The French Resistance and Star Trek’s Maquis.

In the mid-1990s, when the writers of Star Trek were dreaming up a new terrorist splinter group that would threaten the Federation’s delicate treaty with Cardassia, they turned to the history books to choose a name for the controversial organization. The term maquis, a Corsican word meaning hilly brushland, had originally been adopted by French Resistance fighters who fled to the hills to escape the Nazis. From the relative safety of their rustic bases, these maquis plotted raids against their German overlords, like latter-day Robin Hoods hiding from the Sherrif of Nottingham.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Tony Black and Duncan Barrett consider legacies of the French Resistance in the Star Trek universe, focusing in particular on the presentation of the Bajoran Resistance and the Maquis, who planned their raids on Cardassian strongholds from secret bases in the caves and hills of rural provinces. What is it about these rebels of World War II that proved so irresistible to Star Trek’s writers half a century later? And what exactly does such rebellion represent in the supposedly utopian future of the Federation?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) “The Killing Game” (00:04:05) Resistance vs. Collaboration (00:09:15) Charles De Gaulle and Bajoran Resistance Cells (00:13:38) Provisional Governments and the Challenges of Post-war Reconstruction (00:19:48) Heroes, Terrorists, and Collaborators (00:26:48) The Maquis and Les Misérables (00:32:57) Voyager’s Maquis (00:44:21) Authority and Authoritarianism (00:52:32) Moral Ambiguity in Deep Space Nine (01:00:59) The Cardassian Resistance (01:05:52) Final Thoughts (01:18:52)

Hosts Tony Black and Duncan Barrett Production Tony Black (Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)