With DS9, we saw the fully destructive effects of the Cardassian occupation on Bajorans, the Federation and even other Cardassians; intergalactic political machinations and manipulations by the Changelings better than the Romulans ever were shown; actually realistic capitalistic villainy in the form of Ferengi (as opposed to their manic depictions in TNG); religious antagonism from some of the Bajorans; actual Federation vs Klingon battles; and on top of that, full scale interplanetary war. I don't think any previous or subsequent series developed the antagonists that well, or really showed the devastating effects of their actions.
(Personal opinion) DS9 developed Star Trek antagonists better than any other series
- Thread starter MikHutch
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That's true. I guess my reason for posting this is, after looking back, earlier foes like the Klingons and the Romulans were never actually shown to cause that much damage, aside from Kruge killing David. The biggest we got was the Borg assimilating Picard. Cardassians come off as better done Romulans
A consequence of taking place at a stationary location where you cannot just fly off to your next assignment is that they could better explore their own established villain (the Dominion) while adding further depth to previously established species (Klingons, Bajorans, Cardassians). They even managed to make the Ferengi somewhat respectable after TNG made them out to be a joke.
The Ferengi were indeed handled far better than they were on TNG, but they were one of DS9's few missteps. They created a unique culture... only to have it magically transform into Federation 2.0 at the end.
Tbf the federation is really just Earth culture and the Ferengi needed a reset of their society at some point
If we're being frank, the Federation is not just Earth culture, it's really American culture.
Civilian Federation member world ships still exist. We see Vulcan ships in "Unification." You don't see individual military ships because Starfleet uses the Earth style designs. You find out about Vulcans and Trills because they're on the main casts. If they stuck a Bolian in the cast you'd find more about them. That's not dropping the ball, it's conservation of narrative and character focus.
I feel it's dropping thr ball because they never made those other Federation members part of the narrative. It can be hard to buy into thr narrative of Federation plurality when you see only the Earth designs despite other races being interstellar for far longer yet only appearing once in a while
No, they didn't, for two reasons.
1. They were more interesting as they were, a bunch of greedy, misogynistic, untrustworthy little trolls.
2. Societies and cultures don't fundamentally transform overnight. In Angel One, Riker didn't leave the titular planet in a state of full gender equality. He left it with the assurance that it would reach that state through evolution.
To use human examples, the March on Washington and the Stonewall riots were watershed events, to be sure. But they were only significant milestones on the road. Racism did not end when Martin Luther King made his famous speech. And when the fighting at Stonewall ended, same-sex romance was still illegal in many states. It would take decades and the efforts of many people to change those things.
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I think being on the station and not having to move around really helped with that. DS9 expanded what Star Trek and TNG started and made that universe 3 dimensional.
I wouldn't say more interesting. They're more interesting when they evolve
Exactly
Yes, evolve. Female suffrage on Ferenginar could have happened, if they had laid the groundwork for it. Instead, what we got was "women are basically livestock -> Ishka waves her magic wand -> POOF! Men and women are equal. That's not evolution.
No, but it didn't come from nowhere, either. The Abolitionist movement in the US had to gather power for decades, and then there was four years of savage fighting that took more American lives than every other war we've been in combined.
In a similar vein, let's start with Susan B. Anthony. She began her women's suffrage movement in 1866, and fought for it for 40 years, until her death in 1906. And it took 14 more years of work by thousands of other equally determined suffragettes to finally get the 19th Amendment passed. That's evolution.
What Ishka did... that's more like the way Gilbert and Sullivan imagined evolution in "Princess Ida".
Did they? When I think of how the series had portrayed Gul Dukat during its last two seasons and that nonsense with both Kai Winn and Gowron in Season 7, I find this assessment about the series developing its antagonists better than any other within the franchise, hard to swallow.
No, but it didn't come from nowhere, either. The Abolitionist movement in the US had to gather power for decades, and then there was four years of savage fighting that took more American lives than every other war we've been in combined.
In a similar vein, let's start with Susan B. Anthony. She began her women's suffrage movement in 1866, and fought for it for 40 years, until her death in 1906. And it took 14 more years of work by thousands of other equally determined suffragettes to finally get the 19th Amendment passed. That's evolution.
What Ishka did... that's more like the way Gilbert and Sullivan imagined evolution in "Princess Ida".
We don't really know enough about Ferenginar to know whether there might have been such a movement?
I'm not trying to say it's particularly credible as portrayed on DS9, I'm just saying there's a lot we don't know about what really happened on Ferenginar because we had so little exposure to it.
The whole Pah-wraith subplot was rather unnecessary. The Bajoran religion was just fine without bringing in a devil figure. And yes, how they handled Gowron was shameful as well. And I wasn't fond of the idea of Martok just being "installed" as Chancellor, either.
One would think it would have been mentioned. I stated in a previous topic how easily this could have been done, just by adding some dialogue to one scene.
The Klingons remained warriors.
The Romulans remained sneaky.
Why couldn't the Ferengi remain greedy?
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