Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Still fuming about how the only alien music we get to hear is opera/ orchestra stuff, like show me Klingon rave music, or romulan synthcore, or andorian glam rock
I have a head canon for this!! Just Cardassia, but
A couple premises:
1. In Season 2, Dukat says they have photographic memories. And the amount Garak reads is frequently noted, but nobody ever brings up music.
2. Instruments have physics involved. Baby Andorians bang on pot lids just like Baby Humans, Picard has an alien flute that works like a tinwhistle and that is a perfectly logical thing to have, and if you’re in space, you’ve got sine waves.
3. In actual history, humans have been around for millions of years and have been writing words for 5000 years, and documenting shared music for about 600 years. That thing tho, is not an intuitive universal process. Tabs for Guitar only work on guitar and don’t translate happily to violin, let alone a random Lurian Lute. The Clef system or the Gongche system might. Maybe. And that’s about it.
4. Also, “Western!” music seems to have a 600-year-long process of slowly separating folk music from commercial music from religious music, and that is also unintuitive and hard to repeat across cultures, (and is not really Western! anyway it wouldn’t do what it did without West Africa that is a whole college essay and this is a Tumblr post)
ANYWAY
pointbeing
The headcanon I have for Cardassian Music is that the music comes across as “ancient” or a “throwback” relative to Federation expectations, and occupies a slot similar to needlepoint culturally. It’s not taboo, nobody does the thing where they Ban Pop Songs, they just don’t innately Care.
Part of this, premise 1, is because with a photographic memory EVERYTHING is an Earworm. Hear a Klingon Opera on Thursday in April? On a random Friday in July, it’s suddenly just on full-repeat again with no way to shut it off. Run into some cute folk tune on the Northern Continent? You’ll be humming it All. Day.
Stories, literary things, don’t stick that way. Sure, you’ll remember, 8 months later, word-for-word that cute story about the Gul with the Seashells, but it’s a whole story, in prose, and it’s “stoppable” with a lot of content, like a mental chapterbook. It’s not “da na na. da na na. daaa na na. da na na–” for hours and hours and hours with no volume button. forever. makeitstop.
Premise 2, because it’s not as fun for the average person as literature, but physics are everywhere, so Cardassian kids will bang on pot lids and bored office workers will plunk on rubber bands and bored scientists will play with sine waves. It’s there, it exists, it just… occupies the cultural space needlepoint does. Some people are into it, because it’s fun. For them.
Premise 3, Because it’s lower priority AND they have a photographic memory anyway, what songs do get passed down prior to technology are just sung to each other, to be ear-worms, forever. And now they’re recorded electronically, when anybody Cares. This also means a lot of what was is lost, and what can be created by jotting something down and adding more instruments is never created to begin with.
Premise 4, The 1x separation of folk from commercial from religious music in exactly the way it did has an effect on music physics.
There isn’t “Stradivarius”, there isn’t “Sitar”, there’s things that fit in the zither family because that’s close to basic physics. There aren’t “Saxophones!” but panflutes and straight flutes exist. Timpani and gongs don’t exist, but “this is a box, if you stretch stuff over it, it thumps. Yes?”
–
The effect is a combination of low-tech or easily-made instruments, with a penchant for social improv for the people that care about it, and it’s surprisingly basic and ancient-sounding for Federation people. Like watching Ancient Greeks drive space ships but still play Ancient Greek music, but with really good recollection of what got played 6 months ago. “da na na. da na na. daaa na na. da na na…”
Some interesting kanar lore from the Star Trek wines Kanar label
[Text ID: CARDASSIANS, THEIR CULTURE, AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO WINE
The story of kanar is intimately connected with the rise of the Cardassian Union, the exacting landscape of Cardassia Prime, and the strong bonds which hold the Union together.
Evidence of kanar production on Prime is going as far back as the Hebitian period. The famous burial vaults of Klu’haa contains not only numerous examples of jevonite bottles, but a series of ornate mosaics, the El’haa Panels, showing the centrality of kanar to Oralian Way ‘symposiums’.
The severe climactic change that ended Hebitian civilisation and marked the emergence of Cardassian culture ushered in a new era of the production kanar. Harsher weather meant that suitable micro-climates were drastically reduced and, in this newly demanding environment, the many types of grapes from which kanar had been produced were reduced to the three main varietals that we see today. Kanar as we know it had arrived, rapidly forming a crucial part of private and public life, from family festivities around Year’s Turn and enjoinments, to the triumphal commemorations of the guls and legates of the Empire.
Skins of gettle hide were originally used as containers, but in the flourishing of decorative arts that took place prior to the establishment of the First Republic, glass bottles because the norm. The murak, with its distinctive spiral shape, emerged during this period; many becoming treasured family heirlooms, or collectible antiques, particularly the rare ‘obsidian murak’, made from black glass, of which only a handful have survived the destruction of the Dominion War.
In the post-war period, kanar has formed a crucial part of the regeneration of the Union and the reaffirmation of the values of mutual aid that underpin contemporary Cardassian culture. Remembering the past and looking forward to the future, we continue to raise a glass of kanar. “For Cardassia!”]
I recently fell down the rabbit hole of “redesigning Star Trek’s Cardassians to look more like aliens and less like guys in makeup”, looked up to see how far down I was, and realized I liked what I’d made too much to let them be copyrighted space fascists.
These are some of the drawings I did before I got to that point.
I shouldn’t be so excited to watch this Cardassian torture Picard, right? Yeah. Oops.
It’s just fascinating! Watching the process! And coming at it ass backwards lmao.
And I can kinda see how this was really the foundation for the Obsidian Order, for Tain and Entek, and even for Garak! Once again it feels a bit like anthropology. Like knowing the fruit, then seeing the fruit on the plant, then watching the seedling grow.
(Also how Picard is not a complete wreck at this point, after the Borg and that whole lifetime in 20mins thing and now this?? I am probably forgetting other situations? Anyway it is remarkable that he is able to hold himself together, and probably unrealistic)
so i hc that all cardassians, including men, wear dresses. their body shape is perfect for it as both male and female cardassians have very similar body types
and we often see garak in dress-type clothes, like here:
take away the trousers and it would be classed as a human-style dress
they definitely have maxi dresses, often with sleeves for the warmth. some with the cold shoulder look for less formal times, something like these, just taken in at the waist slightly lower:
i feel like cardassian fashion likely consists of something akin to traditional female kimonos as well
all of this obviously made from that thick material cardassians wear with the lines and sections of different muted colours:
