Star Trek: Shaping a Cardassian - Among the Dragons

[Nerys Ghemor]

Gul Re'jal wrote:

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I don't think Kapoor was ever aware of Jarol's thoughts. Jarol never expressed them and certainly not in her presence. And by that time Jarol saw that humans can be crazy in love too.

I'm glad Jarol wised up. I was really afraid she was going to screw up the wedding.

I think they still build houses that way, because the feature is really useful and offers everyone a lot of privacy and not being bothered by anyone, or to bother anyone.

I see...that's a good thing to know. That way nobody will be disturbed by hearing human music playing.

And I'm going to be bad here...but there are other activities one would never have to worry about disturbing the neighbors with. That actually happened at the apartments I lived in in college. Very annoying, that.

My first impression of it was "a funny smelling banana," but I grew to like them. In Asia they are sold fresh, but you can also get them as a dried snack. Maybe you could get dried jackfruit in US in some stores.

That thing is ENORMOUS.

There are a lot of Indian stores in my area, so I might be able to stop by one and see if they have some jackfruit available. That could be interesting.

I'm sure Kapoor also ignored unpleasant looks thrown her way. Why to spoil such a nice day with assholes?

She's very good at doing that...she seems, overall, to have a very thick skin.

Foda is a 'thank you' for service, something that doesn't stay, eg. opening a door for you, handing you a box of tissues to take one, letting you first through the door, etc.

OK, and then elek is for something a bit more permanent, as in something you get to keep? (And I think a compliment is something you can keep, too? )

The third one is just for one kind of situation--a big sacrifice. I don't think I made a word for it yet.

I don't recall seeing one either.

There are flowers which start glowing after sunset, because the colour somehow reflects the light, so I thought: why not another plant?

Oh...you mean a different kind of glow than bioluminescence? So these plants wouldn't actually glow in the dark?

[Gul Re'jal]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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I'm glad Jarol wised up. I was really afraid she was going to screw up the wedding.

No.
She was really surprised and honoured to be asked to be per'taye.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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And I'm going to be bad here...but there are other activities one would never have to worry about disturbing the neighbors with. That actually happened at the apartments I lived in in college. Very annoying, that.

That's also true.

In apartments all sorts of sounds can disturb: someone drops something in the apt above you, someone watches a film next to you and you can clearly hear the whole dialogue, someone cooks and you can hear noise of moved pans and flow of water when they wash the dishes, etc.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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That thing is ENORMOUS.

There are a lot of Indian stores in my area, so I might be able to stop by one and see if they have some jackfruit available. That could be interesting.

They are big, but the part you eat is probably half the size of the whole fruit. The skin is very thick and the edible parts are deep inside meat that is not eaten.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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OK, and then elek is for something a bit more permanent, as in something you get to keep? (And I think a compliment is something you can keep, too? )

Roughly, yes. Gifts, compliments are things that are given to you, so elek is appropriate. There are situations when a non-Cardassian could have doubts which to use, but generally the difference is clear.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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I don't recall seeing one either.

I don't have it in my notes, so most likely I didn't create it yet (or forgot to add to my notes).

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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Oh...you mean a different kind of glow than bioluminescence? So these plants wouldn't actually glow in the dark?

They wouldn't. They only reflect light in very particular way, so without light or in insufficient light they would be "dark."

[Nerys Ghemor]

Gul Re'jal wrote:

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In apartments all sorts of sounds can disturb: someone drops something in the apt above you,

That's why I always got an apartment on the upper floor of the complex...that way at least that issue wasn't something I had to worry about.

someone watches a film next to you and you can clearly hear the whole dialogue, someone cooks and you can hear noise of moved pans and flow of water when they wash the dishes, etc.

LOL! Or they cook or smoke and you smell it.

Once, though, that was pretty cool. I had Indian neighbors, so I often smelled their cooking. My mom hated it every time she visited, and claimed it made her want to gag, but for me it was incredibly interesting. If it weren't for the fact that spicy things made me sick, I would've wanted to try everything they cooked!

I don't have it in my notes, so most likely I didn't create it yet (or forgot to add to my notes).

No problem...given the events of "The Spear in the Other's Heart," I got curious.

They wouldn't. They only reflect light in very particular way, so without light or in insufficient light they would be "dark."

Oh, good. Eating those kinds of "glowy" things would probably be bad for one's health.

Plus that would, in the case of a crossover, save your Cardassians from the "horrifying" comments that mine would make of, "Could we paint ourselves with that?" (Even the Sigils ones would think of it, for dancing and wedding purposes.)

[Gul Re'jal]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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No problem...given the events of "The Spear in the Other's Heart," I got curious.

