riker and Data in The Quality Of Life, Riker and Jellicoe in The Chain Of Command among others so conflict was not unknown on TNG either.

 

[UnknownSample]

I still don't see how DS9 "deviates" from Star Trek in the slightest. Sometimes ideas get repeated over and over, and become more real to people than what they actually see onscreen, I think. In what way were the DS9 characters not as admirable as those in Next Gen and original Trek? Did anyone ever claim that everyone in the Federation was perfect? Did anyone ever say that situations would never come along, which test their principles and require them to make compromises, sometimes? Where on Earth did this Star Fleet=perfection idea come from?

I remember ONE remark from Dr. Crusher in season 3 that she came from an "ideal culture". Fortunately, I don't think anyone ever had the gall to write such a ridiculous line again. Yes, progress had been made, but these series were about flesh-and-blood humans, who will always have flaws because everything and everybody is flawed. When did evolved humanity as a Trek idea mutate into some kind of absolute perfection? Is that some Roddenberry memo I missed?

 

[Cyke101]

UnknownSample said:
I still don't see how DS9 "deviates" from Star Trek in the slightest. Sometimes ideas get repeated over and over, and become more real to people than what they actually see onscreen, I think. In what way were the DS9 characters not as admirable as those in Next Gen and original Trek? Did anyone ever claim that everyone in the Federation was perfect? Did anyone ever say that situations would never come along, which test their principles and require them to make compromises, sometimes? Where on Earth did this Star Fleet=perfection idea come from?

I think it came from both TOS and TNG, where Earth is always shown as the ideal utopia, spreading human values to alien cultures in the name of exploration. In TNG especially, almost everyone and their moms came from Starfleet or the Federation, which really helped create the shock that Wesley wasn't going to join. Hence, when DS9 flipped those ideals on their sides to examine them, we got to see what the utopia really was (the negatives), and then the resolve to fight even harder for that utopia (that, for all its bad and hypocritical nature, it was still our nature, and it was good).

Now, to me at least, it seemed as if the TOS and TNG crew were pretty much the 'ideal' crews. They had foibles, but they were still ideal. Riker wasn't filled with genuine hubris, Troi was stil confident even when she said she wasn't. Geordi would screw up, but at the end of the episode, he'd get a strict talking-to but everything would be hunky-dory.

The DS9 crew often had plots that advanced because they made ethical mistakes, something that TOS and TNG would do but only for guest characters. A diplomat would make the wrong choice for greed or a scientist was too ambitious. For DS9, Dax would put her honor above Starfleet's rules or Bashir's career was on the line or Kira would let emotion visibly and drastically cloud her judgement. Most importantly, there were consequences for those choices that permanently affected their character development. In that way, the DS9 crew wasn't ideal. They were just as admirable as the TNG/TOS crews, not because of their perfection, but because of how they overcame their genuine faults. To me, the cast showed that with all their problems and faults, optimism and hope never died; actually sticking to them is what helped the crew overcome their difficulties.

 

[TrekNut87]

I firmly believe that DS9 is Star Trek at it's finest, so yes it is indeed Star Trek.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Navaros said:
TOS has conflict between the characters and aliens of the week, and internal conflict amongst it's crew. DS9 had the exact same thing, which makes them two peas in a pod.

This is really all I would have said anyway.

Anyone who claims that DS9 as abandoned the ORIGINAL Trek premise needs to go back and watch TOS.

 

[Kegek]

I think much of this argument is predicated on the wrong category distinction, anyway.

Much of this is more or less consistent with the question: "Is DS9 good Star Trek?" A far more nebulous concern, as it depends on how one defines 'good Star Trek'. (The recent review by the popular youtube reviewer confusedmatthew considered it both a great show and bad Star Trek.) As someone who considers 'good' Star Trek to be basically quality entertainment, I would say DS9 is good Star Trek most of the time, and a good TV show overall.

But the stated issue, anyway, is whether DS9 is Star Trek at all. Which yes, it is - irrespective of its quality or content, it's Star Trek because it has the brand label and recognisable trappings. That's more or less inarguable.

 

[azzurri08]

I definatley think that DS9 is Trek. Being a younger fan of star trek and only watching some of TOS, I feel that TOS is even less enjoyable to watch simply because it was ahead of its time. That being said I hope the new movie can live up to great Star Trek. DS9 and ENT where the best Star Trek shows whether they followed Star Trek canon or not.

 

[UnknownSample]

I think it came from both TOS and TNG, where Earth is always shown as the ideal utopia, spreading human values to alien cultures in the name of exploration.

Again, these things get repeated a million times amongst fans, and we could swear that's what happening onscreen, but it isn't. What's an "ideal person", anyway? That's an opinion or judgment, calling a person or culture "ideal", not anything that objectively exists.

In original Trek, the characters were nice, capable, they had good principles, but what's "perfect" about them? Same with Next Gen. Nothing in particular about them strikes me as being "perfect". And no one ever said they were.

Again, you can have the idea of evolved humanity without the extreme, unrealistic, simplistic idea of "perfection". People always seem to take a good idea too far. I guess that if everyone and everything on Earth, say, is "perfect", then evolution of humanity has stopped, because there's absolutely no more progress possible. That's silly. There's been considerable "evolution" in society, but also plenty to come.

The Federation being presented as a positive force in the galaxy doesn't in any way imply that it or its members are "perfect". Why would it?