Berman-Piller
6-12-92
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE
BIBLE
(Revised)
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, a series set in the 'Next Generation' of Star Trek lore, follows a team of Starfleet officers who take command of an alien space station situated near the Bajoran Wormhole, one of the most strategic locations in the galaxy.
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Wormholes, simply put, are shortcuts through space. You go in one end and come out the other in seconds... but find yourself billions of kilometers away. All known wormholes previously encountered in the Star Trek universe have been unstable. Their ends can whip randomly around the universe... they last for brief periods of time before collapsing. But, in our pilot episode, the first stable wormhole is discovered near the Denorios asteroid field, close to the planet Bajor. Like other wormholes, it is only visible when an object enters or exits through it.
A brief journey through the Bajoran Wormhole will take a starship to the Gamma Quadrant... normally a sixty-year journey at warp nine. The ride is a spectacular light show, with brilliant colors surrounding the ship... while inside, strange visual distortions affect perceptions as passengers tear through the space-time continuum. (There will be different optical effects going the opposite direction through the wormhole.)
This wormhole is a new passageway to hundreds of unexplored sectors of space. And it will turn Bajor into the leading center of commerce and scientific exploration in the sector... attracting travelers from all over the galaxy.
In the first episode, we learn that the wormhole has been artificially created by a species of aliens that do not live in the same space-time continuum as we do. Thus, we encounter them unexpectedly within the wormhole itself. They have been sending out orb-like probes from the wormhole, one orb every century for a thousand years, seeking contact with other lifeforms.
The Cardassians and the Bajora are known to Star Trek audiences. A century ago, the Cardassians conquered the planet Bajor, an ancient society with a dedication to spiritual pursuits. The mysterious orbs that have arrived each century are among the fundamental sacraments of the Bajoran religion.
Bajoran terrorism during the last several decades has been a significant problem for the Cardassians. Just before our series begins, the Cardassians have completed mining operations on Bajor, stripping the planet of all its resources. They have decided to unilaterally withdraw from Bajoran space and give up the headaches the Bajora have caused them.
They have not left quietly -- in revenge for the years of terrorism, the Cardassians ravaged the planet, poisoned wells, scorched the ground and, striking at the heart of the Bajoran people, have desecrated the ancient monastery that is the center of spiritual life.
The Bajora desperately need help. They have asked for membership in the Federation and have been granted preliminary acceptance. But the political situation on the planet is terribly unstable. Factions that had been united in opposition to Cardassian rule have resumed age-old conflicts.
The Starfleet team's mission is to spearhead the arduous diplomatic and scientific efforts that accompany the lengthy entry procedure. All of this is about to be complicated by the discovery of the wormhole.
Due to the turmoil on the planet, it is deemed unsafe to create a Federation base on the surface so, at the request of the provisional government, Starfleet takes command of a recently abandoned Cardassian space station in orbit of Bajor. During the first episode, the station is towed to the Denorios Asteroid Belt near the mouth of the newly discovered wormhole. It still belongs to Bajor but is administered by Starfleet... (in contemporary terms, a United Nations base located within the territory of a sovereign nation.)
The station designated DS9 by Starfleet was assembled haphazardly over several years by Cardassian and Bajoran work teams and anybody else who happened to offer services at a premium. It was used by the Cardassians primarily to monitor mining operations on Bajor and to service incoming and outgoing crews. About two hundred people, mostly Bajorans, still live there. By episode three, there will be about fifty Starfleet officers and crewmen stationed there.
When the Cardassians abandoned Bajor, they stripped the station of all advanced technology and defense capabilities... and the Starfleet team has a huge job of making it operational again. In fact, it will never work up to our requirements and will always be causing the engineering crew a lot of headaches.
The Operations Control Center (OPS), the heart of the space station is a multi-tiered facility lined with computer and life support systems, tactical controls, the master communications panel and a transporter pad to beam on and off the station (further design specifications to follow). It is always a hub of activity as ships move in and out of the wormhole. There are shuttlebays for smaller vessels... larger ships dock outside and crews have access to the station via airlocks and interconnecting tunnels.
On a given day, there might be anywhere from ten to three hundred visitors to DS9 as ships come through... explorers, scientists, merchants, spies... most of the visitors stay on their ships but there are special quarters for some guests. All of their ships need to stop at DS9 to be outfitted and tuned with special impulse energy buffers to travel safely through the wormhole. (In the first episode, we learn that ships' power sources are destructive to the ionic field that is home to the aliens who created the wormhole, and live within it on a different time plane. During that experience, we are told how to travel through without harming them.)
