Damar

Legate Damar was a male Cardassian military officer in the 24th century Cardassian Union. He served under Dukat and succeeded him as Cardassia's ruler while it was under Dominion control. He eventually became disenchanted with sacrificing the lives of millions of Cardassians for the Dominion war and rose up and led the Cardassian Rebellion against the Dominion. He had a family including a wife and children who were killed by the Dominion as punishment for his actions.

Career[]

Dukat's right hand[]

In 2372, Glinn Damar was a relatively unremarkable officer serving under Gul Dukat aboard the freighter Groumall, after Dukat was demoted for rescuing his illegitimate half-Bajoran daughter Tora Ziyal from Dozaria. He and the rest of the Groumall crew were transported aboard a Klingon Bird-of-Prey commandeered by Dukat and Kira Nerys. Damar, who saw Dukat as a sort of mentor, joined him as they fought a one-ship war against the Klingons for more than a year. However, unlike his mentor, Damar was a by-the-book soldier, who had little talent for intrigue or subtlety. An ardent Cardassian nationalist, Damar harbored a deep dislike for the Bajorans. (DS9: "Return to Grace", "Apocalypse Rising")

Damar continued to serve as Dukat's adjutant as Dukat negotiated the entry of the Cardassian Union into the Dominion in 2373, a move Damar supported as he expected it would restore Cardassia to its rightful place as a major power. He participated in the assault force that captured the Federation Starbase Deep Space 9 (renamed Terok Nor) at the end of that year, though he was disappointed that the Dominion's nonaggression pact with Bajor prevented them from going on to reclaim the planet. Always distrustful of the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion in general, Damar submitted a secret memorandum to Dukat suggesting that they poison the last stocks of ketracel-white if new supplies could not be secured. Somehow this memorandum was "lost" and subsequently found by the Jem'Hadar, inciting a fight in Quark's. (DS9: "Call to Arms", "Behind the Lines")

A few days later, Damar regained Dukat's favor and was promoted to the rank of Gul for developing a way to neutralize the self-replicating mines blockading the Bajoran wormhole using the station's deflector. However, he inadvertently disclosed this fact to station resistance elements during a moment of drunken camaraderie with Quark. Shortly after, he substituted for Odo in station security after the arrival of the Female Changeling on the station, and was responsible for arresting Rom for attempting to sabotage the station's deflector. Damar continued to update Quark on the status of their efforts to deactivate the minefield. This information eventually reached Starfleet, where it hastened their launch of Operation Return. (DS9: "Favor the Bold")

As a Federation fleet prepared to move against the station, Dukat ordered Damar to convince Ziyal to speak with him after the two had an argument. Damar's effort ended badly, since he already resented Ziyal for Dukat's continued concern for her in spite of her defiant attitude. When the Dominion reinforcements disappeared inside the wormhole and the station was in danger of being retaken by Starfleet and Klingon forces, Damar killed Ziyal after learning she had aided the station resistance in sabotaging Terok Nor's weapons array. However, this had the opposite effect than what he had hoped, since Dukat refused to leave his daughter's body. Damar ended up fleeing the station with the rest of the Dominion forces without Dukat. (DS9: "Sacrifice of Angels") It was later revealed that Damar was consumed with guilt over his murder of Ziyal and had trouble sleeping because of it. (DS9: "Statistical Probabilities")

Leader of Cardassia[]

Following Dukat's nervous breakdown and subsequent capture by the Federation, Damar became the leader of the Cardassian Union. However, whereas Dukat was able to assert himself on an equal standing with Weyoun, Damar possessed neither Dukat's force of character nor his military genius. As a result, in the aftermath of their recent defeat, Damar became little more than a figurehead and the Cardassian Union reduced to a Dominion puppet regime. Shortly after Operation Return, Weyoun compelled Damar to call for peace talks with the Federation. The talks were a ploy to gain possession to the Kabrel system, needed for their war efforts, but despite realizing this fact, the Federation chose to agree to their proposal in order to gain a respite. (DS9: "Statistical Probabilities")

