Sounds like the '80s. And the '90s. And the '00s. And the '10s.
My dad and I occasionally hash out fantasy casting for a TNG remake, and I always wonder how they would approach characters like Riker, Paris, and Bashir today.
I think you'd only have to tweak any of them slightly to make it work. Basically just not do some of the cringe romance shit 90s era Trek could get bad with.
Riker is pretty much fine I think. They've always played him as being a guy clearly interested in romance but also self-confident and respectful enough to not get problamatic about it.
Bashir's faults always seemed intentional and just part of his character. He grows and matures over time pretty too. You'd just need to make sure it was clear that when he does fuck up near the start, like with some of his other qualities (arrogance, an earnest youthful cluelessness), you make sure it's clear that it is a fuckup.
And Paris, well, he's a Voyager character so who the fuck knows what was ever going on with him.
Not sure if I needed to spoil this, but for someone who hasn't seen DS9 before, I shall. There's a wonderful episode of TNG where the Bajoran Ensign Ro is walking around with Picard, and he's talking about how the Federation is helping the refugees, and how a Bajoran freedom fighter needs to be tracked down and handed over to the Cardassians as a terrorist. Ro (ETA: or maybe Orta, the terrorist they're sent to find? It's been a while) gives him some serious shit for how the Federation expects the Bajoirans gratitude for their assistance, but isn't willing to actually help them liberate themselves, instead seeing them as a problem. Federation/Bajoran relations at the start of DS9 are...I want to say strained at best.
The Bajorans eventually made the Cardassian Occupation too costly to be worthwhile for what was then a backwater rock, and the Cardassians withdrew. So they're understandably reluctant to join the Federation right off the bat.
It's not even just about helping them liberate themselves. That kind of highlighted the ineffectiveness of the Federation to the Bajorans. They go to talk to the leader of a refugee camp, and Picard's all 'oh it's so terrible to see the Bajorans reduced to this', and when the leader says that Picard's problems are with treaties, his are about blankets, Picard just casually orders Enterprise to replicate enough blankets for everyone.
No reason the Federation couldn't do that anyway. They've got the means to turn that camp into a proper town with buildings and power and plumbing with a couple of days work. It's not even something they'd need to send their big ships to do, lower tier scutwork ones like Cerritos could get them on their feet easily. They just don't.
I saw that whole episode as dumping on people who 'support' refugees by saying it's a sad thing and someone should do something about it, oh well.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Not sure if I needed to spoil this, but for someone who hasn't seen DS9 before, I shall. There's a wonderful episode of TNG where the Bajoran Ensign Ro is walking around with Picard, and he's talking about how the Federation is helping the refugees, and how a Bajoran freedom fighter needs to be tracked down and handed over to the Cardassians as a terrorist. Ro (ETA: or maybe Orta, the terrorist they're sent to find? It's been a while) gives him some serious shit for how the Federation expects the Bajoirans gratitude for their assistance, but isn't willing to actually help them liberate themselves, instead seeing them as a problem. Federation/Bajoran relations at the start of DS9 are...I want to say strained at best.
The Bajorans eventually made the Cardassian Occupation too costly to be worthwhile for what was then a backwater rock, and the Cardassians withdrew. So they're understandably reluctant to join the Federation right off the bat.
It's not even just about helping them liberate themselves. That kind of highlighted the ineffectiveness of the Federation to the Bajorans. They go to talk to the leader of a refugee camp, and Picard's all 'oh it's so terrible to see the Bajorans reduced to this', and when the leader says that Picard's problems are with treaties, his are about blankets, Picard just casually orders Enterprise to replicate enough blankets for everyone.
No reason the Federation couldn't do that anyway. They've got the means to turn that camp into a proper town with buildings and power and plumbing with a couple of days work. It's not even something they'd need to send their big ships to do, lower tier scutwork ones like Cerritos could get them on their feet easily. They just don't.
I saw that whole episode as dumping on people who 'support' refugees by saying it's a sad thing and someone should do something about it, oh well.
Bajor also has a major cultural ego problem. They aren't part of the Federation, yet they expect the Federation to drop everything and pour all available resources into rebuilding the former glory of Bajor. Then on top of that, they expect the Federation to jump through religious and bureaucratic hurdles to provide that assistance, all the while acting as if the Federation should be thankful they're allowed to help at all. And fat chunks of the population automatically resent the Federation just for being not-Bajoran because the Cardassians were also not-Bajoran, despite the fact that it was the war with the likes of the Federation that made the Cardassian people want to pull back from their conquests because their military was being an embarassment. For fuck's sake, can your people really not tell the difference between the slaver empire and the collection of unified worlds just handing out shitloads of world-rebuilding equipment for free? It's not like Cardassia tricked Bajor into being enslaved, they just militarily stomped the shit out of them and took over. And considering the ceaseless infighting throughout DS9, Bajor was far from the paradise it claimed to be before the Cardassians. People that are starving to death as slaves don't have time to work interpersonal blood feuds into their culture, all that stuff existed before Cardassia wrecked things.
After a certain point, you kinda just want Sisko to grab all of Bajor by the collar, give it a good shake, and yell at it to stop being such fucking an asshole and let the Federation help it already.
At first, it seems odd that the Federation would hesitate to invite Bajor to join the Federation, but after a couple years of assistance being blocked by religious shit or feuds it really starts to make sense why the Federation doesn't think Bajor is really ready to join.
Not sure if I needed to spoil this, but for someone who hasn't seen DS9 before, I shall. There's a wonderful episode of TNG where the Bajoran Ensign Ro is walking around with Picard, and he's talking about how the Federation is helping the refugees, and how a Bajoran freedom fighter needs to be tracked down and handed over to the Cardassians as a terrorist. Ro (ETA: or maybe Orta, the terrorist they're sent to find? It's been a while) gives him some serious shit for how the Federation expects the Bajoirans gratitude for their assistance, but isn't willing to actually help them liberate themselves, instead seeing them as a problem. Federation/Bajoran relations at the start of DS9 are...I want to say strained at best.
The Bajorans eventually made the Cardassian Occupation too costly to be worthwhile for what was then a backwater rock, and the Cardassians withdrew. So they're understandably reluctant to join the Federation right off the bat.
It's not even just about helping them liberate themselves. That kind of highlighted the ineffectiveness of the Federation to the Bajorans. They go to talk to the leader of a refugee camp, and Picard's all 'oh it's so terrible to see the Bajorans reduced to this', and when the leader says that Picard's problems are with treaties, his are about blankets, Picard just casually orders Enterprise to replicate enough blankets for everyone.
No reason the Federation couldn't do that anyway. They've got the means to turn that camp into a proper town with buildings and power and plumbing with a couple of days work. It's not even something they'd need to send their big ships to do, lower tier scutwork ones like Cerritos could get them on their feet easily. They just don't.
I saw that whole episode as dumping on people who 'support' refugees by saying it's a sad thing and someone should do something about it, oh well.
Bajor also has a major cultural ego problem. They aren't part of the Federation, yet they expect the Federation to drop everything and pour all available resources into rebuilding the former glory of Bajor. Then on top of that, they expect the Federation to jump through religious and bureaucratic hurdles to provide that assistance, all the while acting as if the Federation should be thankful they're allowed to help at all. And fat chunks of the population automatically resent the Federation just for being not-Bajoran because the Cardassians were also not-Bajoran, despite the fact that it was the war with the likes of the Federation that made the Cardassian people want to pull back from their conquests because their military was being an embarassment. For fuck's sake, can your people really not tell the difference between the slaver empire and the collection of unified worlds just handing out shitloads of world-rebuilding equipment for free? It's not like Cardassia tricked Bajor into being enslaved, they just militarily stomped the shit out of them and took over. And considering the ceaseless infighting throughout DS9, Bajor was far from the paradise it claimed to be before the Cardassians. People that are starving to death as slaves don't have time to work interpersonal blood feuds into their culture, all that stuff existed before Cardassia wrecked things.
