In "In the Pale Moonlight", Garak told Sisko that he reached out to his contacts on Cardassia, but that they were all dead within one hour of speaking with him. Did Garak ever actually reach out to his contacts on Cardassia?
"In the Pale Moonlight" - Did Garak ever reach out to his contacts on Cardassia?
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It's possible.
Garak was "persona non grata" on Cardassia, especially after Dukat became leader so it is possible that he contacted them, the Cardassian successors of the Obsidian Order found out about it and therefore terminated his contacts.
But it could also be one of Garak's many lies.
Which are especially true.But it could also be one of Garak's many lies.
That is such a great line.
This is a very good point I hadn't considered before. Yes, it's quite possible that Garak thought the way they actually handled the deception was the best or only way that would lead to success, so he never contacted his remaining contacts on Cardassia.
Move over, Borg, trying to make sense of Garak is true futility.
He reached out to all of his contacts on Cardassia. He never said anything about his contacts off Cardassia. Thus making what he said technically true. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
...just the ones he wanted killed.
Garak isn't one to waste an opportunity to make the Dominion suspicious of his enemies.
Yes, he did. We are meant to take this at face value. Don't invent unnecessary clutter in the story, there's no reason (even Garak's history of bending the truth) to doubt him in this instance. The writers intention is that he's telling the truth, it's not a story point, it's not something brought up later and revealed as a surprise...accept it and move on.
I mean, he mentions in the following season about reaching out to contacts on Cardassia, which implies that SOME of them were still alive afterwards, meaning that the Dominion didn't kill ALL of his contacts. So right there, we have proof of his lying about ALL of his sources being dead after speaking with him.
Garak says right off, Sisko's initial plan, of simply obtaining evidence of the Dominion turning on the Romulans, is risky. And, from Garak's perspective, we don't even know if that evidence was there - sure, it's very likely that the Dominion was making contingencies, and especially would have been doing that before the non-aggression pact was signed, so there would have been something, if not a recent something, but Garak had to know that, even if his contacts hadn't ended up dead, getting to that information, getting out of the Dominion base with it, and then getting that out of Cardassian space... The chances of pulling that off were functionally nil in the first place.
I would be willing to believe that he reached out to SOME contacts. I am skeptical that he would have reached out to all of them, certainly not right off, not without some kind of grounded in reality belief that pulling off this idea was even a remote possibility. His contacts dying because of that contact... I could go either way on. Certainly, Garak would be willing to sacrifice them in the name of accomplishing this. But... Honestly, the real question is how many of those contacts ACTUALLY died as a result of him reaching out to them? Because I fully believe that Garak would reach out to ascertain the viability of such a plan, then, upon being told "yeah, there's no chance of pulling that off," simply building up the idea of creating the fake instead - why risk his contacts' lives on a one percent (if that) chance of pulling this off, when instead, he could keep his contacts alive for future intelligence and start looking in to an alternative with more viability? And, of course, you always get a little further in selling your deception by claiming that lives were lost in the process.
Garak says right off, Sisko's initial plan, of simply obtaining evidence of the Dominion turning on the Romulans, is risky. And, from Garak's perspective, we don't even know if that evidence was there - sure, it's very likely that the Dominion was making contingencies, and especially would have been doing that before the non-aggression pact was signed, so there would have been something, if not a recent something, but Garak had to know that, even if his contacts hadn't ended up dead, getting to that information, getting out of the Dominion base with it, and then getting that out of Cardassian space... The chances of pulling that off were functionally nil in the first place.
I would be willing to believe that he reached out to SOME contacts. I am skeptical that he would have reached out to all of them, certainly not right off, not without some kind of grounded in reality belief that pulling off this idea was even a remote possibility. His contacts dying because of that contact... I could go either way on. Certainly, Garak would be willing to sacrifice them in the name of accomplishing this. But... Honestly, the real question is how many of those contacts ACTUALLY died as a result of him reaching out to them? Because I fully believe that Garak would reach out to ascertain the viability of such a plan, then, upon being told "yeah, there's no chance of pulling that off," simply building up the idea of creating the fake instead - why risk his contacts' lives on a one percent (if that) chance of pulling this off, when instead, he could keep his contacts alive for future intelligence and start looking in to an alternative with more viability? And, of course, you always get a little further in selling your deception by claiming that lives were lost in the process.
In-universe that makes sense, but there are also two possibilities:
1. the writers simply forgot their own wording and couldn't be bothered to look it up.
2. It was one (or perhaps more?) deliberately hidden line that shows a super attentive fan, Garak lies and gets away with it.
1. the writers simply forgot their own wording and couldn't be bothered to look it up.
2. It was one (or perhaps more?) deliberately hidden line that shows a super attentive fan, Garak lies and gets away with it.
