‘What We Left Behind’ Doc Unveils ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ Season 8 Starship

Ahead of the Saturday night world premiere of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind, a new image from the doc was released featuring a new starship.

USS Emmett Till

Unveiled at the What We Left Behind premiere at Destination Star Trek in Birmingham, UK, was the “USS Emmett Till.” The ship is featured in an animated sequence in the doc, based on a new story that emerged from the segment where five of the show’s original writers reunite to break the story for a theoretical eighth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Today’s official press release states What We Left Behind “boldly goes where no documentary has gone before… introducing a new starship into the Star Trek canon.”

USS Emmett Till from What We Left Behind

The starship was designed by concept illustrator John Eaves, known for his work on many of the Star Trek series’ and feature films, with the team announcing that a physical collectible model of the ship is already in the works in partnership with Eaglemoss’ Star Trek Official Starship Collection.

The ship is named after Emmett Till, a young African-American man who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. The outcry over this racist attack and the subsequent acquittals of those accused of killing him became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement.

The documentary team also revealed the ship on Twitter with a brief video that shows some of Eaves’ development sketches.

This is the second element tied to the animated eighth season story from the What We Left Behind. Earlier this month the first image of the animation was released, featuring what looks like a future Captain Ezri Dax.

Image of Ezri Dax from What We Left Behind

Details on the public release of the documentary and starship model are still pending, but the film is available to pre-order now at ds9documentary.com.

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Looks amazing!

They should make season 8. Is it too late?

Yeah probably too late lol.

It’s never too late Tiger!!

Yeah I guess you’re right. I mean a year ago I would’ve laughed at the idea they would make another show with any original TNG actors again and yet here we are! :)

I hope in the future Short Treks could be used for stuff like this, exploring future stories for characters from the other shows.

TV film or mini-series is better solution fot that.

So is this an entire animated episode with voice acting and everything, or are they just going to be showing the animation while the writers are talking about their new ideas?

As I understand it, it’s selected animated sequences to go with the writers’ room segment.

Could be (and this is just a guess) that the writers slipped up when giving the interview or gave us a preview of the rumored Trek animated series storyboard? I mean DS9 Season 8 didn’t exactly end well. I remember yelling WTF at my TV asking no one in particular. “Is that it?” “Really Berman FU!” Pissed my college roommate off too, lol.

The documentary is not made by CBS. The producers of the documentary are not affiliated with the current iteration of TREK.

CBS owns Trek. So approval of the USS Emmett Till came from CBS. Now that Lee Moonves is out (and he hates Trek) hopefully whomever is stepping in could possibly be interested if the 8th season of DS9 was pitched correctly as an animated series? Reason why they’d most likely go for an animated series version is due to the fact that the acthe actors have aged out of their respected roles, assuming the season would pick up after the series finale. The Picard planned series is driving Trek fans into a frenzy. If we got something similar for DS9 that had a lot of unanswered questions…I think we’d get an overall similar reaction? Besides one could dream right? I mean look at the USS Emmet Till. Ship is sexy as all hell and could launch a new series or reboot based solely on its design. Let’s just hope we get as much good Trek as possible in the years to come my fellow Trekkies!

But isn’t the 8th season the writers pitched for DS9 would be years later like the Picard show? Just based on that picture of DAX in the uniform it does look like time has passed quite a bit.

But yes I agree with you, it would be cool if we got the Picard show as a live action and a DS9 animated show. I would watch the hell out of both lol.

And while I highly doubt it, I do hope the next CEO really cares about and understands Star Trek outside of propping up All Access. Like you, I don’t think Moonves cared about the franchise at all.

@ Tiger2: What you want is a CEO who sees TREK as a valuable asset for CBS worth investing in, but otherwise takes a hands-off approach. We are talking about the CEO of a giant company. You don’t want this person to try and run Star Trek on the side. They don’t have to “understand” it. They just have to give the producers the resources and the freedom to make good shows.

