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                                WARNING!!!                                   
                                                                             
 The following file contains MANY details of the upcoming new "Star Trek" TV 
   series, "Deep Space Nine," which begins airing in January 1993.  If you   
 don't want any potential surprises spoiled, please don't read this file any 
                                 further!                                    





















    Ŀ
                              a look ahead in                            
                  THE "STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE" LOGBOOK               
                A Preview of the New Show Premiering in 1993             
                           written by Earl Green                5/27/92  
     (many thanks, again, to Joe Siegler, for advance news and spoilers) 
    

                              Ŀ
 Ĵ SERIES PREVIEW 
                              

   First off, this file may already be obsolete by the time you read it.  "Deep
Space Nine"'s main characters will be cast soon, and I'll let you know as soon
as possible who's playing which part.  According to the latest word on the show,
actual shooting begins in August.

   This is a mostly complete episode guide to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," a
science-fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller,
both of whom are the executive producers of "The Next Generation."  This is a
guide of information and it makes no attempt to be subjective in dealing with
the episodes' quality.  (I know it actually isn't a complete and objective
episode guide, yet, folks, I just wanted to save myself the trouble of porting
that paragraph into the file later!)

   Paramount has announced that a new hour-long series, "Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine," will enter production in June of this year.  We can expect to see 18 or
19 episodes following a two-hour premiere to air in January 1993.  The setting
of the series will be Deep Space Nine, an abandoned Cardassian space station (a
copy, of course, of the Federation's standard design) in orbit over Ensign Ro's
home world of Bajor.  (A recent Paramount press release shows Deep Space Nine
to be the same model as the "spacedock" model from the later films and seen in
such "Next Generation" segments as "11001001.")  A stable wormhole, long
thought impossible by Federation science, will have opened near Bajora and
Starfleet will take over Deep Space Nine to ensure Bajor's safety (the
Cardassians once invaded Bajor, enslaved the Bajora, and strip-mined the planet
for its natural resources) and to effectively take control of the wormhole,
whose presence renews Bajor's strategic importance.  Many of the Bajora on the
planet will also see some religious significance to the wormhole's appearance,
and the series may deal with that as well.  Manning the station will be:
    *   Captain Cisco, a base commander who blames Captain Picard for the Borg
        attack on Wolf 359 (see "Best of Both Worlds" parts I and II), an
        attack in which Cisco's wife was killed and Cisco himself barely
        escaped.  Cisco also has a young son named Jake.
    *   Lt. Ro Laren, transferred from the Enterprise, and seen by Capt. Cisco
        as a valuable resource in maintaining good relations with the Bajora.
    *   a shapeshifting alien security officer who can assume humanoid forms
        but whose native appearance will be that of a computer-graphics
        generated blob of Jello.
    *   a female doctor who is a Trill (seen in the "Next Generation" story
        "The Host," a race of parasites who live and function inside voluntary
        human host bodies).
    *   a beleaguered engineer who doesn't know as much about Deep Space Nine
        as he'd like to in order to bring it up to Starfleet specs.

   Also aboard Deep Space Nine will be two recurring Ferengi characters.  One,
the older one, supervises all the station's concession areas, holo-brothels,
and basically any other activity on board where there's an opportunity for
profit.  His teenage son will also show up and be a bad influence on Jake
Cisco.  It has also been said in TV Guide that Guinan's son will be in jail on
DS9, allowing for guest appearances by Whoopi Goldberg on both "Next
Generation" and "Deep Space Nine."  Another rumor has it that Lwaxana Troi
(Majel Barrett) will appear as a recurring character or possibly even a regular
and will have developed a crush on the shapeshifter character, but that has not
been verified at this time.
   The Cardassians will be a constant threat in the series, as a nearby mine is
owned by them, and they will always be spoiling for a fight with the station's
crew and trying to figure out a way to take DS9 for themselves.
   Michael Piller and Rick Berman will be executive producers of both series.
"The Next Generation" will continue for two more seasons and will share some
occasional storylines with "Deep Space Nine."
   Although there's no confirmation on the following, my guess is that "Deep
Space Nine" will be sold as a package deal to stations wishing to carry "The
Next Generation"; i.e. if they want one, they must also show the other.  So you
can bet on your local TNG affiliate showing both series, or maybe discontinuing
both due to costs!  As far as stories on DS9 (as it is quickly becoming known),
who knows?  Although I believe that when TNG makes its way to movies, DS9 may
have an episode similar to "Unification" which would be an early tie-in and/or
promotion for a TNG movie, but the series will probably keep to itself in most
other respects.  Piller and Berman have announced already that DS9 will have
"more of an edge" than TNG.
   Some more thoughts on DS9, from a production perspective: who's going to
score this thing?  What is the theme song going to be?  I wouldn't count on two
series opening with the Alexander Courage fanfare/Jerry Goldsmith march tune,
but one never knows; if they're recycling exterior scenes of the show's primary
setting, anything's possible as far as cutting corners to save a buck.  As for
incidental music, maybe, if we're lucky, Ron Jones will be offered the chance
to score Star Trek again.  If DS9's going to be dark and foreboding, I'm sure
it could use a hand from Jones to achieve that feeling.  Whatever happens,
unless they recycle music from TNG (a bad mistake in this viewer's opinion,
plus as a musician myself, I think the different situations of TNG and DS9 need
different musical treatments), there will very likely be two non-TNG composers
sharing music duties on DS9 (it would be too much to ask of McCarthy and
Chattaway to be able to come up with a fresh TNG score in only one week and
then a fresh DS9 score as soon as that's done).  Regarding the re-use of TNG
scores, that sad possibility is in the air, as TNG has recently been recycling
much of its own music late in the fifth season.
   Regarding casting:  many fan rumors have persisted about Chief O' Brien and
his family transferring to DS9 as regulars.  This seems VERY unlikely - given
the characters listed above (which, after circulating in the fan information
circuit for months, were verified in a report in "Entertainment Weekly"
magazine), it's obvious that neither O' Brien nor Keiko are one of those main
characters.  With the ensemble containing at least five members, the command
deck of DS9 won't be as crowded as the Enterprise bridge on TNG, but the
ensemble of TNG has proven to be a difficult formula to get right in the
scripting.  There's certainly room for O' Brien and his family on DS9, but it
remains to be seen whether or not they will appear on the show as regulars (or
semi-regulars, as they already appear on TNG; Colm Meaney has already stated
that the reason he doesn't accept a standing invitation to become a regular on
TNG is that it wouldn't leave him enough time to do stage work or feature
films).


