Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the second of the "next generation" of Star Trek shows, following on from Star Trek: The Next Generation, this series ran seven seasons. Deep Space Nine traded the Wagon Train to the Stars premise of the previous (and future) Star Trek shows for a "Fort Apache in Space" or The Rifleman in space setting.In the setting of the show, the native Bajoran people recently drove out the oppressive Cardassian Occupation through a war of attrition and a fair amount of terrorism (both Cardassians and the Bajoran Occupation were previously established on Star Trek: The Next Generation). The Bajoran Provisional Government petitioned The Federation for support, despite not being a Federation member. A relatively small crew was sent to take residence on an abandoned Cardassian station called Terok Nor, designated Deep Space 9 by the Federation, to aid the Bajorans in charge. In the first episode a rare stablewormhole was discovered leading to the Gamma Quadrant of the galaxy, instantly making Bajoran space one of the most strategically important piece of real estate in the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, and the station was relocated there to claim its use. The fixed base allowed the show to delve deeply into the politics of the Star Trek universe, but the addition of the wormhole also allowed exploration of unknown planets.The storylines were split among several different areas: the first explored was the rebuilding of Bajoran civilization and the Bajorans' worship of the non-corporeal beings that resided in (and had built) the wormhole, known as the Prophets. Other major Story Arcs included the never stable relationship with the Cardassians and the dramatic discovery of The Dominion, a powerful counterpart to the Federation found on the other side of the wormhole. Both allies and enemies of the Federation had to deal with the impact of the Dominion War, which covered the last two seasons.One of the factors that made Deep Space Nine unique was that every action had consequences. Nobody could solve all of their problems in just one episode, and, unlike its ship-based sister series, the crew couldn't just 'jump to warp' and leave the Problem of the Week behind. The writers used Story Arcs much more extensively than Star Trek: The Next Generation had and they took the time to slowly examine The Federation for what it truly was: a noble organization that still had problems with bureaucracy and skeletons in their closet. They also re-examined two episodes from Star Trek: The Original Series: "Mirror, Mirror" (in "Crossover") and "The Trouble With Tribbles" (in "Trials and Tribble-ations"). DS9 would further explore the Mirror Universe in subsequent episodes. *
Those episodes are, in order: "Through the Looking-Glass," "Shattered Mirror," "Resurrection," and "The Emperor's New Cloak."
Another key difference for Deep Space Nine was the unprecedented number - and depth - of the supporting characters. While all Star Trek series have large casts, Deep Space Nine is the only one that qualifies for Loads and Loads of Characters. It was also the only show to have a number of Fake Guest Stars, many of whom deserved a slot in the main titles. Supporting characters like Rom and Garak got more Character Development and background than many main characters on other Star Trek series; this was possible largely due to the use of Story Arcs, which were enabled, again, by Deep Space Nine being a fixed location.For the first three seasons, the show focused on the aftermath of the occupation and the issues this dealt with, as well as throwing up look-what's-come-through-the-wormhole episodes. The show got a Darker and Edgier retool after season 4, with the addition of Worf to the regular cast and a Story Arc about the Dominion threat (which had started in season 2-3, and wouldn't become dominant until season 5). Part of this is due to the fact that the producers became more and more comfortable altering Gene Roddenberry's positive, optimistic future.As a result of this kind of thing, the show tends to divide Trekkies a bit - most people who like Star Trek for the science fiction setting and the moral commentary dislike it because it tends to focus on drama and character conflict, treats the universe as a political backdrop, and dispenses with many of the utopian themes. On the other hand, those who do like DS9 tend to like it a lot more than they like the other Trek series, forming a little subculture of their own in Trek fandom known as "Niners".In spite of the general divide within fandom itself, DS9 earned more critical accolades than even Star Trek: The Next Generation due to its intense Character Development, high-quality acting and pioneering use of Story Arcs; it is still regarded by many as the greatest and most underrated show ever to take the Star Trek name.The show currently runs in British and Japanese TV. It used to run in Syndication on Spike TV in the United States, but due to low ratings has not been seen in repeats in the United States for over a year. As of October 2011 the complete series is available on Netflix streaming in the United States.Information on the main and recurring characters can be found on the character page.Despite the acknowledged limitations of focusing on individual episodes in a heavily arc-based series, this show has a tool for voting on Favorite Episodes. Also has a recap page. Please feel free to contribute to it.See also the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Relaunch, a series of novels continuing the show's story arcs past the finale.
Provides Examples Of:
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Actor Allusion: In "Far Beyond the Stars", in which Captain Sisko starts to hallucinate that he's a science-fiction writer in the 1950's, there's a note on Armin Shimmerman's desk rejecting his story idea of a cheerleader who kills vampires. This is a joke on Armin's recurring role as Principal Snyder in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Aesop Amnesia: In TNG, Worf and Alexander eventually came to the understanding that Alexander should not be forced to be a warrior and Worf could be proud of him anyway. During the Dominion War, Alexander shows up again, and he and his father show the same resentful, misunderstood attitudes towards each other as though they'd never learned that lesson. (With the added bonus of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.)
A God Am I: Inverted by Weyoun in "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River." When Odo points out that the only reason the Vorta believe the Founders are gods is because they were genetically programmed to believe such, Weyoun says that of course that's true; after all, creating people to worship them is what gods do.
A Match Made In Hell: Things get very creepy (and a little bit squicky) in "Till Death Do Us Part" when Kai Wynn and Anjohl (AKA Dukat disguised as a Bajoran) hook up, with some help from the Pah Wraiths.
A Simple Plan: The B-plot of "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River."
Abandon Ship: Several times, notably in the series intro, which takes place during the Battle of Wolf 359 and features the USS Saratoga in flames as her passengers and crew get to the shuttles to escape. Commander Sisko is forced to leave his wife's body behind.
Similarly, the titular ship's crew in the episode Valiant abandon ship in the episode's climax, with the Dominion forces destroying many of the life pods (though it's not clear if this was intentional, or just because they were still pummeling the ship into its constituent subatomic particles; in a later episode the Female Founder told her soldiers specifically to let the life pods escape, so that the survivors would spread terror when they retold the story of their defeat.)
Ensign Nog: The Captain is dead, Chief. They're all Dead. The ship is lost. There's no need for us to die here too.
And a variation in the Season 5 finale, with the Starfleet personnel abandoning Deep Space Nine, but not because it's in danger of being destroyed, but rather because they can't hold it against the Dominion. The Bajoran militia destroy the station's computer systems as soon as the Starfleet personnel are clear.
The Defiant had to be abandoned a couple times as well, notably in "The Search, Part I" (in which Odo and Kira get to a shuttle while Sisko and Bashir get to a separate one off-camera (though it turns out they actually were captured and the Alpha Quadrant events of Part II are all taking place in a simulated reality); and also in "The Changing Face of Evil", after the Defiant is hit by the Breen's energy-dampening weapon (this time, the ship is actually destroyed).
Absence of Evidence: In "The Nagus", one of the things that tips Odo off that Zek is not dead is the absence of Mairhar'du at his funeral.
Abusive Parents: When Garak was a child, Tain would lock him in the closet for extended periods of time. As a result, the adult Garak is claustrophobic.
Dr. Mora used shock treatments on Odo when he was an infant. Odo resented Mora for years afterwards. There's also the matter of Mora and the other scientists naming the young Changeling Odo Ital (from odo'ital, "nothing" in Cardassian) even after they understood that Odo was sentient.
Some of this was resolved in the episode The Begotten, where Odo faces the same challenges in attempting to raise a changeling child and reluctantly realizes that Mora's techniques were less abusive than necessary. It's also interesting to note in this episode that Odo and Mora share a similar height, build, eye color, and exactly the same hair color and style. Odo clearly modeled his appearance on that of Dr. Mora.
Acting for Two: Kira and Miles & their Mirror Universe counterparts. Also Bashir in "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" Jeffrey Combs, playing clones of the same character, gets to play a good and evil (ie. normal) version of Weyoun arguing over a com-link; he also played the character Brunt, and in the final three episodes appeared as both characters as well as a Holosuite guest in different scenes.
When Kira is complaining about how she feels being pregnant with the O'Brian's baby she says "This is YOUR fault!" to Dr. Bashir. Nana Visitor was really pregnant with Alexander Siddig's child.
A Hate Plague causes Garak to go nuts and start killing people in "Empok Nor," much like his serial killer villain in Dirty Harry. Robinson was a little nonplussed about the script, having endured years of people mistaking him for a total maniac in real life, but decided to grin and bear it.
In the episode where Quark is a writer for a 1950's sci-fi magazine, there's a note from the editor on his desk rejecting the idea of a story about a cheerleader who kills vampires. Armin Shimerman was playing Principal Snyder in Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time.
A Date with Rosie Palms: As we learned earlier in an episode of TNG, one of the erogenous zones on Ferengi is the ear, and the stroking of the ear is known as "oo-mox". Doing this to a Ferengi male gives them much the same sensation as stroking a certain other part on a human male does. Ear health is also a lot more important to Ferengi than humans, apparently, since Rom almost died because of a problem with his ear in "The Bar Association". When his attractive co-worker ( and eventual wife) Leeta blames Quark for it because Rom was worked too hard to get regular checkups to prevent things like that, the following conversation takes place.
Rom: It's not Quark's fault that I got sick. I forgot to get my bimonthly ear scan. And besides, I've probably been getting too much oo-mox.
Leeta: Really? Who's the lucky female?
Rom: [sheepishly] No female. Just me.
Leeta: [embarrassed] I'm...sorry...
Rom: [hopeful] Sorry enough to do something about it?
[Rom tilts his ear toward Leeta]
Also, it's indicated that some of the wealthier Ferengi have females (of any species) employed to give them oo-mox in public as a conspicuous display of their prestige, and one episode also has Rom's mother giving him oo-mox as an indication of healthy maternal affection. Oo-mox is a more quasi-sexual show of affection, something like kissing—which doesn't make the metaphor any less blatant, however.
Affectionate Parody: "Our Man Bashir" is, for all intents and purposes, a particularly ridiculous James Bond film, only with an actual spy tagging along and snarkilylampshading all the tropes.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Prophets are apparently incorporeal, appearing in various guises taken from Sisko's memories. (Although they keep the same forms when dealing with Quark, who baffles them.) The 'hardliner' Prophets resemble people who are hostile to Sisko, like Dukat or Locutus. The more neutral ones look like members of DS9's crew.
The Pai-Wraiths are fond of this, too.
The Founders can imitate any alien species perfectly, but they appear mostly as the same basic humanoid shape as Odo, since he cannot perfectly mimic a humanoid facial appearance. They presumably appear this way to the Alpha Quadrant because the only Founder they know is Odo, thus they chose to resemble him.
Founders that go undercover, however, are quite adept at mimicking features of humans (or whatever race they're impersonating). One Founder that had infiltrated Earth deliberately took the form of Miles O'Brien, whom Sisko knew was off-world, specifically to taunt Sisko on their superiority in such matters.
It's possibly deliberate—since Odo has always expressed an inability to mimic complex humanoid features, but has no such problem with small animals or complex objects—that this "default" form was somehow instinctive to him, or that the Founders even blocked him from looking too "normal," since part of the point of sending him and the others like him out was to learn about alien species by seeing how they would treat a "changeling."
Though one episode, where we meet an Odo that's about 200 years older, shows us that he eventually learns how to mimic human faces perfectly.
Alas, Poor Villain: Yes, Weyoun dies several times. But a few of his deaths are very poignant, and very much ARE this trope.
Alien Lunch: Well, if you want one, there's (lessee) Quark's, a Klingon restaurant, a Bolian restaurant, a jumja stand, and Sisko's Creole Kitchen.
All Just a Dream: The Argrathi criminal justice system works this way. Instead of maintaining an expensive prison system, they implant memories of several years of incarceration directly into the minds of offenders over the course of a few hours, who then wake up to find that they haven't lost several years of their lives... but the experience of it felt completely real, and the traumatic memories stay with them... Miles thought it was a bit of a dick move for them to do that to him.
Almost Kiss: Odo and Lola in "His Way", before Odo decides he just can't do it, because he loves Major Kira and she's not her.
Always Chaotic Evil: The Jem'Hadar are genetically engineered to be nothing but loyal Dominion shock troops. The episode The Abandoned examines this with a Jem'Hadar foundling. Turns out his inherent nature really does define him: all he wants is to be a Jem'Hadar warrior, even when Odo tries to present other, less violent options.
Ass In Ambassador: See "Move Along Home" and "The Forsaken" for a start.
Ambiguously Gay: Virtually every male Ferengi character has hinted at this. From Rom's ability to mimic female walking, to Brunt and Zek's tendency to hide in a "closet," to various male Ferengi's attraction to Quark when he cross-dressed.
Rule of Acquisition Number 113: Always have sex with the boss. And Ferengi women are supposed to stay at home... Granted, this rule only appeared in the non-canon Legends of the Ferengi book, but it was written by the executive producers of the show.
Canonically, there is a Ferengi book called Oo-mox for Fun and Profit. Oo-mox is a (partially) sexual act, and at the time only Ferengi males were legally allowed to earn profit.
Quark didn't merely cross-dress, but actually crossed genders to make sure a scheme succeeded. The fact that he was able to change and then change back againusing nothing more than some advanced surgery suggests the Ferengi have had reason to do something like this before. Maybe this easy trans-sexuality comes from being willing (and able) to do just about anything to close a deal, which on occasion might have included feminine sexual favors for the customer when there aren't any females available... yet.
Garak. Toned done after his first appearance because the writers weren't fans of Garak/Bashir shippers.
Mirror Universe Kira. Gay doesn't seem adequate to describe her; nor does bisexual. She seems to consider every man, woman, and object to be a sexual plaything.
Nana Visitor indicated that she didn't really agree with the writers about her character's sexuality; the way she saw it, the only woman for whom Intendant Kira really had any attraction was her counterpart, because she loves herself... really,reallyloves herself. As for the men, they're all there to service her massive ego as well.
Mirror-Ezri and the Intendant seemed to be lovers, though, which would therefore disprove Visitor's theory.
And I Must Scream: While the audience never gets to see evidence of it, Word Of God states that Dukat's ultimate fate is to be sealed in the Fire Caves with the Pah-Wraiths - forever.
Unless he gets pulled out of it somehow in the expanded universe. Stay tuned.
Angrish: After Damar kills Ziyal, he tries to convince Dukat to leave with him. Dukat merely turns to him for a moment and lets out a snarling scream of rage that convinces Damar to back off fast.
Animal Stereotypes: The Cardassians and Jem'Hadar, both reptiles, are generally cold and vicious. The Bajorans are a much more subtle example. They're said to be evolved from tapirs and their culture places great value on dreams and visions. In Japanese Mythology, tapirs are strongly associated with dreams because they resemble the mythical dream-eating creature known as the Baku (which, incidentally was the name of a completely different race in Star Trek Insurrection.)
Anti-Hero: Sisko, at times; Quark, very definitely. Kira when dealing with Cardassians. And Garak, of course. Gul Dukat occasionally tried to be when helping Sisko, but it never took.
Anyone Can Die: Jadzia. Vedek Bareil. Ziyal. Damar. Gowron. Winn. Kor. Weyoun, many times. Dukat, sort of. Even Sisko, sort of.
Although Damar, Winn, Dukat, and Weyoun's "true" death were in the finale. But still.
Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: The Founders' number-one rule is that "no Changeling has ever harmed another". When Odo has to kill one of his own, it takes the Founders a year to decide how to punish him because they don't know how to handle it. Such a thing has never happened before.
Apocalypse How: 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.
Apocalyptic Log: The Klingon commander's log in "Dramatis Personae."
Arbitrary Skepticism: Whenever a message is received from the Prophets, everybody treats them like any other religious icon, conveniently forgetting that they have been proved to exist and have the ability to see through time.
Odo lampshades this in the episode 'The Reckoning', pointing out that Bajoran prophecies have a way of coming true, even it is not in the way people expected (case in point, the episode 'Destiny' from the third season).
On the flip side, the Bajorans, particularly Kira, often talk about how they have "faith" and wonder how the humans live without it (humans in the Star Trek future generally not being very religious). However, when your "gods" live in a wormhole you can drive ships through, regularly send you accurate prophecies, and even destroy entire fleets of enemy ships to protect your planet, you're not really practicing faith - their deity is practically a scientific law, which calls into question the soundness of the logic underlying Kira's lectures on the subject.
The Prophets were never actually met in person until Sisko entered the wormhole; that's what makes him the Emissary. It's true that there were still the Orbs, but before the Prophets were empirically verified to exist, it certainly took faith to believe that an Orb experience is more than just the equivalent of psychedelic drugs.
"The Dominion" are these for Season 2. They are name dropped repeatedly until the characters and the audience finally learn who they are in the season finale.
"No Changeling has ever harmed another" are these for Season 3. This culminates in Odo becoming the first to break this rule in the season finale.
The order changed but Jack in 'Statistical Probabilities" when talking about Bashir and how he was able to not have his genetic enhancements discovered until the year before Jack: "There are rules, don't talk with your mouth full, don't open an airlock when somebody is inside it, and don't lie about your genetic status!"
Art Evolution: Oddly inverted. Odo's face looks much more human in the first episodes than in later seasons.
Artistic License - Gun Safety: A minor character in the episode Empok Nor casually has her rifle pointed at another minor character. When he points this out she protests that the safety is on, making two horrible mistakes at once. First, even with the safety on you don't point a weapon at someone unless you're actually willing to use it and second, this is an incredibly idiotic piece of information to loudly say while you're on an abandoned station with hostiles somewhere on it.
Word Of God states that the Sword doesn't actually possess any supernatural attraction, it's just that the glory associated with possessing it was too much for even the most honorable Klingon to completely resist.
Artifact Title: A common joke amongst Trek fans is that the characters of DS9 don't do that much trekking.
Artistic License - Engineering: Well, it *is* Star Trek, but even so, the fact that the airlocks on the station are designed to have both doors open at once is just ridiculous.
Of course, the station was built by the Cardassians, and it is established throughout the show that they have lower engineering standards than the Federation.
Damar - from Dukat's unremarkable Dragon to one of the most crucial components of the later seasons.
Word Of God says that the writers always had "big plans" for Damar, which is how the producers managed to convince Casey Biggs to play such an apparently unremarkable character. In "Return to Grace" (his first appearance) the director shot Damar as if he were a major character.
Chief O'Brien is an Ascended Extra from TNG, where he played a background character in the pilot, then the transporter chief. He was practically a TNG regular in the second through fourth seasons; he gained both his wife and first child during TNG.
Rom - Referred to by Quark and Odo in Season 1 as an idiot. Over the course of the show he goes from skilledwacky repairman, to station engineer, to Nagus. Quite the transition, no?
Assumed Win: Grand Nagus Zek's son, Krax, does this in "The Nagus" when Zek is about to announce his successor. But he announces the new Nagus as Quark instead, which outrages everyone sitting at the table. (Quark, for his part, was floored.)
Auction: Done in both "Q-Less" and "In the Cards".
Attempted Rape: Briefly alluded to in "The Forsaken": Sisko tells Bashir that he used to have to shepherd VIPs around the way Bashir is doing now. This part of his career abruptly ended when he punched one of them out. "It was a simple misunderstanding over his attempt to coax a young ensign to his quarters, against her will."
Avengers Assemble: "The Magnificent Ferengi", complete with holding up fingers as each new member joins the team to save Moogie.
Awesome But Practical: The prototype TR-116 Rifle from "Field of Fire" which is basically a sniper rifle modified with a transporter to fire bullets through walls.
Presumably, the ethical dilemma of Starfleet condoning a weapon whose main application would be for covert assassinations is why they never took this weapon beyond the prototype stage.
