Did Kai Opaka See Sisko Again

"Our spiritual leader. She's known as the kai. Our faith is the only affair that holds my people together. If she would call for unity, they'd listen."

Kai Opaka was the spiritual leader of Bajor in the latter days of the Cardassian Occupation and the early on days of Bajor's independence from Cardassian rule. One of the most respected figures in the Bajoran culture, Opaka was left in the Gamma Quadrant in 2369.

Contents

• 1 The Occupation
• ii The coming of the Emissary
• 3 Disappearance
• 4 Appendices
  • 4.1 Appearances
  • 4.two Background information
  • 4.3 Apocrypha
  • iv.4 External links

The Occupation

Opaka was born under Cardassian rule during the half-century long occupation of her globe. As an adult, she rose to great prominence amid the Bajoran spiritual customs, eventually becoming kai.

Constantly working to protect her people and serve the will of the Prophets, Opaka became a revered effigy among her people. During the last decade of the Occupation, even so, she one time secretly collaborated with the Cardassians. Opaka sent Prylar Bek to inform them of the location of a Bajoran Resistance jail cell in the Kendra Valley. This saved the lives of one,200 other Bajorans, equally the Cardassians would have otherwise destroyed the entire valley, but Opaka sacrificed her son in the procedure – as a member of the prison cell, he was killed in the resulting massacre. Opaka'southward involvement was never discovered, even after Prylar Bek made a full confession. Vedek Bareil lost the kaiship to keep cloak-and-dagger the fact she had sacrificed her son and his grouping in order to save hundreds of civilians from retribution. (DS9: "The Collaborator")

Equally offset conceived by Gary Holland, the story that became "The Collaborator" involved some other female who had secretly committed a criminal offence, as the perpetrator was originally a young daughter who had murdered Kira Nerys' father and whose deed was being covered upwards by her ain father. Three days later initially discussing the plot (and therein irresolute the crime to that of collaboration with the Cardassians), Opaka was made the culprit, during a very curt story meeting between Holland and Ira Steven Behr. (Star Expedition: Deep Space Nine Companion (p. 147))

The coming of the Emissary

When the Cardassians retreated from Bajor in 2369, the Bajoran people began forming factions, vying for command of their new found independence. Each side looked to Opaka for support. She went into hiding on Bajor, refusing to meet with anyone.

When the Bajoran Provisional Regime invited Starfleet to take command of the quondam Cardassian space station Terok Nor in orbit of Bajor, Commander Benjamin Sisko was placed in control of the station, renamed Deep Space nine. Hoping to unite the various Bajoran factions, Sisko met with Opaka. She surprised many by identifying Sisko as the prophesied Emissary of the Prophets. Opaka believed that Sisko's arrival had a deep spiritual purpose, in fact, that information technology was a fulfillment of prophecy that he would exist the savior of Bajor. She entrusted Sisko with a powerful and mystical orb, telling him his destiny was to reclaim eight other orbs stolen past the Cardassians. Kai Opaka used the orb to transport Sisko to the beach where he offset met his wife. Sisko after discovered the domicile of the Prophets, the Bajoran wormhole, which the Bajorans identified as the Celestial Temple. Later, he spoke with Kai Opaka, who informed Sisko that he was the Emissary of the Prophets and this was not final time he would work with the Bajoran prophets to secure the futurity of Bajor. (DS9: "Emissary")

Of course, Opaka experienced disagreement from other Bajorans about this declaration. Vedek Winn Adami, for example, asked her why an unbeliever was destined for this function. Opaka told her that, "i should never wait into the eyes of one's own gods". As she disagreed with that, at Opaka's suggestion, Winn saturday in darkness for a day, an action she considered quite proper. (DS9: "In the Easily of the Prophets")

This line was actually spoken by Opaka to Sisko in a deleted scene of the series pilot, "Emissary".

Disappearance

Kira mourning Opaka

Afterwards several months, Opaka took a transport from Bajor for Deep Infinite 9 to visit Sisko. Compelled by the Prophets to travel into the wormhole, Opaka somehow knew that she would non be returning. During a trip to the Gamma Quadrant, Opaka died in a runabout crash on a moon.

