Strange.

A few months ago, I would have shot you on sight.

A few weeks ago I might not have shot you, but anybody who I or a number of others saw talking to you about anything other than industrial replicators or supplies might have silently vanished.

After the Dominion did… This

I found myself in a new world, but all I wanted to do was rebuild the old one. Despite everything it led too.

I have to hand it to Damar, I never cared for the man but he realised before most of us that our ideals, our ambitions. The very soul of our society had become corrupted from within.

Walk with me

I’ve spoken with a lot of people these past years, but especially these past weeks. I can only conclude that the Cardassian soul never recovered from the atrocities and embarrassment of the Bajoran occupation.

We’re a proud people. Cardassians value strength, wisdom… Power. But the occupation laid the foundation for those that only cared about strength and power to rise to the top levels of our state, where they set rules for the rest of us that they never felt obligated to follow.

I guess this is what you humans would call a poetic justice. We approached the Bajorans with friendship, then occupied and destroyed their world. The Dominion played the same trick on us.

I said I wanted to rebuild our old world. I still want to rebuild parts of it. The good in old Cardassia needs to inform the new Cardassia. We can no longer allow our state to be ruled by underhanded alliances agreed behind closed doors. Or ruled by those who feel they have a hereditary right to wield power. Leadership must be seen as a privilege and responsibility.

Your Federation understood this. But Cardassians rejected your ideas because our leaders had indoctrinated us to dismiss them simply because it was you that had them.

So I never understood Federation democracy until we had our own votes here in the capital only days ago. I was convinced the people would unanimously pick the Directorate. We stood on a platform of strength and stability, a system that was known and established. But in all but two sectors we were rejected outright. It was hearing these results where I realised my own hubris. I knew how to play our old ways to my advantage as an honourable man. But they could be played even better by those without honour. The people here in the capital know that better than most, and it was my devotion to the old ways that blinded me to their wisdom.

You need only look at the likes of Dukat.

The Cardassian that presided over Cardassia’s greatest peacetime defeat. That saw a space faring military power run off a planet by a ragtag group of farmers and priests. But his greatest asset was the fact that he was a man with no shame, appointed by those with no shame. Sure, he lost some favour with Central Command. But he didn’t even suffer a demotion! Cardassians have been executed for less!

Then both he and Central Command wasted valuable resources scheming for years, before the revolution happened and somehow, the disgraced Prefect of Bajor ended up as the chief military advisor for the entire Union.

Because he had no shame. No loyalty. Just a desire for power.

A desire that handed him a Legate title, which was promptly lost when he again fell from grace when he returned home with his head held high and a half Bajoran love child in his shadow.

Only for him to appear on viewscreens across the Union a year later declaring himself the leader of Cardassia, with the Dominion in tow.

Did we protest? Did we riot? Did the Detapa council that had survived a Klingon invasion and lived to tell the tale stand up against him? No!

This place was full of Cardassians from all walks of life celebrating. We truly were a reflection of our leaders. Power hungry and foolish… And look where it got us.

In the midst of all of this were the Maquis as well, another stain on the Cardassian soul. We knew how to play your Federation diplomats and I can say openly now that Central Command never had any intention of honouring the treaty. We were supplying weapons to our colonies from day 1.

I always refused to ship any weapons into the DMZ. I thought betraying the treaty was a betrayal of our values. We had already achieved more through negotiation than we had in decades of border skirmishes.

Perhaps this unwillingness to ‘play the game’ was why I wasn’t able to bounce up and down the ranks like Dukat. Of course I was happy to hunt the Maquis ships, I was even the handler for an operative that went missing with the ship that your vessel went after. But that’s as far as I would go. I thought that patience and strategy would lead to their defeat, not sneaking phaser banks over the borders.

When the Maquis first surfaced I was well regarded, and it wasn’t until my ship was damaged pursuing one of their raiders through the Badlands that my fall began. Suddenly Central Command, and of course Dukat, wouldn’t take their eye off me, waiting for me to trip. To make the next mistake.

This was how they made sure that good men were never in positions of power to question them. They gave us impossible tasks and used our families back home as leverage to push us until we failed.

Either we would die, solving their problem. Or our families would be killed, leaving us broken men.

Fortunately, I had built a strong bond with my crew over many years of service. When the Vetar was damaged they helped fake my death. Allowing me to return to Cardassia out of sight of Central Command and rebuild my life amidst the chaos of recent years. Life as an office clerk hasn’t exactly been glamorous, but at least I stand here before you today. Alive and with my honour intact.