Deep Dish Nine

From Fanlore
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Tropes and genres
Synonym(s)DD9, DD9!
Related tropes/genresHuman AU, Mundane AU
See alsoStar Trek: Deep Space Nine, Modern AU
Related articles on Fanlore.
A screencap of the Deep Dish 9 tumblr, captured July 2020.

Deep Dish Nine is a trope specific to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fandom. Deep Dish Nine is a semi-collaborative alternate universe where the characters of Deep Space Nine are all humans in a 21st century pizza parlor, instead of a multi-species cast in the 24th century. Some elements of the Deep Dish Nine universe are almost universally agreed upon (for example, that Captain Benjamin Sisko is the owner of the pizza parlor), while others vary from fan to fan.

The trope originated on tumblr as part of the second wave of fandom from after the series aired. The tumblr blogs Deep Dish 9 and Deep Dish Nine Archive contain most of the content for this trope. The origin appears to be a tumblr post by LadyYateXel where she posted screencaps of DS9 characters with the caption, "They all look like pizza delivery people. And I love them so much."[1][2]

Fan Interpretations

Deep Dish Nine has developed its own fanon to incorporate the themes of the series into a wildly different setting. Although the setting is 21st century Earth, some fan writers choose to reinterpret the political boundaries so that Bajor and Cardassia are countries on Earth instead of different planets. Others choose to write the various species as ethnic groups or members of rival organizations. The Dominion is often reinterpreted as a rival restaurant. Some fans like to incorporate in elements of other Star Trek series - sometimes Kathryn Janeway owns a coffee shop or Picard and Q cross paths. The topic of what sort of vehicles are an appropriate subsitute for canon ships like the Defiant is also frequently discussed.

Some characters have fairly consistent roles throughout interpretations. Julian Bashir is a medical student, usually working part time at the Deep Dish Nine pizzeria. The genetic enhancement plotline is adapted for a contemporary setting in multiple ways; kittyknowsthings writes an autistic Bashir who was forced into abusive ABA therapy as a child. Tinsnip describes her interpretation:

"So there isn’t any gengineering. But there are overachievers, and there are helicopter parents, and parents who live vicariously through their kids. Julian’s dad is kind of a fuckup, even in this world [...] But by God, when he and Amsha had a kid, this was his chance to do something amazing, his kid was gonna set the world on fire -
And Julian really wasn’t much good at anything, just this very cute but very goofy little toddler, clumsy, slow speaker, very loving but not good for anything."[3]

Odo is usually imagined as either a police officer or a security guard. It's common to have stories or fanart where Gul Dukat is reimagined as an annoying customer who harasses Kira Nerys. When Quark is included, he still owns a nearby bar.

Other characters have more variance in the roles they play. Kasidy Yates rarely features in fanfiction, but Vyc portrays her as a long-haul trucker instead of a 24th century freighter captain. The semi-official rules of the AU as outlined by the primary tumblr account erase all canon character deaths, which means fans often refer to Jadzia Dax and Ezri Dax as sisters. The nature of the Trill species is less consistently interpreted, with some writing Trills as a cultural or religious group. Kira Nerys's history in the Bajoran resistance is interpreted in multiple ways. Some fanwriters take the no deaths rule as an opportunity to write about less popular and even one-off characters like Tora Ziyal, Weyoun 6, and the baby changeling.

Fan Comments

"Other fandoms think they go insane when shows finish up, but Deep Space Nine has gone so long without canon material that when someone went, “Guys. Pizza au tho”, everyone else went, 'Yep. That makes sense. Let’s do that.'"[4]

A comment by asdfghhjjj12 with over 600 notes on tumblr

To start off, I’ll give a brief overview of the fandom. Unlike the spaceship settings of previous iterations, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine takes place on a space station orbiting a wormhole, and set itself apart from other versions of Star Trek in terms of what stories the show ended up tackling and the overall tone of the series. Like other Star Trek shows made around that time, Deep Space Nine made use of the “holodeck”, a room where characters could go to essentially larp in realistic settings as a semi-regular plot device. This allowed for characters and stories that wouldn’t otherwise be possible on a sci-fi show, like Sherlock Holmes mysteries and visits to a 1960s casino. One of Deep Space Nine’s “holodeck episodes” was “Take Me Out To The Holosuite”, which was essentially just an episode where the main cast played holodeck baseball against a team of Vulcans.

One Deep Space Nine fan, known as ladyyatexel on Tumblr, posted screencaps from that episode in 2013, commenting that the characters “look like pizza delivery people”. And so Deep Dish Nine, the pizza shop alternate universe (AU), was born. The general idea followed similar coffee shop AU-style plots, in which all the Deep Space Nine characters were human, lived in an unspecified location on Earth, and worked at (and around) a pizza shop. This fandom within a fandom grew pretty quickly and had a small but devoted following by 2014, with a few notable members (including fandom founder ladyyatexel) creating the bulk of the backstory, fanfiction, and fanart while other smaller creators dabbled in the background. All in all, it was an enjoyable little fandom, if rather weird in concept. [5]

Controversy

A fan described an incident in this fandom. See Teacup plagiarism in a fandom within a fandom by KatiaSwift (2021).

Example Fanworks

A DD9 Garak/Bashir valentine, posted to the Deep Dish 9 tumblr by the mod.

Fanfiction

The story is part of a larger series of eight works, Deep Dish Nine (series). LadyYateXel's series description explains elements of the Deep Dish Nine 'verse.

Fanart

Meta & Headcanons

Other

Additional Image Gallery

Archives & Fannish Links

References

  1. ^ Post by LadyYateXel, Archived version (Accessed July 9, 2020)
  2. ^ Post by lemonsweetie, Archived version This post credits LadyYateXel's post as the origin of the AU. (Accessed July 9, 2020)
  3. ^ DD9 Julian: my take, Archived version
  4. ^ Post by asdfghhjjj12, Archived version
  5. ^ from Teacup plagiarism in a fandom within a fandom by KatiaSwift (2021)
✪ This article was featured on the Fanlore main page in 2020
How To & About
Past Featured Articles
Featured Article Nominations
Retrieved from "https://fanlore.org/w/index.php?title=Deep_Dish_Nine&oldid=2592778"