The original point—at least as stated in the episode—was to have a weapon that was capable of operating in environments where directed energy weapons were scrambled or otherwise useless. The ability to transport the bullets was an after-market add-on by the assassin in question.
Ax Crazy: Dukat becomes this for quite awhile after Ziyal's death.
Mirrorverse Kira
Gul Darhe'el, in the darkest way possible:
Darhe'el actually Marritza: I did what had to be done. My men understood that, and that's why they loved me. I would order them to go out and kill Bajoran scum, and they'd do it! They'd murder them, and they would come back covered in blood, but they felt clean! Now why did they feel that way, Major? Because they were clean.
Backup Twin: After the Defiant is destroyed, four episodes later a near-identical replacement is readynote It helps that this is a class of ship, so them having similar design schemes makes sense, and they even receive a "special dispensation" to rename it as such. It's amusingly reminiscent of this trope's occurrence in Beerfest where the new guy asks everyone to call him by the same nickname as the old guy.*
Though of course this show preceded that movie.
Justified in that by this point the class was being mass-produced for the war effort.
Sisko when he had to assume the identity of his Mirror-self.
Weyoun got killed five times, and each time ( except in the Finale) he is replaced by a new clone.
The Bad Guy Wins: In "Our Man Bashir" in the Show Within a Show, this occurs as part of the Protagonist-Centered Morality Bashir's situation enforced upon him: the people he was determined to keep alive were all in the room with him, while the rest of the Earth and everyone on it were just a holodeck simulation. Solution: do a Face Heel Turn and push the button that destroys the rest of the world.
This was subsequently lampshaded by the Bond-style villain (played by Sisko), as he admitted somehow he hadn't really expected to win.
Bald Black Leader Guy: Only completely fulfilled from Season 4 onwards, once Avery Brooks shaved his head.
Or rather, once the producers let him shave his head again.
At the time, he was reprising his role as Hawk for several "Spenser For Hire" TV movies. He was constantly growing his hair out and cutting it as he switched between projects. Eventually, he asked the producers of DS9 if he could just keep the Hawk look.
Sisko is currently the picture for this trope.
Baseball Episode / Game of Nerds: "Take Me Out to the Holosuite". Justified, in that Sisko was shown to be a baseball fan right from the start of the series, and although a war was going on at the episode's time, Deep Space Nine was no longer on the front line.
Batman Gambit: All over the place, and even Quark pulls off one, albeit seemingly double subverted, in "The House of Quark".
Battle Couple: Worf and Jadzia — and, amazingly, also Quark and a Klingon Noblewoman. Kira and Odo as well, although Odo'd really rather she stay out of the fighting, thank you, but is smart enough not to try to make her.
Beard of Evil: Lampshaded when Riker's transporter-accident-duplicate from an old TNG episode comes on board DS9 to steal the Defiant. Of course Riker already has a full beard, but when the reveal is made that this isn't the real Riker we all know and love, he peels his fake sideburns away to reveal that the beard is actually a goatee! It's supposed to be a dramatic moment, as the viewer is given no hints it isn't Riker at that point (though the possibility of him being possessed by an alien or brainwashed or something is always there in Star Trek)... but it comes across as hilarious if you're expecting it.
O'Brien and the Cardassian engineer suffer from a cross-cultural misunderstanding because Cardassian courtship is based on this trope and she mistook their arguing as a sign he was sexually attracted to her.
The show implies this is what Dukat is doing to try and win over Kira. She loathes him and therefore they argue almost constantly, but it only seems to increase his attraction to the extent where he'll do this even at the most inappropriate times such as life-threatening moments. One such occasion led to an in-universe lampshading when Garak lost his patience with Dukat's behaviour and he openly told Dukat off for making a pass at Kira while the station was on an unstoppable self-destruct countdown.
When Kira moved in with the O'Briens (while carrying their baby), she and the Chief started fighting constantly (mainly over her level of activity and risk-taking while pregnant and him trying to control her). Eventually, they both realize that they are actually VERY attracted to each other, much to their dismay. They both decide that it's a really bad idea and cover up any awkwardness by just letting Keiko think they are back to fighting again. Quark even refers to the pair as "the OTHER O'Briens" while eavesdropping with Bashir on one of their fights.
Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: In "The Muse", Onaya says that she unlocked the creativity of many legendary figures from throughout history.
However she offers no proof of this and may simply be lying to manipulate Jake.
Played straight in a Timey Wimey Ball, where it turns out Sisko was probably always meant to be Gabriel Bell.
Berserk Button: In the "Siege of AR-558," Dr. Bashir treats Vargas, a disgruntled trooper complaining about being stuck in the front lines for an extended period of time, of his illnesses and Vargas eases up a bit. When Bashir tries to change the dressing on his arm, Vargas lashes out, grabbing Bashir's shoulder and pointing a phaser at his throat. Even though he absolutely hated the guy who put the bandages on for talking his ear off, seeing that guy suddenly becoming silent with a hole in the chest gave him psychological trauma, and he kept the bandage on ever since.
Colonel Kira has several, including, but not limited to, manhandling Tora Ziyal or being Gul Dukat.
Mora Pol pushed Odo's by suggesting that Odo return to his science facility on Bajor for medical treatment. Odo's experiences as a young Changeling at the facility were ... unpleasant.
Better to Die than Be Killed: 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.
Quark: Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts...Deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers...Put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time...And those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Looks at those faces, look at their eyes...
In fact this Star Trek series introduce us the Section 31 (said to rival even Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order) and the captain who is willing to use subterfuge AND murder just to do what is "necessary".
Big Fucking Gun: As SF Debris points out, only Sisko could have helped design 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.
SF Debris: "It's a set of guns, strapped to an engine." "Mr. Worf, prepare a high yield torpedo and write on it; don't fuck with the Sisko."
When the threat of a Dominion invasion becomes imminent, Starfleet upgrades Deep Space Nine, which couldn't defend itself from three Cardassian warships in the pilot, into a station handily capable of holding off a Klingon fleet of more than fifty ships.
The Big Damn Kiss: Odo and Kira, in front of dozens of people on the Promenade. Also the episode made waves in universe and out...
Big Little Man: Invoked. Bashir and O'Brien are just back from a mission that involved them being miniaturised. They stand at the bar boasting about their exploits, when Quark and Odo both note that a waitress seems oddly tall next to them, sending them scurrying away to check their height in sickbay. The waitress then stands down, off the step she'd been put on by Odo and Quark, revealing the entire thing to be a gag.
Big "NEVER!": Said by Sisko in "Dramatis Personae," after O'Brien suggested all Starfleet personnel to abandon Deep Space Nine.
Said by Sisko in "In the Hands of the Prophets" (in Slo Mo for extra points.)
Also employed by Odo during the climax of "The Adversary."
And by Quark in "Who Mourns for Morn."
Big Secret: "Dax" is a typical example, albeit with an atypical defendant.
Dr. Bashir's childhood.
Bio-Augmentation: Bashir. The 'Jack Pack' in "Statistical Probabilities".
Bittersweet Ending: The finale was this in almost every way, from the end of the war (thankfully) but with billions of casualties and fatalities, and almost all the main characters being separated from one another.
Bizarre Alien Biology: When Quark gets badly beaten in one episode, apparently his injuries included his lower lung being punctured.
And again in "The Sound Of Her Voice", Odo remarks on the possibility of Morn getting injured and puncturing three or four of his lungs. (And in "Who Mourns For Morn" we find out that his species has two stomachs. And normally has hair, which can fall out as a result of chronic Latinum poisoning.)
The unseen Captain Boday, who's skull is transparent.
Ensign (later lieutenant) Vilix'pran's reproductive cycle involves budding and requires a hatching pond. Parents of his species must be careful to ensure that their offsprings' wings don't get tangled, as Jake Sisko learned.
Black and Gray Morality: Sisko's tactics capturing the traitor Eddington; also "In The Pale Moonlight."
And a very rare example for Star Trek: Section 31.
Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word: Averted. In an episode where Sisko threatens to throw Garak off the station and put him in danger of assassination if Garak doesn't help him Garak points out that this is extortion. Sisko has no problem openly admitting it (to Garak anyway).
Also averted in the pilot, when Sisko blackmails Quark into keeping his bar open by threatening to incarcerate his nephew Nog for a petty crime.
Blank Book: How Bashir determined he was trapped in Sloan's mind.
Blatant Lies: How Nog and Jake convince Weyoun that they were trying to buy a card for Captain Sisko. By first telling the truth, then telling the most outlandish story possible involving a time-traveling baseball player. Ironically, this convinces Weyoun that they're such terrible liars they must have been telling the truth the first time.
Garak communicates mostly in these, apparently preferring lies to the truth, and not in some Ignorance Is Bliss kind of way.
Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?"
Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true."
Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Garak: "Especially the lies."
Blown Across the Room: Happens to several civilians when the Cardassians attack the station in "Emissary".
Both Sides Have a Point: Dax and Worf's separate reasons for (as it turns out, temporarily) canceling the wedding.
Quark: She says it's because he's a pigheaded, stubborn man who puts tradition before everything else. He says it's because she's a frivolous, emotional woman who refuses to take him or his culture seriously. You can see the problem.
O'Brien: They're both right.
Bottle Episode: Given that the show had a stricter budget yet more ambitious stories, this is a given. The true achievement, though, is Duet, which cost less than half the cost of an average DS9 episode, and is considered one of the best told stories of the entire franchise.
Brain Bleach: Bashir needs some after first Quark and Grilka, and then Dax and Worf come in terribly wounded in "Looking for par'mach in all the wrong places". Fighting is just part of Klingon lovemaking
Breather Episode: "In The Cards", "His Way", "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang"
Brick Joke: In the pilot episode, Bashir asks Odo where he can practice with his phaser on the Promenade, the joke being that Odo has banned phasers on the Promenade. Years later, in "Way of the Warrior", when Odo is about to be overwhelmed by Klingons, Bashir and his phaser come to Odo's rescue.
Brief Accent Imitation: O'Brien does a particularly impressive one of Bashir in "The Armageddon Game".
The Bully: Mirror Universe Odo delights in taunting and physically abusing Bashir in "Crossover."
Bullying The Dragon: "Profit and Loss". Gul Toran decides to manipulate Garak into doing his dirty work for him (killing the dissident fugitives that are on the station, an act Garak disapproves of) by dangling the carrot of ending Garak's exile in front of him. Once Garak has corralled the dissidents (and Quark who was helping them), Toran intervenes intending to take the sole credit and mocks Garak with the news that Garak's exile will never end and certainly not with any trivial act such as this. Considering Garak was one of the highest ranked agents of the Obsidian Order prior to his exile, which made him one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the whole of Cardassia (and Toran knew this), Toran's attempt to manipulate and then betray Garak was the most foolish, suicidal act of his life. Not only does Garak promptly kill Toran for his audacity, he then helps the dissidents secure their escape and freedom from Cardassia.
But Thou Must: Section 31. The offer to join is merely a courtesy, you really haven't a choice whether you are willing to work with them or not. That means you, Bashir.
C-D
Came Back Wrong: Weyoun 6, who was considered to be "defective" as he believed the war with the Federation was a mistake and defected. The Vorta are genetically engineered to serve the Founders, however they didn't count on him reinterpreting that directive as also being applicable if he's working for Odo.
A major part of Weyoun 6's logic was that the Founders were dying of an apparently incurable disease, and Odo was apparently not infected. Thus, he would soon be all that was left of the Founders. Though it turned out that Weyoun 6 was missing some critical information in his analysis.
Part of Ezri Dax's story arc revolves around the fact that she's had several lifetimes dumped into her head and she was never trained to be a host.
The Cameo: During the final holodeck scene of the series, many of the production staff are in the crowd, as is every regular actor that wasn't playing a character at the time.
Canon Foreigner: In "The Sound Of Her voice", have a close look at Quark's. There's an alien hanging around that bears a suspicious similarity to a Twi'lek.
The Captain: Sisko. Though he was only actually promoted to captain in the third-season finale.
Card-Carrying Villain: Subverted with the fake Gul Darhe'el. Eventually played straight with Dukat.
Casanova Wannabe: Bashir hits on everything that moves. And never wins. Although he eventually ends up with Ezri who also informs him that Jadzia would have eventually come around if Worf hadn't shown up first. Apparently, that's also what the writers had intended prior to Michael Dorn's arrival. Some fans feel that Bashir would have been justified in Breaking the Fourth Wall for the express purpose of strangling the writing staff and the producers to death.
Catapult Nightmare: Happens to Worf at the start of "Rules of Engagement."
The Cavalry: Used often. In particular, this seems to be General Martok's very favorite tactic, especially in the sixth season. Whenever the Defiant is in a tight spot, you can bet good money on Martok's ship swooping in to save the day.
Cerebus Retcon: The reveal about Bashir's genetic enhancements.
The revelation in "Shadows And Symbols" that the Prophets had a very active hand in Sisko's birth to ensure that he would be able to fulfill the prophecies.
The Chanteuse: In one episode, Vic makes a holocharacter like this modeled on Kira, for Odo to practice flirting on. And then swaps her for the real Kira.
Characterization Marches On: Odo once deduced Quark was lying to him because Rom was not a good engineer ("He couldn't fix a straw if it was bent"), when in later seasons he is proven to be quite the Genius Ditz.
They throw in a handwave with a line from Odo when they started to change Rom's character, "I've been watching you, Rom, and you aren't as dumb as you look…"
Rom's first appearance in a speaking role is markedly different from his subsequent appearances.
He acts more like a typical Ferengi, and is rather aggressive, yelling at Nog while dragging him around the room. It is rather jarring to watch for someone used to seeing his portrayal throughout the rest of the series.
Also jarring to anyone familiar with only the later seasons was Rom's attempt to murder Quark in the first season episode The Nagus.
Granted, that Rom's Genius Ditz capacity as a genius engineer is still played continually straight, even after he joins the engineering crew under O'Brien. His ability is continually underestimated to the end, and he uses it to his advantage. Much of the time the reasoning for the character trait is Quark's own unwillingness to pay for the proper maintenance to be maintained.
Chef of Iron: We see a Klingon restaurant open up on the Promenade and show up in a few episodes. The chef, a large fellow (even by Klingon standards) also serenades his customers with a violin-like instrument.
Chocolate Baby: The source of most of the dramatic tension for the second half of "Covenant".
Claustrophobia: In early seasons, occasional comments about small spaces or needing air suggest that Garak either suffers from it or likes using it as an excuse for his behaviour in certain episodes. It's only in the fifth series that it's revealed he genuinely suffers from this, because of something that happened to him on Tzenketh, years ago. In the seventh season, Ezri finds out Tain used to lock a young Garak in a closet as a punishment for misbehaving and believes that might be a factor in his development of his claustrophobia (he never reveals the Tzenketh incident to her). Since Garak rejects her exploration of that, its true impact on his life is yet another unsolved mystery about his past.
Coconut Superpowers: Odo could technically take any shape, but was humanoid most of the time because CG motion control effects were kind of expensive back in the day.
More than a few of the CGI shape shifting sequences look quite dated at this point.
One of the spin-off novels has a foreword that notes Odo can be much freer with the use of his ability in print, since there was no need to worry about the effects budget.
Combat Medic: Dr. Bashir ranks up there with TNG's Beverly Crusher on occasion. He once killed a Jem'Hadar with a stab to the neck.
He comments on this once, when someone mentions his skill with a phaser. He replies that he wishes it wasn't needed due to him being a medic - but this doesn't stop him from jumping into the fight when the fur really starts to fly.
Unlike most Starfleet personnel who have inexplicable expertise outside their areas of skill, Bashir is justified as he is genetically augmented, making him physically and mentally superior to almost any human.
In the pilot episode, Bashir asks Odo if there was a place on the promenade where he could get in some target practice; further justifying this.
Comically Missing the Point: In "The Way of the Warrior", we get a brief discussion between Dax and Kira, coming out of a holosuite dressed as ladies from King Arthur's Court. Dax is grumbling at Kira for punching out Sir Lancelot. Kira protests that he tried to kiss her, and she was playing a married woman! Apparently she doesn't know Guenevere's story as well as she ought to...
Confess to a Lesser Crime: When Garak survived an assassination attempt, Odo and Sisko attempted to delve into his past to see if the reason for his exile was related to the attempt on his life. Garak insisted there was no connection because he was in exile for failure to pay his taxes. Although he was right about there being no connection, no-one believed the reason he gave for being in exile.
Continuity Nod: Perhaps the funniest example of this trope happens in "Accession", a nod to the fact that in TNG, Worf helped Keiko O'Brien deliver Molly.
Quark: Did you hear? Keiko's gonna have another baby.
Worf:NOW?!
And later:
Worf: Unfortunately I will be away from the station at that time. Far away. Visiting my parents. On Earth. Excuse me.
In "Paradise", O'Brien mentions that his wife Keiko has nicknamed him "the black thumb" for the way every plant he touches seems to wither and die. This is a Call Back to a TNG episode three years ago.
In the pilot "Emissary", O'Brien uses some Technobabble to fool Cardassian sensors into thinking the defenseless wreck of DS9 has five thousand photon torpedoes. Four years later, when the Klingons attack in "Way of the Warrior", Sisko tells the Klingons he has those same weapons—the Klingons retort that he must be using the same Technobabble O'Brien used before, but now the station really does have all those torpedoes.
In "Tears Of The Prophets," Sisko receives the Christopher Pike Medal Of Honor.
In "Chrysalis", O'Brien protests to Bashir that he can't break the laws of physics, echoing one of Mr Scott'sbest-known lines.
Continuity Overlap: DS9 has the distinction of being the only Star Trek series to run concurrently with another one during its entire run — not to mention the first three TNG movies. As a result, it was affected by developments elsewhere in the franchise:
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The uneasy relationship between the Federation and the Cardassians from TNG is carried over. Races introduced on TNG (Trill, Ferengi, Cardassians, Bajorans) are also heavily featured. The establishment of the Demilitarized Zone in TNG's “Journey’s End” also leads directly into DS9's “The Maquis” and the formation of the titular renegades. Finally, Gorwron is still Chancellor of the Klingon Empire — something that allows the TNG's Klingon politics arc to continue once Worf joins the cast.
Star Trek: Generations: The TNG combadges, used for the first two seasons, are retired after the Season 2 finale "The Jem'Hadar". Beginning with Season 3, the crew sports the film's updated combadge design. The destruction of the Enterprise-D is later acknowledged when Worf arrives on the station in "The Way of Warrior".
Star Trek: First Contact: The original jumpsuit uniforms introduced in "Emissary" are retired after Season 5's "The Ascent". Foe the remainder of the series, Starfleet officers sport First Contact's new black and gray uniforms. In addition, starships created for the Battle of Sector 001 also make appearances beginning with Season 5. Finally, the Borg attack is a plot point in Season 5 as Starfleet's losses leave the Federation's navy spread thin for the Dominion's invasion.
Star Trek Insurrection: Despite Picard's best efforts, at least some of the Son'a don't reconcile with the Ba'ku and are still manufacturing Ketracel White for the Dominion during Season 7.
Star Trek: Voyager: Though DS9 sets up the Maquis, the overlap is essentially averted due to VOY being cut off from the Alpha Quadrant. However, Tuvok's Mirror Universe counterpart appears in Season 3's "Through the Looking Glass". An Emergency Medical Holograms, along with creator Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, are featured in Season 5's "Doctor Bashir, I Presume". Finally, an Intrepd-class ship and its sets appear in Season 7's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges".
Cool Gate: Specifically, the stable wormhole between Bajor and the Gamma Quadrant.
Cool Starship: The Defiant, built as the prototype for the Federation's anti-Borg fleet. Described in the DVD commentary as "on a five-year mission to kick ass." It does. Repeatedly.
It also has (at first) a cloaking device, illegal under interstellar law for any other Federation starship.
