Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) is an American science-fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller. The fourth series in the Star Trek media franchise, it was a production of Paramount Domestic Television, a Paramount Communications Company and a Viacom Company, and originally aired in syndication from January 3, 1993, to June 2, 1999, spanning 176 episodes over seven seasons. Set in the 24th century, when Earth is part of a United Federation of Planets, its narrative is centered on the eponymous space station Deep Space Nine, located adjacent to a wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant on the far side of the Milky Way galaxy.

Following the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount Pictures commissioned a new series set in the Star Trek fictional universe. In creating Deep Space Nine, Berman and Piller drew upon plot elements introduced in The Next Generation, namely the conflict between two species, the Cardassians and the Bajorans. Deep Space Nine was the first Star Trek series to be created without the direct involvement of franchise creator Gene Roddenberry, the first set on a space station rather than a traveling starship, and the first to have an African American as its central character: Starfleet Commander, later Captain, Benjamin Sisko (played by Avery Brooks).