Why Sisco? Why not someone like Will Riker to run DS9? - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) Discussion

[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Riker turned down several opportunities to command his own ship, why do you think commanding DS9 would have been more attractive to him? They didn't know in advance about the wormhole etc. But I suspect that even then, he would have turned it down. He seemed determined to command the Enterprise, nothing less.

As for "jobless" Frakes, he moved to directing, producing, etc.

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[–] Cmmisc-176-683795 8 years ago

^^This is what I came here to post.

Also, Sisko had the dynamic of being a single parent. Oh, and his mother was a prophet. They couldn't have pulled that off with Riker, and so the story would likely have had to been quite different.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

I suppose they could have turned Riker into the Emissary if they really wanted to. Apparently his biological mother died when he was rather young, that could have been because the Prophets were finished with her, or something.

Although frankly I wouldn't have minded if the overall story had been less about that. Maybe still have "wormhole aliens" but have them be less powerful and/or less involved with Bajor at least in a quasi-religious sense. And the whole non-linear thing could have been scrapped without making any difference.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Couldn't disagree more, the whole idea of linear time/non-linear time is the driving force, the very basis of the show, which is less tidy, and more about faith, struggle, destiny and choice.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Aside from the likelihood - I would say certainty - that if non-linear beings could actually exist (which I doubt) it would be totally impossible for us to communicate with them, I really don't think it would have made a difference to the story. And as it was, they wound up being pretty linear anyway, if you think about it. Rather like how Data kept referring to things in emotional terms even though he wasn't supposed to have any emotions. And I don't buy that he was just using familiar human terms.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

I think it's a certainty that if non-linear beings could exist that we could communicate with them, as the fourth dimension or higher dimensions and any beings inhabiting them are not separate from the third dimension and its beings, they are inextricably linked, so even without realising it, the actions of beings in the third dimension could be dictated by the actions of beings in higher dimensions and vice versa. The prophets, or the collective they belong to, are non-linear, but their avatars of appearances in linear time are of course linear in appearance and nature.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Sorry, I just don't buy it. Did you ever read Flatland?

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

No, not yet.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Thanks for your suggestions on how to have made the show crap.

You must really dislike DS9 to want to remove so many of the main characters and have the show do incompatible crossovers with a completely different kind of show.

Your alternate, watered down, TNG spin-off DS9 offends me deeply. I am struggling to comprehend such a dull, derivative DS9 experience, nor do I wish to. Worf fit in better on DS9 IMO than he did on TNG (although that show wouldn't have been the same without him), precisely because as a Klingon his constant desire for conflict was never satisfied on an exploration vessel. On Deep Space Nine there was always conflict and the Dominion war gave him a chance to fight.

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[–] Imac7065 8 years ago

I'm glad a question I asked about a TV show "offended you deeply" lol....

A more in depth and darker TNG with the threat of constant war would be an incredible show in my opinion. Avery Brooks acting is cringe worthy at times... Jonathan Frakes was never as stiff and.... never... talk liked... this... for no... apparent.. reason

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Have you watched the whole series before?

His acting gets much, MUCH better as the show goes on, and he loosens up completely, the change happens around season 3/4.

Plus, a darker TNG would have sucked, because it wouldn't have been TNG. DS9 was created as a different, new vision of the Star Trek universe, right in the brilliant pilot episode everything that the show is about is all there, and it uses the TNG episode "The Best of Both Worlds" as the perfect jumping off point. It all fits together perfectly whether you agree with me or not, your flimsy alternate DS9 as a "darker TNG spin-off" doesn't make any sense given how well DS9 works. All the TNG that was ever needed for DS9 is in the pilot, the character of Sisko is established as having suffered loss at the hands of the Borg, left hopeless and with a hatred of Captain Picard for having been used by the Borg as Locutus to attack the Federation. He is filled with hatred, blame and resentment, and so he goes on a journey outside time and discovers destiny and an alternate view of loss in which everything seems to exist forever, renewing his faith and cancelling his linear-thinking blame, so that he takes leave of Picard for his new assignment with closure, so ends TNG, so begins DS9. Right from the beginning the show establishes itself as different from TNG, linked to it as all Star Trek is linked, but about conflict and trust rather than tight cooperation and formality. The new characters worked, if they had simply carried over the old characters there would have been no conflict as they were all friends by the time TNG ended (plus if they had all carried over to DS9 we wouldn't have ahd the great TNG finale "All Good Things"), whereas Deep Space Nine required the characters to initially hate each other.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

He is filled with hatred, blame and resentment, and so he goes on a journey outside time and discovers destiny and an alternate view of loss in which everything seems to exist forever, renewing his faith and cancelling his linear-thinking blame, so that he takes leave of Picard for his new assignment with closure, so ends TNG, so begins DS9.

