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For Cardassia!

Kilana2

Vice Admiral
Admiral
This thread is dedicated to one of my favorite species in Star Trek. It offers characters like:

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I don't know if all Cardassians are like their military, but they did occupy Bajor and stripped their planet of its resources and controlled the population. Raping and killing? Not cool. I don't like the "Cardies" as they're known by some.
 
I don't know if all Cardassians are like their military, but they did occupy Bajor and stripped their planet of its resources and controlled the population. Raping and killing? Not cool. I don't like the "Cardies" as they're known by some.
DS9 makes it pretty clear they aren't. We get a good look at the Cardassians' ugliest impulses and ideological fervor through the aggressive expansionism and authoritarian rule of their military and the Obsidian Order, which of course includes the horrific occupation of Bajor and all that it entails. But we also see plenty of dissidents, scientists and educators, and other average citizens who have nothing to do with the crimes committed by their government and military, just trying to survive within a brutal and oppressive regime. While the Bajorans have clearly and obviously suffered the most under the ruthless brutality of the Cardassian Union, the Cardassian citizens don't fare well, either; their government is holding them culturally and ideologically hostage through propaganda, forced labor and a corrupt justice system, and in the end they're left with utter devastation in the wake of their leaders' hubris and craven folly.

The Cardassians are one of the most complex and well-drawn races in all of Star Trek, with a tragic and complicated history, which makes them appealing from a dramatic standpoint. In many ways, the Cardassians serve as a mirror to humanity, reflecting the best and the worst aspects of our history and our nature. Like us, they contain multitudes, and their descent into fascism and occupation parallels a number of real-world events. It would have been easy to present the Cardassians as a one-dimensional, monolithic antagonist race, Space Nazis and nothing more, but instead, DS9 fleshes them out into a culturally complex, multi-faceted people whose history offers a powerful and compelling cautionary tale about the devastation, pain and suffering wrought when we give in to fear, hate and greed.

The Cardassian storyline provides some of the most dramatically rich and thought-provoking content in the Trek franchise. Episodes like "Duet," "Cardassians," "Profit and Loss," "The Darkness and the Light," "Second Skin," "Indiscretion," as well as the multi-part Cardassian resistance arc in DS9's final season challenge the audience's preconceptions and moral assumptions, and don't let us off the hook with any easy answers or tidy resolutions.

Cardassian-centric episodes are some of my favorites for this reason, and I love that Trek has produced characters as nuanced as Garak, Damar, Tekeny Ghemor, Natima Lang, and Aamin Marritza. Even a clear villain like Gul Dukat, a man who has committed unspeakable horrors, is afforded complicated depths. This is storytelling and character development done right, and probably what OP wants to celebrate.
 
DS9 makes it pretty clear they aren't. We get a good look at the Cardassians' ugliest impulses and ideological fervor through the aggressive expansionism and authoritarian rule of their military and the Obsidian Order, which of course includes the horrific occupation of Bajor and all that it entails. But we also see plenty of dissidents, scientists and educators, and other average citizens who have nothing to do with the crimes committed by their government and military, just trying to survive within a brutal and oppressive regime. While the Bajorans have clearly and obviously suffered the most under the ruthless brutality of the Cardassian Union, the Cardassian citizens don't fare well, either; their government is holding them culturally and ideologically hostage through propaganda, forced labor and a corrupt justice system, and in the end they're left with utter devastation in the wake of their leaders' hubris and craven folly.

The Cardassians are one of the most complex and well-drawn races in all of Star Trek, with a tragic and complicated history, which makes them appealing from a dramatic standpoint. In many ways, the Cardassians serve as a mirror to humanity, reflecting the best and the worst aspects of our history and our nature. Like us, they contain multitudes, and their descent into fascism and occupation parallels a number of real-world events. It would have been easy to present the Cardassians as a one-dimensional, monolithic antagonist race, Space Nazis and nothing more, but instead, DS9 fleshes them out into a culturally complex, multi-faceted people whose history offers a powerful and compelling cautionary tale about the devastation, pain and suffering wrought when we give in to fear, hate and greed.

The Cardassian storyline provides some of the most dramatically rich and thought-provoking content in the Trek franchise. Episodes like "Duet," "Cardassians," "Profit and Loss," "The Darkness and the Light," "Second Skin," "Indiscretion," as well as the multi-part Cardassian resistance arc in DS9's final season challenge the audience's preconceptions and moral assumptions, and don't let us off the hook with any easy answers or tidy resolutions.

Cardassian-centric episodes are some of my favorites for this reason, and I love that Trek has produced characters as nuanced as Garak, Damar, Tekeny Ghemor, Natima Lang, and Aamin Marritza. Even a clear villain like Gul Dukat, a man who has committed unspeakable horrors, is afforded complicated depths. This is storytelling and character development done right, and probably what OP wants to celebrate.

Written exactly to the point.
 

Yep. Looks like two Andorians, a Cardassian, a human and a Lurian. I'm having trouble IDing the figure second from the left.

I hope Garak appears in Picard......:cardie:
Me too. I'd even take a Short Trek appearance. I know Andrew Robinson has said he'd jump at the chance to play him again, too.

I'm curious about the Cardassians in general. Have they managed to recover? Did they wind up joining the Federation? I hope Picard eventually provides us some answers.
 
I love the Bajroans and I love the Cardassians.

The Cardassians were really one of the better explored species in older Trek. They had a great design, we saw a lot of them and they never became one-note like the Klingons. We learned of their art, their culture, their societal norms (apparently in Cardassian society the sciences are a female dominated field, for example)
And they gave us a lot of interesting recurring and one-off characters.
I would love for them to reappear so that we can see how Cardassian society has developed since the devastation of the Dominon War.
 
I love Una McCormack's take on the Cardassian society.

Our own @Nerys Ghemor wrote a lot of very nice Cardassian fanfic. Unfortunately she hasn't been here in awhile.

Anyhoo, I highly recommend her stuff. Please check it out. The link is in her profile page.

side note: "Sigils and Unions" takes place in the normal Trek 'verse. "Catacombs of Oralius" is set in an alternate reality, one where there was no Cardassian occupation of Bajor - instead, it was the Bajorans who occupied Cardassia. IIRC, the scene in TNG's "Parallels" with a Cardassian serving on the bridge of the Enterprise-D takes place in this universe.
 
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I'd like to see Cardassians involved in the next season of Picard, having just the Romulans in it feels too 2 dimensional, just my opinion
A guest appearance from Garak would be really cool
 
Didn't like the re-cast of the Tora Ziyal character. She was played by three different actresses - not even Bruce Maddox had this kind of 'honor'.
 
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