I think there are a couple of reasons. STIX and STX were failures, one so bad it ended the franchise. Also, IIRC Avery Brooks wasn't happy about the Sisko ending and he has pretty much stayed out of the limelight since DS9. While it was on the air the viewing figures weren't extraordinary. Worf was thrown in to get more TNG fans interested in the same way Jeri Ryan was put in a catsuit on VOY. DS9's last two seasons were binge TV before we knew that existed, it was ahead of its time, which explains why it's a sleeper hit and fan favorite. But not a great financial success at the time.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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DS9 pulled off a political space drama that could rival Dallas or MASH and they got 7 seasons. I'm rewatching it again and I still can't believe that prime time viewers would sit through these episodes that are just 2 people arguing the nuances of humanity for 45 minutes. It's nothing like TV is today.
As far as a movie, I think the TNG movies weren't that Trek. They often took the characters in strange directions, favored more digestible plotlines, and wrote dialogue that you'd expect from AI. I value the television wellspring of Trek in the 90s/early 2000s. It is so cool, and that era is still bearing fruit today.
I would like to see more of the DS9 characters, and like to see what a movie budget would do, but I don't trust that a DS9 movie would've been given the reverence needed to make it right. It has been great to see Picard and the ST world in the later years, but I don't know if it makes the lore any better. I'm not sure that we are any closer to another golden decade of ST.
Thanks for posting this and helping me get some of my thoughts on DS9 coalesced. Do you have a DS9 movie plot you think would've worked? Those 'golden years' of Trek were also open to the most fan input, with concepts and entire scripts being submitted. If we had 26 episode seasons to play with, maybe they'd take our call.
Yeah ds9 was not my cup of tea. It absolutely felt painful to watch 2 characters being locked in over dramatic conversation for an hour with commercials. I mean what else is there to do on a space station but wait around, not very exciting. Second why are the ferengi merchants? Doesn't everyone have access to a replicator.
Second why are the ferengi merchants? Doesn't everyone have access to a replicator.
Latnium can't be replicated so it can be properly used as a store of wealth and replicated antiquities can be detected. Large items like ships can be replicated in parts, but need to be complete to exceed the value of their replicated parts.
When a culture is built around trade, they will find ways to trade.
Also, it's likely that the writers needed that culture type to directly conflict with the ideals of Starfleet. Conflict makes for a good plot line.
And what can I buy with latnium? Couldn't I just hop into the holo deck and swim in my personal lake of it? As far as assembling a ship it's almost like I could replicate one small bot to build consecutively bigger assembly bots. It was just lazy writing for a bad premise of a star Trek, where is the trekking? More like Star Trek deep snooze nine.
And what can I buy with latnium? Couldn't I just hop into the holo deck and swim in my personal lake of it?
If you're on Deep Space 9, you have to pay to use Quark's holodecks in the first place. They don't show it much, but they do mention in the first or second episode that Starfleet get a few slips of latinum as a per diem when stationed somewhere not part of the Federation. There has also been at least one occasion where Bashir mentions eating at the replimat instead of Quark's because he was saving up to buy something, implying that they all pay to eat at the bar.
How did quark acquire this holodeck on a federation/ bajoran space station anyhow? oh yeah he traded info on self sealing stem bolts. Next you'll tell me it cost money to transport and o Brian was raking in coin to buy antique whiskey with...
It was absolutely a plot device; they've said as much. The rest is just the in-story rationalizations to give viewers something - however difficult to believe - to accept so the story can go forward.
Star Trek is full of these. TNG was chock fucking full of Mordor Eagle plot devices. Quark is Harry Mudd, with a bumpy head. The Federation exists within a universe of civilizations which haven't yet reached post-scarcity and, frankly, I think even in a post scarcity utopia we'll still have money and be trading. Consider, we'll probably still have the very first profession, and you'll likely have other services. You'll still have a lot of people like McCoy, who reject the technological solution and want "the real thing" and not a holodeck.
And what can I buy with latnium?
Self-sealing stem bolts. A bunch of them.
Couldn't I just hop into the holo deck and swim in my personal lake of it?
