When did Cardassia make first contact with the Federation?

[Tomalak]

It's possible that their proximity to the Klingons also made it difficult to have peaceful missions in their region of space until the Khitomer accords.

The thing is, the Galactic map is pretty vague, but most sources put the Klingons and Cardassians on opposite sides of the Federation. Aside from a mention of the "Betreka Nebula Incident", there's no reason to believe they are neighbours IIRC.

They invade Cardassia, but they need to cross Federation (or at least Bajoran) space to do so.

Admittedly Deep Space Nine is pretty unclear on this stuff. Apparently DS9 is both remote from Earth, yet also close enough for regular trips home. It's close enough to the Klingons and Romulans that the Dominion can attack the Federation from Cardassian space through the Romulan Neutral Zone.

 

[Timo]

We know that "first contact" can be an extremely narrowly defined thing. In "Move Along Home", a bunch of aliens meet a Vulcan survey ship and get a ride to DS9 on what looks like a Bajoran vessel, but they aren't making "first contact" until they shake hands with Commander Sisko.

I don't think Iloja Prim need count as a "contact" of any sort. So he's Cardassian? Fine. Do they Vulcans even know he's Cardassian? It's not as if he would have to tell them. Or tell the truth if asked.

OTOH, DSC sort of preempted all this stuff with Tilly's innocuous line in "Choose Your Pain": I've searched the database for compatible lifeforms, no luck, should I now search the secret database?

People get around in Star Trek, where interstellar travel is easy and cheap or, if need be, stealable. Earth probably had been visited by every species in the neighborhood at least thrice before the pyramids were built, and New York in the late 20th century of Star Trek probably did have its MIB minding a veritable zoo of visitors. Quite possibly a couple of Cardassians advised Charlemagne, but since they didn't make a fuss of it, it doesn't count as first contact.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JayTheTrekkie]

I have always wondered when Federation had first contact with the Cardassian.....at first, I was thinking the first contact would have been early 24th century but to what everybody says now, early 23nd century sounds about right.

 

[Tenacity]

We know that "first contact" can be an extremely narrowly defined thing

I take "first contact" to be just that, the first meeting between a couple (of group) of anyones of two different species.

The often referred to first contact in FC was a casual meeting between some human civilians and the crew of a passing Vulcan ship.

Not between Earth's governing body and it's Vulcan counter-part.

 

[Christopher]

I take "first contact" to be just that, the first meeting between a couple (of group) of anyones of two different species.

Yeah, but there are other possible ways of defining it. What you describe would be first contact between the species, but it wouldn't necessarily be an official contact between their governments. The one doesn't necessarily equate with the other or lead to the other. The T'Plana'Hath was a ship affiliated with the Vulcan government, it had Ambassador Solkar aboard, so that "casual meeting" soon led to formal diplomatic contact and political alliance. But the Ferengi ship that made "first contact" with Enterprise in "Acquisition" was a privateer, just a bunch of civilian trader-pirates out for their own profit, and thus it didn't go any further than that brief encounter, and the "official" first contact between Earth/Federation and Ferengi didn't happen for another 200-plus years.

By the same token, Vulcan's first contact with a Cardassian individual happened in the 22nd century, but that didn't necessarily lead directly to contact and regular interaction with Cardassia, the political entity. Trek has an unfortunate tendency to treat species and nationality as identical, which is an extremely unrealistic oversimplification.

 

[Tenacity]

But "THE" first contact was what we saw in the movie, it was repeatedly referred to as "THE" first contact.

 

[Timo]

...Where?

I mean, Vulcans came and met Cochrane. Odds are that within 24 hours, they also met the true leaders of Earth. So First Contact Day would not necessarily refer to Cochrane's handshake.

The heroes do specify the Vulcan landing site as the site of the First Contact. But I can see POTUS and the Premier of the Neo-Gaullist Party and whatnot flying their own vehicles to that site, rather than the Vulcans taking off and landing on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Markonian]

In Federation: The First 150 Years, the T’Plana-Hath lifts off when black helicopters arrive, and lands in Sisco, where the surviving UN diplomats maintain the WWIII peace treaty. Being defenseless, they simply welcome the Vulcans with open arms.

The previous contact between Humans and Vulcans was with Mestral.

 

[Xhiandra]

Let's see...Dye hair black. Comb in full tube of Brill Cream. Full gray makeup and then glue gray spoon to forehead.

