What You Leave Behind

The Founder promises the Breen that they can have Earth. Then she turns around and tells Weyoun she was lying to get their support. She talks in a perfectly normal tone of voice, and the Breen is standing just a few feet behind her with his pals. He should easily be able to hear her.

The scene in which Quark and Vic Fontaine play Go Fish was the last scene of Deep Space Nine ever to be filmed.

The episode title is most likely a reference to a quote from Pericles - "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." It may also refer to a John Allston quote - "All you take with you when you're gone, is what you leave behind."

In the script, Damar dies without saying anything. Casey Briggs asked for permission to improvise something, and came up with the word "Keep..." He has subsequently admitted that he has no idea how he would have finished the sentiment.

The idea was mooted to have the writers sitting at Quark's bar. It was dropped because they realised that they would "stick out like a sore thumb."

The writers considered having Sisko die in the climactic battle of the Dominion war, then being resurrected for the battle against the Pah Wraiths.

The original plan was also for Sisko to leave to be with the Prophets permanently - this was the "sorrow" the Prophets kept alluding to. Avery Brooks was not happy with the idea that the show would depict a black man abandoning his pregnant wife to raise their child alone, given how it could play into the negative cultural stereotypes of the present day. The producers agreed, and rewrote the scene to have Sisko stating that he would return.

Another idea was to end the series with a scene of Benny Russell sitting outside a television sound holding a script for "Deep Space Nine", indicating that their entire show was nothing more than his story. The idea was abandoned.

And another idea was to have the series end with Kira and Quark in his bar. However, the writers felt that since Jake never got to say goodbye to his father, it would be a poignant ending to show him standing looking into space, as if he were waiting for Sisko to return. Ira Behr said "The son yearning for the father was like the audience yearning for the show. As we push back from the image of him, push back from the station, farther and farther away until it's gone, it was just like, boom, right on the road we came in on. So no, there is no goodbye between father and son, but to me, the idea that Jake's waiting for Ben is better than any goodbye we could ever have had."

The original premise of the whole series was that Bajor would gradually rebuild and become a Federation member. Interestingly, this never happens - the series ends with Bajor still an independent planet.

In the Deep Space Nine novel "Unity", however, Bajor does indeed finally become a member of the Federation.

The final shot of Deep Space 9 as the camera pulls out and out was a CGI model - the first and only time the station was ever depicted as a computer image rather than a model. The change was done because having a shot pull out from inside the station off into the far distance was impossible to achieve without CGI.

Avery Brooks accidentally punch Marc Alaimo for real during their final fight. Alaimo had to take several days off after the incident. Since they couldn't wait for his return, Brooks filmed many of his shots during that sequence whilst Alaimo wasn't there. Then Alaimo came in and did the same thing in reverse.

Many of the cast came back for the party scene at the end of the show, including many of the alien characters who appeared as background extras out of makeup. By all accounts filming the party was a very emotional time for everyone, in front of and behind the cameras.