Every Woman Needs a Pair of Red Shoes...

Excuse me Mr Wolfe,

What is your opinion on Jadzia/ the Trill in general as a metaphor for the trans community or the trans experience?

Was this something the production team were thinking of when they were writing the Trill/Jadzia at the time, or were you thinking along different lines for them? If so what did you have in mind then?

Thank you for your time.

I'm very happy that it seems like trans fans and the trans community have embraced Dax/the Trill. It was something we weren't hyper aware of back in the day, though for my part at least, I definitely thought of Dax as queer. Mostly, day to day, we just wrote Jadzia as Jadzia and Ezri as Ezri and both of them as Dax, though her past lives as both male and female were always on our minds.

So I'd say, from my perspective, it was about 40% intention, 60% happy accident. It's possible other writers, Terry, and Nicole were more aware of what we were doing though. Or less. I can't speak for anyone but me.

Recently discovered your account. So cool that you're sharing your experience with us! I discovered Star Trek during the pandemic and have since become utterly obsessed. DS9 was the best by far!

I would love to hear more about the writers! Were you all fans of trek when you were hired, or were some unfamiliar with it? Do you all keep in touch and share opinions about the writing on other trek shows? Is some of the magic lost from having seen behind the scenes, or does it enhance it?

Thanks!!

All of us were definitely familiar with STAR TREK (both TOS and TNG) when we joined DS9. In fact, most of us had worked on TNG at some point, even if it was just as a freelancer (like me). I think our degree of fandom varied. I would have characterized myself as a big fan of TOS and a casual fan of TNG when I was invited in to pitch to TNG, mostly because I fell off the bandwagon after the rough first season. But I watched episodes every night in syndication to prep for my pitches, and I definitely became a fan once I saw how much the show had improved after I gave up on it.

I'd say Ron and Rene were probably the biggest fans. They got into TV because they wanted to write STAR TREK, more or less. I'd say Pete Fields was probably the least invested in the franchise, in that by the time he came on, he'd been writing TV since MAN FROM UNCLE, so to him, it was just another show (one he liked a lot) and another gig. The rest of us were somewhere in between.

We all talk from time to time. I picketed with Ira a few weeks ago. I saw Brad and David on the picket lines over the past few weeks as well. We're not all super-close but it's always great to see each other. Sometimes we talk about current shows, but honestly, we usually talk about each other's families and how our lives are going.

As for the magic, it can be a little hard to watch STAR TREK now as a casual fan and not second guess things or wonder how I might've done a particular scene or episode, but I'm usually able to get past that to enjoy the latest LOWER DECKS or SNW. I still love STAR TREK in all its forms and I'll always been proud of the work Ira and the rest of us did DS9. I'm deeply blessed and grateful to call Ira, Ron, Rene, Hans, Brad, David and Jim my brothers. And I miss Michael, Pete, and Evan a lot.

If Jake/Ziyal had happened… how do you think their respective dads would’ve felt about that? :D

I think Sisko would have been worried about potential entanglements, but otherwise would have been fine with it. Ziyal was sweet and age-appropriate for Jake, so Sisko probably would've approved and been supportive.

Dukat would have pretended to approve, then tried to find a way to use the situation to his advantage. If he couldn't have done that, he would've become enraged. Because Dukat.

I know it's a long shot, especially with all the terrible-ness from the studios right now, but what're the odds (in your opinion) that we ever get to see Avery Brooks reprise his role? Or any of the cast for that matter? I got excited to see Quark and Kira in Lower Decks but... I need my Space Dad back yo :(

Also, thanks for what you worked to make. I didn't grow up watching DS9 as a kid, but I found it as an adult and that 'Cardassian eye sore' on the edge of the galaxy has gotten me through some real low points in life. Best to you!

From what I understand, Avery is fully retired and not working anymore, so I don't think him appearing as Sisko is likely. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I doubt I will be.

As to other actors, I'm not looped into the behind-the-scenes on the current Star Trek shows, and that'd be their decision. I have no idea what they might or might not be planning. It was great seeing Kira and Quark on LOWER DECKS though.

Rewatching DS9 with a park, he’s never seen it before. We are watching In The Hands of the Profits. Winn was such a wonderfully horrible character and my friend already hated her two scenes in. Had you and the other writers sketch her personality in, or did you come up with her horrible personality yourself? One of my favourite characters to hate on tv. Deliciously awful.