After a certain point, you kinda just want Sisko to grab all of Bajor by the collar, give it a good shake, and yell at it to stop being such fucking an asshole and let the Federation help it already.
At first, it seems odd that the Federation would hesitate to invite Bajor to join the Federation, but after a couple years of assistance being blocked by religious shit or feuds it really starts to make sense why the Federation doesn't think Bajor is really ready to join.
Plus, Bajor was a caste system prior to the Occupation. The great poet or whatever from the past who the prophets pulled out of time for awhile that became nu-Emissary when Sisko didn't want the job (this is a remarkable sentence) basically decreed "no more of this self-determination nonsense. Everyone back to your pre-determined societal roles." Like, a priest immediately murders a fellow priest for being unclean. Maybe it was paradise for a few lucky ones. But isn't that true for most societies?
I'm rewatching the early seasons again for the first time in a while and jeez TNG sure has a lot of guys hitting on obviously uninterested women at moments when they should really be focused on doing their jobs
Yeah that uh sorta sticks around
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Sounds like the '80s. And the '90s. And the '00s. And the '10s.
My dad and I occasionally hash out fantasy casting for a TNG remake, and I always wonder how they would approach characters like Riker, Paris, and Bashir today.
I think you'd only have to tweak any of them slightly to make it work. Basically just not do some of the cringe romance shit 90s era Trek could get bad with.
Riker is pretty much fine I think. They've always played him as being a guy clearly interested in romance but also self-confident and respectful enough to not get problamatic about it.
Bashir's faults always seemed intentional and just part of his character. He grows and matures over time pretty too. You'd just need to make sure it was clear that when he does fuck up near the start, like with some of his other qualities (arrogance, an earnest youthful cluelessness), you make sure it's clear that it is a fuckup.
And Paris, well, he's a Voyager character so who the fuck knows what was ever going on with him.
I think they'd dial back some of the occasions where Riker's outright rude to other crew members in the first couple seasons and probably be looking to put someone with known-good comic timing in the role and try to make him just a little funnier.
Bashir's definitely intentionally-flawed but I fear they wouldn't be able to resist making him appear even more sinister, rather than ignorant, until some explainer-episode later on. On the plus side, I think a more-modern show might play up the Bashir / Garak ship to an extent that would make some people very happy. Or very angry, depending on the extent to which that was part of making Bashir look more like a baddie.
For Paris, I'd dial back his dashing rogue attempts and focus on his later characterization—a happy dork. Think a more self-aware Rutherford, but retain the same "failed Starfleet brat" angst. Bring in the B'Elanna romance a little earlier, like season 2 instead of 4, since that was probably the best arc either character had.
Honestly, I think the way you "fix" Voyager's mains (really, emphasize what already worked and cut out what didn't) is to build the whole crew around a theme of growing up.
Not sure if I needed to spoil this, but for someone who hasn't seen DS9 before, I shall. There's a wonderful episode of TNG where the Bajoran Ensign Ro is walking around with Picard, and he's talking about how the Federation is helping the refugees, and how a Bajoran freedom fighter needs to be tracked down and handed over to the Cardassians as a terrorist. Ro (ETA: or maybe Orta, the terrorist they're sent to find? It's been a while) gives him some serious shit for how the Federation expects the Bajoirans gratitude for their assistance, but isn't willing to actually help them liberate themselves, instead seeing them as a problem. Federation/Bajoran relations at the start of DS9 are...I want to say strained at best.
The Bajorans eventually made the Cardassian Occupation too costly to be worthwhile for what was then a backwater rock, and the Cardassians withdrew. So they're understandably reluctant to join the Federation right off the bat.
It's not even just about helping them liberate themselves. That kind of highlighted the ineffectiveness of the Federation to the Bajorans. They go to talk to the leader of a refugee camp, and Picard's all 'oh it's so terrible to see the Bajorans reduced to this', and when the leader says that Picard's problems are with treaties, his are about blankets, Picard just casually orders Enterprise to replicate enough blankets for everyone.
No reason the Federation couldn't do that anyway. They've got the means to turn that camp into a proper town with buildings and power and plumbing with a couple of days work. It's not even something they'd need to send their big ships to do, lower tier scutwork ones like Cerritos could get them on their feet easily. They just don't.
I saw that whole episode as dumping on people who 'support' refugees by saying it's a sad thing and someone should do something about it, oh well.
Bajor also has a major cultural ego problem. They aren't part of the Federation, yet they expect the Federation to drop everything and pour all available resources into rebuilding the former glory of Bajor. Then on top of that, they expect the Federation to jump through religious and bureaucratic hurdles to provide that assistance, all the while acting as if the Federation should be thankful they're allowed to help at all. And fat chunks of the population automatically resent the Federation just for being not-Bajoran because the Cardassians were also not-Bajoran, despite the fact that it was the war with the likes of the Federation that made the Cardassian people want to pull back from their conquests because their military was being an embarassment. For fuck's sake, can your people really not tell the difference between the slaver empire and the collection of unified worlds just handing out shitloads of world-rebuilding equipment for free? It's not like Cardassia tricked Bajor into being enslaved, they just militarily stomped the shit out of them and took over. And considering the ceaseless infighting throughout DS9, Bajor was far from the paradise it claimed to be before the Cardassians. People that are starving to death as slaves don't have time to work interpersonal blood feuds into their culture, all that stuff existed before Cardassia wrecked things.
After a certain point, you kinda just want Sisko to grab all of Bajor by the collar, give it a good shake, and yell at it to stop being such fucking an asshole and let the Federation help it already.
At first, it seems odd that the Federation would hesitate to invite Bajor to join the Federation, but after a couple years of assistance being blocked by religious shit or feuds it really starts to make sense why the Federation doesn't think Bajor is really ready to join.
DS9 Bajoran cultural stuff:
It’s worth noting that the Bajorans have every reason to resent the Federation. And that their ego may not be justified, but it’s understandable.
The Bajorans have been fighting a guerilla war for fifty years. Fifty years! Fifty years of blowing up outposts, assassinating Gul’s, seeing their temples torn down and their families worked to death in labour camps.
What they don’t see is the Federation get off it’s high minded arse to help them. No. The Bajoran Occupation is a *Cardassian internal matter*! The Feds are happy to take in a paucity of refugees over that period, as long as they keep to themselves and live happily in, ironically, camps. What we see in “Ensign Ro” isn’t people being resettled into the Federation’s high tech utopia. It’s people on a barren rockball, expected to take charity and be grateful for *blankets*. But that charity is implicitly contingent on the Federation’s goals - hand over your terrorists to the Cardassians, simmer down, or maybe we can't help you any longer.
The Bajorans have no reason to be grateful to the Federation, whose attitude to them prior to DS9 is condescending at best, and arguably culpable neglect. Yes, the Federation-Cardassian conflict helps drive the Cardassian withdrawal, but that conflict has nothing to do with Bajor, and everything to do with the strategic planets along the DMZ. Bajor is left to liberate itself, because no-one cares about it enough to help.
And then, when the Bajorans actually have a liberated home, when they’re finally looking to rebuild, when they can, say, finally pay Quark and others like him back for all those guns they ran past a Cardassian blockade. *Then* the Federation rolls up with its shiny ships and functional replicators, ready to tell the Bajorans what they’re doing wrong, and expect them to be grateful for it. It’s the refugee camps writ large.
I suspect if I were a Bajoran at the close of the occupation, someone whose only interactions with other species had been conflict, hate and fear, and then some shiny-jumpsuited prat with a combadge turned up, took over a symbol of oppression in orbit, and and started telling my government what it had to do to receive assistance *it only needed because nobody had helped before*, I’d be resentful as all hell too.
The response to anyone shaking Bajor by the collar demanding it accept help is “Where were you for the last fifty years of atrocities?” and “What will it cost us?”
Which isn’t to say that you’re *wrong*. But Bajoran nationalism, xenophobia and their sense of grievance and distrust of alien mega-powers are all come by honestly , through a lens of planetary trauma.
