Cardassian

**Cardassian Union**
	File:Cardassian Union logo.png
Founded:
Founder:
Capital:	Cardassia Prime
Official language:	Cardassian, (see: universal translator)
Currency:	the lek

Cardassians are a spacefaring race in the fictional Star Trek universe. The Cardassian Union was introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Wounded". Cardassians were one of the main parts of the storyline in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Cardassian homeworld is Cardassia Prime in the Alpha Quadrant.

Although the Cardassian Union was referred to as an "empire" on more than one occasion, little if anything is known about which races (aside from, for some decades, the Bajorans) the Cardassians have conquered in their imperial ambitions. Prior to joining the Dominion, the Cardassians had no strong allies among other major powers but enjoyed comparatively good relations with various non-aligned species, such as the Liseppians, as mentioned in "Progress", "Indiscretion", and other episodes.

Biology

Cardassians are humanoid in form, but have distinctive ridged arches connecting their shoulders to the top of their necks. They also have ridges on either side of their forehead, ridges surrounding their eyes, and protrusions on their chin and below their nose. They also have a spoon-shaped feature starting in the center of their forehead and running down the length of their nose. This has earned them the derogatory name of "spoonheads." The spoon shape is also on their chest. This odd feature has also been described in gynecological terms and inspired a Saturday Night Live skit making the satirical point that the facial features of some Star Trek aliens resemble non-facial human body parts.

Their skin is tan or gray in color and hair is dark brown or black. However this trait may not be common to all Cardassians, just as some humans have blonde hair. Their eye color is usually dark-brown, however there are some exceptions to this rule, such as Gul Dukat and Garak, who have blue eyes. Since scale patterns on Cardassian necks have been shown to change from appearance to appearance (Garak, for example), makeup artist Michael Westmore has theorized in a 2005 issue of Star Trek Insider that Cardassians continually shed and regrow scales. In the episode Profit and Loss, an intimate encounter between Quark and his starcrossed lover Natima Lang displayed that stroking the neck ridges of a Cardassian female produces an erogenous reaction. Whether or not this is true for males has not been explored. It is common for female Cardassians to use blue-tinted make-up on their neck ridges and forehead.

Compared to humans, Bajorans, and many other humanoid races, Cardassians prefer warmer and darker climates. Elim Garak once noted that Deep Space Nine's environment was very cold and very bright by Cardassian standards.

In an episode of Deep Space 9, Elim Garak mentions that Cardassians do not have as good a sense of hearing as do humans.

Culture

Cardassians tend to be predatory in nature, like wolf packs, always seeking out the dominant position in any social gathering. In normal courting behavior, Cardassian couples routinely act bitter and snap at each other. Cardassian society is generally non-sexist - both men and women can rise to high ranks in the military, for instance. However, some fields are not so diverse, such as the scientific community which is mostly female.

Cardassia's educational system is legendary throughout the quadrant. From a very young age, Cardassian children are trained in techniques such as photographic memory which allow them to retain vast amounts of information. Cardassian mental disciplines are rumored to be so complete that a Cardassian will prove almost totally resistant to torture; a Vulcan mind meld is also usually ineffective against a Cardassian who is properly trained.

Cardassians generally believe the state is more important than the individual and thus have been described as fascist. Certainly their Orwellian government is powerful and the intelligence service, the Obsidian Order, excels in ruthless efficiency. Cardassians seen on Deep Space Nine are generally proud and patriotic, and reference is occasionally made to their xenophobic tendencies, although they are often seen co-operating with other races with no apparent friction. In many ways Cardassian society loosely mirrors that of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, including the exhalted position of bureaucrats, the deeply imbedded ethnocentrism and supremacy of the state, and the ruthless character of the justice system. When representatives of the science ministry visited DS9 in "Destiny", they were noticeably less patriotic and more liberal than most Cardassians seen previously.

They are generally cunning and suspicious. This is evident in battle, as evidenced in "Soldiers of the Empire" in which a Klingon speaks admiringly of Cardassian adversaries who always had 'a plan within a plan within a plan leading to a trap'. A popular Cardassian board game is 'Kotra', which, as Garak describes it, favours bold tactical manoeuvres over defensive play; hence Garak's criticism of Nog's attempts to regroup his pieces during a game they played in the episode "Empok Nor".

In Cardassian criminal trials the defendant is presumed guilty and in fact the punishment is already decided before the trial begins; the purpose of the trial is merely to help the defendant acknowledge his wrongdoing. In Cardassian mystery novels, everyone is always guilty, the puzzle being to work out who is guilty of what.

