DS9 Without Prophets and Pah Wraiths

[SonOfMogh]

I was having a conversation with my friend the other day and we got on to the conversation of what would be a perfect Trek show. My immediate response that I would like to rewatch DS9, but with all the fantastical/fantasy elements taken out, as well as a more serialised format from day 1.

I personally think DS9 was at it's best when there were no people firing energy blasts out of their hands or general 'magical' stuff happening. To me it just cheapens the show and takes away from the drama. I roll my eyes whenever Sisko is talking to the Profits and they're all his crewmates etc. If you watch episodes like 'In The Pale Moonlight' you get a real picture of what DS9 did best in my eyes.

Personally, I'd still have the Bajoran religion intact, and I'd still have them decide Sisko is the Emissary etc, I just wouldn't ever have it evidenced in any way- just like religions on Earth.

While I'm ranting I'd keep the Ferengi as B stories only, aside for maybe the odd Quark story. I'd also drop the pathetic fight choreography, if a Klingon man is 3 times the strength of a human man then there will never be a situation where he could get beaten up by a Trill woman- ever. I'd have made the Jem Hadar barely react to any physical attack from anyone except Worf- making them genuinely frightening as opposed to basically punching bags for Kira and Dax.

Would anyone watch this show or am I taking out al the best bits??

 

[Jono]

I'm sure someone would watch the show...you for example.

Personally, the bits you are removing I generally enjoyed so I suppose that would mean I would not like your version as much as the real version, though I might still watch it.

 

[Navaros]

Absolutely they should have removed the hokey, vastly unbelievable fight scenes in which the good guys 'knockout' the bad guys in ridiculously cheesy ways just because the script 'calls' for the good guys to 'win'.

I agree they should have removed the Prophets and Pah-Wraiths. But that's not going nearly far enough IMO. Hence it would only be a marginal improvement. I would have gone one step further and removed all the Bajorans from the show as well. 99% of them were inherently annoying, and not worth giving any screen-time or story-time to. The only drawback to this that I see is losing Kai Winn, who was a brilliant character and actress. But overall I'd have to think it would be worth to not have to see whiney, self-pitying Bajorans droning on and on about the occupation ad infinitum every time they open their mouths. I realize that the Bajoran story is central to DS9 as written, but I'm sure they could have come up with something much better if they tried. It's very ironic IMO that DS9's main storyline - the Bajoran-centric one - is the very worst one in the whole show. IMO the showrunners must have known this too, which I think is why they didn't even bother to give it any closure in WYLB. Instead of Bajorans, I'd much rather have seen more Garak, more Odo, more Weyoun, more Dominion, or simply more outstanding SciFi stories like the type done in TOS; a type which DS9 had very few of (Ie: along the lines of Captive Pursuit, which is a great DS9 episode in that tradition).

I would have kept the Ferengi A-stories featuring Quark, Brunt, Nog, Rom and pre-Ishka Nagus. All great characters and some really good episodes about them. Ishka is the lynchpin that made the Ferengi episodes become annoying, so I simply never would have added Ishka to the show. Then the Ferengi episodes, characters, and entire race never would have jumped the shark.

I agree they should have serialized it more. They did the best with what they could under Berman's restrictions, and better than could be expected given how much they went against what he wanted. But still, yes DS9 would have been a better show if it was more serialized. I think they would have done this if not for Berman being opposed to it.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

The wormhole aliens as just that was one thing, when it was decided they really were interested in the affairs of corporeals, then it became hokey.

Pah-Wraiths were probably a misstep.There's a disconnect there. Keiko has a malevolent entity who wants to kill the prophets because it was cast out. Why they were cast out is unknown. How can they be "evil" when the "prophets" were so little concerned with humanoids and didn't understand linear time?

Sisko introduced it to them, so the aliens did what they did in our past. Meaning Sisko may have created the whole prophet/pah-wraith schism, and the prophets in turn created Sisko (that one is the worst offense), which makes it a mess....

All that said, things work out pretty well for the most part.

 

[Damask]

I was having a conversation with my friend the other day and we got on to the conversation of what would be a perfect Trek show. My immediate response that I would like to rewatch DS9, but with all the fantastical/fantasy elements taken out, as well as a more serialised format from day 1.

To me that wouldn't be DS9. In fact I don't think DS9 went far enough in exploring this aspect.

I personally think DS9 was at it's best when there were no people firing energy blasts out of their hands or general 'magical' stuff happening.

I'd agree here though. I found "The Reckoning" to be the weakest of the Prophet storyline mainly because of the hokey effects. Same with how Dax died. Or Red Eye Dukat. Didn't mind the Fire Caves though.

If you watch episodes like 'In The Pale Moonlight' you get a real picture of what DS9 did best in my eyes.

