capeandcowl application
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Ali
AGE: 25
JOURNAL: aliccolo
IM: aliccolo (aim)
E-MAIL: aliccolo at gmail dot com
RETURNING: 7; Daredevil, Firestar, Mockingbird, Hawkeye II, Silk Spectre II, Zoidberg, & Jessica Wakefield
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Dukat
FANDOM: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
CHRONOLOGY: Following episode 4x14, "Return to Grace"
CLASS: Villain. Dukat is a man whose actions and philosophies run counter to those humanity and the Federation hold most dear.
SUPERHERO NAME: Gul Dukat
ALTER EGO: Dukat, military leader and politician
BACKGROUND:
It's first important to recognize that the world Dukat hails from is not the world of present day Earth. The Star Trek universe is a vision of life in the future, a vision of what humanity could achieve by exploring the stars. Deep Space Nine is set in the 2370's on a space station in a sector of space controlled by aliens known as Bajorans. The Bajorans have just gained their freedom after a generation of occupation by the Cardassian Empire. Desperate for stability as they emerge from the aftermath, the Bajorans turned to the United Federation of Planets (of which Earth is a member) to help run the space station, which sits adjacent to a rare stable wormhole that serves as the gateway to unexplored areas of the galaxy.
Still with me? Great!
Dukat is from Cardassia Prime, the primary planet of the Cardassian System. Cardassia Prime is a hot, dark, humid planet with few natural resources, and the people that evolved to live on that planet are very different from the humans that evolved across the galaxy. The Cardassian people are recognizable by having a reptilian appearance with gray skin with distinctive neck and cranial ridges. The society is a ruthless, militaristic one. The Cardassians became notorious for their xenophobia as well as their war crimes during the Occupation of Bajor, a neighboring planet. The Occupation lasted forty-one years and was marked by strip-mining, forced labor camps and the genocide of the Bajoran people. It is in the year 2369 that Cardassia finally ends its occupation of Bajor (we'll get into that in a moment.)
Dukat's father was Justice Procal, a civil servant who was tortured and executed for crimes against the state. His mother is only briefly mentioned in canon, but due to the structuring of Cardassian households, it can be assumed that she had a traditional maternal role in young Dukat's life. At the age of four he began intensive education which resulted in him developing the ability to shield himself from telepaths and other forms of mental intrusion, though this is typical of the Cardassian education system. Upon reaching adulthood, Dukat was inducted into the Cardassian military. Dukat proved to be a competent officer and achieved the rank of 'glinn' (first officer of a ship) on a vessel called the Kornaire. At some point he married an unnamed Cardassian woman, with whom he had seven children. He quickly reached the rank of 'legate', but after losing favor with Cardassian Central Command he was demoted to the rank of 'Gul', which is the equivalent of a commander or captain. It was after being demoted that he was assigned to be the Prefect of Bajor in 2346.
As the Prefect, he was stationed at the space station Terok Nor, an ore processing plant orbiting the planet Bajor. Under Dukat's direction the Bajoran people were forced into labor camps, made to mine and process the ore from their homeworld. To counteract the growing Bajoran resistance movement, Dukat enacted measures that banned child labor, increased food rations for the workers, and ensured that there would be adequate medical care. He also decreased the output quota, which significantly dropped the casualty rates at the camps. Still, he was seen as the face of the Occupation and had multiple assassination attempts against him. Dukat felt that his compassion toward the Bajoran people was ignored, and over time he grew to genuinely despise them.
It was common during that period for Cardassian military officers to take Bajoran women as mistresses, and Dukat was no exception. He had long affairs with Kira Meru and Tora Naprem, even fathering a child by Naprem during the Occupation. Dukat's position was secure, so long as the Occupation lasted, but once the withdrawal began, Dukat took it upon himself to ensure the safety of Naprem and their daughter, Ziyal. He arranged for them to be sent to the neutral planet Lissepia. Unfortunately their transport ship crashed and all aboard were presumed dead.
