Garak's attention, however, is quickly drawn to an arriving Bajoran and his son. His Cardassian son. When Garak tries making conversation with the boy, he grabs his hand and bites him.
Garak is fine, and Bashir delivers the odd story to the Ops crew. And not a minute after he does, none other than Gul Dukat hails the station to seek information about the incident. While Sisko is suspicious of how the info got to him so quickly, Dukat quickly shifts the point. The boy, Rugal, is a Cardassian war orphan. And Dukat wants Sisko to do a little investigating on him.
Rugal has been raised by his father Proka to hate everything Cardassian, from the atrocities they committed during the occupation to their food. Although a local businessman familiar to the pair claims that Rugal is being abused, prompting Sisko to separate the boy temporarily and have him stay with the O'Briens. By all appearances, Rugal is the product of a loving home but a difficult life, as he hates being Cardassian.
While receiving treatment in sick bay, Garak brings up an interesting point: Dukat was responsible for the withdrawal of Cardassia from Bajor. So why is he suddenly so interested in one random war orphan? Bashir interrupts a meeting between Dukat and Sisko to accuse Dukat of lying about Rugal but has no proof. After brushing aside the accusation, Dukat agrees to locate the boy's living relatives.
In the middle of the night, Garak appears in Bashir's room and says that they must borrow a runabout to visit Bajor but won't elaborate further. Bashir dutifully awakens Sisko to ask for a runabout with vague reasoning. The awkward conversation is interrupted by a message from Dukat announcing that he has discovered Rugal's family. He's the son of a prominent politician, Kotan Pa'Dar, who is on his way. Sisko finds the timing of all this way beyond a coincidence, so Sisko gives Bashir the runabout.
Bashir and Garak visit the orphanage where Rugal was left eight years ago. After Garak demonstrates some suspiciously proficient computer skills, the pair learn that Rugal was delivered to the orphanage by a woman from the military rather than simply discovered abandoned.
Pa'Dar arrives on the station to claim Rugal. Explaining that on Rugal's fourth birthday, their home was destroyed by a bomb. Pa'Dar assumed his son perished in the explosion and now laments that he should have tried harder to find him. In Cardassian society, family is everything, and abandoning one's son is such a humiliation that his career is now certainly over. He tries to connect with Rugal through mementos of his childhood, but Rugal spurns him, seeing him as nothing but an evil Cardassian stranger.
In orbit, Bashir demands to know what's going on. Garak talks him through their discoveries: Pa'Dar was one of the most notable civilian leaders at the time and was involved in the decision to evacuate Bajor; Gul Dukat lost his job as prefect when that happened, so he hates Pa'Dar; and now, mysteriously, this boy turns up, providing a scandal that will sink Pa'Dar's political career.
In Sisko's office, Pa'Dar and Proka rip into each other over who should get custody of Rugal. Sisko agrees to arbitrate the hearing. And just to add the cherry on top on the sundae, Gul Dukat has arrived on DS9. Claiming that he has only the interest of the children in mind, Dukat decides to sit in on the hearing. Sisko conducts the hearing and listens to the perspectives of all three parties.
But as the hearing nears its end, Bashir and Garak crash it with info, and Sisko allows them to intercede. While Dukat appears to have purged the file on Rugal, Bashir shows that he's found the woman who made the file, one Jomat Luson. She informed them that Rugal was brought to the orphanage by a Cardassian military officer who knew his name and therefore knew he wasn't an orphan. That officer was attached to Terok Nor, better known today as Deep Space 9, once commanded by Gul Dukat. The whole thing was a long-simmering plot by Dukat to take down his rival. Dukat flees the meeting without confirming or denying the accusation.
With that resolved, Sisko turns custody of Rugal over to Pa'Dar out of sympathy for being the victim of a plot. Rugal, however, is unhappy to be taken to the land of his hated enemy, even though he is one of them. Pa'Dar can only say that it will take time.
As Bashir and Garak enjoy a meal together, Bashir finds himself once again pondering what Garak's game is and why he got involved in this, but Garak maintains as always that he is a simple tailor.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: It's suggested that Proka Migdal was emotionally abusive towards Rugal, taking out his hatred of Cardassians on him. However, everyone agrees that there's no other evidence for this, and even Rugal insists that he loves his adopted family.
- Batman Gambit: Dukat's plot required Starfleet to get involved in the case of Rugal's upbringing, something he couldn't force them to do. Things play out like he expected, up until the end.
- Bittersweet Ending: Rugal is returned to his Cardassian father, with the hope that he can begin to heal. It's clear, though, that this will take a long time; he's going to a world he doesn't know to live with people he doesn't remember and was raised to hate, not to mention leaving behind his adoptive parents, whom he clearly loves and who state that they love him as if he were their own flesh and blood. However, it's to be hoped that being raised among Cardassians will ease the self-hatred that Rugal clearly suffers under. It's also left unclear whether anything will be done to help the remaining Cardassian war orphans, who do seem to want to return to Cardassia. Pa'Dar is noncommittal about the subject, while Garak's statement that orphans have no place in Cardassian society implies that even if they did return, they wouldn't be much better off.