Sorry, I don't buy that, either. Humans don't/can't exist non-linearly, so how is Sisko supposed to somehow do that for his dead wife? More likely he just needed a way to have some closure and move on in a more normal human way. His new - and previously unexpected - responsibilities/duties gave him something to focus on, and new ways to feel valuable and useful and having a purpose. Plus of course having things to think about without being pulled back to the death of his wife all the time.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Don't buy what? What do you mean humans can't exist non-linearly? I don't think you understand the idea of linear/non-linear time. In the pilot episode Sisko experiences non-linear time, this experience happens in the wormhole, but he doesn't change in order to experience this, rather it's as part of his life as his linear existence, he's getting from point to point in time as he explains to the prophets, but every point already exists as the prophets explain to him. He had all the closure he could possibly have had. I think his experience in the wormhole more significant to the character than you think, granted it takes a long time for Sisko to lose his rigidity. I've mentioned this before, but Sisko season 4 onward seems very different from the Sisko of the first three seasons. You're seeing humans as separate from everything else rather than the same as everything. That the prophets are entities that exist outside time and can see the past, present and future as one suggests that they might have some control over what happens in the timeline and can alter it to whatever end that may be. Q too seems to exist outside time, which he forces Picard to realise in All Good Things and he also seems to be able to change things somehow.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

To that extent, humans can already "imagine" non-linear time, and believe that their dead loved ones are still with them, etc. But that's already within the realm of human experience, no non-linear wormhole aliens required. If anything, Sisko just "grew up" enough to move on with/past his grief, and to realize that Picard wasn't really to blame for what the Borg did, etc. Having new things, new work etc, to focus on might have been the main part of that. Or, like I said, maybe he just finally "grew up" a little.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

I'd agree with you if not for the fact that the prophets, the wormhole and the idea of non-linear time plays such a huge role in the series at large. It is within the realm of human experience, it can be imagined, but to experience it is very different entirely. When Sisko meets finds the celestial temple, non-linear time becomes real, the prophets become real and throughout the series he has to struggle with the contradiction between linear time and non-linear time, duty and destiny, starfleet and Bajor, prophecies and science, what seems to be and what really is.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Well, see, Sisko is still human and so I don't believe he can actually experience or understand non-linear time. (No more than the wormhole aliens could experience or understand linear time, despite Sisko supposedly "explaining" it to them.) If such a thing is even possible, at least for any kind of life form. I think he just finally moved on the way humans have been doing for a LONG, LONG time.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

...did you watch the pilot episode?

In the pilot episode, Sisko is taken out of time, into the realm of the prophets, he experiences timelessness, in which the prophets take him to different points in his timeline and inhabit people in his life. In inhabiting moments of Sisko's life, the prophets experience linear time, which Sisko explains to them as they explain non-linear time by having him jump between different points in his life.

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[–] dogstar-12 8 years ago

In the pilot episode, Sisko is taken out of time, into the realm of the prophets, he experiences timelessness, in which the prophets take him to different points in his timeline and inhabit people in his life.

I don't think that happened. The Prophets merely probed his memory and took the forms of people he'd known for the purposes of communication - they didn't literally take him back in time like they did, say, for that poet who later claimed to be the Emissary. And it was pretty obvious that Sisko never left the wormhole - the Prophets "taking him to different points in his timeline" would mean literally taking him back to Wolf 359, for example.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

And people can remember and dream about stuff like that without "experiencing non-linear time."

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

I would agree were it not for the fact that they keep mentioning "you also exist here" as Sisko is trying to explain progression through time. If it had nothing to do with time and was just his memories, they wouldn't have been using that in the argument that he was intrusive and inherently destructive as a time-continuing life form. If the celestial temple, the wormhole, is a place beyond time, or a passage to a place beyond time, and the prophets are omnipotent beings, then like Q they would be able to transport him to these different events and take control of various people during these events. I don't think it makes any difference whether they are memories/dreams in his mind or the events themselves, for as is revealed later on, the prophets played a role in his entire life.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

That's part of the BS, as far as I'm concerned. Non-linear beings saying that Sisko also exists here? That's like Data saying "I am afraid I have no emotions." It's crap that tries to sound "deep" - and it seems to work on some people - but it totally falls apart if you look at it and think about it for 5 seconds.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

I disagree. Putting aside Deep Space Nine, or Sisko's veritable "nest of whores." Referring to another episode "Prophet Motive" in which Grand Nagus Zek is devolved by the prophets into a less greedy Ferengi, the prophets claim they saw a time in which the Ferengi were less aggressive and adverserial, but Zek only contacted them as Quark did, through the orb in the wormhole, the time of Ferengi history in which the Ferengi were less aggressive must have been programmed into his mind, each mind merely surface phenomena, not separate from anything else and an access point to the rest of time and space.