If you even need it, I'll create it. I just didn't need it so far.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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Plus that would, in the case of a crossover, save your Cardassians from the "horrifying" comments that mine would make of, "Could we paint ourselves with that?" (Even the Sigils ones would think of it, for dancing and wedding purposes.)

Painting scary, glowy masks on there faces..to...scare children in the night?



BTW, I completely forgot to post the Earth music that I think is the closest to Cardassian popular music: something originating from a dry, desert dominated regions.
I can easily imagine Tavor shaking his bum to it

[Nerys Ghemor]

I forgot to mention how funny that image was!

[Gul Re'jal]

Oh, my, and I forgot to post it again, only edited the chapter post

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbXXFlbtvTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-2moJpFt_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GjPs...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVRsnDo0qcY

[Nerys Ghemor]

Aha! I didn't realize it before, but I know that vocalist, Rachid Taha, from the song "Barra Barra" on the Black Hawk Down soundtrack. Awesome!! I had always wondered where I could get more...now I know!

[Gul Re'jal]

Day 628


I returned to my quarters aboard the Roumar completely exhausted. All I wanted was to lay down and die. It had occurred that working aboard the warship was different when you were a Federation lieutenant and different when you were a Cardassian eresh. It wasn’t a matter of being treated poorly or with disrespect—although I had noticed that lower ranking officers considered me to be lower on the hierarchy ladder and acted accordingly...to their new interpretation of respect—but the amount of boring, mundane tasks I had been being given was...exceeding my limits of acceptance. Suddenly, I was not educated enough to do things that I used to do before I’d changed my uniform to armour. I had dared to complain to Zamarran and he had told me not to take it personally; they just followed the protocol and they were not allowed to assign me tasks, which—in theory—I wouldn’t be able to complete. The problem was that I was fully able to complete them. I’d asked Zamarran if it wasn’t wasting my skill and he had pondered my question for a moment. Cardassians hated wasting anything; for them the word ‘waste’ was almost a curse. Finally, Zamarran had told me that the protocol was the protocol and it had to be followed—especially in an unclear situation and that one was exactly that.

So I’d given up and followed the damn protocol.

And now I was tired and bored—and all I wanted was to sleep.

I was on my way to my closet—I still lived in the same quarters that had been assigned to me when I’d arrived aboard the warship almost two years ago—when I noticed something on my table. Intrigued, I approached it to see...a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It didn’t look exactly like ours, as it had an uneven, serrated shape, but it was undoubtedly a jigsaw puzzle. It was quite big, too: almost seven centimetres in diameter.

I took it into my hand and studied it, but my examination was interrupted by a chime at the door. I went to open and saw Tavor. Without a word I raised the puzzle and gave him a questioning look, because I had no doubt that it had been him, who had ‘burgled’ into my quarters to leave the puzzle on the table. In the answer, he raised higher a big, flat square he held in his hands, which looked like a painting wrapped in brown paper.

“What’s this?” I asked.

He entered my quarters and went toward the table. “Sit down,” he said. I did so. “Now.” He unwrapped the ‘painting’ and I saw a board on two rails: one on the top and one on the bottom. He unattached something from the back of the board and it occurred to be another board. He placed it on the table. If it were green, not dark brown, it would look like a mini mahjong table. “Take a good look at your puzzle.”

Even though I had already studied it, I did as instructed. “Done.”

“Sure?”

“Done,” I repeated a little irritated. Was this some kind of game?

“Give me the puzzle.” I placed in on his stretched palm and he hid it behind him. “Now, take a good look at this picture. I will give you twenty seconds. After that I will hide the picture again and you will put the puzzle in the correct place on your board. Do you understand?”

I nodded. He grabbed the board and slid it to the left on the rails, revealing a picture on the board under it, which I hadn’t noticed earlier. There were three baby animals playing in grass in the picture. I studied it carefully, trying to guess which part of the image my piece was. I couldn’t be sure if it was a leg, or an ear, or maybe something entirely else. Suddenly, Tavor slid the front board back to its place, covering the animals.

“It’s time to place your puzzle on the board.” He gave it back to me.

My hand hovered over the ‘mahjong board’ and I couldn’t decide where to put it. “What if I’m wrong?” I asked.

“Then you’ll have to correct it later.” I moved my hand over the board and Tavor added, “But once you place it, you cannot move it until next day.”

My head jerked when I glanced at him. “What?”

“Place your piece carefully.”

I hesitated for a while longer, choosing the place and glancing at Tavor with hope that his facial expression would give me tips, but his face was made of stone. I decided that the picture on the puzzle was a part of a leg, so I placed the puzzle in the lower section of the board. “Now what?” I asked.

“Tomorrow you will get another puzzle and another look at the board. As the game progresses, you will be given less and less time to look at the board. If you place your pieces incorrectly, you will have a chance to fix it, but only one at a time.”

“Why?”

