Ron D. Moore Q & A from AOL’s Message Boards
Dated 9808.31
Q: Now that Nichole de Bour has been officially announced as the new Dax (and it’s about damn time!), can you tell us if the short-lived Adrienne Barbeau is the new Dax rumor reached your offices? And what was the reaction if it did?
A: Great rumor. It was the source of much mirth in these halls.
Q: Are we going to learn if the Dominion has encountered the Borg? Are we going to see a Borg episode of DS9? Are you going to completely wrap up the series or will you leave it open to books or movies?
A: Although we’ve talked about it a few times, I’m pretty sure that we’re not going to deal with the Borg in any way this year, even in a Dominion backstory. As for the finale, I’d like to keep everyone guessing for now.
Q: I get the feeling from the curtness of your responses to questions about Kira’s promotion that you’re not really happy about it–that, and the fact that on numerous occassions in the past you’ve said that “Colonel Kira” didn’t sound right to you. Am I right in this?
A: It still sounds a bit odd to me, but I don’t have a real problem with it. It’s a nice bit of character to add in the last year and I think we can use Kira’s increasing responsibilities throughout the season.
Q: While on the subject of ranks, exactly what is Odo’s rank? All we ever hear him referred to is Security Chief (which is an assignment, not a rank) and Constable (which is a nickname). Yet on numerous occassions it has been mentioned that he is a commissioned officer (for example, in “Heart of Stone” he threatens to resign his commission). So what is his official designated rank anyway?
A: While we may have thrown around terms like “commissioned officer” a bit too freely, Odo is in fact simply the Security Chief of the station and has no formal “rank.” He’s a policeman, not a member of the Bajoran Militia, and although I suppose the Bajoran Security Forces probably have some sort of hierarchy, we’ve never established any sort of titles for them.
Q: Since Odo is officially under Kira’s command, wouldn’t regulations forbid their having a relationship?
A: This would be a Bajoran matter and they evidently don’t have any such regs.
Q: Does O’Brien now have to refer to Nog as “sir”?
A: Yep, but we tend to make him do it only in specific situations.
Q: Is there a reason that the pilot of the Defiant isn’t a member of the “Command” division? The pilots on every other Star Trek series (Sulu in TOS, Geordie, Wes and various supernumeraries in TNG and Paris in VOG ) are all in Command. In DS9 the ships pilot was Dax, from the Sciences Division and will apparenrly be Nog, from the Engineering Division. I assume the “real world” reason is a shortage of reoccuring characters in the Command Division on DS9.
A: The real world answer is the correct one. When the Defiant was first established, we had established only one Command officer on the station — Sisko — and he certainly wasn’t going to be the helmsman. Rather than give the role to an N.D. or a one-shot guest star every time we went aboard, we decided to have Dax pilot the ship, which seemed like a better use of our characters.
Q: Have you read Tim Lynch’s season 6 wrap-up?
A: I’ve read it and a few other season reviews, but I make it a policy not to comment on reviewers’ comments (seems like bad form somehow).
Q: Mr. Moore – Terry Farrell has expressed her willingness to return for guest spots on DS9. Would you like to include her character somehow in any upcoming episodes, or at the very least, the series finale? And if so, do you have actual plans to do this (or is it still just in the discussion stage?).
A: We’ve discussed this in the past, and I’m sure that we will discuss it again in the future, but we have no plans to reprise Terry’s character at present.
Q: We have seen sets used over and over in a variety of different ways over the last 11 years. It’s become kind of a game to figure which set was what during an episode. The giant Jeffrey’s tube from Trek 5, for example, has popped several times since her first appearance. My question is how does this come about. Do you sit down and say hey we can use set so and so for this sceen. Do certain sets have names to identify them when stored? When a set is altered and or painted does get stored that way for does it go back to the original color. Do they get broken down piece by piece or in sections. Have particular sets or pieces been thrown out? Say the Klingon helm station from TMP, it was reused as the Regula 1 transporter console, is it gone for good? Does it ever get re-used? Is the TNG bridge still around? Is the new – TOS bridge still around? Obviously you can’t have all these sets standing, so which ones get to stay up for a period of time. I am speaking of course of the sets other than the Promenade and such. The TOS movie bridge was once used as Soran’s lab, later as Moogie’s house, and this year Voyager used it twice. Does it stay standing? Are there some interesting sets that we might not recognize as they have been recycled over the years? Most importantly, are the original TOS movie bridge chairs still there somewhere or the the Captain’s chair as seen in FF and TUC?
A: Although both VOY and DS9 have three entire soundstages full of standing sets, we still don’t have enough room to leave anything new up unless we can turn it around and use it the very next week or shortly thereafter. If there’s a “guest set” that we think we’ll have a use for at a future date — like, say, the Klingon Bridge — we’ll arrange to have the set taken down and put into storage either here on the lot or at one of our off-site facilities. The walls, consoles, etc. are then crated up and stuffed into a large warehouse when they’re removed from the stage. They are stored exactly as they were last used, so if we trash the Klingon Bridge with explosions, and fire and so on, that’s the way it will be stored. So when the set is hauled out again to be reused, it will have to be spruced up for the requirements of the new episode. We often cannibalize sets and alter them for many purposes, so there are times when we think we still have a set in storage only to find that “No, we don’t have the Romulan Bridge anymore, Voyager used it as a Kazon house of ill-repute last week.” The fate of the various Captains’ chairs is something of a mystery. I know that the original TNG chair was swiped just before “Generations” was filmed and I don’t know what’s happened to the TOS movies chairs. Probably in somebody’s living room somewhere…
Q: Mr. Moore, it looks as if DS9 season/series finale may air in May. Do you have any concerns that the finale will air around the time of the opening of the new Star Wars film and get completely overshaowed in science fiction mediums (as if its not overshadowed already) ?
A: Great. Another reason for me to lose sleep this year. Thanks a lot.
Q: Mr. Moore, during the time you were moving from TNG to DS9 I assume you had to go back and review the first two seasons of DS9. I was wondering what stood out when you reviewed the episodes of those years ? What about the show did you like and wanted to explore further ? What didn’t you like about the show ?
A: I remember watching “Duet” and thinking that here was a Trek series willing to push the franchise and go into new and powerful territory. I also remember watching “Move Along Home” and wondering if everyone had lost their minds. (Not that I had much room to talk as the proud author of “Aquiel” and “Rascals.”) I liked the fact that they were setting out in new directions from the TOS and TNG models and that they weren’t afraid of presenting their regular characters as less than perfect. I wasn’t that interested in the Bajoran politics in those first couple of years, but felt that it was something that could be better mined in time.