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[–] dogstar-12 8 years ago

I would agree were it not for the fact that they keep mentioning "you also exist here" as Sisko is trying to explain progression through time.

They were just referring to his mental state. Because up to that point they had no concept of linear time, they had no concept of loss and therefore of grief, which was obviously Sisko's driving emotion at that time of his life.

You've obviously seen most, if not all, of the series, so something else to consider is that there's clearly a difference between a "vision" from the Prophets and the Prophets physically possessing someone (which does happen from time to time). A vision is always dreamlike and disconnected, while a possession doesn't affect anything other than the possessed individual.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

I agree there is a difference, but when the prophets physically possess someone in the present it is simply to do battle with the Pah-wraith, another non-linear entity. In this way the lightning surface violence is honed in a particularity reminiscent of the whole of everything.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Gobbledygook.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Ecstatic Evidence

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[–] Imac7065 8 years ago

Let me try to take this one point at a time...

1) Why would a darker TNG suck? It wouldn't be TNG.. it would be a spin off run with new characters and much more in depth characterization. For example.. the last episode of TNG hints at a love triangle with Worf, Troi, and Riker.. then is completely ignored in the movies. Wouldn't you like to see an on going subplot fleshing that out?

2) How does it make no sense to you? Riker taking over DS9 (especially after the worm hole discovery) makes perfect sense within the ST Universe. Riker is the perfect balance of hardass and compromise to deal with Kira and Odo. Sisco has never seemed to be a person who could handle that to me.. and yes I have watched later seasons of this show, but not for a long time.

3) How could Riker not fill the role of someone with "hatred and resentment" after discovering he was the emissary of an Alien races religion? This is a major part of the darker and more in depth stories I was referring to.

4) Are you aware that Kira wasn't supposed to exist on DS9? It was supposed to be Roe from TNG (the actress turned it down so they wrote her off TNG)... meaning Berman was thinking EXACTLY as I am about this 20 years later.... I can only assume they didn't choose Riker because there might have been hope of extending TNG to an 8th season and/or they needed him for the movies... he did direct the first few.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Completely misguided.

And no, I do not care to see an ongoing subplot about a love triangle with Worf, Troi and Riker.

Riker is not Sisko, Sisko is his own unique character. Sisko could handle it well, and he did. Sisko grows and changes throughout the show as do all the characters, it wouldn't have worked with a single character out of place. There's no point in even considering it, it doesn't add anything, Riker as emissary and commander of DS9 just doesn't work for me because Sisko is such a strong character.

I am aware that they were originally going to carry over Ensign Roe. I don't care how Berman was thinking, as I recall he wanted to keep the show more like TNG with an episodic, rather than serialised structure, whereas Ira Steven Behr and Michael Piller formed the ongoing story of the dominion war. Berman was thinking like you 20 years ago? Wow. How so? Because he was trying to carry over ONE character from TNG? It turned out to be Kira, and Kira is great, Nana Visitor is great as Kira, so why even consider Ensign Roe. I liked Michelle Forbes as Ensign Roe in those TNG episodes, but that's all, I can't even consider her in the role, because as with Sisko, Kira is a strong character and irreplaceable. You can only assume? What does that mean? I think they didn't make Riker the commander of DS9 because they wanted to make a new, different show. Everything that needed to be carried over from TNG was carried over in the pilot episode.

DS9 is not a mere spin-off from TNG, it's a further evolution of the series.

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[–] Imac7065 8 years ago

These things are so foreign to you? Because they never happened and you seemingly love teh DS9 we have.. you seem incapable of thinking outside of your own box on this.

Kira is great, sure.... but she was a character that popped out of no where. We had an entire backstory on Roe and her connections to both Bajor and the Federation. She makes a BILLION times more sense to fill the Kira role.. but you cannot allow yourself to see this. Roe becoming a terrorist didn't fit with her character to me.. she seemed much more the hardass, do things my way that they try to make Kira in DS9.

As for me believing Berman was thinking like me. He clearly was lol. A darker, more in depth version of TNG... he just didn't get his way on it.

One thing I'm sure we agree on is Berman did try this with the borg plots on Voyager.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

TNG already had its dark moments. Picard, tortured by the Cardassian - the borg two parter. Unsurprisingly, the atrocities committed by the Cardassians, and the borg attack, are the two things from TNG that are carried over into DS9, although the latter only in the pilot episode.

It made more sense to carry over Ensign Roe at the time, but she didn't want to do it, so we got Kira. I don't feel like speculating on a different DS9 because I feel that aside from the aforementioned ties, DS9 works, nothing seems out of place, I could imagine Ensign Roe in the Kira role if I wanted to, but that would be pointless. I could also see Will Riker in Sisko's place, but that seems pointless too. Avery Brooks can be bit hammy but so could Shatner. He is very flat in those first two seasons, but gets more comfortable and charismatic, as the character of Sisko does after two years on the station, it all works, and a darker version of TNG has already been done...in select episodes of TNG, which were done very well might I add.

