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Semil

What They Didn't Know

What they didn’t know... was what they should do.

 

The Alpha Quadrant end of the Dominion’s covert pan-galactic communication array had been roused by a curious set of information and instructions.

 

An entire legion of Jem’Hadar soldiers had been left to sleep deep inside this barren planetoid beyond Cardassian space, ready to awaken and support the Dominion in its eventual return to the quadrant. Klewin, their Vorta commander, had been charged with overseeing this secret, treaty-violating facility. He knew there were other, smaller sleeper cells out there, continuing to sow discord in this region of space. But the secrecy of this base had been maintained at the cost of all news from the outside. Since they didn’t know, they could not take pride in the fact that, seven years after the end of hostilities, the Cardassian homeworld was still not a sovereign government. They did not know that Breen privateers, encouraged with technology and tactical advice, had been willing pawns in helping to destablize the region. They did not know that other Vorta had made contact and forged friendships with new worlds and species.

 

What they knew was that the Gamma Quadrant end of the array had been activated. Given the energies involved, such messages should have been limited to announcements of pending invasion and their upcoming role in it.

 

But the invasion was not theirs. And their role, it was now said, was to prevent it.

 

Semil, a Vorta colleague, had appeared on the screen with a Federation ambassador. Initially thought to be human, their limited database had identified the diplomat as one of several Mudd-type androids encountered during the war. Together, Vorta and android had offered surprising news.

 

Mentally, Klewin reviewed what the transmission had told him:

The Founders remained in their splendid isolation. The Vorta remained their loyal stewards of the empire. An ancient enemy called the Scorpiad had launched devastating attacks on the Dominion. They now controlled one side of the wormhole. Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships were working with the Dominion to repel the invaders. The Allied forces were about to suffer a surprise attack at Deep Space Nine. Klewin had been instructed to relay a message to warn them of the impending attack.

Of course, he had no way of knowing Semil had conveniently omitted information about the emergence of the Hundred and their attempt to wrest control of the Dominion during the Founder’s absence. He was unaware that neither the Founders, nor the Vorta Council, had sanctioned the use of their covert communications relays to issue this warning. They did not know that Semil was, in fact, an agent of the Hundred and was unconcerned about revealing the secret base’s existence. In their silent waiting, there was no way to have learned any of this.

 

What the message instead implied was that his fellow Vorta had accepted the Federation as allies in their struggle against the Scorpiad, which was generally true. It also implied that the surprise attack was substantial enough to hurt those allies and thus, the Dominion itself. This was also true, although for reasons other than the obvious. Klewin did not know that his beloved Founders were missing from their own homeworld, although the Federation had learned this fact. He and his Jem’Hadar host did not know that the Vorta Council had only agreed to help retake the wormhole to keep this secret intact. In essence, they didn’t know the reason for any of the things they were being asked to do.

 

The whole request ran counter to everything Klewin had imagined. At the outset of the war, the Founders had once planned a similar ambush of a combined fleet near Deep Space Nine, intending to trigger a subnova detonation of the Bajoran sun to wipe them out. Bitterly, he remembered a Founder had even been killed in the attempt.

 

And now, he was supposed to betray their own existence to preserve the cursed base that’d defied his gods? If only he’d received some sort of undeniable confirmation. Perhaps he could find a way to transmit it secretly through the Breen, or route it through some supposedly-dead agent of the Obsidean Order. Maybe he could bounce a relay that would be intercepted by those meddlers on Aegis.

 

The fate of his former enemy’s fleet might lie in the timeliness of his response. Klewin wondered if there were reasons this message had come without authentication. Perhaps it was the will of the Founders that their message would arrive, but too late to save the Federation space station. All it would take was a delay in the precious warning.

 

What they didn’t know, Klewin considered, could hurt them very badly indeed.

Edited by Semil

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With a title like "What They Didn't Know" from Semil, I expected an entire encyclopedia.

 

So, we're supposed to rely on the good will of another Vorta to warn the Klingon fleet at DS9? No wonder we're launching everything we've got.

Edited by KVorlag

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I loved this log, it explained a lot of backstory that I wasn't familiar with. Thanks! Great log!!

 

Me too! The backstory tidbits totally filled in some of my more "huh?" moments.

 

So, The Hundred are an offshoot/rebel type of Vorta group?

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So, The Hundred are an offshoot/rebel type of Vorta group?

Yes!

 

There's a couple of older logs that do a better job of providing backstory than I can, so I thought I'd give links for anyone who's interested.

 

: This was a log written three years ago (yikes!) by Sorehl, explaining the origin of the rebellious Hundred, when they were first introduced to Excalibur. I even get a mention in this one, although that clone was loyal to the Dominion.

 

Admiral Day was briefly kidnapped by two of the Hundred and learned a few things about them in
Fate of the Admiral, Part One
and
Part Two
.

 

The civil war put a great strain on the Dominion, as described in
Night of the Long Knives
. Things were ripe for an outside threat.

 

The Scorpiad
: Although alluded to for months beforehand, our current baddies were introduced in the log
Valdrex
and the follow-up
Fulcrum of Irony
, in which a Romulan diplomatic mission saves the Vorta Council from a decapitation attack by the Scorpiad. These guys took advantage of a weakened Dominion, but their arrival ultimately caused a truce between the Hundred.

Of course, there have been battles since and my own return as an agent of the Hundred, but these links are probably enough backstory to fill a weekend...

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Hmmm.... "treaty-violating facility" in the Alpha Quadrant... "Breen privateers"... "Founders missing from their homeworld"...

 

Just getting talking points for my next meeting with Keevan.

 

And you left out A Cast of Vorta, which explains how the Dominion stopped helping Avalon after the wormhole was captured by the Scorpiad.

Edited by Ambassador TSalik

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