I didn't initially raise that point, I was responding to others who decided to cast moral judgment on opinions regarding a TV show.
OK, so if someone thought that Hannibal Lecter eating people was A-OK and said so in public, you think that we shouldn't cast judgement on that?
Extreme example, I know, but you're missing the point (probably on purpose) by about a mile and a half.
Just because something is fictional doesn't mean that it doesn't reflect or affect reality. Hell, look at what "Birth of a Nation" did; multiple lynchings and other hate crimes directly attributed to that steaming pile of racist hash. "Stagecoach" is considered to have set off a whole new wave of oppression towards Native Americans by casting them as Hollywood villains for half a century. "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "A Modest Proposal", these are not "just" fiction.
I didn't initially raise that point, I was responding to others who decided to cast moral judgment on opinions regarding a TV show.
Fair enough, but the post you were responding to was from MustrumRidcully and it was about the Bajoran resistance being an indicator that their race is not cowardly. Your response should have been to him and it should have been about whether fighting for decades against a technologically superior and ruthless oppressor is an indicator of bravery or cowardice.
Instead, because you made your post about others and about a comparison between Bajor and the real world, we're left with a response where you're actually saying that to call Bajoran freedom fighters brave for decades long resistance to a military occupation, we need to call Al Qeada brave for targeting commerce centers with a large civilian population. Or for a better comparison, we need to call ISIS brave for abducting civilians and killing them on camera while remaining completely anonymous. Now, maybe we do, maybe we don't, either way it's an entirely separate argument.
Now, I agree with your sentiment, comparing Bajor to any real world example is less desirable than talking about Bajor itself. So, in the show it's made quite clear in the show that the Bajoran freedom fighters put themselves in great risk constantly in order to fight against an oppressive military occupation that has killed countless Bajorans and left entire swathes of Bajor toxic and uninhabitable.
What I'm saying is: if we are going to take real life offense at fictitious events in a show, and apply them directly to real life, it gets messy. The cardassian-bajoran scenario could have been played out by any number of colonial or imperialistic powers over the years. Attributing them to only one specific historic event is foolish.
Agreed in general , however I doubt that those who seek to bring RL analogy's are doing so out of malicious intentions .
Just like the cardassians could have been a number of powers, the Bajorans could represent any number of terrorists organizations birthed because of perceived or real occupation by foreign forces. Good and bad is never so clear cut, and atrocities have been committed by.both sides, we are just meant to sympathize more with Bajorans due to the lens provided to us by the show.
On a superficial look, perhaps .
But if you look deeper, you see a more layered message that included characters like Tana Los (a bajoran who saw the Federation as the next Cardassians and tried to blow up the wormhole enterence to get the Feds to leave) or Kai Winn (a religious figure who was seduced by power) .
There are other examples as well to all in all illustrate that the Bajora were far from perfect .
... after all, was Ro Laren right or wrong when she betrayed the faith Picard placed in her ? Was she a conscious objector to the Federation's politics regarding the Maquis, or was she like Tana Los who could not stop fighting even during times of peace (a noted attitude among RL Veterans of both military and terror campaigns) ?
Meanwhile ISIS are burning people alive and exterminating ethncities.
Now I didn't read repetitiveepic's post about the parallels between Hamas and Bajor. It's possible that there's a point to be made there, but it's a point in a completely different discussion. A brief skimming of his point seems to indicate he's failed to bring his multiparagraph comparison around to whether the Bajorans can be considered the most cowardly race in Star Trek, so, I won't be addressing it here except in saying to him the same thing that I'm saying to you now.
Comparing the actions of a fictional group to the actions of a real world group will only be useful to the limited degree that those groups are exactly alike. And it will never, I'm going to repeat that again, it will never be as useful as making a judgment based on the canon, in universe, actions of the group.
For the sake the discussion happening in this thread, there is ample evidence that the Bajorans are very brave IN Star Trek canon. Whether they are terrorists with good PR, as some posters would suggest, or freedom fighters facing down one of the most monstrously brutal dictatorships in Star Trek history, as Star Trek canon tells us, isn't really germane to the topic at hand. Bad people can be brave, after all, just like good people can be cowards.
