Worthy aspects of Cardassian culture?
- Thread starter Ragitsu
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Animals prey on each other regularly. And slavery is just advanced predation: instead of consuming the other being completely and turning it into fuel for our bodies, we consume it in a different fashion. But it's the same thing: the string exploiting the weak.
The Cardassians did not do the Bajorans any "favors." 
From The Emissary (as transcribed at chakoteya.net):
PICARD: I assume that you have been briefed on the events leading to the Cardassian withdrawal?
SISKO: Yes, sir. I understand they've spent the last half century robbing the planet of every valuable resource before abandoning it.
PICARD: They've left the Bajorans without a means of being self-sustaining.
And this is often exactly how colonialism has worked in real life. Just as Kira remarked that the Cardassians claimed they were there to help the Bajorans sixty years prior, the colonizing power uses some pretext to take control with benevolent-sounding claims that they are "protecting" and "helping" a more vulnerable place/population, but then actually dominate and exploit them, deprive them of rights, strip natural resources, suppress their culture, plunder historical artifacts, and more. And then when they end up having to withdraw for whatever reason, they leave the place in utter disarray, with the populace floundering about just to pick up the pieces and get on their own two feet. This is a rather personal topic to me as I have living relatives who experienced exactly this. So that's all I'll say here about the real-life parallels.
So back to the topic at hand, the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was destructive and exploitative, not to mention murderous on a humongous scale, and Dukat was only deceiving himself if he really thought the occupation had a positive influence on the Bajoran people, making them stronger, blah blah blah. As Kira said, "All of which Bajor achieved in spite of the Cardassians, not because of them."
Kor
From The Emissary (as transcribed at chakoteya.net):
PICARD: I assume that you have been briefed on the events leading to the Cardassian withdrawal?
SISKO: Yes, sir. I understand they've spent the last half century robbing the planet of every valuable resource before abandoning it.
PICARD: They've left the Bajorans without a means of being self-sustaining.
And this is often exactly how colonialism has worked in real life. Just as Kira remarked that the Cardassians claimed they were there to help the Bajorans sixty years prior, the colonizing power uses some pretext to take control with benevolent-sounding claims that they are "protecting" and "helping" a more vulnerable place/population, but then actually dominate and exploit them, deprive them of rights, strip natural resources, suppress their culture, plunder historical artifacts, and more. And then when they end up having to withdraw for whatever reason, they leave the place in utter disarray, with the populace floundering about just to pick up the pieces and get on their own two feet. This is a rather personal topic to me as I have living relatives who experienced exactly this. So that's all I'll say here about the real-life parallels.
So back to the topic at hand, the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was destructive and exploitative, not to mention murderous on a humongous scale, and Dukat was only deceiving himself if he really thought the occupation had a positive influence on the Bajoran people, making them stronger, blah blah blah. As Kira said, "All of which Bajor achieved in spite of the Cardassians, not because of them."
Kor
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Definitely their loyalty and their highly intelligent nature.
It was great hearing Garak so eloquently defend and promote Cardassian culture with the doctor over breakfast. I like how all their great literature always ended promoting the state over all else.
Deep Space 9 gave us our full of Klingons as redemptive beings but a ready made race of Cardassians that could have found redemption while we explore their society and culture. I like their legal system of show trials...
Yeah, I would not recommend to anyone who think animals are sweet and pure to look up the tendencies of chimpanzees.
More on topic, I think it would be interesting to see more facets of Cardassian culture and to aid the audience in viewing them in a more sympathetic light.
If you buy four lights from a Cardassian hardware store, they'll generously offer you a fifth light for free. In fact, they'll insist on it.
They finally divorced Kanye.
Like honorary Car-Dassian Dominic Toretto, they're all about familia, especially when they try to kill them or exile them.
They have such an appreciation for the arts and craftsmanship that they'll still train someone to be a tailor despite 90% of the populace wearing the same outfit.
Their criminal suspects are guaranteed the right to an extremely swift and efficient trial.
They finally divorced Kanye.
Like honorary Car-Dassian Dominic Toretto, they're all about familia, especially when they try to kill them or exile them.
They have such an appreciation for the arts and craftsmanship that they'll still train someone to be a tailor despite 90% of the populace wearing the same outfit.
Their criminal suspects are guaranteed the right to an extremely swift and efficient trial.
Long as you don't mind a predetermined outcome.
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Voyager doctor(a hologram) made a hologram of a famous Cardassian scientist. Before the Voyager Doctor learned of his unethical practices with Bajoran prisoners...
Because of his alien perspective (both literally and morally), he - the computer representation, anyhow - was puzzled when The Doctor expressed repugnance.
One would think that Zimmerman would have been more careful in his research, so he could avoid programming his EMH's with tainted data.
Nearly every great technical achievement comes about because of adversity, and there is no single greater 'adversity' than the threat of your own mortality. War has caused most of the human race's advancements. Thus suffering. Its not right, but it does push people to strive for more. I, personally, would not gauge a culture by the amount of resources they have. Sounds like something a Ferengi would do.
On Earth, in ST, the existence of aliens is what finally had Earth governments unite. We had a common 'enemy'. Fear is a wonderful motivator.
On Earth, in ST, the existence of aliens is what finally had Earth governments unite. We had a common 'enemy'. Fear is a wonderful motivator.
There is a difference between stating "War has lead to manifold technological achievements." and "We should keep war around in order to speed up the rate of technological advancement.". Oftentimes, I can't tell if people who are repeating the former statement are arguing for the latter or not...
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Wars (both the cold and hot variety) and their associated arms and space races have certainly been the catalyst for a great many advancements, though I don't know if I'd say "most." Adversity can just mean difficulty, and of course you would develop solutions to address something which is causing you difficulty, but adversity does not necessarily mean war.
There's also no way to measure how much more advanced we might be had we not genocided or enslaved entire populations or bombed and burned vast sums of human knowledge, culture, architectural and technological achievements to rubble and killed untold hundreds of millions. How many more Einsteins, Newtons, Galileos, Omar Khayyaams, Ptolemys, Katherine Johnsons, Zhang Hengs and others could have died or never been given a chance that would have advanced our understanding of our world and the universe and our interactions with it in unknown ways?
Then you have the issue that our technological advancement due to war has taken us to the point where we now have multiple means of destroying ourselves or at least drastically harming ourselves and our way of life both with our weapons and with the fossil fuels that drive our economies and keep the military-industrial complex running.
We have to find a better way to innovate that's not so dependent on eternal conflict.
Vulcans weren't an enemy. They were frustrating in many cases, but they were not hostile or threatening. The driving force for humans after their arrival wasn't fear, but rather reconstruction and reconciliation in the aftermath of WWIII and exploration and expansion into the stars. In fact they went out of their way to restrict our rapid progress into the stars out of their fear that we were not ready to deal with the kind of threats that did exist and which they largely kept hidden from us (for instance, they were well-aware of Klingons but didn't tell us about them until one landed on our doorstep).On Earth, in ST, the existence of aliens is what finally had Earth governments unite. We had a common 'enemy'. Fear is a wonderful motivator.
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Most advancement comes not in war but out of man's curiosity and necessity ... James Burke showed that in his series Connections and later The Day the Universe Changed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_documentary)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Universe_Changed
It will never be known but the science discoveries will come in time. Its the poems, plays, books, and the art that will never be created or known.
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