Star Trek – Deep Space Nine

It was this series, the only Star Trek series, that instead of taking place on a spaceship was entirely set on a space station. It did not get off to a happy start, considering that it was broadcast almost at the same time as Next Generation then Voyager, and many admirers of the series were initially disappointed that it did not take place on a spaceship.

But in the long run this paid off, in fact after the first few episodes, things changed and this series was very popular. There were many innovations, both in the setting and in the characters that characterised this series.

A little history of this space station. It is located near the planet Bajor, which is situated right on the border between the space of the United Federation of Planets and the Cardassian space that built this station.

After the occupation of the planet by Cardassia and a bloody war, the Bajoran rebels managed to drive out the Cardassians and also took possession of the space station.

They then enlisted the support of the Federation and while remaining under Bajoran jurisdiction, Benjamin Sisko, a Federation officer, was appointed to head the space station. Shortly after his installation, the wormhole communicating with another quadrant of the galaxy was discovered.

When the space station was moved to the mouth of the wormhole, it became an important communication hub between quadrants.

The space station is very large. It consists of an outer ring that serves as a docking station for space vessels, an inner ring where the staff and visitors' quarters are located, and a central part containing a promenade with the various commercial premises, the command centre and the main reactor.

With the discovery of the wormhole, it becomes a port of exchange between quadrants, but unfortunately the wormhole also brings very dangerous enemies into the station quadrant that they will have to face.

Unlike the other Star Trek series, which were almost exclusively episodic, i.e. each episode had its own beginning and end, this series favoured episodes in longer time spans, also telling the stories of the station's personnel, thus making the various episodes tied together.

This initially did not appeal to the audience, who were too tied up with seeing an episode start and seeing it end, but then it was this that hooked them, making the series one of the most watched.

It was the first series not conceived by Roddenberry, who unfortunately died in October 1991, leaving the baton to Rick Berman and Michael Piller, who had a different vision of Star Trek, and while leaving behind the values that distinguished the previous series, they introduced and deepened themes never dealt with in depth by the other series, such as racism, sexuality, politics and above all religion.

Let us now talk about the characters, who are many and very important, both for the plot of the story that takes place in the space station throughout the course of its episodes, and for the character and context in which each of them moves.

Captain Benjamin Sisko, who commands the space station, has arrived there with his son Jake, and over the course of the seven years in which the story of Deep Space Nine is set, has a role not only as commander, but also as Emissary of the Prophets, who are the Gods of the people of Bajor, and that is why he is so well received by the population.

He is resolute, but very human, he makes mistakes at times, but has no problem admitting it. He is well liked by the officers of the station, and after the first difficult times, in which he is very withdrawn, having lost his wife in the war, he gradually regains the will to live that he had lost, a career advancement and even a new companion.

A singular character helps him a lot in this. She is Jadzia Dax, a scientific officer, who belongs to the Trill people. She has within her a symbiote that has already lived seven lives.

The characteristic of these symbionts is that once their host body dies, they are introduced into another body and continue to live, having within them the memories and experiences of all their past lives.  

He therefore has an ill-defined character, the result of all the legacies acquired previously, so he is a scrupulous, reliable but also contradictory person. She helps Commander Sisko a lot in his missions even though she does not always agree with him and does not hesitate to let him know this.

Commander Sisko has already met her when she was in Curzon's corps, his previous host, who was, however, a man and had a deep friendship with him. Arriving at the station, Captain Sisko often clashes with Kira Nerys, who is Bajoran and is the liaison officer between the government of Bajor and the federation.

She does not fit in very well with the strict protocols of the United Federation of Planets and fears going from one tyranny, that of Cardassia, to another, that of the Federation. But Captain Sisko manages to convince her otherwise, and she slowly gains his unconditional trust and becomes one of his best collaborators.  

Odo, who is on the station the head of security is also a singular character. He is a shape-shifter, i.e. he can change his humanoid form into anything. He was already on the station in the days of the Cardassians and becomes a valuable aid to the Captain, helping him to maintain order on the station.

Order that is often chaotic because of another singular character, a Ferengi, who runs the station's bar, with its hologram decks, which he rents out and various games.  He is Quark, initially a classic Ferengi, who sees only and only profit, not giving a damn about anything else.

But in the course of time, a vein of altruism and goodness is also discovered in him, very deeply. Which, however, he, as a good Ferengi, tries not to show. There are other characters that at least deserve to be mentioned, such as Dr. Bashir, Wolf, the Klingon, whom we also found in The Next Generation, the station tailor, Garac, the only ‘good’ Cardassian in the galaxy, and O'Brian also like Wolf, an officer of Captain Picard.

Other minor but recurring characters make for an exciting story that unfolds over the course of the seven seasons. There is also a heated war coming from the quadrant beyond the wormhole, a bloody war that will put the Federation, Bajor and even Cardassia to the test, but which will affect the entire Alpha quadrant and will also allow strange alliances to prevail over the assailants.