One aspect of life on the space station hasn't changed since the departure of the Cardassians. During their tenure, they sold commercial concessions to the highest bidder to provide services to the mining crews. The result is the Promenade... unlike any space interior ever seen on Star Trek. It's somewhere between a free port and a flea market, bustling with aliens of all sorts when a ship's in... intriguing and unusual characters at every bend. There's gambling and smuggling... alien grifters at work here... bars with sexual holosuites upstairs... right next to traditional ship's stores, a Bajoran temple and a kiosk serving live food. Part of the job of the Starfleet team will be to try and 'tame' this honkey-tonk atmosphere.
Starfleet has stationed three mid-sized Runabout Class patrol ships at DS9 which allow our characters to travel to the numerous star systems in the sector as well as through the wormhole. These ships are twenty meters long, with impulse and warp capabilities, a maximum speed of warp 4.7. They're generally operated by a two-man crew, but a single pilot can control them if necessary. They can transport up to forty people but that's a crowd. There are cramped, uncomfortable sleeping quarters for six people. A multi-purpose room for meetings and dining is located directly off the cockpit. These ships are the symbol of the Federation presence in this sector... the only Starfleet hardware in this eclectic environment.
Bajor is the world we will visit most often because of its proximity to the space station. Striking architecture, with rounded domes and spherical shapes, marks the landscape. The ancient Bajora were great architects and engineers before humans were even standing erect.
The people are deeply mystical... on their planet we will find monks who meditate and chant in chords. They are a people who believe in spiritual phenomena; are devoted to a non-secular philosophy that goes against the Federation's logical, scientific way of life.
Their religious leader, known as the Kai, is curious and insightful and develops a strong bond with our Commander. The political situation remains precarious and the only stabilizing influence is the Kai. Bajoran terrorists still populate camps on neighboring planets.
A human Starfleet Commander with a 12-year-old son. His gentle, strong, soft-spoken demeanor belies a temper that he's constantly trying to control. And when he loses it, he gets furious with himself. He's a man of action who gets impatient with too much talk, but as he's become more mature he's learned to stop and think twice before losing control. He has a weakness for baseball... a sport that died out in the 22nd century. He frequently goes into a holosuite to have a catch and a chat with one of his legendary ballplayer heroes.
Sisko was on a starship with his wife and son at the famous encounter with the Borg (led by the Borgified Picard), and his wife was killed. That leads to some bitterness toward Picard. (Picard: Have we met before? Sisko: Yes, we met in battle.) Since that tragedy, he has been assigned to shore duty on Mars working with the team reconstructing the fleet at the Utopia Planitia Yards.
Sisko objected to being assigned to DS9. He told Starfleet that he has a son to raise, he's been asking for an earth assignment, not this. In our first episode, Sisko even hints that he's considering resigning from Starfleet. He is a man who carries with him the guilt and anguish of the death of his wife. Until he has an emotional passage in the opening episode, as he confronts aliens in the guise of people from his past, he cannot move on with his life. His important work on DS9 gives him a new direction, but his is still very much a life framed by tragedy.
A former 'Major' in the Bajoran underground, Kira is now an outspoken critic of the provisional government. Having fought for freedom all her life, it has angered her to see the older leaders throw it away through their petty dissensions. She's been trying without success to reach the Kai herself to air her grievances. It's very possible that she was sent by the government to be the Bajoran administrator at the station simply to get her outspoken voice out of earshot.
At first, Kira is not a supporter of Federation involvement at DS9, preferring Bajor to remain independent of all outside interests. As the representative of the Bajorans on board the space station, she has no confidence in Sisko when he arrives. In fact, she's working in his office when he gets there.
Kira loathes the Cardassians. She committed atrocities against them in the name of freedom, some of which bother her. When others in the Bajoran underground begin a new wave of terrorism, she is forced into a moral quandary about tracking them down and bringing them to justice. Former terrorists consider her a turncoat. She will come to respect and bond with Sisko although they will continue to have different agendas as new issues arise.
O'Brien has been the Transporter Chief on ST:TNG for five years. This assignment represents a promotion to Master Chief of Operations, and a tremendous career opportunity for him.
He's an Irishman, a man's man, with a down-to-earth quality. He's organized, efficient and smart... and knows the hardware as well as any man in the fleet. He loves his work. He has a wife, KEIKO, and a 3-year-old baby girl, MOLLY. He will be in charge of the comings and goings of vessels, plus the nuts and bolts maintenance of the station. He's constantly frustrated by the jerry-rigged way this place is put together.
Before he joined the crew of the Enterprise, he served aboard the U.S.S. Rutledge along the Cardassian border during territorial disputes that led to bitter fighting. He saw the Cardassians commit unspeakable atrocities and lost close friends in the massacre at Setlik Three. The war changed him, hardened him. The first man he ever killed was a Cardassian who jumped him on patrol. As he tells the story to another Cardassian in the ST:TNG episode "The Wounded", he says "I'd never killed anything before. When I was a kid, I would worry about having to swat a mosquito. It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became... because of you."
