The Ascendants are a Gamma-Quadrant species that IIRC worshipped the same aliens that the Bajorans worship. After reading the novels, at least for me it seemed like the wormhole aliens "revealed" themselves to different species to see how they react, though that may be just my interpretation or misremembering. The Ascendants also kill of everybody who does not worship their gods (basically everyone else) and think that murdering all unbelievers will bring them closer to their goal, ascending to their gods, hence the name. I am not sure if I got all this stuff right so you might want to check out the MB page, that I fear to read due to TOS: "Allegiance in Exile" spoilers.
Nana Visitor says no to Vedek Kira
- Thread starter DS9forever
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They also appear to fly through the galaxy in cruciform ships, because allegory got un subtle.
Not so much that she's become religious, more that she's not quite so anti-religious as she once was. She has stopped making such a big deal of the fact that she doesn't believe in the Prophets, and is willing to be open to other ideas more. And that is contrasted by her first officer Major Cenn losing his faith because of various events.
To a fair extent yes, although there is more to it than that because she came from a culture that did embrace belief in these particular gods, which made her the odd one out, and she sorta used that to define her a bit in contrast to other Bajorans, but also chafed against how some Bajorans considered her defective or damaged because of it.
What Jinn and Jaime say is mostly correct, although...
...there is actually a third race, the Eavoq, who live on the planet at the other end of the wormhole, Idran. They were never found by Starfleet previous to this because they had been hiding from the Ascendants using some kind of space-fold thingy.
...and some would say a fourth race as well - the Cardassians. In the books, some of the Cardassians in the post-war period rediscover the spirituality of their Hebitian ancestors, and it is strongly hinted, although not stated outright, that this religion was also associated with the Prophets.
...and some would say a fourth race as well - the Cardassians. In the books, some of the Cardassians in the post-war period rediscover the spirituality of their Hebitian ancestors, and it is strongly hinted, although not stated outright, that this religion was also associated with the Prophets.
Aside: is anyone else having to write the spoiler tags by hand at the moment? because I can't for the life of me find the button to do it automatically.
Oh I still think she's kicking ass. In fact I would say her tendency to take charge and boss people around is probably a large part of why she progressed so quickly - she kept pushing herself to the front of the line whether she meant to or not. I agree that she wouldn't be a sit-down-and-preach kind of vedek - she'd be a get-out-and-actually-do-something vedek.
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Thank you. The story is actually quite complex, a great deal more than I would have thought.
Well, I somehow completely missed everything that happened to Ro, however I recall something with Cenn and losing faith.
Dammit, Idran! There are aliens living on you and you don't even tell us?!
There was a figurine thingy of a Bajoran/Cardassian hybrid wasn't there?
Dammit, Idran! There are aliens living on you and you don't even tell us?!
Well, I've got to keep some secrets.
Even that's more of a necessary condition rather than sufficient. I'm not sure if anyone else here would be familiar with Planescape, but this sort of situation here, or in Marvel, or DC, or anywhere else where gods are "confirmed" to exist in some form or another just makes me think towards the Athar. They manage it fine in a setting where not only do gods exist but they grant you special powers in exchange for worshiping them, and it's basically exactly along those lines; that being extremely powerful isn't the same as being a figure worthy of worship.
There was indeed - it was also said to be made of a material that was found on the Eavoq homeworld, and had eyes that glowed with an inner fire like the Ascendants, so connecting all four races. Sadly that was one of the casualties of the storylined getting dropped with Marco Palmieri's departure, and then retooled by DRG3. I have conjectured that:
Ohalu himself was actually an Eavoq. He came through the wormhole millennia ago - accidentally, as a result of the space-fold thingy that saved them from the Ascendants the first time around - and ended up on Bajor, where the locals set up a whole religion around him. After a while, he tried to leave and go home, but got caught in the Denorios belt and swept to Cardassia as per 'Explorers', where the same thing happened. When the climate changed and the Hebitian culture died off to be replaced by Cardassians, he came back to Bajor, bringing the jevonite figurine with elements of all four races as a symbol of unity. When he finally died, he was buried at B'Hala, which is where Istani Reyla found the book and Prylar Eivos found the figurine.