Cowboy Cop: Worf in "Hippocratic Oath." He ruined Odo's investigation, forcing him to just arrest the middleman instead of taking out an entire smuggling business.
Interestingly, Starfleet believes that Odo himself is a Cowboy Cop, and makes several minor attempts to reign him in. Despite chafing and complaining about Federation procedure, however, Odo seems to follow it dutifully.
Crazy-Prepared: Garak just happens to have a micro-explosive handy with a prepared trigger used by only one species of assassin that would only blow up when he entered his own shop. This was of course handy because the assassin was actually there to kill him, so he pre-emptively blew himself up so the assassin would be caught.
The Cardassians like this trope in general, from their station security (see The Dev Team Thinks of Everything) to the Obsidian Order. They have contingency plans for contingency plans with a few Batman Gambits thrown in.
Crossover: A loose example with "The Maquis". The duology continues the events of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Journey's End", which had aired a month before. It shows what has become of the Demilitarized Zone and the Federation colonists that have chosen to remain on the Cardassian side of the border. One of the Dorvan colonists even appears as an extra in the second installment and Gul Evek also reappears.
Crystal Spires and Togas: The Bajorans prefer their buildings low-rise, but modern Bajor otherwise fits quite nicely.
Cultural Rebel: Nog, who joins Starfleet instead of taking up a business career like most Ferengi men.
Also, Odo is one of the few Changelings who does not hate and fear all solids.
Curb-Stomp Battle: The first open encounter with The Dominion had a Jem'Hadar ship ramming and destroying the Odyssey(the same class as the Enterprise-D) just to prove a point.
The Second Battle of Chin'Toka resulted in the loss of an entire allied fleet—save one lucky Klingon Bird-of-Prey. Dominion losses amounted to four or five destroyed Breen warships.
Custom Uniform: O'Brien's uniform has shorter sleeves. At the rate that DS9 is falling into disrepair, can you blame him?
Justified in O'Brien's case - he's not an officer (full rank and name is either Chief Warrant Officer Miles O'Brien or Senior Chief of Operations Miles O'Brien depending on which source you use).
The sleeves aren't actually shorter, he just rolls them up.
Starting around Season Three, Major Kira eventually trades in her militia uniform for a slinkier one-piece garment.
Odo's uniform was modified from the standard Bajoran militia uniform, too, with a higher collar and a belt (which he later discarded). Rene Auberjonois liked his Mirror Universe outfit so much, he asked the producers to create a similar one that he could wear on a regular basis.
Captain Sisko twice wears a variation on the First Contact uniform. The tunic, worn untucked, is zipped all the way to the neck, the cuffs lack the division color stripe, and the combadge is placed in the grey shoulders rather than below it. Sources seem to be divided as to whether or not this custom uniform was just a wardrobe mistake.
Deadpan Snarker: Garak is the show's standout example. Bashir and Odo have their moments too.
The 100-year-old Bajoran arbiter Els Renora, from the episode "Dax", stands apart as a shining example of this trope, too. Played by Anne Haney (who also played the social worker in Mrs. Doubtfire), she gets some real gems.
"I am one hundred years old. I do not have time to squander listening to superfluous language. In short, I intend to be in here until supper, not senility."
"But the penalty for these crimes on your world is death, and that is rather permanent."
But the greatest one of all comes after Tandro's mother announces that she and Curzon were in bed together at the time of the transmission, and thus Curzon couldn't have been the traitor:
"Mr. Tandro, you will want to re-examine your extradition request."
If only she'd appeared in a few more episodes, she may have even overtaken Garak in this category. As it is, Garak gets the nod based on volume.
Ziyal has a few shining moments as well, along with what might be her best one-liner in the entire show when she's forced to listen to Quark moaning about how the Dominion take-over will hit his profits.
Quark: "The Jem'Hadar don't eat, don't drink, and they don't have sex. And if that wasn't bad enough, the Founders don't eat and don't drink, and they don't have sex either. Which, between you and me, makes my financial future less than promising."
Ziyal: "It might not be so bad. For all we know the Vorta could be gluttonous, alcoholic sex maniacs."
Deconstruction: DS9 liked to do this, both to the rest of Trekdom and other works:
There are a lot of moments, often involving the Ferengi, which consider Roddenberry's peaceful and non-capitalist vision of the future (of humans) and the potential downsides of it.
The episode "Valiant" is a deconstruction of the original Star Wars film (aka A New Hope) and derivative works. One tiny ship manned by young, inexperienced but brave heroes runs down the trench of a giant super weapon ship and uses a super torpedo on its Weaksauce Weakness...only for it to fail, their ship to be blown up and most of them killed.
"Far Beyond the Stars" and "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" consider the trend in Star Trek to never explicitly mention race or racism (in humans) from the Next Generation onwards, implying it is so distant in the past that it is forgotten. Sisko is shocked when he experiences it in his visions of being a black 1950s science fiction writer, and seems newly aware of the ramifications of his skin colour in the past and becomes angry at Politically Correct History period holo-programmes brushing over it.
As noted above, the entire series was a rejection of the classic Trek "solve a problem, then fly on and never return" storyline, but "Crossover" was specifically a deconstruction of it. "Mirror, Mirror" ended on a hopeful note, with Mirror Spock deciding to consider Kirk's advice about changing Mirror Federation society. But as we see in "Crossover," this has extremely negative consequences, because all the other warlike societies surrounding the Mirror Federation swoop in and take over, leaving humanity largely enslaved, with very little hope of freedom.
Defictionalization: Beyond the examples shared with other Trek media, the scifi novel "Far Beyond the Stars" from the episode of the same name was later written and published.
Definitely Just a Cold: Odo and the Female Changeling after contracting the Founders' disease.
Deliberate Values Dissonance: A staple of any Trek series. This one, however, has a much more even-handed approach than the other series, giving a more sympathetic and three-dimensional portrayal of alien values, and showing that the Federation isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be.
Description Cut: In "In Purgatory's Shadow," upon discovering that Bashir has been replaced by a Changeling and is being held in a Dominion prison camp, Worf and Bashir ponder what mischief the Changeling is up to on the station. The show immediately cuts to Bashir's replacement delivering sandwiches to Dax and O'Brien.
In "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", Ben tells Kasidy the reason why he wants to beat the Vulcan captain's team so badly, and then tells her she's not allowed to tell anyone. He makes her promise. Cut immediately to Kasidy talking to the crew in the wardroom, having just told them: "He made me promise not to say anything, so keep it under your hats."
Despite The Plan: the episode "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" involved an Ocean's Eleven-style casino heist where nothing went as planned, but everyone bounced back in time to pull it off.
They actually show us what the perfectly-performed plan looks like, too, and even mislead us a little into thinking it's the actual performance of the plan, with the characters narrating/explaining their parts. This makes the blunder-filled version that much more hilarious. And exciting. (Of course, this is the common inversion of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee: since we hear the plan, you know it won't go that smoothly in practice.)
Determinator: Worf, in "By Inferno's Light". He forever earns the respect of General Martok.
Martok: Seven battles, and seven victories! What hero of legend could have done as well?
Worf: Heroes of legend do not ache so much.
...
First Ikat'ika: I yield! I can not defeat this Klingon. I can only kill him, and that no longer holds my interest.
A nod to the classic Marvel Comics story, except with Worf taking the Ever-Loving Thing's place as the guy who won't stay down against an opponent he can't beat.
In the same episode, Garak earns the respect of both Worf and General Martok when he defies a debilitating phobia because he knows he's the only person who can get everyone safely out of the internment camp.
Martok: There is no greater enemy than one's own fears.
Worf: It takes a brave man to face them.
Deus ex Machina: Sisko takes the Defiant into the wormhole to head off a fleet of several thousand enemy ships. Luckily, the Prophets intervene and somehow remove the entire enemy fleet from existence. It's nice to have a race of virtually omnipotent noncorporeal alien beings nearby, isn't it?
However it's only a partial example, as the Prophets' help doesn't come out of nowhere. Their powers, presence and attitude were already long established.
The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: In-universe example. When Dukat controlled Terok Nor (DS9), he installed an anti-insurgency programme as a failsafe against possible Bajoran revolt. Initial response was a station-wide lock-down that was designed to escalate towards self-destruction on the basis of any attempt to counter it and transmit an automated message to Cardassia explaining what was happening. When Dukat picks up the message, curiosity compels him to beam into Ops to see what's happening. He offers to stop the programme if they'll allow a Cardassian garrison on the station, but is refused. Unbothered, and confident they'll change their minds when destruction is imminent, he decides to beam back to his ship and wait. His attempt to leave reveals a new layer to the programme even Dukat didn't know existed. Believing him a coward who might abandon post if the situation became too much for him to cope with, Legate Kell had ensured that if he did such a thing, the programme would nullify his access codes, trapping him there to die with the Bajorans.
This is later referenced in one of the TNG novels involving Q, with Picard noting that Q didn't return to DS9 after that incident. Picard says (only half-jokingly) that if he knew punching Q would prevent him from returning, he'd have done it at Farpoint.
Disposable Woman: Jennifer Sisko, who died before she even got a line reading. We see more of her in flashbacks, and her Mirror Universe counterpart is still alive and kicking.
Divide and Conquer: Using Changeling agents, the Dominion is able to easily sow discord between its enemies while simultaneously seeming peaceful.
Divorce Requires Death: In "Second Sight", we meet a famous scientist who has everything... except his wife's love. And she comes from a culture that doesn't permit divorce, so she's slowly killing herself instead. The episode ends with him killing himself instead, so that she will be free.
Doctor's Orders: Bashir relieves Kira of duty in Defiant because she's highly overworked, stressed out, and can't remember the last time she had a day off.
Doesn't Like Guns: Odo states this preference in "Captive Pursuit" and his Mirror Universe counterpart apparently does not agree. However, Odo would at the very least wield phasers in later episodes such as "Second Skin" and "Heart of Stone."
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Cardassian occupation of Bajor, complete with labor camps and racially-charged rhetoric, is reminiscent of the Nazi regime. Word Of God says that it was based on the WWII Japanese conquest of China.
The Dominion also qualifies. Like the Nazis, the Changeling Founders consider themselves racially superior to "solids" and have no moral qualms about genocide.
The Section 31 virus which afflicts the Changeling race is reminiscent of the HIV epidemic. First, the virus is spread by the physically intimate act of linking, the closest Changeling analog to sex. Like HIV, the virus is lethal, at least until a cure is discovered in season 7. Finally, the virus is deliberately developed by Section 31, a shadow organization under the Federation government, as a means of bringing about a Changeling genocide. This strategy is reminiscent of early conspiracy theories surrounding the origins of HIV. That's right folks; Odo and the Female Changeling were metaphorically seropositive.
Don LaFontaine: He doesn't do the voice, but Quark does a pretty good impression of the stereotypical Don LaFontaine-voiced movie trailer in "Business as Usual". Which is then subverted by Dax's interruption.
Quark: Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I have to do, I have to do alone. One man... who's had enough... who's going to stand up and say...
Jadzia Dax:Goodbye, Quark!
Dramatic Pause: Sisko.. develops a.. bad case of.. Shatner.. Speak.. at times! (Interestingly, Avery Brooks's dramatic background was originally as a Shakespearian Actor, just like William Shatner, and Shakespeare is known for a distinctive cadence...)
Driven to Villainy: It's suggested that the Founders were once benign. However, species in Trek are instinctively hostile to shape-shifters. After centuries of various abuses, the Founders became bent on establishing Dominion over all "solids" in the universe.
It wouldn't take a lot of instinct to be paranoid about them. Look at the panics humans have had historically, over witches, crypto-communists, etcetera. Now imagine that it's a group that not only you don't know who they are, but one that could replace members of your own family without you knowing.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Jadzia essentially dies for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her death was written in such a way as to ensure she had absolutely no shot at either defending herself or accomplishing anything in her last moments.
An oblique reference was made to this on B5. In one episode, a gift shop is set up on the station. One of the characters loudly declaims this idea, saying "This isn't some Deep Space Franchise! This means something!" It should be noted that the writer of this episode, Peter David, has written several Star Trek novels.
The Deep Space Nine writers weren't above including their own subtle jabs at B5. One episode featured Bashir having to chaperone a cadre of Ambassadors visiting the station and putting up with all the crap that comes with it.
The episode that reveals this also has a Cardassian who became a surrogate father-figure to her dying. After learning of something he did during the Occupation she storms off, only to be convinced to return as "he doesn't deserve to die alone." She returns and stays with him until he dies, and then buries him next to her father.
E-F
Earn Your Happy Ending: Played very straight by Nog and Jake in "In the Cards", with hilarious consequences. They go through a lot to get that baseball card. But by the end, everyone on the station feels better, not just Sisko. They also do tons of wheeling and dealing to get five bars of latinum in "Progress", while Nog does the same solo in "Faith, Treachery and the Great River" (at the risk of poor O'Brien almost getting his head taken off by Kira, Worf and Martok).
Easily Conquered World: Betazed was taken over during the Dominion War with minimal effort and nobody around to even try and put up a fight.
Either this, or could be an example of Curb-Stomp Battle, something the Dominion is fond of doing. Either way, it's used to demonstrate how badly the war is going.
Elevator Going Down: the turbolift version. After some major flirtation, Bashir and Ezri end up making out in the turbolift on the way to Ops. When they get there (and they keep kissing) a bemused Worf sends them back down rather than interrupt them.
"Past Tense", where Sisko's presence in the past caused the premature death of an important historical figure a few days before he was supposed to die heroically, forcing Sisko to impersonate him.
Commented on in "Little Green Men". Nog was studying Earth's history, and when he encountered an entry about the historical figure, passed comment about how closely Sisko resembled a picture of him (the picture, of course, being that of Sisko).
Sisko also, at one point, gets kidnapped by Miles 'Smiley' O'Brien from the Mirror Universe, because Mirror-Sisko was killed-in-action and they need someone to convince Sisko's Mirror-wife to join the rebel cause. Naturally, it works. A subversion, though, since she admits she realized pretty early on that he wasn't her real husband, mostly because he wasn't a jerkass. But he ended up legitimately convincing her.
Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: The Jem'Hadar are all much younger than they look. One episode with a young Jem'Hadar that was separated from the rest of its brood indicates that they grow to full physical and emotional maturity within a few weeks. The few occasions we see into their behavior does bring this into question, especially the childish bickering between the Alphas and Gammas.
Endangered Soufflé: Subverted, where they sneak weapons into a prison under the pretense of delivering a souffle, and when a guard demands to investigate it, they warn him to be careful with it...right before they knock him out with the Off-Button Hypospray, causing his head to fall into the souffle and crush it.
Dukat envisions himself and Sisko as something like this in the episode "Waltz". The truth is he's just nuts and running out of self-delusions
Establishing Character Moment: Most notable with Kira, as our first glimpse of her is a shouting match with the provisional government. That fire would remain a centerpiece of her character for the rest of her life. (As would her continuing clashes with the provisional government, for that matter).
Also Sisko, when confronted by Q (see above).
Odo's grabbing a thief without using a weapon and shouting "Who the hell are you?" to Sisko is another one.
Gul Dukat. Tora Ziyal is willing to give him chances he doesn't deserve and almost always forgives him, no matter what he does or how he treats people (including her).
Enabran Tain has Garak's loyalty even despite the Noodle Incident that caused Tain to feel so personally betrayed by Garak that he exiled him. Even knowing Tain was Garak's mentor, Odo cannot understand why Garak's loyalty is so unshakable he'll risk his very life to try and help Tain. Tain is Garak's father, hence the loyalty.
The Changeling race serves as this for the Female Changeling. In the series finale, she calls off the Demonion offensive and surrenders in exchange for Odo curing the Great Link of the virus and returning to the Great Link, making true a past claim she had once made to Weyoun that she'd give up the Alpha Quadrant itself if it meant bringing Odo home.
Same thing in the episode "Little Green Men", Earth 1947. Once the story reaches Earth, it's a smoke-fest for the next 30 minutes. Every human who has more than 2 seconds of screen-time is seen smoking at least once. The trope is played straight, as part of an AnviliciousTake That at smoking. The Ferengi talk about how humans willfully ingest poison simply because it's addictive, and Quark even tells a General that Humans should stop smoking because it would kill them.
Evil Is Hammy: Invoked in "Duet" by a Cardassian pretending to be another man who oversaw an infamous death camp. When he dropped his facade, his hamminess was gone.
Evil Is One Big Happy Family: Quoted almost word for word by Weyoun in "The changing face of evil", but actually subverted since Damar betrays him and Cardassia rebels against the Dominion.
Evil Mentor: Tain ( Garak's father) was this to Garak. Also, the Female Changeling serves as this to Odo in "The Search," teaching him about the history of his people and helping him hone his shapeshifting skills.
Evilutionary Biologist: The Founders took control of the Gamma Quadrant through their keen use of genetics. Their foot soldiers, the Jem'Hadar, are rapid-aged to adulthood and fully-programmed with battle prowess. The Vorta lack a sense of taste, restricting their diet to roots and berries (the food they ate before the Founders revamped their DNA). And any culture that opposes the Dominion is treated to an outbreak of the Blight.
Exposed Extraterrestrials: Odo is technically naked most of the time, but since he's a shape shifter it looks like he's wearing clothing and it's never really commented on. It's also most likely he doesn't have any parts to expose anyway until he wants them.
When the Great Link transforms Odo into a biological humanoid in "Broken Link," he is ejected from the Great Link naked, in a literal example.
Fake Defector: Holographic simulation Garak in "The Search: Part 2".
Fake Memories: The trope is toyed with in "Hard Time" but ultimately averted when Bashir determines that O'Brien actually did experience a sped up simulation of some 20 years in prison (rather than simply having had those memories implanted). So the memories are real and can't just be removed without wiping the rest of the Chief's mind too.
False Innocence Trick: This is how we meet our first Vorta, Eris, as a "prisoner" of the Jem'Hadar.
Fan Service Pack: After the season 4 opener, Kira received a tighter uniform with no shoulder pads, and high heels. (The effect was somewhat reduced mid-season when Nana Visitor became pregnant; see Real Life Writes the Plot below.)
Fantastic Caste System: The Bajorans used to have one, but it was abandoned during the occupation. Subtle references are made to it through-out the series before it was explicitly revealed in an episode where it is temporarily revived. Its enforcement by law would have threatened Bajor's application to join the Federation (which doesn't allow caste-based discrimination).
In the episode "Accession" a time-displaced Bajoran poet who claims to be the Emissary instead of Sisko tries to reinstate the caste system. The results are Played for Drama with Kira being visibly uncomfortable with lower-caste Bajorans deferring to her and her own struggles with her caste-as an artisan with zero artistic talent-which ultimately leads to a vedek killing a man because his family was considered unclean.
Fatal Family Photo: Lt. Hector Ilario shows a photo of him with his friends from the academy to Ezri Dax, before bidding her goodnight, near the start of the episode Field of Fire, when she wakes up the next day it's been discovered that the Ilario has been shot dead. It turns out by the end of the episode that the link between the victims is their smiling photos with family and friends.
Fantastic Slurs: Cardassians are occasionally referred to as "Cardies" and "Spoon heads." "Shifter" "and "Changeling" are used to refer to Odo's species, though the latter name was later adopted by the species as their name.
A Starfleet officer even referred to Cardassians as "spoonheads" in "Empok Nor", though this was in the background. But it's understandable in context; the crew is being stalked by fanatical Cardassians at the time.
O'Brien would occasional mutter "Cardie bastards", although its been long established that his dislike of Cardassians is more due to unpleasant memories from the Federation-Cardassian war and holding them responsible for him having to take a life for the first time.
The Ferengi have a particularly snide way of pronouncing "hew-mon" that makes it clear they intend this. Jake reclaims it occasionally.
