Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the second spin-off of the Star Trek franchise. It is arguably the most ethnically and gender diverse of the franchise with multiple characters of color and female characters in lead positions. Due to the station setting, it concentrated less on boldly going and more on dealing with the ramifications of changing alliances and reconstruction; political intrigue, religion, and conflicting loyalties are major themes. DS9 was also much darker in its depiction of both the future in general and the Federation in particular.
This fandom was very active in the 90's when the show was airing, and experienced a new surge of fandom in 2010 when the show was brought to Netflix. As a contemporary of Babylon 5, another science fiction show about a space station, these shows were often compared, the fandoms deeply divided, and there was much discussion about the influence of B5 on DS9.
== Canon ==
Commander Benjamin Sisko (played by Avery Brooks) is the commander of a Federation space station known as Deep Space Nine. On the edge of the Alpha Quadrant, he and the station's inhabitants must deal with old resentments, new and fragile alliances, and threats from unknown forces outside of Federation space.
Whereas the other Star Trek shows dealt more with exploration, by its nature DS9 was more sedentary. Concentrating less on boldly going and more on dealing with the ramifications of changing alliances and reconstruction, DS9 dealt strongly with political intrigue, religion, and conflicting loyalties.
The cast of characters includes a mix of Starfleet officers, private Federation citizens, and others, some of whom had also appeared on Star Trek: TNG: Sisko's son Jake, the Bajoran liaison officer Kira Nerys, Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, Doctor Bashir, Miles O'Brien, Worf, the Changeling Constable Odo, the Ferengi businessman Quark, and later Ezri Dax. Because of the show's complex plot arcs, there are a large number of significant recurring characters, including the Cardassian tailor Garak, Quark's brother Rom, Quark's nephew Nog, the former commander of DS9 Gul Dukat, Miles's wife Keiko, and the Bajoran spiritual leader Kai Winn Adami.
===Relationship with Babylon 5===
The Babylon 5 Quotient by J. Michael Straczynski is a post on CompuServ in which he described the show, and essentially accused Warner Bros. and other PTB of ripping off his ideas to use in Deep Space Nine (January 2002)
==Fan Reception==
While many enjoyed the dense and multiple storylines, a number of fans found it difficult to follow or boring in the early days. The show was also much darker in its depiction of both the future in general and the Federation in particular than either the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation. Some fans felt it let down the Trek franchise; for example, Ridley Scott writes:
From a fan in 1997: 
A fan in 2020 wrote: 
In the early days, there were many rumors and a fan push for GLBT representation on the show, which seemed to fall mostly on deaf ears. However, in the fourth season episode called "Rejoined", Jadzia Dax, a character from a race which carried genderless symbiotes which were passed to another upon each person's death, meets up with the former wife of her symbiote and attempts to rekindle the relationship. This episode featured the first same-sex kiss in Star Trek canon.
==Fandom==
Beginning in the early 90s, the fandom straddled fandom's migration to the internet, having many stories and discussions both online in the Usenet forums and websites, and offline in zines.
Some early anecdotal comments regarding the Internet:
In her column, "Netchatter," a fan in 1995 tries to ease the way for others into the new realm of online: "... sometimes a crabapple creeps into the feast. I want to sincerely apologize to my friends who acted upon certain recommendations I made in this column and were subjected to personally unpleasant and in some cases hurtful communications in the course of attempting to join in organized electronic fandom. Please, don't think that this is the norm on the Net. Check out the newsgroups. Yes, there are a fair share of obnoxious people and time-wasting posts...but there are also many free-ranging, intelligent, thought-provoking and fun posts as well. Whatever happens, please don't let negative experiences sour you on net fandom! Keep looking, with other listservs, Usenet groups, forums and other private e-mail discussion :-). There is a big world of fandom out there!" Multi-Species Medicine #18
Another fan in 1995 reports on the results of a DS9 fan fiction survey she had conducted.she admits her pool was somewhat small; she had 25 respondents "Half the respondents were new to the fan fiction arena (in the last three years or so), myself included. Since almost all the responses were generated off the Internet, a lot of the authors claimed that after getting on-line, they were intrigued by the stories they found there, and wanted to try their hand at it. Two writers stated that they didn't realize others wrote fan fiction until they attended a convention or got on-line." Multi-Species Medicine #14
A fan in 1996 comments: "What you have to realize is that online fandom is a VERY small part of overall Trek (or DS9 for that matter) fandom. Most people don't have access to or own their own computer and those of us who are online (myself included) tend to forget that fandom at large is not on the Internet. I personally do not think of the Internet as, to use a statistical term, unbiased estimator of how good or how bad the show is doing. That's what Nielsen ratings are for." Multi-Species Medicine #27
For an overview of Star Trek fandom's online activities from the early 1990s, including show commentary, episode guides and fan fiction, visit the textfile directory/WebCite.
===Second Wave===
In 2010, Deep Space Nine was brought to Netflix, and a new group of fans were able to watch it.
