Day of the Vipers (Please mark Spoilers!)
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Odo'ital was a Cardassian word? I could have sworn it was Bajoran.
I don't remember *any* time when the Cardassian language was ever spoken or even written, on the actual show, except for once: when Odo was explaining how he got his name (odo'ital - it's a Cardassian word meaning, literally, "nothing"). Is there any other?
When the Bajorans found Odo, they put him in a container (he hadn't yet learned how to imitate humanoid form) and labelled him 'unknown sample'. This was of course translated into Cardassian, for the benefit of the occupation forces. Somehow, the Bajoran term for 'unknown sample' got translated into Cardassian as odo'ital ("nothing").
There's no specific reason. All the Oralians have forenames and surnames, just like "regular" Cardassians, it's just not mentioned. The Oralians are referred to by their forenames.
Actually, the book was 2318-28, and the Withdrawal was in 2369. So we're talking 40-50 years, not 50-60.
It wasn't so much the age thing that bothered me; it was more that after fifty years which contained an Occupation and a Withdrawal, so many people seemed to be in the exact same political/military positions.
I finished the book about a week ago. The first, maybe close to third of the book just seemed to drag awfully slow for me. Took me quite a while to get through the first fourteen chapters or so. However after I did that, the book seemed to really pick up and I enjoyed it much more afterward and so I also give the book an overall "thumbs up" and am looking forward to book two.
^
Ya It started pretty slow to me also. The whole series is a back story or a pre-story, so there is a lot of introduction and characterization going on. I don't know if we really need the complete info on Mace or not. It seemed a touch overkilled with him not a regular from the show. I am very thrilled to read the back story on Dukat, Kira, etc. That adds to the grandness that the series was. All in all the book finished well, in that I had to just read the next page and never put it down during the last 100 pages or so.
Ya It started pretty slow to me also. The whole series is a back story or a pre-story, so there is a lot of introduction and characterization going on. I don't know if we really need the complete info on Mace or not. It seemed a touch overkilled with him not a regular from the show. I am very thrilled to read the back story on Dukat, Kira, etc. That adds to the grandness that the series was. All in all the book finished well, in that I had to just read the next page and never put it down during the last 100 pages or so.
Ah. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Like who? The only one that comes to my mind is Dukat who is a Gul at the end of the book and is a Gul in the first episode of DS9, though I'm not sure if Prefect doesn't count as a different "rank". The other characters who also appear in DS9 or TNG have different ranks or a different profession.
Oh, and:
Yes, please.
Maybe the cast list should be posted in the pinned casting thread so we can discuss our choices there.
I didn't pick actors for every character - some I just thought of as younger versions of the people who played them on TV, others I didn't really "see" as specific people - but here's the ones I did "cast"...
Darrah Mace - Nathan Fillion
Gar Osen - David Anders
Lonnic Tomo - Josette Simon (circa early 1980's)
Jas Holza - Neil Pearson
Kubus Oak - Sean Pertwee
Syjin - David Tennant (although Marco thought him more Steve Buscemi)
Darrah Karys - Indra Ove
Tima - Peta Wilson
Verin Kolek - William Hartnell (circa mid 1960's)
Lieutenant Gwen Jones - Eve Miles
Bennek - Craig Kelley
Hadlo - Gareth Thomas
Rhan Ico - Lucy Lawless
Pasir Letin - Sean Maher
Darrah Mace - Nathan Fillion
Gar Osen - David Anders
Lonnic Tomo - Josette Simon (circa early 1980's)
Jas Holza - Neil Pearson
Kubus Oak - Sean Pertwee
Syjin - David Tennant (although Marco thought him more Steve Buscemi)
Darrah Karys - Indra Ove
Tima - Peta Wilson
Verin Kolek - William Hartnell (circa mid 1960's)
Lieutenant Gwen Jones - Eve Miles
Bennek - Craig Kelley
Hadlo - Gareth Thomas
Rhan Ico - Lucy Lawless
Pasir Letin - Sean Maher
I knew it! I hesitated to say, but I knew that was what you were going for.
Also, it's very clear to see which TV shows you watch.
Whoa, totally different from my list, except I did think of Eve Myles for the young Welsh lieutenant. I cast Aaron Douglas (BSG's Tyrol) as Darrah Mace, and Tony Amendola (Bra'tac from SG-1) as Hadlo. Somehow I ended up with Kelsey Grammer as Jas Holza and House's Robert Sean Leonard as Gar Osen, though those were more "first thing I thought of" than ideal choices. (Although I thought Grammer worked out very well as the vain, pretentious politician type.) And I didn't have anyone specific in mind for Syjin, but my image of him was closer to Buscemi than Tennant.
Thank you for posting this, I've been struggling to cast this in my mind and this helps alot. The only original character I've cast is Christopher Meloni as Darrah Mace, but I hadn't really been sure how well that worked for me. But now I am definitely going with Nathan Fillion for the rest of he book(s?) and any rereads.
