A collaborator was an individual who works with hostile forces, often against their own people and to further their own benefit, though collusion through fear, deception or other more coercive means was not unheard of. For these reasons, however, collaborators were often looked at with contempt from the perspectives of their kinsmen.
History and specifics[]
Bajor[]
Kubus Oak, one of the earliest and most infamous cases of Bajoran collusion with Cardassian occupation.
During the Occupation of Bajor, a number of Bajorans worked in the Bajoran Cooperative Government as collaborators with the Cardassians. Although the administration claimed to be a recognised leadership, in practice, the cabinet was nothing more than a rubber stamp to Cardassian rulings. Kubus Oak[1] and Basso Tromac were two men who worked in the government for the Cardassians.[2] These collaborators either served the Cardassians directly or provided the Cardassians with information on the Bajoran Resistance, which denounced the satellite state as the puppet it was to the occupying forces. The presence of these informants inside the Higa Metar sect allowed the Cardassian forces to discover that Surmak Ren was a covert member of the Kohn-Ma splinter faction,[3] while others monitored the movements of figures like Major Jaro Essa and Minister Kalem Apren, who were watchful for such collaborators at locations like Vekobet.[4] During the earliest stages of their existence, the initial members of the Redemptorists who had "accepted the struggle" was forced to evade forces from the Cardassian Guard that hunted the sect, which was also a target for Bajoran colluders. Though the faction was able to survive persecution from alien invaders and treasonous countrymen alike, the events caused Deyreth Elt and others like him to adopted suspicious mindsets that remained intact, even after Bajor had secured her freedom.[5] During its resistance effort, the Kohn Ma conspired to assassinate the children of Bajoran collaborators on more than one occasion, which Tahna Los reflected on when his cell intended to bomb a shelter that housed Cardassian children inside, though he felt a measure of relief to discover that the site had already been eliminated by local farmers that had evacuated the occupants, adopting the infant war orphans as surrogate offspring.[4]
Although the Cardassians utilised slave labour to further their infrastructure with little restrictions, the Union also erected at least one installation with a workforce that drew its members from natives that had decided to cooperate with the occupation. Located inside the Dahkur Province, this facility employed the services of Bajorans who had volunteered to manufacture components used to construct the phaser banks that suppressed their fellow people, which became an incentive that later motivated the Shakaar resistance cell to bomb the plantation in a raid that Kira Nerys participated in, during which she reflecting on her contempt for the workers that had decided to assist with the subjugation of Bajor, though she still forced herself to suppress memories of their screams.[4] During her involvement with efforts to resist the Occupation, Kira Nerys was hesitant to attack facilities that housed even one Bajoran worker, but did so all the same, reminding herself that those who worked with the Cardassians were collaborators.[6] Indeed, a popular phrase that emerged within the Bajoran Underground gave justification to when their attacks endangered the lives of their countrymen: "If you're not fighting them, you're helping them."[7]
In 2365, a Bajoran chemist named Vaatrik Drasa, who lived on Terok Nor during the Occupation, served as a direct link between Gul Dukat and at least eight Bajoran sympathizers that were scattered across the planet, including Ches'sarro Seeto, who would make frequent visits to the space station. As a consequence of their assistance with helping to sell out the Resistance, the eight individuals that utilised Vaatrik as their middleman accrued substantial amount of litas that was abnormal for most that had lived through the Occupation, while the chemist could afford to secure comforts that were luxuries for most Bajorans at that time, including the income to purchase Pyrellian ginger tea and private quarters for him to live with his wife Vaatrik Pallra.[8] According to an informant that notified the Bajoran Resistance to Vaatrik, the elimination of his contacts would reduce more than half of the Cardassian intelligence apparatus to shambles. Vaatrik would meet his end when he discovered Kira Nerys when she was searching for his list of contacts and threatened to alert the local enforcement,[4] forcing her to execute him in self-defence, though this murder was not her first objective.[8]