The Feds own inaction on their own values certainly doesn’t help them either. “Oh, you believe in self determination and the dignity of all life? Well where were you while my children starved in the camps and my parents were shot in reprisal executions?” It’s not a good look, especially while telling the Bajorans that they’re not good enough to join the Federation, and the tension it generates (especially visible in interactions with early Kira) is brilliant.
Not sure if I needed to spoil this, but for someone who hasn't seen DS9 before, I shall. There's a wonderful episode of TNG where the Bajoran Ensign Ro is walking around with Picard, and he's talking about how the Federation is helping the refugees, and how a Bajoran freedom fighter needs to be tracked down and handed over to the Cardassians as a terrorist. Ro (ETA: or maybe Orta, the terrorist they're sent to find? It's been a while) gives him some serious shit for how the Federation expects the Bajoirans gratitude for their assistance, but isn't willing to actually help them liberate themselves, instead seeing them as a problem. Federation/Bajoran relations at the start of DS9 are...I want to say strained at best.
The Bajorans eventually made the Cardassian Occupation too costly to be worthwhile for what was then a backwater rock, and the Cardassians withdrew. So they're understandably reluctant to join the Federation right off the bat.
It's not even just about helping them liberate themselves. That kind of highlighted the ineffectiveness of the Federation to the Bajorans. They go to talk to the leader of a refugee camp, and Picard's all 'oh it's so terrible to see the Bajorans reduced to this', and when the leader says that Picard's problems are with treaties, his are about blankets, Picard just casually orders Enterprise to replicate enough blankets for everyone.
No reason the Federation couldn't do that anyway. They've got the means to turn that camp into a proper town with buildings and power and plumbing with a couple of days work. It's not even something they'd need to send their big ships to do, lower tier scutwork ones like Cerritos could get them on their feet easily. They just don't.
I saw that whole episode as dumping on people who 'support' refugees by saying it's a sad thing and someone should do something about it, oh well.
Bajor also has a major cultural ego problem. They aren't part of the Federation, yet they expect the Federation to drop everything and pour all available resources into rebuilding the former glory of Bajor. Then on top of that, they expect the Federation to jump through religious and bureaucratic hurdles to provide that assistance, all the while acting as if the Federation should be thankful they're allowed to help at all. And fat chunks of the population automatically resent the Federation just for being not-Bajoran because the Cardassians were also not-Bajoran, despite the fact that it was the war with the likes of the Federation that made the Cardassian people want to pull back from their conquests because their military was being an embarassment. For fuck's sake, can your people really not tell the difference between the slaver empire and the collection of unified worlds just handing out shitloads of world-rebuilding equipment for free? It's not like Cardassia tricked Bajor into being enslaved, they just militarily stomped the shit out of them and took over. And considering the ceaseless infighting throughout DS9, Bajor was far from the paradise it claimed to be before the Cardassians. People that are starving to death as slaves don't have time to work interpersonal blood feuds into their culture, all that stuff existed before Cardassia wrecked things.
After a certain point, you kinda just want Sisko to grab all of Bajor by the collar, give it a good shake, and yell at it to stop being such fucking an asshole and let the Federation help it already.
At first, it seems odd that the Federation would hesitate to invite Bajor to join the Federation, but after a couple years of assistance being blocked by religious shit or feuds it really starts to make sense why the Federation doesn't think Bajor is really ready to join.
DS9 Bajoran cultural stuff:
It’s worth noting that the Bajorans have every reason to resent the Federation. And that their ego may not be justified, but it’s understandable.
The Bajorans have been fighting a guerilla war for fifty years. Fifty years! Fifty years of blowing up outposts, assassinating Gul’s, seeing their temples torn down and their families worked to death in labour camps.
What they don’t see is the Federation get off it’s high minded arse to help them. No. The Bajoran Occupation is a *Cardassian internal matter*! The Feds are happy to take in a paucity of refugees over that period, as long as they keep to themselves and live happily in, ironically, camps. What we see in “Ensign Ro” isn’t people being resettled into the Federation’s high tech utopia. It’s people on a barren rockball, expected to take charity and be grateful for *blankets*. But that charity is implicitly contingent on the Federation’s goals - hand over your terrorists to the Cardassians, simmer down, or maybe we can't help you any longer.
The Bajorans have no reason to be grateful to the Federation, whose attitude to them prior to DS9 is condescending at best, and arguably culpable neglect. Yes, the Federation-Cardassian conflict helps drive the Cardassian withdrawal, but that conflict has nothing to do with Bajor, and everything to do with the strategic planets along the DMZ. Bajor is left to liberate itself, because no-one cares about it enough to help.
And then, when the Bajorans actually have a liberated home, when they’re finally looking to rebuild, when they can, say, finally pay Quark and others like him back for all those guns they ran past a Cardassian blockade. *Then* the Federation rolls up with its shiny ships and functional replicators, ready to tell the Bajorans what they’re doing wrong, and expect them to be grateful for it. It’s the refugee camps writ large.
I suspect if I were a Bajoran at the close of the occupation, someone whose only interactions with other species had been conflict, hate and fear, and then some shiny-jumpsuited prat with a combadge turned up, took over a symbol of oppression in orbit, and and started telling my government what it had to do to receive assistance *it only needed because nobody had helped before*, I’d be resentful as all hell too.
The response to anyone shaking Bajor by the collar demanding it accept help is “Where we’re you for the last fifty years of atrocities?” and “What will it cost us?”
Which isn’t to say that you’re *wrong*. But Bajoran nationalism, xenophobia and their sense of grievance and distrust of alien mega-powers are all come by honestly , through a lens of planetary trauma.
The Feds own inaction on their own values certainly doesn’t help them either. “Oh, you believe in self determination and the dignity of all life? Well where were you while my children starved in the camps and my parents were shot in reprisal executions?” It’s not a good look, especially while telling the Bajorans that they’re not good enough to join the Federation, and the tension it generates (especially visible in interactions with early Kira) is brilliant.
They were also immediately on the Cardassain-Federation border while the Federation and Cardassians were fighting a border war. A war in which the Federation ostensibly won.
You don't have to live on Bajor to think, "Gee, that looks like the Fedration doesn't give a fuck about Bajor."
And the Prime Directive is not a factor here - the Prime Directive is a Starfleet rule, not a Federation rule. While Starfleet could not unilaterally liberate Bajor during the war (but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts any admiral who made that call would get another star and not a court martial!), the Federation Council, President, and Diplomatic Corps all could have made it a matter of policy or a term of the treaty.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
An element of the series that is brought up frequently early on and then kind of forgotten about is that Bajor is supposed to be way out in the middle of nowhere, a long trip from any major galactic capital (aside from Cardassia itself, which is so close as to be kind of stupid imo) through barely-patrolled space. It's something characters remark on early on in DS9.
Then it gets kind of...dropped? People stop mentioning the distance after season 2. Which is funny, because like, it was clearly meant as part of DS9's "small Western frontier town" thing, but it's not like there's now a space railroad going from Earth or Qo'Nos to Bajor, it just wasn't really on-brand anymore for the show.
Yeah, I think they mentioned at one point that it's a two-week trip from Bajor to Earth.
Mid-Late DS9 Spoilers
Maybe it became less of a factor as we barreled toward the Dominion War? I remember in the early seasons, the distance issue mostly came up when it looked like the Cardassians would go for broke and re-invade Bajor.
I get the impression that after the Odyssey, Starfleet was never too far away from DS9.
Even before the Dominion. The wormhole changed everything, the Gamma Quadrant was barely explored and the first new ground for trade in generations, and there was only one viable way there and back. Bajor was the Wild West, but from back when the Wild West was places like Michigan and Illinois. The Gamma Quadrant was what we today think of as the Wild West, and the Wormhole was the St. Louis crossing.
I mean... the metaphor falls apart around the time the residents of the Wild West are revealed to be an Evil United States led by an Orgy Congress, but then the Mongols invade Russia and by the time China and the Yetis get involved nobody remembers the Wild West shit anymore.