And just because Berman wanted Ensign Roe from DS9, that's a far cry from DS9 being a darker TNG. So she made sense at the time, but things worked out differently, and well, they worked.

As for Voyager, I have only seen select episodes, and not the whole series through.

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[–] DSNFan 8 years ago

Ro wouldn't have worked on DS9; Sisko could just have her court martialled for insubordination and back to the stockade for her.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Well to be fair Kira defied orders on a number of occasions, but I guess because she wasn't in Starfleet he couldn't bust her down in the same way. She was still under his command though. All the same, I don't think Sisko is the sort of officer who would have minded some insubordination. He broke the rules himself on a number of occasions. Also correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Ro join the Maquis by that time? Or was that in TNG season 7?

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

It seems to me that if Ro had moved over to DS9, she would have done so after resigning from Starfleet and becoming a Bajoran officer. Once the Cardassians were gone, and it would be possible for her to be effective under Bajoran authority, she would have switched in a split second. Heck, I don't know if there's any reason to believe that Kira had a Bajoran Military/Milita rank either, that meant anything, BEFORE the Cardassians left. Before that she was just an underground member/"terrorist."

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Before the TNG episode in which Ro betrayed Starfleet and joined the Maquis, I would have thought she'd have stayed in Starfleet despite her Bajoran heritage. She would have put in a request for transfer to DS9, and only if denied, would she have left Starfleet to become a Bajoran officer.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

I think she would have left Starfleet to become a Bajoran military officer as soon as they offered her the chance, which might have been as soon as they figured that someone with her previous Starfleet/Federation experience would be particularly good at dealing with Sisko and the others. And making her a Bajoran officer would put her on a more equal footing with Sisko and not merely subject to his commands. They'd want someone who would be in a position to advocate openly for Bajor, not being subject to another Starfleet officer.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Good points. However I'm glad we got Kira instead. Ensign Ro has the same kind of attitude, but Nana Visitor made the character particularly..snappy. Plus with Ro there wouldn't have been so much conflict/friction with the Federation, as she'd been a part of it for so long and had earned their trust, whereas Kira had been fighting the Cardassians for her whole life on Bajor and it took two seasons for her to finally trust the Federation.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Yes I agree that it probably turned out better overall, although we can never really know for sure. If it had been Ro, the writing would certainly have been different - it wouldn't have just been all the same scripts with Ro saying the same lines that Kira said, etc - and if it had started out that way, and gone from there in its own direction, it might have also been just fine. Perhaps even better. Ro didn't seem to have as much respect for Bajoran religious traditions - especially the Prophets and the Emissary etc - but in the TNG episode "The Next Phase" it seemed like that might have been starting to change for Ro. And once seriously confronted with the reality of the Wormhole Aliens etc, Ro might have changed even more.

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

One of the crucial elements of the series is the balancing act between her faith and her duty, same with Sisko possibly being the Emissary and his duty. As a resistance fighter she probably had nothing else but her faith and her will to survive and herself. Either way the show would have been good. Ro Laren is really hot too. I find Kira attractive too, but too wound up.

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

Have you seen that Outer Limits episode I've posted before? That's what gave me a new appreciation for Michelle Forbes. And it's just really great on its own too. Perhaps the best sci-fi story or maybe even ANY story I've ever seen/heard/read, if you think about the implications etc. And only a couple arguable logic flaws that can be overlooked because they added to the import of the story and its characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBkV2pAwy-U

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[–] steven_17 8 years ago

Better than Quantum Leap? You know, with Scott Bakula?

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[–] kerryedavis 8 years ago

I never cared for Quantum Leap, and never understood why other people liked it.

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[–] Kruleworld 8 years ago

reason 1: casting a black man in the lead role. Trek has a lot of SJW types who like to justify their existence by casting non-Caucasians. It's something that Trek does well and can easily get away with.

reason 2: in the story, Ben Sisko is basically at the end of his career, having lost his enthusiasm and ambition. DS9 is basically somewhere for Starfleet to park him out of the way in a job that no one else really wanted.

"He's dusted, busted and disgusted, but he's ok"

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[–] geirfold 8 years ago

You're right about Cisco being placed there to keep him out of the way. Cisco states in one of the first few episodes that he had pissed off some of the Star Fleet higher ups and they gave him command of DS9 as a punishment. In the first couple of seasons he kept expecting to be drummed out of Star Fleet.

Also, I would like to thank you all for carrying on a civil conversation. I have been on IMDb for only a short time, and a lot of the boards I have have visited the people there start denigrating anyone who disagrees with them. The whole thread devolves into nothing but name calling.

Again, thank you.

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