BAJORAN ORBS
BAJORAN ORB CASE AND ORB
THE ORBS
**Each Orb has a unique power.** Each one deals with a different aspect of linear existence. An Orb may show scenes from the past, present, or future. It it either totally objective, a combination of objective and subjective truth, or totally subjective, so it shows either a scene of what is actually and undeniably true in the physical sense (objective power), a scene outlining the way in which what is physically true interacts with the feelings and mind-set of the user (interactive power), or a scene that exists entirely within the user's mind (subjective power).
Each Orb is oriented in one of the three time periods (past, present, and future), and has one of the three powers (objective, interactive, subjective). [This section is the keystone to my entire understanding of the Bajoran religion. To reconstruct the powers of all nine Orbs, I began by examining what we know about the Orbs we've already seen.
The Orb from "Emissary" (which was unnamed, but I call the Orb of the Unforgettable) shows scenes of the past. The Orb of Wisdom ("Prophet Motive") shows scenes from the present. And the Orb of Prophecy and Change ("The Circle", "The Collaborator") shows scenes of the future. Since it appears that each Orb can display scenes from one and only one aspect of time (i.e., the Orb of Change could never show the past, and the Orb of the Unforgettable could never show the future), I believe that each Orb must be specifically oriented to that one particular aspect.
Aside from the time aspect, each Orb seems to have a different kind of power. The Orb of the Unforgettable showed very concrete scenes of things as they actually happened. The Orbs of Wisdom and Change both showed similarly surreal and confusing scenes that nonetheless had some basis in fact. Finally, a fragment of another Orb in "The Storyteller" was capable of bringing into being something that was definitely NOT true, but that people thought was true. So, there are three different powers an Orb may have: it may reveal what is true in the physical sense, like the Orb of the Unforgettable; it may reveal a scene that reflects physical truth meeting subjective reality, like the Orbs of Wisdom or Change; or it may reveal a scene drawn entirely from the individual's mind, like the Orb from "The Storyteller". This means that each Orb has one of the three powers, and is oriented towards one of the three aspects of time, making nine Orbs altogether.]
GUIDE TO THE LISTING
TRADITIONAL NAME: The more formal name of this Orb.
TIME: Past, present, or future; the aspect of time that this Orb addresses.
POWER: Objective, Interactive, or Subjective; the power which this Orb possesses.
COLORATION: Where available, the hue of the Orb itself.
ORDER: From First to Ninth, the place in the sequence in which the Orb appeared.
DESCRIPTION: A summary of the powers of this specific Orb.
HISTORY: Significant events in which this Orb has played a part.
SHRINE: Where available, the place in the Monestary in which this Orb is kept. [The "traditional name" of each Orb is my own invention. I decided after reviewing "Emissary" that when Kai Opaka called the only remaining Orb, "The Tear of the Prophet," she was not necessarily saying that ALL Orbs were called that, just that that one was. Since I've always disliked the dry, unimanginitive names the Orbs have now ("Orb of ____"), I decided to give each Orb a different name of the form "____ of the Prophet".
The order of the Orbs is also my invention, for the most part. The only information we have is that the Orb of Change is, "The Third Orb" (Vedek Bareil, "The Circle"), and that the Orb in "Emissary" was referred to in the early drafts of the pilot as "The Ninth Orb". Having already decided that the Orb of Wisdom was the First Orb, I set out trying to find a pattern into which I could fit all the Orbs. Since the Orbs of Wisdom and Change, the First and Third Orbs, both have Interactive powers, it seems reasonable that the Second Orb does too, that the three Orbs with the same powers were released one after the other. If the Ninth Orb was the Orb of the Unforgettable, then there seemed to be no pattern with regard to which Orb in a sequence of three came first, the past, present, or future. So I set it up so that no sequence of three had the Orb with the same time-orientation in the same order as in another sequence. It was the only semi-logical order I could come up with.]
THE ORBS
THE ORB OF BEING
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Blood of the Prophet
TIME: Present
POWER: Objective
ORDER: The Eighth Orb
DESCRIPTION: This Orb strips away the past and future and the distractions of one's own thoughts, leaving the user centered entirely in the present, fully aware of his concrete physical presence and the presence of those things that are around him. This Orb's power is similar to the result of mantra meditation on other worlds.
THE ORB OF DREAMS AND FANTASIES
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Soul of the Prophet
TIME:Present
POWER: Subjective
ORDER: The Sixth Orb
DESCRIPTION: This Orb plays out an untrue present drawn from the imagination and mental wanderings of the user. What is actually going on becomes irrelevent as the user becomes part of a dream world.
HISTORY: **This Orb was desecrated, and a fragment of it was taken by the leader of a small village. He and his descendants used this fragment to create a shapeless evil called the Dal'Rok from the thoughts of the villagers, as a way of uniting them in a common purpose.**
[The history comes from the episode "The Storyteller", where a fragment of the Orb was shown. I assume that the Orb from which the fragment came has similar powers. Even though the fragment of the Orb appeared to be green, I'm not assigning the color green to the Orb itself, since it was later established ("The Circle","Prophet Motive") that each Orb has a different color.]
THE ORB OF HOPES AND ASPIRATIONS
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Mind of the Prophet
TIME: Future
POWER: Subjective
ORDER: The Fifth Orb
DESCRIPTION: This orb takes the user into an untrue future that is based entirely upon the user's wishes, dreams, and hopes for the future. Regardless of how improbable these hopes are, the user will discover that this future has unfolded exactly as he hoped it would.