And? Whether these real life terrorists are brave or cowardly is an entirely separate discussion.
While "cowardly" or "brave" are sometimes presented as important virtues, they do not make your position inherently moral superior.
You can be a vicious person that loves hurting others and still be brave about it by attacking trained combattants or fighting unarmed against armed people.
And you can want the best for people and encourage freedom and independence for all, and still shy away from risking anything to achieve that goal for yourself or others.
Who is more cowardly? The person sitting behind a joystick and remote controlling an armed drone, or the person attacking an armed convoy with a few aged rifles?
Bu do you side with the rifleman or do yo uside with the ... joystick man if you know the rifleman wants to kill anyone that refuses to adopt his belief system, wants to keep women as second class citizen and deny them access to school, and the ... joystickman wants everyone to have a free choice in belief system and treat men and women equally and give everyone access to good education?
The parallel between the bajora and groups like HAMAS in real life is striking.
Yes, it is of course. Which is why the whole DS9 Bajoran arc i so wonderful. We actually have "freedom fighters" or "terrorists" here we can sympathize.
The Cardassians, in spite of being demonstrated to have a better objective quality of character than the bajora (earnest, industrious, hard-working, patriotic, self-sacrificing, efficient, rigorous, cultured, very civilized), are the Other and therefore their voices have no privilege at all.
The kind of civilization where the verdict of a trial is known before the trial is held? Where outsiders are blamed of crimes they didn't commit due to evidence manufactured by the government itself? Where captured individuals are tortured, seemingly not even for the sake of information they hold, but just the sake of it?
I don't think these are "better" objective qualities in any form.
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The only people claiming atrocities by the Cardassians are, surprise surprise, the Bajoran terrorists.
Anyone else professing a view in-universe is repeating a second or third hand point of view since nobody else was present.
One of the main characters was a former Bajoran terrorist, another was a former Cardassian intelligence officer. Which one was by far the nicer and more popular character? I'll give you a hint: they did excellent tailoring.
Remember that one episode of DS9 that opened with a discussion where Garak was invited to a debate regarding the occupation on Bajor only to be treated extremely rudely by the Bajoran attendees simply by virtue of his race.
The only people claiming atrocities by the Cardassians are, surprise surprise, the Bajoran terrorists.
Anyone else professing a view in-universe is repeating a second or third hand point of view since nobody else was present.
One of the main characters was a former Bajoran terrorist, another was a former Cardassian intelligence officer. Which one was by far the nicer and more popular character? I'll give you a hint: they did excellent tailoring.
And Garak at no point claimed that the Bajorans were lying and that no atrocities ever happened.
Odo never claims that the Bajoran were exaggerating, either. Nor does Quark.
Starfleet officers also have their experiences with the Cardassians from the Federation-Cardassian war and the massacre at Setlik III. At no point is there any indication that the Cardassians were benevolent in regards to the Bajorans. In fact, everyone seems pretty worried and wary about them.
And we encounter their duplicity and treachery in TNG already - tricking a Starfleet Admiral to sanction a mission so the Cardassians can kill off an enemy. The Cardassians feeding misinformation to Starfleet Intelligence about an illegal weapon so that they can capture a Starfleet Captain that may have information about the Federation defense plans, and torturing him to get that information to launch an unprovoked attack on a border world.
And of course, they deliberately install deadly neurotoxins in their space station to kill off every occupentin case of an uprising. (Not any stun gas or something similar - something deadly.)
Popularity of character means very little in regards to morality or ethics.
I am pretty sure Hannibal is a very popular character, in all forms of media he appeared in. He is still a murderer and cannibal.
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Actually, we've got direct evidence from a Cardassian eyewitness (Aamin Marritza) regarding Cardassian atrocities during the occupation of Bajor... besides which, we've seen Cardassian judicial practice and Cardassian interrogation techniques ourselves, on the show.
