Memory Alpha:AOL chats/Ronald D. Moore/ron014.txt

Subj: Answers Date: 4/7/97 1:24:50 PM From:  RonDMoore

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I don't have much to say on this subject except that making the Trek "connection" is just an easy angle for a reporter to take when he's run out of ideas for a story. Trek has been around for a long time and I think most people know that it's not advocating mass suicide by its fans. I'm sure they'll keep playing the "connection" in the media for a while, but I think it'll run its course and fade out in time.

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We were pretty annoyed as well. Unfortunately, the marketing of the show is completely out of our hands and all we can do is scream and yell about it.

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Yes, and you will finally see a new computer-generated Data/Borg Queen sex scene as we had always intended it to be seen, but the technology of the day limited the number of limbs and other fully functional apparatuses that they would've had at their disposal.

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I get this question all the time, but the truth is I don't have one. I've never really had favorite characters among the casts, usually just favorite episodes or favorite scenes. Each character is interesting depending on the situation and if I'm doing a Kira show, she'll be my favorite character for that show, if it's an Odo show, my favorite is Odo and so on. Even my choices for favorite episodes change depending on when you talk to me. There're a lot of TNG episodes I haven't watched in a long time, so the current crop of DS9s are my current faves -- Our Man Bashir, Darkness and the Light, Trials & Tribble-ations, Die is Cast, and the unseen Soldiers of the Empire top my list today, but ask me in six months and I'll probably give you another answer.

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This is definitely something I want to try my hand at someday. But the committment of time required to write 200+ pages is a little daunting so I don't think I'll be doing it any time soon. But to write a real, solid, tangible book that you can hold in your hands.... it's very tempting.

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Maybe. It's supposed to be sort of autobiographical, so we know that much, but I don't know how much more we want to reveal. It's probably more interesting the less we know about it.

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I don't know yet, and again this is just speculation on my part -- we don't have any definite plans at the moment.

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The title isn't set yet and while it's not technically a true cliff-hanger, it does set the stage for a very interesting season 6.

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It is alive and well on the Klingon Homeworld -- KHL.

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Maybe.

<< DO you plan to have Nog come back to DS9 after he graduates, as a regular Officer?>>

I don't think Nog can plausibly graduate from the Academy in the time left for the series, but you'll definitely be seeing more of Nog this year and next.

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Not until next year.

Subj: Answers Date: 4/7/97 1:49:04 PM From:  RonDMoore

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We assume the Fed President was duly elected, but that he reluctantly was induced to run for the position. As for the Earth Govt vs. Fed Govt issue, this was something we wrestled with in the story break. We wanted to tell the story of an attempted military coup of the Federation and that meant dealing with the Fed president. However, that meant the troops "in the streets" had to be on Earth and that Earth itself had to be under martial law since the Fed is headquartered on Earth. We discussed having the Prez "federalize" the Earth defense forces or supercede the authority of an indigenous Earth Govt, but the story kept getting too complicated and we didn't want to start mentioning all these other players and organizations that we weren't going to see. So in the end, we skirted the issue of who actually governs Earth. Personally, I think there is an Earth Govt that operates like more powerful versions of States do in the US system, but this is all VERY murky water. Gene was pretty smart back in the 60s when he decided not to discuss the exact outcome of Earth's political/social/economic future and we've come about as close to doing just that as I think we should.

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I THINK we still have the Volga and the Rio Grande, but don't hold me to that. As for the total number of Runabouts on the station, we keep that purposely vague so we can show as many or as few as we want.

<< It has seemed to me that DS9's defenses aren't nearly as powerful as I'd expect.>>

I don't know about that. The defenses we saw in "Way of the Warrior" were pretty substantial.

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No, this was something I came up with specifically for "Dr. Bashir I Presume," and while it wasn't part of the original backstory, I felt that it explained quite a few things in his character rather elegantly. We haven't charted out the future implications of this revelation, but we do intend to keep playing his genetically enhanced status next year.

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The wormhole aliens/Prophets have to be used sparingly or they'll become too pedestrian. We don't have a good Prophet story at the moment, but I imagine we'll be seeing them again next year.

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We don't have any plans for TOS or TNG guest stars next year. The Borg are now part of Voyager's backyard and we'll leave them alone. -- Subj: Answers Date: 4/7/97 2:08:07 PM From:  RonDMoore

<< You've taken a lot of heat about the death of Kirk. Lots of Classic fans seem to think you did it because you didn't have respect for the character. That's wrong, isn't it? If you could go back, would you do it again? Would you do it differently if you could? And are you adamantly against his resurrection?>>

My only regret is that the Nexus, and the events that played out inside of it, were not as compelling as I'd hoped. I have no idea what I would do differently, but I would've liked another crack at that entire sequence.

