Question about Bajor/Cardassia first contact

[chrinFinity]

It is established on screen in Explorers that at least one ancient Bajoran solar sail ship was able to make the journey to Cardassia, and the Cardassians admitted in that episode that their archaeologists had found an ancient crash site.

Has this ever been expanded in lit?

 

[Deranged Nasat]

It hasn't, though ancient contact between Bajor and Cardassia (Hebitia) has been very strongly hinted at. The jevonite figure from B'hala, that appears to show a hybrid (and predates known contact significantly yet is made of a stone known only on Cardassia); certain ritual religious mannerisms that I believe were noted in Day of the Vipers, etc. Whether it's through spaceflight even earlier than the Bajorans know, through psionic portals, via the Wormhole Aliens, or what, it's sort of an "open secret" in the novel 'verse that the two worlds have some manner of ancient connection.

I can't recall the old lightship landing site coming up at any point, though.

 

[Enterprise1701]

It hasn't, though ancient contact between Bajor and Cardassia (Hebitia) has been very strongly hinted at. The jevonite figure from B'hala, that appears to show a hybrid (and predates known contact significantly yet is made of a stone known only on Cardassia); certain ritual religious mannerisms that I believe were noted in Day of the Vipers, etc. Whether it's through spaceflight even earlier than the Bajorans know, through psionic portals, via the Wormhole Aliens, or what, it's sort of an "open secret" in the novel 'verse that the two worlds have some manner of ancient connection.

I can't recall the old lightship landing site coming up at any point, though.

Ancient contact by lightship also occurred in the 16th century of the mirror universe, mentioned in Glass Empires - The Worst of Both Worlds. Also in Rise Like Lions, Emissary Illiana Ghemor tells Supreme Legate Corat Damar that the Bajoran religion and the Oralian Way share a common heritage and are both linked to the Hebitians and the Prophets.

 

[borgboy]

I do find this interesting, I'd love to see this storyline continued in the novels somewhere.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

^ It seems to be one of those story arcs we lost to the 5 year gap.

 

[DS9Continuing]

I came up with my own explanation and backstory for this, which I'll spoiler code because it constitutes a story idea:

Spoiler: Ancient contact between Bajor and Cardassia

It all started with the original Ascendant attack on the Eav'oq 30,000 years ago. The method the Eav'oq used to escape - the space-folding trick - also resulted in one Eav'oq being pulled into the wormhole and somehow deposited onto Bajor. There he became known as Ohalu, and the ancient Bajorans followed him as he was the first one to bring knowledge of the Prophets to them.

Eventually Ohalu tried to leave Bajor and return home, possibly in a light-ship, but got caught up in the tachyon eddies just like Sisko did and got swept all the way to Cardassia... where he became known as Oralius and inspired the Oralian Way religion of the Hebitians. That religion included the creation of the jevonite figurines, showing blended characteristics of Bajorans and Cardassians as a symbol of unity.

Ohalu and Oralius are the same person... and he was an Eav'oq.

After the climate shift on Cardassia, when the Hebitian culture was wiped out, Ohalu came back to Bajor again, bringing one of the jevonite figurines with him. When he died, he was buried at what eventually became B'Hala, hence the similarities in the names (B'Hala, Ohalu). But by that time the religion he inspired had evolved, and the Bajora were spreading their belief in the Prophets as gods across the world (as seen in "Horn and Ivory"). Ohalu's legend got buried and the mainstream Bajora took the B'Hala legend for themselves.

 

[Jarvisimo]

DRG seems like the person to refer back to this

 

[JD]

I'm hoping now that we appear to be getting DS9 specific stories on a regular basis again, we might get follow ups to some of this kind of stuff.