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: 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/

DS9 Stories/News: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads of Time (Genesis/Mega Drive) (3)

Shit! I’m not liking this inventory. I have to hold down the A button to bring it up and assign an item to my hand, and tap it to switch between assigned items. There’s two problems with this:

  1. I can’t quick draw my phaser and gun down my enemies if I’ve forgotten to assign it to a hand.
  2. I have to hold down A to use the lifts too. So half the time when I’m trying to move a lift around, I end up bringing my items up instead. And I can’t make a quick escape when my inventory screen’s open.

And every time I get killed I’m thrown back to the password screen and have to reassign my items.

Seven seconds left. Damn, I’m really cutting it close on some of these grenades. Plus I’ll probably have to spend three seconds trying to line him up with the ejection tube correctly so he’ll flush the thing.

Still, I’m just glad I found the damn tube for once. Half the time I end up totally lost and get blown up by the bomb in my hand.

On the next section they start throwing these tricorder jammers in too. I can’t tell where nearby bombs are on my radar until I find and break the jammers.

Yeah, the inventory popping up when I’m on a lift isn’t getting any less annoying. I’ve got a time limit here!

Okay I admit, it’s my fault. If I was properly centered on the lift the menu wouldn’t come up. But I don’t have time to properly center myself on every lift, I’ve got a time limit here!

I’ve finally reached the third section of the level, and it’s getting very Prince of Persia now. There’s no lift to ride here, so I have to jump from ledge to ledge to reach the bombs. Then back down again to flush them.

And every time I miss a ledge and fall I’m put all the way back at the start of the level again. Crap.

A FEW DEATHS LATER.

I don’t actually mind jumping between a maze of ledges over a fatal drop. I don’t even mind the time limit. The thing that’s really starting to annoy me though, is that I have to replay this huge level every time I fuck up. That’s two entire sections of bomb disposal I have to repeat, over and over and over.

I should probably quit now, but I can’t help being implausibly curious about what’s on the next level. It can’t all be bomb disposal to the end, right?

TWO AND A HALF SECTIONS OF BOMB DISPOSAL LATER.

Okay, made a jump. So far so good. I’ll have to keep throwing myself at ledges like this until I find the next bomb, and even a single missed jump is likely to get Sisko killed.

And then when I find the bomb I’ve got seconds to jump all the way back down again.

The SNES version’s still pretty similar, and no less annoying. Well I guess it doesn’t have the inventory/lift button problem, so it has that going for it.

The hero sprite seems a bit invisible in these shots, but he shows up pretty well in game thanks to the parallax scrolling background. These lift rails look way too much like platforms I can stand on though.

THREE MILLION MISSED JUMPS LATER.

I… don’t believe I actually did it. Hah!

Level complete and I NEVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN.

BUT THEN…

DS9 Stories/News: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Crossroads of Time (Genesis/Mega Drive) (1)

When I found out that this was actually released for real I had to check it out. A Star Trek platformer? Seriously?

Apparently the lead designer wrote a Star Trek fan film, so I expect this is going to be fairly faithful to the franchise. The music sounds like the actual Deep Space Nine theme, and that looks like the right space station, so it’s doing well so far.

Some Trek games (like Starfleet Academy and Elite Force for example) put the player in the shoes of Lieutenant Bland, chiselled generic space hero, who gets to go on an adventure alongside everyone’s favourite heroes from the show.

But fuck that, I’m Commander Benjamin Sisko himself, and this is my office.

Dammit Odd, how many times have I told you not to call here and interrupt my kung fu? Odo, whatever.

Eventually I realise he’s not going to stop calling me, so I should probably go find ‘security’ and hear what he has to say. First step: leave office.

These graphics aren’t actually that bad at all, and Sisko moves fairly… gracefully. Okay, the faces are a little weird, but that’s what happens when you go for realism at this kind of resolution.

The music on the other hand, is nothing like the soundtrack to the series. For one thing it’s catchy and tuneful. Exactly what I want to be listening to when I’m playing my ridiculous Star Trek platformer. Okay, now where the hell is the way out of this place?

Damn, you can really tell these two are related.

This corridors looks like it’s supposed to be in a complete loop, but sadly it doesn’t wrap around at the edges. Nice parallax scrolling though.

Okay, I’m just going to watch him do this for a second or two. There’s nothing even up there, it’s entirely pointless.

Right, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, I’m looking for ‘security’.

A docking pylon you say? I think I passed the door to that on the way here.

Uhuh. So… what now? He mentioned that Doctor Bashir was treating the technician so I suppose I should go find him.

Right, now that’s done I can go start the first level.

Doctor Bashir didn’t give me any clues about what I’m supposed to be doing now, so I suppose I’ll have to go talking to people until one of them gives me the next part of the plot.

LATER.

http://superadventuresingaming.blogspot.com/2011/12/star-trek-deep-space-nine-crossroads-of.html