- Boomerang Bigot: Rugal hates Cardassians in spite of being one. He hates being a Cardassian. This is perhaps the only justification for ripping him from his adopted family and homeworld. Perhaps on Cardassia, he'll have some peace.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Pa'Dar claims he misses his son and wants him back, but it's also implied he's probably more interested in getting Rugal back to minimize the damage the scandal will do to his career and reputation, and even if he does love Rugal, Pa'Dar is still a Cardassian. In addition, he tries to invoke Cardassian law even though it no longer applies on Bajor. On the other hand, Proka has given Rugal a warm, loving home, likely far more loving than any home Pa'Dar could or would provide, but Rugal's come to possess a violent, racist hatred of all things Cardassian, including himself, and it's implied his parents have purposefully taught him to think this way. Good cases can be made for both parents about why they should have custody of Rugal, and good cases can also be made for why they shouldn't.
- Call-Back: Bashir mentions that there will be an inquiry into the Cardassian aid provided to the recent coup attempt on Bajor.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sisko delivers some vintage snark when Bashir comes to him in the middle of the night to ask to borrow a runabout to take Garak to Bajor for a reason that Garak refuses to explain.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Unsurprisingly, the hostility between Cardassians and Bajorans is a major issue in this episode. Rugal in particular hates everything Cardassian, himself included, and it's implied that his Bajoran parents taught him to think this way.
- O'Brien's well-established attitude to Cardassians once again rears its head. When he's told that Keiko let their daughter play with Rugal, he reacts with alarm, and when told that Rugal is actually a very gentle boy, he mutters that "these Cardassians" had gentleness bred out of them a long time ago, which Keiko angrily calls him out on. To O'Brien's credit, he does later acknowledge that it's wrong to think this way, telling Rugal that you can't judge an entire race by the actions of some of its members.
- Ignored Epiphany: Pa'Dar is genuinely wounded by the circumstances of reuniting with Rugal and promises not to forget Sisko's help in both returning his son and preventing Dukat from destroying his career. But when Sisko suggests that he might use his influence to help the other Cardassian children abandoned on Bajor, Pa'Dar gives an uncomfortable and unenthusiastic "we'll see." Granted, given what Garak says about orphans having no place in Cardassian society, it's possible that Pa'Dar's noncommittal response comes from knowing that bringing the children to Cardassia wouldn't do much to improve their situation.
- Internalized Categorism: Rugal has been raised as a Bajoran to the point of hating himself for being Cardassian.
- Interracial Adoption Struggles: Rugal is a Cardiassian war orphan being raised by a Bajoran family who have strong sentiments against the Cardassians. Rugal therefore is culturally Bajoran, preferring their food, customs and religion and hates himself for his Cardassian heritage. When his biological Cardassian father shows up to claim him back, a hearing takes place to decide where to place the boy. The episode has a Bittersweet Ending — Rugal is returned to Cardassia in the hope of reconnecting with his heritage, but he is forcibly taken away from his Bajoran family, who despite the Cardassian-hate were always loving and kind to him.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: This is where we learn the station's original Cardassian name, Terok Nor. It's a minor plot twist for just this episode, but goes on to be common knowledge to characters and the audience for years after.
- Mandatory Line: Quark has only one brief moment griping that Proka Migdal is on a winning streak.
- Multigenerational Household: In discussing the paramount importance of family to his people, Pa'Dar boasts that many Cardassian households have four generations eating at the same table.
- Oh, Crap!: Garak's reaction when an Cardassian girl asks if he's come to the orphanage to take her and the other Cardassian children back to their homeworld—an abrupt reminder that the situation he's treating as a game involves real children in a terrible situation. He can only give a sad apology that he isn't.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: We're told that 10 million Bajorans died in the occupation. It's a large number to be sure, but even if Bajor had a much smaller total population than Earth, it's still shockingly low after fifty years of brutal subjugation. Case in point, over 50 million were killed during World War II alone, a conflict that only lasted six years.
- There Are No Coincidences: As Garak explains, he believes in coincidences. He just doesn't trust coincidences.
- Think of the Children!: Dukat plays this card during the custody hearing.
- Trespassing to Talk: Garak breaks into Bashir's quarters in the middle of the night to invite him on a trip to Bajor.
- Weird World, Weird Food: Both O'Brien and Rugal hate Cardassian food, harboring grudges over Cardassian society in general. Rugal doesn't even touch it.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Cardassian orphans have no place in their society. Hence, they're stuck on Bajor.
