Dukat going to the top?

[Tallis Rhul]

What do you think would have happened if Ziyal hadn't been killed and Dukat had ended up climbing further up the command spire in the Dominion?

Obviously losing the battle for DS9 was a setback, but he actually had a big enough personality to lead Cardassia under Dominion rule as a respected member, which fell apart when Damar took over due to his reawakened patriotism, but would the Breen have been able to ride roughshod over him?

Also... do you agree that during his days on DS9 Dukat played Weyoun's diplomatic games well and on occasion made him look foolish in front of the Founder?

How far could he have gone?

 

[TeutonicNights]

DUKAT: But I've done everything you've
asked! I tell you -- I'm loyal.
I believe in the Dominion!(gets dragged off)

WEYOUN: I won't miss him.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I think Dukat's problem is that unlike Damar and Broca, who gave in too much, Dukat's cantankerous nature would eventually get Weyoun irritated with him, and it could possibly have gotten him executed.

 

[Bones2]

Dukat wouldn't have hit the bottle, would have maintained Cardassia's standing right at the top of the Dominion, and once they'd conquered the Alpha Quadrant, would have made life better for all citizens, just as he did for the ungrateful Bajorans he looked after.

 

[nx1701g]

I think Dukat's problem is that unlike Damar and Broca, who gave in too much, Dukat's cantankerous nature would eventually get Weyoun irritated with him, and it could possibly have gotten him executed.

I think this is the right answer.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Dukat wouldn't have hit the bottle, would have maintained Cardassia's standing right at the top of the Dominion, and once they'd conquered the Alpha Quadrant, would have made life better for all citizens, just as he did for the ungrateful Bajorans he looked after.

Please tell me that's tongue-in-cheek...

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Dukat wouldn't have hit the bottle, would have maintained Cardassia's standing right at the top of the Dominion, and once they'd conquered the Alpha Quadrant, would have made life better for all citizens, just as he did for the ungrateful Bajorans he looked after.

Please tell me that's tongue-in-cheek...

USS Bones is a Cardassian spy I think; an Obsidian Order operative....

 

[PSGarak]

I think Dukat's problem is that unlike Damar and Broca, who gave in too much, Dukat's cantankerous nature would eventually get Weyoun irritated with him, and it could possibly have gotten him executed.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. If not Weyoun, then the Founders themselves. Eventually, his ego would've been too much of a liability. Races like the Founders don't let their conquered or even allied races be on top. They use them for their own purposes. Cardassia probably would've eventually found itself new breeding stock for new "improved" Jem'Hadar or any other number of projects.

 

[DevilEyes]

DUKAT: But I've done everything you've
asked! I tell you -- I'm loyal.
I believe in the Dominion!(gets dragged off)

WEYOUN: I won't miss him.

Don't pretend you don't realize that Dukat would never utter anything like that.

 

[DevilEyes]

I think Dukat's problem is that unlike Damar and Broca, who gave in too much, Dukat's cantankerous nature would eventually get Weyoun irritated with him, and it could possibly have gotten him executed.

I never got the impression in season 5 and 6 that Cardassia was that powerless in relation to Dominion that Weyoun would be able to just execute Dukat if he decided to. It seemed that Cardassia's position and power was gradually eroding while Damar ws letting Weyounbd push him around, and reached its nadir after the Breen joined the Dominion. Even Ira Steven Behr said that Dukat would never have allowed himself to be subjected to the kind of treatment Damar was.

We were able to have a guy (Damar) who had been pushed too far. That was something you could never really get from Alaimo's character, because he would never allow himself to be subjected to that kind of treatment in the first place.

As to what would have happened.... I don't know. The only thing I'm sure of that it would be whatever the writers needed at the time.

Dukat certainly thought that he would be able to play his cards right and use the Dominion to get what he wants ("Damar, we won't talk about our allies that way... not until the war is over" [laughter]) but that might have been just a sign of his over-confidence. As someone else said in one of the threads about the Dominion war, early on Weyoun did not seem over-confident - that was Dukat - but then Weyoun became the epitome of over-confidence after "Sacrifice of Angels" and especially in season 7 - maybe because the writers needed that in order to bring about the fall of the Dominion. Or maybe you could say Weyoun got gradually blinded by the power he was getting in relation to Damar and underestimated the guy so much that he did not see him planning a rebellion right under his nose.

 

[PSGarak]

Or maybe you could say Weyoun got gradually blinded by the power he was getting in relation to Damar and underestimated the guy so much that he did not see him planning a rebellion right under his nose.

I think that's a distinct possibility. Weyoun certainly had contempt for his alcoholism. He displayed that increasingly as time went on. It's very possible he ceased to keep a close eye on Damar and wrote him off as a sot who would never be able to climb out of the bottle long enough to do anything productive, much less seditious.

 

[Thor Damar]

^Exactly, in fact most eveyone (including the audience) underestimated Corat Damar solely because of his alcoholism. Since this was driven by guilt and self loathing, Damar's ultimate actions should have been foreseeable at least in MHO.

Fortunately Administrator Weyoun committed one of the cardinal sins of any civil servant, he indulged himself in smug self confidence and misguided superiority. Which quite literally was a killer

Plus he made the grievous error of seeing the Cardassians as a weak and pathetic people who could be safely dismissed as a threat...

bad mistake!