Cardassians are also very concerned about their families. For example, Garak enters a Dominion prison camp to speak with his father, Enabran Tain, one last time before Tain died. In another incident Gul Dukat is driven insane when his daughter Tora Ziyal dies. In Cardassian society, advanced age is seen as a symbol of power and dignity; in Cardassian families, it is common for many generations to live together under one roof. Also, an old Cardassian tradition is that of shri-tal, an ancient ritual in which a dying person reveals his or her secrets to the rest of the family, for use against their enemies.

Cardassian literature often confounds humans, and vice-versa. For example, humans see all Cardassian mystery stories as having an identical plot: the inevitable result is that all the suspects are eventually proved guilty of the crime (parallelling the plot of one of Agatha Christie's best known novels) and proving the supremacy of the state. Conversely, most Cardassians figure out during the first act of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that all the conspirators are going to kill him, but cannot understand why Caesar cannot figure this out (or is willfully blind to an impending coup d'état) until the knives are literally coming at him from all directions.

Military ranks

Cardassian military ranks are similar to those used by the United Federation of Planets, but with some key differences. For example a Legate is similar to an Admiral, but with considerably more political sway. Little is known about the exact command structure of the Cardassian Union, but several ranks have been identified.

Gil: Gil is either a non-commissioned officer or junior officer rank. Space stations typically carry enough lifeboats only for personnel down to, and including, the rank of Gil.
Glinn: Glinn is a staff officer rank.
Gul: Gul is a command officer rank. Guls hold command ranging in size from vessels to Orders (approx. 500,000 personnel).
Legate: Legate is the highest rank in the Cardassian military, and while it resembles the rank of Admiral in some respects, it is more of a position than a rank. Since the Cardassian government is a military-controlled fascist stratocracy, Legates serve both military and governmental functions simultaneously.; After the civilian Detapa Council rose to power on Cardassia, Gul Dukat was promoted to the rank of Legate and became chief military advisor to the council. However, Dukat grew dissatisfied with calling himself Legate, and subsequently took to referring to himself as a simple Gul in his later years. Damar also reached the rank of Legate during the Dominion War.

Technology

Known Cardassian starships include the Galor-class warship, a medium-sized cruiser which, throughout The Next Generation, was the most powerful vessel in Cardassian service. The Galor is armed with two large phaser cannons (or it may be a plasma cannon), one forward and one aft. They are also armed with numerous secondary phaser cannons mounted at other points across the hull, and they may carry a complement of photon torpedoes. Estimates vary, but it is thought a Galor class vessel would be roughly comparable to a Federation Excelsior-class starship in a conflict. According to some Trekkies with an eye for detail, it is unclear how a fleet of such ships would be powerful enough to seriously threaten the Federation; however, it can also be intuited that Cardassian technological deficits could be balanced by superior numbers and/or exceptional tactical cunning. Given that the Cardassian fleet is almost entirely optimized for military operations (unlike Starfleet) it could be surmised that they have larger numbers of these pure warships than the Federation. It is believed that Galor-class ships are weaker than later Federation vessels, so that it takes at least two Galors to seriously challenge a large starship like a Galaxy-class vessel.

A more powerful Cardassian ship is the Keldon class starship (which is similar to the Galor-class excepting that it has a few additional protrusions added). This ship class is assumed to be comparable to the Galaxy-class in tactical capability; however, why they have not been seen in greater numbers is uncertain. However, the Federation only built a handful of Galaxy-class vessels itself, so perhaps large numbers of the similarly advanced Keldon should not be expected.

All Cardassian warships seen so far are painted ochre, and have backwards-swept delta winged hulls (resembling an ankh); the delta wings resemble fins, giving the Cardassian ships the appearance of predatory sharks.

History

Pre-Dominion membership

The Cardassians were once a peaceful and spiritual people who collected works of art from all over the Alpha Quadrant, but their home planet Cardassia Prime lacked natural resources. The entire planet was stricken by famine and disease until the military took control of the government and expanded Cardassian borders, building fleets of warships and invading nearby worlds. Of particular note is Bajor which was occupied for fifty years, and the end of whose occupation destabilised the Cardassian government.

The date of first contact between the Cardassians and Starfleet is unknown, but is likely to have occurred mid-to-late 22nd Century. A Cardassian exile, Iloja of Prim, lived on Vulcan during that time period. Sometime before 2347 the Cardassians attempted to expand into Federation territory and war broke out, lasting around twenty years. Captain Edward Jellico spearheaded successful attempts by Starfleet to negotiate a peace treaty which ended the war.

Shortly after the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor, a Federation presence was established aboard Terok Nor, renamed Deep Space Nine, to assist the Bajoran Provisional Government in rebuilding Bajor. However, the Federation officers discovered a wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant close to the station ("Emissary"). Roughly four months later, the Federation-Cardassian borders were redefined, with the two sides buffered by a demilitarized zone. However, the Cardassians harassed the Federation colonists in the DMZ who then retaliated by forming a resistance movement known as The Maquis.