Ohalu. Oralius. B'Hala. Can't be a coincidence.
Ohalu. Oralius. B'Hala. Can't be a coincidence.
lovely, thanks!
Not necessarily. There are plenty of mythologies in which gods can and do die. The dying and resurrecting god is a recurring myth in many Western religions, generally symbolizing the turn of the seasons -- Osiris, Mithras, Orpheus, Jesus (yes, there's a lot of influence from the former three cults on the beliefs about that last one). I think Krishna has a death/resurrection thing associated with him as well. In Norse myth, Ragnarok is when the Asgardian gods will die. As something of an offshoot of that, Jack Kirby's New Gods in DC Comics are the gods that came along after the previous generation of gods died (and the previous gods were implied to be the Asgardians, since Kirby had left Marvel for DC and adapted some of his Thor ideas to his new creation).
Plus, of course, Klingon mythology tells that they killed their gods, so we have a canonical in-universe example of a belief system in which gods are mortal.
The worst thing DS9 did in its later seasons was to force Bajoran religion and the behavior of the Prophets to conform to a very conventionally Biblical, Judeo-Christian set of assumptions about how gods and religions work. It stripped away all the alienness and made them boring. Here on Earth alone, there are many different types of religious tradition, many ways of defining what gods are and how they relate to humans and to the universe. Native American and Japanese religions blur the distinction between the physical and the divine, allowing something to be both at once. Many Native American and Pacific Islander beliefs regarded individual people as gods -- but that did not translate to the kind of absolute power that monarchic European culture assumed was due a god, which led to some violent cultural clashes when European explorers discovered that there were deadly penalties for failing to act out the required behavior of a god in a given context. There are even religions that don't include the concept of gods, like Theravada Buddhism, Jainism, or traditional Chinese beliefs. The Chinese concept that we translate as "Heaven" is more a sort of law of moral physics, an impersonal force that tends the arc of the universe toward justice.
If we have that much diversity of religion and the definition of "god" on this planet alone, it's a sad failure of imagination to go to alien planets and depict their religions as following a Judeo-Christian mold. For all its pretense of inclusiveness, Star Trek has often been frustratingly ethnocentric.
I think the idea was more that they simply made contact as themselves, and how other cultures interpreted them was a property of those other cultures' existing worldviews and expectations. So a culture that already saw itself as a warrior people would see them as warrior gods, for instance. I never felt the wormhole aliens did that on purpose. It's just the nature of the beast. As Will Decker said, "We all create God in our own image."
By the way, Malibu Comics did a story along those same lines in the "Lost Orb" 3-parter in their DS9 comic years before the novels introduced the Ascendants. Malibu's version was pretty unsubtle, though, as I recall; the warlike race were called "Aresians," as in Ares, the Greek god of War. Even by Trek standards, that's a bit on-the-nose. (It's also essentially calling them Martians, just in Greek instead of Latin.)
Vedek Kira? What an appalling idea. Admittedly I'm not reading the book for context... but I hate odd things like that. Then Ensign Ayala from Voyager will be her assistant or something, I hate this constant re-use of characters in Trek books inappropriately.
Marvel has tons of "gods" that got or at least can be killed, like the Celstials (which probably fall under the "Titans" category), Galactus, The Living Tribunal, the Enigma Force, Death (Thanos' girlfriend), Eternity, Oblivion and all these other cosmic "abstracts". And the One Above all, of course. And there's also Lucifer and Mephisto... Man, just think of all the money the catholic church could get from Marvel if they copyrighted them back in the first century...
That's an interesting theory! I think I'll add that to my head canon and re-read the DS9 relaunch novels, with the 2377 parts of SoA and Ascendants directly after The Soul Key.
