Dukat Star Trek: Encyclopedia II - Dukat Star Trek - Madness and the pah-wraiths

Dukat Star Trek - Madness and the pah-wraiths

Though he was captured by Starfleet during the reconquest of Deep Space Nine, he later managed to escape after the starship he was being transported on was attacked and destroyed. While stranded near the crash site with his hated enemy Benjamin Sisko, Dukat, who had supposedly been cured of his madness by Federation doctors, began to suffer from severe delusions and hallucinations. Before making his getaway, he confessed to Sisko that he felt no remorse for the deaths of the 5 million Bajorans who perished during his reign as Prefect of Bajor and he swore to wipe out every Bajoran in the galaxy. ("Waltz")

By the following year, 2374, the still-insane Dukat, believing that he had found a way to wreak his vengeance on Bajor, performed an ancient ritual that summoned a pah-wraith, one of the ancient race of evil beings who are the sworn enemies of the Bajoran Prophets. The pah-wraith possessed Dukat and compelled him to bring it to Deep Space Nine, where he released it into the same room as the Bajoran Orb of Contemplation. The creature entered the Orb and caused it, and all the other Orbs, to go dark, thus sealing the wormhole. During the course of this scheme, Dukat murdered Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, the station's science officer and the newlywed wife of Lieutenant Commander Worf. ("Tears of the Prophets")

Although Sisko was eventually able to cleanse the Orb and reopen the wormhole, the temporary disappearance of their "Celestial Temple" caused many Bajorans to question their faith in the Prophets. Some of these Bajorans joined the newly-formed Cult of the Pah-Wraiths, which was actually a front for Dukat. ("Image in the Sand"; "Shadows and Symbols")

Settling on the abandon Cardassian space station Empok Nor, he founded a community of cultists who worshipped him as the Messiah and fathered another half-Bajoran daughter with a cultist named Mika. After kidnapping Major Kira and bringing her to the station, Dukat attempted to coerce the cultists into committing mass suicide to cover up his intended murder of Mika, but he was foiled by Kira. Although Federation forces reached the station in time to save the cultists, Dukat himself escaped. ("Covenant")

Traveling to Cardassia, Dukat subjected himself to plastic surgery, taking on the appearance of a Bajoran farmer named Anjohl Tennan. ("Penumbra") Thus disguised, he continued on to Bajor, where he wormed his way into the confidence of Kai Winn, the ambitious Bajoran spiritual leader. Preying on the Kai's bitterness over Sisko, a non-Bajoran, having such a prominent role in her religion, Dukat deceived her into believing that the visions she was receiving from the pah-wraiths were actually from the Prophets. Slowly, he seduced and corrupted the Kai with these visions and turned her against the Prophets, eventually convincing her to worship the pah-wraiths in their stead. ("Til Death Do Us Part"; "Strange Bedfellows")

Revealing his true identity to the Kai, Dukat convinced her to read the mythical Book of Kosst Amojan, a dark tome that held the secrets of the pah-wraiths. In doing so, he arranged for her to murder her assistant, thus sealing her bond with the pah-wraiths. ("The Changing Face of Evil") When Dukat himself attempted to read from the Book, however, he was blinded. Interpreting this as a sign from the pah-wraiths (and feeling betrayed by Dukat), Winn cast the still-blind Cardassian into the street. ("When It Rains...")

After weeks of sightless wandering, Dukat's vision was finally restored to him by the pah-wraiths, who ordered him to join Kai Winn in freeing them from their prison in the Bajoran Fire Caves. Now armed with the Book, the two conspirators traveled there and began the ritual, igniting the Cavers' long-dormant flames. As part of the ritual, Winn poisoned Dukat and offered him up as a sacrifice to the pah-wraiths. However, the evil spirits had other plans for the mad Cardassian. Declaring him to be their Emissary, they resurrected him and filled his body with their dark power. As Benjamin Sisko arrived to stop them, fulfilling his destiny as Emissary of the Prophets, the Kai betrayed Dukat and attempted to stop him, but he cast her into the flames. Realizing what had to be done, Sisko plunged into the flames with both the Book and Dukat, sealing the Fire Caves and imprisoning Dukat and the pah-wraiths together forever. ("What You Leave Behind")

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Madness and the pah-wraiths", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki