10 Times Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Went Woke
5. It's Easy To Be A Saint In Paradise
Though The Maquis Parts I and II were part of Star Trek: Voyager's conception (along with Journey's End and Preemptive Strike over on The Next Generation), they allowed Ira Stephen Behr to challenge some of Star Trek's earliest ideals. Specifically, the idea that the Earth of the 23rd and 24th centuries was a paradise, or Eden. While that may have been the case, as Commander Sisko says to Major Kira:
It's easy to be a saint in Paradise.
Behr took inspiration from the playwright Harold Pinter, whose later works often depicted (depending on the source) the 'weasels under the cocktail cabinet' (this quote is often given as 'liquor cabinet' or, in Behr's words, the 'coffee table'). What this truly means is that even in polite society, there are those things that move underfoot, unseen, though certainly sensed and heard.
While this line would later lead to the introduction of Section 31, its connection to the Maquis formed the basis for Deep Space Nine's relationship with the group of freedom fighters. It also served to highlight the difference in setting between this show and its contemporaries. It was the Western in space, removed from the back-up afforded by Starfleet. DS9 had to deal with these people because they were the closest to them.
Depicting these human colonists, so far from the centre of the Federation and so removed, also gave rise to their sympathisers. Kassidy Yates was caught delivering aid to the Maquis in For The Cause, while other Starfleet officers were heard discussing their bravery. Several officers defected, not least of which was Michael Eddington.
While Sisko's quote may seem antithetical to Roddenberry's idealised future, it served as a mission statement for what Deep Space Nine would continue to deliver.