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.

Reason #36 Why I Love DS9 – Blood Oath

  • Title: Star Trek Deep Space Nine – Blood Oath
  • tv.com: link

There are many reasons why I love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and why it remains my favorite of the Star Trek franchise.

Reason #36: “Blood Oath”

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fought against the squeaky clean future Star Trek: The Next Generation instilled. One way DS9 did this was to honor the spirit of the original Star Trek in many different ways. With only one exception, the biggest of these moments came in the form of “Blood Oath” which reunited three of the classic Klingon villains from the original series: Kor (John Colicos), Kang (Michael Ansara), and Koloth (William Campbell).

 

The three warriors travel to DS9 to unite with Curzon Dax and fulfill a blood oath the four took to kill the man who had murdered their sons as children. Although conflicted and not bound to the promises of her previous hosts, Jadzia (Terry Farrell) fights to take part in the mission and hunt down the man responsible for killing her god son.

Aside from the great moments of the three Klingons themselves, and interacting with Dax, there’s a terrific scene between Dax and Kira (Nana Visitor) where the two talk frankly about murder. The big fight sequence at the end may be limited due to budgetary constraints, but it allows two of the Klingons to go out in style. Thankfully Kor would return for two more memorable episodes later in the series. Aside from its nostalgic value, the episode also further cements Dax’s connection to Klingons which would be further developed once a certain Klingon Starfleet Lieutenant was reassigned to the station.

DS9 Stories/News: Michael Westmore’s Aliens (1)

DS9 Season 1

Michael is responsible for many makeup development in DS9 which includes:

Cardassian makeup and how Marc Alaimo influenced the design of every Cardassian character that would follow. During the DVD specials, Michael talks about how the “spoon” of the Cardassian forehead was inspired by an abstract painting of a woman he saw in a restaurant in Studio City

The Tosk from “Captive Pursuit“, who was made to resemble an alligator

The Wadi from “Move Along Home“, who were decorated with tattoos instead of spots or stripes

The Miradorn from “Vortex“, with their unusual neck design including a flap of skin coming over their necklaces, as opposed to running underneath

The Kobliad from “The Passenger“, which was again inspired by trying to keep the actress attractive but still indicate that she is an alien

The “tailheads“, as seen on the promenade in numerous episodes, are also mentioned, and how light the tails actually are

The creation and evolution of the Bolian makeup from its beginning with actor Michael Berryman in TNG: “Conspiracy” to the actors on Deep Space Nine

DS9 Stories/News: Hewitt: Creating The World Of Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe shared memories of his time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine including setting up long term storylines, actor influence on storylines and lack of interference by the studio.

The writers of Deep Space Nine had more freedom than they found on some shows due to that lack of studio interference. “On Deep Space Nine, we got virtually no studio notes ever,” said Wolfe. “They largely just let us do what we wanted. Things went very smoothly.”

One thing that the writers realized rather quickly was that having the characters on a stationary space station as opposed to being on a traveling starship freed up the writers to create more serialized stories. “We very rapidly realized that being on a space station meant not ending stories every week,” said Wolfe. “If you’re on a starship, you leave the planet where the adventure is happening every week, and therefore…there isn’t a narrative pull towards revisiting those stories or it’s rarer. On our show, we never left, and the people we were dealing with didn’t either a lot of the time, so very quickly…we built towards more serialized storytelling. I think it’s something that was just a natural outgrowth of the premise.”

Some story elements had a longer lead time, and began their build up early in the series. According to Wolfe, these included the Bajoran religion and politics and the Dominion, which was set up beginning in the second season.

Other story elements developed as a result of the actors themselves, including the Odo-Kira romance. Odo’s scenes were played with “this admiration and longing for her that we picked up on very quickly,” said Wolfe, “and [we] thought, ‘Well, OK, that’s a great relationship too…we’ll run with that.’”

More can be heard on the podcast, located here, including Wolfe’s thoughts on working with Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr, for which characters the writers most enjoyed writing, how Nog went from Ferengi son to Federation cadet and Wolfe’s most recent work, Alphas.

DS9 Stories/News: The Five Worst Deep Space Nine Episodes EVER!

Site: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/geekend/the-five-worst-deep-space-nine-episodes-ever/7878?tag=mantle_skin;content

October 21, 2011, 7:25 AM PDT

Takeaway: The five most wormhole-sucking episodes in the history of Deep Space Nine, complete with unforgiving breakdowns.

Deep Space Nine was perhaps the most ambitious of the Star Trek spinoff series, abandoning the starship concept for life aboard a space station, boldly staying where no man had stayed before. Alas, ambition leads to failure as often as radical success, which is where these five wormhole-sucking episodes come in.