Faced with the burgeoning resistance to the occupation, certain quislings amidst the Bajoran populace sought to manipulate the situation for their benefit as double-dealers who tried offer their services to both sides of the conflict. A married pair, Gan Marta and Gan Treo assisted the Cardassian Guard in some manner that condemned the couple as collaborators from the perspective of their foster son, Orta, but tried to maintain a seat on the fence with the dissidents. This attempt failed, however, and led to their arrests after the Cardassians discovered how the two provided assistance to Bajoran refugees. Despite their previous collaboration, this was not enough to save either Gan, who were brought before Glinn Madred and several other soldiers and vaporised for their activities before the eyes of their adoptive child.[9]
After the Cardassian Empire withdrew from the planet, the provisional administration ordered for all known collaborators to be turned into official detainment with immediate effect for trial[4] and later issued the Ilvian Proclamation, in which every Bajoran that had worked for the Occupational forces as a member of the Cooperative Government was sentenced to exile, although Major Kira Nerys — a veteran from the Resistance — believed that the likes of Kubus Oak had received gentler treatment that they deserved, since his signing of work orders had condemned other Bajorans to service in mines that some had not walked out from. As a result, on the freed Bajor, individuals that were known for having collaborated with the Cardassians were considered the lowest of the low.[1] However, some colluders — including Ches'sarro Seeto — were able to dodge the same fate because their collaboration was never discovered.[8] Furthermore, the Provisional Government also established clear boundaries to separate Bajorans that were responsible for heinous crimes against their own people from innocent souls that were acquitted for acting to ensure their own survive. Uninterest in a witch-hunt to uproot individuals that had struggled to preserve their own lives while doing nothing to support the oppressive rule, the new administration made the trials of known collaborators an important priority.[10] This task was a difficult one that was made more hazardous because of the civilian manhunts launched to hunt down those that mobs suspected to be collaborators, and Kira Nerys was present during a confrontation between a rabble of her people and a female Starfleet lieutenant that defended an individual that had been arrested to face trial for collusion, holding the crowds back until the Major was able to summon reinforcements from the Bajoran Militia to established order.[11]
Kubus Oak justified his work with the Cardassians, claiming that without the puppet government, the occupation of Bajor would have been far worse, although he also admitted that his decision to cooperate had also allowed him to survive. Prylar Bek — a liaison who represented the Vedek Assembly within the Occupational Government — claimed to have been responsible for the events that led to the Kendra Valley Massacre in a note that he wrote before committing suicide. In reality, however, Bek had framed himself — condemning his legacy to be remembered as one of a traitor and collaborator — to protect Kai Opaka Sulan, who had chosen to surrender the location of her son and the forty-two other rebels hidden at the valley to protect the thousands of innocent villagers that would have been otherwise slaughtered.[1]
A letter of confession that Geli Henarys wrote about their actions as a member of the Bajoran Occupational Government.
