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Illara Ridan

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About Illara Ridan

  • Birthday 09/26/1985

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  • Location
    Orlando, FL
  • Interests
    Theatre, television, writing. Years ago I decided that having television as a hobby would be completely embarrassing. I got over that. I'm currently spending most of my time trying to get into the industry as a writer (which is part of why I watch so much tv). Wish me luck.
  1. I don't think that a DS9 movie would have to explore the Dominion War. It ended. I want answers (canonical ones please) to what happens to Sisko and Bajor. I've always been really fond of the Bajorans and find the idea that they left the series as a cliff-hanger kind of irksome. It would have been really nice to have everything the series dealt with on a weekly basis dovetail into an ending that wasn't so ambiguous. Does Bajor join the Federation? What happens to Bajoran-Cardassian relations in the aftermath of the War? What is the next threat to come through the wormhole? When is Kai Winn going to get off her holier-than-thou throne and actually do something credible and helpful for Bajor? Where does the relationship between Odo and Kira go now? Do they get married? Can they have children? These are all answerable questions. A movie would be helpful. And as to this notion of DS9 not being an exploratory series like the others I sound a resounding "What?!" It may not have been a "get in your space-ship and fly around the galaxy looking for touble" kind of a show but it was exploratory in a completely different and, at least for me, much more meaningful sense. It explored the very notion of the Federation. Everything on the seedy underbelly was exposed and run through the mill. It showed that the Federation was in fact not almighty and irrefuteable but flawed and striving for betterment. Seeking out strange new worlds can't answer everything. A sizeable portion of TNG was devoted to exploring the notion of what it is to be human--every series has had that element to it but none accomplished it so frequently and in such broad strokes as the relationship between Data and Picard. Deep Space Nine was able to take the classic struggle that Roddenberry instilled into his show to a completely new place. One on a more broad, far-reaching level. DS9 was able to reach past the internal borders of a socialist/egalitarian society and comment on what happened to the underdogs and the ne'er-do-wells of old. It reached out for a different group of misunderstood, misrepresented people and tried to embrace them with open minds and helpful hands. And that, afterall, is the point of Star Trek, isn't it?
  2. For me this is a really really hard question to answer. I'm new school when it comes to how I think television stories should be told--meaning that I like stories that continue rather than push the reset button at the end of every episode. I like character growth and being able to explore recurring themes and plot elements throughout a series. I say it's new school because it is. Dallas was the first show in primetime tv to do it and Babylon 5 the first scifi show to use the format. Prior to that, the only tv that had continuing story-lines was daytime. Ugh... DS9 fits well into this category and as such was by far the most consistently fun show for me to watch. I like all the minor characters like Leeta and Garak and Rom and especially liked it when they got their own episodes. I also really like the notion that the Federation was a great society but not a perfect one, which was new to the franchise. Crime existed. Money existed. Most importantly, conflict existed. There was no "bad guy" for the sake of being a "bad guy"--every species had shades of gray, including the humans. I'm also a devout fan of Voyager. I watched this show from episode one (which was new to me as I was only 9 when it premiered). It was my "favorite show" through most of my school experience. I love it dearly to this day. It was able to give me some of the aspects that DS9 did but only in broad strokes. The major recurring arc of the series was the journey home but the show did essentially have a "reset button". The best part for me was the idea that the characters were the recurring arc. In the middle of the Delta Quadrant, where do the replacements come from? They don't. The writers boxed themselves into a lovely hole that meant they had to tell the story from a limited perspective. To me, Voyager managed to have the most nuanced and well-developed (not to mention evenly-developed) of all the casts. Even when the stories were clearly recycled from earlier series, the episodes were new because the world was new. And who doesn't love a woman captain? In the end it comes down to this: Dominion or Borg? Klingons or Hirogen? Cardassians or Species 8472? The Delta Quadrant and thereby Voyager offered something that Deep Space Nine (and for that matter The Next Generation and especially Enterprise) couldn't: everything was new. I picked Voyager.
  3. Hello all. My name is Illara Ridan and as more information about me will undoubtedly come later, I'll stick to a few basic points of interest. I'm a 24-year-old Bajoran male born into a long line of composers and Prylars (priests). My father was a prominent leader of the Resistance during the Occupation who led several successful attacks on Cardassian supply camps and command stations. He died in a firefight while trying to return to our camp shortly after one such attack--we had just celebrated my eleventh birthday. Fearing the worst for her family, my mother took my younger sisters and me into hiding in the mountainous Dahkur Province. There I quickly made my mark on the Resistance cell led by Shakaar Edon as the camp's chef. After three years hiding out in caves and feeding the hungry masses, I took up arms in the service of my people. My family and I were hiding along with several other families while the bulk of the Resistance fighters were out on a raid when a recon patrol of six Cardassians discovered our position. Two of us reached for weapons and engaged the patrol in a firefight that lasted almost three hours. Leading them out of the caves and away from the defenseless families, we finally dispatched the last of our foes just as the freedom fighters were returning to our camp. Three days later, the Occupation ended. After the Cardassians left Bajor, my mother took us back to our family's traditional home in the Capital where she could finally resume her work as a Prylar of the Prophets. I enlisted in the Bajoran Militia when the fight with the Dominion clouded over the people of Bajor and spent the majority of my first mission floating in an escape pod near the Badlands. After being rescued and cleaned up (I had a broken arm and several burns) I continued on a streak of ill-fated missions that culminated in the Cardassians taking me prisoner and forcing me to watch as they summarily executed my best friend. I was subjugated to brutal interrogation techniques for several days before a member of the Cardassian Resistance movement rescued me and got me on a transport home. Upon my return to Bajor, I was discharged from the Militia and entered a profound state of inertia. Unsure of what journey I would embark upon next, I asked the Prophets to guide me. And guide me they did, to a path of enlightenment following in my mother's footsteps. I began the necessary training to become a Prylar. Three months into my training I was visited by the Prophets who told me that they had been mistaken in the guidance they gave me. Having seen something of my mother in me, they told me, they naturally assumed I should follow her path. However, as I walked the path, the Prophets watched me and discovered that I was meant for helping my people in a far different way. They guided me to Starfleet and told me that I could best serve Bajor by growing the fellowship between my people and the Federation. So here I am, ready to serve. I enter Starfleet Academy confident that the Prophets will walk with me on this path as I bridge the gap between the stars and secure a place in history for Bajor as a planet worthy of greatness.