How Catholicism shaped Bajorans in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

According to Chris Snellgrove
| Published 18 seconds before

To this day Deep Space Nine The episode “In the hands of the prophets” is one of the most convincing stories of franchise, because it directly solves the theme that franchise has historically remained alone: ​​religion. It is an episode that solves the crispy intersection of faith and education with the story of what will be or learned at school on board the station, and it is also the first episode that really excludes Bajorans’ spiritual lives. Most fans do not realize that while franchise has historically avoided religion, Catholicism surprisingly inspired this Star Trek episode from beginning to end.

Catholicism and Bajorans in Star Trek

But how did Catholicism affect this iconic Star Trek episode? First, the writer of episode Robert Hewitt Wolf ended with the modeling of Bajoran society, mostly after the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which was the Pope as a political figure as he was religious. At that time, the various religious orders were fighting to become their own elected candidates, which “in the hands of the prophets” reflects the tension between Visek Bareil and Vedek Winn, who both compete for the position of Kai, the spiritual leader of the Bajorans.

In this way, Catholicism inspired religious and cultural beliefs of bayorans and remain one of the most fascinating Star Treks foreign races due to their complex spiritual system. Of course, this revelation could cause certain fans to cause unpleasant fans, because the perfectly atheist franchise creator Gene Roddenberry was so critical of religion and alert that it includes it in its episodes. These fans could be encouraged to find that Robert Hewitt Wolf did not exactly approve Catholicism here … In fact, he was inspired to write “prophets” because of how he harassed in “people who try to impose their values ​​on other people”.

As published in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine CompanionWolfe claimed that “this episode is about” the fact that “no one has the right to force someone to believe things they believe.” This is reflected in the crispy conspiracy of an episode in which Winn’s science tries to push Keiko O’Brien to teach the Bajoran religious belief in his class, which has several non -Neayor children in it. Wolf did not see the influence of the narration of Catholicism as a vision of the creator of Star Trek … instead he said that “one of the things we really wanted to hammer home” was “vision Gene Roddenberry (endless diversity in endless combinations”.

To this end, Wolf wrote Sisko as someone who “does everything to store his values ​​to Bajorans”, but must fight with the lead Winn, who “is determined to save his values ​​to all”. In essence, the writer hoped to visit the needle here and create a story that did not demonize religious beliefs, but explained how these beliefs are not universal and others cannot save it. For example, Sisko does not fit his weight and rejects spiritual beliefs that he does not necessarily share … He simply fights to ensure that Keik’s students do not have the belief that they are not shared to put their neck.

This is probably not surprising, but the writer’s own experience with Catholicism eventually influenced his episode Star Trek. “Although I was brought up by Catholic and educated in Catholic schools, it was a choice that we were parents and I did,” Wolf said. “I have received religious education, but I think it belongs there: in a religious school.” He ended his statement with a strong message that could be focused directly on the wad of Winn: “(religion) does not belong to all schools.”

Historically this beloved science fiction The franchise maintained religion on the other side of the galaxy before the usual brand of narration. But Catholicism eventually inspired one of the best episodes Deep Space Nine When shaping the faith of the most fascinating Star Trek aliens. Maybe it is best that we have never received a restart DS9, because Internet discourse is simply not ready for some Winn Knockoff to complain that Quark’s cups say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Peldor”.