UNCUT - The Search Part 1 (DS9 S3E1) | Star Trek Journey 329

DS9 sex scoreboard catch up version No scores that I saw (remember I am only catching up with the short versions) The sex score board Quark 4 Jadzia 2 Chief 1 Keiko 1 Odo 1 Kira 1 Bashir 1

It's interesting how you mentioned loving the conference room moments in TNG, because Marina has said those were her favourite moments in TNG, having them all sat there together. Love your Troi shirts btw!

Finally, i'm back with you guys. I love The Search, both parts get A from me.

You might piss us off sometimes, but we love ya and aren't going anywhere. Like the TNG crew, we're family!

They are not in the DS9 category I didn't even know they were reacting to them yet.

The USS Yamato appeared twice in TNG. The first time was as an apparition created by Nagilum in "Where Silence Has Lease" to confuse the **** out of the crew (particularly Worf -- ONE RIKER! ONE BRIDGE!) The other was in "Contagion" when it had the Ikonian program uploaded to it's computer core which caused it to go *KABOOM*

I kept looking at Alex's stomach throughout the episode for an ever-changing and amusing mutation of Troi's face.

My first episode viewing as a Patron member! Fear not -- the only thing that would ever drive me into the arms of another reaction channel would be if Alex starts bleaching his hair again Don't..... don't do that Please

DS9's Best of Both Worlds. For good and ill.

One little moment I have never liked in this episode is Sisko insisting Quark kiss the scepter of the Grand Nagus. It’s just, IMO, way out of character for Sisko to take so much joy in basically humiliating Quark like that, and undercuts their nice moment of mutual respect on the Defiant bridge later (which does actually seem to be paying off the bond they formed in the season 2 finale).

Those Marina Sirtis shirts are incredible.

I thought you two would enjoy this episode just because it was so character heavy. I think the recap was necessary because this is reminding the audience what happened last season and how the characters are still reacting. Also, I think it helps build tension a bit more and then everything goes south. I also like that the main cast all had something to do in this episode and the cast of supporting characters expands even further with the addition of Eddington and T'Rul. DS9 really has the most developed supporting cast of any of Trek shows, and there are plenty more to come.

Alex: @1:20 "I think I have a pretty good idea of where this is going." 😂😂😂

My first time watching this series was by myself, so it’s endlessly engaging to get other’s expectations and predictions compared to mine at the time. I thought Odo was never going to find his people, so this was a big turn.

You guys are doing fine. There’s a lot of people that acoustically obsess over Star Trek and have for years. Many of those people don’t understand the love can be expressed with harsh words and criticism.

"Giant floating pirate ship made of Odos" was not a mental image I expected to learn from this react but I'm very glad I did.

The Defiant introduction was as badass as I remember. Shame it gets it's ass kicked in it's first battle but I remember those phasers looking so amazing and they still hold up all these years later. Banger of an episode.

Troi's face on Alex's shirt at 8:30 timestamp looks exactly like South Park Caitlyn Jenner lol. Same squinty right eye and slanted thin mouth Also the irony of Alex saying "thats the most ridiculous shirt" about Jake while Troi's face is lookin like that on his shirt

Salmon Odo arc

Why did I have it in my head that part two would be up today. I assumed that but I don't think you actually said it

There's really nothing to suggest they couldn't all transform together. And we have super space life forms. Could she possibly recreate the Crystal Being, the Jellyfish (Farpoint), or even the Super Bio-ship (Tin Man)? (Please do not reply if it contains spoilers. Pure speculation based on what we have seen so far.)

I often don't like y'all's opinions, but I often like the way you formulate your opinions even if I disagree (sometimes vehemently disagree) with them. Which is why I'm here. I don't watch reactions for the sake of hearing my own opinions regurgitated back at me. I watch them to vicariously relive parts of my youth now long lost to the past. But also to hear interesting thoughts on media I care about.

Ahh, always nice to get a reaction in before work.

what is thier obsession with the Bonding and Lessons two of the most middleining Episodes IMHO

I don't think I've ever seen it brought up, but people may not notice the way characters are listed differently between TNG and DS9. TNG lists them strictly by character names. "Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard". DS9 lists them by rank & name. "Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko". As a military guy, I always preferred DS9's listing convention. Because that's how we do it. I also think it demonstrated more respect and lended more gravitas to the characters. Just my opinion.