The father of Geli Henarys was said to be a favourite of the Cardassians and his child would assume a seat on the Occupational Government in adulthood, where their sole focus was on continued survival, despite the concern the official sometimes felt about the effect their deeds had on the soul. After the Occupation, Henarys confessed to their actions in a letter where the former administrator admitted to having never contemplated how their position might be utilised to assist Bajor, acknowledging the decision to limit their perspective so that it encompassed the safety of their own life and the lives of their relatives. Furthermore, when their concerns were not focused on their loved ones, Geli tried to remain an insignificant cog in the machine who tried to inflict little harm, but though the statement expressed guilt for the role that Henarys played to support Cardassian rule, they made no attempt to apologise for their motivates, claiming all who lived beneath the Occupation had tried to survive, even if it meant compromises. Instead, the note described how its author believed that spiritual matters were of little consequence when the individual lived beneath those who Henarys knew were orchestrating the genocide of the Bajorans and justified how their decisions were made in the effort to keep their loved ones safe.[10]
As a result of the Occupation and the role that colluders had with it, the term "collaborator" was one of the worst slanders that an individual could be given on Bajor and those who had been able to hide or avert banishment took great strides to distance themselves from the alien regime that such people had once abetted. Numerous survivors from the Bajoran Resistance believed that expatriates who had fled from their world when it was first annexed were little better than collaborators. This same contempt extended to their descendants or others raised outside the B'hava'el system in this dark period of their history, since rebel fighters believed that these people had failed to offer further protest to the Cardassian occupation or return to their ancestral home, even though it was more an accident of fate that had spared the likes of Arla Rees, who had been born to migrants on New Sydney.[12]
"Comfort women" — Bajoran females taken from their homes to offer companionship to Cardassian officials — were also often accused of being collaborators. To secure their cooperation, the families of these prostitutes benefited from medical care and rations, though others hated them for perceived collusion. One of them, Kira Meru, a mistress of Gul Skrain Dukat,[2] made herself believe that she had developed genuine affections for her lover but was also motivated with her desire to provide the tools for her loved ones — her husband and their children — to survive, sacrificing her own wellbeing for their sakes.[13] A similar case emerged with Silne Koryn, who lived onboard Terok Nor to serve the role of "personal entertainer" for a Cardassian mining executive. When the occupation ceased to be, the more patriotic members of Bajoran society labelled her a collaborator because of her previous activities, which prompted Koryn to maintain residence on the space station as a saleswoman.[14] Contrastingly, the woman nicknamed 'Old Kelsi' was one of the rare few to acquire the respect of the Cardassians during their presence on Terok Nor because of her complete abstinence from political matters that drove others to exhibit hatred or contempt for the invaders. However, though Kelsi worked on Deep Space 9 before and after it changed hands, she was not subjected to the same harassment as others drew; instead, many saw Kelsi as a permanent fixture on the station until her unrelated murder at the hands of a serial killer in 2369.[15]
Keidan Nri lies dead on Deep Space 9, murdered for his crimes as a collaborator.
Despite the expulsion of the Cardassian regime, however, certain individuals that had been known associates of the previous dictatorship were able to dodge punishment, nonetheless. The clan that included the trader Keidan Nri as one of their members were able to establish beneficial commerce with the occupiers, lining their pockets with income drawn from the expense of their fellow nationals. Nri, especially, was said to have had "much blood on his hands" from the business,[16] profiting from the conflict that he incited between Cardassians and the Ferengi dealers onboard the space station Terok Nor, playing the two sides against one another to improve his own creature comforts.[17] As a trader, the contacts that Nri maintained on the market became essential to mitigating the economic ramifications for Bajor after the occupation came to a close and he was spared from exile. However, though his value made the Provisional Government elect to look beyond his deeds during the occupation[16] and Nri voiced his own horror about the sixty years of oppression as he rose to become a minister with the Bajoran Health Commission,[18] some refused to forget where the philanthropist had built the fortune that he later used to support charitable initiatives,[16] which later resulted in his murder at the hands of Lavin Meryn, a waitress that had lost her brother to the same Cardassians that Nri had worked alongside.[17] Another Bajoran that had a dubious experience with the Cardassians was Vedek Teler, a respected monk from the religious congress that also expressed his consternation after the so-called "Years of Deliverance" was brought to an end. However, the exact role that Teler had was abstract. While contacts that the tailor Elim Garak — a former member of the Obsidian Order — maintained on Bajor claimed that he was able to make silent profit that came at the expense of others[18] and the Vedek himself admitted to having stomached compromises that had ensured his survival,[17] Kira Nerys did not demonstrate the same contempt towards him that she did for Keidan Nri.[18]
Throughout their dissident crusade, the Redemptorists — who had become a militant splinter faction after their expulsion from the newborn administration — launched unauthorised transmissions across Bajor, encouraging violent antagonism towards those that were labelled the natural enemies of their sect. During the radio broadcasts that were distributed to others over the black market, Hören Rygis listed the names of these individuals, which included some that the Redemptorists had deemed to be collaborators. Alongside heretics and traitors, the Redemptorists claimed that the deaths of these countrymen were a vital to the 'purification' of their homeworld, which had been sullied from the words and actions that the marked Bajorans had made to offend the righteous.[5]
A well-known Bajoran collaborator was Amkot Groell, who ran the Okana Shipyards on Bajor, having convinced the Cardassians that he was running a museum. Following the end of the occupation he was allowed to continue living on Bajor and running the shipyard, which had received a commission from Starfleet to build the Ambassador class USS Hannibal. Amkot was blackmailed into cooperating with the remnants of the Alliance for Global Unity by members who had escaped arrest into attempting to assassinate Commander Benjamin Sisko and Major Kira Nerys. After the Hannibal was completed Amkot committed suicide.[19]
Magret — a mole for the Cardassian Empire — manipulates members of the Circle to suit his secret agendas.