It's fairly intentional among Ferengi. Quark often pronounces "human" correctly (though not always), although that could also stem from his living among them for so long. In general, he only uses "hew-mon" if he's making an observation on the race as a whole (such as in The Siege of AR-558").
The way Brunt calls Quark a "philanthropist" and the way he reacts in the episode "Body Parts" implies this is one among Ferengi.
The Romulans amend the Treaty of Algeron, allowing the Federation to use a loaned cloaking device in exchange for intel on the Dominion. Originally the device could only be used in the Delta Quadrant, but this was further amended so it could be also used in the Alpha Quadrant.
When the Federation-Cardassian Treaty was being undermined (with the Cardassians oppressing former Federation citizens), the Federation failed to effectively deal with the issue. As a result, the Maquis resistance force begin operations.
Find the Cure: Section 31 creates a disease designed to annihilate the Founders in order to bring down the Dominion and end the war. In order to transmit the disease to the Founders, they use Odo as a carrier. This leads to three episodes of this for Dr. Bashir.
Subverted in "The Quickening." Bashir comes to the aid of a planet that was infected with a plague two centuries ago by the Jem'Hadar, expecting to swoop in with his genius and his gadgets and save the day with another miracle of 24th century Starfleet medicine. It doesn't work out that way. He does, however, find a vaccine that, when administered to pregnant women, makes their children immune to the disease, giving the civilization hope for the future.
First Episode Spoiler: The station's relocation to near the wormhole. Cleverly, the pilot used a version of the opening credits that did not show the wormhole opening, which they would ever afterwards.
Helpful hint: If describing the show to a potential newcomer, say the station "is on the edge of Federation space". This sets up almost every plot point plausibly enough for a non-viewer. On the other hand, anyone interested in learning more about DS9 probably already knows there's a wormhole.
First Name Basis: Sisko and Jadzia, Bashir and O'Brien, Dax and Kira, Jadzia and Bashir, Odo and Kira eventually.
Bashir tries to establish this early on with O'Brien, insisting that he call him Julian rather than "sir". At this point, O'Brien still found him incredibly irritating and so makes the first name sound even more formal and awkward than "sir" ever could. At the end of the episode, Bashir gives in and tells him to just drop it and address him how he likes.
Fixed Forward Facing Weapon: The U.S.S. Defiant is an escort cruiser purposefully designed for combat, containing 4 fixed-forward pulse phaser cannons and 4 quantum torpedo launchers (2 fore, 2 aft).
Flaunting Your Fleets: There were a few shots like this, especially later in the series as the Dominion War (and the CGI) picked up.
Flip Personality: There's an episode where other characters voluntarily share their bodies with the personalities of previous Dax hosts. Quark is very uncomfortable with the personality he's hosting and keeps emerging to complain.
Food Pills: It is established that Starfleet field rations A) superficially resemble beef jerky, and B) are generally loathed by most Starfleet officers—except Chief O'Brien.
Foregone Conclusion: Will Worf and Jadzia get married in "You Are Cordially Invited"? What do you think?
Foreshadowing: Possessed!Kira in Dramatis Personae acts a lot like her Mirror Universe counterpart, alternatively seductive and ferocious.
In Season 2's "The Maquis", the Badlands are introduced with Sisko noting that a number of ships have been lost in the plasma storms over the last year. The mystery of the missing ships foreshadows the events of Star Trek: Voyager.
Four Star Badass: Martok, more so than any other Klingon general.
Admiral Ross is no slouch in this department either, especially by the usual standards we've come to except from Starfleet flag officers.
Framing Device: The story of "Trials and Tribble-ations", being told by Sisko to Starfleet Temporal Investigations.
"Necessary Evil" has this same device but in a more roundabout way. Odo is narrating the present-day investigation, but his flashbacks are not directly presented as a "story" to another character or the audience. Odo specifically states that he hates keeping records or logs, so his memory itself is his "diary", so to speak.
"In The Pale Moonlight" is framed as Sisko recording a log entry about his actions (which he then deletes at the end of the episode).
A rare case of two simultaneous examples occurs in "Our Man Bashir". Bashir and Garak are stuck on a James Bond style holodeck novel with the safeties off and the rest of the crew trapped inside. Garak wants to leave the holodeck but Bashir shoots and just clips him. As a result Garak agrees to continue having seen Bashir's determination to save the rest of the crew. However, when Garak calls for the door to leave he does it in an unnecessarily long winded way which gives Bashir time to shoot, showing that Garak was testing how far Bashir would go and if he would be prepared to kill him. On the other hand, as we later find out, Bashir is genetically modified and clipping Garak was an easy shot for him. So Bashir was fully in control of the situation and only made Garak think that he was prepared to kill him. Fridge Brilliance all around.
Gallows Humor: Invoked by Kira and Garak when they realize the explosives they brought were worthless to infiltrate the Female Changeling's building.
(Garak starts giggling. Kira follows.)
Damar: I fail to see what is so funny, Garak.
Garak: Well isn’t it obvious? Here we are, ready to storm the castle, willing to sacrifice our lives in the noble effort to slay the Dominion beast in its lair, and we can’t even get inside the gate!
(Kira and Garak continue laughing.)
Kira:(chortling) Maybe - maybe we can go up to the door and ask the Jem’Hadar to let us in!
Damar:(joining in, laughing) Or let’s just have them send the Shapeshifter out to us!
Or even just the double episode Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast, which shows itself to be a double episode only at the end of the first part.
Gender Bender: Dax has inhabited both male and female Trill hosts in its many symbiotic incarnations
In "Profit and Lace," Quark temporarily becomes a female to attend a business meeting.
Odo briefly assumes the form of the Female Changeling during an espionage mission against the Dominion in "Tacking into the Wind."
Generational Saga: The Cardassian novel The Never-Ending Sacrifice is an In-Universe example. According to Garak, it's the masterpiece of the Cardassian fictional genre known as the "repetitive epic".
Genre Savvy: The Cardassian-Klingon Alliance. After the first crossover ultimately led to the collapse of the Terran Empire, the Alliance went to a lot of trouble to prevent further crossover, such as redesigning transporters to prevent any more crossovers and issuing orders to kill anyone from the main universe on sight, on the grounds that just a couple people from the other side could seriously alter the course of their history again. As it turns out, they were completely right. When a second crossover finally happens, it triggers a full-scale rebellion.
Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: "The Die is Cast": Just before the ship is destroyed, Garak gets Odo to the runabout but goes back for Tain, who's trapped on the bridge in a state of shock. Garak can't talk sense into him and can't abandon him. Odo has to punch Garak unconscious to get him off the ship. Later, Garak does acknowledge that Odo's action was the only way to bring him to his senses and that it saved his life as a result.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Example from "The Begotten" Doctor Bashir to Odo: "You need to relax, I told you that last week." Odo: "And it helped, that and the prune juice."
When trying to procure a baseball card for his father, Jake and Nog find that the owner has gone missing. Recognizing a Bajoran speaking to Kai Winn as a guy from the auction bidding on the same lot, they suspect that Kai Winn is responsible and prepare to question her about it. Cut to them being berated in Sisko's office for accusing the Kai of theft and kidnapping.
During "In Purgatory's Shadow" Worf and Garak discover that Bashir has been replaced by a Changeling back on DS9. After the real Bashir comments that he can only imagine what his imposter must be up to and Worf says they must warn Captain Sisko before he can carry out his mission, we cut back to DS9 where the Bashir Changeling is delivering a plate of sandwiches to O'Brien and Dax. Darkly subverted when the Changeling later DOES carry out his mission—sabotaging the graviton emitter that O'Brien and Dax were working on in that very scene.
God Emperor: The Founders of the Dominion use this to keep control of the Vorta and Jem'Hadar.
Godwin's Law: Dukat is compared to Hitler in some places. Nana Visitor, who plays Kira, said that Kira sees Dukat as Hitler, and nothing will ever change that.
Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Inverted, in that the gold itself doesn't make the latinum better. It's just a place to hold it.
Leads to a Crowning Moment of Funny at the end of "Who Mourns for Morn?" Quark believes that he has finally avoided all the other people trying to claim a tremendous stash of stolen latinum. Only to break one open and realize "There's no latinum in these bricks! There's nothing here but worthless gold!" Cue Big "NO!" as he frantically flails around in a pile of gold dust.
Then Quark remembers that some primitive cultures still place great value in gold.
Go Mad from the Revelation: A slow working version. During the Dominion War, Garak was key to Starfleet Intelligence in breaking Cardassian communications. He knew his actions were for the very best in the long run but with every transmission he translates he is killing more and more Cardassians. This builds over several years until the first bout of madness is his claustrophobia going to extreme levels where he cannot even be on the station. He is treated by Ezri Dax and they discover the truth before he goes mad any further.
Good Hair, Evil Hair: The Cardassians and the Founders all sport the same slicked-back hairstyle. Notable exceptions are Gul Dar'heel's helmet hair from "Duet", and the varied hairstyles seen on Cardassian women.
Government Drug Enforcement: The Founders used Ketracil White, an addictive performance enhancer and vital nutrient supplement, to control their Jem'Hadar supersoldiers. Without it, they will die—but not before going into an uncontrollable beserker rage.
G-Rated Sex / Better Than Sex: Changeling linking. During the occupation of Deep Space Nine in "Behind the Lines" and "Favor the Bold," Odo and the Female Changeling spend days behind closed doors linking. The Female Changeling insists that sex pales in comparison to it — and since she's done both with Odo, she means this literally.
Grand Theft Me: In "The Passenger," a criminal hijacks Bashir's body and in "Dramatis Personae," the senior staff is possessed by the telepathic remnants of an extinct civilization.
Grey and Grey Morality: Section 31. They will do anything to ensure the continuing existence of the Federation. And we do mean anything.
Green Rocks: The Orbs or "Tears of the Prophets" had a wide variety of uses.
Guarding The Portal: A large part of the crew's mandate is to deal with the Bajoran wormhole.
Ham-to-Ham Combat: It's Star Trek; a certain amount of hamminess is to be expected. But the truly epic argument between Quark and Ishka in "Profit And Lace" really takes the ham-flavored cake with bacon frosting.
Hammerspace: In "Defiant", after Kira releases the Defiant's command codes, Riker fires a phaser at her to stun her. He wasn't wearing a phaser. And it's a type-two phaser, not the smaller type-one which someone could conceivably conceal in their palm.
This is subverted in the episode "For the Cause", in which Eddington also sneak-attacks Kira; however, he and the other Starfleet Security officers were already armed on this occasion.
Justified in the episode "Badda-Bing Badda-Bang": when Vic asks how they plan on just walking away with a million dollars, Odo explains that he'll hide it inside himself.
Hand or Object Underwear: In "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", at one point Leeta gets so excited by Zimmerman's offer of her own cafe to run that she walks over to him, all excited, completely forgetting that she was just wearing a towel, isn't anymore, and didn't get around to putting anything else on to replace it yet. When she realizes, she grabs a bouquet of flowers to cover her chest with as she retreats to the bedroom to get dressed.
Hate Plague: in Dramatis Personae, a telepathic thingy that caused the extinction of a Gamma Quadrant species turns the crew (except Odo) into a pack of raging factional paranoids.
Heel Face Turn: Damar. Also Kai Winn, at the last moment of her life.
Heroic BSOD: Sisko has one at the end of the season 6 finale, first few episodes of season 7 were devoted to showing him getting through it.
In "For The Uniform", he faked one in order to bring Eddington down. And did it extremely convincingly.
Quark got this, but not from a failure. When he just opened fire on two Jem'Hadar soldiers, killing them and allowing his brother to be saved, he stands there shocked that he did something like that.
Played far more seriously in The Siege of AR-558, where Quark spends most of the episode deriding humans' violent and bloodthirsty nature when they are threatened or deprived of their creature comforts. When Quark kills a Jem'Hadar to defend his wounded nephew, Quark shows signs of Heroic BSOD as he realizes he has become just as violent.
Hoist by His Own Petard: In the season 1 episode Dax, Jadzia Dax faces murder charges from Ilon Tandro, who blames Curzon Dax for killing his father, General Ardelon Tandro; this bites Ilon in the ass three times.
First, he kidnaps Jadzia instead of asking for extradition despite having an extradition treaty with the Federation, this is because DS9 is technically a Bajoran station, and by sabotaging DS9 in order to kidnap Jadzia, they've given Bajor a perfectly good reason to get involved.
Second, it turns out Curzon was having an affair with the Ardelon's wife, which is not only a motive, but turned out to be his alibi. Ilon went through all that trouble to hunt down his father's murderer, only to find out said murderer was innocent because he was busy banging his mom.
Third, is that the evidence suggesting Curzon betrayed Ardelon, was Ardelon betraying Curzon. Ardelon was regarded as a war hero who was betrayed by one of his inner circle, but Ardelon was the traitor, it just never came to light.
Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Tended to be the show that subverted this the most in Star Trek. You have replicators? Self-replicating minefield. Your transporter accidentally sent you to a parallel universe? The other universe standardized the technology. And if you can transmit hologram packages to the Delta Quadrant, you can probably manage real time holodeck communications in the Alpha Quadrant. They're also the only one of the five shows to actually let their main characters use cloaking technology which was present in all of them*
Although to be fair, they are legally prevented from using it, which was established in TOS
. They even let their augment practice medicine openly.
Holding the Floor: In "Looking for Par'mach in all the Wrong Places", Quark demands the Ferengi Right of Proclamation during a duel with a Klingon to give Worf and Dax the opportunity to fix the mechanism that allows them to remote control Quark's body during the duel. The Klingons give it to him as he has respected their traditions and they should respect his, though it's unclear whether this "Proclamation" is an actual tradition or whether Quark made it up on the spot to stall proceedings.
Holier Than Thou: Winn Adami, the eventual spiritual leader of Bajor, and a jealous and power-hungry Knight Templar, to boot.
Quark, oddly enough, pulls off a pretty awesome holier-than-thou when he points out to Sisko how, though humans look down upon Ferengi for their Straw Capitalist culture, humans are actually reacting to memories of their own capitalist past and the ugliness that went on in their culture as a result. He follows up by pointing out that Ferengi have managed to avoid that ugliness and brutality through commitment to their principles, such as they may be, making Ferengi superior to humans.
Quark: The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget.
Sisko: Quark, we don't have time for this.
Quark: You're overlooking something, Commander. Humans used to be a lot worse than Ferengi. Slavery, concentration camps, interstellar war; we have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better.
YMMV, one of his examples is that they never had anything like slavery. But ALL Ferengi females are considered property and forbidden to own anything or earn profit. At least until Quark's feminist mother turns out to be the most brilliant business mind of her generation.
Holodeck Malfunction: "Our Man Bashir", sort of. Actually, it was more an example of something going wrong with the transporter, and the holodeck worked to keep the physical patterns of the crewmembers intact. (On the other hand, the holodeck's safety routines did malfunction, so...)
Worf: We were like warriors from the ancient sagas. There was nothing we couldn't do.
O'Brien: Except keep the holodecks working right.
Honey Trap: Played for Laughs in "For the Cause". The first time Ziyal asks Garak out on a date, Quark and Garak speculate about her motives for doing so. Quark accidentally convinces Garak that Kira's come up with a plan to use Ziyal as a Honey Trap to kill Garak on Dukat's behalf.
He outright transforms into a cloud of sparkling gas at one point to give Kira an idea of what the Great Link is like. It's safe to say this is not the first (or last) time his shapeshifting skills have been used for kinky purposes.
Well, he DID have physical sex with the female Changeling at one point, just to show her what it was like for "solids".
(After discovering that their treatment of Cardassian civilians had caused the Cardassian fleet to defect)
Female Changeling: I want the Cardassians exterminated.
Weyoun: Which ones?
Female Changeling: All of them. The entire population.
Weyoun: That could... take some time.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: This is the general attitude other Cardassians inside the Union have for Garak. Gul Toran even says this line verbatim in "Profit and Loss".
How Would You Like to Die?: When Dr. Giger asks Jake and Nog, "Do you want to die?" in "In the Cards", Jake and Nog are taken aback and take it as this threat. Subverted when it turns out it's just the opening line of Giger's sales pitch for the Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber.
Humanity Ensues: Odo, for the first half of the fifth season.
Humans Are Warriors: The humans are some of the most brutal fighters in the Dominion war, especially seen in "The Siege of AR-558", where Quark points it out bluntly to his nephew.
Sloan in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges". When Bashir expresses concern that Koval, the head of the Tal Shiar, has expressed interest in obtaining and deploying bioweapons, Sloan says "Yes, these are not nice people." About two minutes later, Sloan is asking Bashir if there's any known way to cause the terminal illness that Koval is suspected to have to unexpectedly begin to progress faster.
Triply so when you consider that Section 31, and Sloan in particular, are responsible for the disease killing the Founders.
I Am X, Son of Y: "I am Quark, son of Keldar, and I have come to answer the challenge of D'Ghor, son of... whatever."
D'Ghor's reaction suggests that this is a deadly insult to a Klingon.
And of course, "I am Worf, son of Mogh!" This is actually quite a common introduction among Klingons.
Notable in that when Alexander does not introduce himself in this fashion, it signifies a large rift between him and his father.
Idiot Ball: Sisko and Kira in "Resurrection". We're at war, someone's beaming into Ops and we have no idea who they are or where they're coming from. Don't have the guards rush over there or anything, just assume it's harmless. Surprise, the bad guy has a phaser and takes Kira hostage.
Odo in "Invasive Procedures." After finding Quark messing around in an airlock with the flimsy excuse that he is "meditating," he simply orders him out and completely fails to actually look around the airlock (where the only means Quark took to hide a signal device was to stick it on the same wall as the door). There is really no way Odo should fail to do this, given that suspicion and investigation are hallmarks of his interaction with Quark.
I Don't Pay You to Think: In the episode "Bar Association," Quark tells Leeta "I don't pay you to think. I pay you to spin the Dabo wheel."
I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Shakaar worrying to Odo about starting a relationship with Kira. Later, Odo and Kira. Even later, Bashir and Ezri Dax, for about a day, until they start making out in a turbolift.
I Have Your Wife: The plot of "The Assignment". Delivered by the wife herself (well, her mouth at least), since the hostage-taking involves Demonic Possession.
Insistent Terminology: The Dominion is fighting for control of the Alpha Quadrant despite the fact that two of the four major powers they're dealing with exist primarily in the Beta Quadrant, and the third half so. Granted, the Bajoran Wormhole and the Cardassians are based solely in the Alpha Quadrant, but still, you'd think they'd occasionally talk about the Beta Quadrant given that both the Romulans and the Klingons mostly live there.
I Say What I Say: O'Brien in "Visionary" hates temporal mechanics. Both of him.
I Shall Return: Sisko's speech at the end of season 5, where he tells the people of DS9, "I will not rest until I stand with you again," before leaving to fight the Dominion.
It Has Been an Honor: Martok's adjutant to Kor in "Once More Unto The Breach" when Kor decides to take Worf's place commanding a suicide mission.
Injured Kira to Dax after the crash in "The Seige", but Dax takes her along anyway.
Dax is bleeding to death in "Change of Heart" and Worf leaves her behind to finish the mission. He ends up abandoning the mission to come back for her.
Humorous example in "The Ascent", where Quark hauls the injured Odo up a mountain on a stretcher. When Odo protests, Quark emphasizes his reasoning: Odo's along for emergency rations; if he dies, he's food.
Lampshaded in Season 7 when Worf gets shot as he and Ezri try to escape the Dominion:
Worf: Leave me!
Ezri: Shut up!
Icon of Rebellion: In a story arc, Bajor is threaten by a nationalistic group called the Circle. These extremists would spray paint their symbol as vandalism or in their headquarters.