Dukat had no time to mourn the loss of his lover and child, however. Because he was the last Prefect of Bajor during the Occupation, many on Cardassia blamed him for the loss of the territory. Dukat strongly opposed the pull out of forces from Bajor, but was able to maintain a relatively high ranking position in the Cardassian military. Following withdrawal, Terok Nor, the station which served as Dukat's home base was given to the Bajorans and renamed Deep Space Nine. The United Federation of Planets then took over operations of the station, and that could have been the end of Dukat's involvement.
But that's actually right where the show begins.
The Federation and Bajor discovered a stable wormhole linking the Alpha Quadrant (where Earth, Vulcan, Romulus, Cardassia, and Bajor all exist) with the Gamma Quadrant, clear on the other side of the galaxy. This opened up new areas of space to explore and conquer, and this led to Cardassia wanting a stronger influence on the station. Dukat visited the station several times over the next three years, serving as the voice of Cardassia whenever a conflict should happen to arise.
On one such visit, Dukat found himself kidnapped by the Maquis, a band of Federation settlers who turned to terrorism following the end of the Federation/Cardassian conflicts. Dukat and Commander Benjamin Sisko (the Federation officer now in charge of Deep Space Nine) had been investigating claims that the Cardassian Central Command was funneling weapons into the Demilitarized Zone between Federation and Cardassian space. After being rescued by Sisko, the two were able to work together to determine that the Maquis' allegations had been correct.
It was during this time that a new power began to emerge from the wormhole. The Dominion, made up of Changelings, Vorta, and Jem'Hadar peoples had existed for two thousand years in the Gamma Quadrant and seemed poised to expand their control into the Alpha Quadrant by use of the Changelings' shapeshifting infiltration abilities. The seeds of unrest were being sewn throughout the Alpha Quadrant. The Klingon Empire, longtime enemies of the Federation and neutral adversary to Cardassia, seemed especially paranoid that Changelings were invading the major governments of the galaxy. It also so happened that the Cardassian people decided to stage a rebellion at this same time. The Klingons saw this as evidence that the Cardassian government had been infiltrated by the Dominion and declared war on Cardassia, resulting in the Federation siding with Cardassia and just generally causing a gigantic political snafu.
Dukat, being a man of opportunity, chose to side with the Detapa Council (the Cardassian civilian government) instead of the military. This turned out to be a fortunate decision on his part, as the civilians were able to gain and maintain power. He was made head military adviser to the Council and gained widespread praise for his valor due to his role in the evacuation of government officials following the attempted Klingon invasion. He continued in his role for several months before word reached him that wreckage had been found on the planet Dozaria, wreckage that matched the description of the ship that had carried Tora Naprem and Ziyal to safety.
Dukat and Bajoran officer Major Kira Nerys (daughter of his former lover Kira Meru) traveled to Dozaria together to examine the crash site. It is there that he confirms Naprem's death but also finds his daughter alive, and now in her late teens. Dukat is determined to kill Ziyal; her existence would bring shame and humiliation to his family. It is through Major Kira's insistence, and by looking into his daughter's eyes that he finally changes his mind and decides to bring his daughter back to Cardassia with him.
As he'd suspected, this move was political suicide. His mother publicly disowned him and his wife left him and took their children away. He was demoted and both he and Ziyal were cast out of respectable Cardassian society. Dukat was put in command of a Cardassian freighter and with Ziyal in tow, he was made to ferry Major Kira to a remote Cardassian outpost. Upon their arrival, they found the outpost had been destroyed and a Klingon ship nearby that was responsible. Working together with Kira, his crew was able to capture the Bird of Prey warship. He urged the Council to use the ship and the intelligence he and Kira had gathered against the Klingons, but they declined in favor of diplomatic resolutions.
It is directly following this episode that Dukat will be ported into the City.
PERSONALITY:
Dukat is a man with many facets. He's a man who rises to the occasion and takes any opportunity that presents itself. He's a product of the society he hails from, and he's a man who greedily reaches for more. He's a charismatic charmer, a doting father, a cunning tactician, a backstabbing social climber, a pawn, a puppet, and more. He's also arrogant, stubborn, greedy, short sighted, and just a touch insane.