Most of the new fandom is located on Tumblr and is art and fanfic based. There is a highly active fic community on AO3, with the occasional fic on fanfiction.net. Bashir/Garak remains the most popular ship and greatly dwarfs other ships; however ships like Odo/Quark and Kira/Jadzia have grown substantially in popularity. Elim Garak/Kelas Parmak and Elim Garak/Kelas Parmak/Julian Bashir have also emerged due to Una McCormack's beta canon novels. Femslash beyond Kira/Jadzia and the less common Jadzia/Lenara is rare, but there is a small community of rare pair femslashers. Despite their previous prominence, Kira/Dukat and Julian/Jadzia fics are extremely rare.
(to be added: clubs, websites, pairings, etc.)
===Pairings===
Bashir is the most popular character among fanwriters, and Garak/Bashir is the most popular slash pairing. Other common slash pairings include Bashir/O'Brien and the newly popular Quark/Odo. Het pairings are more varied, but the common ones include Odo/Kira, Julian/Jadzia and Kira/Dukat. Femslash was originally relatively rare, but Kira/Jadzia has become the fourth most popular pairing on Ao3 for the fandom.
A fan in 1995 summarizes what folks on the Internet were saying at the time about pairings: 
==Fanworks==
===Fanzines===
Kira Nerys/Odo:
* Love and Justice #1-8
Garak/Bashir slash:
* Tarkalean Tea
* The Plain and Simple Zine - multi-issue, no frills Garak/Bashir anthology zine with all stories written by DVS.
* No Holds Barred - specific issues of this normally multi-media zine had several all-Garak/Bashir issues
For a list of more fanzines for DS9 fanzines, see :Category:Star Trek DS9 Zines.
===Fanfiction===
See: :Category:Star Trek DS9 Fanfiction for a complete listing of DS9 fic with Fanlore pages
* The Wind of the Prophets by Carolyn R. Fulton
* The Manipulation of Julian Bashir by The Tystie
* Blink, a Kira Nerys-focused gen fic by Seema
* Hippocratic Oath, a Julian Bashir-focused case story by Gail Eppers
* RESTORE, REMAKE, & REBUILD, an epic length post-canon fic by kaelio
* Jerusalem, a deathfic by Paula Stiles
* Risala of Risa by Nyani-Iisha Martin
* So, My Love by Jackie Barnes
* Split Personality by Paula Stiles
* Eye of the Prophet by Red Skye
===Fanvids===
* American Idiot by Bluemeany. A recent vid that focuses on the political themes of DS9. Gen.
* Into the Fire by Xandra. Sisko's journey into the fire. A Character Study
== Archives ==
* Bajorarama—archive for the Bajorarama Yahoo Group
* Trekiverse
** Trekiverse: Deep Space Nine Adult
** Trekiverse: Deep Space Nine All Types
* DS9 stories @ ff.net
* DS9 fanworks @ AO3 - NOTE* this is the best place to find recently written fic
* DS9 podfic @ Audiofic Archive
* The Star Trek - Deep Space Nine Fan Fiction Link List a list of 83 archives containing DS9 fic
===Character or Pairing Focused===
* Cardassian Sutra—Garak/Bashir archive, featuring a number of stories from usenet, among others
* Yavanna's Realm—A Garak/Bashir archive; features some stories originally from zines
* Dakhur Central—Kira
* The J&J Fanfiction Archive—Julian/Jadzia
* Odo's PADD—Odo, Odo/Kira
* The Worf Dax Fanfic Archive—Worf/Jadzia
* Number One Jake Slash Site, now defunct
==Communities==
* Bajorarama Yahoo Group
On LiveJournal
* celestial_templ—drabble community (inactive)
* ds9agogo—fanfiction community moderated by Skywaterblue & Bexatious
* ds9-rewatch—group (re)watch with episode discussion
* teroknoir—icon community (inactive)
On Tumblr
* ds9tumblzine—fanworks challenge community (active)
* Deep Dish Nine—collaborative pizza parlor!au (active)
On Facebook
* 
* 
==Fan Clubs==
* The Doctor's Exchange
* Far Beyond the Stars‎
* Rom's Bar
* OASIS
* TerryFic—ran by Shelley C
* Andy's Club—ran by Katie Hanna
* Nanites—ran by Maureen McGowan
* Symbiotics
* Emissary
* Oracle
* Envy
* Morn Watchers
* The Official Andrew Robinson Fan Club—ran by Cindy Coyle
* Aron Eisenberg Fan Club—ran by Anita Campbell
* The Marc Alaimo Fan Club—run by Lana Pennington
* Tiny Ron-Nettes—ran by Dorothy Cestaro
==Conventions==
* RAIL Con
==Meta/Further Reading==
* 
* A thoroughly researched episode guide with behind-the-scenes info and interviews.
* by madlori
==External Links & Resources==
* The DS9 Encyclopedia & Lexicon - Tracy Hemenover's data intensive website with character bios, episode guides and descriptions of all sorts of show trivia."This site is for fanfic writers, trivia buffs, and anyone else who (like me) loves the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."
==References==
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