No I don’t mean that. Just someone who sees a real VISION for the franchise in the future and wants to see it thrive. Make sure its going to be nurtured and build on it the way other franchises are being built on. I don’t feel Moonves really cared about that at all. Star Trek just seem like an ends to a mean to get his pet project AA out of the gate. Another reason the 50th anniversary stalled IMO. He ran several networks, he couldn’t get one cheap TV special on CBS or Showtime produced for the anniversary?

But to be fair he did seem to want more of it once it look like it could be a sustained franchise for AA and Trek now officially has a new full time overseer even if people are not hot on him.

Kind of like the animated clips used in the TNG documentary, while writers are explaining plot points I’m guessing.

First, I am not particularly keen on this design. Second, how can it be canon?

It’s not canon, the DS9 documentary guys seem to be overstating it (that “canon” verbiage is from their press release). It’s a hypothetical season 8, none of it is official.

Yeah, I’m not fond of it either. And I don’t believe Starfleet would waste resources designing and building so many different ships. Galaxy Class, venerable Excelsior Class, Miranda, Intrepid, Sovereign, Nova and a few others would cover all the bases. Star Trek Online and the novels and stuff got carried away IMO.

Yes, but may be it was meant to place that ship in future (All Good things time period)? I only guess, but comment from Russ below “Catain Dax”, Captain Nog” and “Vedek Kira” suggests I am right…

Two captains, so there is a need for a new ship..

And I can understand some new ship designs coming along in the future to accommodate more advanced propulsion technologies, etc. But still, it just seems silly to be to shovel out so many iterative designs. I’d say it smacks of trying to sell toys but a lot of this stuff will never be seen beyond a video game or novel or whatever.

Of course, in general you are right.. Number of Romulan, Klingon, Cardasian, etc. ship types is closer to assumed future reality :)

I’d say the only reason we have not seen more versions of those ships is because they aren’t seen as often as the Federation is. The reality is people involved in this stuff like to be creative.

I’m happy to buy the toys. I love starship design and I always was annoyed by how few classes there always were in fleet shots, especially DS9. Like okay, it’s the same four ships we’ve seen in Trek for the past 20 years, spanning over a century of in-universe history…you’re telling me the Miranda-class is their most common ship after all this time? Nope, not having it.

The US Navy currently has over 20 classes of ships in active service. And that’s JUST for military applications.

Why are so many fans so obsessed with the word “canon?” Who cares if it’s canon or not? The ONLY thing that matters is whether or not you enjoy it. This is science fiction, not the Bible.

I’m not obsessed with Canon. I was only wondering why they chose that wording.

I was at the red carpet premiere in Birmingham last night. It is a truly beautiful piece of work and far and away the best Trek documentary of them all.

The storyline for a supposed episode 1 of season 8 is just stunning. We are sworn to secrecy about the storyline but I will say “Catain Dax”, Captain Nog” and “Vedek Kira”.

The HD remaster of the Sacrifice of Angels battle is just a beautiful thing too.

God I miss DS9.

Oh, so they didn’t just remaster live action footage from DS9 but did actually redo some CGI in HD as well?

I do hope you guys get a mini-series in the works, besides the Stewart/Picard one. If nothing else, an update on what the characters have been up to since the end of DS9, VOY and ENT would be a nice “closer”…or a new beginning?

You lost me at Vedek Kira…. No way would she make a greta spiritual leader… even the later season Kira was still too much of a hot head. I loved Kira’s character, but that would have been the Peter Principle with that promotion.

Wait until you see how the whole episode plays out before you pass judgement ;-) You wont be disappointed

I said the same thing until I played the DS9 expansion of Star Trek Online. Kai Kira actually worked for me.

Well I will definitely watch it with an open mind, but I don’t know.

Thanks for the report! :)

I’m glad you got to see it up close and with all the creators of the show and documentary. DS9 was an amazing show, its nice to see it this kind of love and attention. It’s weird though DS9 got more attention for its 25th anniversary than all of Star Trek got for its 50th.