You know Josh, you say it tongue in cheekily but there really isn't anyone else diving into Star Trek (or even most shows) as deeply as you guys do. It's why we're here, even if there are occasional chaotic opinions. Solid start to S3!

Just some gee-whiz info. While 'Captain' is a rank, it is also a title given to whoever is in command of a ship, regardless of the rank they hold. In the US Navy, it is common to see Commanders or even Lieutenant Commanders serving as Captains of smaller vessels, patrol craft, and mine sweepers. JFK was only a Lieutenant Junior Grade when he captained the PT-109 in WWII.

Whoop!

What really elevates Deep Space 9 is the use of runtime to explore the characters. Many of the best scenes in the series were written because the showrunners realized the episode wasn't long enough to fill the runtime. But unlike many shows, even other Star Trek shows, the scenes that get written to fill that missing runtime are not filler, but essential. One of the most famous and franchise-defining scenes in all of Star Trek is one such DS9 scene.

I'm more of an Ira guy (yes, I've even been seen with a purple beard on occasion), never noticed an influence I'd attributed to Moore. The problematic one for me always was Berman. But maybe in the end the tension between Ira and Berman was the right mixture for DS9.

Great reaction, enjoyed the T-shirts!

I like the intro discussion: relaxed Alex and standoffish Josh. Wait, is this a Star Trek character swap? Transporter malfunction?

One thing I always appreciated about the Defiant bridge set was how much it looked like the original series bridge, with the various stations around the command chair in a circle, unlike the Galaxy-class bridge with the horseshoe design.

One interesting bit of trivia, Robert Hewitt Wolfe and Ira Behr were going to write both parts, but Wolfe was on his honeymoon, so Ron Moore ended up getting the assignment even though he had just joined the show. Fans were like: “Of course Ron Moore would put a ship on the show!” (You know, like Moore could just unilaterally make that decision on a whim!)

I had no idea about the Trekmovie article until you mentioned it in the intro, that's neat

On two-parters, I know that in TNG, most, if not all, of the two parters were not written together as a single story. Part one was written and filmed, then they had to go back later and figure out how to end it. I don't think that was the case here?

Voyager wasn't on Blu-ray and isn't likely to be either. TNG, DS9 and Voyager were shot on film, but then post-production was done entirely on 480 tape. They won't remaster the film elements of DS9 because there's no finished film stock to remaster. The TNG remaster took a few years and a giant budget with a full time staff essentially redoing all post-production on TNG; opticals, editing, overlays, etc. But this was 2007. Blu-ray was never anything more than a drop in the bucket for the projected income. Local television affiliates were hungry for HD content and Seinfeld, Frasier, MASH, Cheers and TNG were the syndicated shows that brought in the largest pricetags. $80 for a blu-ray wasn't going to make a difference. $30,000 for a six month contract to a locaal station in Boston was renewable income on a large scale. We all love DS9 and Voyager, but the demand in 2007-2008 was a tiny fraction of the demand from local affiliates that TNG had. The TNG remaster was worth the years of manpower and millions of dollars to recoup that cost. And we were lucky. TNG is on streaming now in a package with all Trek; and it's in-house for Paramount+. Paramount isn't going to spend years remastering DS9 for the same number of P+ subscriptions. It's sadly not an issue of better remastering tech. The show would have to be reconstructed mostly from scratch. I would give my left kidney, but there's a difference between a Lego set and a multi-year commitement with $0 ROI, sadly.

I recall one of the writers saying that they realized that, for Sisko, after two seasons, the show had made it seem like DS9 was still “just a bad job” for him. You can see the conscious effort to start changing that here, with Sisko realizing the station feels like home and his growing desire to protect Bajor and its people. I do recall fans at the time complaining that Odo’s aggression felt over the top, but I always felt like his job as security chief is literally his whole life. So for him to be demoted, essentially, and then for Odo to react by immediately quitting just had to make him feel like his whole world was coming apart at the seams. Like, he’s close to emotional breakdown territory even before he starts feeling some instinctual pull he can’t control.

"As the Space Station Turns", lol. Space soap opera...that's what Josh & Alex love. They got a ship...so now more missions off the station...smart move there!

I'm old enough to be a Counting Crows fan, and I once read an interview with Adam Duritz where he said something like, "If you want to make a song about how much you love someone, you write about a poster on the wall in your room." The Sisko/Jake scenes here strike me that way. Figuring out where to put the wall art is the kind of mundane little moment a real father and son would have together and remember later.

