Federation first contact with Bajorans, Cardassians?

[Lyon_Wonder]

Has any trek series established when the Federation made first contact with Bajorans or Cardassians? Well, not directly, though the 5th season TNG ep with Ensign Ro where the Bajorans are first introduced, Picard mentions that he learned about Bajorans in his 5th grade reader. So I guess that Feds made first contact with the Bajorans in the first decade of the 24th century, or even the late 2290s, not too long after the TOS movie era. Either a fed starship was on a long range mission and came upon the Bajoran star system, or Bajorans were encountered off world. That would have been 20-30 years before the Cardies occupied the system. As for the Cardassians, one DS9 ep mentions a Cardassian living on Vulcan in the 22nd century, so there may have been unofficial contact as early as the time of ENT. It would be fun to assume that Captain Sulu and the Excelsior or the Enterprise-B made first contact

 

[Jono]

You can assume anything you want since it has never been stated in canon when the Federation made official first contact with either species. The novels probably have one (or more) scenarios, but it isn't canon.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

Enterprise B made first contact with the cardassians according to the novels.

 

[Timo]

OTOH, Bajor and Cardassia seem to be right next door to Earth in the later seasons of DS9, with even the slow runabouts (probably about as fast as Archer's starship) effortlessly shuttling back and forth within a week or so.

One might assume that first contact with those species was made about the same time Earth made first contact with most of the regular players of the interstellar community. That is, it wouldn't happen so that an intrepid Earth explorer ventures into deep space and runs into an alien homeworld - more probably, an Earthling would venture into some bazaar near Earth and meet about 263 species there for the first time. Hell, perhaps it was Archer in "Broken Bow", unknowingly bumping onto a Bajoran at Rigel?

Then again, Bajorans were never described as adventurous or cosmopolitan. Plenty of people might know about them, but they might not feel an urge to go to the stars and mingle with outsiders. Picard could have learned about Bajorans back at school the way we learn about, say, the Australian aboriginals: in the early 24th century, they would not be a "new discovery" for anybody else besides this schoolboy.

Picard might also have read about Bajorans back at school even if no Federation citizen had ever met a Bajoran: it could all be secondhand knowledge dating back thousands and thousands of years.

Also, we remain completely at dark about when the two species began wandering into interstellar space. We know Bajorans had lightsails in the 16th century, and supposedly didn't travel to Cardassia before then, but we have no knowledge about the nature of their interstellar travels between the 16th and 24th centuries. And we have no idea at all on when Cardassians went interstellar, except that it must have happened before the mid-22nd century when one of them was said to be living on Vulcan (which doesn't mean Cardassians had interstellar ships back then, but does at least mean they could hitchhike aboard one when needed).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^Earth is not presented as being particularly close to Bajor and Cardassia. In "Paradise Lost", the Defiant took quite some time at high warp to get to Earth.

I can't remember where it was said, but I seem to recall somebody saying it was a three week trip.

 

[Timo]

It's less than 13 days in "The Search I" by Defiant (Jake Sisko says "last Thursday" was on Earth). It's less than one week to the Federation core in "Defiant" by runabout (Bashir expects supplies from Vulcan within a week).

And in "Paradise Lost", all we know is that Sisko realizes the O'Brien at the park cannot be the real one, because the real one was back at DS9 some time earlier. But we never learn why Sisko would think so - as far as we know, the last time he saw the real O'Brien was when he, too, was back at the station.There is no solid information about travel times to be gained from there.

Regarding the trip of the Defiant to Earth, after Odo breaks Sisko out of jail, he says he has contacted Kira and the ship is on its way. From there, it takes very little time until the confrontation between the Defiant and the Lakota - certainly not weeks, and hardly days, either, as Sisko is on the lam the whole time. In fact, it looks like it only takes a few minutes between the jailbreak and Sisko's confrontation with Leyton!

We can say the Defiant left DS9 some time before the jailbreak, of course.
But she's still back on the station when Sisko has a chat with Kira, just before he and Odo break into Leyton's files. And there is no good reason to think that days passed between the call to Kira, the computer break-in, and Sisko's visit to the President and subsequent arrest. Rather, it seems a single night passed between the break-in and the arrest, while at most a couple of days passed with Sisko in jail (enough for him to get to know his "favorite vampire"), but not enough for the countdown to reach the Coup Day on the 14th. And the 14th can't have been in the far future, because the President was supposed to give his urgent speech on the 15th.

We have several other examples of quick movement between DS9 and Earth: "Little Green Men" allows Quark to make the trip without a change of clothes, and Odo to do the same seemingly without regenerating, in what admittedly is considered an exceptionally fast small craft. Also, back in "House of Quark", Klingons managed to abduct the Ferengi all the way to their homeworld, and the barkeep never was away long enough for his customers to get worried...

Also, as the war breaks out, Sisko speculates on getting reinforcements from Earth to retake DS9. Those reinforcements were clearly expected to arrive in a matter of days, even though their arrival was ultimately ruled out for other reasons.

So I'd still argue Bajor and Cardassia are next-door neighbors to Earth, albeit in a direction where the Final Frontier starts very close to Earth.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[nx1701g]

OTOH, Bajor and Cardassia seem to be right next door to Earth in the later seasons of DS9, with even the slow runabouts (probably about as fast as Archer's starship) effortlessly shuttling back and forth within a week or so.

The DS9 Tech Manual claims that DS9 to Earth is between 50-55 light years.

Cardassia is 5 light years from Bajor.

 

[Timo]

...Which actually fits very well with the supposed "Okudaic" warp speeds.

"Real" warp is probably a bit faster than that, at least across long distances and at high warp factors. But still, 50 ly is plausible for a week's separation from Earth, and it's still basically on the upper doorsteps of the Federation.

As to why Cardassia and Bajor didn't feature more prominently in Earth affairs in ENT or TOS, we could argue that Bajor was always isolationist and Cardassia only began its conquest spree after TOS. Or we could say that a fringe of the Delphic Expanse, also reputed to be some 50 ly from Earth, created a traffic hazard between Earth and Bajor and isolated the two until Archer dispersed the Expanse.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^For some reason, the memory of somebody mentioning Cardassia in an episode of Enterprise suddenly popped in to my head. I can't think where it was, I think I must be misremembering things.

 

[Timo]

Cardassians were among the test subjects of the Organians in "Observer Effect". However, there is no evidence that the human heroes ever learned about the existence of the Cardassians, or that Mayweather ever remembered having been possessed by an Organian who said "Cardassia".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^Ah, that's it. It just popped in to my head, I wasn't using it as evidence of Enterprise-era contact between the Cardassians and Earth.

 

[nx1701g]

^ The Terran Empire may have had contact with the Cardassians as early as the 22nd Century though. One of the creatures being experimented upon by Mirror Phlox is a Cardassian Vole.

 

[Hermiod]

The Terran Empire was already more aggressive though. They had subjugated the Vulcans and the Andorians and had more NX-class ships than their counterparts from the other universe.

 

[Guartho]

Did the captain of the ship that Archer stole the warp "coil" from mention Cardassians?

 

[Timo]

Um, no. He wasn't much for idle chatting, and didn't discuss any other species besides the Xindi, whom he said he didn't know.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lyon_Wonder]

Did the captain of the ship that Archer stole the warp "coil" from mention Cardassians?

You most be thinking of Damar