I pretty much came up with how Winn speaks and acts. I based her on one of the more horrible nuns that taught at my grammar school crossed with a friend's fanatical Fundamentalist Christian mom. They were both terrible, judgmental people who talked oh so sweetly.

But the truth is, I wanted someone outwardly sweet as pie to play her. My ideal casting was Sandy Duncan. Someone you couldn't imagine as evil, so it would take listening to her words and paying attention to her actions to realize how vile she actually was.

And then Ira and Michael decided to cast Louise, who was one of the nicest, classiest women around but was also someone who could just radiate evil for a performance when she wanted to. So while she wasn't my original idea, obviously she was spectacular and added another whole level of bad to the character.

It was a match made in the Fire Caves!

with regards to writing Bajor as being influenced by the Israel/Palestine conflict--I hope you can understand why it might be upsetting that, assuming Bajor=Pal and Cards=Israel, that you're putting Jews in the place of literal lizard people? I really really hope that's not what you mean, but I can't be sure when antisemitism is so pervasive in leftist spaces (and right wing ones. And everywhere else.)

Bit of a charged question, but I do say "Ask me ANYTHING," so here's my honest response:

If Americans can sometimes be the inspiration for the Federation, the Ferengi, the Cardassians, AND the Dominion, then Israelis can be the inspiration for the Bajorans in some situations and the Cardassians in others.

Over the long arc of history, every nation can be both a light and a shadow, both hero and villain. To deny that is to deny our responsibility when our governments or people act horribly. Your own military called a recent attack on a Palestinian town by Israeli settlers a "pogrom." IMO, to point that out and say it's a bad thing is not antisemitic. It's anti-pogrom.

Also, again, from my perspective, given that not all Jews are Israelis and not all Israelis are Jews, Israel =/= Judaism any more than Italy = Catholicism.

Your world view may vary.

Hi, longtime fan! I just found your blog on tumblr. I am watching ds9 with my wife for the first time. As queer non binary folks, we get a lot out of Dax's representation and storyline. As well as the general queer nature of the show. Did any of this come to mind while the show was being produced? Ds9 always came off as a more queer-friendly star trek show than some of the others. That might just be my perception/bias though.

I'm glad you and your wife are enjoying the show. If you've gotten to "Rejoined" yet, I think you can see that we definitely thought of Dax as queer. To be honest though, I don't think we were fully aware of the impact the character would have on the queer and especially trans community. It's been gratifying over the years to see how positively she's been received.

I do think we tried to push the limits of queer representation in the show, as best we could given the times and the comfort level of the people who paid the bills. Ira has said he wishes we'd done more, that we could've pushed even harder, and maybe that's true. But it's good to hear our efforts resonate for you even 30 years later.

Thanks for watching and Happy Pride Month!

You'd mentioned a few asks back that your favorite Dresden ep to write was "Things That Go Bump" -- it's one of my favorites to re-watch! How hard are bottle episodes to write? What sort of considerations do you have to make for pacing, dialogue, etc, that you don't need to consider nearly as much for a more standard format?

I enjoy writing bottle shows, but they do create a bit of a challenge.

One big one is how to transition between scenes. On DS9, that wasn't too challenging, because we had so many standing sets, but on THE DRESDEN FILES episode, which was completely contained in Harry's shop/loft/lab, it was more difficult, especially because as the episode progressed, the darkness swallowed more and more of the set.

One trick for transitioning between scenes without actually moving locations is what's known as a "French scene." This is when the location stays the same, but the characters in it change. Every time someone enters or exits, that's a new "scene," because the change in characters changes the dynamics. I used that a lot in "Things That Go Bump," but the classic example of this is the stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers' movie "Monkey Business." We used this trick a few times. Check out Kira's "These are my friends" scene in "The Circle."

Dialogue is very important in most bottle shows. The challenge here is to vary up the emotions and types of interactions from scene to scene so things don't get repetitive. See for example DS9's "The Wire" and how each Garak story hits a different emotional chord.

It helps to have a mystery to solve. In "The Wire," it's "What's the real story of Garak?" In "Bump," it's "What's causing the Darkness?"

It's also important to use rising stakes. Moving from set to set in most shows gives the feeling of forward plot momentum, but you can't do that in a bottle show. So it's best to have clear stakes that get more dire as time goes on. Garak's deterioration in "The Wire" or the closing darkness in "Bump" are examples of this.

Hope that answers your question!

This is just me being a fangirl but having gone back and watched Andromeda recently, I freaking love Andromeda :D I especially love the quotes at the start of each episode.

Thank you! I came up with the quotes as a way to create a greater context and explore the backstory of the fallen Commonwealth without actually having to show it, plus give a bit of thematic material from time to time.

Glad you enjoyed them!

I hope the strike is going okay! We're behind you 100%.

What are you doing with your time due to the strike?

Best of luck!!

I have to picket 4 hours a day M-F. Then I have half a day to myself. Last strike, I wrote most of my first novel, THE GOBLIN CROWN. I'm trying to decide what to write this time around. I need something to work on to stay sane, so I'm debating a few different projects.

Thanks for the support!

Is there a storyline that you really wanted on DS9 or 4400 that you really wanted/fought for but for whatever reason (network, show runners, etc) it just didn't happen? A story arc, a character reveal, etc.? If so, can you tell us about it?

I've answered this a bunch of times, but for DS9 I had a time travel story where the Defiant appeared at a critical battle in the Klingon/Federation Wars and Sisko realized he had to massacre the Klingon fleet to preserve the timeline. I later turned this into "Angel Dark, Demon Bright" for ANDROMEDA.

For THE 4400, I really wanted to see what Seattle/Promise City would've been like in Season 5, but alas, twas not to be.

What are the best ways people can support the strike? Are there things we definitely shoud ir should not do?

As per my previous ask, cancelling your streaming subs might be a good way to go, especially if you tell them you're doing it in support of the WGA and won't renew until they sign a deal.

Thanks for the support!

I hope the strike is going okay! We're behind you 100%.

What are you doing with your time due to the strike?

Best of luck!!

I have to picket 4 hours a day M-F. Then I have half a day to myself. Last strike, I wrote most of my first novel, THE GOBLIN CROWN. I'm trying to decide what to write this time around. I need something to work on to stay sane, so I'm debating a few different projects.

Thanks for the support!

I hope the strike is going okay! We're behind you 100%.

What are you doing with your time due to the strike?

Best of luck!!

I have to picket 4 hours a day M-F. Then I have half a day to myself. Last strike, I wrote most of my first novel, THE GOBLIN CROWN. I'm trying to decide what to write this time around. I need something to work on to stay sane, so I'm debating a few different projects.

Thanks for the support!

I've seen interviews of various Trek actors talking about having to deliver lines "word perfect," as exact as in the scripts. Was this a producer directive or a writers room directive? What was the reasoning behind it?

True. This was a tradition that was established before my arrival at DS9, but I suspect the reasoning was that the complicated science fiction plots, technobabble, and Federation mythology needed to be kept consistent and understandable and that the best way to do that was to hue to the words we hammered together in the Hart Building.

A lot of our amazing cast members worked extensively in the theatre or had theatre training, and that's the rule there, so they didn't seem to chaff too much at it.

If the actors wanted to change anything, they'd call us up and we'd discuss it. Honestly, we'd usually approve the changes, but they were rare.

I was always in awe of how the cast was able to follow this directive and deliver exactingly accurate performances while still adding so much emotional depth and character to our words.

And they definitely spoiled me for most of the work I've done since Star Trek.

I think I read somewhere that one of the DS9 writers tried to pitch a musical episode based on a dream he had where the characters got a virus that forced them to sing instead of speak. Is this true? It sounds like it would have been a hilarious episode.

Yes. That was me. The dream was me watching the dailies and realizing I'd made a terrible mistake.

The Romulans and Cardassians feel like they have a similar species concept. How do you separate them?

I feel like the Romulans are Imperialistic and Machiavellian while the Cardassians are Colonialists and Fascists. I know those are small distinctions, but for example:

Romulans are happy with tribute. Cardassians want to occupy, exploit, and exterminate.

Romulan trials might be politically motivated, but probably follow a set procedure and if you pull the right strings, you might get a fair trial. Cardassian trials are Orwellian and EVERYONE ends up guilty, often for crimes they did not commit (if anyone ever actually tells them what they're charged with).

Romulan government is a constant shifting oligarchy made up of numorous factions plotting against each other. Sudden coups are not uncommon. Cardassian government is a faceless, implacable bureaucracy which crushes all dissent. Coups are rare.

The history of the Romulan Empire would be written by Edward Gibbon with an assist by George R. R. Martin. The history of Cardassia would be penned by Kafka, Huxley, and Orwell.