No problem with the above but I think something like Rapture is another example of DS9 at it's best. No hokey "magic" as such just a man on a journey and how is employer and family view him.

Personally, I'd still have the Bajoran religion intact, and I'd still have them decide Sisko is the Emissary etc, I just wouldn't ever have it evidenced in any way- just like religions on Earth.

I have to admit I wouldn't like this. I liked the Federation vs Bajoran view of the Prophets. The Federation view that the wormhole aliens built this safe wormhole which is why it's stable and ships can pass through. Or the Bajoran view that the Prophets guide ships through the wormhole,etc.

I also dislike the suggestion that we shouldn't show any example of "religious miracles". The Federation don't classify them as miracles. Just something on the same lines as Q.

I find Q to be a far worse example of what you're describing actually.

I'd also drop the pathetic fight choreography, if a Klingon man is 3 times the strength of a human man then there will never be a situation where he could get beaten up by a Trill woman- ever.

It's not all about strength though? It's about skill also. Ezri couldn't go toe to toe with Klingons so it's seem that Jadzia trained hard. We also don't know much about Trills. Why should simply be compared to humans? Same with Bajorans.

I'd have made the Jem Hadar barely react to any physical attack from anyone except Worf- making them genuinely frightening as opposed to basically punching bags for Kira and Dax.

Why the two women again? I'd take Kira and Jadzia over O'Brien and Bashir. I've no problem with the Jem'hadar being more dangerous but I'm not sure the payoff would be that great.
"Oh no, the phaser is dead! Run!"
*Bump into Worf*
"Prepare my dinner wenches, I will deal with these".

Would anyone watch this show or am I taking out al the best bits??

Probably not for me. DS9 had problems. The Prophets storyline could have been done better sure but I think it's an interesting story and somethi

 

[Ezri II]

Bajor would be very boring and the people would be very boring. Bajor became less and less important after time. If you remove their religion, well, they would be just funny looking people with funny looking noises.

 

[Marie1]

Bajor would be very boring and the people would be very boring. Bajor became less and less important after time. If you remove their religion, well, they would be just funny looking people with funny looking noises.

I'm not sure that the idea of powerful benevolent aliens is really out of place in ST- after all, we have so many powerful nasty and weird ones- Trelane, Q, etc. Why not some nice ones that give aid and hope? Even if someone is an atheist, in the context of the Prophets, its "realistic" in ST world. And people who aren't religious maybe can understand the bitterness some (not all, of course) take towards religion. There are people who would go to great lengths to remove religion from earth, even though the majority of people on earth seem in some way religious. Maybe the slaughter of people in churches in Africa lately? Maybe we haven't met the wormhole non-religious equivalents yet? Anyway, I wouldn't take it out. Its good if for no other reason than for there to be diversity and for the practice of acceptance. And but for the Prophets and Sisko, Bajor would have taken a beating by the Dominion.

 

[chris32482]

I would have gone one step further and removed all the Bajorans from the show as well. 99% of them were inherently annoying,

At first I thought you were joking, but then I realized you were serious; I'm not sure which scenario is funnier.

DS9 without Bajorans would have been a completely different show. Sure, it may have been better - we'll never know - but why change the show that we all love?

Personally, I love the Bajorans; their culture, the story of the Occupation. It made for a very rich and interesting backstory to DS9. The ONLY thing I don't like about the Bajorans are the stupid outfits that their religious leaders wear.

 

[bigdaddy]

It's like saying "i would like Voyager if they changed the characters, got rid of Janeway, and the ship never really got lost". Or maybe "I'd like TNG, if it had the TOS characters".

DS9 is fine the way it is, perfect, no way, but no TV show.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The Prophets/pagwraith plotline was a good counterpoint to the Dominion War plotline. You have the mystical contrasted with the political and that really opens up the story and makes it feel even more epic.

The problem was in execution. The Dom War plotline was pretty well done. You could quibble over the pacing of the war, and why did it seem to vanish for certain stretches, where people play baseball in the holosuite for a couple weeks, and then whammo suddenly they're back to desperately battling for their lives, hmm, but overall it worked okay.

The Prophets/pagwraith plotline didn't work so well. It was a lot of mumbo-jumbo that kept afloat because nothing was really explained, and when the time came for solid information (late S7), it all devolved into a silly video game.

The way to have done it would be to make it revolve around Sisko's personal spiritual journey, and not about this or that fantasy-based group of critters fighting other critters in fire caves or wormholes, which isn't something that's very easy to relate to or care about.

Sisko needed to really have something at stake for the conflict to be focused on him and his spiritual growth. I wanted there to be a real conflict between Sisko retaining his identity as a Starfleet officer and his role as a Bajoran spiritual figure. He should have been forced to choose.

