What would you change about DS9

[McAvoy]

So much has been said about what they would have done differently with Voyager and Enterprise. Even with TNG in the first two seasons thd talk about the rock hard rules and enforced Gene Roddenberry set out for TNG.

But it's never talked about with DS9. If you really think about it, fundamentaly you really cannot change DS9 as is. It's not that perfect show to without a doubt. Certain episodes are not that good, though arguably better than most early two seasons of TNG.

My question is what would you change about DS9. Not episodes. Or technical stuff like how many decks the Defiant has. But big stuff.

I would have had Bashir being genetically enhanced from day one. Throw clues in there some obvious ones after a rewatch. Or throw in references to the Dominion in season 1.1

[stryke]

Big one for me is the final season. The writers have said they ran out of time for certain characters and it shows hard. Ideally we can sort out the behind the scenes stuff and keep Jadzia which frees up some episodes to add to the final run like Ezri visiting her family.

If that's impossible just take Take me out to the Holosuite, shoot it in the head, and we now have an extra episode to play with. One that can be used to sort out the more neglected characters like Jake.

Also rethink those bloody fire caves, and lose the indulgence of the montage.

[Winter]

Have Dukat die in Waltz, he struggles with Sisko and in the struggle falls off a cliff or Sisko escapes from the planet and Dukat is left on the planet alone. Dukat was great in seasons 1 through 5 and in the first half of season 6 but the character jumped the shark and lost what made him so engaging.

DON'T kill Jadzia, I like Ezri and there was an interesting idea and Nicole De Boer is doing her best but this is a new character being introduced in the last season and which takes up to much time while Jadzia staying around would allow more focus to other characters while still giving her a lot to do.

Have the Pah-wraiths dealt with EARLY by tying them into the Dominion War, either as a something the Founders learn about and try to use them to open the wormhole.

Here's how you do it, have Jadzia somehow captured by the Pah-wraiths and season ends with Sisko and Worf along with Bashir and Quark going into the Wormhole to save her.

Then have the first 5 or 6 episodes of Season 7 be about the conflict with the Pah-wraiths, Sisko and the others save Dax and resolve the whole "Sisko will find no rest on Bajor".

And then have the last season progress as normal minus the last half of the last episode.

DS9 is great but the last season is rather weak and I think these few changes would fix a LOT of problems.

[clearspira]

Ooh! Great question.

1) I've long believed that the most wasted character in all of DS9 is Pel, the Ferengi woman who dressed as a man to earn profit in the episode where they introduced the Dominion. What a fascinating recurring love interest and foil she could have been for Quark, Rom and Nog, especially given how their characters change over the years. Season 7 Rom would not have ''outed'' her in a jealous rage. Season 7 Rom probably would have offered her a seat on the Ferengi Council. And she certainly would have been a better representative of progressive Ferengi women than Ishka was, who at times was a truly repulsive character.

Also, I hate ''Profit and Lace'' as much as anyone. But if you HAD to make it, if someone held a gun to your head, it would have been vastly improved by getting rid of that horrific body suit and making this a ''Freaky Friday Flip'' between Quark and Pel. Have it set on Ferenginar. Have him confined to Ishka's house whilst Pel goes off and exploits her new position to earn a fortune or further women's rights or something like that. That way when he makes up to the Dabo girl at the end, there will actually be a sense that he learned something, a shared experience of being exploited.

2) And on the subject of the Dominion's introduction, remember how they used to be a financial empire rivalling that of the Ferengi? And how that was immediately dropped in favour of making them cardboard space Nazis? There was great potential there. How about having the Dominion buy Quark's bar or Sisko's restaurant? How about having them buy up land on Bajor or bribe the Grand Nagus? This would have especially worked well during the occupation of DS9 when there were no Federation laws backing anyone up.

3) I agree with Winter. Dukat needed to die after ''Waltz''. They turned Star Trek's most rounded antagonist into a comic book supervillain who wanted to destroy the galaxy. That was never Dukat. He wanted women, glory for Cardassia, his old job back as Prefect of Bajor and a statue. Season 4 Dukat probably would have been on Sisko's side trying to defeat season 7 Dukat ffs.

4) Picture my idea for Ezri here: she gets introduced at the start of season 6 as the DS9 counsellor and it is made clear early on that she hates Jadzia for some reason. Over time we learn that she is the sister of that woman Jadzia kissed who used to know Curzon - and said woman was imprisoned for it. NOW when Ezri chooses to take on the Dax symbiont, it would be far more poignant, taking on the memories of someone that she hates and getting a new perspective. NOW her resurgent feelings for Worf take on new significance because she is breaking the same rules that she hated Jadzia for.

Right now, having her implant the Dax symbiont off-screen is really bad writing in my opinion. That simply is not a worthy introduction and it shows through fan reaction to her.

5) And speaking of the Trill... remember the TNG Trills who were basically Goa'uld? Some follow up on that would have been cool. Right now the two versions of the symbiont could not possibly be more different.

