Memory Alpha:AOL chats/Ronald D. Moore/ron103.txt

Subject: Answers Date: Tue Apr 21, 1998 16:27 EDT From: RonDMoore Message-id: <1998042120273600.QAA21847@ladder03.news.aol.com>

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When I first started as a staff writer back in TNG's 3rd season, one of my first assignments was to deal with the story that eventually became "Sins of the Father." Michael Piller asked me to write him a memo on the Klingons and how I saw them before we tackled the specifics of that show, so I sat down one afternoon and gave him my take on the guys with the ridges. In that memo (which is buried somewhere in my voluminous files) I compared the Klingons to the Samauri of feudal Japan, the Vikings, and the Hell's Angels. That outlook has been refined and deepened over the years, but it's still a good description of how we think about the Klingons.

I've always seen Worf as a deeply conflicted character. A man brimming with passions and barely contained violence. Being raised on Earth has taught him how to restrain himself in public, but under the surface there's a cauldron of roiling emotions. He's also a man who desperately wants to think of himself as a true Klingon, but who knows that he's different than his warrior brothers and always will be.

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My approach is to try something different each time I sit down to write a script. I'm always asking myself if there's a different way to approach a scene, another way to deliver exposition, a new way to reveal character -- another way to tell the tale. For instance -- I hate writing space battle scenes because it's so hard for me to find new and interesting dialog that we haven't heard a dozen times already in the franchise.

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I believe it was the symbol of Internal Affairs.

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The Nexus in "Generations" grew out of several story meetings between Rick, myself and Brannon. We all wanted Kirk and Picard to get together, but nobody was happy with doing a traditional time-travel story, so we started looking for something else -- a place that existed outside of linear time where our two heroes could meet face to face. We had a couple of conversations with Bill about the movie, but for the most part he simply raised questions and concerns and we addressed them.

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I think we've pretty much closed our consideration of specs. All specs will still be read, but the coverage will be forwarded to Voyager for consideration of the writer.

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Haven't read it.

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We feel like the Prophets have been and continue to be very much a part of our story.

<<Do you think that even the most ardent Dukatophile doesn't understand that Dukat isn't a hero and has done some really "sh***y things? That you need to blackwash the character (Waltz, Wrongs) to drive the point home? Have you abandoned the comments you made in Sci-Fi Universe (Feb. 1998)? "...we're not going to....make it to the point that our people can't stand even to talk to him anymore, or that there aren'tany circumstances under which he couldn't pair up with out people again. We're not going to do that.>>

I don't see either "Waltz" or "Wrongs..." as an attempt to "blackwash" the character of Dukat. We've always seen him as a villain, and that's the way he was written in both of those episodes. As for my comments in Sci-Fi Universe, I'd say that while they accurately reflected our intentions at the time, it is hard for me to see us teaming up with Dukat now. However, as the above quote shows, you should never say "never"...

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What makes you think we're not proud of creating and writing a such complex, intriguing villain? I like Dukat. I also hate him. I love to write for him. I also loathe the things I have him do. That's what makes him such a dynamic and fascinating character. He's a dark man with a dark soul, but he's also charming, funny, and someone who you can't help but feel a certain amount of sympathy for.

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Not yet -- we're still shooting the final episode and we haven't focused on Season 7 yet.

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I can confirm both Terry's departure and that the last episode will be called "Tears of the Prophets" but that's about it.

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We'd been prepared to deal with the possibility of Terry leaving for quite some time, but we kept hoping it wasn't going to happen. The script wasn't rewritten, but the story in development was not designed to be the "Dax leaves DS9" show, so we had to find a way for it to serve that function as well as our other story needs.

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Nothing is coming through the Wormhole from the Gamma Quadrant at present.

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A long time has passed since the destruction of the Dominion shipyards in "A Call to Arms" and they've been rebuilt.

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As much as we love the show, the unanimous feeling of the writing/producing staff is that it's time to go. Like the old adage says -- always leave'em wanting more.

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I haven't seen the quote you're referring to, but Michael spent a lot of years working with the TNG characters and he's certainly entitled to his opinion of Data and how we handled him in the features. Personally, I think it was the right choice and I'd do it again.

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In defense of Michael, the Q-Olympics story was ludicrous and needed to be deep-sixed. Also, there was never -- ever -- any chance that Arnold was going to appear on the show.

<<In the TNG episode "Pegasus" a Federation interphase cloaking device was introduced. Any chance it will be brought up again in the war with the Dominion?>>

Possibly.

<<When DS9 ends, what will happen to Worf?>>

I have no idea.

