More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
June 5 - July 9, 2022
“You’ve come a long way from the naive young man I met five years ago. You’ve become distrustful and suspicious. It suits you.” “I had a good teacher.”
In Cardassian society, we are taught from an early age to mask all feelings and thoughts, to deflect all outside perception and observation. The objective of this education is to create a citizen who can work within the group to accomplish a group goal established by the leader, and at the same time work in such a way that none of the other members of the group knows what he or she is doing. As long as the goal is accomplished, it’s nobody’s business how you went about your work.
On those rare occasions when I was caught, Tain would somehow find out and punish me—not for my misdeed, but for having been caught. And after he discovered my fear of small, dark spaces, his favorite punishment became keeping me in one until I had convinced him that I had analyzed and fully understood how my mischievous scheme had gone wrong.
arrested, guess who was responsible for his interrogation? The man is anything but a coward, but his sensitivity is such that all I had to do was stare at him for four hours and he told us everything he knew. He claims that even today he has a hard time looking me in the eyes.
The Cardassian educational system is dedicated to the ideal that each generation needs a coterie of leadership, an elite in every segment of society. Artists, soldiers, politicians, scholars, and business and tradespeople all have appropriate Institutes where they are sent at the age of emergence.
The patterns of political alliance within the group had about them the inevitability of iron filings on a magnet.
I had no real friends to speak of, and told myself that loneliness was the price I had to pay for success. I considered the games and behavior of my mates to be childish, and that any unnecessary interaction would only distract me from my work. The truth, of course, was that I didn’t know how to forge those kinds of bonds.
“Are you making fun of me?” It was at that moment, when I asked the question, that I realized just how afraid I was of being the object of her ridicule.
He swallowed again, an even more bitter taste, and marched off to a life of diminishing returns.
“But what if the stories aren’t true?” I challenged. “I could smile till my cheeks hurt, and you could tell me any kind of story you wanted—and what would I know about you except what you invented?” “You would know, if you were truly listening, the kind of story I use to define myself,” she asserted.
That’s what they believe about themselves. Is it the ‘truth’? Are they really that way? I don’t know. Perhaps it is a lie. But what people lie about the most are themselves, and these lies become the stories they believe and want to tell you.”
“Truth, as we’ve learned to define it, is not only overrated,” she went on with a controlled passion, “it’s designed to keep people in the dark.”
You have to smile, because you have power. If you listen to people with the look you have on your face right now, they’ll suspect that you’ll disapprove or criticize or—even worse—laugh at their stories. And there’s nothing worse than being ridiculed.
“I think Ziyal once mentioned that you were a teacher.” I shifted the focus onto her. “In a manner of speaking. I’m a counselor. When I’m not being a dabo girl, of course. My work here is to counsel people out of their latinum.”
Time becomes meaningless working with this kind of concentration; only objects and events mark progress.
“Something that’s not so . . . baggy,” he said as he impatiently gestured to his drab constable uniform. I could understand his concern. Major Kira’s tightly wrapped figure made us all look baggy.
What do you need?” “I never . . . asked myself.” “Most people don’t. They’re led by instinct to satisfy the basics. What they don’t realize is that if you don’t ask, other people will answer for you, and then you never discover who you are.”
“But surely there’s another way of dealing with scarcity than forcibly occupying another homeland and reducing its people to the level of vassals and slaves.” Hans continued to smile, and I wondered if he really believed these sentiments—or was this another example of Federation hypocrisy? These people reduced all political complexity to pious platitudes, while they constructed the greatest empire in the history of the Alpha Quadrant.
With sudden clarity I saw my entire life as a defense against this very moment. I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling; I didn’t want this immense burden of desire. I had learned to be satisfied with the occasional brusque sexual contact that quenched desire the way food or water did, and to live without any expectation of that touch that transforms routine into adventure.
It was a daring idea that made too much sense to succeed.
I’m afraid we have never had much regard for their intelligence; the incident with Picard supports our low opinion. If nothing else, an interrogator must have the stamina to outlast his subject.
Most of us who are left, Doctor, are insane. We have to be in order to survive and emerge from our isolation. It’s the only way we can live with the pain of what we did. Or didn’t. Each of us accepts the amount of responsibility we are capable of bearing. Some accept nothing, and these people are quickly swallowed by their isolation, their insanity transformed into a rationalized evil. A smaller group accepts total responsibility, and their insanity is an unbearable burden that cripples and eventually grinds them down. The rest of us carry what we can and leave the rest. For myself, Doctor,
...more
“Silence, exile, and cunning.” An expression which comes from a human someone urged me to read. His writing was too childish for my taste, but the expression always had meaning for me. Silence. Exile. Cunning.
I found Quark’s establishment noisy and tiresome, filled with people looking for quick fixes and easy answers. And yet, here I was, looking for a shortcut of my own.
Whenever we encounter other pedestrians along our route, Parmak engages them and attempts to win them over to the Reunion side. This often makes for spirited exchanges, and although I am subjected to the opinions of people who should be given a new brain, I rather enjoy this peripatetic politicking.
prematurely. I had to make sure that I wasn’t the one being used. The woman is a charming and clever conversationalist, and she’s providing something I have deeply missed since being exiled to this floating arachnid.
I realized in that moment the gravitational field of the station had been adjusted to a heavier setting, and the wave of hatred flowing from these people made it even more oppressive. I felt as if I were carrying twice my weight.
For the first time in our modern history, Doctor, we are faced with a choice between two distinct political and social philosophies. The crucial question is how we are going to make this choice. Is a consensus achieved by peaceful means? Or do we now go to war with each other?
“You’re a doctor, yes, and that’s your strength. I’ve learned something about your profession over the past several years. Don’t think like a politician. Think of the planet as a patient barely hanging on to life. Think like a doctor. How would you save this planet?” He considered what I’d said in his careful manner.
In their meeting with Parmak and Ghemor, the Directorate had finally agreed to a “voting competition” between representatives of the Restoration and the Reunion Project in each sector.
Someone once said that democracy was the flawed solution to a perfect mess . . . and I absolutely agree.
Is this your vaunted democracy, Doctor? To be subjected to the opinion of any person who has the breath to utter one? How does anything get accomplished? If this is—as some fervently believe—a Federation plot to diminish Cardassian involvement in the quadrant, then it has succeeded ingeniously. We’re much too involved in discussions over power grids and waste disposal to care about anything else.