So, just like TNG/DS9 Cardassians, then.

 

[Tomalak]

...Where?

I mean, Vulcans came and met Cochrane. Odds are that within 24 hours, they also met the true leaders of Earth. So First Contact Day would not necessarily refer to Cochrane's handshake.

The heroes do specify the Vulcan landing site as the site of the First Contact. But I can see POTUS and the Premier of the Neo-Gaullist Party and whatnot flying their own vehicles to that site, rather than the Vulcans taking off and landing on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Timo Saloniemi

I thought it was fairly well understood that "first contact" in this instance meant the first official, public and documented contact between humans and extraterrestrials. Obviously we know there had been prior contact on many occasions, but humanity as a whole had no knowledge of them.

It's not unreasonable for humans to regard an alien spaceship landing in Montana as a pretty significant event, more important than any political or diplomatic meeting that may have followed in the days after.

It's like Columbus Day, the observed day of commemoration.

 

[Christopher]

But "THE" first contact was what we saw in the movie, it was repeatedly referred to as "THE" first contact.

You can't dwell too much on labels. Labels don't define things, they just describe them. And a short, simple label is an inadequate description for anything complex. It should be seen as the starting point for understanding something, not the end goal.

It's like Columbus Day, the observed day of commemoration.

Except the Vulcans didn't install themselves as territorial governors, enslave, torture, and rape the Terrans, plunder Earth's wealth to pay their debts, ship thousands of humans to the Orion slave camps, forcibly convert them to Surakism, hunt and kill them for sport and feed their remains to their sehlats, or murder human protestors and parade their severed body parts through the streets. Nor did they bring diseases which eventually exterminated over 90% of the Earth's population. Nor did they mistakenly believe that Earth was actually a planet in the Tellar system.

http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/columbus-controversy
http://www.understandingprejudice.org/nativeiq/weather.htm

Although there is one similarity, which is that the official "first contact" in 2063 was not the first time Vulcans had met humans. Mestral and T'Mir in Carbon Creek were sort of like the Vinland settlers in this analogy.

 

[Tomalak]

Yes Christopher, that's exactly my point. I'm not attempting to draw parallels or condone the actions of Columbus following that contact, and am fully aware of the controversy.

But I stand by the comparison. Columbus Day marks the first officially recognised and documented voyage of Europeans to the Americas. We now know that wasn't the case, but it was not widely understood at the time.

 

[Christopher]

^I just think "commemorate" is a poor choice of words there.

 

[Timo]

How so? It means remembering. It's the timid alternative for "celebrate" or "jubilate", typically when people are afraid of showing their glee at the event having happened, lest other people lynch them. But it's also a very, very good word for the opposite of forgetting.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Fun to think about all the alien contact with Earth prior to First Contact. If you count cases where humans interacted with aliens without knowing they were aliens, you get the Roman gods. If the human knowing the person in front of them is an alien is required, you can at least go as far back as Mark Twain, I can't remember if there are other time travel episodes where they go back further and the humans learn for a fact the person is an alien.

First contact is really the initiating event that led to the general public becoming aware of aliens. So first contact with Cardassians would be the incident that led to humans and Cardassians both learning the other existed.

And yes, by those standards, Columbus would also be the one who made 'first contact' with North America for Europe. Just he was about as nice to them as the Cardassians were to the Bajorans.

The word commemorate implies that you are honoring the thing, so it's probably not the right word to talk about Columbus.

 

[Timo]

Fun to think about all the alien contact with Earth prior to First Contact. If you count cases where humans interacted with aliens without knowing they were aliens, you get the Roman gods.

...Probably not - humans aren't that stupid. It's when humans interact with aliens like Apollo's folks, then die, and their great-great-great-grandchildren forget, that a nicely quantifiable alien visitation turns into a murky legend about the Greco-Roman sort of gods.

If the human knowing the person in front of them is an alien is required, you can at least go as far back as Mark Twain, I can't remember if there are other time travel episodes where they go back further and the humans learn for a fact the person is an alien.

Q interfered often enough with Earth history. Can we really attribute him with the sort of tact that would keep his divine, alien powers unnoticed? Thaddeus Riker probably had at least an inkling he had been visited by a nonhuman.

No, I can't recall a definite reference to a revealed alien visitation to Earth from an earlier era, either. But it would be rather unthinkable that none took place.