Although never proven, Damar was suspected to have orchestrated the transporter accident that killed the fifth Weyoun; Damar was meant to have been on the transporter platform too, but was "called away" at the last moment. He also designed the orbital weapons platforms that proved instrumental in inflicting heavy losses on Federation forces during the First Battle of Chin'toka, though the platforms were ultimately neutralized by the quick thinking of Elim Garak and Miles O'Brien, the subsequent defeat undermining Damar's standing in the Dominion's eyes. (DS9: "Treachery, Faith and the Great River", "Tears of the Prophets")

Even though he was promoted to Legate, Damar's authority diminished further as the war dragged on into a stalemate and he found Weyoun increasingly blaming him and the Cardassians for their failure to achieve victory. Damar found himself powerless as the Cardassians gradually became a subjugated people on their own land, and he began turning to kanar and dalliances with women as a way of forgetting his troubles. Damar was visited by Dukat unexpectedly in late 2375. Damar arranged for Dukat to be surgically altered into a Bajoran, though he was unaware of Dukat's plans. Before he left, Dukat reminded Damar that the man who had boldly fought the Klingons by his side was still there, and urged Damar to become that man again. (DS9: "'Til Death Do Us Part")

Rebellion against the Dominion[]

A few days later, Damar's situation worsened when he was forced to sign the Dominion's new alliance with the Breen Confederacy, which promised unspecified Cardassian Union territorial concessions to the Breen, Weyoun dismissing Damar's complaints that he hadn't even been consulted on the treaty negotiations. He also grew increasingly infuriated by the Dominion's dismissive attitude towards the Cardassian military's mounting losses (over seven million casualties), and was further humiliated when Weyoun both reduced Damar to a subordinate under the Breen general Thot Gor and gave Gor unrestricted access to classified Cardassian military databases over Damar's protests. (DS9: Strange Bedfellows)

The final straw for Damar came when he learned that Weyoun had deliberately withheld reinforcements from the embattled Eleventh Order's defence of Septimus III, effectively abandoning the 500,000 strong garrison to be massacred when the invading Klingons overwhelmed them. When a furious Damar confronted Weyoun, the Vorta justified his decision as having secured a tactical victory by forcing the Klingons to commit valuable military resources to conquer a planet the Dominion deemed strategically worthless, and both callously dismissed the Eleventh Order's destruction by insisting the Cardassians should have felt privileged to give their lives in service to the Founders, and made it clear the Founders expected the Cardassian military to make further such sacrifices if necessary to attain victory for the Dominion. Damar's hatred of the Dominion, his guilt at helping maintain the Dominion's stranglehold on Cardassia, and his self-disgust at having descended into alcoholism to cope finally reached a boiling point, pushing him to take action. He helped the imprisoned Worf and Ezri Dax escape Cardassia Prime, in return for them passing on a message to the Federation that he would help undermine the Dominion, and began planning a rebellion with his long-time friend Gul Rusot. (DS9: "'Til Death Do Us Part", "Strange Bedfellows")

With Rusot and a few trusted military commanders, Damar planned a surprise assault on the Dominion cloning facility on Rondac III (Weyoun would later speculate Damar specifically targeted the facility to prevent any further Weyoun clones from being created). Disguising his intentions from Weyoun by feigning a renewed sense of belief in the Dominion's victory, Damar made his move shortly after the allied forces' defeat at the Second Battle of Chin'toka, combining the attack on Rondac III with a quadrant-wide broadcast in which he denounced the Dominion's effective annexation of the Cardassian Union, and declaring his objective to free the Cardassian people from the Dominion, whom he extolled to rise up against the Dominion. After the attack, Damar went into hiding at one of his rebel bases, aware the Dominion would retaliate in force for his actions. He was replaced on Cardassia by Legate Broca. Recognizing that he and his former enemies now had a common cause, Damar requested aid from the Federation; the Federation, recognizing Damar's insurrection had thwarted a potential Dominion counter-offensive and bought them precious time in the wake of Chin'toka, and eager to both keep the Dominion's military divided on multiple fronts and gain more time to develop a countermeasure to the energy weapons the Dominion's Breen allies deployed to deadly effect at Chin'toka, despatched Kira Nerys, Odo, and Elim Garak to help strengthen Damar's movement. Despite his and many of his troops' misgivings about working with a former member of the Bajoran Resistance, Damar recognized the value of Kira's knowledge of organizing resistance cells and followed her advice the best he could, as well as being forced to confront the Cardassian people's dark past with the Bajorans. Eventually, this caused him to kill Rusot, who could not come to terms with Kira's race and nationality and that she was put in charge. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil", "When It Rains...", "Tacking Into the Wind")

