Those who do not share my passion for Star Trek may not have the slightest inkling as to what this series is about, nor do they care.
First, some background of Star Trek is requisite.
Star Trek is an on-going future history of humankind into the 23rd and 24th century. Created by Gene Roddenbury in the late 60s, it came at a time of internal turmoil within the US. Controversy over Vietnam and the state of modern weaponry deeply divided the country, and pessimism about the future infested the air.
When Kirk, Spock and crew began airing in their sci-fi series, there was scant attention paid. The story of a ship Enterprise and her crew of multinational officers who explored the universe only for the betterment of human understanding was unlike anything that had ever been produced. The many layers of bigotry, sexism, and androcentrism that stifled society was torn away, and the public was presented with a future worth working towards. Kirk is a captain of the flagship vessel of Starfleet, the largest organization of the United Federation of Planets. The Federation is headquartered in San Francisco, on Earth, but its scope covers a vast portion of the Alpha Quadrant, the quarter of the Milky Way Galaxy that the Solar System resides in. His mission -- the mission of all Starfleet officers -- is to seek out new life and new civilizations, and "to go boldly where no man has gone before." The adventures, the wondrous discoveries that accompany a mission of such a scope is what we see as Star Trek.
After Captain Kirk came Captain Jean-luc Picard of The Next Generation(TNG). Featuring a bigger and better Enterprise, this second child of Roddenbury was placed a century after the exploits of Kirk, when the frontier diplomacy no longer applied. Picard was the perfect diplomat, considerate, strong, just, morally incorruptible -- he symbolized the Federation and echoed the theme of "let's all get along" again and again throughout his years as captain.
Towards the end of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine came into being. The timing was awkward, and it seemed DS9 could not come out of the shadows of the enormously popular TNG. The setting was no longer aboard the Enterprise. It wasn't even a Federation setting -- no more comfortable chairs, warm, cheery colors, flawless food replicators. The station, renamed Deep Space Nine by the Federation, whereupon the story is centered around is of Cardassian make. Commander Benjamin Sisko and his officers came aboard Deep Space Nine to help rebuild Bajor, a planet once overrun by Cardassian invaders. DS9 orbits Bajor, and reclaiming it was a task the Bajoran government asked the Federation to help with.
Thus, the setting is vastly different right from the beginning. The Bajoran and Cardassian conflict was set up in TNG and fully explored in DS9. Some of the best characters in Star Trek have appeared as Cardassians on DS9, and the many varied races that populate the station make the feeling of racial integration throughout the Federation more realistic than the predominately human starships.
There are many who say the immobile station has made story-telling difficult, and indeed, the first season of DS9 is easily forgettable for the most part. For them, I say, Deep Space Nine awakens the placid Federation peace at the end of the second season, with the introduction of what will prove to be the Federation's most dangerous threat -- the Dominion.
The Dominion is a vast Gamma Quadrant power whose leaders seek order by conquering whole worlds and subjugating their citizens to strict totalitarian rule. It's not power or money the Dominion seeks. Just order. Before the discovery of the stable wormhole that linked them to the Alpha Quadrant, the Dominion had been content to conquer their own quadrant, but the realization that there are "disorderly" governments and entities in their vicinity soon prompted action. The Dominion hooked up with the Cardassians and began their assault on the Federation in 2372.
The nearby Klingon Empire once was the terror of the Federation, as were the Romulan Star Empire. The three political powers united their forces when it became apparent the Dominion had an awesome and limitless force in their genetically engineered soldiers, the jem'hadar.
The background theme of Deep Space Nine for the last five years has been a story of the Federation struggling to overcome a powerful adversary, and failing many times in the process. No longer is there a predictable status quo where good must always prevail. The Dominion has every hope of destroying the Federation, as it demonstrated by a successful assault on Starfleet headquarters itself. It is easy to preach ethics and morality when one has the best technologies and overwhelming power. But it takes courage to stick to the same morality in face of insurmountable odds.
That is Deep Space Nine's enduring quality. It is the lesson I've learned time an again as I saw my heroes suffer through the ravages of war. Even if good does not always prevail, one must remain faithful to his beliefs.
In Deep Space Nine, we see Star Trek explore uncharted realms even creator Gene Roddenbury could not have imagined. Deep Space Nine is a journey into a future without the the frontier recklessness of the Original Series that aired in the sixties, nor the Utopian idealism of the Next Generation. It is a series all onto itself.
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