Maquis (Star Trek)
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In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Maquis were a Federation resistance movement made mostly of humans that refused to give up the colony planets that they lived on after they were ceded to the Cardassians as part of the treaty to end the war between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. They commit terrorist or revolutionary acts against the Cardassians (the Maquis usually avoided attacking Federation ships directly, preferring to warn them to get out of the way). The Maquis were almost entirely wiped out by the Dominion. Exceptions were the Maquis who had joined the crew of the [[Star Trek: Voyager|USS Voyager]], and a few members of the movement who had been captured and were in Federation prisons. Benjamin Sisko believed there may have been a few other survivors who were biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Politics
Some critics feel that the Maquis was a "cheap" concept, which took the custom of Star Trek having modern day political parallels too far. To some, the Maquis' rebellion against the Cardassians, which occurred in spite of the Federation's willingness to relocate the inhabitants of the ceded planets, seemed irrational and petty. After all, the Federation could easily have recreated the societies of the Maquis on Federation-controlled planets. In effect, the Maquis were endangering the uneasy peace between the Federation and the Cardassians, and thereby and the lives of billions.The Maquis, on the other hand, felt that the Federation had abandoned them to the mercy of a militaristic government bent on their destruction. The notion that they should simply resettle and abandon the homes and lives they built with the sweat of their labor because a government (literally) light-years away had signed away their homes was unacceptable. Faced then, with escalating harassment from neighboring Cardassian settlers, armed by the Cardassian central government in violation of the very treaty that signed away their homes, an armed resistance was necessary. Even Benjamin Sisko, an opponent of the Maquis, put it "The trouble is Earth - on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. 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" (The Maquis, part II)
In the novelisation of the last episodes of Voyager, it was revealed that most of the Maquis contingent on the ship had accepted a Federation offer of full amnesty, and had opted to rejoin Starfleet and fight against the Dominion. This obviously is not canon, but gives an interesting view of the final fate of the Maquis.
This fantasy outlook of the Maquis' fate was, ultimately, made moot in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where the Maquis and their colony planets were shown to have been all but eliminated by Dominion forces.
Parallels
The Star Trek Maquis were possibly named for the French Resistance group who countered the Nazi occupation (see Maquis (WW2)). A later [[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]] episode The Killing Game, may seem to some to confirm this. The episode is set in World War II France and features the French resistance prominently. This was confirmed in the [[Star Trek: Voyager]] book "book title to be confirmed" when it was revealed by Seska while recruiting Chakotay that the name Maquis was chosen due to the French resistance.Members
Notable members of the Maquis include:- Ro Laren ([[Star Trek: The Next Generation|The Next Generation]])
- Michael Eddington ([[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]])
- Chakotay ([[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]])
- B'Elanna Torres ([[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]])
- Tuvok ([[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]) (In reality a Federation spy)
- Thomas Riker (Transporter Double of William Riker)
- Seska ([[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]) (In reality a Cardassian spy)
See also
- Maquis Forces International, a Star Trek fan organization.
External link
[[MemoryAlpha:|}}}]] article at Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki
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