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Alan Oppenheimer (Keogh) appears on
The Next Generation as Koroth in
"Rightful
Heir", and on Voyager as the
Nezu Ambassador in "Rise". |
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This is the last episode that Michael Piller oversaw the
writing staff. |
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Michael Jace (First Officer) is best known for playing
Michael Jordan in The Michael Jordan Story. He also played a minor role
in Planet Of The Apes (2001). |
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Quark complains about the humidity on the planet, which
is unusual given his home planet Ferenginar has constant rain. |
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The working title of the episode was "The Dominion".
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The original script for this episode mentions that the
Jem'Hadar shroud is similar to that employed by the Tosk (see "Captive
Pursuit"). It also notes that the Tosk were engineered as a gift to
the Hunters as a reward for their loyalty to the Dominion, thus
establishing that the Hunters and Tosk were Dominion members. However,
none of this was actually mentioned in the episode itself. |
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In an early version of the script, Quark cited the
Hundred Years' War, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Tarsus IV
massacre as barbaristic events that nothing in Ferengi history could
match. |
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According to writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe, the Dominion
knew about the Federation long before the discovery of the Bajoran
wormhole and had plans to deal with it when the time came. However, the
Dominion did not expect contact with the Alpha Quadrant for another 200
years, which is explained in "The
Search, Part I". With the wormhole providing immediate access
between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, Wolfe says the Dominion's plans
for the Federation were disrupted, which explains why it chose to
observe and gather information until the end of the second season. |
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Writer/producer Ira Steven Behr admits that mistakes were
made in the process of defining the personality and nature of the Vorta.
This is most evident in the lack of telekinetic powers among later Vorta
characters, and the fact that Eris did nothing to acknowledge Odo as a
Founder. |
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After Quark's speech in which he concludes that the
Ferengi are less barbaric than humans and thus better, the stage
directions say that, while Sisko is not at all convinced, Quark's words
give him food for thought. |
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The Odyssey bridge is of a completely different
configuration than the Enterprise-D bridge. It is possible that
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was unable to use the bridge set from
The Next Generation as
Star Trek Generations
was being filmed around this time. |
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This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects. The award
was won by
Star
Trek Voyager's "Caretaker". |
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Ira Steven Behr reflects on DS9's second season:
"[It was] a really fun, very creative time. Robert
Wolfe, Jim Crocker, Peter Allan Fields, and I would go to lunch together
every day. And I remember saying one day, 'Okay guys, we're gonna come
up with villains, not one but three sets of villains. And we're
gonna make them as scary as any villains you can possibly find.'"
Part of Behr's assignment involved assigning the group the task of
reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. He recalls:
"Don't ask me why. I don't know what the hell I
thought they'd find. But everybody read it. Expect Pete." |
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Peter Allan Fields on "The Jem'Hadar":
"If I had [anything to do with this episode],
frankly, it would have been called something else. "The Dominion" (the
original name of the episode) was a pretty good name, but "The Jem'Hadar"
sounds like 'mah-jongg,' or some kind of card game!" |
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Ira Steven Behr on the Dominion:
"We wanted warriors, businessmen, and a dark force
that was controlling it all. At the beginning, we thought the Vorta were
going to be big burly kinds of humanoids that looked like Brian Dennehy
or Bob Hoskins. But it didn't work out like that." |
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Michael Westmore, chief makeup man, describes his
inspiration:
"I get a lot of inspiration from nature books and
magazines. You start with the concept of the rhinoceros hide for the
Jem'Hadar, and you give them a nose that's based on a rhinoceros nose,
but without a horn. If you'd put a horn on it, viewers would say, 'Oh -
rhinoceros.' But what makes Star Trek so interesting is that you give
the creature the same feel and meanness by putting little horns all
around his face. It makes them dangerous - if you bump into one, you're
going to bleed. So you know automatically that you never get close to
the Jem'Hadar." |
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Robert Hewitt Wolfe recalls original ideas behind
the Dominion:
"Basically, the idea was that the Dominion was the
Carrot-and-Stick Empire. The businessmen, the Vorta, were the
negotiators, the friendly guys who show up with the carrot. 'Hey, we're
your friends. Have some phaser rifles, or space travel, whatever the
hell you want. We'll arrange it. All you'll have to do is owe us.' Then,
if you don't toe the line, they kick your ass with the JemHadar." |
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Robert Hewitt Wolfe describes a possible link
between the Jem'Hadar and Tosk:
"This is the same kind of invisibility effect used
by Tosk in 'Captive
Pursuit.' The thought behind this is that the same people who breed
the Tosks as gifts to the hunters, breed the Jem'Hadar as well..." |
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Robert Hewitt Wolfe on the impact of the Jem'Hadar:
"We wanted to show the long-term fans how
dangerous these guys were. And it's my belief that if that had been the
Enterprise and not the Odyssey, and Picard rather than
Keogh in command, that it still wouldn't have survived. Ron Moore may
not agree, Patrick Stewart probably wouldn't, but it's my belief that
Keogh had just as good a ship, just as good a crew, and he got smoked." |
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Director Kim Friedman remembers the confrontation
scene between Quark and Sisko:
"Armin, Avery, and I talked about it a lot, how
far Quark could go here, because this is the commander he's talking to
and Quark is in a rather precarious position on Deep Space 9. But we
felt that Quark realized there was a chance that he could die, and that
would give him the courage to say things he would never say back at the
station." |
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Ira Steven Behr on setting the Ferengi image
straight:
"We were going into the end of the second season
and it was time to lay to rest this long-time feeling that the Ferengi
were the 'failed villains' of the Star Trek universe. I wanted
people to see them as something else. And if we could show that Sisko,
whose character has a lot of weight, would take what Quark says
seriously, then the audience would take it seriously." |