THE ORB OF THE INEVITABLE
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Breath of the Prophet
TIME: Future
POWER: Objective
ORDER: The Seventh Orb
DESCRIPTION: This Orb reveals concrete scenes of the future. No matter what the user does, he cannot help but experience the events that are revealed at some time in his future. Because the future is so absolutely malleable, though, the scenes that are revealed are either entirely out of the control of the user, or are so short and disjointed that the user could never consciously prevent them from happening.
[I had a hard time dealing with the idea of an Orb that showed concrete scenes from the future, since the future is one's own to create, not written in stone. I therefore set down the condition that the Orb will only reveal scenes from the future that the user is totally incapable of changing.]
**THE ORB OF PROPHECY AND CHANGE**
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Hand of the Prophet
TIME: Future
POWER: Interactive
COLORATION: **Blue**
ORDER: **The Third Orb**
DESCRIPTION: **This orb reveals obscure or unexpected truths about the user's future through surreal imagery.** Because this orb takes into account the intentions and expectations of the user as well as surrounding circumstances, the visions it presents are longer and more detailed than those revealed by the Orb of the Inevitable, but are at the same time much less concrete and harder to understand. **Because of the subjective aspect, their occurrence is not guaranteed.**
HISTORY: **Like every orb but the Orb of the Unforgettable, this Orb was taken by the Cardassians after the Occupation, but not for long.** After the failed attempt upon the life of Vedek Bareil aboard Deep Space Nine in late 2369, many on Bajor accused the Cardassians of formulating the plan. To quell these rumors, the Cardassian High Command returned the Orb of Change to the Monastery as a gesture of goodwill towards Bareil, since this Orb was the focus of the Vedek's order.
SHRINE: **Upon the altar of a small chapel in the Monastery.** [This is the Orb about which we know the most. Most information is from "The Circle", in which Bareil describes the Orb to Kira. I've included the bit about the Cardassians returning this Orb to demonstrate that they have no ill will against Bareil to explain how the Orb shows up in "The Circle" after having been stolen by the Cardassians in "Emissary".]
THE ORB OF RECOLLECTION
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Heart of the Prophet
TIME: Past
POWER: Subjective
ORDER: The Fourth Orb
DESCRIPTION: This Orb plays out an untrue scene from the past drawn from what the user believes or wishes has happened. Unhampered by the actual reality of events, this Orb shows the user exactly what he remembers happening--whether it actually happened that way or not.
THE ORB OF TRUTH
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Ear of the Prophet
TIME: Past
POWER: Interactive
ORDER: The Second Orb
DESCRIPTION: This Orb reveals obscure or unrecognized moments from the user's past through surreal imagery. Drawing upon both the memory of the user and the actual history of events, this Orb presents strange visions that reveal things about the user's past that he didn't realize that he knew.
[I imagine that this Orb's scenes are pretty similar to those of its sister Orbs, the Orbs of Wisdom and Change, but regarding the past instead of the present or future.]
THE ORB OF THE UNFORGETTABLE
TRADITIONAL NAME: **The Tear of the Prophet**
TIME: Past
POWER: Objective
COLORATION: **Green**
ORDER: The Ninth Orb
DESCRIPTION: **This Orb reveals concrete scenes of past deeds. When using this Orb, a person will relive a scene from his past, which will be exactly recreated in every detail.**
HISTORY: **When the Cardassians left Bajor after sixty years of occupation, they took with them all the Orbs except for this one. This one was well hidden within its shrine, and was saved. The Emissary, Benjamin Sisko, used this Orb to contact the Prophets within the Celestial Temple.**
SHRINE: **Within a natural cavern located beneath an illusory fountain in one of the gardens of the monastery.** [Except for the name and number, this is almost entirely canon material from "Emissary". The notion that it is the Ninth Orb is taken from unused information in the story outline for the pilot (which was originally entitled "The Ninth Orb"). While that doesn't make it official, it makes sense to me that an Orb which forced a reflection upon the true past wouldn't be needed by the religion until it was already firmly established.]
**THE ORB OF WISDOM**
TRADITIONAL NAME: The Eye of the Prophet
TIME: Present
POWER: Interactive
COLORATION: **Pink**
ORDER: The First Orb
DESCRIPTION: * *This Orb reveals obscure or unrealized truths about the user's present situation through surreal imagery.** The visions it presents will either hint at an answer to a current problem or tell the user something about himself that he does not consciously know.
HISTORY: This was the first Orb to appear on Bajor over ten thousand years ago. **It was taken by the Cardassians after the Occupation, but two years later the Ferengi Grand Nagus acquired it from a contact on Cardassia III, and sold it back to the Bajora for a substantial fee.**
["Prophet Motive" is the source of most of the information about this Orb. I'm assuming that the Nagus did manage to sell the Orb back to Bajor in the end, even though that was not stated outright in the episode.]
THE ORB OF THE EMISSARY
TRADITIONAL NAME: ORB OF THE EMISSARY
TIME: ALL TIME
POWER: Interactive
COLORATION: WHITE
ORDER: THE LAST ORB
DESCRIPTION: Not much is known about this orb at present as it has only recently been discovered. It is apparentely only for the Emissary of Bajor.
HISTORY: This orb was reveled to Benjamin Sisko, the Emissary of Bajor who discovered through this orb that his mother was a prophet who inhabited the physical body of his mother in order to assure the mating of his father with her, thus producing Benjamin. Sisko learned that the woman who raised him was not biologically his mother at all, and was in fact his father's second wife.