Work Text:
To: T’Paran of Vulcan, Vulcan Music Academy, ShiKahr, T’Khasi
From: Ekor Laset, Cardassia City, Cardassia Prime
Cardassia City, Stardate 67257.53
My dear T’Paran,
It has been very long since we have last spoken, and much has happened in the interim -- so much that I have not nearly been in touch as much as I would have preferred. I’ve learned that you have retired from conducting, and are heading the Vulcan Music Academy, and that is what spurred me into finally writing you. Let me offer you my sincere congratulations for such a great honour; I know how much the Academy means to you and to Vulcan as a whole, and, if I’m permitted, I feel great pride that I was allowed to contribute to your work while I was apprenticed to you on Vulcan all those years ago.
I have tried to keep up with your work over the years. It has not always been easy, as you will have surmised.
I have lost much.
When Dukat formed our fateful alliance with the Dominion almost fifteen years ago, and disbanded the Cardassian State Orchestra only a few weeks later, I still remember my disbelief and shock. I thought, ‘this cannot be happening’. I had never felt such loss of purpose, and at times I wondered whether it was driving me quite literally mad -- you know how important it is for us to serve our State, to be useful , and has always been; you also know we do not handle change very well. I remember thinking, ‘surely, this must be the end of it. Surely, I cannot endure much more’.
It wasn’t, and I had to. We all did.
It is easy to say, as an outsider, that what we suffered was only commensurate to what we inflicted. It is not so easy, as a member of our species, to agree. It is hardest, for me, to accept that I do.
When they razed Lakarian, I lost my home, and all of my material possessions. I lost what was left of my livelihood. There were priceless old instruments in my collection, and manuscripts of our most esteemed composers, as well as my own works… And yet, even though I did not feel it at the time, I was one of the lucky ones. I was lucky I was off-world -- I had been ever since the Orchestra was dissolved -- but, by then, I had no prospect of returning to Cardassia anytime soon.
When news of the massacres began to come in, I knew just how lucky I was, but there was one horrible thought that persisted: what had I done to deserve to be alive? I was, and am, no better or worse than most of those slaughtered.
It was around that time that I had made the acquaintance of one I came to cherish above almost all else.
My dear T’Paran, I am bonded now. He is wonderful; we are wonderful together, and he is to me as I used to be to you -- only more so. When I agreed to your guidance, we knew our arrangement would only be temporary, and effective only within certain constraints. My Bonded, however, chose complete submission.
We fell desperately, dangerously in love. He bound his life to my name, with all legal consequences for both of us. He became Jedalik , consenting property, as one would describe it.
It was an illogical choice, but the best one I could have made. He is invaluable, and without his support, I may perhaps have survived the time that was to come, but I would have lost much of myself in the process.
Five years ago, we finally moved out of the tiny apartment that was assigned to us by the Federation relief effort to Cardassia, after the Fire. You will ask, why would we live there, if we could have chosen to continue living in relative comfort on one of the colonies, or even in Federation space. But understand, after the devastation of the War, all we wanted was to return home .
Today, It’s not the home that we used to know, and I think that fact has been especially hard on my bondmate. He used to be involved rather deeply in the old system, and he has had an even harder time adjusting. Sometimes, I catch him just staring into the distance, and I know his mind is caught inside.
I play the Ka’athyra for him as often as my schedules allow. You may be satisfied to know I have kept playing the very instrument you gifted me at the end of my apprenticeship -- it was with me all the time and the only of my instruments to survive the Dominion assault on Cardassia.
I even dare to believe, sometimes, that my music helps a little with my husband’s withdrawals.
None of us have come out of the Dominion War unscathed, and although I hear from our Terran acquaintances and friends that ‘time heals all wounds’, the nature of Cardassian memories makes that uniquely difficult.
When we suffer adverse experiences, we do not have the luxury of forgetting, nor, I’m afraid, of suppression. All our memories are always there, and whatever happens to us, no matter how shocking, must be integrated into them, or it will drive us quite literally mad.
To process the huge amount of memories always coursing through them, our minds are organised in patterns. A new experience will find its slot in the structure due to pattern similarity, and the mind in question will be enriched in a natural evolution of its overall structure. But when an experience is traumatic or extreme, there will simply be no similar patterns, and integration into the functioning mind becomes a difficult and dangerous affair. By nature, we all seek to associate and categorise, and the danger of that is that the trauma will contaminate existing structures by that very association. Or, if integration fails altogether, a second conscious mind can develop based solely on those experiences the natural mind could not process.
