Why “Deep Space Nine”?

[Captrek]

The station is introduced as a Bajoran station that the Federation is merely helping to administer. So why is it called “Deep Space Nine”? At the start of the series, when it gets that name, it’s in orbit of Bajor, not in “deep space” from the Bajoran perspective, let alone the ninth deep space station. Why doesn’t it have a name that makes sense from the Bajoran perspective?

 

[Michael]

I agree that it might seem counterintuitive to give the station a Starfleet designation instead of a Bajoran one, but as far as I know that's actually the established real world practice. For example, US military bases and facilities in post-WWII Germany had US-American names like “Checkpoint Charlie”, “Andrews Barracks” or “Tegel Navigational Aid Annex” instead of their German counterparts “Grenzpunkt Charlie”, “Andrews Kaserne” or “Navigations-Unterstützungs-Anlage Tegel”.

The station is in Bajoran space and if I remember correctly they even say it's the property of the Bajorans, but Starfleet is running it and using it as a base as part of their network of Starfleet stations across Federation space, hence it has a Starfleet designation.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Bajor only had a provisional government at the time, so a lot of things were probably done hastily in the post-Occupation era, IMO. Bajor had applied for Federation membership, so a Starfleet team established the old Cardassian mining station as their base of operations. There was likely a lot more pressing things that needed to be done on Bajor than debate what to call what might have been viewed by many Bajorans as an eyesore (and reminder of the Occupation) orbiting their world anyway. If Starfleet wanted to rename it Deep Space Nine, fine. Whatever floated their boat.

For all we know, the Bajorans may even have thought of even dismantling the station after Starfleet was done with it and Bajor was in the Federation, so the name may not even have mattered that much to the Bajorans at the time. Maybe there were hopes it would have been eventually replaced with a shiny all-new Federation-built station in time...

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

From what I remember the Bajorans tend to just call it 'the station', so I can buy the theory that they really don't care what Starfleet wants to call their borrowed Cardassian monstrosity.

 

[somebuddyX]

The "Deep Space" station naming program was probably the pet project of some Federation government stooge who didn't realise how ignorant they were being but also DGAF.

 

[Whizkid]

Captrek,
I see no irrelevance, contradiction or redundancy in calling it DS9 here. Like it or not, the story is told from the perspective of Starfleet.

Please remember that the Bajorans were far less worried about the profits of DS9 (except that it was Emissary's abode) than the Temple of the Celestials.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Watch the Pilot episode "Emissary" this has been explained.

 

[Trekker09]

As others have said, the term Deep Space refers to distance from Starfleet headquarters, not Bajor.

Apparently there were 17 Deep Space stations around the edges of Federation space, used as supply stations and drydocks. I think Deep Space K-7 is mentioned in both “The trouble with tribbles” and “Trials and Tribble-ations" as the place where Cyrano Jones first introduced tribbles.

 

[Michael]

Watch the Pilot episode "Emissary" this has been explained.

Remind me of that scene where they spell out why the station doesn't have a Bajoran name.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Remind me of that scene where they spell out why the station doesn't have a Bajoran name.

Did it need one? Perhaps if the government wanted to inspire Bajorans to approve the use of excessive amounts of money to build it, an imaginative name might be useful. But they did not build it, let alone have a big public campaign to build it. They inherited it. "Space Station" was probably sufficient.

 

[Watersluis]

I must say, I always appreciate these kinds of posts that ask the obvious from a non-obvious perspective.

All I too I find that people do not realize that from the perspective of what they consider “faraway nations”, those nations are obviously close to home, and they themselves are the “faraway nation”.

Star Trek does this far too often, such as in this case. Far too often do, say, Vulcans need to explain Vulcan culture to humans, but never in reverse, they are assumed to understand all of it. — In fact, come to think of, in Earth: Final Conflict, there are many scenes where humans explain intricacies of human behavior and cultural matters to Taelons, but rarely in reverse. As Taelons are guests on Earth, it is perhaps less important for humans to know the intricacies of the Taelon condition.

 

[Michael]

Did it need one?

Oh, I absolutely don't think it did! Was just curious because of the claim that there was such an explanation in an episode that I have probably seen more often than any other single episode of television in my life.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Somehow Star Trek: Standard Orbit Around Bajor One just doesn't have the same ring to it

 

[Watersluis]

Somehow Star Trek: Standard Orbit Around Bajor One just doesn't have the same ring to it

It could easily be a catchy Bajoran made up word.
Also, why does every language in the universe except Klingon seem to have English phonology and never as much as a consonant cluster that's illegal in in English?

Even on Earth, there are languages where it's completely possible to have words that start with “ngk-”, but not in space, apparently, except for the Xindi Insectoid language, which was interesting.

 

[kkt]

From what I remember the Bajorans tend to just call it 'the station', so I can buy the theory that they really don't care what Starfleet wants to call their borrowed Cardassian monstrosity.

Yes, I remember a Bajoran or two just calling it "the station" or "the space station". It's obvious why that name is not considered adequate by Starfleet.

 

[dupersuper]

It could easily be a catchy Bajoran made up word.
Also, why does every language in the universe except Klingon seem to have English phonology and never as much as a consonant cluster that's illegal in in English?

Even on Earth, there are languages where it's completely possible to have words that start with “ngk-”, but not in space, apparently, except for the Xindi Insectoid language, which was interesting.

Universal translator?

 

[Watersluis]

Universal translator?

The universal translator would obviously keep names as such in the original language, but even they all conform to English phonology,

 

[Markonian]

The Bajorans would probably have kept calling it Terok Nor. It’s what they do in the mirror universe(s).

Looking at the expanded universe, in an alternate timeline where the Klingons liberate Bajor, they call it Dugh naHjej. Link: https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Dugh_naHjej

In the First Splinter timeline, the replacement station was called Deep Space 9 as well, for now nostalgic reasons.

 

[Trekker09]

But they did not build it, let alone have a big public campaign to build it. They inherited it.

Didn't the Bajorans build DS9 as slave laborers under Cardassian rule? Then they inherited it after the occupation.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Didn't the Bajorans build DS9 as slave laborers under Cardassian rule? Then they inherited it after the occupation.

What need would Bajorans have for inspiring Bajoran slave laborers to build a station for an occupying power?

(To be clear, my original point was that it was not a project of the Bajoran government sold to the Bajoran people/)