I liked the small changes with S3 like the new combadges and Odo having a better look with the collar. I wasn’t crazy about Dax’ new hairstyle with this. They finally quit dressing Jake in kid pajamas and having him in decent looking clothes.

DS9 isn’t alone in not being remastered like TNG was. Voyager wasn’t remastered either.

You asked what class of ship is the Defiant. It’s the Defiant class in that it’s a prototype with an NX designation similar to the Excelsior which had an NX designation in ST3 and then by ST6 had a NCC designation and was the first ship in the Excelsior class, which we saw several ships in TNG of the same class.

It's good to see TA enjoying the show Moore

Love the intro for this one on the shirts, and glad to see DS9 fired back up! Missed yall!

I am *so* interested to see whether Josh and Alex got "got" in part two. I think the second half is structured the way it is to literally try to distract the viewers with so much batshit stuff happening on the station, hoping you’re so invested (and baffled) at the crazy pace of events that you won’t have time to put it all together.

Man, love the direction you are thinking this story is heading in. :-D

I can't wait for them to react to Part 2. Its going to be a great reaction.

Loving the comments. I have been a trekker since the 1960s and it is fantastic to share in all this info that so many knowledgeable people are posting. In my younger days I attended Star Trek conventions in the U.K. throughout the 70s ,80s and 90s and met Leonard , Bill, Nichelle, Deforest , George and Jimmy Doohan. Also cast from TNG . My final outing was The Royal Albert Hall which included cast from TOS, TNG , DS9 and Voyager. I remember Avery Brooks has a brilliant singing voice. Patrick and Bill were hilarious . Such wonderful memories. I love the fact that Alex and Josh have reawakened my life long love for Trek . So much fun revisiting wonderful episodes again and shouting at the screen when I disagree with them. 🥰

On your comment about spoilers in the credits - I'm completely with you because as a UK viewer, we also didn't have things spoiled by promos etc. Star Trek was screened on the BBC which doesn't have ad breaks. So every episode was basically experienced as you guys are experiencing it - no breaks in the show and no ads before the show telling you everything that was going to happen. All the better for it too!

Tidbits from Memory Alpha- Eddington was originally conceived to be a character like Lt Primmin who could be a stand in for the Chief when he was away shooting movies. Ronald Moore was given the honor of naming the new ship to celebrate hm coming over to DS9 from TNG. He originally wanted to call it "Valiant" but was downvoted because they didn't want two ships with names starting with a "V" due to the heavy promotion of the upcming Voyager. So instead, he named it "Defiant" after the Constitution class ship from the TOS episode "The Tholian Webb" a name he had always been fond of and that fit the role the ship would have as a respone to the overwhelming Dominion threat. Moore launched a season long campaign to make the DS9 crew feel more like a family, and a few things in this episode were put in specifically to go in that dorection, such as the minor plot about Sisko and Jake feeling like DS9 had become home. We also see Sisko's growing personal attachement to being responsbile for Bajor, contrasted to his indifference in the beginning of the show. Sisko had been annointed as the Emissary in the pilot, but so far, other then sarcastic comments by Winn, we haven't really explored that. But Sisko is shown starting to feel like he has a person connection and responsibility for Bajor's fate. There was also a subtle moment when Quark says "good luck" to Sisko before he leaves the Defiant showing that Quark does care and is invested in what happens to these people, something perhaps he didn't feel towards the prior Cardassian occupants, other then how it affected his business prospects. Initially Rene Auberjonois was against Odo findind his people as he felt it would be the dramatic death of his character, but when it was explained to him how it went down he changed his mind and felt it deepened his character. DS9 was a show where the actors' input on their characters was taken seriously, and things were in fact changed at times because the actors didn't feel like certain things were authenetic to the character they were playing. This was particularly true for Nana Visitor and Avery Brooks. Armin Shimmerman started to identify with Quark's perspective, and felt like "Despite the Federation's lip service to their Prime Directive, which says they're not supposed to apply their standards to any culture's attitudes, it seems to me that this was another example of the Federation making fun of, taking advantage of, and ridiculing the Ferengi way. So kissing the scepter was a bit irksome" One thing you didn't notice was the slight change in Odo's design. At the request of Auberjonois, his look was changed to be more similar to the Odo from the mirror universe, with the collar. I personally agree, it was an improvement, as before his neck was too prominent. Writer Pamela Roller cites this episode as a shift in attitufe for the series, taking a more "definat" stance (I think she's talking about elements that would not have been part of Roddenberry trek, like the cloaking device, the warship, and the theme of a more military starfleet). The Karemma were mentioned as the race the Ferengi were trying to establish trade deals with through the Dosi but were not shown previously, hence the confusion as to their identity. In "The Maquis", Odod had previously referenced his frustration with getting blamed for security lapses but being hamstrung by Starfleet regulations.