If it wasn’t for the documentary (which isn’t officially affiliated with CBS) DS9’s 25th anniversary would have gone by just as quietly as TREK’s 50th anniversary did. Both didn’t really get a lot of attention outside of hardcore fan circles.

I agree but at least SOMETHING was done for DS9. Literally nothing and I mean NOTHING was done for Star Trek’s 50th. I think Paramount put out a 2 minute video on the day that got slammed here lol. Its just sad, especially when the 25th and 30th got so much attention at the time. I guess because Star Trek was just much more bigger and popular in that period, especially by the time the 30th rolled around because a lot more was going on then.

I think that’s partly why Beyond bombed because there was no hype around the anniversary. That year should’ve been a huge event for Star Trek and it was sadly ignored.

They celebrated the anniversary by putting a picture of the old cast in beyond. They put out a directors cut for the wrath of khan restored on blu ray. I think they released the animated series also in HD.

That’s total peanuts. A restored TWOK and TAS in HD seems very random celebrating the anniversary. Shouldn’t have done something TOS itself? And what about all the other movies and shows?

It’s the 50th anniversary, not the 10th.

Were you expecting restorations of all the other features and TOS in 4k. Perhaps DS9 in HD?

I was expecting the franchise as a whole to be acknowledged in some way. It wasn’t.

Great design. I allways had a softspot for Eaves visions.

Now that we get X-Files revival and revivals of so many other shows, it would be not so unlikly.
I’d love to see a season 8 of DS9, even if it just had 6 episodes or so.

Looks like the USS Emmit Till would fit in very nicely in Season 2 or (hopefully) Discovery Season 3? With a few minor tweaks to the nacell’s of course. I mean a good portion of Starfleet’s ships were lost during the Klingon war so more are needed? Also Discovery has many ship designs with long sweeping nacell’s. Those beauty’s were defiantly stripped from the NCC Enterprise E, as both are gorgeously designed. How I’d love to have my very own on ST Online too! I mean more beautifully crafted Starships is one of the many ways Discovery could win back more than a few true fans who are justifiably displeased. Especially with the Klingon Redesign/Klingon ship redesign as well, deviations from cannon and blatant plagiarism. Despite all that and Discoveries other shortcomings. I Myself enjoyed Discovery overall, embracing it, just happy to have more Trek avalible after an all too long absence in series format.

Almost too painful and sacrosanct a thing to name the ship after young Emmett Till. Not too sure about that one.

Agreed. I guess I get what the writers are going for but Starfleet tends to give ships aspirational/positive names, right? (Aside from self-referential and sometimes silly names in the background, etc.) And of course plenty are named after famous naval vessels.

I tend to agree, with caveats. Naming a base or hospital or some kind of Federation or Starfleet humanitarian operation in honor of Till would be more than appropriate, but a ship? Still, I’ll take it any day over naming a Starfleet vessel after the murderer and plunderer Hernando Cortez, which unfortunately actually happened for real on DS9.

That’s non-canonical. It could be named after some future military hero named Cortez yet to be born.

Well, okay. That’s a quite a reach, but not totally implausible. I’ll take it, I guess. 😊

(That said, in truth Columbus’ bloody sojourn in the New World really should be disqualifying for having a TOS shuttlecraft named after him, whatever his status as an explorer. But our standards for judging such things are different in 2018 than they were in 1966.)

Michael Hall,

Well, don’t forget the USS Hood, which could be honoring a Confederate general, appears in both realities

It is entirely possible the Hood is named for Lord Samuel 1st Viscount Hood of Brittan.

ML31,

Indeed, which is the basis of my initial reply to Michael, that canon allows for more worthy possibilities. However, I believe Michael’s more concerned that there’s licensed material that hints names were put on the Trek name list without thinking through all the possible negative implications. For example, the “USS” in spaceship designation was clearly chosen so that it’s US viewers would more closely identify with it on a familiar level. Unfortunately,that also means American historical figures are also more likely to come to mind for them as well.

