Was Cardassia doomed all along?

[at Quark's]

From Broken Link, when Garak asks the female Founder if there were any Cardassian survivors after their attack on the Founders' homeland:

FOUNDER: There were no Cardassian survivors.
GARAK: You mean, they're all dead?
FOUNDER: They're dead. You're dead, Cardassia is dead. Your people were doomed the moment they attacked us. I believe that answers your question.
GARAK: It was a pleasure meeting you.

Yet later, Cardassia becomes a part of the Dominion, and they cooperate. However, when the Cardassian fleet finally switches to the other side, the same female founder gives this command:

FOUNDER: I want the Cardassians exterminated.
WEYOUN: Which ones?
FOUNDER: All of them. The entire population.
WEYOUN: That will take some time.
FOUNDER: Then I suggest that you begin at once.

So my question is: was this their plan all along? Sure, it was always clear that Cardassia was only a tool to them, but has it during all that time been their intention to dispose of the Cardassian people after they had served their purpose? Or is the female founder somewhat .... hot-tempered and impulsive?

 

[DonIago]

Personally I don't think the Founders ever forgot that the Cardassians tried to exterminate them. Use them and then lose them, and Dukat played right into their hands.

 

[Nyotarules]

The Founders play the long game, however she lied there were survivors in the prison camp where Bashir was held.

 

[DonIago]

The Founders play the long game, however she lied there were survivors in the prison camp where Bashir was held.

Given the rest of the quote, I don't think she lied at all. She was speaking in the future tense.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Dominion, by definition, never has any true allies. They care only about themselves, and no one else.

Any race foolish enough to throw in their lot with the Dominion will be discarded and exterminated once their usefulness is at an end. Cardassia is a perfect example of this.

So to answer the OP's question -- yes, Cardassia was doomed all along. They would have been doomed even if the attack on the Founder homeworld had never taken place. ALL races who attempt to ally with the Dominion are doomed.

(Indeed, were it not for Sisko's actions in "In The Pale Moonlight", Romulus would have been doomed as well...)

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't think the Dominion exterminate their allies. Instead they gradually shift them from allies to a subservient race in a way that by the time anyone notices it's too late. And despite what was said in Broken Link, I think had everything gone to plan they would not have exterminated Cardassia for the same reason they didn't land any troops on Bajor during the occupation arc. They need to put on the show of honoring their word. At least, until it's too late to do anything.

The Founders' core motivation isn't malice or hatred toward solids. Their core motivation is self protection, they've been abused by solids so much they feel deeply that if solids have the opportunity to hurt them they automatically will. If the Dominion wins the war, the AQ would be just like the GQ. As long as nobody defies the Founders or tries to rise to a technological level that threatens them, they get mostly left alone.

 

[MacLeod]

I don't think the Dominion exterminate their allies. Instead they gradually shift them from allies to a subservient race in a way that by the time anyone notices it's too late. And despite what was said in Broken Link, I think had everything gone to plan they would not have exterminated Cardassia for the same reason they didn't land any troops on Bajor during the occupation arc. They need to put on the show of honoring their word. At least, until it's too late to do anything.

Doesn't mean you don't want to thin the population so that they are unlikely to be in a position to rise up and rebel against you.

 

[Arpy]

Maybe the Founders would have let it go with time, if the Cardassians continued to be useful to them. Memories fade and new evaluations are conducted.

But her phrasing suggested they were initially being played in a long-term strategy ending in revolting genocide, so insecure and hateful being the Changelings.

People are not naive. Maybe the factions in the Union suspected this might happen and tried to forestall it as long as possible, whether fascists like Gul Rusot or progressives like Legate Ghemor.

I imagine whatever resistance other members of the Dominion put up before being dominated didn't include attempted-genocide of the Founders themselves, or they too would have had similar sentences cast against them as well.

I wonder if the original Vorta were actually formidable foes who the Founders decided had to either castrate or eliminate.

I wonder what the lifespan is of a Changeling. Maybe the reason they couldn't let things go with time, like some societies, is that they're all the original victims of the solids' aggression. If they're all a single entity ("the drop becomes the ocean") suffering from PTSD, that makes them slightly less awful.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Doesn't mean you don't want to thin the population so that they are unlikely to be in a position to rise up and rebel against you.

Yes, they would decide that on a planet to planet basis. Weyoun said explicitly they'd do it to Earth, and they probably would have done it to Kronos too. But there wouldn't be a single Dominion troop on Ferenginar or the planet from that blue guy from Allegiance. They'd probably have a changeling infiltrate each planet and then decide on a course of action based on whether in that changeling's opinion, they would pose any resistance.

