This was the first regular episode of the series to be made, but Past Prologue (1993) was chosen to be broadcast first. This explains why several firsts occur in this episode, such as O'Brien's wife and child arriving at the station and Keiko establishing the school, Jake and Nog meeting and becoming friends, Rom being introduced by name as Quark's brother, and Jadzia explaining right away to Bashir why Trills aren't interested in romance. It also explains why some details of the series had not been completely worked out yet (as in the immediately preceding pilot), such as Max Grodénchik's Rom lacking his familiar voice and mannerisms (and mispronunciation of "human"), Rene Auberjonois' Odo lacking the trademark gravelly low voice, the Bajorans not wearing their trademark earrings, and the people referred to as "Bajora".
First mention that a day on the station is 26 hours.
Some of the details of Bajoran culture were clearly still being worked out at this early point in the series. For example Ibudan, Zayra and a number of background characters are noticeably not wearing the traditional Bajoran earrings in this episode. In later episodes, virtually every Bajoran character wore them. Also Sisko refers to the people of Bajor as "the Bajora" rather than "Bajorans". This is the last time that term would be used.
When Odo is checking Ibudan's activity log in his quarters on the transport ship, a couple of the events listed on the log are "Departure from Alderaan Spaceport" and "Dinner with Della Santina". Alderaan is a planet from the Star Wars galaxy. "Della Santina" is coordinating/line producer Robert Della Santina.
Though Rom (Max Grodénchik) first appeared in Emissary (1993), this is the first episode in which he is given a name and established as Nog's father.