After watching episodes of DS9 and Voyager and TNG every night for 276 days straight, I’ve had some revelations that I never really thought about when I was a younger viewer.

1] Chief O Brien is a bit of a prick

2] The continuation of the Bajoran religion makes no sense

3] there’s a lot of xenophobia floating about

The last one is especially prevalent in DS9 and, considering the background of the series, fairly understandable.

Premise

Bajor is fresh out of a 50 year occupation by the Cardassians, the Ferengi are capital fundamentalists [and perverts] and the chief of security can change shape. For most of the first few seasons, both the Bajorans and O Brien are hostile to the Cardassians and I have no problem with this in terms of scripting as it’s completely realistic.

It’s not very Trekkian, in terms of concept at least, but it makes sense.

Actually, in the case of O Brien, it’s less justifiable as he’s fought many alien species, but seems to have a special disgust towards the Cardassians. Of course, getting kidnapped, tortured and put on trial for made up bullshit in Season 2 probably didn’t help, but it’s not just the Cardassians, he’s also rude and aggressive with Quark too.

It’s true, Quark is a sleaze most of the time, and treats his workers like slaves, but other times he’s just coming up to the Chief to ask how he’s doing, or making a comment about something happening in the bar, like when the Klingons arrive on the station at the beginning of season 4 and he mentions the low ambient noise level in the bar…O Brien snaps at him, as he always does, and Quark is forced to just stand there and take it. In all honesty, Quark usually takes these things quite well, almost like he expects it. And when O Brien walks in, he must expect it every time. Oh look, it’s the guy who has the emotional control of a four year old…can’t wait to chat with him. Even giving him his holosuite program, something he should be happy about, is a dangerous business.

Why people think O Brien is an everyman character, I have no idea. He’s just a big sulk half the time…poor Keiko…

Back to the racism…

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