ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When Rick Berman and Michael Piller created the Deep Space Nine television series, they accomplished an almost impossible twofold task. Not only did they successfully expand Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek paradigm beyond the limits of stand-alone stories centered on a ship that traveled from place to place, they set in place an arena and an initial set of characters so full of possibilities that they fueled 176 hours of a series that even in its seventh and final season showed no signs of running out of creative energy and new directions.

But simply providing fertile starting conditions is not enough to guarantee success, and Berman and Piller also deserve the highest regard for the way in which they set in place an ongoing creative team—to say nothing of their top-notch production team—that took those starting conditions and lived up to the series' promise, constantly making it even richer and more satisfying.

Dozens if not hundreds of dedicated people need to be thanked for their ongoing contributions to the series throughout its seven-year run, many of which we've drawn on for these novels. Fortunately, in the impressive Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, by Terry J. Erdmann with Paula M. Block, the full story of all those contributors through every season is told in detail, and we strongly recommend it.

But because we're limited to just these few words, we must call out only one additional star of that galaxy of talent for special acknowledgement: Just as Deep Space Nine would not exist without Berman and Piller, it would not have developed so memorably without Ira Steven Behr.

Moving beyond the television screen, it's important for us to also acknowledge that none of the novels of this trilogy could have been written without the magnificent store of Star Trek knowledge, insight, and good humor contained in the Star Trek Encyclopedia, by Michael and Denise Okuda, with Debbie Mirek, and the Star Trek Chronology, also by Mike and Denise.

In addition, we have benefited enormously from the exquisitely detailed and brilliantly illustrated Deep Space Nine Technical Manual by Herman Zimmerman, Rick Sternbach, and Doug Drexler.

In the spirit of the 33rd Rule, we would also like to offer our thanks and a shameless plug for Quark's own Legends of the Ferengi, as told to Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe, which offered fascinating insights into Ferengi culture.

For this omnibus edition of Millennium, we also pass along our special thanks to Allyn Gibson, who graciously allowed us to include his comprehensive timeline of the novels' events. All writers should be fortunate enough to have such diligent readers.

As always, we're also indebted to our editor, Margaret Clark, and to Liz Braswell, Scott Shannon, and Paula Block, for their ongoing involvement and much-appreciated contributions to the development of the entire Millennium project.

—J&G