Science Officer, rank of Lieutenant. An alien woman, very attractive, late twenties.
Dax is a Trill... a "joined" species first encountered in the ST:TNG episode "THE HOST". A Trill is comprised of two separate but interdependent entities: a host and a symbiont. The host provides a humanoid body. The symbiont is an invertebrate, androgynous lifeform that lives within the host. It looks like a short, fat snake. Many centuries ago, the symbionts lived underground while the humanoids were on the surface... and due to an environmental disaster, they were forced to 'join' to survive. As time went on, this mutual support evolved into a biological interdependency and thus two individuals became one -- they speak with one voice (you can't ask to speak with the symbiont or the host, only the combined lifeform).
The symbiont's lifespan is far longer than the host's and as a result one symbiont will be combined with several hosts during its life.
As we see in the first episode, when a host dies (in Dax's case, her last host was an elderly man), doctors surgically remove the symbiont. The worm then burrows itself into the new host. Dax's host was joined with her symbiont when she was an adult.
The symbiont part of her is three hundred years old... a brilliant scientist with an innate wisdom... who can draw upon a library of knowledge built from six lifetimes of experience.
The result of this joining is a serene character who brings a calm, centered voice to any discussion... patient, confident and wise... you might think of Dax as an ancient zen master in the body of a twenty-eight year old woman. There is a subtle conflict within her... a generation gap if you will. The older symbiont suppresses the youthful instincts of the host. And so, sometimes she will seem 'controlled' when a part of her really would like to let go. For example, the 300 year old worm has no use for sex or passion, except as it serves procreation, but occasionally the youthful instincts of the host overcomes that resistance.
Kira, who forms a very close relationship with Dax, often tells her to loosen up. Dax admires Kira for her youthful energy, her purpose and her drive and becomes something of a mentor to her.
Dax and Ben Sisko have worked together before. The only trouble is that, back then, Dax was still in the host body of an elderly man... and was something of a mentor to Sisko. Her sexually appealing new form will create a certain tension between her and Sisko, which they will both resist. After all, he's still having a hard time getting used to the fact that she's a three hundred year old worm. But he does not hide the respect and affection he has for her.
Alien male, middle aged, curmudgeon... and a shape shifter. In his natural state, he is a gelatinous liquid. He was the Bajoran law enforcement officer for the space station under the Cardassians. Starfleet decides to have him continue in that role, since he's extremely savvy about the Promenade and all who frequent it.
His back story: fifty years ago, with no memory of his past, he was found alone in a mysterious space craft that appeared near the Denorios asteroid belt. He was found by the Bajora and lived among them. At first, he was sort of an 'elephant man'... a source of curiosity and humor as he turned himself into a chair or a pencil. Finally, he realized he would have to take the form of a humanoid to assimilate and function in their environment. He does it but he resents it. As a result, Odo performs a uniquely important role in the ensemble - he is the character who explores and comments on human values... and because he is forced to pass as one of us, his point of view usually comes with a cynical and critical edge.
He can't quite get it right, this humanoid shape, although he continues to try. So he looks a little 'unfinished' in a way. He's been working on it a long time. Someone might ask him, 'Why don't you take on the form of a younger man?' His answer: 'I would if I could.'
He has the adopted child syndrome of searching for his own personal identity and an inherent insecurity (what better metaphor could there be for an identity crisis than a shape shifter). When the wormhole is discovered very close to where he was originally found, Odo realizes that the answers to a lot of questions in his life could be on the other side. Someday, he hopes, someone will come through the wormhole, perhaps even looking for him, and tell him who he is.
Although he doesn't know anything about his species, he is certain that Justice is an integral part of their being... because the necessity for it runs through every fiber of his body, a racial memory. That's why he became a lawman. And when it comes to doing his job, he doesn't always follow the letter of the law. The way he figures it: laws change, justice is justice. This puts him into conflict with our Commander who tells him he can't take the law into his own hands if he wants to stay on DS9. Kira finds his negative attitude toward authority delightful and they have a Bajoran fellowship.
He has a couple of Bajoran deputies. He doesn't allow weapons on the Promenade. Once every day he must return to his gelatinous form.
The Ferengi bartender. The Ferengi race has been a part of ST:TNG since the very beginning. They are ugly, sexist, greedy little aliens who are interested only in profit and getting their hands on anything of yours they happen to fancy.
Quark runs many of the entertainment concessions on DS9 including the bar/restaurant/gambling house and the holosuites upstairs (where your every fantasy can be played out). He spends most of his time behind the bar. If there is some scam being run in the sector, it often involves him... but beyond the malevolence, he is a charming host (in a Ferengi sort of way) and forges an interesting relationship with Sisko. They actually enjoy sparring together and now and then the Ferengi lends a hand to solve a problem for the commander... as long as there's something in it for him. His effete sexist attitudes make Kira an obvious adversary. He is consumed with passion for Dax.
