Thoughts on the Maquis

Thoughts on the Maquis

In the buildup to Star Trek Voyager's premiere TNG and DS9 introduced and established the Maquis, a resistance movement founded by a group of disenfranchised Federation colonists whose planets were summarily turned over to the Cardassians by an ill-advised border treaty.  This created an interesting political situation: the Cardassians secretly arming their colonists to fight the Federation colonists and drive them out while the Federation, unwilling to risk a conflict with the Cardassians and ostensibly hiding behind the Prime Directive were unwilling to actively interfere in the situation in the Demilitarized Zone.  The Federation colonists were caught in the middle of this, in fear of the Cardassians and with no protection from the Federation.  What other option do they have?  They band together as a resistance (or terrorist depending on your point of view) called the Maquis (the name borrowed from the French resistance in WWII).  The Cardassians obviously hate them and the Federation considers them criminals and outlaws.  All they (the Maquis) want is to defend their homes.  Is it really surprising that they are so easy to sympathize with?

TNG's "Journey's End" established the Demilitarized Zone treaty and saw the political tensions resulting from the treaty itself and the Enterprises attempt to enforce it by trying to forcibly relocate a colony of Native Americans from their home planet (shades of the Trail of Tears).  DS9 tackled the topic head on in "The Maquis" two-parter, which established the Maquis and the deteriorating situation in the DMZ.  This was a creative way of introducing conflict to the franchise without contradicting Roddenberry's edict of no conflict in humanities future, it works perfectly.  The conflict is not between the highly developed humans of the utopian Federation, but between the Federation in its ivory towers and the colonists, eking out lives on backwater frontier border colonies where life is not a Roddenberryan utopia.  Sisko hit the nail on the head in his "paradise speech":

"You know what the trouble is?  The trouble is Earth.  On Earth there's no poverty, no crime, no war.  You look out the window of Starfleet headquarters and you see paradise.  Well it's easy to be a saint in paradise.  But the Maquis do not live in paradise.  Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet.  Out there, there are no saints...just people.  Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive.  Whether it meets with Federation approval or not."

He's correct.  The bureaucrats and diplomats on Earth made the treaty.  They don't live in the DMZ, and thus they do not know the reality of life there.  Ivory towers.  The DS9 two-parter sees the first of several high profile Starfleet defections to the Maquis: Calvin Hudson, Starfleet commander and Siskos personal friend.  TNG's "Preemptive Strike" sees Ro Laren defect after sabotaging a Federation plan to ambush a fleet of Maquis ships.  Picard takes this personally as it was he who gave Ro a second chance.  Voyager's pilot "Caretaker" opens with a Maquis ship crewed by Chakotay (another turncoat Starfleet officer), B'Elanna Torres (an Academy dropout) and a number of others.  After becoming stranded in the Delta Quadrant and losing their ship to save Voyager the Maquis crew are integrated into Voyager's crew, with Chakotay becoming first officer and Torres later becoming chief engineer.  Although circumstances force the two crews to coexist it does not happen quickly or easily.  The Starfleet crew must come to accept a Maquis XO, the Maquis crewmembers must accept a Starfleet captain and learn to work within Starfleet rules.  Despite a few bumps in the road (Tuvok being on the Maquis ship as a Federation spy, Seska being a surgically altered Cardassian on the Maquis ship as a spy) the two crews come to work pretty well as one.  Meanwhile back in the Alpha Quadrant DS9s "Defiant" sees Thomas Riker (Will's transporter duplicate) working for the Maquis and stealing the USS Defiant, while "For the Cause" sees Michael Eddington defect and Kasidy Yates arrested for smuggling weapons to the Maquis.  Eddingtons story continues in "For the Uniform" where Sisko, playing Javert to Eddington's Valjean uses some questionable tactics to force Eddington to surrender, and ends in "Blaze of Glory" in which Eddington sacrifices himself to help a group of Maquis survivors including his wife escape the Jem'Hadar.  Although the Maquis were created for Voyager, and Voyager did have a few more Maquis-centric stories such as "Learning Curve" with Tuvok training former Maquis junior officers and "Dreadnaught" with the Maquis-coopted automated Cardassian missile, DS9 got far more mileage out of the concept story wise. 

The saddest part of the Maquis situation is: the Maquis were not wrong for doing what they did.  They were trying to survive and protect their homes from a situation created by a bad treaty, a treaty which the Cardassians violated with abandon and the Federation would not take direct action to enforce.  In fact later the Federation would effectively wash its hands of the Maquis by declaring them no longer Federation citizens.  The Maquis were 100% right to feel abandoned by the Federation.  They were abandoned.  The Federation left them to fend for themselves because of a treaty and a line on a map.  They had no choice but to defend themselves and their homes against the Cardassians, who had no intention of abiding by the treaty and wanted nothing more than to drive the Federation colonists out by making life in the DMZ unbearable to them.  The Maquis were not the first resistance group to take arms against the Cardassians-the Bajoran resistance spent decades fighting to free their homeworld from Cardassian occupation.  The difference is that while Bajoran resistance fighters like Kira Nerys are respected and their actions seen as heroic by many in the Federation, these same Federation citizens tend to vilify the Maquis and any Starfleet officers who sympathize with or leave the ranks to join them. 

On the whole, the Maquis are an interesting concept and a fitting, intriguing and thought-provoking addition to the lore of the franchise.