Your Headcanons?

[ORCACommander]

well phantom from an in universe perspective, We have the classic issue of "Magic" stifling technological development. with earth and firebending being an easy substitute for niter and other primitive gun powders. The out of universe answer Is: if they tried to include them it would be censored

[MissKittyFantastico]

I also think that Sisko was sent to Bajor for his career to stagnate and die because he seems to be seen as a hot head and odd man out by the rest of the officers. The guy who designs warships and gets his way thru political pressure rather than appeal to principles is going to be frowned on by Star Fleets smug leadership.

I feel it was more the reverse - his career was stagnating on Earth, and Starfleet Personnel tapped him for DS9 on the chance that it'd jolt him out of it and get his head back in the game. For all the fun we have with his badassery I don't really feel there's that much of him being what the admiralty might see as a problem child (ignoring the Emissary stuff, which only came into play later) - pre-DS9, losing Jennifer and then having the Defiant project shelved, I can imagine him just sleepwalking through a 9-to-5 desk job at Starfleet Command and not pursuing career opportunities because the only thing he really cares about is Jake and keeping him on Earth where he thinks he'll be best raised. He obviously takes pride in doing his duty, and puts effort into doing the job that's put in front of him, though - we see as much even before the Prophets help him through grief counselling - so maybe the DS9 assignment was Personnel hoping that putting him a situation where he has to step up, because unlike San Francisco he's the boss out there and if he doesn't do the job nobody else will, would jolt him out of his apathy towards his career. So they have Admiral Whoever stop by his office, tell him an independent command is a huge opportunity, talk up all the good he could go helping the Bajorans, drop some subtle hints that he's been behind a desk too long... either giving him a big, difficult task forces him to stop lazing around and brings back the promising officer he used to be, or he resigns, in which case (from HQ's point of view) his career was never going to recover anyway so they haven't lost much, and who cares if the Bajorans have to deal with another new CO on their crappy space wheel, it's not like it's a prestige post anyway.

Agreed about the effect of him being Emissary - at that point they likely just crossed their fingers and hoped they were right about Sisko getting back on track, because if he didn't he'd be hell to replace. At least some of the mission reports would've been reassuring on that score: "He punched who? And DTI's sure he still exists in the timeline? Well... okay, bright side, he's not half-assing it out there."

Although it does seem kind of like the sort of thing Whedon might do, just to add more tragedy to Dawn's life.

I may be wrong but I recall reading somewhere that Joyce dying had been an idea Whedon had had from early on, but never put into play because there were too many other things already going on in early seasons. Adding tragedy was probably a bonus, but at least Dawnie needn't bear the blame for originating the idea.

[The Romulan Republic]

I may be wrong but I recall reading somewhere that Joyce dying had been an idea Whedon had had from early on, but never put into play because there were too many other things already going on in early seasons. Adding tragedy was probably a bonus, but at least Dawnie needn't bear the blame for originating the idea.

I think I saw somewhere that it was because the actor who played Joyce wanted to leave, so they dialled back her role in season four and then wrote her out in five. But I don't recall the source.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, I've got another couple, regarding how the Harry Potter magical world might interact with Muggle history:

Besides the obvious "Grindelwald was working with Hitler" which is pretty nearly canon, I have a couple for Wizarding America:

Ben Franklin was a Squib. Born to a Wizarding family without magic, he entered the No-Maj world (where he used Wizarding ideas to help influence the creation of America, since the magical US canonically predates the Muggle US) and became an inventor to try to recreate the things he couldn't do with magic.

During the Civil War, General McClellan (and possibly other early Union generals) were under a Confundus spell.

Edit: Another possibility: someone tried to Confund/Imperious Abraham Lincoln, but he had such a strong will that he successfully fought it off.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The origins of the borg. I don't think it started out to deal with an aggressor, or as a science experiment gone wrong.
I think that borg collective conciousness started because somebody, or more likely a group of somebodies, was REALLY trying to win an argument and fed up with the other side ignoring their point of view.

[The Romulan Republic]

Harry Potter:

The Statute of Secrecy is inevitably doomed to fail, resulting in a global cluster fuck the likes of which no one has ever seen.

Seriously. Too many people know about it, there are too many ways for it to be breached on a massive scale, and it has too many political opponents. Its amazing it hasn't collapsed already (and very nearly did in the Fantastic Beasts film), and with the ubiquitousness of cameras and the internet (which most wizards won't understand) and the growing population...

Yeah, its fucked.

And I bet you at least some of the wizards know this. Some of the Muggle leadership almost certainly does. But they can't do anything about it. Because when it gets out that there is an entire secret magical world which has been living in secret among us, altering our minds, for centuries, there is going to be a global panic, followed by global pogroms/witch hunts and authoritarian crackdowns that would rival Orwell.

They're stuck running on a giant global hamster wheel, connected to a bomb, and the moment they can't run any more, the bomb goes off.

Poor bastards.

[FaxModem1]

The camera phone and Youtube are really going to be death of the Statute of Secrecy. It's going to be a very interesting situation. Wizards will have to deal with religious persecution, as there will be a lot of people seeing them as devil worshipers and the like. However, others will be outraged that wizards stand by and do nothing while most of the world suffers, including their neighbors. The wizarding world has ways to alleviate so much of the world's strife, but they really don't want to be bothered. It'd be like the Federation facing a world it wronged through the prime directive, only to find them coming back with a vengeance. Difference is, the Federation has sovereign borders and might intervene, depending on the circumstance.

Wizards are going to be surrounded at every turn by those they neglected to help, those who fear them, and those they've harmed for petty whims. It is NOT going to be pretty.

[phantom000]

Harry Potter

I was always curious how the New World fit into wizarding history. What was it like when European wizards encountered native American shaman for the first time? My theory is that as the muggles began pushing the native tribes from their homelands many of the shamans wanted to use their magic to fight back. This of course would destroy the Statue of Secrecy which the European wizards could not allow. The result was a kind of cold war with the Shamans trying to use their magic against the encroaching settlers and the wizards trying to stop them from exposing magic.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't know... I always find the assumption that "Native wizards=shamans" to be a bit stereotypical. Perhaps some of them were integrated with their communities, others more isolated, etc.?

But then, their can't have been that many pre-Columbian native wizards, if the percentages of the population are anything like the same. I mean, modern Britain appears to have only thousands.

I wonder if American wizards (and pre-industrial wizards in general) had to be a lot less isolated than one might think in terms of borders, simply because their weren't enough of them in any one country to maintain any kind of society and stable population?

[FaxModem1]

Or, you know, smallpox kills you if don't have immunities, wizard or Nomaj, so that's what really did it for the original tribal magical population.