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: Leeta’s Love Life

Site: http://thehathorlegacy.com/star-trek-deep-space-nine-%E2%80%93-leeta%E2%80%99s-love-life/

by Revena on September 14, 2006

I want to continue with my series about the female characters of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (see the previous article, “Jadzia’s Gender,” here) without too much of a gap between articles, but, of course, I’ve been insanely busy for the last few weeks, and haven’t had any time to do the prep work for another article, much less write one.

So I’m gonna cheat a little bit, and write about Leeta (played by Chase Masterson). This is easy, because while I think Leeta is great (there are not many DS9 characters that I wouldn’t describe as great, really), she does get a lot less screen time than most of the other female characters, and what I want to say about her is comparatively easy to express. It goes a little something like this:

Leeta is sexy. She is played by a lovely actress, she is usually dressed in low-cut and/or tight-fitting costumes, and her job is linked to her sexuality – she’s a dabo girl at Quark’s. Leeta is also sexual. In her first appearance on the show (in the third season episode “Explorers”), she flirts quite openly with Dr. Julian Bashir, whom she later dates. The two eventually break up, without acrimony, on Risa, where Leeta is shown enjoying a sensual encounter with another man (“Let He Who is Without Sin”¦” in season five).

Sexuality isn’t the only thing Leeta’s got going for her – she has a strong sense of justice (she becomes quite involved in the formation of the Guild of Restaurant and Casino Employees), she is friendly and seems to have many platonic relationships, and though she can be a bit flighty, she’s no dummy.

But her sexual energy is definitely one of her most marked traits. And even though that’s the case, Leeta winds up with one of the happiest endings on the show by the end of the series. She hasn’t had any traumatic injuries, and her emotional trauma is no worse than that which affects any other character (Leeta loses friends to violence, but so does everyone else on DS9). She’s fallen in love, had that love returned, and gotten married. She gets along well with her new husband’s family. And, in the second-to-last episode of the series, that husband is named Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance. Leeta gets love, health, and a husband who is politically powerful (and, presumably, a comfortable living as well).

How many other sexy, sexual female characters can you think of on television that end up so well? The sexy woman is usually the victim, or at least the recipient of some shaming or punishment from other characters on the show. She needs to be taught a lesson, made to pay, reformed, exposed as the slut she is – or else her sexiness needs to be linked somehow to a violent death or assault, in the constant sexualization of violence that we consumers and producers of Western media are so invested in.

There certainly are other female characters who are as flirty and as sensual as Leeta, and who wind up with happy endings anyway – but not many. As a person who doesn’t believe that there’s anything wrong with healthy expressions of adult sexuality, I’ll take all the Leetas on TV that I can get.

DS9 Stories/News: The Federation Leaders In the Dominion War (1)

Site: http://dominion.tvheaven.com/fedpers.html

Capt. Benjamin Sisko

The plucky if somewhat unstable commander of Deep Space 9 and the USS Defiant, and emissary of the Bajoran prophets, Sisko is considered the Federation’s key military commander in the Alpha Quadrant War. Because of the strategic importance of Sisko’s command, he has played a pivotal role in many of the Dominion’s skirmishes with the Federation Alliance. Despite Sisko’s dogged tendency to survive his encounters with the Dominion’s usually invincible Jem’hadar soldiers, these successes are attributable mainly to luck, and it is his connection with the worm hole aliens known to the Bajorans as “the prophets” which is considered most significant. Sisko’s rapport with these guardians of our only gateway to the Alpha Quadrant led to the destruction of hundreds of Dominion ships during our first offensive against the Federation Alliance. Sisko was last reported seen in the Bajoran fire caves and is reported by some (mostly unreliable) sources to have “ascended” to the “temple of the prophets.”

Admiral Ross

Fleet commander for the Federation forces arrayed against the Dominion, Ross usually has a terrific view of Starfleet vessels being disemboweled by the Dominion from his comfy office, well behind the lines. Though the nominal commander of the Federation forces, Ross acts, in truth, as little more than a mouthpiece for Sisko’s ideas.

Commander Worf

Sisko’s slow-witted right hand man, Worf is the Federation’s token Klingon officer, easy to anger or confuse. This thundering lummox previously served as chief of security aboard the USS Enterprise before transferring to DS9 during the brief Federation-Klingon war in order to sell out his people. Captured by the Breen, briefly held by the Dominion at our installation on Cardassia Prime, and ultimately freed by the traitorous Legate Damar, Worf is at large in the Alpha Quadrant but considered to be of little threat.

Dax

Joined Trill, once science officer and current counselor on DS9, former mate to Worf, and long time friend and mentor to Sisko, the Dax symbiont has been hosted by both Ezri and Jadzia Dax during the course of the Alpha Quadrant War. Despite its extreme longevity, Dax seems to have learned little during its long life. Jadzia was slain by former Dominion ally Legate Dukat during one of several ill-fated associations with the Bajoran pah-wraith, Costa Mogen. Ezri received the Dax symbiont following this incident during an emergency transplant and has proven emotionally unstable and generally unfit as a host. She is currently stationed aboard DS9.