Memory Alpha:AOL chats/Ronald D. Moore/ron079.txt

Subj: Answers Date: 1/26/98 1:33:35 PM Mountain Standard Time From: RonDMoore

With this many questions, I've got to just move forward. Repost anything I missed.

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O'Brien's backstory hasn't been very consistant over the years, but the idea is that he is an enlisted man who did not attend the Academy.

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We make every effort to allow our actors to do other projects and this sometimes means a character's participation in an episode will be affected. It's usually not a problem.

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We don't have another O'Brien show in the works, but we would like to do one before the year is out.

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There will be a Season 7. We hope to get everyone back.

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The intention was to dig down and reveal something in Dukat, both to the audience and to the character himself. He really did hate the Bajorans and he really does wish he'd killed them all. That's the dirty little secret he's tried not to confront head-on all these years, and now finally, he's said it out loud and accepted it about himself.

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I don't think of him as being completely evil through and through to the point where every thought, every impulse is shaded by a nefarious agenda or horrid motive. We've seen other aspects to this guy over the years. He All of that somehow makes his "evil" actions all the more dispicable, because we know that there was the potential in there for him to be a better person. But sometimes the cliches are true: Hitler loved his dog. No human being (and by extension, no Cardassian) is one hundred percent pure evil. But there is a "critical mass", if you will, where the dark deeds attributed to one person become so overwhelming that they swamp all the redeeming characteristics. Dukat is a bad guy. A very bad guy. He has a lot of blood on his hands and it's hard to see how his smile and innate charm can wipe that clean. Dukat wouldn't be Dukat if we weren't fascinated with him -- but then, we've always been fascinated with evil, haven't we?
 * can* be charming. He *can* be generous.  He *can* do the right thing.

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I believe that both Romulan and Klingon ships must drop their cloaks in order to use the transporter.

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Yes, hunger, poverty, insufficient shelter and medical care and the inability to use one's gifts to contribute are evils. But so is murder and so is the forcible subjugation of an entire people. Dukat committed both these acts and unleashed untold horrors on Bajor. We may find a reason to explain why he did all this, but that is fundamentally different from
 * forgiving* him.

Subj: Answers Date: 1/26/98 1:49:40 PM Mountain Standard Time From: RonDMoore

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They were the most obvious choices to me because they did neatly represent different aspects of his inner turmoil. We had lengthy discussions about using Ziyal as one of the phantoms, but it seemed like she would take Dukat in another direction. In his mind, Ziyal would've been the one phantom trying to rescue him, to make it all okay, and let him paper over his conflicts. (Again, we're talking about the *phantom* Ziyal and what she would represent in Dukat's mind.) That wasn't a note I wanted to sound in the drama. I wasn't trying to have Dukat struggling with the phantoms so much as with Sisko. Also, the whole issue of Ziyal would be a huge explosive trigger in his mind -- her death sent him over the edge -- and I didn't want to go there in this episode.

<<"If the events, that have transpired most recently, within the television series Voyager, the episode entitled "Message in the Bottle", will be carried over or elaborated on, in some fashion, within the Deep Space Nine program?>>

We have no plans to follow up "Message in a Bottle."

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I'm working on a show right now that will prominently feature Garak, although it's really more of a Sisko show. There are no plans for Garak to become a regular cast member.

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This is a collaborative process. The actors have insights into the characters that the writer does not and vice versa. We're very receptive to input from the men and women who actually have to stand in front of a camera and SAY THE LINES. If they're not comfortable with something, we'll make every effort to accomodate them. I have no problem with the line changes in "Waltz."

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This is the first I've heard of this. Nothing like stealing from yourself.

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Yes.

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We haven't directly answered these questions yet.

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We've considered a LOT of things. However, the demons plaguing Dukat are entirely his own.

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We have no plans to deal with any other shapeshifting races.

<<I was listening to a radio broadcast of the music from the original Trouble With Tribbles episode and I wondered what you did about the music for the DS9 episode? Did you reuse music for the original scenes or rescore the whole thing based on themes from the original?>>

We rescored the entire piece.

<<What about Dax's promotion to Captain?>>

Dax was not promoted to Captain. While in command of the Defiant, she was addressed as "Captain" but that is simply a courtesy.