And yes, I did have a great deal of respect for Kirk -- he was quite literally my childhood hero. I felt (and still do) that the death of Kirk was an important moment in Trek and that this very human character should experience the final act in every man's existence, namely death. Kirk had never shied away from promoting and honoring the unique experience of being human (indeed, that was in many ways the foundation of Gene's entire vision -- the celebration of the human spirit). Therefore, it seemed that by killing him, by letting him really play out the human experience, he would become something greater than simply another comic-book hero that never dies and is never really mortal as a result. I find vulnerable heroes more compelling than teflon-coated heroes, and to me the death of Kirk made him human, and in the end, more heroic.

I am very much against the resurrection of Kirk for that reason -- it would rob the character of something very important: his humanity.

<<As I've said before, I think one of the best episodes of TNG I ever saw was "Tapestry." Piller once downplayed it as a rehash of "It's a Wonderful Life." I thought it was charming, funny, and revealing, of both Picard and Q. What do you now think of it? Did you tell Piller to get stuffed?>>

I loved "Tapestry" and while Michael and I had several arguments over it, he was the Exec Producer and could've simply forced me to do it differently. To his credit, Michael let me do the show pretty much as I wanted to. I still think it's one of the best things I wrote and one of TNG's finest episodes.

<< <Could you give us the names of the current DS9 runabouts please.> I believe they are Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Limbaugh, and Kahvis. Right, Ron?>>

No, those would be the names for the ships that clean out waste extraction from the station on a weekly basis. (Okay, except the Kahvis. That's the ship with the broken helm control.  It keeps pulling to the right.)

<<Do I remember reading once that you were not happy with the TNG episode "Rascals"? Why not? I thought it was a great story with some great acting by the children. In fact, it is one of my favorite TNG episodes.>>

When Michael bought the premise I thought he was completely insane: An Away Team rematerializes on the transporter as child -- with adult minds! I tried again and again to bury this idea, which of course meant that I would get saddled with the inevitable rewrite when the script came in. I just thought it was a ludicrous idea and wanted nothing to do with it. That said, once I got the assignment, the professional writer in me had to commit to the material and do the best with it that I could, so I tried very hard to bring humor and humanity to the proceedings, chiefly through the Guinan/Ro story that I did end up liking in the end. I still cringe when I think of the episode (the Ferengi capture the Enteprise in a couple of broken down Bird of Preys???) but many people have told me how much they like it.

<<Also, was the DS9 episode "Hard Time" a dark counterpart to the TNG episode "The Inner Light"? Were you thinking of the contrasts between the two stories within the context of similar scenarios during writing and production?>>

Inner Light came up when we were working on the story, but I don't think it was more than just a reminder to ourselves to keep the show as different as possible from that episode. But you'd have to ask Robert if it influenced his writing --- Subj: Answers Date: 4/7/97 2:20:57 PM From:  RonDMoore

<<So, why does Robert H. Wolfe say that one of the plots in "Children of Time" is ***"kind of"*** an O/K story? Or would that be giving it all away? :)>>

I'm afraid it really would give it away even if I gave you a one line description.

<<What are the real chances of having a Fan-submitted episode produced? How many are produced on average in a season?>>

This depends on how you define "fan-submitted." If you mean a spec script that we buy and produce, that hasn't happened in several years now. But quite a few fans have submitted scripts and been invited to pitch, and then a few of those fans have actually sold stories and/or scripts, and in even fewer cases (like myself and Lisa Klink) those fans have gone on to become staff writers. It's a very difficult nut to crack because of all the competition to get in the door, but it does happen.

<<Was "A Simple Investigation" originally intended to occur while Odo was still locked in humanoid form? .... I'm beginning to question whether TPTB on DS9 really care very much about any of the more science-fictional aspects of their universe, or whether the forehead ridges, spots, and "bedroom eyes" of their characters are no more than identifying marks to help us keep score.>>

This was something we wish we had done while Odo was still a humanoid, but we short-changed the humanoid arc by giving him back his powers so soon. We didn't develop this idea until "Begotten" was already in the can, but we liked giving Odo his first romance (aside from Kira) and decided to do the show anyway. As far as the lack of sci-fi in the show these days, it's probably fair to say that the writing staff tends to think of the show as a dramatic series that happens to take place in a science fiction setting and not vice versa. So sometimes we may not give that aspect of the series as much due as we should, but we are aware of our tendencies and try not to completely ignore the canvas on which we're painting this rather large piece.