DTI: Why is Kirk considered the worst violator?

[Cap'n Crunch]

Fair enough, but I believe it would be safer for the prophets to have arranged the orb to be "safe" without the need to rely on Bajoran bureaucracy through the ages (not to mention the tender temporal ministrations of the Cardassians who, as per Trials and Tribble-ations, had captured the orb and posessed it for some time prior to its return.

I don't think that's the way the Prophets think. Although they do have some direct interest in the Bajoran people, they're still very alien minds from a very alien realm, and can't be assumed to be micromanagers who are just hovering over the Bajorans and taking care of things for them.

The Prophets like to say that they are "of Bajor". I have a theory about what that might mean:

Spoiler: idea

that they are actually the super-evolved descendants of the Bajoran race, somehow transformed into an incorporeal state or whatever the hell they are. So when they say they are of Bajor, they mean it literally.

The reason this is possible is because of their non-linear nature.

That's what I've always thought too.