Early in the series, the Bajorans evicted the Federation administrators, during the Circle trilogy. Later, the Dominion occupied the station under Dukat. And we saw flashbacks of it during the Cardassion Occupation. The Klingons nearly took it over, or destroyed it, in "The Way of the Warrior." What would the a Romulan occupation/administration of the station look like?
The Romulans would undoubtedly annex Bajor into their Empire and would not have waited to collapse the entrance to the wormhole.
They're smart cookies. If they were initially invited by the Bajorans to administrate the station, maybe things would have gotten more complicated. Say, if they went to war with the Cardassians, like the Klingons did and like the Federation didn't, and made the Bajorans viceroys over neighboring Cardassia Prime? Whatever. The important part is to get them on the station. Maybe they wouldn't want to collapse the entrance to the wormhole if they felt confident in their ability to oversee it. There's a lot of wealth to be acquired in the New New World. I wonder what the Romulans would have been like. I think they were played a bit more colorful on TNG and more gray on DS9. Also it seemed like later in the series Cardassians became more nobly Roman-like and less oily Nazi-like. Maybe the arc of the series would have played out exactly as was with the Cardassians, and another question would be how else could the Cardassian arc have gone?
The Romulans would have likely clashed with the Dominion later on .....with heavy losses....Except they would have been abte to collapse the wormhole. So seeking control over the wormhole would be detrimental for them because of the risk of entering enemy forces.
^ I could imagine the Romulans doing s PR push after they take over from the Federation to nominate another Emissary. One more in line with whatever the ancient texts suggest. One that could give them bread and circuses too....maybe at the presentation of the baton to Cardsssia.
The Romulans might be inherently better accustomed to dealing with spies and saboteurs in their midst than most overlords. Then again, they could be easier to play against themselves in order to neutralize any threat they'd pose against the Dominion. The station supposedly sported Romulan parts originally ("Dax"); perhaps the new owners would be able to capitalize on old connections and keep a good thing going with the Cardassians? Or then they'd have extra motivation to punish those thieves for what they once did. Heroes of the Resistance would probably see less service on the space station and more service on the distant colony of S'Byria... OTOH, Bajorans in exile might suddenly start establishing surprisingly many monasteries surprisingly close to Klingon, Federation, Tholian and Breen borders. Timo Saloniemi
Romulan parts in the station? A station built under Cardassian management and engineering with Bajoran forced labor?
We don't know where the station was built. Empok Nor seemed to be hovering in empty space, suggesting towing rather than in situ construction... But the station has a Ferengi bar. For all we know, Quark imported superior Ferengi replicators and holoprojectors back during the Occupation already; other onboard entrepreneurs ("Necessary Evil" suggests there were plenty, even if the others quoted were Bajoran collabo jobs) may have done similar things. More probably, though, the Cardassians just imported superior foreign tech all on their own. Whether they paid the license fees or not remains untold, but I could easily see every major foreign power contributing, so that they can spite their competitors and perhaps also have their tech teams visit the place for a good look around. Nothing ever came out of the "Dax" teaser line. But something could have. Timo Saloniemi
The teaser exchange at Replimat: It's not a Romulan component with official serial numbers or anything, apparently. But it somehow justifies Dax' "must"... Whether she guessed right at the Cardassians "taking" the tech, we can only further guess at. Might have been a trade exchange, might have been theft or confiscation of some sort, might even have been a devious Romulan plot to sabotage the station with clandestinely installed components. Timo Saloniemi
Interesting. That line almost looks like a hold over from the earlier concept of DS9 as a ancient 'Tower of Babel', with centuries of different races and technologies building on top of each other. But this is a specific example of a piece of Romulan equipment that perhaps the Cardassians bought off the shelf and integrated into their own systems. It highlights the difference between DS9 and Starfleet ships, which tend to have a bespoke piece of equipment for everything.