DU Trekkrs: tell me about the Bajorans and Cardassians

[AlienGirl]

Telll me what's up with them, it looks like an interesting plot-thread. Where did the Bajorans end up living? Was there ever peace achieved between them (could there be)? What else happened in that plotline?

Tucker

[MASSAFRA]

1. The first episode repeated this week.

I was amazed how similar it sounds to what is going on in Iraq.
The Cardassians (US) controlled Bajor (Iraq) for 50 years and stripped the planet of its resources. The Bajorans had a resistance force and the Cardassians departed. Now it is up to the Federation (UN) to bring stability to the planet and rebuild.

[arcane1]

4. Cardassia considered the Bajorans to be "terrorists"...

due to the guerilla nature of their resistance (as most of them are..)

and of course there are elements on Bajor that are not too hip to being allied with and dependant upon the Federation, since the Feds are also restoring relations with the Cardassians..

going back and watching DS9 eps now is often very revealing, there are some very fascinating stories coming out of that show..


that said, you would be amazed at the number of right-wingers that populate the Trek boards...

[NewHampster]

2. Sorry I'm only worried about the Xindi

Reptilians and Insectoids this week.

[Mobius]

3. ok

the Cardassians invaded Bajor (home planet) and occupied it for a long while, implementing Nazi like tactics with "work" camps and brutality. They took over Deep Space Nine the space station in orbit, which was Bajoran in origin I believe. I believe the Cardassians were forced to leave Bajor after a treaty with the Fedreration deemed Bajor in Federation Space. The Bajorans live on thier homeworld with Mysterious "Prophets" living in the wormhole that leads to the Gamma Quadrant.

[hyphenate]

5. Whoa

That's not a quick summary. The entire 7 seasons of Deep Space Nine revolved around the Cardassians and the Bajorans. In Next Generation, they only talked about it in the last few seasons, and only peripherally at best.

Deep Space Nine was all ABOUT the Bajorans and the Cardassians. The stable wormhole that lead to the other quadrant made the conflict between the Cardassians and the Bajorans more strategic to the Federation, which finally helped act as a go between during that war. The Cardassians were a conquering people, and while they (TPTB) they used the "Maquis" on Next Gen as a pivotal plotline (and as a catalyst to launch Voyager), that was pretty much resolved by the time DS9 was going well. The Bajorans had rebelled against their oppressors (the Cardassians) and there was a "stable" peace treaty between the Cardassians and the Bajorans.

The Bajorans occupied several planetary colonies themselves, but oppression lead to a lot of their technical achievements being lost or forgotten, and the colonies were not very advanced in some cases.

You can check out the main Star Trek website, or for an overall view, try www.tvtome.com for Deep Space Nine to see more about the alliances and such.

[AlienGirl]

7. Reparations for the Bajorans?

Did the Bajorans get any kind of reparations? Should they have?

Tucer

[hyphenate]

9. Er, no

Throughout the entire series, the Bajorans on DS9 continued to hate the Cardassians who hung around a lot regardless of them not being wanted much. They basically served as the continuous "evil" presence until the bad guys from the Gamma Quadrant made the Cardassians look like a bunch of boy scouts in comparison. The "Jem-Hadar" were the main soldier bad guys from the Gamma Quadrant, who answered to the Dominion, which was run by a group known as "The Founders".

The DS9 station, when under Cardassian occupation was called "Terrok Nor."

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

11. Oh, they probably asked for something.

There was a program in place for the Cardassians to return several stolen artifacts, but I don't remember much beyond that. The Bajorans certainly deserved some sort of reparation, but they were cynical enough to accept that they probably wouldn't get any.

Despite the valiant efforts of the resistance, there was no way the Bajorans could have won freedom for themselves; the Cardassians were too many and too powerful. Bajor was liberated under the terms of a treaty between the Cardassian Empire and the United Federation of Planets, after a brief but nasty war. A continued Federation presence in the area, based on the Cardassian space city Terrok-Nor (renamed Deep Space 9 by the Feds), was the only thing keeping the Cardassians from coming back. The Bajoran government needed to appease the Federation, and the Feds' primary interest was maintaining peace with Cardassia.