“Normally, the speed matters. This game is played by several ch...people and the one who finishes the picture first, gets a prize.”

Had he just almost said ‘children’?

“But why can’t I look at the picture when placing my puzzle?” I asked. And then it dawned on me. “It’s a memory game!” I shouted, grabbing his hand. “Isn’t it? It’s a memory game!”

“That’s right,” he confirmed. “I thought that you might want to practice your memory in some enjoyable way.”

“So let me repeat to make sure that I understand correctly. First I look at my puzzle, then at the whole picture and then place my puzzle in place, recreating the picture in my mind’s eye. I have to do my best to print the picture in my head, so that I don’t make any mistakes, because if I make any, it takes time to correct them and the point of the game is to be the first to finish the whole puzzle.”

“That’s correct.”

I gave him a suspicious look. “How old are children who solve this particular picture?”

He bit his lower lip. “Five.”

I felt my eyebrows travelling high. “Are they better than me?” I asked.

“They would have been in memory training for two years already and would have solved many puzzles like this one before.”

“In other words, they are better,” I stated flatly.

He looked a bit worried. “I didn’t want to choose something too easy,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to offend you...I just...I think you’ll do fine with this, once you get used to the game.” He paused. “I’m sorry...maybe we should just forget about the whole thing.”

I smiled. “No, Tavor. It’s all right. It’s not news for me that kids over here have better memory than I. And I think it’s a good idea to work on mine. I’ll stop forgetting your name, Arenn,” I joked. Maybe I should have chosen a different Cardassian given name, instead of our gul’s, but at that moment I couldn’t think of anything else.

My assurances seemed to cheer him up a little, although I was absolutely sure that my using Gul Brenok’s given name grated on him tremendously.

Cardassians...

He put the board under his arm. “Supper time,” he said.

“We’re eating at your place?” I asked. “Can I bring something with me?” He gave me an asking look. “It took hours to force the replicator to make something that would at least a little bit resemble a pappadum and I’m not going to waste my time by not replicating and eating it.”

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“You’ll see.”

“Did you program only the replicator in your quarters, or aboard the ship?”

“Only in my quarters. I don’t have access to ship-wide program. I’m just an eresh, rem—” I bit my tongue a bit to late and I was certain I almost accused him of forgetting.

He graciously ignored it. “Well, yes, but you can send your addition to the quartermaster and he could accept it.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You still haven’t memorised the rules,” he stated. “I know it’s not easy for you, but you must try. You had a lot of time for it.”

“It’s not that I have nothing else to do, you know!”

He smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Amrita, I didn’t want to sound patronising.” He paused. “So, supper?”

“Let me just replicate my food and I’ll join you in a moment.”

“Great.” He left my quarters, taking the board with the puzzle picture with him.

I went to his quarters with a bowl of pappadum. As soon as the door opened, I was welcomed by a smell of warm food. I was sure it was all replicated, since there was limited possibility of cooking elaborate meals aboard a warship, but I didn’t mind.

He eyed my dish suspiciously and then reached for one thin piece of crispy pappadum. A little surprised by its texture, he bit and helplessly looked at crumbs falling to his feet. “Salty,” he said with approval. He took the plate from my hands and placed it in the middle of the table.

I sat and looked at my plate, filled with steaming hot food. “Tavor, what’s this?” I asked, touching a piece of some meat with my fork.

“Fried zobar oppanat.”

“Zobar,” I said. “It’s like a cow, isn’t it? A kind of cattle?” I amended my question seeing his look; of course, how could a Cardassian know what a cow was.

“That’s correct. Why?”

I pushed the plate away. “I’m sorry, but I cannot eat it.” This moment had to come some day. I avoided eating zobar meat and it never was a difficult task, considering how varied Cardassian cuisine was, but I never had been presented with it so directly until this evening. I couldn’t just choose anything else without explaining why I wouldn’t eat the food he had prepared especially for us.

“Why not?” He was surprised and disappointed and I realised that it was the time to tell him something about me. He knew that I had something in common with the Oralians, but we had never discussed the details of my faith. I understood that I owed him a full explanation, so that he wouldn’t feel so disappointed by my refusal of eating the food that he had replicated with such a care.

So I told him about the meaning of cows in my religion and how people ought to treat them. And how wrong it would be of me to eat a cow.

“I know that a zobar is not the same animal, but...it still feels wrong. Unclean.”

And then he did something I’d never expect him to do: he pushed his plate away. “If it feels wrong to you, then it feels wrong to me, too.”

I knew he loved zobar meat. “Tavor, you don’t have to do this for me. I don’t mind you eating what you like. But I wouldn’t touch it.”