Unfortunately, despite some early successes, Damar's rebellion quickly received a nearly fatal blow by the Dominion after Gul Revok, who'd offered support to the rebellion, proved to be a Dominion collaborator luring them into a trap. Damar, Kira, and Garak became trapped on Cardassia Prime while the rest of the organized resistance was wiped out. Taking shelter inside Garak's childhood home, they realized that Damar had risen to legendary status amongst the downtrodden Cardassian population. This allowed them to spark a planet-wide popular uprising by making Damar into the "hero" who the Dominion had failed to kill. The Dominion responded to the insurrection by annihilating Lakarian City, which only served to add even more fuel to the rebellion. The extermination of the citizens of Lakarian City was the last straw: it turned the Cardassian military against the Dominion and caused the Cardassian fleet to defect during the Battle of Cardassia.

In the last days of the war, Damar was killed while leading an assault on Dominion Headquarters. Damar's last orders were to keep fighting, but he died mid-sentence. His death made him a martyr for the cause of Cardassian liberation, and both Garak and Kira honored his final order by taking Dominion Headquarters, killing Weyoun 8 and apprehending the Female Changeling. (DS9: "The Dogs of War", "What You Leave Behind")

Family[]

Damar had a wife and a son. Though he was known to entertain at least one mistress after becoming the head of the Cardassian government, he nevertheless cared about both of them deeply. He sent his family into hiding as he began his rebellion, but the Female Changeling ordered them found and executed. This heinous act further fueled Damar's anger towards the Dominion. (DS9: "Penumbra", "Tacking Into the Wind")

Holograms[]

Damar was holographically duplicated at least twice:

• A group of genetically-engineered Humans used a holographic recording of Damar to help uncover a move by the Dominion to acquire a strategic planet that would have allowed them to produce ketracel-white.(DS9: "Statistical Probabilities")
• Grathon Tolar's hologram of Damar was included in a holoprogram he made for Benjamin Sisko and Starfleet. In the recording, Damar and two legates listened as Weyoun explained that the Founders had decided to launch the invasion of the Romulan Star Empire ahead of schedule. Weyoun later went into more detail, describing an attack on the Glintara sector by the 23rd Jem'Hadar Division and the Cardassian Fourth Order, that would enable them to begin an attack on Romulus the next day. With the fall of Romulus, Romulan resistance was expected to crumble, and the empire would be under total Dominion control within three months. (DS9: "In the Pale Moonlight")

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

Background information[]

According to the script for "Apocalypse Rising", Damar's name was pronounced as "dah-MAR". [1]

Damar was played by Casey Biggs. The part was written in "Return to Grace" as deceptively simple. "When I went to read for the role," Biggs recalled, "I thought to myself, 'What's the big deal? They could have gotten one of the extras to play this part.'" Much to the delight of "Return to Grace" Director Jonathan West, Biggs accepted the role despite it seeming minimalist. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, pp. 308 & 309)

Jonathan West made Casey Biggs aware that Damar would have more to do in the future. "I guess the writers had this whole arc planned in their heads," reckoned Biggs, "because the first day of the shoot, Jonathan West came up to me and said, 'I don't want you to get nervous or anything, but they have big plans for this character.' I said, 'Why did you have to tell me this right now – just before my first shot, my first day in all this makeup!'" (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, pp. 308-309)