Even with their withdrawal from Bajor, the Cardassian Union continued to utilise surviving collaborators as operatives that were able to move within the boundaries of Bajoran space. One of these individuals was Magret, an informant with connections to the Empire stretched back to the horrors of the occupation, where his treasonous actions had led to the elimination of hundreds of fighters from the Bajoran Resistance that the double agent betrayed to his masters on Cardassia Prime, which he travelled to on several occasions. Years later, Magret continued to manipulate the situation on his homeworld to benefit its former occupiers, infiltrating the Alliance for Global Unity as the leader to a cell that had been established aboard Deep Space 9. From this position, he utilised the extremist organisation as a means to assassinate individuals that the Cardassians wanted dead, including Daranar Sueriel, a hybrid that had interacted with the collaborator when she was a contact for the Bajoran Special Security Forces and knew about his former deeds. Having survived the attempt that a fanatic from the Circle had made on her life, Sueriel was later able to expose Magret to the local authorities, bringing an end to his activities with the Cardassians and his terrorist cell.[20]
During the Dominion occupation of Deep Space 9, Kira initially worked alongside the new administrator in running the station with the belief that overt resistance would provide Gul Skrain Dukat with the pretext to crack down on the station's Bajoran population without violating the nonaggression pact that the Bajoran Republic had signed with the Dominion, following the orders that Captain Benjamin Sisko had left to keep her planet out of the conflict. However, after Vedek Yassim killed herself on the Promenade in protest of the Dominion, Kira realized that, by making excuses for not fighting this evil, she had unknowingly become a collaborator, the very individual that she had hated for so long. She and Odo thus began a resistance movement on the station while continuing the pretence of working with the Dominion.[7] After the station was wrested from the control of Dukat and his allies through the combined efforts of the allied Starfleet-Klingon forces and the local rebels, the now-Colonel Kira vouched for the allegiances of the members of her cell, refuting accusations that her allies - including Jake Sisko, Quark, Rom and Leeta - had been collaborators because of the possible cooperation these individuals might have shown towards the occupation.[21]
Baras Rodirya was a collaborator working for Gul Pavok on the planet Jevalan who managed to infiltrate the Bajoran Resistance. In 2369, after an attack on the Olanda labor camp he and fellow resistance member Ishan Anjar were arrested by the Cardassian Guard. Baras then gave the necessary code to the Cardassians to convince them that he was working with Pavok. Ishan was soon executed, and Pavok switched the identities of the two Bajorans, telling the Bajoran population that Baras Rodirya was dead. After escaping from custody, Baras killed the two witnesses that could possibly identify him as Baras. In the aftermath of the occupation Baras maintained the Ishan Anjar identity and used that to launch a political career both on Bajor and within the United Federation of Planets. After arranging the assassination of Federation President Nanietta Bacco, Baras arranged to be named as President Pro-Tempore of the United Federation of Planets until a Special Election could be held. In October, 2385, the deception was finally uncovered. Baras was arrested and removed from power.[22]
Cardassia[]
Gul Dukat leads Cardassia into the waiting arms of the Dominion.