Plus which, there's never been any convincing justification offered for the occupation of Bajor by the Cardassians in the first place - just "we want this planet so we're taking it".
The point of many of the Bajoran/Cardassian stories on DS9 was precisely that the simplistic "good guys/bad guys" mentality doesn't hold good when you're dealing with real people - that Bajorans, though legitimately wronged, could be just as vicious and intolerant as their oppressors; that Cardassians could genuinely regret the things their people had done.
But you can't dismiss the evidence for Cardassian sentient-rights abuses.
Who throughout the episode was shown to have been an unreliable (and mentally ill) witness, deliberately lying in order to force political change.
Unless you're a) a psychiatrist who's b) qualified to practice on Cardassians and c) performed an examination of Aamin Marritza, that is just an unqualified opinion. Marritza's eyewitness testimony trumps your unqualified opinion any day of the week.
Who throughout the episode was shown to have been an unreliable (and mentally ill) witness, deliberately lying in order to force political change.
He wouldn't meet any legal definition of mental illness since he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Past that, his motives do not contradict his testimony, but rather inform and enhance it. His personal interests are in direct contradiction to the testimony he has given. And his testimony confirms testimony referenced earlier in the episode from other witnesses.
As far as witnesses go, the only problem with him is that he was lying about his identity, and he stopped doing that. By the end of the episode he was a damn good witness, certainly not unreliable.
On a side note, I didn't realize the Cardassians had so many apologists.
If you'd rather not have Aamin Marritza as a witness (though I think his illness was triggered by severe PTSD resulting from the atrocities he saw his fellow soldiers commit), I would put forth Tekeny Ghemor and Glinn Daro. Both were part of actions that, regardless of the reasoning their commanders provided, they knew in their heart of hearts was wrong, and both were reply haunted by it. Now, Tekeny was ill at the time he spoke to Kira about what happened at Kiessa Monastery, but we are given no indication that Yarim Fel syndrome has anywhere in its symptoms any form of dementia, and he clearly understood from what he saw and experienced that he did owe her an apology for his participation (even though as an 18-year-old kid). Daro, on the other hand, was in good health. Though O'Brien did not allow him to finish his sentence, it is abundantly clear that Daro was at Setlik III and in his case, it's the tone, expression, body language, and the fact that he clearly feels guilty about what happened, that demonstrates that his remembrance of Setlik III substantially aligns with the Starfleet version of the story.
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What does that matter? They were put on a TV show whose primary purpose was to entertain, and I found them entertaining, engaging, and complicated characters. I don't see a problem with that.
Let me paraphrase something a moderator once said on StarDestroyer.net, the site that coined the phrase "rooting for the Empire": by all means, enjoy a well-done villain, BUT do not ever forget that they ARE the villain.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
What does that matter? They were put on a TV show whose primary purpose was to entertain, and I found them entertaining, engaging, and complicated characters. I don't see a problem with that.
I found them entertaining, engaging and complicated aswell. At least when they weren't being mustache twirling villains of the week. I would call myself a fan of the Cardassians, they're easily my second favorite Trek Race, after Vorta.
But an apologist isn't the same thing as a fan. A fan is someone who simply enjoys something, so as a fan I can laugh and say, "yeah, those Cardassian's could be *******s, but damn did it cheer my day up to hear Garak say something horrible as if it were just the most normal thing." An apologize feels the need to advocate for that group. An apologist is someone who comes in and demands that we ignore multiple seasons worth of evidence concerning the Cardassian occupation and instead believe that the entire Bajor occupation plot arc was about the power of propaganda.
Let me paraphrase something a moderator once said on StarDestroyer.net, the site that coined the phrase "rooting for the Empire": by all means, enjoy a well-done villain, BUT do not ever forget that they ARE the villain.
Pretty much this.
