Other shows and the Dominion War

[tim0122]

TNG was off the air by the time the Dominon War started in DS9, and the movies didn't need to worry about it. Voyager took place in a quadrant far, far away with little to no communication with the Federation and thus didn't have to worry about mentioning or incorporating the war in episodes.

But if a show, Voyager or otherwise, had come out after TNG ended that took place in the Alpha Quadrant, do you think they would've addressed the Dominion War? They almost would've had to at least some of the time, and it's hard to see the war not affecting the show in a major way for at least a short amount of time.

But I then wonder if Behr and co would've even been allowed to do the war if Voyager wasn't set where it was. There's a lot of coordinating that would've needed to be involved, and writers aren't always great about that kind of thing. I could see Berman putting the kibosh on that long-time storyline because he didn't want to deal with it across multiple shows.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Pushing Voyager into a different space was effectively a means of avoiding integration. Indeed, elements of the Dominion War were mentioned by both the TNG movies and Voyager, they did not shape either. It's tempting to think that Behr would be restricted in how much of a war he could tell. However, Berman would probably allow there to be several episodes of conflict between the Dominion and the Federation, much more like how the Borg was treated. And if you look at the last two years of DS9, often the war was just a few passing references or subtle framing individual story in to enrich the overall war narrative. There could easily have been several years of conflict with the Domion, but there probably would have been 8-12 episode of actual conflict.