Bajorans

Bajoran culture and history began approximately 30,000 years ago. Through two multiple-millennia republics, periods of balkanization and chaos, and a brutal occupation by the Cardassians, it has remained largely unified and coherent. The Bajoran religion, which forms the cornerstone of the culture, centers on the worship of enigmatic beings known as the Prophets, who live in the Celestial Temple (the Bajoran Wormhole). Through their sacred texts and hundreds of prophecies recorded over the ages, Bajorans attempts to understand the will of the Prophets and live according to their wisdom. An elaborate hierarchy of religious officials—ranjens, prylars, and vedeks, all under the guidance of the kai—guides and teaches the Bajorans and participates in planetary government via the Vedek Assembly.

People all over the Alpha Quadrant also know Bajor for its art. From painting and sculpture to literature and song, the Bajorans produce works of art, both religious and secular, envied and admired by many other civilizations. Sales of artistic and craft products form a significant part of Bajor’s interstellar economy.

Probably the most recent major event to shape modern Bajor was the sixty-year long Cardassian occupation. What originally started with the Cardassians holding out a helpful hand and becoming the friend of the Bajorans, quickly turned to an occupying force of soldiers, forced labor in mining camps all across Bajor, and harsh cruelty from the Cardassians.

The Vedek Assembly went into hiding, and its first act was to abolish the D’jarra caste system, making all Bajorans caste-less and therefore able to handle weapons. The Bajoran Resistance movement was quickly formed. After sixty years of resistance, under internal pressure, the Cardassians withdraw from Bajor, and the Bajorans, with a crippled economy, petitioned the Federation for aid.

The Federation agreed to begin moving towards making Bajor a member of the UFP, and they begin by maintaining a presence and managing the former Cardassian mining facility, Terok Nor. They renamed the facility Deep Space Nine, and posted Commander Benjamin Sisko to lead the Federation presence. Soon after his arrival, he discovered the Bajoran Wormhole and was named Emissary to the Bajoran people by the wormhole aliens (Prophets).
Personality: Most Bajorans are peaceful, contemplative people who simply wish to live in peace with their family and neighbors. The Cardassian occupation, however, turned many Bajorans into ruthless, passionate soldiers willing to do anything to protect their homeworld from threats to its independence and security.
Physical Description: Bajorans possess the same average height, weight, and variations in skin tone and hair color as Humans. The only outward physical difference is a series of vertical ridges along the bridge of the nose. Most Bajorans wear distinctive earrings on their right ears to display their devotion to the Prophets. In times past, the design of the earring also revealed a Bajoran’s caste, but many modern Bajorans have discarded that tradition. Bajoran Homeworld: Bajor, the seventh of fourteen planets orbiting Bajor-B’hava’el, is a pleasant world similar in most respects to Earth. It is the closest habitable planet to the only known stable wormhole in the universe, and is orbited by Deep Space Nine, a Federation-administrated Bajoran space station.