The moon was discovered to be a prison on which bogus microbes kept the prisoners forever alive to wage war with one another. These microbes resurrected Opaka, but forced her to remain on the moon. The artificial microbes restored a person's torso after death, but that trunk and then became permanently dependent on those microbes for all cellular functions. Anyone with the microbes would die if taken away from the moon. Accepting her new state of affairs every bit the will of the Prophets, Opaka remained behind. She hoped to teach the warring prisoners peace. (DS9: "Battle Lines")

Opaka'southward disappearance was mourned beyond Bajor. Vedek Winn told Sisko that Opaka could not be replaced and missed her deeply. (DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets")

Opaka appeared in an orb shadow that Sisko experienced in 2372. He had stepped down equally the Emissary when Akorem Laan, who had been in the Celestial Temple for two hundred years, returned and said that the Prophets had called him to be the Emissary. Opaka convinced Sisko that he should have his destiny and that he was the rightful emissary. (DS9: "Accretion")

In ultimately unused dialogue from the second draft script of "Accession", Kira suggested to Sisko that the vision of Opaka he had seen was really an attempt past Opaka to telepathically communicate with him. Skeptical of this theory, Sisko remarked, "We don't even know if she's still live," which Kira then best-selling.

Appendices

Appearances

• DS9:
  • "Emissary"
  • "Boxing Lines"
  • "The Collaborator"
  • "Accretion"

Groundwork data

Opaka was played by Camille Saviola.

In the revised final typhoon script for "Emissary", Opaka's name was phonetically notated "o-PAH-ku". [1] According to the final typhoon scripts for "Battle Lines" and "The Collaborator", notwithstanding, her name was pronounced as "oh-PAH-kah". [2] [3]

Originally, Kai Opaka was to have been a man who was spiritual leader of the Bajorans and oftentimes conflicted with Starfleet'southward goals. His visitors had to disrobe while he probed their pagh through deep-tissue massage of their anxiety. This version of the character was written into the commencement draft of the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Bible . (The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, pp. 37-38, 87, 114)

Of class, the kai was ultimately changed from male person to female person, her visitors never had to take off their clothes, and she (like other Bajoran religious leaders) generally checked people's paghsouth by touching their earlobes rather than their feet. The change of the character'due south gender was made in order to add together to the series' collection of strong female person characters. Showing her visitors undressing and having Opaka cheque their paghs via human foot massages might look lightheaded, and if those concepts remained, the obligatory disrobing scenes would swallow much-needed story and production fourth dimension, so – for the sake of simplicity – the pagh was relocated to the earlobes and the disrobing idea was discarded. (The Making of Star Trek: Deep Infinite Nine, p. 108)

The contradistinct depiction of the kai was included in a revised draft of the DS9 series bible. (The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, p. 108) In that certificate, Opaka was described equally "The spiritual leader of Bajor who provides sharp counterpoint to the secular nature of Starfleet. She challenges conventional Human logic. The Kai explores her guests' 'pagh' (roughly translated: energy superlative) through deep tissue massage of their ears that seems to reveal their true nature. Opaka tells Sisko in the opening episode that the commander is on a personal journey. And that he has been sent to Bajor to notice the celestial temple of the prophets – the source of the mysterious orbs. When Sisko investigates, he discovers the wormhole and the aliens who built it. The Kai seems to have an awareness on a higher aeroplane of consciousness, knows things she cannot possibly know. Although our people do not accept her 'powers' at face value, we cannot always explain them either. She speaks in vague, mystical and indirect language, forcing the listener to seek her pregnant." [4]

In the "Emissary" script (both its first typhoon and its revised last draft), Opaka was described as "a strange looking, heart anile Bajoran dressed in a colorful sheath... there is a centered at-home in her, she seems to exist on a college airplane. Yet there is a deep sadness in this adult female who carries the hurting of her people. She has been hurt... her face is badly bruised... her scalp has a minor bandage... a cane supports a bad limp...." [5]