In an ironic reflection of their occupation of Bajor, collaborators within the Cardassian Union were essential to events that brought their people into the ranks of the Dominion and continued to populate the national leadership after membership was established. Battered from the savage invasion that the Klingon Empire had been made into their territories, the continued failures of the Detapa Council would diminish its influence,[23] aggravating those who had first supported the civilian uprising that overthrew the Central Command.[24] Alienated from the government because of his discontent about their failure to prevent the slow erosion of Cardassia, Gul Skrain Dukat had become a rallying point for a one-man campaign to expel the Klingons from their space but felt that the ongoing conflict had reduced his people,[25] bereaving them of the influence that the Union had once boasted on the galactic stage.[26] Believing that the price for restoration was integration to one of the conflicting powers of the Milky Way, Dukat formed a cabal of like-minded figures who reached out to contact the Gamma Quadrant, negotiating with the Dominion so that Cardassia could become an official member.[23] To restore the stratocratic regime that would allow him to direct the Cardassian Empire, Dukat cultivated alliances with its militaristic families that supported his implementation of a coup d'état to dethrone Meya Rejal and install himself as the supreme leader of Cardassia. With key assistance from clans like the relatives of Gul Madred and support from the disgruntled populace, the collaborators seized power and cemented their links with the Dominion, which deployed Jem'Hadar reinforcements that turned the tides against enemies of the Union, crushing external threats like the Klingon invaders and the Maquis in the Demilitarized Zone within a matter of weeks.[27]
Cardassia Prime, where Vorta diplomats and Jem'Hadar soldiers stand beside the local officials, presenting a united front beneath the Dominion.
The arrival of the Dominion to Cardassia was met with rampant support from a population that celebrated the overthrow of Rejal and their admittance to a force that offered to elevate the kind to become masters of the Alpha Quadrant.[28] As their new allies flooded Cardassia Prime with relief supplies and the fresh defences needed to reestablish a gargantuan fleet, Dukat restructured the administration to support the Dominion, which incorporated the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau into their own agency, while Jem'Hadar soldiers became law enforcers inside the urban centers. Where civil services had been a lax concern to the Central Command, which allowed the infrastructure to suffer power disruptions and technical malfunctions, the initial months of the new reign were marked with the restoration of these resources.[21] The military regime established over the Union created slots inside their court that was reserved for officials like Weyoun, who was dispatched as an advisor and liaison from the Dominion.[29] Having watched the resurgence of privilege, prestige and power for Cardassia and her people, Penelya Khevet theorised that their admittance to the Dominion might alleviate the plight of the Cardassian Union, thereby allowing its' economic reconstruction to occur without the need to harvest resources from occupied worlds, as had been the tactics of the past. Her friend Rugal Pa'Dar, however, believed that this support was contingent on the collaboration of the Cardassian people and feared that dissent would bring the iron fist down on them.[30]
Dominion forces with their Cardassian allies onboard the soon-to-be-rechristened Terok Nor.
Whereas the Dominion felt that the arrogance, ambition and vice of Skrain Dukat made him an ideal collaborator,[21] the gul felt little real commitment to the Founders and had decided to align Cardassia with them for convenance, rather than conversion to their cause. Instead, Dukat planned to ensure that his people remained essential to their overlords, thereby ensuring the flow of support to the Empire would continue, strengthening the diminished state. Knowing that the immediate situation on his planet was so versatile that immediate secession would throw the people into civil war between various factions, Dukat worked to cement their position as a crucial foothold for the war effort.[31]
Elements from the True Way splinter faction under the leadership of Gul Kardek collaborated with a permutation of the Terran Empire to have the latter dispatch Captain Leeta and her forces from their universe to reinforce the Cardassian revanchists.[32]