 

[Tosk]

I wonder what the lifespan is of a Changeling. Maybe the reason they couldn't let things go with time, like some societies, is that they're all the original victims of the solids' aggression. If they're all a single entity ("the drop becomes the ocean") suffering from PTSD, that makes them slightly less awful.

They're definitely long-lived (The Founders didn't expect to see Baby Odo again for at least 300 years), but I'd say even if they aren't actually immortal then the memories and experiences of the original Changelings would still live on in the link, making any current Changelings still feel as strongly about it as if they were literally there.

 

[kkt]

Romulus is probably doomed too. It's on the Founders' to-do list.

 

[DonIago]

Besides self-protection the Founders mostly seem interested in imposing order.

There's little evidence that they "tampered" with the Karemma, because there doesn't seem to have been any need for them to do so.

The Cardassians pushed exactly the wrong buttons and were consequently marked for death.

While humanity hadn't shown itself to have genocidal intentions, it had proved to be a potential threat, and consequently would have had that ability stripped away.

Basically, if you don't threaten the Founders and don't seem to be a disruptive presence in general (Klingons), the Founders likely don't take strong measures toward you.

 

[at Quark's]

I wonder if the original Vorta were actually formidable foes who the Founders decided had to either castrate or eliminate.

The Vorta tell Sisko they were 'uplifted' from an ape-like species to what they are today out of gratitude because a single Founder was sheltered by one of them. Whether that is true, or the Vorta even believe it themselves, is anyone's guess, of course. But, as Odo remarks " If the story were true, it would at least prove that my people are capable of generosity and kindness. " I'd say that Odo proves that his species must be capable of it, even though such moments are rare for Odo.

Personally, I have the feeling that the Founders don't go out of their way to exterminate you unless you have been a particular threat to them in the past or keep resisting. The Karemma, though subjugated, seemed to do fine (though we don't know if they might have been thinned out). The Dosi as well. Both seem to be merchant races. Tosk and his hunters might be part of the Dominion (we don't know that), or perhaps even many other GQ species we met that never referenced them (e.g. the Wadi).

Earth would be marked for extinction because Weyoun felt that if after their victory, there would ever be a rebellion, it would start there, and presumably because they were the leaders of the Federation. Cardassia because of the betrayal (and perhaps because of that attack earlier). Slow genocide on the species in the Teplan System (infected with the quickening disease) was committed because they 'believed they could defy the Dominion'.

Though they certainly won't shy away from doing something that might exterminate you as a side effect. In By Inferno's light they try to blow up the Bajoran sun, presumably with the primary intention of wiping out the fleet and the station -- and all life on Bajor, a planet with a population that never was a particular threat to them. But they probably considered that 'collateral damage'.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

It was the scorpion and the frog: whatever their intentions were, the Founders' suspicion of all "solids" would dominate their relationship to the Cardassians.

 

[Nyotarules]

They're definitely long-lived (The Founders didn't expect to see Baby Odo again for at least 300 years), but I'd say even if they aren't actually immortal then the memories and experiences of the original Changelings would still live on in the link, making any current Changelings still feel as strongly about it as if they were literally there.

Which made them extremely xenophobic and dangerous. The concept of forgiveness is not in their vocabulary.

 

[Tosk]

The concept of forgiveness is not in their vocabulary.

They forgave Odo.

 

[Kronos]

They forgave Odo.

Easy to forgive one of their own, besides they needed him to not all be killed off.

 

[Tosk]

Easy to forgive one of their own, besides they needed him to not all be killed off.

They forgave him long before that.

 

[Nyotarules]

They forgave him long before that.

All they cared about was the link and Odo was one of their own. Even humans will forgive their family members things, that if a stranger did they would want them hung, drawn and quartered.

 

[Paradise City]

I think the founders just hated all solids and thought they were all the same -- untrustworthy and needed to be tightly controlled. So I don't think they had a conspicuous grudge against the Cardassians that they didn't have with the other solids. The Cardassians just happened to be the guys at hand that most confirmed their prejudices about solids.

What we see with the Karemma is probably the template as to how a Dominion controlled AQ would proceed. You can muck about on the surface as you will but if you deviate even slightly from Dominion edicts on an interstellar basis, they "send in the Jem hadar". Incorrigible species like the Klingons would probably be killed off.