Idiot Ball: The Klingons use of the Bat'leth in battle. A particularly egregious example occurs "The Way of the Warrior" where they fail to remember that just because Humans Are Diplomats, doesn't mean that in a fight they aren't the Combat Pragmatist. After gunning down the first wave of invading Klingons on the station, they simply take their fallen Bat'leths and use them to slaughter more invading Klingons. Some episodes did try to make them seem more pragmatic with Worf and Jadzia debating Bat'leth tactics, but even in those scenes it's hard not to notice how cumbersome the weapons are.
This might be the result of the actors, particularly the extras, not having much martial arts training. The Bat'leth was actually designed by a Martial Arts master as a kind of extremely curvedChineseHooksword and is perfectly functional, although is surprisingly defensive for a Klingon Weapon.
If I Wanted You Dead: When Garak suggests Kira might have been the one who blew up his shop, Bashir tells him to be serious about the situation.
Garak: I am serious. I don't think she likes me.
Odo: She doesn't. But if she wanted you dead, you would be.
Impostor Exposing Test: The blood screening for changelings. Not only does it not work, it turns out to have been suggested by a changeling in the first place.
In-Series Nickname: Jadzia Dax is "Old Man" to Sisko (and Ezri, to some extent)
In the Back: As Garak points out, it's the safest way to shoot someone
Indy Ploy: In "The House of Quark," Quark realizes Grilka is making up her plan as she goes along. When she seems unsure what the next move should be, he offers some guidance.
"Rules of Acquisition" is a typical Ferengi episode that just happens to feature the first mention of the Dominion.
"The Assignment" appears to be a generic Monster of the Week story at first. However, it introduceds the Pah-Wraiths, the enemies of the Bajoran Prophets, who eventually become a key part of the main plot.
Insistent Terminology: DS9 is not a Federation station... it's a Bajoran station under Federation administration. This is repeated several times by Sisko and especially Kira in the early seasons.
Insufferable Genius: Bashir, especially in early seasons. Arguably got worse after the truth about his genetic enhancements came to light. This was lampshaded by Garak in "A Time To Stand".
Intrepid Reporter: Jake, who stays behind after the Dominion takeover of the station.
Irony As She Is Cast: Baseball players in "Take Me Out to the Holosuite". Aside from Avery Brooks (Sisko) and Cirroc Lofton (Jake), the actors playing the Ferengi were the best baseball players in the cast. The Ferengi being who they are, however, forced them to play left-handed and employ other tricks to look horrible on film.
According to the Expanded Universe, this is based upon the Cardassian name for Bajor: Terok.
It Is Beyond Saving: Ezri believes this about the Klingon Empire, in stark contrast with Jadzia's tendency to romanticize it.
It Tastes Like Feet: Kira complains that some medicinal herbs Bashir gave her for her pregnancy "taste like something that crawled out of Quark's ear."
The Judge: Els Renora in "Dax", and Makbar in "Tribunal".
Jurisdiction Friction: In "Defiant", when Gul Dukat wants to send Cardassian warships to patrol a certain sector, the resident Obsidian Order observer tells him in no uncertain terms that that sector is under direct control of the Order, and any ship sent into it—including Cardassian warships—will be destroyed.
K-L
Kavorka Man: Morn got a lot of action for a bald, acne-ridden walrus thing. Supposedly, women find him to be a great conversationalist.
A Running Gag is Jadzia rejecting advances from various guys, yet agreeing to go out with Captain Boday, an Übermensch who happens to have a see-thru head.
Jadzia: He happens to be brilliant; his brain is twice the size of yours and mine combined.
Kira: I know, I've seen it.
Kill the Poor: In a Time Travel episode where Sisko, Bashir, and Dax accidentally travel back to Earth Twenty Minutes into Our Future. Sisko and Bashir are assumed to be homeless by the police who find them and they are sent to an interment camp for the indigent. The government of the time claims that it's a progressive measure to help the less fortunate, but Sisko points out that it's really just a way to sweep the poor under the rug so other people don't have to think about them.
Kiss Diss: Kasidy does this to Sisko once after he apologizes for being afraid of commitment.
Klingon Promotion: Multiple times, including one Ferengi episode, but most notably with Gowron's removal.
Ferengi don't actually practice it, and the guy who tried it was dismissed as a complete idiot. Though he might have gotten the job had he actually succeeded, the fact that he failed marked him as too incompetent to be trusted to do the job right.
It was the way he did it that was the bad part. As Grand Nagus Zek said: "You don't seize power! You build it up, through buying and conning and profit! What good is being in charge without the latinum to show for it?!"
Laser-Guided Karma: The Federation's "Section 31" creates a plague to wipe out the Changelings and win the war. It is ultimately successful, as the Changelings end up bartering peace in exchange for a cure. This from a species whose geneticists unleashed plagues on disobedient worlds.
Last Day To Live: Quark is told he's contracted a deadly disease. In an effort at settling his debts and earning a place in the Ferengi profit-based afterlife, he sells his corpse. Of course, after he learns that he's going to live, he finds out that his arch-nemesis bought said corpse after paying off the doctor to tell Quark he was going to die to begin with.
Last-Second Word Swap: In "Treachery, Faith and the Great River," after Odo protests to Weyoun that he's not a god, he's a security officer, later on Weyoun mentions how honored he is to be in the presence of a g— a security officer.
The Laws And Customs Of War: Invoked in "Duet", where the supposed "Gul Dar'heel" points out that while the Cardassians may committed many atrocities during the Occupation, he takes umbrage with the Bajoran's insistence that they were "War Crimes", when as he points out, the Bajoran Government had surrendered to the Cardassians and continued to do so for over 50 years!
Leaning on the Fourth Wall: in the episode "Far Beyond the Stars", Captain Sisko is sent a vision from the Prophets (maybe) of him as a science fiction writer from the 1950s. At the end of the episode, he wonders if life aboard the station isn't the illusion.
In the episode In the Pale Moonlight when Sisko is relating the events of the episode in his personal log the camera is in a generally fixed position right across from him, giving the viewer the impression that it is they who Sisko is speaking to.
In Rules of Engagement, Worf is accused of war crimes and undergoes an extradition hearing. Worf and his crew mates all give their testimony, during which we see the events they're describing. During these flashbacks, the characters speak directly to the camera.
Less Embarrassing Term: During the series finale, Miles and Keiko disagreed on the definition of the scale model of the Alamo that Miles and Julian had built. Keiko insisted it was a toy, while Miles favored the term "miniature". Additionally, in an earlier episode, Worf observed Julian and Miles working on this model and lamented Ezri Dax's affection for Julian Bashir by grumbling "He plays with toys." Ezri insisted "It's a model."
Crossroads of Time, which holds the dubious distinction of being the only Platform Game under the Trek banner. This is for a very good reason. Despite being released in 1995 (well after Sisko shaves his head and gets promoted), the story is set immediately after "Emissary" to avoid continuity conflicts. As a downside, the plot is rather inconsequential, though a memorable sequence has Sisko using the Orb of Time to return to his old ship, the Saratoga, as it falls under siege by Locutus.
Harbinger, an Adventure Game in which you play as a Redshirt on a generic mission into the Gamma Quadrant.
The Fallen, a First-Person Shooter showcasing the Cult of Pah-Wraiths, who made a few appearances on the show. The plot, a yarn involving Evil Counterpart versions of the Prophets—complete with red orbs and a red wormholes—is based on the Relaunch novel Millenium.
Probably the best-known game, Dominion Wars, which is a mix of Real Time Strategy and ship-to-ship combat.
The Load: Alexander Rozhenko, son of Worf. Yes, you read that right. It gets to the point that they think he's actually drawing bad luck away from THEM, making the ship and her crew luckier by default.
Locked in a Room: Of the elevator variety. In "The Forsaken", a turbolift malfunction traps Odo with Lwaxanna Troi for several hours... and he needs to regenerate!
Love Hurts: Odo over Kira, Bashir & Quark over Dax. Garak and Ziyal.
Love Is in the Air: "Fascination", thanks to Lwaxana Troi and a psychic disease she has.
M-N
MacGuffin Melee: Who Mourns for Morn? With everyone fighting over Morn's latinum.
Made-for-TV Movie: "The Way of the Warrior", the fourth-season premiere, was the first episode of Star Trek written, filmed, and aired as a TV movie which wasn't also a Pilot or a Grand Finale. The creators took the opportunity to introduce a new character (Worf), redo the main credits, introduce new props, turn two of the Trek universe's allies against each other, and have the biggest battle scene in both TNG and DS9 up to that time.
Madness Mantra: After Ziyal's death, Dukat is reduced to literally being dragged out of Sisko's office while whimperingly repeating "I forgive you...I forgive you..."
Frequently used by Cardassian spies, including Dukat himself.
And on Kira by the Obsidian Order, as part of an elaborate scheme to have a Cardassian politician convicted as a traitor and mindscrew Kira in the process.
"Second Skin" may have served as foreshadowing (or inspiration) for Seska, a Cardassian agent appearing as a Bajoran in the Maquis on Voyager. Incidentally, she appeared as a Romulan in one episode.
Also, not really a species change, but wouldn't it be nice if all sex changes could be done as casually and easily as Quark's in Profit and Lace?
Magnetic Plot Device: The wormhole was responsible for nearly everything that went on there. Without it, no one in The Federation or any other race besides the Bajorans and Cardassians would care about Deep Space Nine.
Although they got a TON of mileage out of "just" the Bajorans and Cardassians.
The Main Characters Do Everything: An integral part of Star Trek, but it gets particularly blatant once they get the Defiant. It's common to see the entire command staff leaving the station to go for a ride on the Cool Ship. Kind of makes you wonder who the heck is left behind to handle the daily disasters that normally plague the station.
It's particularly odd when Major Kira, the Bajoran liasion officer to DS9, is out on Starfleet missions with the Defiant and her crew that have nothing to do with Bajor.
Which comes to a head in the sixth season finale "Tears of the Prophets", where Dax stays behind to run the station and gets murdered by Gul Dukat as a result, while Kira boards the Defiant with the rest of the main characters (even Jake) for the invasion of Cardassian space.
One egregious example is the undercover operation to expose Gowron as a Changeling in Season 5. Worf is a Klingon and, in fact, the one who trains the others on how to act. Odo is an expert on Changelings, and he realizes that the actual Changeling is Martok, not Gowron, so he also has to be there. But Sisko's inclusion is questionable, although he's a good enough actor to pull it off and he was the one to suggest the mission to Starfleet Command. But O'Brien? He might have the most combat experience of anyone else in the main crew, but seriously, one would think that Starfleet Intelligence could have sent one operative who could have filled the last slot more effectively.
O'Brien may have been there to supervise their equipment.
In a villainous example, when the Dominion takes the station, Gul Dukat takes over Sisko's office; Weyoun and the Female Changeling move to the station as well. Given the wormhole, it might make sense for the Female Changeling and Weyoun to be there; however, why is the head of the Cardassian government not on Cardassia Prime, actually governing Cardassia? It either has to do with the Wormhole being probably the most strategically significant position in the Alpha Quadrant, the Founders wanting him in close proximity to them, or he's a sufficiently massive egotist wanting to rub it in the faces of the Bajorans after being humiliated that they successfully revolted under his command.
Man on Fire: Part of Kira's hallucination in "If Wishes Were Horses."
Meaningful Name: The Jem'Hadar are named after jemadar, a rank of sepoy (native troops in India who fought for the British Empire and were commanded by British officers). This fits well for a soldier race who are commanded by members of an unrelated race (the Vorta).
For that matter, Feringhee or Ferengi was a disparaging word used by Indians to refer to white Europeans, specifically Portugese traders, who they thought of as greedy, overbearing, and profit-obsessed.
Eris is the name of the Vorta who was "captured" by the Dominion and "rescued" by the Federation so she could spread disinformation about the Dominion. Eris is also the name of the Greek goddess of strife and discord.
Mental World: Bashir's in "Distant Voices" and Sisko's in "Far Beyond the Stars" and "Shadows and Symbols."
Sloan in "Extreme Measures". He tries to kill Bashir and O'Brien by keeping them in his mind as he dies!
Merchant Prince: The Ferengi have this as their Hat. Political power is very much connected to success in business.
Meta Origin: Star Trek has always loved centering its episodes around either the sociological oddities of the various Planet of Hats aliens encountered by the crew and/or a Negative Space Wedgie causing trouble for the ship. DS9 still has these things but ties them into the overall Myth Arc with most of the former being a result of the Dominion's cruel manipulation of the civilizations under its yoke and the latter usually related to the somewhat more well-meaning but often oblivious manipulations of the godlike extradimensional creatures known as the Prophets.
Mexican Standoff: At the end of "Profit and Loss", between Quark, Garak, and Gul Taran.
Also the climax of "Tacking Into the Wind", Gul Rusot points a phaser at Kira, while Garak covers him and while Damar holds them ALL at phaser-point.
Mind Rape: One Bashir-centered episode introduces a race known as the Letheans, who have incredibly powerful psionic abilities. It is stated that the race make for great assassins, because almost nobody ever survives the mind assaults they can attack their targets with. It goes beyond mentally assaulting someone with horrible images to just mentally assaulting someone.
Mind Screw: Benny Russell. The writers considered having Benny Russell hold up the complete script to the series as the very last scene of the series. Boy, that would have been the mind-screw to end all mind-screws.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: For much of Season 6 and 7, Legate Damar, the puppet leader of Cardassia must make concession after concession after outrageous concession to further the Dominion's interests, such as sacrificing Cardassian troops in a futile mission to distract the Klingons, or ceding Cardassian planets to the Breen in a treaty. Damar swallows his resentment by drinking a lot, becoming a full-blown functioning alcoholic by mid season 7. He finally does a Heel Face Turn in the last half-dozen episodes and openly leads an armed rebellion to free his people from the Dominion, which ends with him becoming a Doomed Moral Victor
Mob Boss Suit Fitting: Sometimes played with since Garak, the station's tailor, also has ties to Cardassian intelligence. At one point, Sisko has Garak take his measurements during an officers' meeting in order to pass on information to the Cardassians.
Money, Dear Boy: Averted with Frank Langella's uncredited appearance in the first three episodes of Season 2. He didn't want to make it seem like he was appearing on DS9 for money or exposure.
Mouth of Sauron: The Vorta serve as the public face of the Founders, who are so paranoid that they rarely venture out of their homeworld. (And almost never in their true shape.)
More Expendable Than You: In Once More Unto The Breach, Worf is about to sacrifice himself to delay a pursuing enemy. The aged and crafty Dahar Master Kor knocks him out, and promises that when he gets to Sto'vo'kor, he will tell Jadzia of his bravery.
Morton's Fork: Played with in "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River". Damar and Weyoun 7 are faced with a no-win scenario when trying to stop Weyoun 6's defection. If he defects, then he'll pass on intel that could help the Federation win the Dominion War. But if they kill him, then they'll kill Odo (who Weyoun 6 hitched a ride with) and bring down the Founders' wrath. Damar tries to pursue the second option through attempted Loophole Abuse.
Ms. Fanservice: Dax plays this role from time to time, and she hangs a great lampshade on it in "Trials and Tribble-ations." When the Defiant goes back in time to TOS days, they need to blend in, so they change into Kirk-era Starfleet uniforms.
Bashir: (To O'Brien and Sisko) Aren't you two wearing the wrong color?
O'Brien: Don't you know anything about this period in time?
My Friends... and Zoidberg: Kor belittles Worf by predicting that when bards write a Klingon song about their quest, Worf's verse will consist of, "...And Worf came along!"
My God, What Have I Done?: In "The Alternate," Dr. Mora, upon capturing Odo, asks "Dear God, what have I done?"
Ironic, since Dr. Mora is a Bajoran, and they worship the Prophets, not God.
Mythopoeia: Bajoran Mythopoeia figures prominently because Bajorans live nearby. Klingon Mythopoeia is there because of Worf and other Klingons and because Klingons are just that cool.
Neck Lift: The new puppet leader of the Cardassian Union, Legate Broca, was neck-lifted by a very deteriorated, yet incredibly strong female shapeshifter.
Shape-shifters don't eat or drink; when Odo tried, it got "messy."
Negated Moment of Awesome: The Dominion begins an insidious takeover of the Federation under the guise of "peace" — just as we've been forewarned — in "The Search". Starfleet capitulates, Jem'Hadar roam free on the station, and even Sisko's subordinates are collaborators. With help from Garak, Sisko organizes a daring insurrection, and ...it's all a holographic simulation. The Dominion was just testing Sisko in order to gauge how he would resist an occupation.
Garak being stopped from killing offf the changelings in "Broken Link". Sure, it was a bit extreme and risked the lives of the entire Defiant crew, but it may well have prevented the hundreds of millions of deaths that happened in the Dominion War, and may have even caused a mass suicide amongst the Jem Hadar and Vorta, averting the war itself.
Neutral No Longer: The Romulans, after the events of "In The Pale Moonlight".
Never a Self-Made Woman: Kasidy Yates is Ben Sisko's girlfriend, Keiko is Miles O'brien's wife, and Ishka is Quark and Rom's mother. Also, Ziyal would not have mattered to anyone had she not been Dukat's daughter, and Dabo Girl Leeta was only important as Rom's wife. On the other hand, Ezri Dax managed to make the character stand on her own without any men to lean on, and Jadzia did too (she was there well before Worf was introduced, so she's not there as "Worf's wife" any more than he is there as "Jadzia's husband".) And Kira, of course, never depended on any male character for her status, nor did Kai Winn.
Quark's mother is an interesting case because she very much is a Self Made Woman, in fact she's worth more than both her sons combined which is no mean feat in a society where females aren't actually allowed to do business. Then there's her eventual ascension to become the power behind the throne.
But her role within the story is still entirely secondary to her sons'.
Also played with in that while Kasidy, Ishka and Keiko usually appear in the series as the wives/mothers/girlfriends of their men, they clearly have lives of their own and this is occasionally a side issue (Kasidy being a freighter Captain takes her away for long periods of time, Keiko goes on a long term botany study on Bajor, Ishka's "unconventional" lifestyle). None of these women stand still for their men and while they may compromise in the long run they have their own lives and keep them. Kasidy and Ishka also excel in male-dominated fields with little evidence that it was any specific man who inspired them.
Arguably, the Klingons in Season 4 after they invade Cardassia. It sets off a chain of events that climaxes with Cardassia joining the Dominion, granting the Gamma Quadrant empire a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant.
Arguably, Sisko in "Waltz" by putting the idea of destroying Bajor into the now-insane Dukat's head — an act that indirectly gets Jadzia Dax killed by the end of the season. Good going, Emissary.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The destruction of Lakarian City only caused those Cardassians loyal to the Dominion to [[Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal turn on them]]. Imagine a smarmy alien informing you that they just destroyed New York or London just to prove a point. What an Idiot.
Played with in "The Maquis" when the Cardassian Central Command's attempts to drive the Federation colonists out of the Demilitarized Zone results in the epoynmous group's creation. However, rather than improving things for our heroes, the Maquis running loose ends up making the geo-political situation between the Federation and Cardassia even more precarious.
However, it also gets played straight in the same episode when Central Command throws Dukat under the bus and blames him for the DMZ situation. Rather than saving face, it instead convinces Sisko that the Maquis are right about the weapons shipments and he proceeds to rescue the Gul. Dukat is NOT happy to learn about being scapegoated and helps expose the weapons shipments partly to preserve the treaty and partly to spite Central Command.
No Gravity For You: One character of the week from a low-gravity planet is able to wipe out several hostage-takers by using this trope.
No Man Should Have This Power: The end of "The Sword of Kahless". Jadzia beams the sword out into deep space to prevent anyone from squabbling over it.
No Name Given: The Female Changeling. In fact, none of the changelings from the link seem to have names, but the female is the only recurring one and so is the most obvious. Only Odo who was given a name by his discoverer and the other 'lost' changeling have names because they were raised outside of the link. Presumably when you spend most of your time physically co existing with the others of your own kind, names are somewhat irrelevant.
