Damar was a Cardassian, a race of aliens known for their brutality and uncaring demeanor. He was also second to Gul Dukat, the head of the Cardassian Union and all-around pain in the Federation’s backside, acting as the on and off main antagonist throughout the series. Damar served alongside Dukat for years, earning his place beside the commander when the Cardassians formed their alliance with the Dominion during the aptly-named Dominion war. He was reliable and loyal, not only to Dukat, but to his family, having a wife and children on Cardassia, their home world.
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This all went horribly wrong when Dukat lost his daughter and spiraled into mental instability, quickly becoming unfit to rule. As his right-hand man, Damar was thrown into ruling, a task that weighed heavily on his head. He reportedly drank a lot, as he was under the pressure of commanding an entire race of people during times of war, against some of the most powerful people in the Galaxy: the Federation. His drinking got worse as the war progressed, watching large numbers of his people get thrown into battles they could not win. The Dominion began treating the Cardassians more and more like cannon fodder, the expendable grunts they could throw at the enemy without much care.
Damar was forced to let this happen, powerless to stand up against the dominion, all the way until the Dominion brought the Breen into their alliance without consulting him. The Breen were a notoriously nasty humanoid race, and were given access to the Dominion database despite Damar’s objections, which housed all the military and political secrets of the Cardassians. This was the final straw for Damar, and he formed the Cardassian Rebellion.
Damar pulled himself together, became sober, and led attacks on vital Dominion facilities. These attacks resulted in many Cardassian deaths, but Damar stood strong, making a point that his people were not slaves, and that they had had enough of the Dominion’s iron fist rule. While his attacks provided the Federation with more time, things were still going badly for them. Damar tried his best to help, but lacked the correct guerrilla war tactics needed to really make a dent. This is where the Federation came in, sending the DS9 officer and ex Bajoran Guerrilla fighter Kira Nerys to aid in his efforts. She trained Damar and his men how to effectively push back against their oppressors.
What makes this situation all the more complicated is that Nerys, and her fellow Bajorans, learned these techniques by fighting back against their old oppressors, the Cardassians themselves. Damar’s people had occupied Bajor for their resources not all that long ago. Cardassian officers similar to Damar would torture and kill the Bajorans on a regular basis, Dukat himself being the leader of the operation. While the current DS9 security officer Odo was there at the time, he did not partake and sought instead to lessen the Cardassian blows. Despite this, and seeing how Damar was desperately now trying to protect his own people, including his wife and children, Nerys puts these old grievances aside and helps him. This is where the first devastating blow to Damar hits, as he receives a report that his entire family is dead. He sums it up best:
It’s a profound and moving scene, the pain stricken across Damar’s face. However, the entire situation hits home differently when Nerys replies: “Yeah, Damar, what kind of people give those orders?” This of course angers him, not just because of the personal attack, but because he knows it’s true, realizing of all the pain his people have caused the Bajorans over the years. He is devastated at the death of his loved ones, and he struggles to understand how anyone could do such a thing, until he realizes that his own people could. Nerys quickly tries to take back what she said, but Garak, the Cardassian tailor aboard the space station, stops her, telling her that it was what he needed to hear.
This moment is where Damar changes, realizing he needed to take accountability for the atrocities his people had committed, finally feeling the pain that they caused. He becomes the leader Cardassia needs, not a warmonger but a true leader, ready to make amends and rejoin the intergalactic community they have always shunned aside thinking they were better. But before all of this can happen, the Dominion war must be dealt with. The Cardassian resistance manages to strike a blow, disabling power and severing their communications, allowing for the Federation and the morally complex Captain Sisko to finally go on the offensive. The Dominion are eventually forced back, but they do not go down without a fight, and they issue the complete xenocide of the Cardassians.
In a relatively short period of time, 800 million Cardassians were killed. One of the final acts of the war sees Damar leading an assault against the Dominion, resulting in his getting shot by an enemy Jem’Hadar. His death is quick, but agonizing, not just for the man himself but for all of Cardassia. With him, they had a chance to rebuild and make amends for the sins of their past. He became an inspiration leader through his grief, and was their best chance for finding peace, but with his death, surrounded by his fallen brothers and sisters on their broken and dying home world, there goes what was potentially Cardassia’s last chance. They appear doomed to repeat their police state history, if they can ever recover at all.
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