[hammerofglass]

My headcanon is that the DS9 and TNG Trill are different races and the name is a coincidence.

[stryke]

Have Dukat die in Waltz

I thought about Dukat, and in the end decided not to cover him as I couldn't decide where to kill him. I kind of want to kill him before Waltz as it's such a writer's manifesto about why the audience has been viewing the character they wrote wrong so they drop all the naunce to shout their point really loudly. Could just have stuck him in Federation mental asylum, and then given him a cameo in the finale where a nurse tells him about the fall of Cardassia, and it doesn't even compute in his still broken brain.

Thing is I do kind of like the pahwraith cult he has on Terrok Nor as it was a good way to confront Kira on some of her assumptions, an it showed how Dukat is always, always going to self sabotage in all the usual ways.

I do also like the Dukat/Kai Winn ship as it's so hilariously unbelievably wrong. It's great.

How about having Kai Winn actually kill Dukat, either in the fire caves, or before hand after she fully embraces the pahwraiths. It's appropriate he dies to a Bajoran after all rather than by the Sisko, we can even cheer the act as she did genuinely suffer under the occupation, give her a big juicy speech about her suffering in incarceration to really rub it in, and then we can kill her off as well to show that all the things that were wrong with Bajor then can die with her.

In other points yeah I think that they really should have brought Pel back. I think you could have had a really fun episode by also bringing in Grilka, and really torturing Quark via his complicated love life.

[Madner Kami]

Have Dukat die in Waltz

I thought about Dukat, and in the end decided not to cover him as I couldn't decide where to kill him. I kind of want to kill him before Waltz as it's such a writer's manifesto about why the audience has been viewing the character they wrote wrong so they drop all the naunce to shout their point really loudly. Could just have stuck him in Federation mental asylum, and then given him a cameo in the finale where a nurse tells him about the fall of Cardassia, and it doesn't even compute in his still broken brain.

Yeah. Don't need to kill him off. Just leave him in Federation custody and care and not transport him unescorted and close to the front-lines for some indiscernable reason. It was a good final resting spot for him, as he had lost everything. His family was lost, because he couldn't kill Ziyal. HIs life was basically ruined at that point and argueably, that's where the character should've either taken a hard detour from his previous ways or keep him as is, loosing Ziyal and being left with nothing as he was, maybe looping back to him at the end of the war, where he could've gotten a chance of redemption rather than plunging him into pure villainy.

I mean, you could even let him go down the religious route, as a ways for his mind to cope with his looses and then have him roll back into his more villainous ways when coming into unintended contact with the Pah-Wraiths, rather than having him go down that road intentionally for revenge only.

[Nobody700]

For me, like everyone here, have Dukat die in Waltz, but the reason he dies? He dies saving Sisko from the planet, but his motives are for the people of Bajor to forever remember their devil saved their emissary, and that he proved to himself that he truly did 'save Bajor'. Sisko states he finds Dukat evil... but does wonder if he could have been a good man. He was evil, and did evil, but he also shown he wasn't evil for evils sake.

Another, I'd like to say, is probably kept that Romulan lady who appeared in season 3. It woulda been nice if she was a Romulan war leader who is pro fighting the Dominion. Not a main character, but she comes back in and out and aids the Federation not out of sympathy, but she knows the Dominion is a threat... and so joins forces with Section 39 to get them to help. Perhaps she even aided Garak by telling him HOW to plant a certain bomb on a certain Romulan's ship without being detected.

Another major change I'd make, is GET RID OF THE PA WRAITHS! Hated them, stupid concept, keep the final main villain like SF Debris said, Kai Winn. Winn wants to turn the Bajorans into religious war zealots and Sisko, after ending the war, must now prevent Bajor becoming a new Dominion that the Prophets warn Sisko of. Take things back to Bajor, without going super derp mode.

[Madner Kami]

Winn wants to turn the Bajorans into religious war zealots and Sisko, after ending the war, must now prevent Bajor becoming a new Dominion that the Prophets warn Sisko of. Take things back to Bajor, without going super derp mode.

That would've been contrived as fuck. Bajor is in no position to fight anything but a civil war, even at the end of DS9's runtime. That exploited planet with it's decimated population against the Federation or any of the major powers coming fresh out of the Dominion War? Yeahno.

[Nobody700]

Winn wants to turn the Bajorans into religious war zealots and Sisko, after ending the war, must now prevent Bajor becoming a new Dominion that the Prophets warn Sisko of. Take things back to Bajor, without going super derp mode.

That would've been contrived as fuck. Bajor is in no position to fight anything but a civil war, even at the end of DS9's runtime. That exploited planet with it's decimated population against the Federation or any of the major powers coming fresh out of the Dominion War? Yeahno.

Oh sorry shoulda clarified, not NOW, but like, in a 500 year way. Ya know, weak today, strong tomorrow. Idea is Winn's path and beliefs would make Bajor resist joining Federation, and than after years and years of following her ideals, become new Dominion. I apologize.