Badlands The " Badlands " was a region of space located in Sector 04 - 70 of the Alpha Quadrant . A segment of the border between the United Federation of Planets and the Cardassian Union was located in this region . The Badlands were known for intense plasma storm s and gravitational anomalies . Additionally , in the late 2360s , a few ships had disappeared in this region . For these reasons , it was commonly avoided by most interstellar traffic . ( ) History . During the Cardassian occupation of Bajor , the Bajoran Resistance frequently used the Badlands as a refuge from Cardassian patrols . Because of the severely limited sensor ranges in the area , the Bajorans used echolocation techniques to navigate and detect other ship s . ( ) Because of its strategic location inside the Demilitarized Zone between Cardassian and Federation space , the Badlands became a favorite hiding place and staging area for the Maquis during their insurrection against Cardassian control from 2370 to 2373 . In their first major operations , the Maquis took the kidnapped Gul Dukat to a class M asteroid in the Badlands . ( ) When Thomas Riker and a Maquis hijacked the from Deep Space 9 in 2371 , they pilot ed the " Defiant " to the Badlands to rendezvous with other Maquis attack ship s prior to launching an assault on Cardassian space . ( ) Around stardate 48300 , the Caretaker abducted several starship s from the Badlands , including a Maquis raider piloted by Chakotay , and the Federation starship , which had been sent to track Chakotay . ( ) A Cardassian warship was also abducted from the Badlands around the same time . ( ) " In the mirror universe , the Badlands were also used as a staging area by the Terran Rebellion before their capture of in 2371 . " ( ) Bajoran trader Razka Karn also hid out in the Badlands when the Tholian s were pursuing him for some unscrupulous " business " practices . ( ) Kasidy Yates ' s freighter route between Bajor and Dreon VII often took her close to the Badlands as well . ( ) After the Maquis learned that he had informed Starfleet of Michael Eddington ' s location , Cing ' ta was marooned on a " particularly nasty " planet in the Badlands . ( ) When the Cardassian Union was annexed by the Dominion in 2373 , ( ) the remaining Maquis cells that managed to escape the Jem ' Hadar took shelter on Athos IV , an abandoned mining colony on the edge of the Badlands . The Maquis sent a disguised distress signal , code d as a confirmation of the launch of a missile strike against Cardassia Prime , to send word to Michael Eddington that the Maquis remnant had survived . Those few survivors were rescued by Starfleet a short time later . ( ) The Badlands remained a strategic location during the Dominion War from 2373 to 2375 . Fleet movements in the region required additional escort s to guard against ambushes from inside the plasma storms . ( ) In 2375 , the was destroyed by the Jem ' Hadar near the edge of the Badlands . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Origins . The Badlands were conceived during the development of – to be precise , at some point amid a stretch of two or three days , from 8 or 9 August to . On the 10th , Jeri Taylor noted , " " We posit ' Badlands , ' a turbulent area of space where some ships have been lost ( some of them might crop up during the series ) . But it ' s a hiding place for our bad guys [ meaning the crew of Chakotay ' s Maquis raider ] , who think they ' re invulnerable . " " In notes Taylor dated 17 August 1993 , the Badlands were likened to the Bermuda Triangle . It was stated , in a beat outline for VOY premiere , that ships traversing the Badlands had to " maneuver through holes . " ( " " , pp . 186 , 190 & 231 ) In the first draft script for " Caretaker " , the Badlands are described as " a huge flailing plasma storm with electromagnetic flares whipping out dangerously like tentacles . " Design . One of the first visual ideas for the Badlands involved a fiery effect . " " There were always supposed to be these whirling fires inside the Badlands , " " explained Gary Hutzel . However , these elements didn ' t make it to the screen when the region made its first appearance , in " Caretaker " . ( " " , p . 457 ) In that installment , the Badlands were represented entirely with CGI . ( " " , p . 285 ) This effects work wasn ' t entirely satisfactory , though . " " No one really liked them , " " noted Hutzel . ( " " , p . 420 ) When the Badlands began appearing on , the visual effects artists didn ' t know they would be asked to depict the area as frequently they were . " " We didn ' t think we would be coming so often , " " Gary Hutzel explained . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 34 ) For the reappearance of the Badlands in , the DS9 visual effects team depicted the Badlands with a new look . " " They ' d been reworked a couple times , " " remembered Gary Hutzel , " " but when it fell upon me to do the Badlands for this episode I decided to throw out everything that had been done and start over . " " The redesign of the roiling plasma fields involved several steps . First , Hutzel ' s group of VFX artists layed out a twenty - foot - square piece of black velvet on the floor of Image G . They then climbed up into catwalks at the facility , which were eighteen feet above ground , and pails of liquid nitrogen were poured from the high catwalks down on the velvet . " " It splattered real good , " " commented Hutzel , grinning . " " We needed that much force to get the violence of the effect . " " As the liquid nitrogen landed on the velvet , it was filmed at 120 frames per second . ( " " , p . 420 ) When it came time to create visuals of the Badlands for , Gary Hutzel decided that the effects footage previously used to represent the area could be improved on . He created the swirling clouds and the suddenly appearing plasma tornadoes , bringing two opposing natural elements together for these effects . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 33 ) The plasma tornadoes in " Blaze of Glory " were influenced by demands from the DS9 producers . " " The producers began asking , ' Where ' s our pillars of fire ? " " Gary Hutzel relayed . For the effect , Hutzel called on the help of Gary Monak and requested that he create the illusion . Beginning to do so , Monak crafted a box that , at its bottom , had a powerful fan which could create a vortex . He stated , " " The boxes were over eight feet tall and we made a couple different kinds to experiment with . " " Monak also claimed that the " most effective " box , the one that was selected for the effect , was rectangular . ( " " , p . 