Or, how much appetite is there in a "pacifist" Starfleet to initiate a war of aggression against a neighbor polity because they do bad things to not your citizens? Between this and the slaves in Star Wars, people just seem to think going to war is just that easy to sell to your citizens, especially when there is no direct threat to you.
That's the line given in the show, but... The Prime Directive is a Starfleet rule, the Federation as a whole is not bound in quite the same way. The council, president, and diplomatic corps can seek allies and set policies regarding other cultures that alter Starfleet's relationship and responsibilities to them under the PD. For example, once the Federation signed the Khitomer Accords, it enabled Starfleet to do a lot of things with and for the Klingons.
For a few examples, the Federation could have openly allied with the Bajoran militia during the war. Or declared official support of all worlds unjustly held by Cardassia during the war. Both would have made Bajor's liberation a valid action for Starfleet and not a matter of the PD. Or Bajor's release could have been made a condition of the treaty, so that Cardassia's refusal would have invalidated the cease fire and specifically justified Starfleet intervention.
The reality, really, seems to be that the Federation didn't really want to become frontier police in the region. The last border conflict was happening during TNG season 1/2 and the Enterprise never took part or even discussed the war. Starfleet was not putting it's full might into the conflict and the Federation did not leverage victory into a favorable treaty, the nature of the treaty looks a lot more like a resounding Cardassian victory, despite Starfleet barely fighting the war and still bringing the Union to the brink of collapse.
Much easier at the time to leave the whole problem behind Cardassian borders where it's off limits out of our hands.
A big theme of DS9 (and an occasional but recurring one in TOS, TMP, and TNG) is that while the Federation is a great place to live, the decisions and actions that make and keep it paradise are not always above reproach, and as a result it's not always a great place to live next door to.
IIRC, the PD was also invoked (rather absurdly, IMO, given that the parties involved are certainly NOT pre-warp civilizations) to justify not getting involved in the Klingon civil war (the one during TNG, that is; there have been a few, now).
Really, they could and should have just said "we can't be bothered" or "we don't want to get our hands dirty" - I mean *cough* "That's an internal matter" - but that wouldn't allow the Federation to continue hiding behind a pose of "non-intervention equals moral superiority". :P
As the Federation's key ally (the combined strength of the two had kept not just the Romulans but even more advanced threats like the Tholians at bay for decades) sitting out the Klingon civil war was downright irresponsible. It would be akin to the US washing its hands of the situation as the rest of NATO were all subverted by Soviet puppet governments.
Hence Picard's plan - dragging the Romulan involvement into the open made it no longer an internal matter but an external one that the alliance existed to prevent.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
That's the line given in the show, but... The Prime Directive is a Starfleet rule, the Federation as a whole is not bound in quite the same way. The council, president, and diplomatic corps can seek allies and set policies regarding other cultures that alter Starfleet's relationship and responsibilities to them under the PD. For example, once the Federation signed the Khitomer Accords, it enabled Starfleet to do a lot of things with and for the Klingons.
For a few examples, the Federation could have openly allied with the Bajoran militia during the war. Or declared official support of all worlds unjustly held by Cardassia during the war. Both would have made Bajor's liberation a valid action for Starfleet and not a matter of the PD. Or Bajor's release could have been made a condition of the treaty, so that Cardassia's refusal would have invalidated the cease fire and specifically justified Starfleet intervention.
The reality, really, seems to be that the Federation didn't really want to become frontier police in the region. The last border conflict was happening during TNG season 1/2 and the Enterprise never took part or even discussed the war. Starfleet was not putting it's full might into the conflict and the Federation did not leverage victory into a favorable treaty, the nature of the treaty looks a lot more like a resounding Cardassian victory, despite Starfleet barely fighting the war and still bringing the Union to the brink of collapse.
Much easier at the time to leave the whole problem behind Cardassian borders where it's off limits out of our hands.
The whole thing is just that the elements of DS9 come from multiple writers over multiple years of the show and nobody bothered to figure out if any of it made sense when put together.
Until Deep Space Nine there's no reason to suppose the Bajorans are anywhere near the Federation; they could have been on the opposite side of Cardassian space, for all we knew. In "Ensign Ro," they're meant to be some kind of galactic diaspora, like Jewish people or the Roma. Nobody in the episode goes "yo our planet is literally right over there, five minutes from Cardassia."
In their first appearance, the Cardassians seem to be a credible military threat; maybe not like the Klingons, but not a joke. The war against them umpty-ump years ago is implied to have been grueling and brutal. So it makes sense why, in that and subsequent episodes, the Federation is at pains to not stir that up again, especially after the Borg invasion. Deep Space Nine made the creative choice to have them be some barely-holding-their-shit-together North Korea, and it kind of retroactively makes those earlier stories weird - why is everyone tiptoeing around them?
Then the Bajorans get introduced a year or two later. Why are they living in camps? Well, for the sake of the episode. Does it make actual sense that they're living in camps and not being helped more? Not really, unless they're very far away or living in someone else's space. The crew replicate blankets for them in that very episode. Were they the first to think of that? That seems dumb, unless there's some bit of explanation or context that we the viewers never get. I choose to believe that that context exists, rather than that literally every other person in the world of the show is that slow on the uptake, but as for what that context is, who the fuck knows.
IIRC, the PD was also invoked (rather absurdly, IMO, given that the parties involved are certainly NOT pre-warp civilizations) to justify not getting involved in the Klingon civil war (the one during TNG, that is; there have been a few, now).
Really, they could and should have just said "we can't be bothered" or "we don't want to get our hands dirty" - I mean *cough* "That's an internal matter" - but that wouldn't allow the Federation to continue hiding behind a pose of "non-intervention equals moral superiority". :P
The PD involves a lack of interference in internal matters of other civilizations, not just pre-warp civilizations.
(Even outside of the PD, I think the Federation is generally isolationist. With all the aggressive empires surrounding them, I can see value in not getting into a fight with one empire, just to get hit by another while they're weak.)
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
As the Federation's key ally (the combined strength of the two had kept not just the Romulans but even more advanced threats like the Tholians at bay for decades) sitting out the Klingon civil war was downright irresponsible. It would be akin to the US washing its hands of the situation as the rest of NATO were all subverted by Soviet puppet governments.
Hence Picard's plan - dragging the Romulan involvement into the open made it no longer an internal matter but an external one that the alliance existed to prevent.
Eh, I don’t think I agree. Starfleet is really not in a great position when this happens. Openly declaring the Federation for Gowron would have necessitated commitment of significant forces, and in the immediate post-Wolf 359 period those have been weakened. So there’s no guarantee of success. If the plan fails then there is no alliance left, and the new Klingon government has all the justification it needs to openly side with Romulus. Even if the plan succeeds, it calls into question Gowron’s legitimacy and helps fuel the schemes of any of his remaining opponents. So that leaves them with the option of providing Gowron deniable assistance, which perhaps has lower probability of outright success but might also carry lower downside impact.
Or, how much appetite is there in a "pacifist" Starfleet to initiate a war of aggression against a neighbor polity because they do bad things to not your citizens? Between this and the slaves in Star Wars, people just seem to think going to war is just that easy to sell to your citizens, especially when there is no direct threat to you.
It is, however, very difficult to sell people on the high minded principles of the Federation after you’ve let those same people be shepherded into concentration camps for a few decades. The Federation has a tendency to talk a big game, and we get a lot of captains like Picard (and Pike, and...) going on about their ideals. But sometimes they’re willing to sacrifice those ideals in horrifying ways for convenience.
Like, sure, don’t get involved in a “Cardassian internal matter”, that’s realpolitik in the big leagues. But then don’t come around all holier-than-thou later on to the people you hung out to dry.
The Fed has always had a streak of hypocrisy running through it.
Picard spoilerish:
this is why I’m always surprised at fan rage over the way the Federation is portrayed as more insular and less caring in Picard, and the way they handled Romulan refugees. They absolutely have form *that we see on screen* in washing their hands of a crisis because it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.