Odo: You haven't told me your name.
Female Changeling: What use would I have for a name?
Odo: To differentiate yourself from the others.
Female Changeling: I don't.
Odo: But, you are a separate being, aren't you?
Female Changeling: In a sense.
No Such Agency: Section 31, the existence of which the Federation neither confirms nor denies.
Non Linear Character: The Prophets or the Wormhole Aliens. Sisko had to teach them linear time in the pilot.
Noodle Incident: Pelios Station. Apparently, something happened there involving Curzon, Benjamin, and a dancer, but Benjamin's embarrassed enough by the story that whenever it's brought up in public he immediately cuts Dax off.
Whatever it was that happened with Dukat's father that Garak had a hand in. All we know is that he trusted Garak, and ended up on trial.
Also whatever caused Garak's exile. We know that Tain felt Garak betrayed him, but Garak responds that he never betrayed Tain, "at least, not in my heart." Garak gives several different versions of why he was exiled over the series (not counting the obviously false ones like "tax evasion"), including letting some Bajoran street urchins go on the eve of the withdrawal, and having a shuttle containing a Bajoran terrorist shot down, killing the son of a high ranking official who was also on it.
No Such Thing As Space Jesus: Averted, as Sisko's view of the Prophets evolves in the other direction through the series.
Not A Date: After Ziyal first asks Garak to accompany her to a holosuite recreation of a Cardassian sauna, and he has visions of her motive being to kill him and present his head as a birthday gift to Dukat, Quark asks if he's going to cancel the date. Garak protests that it's not a date.
Not So Different: Once we find out that Odo's people are the Founders, its hard not to see that Odo's inherent need to maintain order derives from the very thing that led to the Dominion being created in the first place.
Eddington gives a great "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Sisko about the nature of the Federation (conveniently glossing over the fact that he and many other former Starfleet officers in the Maquis, explicitly betrayed the Federation by stealing resources, technology, and weapons when they defected, rather than resigning their commissions to take up the "noble" cause).
Eddington: Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands, and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators because one day they can take their "rightful place" on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious, you assimilate people and they don't even know it.
The Maquis and the Bajoran Underground share a lot of similarities, as both fought to defend their homes from the Cardassians. Part of the Blue and Orange Morality of Deep Space Nine is that overall the Federation tends to consider the Bajorans as having been freedom fighters, even though Kira herself admits that they often veered into terrorist acts, while they condemn those very same qualities in the Maquis and label them as terrorists.
Part of the reason for that is likely the fact that, unlike the Bajorans, the Maquis are former Federation citizens. Thus, every time they pull off some underhanded terrorist act, it makes the Federation look bad. So the Federation's chasing after them so they can say "Hey, look, we don't like what they're doing, either." Makes sense when you consider the highly political nature of the Federation.
Not So Omniscient After All: When first introduced, Enabran Tain appears to be The Omniscient. Even in retirement, he knows everything that's happening. He even knew Bashir would come to visit him and what Bashir's food/drink preferences were, despite it actually being an impulsive, last-minute decision from Bashir's point-of-view. Later on, we're shown a different side that fits this trope. When he leads a joint Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar task force, he didn't realise it was a Founder created plan or that his second-in-command was a Founder in disguise. He even mentions to Garak that he's clearly lost his touch and that he would never have been so easily fooled prior to his retirement.
Not So Similar: Q makes this observation about Sisko and Picard when he finds Sisko is a lot easier to play with, though more likely to hurt him if he's careless.
Not So Stoic: Of the regulars, Odo; Captain Solok from "Take Me Out to the Holosuite".
Weyoun was sort of his own Nth Doctor, as he was killed and cloned several times over the course of the series, with only slight variations to his personality.
The Defiant is destroyed at one point. An episode or two later an identical model of the ship is delivered and simply renamed "The Defiant" (in defiance of the Trek tradition which would have at least named it Defiant-A).
Starfleet rarely uses the alphabetical suffixes for namesake vessels according to Word Of God; typically only allowing them for starships named Enterprise in honor of the original vessel's accomplishments. The second Defiant was originally intended to be an exception to this rule in honor of the first, but someone on the production team made a mistake and gave the new ship a new registration number, and the Defiant-A never was.
The rule appears to be that it gets a letter suffix if the registration number is reused, and may or may not get a numerical suffix if not. A numerical suffix appears to be used if another ship of the same class gets the same name but not the same number, and not used if the name goes on a ship of a different class.
O'Brien: Rom, I'm gonna have to leave you in a tough spot.
Rom: Captain Sisko, Odo, they don't know about any of this, do they?
O'Brien: No, they don't, and I want you to help me keep it that way for a little while longer.
Rom: I have to stay here and play the idiot?
O'Brien: I'm afraid so. No matter what Odo asks you—
Rom: I'm Quark's brother. I know the role.
Oblivious to Love: Kira is oblivious to Odo's affections for quite a long time.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: Odo finds that acting this way—or threatening to—is a good way to keep Quark in line.
Odd Friendship: Odo and Quark (though Odo refuses to admit it, even in the finale).
O'Brien and Bashir to a lesser extent. When they meet, they certainly are this. O'Brien is an enlisted man, realistic, pragmatic, his ideals worn down by the experience of realities of war. Bashir is a young, brash officer, arrogant and pompous who believes in lofty ideas and longs for adventure. As time goes on, they rub off on each other and become less of an odd couple.
Oddball in the Series: A combination of factors worked against DS9 in establishing its own legacy. Keep in mind that DS9 ran concurrently with both TNG and VOY, and ultimately got lost in the shuffle. Those not familiar with Trek will likely have not heard of DS9. Kids and young adults were more likely to bond with Voyager because of its episodic nature and iconic elements. And Trekkies are liable to dismiss the show entirely due to its lack of exploration. Finally, the arc-based format does not lend itself to syndication.
Of Corpse He's Alive: The Magnificent Ferengi - The Ferengi accidentally kill their Vorta hostage, Keegan, so Nog uses neural stimulators to make the corpse walk. Nog makes him lurch awkwardly and run into a wall, but the plan still works.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In "Soldiers of the Empire", Martok, Worf, and Dax join a Klingon ship, the Rotarran, on a mission to discover a missing Klingon vessel that disappeared near Cardassian space after the Cardassians aligned themselves with the Dominion. Much is said over the fact that the Rotarran has lost every engagement it has been in with the Jem'Hadar. When they finally face a Jem'Hadar ship in combat, we don't get to see the battle, the outcome of which is the Rotarran's first victory over Dominion forces.
Kor and a team of six Klingon volunteers in a lone, damaged bird-of-prey holding off a Jem'Hadar fleet long enough for the Klingon task force to get away.
Worf's face in Accession when he finds out that Keiko is pregnant again. O'Brien relates how Worf was forced to help deliver Molly when the Enterprise was damaged and adrift after colliding with a quantum filament. On noticing his panic, Bashir and O'Brien mock him accordingly.
Bashir: Oh, well...I'll be sure to call you when she's ready to deliver; you can lend a hand.
Worf: Seven months? Unfortunately I will be away from the station at that time. Far away. Visiting my parents, on Earth. (Beat) Excuse me. (Quickly leaves).
Worf and Garak after stumbling into a Jem'Hadar invasion fleet during In Purgatory's Shadow.
Followed by the crew of DS9 seeing the same fleet pour through the wormhole.
In The Die is Cast, Enabran Tain's reaction when he's told that his fleet of 20 Romulan and Cardassian ships is surrounded by 150 Jem'Hadar warships.
Oireland: Normally, Colm Meany's Irish accent is barely noticeable. Sometimes, however, O'Brien will start waxing poetic about Ireland or something related to it, and begins slipping into this trope.
Old Shame: Inverted, Terry Farrell regretted leaving the show for the seventh season for a role on Becker because she loved playing Jadzia, calling her a "superhero."
Omnidisciplinary Engineer: O'Brien seems to know all about replicators, power systems, ship drives, mechanical systems of all kinds, weapons, and computer programming, which is completely different from any type of mechanical engineering.
Omnicidal Maniac: Dukat becomes one of these over the last two seasons of the show.
Ominous Floating Castle: For all intents and purposes, this is what DS9 (or "Terok Nor") represented to the Bajoran people during the occupation. It wasn't until the discovery of the wormhole that Sisko moved the spiky eyesore out of their orbit.
Terok Nor is arguably even worse in the Mirror Universe, where it's still sitting on Bajor like a vulture. The bottom levels are composed of a hellish forge running on slave labor.
The Mirror Universe episodes only missed two seasons.
One Last Smoke: in "Our Man Bashir" there are two of these:
The villain Falcon (the image of Chief O'Brien) grants agent Komoninoff (Kira) and Bashir one last kiss before he shoots them. Bashir proceeds to remove her earring while they kiss and tosses it to the floor to make it explode, distracting Falcon and his minions long enough to knock them out and escape.
Bashir and Garak are strapped to a giant laser. Bashir's last request is for Dr. Honey Bare (Dax) to let her hair down (she's very shy, but she does it). This is enough seduction for her to slip him the key.
Oppressive States Of America: The Bell Riots episodes feature The Sanctuary Districts, sections of American cities walled off that housed the poor and unemployed. While their intent was to aid them, they later degraded into interment camps.
Orphaned Punchline: Quark does this twice, in the first-season episode "The Nagus" and season four's "Homefront", both times while talking to Morn — and both times, the joke has an Andorian in the punchline. Quark has to prompt Morn with "get it?" in the first example, and the second example completely eludes Morn.
Quark: Then the Andorian said, "Your brother? I thought it was your wife!"
Quark: So then, the Andorian says, "That's not my antenna."
The Other Darrin: Two different people played Quark's mother Ishka, and Tora Ziyal was played by three different people.
The actor who plays Alexander is a different one from any of the actors who played him in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Interestingly, more people are upset about this than either of the above actors, possibly due to his Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.
Though apparently Klingons physically mature faster than most races... Alexander would have been about 8 years old when he began military service. Being 1/4 human didn't seem to matter any considering future Alexander seen on TNG looked fully Klingon regardless of minor human genetics.
Out-of-Character Alert: In "Armageddon game", Keiko figures out a video has been tampered with because Chief O'Brien seems to be drinking coffee in the afternoon.
Ends up being a subversion when it turns out at the end of the episode that O'Brien does drink coffee in the afternoon sometimes.
How Odo realizes Martok, not Gowron is a Changeling in "Apocalypse Rising."
Out with a Bang: Curzon Dax apparently dies of old age in the pilot. Years later, we learn that he was Jamaharoned to death by Vanessa Williams.
Pimped-Out Dress: Kira and Dax wear a couple when they were in a King Arthur program on the Holosuite. When they meet Worf, Kira is mortified but Dax doesn't seem to care. Worf merely compliments Kira's headdress.
Placebotinum Effect: Odo inadvertently traps himself, Sisko, Garak and Dax in his own memories ("Things Past"). It was later revealed to be a variation on 'linking' between Changelings, amplified by Odo's runabout flying into a plasma field.
The Plan: The Dominion pulled off several of those.
Planet of Hats: While still the same part of Star Trek that it always is, DS9 went deeper into the cultures of some races far more than any other Star Trek. Cardassians and Klingons got a lot of development, but even the Ferengi managed to put a few good words in for themselves.
Subverted most obviously with Rom and Nog, two Ferengi who stink at being capitalists, but blossom as an engineer for the Bajoran Militia and the first Ferengi in Starfleet, respectively.
The Federation's "hat" also gets subverted, as DS9 makes it clear that lots of people don't think it's utopia — and they're often right.
DS9 also revealed that the Federation itself is seen as a Planet of Hats in by some non-Federation races. Exactly how certain alien cultures view the Federation is illustrated when Quark and Garak discuss their opinions of the Federation over some root beer.
Quark offers some root beer to Garak, who tries it and gags. Garak: It's vile! Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying... and happy. Garak: Just like the Federation! Quark: And you know what's really terrifying? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it. Garak: It's insidious. Quark: [Smirks] Just like the Federation.
Justified in the case of the new races from the Gamma Quadrant they encounter, as most if not all of them were manipulated into a specific form by the Dominion in some way either to serve a specific function for them or as The Punishment.
Platonic Life Partners: Sisko is fond of calling Dax "Old Man." He was a close friend of the male Curzon Dax, and the friendship carried over when the symbiont was transferred to Jadzia and Ezri — both female.
Playing Cyrano: Worf trains Quark in how to woo the Klingon Grilka, the Ferengi's one-time wife. Worf is infatuated with her himself, but he is an exile and cannot pursue her.
Playing Gertrude: In "Dax," Ilon Tandro is played by Gregory Itzin, born in 1948. His mother, Enina Tandro, is played by Fionnula Flanagan, born in 1941.
Politically Correct History: Sisko doesn't like Vic's casino program because it's set in a Politically Correct History version of 1961, and as such is an insult to those oppressed in that era. He points out that at that time African-Americans could be janitors or entertainers for the casino, but never customers. His future wife looks at the program as a representation of What Could Have Been rather than a misrepresentation of history.
This may have also been a callback to Sisko's experiences as Benny Russell in Far Beyond the Stars, illustrating that Sisko has a more personal connection to the racism of the past than other 24th century humans.
Poor Communication Kills: The show does a decent job of averting this one, but "Till Death Do Us Part" is a real exception. Sisko tells Cassidy how the Prophets told him in a vision that he couldn't marry her, and he accepts that, but she's devastated. He could have mentioned how he ignored one of their warnings before, and that it was directly responsible for the death of Jadzia and the rise of Gul Dukat as a dangerous Pah Wraith cult leader, and that he knows that to ignore their warning again would spell disaster, maybe even for her. But he doesn't say anything of the sort.
Poorly Disguised Pilot: Averted with "The Maquis". The duology sets up the renegade Federation colonists and the Badlands, but does not feature any of the characters or ships that would be featured on Star Trek: Voyager.
Post Mortem Comeback: "Trials and Tribbleations" features the Klingon from the Star Trek TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" going back 100 years into the past to plant a bomb that will kill Kirk.
Pragmatic Villainy: the aforementioned Ferengi. They'd never practice mass slavery or genocide—because people who are enslaved and/or dead can't buy things.
This argument also helped push forward feminism, but only very late, after millenia of hardliner male chauvinism.
Premature Eulogy: Occurs as often as would be expected from a Star Trek work. Some episodes are practically made of this trope.
Pre-Mortem One-Liner: One of the best ever by Dukat, addressed to Kai Winn. He says it with so much quiet venom you can almost see it physically dripping from his words: "Are you still here?" His Bond One-Liner after is just as vicious, "Farewell, Adami."
Put on a Bus / What Could Have Been: Romulan Subcommander T'Rul is brought in in the season-three premiere, "The Search", to operate the cloaking device. After "The Search, Part II", she is never seen again, because the writing staff couldn't think of anything to do with her. Though she was certainly abrasive and rather one-dimensional in this episode, one could think of this as being a missed opportunity; there still has not been a regular Romulan crewmember on a Star Trek series.
Putting on the Reich: To a degree with the Cardassians, but utterly explicit during the heartbreaking episode "Duet."
Pyrrhic Victory: The Female Changeling decides to make the Federation's victory "taste like defeat." It's a Bolivian Army Ending for her, since she thinks the Changelings are about to become extinct.
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Race Fetish: It would not take a tremendous leap of the imagination to conclude that Gul Dukat has a somewhat creepy fetish for Bajoran women. With the exception of his Cardassian wife, who is occasionally mentioned but never shown onscreen, the only women we see him involved with or interested in are Bajoran.
Ragnarok Proofing: In "The Sword of Kahless", they encounter ancient ruins of a civilization that died out centuries ago. The ruins still have working forcefield generators and security authentication systems to let the right people in.
Ratings Stunt: Introducing Worf in the fourth season premiere. A rare case of this being done right.
Nana Visitor got pregnant during filming for season 4/5 and the producers decided to integrate her condition into the storyline instead of trying to hide it, leading to Keiko being injured and the baby being transplanted into Kira's body to finish its gestation.
Additionally, a combination of contract issues and simple "show fatigue" made Terry Farrell want to move on from the show at the end of season six, leading to Jadzia getting killed. This is something the head writing and directoral staff didn't even want to do (Ira Stephen Behr straight-up said "I didn't want to kill Jadzia; to me, that had very little to do with good storytelling") but they felt they had little choice.
Real World Episode: "Far Beyond the Stars", where Sisko wakes up as a Science Fiction writer in the 1950's, and Deep Space Nine is just a story he's been writing. Of course no one wants to read a story where a black man commands a space station...
Rearrange the Song: The opening credits and main title theme were modified between seasons 3 and 4.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Sisko doesn't get much support from Admiral Nechayev or Starfleet in general, forcing him to turn to Dukat for help — which Dukat delivers, amiably. That changes once Cardassia forms an alliance with the Dominion. From then onward, Sisko reports directly to Admiral William Ross.
Quark: Have I ever told you how much I hate that smug, superior attitude of yours? Odo: Have I ever told you how much I hate your endless lying, your pathetic greed, your idiotic little schemes? [...] Well, that's fine with me...'cause I hate you, too. You're nothing but a petty thief!
Recurring Character: Lots of them. The fixed location of the station meant that quirky aliens would need to come to them, not the other way around.
Reconstruction: The Ferengi were rebuilt into a more robust fictional society, and the innate contradictions in their culture were acknowledged and addressed on their own terms over the course of the show. For example, their subjugation of women was ended in order to gain new workers and an expanded consumer base instead of for ethical reasons.
"Starship Down" was an attempt to do Das Boot in a gas giant, with Jem'Hadar as the enemy destroyers.
The maligned episode "Meridian" was described by writer Ira Steven Behr as Brigadoon...IN SPACE. He subsequently said of the idea, "I am a moron."
The entire Dominion War is World War IIIN SPACE. The Federation is Great Britain/the US; the Dominion is Nazi Germany/Imperial Japan; the Klingons and Romulans take turns with different aspects of the USSR; Cardassia is both Fascist Italy and Vichy France (with a greater emphasis on Vichy France toward the end); the Female Changeling and Weyoun are Hitler, with the Changelings as a whole also taking on aspects of the Japanese Emperor; Dukat is a combination of Mussolini and Petain, with a bit of Hitler mixed in; Damar is de Gaulle; the morphogenic virus is the atomic bomb; and the extermination of Cardassians is a combination of the order (never implemented) to raze Paris and the infamous Nero Decree.
Recycled Soundtrack: Careful listeners will note that the siege of Deep Space 9 by the Klingons in part 2 of Way of the Warrior is the battle music from Star Trek: Generations looped over and over.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: People possessed by the Pah Wraiths get creepy red eyes. Happens to Jake and later to Dukat.
Red Light District: The upper floor of Quark's bar is dedicated to erotic holosuites, though Quark peddles other illicit wares under the table.
Red Shirt: Isolated incident in "The Search, Part I" when the Defiant comes under attack from the Jem'Hadar. Otherwise, thoroughly averted.
Another incident in "Civil Disorder" - the only on-screen death is a red shirt.
In Trials and Tribble-ations, a Star Trek: The Original SeriesRedshirt is in mortal peril from a mad Klingon—but survives (probably because Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were also in harm's way—Kirk was the target).
In Empok Nor, DS 9 is in need of repairs, and so it's decided to pay a visit to DS 9's abandoned twin in order to obtain spare parts. Along for the ride are three members of the main cast, and four new faces. The newcomers actually get quite a bit of dialogue, but by the end of the episode they're all dead.
Reincarnation Romance: Sort of. Dax and another Trill consider continuing their relationship from when both were in previous hosts. They eventually decide not to, as this is considered a massive taboo by Trill society.
