Kira's Age - She was 26 in Season One?

[Ro_Laren]

Skywalker wrote:

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Plus there's always the "Bajorans might age differently than humans" argument.

Yes, that is that popular argument. In reality, it is the studios casting an older actor for a younger aged character. It always seemed kinda lazy and sometimes sloppy to me. Just find a different actor or in this case, change the age of Nana Visitor's character!

lvsxy808 wrote:

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Besides which, I think the idea of Dukat writing that is kind of inconsistent with the idea that her mother was his lover for a while. He knew very well who she was all along. The novels suggest that he deliberately downplayed her importance in official files to protect her on Meru's behalf. Which would also suggest that she was indeed more important than "minor member" would imply.

I never thought of that before!

lvsxy808 wrote:

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Don't forget also that Kira suggested she had been assigned to DS9 almost as a punishment from her superiors. They wanted her out of the way because she was a loud-mouthed complainer, and the furthest they could send her was off planet....

I remember when that was mentioned. But, it doesn't seem logical to me. The Barjorans truly wanted and needed Starfleet's help after the Occupation. You would think that the position of Liason Officer would be a very important one to Bajor and not one of punishment. Unless perhaps they believed that Kira was a very capable officer and able to get the job done, but that the post was far enough away to get her out of their hair (though DS9 was in orbit of Bajor at that time)

Tosk wrote:

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Bajoran days are longer, if that helps you justify it.

I don't know that that would make a difference in only a 26 year life-span. That is 1 hr x however many days are in a Bajoran year x 26 years. I don't think that would add up to the 10 or so year age difference that we see.

[Timo]

Well, there are some discrepancies with the age of Molly O'Brien or the anniversary of Wolf 357 that suggest that the thousand-stardate Earth year cycle and the Bajoran year are quite significantly out of synch. Also, certain supposedly annual Bajoran festivals are witnessed on several seasons but always at different points of the season in question.

We have at least some reason to think that Bajor orbits her star at basically the same distance as Earth orbits hers, giving near-identical lengths of year. But it's by no means set in stone. The Bajoran year might easily be some 20 or even 30% shorter than the Earth one, or perhaps correspondingly longer.

The day length would of course have nothing to do with the year length, and we never got a reason to think that Bajorans would count their age on the basis of days instead of years anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

[Ro_Laren]

Timo wrote:

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Well, there are some discrepancies with the age of Molly O'Brien or the anniversary of Wolf 357 that suggest that the thousand-stardate Earth year cycle and the Bajoran year are quite significantly out of synch. Also, certain supposedly annual Bajoran festivals are witnessed on several seasons but always at different points of the season in question.

We have at least some reason to think that Bajor orbits her star at basically the same distance as Earth orbits hers, giving near-identical lengths of year. But it's by no means set in stone. The Bajoran year might easily be some 20 or even 30% shorter than the Earth one, or perhaps correspondingly longer.

The day length would of course have nothing to do with the year length, and we never got a reason to think that Bajorans would count their age on the basis of days instead of years anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

I had thought that perhaps Bajor was further from their sun and thus had more days in each year. But, how many days would needed to be added to each year in order to make to make Kira at 26 look like she is in her 30’s in earth years? Probably too many, but Bajor can’t be too far from their sun since the planet is able to sustain humanoid life.

[Pavonis]

Ro_Laren wrote:

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Yes, that is that popular argument. In reality, it is the studios casting an older actor for a younger aged character. It always seemed kinda lazy and sometimes sloppy to me. Just find a different actor or in this case, change the age of Nana Visitor's character!

Why change the age of the character? Why is a 26-year-old major hard to accept? That's what I want to know. I expect that anyone involved in the resistance that lived to be over 30 was probably a colonel or a general.

I never thought of that before!

But, why assume that Dukat wrote the intelligence reports? He was not an intelligence officer, he was an administrator. Administrators don't write reports on members of resistance groups, do they?

I remember when that was mentioned. But, it doesn't seem logical to me. The Barjorans truly wanted and needed Starfleet's help after the Occupation. You would think that the position of Liason Officer would be a very important one to Bajor and not one of punishment. Unless perhaps they believed that Kira was a very capable officer and able to get the job done, but that the post was far enough away to get her out of their hair (though DS9 was in orbit of Bajor at that time)

The Bajorans needed the Federation's assistance, yes, but did they really want it? They kicked out the Cardassians, are finally independent, then the populace sees their provisional government invite the other major power in the neighborhood in to "oversee" things. Probably sounded exactly like what the Cardassians had said at the beginning of the Occupation - "Oh, we're just here to help, we're your friends, you can trust us."

Clearly there were many factions on Bajor that did not want the Federation interfering in their business. Kira was one of them, at first. So why not send her to be the liaison officer? She'll stop complaining at the local government officials and start complaining at the Federation officials.

[Finn]

Pavonis wrote:

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Shakaar's little band was a famous resistance cell? Sez who? If he was so famous, why'd he end up a farmer after the occupation? And why would the word of said farmer carry any weight with the provisional government or its militia?

Why not?

You seem to be demeaning toward farmers. Just because they run farms doesn't mean they aren't or weren't important people, with an advanced/professional education and/or attributed a lot to society.

Eisenhower helped lead the Allied Forces on D-Day, and he bought a farm in Pennsylvania where he spent his final years.

[C.E. Evans]

Pavonis wrote:

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Why change the age of the character? Why is a 26-year-old major hard to accept? That's what I want to know. I expect that anyone involved in the resistance that lived to be over 30 was probably a colonel or a general.

Agreed. And with Bajor in shambles following the Cardassian withdrawal, the provisional government needed as many able persons as possible to fill the ranks of the Militia, IMO. If someone was even half-way competent, they probably made them an officer and assigned them their ranks depending on their duties.