The Federation is in a constant uphill battle to live up to its ideals, but most Federation citizens we meet just assume they’re working fine.
IIRC, the PD was also invoked (rather absurdly, IMO, given that the parties involved are certainly NOT pre-warp civilizations) to justify not getting involved in the Klingon civil war (the one during TNG, that is; there have been a few, now).
Really, they could and should have just said "we can't be bothered" or "we don't want to get our hands dirty" - I mean *cough* "That's an internal matter" - but that wouldn't allow the Federation to continue hiding behind a pose of "non-intervention equals moral superiority". :P
The PD involves a lack of interference in internal matters of other civilizations, not just pre-warp civilizations.
(Even outside of the PD, I think the Federation is generally isolationist. With all the aggressive empires surrounding them, I can see value in not getting into a fight with one empire, just to get hit by another while they're weak.)
This fits the lore. For roughly a century, 2260s-2370s, the Federation's doomsday scenario was getting into a war with the Klingons or the Romulans and having the other join in. This was the doomsday for the Romulans and the Klingons as well, that's why two fascist warmongers largely kept the peace outside a few hawks stumbling into power.
If you extend that thinking, it makes sense why the Federation would limit military involvement with anybody. Sure, Starfleet could erase the Cardassian Union anytime they wanted—but they probably couldn't do it without leaving an opening for the Romulans or the Klingons.
Forgive my lack of attention to detail, is it really the case that the Bajorans are a pre-warp culture at the time of the occupation? I think there’s a distinction between the Prime Directive (do not interfere in the development of pre-warp cultures) and whatever Federation/Starfleet law would prevent intervention in the internal affairs of other governments. Maybe I’m confused, it’s been a long several days of wrestling with React Native dependency hell at work (and if you don’t know what that is, take your blessing and go!) but as I glance through the forums for a quick break, it seems to me that Picard was maybe using “short of breaking the Prime Directive” as a rare bit of hyperbole.
My understanding is that the Prime Directive applies to all Starfleet interaction with other species. When applied to pre-warp civilizations, that means no direct contact/interference with their "natural evolution." When applied to warp-capable civilizations, it means non-interference in their internal politics.
As for the Bajorans, I'm not sure their view of the Federation would be any less suspicious if Starfleet had rode in guns blazing. Bajor distrusts the Federation because it isn't Bajoran. As I understand, the Cardassians started off wearing the face of an ally—the guns only came out when it was too late for Bajor to defend itself.
I get the impression that Bajor only invited the Federation to Terok Nor to provide cover against a potential Cardassian invasion. Given Bajor's unimportance pre-wormhole, going along with it is definitely the Federation throwing them a bone.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Forgive my lack of attention to detail, is it really the case that the Bajorans are a pre-warp culture at the time of the occupation? I think there’s a distinction between the Prime Directive (do not interfere in the development of pre-warp cultures) and whatever Federation/Starfleet law would prevent intervention in the internal affairs of other governments. Maybe I’m confused, it’s been a long several days of wrestling with React Native dependency hell at work (and if you don’t know what that is, take your blessing and go!) but as I glance through the forums for a quick break, it seems to me that Picard was maybe using “short of breaking the Prime Directive” as a rare bit of hyperbole.
In the 90s shows, they sometimes cite the Prime Directive as a reason to not interfere in, for instance, the Klingon civil war. It doesn't just apply to pre-warp cultures, it's just that the default rule is to never mess with a prewarp culture without very good reason.
The real reason is that nobody in the TNG/DS9/VOY office bothered to lay down what the Prime Directive actually was or did, but in-universe, we can assume it's a bit of a flag of convenience for the times when a captain would really rather not stick his hand into a giant mess of a situation and wants to phone home for advice/backup.
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
IIRC, the PD was also invoked (rather absurdly, IMO, given that the parties involved are certainly NOT pre-warp civilizations) to justify not getting involved in the Klingon civil war (the one during TNG, that is; there have been a few, now).
Really, they could and should have just said "we can't be bothered" or "we don't want to get our hands dirty" - I mean *cough* "That's an internal matter" - but that wouldn't allow the Federation to continue hiding behind a pose of "non-intervention equals moral superiority". :P
The PD involves a lack of interference in internal matters of other civilizations, not just pre-warp civilizations.
(Even outside of the PD, I think the Federation is generally isolationist. With all the aggressive empires surrounding them, I can see value in not getting into a fight with one empire, just to get hit by another while they're weak.)
This fits the lore. For roughly a century, 2260s-2370s, the Federation's doomsday scenario was getting into a war with the Klingons or the Romulans and having the other join in. This was the doomsday for the Romulans and the Klingons as well, that's why two fascist warmongers largely kept the peace outside a few hawks stumbling into power.
If you extend that thinking, it makes sense why the Federation would limit military involvement with anybody. Sure, Starfleet could erase the Cardassian Union anytime they wanted—but they probably couldn't do it without leaving an opening for the Romulans or the Klingons.
Again, in the post-Wolf 359 era Starfleet is weakened. So they are likely even more skittish about a conflict with the Cardassians. The fleet hasn’t recovered until sometime in the mid-seasons of DS9, and even then it isn’t capable of standing up to the Dominion + Cardassians (with the former not deploying the bulk of its forces) without aid from the Klingons and Romulan. The message I take from all of the shows is that while Starfleet is capable of defending the Federation it is not built for force projection, which makes sense for an organization that sets scientific exploration and diplomacy as its high-level priorities.
My understanding is that the Prime Directive applies to all Starfleet interaction with other species. When applied to pre-warp civilizations, that means no direct contact/interference with their "natural evolution." When applied to warp-capable civilizations, it means non-interference in their internal politics.
As for the Bajorans, I'm not sure their view of the Federation would be any less suspicious if Starfleet had rode in guns blazing. Bajor distrusts the Federation because it isn't Bajoran. As I understand, the Cardassians started off wearing the face of an ally—the guns only came out when it was too late for Bajor to defend itself.
I get the impression that Bajor only invited the Federation to Terok Nor to provide cover against a potential Cardassian invasion. Given Bajor's unimportance pre-wormhole, going along with it is definitely the Federation throwing them a bone.
IIRC we never see or hear whether pre-Occupation Bajor was warp capable. Certainly all their post-Occupation craft are impulse only. So it’s possible the PD in its stupidest, makes-Kirk-break-it-est form applies.
WRT later Fed involvement, don’t underestimate the value of a Starfleet presence relatively near Cardassia, straight after a border war with, er, Cardassia. The Federation aren’t helping Bajor out because they’re nice (solely anyway). Doing so serves their purpose on a macro-political level too.
The real reason is that nobody in the TNG/DS9/VOY office bothered to lay down what the Prime Directive actually was or did, but in-universe, we can assume it's a bit of a flag of convenience for the times when a captain would really rather not stick his hand into a giant mess of a situation and wants to phone home for advice/backup.
You say 'never bothered', but I'd say that not laying out exactly what the Prime Directive said was an incredibly smart writing decision, and probably intentional.
Giving it an exact definition would tie their hands from using it to railroad the plot so many times (crew taken prisoner with no protection against transporters? Can't just beam them out and run away because Prime Directive, guess we have to have a court episode, good thing I just wrote one), and would run in the face of armies of lawyer fans watching to be able to say "That's not right, the law wouldn't be applied like that".
My understanding is that the Prime Directive applies to all Starfleet interaction with other species. When applied to pre-warp civilizations, that means no direct contact/interference with their "natural evolution." When applied to warp-capable civilizations, it means non-interference in their internal politics.
As for the Bajorans, I'm not sure their view of the Federation would be any less suspicious if Starfleet had rode in guns blazing. Bajor distrusts the Federation because it isn't Bajoran. As I understand, the Cardassians started off wearing the face of an ally—the guns only came out when it was too late for Bajor to defend itself.