One other thing it seems you guys missed. Part of the reason Odo was angry was he was still bothered by his demotion. This sets up the idea that he doesn't really belong with humanoids (especially as he thinks there is distrust of changelings) setting up his instinct and making him finding his people more impactful as the suggested idea is that maybe (as the "female" changeline, played by Salome Jens who also played the holographic image of the Preserver/Progenitor from TNG's The Chase, literally said "You're Home") he feels its confirmed he doesn't really belong amongst humanoids.

So I think the problem with a lot of TNG's 2 parters, is that so much of their structure was built around "you better tune back in 3 months from now to see how this is resolved". But twice now DS9 has chosen a different route. Both In The Hands of the Prophets and The Jem'Hadar were standalone episodes that opened the door to a new plotline but didn't end on an actual cliff hanger. With that approach, they can place their 2 parter(or 3 parter) at the start of the following season, and instead of building it around the cliff hanger, they can just tell this larger story that actually justifies 2 parts. Which isn't to say TNG never did. BOBW, Redemption, and Chain of Command absolutely needed 2 parts. Birthright was just 2 separate episodes that they made overlap. I don't entirely hate season ending cliff hangers, and they can be done right, but there's a lot of merit to the way DS9 started S2 and 3. The Defiant does allow some stories to be told that otherwise couldn't, at least not convincingly with the roundabouts. The Maquis demonstrated how inadequate they were even against fairly minor opposition. As to why the Romulans would let Starfeet have a cloak, it's built off the precedent of information sharing they agreed to back in The Neutral Zone. The Romulans want to know about potential threats such as the Dominion as much as anyone. This way, they get any info Sisko and crew can gather about the Dominion, and they don't have to risk one of their own ships to do it. Bottom line, the Romulans let them have the cloak for purely selfish reasons. It just worked out for Starfleet too. Shame the ship got trashed in it's first outing. Regarding Sisko leaving Dax and O'Brien behind, I also like it. You can tell he kinda wanted to smack T'Rul for being so flippant about it, but then he thought about it, and pragmatic Sisko took over. He's justifying it later, telling himself they'll be fine, but he didn't like doing that. If they tried to rescue them, and there was no guarantee they could even get through the shield, then best case scenario they manage to get them back and run all the way back to the wormhole, and then wait for an invasion that'll probably kill all of them anyway. The entire ship and crew could just as easily be lost in the attempt and they both remain prisoners forever. If on the other hand Sisko is able to establish peaceful contact with the Dominion, then he can negotiate for their release. I think it's a great contrast to the "don't tell me the odds" approach. And fi8nally we discover Odo's origins. Will he find the answers he seeks, or more questions? Also weird they call it a dwarf planet when there's a clearly visible star in the orbital view. You'd expect a planet in deep space would be a ball of ice. I will say though, I like the Defiant's shuttle way more than those boxy little fuckers the Enterprise had. Solid start to the season.

Now do we want to speculate, considering Odo always had the same attitude towards authority, how the Cardassians never chose to kill him….

For size since you didn't seem quite sure, the Defiant is smaller than even just the saucer section of the Enterprise. Defiant is supposedly about 170 meters long, Enterprise in TNG is supposedly 642 meters long.

Weird....using the Paramount+ app (in the U.S.) as I always have done....it slowly became out of sync as the episode progresses. This has never happened before. I don't know if Patreon is running a tiny bit fast, or if the Paramount+ app was running a tiny bit slow....not enough to be noticeable if I was watching alone, but the speeds were not at a 1:1 ratio :/ There was no buffering or anything like that, just slowly becoming out of sync.

Only 1 X Files this whole month?! GUYS!!!!

Alex is really going to enjoy Lower Decks for a certain moment.

