Bajoran
fictional extraterrestrial species from the Star Trek multiverse
The Bajorans (variously pronounced bə-JOR-ənz, baj-OR-ənz, bə-ZHOR-ənz) are a fictional species in the science-fiction Star Trek franchise. They are a humanoid extraterrestrial species native to the planet Bajor, who have a long-standing enmity with the Cardassians, owing to decades of subjugation under a military dictatorship which saw many of their species enslaved or forced into exile away from their homeworld. They were first introduced in the 1991 episode "Ensign Ro" of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and subsequently were a pivotal element of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and also appeared in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Picard.
The shows' writers initially depicted the Bajorans as an oppressed people who were often forced to live as refugees, whom they likened to a variety of ethnic groups. Rick Berman, who helped to originally conceive them, compared them to "The Kurds, the Palestinians, the Jews in the 1940s, the boat people from Haiti—unfortunately, the homeless and terrorism are problems in every age." Ronald D. Moore similarly commented, "depending on the episode, you could also call Bajor Israel, or Iran, or even America and the Cardassians could be Germans, or Russians or several other examples ... [but] we don't really try to make Bajor a direct analogy to any specific contemporary country or people."
Various Bajoran characters were included in several of the Star Trek series, including Ro Laren (played by Michelle Forbes) in The Next Generation as well as a number of others in Deep Space Nine, which was set on a space station near to Bajor, and which featured Bajoran characters such as Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) and Winn Adami (Louise Fletcher).
Storyline
According to the fictional storyline of the Star Trek universe, the Bajorans are an ancient species who developed advanced technology before the evolution of humanity on Earth. They eventually developed space-faring ships, which took them as far away as the planet of Cardassia. In 2318 the Cardassian Union, which had been taken over by a military dictatorship, invaded Bajor, occupying it for fifty years, during which time they forced many Bajorans into slave labor, using them in their various mining operations. This forced many Bajorans to flee and live in refugee camps away from Cardassian domination, while other Bajorans became involved in the resistance movement, organising terrorist attacks against Cardassian targets.
“Bajoran” enters the record as fictional extraterrestrial species from the Star Trek multiverse. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bajoran, fictional and extraterrestrial can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q788819. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1991.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bajoran” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.