Farpoint Station Farpoint Station was a starbase built in extremely short time on Deneb IV . The Bandi , a species inhabiting Deneb IV , offered this station to Starfleet . The Bandi were not a very advanced civilization and Starfleet was intrigued by this engineer ing performance . Groppler Zorn of the Bandi kept a model of Farpoint Station in his office in Old Bandi City . In 2364 , the crew of the investigated this station and found out that it was , in fact , a spaceborne entity enslaved by the Bandi . Following its liberation by the " Enterprise " - D , Captain Jean - Luc Picard worked with the Bandi to schedule the reconstruction of the station . ( ) Appendices . Background information . In an initial story outline that D . C . Fontana wrote for " Encounter at Farpoint " , the conceptual origins of Farpoint Station were evidenced . The outline involved an orbital gun platform built around a captured being . The alien ' s captors intended to use the platform to forward their dreams of expansion , meanwhile feeding the central entity sufficient quantities of the mineral balmine to keep it alive . The " Enterprise " - D crew freed the entity by persuading it to crash land on the planet and by then leading a revolt against its captors . ( " " , p . 24 ) Farpoint maquette and set . Illustrator Rick Sternbach helped design Farpoint Station , creating concept drawings of both the station ' s exterior and an early version of the interior Farpoint mall , during . ( " " , p . 49 ; ) To create the elevated views of Farpoint Station as well as its adjacent Bandi city and the surrounding landscape , a maquette was built at Industrial Light & Magic ( ILM ) by Gregory Jein , who was a specialist in building these kind of models . It , combined with a background matte painting for the long views , was filmed at ILM by , among others , visual effects camera operator Robert Hill . ( ) The Farpoint Station display model in Groppler Zorn ' s offices , was not the same as used on the maquette . " " I designed the station , yes . The desktop model was built for first unit filming , of course , but the ILM FX version was done later and I don ' t believe they were under any real constraints to match the desktop . If you go back to the " " episode , you ' ll see that the Millennium Gate complex bears a striking similarity to the Farpoint Station . I wonder how that happened , " " Sternbach recalled , a bit tongue - in - cheek , as he had also designed the Millennium Gate . The mall was constructed on Paramount Stage 16 , as a set that Production Designer Herman Zimmerman was instrumental in creating . " " Even the biggest stage at Paramount isn ' t as big as the ordinary shopping mall , so that had to be done with some camera tricks , " " he said . " " We took [ Stage ] 16 and turned every bit of it into the shopping mall . " " ( ) Rick Sternbach later auctioned off a large part of his Farpoint Station design art on in Profiles in History ' s " The Ultimate Sci - Fi Auction " in three lots : , , and . These lots were estimated at US $ 300 - $ 500 , US $ 600 - $ 800 , and US $ 300 - $ 500 , and sold for US $ 275 , US $ 400 , and US $ 300 respectively . Apocrypha . In the non - canon " " " " novel " The Fall of Terok Nor " , it is revealed that , by 2374 , a real Farpoint Station was constructed , a project that is referenced in dialogue at the end of " Encounter at Farpoint " . " " also mentions Farpoint .