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: 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: Deep Space Nine Races – The Dominion (3)

Cont.

Vorta

The Vorta are telekinetic humanoid race, which are genetically engineered or enhanced by the Founders, and they are also the administrative arm of the Gamma Quadrant business power called the Dominion. They are basically the link between the Founders, or the Changelings, and the rest of the Dominion.

In addition, the Vorta are also often in charge whenever the Dominion elite soldiers, the Jem’Hadar, are out on a ruthless mission. In fact, there are usually a Vorta stationed on the Jem’Hadar Attack Crafts along with 42 Jem’Hadar soldiers, and several are believed to be stationed on the larger Jem’Hadar Battle Cruiser.

Female Vorta

Female Vorta

Male Vorta

Male Vorta

When an important Vorta dies, the Founders simply clone another one, which continues the work of it’s predecessor. This is quite in ingenious way of becoming almost immortal. Also they are immune to most poisons, which comes quite in handy when out on a diplomatic mission.

Their telekinetic abilities, enables them to send out a blue glowing sphere, capable of sending someone hurling towards the ground.

Site: http://www.belgarath.net/?FramePage=/v5/xeno/founders.asp&

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Races – Cardassians

Cardassian Logo

Cardassian Logo

The Cardassian people are a ruthless race of humanoids in a military dictatorship, which rules their empire with a fist of iron. They have been involved in a bitter, extended conflict with the United Federation of Planets. An uneasy truce between the two adversaries was finally reached in 2366. Then in 2367, a historic peace treaty established a fragile armistice between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. Among other things, the treaty provided that captives of either government would be allowed to see a representative from a neutral planet following their incarceration.

http://www.belgarath.net/?FramePage=/v5/xeno/bajorans.asp&

Cardassians prefer a darker, hotter, and more humid environment than Humans. (DS9: “For the Cause“) Like other humanoids, their evolution was influenced by the Ancient humanoids. (TNG: “The Chase“)

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

The Cardassians were allied with the Dominion during the Dominion war. Their hatred of the Federation is known throughout the galaxy

Ships

GALOR CLASS

Notes:     The Galor class is the largest part of the Cardassian military, but it isn’t the strongest ship in the galaxy.  A lone Galor class is easily out classed by most other Alpha Quadrant ships. To make up for this shortcoming Galors can often be found in large wolf packs.  It is believed that until the Cardassian Union joined the Dominion, the Galor class was the most technologically advance ship Cardassia could build.  Now the Galor class serves in a supporting role to more powerful Dominion ships.

KELDON CLASS

Notes:     The Keldon class is an enlarged and more powerful version of the Galor class.  It can be identified by the new upper decks and different tail section.

HIDEKI CLASS

Notes:   Hideki class ship are designed to patrol the Cardassian boarder and raid neighboring solar systems for resources.  The Hideki class has also been known to support larger Cardassian warships and Dominion fleets.

http://gostartrek.webs.com/cardassians.htm

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