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Reckoning tablet

The Reckoning Tablet

The Reckoning Tablet was an ancient Bajoran artifact. It was discovered under the ruins of the city of B'hala by a team of Bajoran archaeologists in 2374.

History

The tablet, which resembled an early version of the Bajoran symbol, was over 30,000 years old at the time of its discovery, like the ruins in which it was found. The stone was inscribed with archaic Bajoran ideograms, many of which weren't immediately translatable; however, at least two symbols were: "Welcome, Emissary."

When the stone was discovered, Captain Benjamin Sisko had it transported to Deep Space 9 so that he and his science officer, Jadzia Dax, could decipher the inscriptions. Although they made some progress in this respect, Kai Winn and First Minister Shakaar Edon both ordered Captain Sisko to return the tablet to Bajor. Frustrated with this and the fact that progress on deciphering the stone's inscriptions was going so slow, Sisko picked up the stone in anger and smashed it against a wall. In doing so, he released both a trapped Prophet and Pah-wraith, and initiated a religious battle between the Prophets and Pah-wraiths. (DS9: "The Reckoning")

Text

Parts of the inscriptions translate as follows:

  • "Welcome, Emissary."
  • "The time of reckoning is at hand! The Prophets will weep. Their sorrow will consume the gateway to the temple."
  • "During the Reckoning, the Bajoran people will suffer horribly/eat fruit." (The ideograms for "suffering" and "eat fruit" were apparently indistinguishable.)

Appendices

See also

Apocrypha

In IDW Publishing's Star Trek: Ongoing comic series, Spock and Dr. McCoy find the tablet with the alternate reality versions of Kira Nerys (β) and Quark (β) after Q transports the USS Enterprise to the 24th century.

External link

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