Religion of Evil: The Cult of the Pah-Wraiths. Mainstream Bajoran religion (correctly) portrays the Pah-Wraiths as Always Chaotic EvilOmnicidal Maniacs. Members of the Cult (who don't call it a "cult", obviously) believe that the Pah-Wraiths have been Mis-blamed and the Prophets are the villains, even before Bajor's Arch-Enemy Dukat showed up and took over claiming to be receiving visions and commandments from them. The problem, of course, is that they really are giving Dukat visions and commandments, possibly up to and including Kill 'em All in order to conceal the fact that Dukat is still a womanising murdering Manipulative Bastard. That it really was their idea, and not Dukat just covering his tracks via mass-murder, is pretty damn sinister, but their followers don't believe them to be evil (one even goes through with the suicide because he believes that, despite Dukat's treachery, they really did order it, and kills himself out of "faith") and in fact believe them to be good. Nevertheless, the Cult of the Pah-Wraiths was so misguided that it was historically considered a joke on Bajor because, to most Bajorans, it was very obviously a Religion of Evil rather than a Path of Inspiration (which its easily deluded followers make it superficially appear to be).
Remember The New Species: In "The Adversary", we're told of a species named the Tzenkethi, who fought at least one war against the Federation in the past 20 years; the TNG era is in its seventh season and this is the first we've heard of them. (And we never do actually see them on-screen).
We're left to assume that the Federation is a pretty big place, and is probably nominally at war with a handful of people at any given time. Assuming that the Tzenkethi aren't a power on anything like the scale of the alpha quadrant empires means that a 'war' probably involved a task for of a few dozen ships. The Federation is all about proportional response after all.
Retro Upgrade: Old Klingon ships were protected against the Breen energy-draining weapon, by an obsolete component (it might even have been a reference to the outdated plasma coils in the cloaking system from Star Trek: Generations), with which the rest of the Romulan, Klingon and Federation fleets were quickly retrofitted.
In the episode "Tosk", O'Brien offers his assistance to fix Tosk's ship, but doesn't know how to go about it unless he knows what the broken part actually does. Tosk explains that it collects interstellar particles and converts them into energy for the engines. Miles compares it to a ramscoop used to suck in air. With that comparison in mind, Miles is able fix the ship and improve its performance.
The Reveal: In the 3rd season, when it's revealed that the Changelings are the head of the Dominion.
A few years later Gul Dukat is revealed to be working with the Dominion.
And a few episodes later, when it is revealed that Bashir is in a Dominion prison and has been replaced by a Changeling for most of the season. The real Bashir is wearing the old uniform, giving the viewers a precise indicator of when Bashir was snagged.
Revenge Before Reason: In "Ties of Blood and Water", we see in a flashback that during her time in the resistance, Kira Nerys let her father die alone because she was out hunting down the Cardassians who shot him, even though he asked her to stay with him.
Garak: I have an even better reason, Commander: revenge.
Kira:(softly) That works too.
Romance on the Set: Alexander Siddig (Bashir) and Nana Visitor (Kira) got together and had a son, with Visitor's pregnancy being written into the show. They married the next year and divorced in 2001.
Which leads to rather hilarious in joke in the episode where Kira says "This is all your fault!" to Bashir during an argument, since (in universe) he was the one that did the fetal transplant from Keiko to Kira.
Humorously played up by Quark who says that once Morn starts talking, he never shuts up.
Morn actually laughs- as in audibly- in "The Nagus". So you get precisely one hint in the entire run of the show as to what he'd sound like. It got to the point where the make up artists actually redesigned Morn's prosthetics to allow his lips to move more naturally on the chance he was ever actually given a line.
Used less often than Morn was the thrice-mentioned Lieutenant Vilix'pran and his increasingly bizarre alien biology, from wings to reproducing through budding, requiring a hatching pond and at least eight to eighteen hatchlings per reproduction.
Not to mention Captain Boday, whose only defining trait (other than having an on-again-off-again relationship with Dax) was having a transparent skull, which was mentioned every time he was.
Around season four or five there were several references to "waste extraction" scattered about in various scripts.
The Alamo in season seven. Some people thought it might be an allusion to how the series would end, but no, it was just a plotline thrown in because producer Ira Steven Behr had a soft spot for the Alamo. Combined with their 300 scenario and earlier Battle Of Britain obsession, it made counsellor Ezri a bit worried about Bashir and O'Brien.
Three words: Self-sealing stem bolts. They even made it into the MMORPG.
There's a minor one in the early seasons involving Sisko's nonchalant reaction to being punched in the face. The two most notable examples are Q-Less and Fascination.
In Q-Less, Q, an omnipotent being, taunts Sisko by recreating a nineteenth century boxing ring. He punches Sisko with bare knuckles no less than four times before Sisko reacts at all: he blocks a fifth blow and knocks Q right on his butt. Q looks shocked, but Sisko just shrugs as if to say "That's what happens when you hit me."
Fascination has a love-sick Bariel who believes that Sisko is a competitor for Dax's affection. While Sisko is trying to explain that he is not interested in Dax, Bariel punches Sisko in the jaw—after which Sisko's tone of voice and body language don't change at all.
Sacred Scripture: The Rules of Acquisition for the Ferengi. Actually they are a set of business guidelines, but they are said to be divinely inspired.
A more conventional version are the various Bajoran Prophecies that are quoted throughout the series.
Sadistic Choice: In the episode 'For the Uniform', Eddington gives Sisko the choice of rescuing Cardassians or catching him. And then Sisko, of all people, gives one to Eddington when he demands he gives himself up to save the Maquis (or their worlds, at least).
Salt the Earth: After Starfleet is forced to abandon Deep Space Nine to the Dominion and the Cardassians, Kira Nerys destroys the computer systems. Between this and the budding Bajoran Resistance, the station doesn't become fully operational again until partway into the sixth season (just in time for Starfleet and the Klingons to build up their forces enough to take it back.)
Shows up in the pilot too. The departing Cardassians did their level best to make sure that both Bajor and the station were as inhospitable as they could leave them.
Saved By The Phlebotinum: Averted in "Children of Time". The episode made it seem at the midpoint that both the crew and their descendants could be saved by duplicating themselves, but it turned out there was no Take a Third Option, and that a Sadistic Choice had to be made. Odo ended up making it for them.
Save The World Climax: Starts with the Federation taking over an old starbase from the Cardassians who'd recently withdrawn from a long brutal occupation of the planet Bajor which the starbase orbits. Episodes involve the rebuilding of Bajor and its various growing pangs of independence (and bitterness over its recent past), and some exploration through a wormhole recently discovered near the station. But a great power lies on the other side of that wormhole, which soon puts the whole Alpha Quadrant in jeopardy in the large-scale Dominion War.
Scars Are Forever: Martok's eye & scar. Though in this case it's made clear Martok could get a prosthetic eye, he simply refuses to.
Scary Black Man: When Sisko gets really angry, he fits this to a T. He can do this either by yelling or by getting really, really calm. (When he slipped into the Joran voice in "For the Uniform", you knew shit was gonna go down.)
In "Facets", Sisko is (voluntarily) taken over by one of Dax's former hosts, a serial killer (the aforementioned Joran). His delivery is creepy, and according to the Star Trek Wiki, there is a take of that scene that was even creepier.
When Ezri is unsure about joining the crew, she lets slip that even Worf is intimidated by Sisko.
Ezri: You like that, don't you? Sisko: [Completely failing to restrain his amusement] Of course not. Ezri: Oh, come on. I've been a man; I know!
The Maquis story arc pushed Sisko's Berserk Button quite often, ultimately leading to him firing torpedoes that would spread biogenic weapons that were lethal to Humans across the entire planet's atmosphere, forcing the Maquis colonists to evacuate. All because they had already done the same to two Cardassian colonies (rendering them uninhabitable for Cardassians, but safe for the Maquis), and would've done it to more. They pushed him too far that time. He was angry, and he wasn't going to let them get away with what they were doing.
Shades of Conflict: The Dominion War has a lot of this. The Federation are the good guys for the most part, but they have secret agents willing to do anything to protect it, and the Klingons are rife with corruption. Meanwhile, the Dominion are responsible for a lot of atrocities back in the Gamma Quadrant, while the Cardassians, while starting out as Space Nazis, fell on hard times and their bad deal with the Dominion eventually pushed a lot of them into the position of The Atoner.
Garak uses a device on Odo that prevents his shapeshifting to torture him when Odo's body needs to return to a liquid state.
Later, he is turned into a "solid" human by his people as punishment (for half a season).
The Founder's Disease does this to all Changelings during the war, though most of the ones at home just stay in liquid form anyway.
Shoo Out the Clowns: "The Dogs of War", the series' penultimate episode, concludes the Ferengi arc, sends Rom and Leeta to Ferenginar and Zek and Ishka to Risa. This removes all of the comic relief characters in time for the series finale.
In the penultimate episode, Quark cops some of Picard's speech from Star Trek: First Contact to defend the sacred Ferengi practice of sexual extortion from employees.
Morn is an anagram of Norm, from Cheers. It was entirely intentional.
When the occupying forces on DS9 in The Siege find that Odo (the shape-shifter) is missing, their commander concludes the situation is "more than meets the eye".
In Looking for Par'Mach in All the Wrong Places, Quark states his opinion on war, and what it is good for. Absolutely Nothing.
The Breen's refrigeration suits are modeled after Princess Leia's disguise as Ubese bounty hunter Bouschh in the beginning of Return of the Jedi.
In "The Way of the Warrior", Quark speculates that perhaps he should have listened to his cousin who said, "Quark, I got one word for you: 'weapons'."
The episode "The Nagus" is an homage to The Godfather, especially the scene where Quark "receives" guests in his quarters.
Sisko's "Hello, ship" was a direct reference to the Steve McQueen movie The Sand Pebbles, and the ship in question was also named the Sao Paulo. But not for long. It was soon rechristened Defiant.
Occasionally, Odo's investigations and questioning of people would end in a final "just one more thing..."
The scene in "Chimera" in which Odo and Laas discuss their relationships with humanoid women may be a shout-out to a similar scene in Highlander. Laas warns Odo that Changelings cannot reproduce with humanoids, just as Ramirez warns MacCloud that immortals cannot father children. Laas also warns Odo that as a long-lived Changeling, he will have to watch Kira grow old and die, just as Ramirez warns MacCloud of the same heartache awaiting him with his mortal wife.
Silent Offer: In "Past Prologue", Garak negotiates the price for a terrorist with two Klingons in this way, using an electronic tablet instead of paper.
Sitting Sexy on a Piano: Lola ( a holographic Major Kira lookalike produced by Vic Fontaine to help Odo learn to flirt with her) uses this pose to flirt with Odo in "His Way."
Slap-Slap-Kiss: There's no actual slapping going on, of course, but the first kiss between Odo and Kira takes place at the culmination of a rather heated argument.
Worf and Jazdia take this trope literally.
Slave Collar: In one alternate universe episode, the captured Garak is restrained this way by Worf.
Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Started out as optimistic — but still not so cheery, considering the themes of Sisko's bereavement and Bajor's Holocaust-like recent history — as the other series, only to head straight into the Dominion War arc by the third season, and slamming straight into the very end of the Cynical side of the scale in the second to last season with the episode "In The Pale Moonlight".
However, have a look at the final episode. After all the politicking, the plotting and the treachery, what finally brings the Dominion War to an end is Constable Odo doing exactly what all the cynical people had feared the most: sharing the disease cure with the Founders. If that's not pushing way back to the idealistic side, I don't know what is!
Smart People Play Chess: Sisko has a 3-D chess set in his office. He's also been seen playing traditional chess with Dax.
Smug Snake: Winn, especially in her first appearance.
Space Mines: During the Dominion Wars the Defiant mined the entrance to the Bajoran wormhole.
The Klingons established an illegal cloaked minefield in "Sons of Mogh." The mines were dormant and had to be remotely activated in event of war — and would effectively cut DS9 and Bajor off from support from elsewhere in the Alpha Quadrant.
Space Western: Not a direct example, but draws on several Western tropes such as the frontier town near a strategic pass, the bar, the sheriff, etc.
Bashir gave this a shout-out in the first episode, waxing poetic about how he chose Bajor over any other posting or research grant because it was in the "farthest reaches of the galaxy", which would let him practice "frontier medicine" "where heroes are made". Unfortunately, he chooses to wax poetic about this in front of local Bajoran representative Kira Nerys, who is...unamused.
Sparse List Of Rules: The Rules of Acquisition. There are canonically 285 of them, though less than 100 are actually mentioned in the show. The first Rule was actually devised by the first Grand Nagus, and named "The 162nd Rule of Acquisition" as a marketing ploy to create demand for the first 161. Rule #1: "Once you have their money, never give it back."
Spinoff Sendoff: The pilot starts with The Enterprise-D docked at Deep Space Nine. Captain Picard appears and Commander Sisko promptly tells him how much he hates him. Sisko has some epiphanies, makes peace with Picard, and Picard gives him his blessing.
Spot the Imposter: This is most of the plot of "The Adversary." However, this is subverted during the climax when O'Brien is faced with a choice between two Odos and decides to get back to fixing the Defiant.
"I've got more important things to do than play Choose the Changeling."
Staff of Authority - The Grand Nagus's staff, which Ferengi are supposed to kiss as a sign of respect.
The Stateroom Sketch - A confirmed homage in "The Circle", though it's in Kira's quarters rather than a closet and it's pretty much friends barging in intending to wish farewell privately. All done in one take, though the final cut has reaction shots cut in.
State Sec - The Cardassian Obsidian Order, which Odo says records even what Cardassian citizens eat for dinner. The Ferengi Commerce Authority also comes across as this at times.
The Romulan Tal Shiar. They survived the joint operation with the Obsidian Order, continue to operate their own ships, and factor heavily into the Empire's role in the Dominion War. (Though some of those ships are actually seen over on Voyager, in "Message In A Bottle".)
Stay in the Kitchen: Humorously inverted by Sisko's father (a cajun restaurant owner) in "Homefront" when he proclaims that Sisko's sister "has no business in the kitchen" because she can't get his recipes right.
STD Immunity: Averted with the Section 31 virus that afflicts the Changeling race. The virus is spread through linking, the closest Changeling analog to sex. To bring about a Changeling genocide, Section 31 infects an unwitting Odo, who unknowingly infects the Great Link (and probably Laas as well). By season 7, the virus has spread like wildfire through the Great Link, threatening the survival of the species.
Stealth Pun: In "A Time To Stand" they have to perform a mission piloting a captured Jem'Hadar ship. One of the first things they notice about the ship is that there are no chairs...
Straw Hypocrite: Vedek Winn in "In the Hands of the Prophets". The show starts out with her criticizing Keiko's secular teaching regarding the wormhole, and the stage is set not only for a debate between science and religion, but also a discussion of the tensions inherent in multiculturalism and diversity. However, it turns out that Winn's protest was simply a ruse to lure Vedek Bareil to the station to assassinate him.
Straw Vulcan: Capt. Solok from "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"
Played with, since it's made pretty clear both from dialogue and Solok's own reactions that despite hiding behind a veneer of Vulcan logic, Solok often lets his emotions get the better of him.
Stock Footage: Every big battle after Sacrifice of Angels blatantly used shots taken from earlier battles (especially a certain shot with the Defiant and two Mirandas), with the final fight in the finale having almost no original footage.
Stomach of Holding: Morn in "Who Mourns for Morn?". It's revealed that he took part in a robbery years before, and he kept the latinum — removed from the gold in which it's normally stored — in his second stomach, which is why all his hair fell out.
We don't know this - Quark supposes that this is the cause, but we don't know how much Quark knows about Morn's species etc.
Stupid Good: Shades of this manifest in the Deep Space 9 crew as the Dominion War rages on. While they never come close to being full on stupid good, they have way too many reservations about taking extreme measures against extreme threats. One example is in Sisko's anger with Garak in In The Pale Moonlight. Garak rightly points out that you do not hire someone like him unless you are willing to have some deaths on your conscience, and Sisko knew that.
Super Prototype: The Defiant was originally a prototype to be used against the Borg, but was moth-balled after that threat died down.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Ezri Dax; Terry Farell left at the end of season six due to contract disputes, but the show still called for a Dax character to finish out the show. Thankfully, the "Trill symbiote" backstory gave them an out to have the character "survive", and they got cuteplucky then-twentysomething Nicole de Boer for a replacement. Fans were (and are) divided on how good a continuation of the character it was.
In the continuation novels, Ezri is given a chance to develop more than she was able to on the show. A few years later she is a Captain, in charge of the U.S.S. Aventine, a pretty badass ship, equipped with slipstream drive and everything, and plays an important role alongside Riker and Picard in the complete defeat of the Borg in the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy of books.
In a non-character variation on this trope, the Defiant is destroyed late in Season 7. A mere four episodes later, the identical Sao Paulo is dispatched to the station, and immediately renamed after the destroyed ship.
Suspiciously Specific Sermon: In "Far Beyond the Stars", the character corresponding to Sisko's father gives some very specific advice to Sisko while giving a street sermon.
Sycophantic Servant: Weyoun and every other Vorta are this whenever a Founder walks into the room. In fact they are genetically programmed to be as such and it seems that any cunning bastardry in the Vorta's characterisation gets diverted from nefarious plotting into finding the best way to suck up.
Synthetic Plague: The Section 31 virus, which quickly spreads through the Changeling population.
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Taking A Third Option: This trope is directly quoted by Kira in the third season premiere "The Search, Part I" after the senior staff (minus Sisko) has run many simulations and found that the station will be overrun by the Dominion very quickly in the event of a full-scale assault. Dax says that that leaves them with two options— abandon the station and make their stand on Bajor, or collapse the entrance to the wormhole. Kira says, "I want a third option" and almost at that very moment, the third option appears in the form of the new USS Defiant.
Talking to the Dead: Literally due to a Temporal Paradox. The Defiant receives a distress call in the middle of an interstellar storm and alter their course to the planet in order to help. During the trip, they hold a conversation with a starfleet officer who only managed to keep herself alive thanks to the recommendations of rationing what few medical supplies she had. By the time the crew finally reaches her on the surface, they find that she had been dead long before the Defiant got the distress call.
Technobabble: A Star Trek staple. Q also refers to it by name during his appearance.
The Name Is Bond, James Bond: Bashir does this at least twice in the Bond homage "Our Man Bashir", using both his real name and his cover name. Less humorously, O'Brien introduces himself this way to the faux Boone in "Tribunal".
In Past Tense, when a time-displaced Sisko has to fill in for a historical figure who ended up dead on his account, he introduces himself this way. "The name is Bell. Gabriel Bell."
Time Travel: "Past Tense", "Visionary", "Little Green Men", "Trials and Tribble-ations", and "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night".
Timey Wimey Ball: The relationship between the Prophets and Sisko evolves over the course of the series, even though the Prophets live outside of linear time.
The "Orb of Time" exists solely for this.
Arguably the entire point of "Visionary": O'Brien travels a few hours into the future several times and sees things that he has to take steps to prevent. It makes him very uncomfortable when he's sitting in Quark's at the same time he saw himself getting shot in the future, and then later he meets his future self and has a long conversation with him.
Future O'Brien: You don't look too good.
O'Brien: It's the radiation.
Future O'Brien: But if you're feeling bad and you're me, shouldn't I feel bad, too?
[Beat.]
Both O'Briens: I hate temporal mechanics.
Token Evil Teammate: Garak starts off as Faux Affably Evil and moves into genuine Affably Evil. He regularly reminds others that he is not a nice person, and is quite pleased when people like Nog or Bashir show absolutely no trust for him. As the show goes on, his friendliness becomes less of an act and more sincere, which is why he is glad to see his friends not being so foolish as to trust such an obviously dangerous man as himself. He's also a unique example in that he is entirely selfless due to his absolute loyalty to Cardassia which results in his alliances shifting depending on who he feels has Cardassia's best interests at heart. He works with the Federation because he feels it's the best way to save Cardassia, and he grieves for the loss of Cardassia's music, culture and art when the Cardassia he knew and loved is gone forever. That said, he'd actively helped to instigate the rebellion that led to the Dominion's attempt to destroy Cardassia in revenge and he knew, and completely supported, Damar's desire for a new Cardassia. He knew his actions would destroy the Cardassia he loved (although the extent of the destruction came as a shock to him) and he took them anyway because he realised it was the best option left for Cardassia.