I like Princess Azula from "Avatar: The Last Airbender" as a villain. She's terrifying, well-written, and the biggest challenge the heroes face (even more so than the Big Bad). She's also a narcissistic psychopath and TRIBBLE who likes to TRIBBLE with people's minds, is heavily implied to torture people just because she can, and abuses her friends.
There's a difference between an interesting, well-written villain and a hero.
What does that matter? They were put on a TV show whose primary purpose was to entertain, and I found them entertaining, engaging, and complicated characters. I don't see a problem with that.
But doesn't imply that they were "good" people, or that the Bajorans lied about the atrocities committed by the Cardassians.
I think they are one of the most interesting species to come out of the TNG. In many ways more believable than the Klingon culture, to be honest. It dosen't change that they did "evil" things. But they weren't simply mutache twirling villains.
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I personally can't stand the Vorta. Not only are they honorless, deceitful and underhand, but they're also constantly cowering behind their Jem'hadar soldiers (The Jemies, NOW that is a race that deserves consideration).
Running around calling people genocide apologists is blatant flame baiting, however, and probably trolling. It definitely started this derail.
First off, nobody used the word genocide until you did just now. I called people Cardassian Apologists and that is because some people in this thread are clearly advocating exclusively for the Cardassians with no regard at all for objectivity or even the truth.
This derail, by the way, is one person asking why being an apologist is a problem, someone explaining to him what an apologist is, and three other people trying to turn that into a graceful way for him to get out of the discussion with some dignity left.
Rather than, you know, showing that he's missed the point of the entire Star Trek series.
OK thanks for bringing in a quote that has no bearing on my opinion whatsoever. I happen to think that the Cardassians are superior to the Bajorans. That's my opinion and it's not up for debate. Running around calling people genocide apologists is blatant flame baiting, however, and probably trolling. It definitely started this derail.
The more powerful a nation/planet, the more they exercise that power against weaker species. Yes the Federation is all boy scouts and good guys, but that kind of power for good does not exist in present society. Every major power uses hard or soft power - whether cultural influence, economic subjugation, or full flung military occupation -- on weaker nations. It's how the world works. Americans beat the Natives, England decimated aborigines on multiple continents. Russia is doing its thing in Chechnya. China in Tibet and East Turkestan. What's a villain? What's a good guy? Its more complicated than that, and I'm willing to go along with it.
...do you read before you post, or is the hypocrisy and racism intentional?
Americans beat the Natives, England decimated aborigines on multiple continents. Russia is doing its thing in Chechnya. China in Tibet and East Turkestan. What's a villain? What's a good guy? Its more complicated than that, and I'm willing to go along with it.
I mean, do you really believe that oppressive invasions are good things? Do you really, genuinely believe that the oppression of Native Americans was not evil?
I mean, you're verging on Poe's Law territory here. I am genuinely unsure whether you are serious or not.
He wouldn't meet any legal definition of mental illness since he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Past that, his motives do not contradict his testimony, but rather inform and enhance it. His personal interests are in direct contradiction to the testimony he has given. And his testimony confirms testimony referenced earlier in the episode from other witnesses.
As far as witnesses go, the only problem with him is that he was lying about his identity, and he stopped doing that. By the end of the episode he was a damn good witness, certainly not unreliable.
On a side note, I didn't realize the Cardassians had so many apologists.
On the last bit, I think a big part of the problem is the times we live in. People were a lot more sympathetic to overt religion and guerrilla fighters when DS9 was originally aired in the mid-'90s. Then 9/11 happened and suddenly Kira Nerys' unrepentant admittance to using terrorist tactics looked a lot less sympathetic.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I personally can't stand the Vorta. Not only are they honorless, deceitful and underhand, but they're also constantly cowering behind their Jem'hadar soldiers (The Jemies, NOW that is a race that deserves consideration).
I wouldn't call them honorless, but deceitful and underhanded are what I consider positive features, and constantly cowering behind their genetically engineered super soldiers because the Vorta receive no combat training just made sense.
