How are the Bajorans behind the Federation technologically?

[Christopher]

The Bajorans are a civilization that had spaceflight in the 16th century. Their science is plenty advanced. It's just that their priorities haven't been geared toward expansionism. They have a good understanding of the physical universe, but they don't see the need to apply it toward the same goals that Federation/human society does.

By analogy: Two people can go to the same college and take the same basic classes and learn the same things, but one may be motivated to specialize in aviation and become an astronaut while the other may be inspired to pursue a master's in history and spend her life studying the past in libraries. The second student doesn't have less knowledge, just a different set of interests.

 

[Timo]

I haven't seen any mention of prophet influence on the Bajorans and not just in the vague religious sense. I mean literal direct influence.

We know they are "of Bajor", originating there. We don't know if they are kinda "ascended" Bajorans or codeveloped with them or predate them in any way. but they certainly influenced and guided them and have been present in a very real way before they created their celestial temple, banished the pagh wraiths and then retreated from the planet to exist in a completely non linear buble universe.

That should put a good spin on a humanoid civilization.

Good point. One wonders about the degree of influence they really had, though: all we explicitly know about are the Orbs, the first of which supposedly only appeared around 8,000 BC, and even their influence on Bajoran culture, psyche or body seems pretty modest.

Of course, if the Prophets really started meddling, they would probably also make it difficult to create a comprehensible or "linear" history of their influence. Bajor might suffer from multiple bouts of cultural amnesia, haphazardly swapped millennia, or something even weirder, and only the very latest 10,000-year stretch of the Bajoran civilization (not that much longer than the history of the human civilization) is currently the subject of reliable historical records.

Timo Saloniemi