What DS9 species would you be?
- Thread starter Danoz
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I would like to be a shapeshifter and be a security chief like Odo. I would not want to be one of the tyrannical, genocidal, Founder people though.
See my profile pic. 
It is...but at least the Jem'Hadar didn't succeed. They have a chance to rebuild. 
Indeed, there is nothing a Cardassian can't achieve if he puts his mind to it because a disciplined mind can solve any problem.
(except for that little blind spot when it comes to choosing allies
)
(except for that little blind spot when it comes to choosing allies
)
Indeed, there is nothing a Cardassian can't achieve if he puts his mind to it because a disciplined mind can solve any problem.
(except for that little blind spot when it comes to choosing allies
About that
: I'm aware I haven't put nearly as much thought into the Cardassian psyche as someone like Nerys, but I always thought it was the very fact that Cardassian minds are so impressively controlled and reasonable that allows them to turn a blind eye to the sheer wrongness of some of their social and cultural decisions. That is, they reduce their sense of self to discipline alone and thus refuse to confront any more intuitive understandings (this is due to conditioning by the modern state). The Cardassians are an intelligent people, they know what's going on, but often they don't actually confront it. Look at the reactions in season 5 when Dukat makes his announcement about the annexation - the Cardassian rank-and-file are struggling to understand it. But that's the point - they know it's wrong, and they're disquieted, but immediately they start trying to understand - to justify. They put that disciplined mind to work and start finding a way to "solve the problem". "There's no problem a disciplined Cardassian mind can't solve" Dukat informs us, as though repeating an aphorism. As this is Dukat season three, I took that as something the Central Command insists upon. I always thought: hmmm, Central Command tells you that, do they? I interpreted it as meaning - or potentially meaning - something like this: "Citizen, you know on one level - or many levels - that Uncle Erann being dragged off by the Order for questioning the Bajor policy is wrong, but propaganda also tells you the state is always benevolent and good. This dissonance is a problem. But use that complex, logical Cardassian mind of yours and you can solve the problem! You trust in your reason and your logic, and rightly so, for Cardassian minds are disciplined. But if you learn to manipulate that capacity for reason just so, you can craft an understanding that explains away why Uncle Erann had to go, and as you trust in the discipline and rationality of your mind, it's all good!"
As I see it, due to this conditioning and the state's deliberate warping of the Cardassian mind, Cardassian citizens are just too faithful in their ability to work on a logical, calculated basis alone. They miss the fact that the calculating, disciplined mind needs to work in concert with a spiritual, ethical, sometimes curiously irrational part of the psyche to keep it truly anchored in a realistic self-awareness, or else it becomes a self-servicing system. I think that by discarding or ignoring that intuitive, imaginative part of themselves (due to constant indoctrination and propaganda) and only living in accordance with the reasoning mind, the modern Cardassians remove themselves from a sense of their intuitive understanding of right and wrong. There is only reasoning and justification. We should keep in mind that Central Command wants this, because it desires to encourage the idea that CC and morality are intertwined and that any decision by the state is the moral one. Don't question it, just accept it. CC = doubleplusgood. Given that modern Cardassians are encouraged to accept all propaganda without question and spiritual awareness has been persecuted out of the system, I think their blind spots like the Dominion alliance stem from refusal to let reason and discipline be fully intergrated with other aspects of the psyche. As I say, their discipline and reasoning becomes a self-servicing system.
Cardassian minds are complex, powerful things. I assume then, that their pathologies would also be extreme - when it goes wrong or turns in on itself, such a powerful mind could end up being very dangerous. Like with Vulcans, another race with a highly structured and powerful psyche. Look at Dukat. He's not quite what I'm talking about - he's perhaps an extreme example of the Cardassian mind losing its objective perspective and turning inward - but he illustrates what can go wrong, how the mind can twist in on itself to reinforce delusions. Yet Dukat clearly knows on some level they are delusions - though he goes on reinforcing them. Witness that wonderful scene with Weyoun about "is there to this day a statue of me on Bajor?". He knows Weyoun's laughing at him, not with him, and he knows the Bajorans aren't going to love him, but still, despite that knowing, he still insists (on another level) on believing in his delusional "Dukat the benevolent ruler" lie and the "equal partners with Weyoun" lie. Then there's his harrassment of Kira in that same season six arc. His expressions in the opening episode clearly show that he knows what he's doing - his "I could easily have you if I want you" manner - and yet he still insists and seemingly simultaneously believes that he's a good and benevolent lover rather than, basically, a rapist. He really did, in season six, strike me as the Cardassian mind gone wrong, shattered into multiple self-reinforcing reasoning loops that all occupy one mind.
Dukat's nuts, of course - no doubt genuinely mentally ill - but I think the average Cardassian citizen has similar but far lesser pathologies essentially induced artificially by state propaganda. No multiple, contradictory loops, but still a sense of reason artificially segregated somewhat from the rest of the psyche. So tha reasoning mind acts always to find a solution to the "problem" rather than accepting that the problem shouldn't be solved - some things shouldn't be justified or explained away. The state warps the Cardassian psyche on a daily basis, sadly. And that's why I think their blind spots actually end up stemming from what is naturally a strength: that super-disciplined, reasoning mind.