As you can imagine, many Bajorans weren't too happy about that. A lot of Federation citizens were upset with the treaty as well; several outlying planets were ceded to Cardassia in exchange for more valuable territory. This led to the formation of the Maquis, a rebel faction made up of Bajorans and Federation expatriats.

A lot of people panned DS9 because it was so different from the first two series, but that's what I think made it so much better. There was a real plot connecting the episodes together, with opportunities to actually examine issues in detail.

[hyphenate]

14. The one major factor

I liked about DS9 was the characterizations. Next Gen was often more about plot and sub-plot than about the people--I honestly don't think we learned as much about each of the leading characters on NG as we did on DS9, including and especially the characters who "transferred" in from Next Gen, Miles and Keiko O'Brien and Worf, for example. Once they were on DS9, they came to life a lot more, and were far more rounded.

DS9 had so many great characters overall. There was continuity in many of them, backstory and more. My favorites will always be Quark and his brother Rom, and Jake and Rom's son, Nog, and of course Garek, who started out as a minor character and escalated in stature through the series because he was so well played.

The series never avoided humor in the whole time it was on, and of course the Ferengi were the best to have those humorous episodes about.

If I had a choice to sit down and watch any of the ST shows now until they came out my ears, DS9 would definitely be my first choice.

[DCDemo]

6. Brief overview

Cardassians used to occupy Bajor and enslaved them, and were brutal and merciless. The Federation eventually required them to leave Bajor alone in a treaty, but the Cardassians are still interested in Bajor, mostly because of its proximity to the Worm Hole to the Gamma Quadrant (I think it was Gamma).

Bajorans fought against the Cardassians, but they are more of a religious, non warlike people whereas the Cardasians are warriors and conquereors, so they ended up being dominant.

Wait for the next major plot thread - the Dominion. A very interesting story arc that pretty much takes most of the rest of the series to play out.

[Gothmog]

8. Great series

I like the DS 9 series a great deal. To me, it may have been the best of the spin offs or at worst tied with TNG.

DS 9 was of cardassian construction. At one point the crew had to find some replacement parts and had to raid an abandoned cardassian space station. There was also many references to cardassian technology being the basis of DS 9.

I loved the way that religion was worked into the series. Roddenberry believed that religion would no longer be needed by the time we got to space but the producers of DS9 worked religious themes into the program very well.

The US/Iraq analogy falls apart in the later seasons when the cardassians become part of the Dominion.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

10. Warning: Spoilers

In the second- or third-last season of DS9, the declining Cardassian Empire allied with the Dominion, a superpower that controlled most of the Gamma Quadrant and was mounting a military campaign against the Alpha Quadrant (the region of the galaxy where Star Trek, except for Voyager, takes place).

Joining the Dominion gave the Cardassians a lot of power and resources, but it cost them their autonomy. After the Federation started winning battles, the Founders, the rulers of the Dominion, started making new alliances with other races, and the Cardassians were reduced to cannon-fodder status.

Over the last few episodes, we saw a popular movement among the Cardassians to break free of the Dominion's control. There were lots of blatant parallels between what the Cardassians had done to the Bajorans, and what the Dominion was doing to them. It all came to a head on the series finale, when the Cardassian fleet betrayed the Dominion, allowing the Federation and their allies to reach the invaders' headquarters.

Cardassia "currently" has a lot of rebuilding to do. We don't know what they're going to do in the long run, but we're supposed to assume that they'll abandon their imperialistic ways now that they've been victimized themselves.

[quinnox]

12. Deep Space nine is a superb series

I liked it even better than Next Generation.

Very good overview provided already by preceding posts, I'll just add that I always thought there was a subtle line throughout the series in regards to the Bajoran-Cardassian struggle storyline that the Bajorans were a reflection of the Palestinians and the Cardassians were the Israelis. Not a perfect match, just something I picked up on that may or may not have been really intended.

[NewHampster]

13. AlienGirl - Startrek.com has a page titled "Great Bajoran Episodes"

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/features/specials/article/3412.html

Its a good read and quick synopsis.