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The Occupation of Bajor, Also known as the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, the Axis Occupation of Bajor or simply the Occupation by the Bajorans, was a sixty year long brutal occupation of the planet Bajor conducted by the Axis of Empires, largely overseen by the Cardassian Union, but aided by the Galactic Empire and Empire of the Combine Race of which during this time, stripped Bajor of raw materials and turned the Bajorans into slaves, often practicing mass killing to make them work
Cardassian control over Bajor was asserted from 1466 NE (2319), establishing the Bajoran Occupational Government. Initially, the Bajoran people offered them little resistance. However, the Cardassians rapidly pacified the planet and began a coordinated scheme of strip-mining, forced labor, slavery, and eidocide.
The brutality of the Cardassian military drove many in the previously mollified Bajoran populace to form a ferocious resistance with the support of the Alliance operatives. Operating on guerrilla and terrorist tactics, the resistance constantly harried Cardassian forces. Under constant attack by the Bajoran Resistance and unable to subdue them, facing pressure from both internal civilian elements in the Cardassian Central Command and from the United Federation of Planets, the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor in 1516 NE (2369).
History[]
Prelude[]
Prior to the Occupation, the Bajorans were a peaceful people whose art and architecture were well-known and admired throughout the galaxy. The Cardassians, by contrast, were a militaristic and often hostile people who had conquered numerous planets in the name of survival during the Beta Quadrant conflict. They made first contact with the Bajorans in 1465 NE (2318), The two peoples nonetheless managed to coexist peacefully for some time; however, the Cardassians coveted Bajor's rich natural resources and saw the Bajoran people as inferior. Cardassia became increasingly hostile as time went on, maintaining a military presence on the planet for ten years until when they joined the Axis of Empires forcibly annexing it in 1466 NE (2328) with the support of the Galactic Empire and the Combine to which the Bajorans surrender peacefully to the Axis with no resistance, the planet was given to the Cardassians to oversee the progress of bringing the people under their control. Knowing the Federation at the time couldn't do anything with the Combine on all sides despite the support of the Alliance.
During the Occupation, the Cardassians as well as Imperial scientists were known to perform several brutal medical experiments on the native Bajorans. They also set up a puppet government for the Bajorans that was answerable to the Cardassian Central Command as well as to the Combine Advisors during their presence to select a prefect in charge of Cardassian forces on Bajor. The last prefect before the end of the occupation was Gul Skrain Dukat as well as a temporally Imperial Moff to set up a base to monitor.
Bajor under Axis Rule[]
When the occupation started, the Bajorans were forced to abolish their D'jarra caste system, which had been an integral part of Bajoran culture for centuries, was abolished, as all Bajorans regardless of caste were called upon to struggle against Cardassian oppression. Vedeks were forbidden to preach the word of the Bajoran Prophets, and many such as Winn Adami were imprisoned for doing so. Further, the Cardassians and the strip-mined the planet, using Bajoran slave labor to perform the task. Secretary Kubus Oak and other officials of the occupational government routinely approved work orders forcing Bajorans to mine ore among other tasks. Such acts of cowardice gave way to a new term for those who participated with the Cardassians or used the Occupation as a source of profit: "collaborators."
However, not all Bajorans who made profit during the occupation were collaborators. They were part of a Black market. Bajoran smugglers such as Ibudan were admired for smuggling much-needed medical supplies to Bajor, although Ibudan did so only to gouge his fellow Bajorans, but even let a young girl die because her family could not afford the drug that would have saved her life. Bajorans such as Ibudan were able to operate with relative freedom in many cases, as most Cardassian and Imperial officers would look the other way if paid enough. After the Occupation, most Bajoran smugglers such as Razka Karn were reduced to buying and selling scrap metal.
Part of the boom in black market dealings resulted from most external entities' refusal to sell to the Bajorans out of fear of the Axis and a general belief that the Bajoran Resistance would fail. This was partially offset by the Ferengi bartender Quark and his willingness to sell items to the Bajorans at or just above cost, despite that doing so went against Ferengi values. Another notable exception to the rule was the weapons dealer Hagath and his associate, Quark's cousin Gaila. Hagath believed that the "big picture" of the situation – and having the future Bajoran government owe him a favor – was more important in the long run than which side had the bigger pocketbook, an arrangement which Gaila would later admit was, while almost heretical to a Ferengi, in fact good business. While he charged full price for his goods, Hagath's willingness to sell weapons to the Bajorans was reason enough for them to be grateful.