<<According to Okuda's chronology: If Kira Nerys was born in 2343 and Terok Nor was built in 2351, and Dukat was posted to Terok Nor as Commander and Prefect in 2359, what "careful research" brought you to the conclusion that Dukat and Meru could have gotten together *on Terok Nor* in 2346? >>

A closer examination of the Okuda chronology will reveal that many of the dates you're citing are "conjectural" and not canon.

<<Are the powers that be going to push for an Emmy nomination for Avery Brooks's outstanding performance in "Far Beyond the Stars?" Even better, are they going to push for the episode to be nominated for other awards as well?>>

Paramount has never really pushed our show for Emmy consideration (outside of the technical categories) and I doubt they will this time either. It's a continuing source of irritation on the part of the writing staff, but we've pretty much resigned ourselves to it by this point.

<<I'm I the only one who's getting sick of the way Rick Bearman keeps changing things in star trek. For example the Enterprise-D was a Galaxy class starship which ended up being destroyed at veridian III, Secondly we saw the U.S.S Yamato being blown up in Contagion by the Iconian probe, Thirdly we see the U.S.S Odessy being destroyed by the Jem H'adar then in the episode Sacrifice of angles(Deep space 9) theres a scene where we see 4 Galaxy class starships. Now if my maths is right 4+3=7,now this statement didnt come from any little back room boy but from Gene Roddenberry himself when he said that there were no more than 6 ships built. So why does Bearman keep changing things Roddenberry says.>>

First of all it's Berman. Second of all, Rick didn't ask for those Galaxy- class ships in "Sacrifice", the writers did. And finally, just because there were only six Galaxys built back in Season 1 of TNG, there's no reason to believe that Starfleet didn't continue to churn them out.

<<Will Weyoun be in any other shows this season?>>

The real Weyoun will be in "Tears of the Prophets."

<<hey ron, was the DS9 title "in the pale moonilght" a reference to Batman, or something else. >>

I only know the quote from "Batman" -- does anyone out there know if they took it from somewhere else?

<<Okay, are there ANY future plans of having discussions for another trek series after DS9 and VOY's time has passed?>>

Not at this time.

<<Will the DS9 or VOY crew EVER be in their own movies, as the crew of TNG was?>>

At the moment, there are no plans for DS9 movies. It's way too early to know if Voyager will go into features.

<<In a previous post (A long time ago in a folder far far away....) you said that there were no plans on invoving the Romulans in the war. My question is when did TPTB decide to start the "Romulan Thread"? And more importantly, Why the change of heart?>>

This is why I usually try to dodge or qualify my answers about our plans for the future. Things change. Our thinking changes, sometimes daily. We had no plans for Romulan involvement in the war until "In the Pale Moonlight" was being developed. As we worked on the story, it became clear that bringing the Romulans into the war was a good fit for the episode and for the series so we went in that direction.

<<There's been some division on the ...Pale Moonlight episode message board about the storytelling technique of having Sisko speak directly to the camera. For what it's worth, I thought is was wonderfully effective. Any flexibility in approach to staging an episode helps DS9 stand out visually from the other Trek series, as long as any one technique doesn't become overused. Was this device in Michael Taylor's original draft or was it added later? (BTW, Avery does a great Brock Peters impression!)>>

I added the device of Sisko recording his log and speaking to the camera.

This episode started out as a Jake story, if you can believe it. The story that Peter wrote and that Michael turned into a script was told from Jake's point of view. The premise was that he's a reporter doing a profile on Garak and then begins to realize that something BIG is going on that involves his father. The idea was to do a sort of "All the President's Men" type of episode where the trail leads Jake to his own father's involvement in a conspiracy to bring the Romulans into the war via a deception facilitated by Garak. The story at its core, however, didn't work (through no fault of Michael Taylor, by the way -- he wrote the script we sent him out to do and did the best he could with it).

When it became time for me to do the rewrite, it was clear that we'd have to rebreak the story, so we gathered again and put the show back on the board (always an excruciating process). The first thing to go was the Jake angle as we all agreed that the meat of the story was Sisko's dance with the devil as he attempted to turn the tide of the war. We tried two or three approaches over the course of three days, and kept getting frustrated because nothing seemed to work.

Finally, I was at home doing something completely unrelated when the log entry/flashback device occured to me. I called Rene (much to his surprise) and he liked it. The next day, I presented the concept to the rest of the staff and we decided to go for it. In the end, I found this episode to be one of the most rewarding shows I've had the pleasure of working on in that it never flinched or tried to find an easy way out. It forced our lead character into actions that he never thought he would take and into moral territory he never thought he'd travel. It's shows like this that make me love DS9.

