Subject: Answers Date: 3/5/98 4:51 PM Pacific Standard Time From: RonDMoore Message-id: <19980306005100.TAA19981@ladder03.news.aol.com> <<Will anything good ever come from Dukat's condition? That is, will Dukat somehow be able to rescue his people from the deal he made with the Dominion's Devils? Or perhaps his example could have a lasting effect on the history of Cardassia, causing them to reassess their beliefs.>> These are all possibilities, but we haven't decided what the end of Dukat's story is yet. <<If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you and your writers consider rescuing Kai Opaka from the prison planet where she is now imprisoned? >> We have talked about this, but at the moment I don't think we'll do it. <<Will Kira ever make up her mind about Odo one way or another? >> I wouldn't be surprised if she did... or if it happened this season... <<Have you made a deliberate decision to soften Odo's personality? Is this a build up to a romance with Kira? Because I have to say that I HATE what's happened to Odo. He used to be an interesting character. Now hes just dull. I used to like his sarcasm and his sardonic outsiders view of things. Now all we see is the plaintive puppy at Kiras side, or the smug "aren't I cute" smile. I'm going to be seriously unhappy if Kira suddenly decides to fall in love with this wuss. Their relationship was a deep complex thing in the first two seasons, but Odo has lost his personality. You wasted the character of Dax by using her as romantic interest to beef up Worfs character arc. I don't want to see the same thing happen with Kira in relation to Odo. Are there any plans to look at the darker side of Odo - the side which used to make him such an interesting character? >> If you ask me, I'd say that we play Odo's darker side all the time -- "Children of Time" "Behind the Lines" "Things Past", etc. If you're talking about Odo since the end of the six part arc, it's true we haven't played his darker side recently, but you can't play that stuff all the time, it gets boring. We'll continue to mine all the facets of his character as the stories develop. (Of course, I flatly disagree with your comments about Dax, so there's no "danger" in my mind of "the same thing happen[ing] with Kira.") <<Do you have anything to do with the paramount web site?>> Not a thing. <<Can you give us the latest list of episode names in production, and possibly a one line description of each? >> #20 -- "His Way" Odo/Kira show. #21 -- "The Reckoning" Sisko show with heavy emphasis on Bajoran religion. Also features Kai Winn. #22 -- "Valiant" Jake & Nog show on a Defiant-class ship behind enemy lines. #23 -- "Profit & Lace" Quark show featuring Moogie, Zek, Brunt, Rom, Nog and Leeta. <<Will the mirror universe storyline be resolved before the end of the series?>> I think so. <<n TNG series, there were a large number of guest stars on the show simply because these actors (Or in one case Basketball players!) simply wanted to be on the show. Are there any charactors or episodes of DS9 currently being written for the same reason, and are there any guest stars in the works?>> No stunt cameos are planned at the moment. <<Have you and the writers ever thought that perhaps you might have made the Dominion too powerful an adversary?>> No, we've made a very deliberate effort to keep them formidable. <<Over almost the entire Star Trek history, religion, namely christianity/judism, has been ignored. Are we to think that the 24th century humans are "Godless"? I believe that Picard in the episode"Who Watches the Watchers" said that by having the Mintakans believe that Picard was a demi- god, "would set them back into the silly believings that we used to have" or something to that effect. So are the prophets the only true gods of the galaxy, or are they just powerful god-like aliens?>> We aren't going to be answering the musical question, "What God(s) created the universe and where are they now?" on this series. The Bajorans clearly believe in the Prophets, Worf believes in Sto'Vokor, and there are probably more than a few humans with their own belief systems still around. Who's right and who's wrong will not be resolved by the end of the series. <<Ron, it is just Odo that has to revert back to his geltinous state every 16 hours, or is it ALL changelings? >> We believe this is a limitation unique to Odo. <<Not really a question, but I think in addition to the writers at paramount that write DS9 and Voyager episodes, I think you should have also a research person who goes off and sees what the people would like to see in episodes, and a "discrepency weeder" who points out any discrepencies that you make while you are writing an episode, for example, in "Little Green Men" Quark says that gold would be fine as payment for advancing the 20th century earth people 400 years, but in "Who mourns for Morn" Quark discovers that Morn's latinum is actually "worthless gold" It's hard to get some facts straight and be knowledgeable about Star Trek with discrepencies like this. No offence, but I just think it would make the facts flow and not have to worry about contradictions made when learning about Star Trek.>> Two points: First, the example you cited is not a discrepancy. In the 20th century gold was valuable, if only on Earth, and Quark could've lived quite well among the hew-mon "savages" if they'd paid him in gold during that era. Second, we do have fact-checkers, Trexperts, and general trivia nuts galore around these parts and we still make mistakes. It happens, but it's not the end of the world. <<In "Far Beyond The Stars" why no Garak or Rom?>> We discussed using both of them, but the episode was very full and we didn't want to overload the story with cameos for the sake of cameos. <<Was Zefram Cochrane the inventor of the first way to go at warp speed or did he just invent the matter-antimatter way to go at warp speed?>> He invented the matter-antimatter warp drive that became the standard throughout the galaxy (except for the stubborn Romulans and their cantankerous artificial singularity drive). <<Does the House of Martok have any rival houses? (ie House of Mogh v House of Duras)>> Yes, and we've discussed a few stories which might feature one of these rivals. <<Which was born first, Duras or Lursa?>> I don't remember. I think it was Duras. <<Did Toral die in Sword of Kahless?>> No. <<Any chance of Bajor entering the Federation before the end of the show?>> There's always a chance. <<Ron, I think you may have missed it, but the week we were discussing �Who Mourns For Morn�, I asked if the liquid Morn expressed into his glass at the end of the episode was a CGI VFX or if it was accomplished through some sort of on-set rigging.>> This was a CGI effect. <<Were the VFX in �One Little Ship� pretty expensive?>> Yes. <<What's it like, from a writer's standpoint, to see, upon the opening of a film, say, "A Film by John Woo" or "A Film by Steven Speilberg" knowing they didn't write one sentence?>> If they didn't write and direct the picture, I think the possessory credit is a crock of bat guano. It should be wiped out of existence. <First Contact?", but I am more interested in knowing why he was listening to it (other than to get his mind off the Borg, of course!). Are there thematic connections between Berlioz' opera and the selection from it to which Picard was listening? I would really love to think that you guys made an intentional selection -- what was your reasoning?>> The specific piece was suggested by Patrick because it featured a sailor singing and dreaming about home. It seemed like an appropriate choice. <> Tzfhis was something that Rene had been championing for the better part of a year. I thought he was out of his mind, but he was persistant and sure enough, one day we decided to go for it. The smartest thing we did was to play the humor of the situation right up front in the opening moments with Kira and that too was Rene's idea.
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