In 2369, Cardassian forces finally withdraw from 70 years of Bajoran occupation -- leaving the planet, the people and an old orbiting mine station stripped and depleted. Asking for Federation aid, the Bajorans get widowed Commander Ben Sisko to head up the joint team -- including a shapeshifter constable and a feisty Bajoran liaison. Still bitter from his wife's death against the Borg at Wolf 359 three years earlier, Sisko's heart is not in his new command at DS9. But first contact with Bajor's "gods" and the discovery of their "temple," a stable wormhole across 70,000 lightyears to the Gamma Quadrant, suddenly gives him a hot command and a new outlook.

On a distant outpost, an untested crew embarks on an unprecedented journey.

Kira has barely gotten to know her new DS9 colleagues or settled in as a "legitimate" officer of post-occupation Bajor when she has to confront an old fellow freedom-fighter who can't give up the fight -- and the infamous Duras sisters from TNG are a surprise part of his plans.

Odo, the station's mysterious, gruff and yet incredibly fair shape-shifter constable, falls under suspicion for a Bajoran's baffling murder -- and xenophobic hatred rears its ugly head in the station's rush to judgment. Meanwhile, Chief O'Brien's wife Keiko opens a school for the station's youth, and convinces Quark's brother Rom to send his own son, Nog.

An aphasia-like virus planted in DS9's food replicator system by the Bajoran underground against their onetime oppressors lies dormant until being activated during refurbishment.

The first two species to visit through the wormhole are hardly ceremonial: one, described only as "Tosk," is being hunted in a formal, ritualized sport that both he and his pursuers enjoy.