Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
I feel like DS9 did a great job of world building overall, but I’ve gotta say, there were always a couple of things they would just drop in without any follow-through that always kinda made me scratch my head. Take the Cardassians, cuz there’s a couple of things here:
They flirt by arguing. Now, fandom has definitely expanded on this concept in some fun ways, but in the show we get a single mention of it to be funny to Miles (hot Cardassian chick thinks he’s into her since they keep insulting each other! Whoops!), then another brief reference about how Dukat’s perceptions of Kira are filtered through this lense, and that’s - kinda it! What an interesting premise! How does this look in concept with a couple, both in the initial stages and long-term?? Is there a platonic version of this type of affection?? How do Cardassians typically differentiate between flirtatious arguing and non-flirty arguing? What does a cardassian outsider see when they see two people fighting? We never find out! It’s a bit egregious since we see a bunch of Cardassian characters in belligerent relationships - Damar, Garak & Dukat all have explicitly contentious relationships with a variety of people, both cardassian and non-cardassian (Damar in particular spends easily 90% of his screentime bickering with Weyoun, and ofc Garak and Bashir are constantly debating and arguing for all of their lunch dates), but we never really get any development on how this is/isn’t similar to their flirting. And in a culture that equates bickering/debating with flirting… you’d think it would come up!
There’s also, ofc, the rigid gendered breakdown in their society of men/women for specific jobs. STEM type professions are female-dominated, and men are seen as inferior for these roles, and military/political assignments are male-dominated. The one field that seems to have an even split is spy stuff, as the Obsidian Order has both male and female agents. But again! Aside from one or two *brief* references, this isn’t ever discussed even when it should have organically come up. @icykalisartblog has discussed this before, but Damar displays engineering aptitude that would be very “feminine” by Cardassian standards. DS9 does not mention or discuss this at all. And aside from the O’Brien episode where a Cardassian scientist is sexist towards him, we never see any culture clashes when Cardassians encounter female soldiers/commanders in Starfleet or men in medical/engineering jobs (although again, the Miles episode would seem to demonstrate that Cardassians are Not Completely Chill with different gender roles, even for aliens)
Just interesting to reflect on this! Sort of wish DS9 had dealt with this stuff more in canon. There were a few other alien cultures that had the ball similarly dropped for world-building, but these stand out to me the most. Curious if anyone else feels the same!
Here’s an addition to the Cardassian courtship notes I wrote up a while ago, to explain how I think Cardassian courtship differs from other arguments! Once again, contains lots of headcanons but also applies them to moments from the show:
A running theme in all my DS9 fic has been explorations and interpretations of Cardassian courtship. I’ve spent a lot of time devising a system that I think makes a lot of sense and that I reference in all of my fanwork. At the request of @evenmyhivemindisempty I decided to share it! In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are my headcanons, featuring canon and non-canon ships alike! Also on AO3.
