107 Fun Facts About Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Who created Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?

Rick Berman and Michael Piller developed the show while Gene Roddenberry was dying, making it the first Star Trek series without his direct involvement, though Berman said he had given it his blessing.

How many episodes of Deep Space Nine were made across its seven seasons?

Deep Space Nine ran 176 episodes: season one, which began in January 1993 midway through the broadcast year, had 20, and seasons two through seven had 26 each.

What is the name of Deep Space Nine's commercial and social hub?

The Promenade is the station's main street, lined with Quark's bar, the infirmary, a temple and Garak's tailor shop; in the early seasons Keiko O'Brien ran a school there for the station's children.

Who plays Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?

Avery Brooks kept up his professorship in theatre at Rutgers University through all seven seasons, and directed nine episodes of the series himself.

The station was built by the Cardassians during their occupation of which planet?

The Cardassians built the station in orbit of Bajor during their roughly fifty-year occupation of the planet, which ended in 2369 when they withdrew and Bajor's provisional government invited Starfleet in.

What was the station called under Cardassian rule, before it was renamed Deep Space Nine?

Terok Nor. The Cardassians built it with Bajoran slave labour to process ore, then wrecked it as they pulled out, which is why Sisko finds a station in ruins in the pilot.

The wormhole discovered near Deep Space Nine leads to which distant part of the galaxy?

The Gamma Quadrant. The wormhole puts the far side of the galaxy within easy reach, turning a backwater outpost into a hub for trade and exploration and, later, the front line of the Dominion War.

The Bajorans revere Sisko as what?

The Emissary of the Prophets. Sisko is uneasy at first about being a religious figure to the people he was sent to help, and only gradually comes to embrace the role.

In the pilot, Sisko's wife Jennifer dies aboard the USS Saratoga in which battle against the Borg?

The Battle of Wolf 359. A Borg cube led by the assimilated Picard routs the fleet, which is why Sisko can barely hide his hostility when the two men meet in the premiere.

Which prototype warship joined Deep Space Nine in season three to allow stories away from the station?

USS Defiant. Ronald D. Moore, who named the ship, wanted to call it Valiant, but Voyager was about to launch and nobody wanted two Star Trek ships whose names began with V.

What Starfleet rank does Benjamin Sisko hold when Deep Space Nine begins?

Commander. Sisko arrives thinking of resigning from Starfleet altogether; by the end of season three he has earned promotion to Captain, in 'The Adversary'.

Which Next Generation character joined Deep Space Nine's main cast in season four?

Worf. With ratings falling, the studio told the producers to shake the show up, so the Klingon officer arrived in 'The Way of the Warrior' as his people turned on their allies.

Odo, the station's security chief, belongs to which shape-shifting species?

Changelings. Odo spends two seasons not knowing where he came from, then learns in 'The Search' that his people are the Founders, the hidden rulers of the hostile Dominion.

Who plays Odo on Deep Space Nine?

René Auberjonois. He acted through a smooth, unfinished-looking mask, explained in the story by Odo never quite getting the humanoid face right.

The Dominion's genetically engineered shock troops are called what?

The Jem'Hadar are bred as soldiers and kept obedient by addiction: they depend on the drug ketracel-white, which only the Founders supply.

In which second-season episode is the Dominion first mentioned?

'Rules of Acquisition' (1993) first names the Dominion: while Quark negotiates a tulaberry-wine deal with the Dosi, they reveal that the Karemma belong to it. Its soldiers do not appear until the season-two finale.

Which actor played two recurring Deep Space Nine roles, the Ferengi Brunt and the Vorta Weyoun?

Jeffrey Combs. Weyoun dies in his first episode, but the producers liked the performance so much that they made the character a clone so he could keep coming back.

Elim Garak, Deep Space Nine's Cardassian tailor, is a former agent of which secret police organisation?

The Obsidian Order. Garak was one of its top operatives until he was exiled, and its feared chief, Enabran Tain, is later revealed to be his father.

Who plays Gul Dukat, Sisko's arch-enemy?

Marc Alaimo. He had played the first Cardassian ever seen, on The Next Generation; as Dukat he hands Cardassia to the Dominion in order to make himself its ruler.

