Why did the Cardassians Abandon Terok Noir?
- Thread starter Photon
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And Nordic Noir was cooler. Not to mention darker.
The later episode "Cardassians" has Gul Dukat lament that Central Command would have wanted to hold on to the place, but "civilian leaders" Dukat associates with Garak dictated otherwise.
And in "Defiant", we learn the Cardassian Union has a triumvirate of power: Central Command is adversarial to the Detapa Council (probably the "civilian leadership" Dukat meant) and the Obsidian Order (the spooks Garak really represents). Each of the three would like nothing more than humiliate the other two.
And Central Command had just been humiliated, in TNG "Chain of Command". Possibly an ideal moment for the traditionally weak Detapa to strike, and to force the soldiers to drop Terok Nor. Which they did, in the justified conviction that they would be back in less than a week because surely nobody else would wish to pick up the forsaken place? Which is why they didn't bother to do a good job at thrashing the place, either.
Sure, there were also excuses flying in all directions. Bajor was already strip-mined of everything worthwhile, the Central Command would later say. We drove the occupiers away, the Bajoran resistance would insist. We are all friends, hey, perhaps even relatives, let's come together (so that we can have our share of the wormhole after all), the Cardassians past "Explorers" would proclaim. And so forth.
But in the end, it seems to have been a fuck-up on the part of Detapa, which chose the wrong way to hurt Central Command; of Central Command, which caved in at the wrong moment; and of Obsidian Order, which had dropped the ball on the wormhole issue and didn't even bother to make proper use of their excellent on-site agent who remained behind mostly by accident.
Timo Saloniemi
The later episode "Cardassians" has Gul Dukat lament that Central Command would have wanted to hold on to the place, but "civilian leaders" Dukat associates with Garak dictated otherwise.
And in "Defiant", we learn the Cardassian Union has a triumvirate of power: Central Command is adversarial to the Detapa Council (probably the "civilian leadership" Dukat meant) and the Obsidian Order (the spooks Garak really represents). Each of the three would like nothing more than humiliate the other two.
And Central Command had just been humiliated, in TNG "Chain of Command". Possibly an ideal moment for the traditionally weak Detapa to strike, and to force the soldiers to drop Terok Nor. Which they did, in the justified conviction that they would be back in less than a week because surely nobody else would wish to pick up the forsaken place? Which is why they didn't bother to do a good job at thrashing the place, either.
Sure, there were also excuses flying in all directions. Bajor was already strip-mined of everything worthwhile, the Central Command would later say. We drove the occupiers away, the Bajoran resistance would insist. We are all friends, hey, perhaps even relatives, let's come together (so that we can have our share of the wormhole after all), the Cardassians past "Explorers" would proclaim. And so forth.
But in the end, it seems to have been a fuck-up on the part of Detapa, which chose the wrong way to hurt Central Command; of Central Command, which caved in at the wrong moment; and of Obsidian Order, which had dropped the ball on the wormhole issue and didn't even bother to make proper use of their excellent on-site agent who remained behind mostly by accident.
Timo Saloniemi
Nominally, yes -- that Bajor was too tapped out to be worth the investment anymore. Although that was probably just a face-saving excuse, and they really left because the Bajoran Resistance had inflicted enough damage on the occupiers that the political will to remain was no longer there. That's historically the usual objective of a terrorist/resistance campaign against an occupying power (e.g. the real-life Maquis in Nazi-occupied France) -- if you don't have the military might to force them to leave, then you make the occupation so costly for them in lives and resources that they eventually decide it isn't worth it anymore and choose to leave on their own.
Of course, shortly thereafter, the wormhole was discovered, and the Cardassians suddenly wanted Bajor back again. If they'd found the wormhole themselves, they never would've left. (As seen in Keith DeCandido's Star Trek: Myriad Universes novel A Gutted World.)
Plus the war with the Federation, fighting a war on two fronts is always a bad idea (unless you have Jem Hadar soldiers)
(A gutted world - good story but damn depressing, more like A gutted quadrant)
(A gutted world - good story but damn depressing, more like A gutted quadrant)
What? No, the UFP-Cardassian conflict officially ended 3 years before the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor (i.e. a year before TNG: "The Wounded"). And since the first three seasons of TNG showed a peacetime Starfleet, the "war" must've been in name only by that point, a political state of enmity without actual combat, like how the US and South Korea are still technically at war with North Korea even though it's been 65 years since the shooting stopped.
Because the occupation of Bajor was over, and Terok Nor was there for the purposes of the occupation.
Kor
It was in Bajoran space and they were unable to move it across interstellar distances.
Good comment!
But to be honest, I guess it was a tactical decision. At that time they wanted a peace treaty with the Federation so that they together could eliminate the Maquis.
I guess they did plan to take both Deep Space Nine and Bajor back in the future.
The Cardassians were actually criel and calculating. They could sign a peace treaty, just to bereak it the next day. For a long time I thought they were the worst enemies and at the same time, the best villains of all Star Trek.
But that was before I realized how cruel and ruthless the Dominion was. At the end of DS9, I almost felt sorry for the Cardassians.
The first season of DS9 adds a probably unintended flavor to this by revealing that Bajor and the center world of the Cardassian Union are actually next-door neighbors! Essentially, Bajor was to Cardassia what Okinawa was to Japan before and during WWII - giving it up for good would be admitting defeat on all fronts.
Bajor/Okinawa was ultimately lost but resistance continued. Yet we could feel what had been at stake: in the middle seasons of DS9, the Union without Bajor would remain ruthless, but it also seemed cornered, often forced to bend to the will of a mere Starfleet Commander...
Timo Saloniemi
Bajor/Okinawa was ultimately lost but resistance continued. Yet we could feel what had been at stake: in the middle seasons of DS9, the Union without Bajor would remain ruthless, but it also seemed cornered, often forced to bend to the will of a mere Starfleet Commander...
Timo Saloniemi
The Cardassians were actually criel and calculating. They could sign a peace treaty, just to bereak it the next day. For a long time I thought they were the worst enemies and at the same time, the best villains of all Star Trek.
But that was before I realized how cruel and ruthless the Dominion was. At the end of DS9, I almost felt sorry for the Cardassians.
I completely agree with this sentiment , I think it's a wonderful example of DS9's shades of grey. What the Cardassians did to Bajor was horrific, but the show took the time to make sure we knew enough about Cardassian culture to understand they were not a one-note villain race.
I felt for the Cardassians for sure, first for how the klingons treated them , then for the Dominion . Even though they invited the Dominion in.
I realize I didnt really respond to the question being asked. I think they abandon the station for a combination of reasons.
- Politically it was useful for their negotiations with start fleet.
- Economically they had extracted most of the valuable resources
- Militarily they required there forces elsewhere ( just speculation )
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