Only in something that looked like latnium. Holodecks are a derivative of replicator technology, so it wouldn't actually be latnium. (And it's not a store of wealth since it would only exist on the holodeck.)
I could replicate one small bot to build consecutively bigger assembly bots.
There was an entire space station that could replicate itself as well as replace parts on other ships. (At the cost of biomaterial...) Also, they build entire space stations, so yeah, automation is a thing but it still takes an energy source.
More like Star Trek deep snooze nine.
It wasn't my favorite series and the ferangi weren't my favorite species either. Regardless, trade was still active across the galaxy and many cultures didn't have replicators. The reasoning behind what and how the ferangi traded was still extremely viable.
Got it, it's self sealing stem bolts all the way down.
Basically. The root of your question was about what gives any item value.
If I have 10M stem bolts and you need them and don't have access to a replicator, those bolts now have value to you. If I can trade those bolts for latnium with the expectation of trading that latnium for something else, that latnium has value to me.
We now have the makings for a society based on trade.
Did you mean 10mm stem bolts, 10 million, or perhaps it's Roman and you mean 1000?
Pick one. It was an arbitrary value.
Agreed... maybe because the series ended with such finality?
Just make a movie about whatever the hell Sisko has been doing.
Also, it was because ds9 was a sleeper and everybody loved tng. Voyager also got the shaft in that. And I don't blame tng at all, but ds9 and voy should have gotten their time in the movie limelight. If anything, ds9 has the MOST potential for a comeback/reboot compared to the other two... Tng was "Picard, the era", voyager was "we're lost and will fix the borg problem kindve", but ds9 has too many problems and lose ends. Too many characters and what ifs. Maybe it's better that way though. Like when something as a cliffhanger stays awesome if you never touch it again, and as soon as you do, it erodes the original's legendary, untouchable status in your mind. Like maybe berserk should've just ended, maybe ff7 shouldn't have been remade, maybe Shrek should've ended at 1, and maybe star wars should've stopped at rouge one.
yea it had a whole arc which ended as it should. from beginning to end. TNG, enterprise was more episodic arcs than a whole series arc. nutrek for how bad they were, could not replicate DS9 series arcs.
i think any new trek series going foward, not showrunners lik kurtzman, should focus on other quadrants.
I'd like to see some 2nd contact with a few Delta quadrant groups. Have the Vidiians gotten over the phage? Did the remaining Varro find refuge or give anyone else an STI? I need answers.
i think the phage was already cured, in the think tank episode, they said they found a cure for them. but it was off-screen of course. Also exploring gamma quadrant? and the rest of delta quadrant.
Good memory.
SEVEN: An artificial intelligence.
KURROS: The mind of mathematician and the soul of an artist. I'm afraid he'd much rather be modelling a fractal sculpture than analysing the data of our latest astronomical scan. And now you have met us all. A small group of minds, but we have helped hundreds of clients. We turned the tide in the war between the Bara Plenum and the Motali Empire. Re-ignited the red giants of the Zai Cluster. Just recently, we found a cure for the Vidiian phage.
JANEWAY: The Vidiians?
KURROS: You would hardly recognise them now. Just last month we helped retrieve a Lyridian child's runaway pet. A subspace mesomorph, I might add. We had to invent a whole new scanning technology just to find it.
JANEWAY: And what did you ask for as compensation?
KURROS: One of their transgalactic star charts. The best map of the known galaxy ever created.
Feels a bit cheap, considering how much time was spent with them earlier in the show.
At any rate, there's always more to be explored.
There were still talks of a proper film, but it never came together.
I would've loved to have seen it. I'll bet the killed off characters hampered the options
Would really deflate the drama of doing so, only to bring them right back...
I would watch “A quadrant of their own”
people were absolutely sick of star trek, after more than a full decade of back to back trek series and a run of average to terrible films
I’ll disagree with you there. People aren’t sick of trek; maybe they’re sick of Hollywood bullshit trying to tell us what we think we should like. But trek is trans dimensional. Even my 10 year old gets it, and he’s usually buried in his iPad when I watch star trek.