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Deep Space Nine the physical space station is built by the Cardassians as an ore-processing facility (named Terok Nor) and used as such until it is taken over by the Bajorans and Federation at the beginning of the DS9 series.

The station has a large ore processing facility near its center. During the time when Bajor and the Federation jointly control the station, is it ever used for its original purpose as an ore-processing facility? Is the ore-processing equipment simply left to degrade in place, or is there an attempt to adapt it to Bajoran and/or Federation needs? Is the equipment removed and the space reclaimed for other purposes (e.g. living areas, hydroponic farms, cargo bays, manufacturing facilities for additional Runabouts, prison space for captured Maquis members, etc.)?

My guess is that the movement of the station from Bajoran orbit to the Denorios Belt at the beginning of the series (Emissary) more or less makes it useless as an ore-processing facility, but is this ever explored?

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  • I like to think Quark repurposed it as a premium-priced, hyper-realistic, defunct-ore-processing-facility holosuite simulation. The best in the quadrant!
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 14:57
  • @Robert Columbia Your logic is flawed, since there is no statement of where the ore that was processed came from. In "The Nagus" Nog is reading from something that says that Bajor has three moons. In "Progress" Bajor's fifth moon Jerrado is mentioned. Thus the number of Bajoran moons changes. The logical explanation is that the Cardiassians moved ore-rich asteroids into orbit around Bajor as temporary moons and mined them to pieces. Thus asteroids could have been moved to DS9's new position to continue the ore processing, if desired.
    – M. A. Golding
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 16:48

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First thing's first, it's an ore PROCESSING facility, not a means of collection. Moving it doesn't render the facility useless, just slightly more inconvenient.

Miles O'Brien says that the trip to Bajor is like 3 hours, tops, and that might be in a lower quality transport ship.

In Season 3 Episode 7, "Civil Defense", Miles says that they are working on converting the facility to a deuterium refinery instead of an ore processing facility of uridium, and that the process will take about a month.

JAKE: You really think we can convert this place into a deuterium refinery?

O'BRIEN: Absolutely. It'll take us three, maybe four weeks at the most.

In the episode, there's a problem when they try to erase a file, which sets off the security measures that the Cardassians had put in place in case of a worker revolt.

If they can eventually get around these measures, I've no doubt that the conversion will go forward.

So the answer to the question:

Is the ore-processing equipment simply left to degrade in place, or is there an attempt to adapt it to Bajoran and/or Federation needs?

The attempt is in Episode 7 of Season 3, Civil Defense.

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    The core of your answer is the quote from the Civil Defense episode. Yet you have a lot of side information before that. Could you edit this so the main point is either more prominent or some of the side information is removed? I also removed the more "discussiony" parts of the answer; remember we are a Q/A site. I added the quote in too, you can generally find these by just googling the series + episode + transcript/script.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 15:41
  • I was under the impression that that 3 hour timeframe is in an impulse only Bajoran crate.
    – IG_42
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 22:42
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    Worth noting that the 3 hour trip to Bajor is probably referring to after the station was moved to the Denorios belt. When the station was in orbit of Bajor during the occupation, the trip would probably have taken a matter of minutes.
    – ApproachingDarknessFish
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 0:56

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