History StarTrekDeepSpaceNine / TropesAToD

** The Pai-wraiths are fond of this, too.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: A Cardassian, Aamin Maritza, is arrested on the station and later revealed to be Gul Darhee'el, a war criminal on Bajor. [[spoiler:He IS actually Maritza and had cosmetic surgery to pose as Darhe'el, his stated intention being to allow himself to be tried as a war criminal, thus forcing the Cardassian government to acknowledge their shady past. Odo has ''one conversation'' with Gul Dukat and the story begins to unravel as Darhe'el died and had a very public military funeral 6 years ago. While it's not surprising that those outside Cardassia were unaware of this, Maritza surely did. It seems highly unlikely that Cardassia would have reconciled their past over such an obvious imposter being put on trial.]]

** Made all the more powerful by Andrew Robinson's performance of Garak. Robinson himself has claustrophobia, and was initially hesitant about his role, which required covering him in prosthetic make-up. And in an unusual case of RealLifeWritesThePlot, he was sick when he had to shoot the crawl space scenes in the aforementioned fifth season episode ("By Inferno's Light"), which made his less able to control his claustrophobia. In his words, "I didn't have to act. I was there."

** '' The Defiant''. It's so overpowered that Sisko mentions when he first unveils it in "The Search" that it nearly tore itself apart during shakedowns, and while officially classed as an Escort Vessel, it's really a ''Warship'' (it was designed to fight [[TheJuggernaught the Borg]], so this is understandable).

** '' The Defiant''. It's so overpowered that Sisko mentions when he first unveils it in "The Search" that it nearly tore itself apart during shakedowns, and while officially classed as an Escort Vessel, it's really a ''Warship''.

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Garak brings this up when he and Worf discover General Martok in a Dominion prison camp, since he supposed Klingons are supposed to kill themselves when they're taken prisoner. Worf and Martok retort that such isn't the case when there are still enemies to fight, or hope of escape.

** Sisko is Gabriel Bell, a notable historical firgure. It's unclear whether he simply took Bell's place or was always Bell in a TimeyWimeyBall situation.

* BarBrawl: Worf, Odo, O'Brien and Bashir get to take place in the classic one from "The Trouble with Tribbles" when the ''Defiant'' crew revisits this time in "Trials and Tribble-ations."

** ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'': The TNG combadges, used for the first two seasons, are retired after the Season 2 finale "The Jem'Hadar". Beginning with Season 3 and for the remainder of the show's run, the crew sports the film's updated combadge design. The [[spoiler: destruction of the ''Enterprise''-D]] is later acknowledged when Worf arrives on the station in Season 4. [[spoiler:The deaths of Lursa and B'Etor in the film also has a loose impact on Season 4's [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E09TheSwordOfKahless "The Sword of Kahless", as it leaves Toral as the leader of the remnants of the House of Duras.]]

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': The uneasy relationship between the Federation and the Cardassians is carried over. Races introduced on TNG (Trill, Ferengi, Cardassians, Bajorans) are also heavily featured. The establishment of the Demilitarized Zone in "Journey's End" also leads directly into [=DS=]9's "The Maquis" and the formation of the titular renegades. Finally, Gowron is still Chancellor of the Klingon Empire -- something that allows the Klingon politics arc to continue once Worf joins the cast.
** ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'': The TNG combadges, used for the first two seasons, are retired after the Season 2 finale "The Jem'Hadar". Beginning with Season 3 and for the remainder of the show's run, the crew sports the film's updated combadge design. The [[spoiler: destruction of the ''Enterprise''-D]] is later acknowledged when Worf arrives on the station in Season 4.

-->'''Garak:''' (upon tasting it) It's VILE!

** The Pai-Wraiths are fond of this, too.

* AndIMustScream: While the audience never gets to see evidence of it, [[spoiler: Dukat's ultimate fate is to be sealed in the Fire Caves with the Pah-Wraiths - ''forever.'' The Prophet wearing the form of Sisko's biological mother told him that.]]

* ApocalypseHow: Between several extermination attempts by the Dominion against enemy races, to the Federation's own genocidal attempt on the Founders, to the orbital bombardment that would have stripped the Founder homeworld to its core, to the attempted destruction of the Bajor star, to the Pah-Wraiths desire to burn the universe, there's a fair bit of this going on.

