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Cptn Corizon

Twilight's Veil: Birth of a Revolution

Clouds rolled across Caporia V. Her twins suns sat low in the afternoon, and the chill of night swept across the landscape. Like many worlds in the Dominion, Caporia was once home to a vibrant, technologically advanced people. They had built cities of towering glass and steel spires, monuments to the greatness of their people. Once they had looked to the stars with a sense of awe. They had reached to the cosmos in search of new life and new wonders.

 

The Caporians had colonized most of their solar system and had begun testing their first warp capable ships when the rich deposits of thorium ore caught the eye of the Dominion. At first the Dominion had been welcomed by the Caporians. The magnanimous Vorta offered them technology far beyond their own and promised to protect them from far less civilized aliens who, they said, would rape and pillage the fertile lands of Caporia.

 

It had, at the time, seemed ideal. The Dominion provided the Caporians with advances in medicine and science generations ahead of what their scientists had achieved; and provided them protection. In return the Caporians would give the Dominion access to the rich thorium ore that laced their southern continents.

 

The Dominion gave the Caporians equipment and shared innovative mining technicues that at first caused the thorium to come easily and at record pace. The Caporians flourished, and with the guidance of the Vorta, began taking their first steps into intergalactic relations. It was an idyllic situation; but as the mining became more difficult, the miners began asking for more compensation for the dangerous work and while at first the Dominion acquiesced they soon began to ignore the demands of the workers.

 

Eventually, with their demands unmet, the miners across the continent soon began striking and even government intervention wouldn’t cease the strikes as the miners believed that even if they did get concessions from the government, the Dominion would only ignore any rules the government made. The Caporian government pleaded with the Dominion to meet the demands, but the once benevolent Vorta remained unmoved and even threatened the Caporians with the fearsome Jem’Hadar if work at the mines did not restart.

 

Like so many worlds across the Dominion, that had been where it started to go wrong for the Caporians. As the yields dwindled, the Dominion demanded harder and harder labor. Eventually they made good on their threats and on a brisk fall afternoon the Jem’Hadar seized all of the mines on Caporia V. The reaction was also typical. The Caporians demanded the Dominion return control of the mines, and the Dominion refused. The Caporians fought back, but were easily overmatched by the battle-hardened Jem’Hadar; and like so many other worlds it provided all the excuse the Dominion needed to conquer the rest of the planet. Within days the Jem’Hadar had devastated the major cities and taken effective control of the Caporia.

 

And while ferreting out the last of the isolated resistance cells took some time, a new Vorta backed government was quickly installed and work at the mines resumed. Whole populations of Caporia were relocated into new Dominion built cities closer to major production center of weapons and other industry that would power the very warmachine that had so easily conquered their people.

 

It had been nearly two hundred years since the fall of Caporia as the suns set in the distance, and amid the towers of the Dominion-built city of Ghadar, unrest fermented. There had been, of course, rebellions during the nearly two centuries of Dominion rule, the Aborgha Uprisings being the most infamous. Those, however, had always been easily crushed by the Jem’Hadar and the leaders of the uprisings summarily executed –a long with millions of Caporians; but even as the spectre of the failed rebellions and the deadly responses of the Jem’Hadar loomed in their past a group of Caporians were meeting to decide the fate of their world.

 

In the Sharonnna, Alouis D-Zol sat silently, watching and listening. A northerner by birth, but southern by blood, it had been his clan that had first stood before the Dominion and demanded change. It had been his clan that had suffered the most in the early days of the conquest. It had been that history which had hardened him and his linage.

 

Short, pale and white-haired, D-Zol physique had been ruined by time; and though it was clear that his body had once demanded great power, the wisp of a man seemed out of place with the brutish figures male and female who talked in heavy, empowered tones.

 

He sighed. He had seen it before. The young, untested ones wanted to prove themselves. The Dominion, they said, was weak. They would fall before the united front of the people of Caporia. Caporia, they said, would taste freedom in but days. Then, he thought, it would end in bloodshed –as it always had.

Better than anyone, he knew how this would end. He supposed he could not blame them for the ignorance of their youth; but he knew.

 

As the confab continued, D-Zol remembered painfully how it had once been him in their place; young, untested, full of all the rage in the world. Like so many of his people and his clan, D-Zol had lost his parents at young age. His father in a labor strike and his mother in accident at the plant she toiled at dail to feed him and his younger brother. When they died the children were separated and sent to labor camps for the orphaned. Scarred, traumatized, and bearing a powerful clan name, he’d risen quickly through the ranks of the resistance.

 

The rebellion began slowly, but under his guidance it grew in size and scope. Slowly but surely they had gained strength, eventually counting their numbers in the thousands. Just like the young men and women around him now, he thought that if they disrupted the Dominion’s efforts on the planet enough, they would simply give up and leave. He was wrong.

 

The Uprising had been a disaster. They had started in the winter as food became scarce and the ground became cold. Led by his freedom fighters, the people began striking, demanding better conditions from the Dominion, coupled by an attack led by his best people on the Dominion strong hold of Car Gaon. The attack went well, and the Vorta in charge, Lexin, was forced to surrender to the rebels. The victory was short lived though, as the Jem’Hadar soon came to reclaim the planet. They retook Car Gaon, brutally murdering every Caporian inside the city, and on top of that cut off all food supplies to the rest of the planet’s settlements determined to starve the Caporian resistance – literally.