While the Federation could not do anything with limited resources of handling the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire, they also had to deal with other hostile nations involved in the war, some state it was due to the Prime Directive would not have allowed them to interfere, but didn't stop the Alliance from secretly helping the Bajorans, the Human-Vortigaunt Federation and the New Galactic Republic who have common history with their enemies would set up secret communications with the Bajorans who could find those to be ready for the years to come and train them, secretly sending agents to build up a resistance.
Bajoran people arrested by the Empire
One of the ultimate goals for the Occupation, beyond strip-mining Bajor of its resources, was "full scale colonization" by Cardassian civilians. However, due to the persistent activity of the Bajoran resistance decade after decade, the planet was never sufficiently pacified to initiate this and the Imperial Moff during the occupation believed the Bajorans needed to be reminded of their place in order to fully control the planet. As the years dragged on, Cardassian Central Command grew frustrated, and simply wanted the problem resolved as the Axis were not pleased by the reports from their officers, even Darth Vader upon his visit advised them to take care of the situation before it gets out of hand.
Resistance Movement[]
The Bajorian resistance movements did not sit ideally by during Bajorian occupation and some of them had to commit terrible eidocide and allowed some movements to be crushed to keep a facade. A good amount of mid-era Occupation of Bajor officials were part of the Resistance movement. this build was affected by the Galactic Empire's previous purge after an intel infiltration attempt was foiled.
Guerrilla warfares were mainly focused on small fire teams inserting behind enemy lines, stealing valuable equipment and high tailing out of combat. Civilian spies existed in almost all urban zones with some of these being turn coat Cardassian Union spies (most of them having a guilty conscious or wanted something in return - usually a high position in power after the liberation). Additionally, a considerably percentage of the Combine's TransRace soldiers, anywhere between 40 and 42%, also aided the resistance, ranging from secretly giving them arms to for warn resistance cells of upcoming raids and attacks.
The Resistance caught wind of an impending eidocide and open attack on the people of Bajor, the Resistance began to mobilize immediately and contacted the Alliance. The Alliance was able to infiltrate at least 3 infantry brigades to Bajor by using prototype stealth transport ships. One of these ships was unfortunatelyt caught making the Cardassian Union extremly worried that the Alliance had somehow gained a foot hold into Bajor.
After 5 months of searching for Alliance combat units, the search proved nothing and the investigated forces of the Cardassian Union quickly dispersed when assumed that the only stealth ship was a one of a kind prototype, resulting in the Alliance's test to fail.
The Bajoran Uprising[]
The Bajoran uprising was a small conflict that happened when the Cardassian Union supported by the Galactic Empire and some of the Combine brigades started an outright eidocide of the Bajoran people mainly lead by the Cardassians. The Resistance movements were force to act and revealed their military forces that were surprisingly heavily armed by secret Alliance lend lease as well as a number of TransRace Combine units revolting entirely and defecting to the Bajoran resistance now turning their guns to Axis forces. The Stealth ships had been modifed into large captial ships and a few Corellian blockade runners corevettes acted as light escorts.
An Alliance fleet quickly arrived (around 20 ships in total) that had been posted near an outpost in empty space near Bajoran (this fleet had been merely to observe Bajor from afar via a telescope and listening to transmissions and reading Bajor news outlets and articles). The Alliance ships were mainly from the Galactic Republic with HVF infantry and armoured divisions as complement for the Clone Army troopers.
The Axis of Empires and the Cardassian Union were quickly caught by surprise and although reinforcements were called, it seemed that their distress signal was never received as an elaborate Resistance intel operation took place that tried to convince them that everything was fine on Bajor and that reinforcements were not needed for the time being and a detail report of the Bajor resistance and how it is being neutralised.
While some Imperial and Union ships escaped, the Alliance quickly brought in more combat vessels to defend Bajor from counter attacks. The Cardassians were late to respond to their hails and most of their "attack waves" had been small reinforcement waves after the distress signal was later found out to be true.