Cardassian society puts an emphasis on the family. Any sign of trouble in the family unit is a sign of weakness and potential treachery and those are not traits Dukat wishes to advertise to his enemies. As such, Dukat is a devoted father to his seven legitimate children (and also to his illegitimate half-Bajoran daughter Ziyal.) He speaks fondly of his family, he regrets the time he must spend away from them due to his career, and he is devastated when his wife and mother publicly disown him following Ziyal's return to Cardassia. And perhaps more sinisterly was his desire to murder Ziyal in order to prevent him and his Cardassian family from being shamed by his affair with Tora Naprem, for as much as he cares for his family, he's also a very selfish man. In the end, the fall of his family meant the fall of his status within the Cardassian society. He ultimately chose to put his daughter's welfare before that of himself and his other family members. This reluctant sacrifice caused him to lose his rank, lose his house, and lose his family, but it saved the life of his daughter. And it put his sons in a similar position to the one he had been in as a child; the marked son of a fallen man, needing to claw his way to the top in spite of everything against him.
That puts some perspective on where Dukat started out in life. His father was a traitor, executed for crimes against the state. Dukat has always had that shadow hanging over him, and he has always felt the need to achieve greatness partially due to that. Dukat had to work harder to achieve his status in society and rank in the military. He had to play into the complex system of murder and intrigue that is Cardassian politics. He became an expert at telling people what they wanted to hear and getting results at any cost.
He's not always a brutal man. During his time as Prefect of Bajor he was responsible for the conditions in the labor camps improving drastically. Casualty rates decreased, and prisoners were given better food and access to medical care. Dukat viewed himself very much as the protector of the Bajoran people. He felt that he'd made changes for their benefit, and that the resulting assassination attempts were signs that the people were ungrateful for his kindness. Worse than that, he took it as a personal slight against him. When Dukat comes down, he comes down hard. He makes examples of his enemies, he humiliates and tramples them and cuts them as deeply as he can. With his Bajoran prisoners, it was a public execution in a brutal fashion. With his Cardassian enemy Garak, it was having him exiled to Deep Space Nine to live life as a tailor, hemming pants for the rest of his days.
He's prideful, vain, a man who is used to getting what he wants when he wants it. He isn't one to take no for an answer and he will use whatever means are necessary to get exactly what he wants. He's incredibly charismatic and a great public speaker. It's a long running joke on the show that Dukat loves the sound of his own voice, and perhaps it is true. He loves to talk, especially to beautiful women. Women are perhaps his one true weakness. After all, he did sacrifice his career and family status in order save the life of his illegitimate daughter, the result of a decades long affair with a Bajoran prisoner. Dukat has had numerous affairs over the years, mostly with Bajoran women. He feels that these relationships were built on genuine love for these women, however that perspective can be thrown into question when one considers that he was the warden of the prison where the ladies were held. He's used to being able to turn on the charm and having women submit to him. That said, traditional Cardassian courtship involves bickering and much denial of attraction, so either way, he will interpret most female interactions with him as some sort of fliration.
And Dukat takes most things very personally. An attack on his station or his ship is seen as a personal attack against him. Dukat is a competent commander, a man who is well qualified for his rank and position. However he is not a brilliant strategist. He makes tactical errors on occasion, and his rage and pride sometimes get in the way of his command. He seeks the betterment of Cardassia, to be sure. But he also seeks what will ultimately benefit him. He will switch alignments if the side he is on starts to fail. He will shirk responsibility if a project he has overseen doesn't turn out as he's planned. Dukat will take the path that will lead him to glory, everyone else be damned. And as much as he enjoys manipulating and using others to get what he wants, he isn't immune from being used by others. He's a schemer from a world of schemers. It is something he and the other Cardassians are quite used to.
