Opaka

Opaka Sulan was a female Bajoran who was a supporting character in two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She was played by the late , and initially appeared on the pilot episode Emissary.
==History==
===Early Life===
A member of the clergy of the Bajoran faith, she had been born during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. At some point in her life she had at least one son, and the experience of child birth led her to sympathize with Kassidy Yates during the final days of her pregnancy.
Eventually rising to the rank of Vedek, Opaka called for the abolition of the D'Jarra caste system so the Bajoran people could unite in fighting their oppressors. This drew the wrath of Kai Arin - who was the leader of the Bajoran faith. Arin expelled Vedek Opaka from the Vedek Assembly. Arin soon changed his mind and announced his intention to formally support Opaka's proposal. In response, the Cardassian Obsidian Order had Arin assassinated by an agent posing as one of Arin's advisors.
===Kai of Bajor===
Opaka would follow Arin as the next Kai of Bajor and abolished the D'Jarra so that Bajorans could unite against their oppressors. At one point she did colloabrate with the Cardassians by revealing the location of a resistance cell in the Kendra Valley that her son was a member of to keep them from killing the thousands of Bajorans in the Kendra Valley. When the Cardassians finally withdrew from Bajor, factional infighting began almost immediately amongst the Bajorans. By then Opaka lived in seclusion and rarely saw anyone outside the monks at the monastery she lived in. The various factions tried to get an auidence with her in the hopes that they could get an endorsement from her, but she steadfastly refused visits from these leaders.
When the Bajoran government asked the United Federation of Planets to help them run the former Cardassian station Terok Nor, Opaka learned more about the man sent to command the station - one Benjamin Sisko and believed him to be the prophesied Emmisary of the Prophets. This generated considerable controversy, with more conservative Vedeks like Winn Adami sharply disagreeing with Opaka's interpretation of prophecy. Shortly after Sisko arrived she sent word to the monks working on DS9 that she wanted to see him.
Sisko met with her to discuss the current situation. Opaka was worried about the deteriorating political situation but felt that her speaking out would not accomplish much. She instead gave Sisko the last remaining orb on Bajor so that he could use it to find the Celestial Temple. With help from Jadzia Dax, Sisko was able to locate the Celestial Temple - a stable wormhole that led to the Gamma Quadrant. While inside the wormhole, Sisko was taken by the Prophets who wanted to understand more about their visitors. They helped Sisko overcome his grief over his wife's death and his hatred of Jean-Luc Picard - finally understanding that it was the Borg who killed his wife, not Picard and that Picard was as much a victim as his wife and other causalities. He then reached an agreement on behalf of the planet Bajor to allow for ships to use their wormhole to go to the Gamma Quadrant, which otherwise would take 70 years to reach even at maximum warp. Following this, Sisko returned the orb to Opaka. He offered to tell her more about the prophets but she declined, feeling that one should not know too much about their own gods.
A few weeks later Sisko approached her for advise on how to handle the religious fanatic Hören Rygis. Opaka told him that Hören no longer existed, and that the hate had burned the man's original personality away as it would have done with Sisko if he had not learned how to deal with his grief. She then helped Julian Bashir return to the present after he had been sent into the distant future by the Prophets. 
===Disappearance===
Sometime later Opaka went to DS9 to see the wormhole for herself and to go on a trip through a wormhole. When the runabout she was on with Sisko, Kirk, and Bashir reached the Gamma Quadrant they decided to explore for a bit and found a nearby habitable world protected by a network of satellites. The nearest satellite shot the Runabout down, with Opaka apparently dying in the process. She was soon revived by nanoprobes that had been seeded on the world to force the Ennnis and Nol-Ennis to fight each other continuously. Opaka was unable to leave the planet as the nanoprobes only function on that world. Before Kira, Bashir, and Sisko left when a rescue runabout arrived, Sisko promised that if there was any way to bring her home they would. Opaka told Sisko it had been her destiny to help bring peace to the Ennis and Nol-Ennis, but that they would cross paths again.
The exact details of what happened to Opaka were kept from the Bajoran populace, with most Bajorans being told that Opaka had "answered the call of the Prophets." Some took this to mean she died while others believed she had ascended to a higher plane of existence.
Feeling that Bajorans needed something to unify around, Opaka invented a prophecy that there was a child on Bajor - called the Nekor who could bring all the various factions together. Cataloging her writings after her disappearance, the monks discovered the prophecy and brought it to the attention of Vedek Torin, who in turned asked for Federation assistance in locating the child. Two young Bajorans were found in the village of Bennikar in the Kaladrys Valley. Learning of a plague infesting the reason, Dr. Bashir, Lt. Dax, and Major Kira traveled to the village and found two young Bajorans named Talis Dejana and Talis Cedra and believed Dejana to be the Nekor Opaka spoke of. When Cedra was revealed to be a girl named Cedara instead of a boy as initially believed, the Bajorans came to believe that she was the Nekor. Torin later revealed that the prophecy Opaka made up, believing that having any child to unite around was essential if Bajor was to heal. Cedara decided to still become a healer and help her world heal from the Occupation as Opaka had intended.
The Bajoran clergy decided that a new Kai should be elected. Vedeks Bareil Antos and Winn Adami emerged as the two strongest candidates. When evidence proving a collaborator had led the Cardassians to the resistance cell in the Kendra Valley was uncovered, but didn't identify the collaborator by name. Feeling Opaka's memory had to be protected Bariel took it upon himself to take the fall for this as he knew Opaka had betrayed the cell to save thousands of others before Opaka's actions came to light. He then withdrew his candidacy, and Winn was no longer interested in blackmailing him. As a result, the corrupt Winn was elected the next Kai of Bajor.
===First Splinter Timeline===
In the first splinter timeline created by the Borg, Opaka worked to bring peace between the Ennis and Nol-Ennis. She learned a great about their language and culture but made little headway until she started meditating on a battlefield. This resulted in her being killed and resurrected many times and demonstrated the futility of war in a way no one else had. The two tribes declared truces and eventually united. When an Ascendant named Raiq crashed on the planet and was healed by the inhabitants, Raiq destroyed the satellite network, which allowed the inhabitants to leave. Opaka and thirty of her followers left to perform good works throughout the Gamma Quadrant.
Encountered by Jake Sisko and Odo - who had disguised himself as a Trellian woman named Wex - found Opaka on the planet Ee. They made their way to the Idran system where the three activated a device to bring the native Eav'oq out of hiding and move the system three light years closer to the wormhole.
Returning to the Alpha Quadrant, Opaka returned to Bajor and took up residence at the monastery in the capital city of Ashalla. Opaka declined to resume the office of Kai, feeling that doing so was not her destiny. She oversaw the second orb experience of Elias Vaughn and cared for him when parasite controlled Bajorans interrupted the experience. Opaka also served as midwife to Kassidy Yates, helping Yates deliver a girl which Yates and the recently returned Sisko named Rebecca. 
After the parasite crisis, Opaka attended the ceremony that saw Bajor admitted to the United Federation of Planets. She still lived on Bajor through at least 2381 when Sisko thought of seeking her out for advice. 
===Online===
In the Star Trek: Online timeline Opaka was able to bring peace between the warring factions but then had issues with the Hur'q. Realizing the Dominion has a cure to allow Opaka and the people to leave the planet, Odo shared it with Dr. Bashir who administered it to Opaka and the others. Returning to DS9 Kai Kira relinquished her office, allowing Opaka to resume being the Kai of Bajor. 
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