fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2870 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2870 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[X-Files]

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(Doctor Who/Torchwood)

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(Benedict Cumberbatch)

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[Star Trek]

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[Star Trek Voyager, "Macrocosm"]

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[Great British Bake Off series 4, Ruby Tandoh]

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[How to Get Away with Murder]

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[Far Cry 3]

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[Krazy Kat & Ignatz Mouse]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #410.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not saying you're not allowed to like the Cardassians. (Garak is pretty much my favorite Star Trek character ever, I'm not going to lie.) It just bothers me how fandom kind of ignores the fact that they were pretty much like space Nazis. I see so many comments like "I wish I lived on Terok Nor." You want to live on a station that had Bajoran slave labour and Bajorans lying around on the Promenade, half dead from being overworked? :/

As long as I'm not a Bajoran, I'm good.

that's fucked up, yo

Hey, you should see what has to happen to Indian laborers and South American Laborers to make Western Society happen. If I'm comfortable with living that life, then I pretty much have to be comfortable with Bajoran laborers propping up Cardassian society. I'm just taking the hypocrisy out of it. Not like I was saying I wanted to be Dukat or anything just I'd be content to live there, and no less able to turn a blind eye then as now, if I was a non-Bajoran on Terok Nor.

I'd argue that there's a difference between being the passive beneficiary of a system like that, and taking an active role in its continuance, which I think living on Terok Nor would more or less entail.

But that's fair enough.

DA - I was thinking also it would be different you were right there seeing it every day. Most of us are sheltered from it and while we know it exists, it doesn't seem as real to us as I'm sure it would if we actually saw it first hand.

My headcanon is any Federation spies caught in Cardassia would've been sent to Terok Nor... NOT on the Cardassian side, either. Or just because Cardassians in power in that era tended to, probably sent off to Gallitep to "disappear".

The Obsidian Order tortured and imprisoned their own people, so I don't know about that.

Okay, now I can see where you are coming from and, yeah, that is weird...

Though I see Cardassians less as Nazis and more of the mindset of European Colonial powers in the 18th century. Like they were the ruling Spanish, English and Dutch class. Which if you know the politics that went on during that time, isn't that farfetched from the Cardassian way of thinking. Be charming and sharpen that knife.

OP
European colonialism is certainly a better metaphor than Nazi Germany for the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. Just using 'Nazi' as a colloquial term.
(Characters like Dukat believed that the technologically superior Cardassians were doing the Bajorans a favor by occupying their planet, and saw them as his 'children', which I think is a perfect parallel to how Europeans viewed their subjects during colonialism.)

The Belgian genocide in the 1900s is probably the best comparison for what the Cardassians did to Bajor.

Which was horrific. :(

This. You can actually get their mindset as individuals, even though their culture is completely fucked. I always saw them as European colonialists rather than Nazis. They weren't trying to exterminate the Bajorans, they were trying to "civilize" them.

Note that this is completely horrible, but unless you want to classify all of the European literary tradition as Draco in Leather Pants, it's not unrealistic.

Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain—I am trying to account to myself for — for — Gul Dukat — for the shade of Gul Dukat. This initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honored me with its amazing confidence before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak English to me. The original Dukat had been educated partly on Earth, and—as he was good enough to say himself—his sympathies were in the right place. All the Alpha Quadrant contributed to the making of Dukat; and by-and-by I learned that, most appropriately, the Galactic Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance.

And he had written it too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before his—let us say—nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which—as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times—were offered up to him—do you understand?—to Dukat himself.

But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we advanced races from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings—we approach them with the might as of a deity,' and so on, and so on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' &c., &c. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence—of words—of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!'

Well... I'm not getting any sleep tonight. Thanks Nonny.

Ooh.

Kudos, that's perfectly Lovecraftian.

"Conradesque" would probably be more accurate, since it's mostly taken from Heart of Darkness. The point I was going for was comparing Dukat and Marlow's Kurtz, because I think it's an interesting comparison in terms of colonialism, but I didn't communicate that well enough I guess. My bad.

On the bright side, if you thought that was good, you should really read Heart of Darkness, it's a great book!

NAYRT: Oh gosh, I thought that was a Heart of Darkness reference! I feel so proud for getting that. Also, that was an excellent piece of writing, good work.

Wow, yes good call.

*applauds*

The show runners referred to Dukat as a Nazi when people were getting too fond of him plus I guess they're a go to bad guy but I agree that there's other closer parallels.

I think that, by ignoring how evil they can be, you're lessening how interesting they are as characters.

[ SECRET POST #2870 ]

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