This might just be a testament to Jeffrey Combs' strength as an actor but the Vorta were always a delight to watch. The old world manners and the haughtiness were what you saw on the outside, but at the core the Vorta were absolutely self sacrificing, completely dedicated to their duty and the legacy that they were leaving. The episode where Weyoun tried to defect, only to be tracked down by his replacement, and then ending it by sacrificing himself rather than risk Odo coming to harm just gave me chills. They were the closest thing to real world samurai that Trek has ever had and it was all the more fascinating when they were constantly put on camera with a Hollywood Samurai parallel in the form of the Jem'Hadar.
I'm mostly just disappointed that I didn't get to see more Vorta in administrative positions, or get a better look at Vorta society.
Especially since the entire theme of Star Trek is the antithesis of it. In Star Trek the most powerful and stable faction presented is the Federation, who got there by building a large network of races that cooperate towards a greater good, and not by exploiting or oppressing those weaker than themselves.
Meanwhile the Cardassians sit as the opposite side of the spectrum and serve mostly as a morality tale about the long term inviable nature of military dictatorships, banana republics and the violent exploitation of native peoples.
You can disagree with the moral of the story, but lets not try and pretend like there was ever a different moral.
Here's the thing: most of the current discussion in this thread is completely off topic, since what is being discussed is cowardice in the Canon TV Shows rather than the most Cowardly Race in the Game.
Since most of the races in Canon were created to hold a mirror up to the Human Experience in some way or another, I would say the most cowardly race, whoever it is, is simply representing Humans: Us, the Player.
To the current discussion: Keeping in mind that Canon Races represent Humans (if only as a charicature), both sides to the current debate have some valid points. This includes Nabreeki. Unfortunately, Nabreeki often expresses an opinion to an extreme, charicturizing the opinion they are expressing.
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
...do you read before you post, or is the hypocrisy and racism intentional?
I mean, do you really believe that oppressive invasions are good things? Do you really, genuinely believe that the oppression of Native Americans was not evil?
I mean, you're verging on Poe's Law territory here. I am genuinely unsure whether you are serious or not.
Also,
That's super rich, coming from you.
Did you actually read the post you quoted? or did you just decide to ignore the context in it and misquote it for your own lols?
nabreeki CLEARLY ended with the premise "What's a villain? What's a good guy?" and added "Its more complicated than that, and I'm willing to go along with it."
So all the listed information (and it is current information in the news or historical facts that can be looked up either way) was put there to highlight there is no good / bad in this world and the idea of good / bad is a flawed concept.
Just to highlight this, another quote for you;
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"
by Gerald Seymour in his 1975 book Harry's Game.
How does this apply to Star Trek, well throughout DS9 Gull Dukat constantly refers to Bajorans as terrorists while Kira Nerys called the same people freedom fighters. If the UFP and Starfleet had come in on the other side of the conflict - then they to would have also called them terrorists.
But as Bajor had a resource Starfleet wanted, so they decided to help the Bajorans - this was AFTER they turned them down remember, the UFP and SF had declined to even assist Bajor at all, until it was proven Bajor had something the UFP wanted. If the Cardassians had control of the wormhole, how fast do you think Sisko would have turned over DS9 to its actual owners and builders?
So no, there are no "good" or "bad" guys in Star Trek, just opportunists - no different to the real world today.
Comments
OK, so if someone thought that Hannibal Lecter eating people was A-OK and said so in public, you think that we shouldn't cast judgement on that?
Extreme example, I know, but you're missing the point (probably on purpose) by about a mile and a half.
Just because something is fictional doesn't mean that it doesn't reflect or affect reality. Hell, look at what "Birth of a Nation" did; multiple lynchings and other hate crimes directly attributed to that steaming pile of racist hash. "Stagecoach" is considered to have set off a whole new wave of oppression towards Native Americans by casting them as Hollywood villains for half a century. "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "A Modest Proposal", these are not "just" fiction.
And pretending otherwise is blatantly foolish.