457 ) According to " Dreamwatch " ( issue 37 , p . 33 ) , however , the box which was used for the effect measured four feet square . The box was made from , painted black , and coated with fireproof material on three sides , with heat - proof glass on the fourth . ( " " , p . 457 ; " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 33 ) Noted Monak , " " We left one side of the [ box ] [ . . . ] off and filmed through that opening . " " ( " " , p . 457 ) To achieve different effects , the team not only left a side of the box open but also subsequently capped the box and a vent was placed on top . Air was sucked in through another vent on the opposite side of the box , which caused the air inside to spiral . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , pp . 33 & 34 ) " " Once we shot some nitrogen in there and got it rotating in a counter - clockwise direction , " " Monak continued , " " we injected fire with a propane burner . The heat made the flame rise so we got this finger of fire going . The hotter we made it , the higher the flame would rise in the box . " " ( " " , p . 457 ) Hutzel and his team filmed the blazing propane on Paramount Stage 16 , shooting over seven thousand feet of film during one afternoon . The footage was photographed at 250 frames per second . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 33 ) Once the fiery pillar was filmed , it was an easy task for Hutzel to combine that element with the other Badlands footage he ' d already created . ( " " , p . 457 ) The film was delivered to film - transferrers CIS Hollywood , where it was treated electronically to optimise the highlights , transferred to a digital disc one hundred inches at a time , then shifted onto tape for more post - production work to be done . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 34 ) The resultant flame effect made its debut in " Blaze of Glory " . ( " " , p . 457 ) The cloud layer of the Badlands was once more created with liquid nitrogen . A day was allocated for the filming of the substance , canisters of which were delivered to Image G , treated with great care by all the visual effects artists there , which included Gary Hutzel . To produce the violent cloud swirls required for the Badlands , the liquid nitrogen was again spilled from a gallery above the Image G stage . The stage surface was firstly pre - chilled with a small amount of nitrogen , poured gently over . On the ground level , Hutzel next talked two assistants , who were in his supervision , through the precise maneuvers he wanted : beginning at the back of the gallery , and letting three shots go , then moving to the front and retreating towards the rear , pouring as they went . Concluding his instructions to the pair of assistants , Hutzel reminded them , " " Make sure you ' re not too close to each other . " " The two men then ascended to the gallery to practice and , following a couple of dry runs to ensure everyone was synchronized , Hutzel called for action . The two crew members did exactly as he had guided them to do and , as they made their way back to the rear of the gallery , Hutzel ordered the camera to roll , beginning to film the nitrogen . Cameraman Paul Maples , shielding his face from the substance as best he could , captured the shots of the liquid nitrogen while small areas of heat on the stage surface attracted it . Little whirlpools formed , though the majority of the substance billowed out harmlessly into the atmosphere . After filming some footage with light falling on the stage from one side , Hutzel took another series of shots with the light directly behind . The liquid nitrogen footage was additionally treated at CIS Hollywood , enabling its use as an element of " Blaze of Glory " in post - production . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 34 ) Although new footage of the Badlands was created for " Blaze of Glory " , Gary Hutzel opted to standardize the Badlands from then on , using stock footage . This plan was what caused him to shoot a couple different variations of the liquid nitrogen footage , with the light from various sources . As a result , any subsequent installment that included multiple shots of the Badlands could show different views of the area , rather than constantly having to reuse the same effects footage . Hutzel ' s decision to capture stock footage of the Badlands was due to how often the area was reappearing on " Star Trek : Deep Space Nine " . " " Now we have generic stuff to use , " " he concluded . ( " Dreamwatch " , issue 37 , p . 34 ) Trivia . From a scientific perspective , using the name " Badlands " for a certain region of space was somewhat realistic . Andre Bormanis stated , " " I don ' t know if that term has ever been used specifically with respect to some astronomical phenomenon , but one could imagine regions of space that would be extremely inhospitable to Human exploration . We see things like this in images that come from telescopes , like the Hubble , all the time , regions of space where you have fierce stellar winds [ for instance ] [ . . . ] So , there are some really extraordinary regions in space that one would be a little bit reckless or foolhardy to fly a spaceship through , even something that has the kind of shielding and engine technology that we ' ve proposed on " Star Trek " . And again , it ' s easy to imagine that , someday when there ' s interstellar travel and they ' re navigating some of these regions of space , that they might call some particular nebula complex or some place where there are these fierce stellar winds a ' Badlands ' kind of a region . " " ( " Real Science with Andre Bormanis " , VOY Season 1 DVD special features ) There were some early concerns , first voiced by Eric A . Stillwell , that the Badlands were too similar to the later - invented Briar Patch . At the end of the first outline for the Star Trek film that became ( in which the Briar Patch was introduced ) , Michael Piller included a note that informed Rick Berman of this issue . ( " Fade In : The Writing of Star Trek : Insurrection " ) One of the pillars of fire which Gary Monak created for the Badlands was reused in the Fire Caves in DS9 series finalé . ( " " , p . 711 )