I get the impression that Bajor only invited the Federation to Terok Nor to provide cover against a potential Cardassian invasion. Given Bajor's unimportance pre-wormhole, going along with it is definitely the Federation throwing them a bone.
yeah, the Bajorans 100% have an isolationist streak; we see that in the one episode with the refugees from the Gamma Quadrant, or in the Circle 3-parter where they start doing some race riot stuff against Ferengi, or the one with the new Emissary, etc. It just seems like it's part of the conservative side of their culture.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I feel like it's really easy to say "the Federation/Starfleet don't get involved when it's inconvenient for them" but that ignores the massive issue that you can't just run around single-handedly declaring your culture/ethics superior to all others and imposing them via force. It's really easy to say but much harder to do, because it will necessarily devolve into you declaring war on everyone and forcing them to capitulate when they don't agree, which then puts literally everyone else, particularly your own citizens, at risk.
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
My understanding is that the Prime Directive applies to all Starfleet interaction with other species. When applied to pre-warp civilizations, that means no direct contact/interference with their "natural evolution." When applied to warp-capable civilizations, it means non-interference in their internal politics.
As for the Bajorans, I'm not sure their view of the Federation would be any less suspicious if Starfleet had rode in guns blazing. Bajor distrusts the Federation because it isn't Bajoran. As I understand, the Cardassians started off wearing the face of an ally—the guns only came out when it was too late for Bajor to defend itself.
I get the impression that Bajor only invited the Federation to Terok Nor to provide cover against a potential Cardassian invasion. Given Bajor's unimportance pre-wormhole, going along with it is definitely the Federation throwing them a bone.
yeah, the Bajorans 100% have an isolationist streak; we see that in the one episode with the refugees from the Gamma Quadrant, or in the Circle 3-parter where they start doing some race riot stuff against Ferengi, or the one with the new Emissary, etc. It just seems like it's part of the conservative side of their culture.
Yeah, I think it’s important that there isn’t just one Bajoran view. Some of them want to join the Federation, some of them don’t because they fought for independence, some of them don’t because they are conservative or isolationist, and some of them do or don’t because of their political ambitions. Credit to the writers that all of those show up to some degree in the series.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Which is precisely why the Federation is waiting to see if they're qualified to join up. If Bajor can't unify well enough to choose to join something as obviously beneficial as the Federation, then they've got their own shit to sort out before becoming full members.
I can only imagine that the Federation higher-ups look at reports like the Bajorans not letting students attend classes because the class content goes against the will of the Prophets and going "this has to be a transmission screwup, nobody would turn down a free Federation-grade education because they think Nth-dimensional aliens give a shit about what they learn in class".
An element of the series that is brought up frequently early on and then kind of forgotten about is that Bajor is supposed to be way out in the middle of nowhere, a long trip from any major galactic capital (aside from Cardassia itself, which is so close as to be kind of stupid imo) through barely-patrolled space. It's something characters remark on early on in DS9.
Then it gets kind of...dropped? People stop mentioning the distance after season 2. Which is funny, because like, it was clearly meant as part of DS9's "small Western frontier town" thing, but it's not like there's now a space railroad going from Earth or Qo'Nos to Bajor, it just wasn't really on-brand anymore for the show.
Hell on Impulse
It's gonna be a real awkward episode when Durant meets O'Brien.
Which is precisely why the Federation is waiting to see if they're qualified to join up. If Bajor can't unify well enough to choose to join something as obviously beneficial as the Federation, then they've got their own shit to sort out before becoming full members.
I can only imagine that the Federation higher-ups look at reports like the Bajorans not letting students attend classes because the class content goes against the will of the Prophets and going "this has to be a transmission screwup, nobody would turn down a free Federation-grade education because they think Nth-dimensional aliens give a shit about what they learn in class".
I mean, I agree, but I can easily see the Bajoran isolationist counterargument. “You say we’re not ready to join your club because we have religious convictions, but how many literal war crimes on our people did your club decide to overlook?”
Which is the other side of @Inquisitor77 ’s point. It’s easy to abdicate responsibility in the name of non-interference. There’s going to be a give and take on intervention and non-intervention. The issue I often have is that the Federation that we see on the screen talks up equality and justice, and it’s great at doing those things in a 45 minute TV window (because it’s a TV show!); but that same Federation is willing to make shocking moral compromises - like leaving the Bajorans to be murdered by numbers - without ever *acknowledging* those compromises.
What we’re told on screen about what the Federation is as an institution conflicts with what we’re shown on screen about what it does.
And that’s fine, actually, because it means we get to talk line this about it. But yeah, if the Federation isn’t going to be the galactic police, it doesn’t get to bring the moral superiority game to anyone who it leaves in the hands of the Cardassians/Orions/whoever.
Which is precisely why the Federation is waiting to see if they're qualified to join up. If Bajor can't unify well enough to choose to join something as obviously beneficial as the Federation, then they've got their own shit to sort out before becoming full members.
I can only imagine that the Federation higher-ups look at reports like the Bajorans not letting students attend classes because the class content goes against the will of the Prophets and going "this has to be a transmission screwup, nobody would turn down a free Federation-grade education because they think Nth-dimensional aliens give a shit about what they learn in class".
I mean, I agree, but I can easily see the Bajoran isolationist counterargument. “You say we’re not ready to join your club because we have religious convictions, but how many literal war crimes on our people did your club decide to overlook?”
Which is the other side of @Inquisitor77 ’s point. It’s easy to abdicate responsibility in the name of non-interference. There’s going to be a give and take on intervention and non-intervention. The issue I often have is that the Federation that we see on the screen talks up equality and justice, and it’s great at doing those things in a 45 minute TV window (because it’s a TV show!); but that same Federation is willing to make shocking moral compromises - like leaving the Bajorans to be murdered by numbers - without ever *acknowledging* those compromises.
What we’re told on screen about what the Federation is as an institution conflicts with what we’re shown on screen about what it does.
And that’s fine, actually, because it means we get to talk line this about it. But yeah, if the Federation isn’t going to be the galactic police, it doesn’t get to bring the moral superiority game to anyone who it leaves in the hands of the Cardassians/Orions/whoever.
The Federation doesn't consider itself the sheriff of the quadrant, which is exactly why it doesn't go policing areas outside its borders. The Cardassians were enemies the Federation went to war with, and the Bajorans were non-members way the hell off in the middle of relative nowhere. During the Occupation, the Federation still had to contend with the sneakily-aggressive Romulans and the overtly-aggressive Klingons, plus fight their own war against the Cardassians alone. The Federation could've dropped everything and gone all-out on Cardassia and freed Bajor directly... except that it would've left them severely vulnerable to two other major powers and cost untold Federation lives because of all the resources directed against Cardassia.
And instead of going "thanks for the help" when the Federation is finally able to help, Bajor takes all the free shit the Federation offers up and then bitches and moans about why they didn't do all the heavy lifting for them sooner.
The Federation also isn't all-powerful. By playing the long game it saves Bajor multiple times, more than once from Bajor's own decisions, and is in a position to basically save two quadrants while making allies out of both the Klingon and Romulan empires (which have been enemies for centuries). Being unable to act without massive repercussions from reality doesn't make the Federation wrong, but Bajor whining about the Federation not dropping everything to free them while griping that the Federation isn't helping the right way is some properly hellish cultural ego.
The Occupation was some nasty shit but the Federation didn't cause it, didn't support it, and didn't ignore it when finally able to help. The Cardassians weren't even gone yet before the Federation showed up with a cup of free helpful shit to help the planet put itself back together. The Federation regretted not being able to help earlier, but that didn't stop it from showing up to help literally as soon as reality made it possible.
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
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I think you'd only have to tweak any of them slightly to make it work. Basically just not do some of the cringe romance shit 90s era Trek could get bad with.
Riker is pretty much fine I think. They've always played him as being a guy clearly interested in romance but also self-confident and respectful enough to not get problamatic about it.
Bashir's faults always seemed intentional and just part of his character. He grows and matures over time pretty too. You'd just need to make sure it was clear that when he does fuck up near the start, like with some of his other qualities (arrogance, an earnest youthful cluelessness), you make sure it's clear that it is a fuckup.