<<Do you feel that DS9 is backing itself into The B5 Corner Of Being Too Self-Referential?>>

At this point, I think you're either with us or you're not. I don't know how many brand-new viewers we're going to pick up in the seventh year and I'm comfortable with just playing to our regular audience and really mining the show for all it's worth.

<<At the start of ["In the Pale Moonlight"], Garak reaches out to his contacts on Cardassia, and within one day, all are dead. Are we supposed to assume that they were killed because they quickly began their espionage, or simply because they spoke to Garak?>>

They were killed because the Dominon got wind of their discussions with Garak.

<<At the end of the episode, when Sisko is going over the list of his sins, he mentions the death of the forger and of the Romulan senator, but Garak's friends are forgotten. Did Garak actually have contacts on Cardassia, or did he just lead Sisko on, with the plan to forge evidence all along?>>

Garak really did have these contacts, they really were killed, but I doubt he considered them to be "friends" and probably didn't consider them worth mentioning in the final scene.

<<Some historians now say that the central issue which motivated the North to move against the South was *not* the issue of slavery, but the issue of national integrity (the secession issue). We went to war to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery, although the latter was used in service of the former.>>

Well, wait a minute... The North did not move against the South. The southern states seceded from the Union following the election of Abraham Lincoln, and then attacked a Federal fortress in Charleston harbor, thereby igniting the Civil War. The central issue before the country was slavery and this had been the case for a few decades prior to the outbreak of fighting. The "right" of a state to secede from the Union was an issue, but hardly worth fighting for unless there was an overriding concern forcing a state to take such a radical step. That overriding concern was the continuation of the institution of slavery in the south and in the newly-formed states and territories being added to the Union.

It is correct that the North did not begin the war with the stated intention of abolishing slavery, but without the existence of slavery and the bitter debate that had been festering in the country for many years, it's hard to say that the Civil War would've ever come about over something as abstract as states rights or the legalities of secession.

Subject: Answers Date: Tue, Apr 21, 1998 18:40 EDT From: RonDMoore Message-id: <1998042122402000.SAA08765@ladder01.news.aol.com>

<< It is true that the actual physical firefight began with Southern cannon at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. However, the fact was that, prior to that act, Lincoln's stated goal -- as codified in his inaugural speach in March of that year, was to prevent secession. Lincoln specifically stated that secession was illegal and stated his intent to maintain the Union. Further, the 1860 election centered around the rights of the Southern states to secede. Indeed, the Constitutional Union Party was formed specifically to advocate the issue of secession, nominating John Bell. And, by March 1861, several states had passed legislation declaring secession to be legal. The War would not have gone on, I think, if it was simply a matter of one part of the country wanting slavery and the other part not.>>

All of the above is true, however, the entire reason that the issue of secession was on the table in the 1860 election was because the slavery question was coming to a boil. Lincoln was seen (correctly) as an opponent of the South's "peculiar institution" and his election to the presidency was seen as a threat to the slave-holding states despite his promise not to interfere with the practice of slavery in the South. The secession of South Carolina and the others was born out of a belief that the Federal government was moving toward the day when it would not only ban the extension of slavery in new territories and states, but then begin to choke off the practice throughout the US.

<<In the evalution of some historians, economic reasons for the secession began as early as the decade of the1850's.  The North had passed measures which had the effect of marginalizing Southern economic interests. For the entire decade, the South began to feel that the North had prevented them from acting on their own interests. In the meantime, the Republican Party began developing a strong anti-slavery slant. However, Southern interests were not, in origin, simply to promote slavery, nor was the North intent, intially, on banning it.>>

Yes, but again you're missing the point that slavery lies at the root of all virtually all these disputes. The southern economy (especially cotton) depended in large part on this institution and southern leaders viewed any steps against it as threatening their economic freedom. At the same time, the northern states were starting to become a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment, as exemplified in part by the rise of the Republican party and the election of Lincoln. I do not dispute the fact that the South had broader interests than the promotion of slavery, but I fail to see any other causa belli (sp?) that could possibly have sparked the conflict.

<<Also, weren't several of the southern leaders opposed to slavery? Wasn't Lee?>>

Yes and no. Lee was a man of his time -- he felt that slavery was going to pass from the land eventually and would've welcomed the end of the practice, but at the same time he also kept slaves.

<<How did you come to the decision to have the Dominion take Betazed? Did you condider a few world, and come up with that one becsue of the connection it has to the Fans, becsue of the Troi family?>>

I wanted the Dominion to take a world that actually mattered to the audience, one of the members of the Federation that we have a connection to through one of our characters, and Betazed fit the bill.