From the point in canon where I am pulling Dukat, he seems to be more or less sane, if perhaps a bit on the sociopathic side. As the series progresses, he begins to lose touch with reality. He suffers hallucinations and eventually has a break down that will impact the later events of the series. However, since I'm pulling him from before that point, I won't touch on it too much now except to mention that he has the potential to go off the deep end. Whether it's PTSD or some other form of mental illness, the seeds are already sown in Dukat to turn this devious man with delusions of grandeur into someone much more unhinged.
POWER:
I would like for Dukat to keep his Cardassian physiology in the City. Cardassians are humanoid aliens with several distinct differences from humans. They have gray skin and prominent neck and cranial ridges. They prefer warmer, more humid environments. They also have poor hearing compared to humans, photographic memories, and an immunity to telepaths.
For Dukat's City power, I'd like for him to have force field generation that he can only access when someone else is in danger. If he is near someone who is in need of protection he will instinctively be able to generate a force field around them. This power can be used to defend himself only if another person is present and also in danger.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Voice -> Video]
From the looks of it, this would be Earth. It's very quaint, almost charming in a way. My guess would be this is sometime during the 20th or 21st centuries. So very primitive compared to where my people was during the same time period. Why, we were already traveling to neighboring star systems, expanding our empire. And you're still half a century from first contact with the Vulcans.
[He chuckles mockingly, but the jovial tone only lasts for a second or two before his voice grows stern and the video feed begins, showing Dukat's distinctively non-human face sneering into the camera.]
This is Gul Dukat of the Cardassian Union. I demand an explanation for this nonsense. If this is some sort of holographic trickery, in which case, I'd advise you to end the program immediately. My patience for this sort of nonsense has grown very thin over the years.
But if this is something else, perhaps a misguided gesture by the Maquis... Well, I regret to inform you that your extortion attempts will be for naught. All this will get you is Central Command sending a whole fleet of warships into this sector. You will be outgunned and you won't survive. I personally guarantee it.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
The humans were so fond of bright things, of happiness. They were such an optimistic people in comparison to any other species Dukat had experience with. It was almost charming, their naivete, the way they seemed so sure that their future would be a bright and happy one. If only they had an inkling of the chaos in the galaxy around them, Dukat was sure that their beautiful vision of the future would be shattered forever. Not that it much mattered. He could bide his time and wait, secure in the knowledge that Cardassia would remain superior, as always.
But for all his boasting and posturing, Dukat was quite out of his element on Earth. Nothing about this planet was conducive or welcoming to a Cardassian. Between the uncomfortable temperature difference, the unnecessarily intense sunlight, and the unfathomably unfriendly reactions he'd received from the native populace, he found himself growing more and more agitated. It was becoming difficult to concentrate on the simplest task. Even something as mundane as dismantling his communicator and examining the mechanics of the device seemed to be not only more complex than he'd initially suspected, but also more infuriating.
Dukat's hands would shake from the cold. He found himself getting blinding headaches from the glare of the overhead lights in his quarters. The building itself was so old and decrepit, so woefully ancient that he could scarcely operate the life support controls. There was no computer to explain the functions of the thermostat or automatically draw the curtains or reduce the lighting. Even worse, no replicator to provide him with traditional Cardassian foods. And there wasn't even any kanar to wash back his pride and get him drunk enough to begin coping with it.
All he had now was an empty refrigerator, a dismantled communicator, and no possible way of returning to his side of the galaxy. Loathe as he was to admit it, it was perhaps time for him to reach out to the humans. Maybe they had a way of communicating, of reaching out to the stars, a way that his history lessons had neglected to mention. And at the very least they would have rations of some variety. He reassembled his communicator hastily and prepared to make contact with the rest of these so called "imPorts", a bit of their natural optimism wearing off on him perhaps as he considered that they might have something for him to drink besides the one human food with which he was familiar: root beer. Disgusting beverage. So bubbly. So happy. So much like the humans.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Is there anything else about your character that you feel we should know, that isn't covered in any of the earlier sections? This field is optional.