And Paris, well, he's a Voyager character so who the fuck knows what was ever going on with him.
His main personality trait is "royalty free"
No reason the Federation couldn't do that anyway. They've got the means to turn that camp into a proper town with buildings and power and plumbing with a couple of days work. It's not even something they'd need to send their big ships to do, lower tier scutwork ones like Cerritos could get them on their feet easily. They just don't.
I saw that whole episode as dumping on people who 'support' refugees by saying it's a sad thing and someone should do something about it, oh well.
After a certain point, you kinda just want Sisko to grab all of Bajor by the collar, give it a good shake, and yell at it to stop being such fucking an asshole and let the Federation help it already.
At first, it seems odd that the Federation would hesitate to invite Bajor to join the Federation, but after a couple years of assistance being blocked by religious shit or feuds it really starts to make sense why the Federation doesn't think Bajor is really ready to join.
Yeah that uh sorta sticks around
I think they'd dial back some of the occasions where Riker's outright rude to other crew members in the first couple seasons and probably be looking to put someone with known-good comic timing in the role and try to make him just a little funnier.
Bashir's definitely intentionally-flawed but I fear they wouldn't be able to resist making him appear even more sinister, rather than ignorant, until some explainer-episode later on. On the plus side, I think a more-modern show might play up the Bashir / Garak ship to an extent that would make some people very happy. Or very angry, depending on the extent to which that was part of making Bashir look more like a baddie.
No idea what'd happen with Paris.
Honestly, I think the way you "fix" Voyager's mains (really, emphasize what already worked and cut out what didn't) is to build the whole crew around a theme of growing up.
DS9 Bajoran cultural stuff:
The Bajorans have been fighting a guerilla war for fifty years. Fifty years! Fifty years of blowing up outposts, assassinating Gul’s, seeing their temples torn down and their families worked to death in labour camps.
What they don’t see is the Federation get off it’s high minded arse to help them. No. The Bajoran Occupation is a *Cardassian internal matter*! The Feds are happy to take in a paucity of refugees over that period, as long as they keep to themselves and live happily in, ironically, camps. What we see in “Ensign Ro” isn’t people being resettled into the Federation’s high tech utopia. It’s people on a barren rockball, expected to take charity and be grateful for *blankets*. But that charity is implicitly contingent on the Federation’s goals - hand over your terrorists to the Cardassians, simmer down, or maybe we can't help you any longer.
The Bajorans have no reason to be grateful to the Federation, whose attitude to them prior to DS9 is condescending at best, and arguably culpable neglect. Yes, the Federation-Cardassian conflict helps drive the Cardassian withdrawal, but that conflict has nothing to do with Bajor, and everything to do with the strategic planets along the DMZ. Bajor is left to liberate itself, because no-one cares about it enough to help.
And then, when the Bajorans actually have a liberated home, when they’re finally looking to rebuild, when they can, say, finally pay Quark and others like him back for all those guns they ran past a Cardassian blockade. *Then* the Federation rolls up with its shiny ships and functional replicators, ready to tell the Bajorans what they’re doing wrong, and expect them to be grateful for it. It’s the refugee camps writ large.
I suspect if I were a Bajoran at the close of the occupation, someone whose only interactions with other species had been conflict, hate and fear, and then some shiny-jumpsuited prat with a combadge turned up, took over a symbol of oppression in orbit, and and started telling my government what it had to do to receive assistance *it only needed because nobody had helped before*, I’d be resentful as all hell too.
The response to anyone shaking Bajor by the collar demanding it accept help is “Where were you for the last fifty years of atrocities?” and “What will it cost us?”
Which isn’t to say that you’re *wrong*. But Bajoran nationalism, xenophobia and their sense of grievance and distrust of alien mega-powers are all come by honestly , through a lens of planetary trauma.
The Feds own inaction on their own values certainly doesn’t help them either. “Oh, you believe in self determination and the dignity of all life? Well where were you while my children starved in the camps and my parents were shot in reprisal executions?” It’s not a good look, especially while telling the Bajorans that they’re not good enough to join the Federation, and the tension it generates (especially visible in interactions with early Kira) is brilliant.
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You don't have to live on Bajor to think, "Gee, that looks like the Fedration doesn't give a fuck about Bajor."
And the Prime Directive is not a factor here - the Prime Directive is a Starfleet rule, not a Federation rule. While Starfleet could not unilaterally liberate Bajor during the war (but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts any admiral who made that call would get another star and not a court martial!), the Federation Council, President, and Diplomatic Corps all could have made it a matter of policy or a term of the treaty.
Then it gets kind of...dropped? People stop mentioning the distance after season 2. Which is funny, because like, it was clearly meant as part of DS9's "small Western frontier town" thing, but it's not like there's now a space railroad going from Earth or Qo'Nos to Bajor, it just wasn't really on-brand anymore for the show.
Mid-Late DS9 Spoilers
I get the impression that after the Odyssey, Starfleet was never too far away from DS9.
I mean... the metaphor falls apart around the time the residents of the Wild West are revealed to be an Evil United States led by an Orgy Congress, but then the Mongols invade Russia and by the time China and the Yetis get involved nobody remembers the Wild West shit anymore.
Why doesn't the Federation get involved? Some variation of the Prime Directive.
For a few examples, the Federation could have openly allied with the Bajoran militia during the war. Or declared official support of all worlds unjustly held by Cardassia during the war. Both would have made Bajor's liberation a valid action for Starfleet and not a matter of the PD. Or Bajor's release could have been made a condition of the treaty, so that Cardassia's refusal would have invalidated the cease fire and specifically justified Starfleet intervention.
The reality, really, seems to be that the Federation didn't really want to become frontier police in the region. The last border conflict was happening during TNG season 1/2 and the Enterprise never took part or even discussed the war. Starfleet was not putting it's full might into the conflict and the Federation did not leverage victory into a favorable treaty, the nature of the treaty looks a lot more like a resounding Cardassian victory, despite Starfleet barely fighting the war and still bringing the Union to the brink of collapse.
Much easier at the time to leave the whole problem behind Cardassian borders where it's off limits out of our hands.
Really, they could and should have just said "we can't be bothered" or "we don't want to get our hands dirty" - I mean *cough* "That's an internal matter" - but that wouldn't allow the Federation to continue hiding behind a pose of "non-intervention equals moral superiority". :P
Hence Picard's plan - dragging the Romulan involvement into the open made it no longer an internal matter but an external one that the alliance existed to prevent.
The whole thing is just that the elements of DS9 come from multiple writers over multiple years of the show and nobody bothered to figure out if any of it made sense when put together.
Until Deep Space Nine there's no reason to suppose the Bajorans are anywhere near the Federation; they could have been on the opposite side of Cardassian space, for all we knew. In "Ensign Ro," they're meant to be some kind of galactic diaspora, like Jewish people or the Roma. Nobody in the episode goes "yo our planet is literally right over there, five minutes from Cardassia."
In their first appearance, the Cardassians seem to be a credible military threat; maybe not like the Klingons, but not a joke. The war against them umpty-ump years ago is implied to have been grueling and brutal. So it makes sense why, in that and subsequent episodes, the Federation is at pains to not stir that up again, especially after the Borg invasion. Deep Space Nine made the creative choice to have them be some barely-holding-their-shit-together North Korea, and it kind of retroactively makes those earlier stories weird - why is everyone tiptoeing around them?
Then the Bajorans get introduced a year or two later. Why are they living in camps? Well, for the sake of the episode. Does it make actual sense that they're living in camps and not being helped more? Not really, unless they're very far away or living in someone else's space. The crew replicate blankets for them in that very episode. Were they the first to think of that? That seems dumb, unless there's some bit of explanation or context that we the viewers never get. I choose to believe that that context exists, rather than that literally every other person in the world of the show is that slow on the uptake, but as for what that context is, who the fuck knows.
The PD involves a lack of interference in internal matters of other civilizations, not just pre-warp civilizations.