Which Cardassian, introduced as Dukat's aide, eventually leads an insurgency against the Dominion?

Damar, first seen as Dukat's aide in 'Return to Grace' (1996), later becomes Cardassia's Dominion-installed leader, then turns rebel and dies in the final episode leading the Cardassian uprising.

Who becomes the first Ferengi to join Starfleet?

Nog becomes the first Ferengi in Starfleet after Sisko sponsors his Academy application in 'Heart of Stone' (1995); he loses a leg at AR-558 and recovers in 'It's Only a Paper Moon'.

Which Princess Bride actor plays Grand Nagus Zek, the Ferengi leader?

Wallace Shawn, The Princess Bride's Vizzini, played Zek from 1993; in 'The Dogs of War' the Nagus retires and names as his successor not Quark, who expects it, but his brother Rom.

Who plays Quark, the Ferengi bar owner?

Armin Shimerman. He had already played one of the first Ferengi on The Next Generation; in the DS9 pilot, Sisko pressures Quark into staying on the station by holding his jailed nephew over him.

Which Klingon general becomes Chancellor after Gowron is killed in a duel near the end of Deep Space Nine?

Martok, played by J. G. Hertzler, becomes Chancellor in 'Tacking Into the Wind' when Gowron dies in a duel and the victor hands Martok the title rather than claim it.

Morn, the regular at Quark's bar, is famous for what?

Never speaking a word on camera. The running joke is that everyone else calls Morn a chatterbox; he is named for Norm, the barfly of the sitcom Cheers.

Which piece of jewellery do Bajorans on Deep Space Nine wear as a symbol of their religious faith?

An earring. Its design once also showed a Bajoran's caste, a system so rigid that when a visitor from the past tries to revive it, Sisko warns it would bar his hosts from joining the Federation.

In 'The Way of the Warrior', DS9's effects team filled out the distant battle fleets with what?

Toys, model kits and Christmas ornaments. Shop-bought Playmates toys, Ertl kits and Hallmark Bird-of-Prey ornaments stood in for far-off warships, because building that many studio models would have cost too much.

What do the Ferengi of Deep Space Nine hoard as currency?

Gold-pressed latinum. The value is all in the liquid latinum; the gold is only a worthless casing that makes it easier to handle, as Quark learns when he ends up with bricks that have been drained.

Rather than follow his father into Starfleet, Jake Sisko chooses to become what?

A writer. Jake turns down a place at a writing school on Earth to stay on the station, and when the Dominion seizes it he stays behind to report on the occupation.

Into which original series episode were the DS9 crew digitally inserted for Star Trek's 30th anniversary?

The Trouble with Tribbles. In 'Trials and Tribble-ations' its villain Arne Darvin, played again by Charlie Brill, goes back in time to kill Kirk with a bomb hidden in a tribble.

In 'In the Pale Moonlight', which power do Sisko and Garak scheme to bring into the war?

Sisko and Garak forge evidence to bring the Romulans into the Dominion War; when Senator Vreenak spots the fake, Garak blows up his shuttle so the Romulans blame the Dominion and declare war.

In 'The Visitor', which horror-film star plays the elderly Jake Sisko?

Tony Todd, the star of 1992's Candyman, plays the aged Jake, who abandons his career and marriage and spends decades trying to pull his father back out of subspace.

In 'Duet', the Cardassian prisoner posing as a war criminal is really what?

A file clerk. Aamin Marritza, ashamed that he did nothing at a labour camp, has surgery to look like its dead commandant so that a trial will force Cardassia to admit its crimes.

Where on Earth do Quark and his family crash-land in the time-travel episode 'Little Green Men'?

Roswell, New Mexico. Thrown back to 1947, the three Ferengi become the captured aliens of UFO legend, and Quark at once tries to sell the US Army technology from the future.

In DS9's Mirror Universe episodes, who rules in place of the fallen Terran Empire?

A Klingon–Cardassian Alliance. Kirk's visit a century earlier inspired the mirror Spock to reform the brutal Terran Empire, and the gentler empire proved too weak to fight off its neighbours.

How does Section 31 try to wipe out the Dominion's Founders?