Klingon Empire[]
According to accounts about time before when Kahless the Unforgettable united his species to forge the Klingon Empire, the warlord Molor was elevated to claim dominance over Qo'noS with assistance from extraterrestrial lifeforms that hailed from a location said to exist somewhere "beyond the stars". These aliens were known to the people, but it was Molor that came before them to strike a bargain where the Klingons would be forced to their knees under his banner with the technology supplied to him. During this dark age, Molor and his chosen were venerated to be entities, but the sacred texts claimed that these individuals were nothing more than puppets who collaborated with the foreign entities that demanded sacrifices in their hundreds before each sunset.[33] When Kahless confronted Molor after his triumph at Three Turn Bridge, he demanded that the collaborator be made to understand that honor was not something that could be purchased, nor cowed.[34]
Despite the fact that their culture was built upon a strict code of honor, there were several historic cases when individual Klingons chose to betray their people and cooperate with their enemies. The most infamous example of such collaboration was the House of Duras. Though influential and well-connected to Imperial politics, during the 24th century, the Duras had become a regular front for Romulan efforts to manipulate and destabilise the Klingon Empire through clandestine tactics.[35] First established to pursue the exchange of technologies from their respective states, the alliance between the Duras and their dealers within the Star Empire was strengthened because of debts that confronted the house after Praxis was destroyed. Striking on a beneficial arrangement, in return for a cadre of Imperial aristocrats assumed financial obligation for their dues, the duplicitous clan allowed the considerations of Romulan interests to influence their actions for decades to come.[36] These ties were most prevalent for three generations that ran from Ja'rod — who supplied the Romulan Star Empire with the defense codes of the colony at Khitomer, resulting in a massacre that claimed the lives of 4,000 Klingons, including the collaborator himself[37] — down to his illegitimate grandson Toral.[35] Descended from Klingon shipwrights that had been trade partners with the Romulans before their alliance collapsed, Ja'rod was critical to how the Khitomer Accords had supplanted this concordat and thought that such a "weak collection of fools" had dampened the expansionist traits that existed at the core of the Empire. Under the idea that the dominant races of both empires understood that strength was embodied in soldiers who were prepared to fight until the death for their people, Ja'rod envisioned a time when the Alpha Quadrant was subject to a Klingon-Romulan regime and thus begun to serve the latter as one of their operatives until his execution at the hands of Kaasin.[38]
However, the greater instance of collusion between the Duras ruling family and the longtime enemies of their people was represented with the three children of Ja'rod: Duras, Lursa and B'Etor, who called for Romulan assistance in several attempts to bring the Empire under the control of their house.[35] In 2366, evidence was brought to light that could expose the individual that had betrayed the access codes at Khitomer to the Romulan Empire. Although Ja'rod was the real collaborator, Councillor Duras — who was now the reigning head of House Duras — was unwilling to allow his power to be diminished by being exposed as the son of a traitor. Alongside Chancellor K'mpec, who feared the civil war that might materialise if this evidence was revealed to the Klingon High Council, Duras framed the late Mogh — a sworn enemy of his father — for the deed. Despite initial resistance from Worf and his brother Kurn, who sought to clear their family name and discovered that Ja'rod was the real perpetrator, the sons of Mogh could not expose this information for fear that it would tear the Empire apart.[37] Nonetheless, because of the actions his father had been accused of, Worf faced suspicions from some individuals, like the Betazoid investigator Sabin Genestra, who expressed concerns about putting their faith in the child of a "Romulan collaborator".[39]
Cloaked in secrecy, the House of Duras make plans with their allies from Romulus, instigating a civil war among the Klingons.
