Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual

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Cover of the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, written by Herman Zimmerman, Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler, is a description of the space station Deep Space Nine, the main setting of the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in the Star Trek fictional universe.

The book opens with a description of the station's important and dangerous position, at the mouth of a wormhole leading to Dominion space in the Gamma Quadrant and less than ten light years from Cardassian territory. The manual goes on to describe the station's construction, structure, and technology, taking note of changes made by its Starfleet and Bajoran occupiers to the original Cardassian design. It concludes with descriptions of vessels seen in the region during the Dominion war, including in-depth examinations of Starfleet's Defiant and Danube classes and brief overviews of various Federation, Bajoran, Klingon, Cardassian, Jem'Hadar, and Romulan vessels. Also included at the back of the manual are four gatefolds examining Deep Space Nine and the USS Defiant in further detail.

The manual is often criticized for its frequent errors, from minor formatting mistakes to easily noticed errors in the presented information, most notably in the descriptions of spacecraft at the end. (The scientifically-minded fan websites Ex Astris Scientia and Daystrom Institute Technical Library both gave this part negative reviews.) This slipshod feel, along with the book's many all-color illustrations and gatefolds, has caused some fans to consider the technical manual "flashy" and created largely for profit.