Two Major Questions I Have About DS9

[CommanderRaytas]

^^
And it explains the discrepancy nicely. According to the book, it's a matter of perspective whether the occupation lasted 40 or 50 years.

Great story!

 

[cwalrus2]

Plus, each party may have different meanings for what consitutes a casualty. Both sides have a different method of tallying the victims. Cardassians may only consider themselves responsible for those Bajorans who were tried, convicted, and put to death under their judicial system. Bajorans will include people who were killed while resisting as well as those who suffered random acts of brutality from the Cardassians. Some Bajorans may not have been outright killed but died due to severe working conditions or utter fatigue.

I always took the number of Bajoran deaths to be relative to whoever was stating them. No doubt the Bajorans suffered a great deal, and I would guess that the writers were just trying to convey that and probably didn't sit down with a calculator to come up with an exact figure of how many deaths would constitute a brutal history. I'm sure they didn't expect us to being doing that either.

Also, I got the sense that at least some Bajorans welcomed the Cardassians towards the beginning of the Occupation without the foresight of what the consequences would be. The Resistance may not have garnered as much support until the final 10-15 years of the Occupation.

I also get the snse that pre-Occupation Bajor wasn't exactly paradise after that episode where a Bajoran from the past tries to become Emissary. I forgot the episode title, but it would seem as if Bajor lived under a caste system before the Cardassians came along. In a way, fighting Cardassians forced them to do a way with a previously oppressive social system.

 

[Timo]

I also get the sense that pre-Occupation Bajor wasn't exactly paradise after that episode where a Bajoran from the past tries to become Emissary. I forgot the episode title, but it would seem as if Bajor lived under a caste system before the Cardassians came along. In a way, fighting Cardassians forced them to do away with a previously oppressive social system.

That'd be "Accession". I wonder if the old Bajor didn't harbor a movement that wanted to exploit the Cardassian arrival in order to disrupt the caste system, either to gain in personal power or to further an altruist agenda. Such a fifth column might not really have had much of an effect on what the Cardassians did or didn't do, but its existence would surely have an effect on the post-Occupation Bajor.

Did the old Bajor have a warrior caste at all? "Accession" doesn't tell - Akorem Laam wants all the soldiers to return to their former castes, but he doesn't say that any modern-day politician or scientists or other caste-jumper should return to his or her former warrior caste. Sure, Kira thinks a replacement for her could be found to serve as Sisko's first officer, but that person might be just a temporary solution until he, too, returns to his "true calling". After all, Kira knows that Starfleet won't be around much longer, the way things are going.

Also interesting is that Sisko says that "caste-based discrimination" would stop Bajor from being considered for UFP membership. Many people seem to take this as indication that caste systems as such are banned in the Federation, but Sisko's words are a direct response to Akorem's assertion that there will be legal sanctions to force people out of wrong castes. Such forcing need not be a feature of all caste systems: in most of those here on Earth, you can swap castes under certain circumstances, even as simply as by marrying into a new one, which conveniently circumvents the discrimination issue.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marie1]

Oooolllldddd thread I know- but wasn't part of the reason that the Cardassians came to "help" Bajor by being friends that they wanted food? Bajor was good for agriculture, Cardassia wasn't so much, so they were after that? I thought that was the case- so they needed the planet, they couldn't level it.

I didn't see that mention above, may have missed it.

 

[Damask]

Oooolllldddd thread I know- but wasn't part of the reason that the Cardassians came to "help" Bajor by being friends that they wanted food? Bajor was good for agriculture, Cardassia wasn't so much, so they were after that? I thought that was the case- so they needed the planet, they couldn't level it.

I didn't see that mention above, may have missed it.

Yeah I think Dukat might have mentioned that (or I maybe thinking of the Terok Nor books). Either way it was Bajor's natural resources.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Adolf Hitler killed about three million people per year.

If the Cardassians killed anywhere nearly as many as Hitler in proportion to population the population then in all likelihood they should've killed at LEAST 120 million Bajorans.

The writers themselves have admitted that they are not good at math.

For example, in the TNG episode "The Neutral Zone," it is established that a 50 year interstellar conflict between the Federation and the Romulans ended up killing...millions? (Stating billions would have sounded more earth-shattering and far more realistic.)

Also, when Julian Bashir name drops Khan Noonien Singh in the DS9 episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" he mentions Khan's existence as a ruler on Earth as being 200 years ago when in actuality it was 400 years ago, thanks to Ronald D. Moore whose mind was on TWOK's time period rather than DS9's at the time of the writing of that particular episode.

I am just glad the writers finally realized that when writing "What You Leave Behind" and stating over 800 million Cardassian casualties, rather than just 8 million casualities after the Dominion bombardment, because when you think about it the population of Earth is over 6.5 billion as of October 27th, 2008.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Also ... why did the Cardassians abandon 2 of their larger bases?
Terrok Nor and Empok Nor were both abandoned.
Surely they knew that SF would be able to not just repair, but upgrade the station.
I mean heck, SF turned it practically into a fortress by Season 4 (which begs the question just how heavily fortified are the monstrous mushroom star-bases).
In any case, the Cardassians made a bad move by abandoning both Terrok and Empok Nor.
They should have simply blown both stations to bits.

According to classified files at the Cardassian Central Command, that mishap happened due to the fact that Legate McCain placed Gul Palin in charge of that exit strategy!

 

[Red Ranger]

Don't know the definitive answer to question 1. As for question 2, we've seen how arrogant the Cardassians are, with people like Gul Dukat wanting the Bajorans to view him as their savior. It's the old "winning hearts and minds" argument, the ill-informed idea that one's socieity can win over its adversaries -- you know, the rationale behind Vietnam, where "winning hearts and minds" was a key part of the failed strategy, and Iraq, where the mistaken belief the U.S. would be "greeted as liberators," became interwoven with the mistaken narrative of the war. -- RR