The Battle of the Alamo was a battle fought on Earth in 1836, between the forces of Mexico and the people of the Republic of Texas.
The battle involved two hundred Texans, holed up in the old Alamo mission surrounded by two thousand Mexican troops, led by General Santa Anna. The Texans were led by Colonels Jim Bowie, William B. Travis, and Davy Crockett. Although the Texans inflicted casualties on the Mexicans, Santa Anna ultimately prevailed; all defenders of the outpost were killed. During the battle, Travis was in command of the northern wall of the Alamo, which was the location where the Mexicans broke through the Texan defenses. (DS9: "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night", "The Changing Face of Evil")
In the first draft script of "The Changing Face of Evil", the Alamo was established as having had 189 men during the Battle of the Alamo.
In 1960, the movie known as The Alamo was filmed depicting the Battle of the Alamo. It starred John Wayne, Richard Widmark and Laurence Harvey. Vic Fontaine was familiar with it, stating that it had great battle scenes and nice sets but that it was way too long. (DS9: "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang")
By 2374, a holoprogram recreating the battle was designed by Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir of Deep Space 9. O'Brien the next year built a scale model of the mission, which the two then used to study their battle plan. One of Bashir's suggestions included building a moat around the mission. (DS9: "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night", "The Changing Face of Evil")
O'Brien and Bashir invited Vic Fontaine to join them, but he refused until after the jack-in-the-box had been defeated, at which point he agreed, "coonskin cap and all". (DS9: "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang")
The remains of the Cestus III outpost were a fort for a film about the Alamo in the 1930s. (Star Trek Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., p. 69)
Ira Steven Behr has a fascination with the Battle of the Alamo and he and Hans Beimler included a reference in "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night". Later, Ronald D. Moore and Rene Echevarria began to include references in their scripts. Some fans thought that the writers were hinting the series would end with a battle like the Alamo, which the writers had no intention of doing, having already featured such scenes in "The Way of the Warrior". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. ?)
The DS9 short story "The Best Defense" features O'Brien and Bashir using their Alamo holosuite program to try for a Texan victory.
External link[]
- Battle of the Alamo at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Battle of the Alamo at Wikipedia