NAME: Ali
AGE: 25
JOURNAL: aliccolo
IM: aliccolo (aim)
E-MAIL: aliccolo at gmail dot com
RETURNING: 7; Daredevil, Firestar, Mockingbird, Hawkeye II, Silk Spectre II, Zoidberg, & Jessica Wakefield
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Dukat
FANDOM: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
CHRONOLOGY: Following episode 4x14, "Return to Grace"
CLASS: Villain. Dukat is a man whose actions and philosophies run counter to those humanity and the Federation hold most dear.
SUPERHERO NAME: Gul Dukat
ALTER EGO: Dukat, military leader and politician
BACKGROUND:
It's first important to recognize that the world Dukat hails from is not the world of present day Earth. The Star Trek universe is a vision of life in the future, a vision of what humanity could achieve by exploring the stars. Deep Space Nine is set in the 2370's on a space station in a sector of space controlled by aliens known as Bajorans. The Bajorans have just gained their freedom after a generation of occupation by the Cardassian Empire. Desperate for stability as they emerge from the aftermath, the Bajorans turned to the United Federation of Planets (of which Earth is a member) to help run the space station, which sits adjacent to a rare stable wormhole that serves as the gateway to unexplored areas of the galaxy.
Still with me? Great!
Dukat is from Cardassia Prime, the primary planet of the Cardassian System. Cardassia Prime is a hot, dark, humid planet with few natural resources, and the people that evolved to live on that planet are very different from the humans that evolved across the galaxy. The Cardassian people are recognizable by having a reptilian appearance with gray skin with distinctive neck and cranial ridges. The society is a ruthless, militaristic one. The Cardassians became notorious for their xenophobia as well as their war crimes during the Occupation of Bajor, a neighboring planet. The Occupation lasted forty-one years and was marked by strip-mining, forced labor camps and the genocide of the Bajoran people. It is in the year 2369 that Cardassia finally ends its occupation of Bajor (we'll get into that in a moment.)
Dukat's father was Justice Procal, a civil servant who was tortured and executed for crimes against the state. His mother is only briefly mentioned in canon, but due to the structuring of Cardassian households, it can be assumed that she had a traditional maternal role in young Dukat's life. At the age of four he began intensive education which resulted in him developing the ability to shield himself from telepaths and other forms of mental intrusion, though this is typical of the Cardassian education system. Upon reaching adulthood, Dukat was inducted into the Cardassian military. Dukat proved to be a competent officer and achieved the rank of 'glinn' (first officer of a ship) on a vessel called the Kornaire. At some point he married an unnamed Cardassian woman, with whom he had seven children. He quickly reached the rank of 'legate', but after losing favor with Cardassian Central Command he was demoted to the rank of 'Gul', which is the equivalent of a commander or captain. It was after being demoted that he was assigned to be the Prefect of Bajor in 2346.
As the Prefect, he was stationed at the space station Terok Nor, an ore processing plant orbiting the planet Bajor. Under Dukat's direction the Bajoran people were forced into labor camps, made to mine and process the ore from their homeworld. To counteract the growing Bajoran resistance movement, Dukat enacted measures that banned child labor, increased food rations for the workers, and ensured that there would be adequate medical care. He also decreased the output quota, which significantly dropped the casualty rates at the camps. Still, he was seen as the face of the Occupation and had multiple assassination attempts against him. Dukat felt that his compassion toward the Bajoran people was ignored, and over time he grew to genuinely despise them.
It was common during that period for Cardassian military officers to take Bajoran women as mistresses, and Dukat was no exception. He had long affairs with Kira Meru and Tora Naprem, even fathering a child by Naprem during the Occupation. Dukat's position was secure, so long as the Occupation lasted, but once the withdrawal began, Dukat took it upon himself to ensure the safety of Naprem and their daughter, Ziyal. He arranged for them to be sent to the neutral planet Lissepia. Unfortunately their transport ship crashed and all aboard were presumed dead.