Fair enough, but the post you were responding to was from MustrumRidcully and it was about the Bajoran resistance being an indicator that their race is not cowardly. Your response should have been to him and it should have been about whether fighting for decades against a technologically superior and ruthless oppressor is an indicator of bravery or cowardice.
Instead, because you made your post about others and about a comparison between Bajor and the real world, we're left with a response where you're actually saying that to call Bajoran freedom fighters brave for decades long resistance to a military occupation, we need to call Al Qeada brave for targeting commerce centers with a large civilian population. Or for a better comparison, we need to call ISIS brave for abducting civilians and killing them on camera while remaining completely anonymous. Now, maybe we do, maybe we don't, either way it's an entirely separate argument.
Now, I agree with your sentiment, comparing Bajor to any real world example is less desirable than talking about Bajor itself. So, in the show it's made quite clear in the show that the Bajoran freedom fighters put themselves in great risk constantly in order to fight against an oppressive military occupation that has killed countless Bajorans and left entire swathes of Bajor toxic and uninhabitable.
TRIBBLE this, I'm outta here! No good can come from an online debate about Israel and Palestine.
Agreed in general , however I doubt that those who seek to bring RL analogy's are doing so out of malicious intentions .
On a superficial look, perhaps .
But if you look deeper, you see a more layered message that included characters like Tana Los (a bajoran who saw the Federation as the next Cardassians and tried to blow up the wormhole enterence to get the Feds to leave) or Kai Winn (a religious figure who was seduced by power) .
There are other examples as well to all in all illustrate that the Bajora were far from perfect .
... after all, was Ro Laren right or wrong when she betrayed the faith Picard placed in her ? Was she a conscious objector to the Federation's politics regarding the Maquis, or was she like Tana Los who could not stop fighting even during times of peace (a noted attitude among RL Veterans of both military and terror campaigns) ?
Now I didn't read repetitiveepic's post about the parallels between Hamas and Bajor. It's possible that there's a point to be made there, but it's a point in a completely different discussion. A brief skimming of his point seems to indicate he's failed to bring his multiparagraph comparison around to whether the Bajorans can be considered the most cowardly race in Star Trek, so, I won't be addressing it here except in saying to him the same thing that I'm saying to you now.
Comparing the actions of a fictional group to the actions of a real world group will only be useful to the limited degree that those groups are exactly alike. And it will never, I'm going to repeat that again, it will never be as useful as making a judgment based on the canon, in universe, actions of the group.
For the sake the discussion happening in this thread, there is ample evidence that the Bajorans are very brave IN Star Trek canon. Whether they are terrorists with good PR, as some posters would suggest, or freedom fighters facing down one of the most monstrously brutal dictatorships in Star Trek history, as Star Trek canon tells us, isn't really germane to the topic at hand. Bad people can be brave, after all, just like good people can be cowards.
You can be a vicious person that loves hurting others and still be brave about it by attacking trained combattants or fighting unarmed against armed people.
And you can want the best for people and encourage freedom and independence for all, and still shy away from risking anything to achieve that goal for yourself or others.
Who is more cowardly? The person sitting behind a joystick and remote controlling an armed drone, or the person attacking an armed convoy with a few aged rifles?
Bu do you side with the rifleman or do yo uside with the ... joystick man if you know the rifleman wants to kill anyone that refuses to adopt his belief system, wants to keep women as second class citizen and deny them access to school, and the ... joystickman wants everyone to have a free choice in belief system and treat men and women equally and give everyone access to good education?
Yes, it is of course. Which is why the whole DS9 Bajoran arc i so wonderful. We actually have "freedom fighters" or "terrorists" here we can sympathize.
The kind of civilization where the verdict of a trial is known before the trial is held? Where outsiders are blamed of crimes they didn't commit due to evidence manufactured by the government itself? Where captured individuals are tortured, seemingly not even for the sake of information they hold, but just the sake of it?
I don't think these are "better" objective qualities in any form.
Should we go back to discussing wether space magic is good or bad for the game?
Anyone else professing a view in-universe is repeating a second or third hand point of view since nobody else was present.
