DS9's Bajoran name
- Thread starter Hando
- Start date
...And that's a total urban myth, pure Hollywood with no basis in reality.
Which is why certain cruise companies have made special arrangements to have their captains either obtain the permission to officiate weddings or comparable ceremonies (there are workarounds for this), or even told their captains to obtain clerical or Justice of Peace credentials just for the purpose. After all, their passengers believe in the myth!
Just being sea captain or any other sort of military commander grants no rights whatsoever to seal a Christian marriage with or without the classically adjoining legal consequences. Nothing stops a skipper from pretending that he marries people, though - any avuncular seaman with a suitably impressive beard can do that. And that's already 99% of the fun in the ceremony. Just make sure to get your legal and religious issues cleared elsewhere, before or after.
Naturally, history remembers certain exceptions to this, especially from the mists of time when we are ill advised to even refer to the concept of "wedding" - that is, anything up to Charlemange or perhaps even Martin Luther. But if you thought you could get married on Lake Victoria or whatever before your dawn hanging for acts of sabotage, and all you have available is the captain of the enemy ship that captured you, you're out of luck.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, it is a cultural trope that captains have the right to officiate (not just celebrate or solemnize) a marriage. The ceremony is separable from the registering,and in some places two different people would perform each function--in France, one must be wed at the town hall before being married in a church (or anywhere else). Being such an undeviating trope, though, it can be assumed that in TV or in movies, the captain at sea (or in space) can both officiate and celebrate.
Oddly enough, the subtext of Accession, no matter how you interpret the particular scenes, is that being the Emissary is not a set of obligations and duties, but a mutual relationship of trust. Kira drives the point home when she says that the Bajorans would have done anything Sisko asked of them.
Oddly enough, the subtext of Accession, no matter how you interpret the particular scenes, is that being the Emissary is not a set of obligations and duties, but a mutual relationship of trust. Kira drives the point home when she says that the Bajorans would have done anything Sisko asked of them.
That's hardly fanatic -- and in Sisko's case it's a basic gesture of respect.
Speaking of which, it seems like all of the Bajoran characters and most of the non-Bajorans end up calling the station "DS9" instead of "Deep Space 9." I figured this was probably because using "Deep Space" to refer to a station right near somebody's home was viewed as mildly insulting, kind of like Bashir's references in the pilot to Bajor as the "frontier" and the "wilderness."
It's a curious contradiction: there has never been an Emissary before, but the Bajorans by all rights might have the full legal and religious rules and obligations for this worked down pat. After all, those could be direct, signed hand-downs from the very gods that sent them the Emissary - delivered millennia earlier, via Orbs or the like.
FWIW, we know precious little about Bajoran wedding practices, but we do know they have this husband-wife thing going, and a Bajoran "minister" could have officiated at Ben Sisko and Kasidy Yates' very human wedding.
...Is that Minister as in priest, or Minister as in politician in charge of a Ministry? Bajor assuredly has the latter sort, but the wedding thing is our only reference to the possibility of the former existing. Or is there even a difference? Bajorans seem to take their theocracy pretty seriously, and allowing for a secular First Minister such as Shakaar might be a totally new, post-Occupation concept. (Or then Shakaar is formally a cleric, too!)
Timo Saloniemi
FWIW, we know precious little about Bajoran wedding practices, but we do know they have this husband-wife thing going, and a Bajoran "minister" could have officiated at Ben Sisko and Kasidy Yates' very human wedding.
...Is that Minister as in priest, or Minister as in politician in charge of a Ministry? Bajor assuredly has the latter sort, but the wedding thing is our only reference to the possibility of the former existing. Or is there even a difference? Bajorans seem to take their theocracy pretty seriously, and allowing for a secular First Minister such as Shakaar might be a totally new, post-Occupation concept. (Or then Shakaar is formally a cleric, too!)
Timo Saloniemi
It's admiral Ross that married Kasidy Yates and Ben Sisko. Let's not lose sight of that.
I don't remember the roles and the actions of the Emissary being codified. Could you point me to somewhere where this is shown (and not to a prophecy about what the Emissary is predicted to do)?
It would seem to me that the role of the Kai isn't rigorously defined. Opaka exercises more influence than the government ministers have concrete power, but I doubt that means the Kai has constitutional powers that supercedes the ministers. Winn seems perpetually frustrated that she yields less influence now that there is an Emissary. It would be closer to say that the Bajorans want clerical leadership, but they don't automatically give the clergy political power. Between Jaro and Shakaar, we have two main leaders,neither of whom is centrally religious or allows the clergy to dictate opinions and policies.