(Even outside of the PD, I think the Federation is generally isolationist. With all the aggressive empires surrounding them, I can see value in not getting into a fight with one empire, just to get hit by another while they're weak.)
Eh, I don’t think I agree. Starfleet is really not in a great position when this happens. Openly declaring the Federation for Gowron would have necessitated commitment of significant forces, and in the immediate post-Wolf 359 period those have been weakened. So there’s no guarantee of success. If the plan fails then there is no alliance left, and the new Klingon government has all the justification it needs to openly side with Romulus. Even if the plan succeeds, it calls into question Gowron’s legitimacy and helps fuel the schemes of any of his remaining opponents. So that leaves them with the option of providing Gowron deniable assistance, which perhaps has lower probability of outright success but might also carry lower downside impact.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
It is, however, very difficult to sell people on the high minded principles of the Federation after you’ve let those same people be shepherded into concentration camps for a few decades. The Federation has a tendency to talk a big game, and we get a lot of captains like Picard (and Pike, and...) going on about their ideals. But sometimes they’re willing to sacrifice those ideals in horrifying ways for convenience.
Like, sure, don’t get involved in a “Cardassian internal matter”, that’s realpolitik in the big leagues. But then don’t come around all holier-than-thou later on to the people you hung out to dry.
The Fed has always had a streak of hypocrisy running through it.
Picard spoilerish:
The Federation is in a constant uphill battle to live up to its ideals, but most Federation citizens we meet just assume they’re working fine.
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This fits the lore. For roughly a century, 2260s-2370s, the Federation's doomsday scenario was getting into a war with the Klingons or the Romulans and having the other join in. This was the doomsday for the Romulans and the Klingons as well, that's why two fascist warmongers largely kept the peace outside a few hawks stumbling into power.
If you extend that thinking, it makes sense why the Federation would limit military involvement with anybody. Sure, Starfleet could erase the Cardassian Union anytime they wanted—but they probably couldn't do it without leaving an opening for the Romulans or the Klingons.
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As for the Bajorans, I'm not sure their view of the Federation would be any less suspicious if Starfleet had rode in guns blazing. Bajor distrusts the Federation because it isn't Bajoran. As I understand, the Cardassians started off wearing the face of an ally—the guns only came out when it was too late for Bajor to defend itself.
I get the impression that Bajor only invited the Federation to Terok Nor to provide cover against a potential Cardassian invasion. Given Bajor's unimportance pre-wormhole, going along with it is definitely the Federation throwing them a bone.
In the 90s shows, they sometimes cite the Prime Directive as a reason to not interfere in, for instance, the Klingon civil war. It doesn't just apply to pre-warp cultures, it's just that the default rule is to never mess with a prewarp culture without very good reason.
The real reason is that nobody in the TNG/DS9/VOY office bothered to lay down what the Prime Directive actually was or did, but in-universe, we can assume it's a bit of a flag of convenience for the times when a captain would really rather not stick his hand into a giant mess of a situation and wants to phone home for advice/backup.
Again, in the post-Wolf 359 era Starfleet is weakened. So they are likely even more skittish about a conflict with the Cardassians. The fleet hasn’t recovered until sometime in the mid-seasons of DS9, and even then it isn’t capable of standing up to the Dominion + Cardassians (with the former not deploying the bulk of its forces) without aid from the Klingons and Romulan. The message I take from all of the shows is that while Starfleet is capable of defending the Federation it is not built for force projection, which makes sense for an organization that sets scientific exploration and diplomacy as its high-level priorities.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
IIRC we never see or hear whether pre-Occupation Bajor was warp capable. Certainly all their post-Occupation craft are impulse only. So it’s possible the PD in its stupidest, makes-Kirk-break-it-est form applies.
WRT later Fed involvement, don’t underestimate the value of a Starfleet presence relatively near Cardassia, straight after a border war with, er, Cardassia. The Federation aren’t helping Bajor out because they’re nice (solely anyway). Doing so serves their purpose on a macro-political level too.
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Which makes it an even better metaphor for Yanks in Space America than they probably imagined, back in the late 80s and early 90s.
"What? No, we don't have racism or prejudice anymore, that's all in the past, we're better than that now, we've evolved."
2016: "Yeah, uh, about that..."
Giving it an exact definition would tie their hands from using it to railroad the plot so many times (crew taken prisoner with no protection against transporters? Can't just beam them out and run away because Prime Directive, guess we have to have a court episode, good thing I just wrote one), and would run in the face of armies of lawyer fans watching to be able to say "That's not right, the law wouldn't be applied like that".
See also, the #%#*ing holodeck.
yeah, the Bajorans 100% have an isolationist streak; we see that in the one episode with the refugees from the Gamma Quadrant, or in the Circle 3-parter where they start doing some race riot stuff against Ferengi, or the one with the new Emissary, etc. It just seems like it's part of the conservative side of their culture.
Yeah, I think it’s important that there isn’t just one Bajoran view. Some of them want to join the Federation, some of them don’t because they fought for independence, some of them don’t because they are conservative or isolationist, and some of them do or don’t because of their political ambitions. Credit to the writers that all of those show up to some degree in the series.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
I can only imagine that the Federation higher-ups look at reports like the Bajorans not letting students attend classes because the class content goes against the will of the Prophets and going "this has to be a transmission screwup, nobody would turn down a free Federation-grade education because they think Nth-dimensional aliens give a shit about what they learn in class".
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It's gonna be a real awkward episode when Durant meets O'Brien.
I mean, I agree, but I can easily see the Bajoran isolationist counterargument. “You say we’re not ready to join your club because we have religious convictions, but how many literal war crimes on our people did your club decide to overlook?”
Which is the other side of @Inquisitor77 ’s point. It’s easy to abdicate responsibility in the name of non-interference. There’s going to be a give and take on intervention and non-intervention. The issue I often have is that the Federation that we see on the screen talks up equality and justice, and it’s great at doing those things in a 45 minute TV window (because it’s a TV show!); but that same Federation is willing to make shocking moral compromises - like leaving the Bajorans to be murdered by numbers - without ever *acknowledging* those compromises.
What we’re told on screen about what the Federation is as an institution conflicts with what we’re shown on screen about what it does.
And that’s fine, actually, because it means we get to talk line this about it. But yeah, if the Federation isn’t going to be the galactic police, it doesn’t get to bring the moral superiority game to anyone who it leaves in the hands of the Cardassians/Orions/whoever.
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The Federation doesn't consider itself the sheriff of the quadrant, which is exactly why it doesn't go policing areas outside its borders. The Cardassians were enemies the Federation went to war with, and the Bajorans were non-members way the hell off in the middle of relative nowhere. During the Occupation, the Federation still had to contend with the sneakily-aggressive Romulans and the overtly-aggressive Klingons, plus fight their own war against the Cardassians alone. The Federation could've dropped everything and gone all-out on Cardassia and freed Bajor directly... except that it would've left them severely vulnerable to two other major powers and cost untold Federation lives because of all the resources directed against Cardassia.
And instead of going "thanks for the help" when the Federation is finally able to help, Bajor takes all the free shit the Federation offers up and then bitches and moans about why they didn't do all the heavy lifting for them sooner.
The Federation also isn't all-powerful. By playing the long game it saves Bajor multiple times, more than once from Bajor's own decisions, and is in a position to basically save two quadrants while making allies out of both the Klingon and Romulan empires (which have been enemies for centuries). Being unable to act without massive repercussions from reality doesn't make the Federation wrong, but Bajor whining about the Federation not dropping everything to free them while griping that the Federation isn't helping the right way is some properly hellish cultural ego.
The Occupation was some nasty shit but the Federation didn't cause it, didn't support it, and didn't ignore it when finally able to help. The Cardassians weren't even gone yet before the Federation showed up with a cup of free helpful shit to help the planet put itself back together. The Federation regretted not being able to help earlier, but that didn't stop it from showing up to help literally as soon as reality made it possible.
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.