| abstract
| - By 30,000 years ago, non-corporeal lifeforms known as the "Prophets" began influencing Bajoran society. They described themselves as "of Bajor", and were worshipped as gods by the Bajorans. The Prophets had enmity for a group of fellow non-corporeals called the "Pah-wraiths". One of each were sealed together in a stone tablet in a city that was abandoned 5,000 years later. Here, the beings would be imprisoned for tens of thousands of years, awaiting an important religious figure described as the Emissary. The Restoration of Bajor, an event that the Pah-wraiths later hoped to bring about, may imply that these adversaries of the Prophets held sway over the Bajorans at some point in the distant past. David Weddle, co-writer of DS9: "The Assignment", commented that ancient Bajorans used the spelling 'Pah-wraith'. "The g's were added centuries later, when the seventh hemisphere became more influential." In time, the Bajorans constructed magnificent cities centered around bantaca spires, obelisks that indicated a city's location in the cosmos. Among them was the sacred city of B'hala, which was built on the ruins of the abandoned city of the stone tablet. B'hala itself would become a legend, however, as its location became lost to history around 20,000 years ago. Around the same time, the Peldor Festival was introduced, a tradition which would be continued to the 24th century. (DS9: "Emissary", "Fascination", "Rapture", "The Reckoning") Approximately 10,000 years ago, the first of the Tears of the Prophets was discovered above Bajor. Over the years, eight more of these orb-like artifacts appeared and ushered in a new era of spiritual connection between the Bajorans and the Prophets. Around the same time, Bajoran archaeologists began their search for the famed city of B'hala, which would, however, not be rediscovered until the 24th century. Bajoran religious development also included "prophecies" issued by spiritual writers such as Shabren, Talnot, Trakor, and Zocal. Trakor lived approximately 630 BC and was inspired by encounters with the third orb to be discovered. By the 6th century, Bajorans also manufactured mandalas as religious tokens. (DS9: "Emissary", "Destiny", "Rapture", "In the Cards") As mentioned in DS9: "Accession", the Bajoran year 9174 falls within the late 22nd century. Simply assuming Bajoran years to equal Earth years, this would imply Bajor's year zero was 9,400 years before the events of Deep Space Nine, i.e., around 7,000 BC. By the 16th century, Bajorans had developed sublight space travel employing solar-sail spacecraft called "lightships". Exploring their star system, Bajoran space travelers stumbled upon tachyon eddies, which accelerated their lightships beyond the speed of light and enabled them to reach the Cardassian system five light years away. Although this was evidenced by ancient crash sites of Bajoran lightships uncovered on Cardassia Prime, their discovery would not be disclosed by the Cardassian government until 2371, when a faithful reenactment proved the feasibility of such a journey. (DS9: "Explorers") Although Benjamin Sisko got the blueprints he used to reconstruct the 16th century-lightship in a library on Bajor that also contained "manuscripts that date back to before the fall of the First Republic", the time period of this republic was never mentioned. In the mid to late 17th century, it would be the last time until 2375 that the Book of the Kosst Amojan, an ancient tome considered highly dangerous, was removed from the Bajoran Central Archives. As it contained detailed instructions on how to release the Pah-wraiths in the Fire Caves, access to the book was restricted to the Kai alone. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil") During the 22nd century, Bajorans traveling through their star system unknowingly made the first observations of the home of the Prophets, called "Celestial Temple", a stable wormhole located in the Denorios Belt, an area between the ninth and tenth planets of the Bajoran system. Kai Taluno reported a sighting of what would later be known as the wormhole, when his ship was "almost swallowed by the heavens" near the Denorios Belt. In the Bajoran year 9174 (late 22nd century), Akorem Laan, regarded as one of the planet's greatest poets at the time for works such as Gaudaal's Lament, departed Bajor in a lightship. His vessel was damaged in an ion storm, and drifted into the Denorios Belt, where he opened and entered the yet unknown wormhole and would stay with the Prophets until 2372. (DS9: "Emissary", "Accession") Although the first crashes of Bajoran lightships onto Cardassia in the 16th century do not necessarily imply two-way communication between both civilizations, Akorem Laan, who disappeared from Bajor in the late 22nd century, knew about Cardassians, indicating that contact had been established by that time. (DS9: "Explorers", "Accession") Akorem's lightship of the 22nd century had an outward appearance that was identical to Sisko's lightship, which was said to be a replica of a 16th century design. This implies that the same design was in active use for at least 600 years. By the beginning of the 24th century, Bajorans had established off-world colonies, e.g., Golana. By the 2370s, Bajoran colonies would include outlying planets such as Dreon VII, but also worlds within the Bajor system, e.g., Jeraddo and Bajor VIII. (DS9: "Past Prologue", "Progress", "For the Cause", "Time's Orphan") Despite its high state of development, the Bajoran civilization continued to separate itself into nation-like factions as evidenced by the Paqu-Navot Treaty of 2279, which defined the border between two of them. Until the Occupation by Cardassia, Bajoran society also followed a strict system of castes known as D'jarras. It created a clearly stratified social hierarchy by pre-determining each Bajoran's occupation based on his or her family. Gul Dukat would even remark that, until the Cardassians arrived, the Bajorans were "a weak, contemplative race, choking on [their] isolation." (DS9: "The Storyteller", "Indiscretion", "Accession") In TNG: "Ensign Ro" , Jean-Luc Picard states that he learned about ancient Bajoran history from his "fifth-grade reader", implying that the Federation knew about Bajor as of the 2310s.
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