Lower Decks

In ‘How I Got These Scars’ #30, I wrote about the ten ‘Deep Space Nine’ writers who comprised the backbone and vision for the Star Trek series that is widely considered, if not the most popular, to be the best of the five live action TV projects. In this special series, I’m going to explore the individual contributions of those writers, which continues with the man who grew into a Star Trek institution, Ronald D. Moore.

As for what he’s been up to since, I don’t think I really have to mention that, but of all the careers of DS9 or Star Trek writers in general, Moore may be among the most famous. A fan who pitched a script for the third season of ‘The Next Generation,’ he quickly attracted the attention of Michael Piller as a vital new contributor to the franchise. Among his best episodes for TNG were “The Defector,” “Relics,” “Tapestry,” and “All Good Things…”, which he worked on with Brannon Braga, not to mention ‘Star Trek: Generations’ and ‘Star Trek: First Contact,’ twenty-eight episodes (and, well, two films) in all. But that doesn’t even cover the huge debt modern Star Trek owes him for all the work he did on the Klingons, which no doubt helped prepared him to work on an entirely different mythology later on. Before ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ of course, came his work on DS9.

3×1 “The Search, Part I” – Ronald D. Moore, Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Following the conclusion of TNG, Moore joined the migration to DS9, which he was ably suited for, having already provided Star Trek with the most serialized storytelling it had seen.

3×3 “The House of Quark”
His first DS9 Klingon episode took a peculiar turn when it featured the irascible Ferengi Quark in the lead role.

3×9 “Defiant”
As the strongest link between TNG and DS9, Moore writes a Riker episode.

3×13 “Life Support” (w/Christian Ford & Roger Soffer)
While it isn’t much loved by the fans, this one’s always been one of my favorites, an improvement over Moore’s own moral dilemma in TNG’s “Ethics.”

3×21 “The Die Is Cast”
Moore’s most notable contribution to the series arc sees the Cardassians play right into the hands of the Dominion, but the highlight is the contest of wills between Odo and Garak.

4×6 “Rejoined” – Ronald D. Moore & René Echevarria
Remember the Trill? This is probably when Moore realized how much more complicated he could make things with DS9, even though he’d certainly been doing much of that earlier.

4×10 “Our Man Bashir” (w/Robert Gillan)
Moore realizes the expanded potential for fun as well!

4×12 “Paradise Lost” – Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe & Ronald D. Moore
He never really got the chance to work on the series arc on his own, though. This just wasn’t going to be his series. I wonder how he was going to compensate…

4×15 “Sons of Mogh”
Isn’t it strange that it took him so long to do a Klingon episode in the Klingon season? For all the work he continued to do with them, though, this was his best DS9 effort.

4×18 “Rules of Engagement” – Ronald D. Moore, Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Oh, right, another Klingon episode. Probably more notable for the fact that here he’s being trusted to initiate two new members to the writing family in Thompson and Weddle, basically returning the favor Piller gave him.

4×22 “For the Cause” (w/Mark Gehred-O’Connell)
Buttering me up by kicking off the Eddington-is-a-Maquis-and-oh-a-traitor saga, which also happens to involve Sisko and his lady friend Kasidy Yates.

5×3 “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places”
Mixing and matching his DS9 Klingon experience, Moore returns to “The House of Quark” and heats up the romance between Worf and Dax.

5×5 “Trials and Tribble-ations” – Ronald D. Moore, René Echevarria, Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler, & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Yeah, another contributor to this episode.

5×11 “The Darkness and the Light” (w/Bryan Fuller)

5×16 “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” (w/Jimmy Diggs)
One of the definitive Bashir episodes, for a number of reasons, which also marks Moore on another character.

5×21 “Soldiers of the Empire”
A key DS9 Worf episode sees him invited to the House of Martok, which also means this is an important episode for Martok, too, as an emerging key recurring character.

5×25 “In the Cards” (w/Truly Barr Clark & Scott J. Neal)
A personal favorite, this is Moore having fun again, in grand fashion.

6×3 “Rocks and Shoals”
Surprising handing Weddle and Thompson the Klingon-heavy episode before it, Moore tackles the Jem’Hadar instead as part of the epic six-part season six opener.

6×7 “You Are Cordially Invited”
Part one of Moore’s fallout stories from the six-part arc, Worf and Dax get married, and various levels of celebration ensue.

6×11 “Waltz”
Part two, and a personal favorite, Moore deftly portrays Dukat’s descent into madness following his devastating losses, career and daughter, during the retaking of the station.

6×16 “Change of Heart”
Another Worf/Dax episode doesn’t quite turn out as magically, forcing far too much drama and consequence, basically putting the brunt of the relationship on Worf. Really, Ron, Dax was pretty tough, too.

6×22 “Valiant”
Tackling the second Defiant-class vessel and the cadets who end up in command (consider it the worst-case scenario of Kirk’s rise to command in ‘Star Trek’), with Jake and Nog thrown in for good measure (basically the second episode in a row for Moore that features but doesn’t really our cast).

6×25 “The Sound of Her Voice” (w/Pam Pietroforte)
But he recovers nicely for another nice change of pace episode that takes the heat off the war-ravaged crew and allows for a little reflection.

7×4 “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”
Gosh, this one’s so random it seems more like an Ira Steven Behr effort (no offense, Ira!) than Moore, who usually connects better with this sort of episode. But I liked it, even if it’s not a huge fan favorite. Finally, for the series obsessed with baseball, a trip to the park.

7×7 “Once More Unto the Breach”
Moore writes the ultimate DS9 Klingon episode, combining the egos of Worf, Martok, and Kor.

7×10 “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (w/David Mack & John J. Ordover)
Probably Moore’s best DS9 episode, he finally connects in a big way with Nog and his circle of friends, including our favorite holosuite lounge singer Vic Fontaine in one of the most poignant episodes of the series.

7×15 “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”
Taking up Section 31 from Weddle and Thompson, Moore ups the ante by bringing the drama straight to Romulus in a fan favorite thriller.

7×19 “Strange Bedfellows”
7×22 “Tacking Into the Wind”
7×24 “The Dogs of War” – René Echevarria, Ronald D. Moore & Peter Allan Fields
Rounding out his thirty contributions to the series, Moore works on three final-ten episodes. Easily proving himself as one of the most important Star Trek writers of the modern era, he then went on to reinterpret the wheel by making a legitimate franchise out of BSG.

Projects after DS9: ‘Voyager,’ ‘Roswell,’ ‘Battlestar Galactica’