If we were to search for an analogy to the political power the vedeks and kais assert, I believe people like Martin Luther King and Pat Robertson in American politics would be closest.
To me it looks like the Kai is very much like the Pope. Imagine how much more powerful the Pope would be if there were only ONE religion on the entire planet?
There might be the equivalent of denominations or sects on Bajor. There are plenty of Christian denominations, for example, who don't believe the Pope's latest opinion is necessarily gospel, nor believe the Pope is any closer to God than you or I, nor have among their congregations members who would have any interest in kissing his ring. The same could hold true for Bajor, their religion and their Kai.
With the exception of the cult of the pah wraiths which seems like a very marginal group. I Haven't seen the tiniest indication of that. It really seems like there is only one religion with one Kai, otherwise , one would think that there would be examples of these other denominations on the station, which is after all a huge mostly Bajoran station.
Since there are many other aliens, characters and plots to deal with, it's likely the writers for DS9 and other series didn't want to get so deep in the mud and the specifics of things like variety in religion, which is why a lot of aliens end up looking more like caricatures in some cases instead of being more fleshed out that what we get on TV at least.
It possible, but it's also possible that there is only one religion due to the fact that contrary to any real religion that we know of. Bajoran gods can be proven to exist and that even their miracles can be proven to exist (the dominion fleet wished away to the cornfield). We have nothing of the sort here on Earth.
Yeah, there's no doubt that Starfleet Captains have the right to perform marriages, and apparently it extends to Admirals, too. But should we assume that
a) Trek universe features a fictional past where, unlike in our reality, sea captains had the right to marry, or
b) Trek universe sea captains of old never had that right, but the right emerged later on (say, in the 21st century) and still qualifies as "historical" for Kirk and Picard?
Beyond that, it's interesting that Ben and Kasidy mentioned the Bajoran Minister and perhaps touched upon how Bajorans handle marriage, then ditched that idea anyway.
Beyond the prophecies that tell what the Emissary is going to achieve, I doubt there was any mention of finer detail. The point was that thanks to the timeless Prophets, it would be consistent and theoretically possible that ancient texts actually obligated Benjamin Lafayette Sisko to speak specific phrases in a specific language in specific situations.
The obligation could come from elsewhere, too. But Sisko would probably not feel obligated unless the parties making demands on him referred to the authority of ancient texts. That is, if they just threatened to challenge his Emissary status unless he did the silly dance and all, he'd laugh them out of Ops; if they asked pretty please, he'd lament he's no good at it and would find workarounds; but if a bride gave the classic That's How It Is And Always Has Been speech and crossed her arms, that's where Sisko would have no means of escape.
But so do the Ministers. Sisko is a threat and challenge to their Council as well, as in the Circle trilogy.
A Pope need to be particularly spiritual deep down, either, in order to rule with great religious power. Jaro certainly had the moves down pat: his retort to Kira's invasion of the Chamber of Ministers was "Blasphemy!"...
Behind the scenes, Orbs and visions featured pretty heavily in the politics of both Jaro and Shakaar. Jaro and Winn's religious doubletalk on the theme of whether the Prophets smile on Jaro's career is pretty hilarious! It really seems the clerics have the (putative) secular politicians by the short and sensitives, no matter what the official setup.
Other interesting aspects have also been pointed out. We have no indication that the Bajoran religion would strive to regulate sexual behavior, which must be considered alien indeed. It also features completely hedonist monks without suggesting they are corrupt or otherwise out of the line - yet these folks definitely are rank-and-file monks rather than sect leaders, throwing certain ideas of hierarchical asceticism out of the window. And there seems to be very little of that explaining-the-true-meaning-of-writings stuff going on, with mysterious prophecies freely left mysterious, and with everybody with access to Orb visions free to interpret those as he or she sees fit.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't think it has much to do with any of these religions. For one thing, it's not even monotheistic.
When Kasidy said her mama would have wanted her to be married by a "minister", I think she meant a Christian minister. She was African-American and it's been clear already that they still felt themselves to be a distinct people to some extent.
BTW, in Washington ship's captains can perform marriages. So can streetcar conductors or elevator operators. Anyone, as long they're 18. However, only the county clerk's office issues the licenses, and the couple both have to appear at the clerk's office.
It's likely is just a meaningless throw away line.