One of the main characters was a former Bajoran terrorist, another was a former Cardassian intelligence officer. Which one was by far the nicer and more popular character? I'll give you a hint: they did excellent tailoring.
Remember that one episode of DS9 that opened with a discussion where Garak was invited to a debate regarding the occupation on Bajor only to be treated extremely rudely by the Bajoran attendees simply by virtue of his race.
Yeah.
Odo never claims that the Bajoran were exaggerating, either. Nor does Quark.
Starfleet officers also have their experiences with the Cardassians from the Federation-Cardassian war and the massacre at Setlik III. At no point is there any indication that the Cardassians were benevolent in regards to the Bajorans. In fact, everyone seems pretty worried and wary about them.
And we encounter their duplicity and treachery in TNG already - tricking a Starfleet Admiral to sanction a mission so the Cardassians can kill off an enemy. The Cardassians feeding misinformation to Starfleet Intelligence about an illegal weapon so that they can capture a Starfleet Captain that may have information about the Federation defense plans, and torturing him to get that information to launch an unprovoked attack on a border world.
And of course, they deliberately install deadly neurotoxins in their space station to kill off every occupentin case of an uprising. (Not any stun gas or something similar - something deadly.)
Popularity of character means very little in regards to morality or ethics.
I am pretty sure Hannibal is a very popular character, in all forms of media he appeared in. He is still a murderer and cannibal.
Plus which, there's never been any convincing justification offered for the occupation of Bajor by the Cardassians in the first place - just "we want this planet so we're taking it".
The point of many of the Bajoran/Cardassian stories on DS9 was precisely that the simplistic "good guys/bad guys" mentality doesn't hold good when you're dealing with real people - that Bajorans, though legitimately wronged, could be just as vicious and intolerant as their oppressors; that Cardassians could genuinely regret the things their people had done.
But you can't dismiss the evidence for Cardassian sentient-rights abuses.
Unless you're a) a psychiatrist who's b) qualified to practice on Cardassians and c) performed an examination of Aamin Marritza, that is just an unqualified opinion. Marritza's eyewitness testimony trumps your unqualified opinion any day of the week.
He wouldn't meet any legal definition of mental illness since he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Past that, his motives do not contradict his testimony, but rather inform and enhance it. His personal interests are in direct contradiction to the testimony he has given. And his testimony confirms testimony referenced earlier in the episode from other witnesses.
As far as witnesses go, the only problem with him is that he was lying about his identity, and he stopped doing that. By the end of the episode he was a damn good witness, certainly not unreliable.
On a side note, I didn't realize the Cardassians had so many apologists.
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Let me paraphrase something a moderator once said on StarDestroyer.net, the site that coined the phrase "rooting for the Empire": by all means, enjoy a well-done villain, BUT do not ever forget that they ARE the villain.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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I found them entertaining, engaging and complicated aswell. At least when they weren't being mustache twirling villains of the week. I would call myself a fan of the Cardassians, they're easily my second favorite Trek Race, after Vorta.
But an apologist isn't the same thing as a fan. A fan is someone who simply enjoys something, so as a fan I can laugh and say, "yeah, those Cardassian's could be *******s, but damn did it cheer my day up to hear Garak say something horrible as if it were just the most normal thing." An apologize feels the need to advocate for that group. An apologist is someone who comes in and demands that we ignore multiple seasons worth of evidence concerning the Cardassian occupation and instead believe that the entire Bajor occupation plot arc was about the power of propaganda.
Pretty much this.
I like Princess Azula from "Avatar: The Last Airbender" as a villain. She's terrifying, well-written, and the biggest challenge the heroes face (even more so than the Big Bad). She's also a narcissistic psychopath and TRIBBLE who likes to TRIBBLE with people's minds, is heavily implied to torture people just because she can, and abuses her friends.
There's a difference between an interesting, well-written villain and a hero.
I think they are one of the most interesting species to come out of the TNG. In many ways more believable than the Klingon culture, to be honest. It dosen't change that they did "evil" things. But they weren't simply mutache twirling villains.
