Memory Alpha:AOL chats/Ronald D. Moore/ron084.txt

Subj: Answers Date: 98-01-30 18:42:08 EST From: RonDMoore

<>

I think that the Dominion would've "corrected" the flaws as they saw them in Keevan's genetic profile before cloning him.

<>

While I tend to agree, I hesitate to say that today's media is really that different than their now revered predecessors. The journalists of the day certainly published vile and outrageous claims about Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson during their campaigns and that pattern seems to have held true throughout the 19th century. I'm not sure if today's journalistic standards are really worse than those during the heyday of "Yellow Journalism" when the Hearst papers were in full cry and led the nation into war with Spain. I think the big difference today is the *speed* at which scandal and rumor can be conveyed to the public. Journalists have always yearned to be the first to break a big story. That used to mean beating your competitor by a day with the news, but now media outlets are driven to be first by *minutes*. Networks and local affiliates pride themselves as being the "first to reveal shocking revelations" when they've only been two or three minutes faster than their competitors. I think that's what drives the current rumor-mongering -- the need to just get it on the air or on-line
 * now* regardless of the source.

<<...I'm also thinking "out loud" and arriving at some fairly nasty conclusions, given the fact that you have now skipped over my questions about Gul Dukat--the ones where I quoted your words in the interview--three times. I figure that means you can no longer say that Dukat fans are going to like this season.>>

I think I did answer your question about what I said in the interview and how I squared it with "Waltz". It's somewhere in the last folder, but in essence I said that my comments about how the Dukat fans would react when I did your interview took place before "Waltz" and they they reflected my thinking *at that time*. At this point, I don't think we can keep playing the game of "is he a good guy or isn't he?" like we did before. "Waltz" showed us something dark and ugly in Dukat's soul. That's not to say he's 100% evil -- no one is. I've said over and over again that we see him as a villain, but that he's a complex character with many different facets to his personality. I continue to see him that way. He's capable of good, but something deep down keeps him from ever truly turning the corner.

<>

I don't think this is a guy thing. Dukat was and is a bad guy. We made him a charming, multi-layered bad guy, but he's still a bad guy.

Subj: Answers Date: 98-01-30 18:50:46 EST From: RonDMoore

<>

Well, obviously I watch the show. But there's very little I can do to watch it as a truly disinterested, objective viewer. I'm always going to see it through a different prism than the audience. But to be fair, your view on Dukat is not a universal one and many people have written on these very boards that they've never seen him as anything but an evil man.

<>

That's where we disagree. Dukat has never made any pretense of liking the Bajorans or feeling guilty about the Occupation. Remember that when he first learned that Ziyal might still be alive, he was willing to kill her because of her Bajoran blood. He's always said that one day the Cardassians would reclaim Bajor as their own and always had a bitter anger against people like Kira who fought to free their world. He's made many, many statements about the superiority of the Cardassians to the Bajorans and never once questioned his right to dominate them or kill them if they got in his way.

<>

Spocko will not be making a DS9 appearance. Neither will Sela.