                                  Ŀ
 Ĵ THE CREW 
                                  

Captain ? Cisco (?):
   no data available

Lieutenant Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes):
   A native of Bajor, Ro Laren never followed Starfleet regulations too easily.
Early in her Starfleet career (as documented in her "Next Generation" debut
episode "Ensign Ro"), Ro was involved in an incident which has not been
specified during her tour on the starship USS Wellington.  Whatever orders Ro
failed to follow on Garon II at that time, it cost the Wellington eight crew
members and Ro was court-martialed and imprisoned for her actions (or lack of
them).  Starfleet Admiral Kennelly later bailed her out for a secret mission to
escort Bajoran leaders to a summit with Cardassian diplomats to resolve a long
standing three-way dispute between the Bajora, who held a grudge against the
Federation for not assisting when Cardassians drove the Bajora out of their
native territory decades earlier.  Upon her assignment to the Enterprise, Ro
soon discovered that Kennelly was actually trying to draw the Bajora into the
Cardassians' line of fire to eliminate them.  With the aid of Guinan, Ro told
Picard what her actual orders were, and the Bajoran leaders were saved by a
plan formulated by Picard and Ro.  Kennelly was exposed and court-martialed
himself, and Ro decided to remain on the Enterprise instead of returning to
prison.  Her abrasive nature occasionally caused personality clashes with other
members of the ship's crew - particularly Commander Riker, who initially
considered her presence on the ship to be a disgrace (though an alien attack
erased the crew's memories in "Conundrum" and Riker and Ro were seen to be
attracted to one another) - but Ro served out her tour on the Enterprise with
no further problems, actually gaining a promotion during her time on board.
   Ro's past with the Cardassians keeps her suspicious of them on her current
assignment.  When she was only seven, Ro was forced to watch Cardassians
torture her father to death.  The Cardassians and Bajora have been mortal
enemies since the Cardassians overran Bajora and other worlds colonized by the
Bajora, enslaving the people and bleeding the planets dry of their natural
resources.  The remaining Bajora are nomadic and impoverished, and certainly
not able to wage anything like a full-scale war with the Cardassians.  In the
"Next Generation" episode "Ensign Ro," it was also implied that the problem of
Bajoran/Cardassian relations presents decisions the Federation seems to be
procrastinating.  Whether to risk the already uneasy peace with the Cardassians
to defend the rights of the Bajora, or to simply try to turn away when the
Cardassians take another swipe at the Bajora, is apparently a hard decision the
Federation is not prepared to make just yet, but the Starfleet team manning
Deep Space Nine may be enough of a presence to deter Cardassian interference,
and may eventually lead to admittance of Bajora into the Federation.


               Ŀ
 ĴThat's all the information we have right now!
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   You've probably noticed that this file has been formatted in a way that will
allow us to update it easily as soon as more information becomes available.  It
may not be the easiest article to read, but we will continue to keep you up to
speed on the upcoming series!  Next update of this file will occur at the start
of TNG's sixth season, so watch your nearest Trek LogBook home base system for
an update late in September.