I know by now you will have deduced why I know so much about a subject that is quite far removed from my field of expertise. The fact of the matter is, there is nobody left on Cardassia who does not know these details. They have become commonplace.
In the first years, we had to count terrible numbers of suicides and split minds.
I have been through integration myself, and it cost me all the discipline my mind is capable of.
But I have not written you to lament, nor to (solely) inform you how unbearable life on Cardassia was in those years.
Sometimes, I believe my husband could benefit from an extended stay on Vulcan. He would definitely enjoy the climate, although the gravity is hard on our systems at first. I know he would never admit such, but he misses the company of non-Cardassians. Even before we were forced to stay off Cardassia, he has always had that opportunity, and he relished it more than he cares to admit.
Perhaps, in a few years’ time or less, if we are lucky, our circumstances might afford us the chance to travel together.
For now, we are quite happily breaking in our new apartment. It is situated on the top floor of one of the new civil housing estates in the heart of our re-emerging Cardassia City. Due to my own recent success as a conductor and performer, and the work I have done to salvage and revive our musical tradition, as well as the aid we were able to give our homeworld, we were given the privilege to move into this rather spacious place.
My Bonded has a great eye for aesthetics, and a talent for decorating; I must admit I have become a little lazy and am leaving those questions in his capable hands.
My dear T’Paran, perhaps you have heard the story of “Cardassia’s Example”, as it is told by some: that we have become a Democracy, and that we have espoused Federation values.
It is only partly true. The part that is true is that we have indeed embraced, reluctantly, a form of State with electoral powers given to citizens.
Why reluctantly? We still believe in the ultimate authority of the State. We still believe that every citizen -- every subject -- has their place in the mosaic that is Cardassian society, and that to stray from that is to invite chaos. We still believe that our purpose and duty is to serve our State. Quick change and uncertainty, by our very nature, are still abhorrent to us -- and uncertainty is inherent to a democratic system. It is one of the reasons we have never before been a democracy, and are still reluctant to call ourselves one.
As you can imagine, this last factor is even more important now, with shock and trauma still very much affecting our minds.
All that being said, today, three years after the Proclamation of the Cardassian State after the Dominion War, we believe we have arrived at a workable solution. It leaves us all slightly uneasy, but I personally believe this residual discomfort is worth the benefits that are slowly beginning to show themselves.
Our approach is very largely based on indirection. We would never hold general elections the way most Federation worlds do: grand events in which a government is elected by the populace either directly, or through some form of directly elected parliament.
That would result only in chaos or stagnation. You will have to take my word for it, for now.
Instead, we broke down our whole system into cells that are comprised of only two dozen elected representatives whose primary purpose is to govern their immediate districts and advocate that district’s interests in the next higher level of government hierarchy. Districts are kept small as well, so that we know who the people in our districts are, and can predict much of the outcome of our district elections… I have only cast my vote a few weeks ago. I have to admit, the first couple of times it felt like I was doing something illicit .
But we have all gotten used to it now, more or less. Some of us have held onto our election day kanars, the way one would take a drink for courage. It has become something of a new tradition...
The government cells themselves elect a chairperson, who then participates in the next higher tier of government, representing the district in question. These councils of chairpeople again elect a representative, and so on -- up to the State Council that governs the whole of Cardassia…
We have six hierarchic tiers of government in total, each with their own councils, and a very complex system of how to scale and rebalance the whole apparatus according to the distribution and mass of populations and power, in order to prevent a catastrophic system failure.
I believe you would appreciate the aesthetic beauty of our government body from a purely mathematical point of view.
Within the cells, cooperation is imperative to ensure government demands are met with due alacrity. We use a significant portion of our bureaucratic body to organise the observation of certain criteria that indicate the effectiveness of cooperation within a cell.
The observers make sure that the governing bodies function according to laws prohibiting a large number of behaviours that include: refusal to compromise, failure to advocate one’s campaign, lobbying, and accepting financial help, among other things.
Observers report their findings to the courts, and since all trials are public by tradition -- we have not changed that much -- to the public. There is an intricate system in place to appoint suitable observers, and we have opened a school dedicated to teaching the necessary skills to those among our young who show promise.