A virus carried by Odo. Section 31 infects him in secret so that he will pass the disease to his people when he links with them, and it nearly kills him too before a cure is found.

Which earlier Dax host was Sisko's mentor, the reason he calls Jadzia 'old man'?

Curzon. As her supervisor he had Jadzia thrown out of the Trill joining programme; she reapplied, got in, and ended up as the next host of his symbiont.

Who plays Ezri Dax, introduced in season seven after Jadzia's death?

Nicole de Boer plays a host who never trained to be joined: the Dax symbiont falls ill on its way home, and Ezri, the only Trill aboard the ship, has to take it.

Dr Julian Bashir's big secret, revealed in season five, is that he was what?

Bashir was genetically engineered as a child, an illegal procedure in the Federation; in 'Doctor Bashir, I Presume?' (1997) his father takes a two-year prison sentence so Julian can keep his commission.

Alone among Deep Space Nine's main crew, Chief Miles O'Brien is what?

A non-commissioned officer. O'Brien enlisted as a young crewman instead of training at Starfleet Academy, yet the series ends with him leaving to teach engineering there.

Bajoran custom puts the family name first, so what is Major Kira's given name?

Nerys. The character was created only after a Next Generation actress declined to carry her own Bajoran role over to the new show, so the writers built a new officer for the station.

Vic Fontaine, DS9's holographic Rat Pack-style lounge singer, is played by which 1960s teen idol?

James Darren. The producers first wanted Frank Sinatra Jr., a Star Trek fan, who turned the part down because he wanted to play an alien, not a singer.

Which producer ran Deep Space Nine as showrunner from 1995 until its finale?

Ira Steven Behr. He had quit The Next Generation after a single year, feeling trapped by its rules, and was coaxed back to Star Trek for the new show that he ended up running.

Where do Sisko and Dukat have their final confrontation in the Deep Space Nine finale?

The Fire Caves of Bajor are where Sisko confronts a Pah-wraith-possessed Dukat and tackles him into the flames, taking the book of the Kosst Amojan with him and sealing the Pah-wraiths away.

At the end of the finale, who becomes commander of Deep Space Nine?

Kira. The Bajoran major who greeted Starfleet's arrival with open disgust in the pilot ends the series as the colonel in charge of the Federation's station.

Why was Sisko's permanent exit in the Deep Space Nine finale rewritten as a promise to return?

The lead actor objected. He was uncomfortable with a Black man leaving his pregnant wife to raise their child alone, so Sisko's farewell was changed to say that he would come back.

Star Trek's first same-sex kiss, in DS9's 'Rejoined', is between Lenara Kahn and whom?

Jadzia Dax. Earlier hosts of the two women's symbionts were married, and a Trill taboo forbids picking up a past host's romance, so the scandal in the story is the reunion, not that both are women.

Deep Space Nine was pitched as which TV Western 'in space', about a widower raising his son on the frontier?

The Rifleman. Studio chief Brandon Tartikoff asked for a Western-style Star Trek set in a frontier town, and Sisko, like the Rifleman himself, arrives as a widower with a boy, Jake, to bring up.

Which Next Generation visitor to Deep Space Nine does Sisko knock down with a punch?

Q. Goaded into a boxing match, Sisko floors him, and when the stunned trickster protests that Picard never hit him, Sisko replies: 'I'm not Picard.'

Where was Benjamin Sisko born?

New Orleans. His father Joseph runs a restaurant there, and it is where a shaken Sisko retreats to scrub clams in the kitchen after walking away from the station at the end of season six.

Which long-abandoned Earth sport is Captain Sisko devoted to, keeping one of its balls on his desk?

Baseball. When the Dominion takes the station, Sisko leaves the ball behind on his desk, and Dukat reads it at once as a message that he intends to come back.

What is the title of Deep Space Nine's feature-length final episode?

What You Leave Behind. The 1999 finale ends the Dominion War and then scatters the crew: Odo rejoins his people and O'Brien leaves for Earth to teach.

Who plays Quark's brother Rom?

Max Grodénchik played Rom, rising from Quark's put-upon brother to station engineer and finally Grand Nagus; Grodénchik had played two other Ferengi on The Next Generation before landing the role.

