[Roysten]

There have been a couple of comments about this but I was wondering what the forum as a whole thought...

When DS9 was first being created the role of the Bajoran character was instead going to be Ro Laren from The Next Generation, Forbes didn't want to be in another show and so the character Kira Nerys was created.

I personally think that Kira was the best choice as it allowed for a history with Odo and allowed her to have been more involved in recent Bajoran affiars and the end of the occupation wheras Laren was on the Enterprise and the academy for the years running up to DS9, she also wouldn't have been on the 'home side' as much Kira was being in the Bajoran Militia.

Just my thoughts, am sure there are many ways of looking at it, what do others think?

[kevin]

It's hard to speculate how much of what eventually happened on DS9 with it's character relationships if one element was replaced by an already known character - Laren etc.

I just tend to look at it as one of those fortunate happenstances that she was unwilling to commit to a series and we got Nana Visitor and Kira instead!

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I think they generally stayed true to their original plan, they just changed the name. I don't think it would have been that much different other than maybe they would have explored the consequences of Ro's decision to join the Maquis.

I always wondered if she survived the destruction of the Maquis by the Dominion.

[Buckman]

she did she is head of suricty

[Beetlescott]

She is in some of the DS9 novels, i'm not sure wich. I think she is in the Avatar series of books. I have them, but I havn't read them yet. I am very glad to have had Kira in the series.

[kevin]

I think Laren's Starfleet past might have affected where they could go with the Odo/Kira relationship.

Since Laren would have had no such history with him - it's possible that relationship could have worked out very differently.

[Odradek]

I think Laren was a more edgy character. In my opinion the writers failed with Kira.

[DevilEyes]

Originally Posted by Odradek

I think Laren was a more edgy character. In my opinion the writers failed with Kira.

Ro edgier?! Seriously? How so? How is a Starfleet officer who joined wannabe terrorists edgier than a hardcore former Bajoran terrorist who had spent almost her entire life in the Resistance? (Yes, in the novels we see Ro in the Resistance, but this was never brought up on screen, let alone with the candor it was on DS9, which did not beat about the bush and did not hide the fact that Kira had murdered many people.) If Ro somehow seemed "edgier" to you, it was because she was on Enterprise, where everyone got along and most of the characters were rather bland.

I like Ro a lot, she was my favorite on TNG, but I love Kira. In my opinion Kira was the best female character ever in Trek and one of the best Trek characters in general. I do like Michelle Forbes, but Nana Visitor was great.

Originally Posted by kevin

I think Laren's Starfleet past might have affected where they could go with the Odo/Kira relationship.

Since Laren would have had no such history with him - it's possible that relationship could have worked out very differently.

There are far more things that would have been affected by this than the relationship with Odo. Ro was a rebel in the Starfleet, but she had been an Starfleet officer. Kira was Bajoran Militia, someone committed to Bajor and its interest and not to Starfleet, and someone who, at the beginning, did not trust the Federation and did not want it there, which made things more interesting. Why do all the main characters have to Starfleet members? DS9 took the chance to change that around, to my great pleasure.

[horatio]

Some dynamics in the show might have been different with Ro instead of Kira.

Not because Kira was in the Resistance and because Ro joined the Maquis, that happened in TNG's last season (so it would not have happened had Ro been in DS9) and Ro might have gotten a Resistance background (just like O'Brien, a polymath, the Chekov of the 24th century, got some engineering skills); rather because she is not a Bajoran officer and more introverted than Kira. The latter seems to be most important in terms of interaction with other characters IMO.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by DevilEyes

There are far more things that would have been affected by this than the relationship with Odo. Ro was a rebel in the Starfleet, but she had been an Starfleet officer. Kira was Bajoran Militia, someone committed to Bajor and its interest and not to Starfleet, and someone who, at the beginning, did not trust the Federation and did not want it there, which made things more interesting. Why do all the main characters have to Starfleet members? DS9 took the chance to change that around, to my great pleasure.

Of course, there is more than my post - that indeed is only one of many things that may have been different.

I do agree that as DS9 was in some ways attempting to open up the 'rest' of the Star Trek universe and show us how things were a little farther outside the Federation heartland that having too many Starfleet officers would have been counter-productive.