 

With the deaths of millions on his mind, he considered the plan they laid forth. A source, he’d been told, from the other side of the galaxy had offered them weapons and supplies to mount an armed resistance against the Jem’Hadar garrison on the planet, like the ones on Granar Minor and Tavox. But what did they want in return? The good will of the newly freed people of Caporia, they said. They also said that they would guarantee arbitration between the Dominion and the Caporians by the Federation. A dubious claim, he supposed, but one that seemed supported by the results on Granar Minor and now Tavox.

 

Finally, as they dreamed of freedom and boasted of the near invincibility of their plan – he spoke. His voice as ragged as his looks.

 

“These new allies you speak of,” he said, standing.

 

The sudden burst of voice from the quiet, elderly man went at first unnoticed, but when he repeated himself, this time louder and more authoritatively, the entire room silenced.

 

“They promise to aide us, yes? To give us the means we need to break free of the Dominion, yes? And what do they ask in return? Nothing. What a deal.”

 

Before anyone could respond, he waved a hand. “Now I know that you say they are genuine in their sincerity, that they truly wish us to be free, but I wonder do we know these people? It was not too long ago that we knew nothing of those beyond the Dominion. We know little of the people beyond the wormhole, and even less of their true nature. Yes we know they fought the Dominion, but are they not also allied with them? How easily their allegiances seem to have changed.

 

“Would we kick one tyrant out of our lands, only to invite a new one to take its place? Good relations can mean many things – ask our forefathers about that. Do not forget that the Vorta came in peace with helpful hands before they enslaved us.”

 

“The others have trusted them,” a bold, handsome Caporian said, the small flaps on his nape spreading wide. “And look what they have. In three hundred years we have never been so close to truly dislodging the Dominion. They are weak. They cannot hope to keep us chained forever.

 

“We did not invite you here to kibbitz, we invited you here…”

 

“I know why you invited me here,” D-Zol said sharply, though his voice never raised to a shout. “You invited me here because to the people I am a hero, yes? Because you know you cannot raise the masses without me.”

 

The handsome Caporian bristled, his nape flaps opening and closing. “You were once,” he said. “But can a hero be so reluctant? Would you keep us forever chained to the Dominion? This is our best chance to…”

 

“If only it were so simple,” D-Zol said. “I do not fault you for your enthusiasm, Qal’Sho . You are young and do not know the weight of your choices.”

Qal’Sho sneered angrily. “What do you mean? Have you lost your stomach to do what is required for our people?”

 

“No, but unlike you, I have been here before and I know that we must consider the possibility of failure and what that would mean to our people.”

 

“Just because your rebellion failed does not me this will.”

 

Unmoved by the attempt to bait him, D-Zol continued unabated. “I do not deny that your plan has a far greater chance of success than any we have seen before, the Dominion’s ability to hold onto their worlds is fading; but what you have not done is consider the full scope of what is before us. As I said your plan depends entirely on support from these outsiders. You know nothing of them other than they have offered you assistance. They may have helped the other worlds, but you cannot say for sure they will not turn on us as soon as the Dominion is gone.

 

“If the problem is outsiders then outsiders sure cannot be the solution, can it? Would we go through revolution and rebellion only to find ourselves once more at the heel of a foreign power? If we are to free ourselves then we need to assure that it is not momentary.”

 

“Then what are we to do?” Qal’Sho said questioningly. “You know as well as I do old man that we do not have the material to support a full-scale rebellion. If we did, then we would not need them.”

 

“Then maybe what we need is not an armed conflict?”

 

“That is funny,” Qal’Sho said with a laugh that was joined by several others in the room. “The Dominion deal only in force. They will only reason with force. If we are to succeed then we must show them we have equal force.”

 

“How naïve you are Qal’Sho. The Dominion might be weakened, but we can never have force equal to them. It is only by mercy’s sake that the other worlds have no simply been wiped off the face of existence. If the Dominion so chose they could do the same to us. Why then should we take that chance? If we protest peacefully…”

 

“Peace? Now you want peace? Pah. You’re nothing but a scared, cowardly old man afraid of…”

 

“How little you understand. Am I scared? Am I afraid of repeating our past mistakes? Of course. But cowardly? You’re one to talk. Any man can throw a punch or take up the sword – war is little more than fear cloaked in courage.

 

“No, where we went wrong fifty years ago was becoming violent. I will not allow you or this council to repeat those mistakes. I won’t support this.”

 

Qal’Sho rose, glaring angrily. “Then we move without you, be gone coward.”

 

“Very well, if you speak for the council, I will take my leave. I have ever served the people and I continue to do so, but the course Qal’Sho sets you down is

one destined to end in their blood. I will not acquiesce to their slaughter. We have come so far to make such a tragic mistake. I implore you to see the danger ahead and to walk away now while we have the chance.”

 

As D-Zol began walking towards the door he heard the chatter of others and soon found himself with a following of people, nearly half the council, walking out.

 

With the disinters gone, Qal’Sho thumped his chest and flared his nape flaps. “Very good,” he finally said. “We did not need them anyway. Nalzon, set the meeting up.”

 

“Perhaps,” Nalzon said, “we should consider what D-Zol has said, even if he is wrong, it will be difficult to secure the support of the people without him and the others.”

 

“Pah,” Qal’Sho said. “The others will return once we begin our victory and D-Zol? He is nothing more than faded relic, a shadow of the man who once was. The people will see that, they will see him for the coward he is…”

 

“Very well, I will setup the meeting…”

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