Which Ferengi character engineers a women's-rights revolution on Ferenginar?

Ishka, Quark and Rom's mother, known as Moogie, wins Ferengi females the right to wear clothes and earn profit by becoming Zek's partner; she was played by Andrea Martin, then Cecily Adams.

In which DS9 episode do the original-series Klingons Kor, Koloth and Kang reunite to avenge their murdered sons?

Blood Oath. Three old adversaries of Captain Kirk return with their 1960s actors, and Dax joins the hunt because her previous host, godfather to one of the boys, swore the oath with them.

Which rebel group of Federation colonists, introduced on DS9 to set up Voyager, fights Cardassian rule over their border worlds?

The Maquis. They take up arms when a peace treaty hands their colonies to Cardassia, and Sisko discovers that his old friend Cal Hudson, a Starfleet officer, has joined them.

The creator of which 1990s sci-fi series suspected Paramount of using his rejected pitch to shape DS9?

Babylon 5. J. Michael Straczynski had pitched it to Paramount, which passed; when DS9 was announced two months after his own show, he suspected executives had used his material, but he never sued.

Morn, a Lurian seen throughout Deep Space Nine, takes his name, by anagram, from a character in which sitcom?

Cheers gave the barfly his name: Morn is Norm Peterson with the letters shuffled, a nod to another customer who never seems to leave his stool.

The Deep Space Nine holosuite caper 'Our Man Bashir' sends up which long-running film series?

James Bond was such an obvious inspiration for the doctor's secret-agent fantasy that the 007 studio MGM complained, and later mentions of the game were toned down.

Vic Fontaine's holosuite lounge in Deep Space Nine recreates which American city in the 1960s?

Las Vegas is where Vic croons, because the show's head writer was a lifelong fan of the city's 1960s heyday and spent years trying to get a Rat Pack-style character on screen.

Which captain does Sisko blame for his wife's death when they meet in the Deep Space Nine pilot?

Jean-Luc Picard had been assimilated by the Borg when their attack killed Jennifer Sisko, and her widower can barely hide his anger as he takes his orders from him.

Which Oscar winner for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest plays Kai Winn in Deep Space Nine?

Louise Fletcher, cinema's Nurse Ratched, brought the same icy calm to Winn Adami, a Bajoran cleric whose ambition carries her to the top of her faith.

Which punk pioneer plays the Vorta Yelgrun in Deep Space Nine's 'The Magnificent Ferengi'?

Iggy Pop's Yelgrun swaps Quark's captured mother for a Vorta prisoner, realising only afterwards that the prisoner is a corpse being walked by remote control.

Deep Space Nine's 'Past Tense' strands Sisko, Bashir and Dax in which American city in 2024?

San Francisco is where they land, days before the Bell Riots, a revolt in a walled district for the poor that Sisko knows as a turning point in Earth's history.

In Deep Space Nine's 'Take Me Out to the Holosuite', Sisko's Niners play a crew of which species?

Vulcans captained by Solok, an old rival who thinks his kind superior to humans, win 10-1, the Niners' only run coming from an accidental bunt.

Besides the Battle of Britain, which battle do Deep Space Nine's O'Brien and Bashir replay for fun?

The Alamo, the doomed defence of a Texas mission, is among the historic battles the two friends recreate in the holosuite when they are not playing darts.

Which other Star Trek series opens with its ship leaving Deep Space Nine, after a scene with Quark?

Voyager docks at the station before its first mission, long enough for Quark to get a scene in the pilot, then is swept to the far side of the galaxy.

Deep Space Nine's Maquis are named after Second World War resistance fighters from which country?

France's wartime guerrillas fought an occupying army from the countryside, and the writers borrowed their name for colonists who refuse to accept Cardassian rule.

Which Irish actor took Miles O'Brien from the Enterprise transporter room to Deep Space Nine?

Colm Meaney first appeared as an unnamed crewman at the helm in the 1987 Next Generation pilot, and the character gained a name only as he became the regular transporter chief.

Which actor, the Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry, plays the tailor Garak in Deep Space Nine?

Andrew Robinson was typecast as psychopaths after the 1971 thriller and later starred in Hellraiser, before turning that menace into the exiled tailor's silky charm.

