The Aliens of Deep Space Nine

With Deep Space Nine a stationary object, with visitors from all over the galaxy passing by, one can expect to see their share of Aliens.

What has been a major plus, established in the original Star Trek is the development of cultures. These aliens aren't just some guy with a rubber head they have a back story and their actions and attitudes hold a kind of sense.

When Deep Space Nine began it was pretty clear the Cardassians were Nazis.
They'd invaded a planet, reduced the people to slaves, and exploited the resources.

Garick we knew was a spy.

Although it is claimed he was left behind as punishment, considering his sterling work for the Obsidian Order, and the fact anything that happens at the station is almost instantaneously reported to Cardassia, proved our assumption.

At the first episode it seemed the writers intended to set the viewer's mind against the Cardassians. Oddly, we came to like Garick, and somehow sort of enjoyed
seeing Gul Dukat.

Clearly the writers hadn't expected this, so began to give us a bit more and a
bit more, and we took it.

And we wanted more.

So Gul Dukat and Elim Garick, who were never listed in the credits as part of
the cast, became part of the cast, for we wanted to see them. We wanted to
know more about Cardassia.

The Ferangi had always been distasteful trolls.

Trolls who prayed to Capitalism and worshipped greed. Yet somehow they became lovable. Somehow we wanted to see Quark every epi.

We wanted to see him bribe as he prayed, we wanted to hear the Rules of Acquisition, many of us memorising them. Instead of being a side story or comic relief, Quark and his bar became more central than the Bridge of the Defiant, than the Operation station of DS9.

The Klingons had already
gained a large following
since Star Trek, primarily,
The Next Generation.

Any scene with a Klingon or Klingons was going to catch the viewers.

Adding Worf to the cast to deal with the myriad others was brilliant.
Although we pretty much knew what Klingons would say, do and drink,
we loved them.
We loved everything about them.
The more Klingons the better.

And DS9 gave us a lot of Klingon.

The Bajorians, and their culture
we took and understood.

They prayed, they believed,
they had religious institutions
we recognised.

They even had corrupt religious leaders.

We were supposed to identify
with Bajorians, able to get them
with a minimum of info dump
and we did.

Unlike other species they were near enough to Terrans to be integrated without difficulty.

Major Kira was a central character,
part of the cast, bringing bits of her
culture with every appearance along
with references to the recent past of her people.

The Jem'Hadar were genetically
created warriors.

They were taking Klingons to
the nth degree.

Decanted, fully grown in about
three days, ready to fight and kill,
wanting only to fight and kill.

A perfect organic robot, with a few traces of humanness.

In one epi we got to see the life cycle and almost, not quite but almost began to
feel for the boy.

In another, we met one who no longer needed the drug and was becoming
more human.

It would have been an interesting twist if he had survived.

Odo, a Changeling, Dax, a Trill, and others made up the aliens of the cast.

The Vulcans didn't translate from TOS. Although they popped up in the epis they were aloof, cold, boring.The Romulans added treacherous to the list.

Other aliens were very very ugly.
Ugly and one shots.

Why?

Spending xyz $ to create a Whatisit to pass on the promenade or appear in an episode then gone; might as well use them.
And do they have to be so weird with such bad teeth?

What is evident is that well thought out aliens and alien cultures captures the imagination. We like to see human types with a different 'operating system'.