Actresses who Casting Manager Junie Lowry-Johnson scheduled to audience for the role of Opaka include Samantha Eggar, Meg Foster, Christine Jansen, Salome Jens, Micole Mercurio, Natalia Nogulich, Lisa Pelikan, Louise Rapport, Carolyn Seymour, Carrie Snodgrass, Grace Zabriskie, and Camille Saviola. [half-dozen] Considered but not readily available for the office were Kathy Bates (who specified that she didn't want to do whatever TV at that stage in her career), Shelley DuVall, and Tricia O'Neil (who was meanwhile filming in Russia). [7] Saviola recalled her casting equally Opaka: "For me, having played incredibly strong, powerful, intergalactic women in the musicals Battle of the Giants and Starmites, the role of Kai Opaka was like coming full circle. Junie Lowry, the Star Expedition casting director, had been looking high and low and she knew my work from New York. She said, 'They're going to kill me, but I'm bringing in Camille Saviola.' I went in – every character extra was at that place – and did a piddling [tarot card] reading, the real matter. My grandmother read cards and tea leaves down in Greenwich Village – she never charged people money – and I accept a little fleck of that gift. Rick Berman was impressed with the serenity toughness of it. That'south how it happened; I don't think if I fifty-fifty had a callback or not. It was really very like shooting fish in a barrel." (The Official Star Expedition: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 9)

Early on in the series run of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Opaka was intended to go a longstanding recurring character in the show, with a developing relationship betwixt her and Benjamin Sisko. "Ah, yes, 'The Kai' [....] This Kai Opaka, this substitution Sisko has with her, is fascinating," remarked Sisko actor Avery Brooks. (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Ix Magazine issue two, p. xv)

Reflecting on what was revealed in "The Collaborator", Saviola commented, "I read the script and went 'I had a son!' It was shocking and it excited me. I thought it was very progressive and showed that this is another earth after all. We tend to apply Earthly mores – especially American sensibilities – to outer space, and I idea not only was she a Pope to Bajor, but the Kai was a working mother!" On the revelation virtually Opaka, Saviola commented, "I didn't understand why what I did had to be kept secret, when it was a heroic human action. It was almost like Oskar Schindler: I take sacrificed 40, including my ain son, to save twelve hundred." (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Mag issue nine)

Apocrypha

The short story "Ha'mara" in Prophecy and Change established Opaka's given proper noun every bit "Sulan". In 2376, Jake Sisko encountered Opaka in the Gamma Quadrant in Rising Son and she returned home in Lesser Evil and Unity. Opaka returned to the position of kai, but encouraged Solis Tendren to stand as Winn Adami'south successor. During a hostage situation, Opaka served as a midwife for Kasidy Yates-Sisko when Kasidy gave birth to her daughter.

In the Star Expedition: Terok Nor novel Night of the Wolves, set during the Occupation, then-Vedek Opaka pushed for the abolitionism of the D'jarra caste organization in the late 2340s to aid resistance against the Cardassians, every bit the occupiers were using caste discrimination to play the Bajorans off against each other. Kai Arin initially expelled her from the Vedek Assembly for her views, but later came to concord with her, for which his Obsidian Order minder killed him.

The novel Warped mentions that the fact that Opaka was still live was withheld from the Bajoran populace, who were told that Opaka had answered the call of the Prophets. Some of her people believed she had suffered a corporeal death, while others believed she had been transfigured to another aeroplane of existence.

In an alternating futurity seen in the Pocket DS9 Millennium book trilogy, the Bajoran Ascendancy named a starship later on Kai Opaka. It was commanded past Captain Thomas Riker.

Opaka's mirror universe counterpart ( β ) appeared in the DS9 novel The Soul Key and the Star Trek: Mirror Universe novel Rise Similar Lions. The novel stated that she was elected as kai in 2377, after the mirror Bajorans converted, en masse, to the long-abased faith of their ancestors shortly later the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole by the mirror universe analogue of Iliana Ghemor, who was hailed as the Emissary of the Prophets.

In Star Expedition Online, a Starfleet send was named for Opaka. When the 2,800 Dominion ships that were lost in the Bajoran wormhole afterwards the Battle of Bajor reappeared and attacked Deep Infinite 9, the USS Opaka was at the station, and aided in the station's evacuation. Opaka herself appears in the "Victory is Life" expansion, with at present-Kai Kira, Dr. Julian Bashir, and the thespian character traveling to the moon in the Gamma Quadrant and finding that Opaka was able to bring peace to the warring factions, only now had to contend with the Hur'q. Dr. Bashir administers a cure (provided by Odo and the Rule) that allows Opaka and the others to leave the moon. Opaka is reinstated as kai upon the return to DS9.

External links

• Opaka Sulan at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Expedition works
• Opaka Sulan at Wikipedia

hoganbeestre.blogspot.com

Source: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Opaka

Share this post