“Vader… USS Hood”

-Star Trek ’09

I’d really like more *women* honored with these ships. For all its talk of diversity, even Discovery’s new ship classes are named after men. Like COME ON how about a McAuliffe

Good idea with the USS McAuliffe! Or a USS Earhardt (or how she’s spelled)? And *if* you’re going with Emmet Till (which I had never heard of before, but ok), then why not just name it USS Till? Because no one would recognize who it was named after? But has any other starfleet vessel actually been named with given and family name? I can’t recall any, and thus it feels wrong…

It is kind of an obvious name; I understand the sentiment but not sure it fits as a ship name, particularly one with heavy weapons — this thing looks like a fighting ship. Even a Rosa Parks, a more positive association, could be problematic — and I’m not denigrating the worthiness of the people. Wouldn’t want to see a USS MLK nuclear carrier, either.

I remember somebody misheard GANGES as GHANDI, and thought that was an odd call name for a pseudo-military vessel too.

Starfleet sees itself as explorers. I would guess by the 24th century Till’s name is (hopefully) associated with progress, social progress borne through a great tragedy, which is what Starfleet see its mission accomplishing.

The double nacelle thing may be a bit too much but man I LOVE this ship! Why couldn’t Discovery look something closer to this instead of that awkward weird elongated pancake design it is?

This guy has designed some of the most iconic ships in the franchise now (the Enterprise E is still one of my favorites and maybe we might see again in the new Picard show) but its clear he was following Fuller orders who was trying to make his stamp on everything but sadly went waaaaay too far in some places. The hero ship being one. The Shenzhou is nice though!

But he may end up working on the Picard show since he’s been on practically everything Star Trek so maybe we will see more ships like this in the 25th century at least.

The design for the USS Emmett Till seems to take some design queues from USS Voyager and USS Enterprise E (most definitely the nacelles). Since Discovery is set a century earlier it makes sense for it to look different. Of course, I am well aware that Discovery also deviates from the established TOS look. But this new ship design wouldn’t fit into the period, either. It might fit into the Picard show.

Yes you’re completely right, it does look like a sleeker 24th/25th century ship than that clunker Discovery but lets be honest most of the ships on that show look more advanced too of course. But yeah I agree this one would look out of place for this time period. I just wish they went a completely different way with Disovery in general I guess. It still just feels too ugly and out of place to me although I love its interiors. I just miss the cooler designs we got in the spin off shows.

But it is exciting about the possibilities for the Picard show now! I can’t wait to see newer and sleeker 25th century ships. So this is a taste of what’s to come probably!

Ship nitpickers note:

https://www.pe.com/2018/10/23/single-engine-wwii-plane-crashes-on-101-freeway-in-agoura/amp/

While that aircraft is vintage WW II and bears Nazi Iron Cross markings, it is actually an American, not German, aircraft.

John Eaves is talented, but his designs have a certain look to them that I’ve grown fatigued with. Don’t care for quad nacelles either. I’ll pass on this one.

Agreed on all counts.

God Eaves’ Federation starships are so ugly. Nowhere near the beauty and elegance of the Excelsior, Miranda, Constitution etc.

Why do ALL of his Federation starships have to be so pointy, angular, dark grey with useless cutouts and details everywhere?

Horrible, especially his work on Discovery. The Klingon ships there are awful.

I really like the Enterprise-E, which brought sleekness and balance back to Trek’s hero ship after the top-heavy and overly-curvy D. But Eaves’ aesthetic is starting to wear a little thin, no doubt.

Agreed completely.

John had nothing to do with the look of the Klingon ships on Discovery.

Agreed. The Enterprise-E was tolerable, but not nearly as beautiful as the D. Long live Andrew Probert!

I differ on that one. While E was not the greatest, it was light years better than D. Which had the look and feel of a hotel. While the show itself did grow on me some over the years, the Enterprise D never did. It was as ugly at the end as it was at the start. And I applauded in Generations when it bit the dust.

Is 14 a “young man?” He was a boy.

