Orion Syndicate question?

[Garak007]

Watching an ep of DS9 the other day and its the one when O'Brian is undercover and becomes friends with one of the Orion Syndicate members and ends up taking a cat home with him. Little bit sad that one.

Anyways this got me thinking. When was there a first mention of this organisation in Star Trek?

 

[captcalhoun]

The Ascent, i believe.

 

[Garak007]

The Ascent, i believe.

Sorry I am not to up with just eposide names. What show was this on and what series?

 

[captcalhoun]

DS9, season 5

 

[DestinyCaptain]

Anyone have any ideas on how the govenrment or lack of it is structured in the Orion colonies? Do they have a political governing body? Are they simply a loose association of crime cartels. Is it just warlords?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ The 'slave girls' run everything. Their pheromones give them the power to order men around.

Seriously. It's true. Look it up.

 

[Timo]

ENT "Bound" sez so, verily.

Or, to be more accurate, "Bound" sez that the single speaking-role Orion male in that episode tries to tell our heroes the following:

Harrad: "I can see you're upset, and I sympathise, but it's truly out of my hands. (conspiratory facial expression) We are both slaves to the situation."
Archer (astounded): "They control you?"
Harrad: "You finally realise that. Yes, Captain, you've been operating under a misconception. It is the men who are the slaves, not the women."

Whether we should choose to believe this villain or not is up to us, I guess.

We never quite learn what sort of relationship there exists between the Orion Syndicate, the Orion species, and the planet Orion (which may or may not be related to the real-world star Orion). Possibly the Syndicate is an interstellar and interspecies one, and merely named that way because some prominent Orions are or used to be in top positions in that organization, or because some major crime-bossing happens from planet Orion. Or then the Syndicate is the de facto government of planet Orion. Or then something in between.

In TAS "Pirates of Orion", we learn that the Orion government has officially kept its hands clean while in fact sponsoring piracy, and is only caught red-handed for the first time in that episode. However, the Syndicate was shown culpable for many crimes in ENT already, long before TAS. So perhaps the Syndicate was, or pretended to be, separate from the Orion government, until the connection was exposed in TAS. Or then the Syndicate seemingly ended its criminal activities after ENT and put up an honest facade until TAS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[barnaclelapse]

^ The 'slave girls' run everything. Their pheromones give them the power to order men around.

Seriously. It's true. Look it up.

Really?

Huh...

 

[Timo]

It's just that they tend to purrrrr their rrrrrs like any good little animal woman, so people tend not to notice that they are in fact introduced as "the Orion slaver women".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Badger]

^ The 'slave girls' run everything. Their pheromones give them the power to order men around.

Seriously. It's true. Look it up.

IMHO, that was the dumbest thing in Enterprise. And, as you can imagine, that goes up against some serious competition.

OK, I can see what they were trying to do. TOS had created an incredibly sexist situation. ENT tried to turn it on it's head.

But just a few episodes before 'Bound', I believe it was 'Borderland', we saw an Orion slave market. One of the women was sold at auction to a baying crowd. I can't imagine any way she could have targeted a specific individual to buy her.

So maybe she was just going for whoever had the most cash? Except that makes no sense either. If the 'Bound' pheromone idea was true then the men in the room would have done anything to posses her. In which case, the new owner could possibly bankrupt himself in the process. So all the Orion women who 'sold' themselves are now in charge of penniless business empires.

More tellingly, 'Bound' happened in the 2150's. So if the Earth Star Fleet learnt the Orion's secret then, why did they never tell anyone? An attempt to deceive people can only work if the target does not know they are being deceived. Once the secret is out, it's all over. Yet we know from TOS that trade in Orion women is still going on over a hundred years later.

Furthermore, neither Pike nor Kirk seem aware of this. They both accept without question the (illusionary) comments that they are 'like animals' and 'actually enjoy being taken advantage of'.

As Timo implies, the word of a single Orion merchant who has just been involved in an attempt to capture the Enterprise might not be entirely reliable.

 

[Timo]

For all we know, the Orion male from "Bound" could be telling the truth, without it being the general truth.

Say, he could be the only Orion pirate captain in existence who got overpowered by his slaves, either because those slaves were particularly clever or had particularly powerful pheromones, or because he himself was particularly susceptible to the effects. This would be his dirty little secret: to the outside world, and to the Syndicate, he would still appear to be in control. Yet he wouldn't enjoy his state of servitude much, and would make a weak attempt at playing Archer against his former slaves when the opportunity arose.

Generally, Orion males must be able to resist the wiles of Orion females if the slavery business works like it seems to work. If they have that ability, then "Bound" could indeed portray a special case. If they don't, it would only be inevitable that the situation described in "Bound" be the general truth.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[captcalhoun]

or maybe not all the women have the pheromones...it could be some kinda genetic quirk of one ethnic group...

 

[DestinyCaptain]

I have long wondered about this. It seems that in the time of the TNGera that the Syndicate is a crime organization in the classic sense. Like you all have said nothing says what exactly is the nature of their government in the TOS or pre-TOSeras. I don't have a huge problem with the notion that "some" females have control. Didn't FASA games say that the lighter skinned Orions, yellow maybe, controlled the green Orions? The system of the green slave girl controlling her group of males for the purpose of making them do various nefarious activities might be a clue to the larger systems at work. What if the yellow Orions from the crime lords that makeup what we know as the Syndicate. It is possible controlled by females at that level. They continue this form of management within their slave cells. This gels with ENT. We saw blue Orions in TAS. While they may be pirates, they could also be what pass for the military or enforcers within the Syndicate. I see no huge problem with them have blue people as well as green. In TOS, an Orion posed as an Andorian in
"Journey to Babel", a blue Orion would certainly fit that.

