![]() ![]() (This is also seen in Dukat’s growing attraction to Kira, something that actor Nana Visitor always fought hard against ever being reciprocated.) But with every successive beat in their parallel arcs, Kira was confronted with the desire, and sometimes the necessity, to forget uncomfortable truths in a quest to forge a just and brighter future. He knows her experience of the occupation more than anyone else, having enforced the suffering she fought against, and this recognition instills an unsettling closeness between their characters. This is someone she only regards with hatred and disgust, who she must now work alongside as often as against, performing to Starfleet’s standards while representing her planet’s best interests. Her relationship with Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo), a man forced through a shameful reappraisal of Cardassia’s dwindling dominance before plunging into madness before he can truly soften, makes for an enlightening study. Starfleet could never condone the extent of Kira and her cell’s subterfuge and violence, especially in its more shamefully barbaric moments. ![]() A Bajoran survivor of Cardassia’s occupation, and a committed insurgent in the Bajoran resistance, Kira’s new position of authority aboard DS9 validates those years of jeopardy and sacrifice, but it’s not like everything she did then was absolved or even brought to light when the treaty was signed. Major Kira and ‘Necessary Evil’įew experiences of this period are more emotionally complex than that of Kira Nerys. ![]() The more we learn about the occupation, the more we appreciate how backward the future can be. As Ira Steven Behr says, “There was the Middle Eastern conflict, Lebanon was a big hot topic, tons of things, the Northern Ireland thing came up too, so I would say it's not based on any of them and it’s based on all of them.” As in, nothing in DS9 is a 1-to-1 allegory, rather these influences are used as a stepping stone to interrogate humanity. If the Cardassians are pulled from human fascists and empires, the 1990s gave an extensive source of contemporary crises to influence the Bajoran occupation. (This may seem obvious, but sometimes you read a 3,000-word article on how Cardassia reflects humanity without the word “fascism” appearing once, and suddenly you’re not so sure.) They’re a distorted mirror through which we can theorize what human society could look like if there were fewer objections to its darker tendencies. They’re a shrewd, brutal military empire taken from Stalin’s Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the British Empire to name just a few. Just like all of Star Trek’s aliens, the Cardassians serve as a reflection of periods of human history or offshoots of ways our culture and politics could have developed. The Bajoran-Cardassian treaty, the liberation of a planet, the safety of Starfleet’s arrival – these are huge, bold changes that affect whole species, but they don’t necessarily absolve or shed a light on all the tiny complications that fill a personal relationship with a dangerous, traumatic era. For characters on both sides of the occupation, there are times when the past vindicates and justifies their action in the present there are times when they’d rather it stayed buried. The past resurges, invading and impressing itself in the here-and-now, and the characters with personal connections feel its presence more keenly than those of Starfleet. The way we glimpse at the massive, unwieldy nature of the Bajoran occupation is through history becoming relevant again to the stories on DS9. This mix of emotions and diplomacy pays off beautifully when the Dominion takes back Terok Nor, and it’s up to our long-term residents to take it back – you can take the Starfleet out of DS9, but you can’t take the Starfleet out of its crew. Robinson) – all those whose time on DS9 goes further back than ‘The Emissary’ (S1, Ep1) get plenty of introspection on the changing power dynamics of their place of work. ![]() Kira (Nana Visitor), Odo (René Auberjonois), Garak (Andrew J. Like any good drama, the show capitalizes on this history with rich, conflicted characters. There is no DS9 without this one, extensive stretch of lore – the occupation defines the show. Sisko’s appointment on the former Cardassian mining station Terok Nor only existed because an occupation of the deeply spiritual developing world of Bajor had come to an end, and several of our main cast accompanied Starfleet from Bajor or the ostensibly neutral position of non-Cardassian, holdover staff (hello, Odo and Quark). The fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came loaded with decades of backstory was one of its greatest opportunities and obstacles. Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes ‘Necessary Evil’ (S2, Ep8), ‘Indiscretion’ (S4, Ep4), ‘Waltz’ (S6, Ep11), and ‘Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night’ (S6, Ep17). ![]()
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