This wouldn't have been hard to pull off and in fact would have been more logical than what they actually did. Sisko betrayed the Federation by telling the Bajorans to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Dominion. Maybe he thought it was the right thing to do, but it's not what a Starfleet officer should be doing. He's putting an alien religion before his duty to Starfleet - very iffy behavior.

This didn't blow up in his face because Starfleet simply took his word for it that the Prophets were giving him the advice and the Prophets know what they're doing. But why should Starfleet buy this? As far as they know, the Prophets are aliens who could be in cahoots with the Dominion and Sisko is just a dupe. Starfleet shouldn't believe the Prophets are dieities. At the very least, they should be wildly suspicious of any group that dispenses "advice" that benefits their enemies.

If Sisko's decision had blown up in his face, it would have made an interesting plotline and a crisis for Sisko to resolve. It wouldn't have wrecked the series because Starfleet couldn't just remove him as DS9's commander. The Bajorans would have thrown a fit, so Starfleet's hands would have been tied. And not too long afterwards, the Occupation Arc started, so Starfleet would have back-burnered the situation until the crisis had passed. They can't just give a highly competent starship captain the boot at that point.

And after the Occupation Arc, the full arc of the conflict could have been explored in parallel with the resolution of the Dominion War. 1 1/2 seasons seems just right for that. And the resolution of Sisko's arc should not be a physical victory, with energy blasts coming out of anyone hands (hoo boy), but a moral victory, and maybe a learning experience for the atheistic Starfleet that they aren't the fount of all wisdom in the cosmos, and there are things that they don't yet understand, maybe never can understand.

Basically I just think Starfleet and the Federation are incredibly arrogant and need to be smacked down.

Here's a related thought - they never really did anything with the notion that they have two religiously-defined civilizations in this story - Bajoran and Dominion - and that might have been a cool contrast. Not sure what they should have done, but it seems like there would have been possibilities they could have explored.

 

[thirteenth]

I loved the religious undertones with the Prophets.. In my opinion that would not be Deep Space Nine, but I do agree with the hand to hand combat, that was very cheesy, IMO...

 

[SonicRanger]

God-like aliens is a long-lasting Star Trek tradition... You can't get rid of them!

P.S. - I love the scene in Farscape when Trek-fan John Crichton says: "God-like aliens. Man, do I hate god-like aliens. I'll trade a critter for a god-like alien any day."

 

[dreadpiraterose]

I can't imagine DS9 with anything removed. I thought it was a good balance of many different elements, and it simply wouldn't be as good if that were removed. Besides, in your series, we would have never had "Far Beyond the Stars" - one of the best episodes of any Trek series.

 

[Phily B]

The prophets were fine, the pah wraiths were fine. The execution of that whole arc sucked, they should've interwined it with the Dominion War but instead it just interfered with the war and made Dukat dumb as hell.

 

[Augustus]

I would like DS9 less if that happened.

 

[HRHTheKING]

Take out the Bajoran/Pah-Wraith/Prophet/Emissary stuff from DS9, and it would have been a banal war series.

Without the Bajoran element, it's just not DS9.

 

[2 of 10]

^^
Argeed, if you were to take out the phophets and the celestical temple, you would have been taking out an important element of DS-9. Just as Kiras faith carried through some hard times as in "Star Ship Down" I also enjoyed the interplay between Kira, Winn, Bareil and Shakar. The scenes between Sisko and Winn were pretty cool also. I compair Kiras faith to Weyouns faith in the Founders, another pretty essential part of the DS-9
experience. I don't think you would want to elimanate that part of the series, so why take away the prophets and Bajors spiritual belief system...

 

[DeafPoet]

I'll admit that the first time I went through DS9 in my youth, I found the Dominion stuff way cooler than the Bajoran stuff. As I've gotten older and seen DS9 almost more times than I can count, it's the Bajoran stuff that keeps me coming back.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good war story and the Dominion still does it, but Bajor and its religion and history just have so many more layers to them.

So, in short, come for the 'splosions, stay for the enlightenment.

 

[Red Ranger]

Hmm. Well, I think DSN really took off when the Dominions was introduced. I was much more interested in the conflict between two societies at fundamental odds with each other over pretty much everything.

I also found the Bajorans in general rather boring, except for Kira and Winn, but liked the Wormhole Beings/Prophets. The Pah'Wraiths? Meh!

Having said all that, the balance between the Wormhole Beings and the Dominion did make DSN unique.

Red Ranger

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

I have to agree with the OP. The Prophet/Pah Wraith stuff always seemed quite lame to me. The show would have been better without it.

As for Bajor - not the most fascinating planet. But there had to be some culture there, and some aspects of the recent history were central to the show's premise. But a lot could be improved there.

I enjoyed the Ferengi episodes. I'd rather lose the Klingon eps, which were done by TNG before anyway.