 

[Bones2]

Dukat wouldn't have hit the bottle, would have maintained Cardassia's standing right at the top of the Dominion, and once they'd conquered the Alpha Quadrant, would have made life better for all citizens, just as he did for the ungrateful Bajorans he looked after.

Please tell me that's tongue-in-cheek...

Dukat didn't formulate policy, he only implemented it, and he did what he could to make life better for the Bajorans. They were better off with him than they would have been with anyone else from Central Command.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Totally without proof, and totally ignoring the option of NO FREAKING OCCUPATION. All of that was in Dukat's head.

 

[nx1701g]

Just wanted to say that the old video game DS9: Dominion Wars if you play the Cardassian storyline Dukat eventually turns against the Dominion and you are sent to kill him.

 

[Sci]

Dukat wouldn't have hit the bottle, would have maintained Cardassia's standing right at the top of the Dominion, and once they'd conquered the Alpha Quadrant, would have made life better for all citizens, just as he did for the ungrateful Bajorans he looked after.

Please tell me that's tongue-in-cheek...

Dukat didn't formulate policy, he only implemented it, and he did what he could to make life better for the Bajorans. They were better off with him than they would have been with anyone else from Central Command.

Yeah, bullshit. Even if he was only implementing policy -- and I don't buy that for a second, considering that he himself was depicted as ordering numerous murders by the Cardassian military -- that still makes him guilty of collaborating with and implementing acts of mass murder, forced labor, genocide, massacres, rape, and oppression. Even if he didn't set the policies, he implemented them. And as the Nuremberg trials established, "Just following orders" isn't an excuse.

Dukat was a war criminal, pure and simple.

 

[Jono]

I think Dukat was as high in the Dominion as he could get. Even if he has more confidence and strength to stand up to Weyoun if the war pretty much continued on its course Cardassia would have continued to slip down as the war looked more and more hopeless. Also not sure if Dukat would try to rebel to save his people or if he would just take them all down with him.

Plus without him being insane he wouldn't close the wormhole and the war might have ended sooner for the Federation Alliance as it wouldn't get inexplicably bogged down in Chin'toka, assuming that Weyoun's statement that the Federation's momentum disappearing with the closing of the wormhole was more than just coincidence.

 

[Bones2]

Please tell me that's tongue-in-cheek...

Dukat didn't formulate policy, he only implemented it, and he did what he could to make life better for the Bajorans. They were better off with him than they would have been with anyone else from Central Command.

Yeah, bullshit. Even if he was only implementing policy -- and I don't buy that for a second, considering that he himself was depicted as ordering numerous murders by the Cardassian military -- that still makes him guilty of collaborating with and implementing acts of mass murder, forced labor, genocide, massacres, rape, and oppression. Even if he didn't set the policies, he implemented them. And as the Nuremberg trials established, "Just following orders" isn't an excuse.

Dukat was a war criminal, pure and simple.

If Dukat had resigned, the Bajorans would be left with someone who'd probably be a good deal worse in his place. He did what he could to make life better within the confines of his position.

 

[TeutonicNights]

As a Cardie prefect, Dukat could easily think that way.
He could always tell himself he would climb up the military ladder and do away with all the "wrong decisions he had to implement".
The Bajorans couldn't defeat the Cardassians.
The people he would have to kill would always be Bajorans. The people ultimately responsible for "everything bad" in his view were always Bajorans.
He could have maintained his little delusion forever.

In the Dominion, Dukat would have been in the position that Damar was in. Once the Dominion was on the track to defeat it would have become more and more clear that all that matters in the Dominion are the founders, and everybody else is dispensible.

So he would either have rebelled like Damar, ending his career in the Dominion. Or he would have ended like Broca if he hadn't, because the Dominion doesn't need nor trust him.

 

[Sci]

Dukat didn't formulate policy, he only implemented it, and he did what he could to make life better for the Bajorans. They were better off with him than they would have been with anyone else from Central Command.

Yeah, bullshit. Even if he was only implementing policy -- and I don't buy that for a second, considering that he himself was depicted as ordering numerous murders by the Cardassian military -- that still makes him guilty of collaborating with and implementing acts of mass murder, forced labor, genocide, massacres, rape, and oppression. Even if he didn't set the policies, he implemented them. And as the Nuremberg trials established, "Just following orders" isn't an excuse.

Dukat was a war criminal, pure and simple.

If Dukat had resigned, the Bajorans would be left with someone who'd probably be a good deal worse in his place.

1. Bullshit. Dukat was the single most amoral, self-serving, bigoted Cardassian we ever met. He even admitted to himself that he wanted to drive the Bajoran species into extinction for daring to resent him. The idea that he would have been replaced by someone worse is laughable; there was no one worse.

2. Doesn't matter. The fact that other people might do bad things is not an excuse to commit fundamental violations of other people's rights.

"If I don't rape that girl, someone else will, and he might kill her too! Obviously I've got to rape her first to stop it!"

See that? Doesn't work.

He did what he could to make life better within the confines of his position.

You mean within the confines of using his position to order millions of deaths. Yeah, great guy. What next, Hans Frank was just a puppet of Hitler and wasn't responsible for perpetuating the deaths of millions of Poles?