5. The Muse [Video preview]
Most Next Generation guest stars never found a comfortable place aboard Deep Space Nine, but none moreso than Majel Barrett’s Lwaxana Troi, the oversexed unfiltered mother of the Enterprise’s empathic counselor. Lwaxana pined for Constable Odo, bulldozed Captain Sisko, and — in this indescribably cloying episode — staged a marriage of convenience to steal her unborn child from her alien baby-daddy. And that’s just the B-plot!

Back over in the main storyline, Jake Sisko (heir to the Wesley Crusher throne of fan-patronizing youth-oriented plot gimmicks) is preyed upon by an alien who steals the brain energy from the artists whose work she psychically inspires. Sort of like alcohol did for Hemingway, if alcohol was a quasi-hot alien babe you can’t resist. Yes, the metaphor was that brick-to-the-head obvious.  Sadly, we had no similar meta-Muse for the screenwriters of this episode; they would have benefited from either additional inspiration or early demise (preferably both).

4. Valiant [Video preview]
Remember the previous rant about youth-oriented storylines designed to “appeal” (read: condescend) to Star Trek’s many starry-eyed young fans who dream of being in Starfleet themselves? Here’s the reducto ad absurdum fallout of that line of thinking. Jake Sisko and Nog find themselves aboard the USS Valiant, a Defiant-class warship crewed entirely by teenage Starfleet cadets. (It takes a wildly implausible infodump to explain how Starfleet was dumb enough to let unproven kids have detached command of a Borg-smashing escort vessel.)

Drunk with power, said cadets attempt to single-handedly take on a Jem’Hadar battlecruiser — despite a blandly delivered warning from Jake, who smugly namedrops his dad — whereafter the big bad universe fatally smacks the Valiant down. Seriously, like a few dozen kids die. Moral of the story: Arrogant talent is no substitute for humble experience. Moral of the episode: Talking down to the audience makes for pedantic television.

3. Move Along Home [Video preview]
You know it’s going to be a long episode when the premise is blatantly lifted from a Silver Age Justice League comic. Quark introduces the first alien delegation from the gamma Quadrant to the novel concept of rigged casino games. Said aliens respond by magically entrapping Dax, Sisko, Kira, and Bashir in a labyrinth so un-Gordian that it makes the classic Red Box Dungeons & Dragons set look like a masterpiece of byzantine gamemap design. The aliens then force Quark to use the captives as gamepieces in a chess match for their lives.

The rules of the game are never explained, the mystery is drawn out painfully long, and the acting is atrocious. Oh, and in the end, the hostage-taking was just a ruse to prove some point to Quark, and also ruin the chances of anyone in the Alpha Quadrant to ever take the game (or aliens) seriously again. To quote the WOPR, the only winning move is not to play. And by that I mean this episode. Ever.

2. Profit and Lace [Video preview]
The Ferengi have always been rather hamfisted caricatures of 1950s male businessmen — arrogant, greedy, ruthless, sexist, and amoral — sort of like Don Draper gene-spliced with a Morlock. Trying to reform these clumsy archetypes invariably leads to preachy episodes and, in this case — to our abject horror — Quark dressing in drag to impersonate his own mother. The Grand Nagus, played by a wasted (probably literally) Wallace Shawn, has decided to allow Ferengi women equal rights, which includes such stunning reforms as owning property, wearing clothes, and forcing Ferengi men to chew their own food.

The Nagus’s moral conversion came as a result of sleeping with Quark’s mother — a triumph of women’s liberation if ever there was one. Unfortunately, Mama Quark has a heart attack immediately after being held up as the example of strong Ferengi womanhood, forcing Quark to fake out the Ferengi elders while cross-dressing. Because women can only earn their freedom when their sons step in, right? This plays far more like an outtake from Bosom Buddies than it does an homage to Some Like It Hot. An episode to be enjoyed only ironically, which is to say while drinking heavily.

1. Let He Who Is Without Sin [Video preview]
When a stunt casting guest spot by Vanessa Williams is the best thing you can say about an episode, you know you’re in for a painful 42 minutes (plus commercials). On its face, the premise is comedic gold: Take stick-in-the-mud Worf and throw him on Risa, the hedonistic pleasure planet made famous on NextGen. Double down on the slapstick potential by making this a double-date vacation for Worf, Dax, Bashir, and Leeta — with Quark playing fifth wheel! Alas, what results not only isn’t funny, it isn’t watchable.

All the relationship foibles between Worf and Dax are amped up to 11, and rather than deal with this out-of-nowhere pettiness, Worf A) joins with an anti-pleasure terrorist cell and B) reveals he once committed manslaughter during a childhood soccer match. Laughs all around! Oh, and in the B-plot, Leeta and Bashir are having a “traditional” breakup of revenge-flings, while Quark cruises the singles scene for Ferengi fetishists. Yeah, seriously. Don’t just cast the first stone, cast this entire episode into a black hole and never look back.

No doubt, you have your own list of drop-dead indefensible DS9 episodes. Let’s get it all out of our system in the comments section.