First contact is really the initiating event that led to the general public becoming aware of aliens.

So first contact with Apollo's party probably meets the criteria. It's just that later generations of this general public forgot.

So first contact with Cardassians would be the incident that led to humans and Cardassians both learning the other existed.

But the definition of "general public" may not be all that broader in the Federation than it was back on Peloponnesos. Those (tens of?) thousands of years go, messages traveled slowly and became corrupted because of technological limitations. From the 22nd century Federation onwards (and indeed here down on Earth from the 19th century on), they would face different hurdles, applied to enforce the need to know.

Depending on how the high and mighty decide on that need, the open database may contain everything on Tellarites, only a select few facts on Vulcans, and nothing on Cardassians - but there also exists the secret database, available at Cadet Tilly's keypress unless Commander Saru decides against it. That database supposedly contains all the dirt on Vulcans and everything required for meeting the criteria of proper first contact with Cardassians.

If the governments know, the ignorance of the rank and file shouldn't IMHO be counted against first contact having happened.

And yes, by those standards, Columbus would also be the one who made 'first contact' with North America for Europe.

But so would Lucky Leif. His message did propagate to his general public, with the full force of propaganda to boot.

The word commemorate implies that you are honoring the thing, so it's probably not the right word to talk about Columbus.

Why would it imply that? The commonly used word for holocaust remembrance is "commemorate", too. Indeed, at a quick glance, most "Days of Remembrance" are defined using that word on their online publicity material.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

I take "first contact" to be just that, the first meeting between a couple (of group) of anyones of two different species.

But "THE" first contact was what we saw in the movie, it was repeatedly referred to as "THE" first contact.

If that is so, then how do you view the Carbon Creek 'incident' during the 1950's ? Or doesn't that one count because the humans didn't know the Vulcans were non-human?

 

[Christopher]

If that is so, then how do you view the Carbon Creek 'incident' during the 1950's ? Or doesn't that one count because the humans didn't know the Vulcans were non-human?

If we go by the eponymous TNG episode, in which the Federation was clandestinely observing the Malcorians for some time before deciding to make formal overtures, that would suggest that the Federation defines "first contact" as the first overt contact, the moment when one culture reveals itself openly to the other. Picard's mission to reveal himself to the Malcorian leaders and invite them to open relations with the Federation was considered the act of first contact, but the advance team's secret observations of the Malcorians were not considered first contact -- indeed, they were considered a necessary step for deciding whether a culture was ready for first contact. So a secret contact that one side doesn't know about would not count by that definition. Thus, the T'Plana'Hath's landing in Bozeman, Montana in 2063 would count as the official human-Vulcan first contact, but the landing in Carbon Creek in 1957 would be a clandestine pre-contact encounter.

I suppose it would make sense to define several subcategories of first contact -- first detection of evidence of an alien species' existence or its artifacts, first direct observation of the species itself, first physical interaction, first official political or diplomatic contact. A given contact can be more than one of those at the same time, but sometimes they happen separately. Better to have a continuum than a single, rigidly defined label.

 

[Voth commando1]

I always figured in my own head canon at least it was the late 23rd or early 24th century. Earlier indirect contacts may have been established sooner but I suspect formal relations between the two governments were established at the absolute latest-probably around 2340 or something but probably earlier than that.

I also suspect relations soured pretty quickly given the Bajoran occupation which covered most of the 24th century and the cardassians militaristic state and various intrigues(the obsidian order).

Given the way Dukat speaks of Federation values and the attitude of some the other cardassians we see on DS9 and TNG I suspect the cardassians didn't like or trust the federation either. And that wasn't a recent phenomenon or the result of the apparent skirmishes and border conflicts-Janeway mentions engaging the Cardassians as a lieutenant and O'brien as a long deep disdain for the Cardassians.

I suspect those conflicts hardened attitudes that already existed on both sides.

 

[Variable_Complex]

The thing is, the Galactic map is pretty vague, but most sources put the Klingons and Cardassians on opposite sides of the Federation. Aside from a mention of the "Betreka Nebula Incident", there's no reason to believe they are neighbours IIRC.

That is exactly what I was thinking. Of course the dialogue in DS9 would have you believe that the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans are all in the AQ while the ST Star Charts have the Klingons and Romulans in the BQ.