decision regarding Rugal incomprehensible!

Precisely. There are any number of less appalling things the guy could have said that would have been just as reassuring.

 

Good question but tot what I'm trying to prove.
As I wrote before, if someone had come up and told me when I was about 15 that those I always had regarded as my parents weren't my parents and that I actually did belong to a people which had oppressed the people which I saw as my people, then I would have been hysterical. Being me, I would probably never have accepted that and I would have try to run away from my new "home" as soon as possible and as many times as possible until I finally succeded.

And honestly, I would have reacted the same way if I'd suddenly been told that I was a Bolian, Klingon or some other species who weren't guilty to crimes against Bajorans.

Just the thougt of being snatched away from a happy life because of political decisions.............

It was bad enough that my family were forced to leave our hometown when I was a kid. I promised to return when I grew up and I did!

The problem in this case was that Rugal had lived so long among the bajorans that he identified himself with them. Therefore it was actually cruel to foce him to leave his family and settle down in a world which he had no connections to and no feelings for.

 

I have to buy it!

Partly because I want to know how Rugal handled the situation and partly because Garak is in it!

 

Regardless of one's feelings towards Rugal's situation, I hope nobody's implying that Kotan Pa'Dar (arguably an innocent party in all of this) somehow deserves to be shut out of his son's life just because he's a Cardassian politician.

Because that would be bad.

Right?

It does make one wonder, though. We had all been led to believe that Cardassia was basically a military dictatorship and that the politicians, such as they were, had no real power. Yet not only did Pa'Dar order the withdrawal from Bajor, his order was obeyed. So apparently civilian politics on Cardassia DOES have some clout after all?

 

Better make that "strongly negative feelings for". Even if Rugal had been taught that many if not most Cardassians were decent enough, the leaders of Cardassia were responsible for the occupation.

I was able to get the first of the Voyager Homecoming books online plenty reasonable. I bet you could get Rugal's adventures easy enough... title is "The Neverending Sacrifice".

 

I don't recall anyone ever saying or implying that.

It may not be the truth, but it's also not a lie. Rugal's parents teach him what they believe based on their experiences. Which is what most people do. But okay, I grant you that if they were more enlightened they'd probably have told him that 'not all Cardassians are bastards, only the ones we met.'

Is it reason to separate him from his otherwise loving family though? (I'm not saying you're saying that, I'm asking.)

 

But obviously most if not all Cardassians that most if not all Bajorans encountered during the Occupation were going to be bastards...that doesn't mean you condemn them in their entirety. It's TUC all over again...

I think some form of joint custody would have been the ideal solution, but it unfortunately didn't seem to be a practical option in this case (that we saw?). It didn't seem as though any of the loving parents were willing to relocate, which would have solved at least some of the problems.

If you a) feel that Rugal being indoctrinated to hate his own people is problematic (intentionally or otherwise), and b) recognize that Pa'dar is Rugal's biological father, then this seems as though it may be the best option from a list of no great options. Either way, Rugal was going to be separated from people who loved him.

And it may speak to the limits of how much the Proka(?) family loved Rugal that they didn't offer to go with him to Cardassia. Of course, if they're not willing to do so, they can't reasonably expect Pa'dar to be willing to do the opposite.

 

Apologies, I 'mis-spoke' my question. I meant to say "Is it reason enough on its own..."

 

In that case, I don't know. I'm not charged with making decisions about such things, and I don't know what options were available or whether Sisko even considered them as fully as he ought to have. Telling a child's biological father they can't see their child seems awful to me unless said father has mistreated the child, and raising a child with internalized hatred for themselves even if you have the best intentions raises serious questions for me. They obviously couldn't have someone monitoring the Proka family constantly and tut-tutting anytime Migdal made an overly-broad statement about Cardassians.

 

"Strongly negative feelings" are better words for it.

It must have been terrible for him to come "home" to Cardassia which still was some sort of dictatorship where the actions against bajor and bajorans still were accepted and defended by those in charge and great parts of the population, no matter if his biological father actually cared for him and tried to protect him.

I wonder if he was accepted by the Cardassians? Did he mention his real opinions about Cardassians and the occupation and what happened then? Could his father protect him in that case and what happened when the Dominion took over?

I've ordererd the book so I guess that I will find out?

I find Rugal a tragic and sympathetic character.

There's only one thing with him I don't like.

He did bite Garak!

How could he do that? Treat one of my absolute favorites so bad?

 

He spent a long, long time paying for that action, I expect.

 

I think the logical, least harmful solution would have been to have him come to live on the station (as a semi-neutral ground) and allow both sets of parents to live there with joint custody until he reached the age of majority. Provide a Federation counselor to help them heal. And if possible, obligate both governments to accord him dual citizenship and guarantee him freedom of entry/exit from their planets.

 

It's not a bad idea, though would have fallen apart one way or another once the Cardassians aligned with the Dominion if not when the Klingons invaded.

 

The Proka family may have agreed to live on DS9 but there's no way Pa'Dar would, or could, do it.

 

I think they could have shamed him into staying on the station, or at least visiting.

 

To be fair, for all we know he did.

 

This is a long thread, and I've only read a couple posts, so forgive me if someone else has already mentioned this.

I think the tipping point for Sisko deciding in Pad'ar's favor goes back to him agreeing to Sisko being a mediator to begin with... he is a father.

Ben may very well have thought, "What if this happened to me? If Jake was taken and I was led to believe he had been dead for years?"

More than anything, Sisko would likely understand Pad'ar's pain and he saw how happy he was that Rugal was alive. Given how strong and great a father Brooks portrayed Sisko being, it's actually pretty easy to see how this decision happened.

The fact Pad'ar made that comment to Sisko before the start of the hearing was foreshadowing of Sisko's decision. At least, I always felt that.


Regarding the comparison to Picard's decision in "Suddenly Human", he was never a father. Plus, both of Jono's parents were dead, as well as most of his family line. In many ways, it's the exact oppisite scenario as "CARDASSIANS". So I am not sure it's fair to compare the two, though it is very easy to do so.

 

I've actually thought about that too.
That would have been an excellent solution.

 

I don't know if that would have been the best decision from a Bajoran nationalist POV (because such a POV is most concerned with securing the independence and sovereignty of the Bajoran Republic against foreign powers), but, it would have made for an excellent set-up for future storytelling possibilities if Rugal had become a recurring character custody of whom was an ongoing issue of conflict between Bajor and Cardassia.

 

It really does sound like the kind of thing the writers would have done. I suppose if the audience had strongly responded to Rugal, they could have pulled a "oh, he didn't fit in on Cardassia so he is coming back to DS9." However, I felt like the characters were pretty dull, honestly.