This was the episode where I started to watch ds9 every week. You can see why.

a few notes. I think you missed it, but the deal with the cloaking device is that the Federation will share all information they gather on the Dominion with the Romulans. The Defiant is Defiant Class, as the class is named after the first ship made. They didn't send the Defiant to fight off an invasion but as a ship that could contact the founders which was tough as Sisko said. And it was. Even though Starflett shields arent effective against the Jem'hadar weapons, the ship took a pounding and was able to destroy a Jem'hadar fighter with basically one shit from the phaser pulse cannons (which are cool, not continuos phasers but charged phaser pulses that are clearly less precie but more destructive). After the Jem'hadar boarded they weren't firing on the ship anymore, they were aiming to take prisoners. You are correct that the Changelings modeled themselves after Odo, who in turn modeled himself after Mora. The Karemma were not the Dosi who were the traders with the makeup, the Dosi were setting up trade with the Karemma. The Dosi are the primary trade managers for the Dominion.

we've seen the conference room before, but just without the whole staff there.

Don't worry Alex, you be you. Ive seen all these episodes multiple times. I'm here for your opinions and re-watch something I like with a different perspective. Hope others feel the same way.

Happy to have you back! I've missed you guys.

I read somewhere that the Defiant was named after the ship in the Tholian Web. Both in univers and real life. I'm not sure on that I could be wrong.

I'm assuming you've seen part 2 already, so hearing your predictions for part 2 is pretty hilarious.

Hey Guys, the blankets where the gifts I sent you, that I messaged you about! I'm glad you liked them!

The Defiant was also the name of the Starship caught in the inter-dimensional rip that Kirk gets trapped aboard in the TOS episode “The Tholian Web”. Just a bit of Trek trivia! 🖖

Presumably the first Galaxy-class starship was not the Enterprise, but a ship called..... the Galaxy. Likewise, the Defiant being a prototype is the first of it's class, and is therefore a Defiant-class Starship. You did see a ship called the Defiant before, it was a Constitution-class ship similar to Kirk's Enterprise, it was slipping into another dimension.. but you might have been preoccupied with that devious web being spun by the Tholians!

Don’t tell me the DS9 kiddies are ACTUALLY Star TREKKIN’?!?! One of the fringe benefits of introducing a new Starship to this series.

Holy shit. We are an entire series removed from Dr Stubbs. Crazy to think about. What a journey!

The Defiant, being the first ship of her class, is a Defiant class starship. Starfleet adheres to 20th Century US Navy class naming conventions.

Look, guys. I paid for the whole year. I'm not going anywhere. I want my money's worth! ;) Not sure if you chaps have ever seen Krull, if so you may remember Kenneth Marshall from that? If not, it's worth a watch at some point, a fun, if somewhat ambitious fantasy film. Great to be back watch DS9 with you. The break really does feel as long as the recap and intro of this first episode of season 3. Enjoyed listening to your thoughts and speculation for the next episode. Let's see how those pan out. Roll on part 2!

The face on Alex's shirt is hilarious.

First time watching along using my new DVD set. 1. the quality is way better than the netflix (germany) edition. 2. way out of sync, so I had to slow down to 0.96 speed and it was fine ;) Ron Moore is an awesome showrunner (Battlestar, Caprica, Outlander) and Star Trek ;)

Again, the Yamato is not a clone of the Enterprise :) It's a Galaxy-class starship. The Enterprise-D is only one of many Galaxy-class ships in the fleet, just like the Uss Excelsior is one of many Excelsior-class starships. Ships of the same class look identical, just like the military navies of today. At any rate, glad you guys are back!

Did y’all forget that Picard turned his back on Worf on that Klingon ship that was getting attacked rather than engage in a Klingon Civil War? This is similar, because Sisko would risk the mission if he decloaked. The writers are not consistent with this, but they’ve never been.

I appreciate you guys clarifying, but no need in my opinion. You don’t start a freaking YouTube channel and run it for this long and dedicate all the resources you have for something you don’t absolutely love. I freaking love Star Trek. It’s often amazing. Sometimes it’s ok. Sometimes it’s dogshit. I want you guys to be honest about when you feel the same. To the people who never want to hear Star Trek assessed critically: get bent.

Thank The Great Bird of the Galaxy that you’re back! Glad you enjoyed this one gentleman. It would have sucked to come back on a low note - and I bought this one a day early for myself for my birthday tomorrow so it was a great present!