The year after Worf was forced to shoulder the blame for the crimes that his father had allegedly committed, Starfleet discovered further evidence that highlighted collaboration between elements within the Klingon and Romulan states after discovering a molecular decay detonator that Duras — who was now one of the two contenders for chancellorship after K'mpec died from poisoning — had planted to eliminate his rival, Gowron. Mere hours after the bomb was found, Duras was slain in single combat with Worf as retaliation for killing the latter's lover K'Ehleyr, who had been investigating the circumstances behind the discommendation before she was murdered. [40] However, the connections between the House of Duras and their Romulan allies lived on through his sisters,[35] who had been inheritors to the network of contacts with the Romulan Empire that their predecessors had sustained. B'Etor and Lursa proceeded to present Toral — an illegitimate son the late Duras had fathered — as the legitimate heir to the position that his dead sire had held. With the influence that the family name still held over a decisive number of the Great Houses, the House of Duras challenged Gowron and sparked the Klingon Civil War, mustering support from their political allies. Through Toral was little more than a face for his two ambitious aunts, he shared their collaboration with the Romulan Star Empire, which supplied Duras' forces with material assistance, though their Klingon allies were unaware of this fact. Though Lursa and B'Etor were the masterminds of the war, both females were deferential to Commander Sela, an agent of the Tal Shiar that headed the Romulans' involvement in the power struggle. Thanks to a blockade the Starfleet had established on the Klingon-Romulan border to prevent cloaked ships from crossing into the Klingon Empire, the alliance that the House of Duras enjoyed with their benefactors was exposed, which caused support for the war to evaporate. Abandoned and demoralised, the forces of the corrupt house were helpless and fell beneath a swift onslaught. Despite a promise from Toral that his bloodline would emerge from their downfall, rising to claim the Empire, his declaration fell on deaf ears, as with decades of collusion now exposed, the Duras had been left in disgrace, allowing the House of Mogh to be vindicated of all false charges.[35]
Although the House of Duras was the most infamous case of Klingon collaboration with outside powers, there were others. Ambassador Kell, a representative of the High Council, also lived a dual existence as an agent of the Romulan Empire. From his office, Kell worked as accomplice to the Romulan officer Taibak and his efforts to ferment distrust between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets, triggering all-out war. To do this, the conspirators attempted to frame the latter for having supplied weapons to support the Kriosian rebels attempting to liberate their planet from Imperial rule and Kell helped his accomplices implanted commands into the mind of Lieutenant Geordi La Forge that would compel him to assassinate Governor Vagh, further incriminating Starfleet. The plan — and Kell's role with it — was exposed, leading to Kell being taken into custody, despite his futile demands for political asylum. However, in a conversation between Kell and Worf that occurred before the latter was arrested, the ambassador showed little grief about the death of Duras, reporting that several members of the High Council had welcomed his sudden demise.[41] Another "traitorous p'tak" that collaborated with the Romulan people was Lieutenant J'Dan, a Klingon exobiologist that belonged to the Klingon Defense Force, but grown disillusioned with the state of his people, believing them to become weak and with "life blood as thick as water" since their alliance with the Federation. In contrast, J'Dan saw the Romulans as worthy allies and began to collaborate with them, spying for the Star Empire until he was exposed and taken to Qo'noS for trial.[39]
The House of Torg were once allies of the Duras that supported their political ambitions on the Klingon High Council and later maintained their connections with B'Etor and Lursa after the sisters were disgraced. Though Torg was able to survive the Klingon Civil War with the reputation of their own house intact, the Dahar Master later founded hidden channels between them and the Romulan Star Empire to secure assistance after their competition with House Martok spiked towards aggressive combat. In return for this foreign patronage, Torg supplied the Tal Shiar with access to restricted technology and hired one of their operatives, Tarsen, to assassinate relatives of General Martok, namely his mate and grandson. Though the murder was completed, it marked the events that drove the House of Torg into their own grave after the collaborators dispatched Birds-of-Prey to defend Tarsen while the Romulan escaped.[42] When Torg was brought before the Chancellor and denounced for his treasonous activities with the Tal Shiar, the collaborator retorted that his association with the Imperial state was a reflection of the alliance that J'mpok had helped to form with the Romulan Republic. In answer, J'mpok retorted that Torg, in his lust for glory, had been "blinded to the difference between an ally and an enemy" and discommendated the house for its crimes.[43]
Romulan Star Empire[]
The Tal Shiar conspires with its contact on a targeted world.