Dukat had no time to mourn the loss of his lover and child, however. Because he was the last Prefect of Bajor during the Occupation, many on Cardassia blamed him for the loss of the territory. Dukat strongly opposed the pull out of forces from Bajor, but was able to maintain a relatively high ranking position in the Cardassian military. Following withdrawal, Terok Nor, the station which served as Dukat's home base was given to the Bajorans and renamed Deep Space Nine. The United Federation of Planets then took over operations of the station, and that could have been the end of Dukat's involvement.
But that's actually right where the show begins.
The Federation and Bajor discovered a stable wormhole linking the Alpha Quadrant (where Earth, Vulcan, Romulus, Cardassia, and Bajor all exist) with the Gamma Quadrant, clear on the other side of the galaxy. This opened up new areas of space to explore and conquer, and this led to Cardassia wanting a stronger influence on the station. Dukat visited the station several times over the next three years, serving as the voice of Cardassia whenever a conflict should happen to arise.
On one such visit, Dukat found himself kidnapped by the Maquis, a band of Federation settlers who turned to terrorism following the end of the Federation/Cardassian conflicts. Dukat and Commander Benjamin Sisko (the Federation officer now in charge of Deep Space Nine) had been investigating claims that the Cardassian Central Command was funneling weapons into the Demilitarized Zone between Federation and Cardassian space. After being rescued by Sisko, the two were able to work together to determine that the Maquis' allegations had been correct.
It was during this time that a new power began to emerge from the wormhole. The Dominion, made up of Changelings, Vorta, and Jem'Hadar peoples had existed for two thousand years in the Gamma Quadrant and seemed poised to expand their control into the Alpha Quadrant by use of the Changelings' shapeshifting infiltration abilities. The seeds of unrest were being sewn throughout the Alpha Quadrant. The Klingon Empire, longtime enemies of the Federation and neutral adversary to Cardassia, seemed especially paranoid that Changelings were invading the major governments of the galaxy. It also so happened that the Cardassian people decided to stage a rebellion at this same time. The Klingons saw this as evidence that the Cardassian government had been infiltrated by the Dominion and declared war on Cardassia, resulting in the Federation siding with Cardassia and just generally causing a gigantic political snafu.
Dukat, being a man of opportunity, chose to side with the Detapa Council (the Cardassian civilian government) instead of the military. This turned out to be a fortunate decision on his part, as the civilians were able to gain and maintain power. He was made head military adviser to the Council and gained widespread praise for his valor due to his role in the evacuation of government officials following the attempted Klingon invasion. He continued in his role for several months before word reached him that wreckage had been found on the planet Dozaria, wreckage that matched the description of the ship that had carried Tora Naprem and Ziyal to safety.
Dukat and Bajoran officer Major Kira Nerys (daughter of his former lover Kira Meru) traveled to Dozaria together to examine the crash site. It is there that he confirms Naprem's death but also finds his daughter alive, and now in her late teens. Dukat is determined to kill Ziyal; her existence would bring shame and humiliation to his family. It is through Major Kira's insistence, and by looking into his daughter's eyes that he finally changes his mind and decides to bring his daughter back to Cardassia with him.
As he'd suspected, this move was political suicide. His mother publicly disowned him and his wife left him and took their children away. He was demoted and both he and Ziyal were cast out of respectable Cardassian society. Dukat was put in command of a Cardassian freighter and with Ziyal in tow, he was made to ferry Major Kira to a remote Cardassian outpost. Upon their arrival, they found the outpost had been destroyed and a Klingon ship nearby that was responsible. Working together with Kira, his crew was able to capture the Bird of Prey warship. He urged the Council to use the ship and the intelligence he and Kira had gathered against the Klingons, but they declined in favor of diplomatic resolutions.
It is directly following this episode that Dukat will be ported into the City.
PERSONALITY:
Dukat is a man with many facets. He's a man who rises to the occasion and takes any opportunity that presents itself. He's a product of the society he hails from, and he's a man who greedily reaches for more. He's a charismatic charmer, a doting father, a cunning tactician, a backstabbing social climber, a pawn, a puppet, and more. He's also arrogant, stubborn, greedy, short sighted, and just a touch insane.