Edit: Thanks to this list I was able to go ahead and make another one of my cast lists, so like before PM me with your email if you want it.
Edit: Thanks to this list I was able to go ahead and make another one of my cast lists, so like before PM me with your email if you want it.
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i finished the book a couple days ago and loved it. it's one of those things where you kinda sorta know how things are going to turn out but you're still surprised by some of the details. i put it up there forged in fire which i thought was one of the best ST book in the last year.
i'm so un star wars knowledgeable i didn't catch the reference on page 388. i assume it's the "we're ok" business. when i re-read that i vaguely remembered something like that with han solo in the prison room. what comes to mind more to me is the start of the conversation between the president and the premier of the soviet union in dr. strangelove so i guess it's one of those things where if you get it, you get it and if you don't, it doesn't harm the story.
i didn't think about this until i finished the book and got a quarter of the way through the 2nd book when i realized the gap between the 2 books is the period where sisko was born which memory alpha puts at 2332. i was just struck with the idea of "i wonder what was going on on bajor when the prophets decided they needed to create the sisko".
i'm so un star wars knowledgeable i didn't catch the reference on page 388. i assume it's the "we're ok" business. when i re-read that i vaguely remembered something like that with han solo in the prison room. what comes to mind more to me is the start of the conversation between the president and the premier of the soviet union in dr. strangelove so i guess it's one of those things where if you get it, you get it and if you don't, it doesn't harm the story.
i didn't think about this until i finished the book and got a quarter of the way through the 2nd book when i realized the gap between the 2 books is the period where sisko was born which memory alpha puts at 2332. i was just struck with the idea of "i wonder what was going on on bajor when the prophets decided they needed to create the sisko".
Except that the Prophets exist outside linear time; past, present, and future are all one to them. They didn't conceive Sisko because of anything that happened in 2332, but because of what would happen in the 2370s, when he was needed.
Prefect isn't a rank, it's a position.
This is a review so there might be some minor spoilers.
I finished the book last night, and it was great! The one that kinda suprised me at first was how long it took for the Cardassians to take over, because I'd always imagined it as a big invasion that overwhelmed Bajor in one huge move. But now that I've read the book and thought more about real world occupations I've come to realize that a slow sublte takeover over a period of years actually makes a lot more sense, and would work alot better for the occupiers.
One of the things liked the most about the book was the fact that we got to see the Occupation through the eyes of such a diverse group of characters. It also didn't hurt that the characterizations were so great, all of the characters we were supposed to like were very likeable, and the characters we weren't were easy to dislike. If I had to pick favorites it woul have to be Bennek, Syjin, Darrah, and Dukat. As for Dukat, this was a great story for him IMO, I loved getting to see his first visit to Bajor, and at the same time get some insight into why he did what he did. For me one of the weirder things was reading so much about his thoughts about his family, while we know that in the future he will have at least two affairs with Bajoran women, one of which even produces a daughter.
9.5/10
I finished the book last night, and it was great! The one that kinda suprised me at first was how long it took for the Cardassians to take over, because I'd always imagined it as a big invasion that overwhelmed Bajor in one huge move. But now that I've read the book and thought more about real world occupations I've come to realize that a slow sublte takeover over a period of years actually makes a lot more sense, and would work alot better for the occupiers.
One of the things liked the most about the book was the fact that we got to see the Occupation through the eyes of such a diverse group of characters. It also didn't hurt that the characterizations were so great, all of the characters we were supposed to like were very likeable, and the characters we weren't were easy to dislike. If I had to pick favorites it woul have to be Bennek, Syjin, Darrah, and Dukat. As for Dukat, this was a great story for him IMO, I loved getting to see his first visit to Bajor, and at the same time get some insight into why he did what he did. For me one of the weirder things was reading so much about his thoughts about his family, while we know that in the future he will have at least two affairs with Bajoran women, one of which even produces a daughter.
9.5/10
A slow takeover is definitely better, because as you can see, it was done with practically no Cardassian casualties whatsoever. A massive frontal assault would have still won but at the price of an almost-as-massive retaliation, which may have killed some Cardassians, and the possibility of destroying what they were really after - the planetary resources. As it happened, the only Cardassians killed were Oralians, who the CC considers barely Cardassian anyway.
As to Dukat's affairs, I imagine he was cognitively dissonant enough to not even think of them on the same level. His Cardassian wife was his real family, the one he had to take care of. His multiple Bajoran mistresses were basically pets to him. One cares for a pet, especially if you can get sex out of it too, but it's not on the same level as another person.
As to Dukat's affairs, I imagine he was cognitively dissonant enough to not even think of them on the same level. His Cardassian wife was his real family, the one he had to take care of. His multiple Bajoran mistresses were basically pets to him. One cares for a pet, especially if you can get sex out of it too, but it's not on the same level as another person.
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