You've never seen the flashback episodes, have you? We saw how the Bajorans were treated. It was obvious slavery.
Well, no. Being treated like dirt doesn't equate slavery: only being treated like dirt you own does. Several classic indications of slavery were left missing: lack of monetary compensation, lack of free movement from job to job, lack of privacy, lack of right to do things like marry and have kids without consent from the owners. There are much worse paying jobs today than the ones the Bajorans aboard DS9 were shown doing... Timo Saloniemi
The Bajoran workers were not allowed to leave DS9 (no free movement). They had to live in community quarters (no privacy). They were obviously not paid. They had no rights under Cardassian law. That means they are slaves.
Let’s go to the source, and check with dialogue… We heard it from Sisko (calling out Dukat on it): But of course that was while the station was being built. Perhaps they released those slaves and brought on paid Bajorans to process the ore after it was finished… Nope. I’d say yes. Call it what you will, but they called it Slavery.
On this one I merely meant that the Feds would probably install a force field at the entrance of the turbolift in Ops during the times it was not in use so that people wouldn't get squashed as they stood on the platform. Like a baby gate. However, this does make me wonder about The Forsaken, where for the better part of the episode, Odo was trapped with Lwaxana because of an exposed current around the turbolifts. They must have either gotten that fixed by Crossfire or technically Odo's hydraulic arms never left the compartment, so he was never exposed to the danger that kept him trapped in the previous episode.
^Odo's arms didn't leave the compartment. He didn't press directly against the shaft walls, he pressed the walls of the car outward to press against the shaft walls. http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=100&page=9
We don't see what happens to his left arm. He places it pretty close to where the open door space is.
I see no reason to assume that his arm left the compartment. I mean, that wouldn't even have worked. He had to slow the car down, not just his own body. The only way to do that was to increase friction between the car and the shaft walls. So of course he pushed the walls outward from the inside, both walls, because that's the only way it would've had the desired effect. Just think about the physics for a bit and it should be self-evident.
Kira was. Or her alias in "Necessary Evil" was, to be accurate. So was the collaborator the story used as the excuse for the flashbacks. And so was his mysterious girlfriend (the more or less imaginary character inspired by Kira's alias). His wife's movements probably had to be fairly free, too, for the plot to work. Obviously, there would have been different castes of Bajoran workers there - some being worked to death behind lock and key, others being pampered. But that already defies the idea that Bajorans would categorically have been slaves, and it especially contradicts the exact claim made earlier, namely all Bajorans aboard Terok Nor being slaves. Bou hou. That's got nothing to do with the sort of loss of privacy that characterizes slavery. Supposedly, people were having a secret carnal affair in "Necessary Evil", which indicates way more privacy than many paid workers enjoy today at either their workplaces or accommodations. Nothing obvious about it. The murdered collaborator operated a shop, for Prophet's sakes! Never stated. Cardassian law was intent on punishing those who killed the Bajoran shopkeeper (even if via executing random bystanders), and OTOH Cardassian law apparently sent certain people to those labor camps to work and die but let others operate private enterprises - but we got no evidence either way whether Bajorans had rights. No, none of it does. Now this is closer to it: Why should we believe Sisko? He was not there, and he's the enemy of the Cardassians. He'd call Dukat all sorts of ugly names and feel proud of it. This is the weakest bit of evidence yet... ...While this is the strongest. But what we learn here is that the people who worked in the facilities shown in "Civil Defense" were slaves; the people more or less freely coming and going on the Promenade, enjoying their secret affairs and running their businesses and schemes were not. Apropos, for an interesting technical detail... Why did the Cardassians erect chicken wire fences on the Promenade? They designed the place - why did they install fences and gates rather than more solid walls and doors? It doesn't sound likely that the use of Bajoran slave labor would have been a late addition to the station concept; it's mysterious why slave labor would visit the Promenade in the first place. Then again, Quark doesn't associate the fences with slaves, and neither does "Necessary Evil". That episode shows the fences being used to guide and contain the otherwise freely commuting non-slave Bajorans like Kira's alias. Quite possibly, free Bajorans were the late addition to the concept! It may be that originally there weren't going to be any locals involved in running the Promenade services, but it turned out that using trusted locals was cheaper and psychologically more suited for the mighty overlords. Or then every free Bajoran on the station was in fact a collaborator being sheltered from his or her surface-bound countrymen and -women - but if so, the revelations in "Necessary Evil" should not have come as a surprise to anybody involved. To nitpick, deforming the lift from one side should be enough to jam it in the shaft. But how Odo could achieve that without pushing on two opposite walls is another question. Yes, he could push against the shaft wall speeding past, but he probably wouldn't opt to, if lift deformation was his purpose. But the explicit facts are vague there, as is the entire concept of a lift falling inside a structure that floats in space. Timo Saloniemi
^That topic needs it's own thread. What I took from it, the Bajoran foolishly trusted the Cardassians and signed documents letting Cardassia occupy them (for what ever reason). The Federation had their hands tied because it was all legal. Though they basically treated them like slaves, they technically weren't.
"Civil Defense" refers to Bajoran slaves aboard Terok Nor. "Necessary Evil" flashbacks us to Bajoran non-slaves aboard Terok Nor. Why should there be a need for an explanation? There is no contradiction there. Some Bajorans were slaves, others were free. Some were resistance fighters, some were collaborators. All Bajorans were in theory subjugated and downtrodden, but that doesn't make them slaves. Except in a very figurative sense, but if one tried to argue that a wife being mistreated by his husband is a "slave", or that a worker being left unpaid for months is, this would only confuse the situation. Slavery is a very specific condition (although it comes in many varieties), and even the Gallitep mine victims probably wouldn't be slaves by the strictest definition. The big point here is that not all Bajorans were at Gallitep, and there were Bajorans at Terok Nor who lived a life not just literally but figuratively hundreds of miles above Gallitep. Without being the personal pets of powerful Cardassians, that is. (Does this become on-topic if we start debating whether free Bajorans had turbolift access to Ops? ) Timo Saloniemi