Cardassian society puts an emphasis on the family. Any sign of trouble in the family unit is a sign of weakness and potential treachery and those are not traits Dukat wishes to advertise to his enemies. As such, Dukat is a devoted father to his seven legitimate children (and also to his illegitimate half-Bajoran daughter Ziyal.) He speaks fondly of his family, he regrets the time he must spend away from them due to his career, and he is devastated when his wife and mother publicly disown him following Ziyal's return to Cardassia. And perhaps more sinisterly was his desire to murder Ziyal in order to prevent him and his Cardassian family from being shamed by his affair with Tora Naprem, for as much as he cares for his family, he's also a very selfish man. In the end, the fall of his family meant the fall of his status within the Cardassian society. He ultimately chose to put his daughter's welfare before that of himself and his other family members. This reluctant sacrifice caused him to lose his rank, lose his house, and lose his family, but it saved the life of his daughter. And it put his sons in a similar position to the one he had been in as a child; the marked son of a fallen man, needing to claw his way to the top in spite of everything against him.
That puts some perspective on where Dukat started out in life. His father was a traitor, executed for crimes against the state. Dukat has always had that shadow hanging over him, and he has always felt the need to achieve greatness partially due to that. Dukat had to work harder to achieve his status in society and rank in the military. He had to play into the complex system of murder and intrigue that is Cardassian politics. He became an expert at telling people what they wanted to hear and getting results at any cost.
He's not always a brutal man. During his time as Prefect of Bajor he was responsible for the conditions in the labor camps improving drastically. Casualty rates decreased, and prisoners were given better food and access to medical care. Dukat viewed himself very much as the protector of the Bajoran people. He felt that he'd made changes for their benefit, and that the resulting assassination attempts were signs that the people were ungrateful for his kindness. Worse than that, he took it as a personal slight against him. When Dukat comes down, he comes down hard. He makes examples of his enemies, he humiliates and tramples them and cuts them as deeply as he can. With his Bajoran prisoners, it was a public execution in a brutal fashion. With his Cardassian enemy Garak, it was having him exiled to Deep Space Nine to live life as a tailor, hemming pants for the rest of his days.
He's prideful, vain, a man who is used to getting what he wants when he wants it. He isn't one to take no for an answer and he will use whatever means are necessary to get exactly what he wants. He's incredibly charismatic and a great public speaker. It's a long running joke on the show that Dukat loves the sound of his own voice, and perhaps it is true. He loves to talk, especially to beautiful women. Women are perhaps his one true weakness. After all, he did sacrifice his career and family status in order save the life of his illegitimate daughter, the result of a decades long affair with a Bajoran prisoner. Dukat has had numerous affairs over the years, mostly with Bajoran women. He feels that these relationships were built on genuine love for these women, however that perspective can be thrown into question when one considers that he was the warden of the prison where the ladies were held. He's used to being able to turn on the charm and having women submit to him. That said, traditional Cardassian courtship involves bickering and much denial of attraction, so either way, he will interpret most female interactions with him as some sort of fliration.
And Dukat takes most things very personally. An attack on his station or his ship is seen as a personal attack against him. Dukat is a competent commander, a man who is well qualified for his rank and position. However he is not a brilliant strategist. He makes tactical errors on occasion, and his rage and pride sometimes get in the way of his command. He seeks the betterment of Cardassia, to be sure. But he also seeks what will ultimately benefit him. He will switch alignments if the side he is on starts to fail. He will shirk responsibility if a project he has overseen doesn't turn out as he's planned. Dukat will take the path that will lead him to glory, everyone else be damned. And as much as he enjoys manipulating and using others to get what he wants, he isn't immune from being used by others. He's a schemer from a world of schemers. It is something he and the other Cardassians are quite used to.