So glad you're back! Just in time because DS9 leaves Netflix tomorrow! 😭 Hoping that I can continue following along on another platform. Can't wait to see part 2!

i like to think sisko replicated that staff and made the whole story about the nagus up

The real DS9 starts here! It will start again in season 4 episode 1, and again in season 7, episode 26. 😉😁

It is Navy tradition that anyone in charge of the bridge of a ship is called Captain

Ok, so a good half of the discussion, Marina's face on Josh's shirt was shriveled up, and it looked like an awful Snapchat filter, and it was impossible to stop looking at it 😂. Super pumped you guys are back on the track with Trek.

Alex and his predictions. Oh boy.

I was unable to wait until tomorrow. Hope you guys enjoy the two-parter! And if you don't, I'm sending the Plot after you

This was your best hook ever. Five minutes of pining for Ron Moore followed by THE MOMENT in the opening credits. LFG, baby. Also Alex's shirt kept wrinkling in such a way that Troi was giving me the stink-eye for most of the episode, which oddly added to the story's appeal. Welcome to the real DS9! Looking forward to part 2.

Welcome to the end of the begining, you crazy bastards! Personally I love this episode

Yeah Marina Sirtis did pull jabs at DS9 at times. I don't know if she liked it or not, or if it was just a friendly banter, because Frakes did it as well. It wasn't her best moment in my opinion. But maybe I'm biased because I don't really like her. I do like Troy, just not Marina.

Its my birthday, this is an excellent gift. I forgot we get it a day early.

Ah the opening titles - go grab a drink, make a three course dinner, read book and do some knitting and maybe we will be up to Siskos name.

Just to clarify, those spotted aliens from “Rules of Acquisition” were not the Karama/part of the Dominion(I think they were the Dozi?..🤷‍♂️). When they couldn’t supply as much wine as Quark and the Nagus wanted to buy, one of them told Quark he would have to deal with the Dominion to buy that much, and that she could connect him with a member of the Dominion. But we were never shown what they looked like until now(they might not have been stated to be the race called the Karama until here, but I can’t remember/be certain).

Love the continuity using a link to Best of Both Worlds Part 1" linking to this - Cmdr Shelby saying "We've been designing new weapons, but they're all still on the drawing board". Given Siskos' comments that the Defiant was conceived five years prior (around TNG S3ish) to fight the Borg, its a nice little origin story for her. And yep, she's a Defiant class. As a prototype, the lead ship of a class always takes the name (same with the USS Excelsior prototype being an Excelsior class) 👍🏼

Here we go boys!!!!

What if Jake's shirts and jumpsuits aren't typical earth fashion, and Jake just has the most fucked fashion sense?

I just remembered... I used to love when you guys commented on the TNG promos. DS9 had awesome promos. You can still throw them in after each episode. "Next time! On Star Trek. Deep Space Nine!"

The Defiant is a Defiant class ship. It's a prototype. It's easily my favourite of all the star trek ships.

Small correction. Sadly, Voyager is in the same shape as Deep Space Nine. DVD only, no HD, and not remastered.

Damn, Ron! The dialogue in this episode is FLOWING

We don’t have to run to anyone else, everyone is here on patreon

yayy!!! glad to be back 🖖

The main reason DS9 is as good as it is, especially from S3 onwards, is because all the important people basically completely ignored it to focus on Voyager, and the DS9 folks got to play by themselves over in the corner and be awesome.

Lfg boys. 👏

Both S2 and S3 openers feel very much like the show setting its stall out and saying this is what we can do, it’s probably fair to say that on the whole DS9 was stronger for its first. 3 season openers than TNG (Redemption and TBoBW aside)

There are a lot of opinions on when DS9 became great. Season 3 brought changes as Michael Piller had set up the show for his departure. Producers Peter Allan Fields and James Crocker did not have their contracts renewed. Ira Steven Behr wrote on TNG Season 3 and then declined to come back. When DS9 was in development, Michael Piller promised Ira if he would join from the beginning, the show would be turned over to him after Season 2. When TNG ended Michael Piller urged Ronald D. Moore to join DS9. He thought that DS9 was closer to Ron’s sensibilities. He said Ron would be the “secret weapon” of the staff. René Echevarria wanted to join VOY after TNG ended, but Michael Piller assigned him to DS9. He thought Ira would be a good mentor and that DS9 would be better for having René. “The middle child (DS9) always gets away with more.” René Echevarria -Producer “I kind of liked the idea of being a secret weapon...” Ronald D. Moore -Supervising Producer “We were the bastard child. But if we were going to be the bastards, we were going to be inglorious bastards.” Ira Steven Behr- Executive Producer/Showrunner