One of the things that I always found a little odd about early episodes of DS9 was the Federation's seemingly lackluster humanitarian policy towards Bajor. The Federation is a vast multiplanetary empire that is the richest and most powerful of the major civilizations in the the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. More importantly its been said, time and again, that it is a society without crime or poverty...a virtual paradise. While some of that is arguably hyperbole and propaganda...much of it has shown to be true. So it seems a bit strange that the Federation does not seem to provide more material assistance to Bajor in the aftermath of the Cardassian occupation.
In several of the episodes in seasons 1-3 we hear about supply shortages, droughts, famine and all sorts of problems on Bajor. Yet all of those problems should have been easily solved with advanced Federation technology. So why was the Federation holding out on Bajor? It was a candidate for Federation membership and none of its problems were of its own making. So why hold back the material assistance?
I'm sure that much of this was done for dramatic reasons on the show. Its more interesting to show a society struggling to rebuild on its own than to simply have Starfleet show up and install of its the Federation's magic technology. Indeed, what was shown is probably closer to what happens in the real world where resources are not unlimited and there are budgets that have to be balanced not to mention political considerations. But the Federation is a post scarcity society. So we needed a bit of an explanation as to why it seemed content to let Bajor suffer unnecessarily.
In several of the episodes in seasons 1-3 we hear about supply shortages, droughts, famine and all sorts of problems on Bajor. Yet all of those problems should have been easily solved with advanced Federation technology. So why was the Federation holding out on Bajor? It was a candidate for Federation membership and none of its problems were of its own making. So why hold back the material assistance?
I'm sure that much of this was done for dramatic reasons on the show. Its more interesting to show a society struggling to rebuild on its own than to simply have Starfleet show up and install of its the Federation's magic technology. Indeed, what was shown is probably closer to what happens in the real world where resources are not unlimited and there are budgets that have to be balanced not to mention political considerations. But the Federation is a post scarcity society. So we needed a bit of an explanation as to why it seemed content to let Bajor suffer unnecessarily.