Human, male, mid twenties. Rank of Lieutenant Commander. May have an accent depending on casting.
He is fresh out of Starfleet Medical, graduated second in his class, a brilliant specialist in multi-species medicine. He arrives on DS9 with gung-ho expectations about adventures in Starfleet. He's naive and charming and cocky all at the same time. He's chosen this remote outpost instead of the cushy job he was offered at Starfleet Medical because this is where the action is, where heroes are made, in the "wilderness." Doctor Amoros is still wet behind the ears and has a lot to learn.
He is the antithesis of Kira who is streetwise, sadder but wiser, cynical. She gets impatient with someone who thinks he knows it all but in fact doesn't. (In time, she will come to realize that when it comes to medicine, he really does know it all). Sometimes she's a little tough on him and Sisko has to pull her back.
O'Brien becomes Amoros' confidant... as a man who has seen combat, a decorated veteran of Starfleet duty, O'Brien represents an ideal to the young doctor. He'll ask O'Brien's advice before doing something to make sure he's not out of line. He likes to go to the phaser firing range to practice with O'Brien.
Dax is very protective of Julian, she's seen a lot like him, sees herself as a mother figure although she appears about the same age. Julian, like so many other men on board, has a crush on Dax.
Julian greatly respects Sisko but is terrified of him, is anxious to live up to the Commander's expectations. Sisko is amused by Julian, very patient with him... the doctor reminds him a little of himself when he was starting out, ready to conquer the universe.
The Commander's son. An army brat who doesn't remember life on Earth. He's been aboard four different starships and stationed on two planets. The transient lifestyle has taught him how to scope out a new terrain, assimilate quickly. At the same time, he has an inner fear of forming intimate friendships because he loses them so easily.
He dreams of going to live on Earth. He collects holodeck programs of various places on Earth that he uses to try to fulfill this fantasy. Deep inside, he knows that his mom would still be alive if they had not lived in space. And he has a suppressed bitterness about it.
His father promised there would be other kids on this station. It turns out that there are only a handful of varying ages and species. Only one is his age -- Nog, a Ferengi teen-age boy who is a 'bad influence'.
Jake is very close with his dad... in fact, they're buddies to such a degree that the Commander is plagued with feelings that he's not doing the job of parenting very well... maybe more discipline is required... maybe the boy is too flip, too familiar with him.
The boy has no technical expertise at all. He struggles with his homework but is dedicated to doing his best.
O'Brien's wife. When O'Brien was offered this assignment, it was not welcome news for Keiko... and there's an interesting contemporary conflict echoed here... of how one side of a couple must sacrifice for the good of the other's career. She wondered what a botanist would do on the space station. She was happy on the Enterprise. But she agreed the promotion was an incredible opportunity for her husband. She is not entirely happy on DS9. In an early episode, she will perceive serious shortcomings in the educational facilities and volunteer to be the station tutor... teaching the Commander's son and the few other young people. Her scientific background will also be a help to Dax.
LWAXANA is Deanna Troi's mother, established on STTNG as the "Auntie Mame of the galaxy". When circumstances bring her to the space station, she forms a romantic attachment to Odo... and finds reasons to come back to see him. He tries to discourage her: Ma'am, I turn into a liquid form at night. LWAXANA: I can swim.
One of the other Ferengi who works for Quark has a teen-age son who will become friends with the Commander's son. Nog is Peck's bad boy. The kind of kid our parents didn't want us to associate with.
Forties, male. A deceptively amiable Cardassian commander who represents the continuing threat to our people -- the militant Empire whose borders are only a short distance away from Bajor and DS9. He used to be Prefect of the Bajoran province when it was under Cardassian domination, thus he is the former landlord of the space station.
The spiritual leader of Bajor who provides sharp counterpoint to the secular nature of Starfleet. She challenges conventional human logic.
The Kai explores her guests' 'pagh' (roughly translated: energy meridian) through deep tissue massage of their ears that seems to reveal their true nature.
Opaka tells Sisko in the opening episode that the Commander is on a personal journey. And that he has been sent to Bajor to find the celestial temple of the prophets -- the source of the mysterious orbs. When Sisko investigates, he discovers the wormhole and the aliens who built it.
The Kai seems to have an awareness on a higher plane of consciousness, knows things she cannot possibly know. Although our people do not accept her 'powers' at face value, we cannot always explain them either. She speaks in vague, mystical and indirect language, forcing the listener to seek her meaning.
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STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE brings into the Star Trek universe an original set of characters as diverse and memorable as the crews of the first two series. It also provides far more interpersonal conflict than we've seen before in the 24th century. If, as Gene Roddenberry always said, STAR TREK is Wagon Train in space, think of DEEP SPACE NINE as Fort Laramie on the edge of the frontier.
Rick Berman & Michael Piller