Here's some thoughts..

In the formative days of the Federation, the Orion colonies are perhaps something akin to Wild West where anything goes. As time goes on the UFP has to deal with the fact that slavery, piracy, and crime are actively being run in Federation Space from the Orion Colonies. The Federation closes its borders to the Colonies. This forces the powerful crime bosses to make their business legitimate. They form the Syndicate or something like it as their official political body. They begin to move to normalize relations with the Federation in order to continue to maintain contact with their customers within Federation Space and it's far borders. They far border is where they can still pursuer their "traditional" business model. The UFP is aware of that the Orions are still engaging in illegal activities in it's space, but can't seem to catch them at it. Some time during TOS, the UFP finally and decisively catches the Orions and closes it's space to Orion once and for all. This goes a long way to end the slave trade, but unfortunately drives the "Syndicate" into the shadows. By the time the TNGera comes along the Orion Syndicate is a criminal organization second to none, and actively poses a threat to the security of the Federation. This is why Section 31 has a good part of its recourses engaged there.
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]

 

[2 of 10]

The Ascent, i believe.

Sorry I am not to up with just eposide names. What show was this on and what series?

The Asent was an episode of DS-9 in which Odo was taking Quark to some type of trial and their shuttle crashed on a really cold planet and they had to asend to the top of a mountain to get the transmitter to send an rescue call. During the episode Quark t

 

[2 of 10]

The Ascent, i believe.

Sorry I am not to up with just eposide names. What show was this on and what series?

The Asent was an episode of DS-9 in which Odo was taking Quark to some type of trial and their shuttle crashed on a really cold planet and they had to asend to the top of a mountain to get the transmitter to send an rescue call. During the episode Quark tells Odo that he had a part in the crime with the Orion Syndicate, Odo then tells him that if he knew the Syndicate was involved he would have have brought the Defient on the mission and not a shuttle.

 

[2 of 10]

The Ascent, i believe.

Sorry I am not to up with just eposide names. What show was this on and what series?

The Asent was an episode of DS-9 in which Odo was taking Quark to some type of trial and their shuttle crashed on a really cold planet and they had to asend to the top of a mountain to get the transmitter to send an rescue call. During the episode Quark tells Odo that the syndicate was involved in the crime, Odo then tells Quark that he would have brought Quark in the Defient and not a shuttle if he had know about the Syndicate.

 

[The Badger]

Timo, Captcalhoun and DestinyCaptain, you raise some good points.

I've made this suggestion elsewhere but I'd appreciate your input (and that of anyone else who wants to chip in). I'll admit I've been influenced by the FASA game here, though as we've never seen any lighter skinned Orions in the series I don't know if we can include those.

In order to function as a space faring society, the Orions need a large number of reasonably intelligent beings. It makes sense then that most Orions are of comparable IQ to humans. Gaila would almost certainly fit this category. Marta from 'Whom Gods Destroy' might as well. She may have been mad as toast but she knew her Shakespeare.

Then there's the 'Orion animal women', as personified by illusionary Vina, 'like animals, vicious, seductive'. Of course, Commodore Mendez himself was a Talosian illusion when he said that, but Kirk didn't disagree. If ENT had wanted to negate the sexism inherent in this idea, then they could have simply added Orion animal men to the mix.

Rather than a slave gender, there would be a slave race. Perhaps, as calhoun suggests, it could be a genetic quirk of one particular ethnic group. Or perhaps even deliberately engineered...

Following on from the comments in 'Bound', I'd suggest then that there is a further group. Perhaps very few in number. Orion women who possess both intellect and pheremonal control. It is they, this small secretive group, who are in charge.

 

[Timo]

Marta from 'Whom Gods Destroy' might as well. She may have been mad as toast but she knew her Shakespeare.

I'd just like to point out that perhaps Marta's madness took the form of her thinking that she was an Orion. After all, her green color does rub off when she touches Kirk...

Then there's the 'Orion animal women', as personified by illusionary Vina, 'like animals, vicious, seductive'.

But not necessarily unintelligent. I've known an 'animal woman' or two, too, and while not all of them held degrees, I'd not question their intellectual capabilities...

Following on from the comments in 'Bound', I'd suggest then that there is a further group. Perhaps very few in number. Orion women who possess both intellect and pheremonal control. It is they, this small secretive group, who are in charge.

Now, I'm not opposed to this idea at all, despite the above comments.

However, plenty of good Trek fiction has been written where the women indeed are treated as property by their Orion masters, even when the women hold near-absolute power over other kinds of male. I'd hate to ditch all of it out merely because the ENT writers tried to be clever. But I'd also hate to blatantly disregard what the ENT writers tried to do, which is why I favor the idea that parts of the Orion society indeed work in the "oirignally intended" way, while other parts work the "Bound" way. Which parts are the more prominent and important is a different question...

Timo Saloniemi