10 Amazing Behind The Scenes Secrets Of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

When the Dominion were first introduced in Season 2, the long-term plan for them was to start and end with Season 3's two-parter The Search. They might be occasionally mentioned or featured in one-off episodes, but they were seen more as a part of Odo's backstory than a part of overall narrative direction of the show.

However, having created what was, effectively, a mirror-image of the Federation itself on the other side of the wormhole, Ronald D. Moore and Ira Steven Behr lobbied that this should be a major part of the show's identity going forward. After all, if you have two big dogs barking at each other between a glass door, why wouldn't you show the audience what happens when it finally opens.

Despite their best efforts though, Executive Producer Rick Berman was determined to keep Deep Space Nine as an episodic show, and didn't want any major story arcs to span its forthcoming seasons. Thus it would likely have stayed that way, had he not departed in 1995 to oversee the launch of Star Trek: Voyager. With Paramount desperate for new ideas to reinvigorate the audience, and Moore and Behr finally free to go in what direction they saw fit, the Dominion War became the entire central focus of the show's reamaining seasons.