 This episode expands the story about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, which in the Deep Space Nine story, ended just a few years before the main events of the television show but had lasted for decades.Cardassia had been fighting an interstellar war with the United Federation of Planets, but a somewhat fragile peace had been achieved relatively recently.This episode had Nielsen ratings of 4.6 when it was broadcast in 1998, which equates to about 4.5 million viewers.