In Deep Space Nine's early seasons, what does the shapeshifter Odo rest in when he turns to liquid?

A bucket holds the resting constable, which is why pranksters in 'The Storyteller' steal it, fill it with oatmeal and tip the lot over a friend.

Which Ferengi game at Quark's bar in Deep Space Nine spins a wheel much like roulette?

Dabo seats about ten players around its wheel, and each of them buys, sells or converts a stake before every spin.

Quark and his fellow Ferengi in Deep Space Nine hoard gold-pressed bars of which substance?

Latinum is a precious liquid, pressed into gold only to make it easier to handle, so once it has been drained the gold casing is worthless.

Which Betazoid ambassador from The Next Generation grows close to Odo on visits to Deep Space Nine?

Lwaxana Troi is played by Majel Barrett, who also voiced the computers on Federation starships, and her warmth slowly wins over the gruff constable.

Which Klingon coffee, sometimes served iced, is a regular order at Quark's bar in Deep Space Nine?

Raktajino later crossed into the real world, sold as a drink to fans at the Star Trek Experience attraction.

Where on the body do Deep Space Nine's Bajorans wear the d'ja pagh, a chained symbol of faith?

The right ear carries the earring and cuff, and before the occupation its design also showed which caste the wearer had been born into.

Which Deep Space Nine writer-producer went on to develop the reimagined Battlestar Galactica?

Ronald D. Moore joined in the third season and wrote many of the show's Klingon stories; his remade Battlestar Galactica later won a Peabody Award.

Which actress plays Deep Space Nine's Major Kira, whose storyline absorbed her real-life pregnancy?

Nana Visitor was expecting during season four, so the writers had an injured Keiko O'Brien's unborn child transferred to Kira, who carries it as a surrogate.

Deep Space Nine's Jadzia Dax belongs to which species, some of whom carry a long-lived symbiont?

Trill is the species: Jadzia is the young woman and Dax the slug-like symbiont in her abdomen, an idea first tried in the Next Generation episode 'The Host'.

What distinctive markings run down the sides of the face and neck of Deep Space Nine's Jadzia Dax?

Spots were the makeup chief's fix after the producers disliked the forehead prosthetic first tried on the actress; he borrowed them from a Next Generation guest role.

On which part of the face do Deep Space Nine's Bajorans have a row of horizontal ridges?

The nose was all the makeup team changed on these otherwise human-looking aliens, a design that debuted on Ensign Ro in The Next Generation in 1991.

To which rank is Major Kira promoted during the final season of Deep Space Nine?

Colonel Kira is later lent a Starfleet commission as well, giving her the authority to train Cardassian rebels fighting the Dominion in guerrilla tactics.

Which actress played Jadzia Dax for six seasons of Deep Space Nine before joining the sitcom Becker?

Terry Farrell left at the end of the sixth season, which is why Jadzia is killed off, and spent four years opposite Ted Danson as Reggie in Becker.

What do the Bajorans of Deep Space Nine call the wormhole, which their faith had long foretold?

The Celestial Temple is, to believers, the home of their gods, though Starfleet sees a stable wormhole that Sisko found soon after taking up his post.

In Deep Space Nine's finale, Odo leaves Kira to rejoin which merged sea of his fellow shapeshifters?

The Great Link is where his people live merged in their natural gelatinous form, and by rejoining it Odo saves them from being wiped out.

Which freighter captain, once jailed for aiding the Maquis, marries Sisko late in Deep Space Nine?

Kasidy Yates was introduced to Sisko by his matchmaking son, who felt it was time his widowed father started dating again.

Jake Sisko stays on Deep Space Nine during the Dominion's occupation, working in which profession?

Journalism suits the aspiring writer: he stays on as a reporter for the Federation News Service, though the occupiers suppress most of what he files.

Deep Space Nine's runabouts, the small ships docked at the station, usually take their names from what?

Earth's rivers supply the names, and the art department joked that the Rio Grande was the safest ride, being the only one to survive all seven seasons.

Keiko O'Brien teaches school on Deep Space Nine, but which science is her real profession?