Through West's directing of "Return to Grace", he proceeded to reaffirm the importance of the Damar character. "I gave him close-ups," said West, "and took the time to get reactions from him, almost as if, from the audience's point of view, he was registering the value judgments on what was going on." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. 309)

Damar was seen in a deleted scene from "Sons and Daughters". Kira calls Damar: "a self-righteous sycophant who despises everything Bajoran," and notes that Damar sneers whenever he says her people's name. Dukat denies, but when Damar walks in, giving a report and sneering whenever Bajorans are mentioned, Kira can't help but laugh. Damar glares at Kira, but continues his report and leaves. Dukat then imitates Damar, causing Dukat and Kira to laugh together. The script for this episode, including the deleted scene, can be reviewed here. The scene also appears in the novelization of this episode. Casey Biggs commented: "There was a scene originally in one of the scripts in which Kira tells Gul Dukat, 'Damar hates me, he hates Bajorans. Every time he says "Bajoran" he sneers'. So I had to figure out how I was going to do this in order for it to look somewhat real. I decided to give it my best Jack Nicholson impression of a Cardassian. I continued to play that for the next two or three episodes. What I didn't know was that because of time they ended up cutting out that whole scene between Dukat and Kira. Here I was playing out this nice little character piece for the show and no one knew what I was doing." ("Damar's Attacks!, TV Zone special #34, p. 27)

After completing work on DS9 Season 6, Weyoun actor Jeffrey Combs theorized, "I suspect that at some point Damar will be enamored by Dukat's return." Combs went to speculate that, together with Dukat, Damar would turn against Weyoun. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 69) Indeed, Dukat and Damar's final conversation may have sown the seeds that led to Damar forming a rebellion against the Dominion.

In the first draft script of DS9: "When It Rains...", Damar's father was referred to as having been tending to his flowers when a Bajoran Resistance bomb had exploded, killing him. After Damar told her this, Kira Nerys countered, "His flowers were planted on land that didn't belong to him".

Tom Bergeron once joked that his character D'Marr was connected to Damar "through an interspecies marriage or something." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 145, p. 39)

Apocrypha[]

In Andrew Robinson's novel A Stitch in Time, Damar's first name is given as "Corat". The same novel mentions that Damar was buried in the capital city of Cardassia, in the Tarlak sector of the city. The name is also used in the Star Trek: Terok Nor novel miniseries.

It was revealed in the Star Trek: Terok Nor novel Night of the Wolves that Damar was assigned to Terok Nor as a third tier gil, the lowest commissioned rank in the Cardassian military, shortly after the station became operational in 2346. Almost immediately after his arrival, Dukat made him his assistant. At the time, he was engaged to Veja Ketan, a member of the Cardassian Information Service and a close friend of Natima Lang. However, Damar left her in 2348 after Veja suffered an accident which rendered her unable to conceive children. Shortly afterwards, he was reassigned to the Federation-Cardassian border. Thrax Sa'kat succeeded him as Dukat's assistant before being appointed chief of security in 2353.

In the alternate future seen in the Deep Space Nine book trilogy Millennium, Damar was killed when a Grigari fleet commanded by Kai Weyoun bombarded Cardassia Prime.

His mirror universe counterpart (β) is depicted as a prominent legate in the Cardassian Guard who was serving as the Cardassian Central Command's observer to the Klingon High Council in 2372 in the short story "Family Matters" pointed in the anthology Shards and Shadows. He eventually ascends to the position of Supreme Legate of the Central Command after killing Dukat in 2377, as depicted in Rise Like Lions.

In the video game Star Trek: Armada, a Cardassian starship class is named after Damar, perhaps as a mark of respect for his service to the Cardassian people. A different Cardassian starship class, also named for Damar, was made available for player characters in the "Victory is Life" expansion of Star Trek Online; one such vessel serves as Garak's flagship. The Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel Brinkmanship mentions a starship called the Legate Damar.

Damar appears in the video game Star Trek: Conquest as the captain of a playable ship.

External links[]

• Corat Damar at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Damar at Wikipedia