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I actually agree with you somewhat. I know that my AU Cardassians (who did not abandon their faith) would say that about needing to be balanced. I gave them the same powerful memories and minds (they developed their eidetic memories to allow them to memorize scriptures and commentaries), but they are still very deeply religious.
I think Cardassians do have an almost canid hierarchical instinct. But I do consider them thinking and feeling beings. They're not insects, or Borg.
So my one area of disagreement is this. I think you're a little harsh in that you forget there are Cardassian dissenters and dissidents. That has to come from somewhere; unlike Orwell's system, the Cardassian Union is not a "perfect" dystopia ("perfect" in the sense of hermetically sealed and impossible to defeat). Some of them we see fighting on a large scale. I think some may fight on a smaller scale that we don't see. I'm sure some of them die for it. But the fact that we still have dissidents after so long of that iron-fisted rule makes me think that the Cardassian spirit is not yet dead.
So, it's that potential I see in the Cardassians to really become something truly great again, that makes me identify with them.
I think Cardassians do have an almost canid hierarchical instinct. But I do consider them thinking and feeling beings. They're not insects, or Borg.
So my one area of disagreement is this. I think you're a little harsh in that you forget there are Cardassian dissenters and dissidents. That has to come from somewhere; unlike Orwell's system, the Cardassian Union is not a "perfect" dystopia ("perfect" in the sense of hermetically sealed and impossible to defeat). Some of them we see fighting on a large scale. I think some may fight on a smaller scale that we don't see. I'm sure some of them die for it. But the fact that we still have dissidents after so long of that iron-fisted rule makes me think that the Cardassian spirit is not yet dead.
So, it's that potential I see in the Cardassians to really become something truly great again, that makes me identify with them.
That's well said. You're right - I was a little harsh. I suppose what I was describing was the overview and not the individual stories of the people who resist or overcome what the accepted authorities want them to do to themselves. I was focused on the ocean as viewed from above, not the waves - when we get down from the generalized and look closer, yes, we see it's far choppier down there than first assumed. But I'll leave the individual Cardassians and their personal struggles to you - you're better at that than me .
That's actually a very good metaphor--looks like one thing on the surface (and that's what the leaders want to believe), but then when you get closer you can see evidence of choppiness that just will not go away, no matter how hard the Obsidian Order tries.
I'd be a Romulan.
Interesting thoughts about Cardassians, Nerys and Nasat. I wonder how Garak would fit in to the 'self-reinforcing loops of thought' idea. I remember his scene in "The Wire" when he told Bashir that he set a group of Bajoran orphans free which is part of what led to his neurosis/psychosis/whatever-osis. That would make sense if it started a sort of 'feedback loop', just like having "Uncle Erann" dragged away. He knew he was going against the state letting the children go, but it was the right thing to do, but the state wouldn't want him to, so it must have been the wrong thing to do, but he did it so he must have thought it was the right thing to do, so he must be crazy because the state is always right. But if the state isn't always right, then he'll be punished for doing the right thing, and that doesn't make sense, so the state must be right and it must have been wrong to let the Bajoran orphans go. And it goes around and around and around...because Garak is trying to 'solve the problem.'
Interesting thoughts about Cardassians, Nerys and Nasat. I wonder how Garak would fit in to the 'self-reinforcing loops of thought' idea. I remember his scene in "The Wire" when he told Bashir that he set a group of Bajoran orphans free which is part of what led to his neurosis/psychosis/whatever-osis. That would make sense if it started a sort of 'feedback loop', just like having "Uncle Erann" dragged away. He knew he was going against the state letting the children go, but it was the right thing to do, but the state wouldn't want him to, so it must have been the wrong thing to do, but he did it so he must have thought it was the right thing to do, so he must be crazy because the state is always right. But if the state isn't always right, then he'll be punished for doing the right thing, and that doesn't make sense, so the state must be right and it must have been wrong to let the Bajoran orphans go. And it goes around and around and around...because Garak is trying to 'solve the problem.'
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I actually find myself identifying with Odo a great deal. A desire for order--and justice. A bit of a temper when confronted with chaotic attitudes....
And of course...I'd love to be able to shape-shift.
And of course...I'd love to be able to shape-shift.
Being a changeling would be the best, then you could be whoever and whatever you wanted.
I'd rather be an orphan like Odo though so I'd have the freedom to choose my own life and not be stuck as part of the collective whole. It would suck being so seperate, but better that than be part of the oppressive Founders.
I'd rather be an orphan like Odo though so I'd have the freedom to choose my own life and not be stuck as part of the collective whole. It would suck being so seperate, but better that than be part of the oppressive Founders.
Romulan
That would be Lurian.
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