Botany is Keiko's field, and the producers wanted her as a regular character, but actress Rosalind Chao was only available part-time.

Which actor, later Doran Martell in Game of Thrones, plays Dr Julian Bashir in Deep Space Nine?

Alexander Siddig was billed as Siddig El Fadil for the first seasons, until he changed his stage name in 1995.

Which helmeted species joins the Dominion late in Deep Space Nine's war and attacks Earth?

The Breen stay masked throughout the series, and the actors' helmets, held together with magnets, tended to fall off whenever someone bumped into them.

Which drug keeps the Dominion's soldiers loyal to the Founders in Deep Space Nine?

Ketracel-white is the leash on the Dominion's troops: in one season-four story a rogue leader who no longer needs it captures Dr Bashir to free his men from the addiction.

Late in Deep Space Nine, Dukat leads a cult devoted to which beings cast out of the wormhole?

The Pah-wraiths, whose name means soul wraiths, claim to be the true gods, and Dukat is even possessed by one for a time.

Bajoran faith in Deep Space Nine centres on which objects, believed to be gifts from the gods?

Orbs each have a power of their own, such as letting the viewer revisit the past, and all but one of the nine then known were seized during the occupation.

Which 2018 documentary had Deep Space Nine's writers reunite to plot an imaginary new season?

What We Left Behind was finished with money raised from fans online, and its makers gathered the old writers' room to script the opening episode of a season that never existed.

Which half-Bajoran daughter of Gul Dukat is killed as the Federation retakes Deep Space Nine?

Ziyal had been quietly helping Kira's saboteurs undermine the occupation, and she is shot by her own father's aide when he finds out.

Which To Kill a Mockingbird actor plays Joseph Sisko, the captain's father, in Deep Space Nine?

Brock Peters, the wrongly accused defendant of the 1962 film, also voiced Darth Vader on radio and played a Starfleet admiral in two Star Trek films.

The title of Deep Space Nine's 'In the Pale Moonlight' comes from a line in which 1989 film?

Batman's Joker asks the question the title echoes, though the writer who reworked the script assumed it was an old folk saying rather than a line invented for the film.

Deep Space Nine's 'The Die Is Cast' is titled after words attributed to which Roman leader?

Julius Caesar is reported by the historian Suetonius to have said it as he took his army over the river in 49 BC, the original point of no return.

Which Shakespeare play gives Deep Space Nine's Klingon episode 'Once More unto the Breach' its title?

Henry V opens Act III with the rallying cry at a siege, and the episode gives an ageing Klingon hero his own last charge so that he can die with dignity.

In Deep Space Nine's 'Call to Arms', what does Sisko leave in his office as a promise to return?

A baseball, relic of a sport almost forgotten by his century, is what Dukat finds when he reclaims the office, and he takes it as a message meant for him.

In Deep Space Nine's 'The Way of the Warrior', Quark likens the Federation to which soft drink?

Root beer is the metaphor Quark offers the tailor Garak, in a bar-room exchange that Wired's viewing guide picked as the best scene of the series.

Which affectionate nickname does Deep Space Nine's Sisko use for his science officer Jadzia Dax?

Old Man fits a friend who carries the memories of his late mentor, and she in turn calls her captain by his first name rather than his rank.

In Deep Space Nine's 'Q-Less', Q challenges Sisko to a bout of which sport and is knocked down?

Boxing in antique-style costume is Q's idea, and the bout was written to show that Sisko would not indulge the trickster as the Enterprise's captain had.

In Deep Space Nine's 'For the Uniform', Eddington casts Sisko as the obsessive policeman from which novel?

Les Misérables arrives as a taunting gift from the fugitive, so Sisko plays the villain in earnest, threatening to poison Maquis worlds until the self-styled hero gives himself up.

Dr Bashir tells Deep Space Nine's Garak which fable, only for the spy to draw his own moral?

The Boy Who Cried Wolf teaches most listeners not to lie, but the former spy decides the shepherd's real mistake was repeating himself.

The Latin title of Deep Space Nine's 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges' paraphrases which Roman writer?

Cicero coined the maxim, about law giving way in wartime, in his courtroom speech Pro Milone, and the phrase is also spoken aloud in the episode.