One Little Ship

If the Defiant is, as Sisko said, nothing more or less than a warship, then why does it keep getting scientific research missions? It was used for generating a wormhole in "Rejoined", and for investigating the anomaly in this episode. Surely a dedicated science vessel would be far better equipped?

When O'Brien has to leave the ship, Bashir quite correctly says he will have trouble breathing because his body can't absorb the very large (to him) Oxygen molecules. Great, excellent bit of clear scientific thinking by the writers! Of course... he could just put on an environmental suit from the Runabout, which would have an Oxygen supply with molecules that had shrunk just as much as he had.

Isn't the whole point of the locked Ketracel White box defeated if the Vorta just gives it to the Jem'Hadar, along with telling them how to open it?

Kira cracking up about the prospect of the Runabout being shrunk was an attempt by the writers to acknowledge the absurdity of the premise and make sure that the audience accepted it as a more lighthearted episode.

Fritz Sperberg also played Ranek in Voyager's "Body and Soul".

One idea for the episode was to have the Jem'Hadar hold a gun to a Defiant crewmember's head and tell Sisko he would kill the man unless Sisko helped to repair the Defiant. Sisko would refuse, reassuring the man that it would be alright - only to have the Jem'Hadar murder him. The scene was ultimately judged to be too harsh for a lighthearted episode.

There were plans to continue to explore the idea of an "Alpha quadrant subspecies" of Jem'Hadar in future episodes, but the idea was dropped and the new type was never mentioned again.

Ira Steven Behr and René Echevarria both subsequently wished that they could have used a less serious race than the Jem'Hadar for this episode's threat. One suggestion was to have Pakled invaders.

Behind the scenes this episode was referred to as "Honey, I Shrunk the Runabout".

René Echevarria came up with this idea for a TNG episode, but never pitched it to the producers at the time. He pitched it to Jeri Taylor during season 6 of TNG, but she rejected it. He also pitched it several times during his stint on Deep Space Nine, until finally Ira Steven Behr accepted it.

Gelon mentions that their mission is to go to Coridan to attack the dilithium miners there. This is a reference to the TOS episode "Journey to Babel", which mentions Coridan as a prospective member of the Federation which is rich in dilithium.