You're Welcome
Oh, yeah I forgot about that. Though these are all examples of death and resurrection and probably due to mythological means, with Jesus being the exception, while DS9 featured a very scientific "death ray beam thingy" explanation.
That's one of my favorite pieces of Trek Lore. But wasn't it implied in VGR: "Full Circle" that the Klingon gods were actually random ancient god-like space faring civilization number 452, against whom the Klingons rebelled and were in turn infected with the fehk'lar virus or what it was? Dammit I have so much to re-read...
I knew literally nothing about any of these except that there were no gods in Theravada Buddhism. A clear failure of the german educational system. I had religious education for like five bloody years of my life and not once did we talk about anything else than Christianity or Judaism, while there are so many more interesting religions out there.
Well, it was more subtle than Romulans...
Also, according to Memory Beta the Aresians appeared in DS9: "Betrayel" where they were called the Aresai.
It seems like a lot of fiction wants to do this - there's probably an actual trope name for it, but I just call it being too much "all in the family". That new character in Star Wars or Star Trek? There's a million worlds and millions of people on each of them, and new stories to tell for many of them, but of course, he's Biggs Darklighter's illegitimate son.
I know it's a quick way to tie a new character in and give the reader/viewer connections by which to care, but damn it's lazy - and also, after a while, so improbable as to break suspension of disbelief at least a bit.The original DS9 relaucnh novels did a really great job with its new characters Vaughn, Shar, Prynn (who was the daughter of Vaughn, but still both were new characters) and Taran'atar.It seems like a lot of fiction wants to do this - there's probably an actual trope name for it, but I just call it being too much "all in the family". That new character in Star Wars or Star Trek? There's a million worlds and millions of people on each of them, and new stories to tell for many of them, but of course, he's Biggs Darklighter's illegitimate son.
It seems like a lot of fiction wants to do this - there's probably an actual trope name for it, but I just call it being too much "all in the family". That new character in Star Wars or Star Trek? There's a million worlds and millions of people on each of them, and new stories to tell for many of them, but of course, he's Biggs Darklighter's illegitimate son.
^^^ Usually referred to as 'small universe syndrome'.
Yeah, it's a bit weird how we are still talking about those characters that came with the first wave of relaunch novels, what is it, 15 years later? But the new security chief on DS9 now? Couldn't remember his name if you paid me.
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It seems like a lot of fiction wants to do this - there's probably an actual trope name for it, but I just call it being too much "all in the family". That new character in Star Wars or Star Trek? There's a million worlds and millions of people on each of them, and new stories to tell for many of them, but of course, he's Biggs Darklighter's illegitimate son.
I don't know if this is the specific trope name, but it's usually called "Small Universe Syndrome".
Kira being a vedek isn't really an example of it, though, because it wasn't that the author of a book needed a vedek and grabbed Kira as a pre-existing Bajoran to jam into the role.
Edit: whoops, beaten
Blackmer. He has no defining features beyond wracking himself with guilt over things, being a bit paranoid, and in my head he looks like eddington, because if he was given a physical description, it didn't stick, and they don't put human beings on the covers much any more. Last time there was a job needing an investigation in the novels, Odo covered it anyway.
Please let the prophets nip tuck continuity and loop it back to the old station with the first relaunch few at minimum....even the new station lacks character.
Blackmer, now where's my money
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No. That's just some Memory Beta editor trying to pretend two separate things are the same, and it doesn't work at all. Betrayal came out a year before the "Lost Orb" comic storyline, and there's only one passing reference there to an Aresai ambassador -- as a member of a trade conference of races from "known space" that are negotiating access to the Gamma Quadrant, so presumably they can't be from the GQ. Also, Betrayal takes place before season 2, while the comic has the DS9 crew learning about the Aresians for the first time during season 3. So it's impossible for the Aresai and the Aresians to be the same race.
Obviously both writers were using Ares's name to suggest "warrior race," because there's a longstanding tendency in sci-fi to assume all aliens speak Latin or Greek, but they surely did it independently of each other.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought
They only killed people who worshiped their gods falsely
