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rfmcdonaldTuesday's Deep Space Nine links reminded me of the Bajorans and Star Trek's apparent lack of imagining the consequence of their ancient civilization.
Drawing on a statement made by Captain Picard that might well have been hyperbole, some people claim that Bajoran history might stretch back a half-million years. Perhaps more plausibly, the recent Deep Space Nine relaunch novel series suggests that civilization on Bajor dates back tens of thousands of years, with a unified planetary civilization coming about twenty-five thousand years ago under the rule of the Bajora ethnic group and their Prophets. Since then, the Bajorans appear to have remained at something of a technological plateau--back in Earth's 16th century, the Bajorans had access to faster-than-light travel via tachyonic solar sail ships, though they seem to have neglected the technology for lack of interest. With ancient cities buried tens of thousands of years ago and one episode ("Accession") quoting a Bajoran calendar date of 9174, two hundred years before the show's present, the Bajorans can easily lay claim to a very long history.
Even the smaller figures represent a huge stretch of time. The beginnings of human civilization can be traced to ten thousand years before the present; homo sapiens left Africa forty thousand years ago. Such a long period of sedentary civilization would have to had a significant effect on the evolution of the Bajoran species. As John Hawks observes, the rapid growth in the human population over the past forty thousand years--including ten thousand years of sedentary civilization in some parts of the world--has significantly increased the rate of mutation. Even if Bajor had a unified civilization supporting a large population for "only" twenty-five thousand years and a long history before that, how much could the Bajoran species change?
Consider the Bajoran Prophets. Creators of the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrants, gods to the Bajorans for tens of thousands of years, in the course of Deep Space Nine the Prophets turn out to be pretty indistinguishable from real gods, possessing wide-ranging powers over time and space and with internal conflicts capable of threatening the known universe, if not the Milky Way Galaxy. One consistent statement of the Prophets is that they are "of Bajor." Given the length of the Bajoran species' evolutionary history and the Prophets' long relationship with Bajor, it seems reasonably likely that the Prophets are ultimately Bajoran. Certainly individuals of other species have shown capable of transcending the material plane to become energy beings of power. Why not the Bajorans?
The first implication of this that comes to mind is the Cardassian question. For forty years, Cardassia did subject Bajor to a brutal occupation, in part because Bajor was only a few light-years away from Cardassia Prime. Doing that to the homeworld of any old species might be deplorable, but essentially without significant consequences. Doing that to the homeworld of an ancient species prone to evolve into godhood might trigger a species-wide extinction event. It doesn't help the Cardassians that the Bajorans stopped being peaceful in order to wage an intense and ultimately successful guerrilla war against their species. In the wake of the Dominion War, it would be a very good idea for the Cardassians to not be threatening, at all. Remember the Husnock.
Drawing on a statement made by Captain Picard that might well have been hyperbole, some people claim that Bajoran history might stretch back a half-million years. Perhaps more plausibly, the recent Deep Space Nine relaunch novel series suggests that civilization on Bajor dates back tens of thousands of years, with a unified planetary civilization coming about twenty-five thousand years ago under the rule of the Bajora ethnic group and their Prophets. Since then, the Bajorans appear to have remained at something of a technological plateau--back in Earth's 16th century, the Bajorans had access to faster-than-light travel via tachyonic solar sail ships, though they seem to have neglected the technology for lack of interest. With ancient cities buried tens of thousands of years ago and one episode ("Accession") quoting a Bajoran calendar date of 9174, two hundred years before the show's present, the Bajorans can easily lay claim to a very long history.
Even the smaller figures represent a huge stretch of time. The beginnings of human civilization can be traced to ten thousand years before the present; homo sapiens left Africa forty thousand years ago. Such a long period of sedentary civilization would have to had a significant effect on the evolution of the Bajoran species. As John Hawks observes, the rapid growth in the human population over the past forty thousand years--including ten thousand years of sedentary civilization in some parts of the world--has significantly increased the rate of mutation. Even if Bajor had a unified civilization supporting a large population for "only" twenty-five thousand years and a long history before that, how much could the Bajoran species change?
Consider the Bajoran Prophets. Creators of the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrants, gods to the Bajorans for tens of thousands of years, in the course of Deep Space Nine the Prophets turn out to be pretty indistinguishable from real gods, possessing wide-ranging powers over time and space and with internal conflicts capable of threatening the known universe, if not the Milky Way Galaxy. One consistent statement of the Prophets is that they are "of Bajor." Given the length of the Bajoran species' evolutionary history and the Prophets' long relationship with Bajor, it seems reasonably likely that the Prophets are ultimately Bajoran. Certainly individuals of other species have shown capable of transcending the material plane to become energy beings of power. Why not the Bajorans?
The first implication of this that comes to mind is the Cardassian question. For forty years, Cardassia did subject Bajor to a brutal occupation, in part because Bajor was only a few light-years away from Cardassia Prime. Doing that to the homeworld of any old species might be deplorable, but essentially without significant consequences. Doing that to the homeworld of an ancient species prone to evolve into godhood might trigger a species-wide extinction event. It doesn't help the Cardassians that the Bajorans stopped being peaceful in order to wage an intense and ultimately successful guerrilla war against their species. In the wake of the Dominion War, it would be a very good idea for the Cardassians to not be threatening, at all. Remember the Husnock.