“Not good for you, not good for me,” he insisted. Before I could say anything else, he rose, took both plates, placed them in the replicator, recycled and then asked for the same dish but with meat replaced by sisstu. I smiled at him when he was putting the plate in front it me. If I only knew how to express my appreciation not only of his understanding, but also of his...little sacrifice.

I looked at my food, graced by Cardassian corn-like vegetable, and started eating. “Delicious,” I judged and he grinned.



tbc

[Gul Re'jal]

Pappadum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papadum

[Nerys Ghemor]

Oh, no! My first comments got eaten! (Speaking of which, that pappadum looks like an enormous tortilla chip!)

Let me try that again...

I was really touched by Tavor's willingness to give up something he loves--perhaps even for life--not to mention essentially "waste" rations for two meals, to avoid offending Amrita's gods.

An observation about Kapoor's duties as an eresh...sometimes it seems to me that Cardassian rigidity goes to almost stupid extremes, and this is an example. My dad had to go through a similar situation when he changed airplanes as a newly-promoted colonel (gul equivalent ). But he was offered the opportunity to take a shortened course for high-ranking officers, recognizing his experience. That said, my dad declined and asked to take the same full-length course young lieutenants (the equivalent of a Navy ensign) took. Then again, flying a big cargo airplane is far from mundane!

Given that situation, I'm actually surprised Amrita didn't snap when she found out what that puzzle really was. It could so easily have come off as one more incident of being patronized and being treated like she was stupid. (I also couldn't read Tavor's tone when he was giving the instructions...how did you imagine him sounding?)

[Gul Re'jal]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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I was really touched by Tavor's willingness to give up something he loves--perhaps even for life--not to mention essentially "waste" rations for two meals, to avoid offending Amrita's gods.

I think that in spite of her assurances, he worries that his eating zobar mean might be a problem for her, so he prefers an "easy" way.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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An observation about Kapoor's duties as an eresh...sometimes it seems to me that Cardassian rigidity goes to almost stupid extremes, and this is an example.

Yes, it is. Rules are rules, no matter how ridiculous they can sometimes be.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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Given that situation, I'm actually surprised Amrita didn't snap when she found out what that puzzle really was. It could so easily have come off as one more incident of being patronized and being treated like she was stupid. (I also couldn't read Tavor's tone when he was giving the instructions...how did you imagine him sounding?)

I imagined him speaking in a neutral tone. Like a teacher explaining things. He didn't want to sound patronising, but he also didn't want to be "friendly," not to give her an impression that he would make it easier for her.

He would speak the same way to anyone else, when introducing the game. To every child, since the game is on that level.

[Nerys Ghemor]

Gul Re'jal wrote:

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I think that in spite of her assurances, he worries that his eating zobar mean might be a problem for her, so he prefers an "easy" way.

It seemed more meaningful to me than mere conflict avoidance, though.

Yes, it is. Rules are rules, no matter how ridiculous they can sometimes be.

Here is how Gul Berat would feel:

I'm not sure if my Cardassians would've gone quite as far as yours in that case.

I do think, though, that they were sticklers for engineering procedures. But given that my Cardassians' technology is something I write kind of like Soviet military technology, I know there are tricks some engineers have up their sleeves that they never let their guls see--or if their guls are supportive, things they never let inspectors see. (In fact, I remember in the novel I got Berat from, that was indeed the case! Berat in particular strikes me as someone who would use those kinds of tricks and maybe even get a kick out of it, if the trick got good results for his ship.) I am not sure all of my Cardassians are afraid to be inventive. Some are...they just know when is the right time to hide it.

I imagined him speaking in a neutral tone. Like a teacher explaining things. He didn't want to sound patronising, but he also didn't want to be "friendly," not to give her an impression that he would make it easier for her.

I'm not sure why, but to me he actually sounded harsh.

[Gul Re'jal]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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It seemed more meaningful to me than mere conflict avoidance, though.

I'm sure there was more to it than even he can tell
He loves her and would do everything to make her happy and to make sure he doesn't make her unhappy.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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I'm not sure why, but to me he actually sounded harsh.

Dry, perhaps, but I didn't hear him speaking harsh. He wasn't barking orders, but explaining things.

Now, to think of it, no one really knows how to explain that game to an adult, because the first time you're explained, you're three years old and proper language is adopted. So, in a way, every Cardassians knows the rules "since forever," and they don't really know how to explain the game to an adult Tavor certainly didn't want to sound like talking to a small child.

[Nerys Ghemor]

I would imagine only those who specialize in education of those with disabilities would know how to explain it to an adult. Or if Cardassian teachers were sent to culturally "assimilate" the Federation colonists.

Oh, and from the dialogue I had gotten the idea from the way it was written that it was in kind of a "barking orders" tone, which kind of took me aback. But I suppose that without a description of it, and the last thing Kapoor described being the way she was treated by Zamarran, I heard Tavor as sounding the same.