Around the same time, the Obsidian Order (the Cardassian intelligence agency) began to gain power. However, it was destroyed when it allied with its Romulan counterpart, the Tal Shiar, in a pre-emptive strike against the Dominion, a new threat from the Gamma Quadrant ("The Die is Cast").

In January of 2372 (Stardate 49011) the Klingon Empire attacked the Cardassians, believing the Detapa Council of Cardassia (which had just come to power in the wake of the Cardassian Central Command being overthrown, making it the first civilian government of the Cardassian Union with Gul Dukat as military advisor) had been infiltrated by the Dominion ("The Way of the Warrior"). The attack was led by General Martok who, it turned out, had been himself replaced by a shapeshifter, one of the leaders of the Dominion (first revealed in "Apocalyse Rising"; see also "In Purgatory's Shadow").

Dominion membership

Then, sometime between October 2373 and February 2374, with a Dominion attack on Deep Space Nine imminent, Gul Dukat announced the Cardassian Union's entry into the Dominion, shocking not only the Federation but most Cardassians as well. At the same time, Gul Dukat announced his ascension as leader of the Cardassian Union. Five days later, nearly the entire Maquis movement was slaughtered by the Dominion (except for those on the USS Voyager, that was lost in the Delta Quadrant at the time). Otherwise, nearly all the other Maquis who had not died were in Federation prisons.

The Cardassians (as members of the Dominion) captured DS9 ("Call to Arms"), but the Federation managed to block the Bajoran wormhole with self-replicating mines, preventing the Dominion from sending reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant.

Gul Damar discovered a way to disable the self-replication of the mines and completed the procedure and fired on the minefield seconds before Rom and Kira disabled DS9's weapons in hopes to prevent just that. The USS Defiant attacked DS9 and managed to take it back when the Bajoran Prophets destroyed an entire Dominion fleet, sent to reinforce Dominion lines, on its way through the wormhole. Gul Dukat was captured after his daughter Ziyal was killed by Gul Damar, who was then promoted to Legate ("Sacrifice of Angels").

Under the leadership of Damar, the Cardassian Union, along with the Dominion, continued to gain ground over the Klingon-Federation alliance, and even after Benjamin Sisko and Garak tricked the Romulans into breaking their nonaggression treaty with the Dominion and joining the alliance ("In the Pale Moonlight") they still managed to keep the upper hand.

Opposition to the Dominion

Damar, however, was not happy. While he had hoped that Cardassia's joining the Dominion would strengthen their power, he felt that they were no longer in control of even their own planet, having to report to the Dominion representative Weyoun and the Founders, and Cardassian troops were being sacrificed seemingly meaninglessly without his permission. For a time, Damar sank into heavy drinking. Shortly after the Breen joined the Dominion, almost guaranteeing the Dominion's victory, Damar organised a revolt but was betrayed by a man he approached in order to bring into the conspiracy. A Cardassian named Broca became Legate and puppet ruler of Cardassia after with his information, and treason within the Revolt, the Dominion crushed it and forced Damar into hiding.

The revolt started out as just a small legion of troops headed by Damar, but during the final assault on The Dominion over Cardassia Prime by the Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance, Damar managed to get an open revolt started on Cardassia itself. In response to Cardassian citizens engaging in acts sabotage, the Dominion punished the Cardassians by destroying Lakarian City killing millions of men, women, and children in the process of reducing it to ashes. As a result, the Cardassian fleet switched sides during battle and assisted the alliance, opening a hole in the Dominion lines and forcing the Jem'Hadar and the Breen to establish a new defense perimeter around Cardassia Prime itself. When word of the fleet's defection reached the Dominion command center, the Female Changeling ordered every Cardassian on the planet killed.

With the Cardassian fleet helping the alliance and the rebel's attack on the Dominion headquarters on Cardassia, the Dominion surrendered, ending the Dominion War.

The Cardassian cost due to the Dominion War was the highest of all the major powers. The homeworld was severely damaged by the Dominion. Cardassia was in much worse shape than Bajor and would require years of rebuilding. The long term effect on the ecology of the planet remains to be seen. Over 800 million Cardassians had died on Cardassia alone. It remains to be seen if the Cardassian race will be able to recover from this disaster.

Mirror universe Cardassians

In the Mirror Universe, the Cardassians formed an alliance with the Klingon Empire after conquering the Terran Empire. Beyond that, the Cardassians of the Mirror universe appear to be more or less identical to their more familiar counterparts.

References

External links

Cardassian at Memory Alpha
Cardassian history article at Memory Alpha
Cardassian Rebellion article at Memory Alpha (Struggle against the Dominion)
A large Information Source on Cardassians (contains non-canon/roleplay based information)