The last I have heard, ‘observer’ is among the top five most aspired to professions among our youth -- perhaps understandably, as they are those who grew up in the immediate aftermath of our devastation, and will have to live with its effects long after our generation has gone.
Our courts have changed as well -- oh, I know how much you objected to our justice system, my dear T’Paran, and I have always delighted in our debates, even if it meant I had to concede a number of points in the face of your unflappable logic.
No, we still do not assume innocence, and given recent history, I believe we are right in doing so. I can all but hear your measured voice objecting to this as I write these lines, and I hope very much that we will spend many more hours arguing the merits of collective guilt versus individual innocence.
Ultimately however, people must still know that the State is looking out for its own integrity and its subjects, and there is no better way of doing that than to deal with its criminal elements.
So while we do not assume it, a defendant is given the chance to prove his or her innocence. The first acquittals in Cardassian history were a downright spectacle, as you can probably imagine, but were accepted relatively easily: after all, it is easily understood that the flipside of punishing crime is to protect the innocent.
And of course, there are new laws in place; I’ve already mentioned those regulating our government body. Additionally there are those laws that protect our State’s resources, financial and otherwise.
My husband used to joke about tax evasion hardly being a crime worthy of execution -- and indeed, it is not, but it is considered a serious crime, punishable by expropriation in the most severe cases.
This war, and especially its aftermath, has driven us closer together, and paying taxes is considered a matter of pride by most, proof of our determination and devotion to this new Cardassian State, wounded as it still remains… but slowly healing.
As you know of course, we were stripped of all military power except for defense -- a harsh but, all things considered, a fitting punishment. But due to this, the parts of our territories that were under Federation administration have mostly become independent, as we can no longer offer them military protection. A few have remained. I hesitate to call what is left the Cardassian Union, and it certainly is no empire...
We have opened trade talks with some of the newly independent worlds, but if there is ever going to be a Cardassian Union again, it will look vastly different.
And then there is the matter of the Romulan territories. My dear, it pains me more than I can express, to see that even on Cardassia Prime there remain areas that are completely isolated from the rest. News is slow and unreliable due to the deplorable state of our intelligence service, but what we do hear is most disquieting.
The Federation, and the Klingons are continuing to aid us in the negotiations for those seized lands -- I am sure they have their own reasons to try and keep the Romulans in check -- but progress is slow, and meanwhile, we know only very little.
Most surprisingly, our strongest advocate in this matter has been the Bajoran delegation in the Federation Commission for Cardassian Affairs. They have joined the Federation over a decade ago, and have full protection -- from Cardassia, which is certainly no threat, but more importantly, from Romulus. They have little to gain by helping us.
I will never understand the Bajorans, but I, like so many others, am profoundly grateful for their involvement.
The Humans coined the term “humanitarian disaster”, which has had residence in our language for almost fifteen years now. Yes, it’s true: “humanitarian” is an official Kardasi word, and its first foreign loan. It is perhaps telling that Kardasi has none of its own for this concept.
Bleak as all that sounds -- and we will only learn the extent of it when (and if) we gain access to the Romulan territories -- we are slowly healing.
After the first years of touring the quadrant as a guest conductor and campaigning for Cardassia with those means I had at my disposal, I have finally taken up permanent residence in the Capital. Once more, I am directing the Cardassian State Orchestra -- equal to the old one only in name, I am afraid.
So many have been lost, and our new musicians are dedicated, but they lack the rigorous training and education that we benefited from. The work is rewarding, however, and the orchestra is improving by the month. Soon, we will be able to inaugurate the first Concert Hall to be built on Prime after the War. I am also deeply involved with the restoration of the Conservatoire -- who knows, perhaps in another decade, we might be colleagues once more.
But for now, I love conducting too much to give it up yet, and since Cardassia has never produced many musicians in the first place, there will be need for my services as conductor in chief for a long, long time still.
My Bonded has been patient -- for the most part -- and forgives me for being so busy. I adore him utterly, and I like to pamper him with things he likes; he has become quite fond of his little luxuries, but never negligent or entitled in his service to me.
Perhaps you have read the reviews of my work; I attach some examples to this letter for your perusal -- critically acclaimed, I believe the term is in Standard. I can only say this: your tutelage has had a great impact on my ability to use my experiences, and indeed my emotions, to shape the music and show the potential inherent in its notated form. I owe a great deal to those two years and to you, and remain ever
Your devoted servant
Ekor Laset