Torture Always Works: Averted, as this is one of the rare occasions in Trek where we see the torturer's point of view. One of several accounts of Garak's exile involved Garak aborting an interrogation that was going nowhere.
In "Improbable Cause"/"The Die Is Cast", Garak flat-out tells Odo to lie after torturing him for hours.
Garak eventually starts begging Odo to make up something he can give Tain so that he can stop. Odo does eventually give in, and then Garak lies to Tain about it. Garak is, at the time, far more emotionally upset about the torture than Odo is.
Torture Technician: In "Improbable Cause"/"The Die Is Cast", Tain strongly indicates that Garak often played this role for him in the past prior to Garak's exile and, in the episode itself, Tain expects Garak to play that role again to torture Odo.
Trademark Favorite Food: Most of the main cast are fond of raktajino, particularly Sisko. Miles, on the other hand, prefers Jamaican blend Earth coffee, "double strong, double sweet", while Julian drinks Tarkalean tea, and Worf drinks prune juice.
While Worf drinking prune juice is a Continuity Nod, it's amusing that he's one of the few who don't drink raktajino, since it's described several times in the show as "Klingon coffee."
Totally Rad: If the "Past Tense" episodes are right, we'll be saying "check your e-mail!" to mean "get a clue!" in the 2020s.
Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Apparently subspace communications do this. In "Past Tense," Sisko is able to hold a real-time communication with Deep Space 9 from the bridge of the Defiant, in orbit around Earth. But just 3 episodes later, in "Heart Of Stone," Odo has to transmit an emergency message to the station from the Badlands, and the computer informs him that they should receive the message in approximately 2 days, simply because that episode depended on him and Kira being stuck on the moon they were on without any hope of outside interference until the plot was resolved.
Trust Me, I'm a Gambler: Quark says this in a speech to Odo in "Move Along Home", explaining why he should take the shortcut in the chula game. Hilariously subverted when it backfires.
Tsundere: Keiko O'Brien. She appears in relatively few episodes, but when she does it is mostly to be cranky and domineering. There are many other episodes in which she antagonizes her husband, Miles, from somewhere off-camera. Her bouts of 'mushiness' are mostly limited to self-important meddling in the affairs of others.
Kira Nerys. Oh Prophets, Kira Nerys. Fiery RedheadedBadass who goes positively kittenish at certain points with her romantic interests - particularly Odo.
24-Hour Armor: Cardassians wear those breastplates of theirs everywhere! Dukat and Damar are both shown sleeping in them.
Twenty Minutes into the Future: Quite rarely for Star Trek, the episode "Past Tense" plays this straight, when Sisko, Bashir and Dax accidentally time-travel to 2024 Earth. There's no fantastic issues involved, it just takes contemporary political issues and technological developments from The Nineties and exaggerates them.
Twist Ending: "In the Pale Moonlight" has one of the best Twist Endings in Star Trek. It starts with Sisko dictating his log to the computer in a state of deep depression, explaining the unethical plan he'd concocted together with Garak to trick the Romulans into declaring war on the Dominion and talking about how "it all went wrong". Near the end of the episode the Romulan senator who he presented his forged evidence to has seen through his plan and left in a fury, intending to expose the "Federation treachery" to the Romulan senate and you think Sisko's misery is because he accidentally caused the Romulans to declare war on the Federation instead. Then we find out that Garak assassinated the Senator and framed the Dominion for it and Sisko's plan has gone perfectly, with the Romulans declaring war on the Dominion... and that is why Sisko is miserable. But he can live with that.
Computer, erase that entire trope entry.
Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Rom and Leeta. Though Leeta thinks Rom's kinda cute, actually.
In-universe example: According to Arne Darvin in "Trials and Tribble-ations", the Cardassian answer to coffee is a type of fish juice. He's clearly not a fan.
Unique Pilot Title Sequence: The pilot credit sequence does not feature the wormhole opening as it hadn't been discovered yet in story.
Utopia Justifies the Means: A utopian federation with a quasi-evil agency working on the periphery... though Section 31 behaves more or less like modern day intelligence agencies do. The bureau is legal according to the Federation Charter, buried in an obscure sub-section (hence their name).
Unwanted False Faith: Odo resents being revered as a "Founder" by Weyoun and the other Dominion grunts.
And to a lesser extent, Sisko takes a while to warm up to being the Emissary of the Prophets, although arguably they actually DO qualify as supreme beings.
Vigilante Execution: Heavily subverted in "Duet", one of the best early episodes. Aamin Marritza, a Cardassian file clerk masquerading as a war criminal to force Cardassia's sins to light is stabbed to death immediately upon being released. When Kira tells the assailant the truth, he says that Marritza being Cardassian was reason enough to kill him. The last line of the episode is Kira telling the assasin "No, it's not!"
Played with in 'Duet', where the notorious war criminal Gul Dar'heel's breakdown confirms that he isn't Gul Dar'heel, or even a villain.
Visions of Another Self: Sisko has a vision of being a '50s sci-fi writer, and his associates were versions of people he knew.
Vision Quest: In "You Are Cordially Invited" The Klingon pre-marriage Mens Mysteries which include (as might be expected) a large amount of Macho Masochism. Lampshaded when Julian says, "I have had a vision...I am going to kill Worf."
The Voiceless: Morn. A fan myth was that he would speak the last words of the series, but didn't happen.
The Expanded Universe has made a Running Gag of Morn actually being exceptionally loquacious (whenever he's not on-screen), with the novel Rising Son even having Jake opine that once Morn starts talking, the trick is in getting him to shut up.
It started even before then, with characters discussing how talkative he is on the show.
Morn can be heard laughing in the episode The Nagus. It's the only time in the series we hear a peep out of him.
Jadzia even moreso, especially when slinging around bat'leths in Klingon episodes. Kira doesn't actually seem all that fragile, to look at her.
Kira was a feared terrorist/freedom fighter and being a badass in battle should be a lot more expected of her than of Jadzia Dax. Nevertheless, she is a lot more waif-ish than Dax in some ways - Terry Farrell is 6 feet tall.
War Is Hell: Existing from the middle of the series and forward but especially in the episode The Siege of AR-558.
The War on Straw: Eddington's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Sisko in "For the Cause" is undermined by the fact that the Maquis didn't just leave the Federation; they committed terrorist attacks that threatened to undermine an important peace treaty with Cardassia. Even more so with Eddington, who (ostensibly) remained part of the Federation, a Starfleet officer no less, whilst secretly working for the Maquis.
We Are Everywhere: The Founder's final words to Odo in "The Adversary."
And subverted in "Paradise Lost": A Founder states that they aren't everywhere, and indeed, aren't even in most places at all. But that doesn't matter because they don't have to be - they can be anywhere, pretending to be anyone, and the Federation has no way of knowingwhere they are at any moment. Four agents operating on Earth are able to cause a chain reaction of events leading to martial law being declared on Earth, and a battle being fought between two Starfleet starships that had each been led to believe the other was commanded by a Changeling.
However, they are everywhere important, including Starfleet HQ and the highest levels of the other governments. Their shape-shifting abilities just mean it doesn't take many of them to be everywhere.
Odo towards Doctor Mora Pol, the Bajoran scientist who discovered him. Odo admits he's never wanted anything more than his respect and for him to think of him more as something to be studied and experimented on in a laboratory. Odo also reveals he purposefully imitated Mora Pol's hair because he respected him.
Also most (if not all) of Section 31. Also qualifies as Utopia Justifies the Means, since they're willing to commit any crime, no matter how monstrous, to protect the Federation.
Admiral Leyton in "Homefront/Paradise Lost." He pushes for more and more security measures in order to put Earth under martial law so as to combat Changeling infiltration after a bombing. He sabotages the planetary power grid as "Changeling sabotage" and fakes a cloaked Dominion fleet to make his case, going so far as to attack another Starfleet ship when they threaten to expose his conspiracy.
"The Search, Part I and II", the first part ending on a cliffhanger with Sisko, Dax, O'Brien, and Bashir's seeming death or capture, the brand new Defiant seemingly destroyed, and Odo finally meeting his people. The next part reveals the Changelings are the Founders, the head of the Dominion.
"Improbable Cause"/"The Die Is Cast": Garak blew up his own shop, Tain is working with the Romulans to destroy the Founders, Garak is willing to forget that Tain tried to kill him and rejoin the Obsidian Order, Tain orders Garak to torture Odo and he does, Odo admits he wants to rejoin the Founders, the leader of the Tal Shiar is actually a Founder and the entire plot was a means to eliminate both the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar in one fell swoop... whew.
The series was completely changed after "The Way of the Warrior", with Worf joining the crew, the Cardassians rebelling and forming for the first time a democratic government, and the decades-long allied Klingons declaring war on previously mentioned Cardassians, antagonising the Federation and breaking the alliance, turning them into active recurring antagonists. Finally, the eponymous Space Station had a slight tactical upgrade. This episode set the theme for the rest of the series.
Let's not even start to talk about "Inferno's Light", where the writers decided to just throw everything in the air and decide to keep the status quo about whatever they could catch. The rest, not so much.
"In The Pale Moonlight" not only brings a major change to the direction of the war, it is quite possibly the strongest violation of Federation Principles ever shown in any episode of Star Trek. The worst part is, is that it's really hard to say that Sisko did the wrong thing, that in the long term, the galaxy wasn't a better place thanks to the actions of this episode. That's why he can live with it.
Sisko: "So... I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all... I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would... ...So I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it..."
Noteworthy that Sisko left out to what extent he was an accessory to murder. Sure, he would qualify just for collaborating with Garak, but there's also the large quantities of highly controlled substances used to make biological weapons he sold to someone who was almost certainly going to use them for exactly that. It could be poor writing, Fridge Brilliance or it could be that, whether or not he felt he did the right thing in the long run, that recognizing that really would be more than he could live with. Of course, Garak himself lampshaded this: Sisko went to Garak precisely because Garak could go further than Sisko's morals (as far as Sisko understood his own morality at the time) would allow Sisko to go. In other words, the minute Sisko decided to use Garak, he was accepting, at least subconsciously, and before the plan had even been concocted that he could and would allow events to unfold as necessary to achieve his aim. His computer log was more akin to a conscious acceptance of the unconscious acceptance Garak had referred to.
Female Changeling: "The Changelings are the Dominion."
In "By Inferno's Light"
Gul Dukat: "I'm not attacking the Dominion fleet. I'm joining it."
"Doctor Bashir, I Presume":
Richard Bashir: At no time in our interview with Doctor Zimmerman will we ever mention or even hint at the fact that you were genetically enhanced as a child.
What Happened to the Mouse?: The excellent episode "Duet" nevertheless leaves some important questions unanswered. Minister Koval insisted to Sisko that if Marritza was at Gallitep, the Bajoran government wanted him, and would have him. Gul Dukat, meanwhile, told Sisko that if "any Bajoran hate-mongers get their hands on him, I'll hold you personally responsible." Sisko authorized Marritza's release, no doubt pissing off Koval, and then Marritza was indeed murdered by a Bajoran hate-monger. So what are the consequences?
What Have We Ear?: In "Rejoined", Dax pulls this on Quark, and then later Bashir does too. Apparently his head is full of latinum.
What the Hell, Hero?: "In The Pale Moonlight", in which Sisko does it to himself. Also, "For The Uniform".
Sisko: Commander, launch torpedoes.
[Worf hesitates]
Sisko: Commander, I said launch torpedoes!
The above example should be noted as Sisko irrevocably gassing a former Earth colony with biogenic weapons lethal to humans but not Cardassians. He justifies this as they were a Maquis stronghold and they had already done the same thing with similar weapons lethal to Cardassians but not humans.
It's also not instantaneous, so they do however have time to evacuate the planet.
Odo's involvement with the Female Changeling during the occupation of Deep Space Nine, despite the Dominion's brutal legacy and the Female Changeling's prior antics. Fortunately, he snaps out of it and comes to the aid of his friends.
When She Smiles: Sarina of The Jack Pack. Originally catatonic thanks to her senses forever failing to catch up with her brain, her first action after a procedure correcting it is smiling. Bashir is smitten on the spot.
Where Da White Women At?: Completely averted by Sisko. All of his love interests throughout the series, including his dead wife from the Back Story and the few times he ends up in a relationship with an alien girl, are dark-skinned. And the beautiful Jadzia Dax, who flirts with everyone, never ends up in any sort of romantic relationship with Sisko; due to his friendship with Dax's former host, they consider each other to be Like Brother and Sister.
White Void Room: Often when communicating with the Prophets.
Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: Subverted by the Female Changeling. When she learns that Damar, Kira, and Garak have been captured, she refuses to grab the Villain Ball and simply orders them executed on the spot.
Word of Gay: Andrew Robinson has commented in multiple interviews that he considered Garak "omnisexual," and also strongly implied it in the character book he wrote. Robert Hewitt Wolfe has stated that he wrote Garak to be attracted to Bashir, but Bashir never realized this.
Word of God: Ron Moore stated that although the background check in "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" ended up revealing that Bashir had been genetically augmented, this didn't preclude him from being the new template for the Emergency Medical Hologram; and that he did actually end up being selected. Therefore fans assume that either the (unseen) EMH Mark III or Mark IV was based on Bashir.
The Worf Effect: In order to show how dangerous the Jem'Hadar are, in their debut episode they blow up the USS Odyssey, a Galaxy-class starship like the Enterprise-D from the recently concludedStar Trek: The Next Generation. Using such a familiar ship helped make this moment genuinely shocking.
Averted with the man himself. Compared to his tenure on the Enterprise-D, Worf developed a consistent ability to win fights, particularly when he was forced to fight the Jem'Hadar in to-the-death combat every day. In the end, the eldest Jem'Hadar had kicked his ass, but Worf still refused to give up, forcing the Jem'Hadar to yield instead of simply killing him.
Worthless Yellow Rocks: After the writers realized gold could be replicated, they realized its value would be nothing to a Ferengi. Thus latinum was created, and any mention of gold was retconned into being pressed with latinum.
The gold casings themselves are little more than money clips, as poor Quark learned when he discovered his "inheritance" from Morn.
Quark: Someone's extracted all the latinum! There's nothing here but worthless gold! Odo: And it's all yours! (chuckles) Quark:NoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Worthy Opponent: Dukat views Sisko in this way, though the feeling isn't mutual.
Quark and Odo. Quark is generally open about it (explicitly using the trope title when they say their final farewell), telling Odo that over the years he's forced him to step up his game and become a better criminal; Odo probably shares the sentiment, but refuses to admit it even in the finale.
There's a straighter play with Sisko in the three-parter about a Bajoran coup. General Krim compliments Sisko on a speech he gave despite having disagreed with everything in it, and later on seems pleased that Sisko didn't abandon the station, but hid there with his crew to take it back from the Circle. Even though he opposes Sisko at every turn, he clearly likes and respects the man.
When the Klingons attack DS9, there is a scene during the battle where Martok and Gowron are speaking in Klingon. Though a translation is not provided on-screen, it has been translated:
Martok: They fight like Klingons!
Gowron: Then they can die like Klingons. Destroy their shields. Prepare boarding parties!
Martok: As you recommend. All ships, concentrate fire on their shield generators!
Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Many times with Jadzia Dax, which is something of a subversion of the trope seeing as how her current form is female but Dax has been a male several times before.
In "Dax", when Bashir is trying to help fight off Jadzia's hooded kidnappers, the hood of the person Bashir had been fighting slips down, to reveal that he's been fighting a woman. Bashir hesitates just long enough for her to beat the crap out of him and knock him unconscious.
Later in that episode, Jadzia deliberately stonewalls Benjamin when he tries to get some answers out of her regarding the charges of murder and treason. Furious, Benjamin slams his fist into his hand and exclaims, "Dammit, if you were still a man!"
In "The Way of the Warrior", Jadzia challenges Worf to a sparring session with Klingon bat'leths, which would be their first of many. During the fight, she goads him:
Jadzia Dax: I hope you're not holding back because I'm a woman. If it makes things any easier, think of me as a man. Been one several times!
On the other hand, Gul Dukat certainly would hit a girl, as he shows by decking Sakonna in "The Maquis, Part I" when she's part of a group trying to kidnap him.
You Don't Want to Know: Played straight in Sacrifice of Angels, when Bashir and O'Brien take turns reciting a verse from Tennyson's "Charge of The Light Brigade".
Artistic License - Biology: Actually manages to avert the old Trek chestnut of casual inter-species conception, at least once: in the season 6 finale, Jadzia and Worf mention to Bashir that they're planning on having a baby. Bashir looks deflated for two reasons: the first is the realization that Jadzia really is out of his reach forever, but the second is that he realizes that he's the one they are going to rely on to get Trill and Klingon genetics to play nice together, which he openly says will be really damn unlikely and Jadzia shouldn't get her hopes up.
You Just Told Me: Bashir is up for a major medical award. He insists that there is no chance of victory for him, and so he does not wish to discuss it.
Odo: In that case, why are you working on your acceptance speech?
Your Mind Makes It Real: Garak's bloody nose while in Odo's "dream" manifests itself in the real world as he lies unconscious in the infirmary.
Your Mom: In "The Way of the Warrior" Klingons attempt to insult Odo in Klingon, and Garak responds with "Actually, I'm not sure Constable Odo has a mother."
Also, from "The Siege":
Bashir: Quark, leave it!
Quark: I can't leave it, it's all that I have. My personal mementos, my family album...
Bashir: It's full of gold-pressed latinum, and you know it.
Quark: ...Who told you?
Bashir: Your mother did, the day you were born.
Quark: NEVER-MAKE-FUN-OF-A-FERENGI'S-MOTHER. Rule of Acquisition Number 31!
Of course, there's a second part to that rule: "Insult something he cares about instead."
Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Trill marriages are "until death do us part". Too bad if you die and come back from the dead: The love of your life is now taboo forever. Even worse, the cycle of life in the elite circles of Trill society is based on a kind of reincarnation. Jadzia falls prey to this in one episode, falling head over heals in love with her ex-wife. Nobody even notices that they are of the same gender, the ethical/cultural problem is all about them having been husband and wife in a previous life.
You Shall Not Pass: Concerning the deaths of both Eddington and Kor. Also happens in "The Homecoming", where a few of the Bajoran prisoners stay behind and hold off the Cardassians so that Li Nalis can escape from prison.
Odo: I think I finally figured out what crime you were found guilty of on your world.
Croden: What's that?
Odo: You talk too much.
In "Indiscretion", Kira says this to Dukat:
Kira: Commander Sisko was right; you are in love with the sound of your own voice.
YouTube Poop: The scene from "In the Pale Moonlight" where Vreenak yells "It's a FAAAAAKE!" is growing in popularity.
Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Bajoran resistance, Maquis, and the Cardassian resistance against the Dominion. Some members of each even refer to themselves as terrorists.
Zeerust: Notable as it's easily the least affected out of any of the Trek shows so far; part of this is due to largely being set on an alien space station with somewhat odd architecture, making it easier to gloss over any breaches of plausibility. The Defiant's military bridge has also withstood the test of time very well so far.
Zerg Rush: The Jem'Hadar attack with massive numbers of ships, due to the "disposable" nature of the species.
Zip Me Up: Odo zips up Kira's dress in "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang."
. Also has a recap page. Please feel free to contribute to it.See also the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Relaunch, a series of novels continuing the show's story arcs past the finale.
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