(though it's difficult to think of a more colonialist name than "Deep Space 9"—the existence of a "deep" implying the existence of a "shallow," i.e., closer to the center of the Federation. so if the name was the Bajorans' idea, it must have been with a certain bemused irony about what the Federation thinks is the boondocks)

@aparrish I think the "frontier medicine" scene in The Emissary confirms this line of thinking, except Kira is more offended than amused

@technomancy honestly a testament to Kira's bottomless restraint that she didn't punch him in the face then and there tbh

@aparrish The Federation seemed to put “Deep Space” stations in border zones, so I’ve always wondered if “deep” meant “politically unstable”.

@aparrish My recollection from the last time I thought about this and looked stuff up: "Deep Space" is a designation for space stations that are relatively far from other Federation outposts, not from the center of Federation space, and the Bajorans allowed the Federation to name Terok Nor that way because at the time they were petitioning to join the Federation, and if they joined the station would be renamed (again).

@noelle yeah, that makes sense! it just seems weird to me that the federation would insist on a name like "deep space 9" which—though maybe a technically accurate designation—doesn't have any real material effect? like who was the godforsaken starched-up line of pips in san francisco who was like, "NO, the Bajorans can't call it 'Prophet's Hope,' look at the survey, it's clearly deep space, and this is CLEARLY the ninth of them"

@aparrish Comedy option: someone reprogrammed the universal translator to translate "Prophets' Hope" (or whatever) in Bajoran to "Deep Space Nine" in English, and vice versa, so the Bajorans all think the Federation are calling the station "Prophets' Hope" and the Federation all think the Bajorans are calling it "DS9".

@noelle much more believable that the "universal translator" is a patchwork of one-off statistical models and hardcoded politically-motivated exceptions than a magical device that automatically knows all languages imo

@aparrish makes sense to me that they would use the Cardassian name. Using an enemy’s foreign word keeps it emotionally distant. It’s a form of othering (in this case, justifiedly so).

@mike @aparrish

"Dukat's Codpiece"

@brightneedle the federation wasn't occupying the station though, just administering it, and intra-fictionally the Bajorans *invited* the Federation. to me it seems weird on the surface that the Federation would insist on a name like "Deep Space 9" *and* weird that the Bajorans wouldn't want to control what the station was named, *and* weird that the Federation wouldn't immediately cave to that demand as a gesture of good will or something?

@aparrish once again wishing Kira were real....

@aparrish tho really—Opaka. I was in a gchat earlier which turned to how good Opaka is.