History StarTrekDeepSpaceNine / TropesEToL

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* GenderBender: 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."

* GeniusDitz: Rom.

* ExpansionPackPast: Garak.
** Also Dax, although it was justified in her case by attributing her various experiences to one of her many past hosts.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Senator Vreenak to Sisko.
--> '''Sisko:''' Sorry to disappoint you.
--> '''Vreenak:''' To be honest, my opinion of Starfleet officers is so low that you'd have to work very hard ''indeed'' to disappoint me.
* ExpendableClone: The Vorta.
* ExperimentalArcheology: The plot of the episode, "Explorers," in which the Siskos go solar sailing in a light ship of ancient Bajoran design and inadvertently prove the idea that ancient Bajorans could have reached Cardassia.

* ExperimentalArcheology: "Explorers".

* ExposedExtraterrestrials: 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. Although they never explain what happens to his communicator when he shifts.

-->'''Quark''': Nobody knows him like I do. He's an ill-tempered, overbearing, cross-patch. But he was no Cardassian collaborator, and he's no killer.

* FakeMemories: 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.

* FallenHero: Admiral Leyton.

* FantasticallyChallengingPatient: {{Discussed}} in the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E16ProphetMotive Prophet Motive]]". When Dr. Bashir is unable to figure out what's wrong with Grand Nagus Zek using standard tests, Quark asks him to perform exploratory surgery. Bashir refuses to do so, believing it to be unneccesary.
* FantasticCasteSystem: 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 "Accession", a time-displaced Bajoran poet who claims to be the Emissary instead of Sisko tries to reinstate the caste system. The results are PlayedForDrama 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 [[spoiler:a vedek killing a man because his family was considered unclean]].

* FantasticRacism: Downplayed, but all Vorta display an innate dislike of Ferengi.

* AFatherToHisMen: Sisko.

** Possessed!Kira in ''Dramatis Personae'' acts a lot like her MirrorUniverse 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 ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: ''In The Pale Moonlight''
* FriendVersusLover: Over O'Brien.

** Proto-Rom has more in common with [[Film/TheGodfather Fredo]] than the put-upon loser of later years. He's constantly plotting his brother's death -- either by assassination or accident or pulling him off of life support -- so he could inherit the bar. One can argue that life among the Federation left a positive impression on the Ferengi Bros., but it doesn't quite jive with Rom's later characterization as the brother who's too much of a milksop to make it in business. His voice and tone are also much more similar to other Ferengi in earlier episodes: Faster, more clipped, and somewhat more articulate, with little trace of the slower, more hesitant form of speaking he affects in subsequent seasons.

--> '''Kira''': None of you belonged on Bajor. It wasn't your world. For fifty years you raped our planet and you killed our people. You lived on our land and you took the food out of our mouths, and [[KillEmAll I don't care whether you held a phaser in your hand or ironed shirts for a living]]. [[MoralMyopia You were all guilty and you were all legitimate targets!]]

* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: As befitting the episode, Bashir does this on "Trials and Tribble-ations."

* GoodHairEvilHair: 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.

** In the episode "Duet", a Cardassian named Marritza has altered his appearance and feigns being the cold monster who ran a forced labor camp, Gul Darhe'ell, who was guilty of war crimes against the Bajorans. When he's finally revealed as Marritza, a mere file clerk, he tearfully tells Kira that he took on this role to try and force Cardassia to own up to its sins, that he used to go to bed in that camp at night, weeping to the sound of the torture his own people were causing, feeling horrible for the people who were suffering, and calling himself a coward for not doing anything about it. Kira, who has been hostile to him while believing he was Darhe'ell, now is sympathetic to him, and arranges for his release. He is immediately murdered in front of Kira by a fellow Bajoran.

* EverybodyHelpsOutDenouement: In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E25BodyParts Body Parts]], Quark breaks a contract and most of his possessions, including equipment for his business, are seized by the Ferengi Commerce Authority. But then Captain Sisko starts bringing in some furniture and soon everyone from around the station brings in what Quark needs to reopen his bar.

* EasilyForgiven: In "Captive Pursuit", Chief O'Brien disobeys Sisko's orders and sabotages some systems to help the Tosk escape the station, yet receives no serious repercussions for doing so. This could be because Sisko agreed with O'Brien's motivation, if not his methods, as he also helped the Tosk escape by delaying the security response to O'Brien's actions.

* FaceplantingIntoFood: In one episode, Garak bails some of his friends and acquaintances out of the brig. He makes a souffle and presents it to the guard, then while the guard is busy inspecting the souffle, Garak gives him knock-out drugs and he blacks out into the souffle.

* FakeGuestStar: '''TONS.''' If you look at the title credits, you'll only see about 8 or 9 names in the cast list, but by the end of the series, the actual core cast had grown so much that it was ''at least'' twice that. And yet half of those names would be stuck on the Guest Star list right until the end of the series. Just goes to show [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters how freaking HUGE DS9's cast was for the time, with maybe only]] Series/BabylonFive [[DuelingShows rivaling it]]; a heck of an accomplishment.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Garak, Dukat, Damar, Weyoun, Winn, Martok...
** The opening credits for the [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E25E26WhatYouLeaveBehind series finale]], which features most of the major characters still alive, list nine main actors and fifteen guest stars. And the finale is still missing most of the Ferengi-related recurring characters (Rom, Leeta, Zek, Ishka, Brunt, Maihar'du), who make their final appearance in the penultimate episode.
** Throw in the MirrorUniverse characters and the number gets almost too high to count.

** In season 4, the original arrangement of the opening theme is replaced with a more ominous version, perhaps to reflect the mounting threat from the Dominion. There's also a lot more activity shown around the station in general. * ExperimentalArcheology: "Explorers".

* FatalFamilyPhoto: 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 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.

*** On that subject, her characterization in the first season more or less boiled down to "old man in a young woman's body", with a relatively subdued tone of voice, limited animation in her body movements, and much more reference to her centuries of life experience adding up her being a font of wisdom. It wasn't until partway through the second season that the writers saw that this approach wasn't working and Jadzia became a much more active, animated character who believably behaved as a young woman would be expected to, with her past Trill life experience and memories taken more as a separate resource than something that defines her. This is justified in-universe, as it was established that she was only recently joined to the Dax symbiote perhaps a year or two before the series began, and it can take a long time for a symbiote and its host to come into a new equilibrium.

*** 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.