Well, technically you’re not a kid anymore with 14, so hmm… A teenager, which is becoming a young man at least…

Well I like it a lot more than Disco’s design! I will probably getting the model lol

100% agreed!!!

Ditto.

I know it is unpopular to say but I really like it, I am definitely adding it to my eaglemoss collection when it is released.

Looking at the other comments you don’t seem to be alone.

Nice design, it’s not Canon, though. Just production art.

So…are these new “stories” canon?

No, I doubt it. I don’t think it’s officially made by CBS so its probably not considered canon. But I don’t think it matters either way.

BUT… if one of the official merchandisers is making a model of it, which will be sold alongside all the “official” ships, maybe the DS9 creative types have worked out a deal with CBS. I mean it’s not like I can design my own ship and get Diamond Select to produce it AND call it a Star Trek ship.

Are they making merchandise for it? That’s pretty cool if true. But story wise, its like a 5-10 minute scene or something right? Does it really matter? Its not going to effect anything much anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, ANYTHING that returns us to the 24th century again with some of my favorite characters only gets me giddy. ;)

The documentary makers clearly have some kind of deal with CBS since they licensed DS9 footage and even remastered some of it. They probably also needed some kind of license to create the animated story boards using the original characters’ likenesses.
Since the ship was designed for the doc they can probably license it to any toy maker they want. However, if they want to sell it as a “Star Trek” ship they may need CBS’s approval. Eaglemoss has already released Star Trek ships that aren’t canon, such as the USS Aventine from the novels so there’s precedent.

But as I recall, Star Trek: The Animated Series is not considered canon. If TAS is not considered canon, the DS9 S8 animation shouldn’t be either.

@ Thorny: I wasn’t suggesting that the DS9 season 8 pitch should be considered canon. However, I don’t see that it being animated has any bearing on it being canon or not. By all accounts, Kurtzman and Co have been tasked by CBS to develop not only live-action, but also animated new TREK. If they do, this will most likely become part of canon.
I have never understood why TAS is not considered canon since it used many of the same writers and actors playing the same characters. Then again, I’ve never seen TAS myself and have never looked into why people do not consider it canon.

Its not considered canon mainly because Gene Roddenberry de-canonized it at some point (though elements of “Yesteryear,” widely considered to be the best TAS episode, have shown up in Trek 2009, Trek Remastered, and Star Trek: Enterprise). Worrying about such things is just silly, though, IMO. If you enjoy it, and it fits into your conception of the Trek universe, then it’s canon.

I’ve loved much of Eaves’ work, but I think this along with many of the Discovery ships shows that he is out of ideas…

I’m not a big fan of the ‘more than 2 nacelle’ ships but other than that, I like it. Elements of the USS Discovery and a lot of STO ships. Eaves definitely has a distinct look when it comes to his designs. With all the animated talk, I do have to wonder if there’s a chance the animated series they want for Trek will end up being a continuation of DS9. If Clone Wars can come back, why not DS9? A lot of the key players will have moved on in Star Fleet or could come back for an episode or multi-episode arc so that saves you on voice talent.

It never occurred to me but I would LOVE it if the animated show was actually a DS9 show. But for some reason I just don’t see it happening. I think TPTB now are really focused on TOS or TNG because they probably sell more, but would love to be proven wrong. I would actually be up for a new show entirely but I don’t see that happening for some reason.

An animated show would require a lower budget, though, so it could be an opportunity to go for something that doesn’t have the built-in audience that TOS or TNG have. Then again, a show on CBS All Access isn’t really bound by the same ratings requirements as a show on TV.
Still, if they do an animated show I kind of expect it to target a younger audience, so a show as mature as DS9 may not be the best fit for that.

Which is another reason why I feel an animated show has TNG written all over it. That is the one that would work best as animated. Perhaps Enterprise could as well.

I’m actually okay there wasn’t an eighth season.

If they made a Season 8 DS9, even for like a 4 episode story arc, I guarantee it would be big, even if it was online only, there is a hunger for this show after more than 20 years