From the point in canon where I am pulling Dukat, he seems to be more or less sane, if perhaps a bit on the sociopathic side. As the series progresses, he begins to lose touch with reality. He suffers hallucinations and eventually has a break down that will impact the later events of the series. However, since I'm pulling him from before that point, I won't touch on it too much now except to mention that he has the potential to go off the deep end. Whether it's PTSD or some other form of mental illness, the seeds are already sown in Dukat to turn this devious man with delusions of grandeur into someone much more unhinged.
POWER:
I would like for Dukat to keep his Cardassian physiology in the City. Cardassians are humanoid aliens with several distinct differences from humans. They have gray skin and prominent neck and cranial ridges. They prefer warmer, more humid environments. They also have poor hearing compared to humans, photographic memories, and an immunity to telepaths.
For Dukat's City power, I'd like for him to have force field generation that he can only access when someone else is in danger. If he is near someone who is in need of protection he will instinctively be able to generate a force field around them. This power can be used to defend himself only if another person is present and also in danger.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Voice -> Video]
From the looks of it, this would be Earth. It's very quaint, almost charming in a way. My guess would be this is sometime during the 20th or 21st centuries. So very primitive compared to where my people was during the same time period. Why, we were already traveling to neighboring star systems, expanding our empire. And you're still half a century from first contact with the Vulcans.
[He chuckles mockingly, but the jovial tone only lasts for a second or two before his voice grows stern and the video feed begins, showing Dukat's distinctively non-human face sneering into the camera.]
This is Gul Dukat of the Cardassian Union. I demand an explanation for this nonsense. If this is some sort of holographic trickery, in which case, I'd advise you to end the program immediately. My patience for this sort of nonsense has grown very thin over the years.
But if this is something else, perhaps a misguided gesture by the Maquis... Well, I regret to inform you that your extortion attempts will be for naught. All this will get you is Central Command sending a whole fleet of warships into this sector. You will be outgunned and you won't survive. I personally guarantee it.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
The humans were so fond of bright things, of happiness. They were such an optimistic people in comparison to any other species Dukat had experience with. It was almost charming, their naivete, the way they seemed so sure that their future would be a bright and happy one. If only they had an inkling of the chaos in the galaxy around them, Dukat was sure that their beautiful vision of the future would be shattered forever. Not that it much mattered. He could bide his time and wait, secure in the knowledge that Cardassia would remain superior, as always.
But for all his boasting and posturing, Dukat was quite out of his element on Earth. Nothing about this planet was conducive or welcoming to a Cardassian. Between the uncomfortable temperature difference, the unnecessarily intense sunlight, and the unfathomably unfriendly reactions he'd received from the native populace, he found himself growing more and more agitated. It was becoming difficult to concentrate on the simplest task. Even something as mundane as dismantling his communicator and examining the mechanics of the device seemed to be not only more complex than he'd initially suspected, but also more infuriating.
Dukat's hands would shake from the cold. He found himself getting blinding headaches from the glare of the overhead lights in his quarters. The building itself was so old and decrepit, so woefully ancient that he could scarcely operate the life support controls. There was no computer to explain the functions of the thermostat or automatically draw the curtains or reduce the lighting. Even worse, no replicator to provide him with traditional Cardassian foods. And there wasn't even any kanar to wash back his pride and get him drunk enough to begin coping with it.
All he had now was an empty refrigerator, a dismantled communicator, and no possible way of returning to his side of the galaxy. Loathe as he was to admit it, it was perhaps time for him to reach out to the humans. Maybe they had a way of communicating, of reaching out to the stars, a way that his history lessons had neglected to mention. And at the very least they would have rations of some variety. He reassembled his communicator hastily and prepared to make contact with the rest of these so called "imPorts", a bit of their natural optimism wearing off on him perhaps as he considered that they might have something for him to drink besides the one human food with which he was familiar: root beer. Disgusting beverage. So bubbly. So happy. So much like the humans.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Is there anything else about your character that you feel we should know, that isn't covered in any of the earlier sections? This field is optional.