** Interestingly, the 1950s Sci-Fi writer who Sisko imagined in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E13FarBeyondTheStars Far Beyond the Stars]]" appears again in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E02ShadowsAndSymbols Shadows and Symbols"]] only now he is completely insane, writing his dreams of Deep Space 9 on the walls of his cell. This imagining is imposed upon Sisko by the evil pah-wraiths, attempting to stop Sisko from fulfilling his role as Emissary by making him doubts the Prophets' existence.

* DarkMessiah: Gul Dukat, as a Pah Wraith emissary.

** Keiko is the first to be possessed by the Pah-Wraith.

* DivinelyAppearingDemons: In the episode [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E17Penumbra "Penumbra"]] the Pah-Wraiths (Prophets exiled from their home in the Wormhole) appear to Kai Winn Adami in a vision, claiming to be the Prophets.

* ContinuityOverlap: During its original run, [=DS9=] had the distinction of becoming the first ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series to run concurrently with another one during its entire run -- not to mention the first three TNG movies.[[note]]With the advent of the ''Discovery''-era renaissance, it has since become the ''only'' series to run concurrently with shows set in the same contemporary time period, i.e. the 24th Century.[[/note]] As a result, it was affected by, and had to acknowledge, developments elsewhere in the franchise:

*** Conversely, the Dominion War gets a nod in an episode of ''Voyager'', when a character is taken aback that a Voyager crewmember isn't familiar with the Dominion.
*** One episode of Voyager, after they've established contact with the Alpha Quadrant, has B'Elanna Torres reacting poorly to the news that the Maquis have been wiped out by the Dominion, which eventually sends her into a near-suicidal depression.

* DidNotGetTheGirl: Quark pines over both Jadzia and Ezri Dax but does not get either of them. He ends the series without any romantic attatchment.

* AlternateSpeciesCounterpart: Vic Fontaine is [[ProjectedMan a hologram]] in the main universe, but in the MirrorUniverse he is an android. It should be noted that the very idea of the MirrorUniverse was revised in the series: instead of simply turning good characters into bad ones and vice versa, the universe gradually became its own unique thing - and Vic Fontaine became another indicator of this.

* AlternateSpeciesCounterpart: Vic Fontaine is [[ProjectedMan a hologram]] in the main universe, but in the MirrorUniverse he is an android. It should be noted that the very idea of the MirrorUniverse was revised in the series: instead of simply turning good characters into bad ones and vice versa, the universe gradually became its own unique thing - and Vic Fontaine became another indicator of it.

* AlternateSpeciesCounterpart: Vic Fontaine is [[ProjectedMan a hologram]] in the main universe, but in the MirrorUniverse he is a robot. It should be noted that the very idea of the MirrorUniverse was revised in the series: instead of simply turning good characters into bad ones and vice versa, the universe gradually became its own unique thing - and Vic Fontaine became another indicator of this.

* DarkerAndEdgier: This series is a distinct departure in tone from what came before. The show opens with Jennifer Sisko, along with thousands of others, dying during the battle of Wolf 359 and her death traumatizing Benjamin Susko for years afterwards; the story ''proper'' begins with Bajor driving out the Cardassians after an occupation that lasted several decades and decimated the planet, never flinching from describing or showing the horrors inflicted on the Bajorans...or sugar-coating the fact that Major Kira, while portrayed as a freedom fighter, still did a ''lot'' of things that count as terrorism. While previous shows are set on Starfleet vessels, with a cast composed of dedicated Starfleet officers unified in a mission to explore, this series features characters with conflicting loyalties and motivations, causing more friction between the characters. In fact, one of the main characters, Quark, is an outright crook. Topics also stray more into morally ambiguous politics and diplomacy. While war played a passing role in previous series, here it takes up a substantial part of the series' run. On the "edgier" side, this show is more frank with sexual topics. For example, the Holo-Suites are described as little more than virtual bordellos, while all romantic subtext on the Holodeck is decidedly G-rated.

* DarkerAndEdgier: This series is a distinct departure in tone from what came before. While previous shows are set on Starfleet vessels, with a cast composed of dedicated Starfleet officers unified in a mission to explore, this series features characters with conflicting loyalties and motivations, causing more friction between the characters. In fact, one of the main characters, Quark, is an outright crook. Topics also stray more into morally ambiguous politics and diplomacy. While war played a passing role in previous series, here it takes up a substantial part of the series' run. On the "edgier" side, this show is more frank with sexual topics. For example, the Holo-Suites are described as little more than virtual bordellos, while all romantic subtext on the Holodeck is decidedly G-rated.