DS9 Stories/News: Bajoran Life Part (4)

Bajorans are a humanoid race from the planet Bajor. Bajorans are a very spiritual people, and their history has produced many great architects, artists, builders and philosophers.

Bajoran civilization has existed for over a half-million years. A contemplative and spiritual people, the early Bajorans saw little need in reaching to the stars. It is known, however, that the Bajoran people held limited interstellar abilities via primitive solar sail space craft.

Site: http://www.ussgalaxy.net/database/species/members/bajoran.htm

Bajoran culture declined greatly during the Cardassian Occupation, from 2328 to 2369 (was formally annexed in 2339), during which time the Cardassian Union dominated the Bajoran people. 10 million Bajorans were killed, but despite the brutality of the government implemented massacres, freedom fighters in the mountains of Bajor never ceased their struggle for independence. The Cardassians made heavy use of forced labor camps and attempted to strip the Bajorans of their cultural identity. Cardassian strip mining of Bajor lead to planet-wide ecological devastation. It was the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor that forced the Bajoran people to throw off their strict caste based culture and actively fight against their oppressors. They have only recently been allowed to rebuild their culture.

The Bajoran people successfully repelled the Cardassians from their world in 2369 and a provisional government was established. The United Federation of Planets was called upon to provide assistance during this time of chaos and turbulence. The Federation assumed control of the abandoned Cardassian mining station Terok Nor (which the Federation renamed Deep Space Nine) and acted as a deterrent to future Cardassian reprisals against the Bajoran people.

The discovery of the Bajoran wormhole (which the Bajorans called the “Celestial Temple”) made Bajor a site of scientific importance. Later, Bajor became a strategically important location when the Dominion began their invasion of the Alpha Quadrant.

Bajorans developed an intolerance of Cardassians due to the recent Cardassian occupation of Bajor. The Bajoran sense of spirituality is so strong that they have developed a very strong will due to their faith. Most Bajorans have studied their religion fairly extensively. Also, most Bajorans with a highly-developed faith are also devoted to the rebuilding of their world.

Bajor

The entire planet, or at least its largest continent, is known by geographic areas such as the Northwestern District, Northeastern District, etc. Those in turn, are divided into provinces such as Tozhat, Dahkur and Hedrickspool, each having its own administrative centre and council of Vedeks but both as subservient to the Capitol. The planet is larger than Terra and so its gravity is about 1.4g. A classical model of a Class M system, the planet has a number of large oceans breaking up the land mass, the water is said by many to be unusually green, probably due to a high concentration of microscopic plant life. The weather on Bajor is tropical over most of the planet, with periods of storms during certain seasons of the year. There are a number of desert areas, although most of the barren wasteland left by Cardassian mining has been reclaimed.

A massive system of aqueducts over the land mass provides both irrigation and an established transit system. Transport centres in major urban settlements often combine water and air transport, to the amusement of many off-world visitors.

The Capitol City is the center of Government, Military and Religion on Bajor. Most of the other settlements have now been fully rebuilt after the destruction of the Cardassian Withdrawal. There are few other large cities as Bajorans prefer small communities to large Urban sprawl.

DS9 Stories/News: Bajoran Life Part (2)

BAJORAN LANGUAGE

Established words and phrases 

Site: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Bajoran_language

Religious terms Edit

Measurements

DS9 Stories/News: That’s What He Said, Ira Steven Behr & Gul Dukat

“The problem I find with a lot of writers, including myself, is that once you get involved with a character you start to get to know him and you humanise him,” Behr told Star Trek The Magazine, 2002.

“Michael Piller did the rewrite of ‘Defiant’ where he had Dukat talk about his children; My reaction was, ‘Uh oh, we’ve crossed the line.’ I realised that he was going to lose all credibility as a villain; we were going to shower him with our usual writerish empathy. [...] I really responded against that. Here was the guy who had been in charge of Bajor, and right away we were looking for excuses for him.”

Behr himself had little sympathy for the character. “I had certainly done my bit in making Dukat a kind of swashbuckling villain, but I always thought the Cardassians were horrific; I think anyone who doesn’t is obviously confused. They did a horrible thing, and I have little sympathy for that,” he said.

He was also pleased with the way DS9 resolved the character. “I think he got what he deserved, let me put it like that,” Behr explained. “I can’t say I feel sorry for him, I really don’t. He and Wynn were two characters I just could not sympathise with. Though we tried in all fairness to give them their points of view and give them their attitudes, they were very deluded, and they did horrible things.”

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Races – Bajorans (1)

History

The Bajorans are a race of master artists, architects, and scholars whose lives are centered on their faith. Their deeply religious culture honors the ‘Prophets’ who guide the Bajorans.

Ships

 

 

Notes: Two man sailing ships used by the ancient Bajorans to explore space, four centuries before humans left the Earth. These ships had no impulse or warp drive; instead they used the power of the Bajor sun for propulsion. These ships were able to reach Cardassia when they discovered tachyon eddies in the Denorios Belt which propelled the ships beyond light speed.

The Bajorans (also known as the “Bajora[1])

were a humanoid species native to the planet Bajor in the Alpha Quadrant. The Bajorans had one of the oldest and richest cultures in the quadrant, though in the 24th century they suffered greatly at the hands of the Cardassian Union. With their liberation from the Cardassians and the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole in 2369, the Bajorans were thrust onto the interstellar stage.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

Bajoran Lightship

Bajoran Lightship

Bajoran Fighter

Bajoran Fighter

Bajorans resembled Humans in appearance, and were distinguished by a series of four to seven horizontal creases across their noses. Bajorans also featured light and dark skinned variants, although the dark skinned Bajorans appeared to be a very small minority. (DS9: “The Homecoming“)

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/bajoran-assault-vessel/