The New DS9 Design: Hot Or Not?
- Thread starter HoserTrek37
- Start date
It looks like a barbel. Clunky. But who cares, it's not like a space station needs to be attractive. The Cardassians are more design oriented than humans.
Chief OBrien and Nog had a hand in designing the new station, hence the throw backs to the old one. Me, I hate the fact that Terok Nor was destroyed.
They tortured the Bajorans for forty years with Terok Nor being their main base. So lets stick it to the Bajorans by replacing it with something that looks similar.
I'm not a fan of the new design. But the great thing about books is that you can pretty much imagine it to be anything you want it to be.
I agree with your rationale. Though I'm okay with the new design. To me I think they were going for a Federation/Cardassian fusion, something on book covers that would signify its a new station or remodeled station but still similar enough to the old DS9 for any prospective readers.
It was designed by Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler based on the description at the end of Raise the Dawn by David R. George III.
I like it, although there was a fan-made version I saw months ago which I preferred.
I didn't design any new DS9 station; I was lead miniature designer on the original.
Rick
It reminds me of the NuTrek Spacedock, which I didn't think was a terribly pretty design either. As with others I think it is too like the old DS9. I might have liked something more unique, but I might not have liked that either.
It at least looks more like a station that could guard the mouth of the wormhole than the station that appeared on the cover of the previous DS9 novels where the old DS9 was destroyed. It looked like the OPs image but with more module units. It looked like a orbital habitat rather than a busy trading/defence station as it is meant to be.
I may share your disappointment in the moving of all the TNG-era to the same period and how DS9 got the rough end of the stick as a result, but to more or less call the people involved hacks is a bit much.
It at least looks more like a station that could guard the mouth of the wormhole than the station that appeared on the cover of the previous DS9 novels where the old DS9 was destroyed. It looked like the OPs image but with more module units. It looked like a orbital habitat rather than a busy trading/defence station as it is meant to be.
I may share your disappointment in the moving of all the TNG-era to the same period and how DS9 got the rough end of the stick as a result, but to more or less call the people involved hacks is a bit much.
Last edited:
It was designed by Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler based on the description at the end of Raise the Dawn by David R. George III.
I like it, although there was a fan-made version I saw months ago which I preferred.
I didn't design any new DS9 station; I was lead miniature designer on the original.
Rick
Gah, sorry! I meant to say Andrew Probert.
About that last bit - if you're thinking of what I think you are, that was not intended to be DS9 - just the construction habitat for the workers building it.
It is, indeed, an unfair assessment. It ignores the fact that the DSN line had run into trouble after the first author scheduled to write Fearful Symmetry quit; it ignores the fact that Pocket Books had to lay off the mastermind behind the DSN Relaunch, Marco Palmieri, as a result of the Crash of 2008; and it ignores the simple, and quite reasonable, fact that a new editor had simply decided it was better to move in a new direction than to try to imitate someone else's style. (Just check out Season Four of Community to see what happens when you try to imitate someone else's style instead of using your own.)
I'm disappointed we didn't see the Ascendants, too, but it hardly invalidates all Star Trek novels as genuine literature or means it's all "cheap fan fic."
I know what this new design is perfect for: fanart of it rolling on the surface of Bajor. You could even do a Star Trek into Darkness parody thing where the station crashes and then bounces high in the air like a rubber ball or something.
Ah, I see. I was basing my impression off Memory Beta, which uses the cover of "Raise the Dawn" on the new Deep Space 9 page and thought the station image just got changed between novels. MB probably should make it clear that the images aren't meant to both represent DS9 if the "Raise the Dawn" image is a construction habitat instead.
Given that the odds are unlikely that we'll ever see the 24th-Century onscreen again, it'll officially be the new DS9 as far as new books in that era is concerned, and that's likely the main intent.
In some cases, there may be truth to that (I'm looking at you, Peter David), and the destruction of the original DS9 was indeed something that came without warning. But I think someone said it best over in the Trek Lit forum that the original DS9 had become a somewhat sad shell of its former self with essentially all of the original Niners gone and having moved on. In comparison, the new DS9 has the return of several familiar faces and that it's a rebirth.