First off, nobody used the word genocide until you did just now. I called people Cardassian Apologists and that is because some people in this thread are clearly advocating exclusively for the Cardassians with no regard at all for objectivity or even the truth.
This derail, by the way, is one person asking why being an apologist is a problem, someone explaining to him what an apologist is, and three other people trying to turn that into a graceful way for him to get out of the discussion with some dignity left.
Rather than, you know, showing that he's missed the point of the entire Star Trek series.
I mean, you're verging on Poe's Law territory here. I am genuinely unsure whether you are serious or not.
Also, That's super rich, coming from you.
On the last bit, I think a big part of the problem is the times we live in. People were a lot more sympathetic to overt religion and guerrilla fighters when DS9 was originally aired in the mid-'90s. Then 9/11 happened and suddenly Kira Nerys' unrepentant admittance to using terrorist tactics looked a lot less sympathetic.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I wouldn't call them honorless, but deceitful and underhanded are what I consider positive features, and constantly cowering behind their genetically engineered super soldiers because the Vorta receive no combat training just made sense.
This might just be a testament to Jeffrey Combs' strength as an actor but the Vorta were always a delight to watch. The old world manners and the haughtiness were what you saw on the outside, but at the core the Vorta were absolutely self sacrificing, completely dedicated to their duty and the legacy that they were leaving. The episode where Weyoun tried to defect, only to be tracked down by his replacement, and then ending it by sacrificing himself rather than risk Odo coming to harm just gave me chills. They were the closest thing to real world samurai that Trek has ever had and it was all the more fascinating when they were constantly put on camera with a Hollywood Samurai parallel in the form of the Jem'Hadar.
I'm mostly just disappointed that I didn't get to see more Vorta in administrative positions, or get a better look at Vorta society.
Especially since the entire theme of Star Trek is the antithesis of it. In Star Trek the most powerful and stable faction presented is the Federation, who got there by building a large network of races that cooperate towards a greater good, and not by exploiting or oppressing those weaker than themselves.
Meanwhile the Cardassians sit as the opposite side of the spectrum and serve mostly as a morality tale about the long term inviable nature of military dictatorships, banana republics and the violent exploitation of native peoples.
You can disagree with the moral of the story, but lets not try and pretend like there was ever a different moral.
Since most of the races in Canon were created to hold a mirror up to the Human Experience in some way or another, I would say the most cowardly race, whoever it is, is simply representing Humans: Us, the Player.
To the current discussion: Keeping in mind that Canon Races represent Humans (if only as a charicature), both sides to the current debate have some valid points. This includes Nabreeki. Unfortunately, Nabreeki often expresses an opinion to an extreme, charicturizing the opinion they are expressing.
Did you actually read the post you quoted? or did you just decide to ignore the context in it and misquote it for your own lols?
nabreeki CLEARLY ended with the premise "What's a villain? What's a good guy?" and added "Its more complicated than that, and I'm willing to go along with it."
So all the listed information (and it is current information in the news or historical facts that can be looked up either way) was put there to highlight there is no good / bad in this world and the idea of good / bad is a flawed concept.
Just to highlight this, another quote for you;
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"
by Gerald Seymour in his 1975 book Harry's Game.
How does this apply to Star Trek, well throughout DS9 Gull Dukat constantly refers to Bajorans as terrorists while Kira Nerys called the same people freedom fighters. If the UFP and Starfleet had come in on the other side of the conflict - then they to would have also called them terrorists.
But as Bajor had a resource Starfleet wanted, so they decided to help the Bajorans - this was AFTER they turned them down remember, the UFP and SF had declined to even assist Bajor at all, until it was proven Bajor had something the UFP wanted. If the Cardassians had control of the wormhole, how fast do you think Sisko would have turned over DS9 to its actual owners and builders?
So no, there are no "good" or "bad" guys in Star Trek, just opportunists - no different to the real world today.
Glad you caught that point being made :rolleyes: