Dukat said that the Cardassian Union had existed for 500 years, not that the military had been in control that long. He was probably just referring to the Cardassian people as a whole.
Sisko and Dukat talk about the Obsidian Order (Korinas is making things difficult).
Sisko: The Order has to answer to someone.
Dukat: In theory they answer to the political authority of the Detapa Counsil, just like the military does. In practice, w both run our own affairs.
Sisko: Not a very efficient system.
Dukat: It's worked for over five centuries.
Well, maybe I'm stupid an my English is really bad, but I still understand it as the system (Cardassian Guard and Obsidian Order) exists for 500 years, not just Cardassian Union (which probably is the same, if speaking of modern Union), so the Hebitian times were deep in past and the military plays important role for quite some time.
Maybe Madred is from a military fraction, which took power of Central Command recently (fraction, as a kind of political party), but the existance of three powers (Detapa, Guard, Obsidian Order) isn't new and definitelly isn't something that was established during Madred's life.
The Hebitians definitely belong to Cardassia's distant past , probably thousands of years earlier, but that has nothing to do with the issue of Cardassia's current political system.
Picard: I know that the burial vaults of the First Hebitian civilization
are said to be magnificent.
Madred: Apparently, when they were unearthed 200 years ago, they were. The vaults contained unimaginably beautiful artefacts made of jevonite, a rare, breathtaking stone. But most of those objects are gone.
Picard: What happened to them?
Madred: What happens to impoverished societies. The tombs were plundered, priceless treasures stolen. A few were preserved in museums, but even those were eventually sold to pay for our war efforts.
Picard: That war cost you hundreds of thousands of lives. It depleted your food supplies, left your population weakened and miserable,and yet you risk another war.
I presume he's talking about the earlier Cardassian-Federation war. But when were the artefacts sold to pay for war efforts? 40 years ago? 50 years ago? 100 years ago? "Eventually" can mean anything.
Madred: Most people become ill at the sight of live taspar. I remember the first time I ate a live taspar. I was six years old and living on the streets of Lakat. There was a band of children, four, five, six years old, some even smaller, desperately trying to survive. We were thin, scrawny little animals, constantly hungry, always cold. We slept in doorways, like packs of wild gettles, for warmth. Once, I found a nest. Taspars had built a nest in the eave of a burnt-out building
and I found three eggs in it. It was like finding treasure. I cracked one open on the spot and ate it, very much as you just did. I planned to save the other two. That would keep me alive for another week.But, of course, an older boy saw them and wanted them.
And he got them.
Madred: What do you know of Cardassian history?
Picard: I know that once, you were a peaceful people with a rich spiritual life.
Madred: What did peace and spirituality get us? Millions starved. Bodies went unburied. Disease was rampant. Suffering was unimaginable.
Picard:
Since the military took over, hundreds of thousands more have died.
Madred: But we are feeding the people. We acquired territory during the wars. We developed new resources. We initiated a rebuilding programme. We have mandated agricultural programmes.
That is what the military has done for Cardassia. And, because of that, my daughter will never worry about going hungry.
Picard: Her belly may be full, but her spirit will be empty.
"
The military" cannot refer to any kind of fraction in the Central Command; the military means what the word means, and the Central Command is the head of the military.
This dialogue in "Chain of Command" strongly suggests that Cardassia is a
military dictatorship and that it's a recent development that happened during Madred's lifetime.
I think that the concept of the political system in the Cardassian Union 'evolved' from TNG to DS9 S3... In any case, there was nothing about the Detapa Council or the Obsidian Order in TNG. I don't think that there was supposed to be any kind of civilian government in the Cardassian Union as envisioned in "Chain of Command". And in DS9, not only is there a civilian government that is officially equal to the military (even if it's in fact much weaker), but we learn that the Obsidian Order is at least as much if not even more powerful than the Central Command, which puts into question the statement that the military rules Cardassia.
Speaking of Klingons (and half-Klingons, as Belanna was mentioned) - K'Eylehr wasn't a stereotypical one, but she sure was glorious and honourable
Yes, she was awesome... but she had a rather skeptical attitude towards Klingon tradition, beliefs and culture, probably because she wasn't idealizing it like Worf, but saw the Klingons more realistically and was aware of how short many of them fall of their proclaimed ideals of 'honor'. She resented the idea of being a slave to Klingon traditions, which is why she and Worf clashed so much.
... and we've strayed far from the subject of the thread.
because he's so cool, has great lines, is relatively reasonable and loves Cardassia... oh, and because he's on our heroes' side... (which he may not have been if he hadn't ended up in exile for whatever reason...)
).
