The DS9 that might have been...

[Gotham Central]

I always love going back to read "making of" books that detail the development process of a series. The Making of DS9 book give us a glimpse into a version of DS9 that might have been.

Some of the early concepts were really interesting.

Imagine if the series had followed one of those alternative paths.

DS9 being more of a "Starbase" located on Bajor with Sisko being the mayor of somthing more akin to a frontier town in the old west.

How about the "Tower of Babel" version of DS9. The concept being that the station was more of an ancient artifact built by many different races over the centuries. It would be a hodgepdoge of technologies of varying ages, with no uniform design.

Anyone else think that some of the alternate versions of DS9 might have been interesting to watch?

 

[JNG]

They sure would have, but I do think there was something really worthwhile about having the Cardassian design ethic be demonstrated in the many interesting aspects of the station. It made it seem much more believable as a working space for people (...alien people).

If the station had been a pile of unfamiliar tech with a mysterious origin, I worry it would have been surprising us every week with plot-convenience heretofore-unknown features and traps and such, and we'd have to really embrace the always-difficult idea of the characters living and working somewhere they didn't fully understand. Its appearance would probably have seemed more flight-of-fancy without the consistency. Plus, the connection between Bajor and Cardassia would have been weakened significantly, and we would have had to dream up some reason why this station had been important to many people for so long but Bajor itself wasn't...and this would have been doubly hard if the wormhole-discovery aspect had remained intact.

As for Sisko commanding a planetside facility, I imagine the cost of outdoor shoots to make this believable was fatal to the concept, but the wormhole business would also have seemed a lot more removed from the daily goings-on. Of course, any and all other aspects could have been rewritten to go with this stuff, so I'm ruminating on ways it might have been interesting to do that.

 

[jgdst]

If the station had been a pile of unfamiliar tech with a mysterious origin, I worry it would have been surprising us every week with plot-convenience heretofore-unknown features and traps and such, and we'd have to really embrace the always-difficult idea of the characters living and working somewhere they didn't fully understand. Its appearance would probably have seemed more flight-of-fancy without the consistency.

Not meaning to be cynical about it, but Stargate Atlantis went a little more down that route, didn't they?

 

[JNG]

I did not see that show. Did it work out for them?

 

[Ward Fowler]

The setting, especially in the early days, was already like a televised version of a town in the old west. Anyone who is a fan of old westerns like Gunsmoke recognizes that. There was no reason to be so "on the nose" with the concept so as to actually put it planet-side. I'm probably one of the few who actually liked DS9 in its first 2 seasons. However, I'm a big fan of the later seasons as well.

 

[jgdst]

I did not see that show. Did it work out for them?

I don't know... I gave up on it pretty quickly But the planetside format was the impression I got from the few episodes I did watch.

And Ward Fowler, you're not alone, I really enjoy the first two seasons as well. I even like Move Along Home, for all my sins

 

[jamestyler]

If the station had been a pile of unfamiliar tech with a mysterious origin, I worry it would have been surprising us every week with plot-convenience heretofore-unknown features and traps and such, and we'd have to really embrace the always-difficult idea of the characters living and working somewhere they didn't fully understand. Its appearance would probably have seemed more flight-of-fancy without the consistency.

Not meaning to be cynical about it, but Stargate Atlantis went a little more down that route, didn't they?

They did a bit... it seemed no matter how long they were on Atlantis they'd always find a new lab or two with stuff they never knew they had. The one I watched today had a biolab they'd never used with another problem they'd never seen coming.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I did not see that show. Did it work out for them?

The Stargate series never really make much use of the interesting ideas they start out with, and SG:A was no exception.