For citizens who lived amidst the Romulan Star Empire, it was forbidden to question the Tal Shiar, which monitored the activities and thoughts of their own population with various moles and the doctrine that emphasised absolute loyalty to the state, compelling the people to report indications of dissent to the Internal Security Division. Under the reign of the Empire, those brave or foolish individuals who chose to disclose grievances about the Tal Shiar and hinder their decision could expect to face the wrath of the intelligence apparatus, which often had the objector arrested for charges as an ostensible collaborator or accomplice.[44] During their efforts to further the expansion and interests of the Romulan Empire, the Tal Shiar was noted to use third parties as fronts for their covert manipulations of different societies. The Duras were an infamous example of the entities that were prepared to sell out their own people to Romulus, working alongside Commander Sela and representatives from the Tal Shiar to overthrow the current administration with supplies delivered from the Imperial state.[35] The Romulans also included collaborators in their work to reestablish a hold over locations such as Psellus III, once a conquered world that the Empire strip-mined for minerals and food before it was elevated to become a protectorate, which received levels of self-determination under the guidance of leaders selected from natives who had sworn themselves to the reigning order. In the Pselliads' case, these collaborators included the few with genetic-leadership marks that had been able to escape when Romulan forces enacts a mass culling of their kin, fleeing into the swamplands, where the survivors were sheltered until their capitulation to become officials inside a new administration that brokered trade agreements with their new masters. After Romulus was forced to concede Psellus to the United Federation in the Cheron Accords, certain devoted subjects left with them, leaving their homeworld behind. What's more, although the earliest years of occupation had seen their planet ransacked for its rich veins of dilithium and vionium, there were still Pselliads who wished to renew their ties with the Rihannsu Imperium and formed The Legion, a terrorist movement that the Tal Shiar helped to organise through their liaison Tovik, who infiltrated the ranks of the faction while disguised to resemble a native man.[45]
Despite the work of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan Empire itself was not immune to betrayal from collaborators who emerged from multiple spheres of influence, ranging to include some inside the highest levels. Even though the speciesist attitudes coloured the people after their decades of hidden isolation, external powers were able to construct inroads with the Romulans and develop contacts that helped to mould future relations. One of these cases was Senator Pelek, who was convinced to enter into a conspiracy with Enabran Tain - head of the Obsidian Order - to destabilise the Romulan-Klingon Alliance with the assassination of Proconsul Merrok, who backed the coalition under the belief that it was vital to ensure the Cardassians were contained. Pelek, on the other hand, endeavoured to form a partnership between her people and the Cardassian Union. Though this alliance had the potential to offer a lucrative trade agreement between the two states, the assassin Elim Garak theorised that Pelek had decided to collaborate with his people because of her own political ideals, rather than greed.[27]
Other cultures[]
During the Second World War on Earth, nations across Europe were victims of fascist occupation beneath the Third Reich and the puppet regimes that were installed over their conquests to enforce the rule of the Axis powers, which various individuals and entities would collaborate with over the course of the conflict. One such state was France, which - though it was nominally independent - fell beneath the jurisdiction of Vichy France. However, while their official government adopted policies of frequent collusion with Nazi Germany, this attitude did not extent to the entire population, which included countless citizens throughout France that fought to resist the occupation. Because of the widespread discontent, suspected colluders were treated with contempt, as shown in a holoprogram kept onboard the USS Voyager, which was set while France was under the control of the Third Reich. In this simulation, a holographic French citizen spat at Brigitte, showing disgust towards the woman for her perceived collaboration with their Nazi occupiers as the lover to a high-ranking Schutzstaffel officer, unaware that she utilised this relationship to make reconnaissance missions for the French Resistance. During that same program, another member of the Underground came to suspect that one of their comrades, Mademoiselle de Neuf, was a double agent for the Nazis because of her tendency to question the orders of Katrine, who led their cell. During their efforts to subvert the Nazis, the individuals who belonged to the cell moonlighted as rebel fighters while masquerading as civilians who were apathetic to the war.[46] The Resistance was also known to later generation for their readiness to execute informants that their members caught spying for the Axis Powers, since the presence of spies offered an obvious risk to their operations.[47]
On Kaminar, Kelpien priests were described as unwitting collaborators due to their enforcement of the grip of the Ba'ul on their Kelpien prey. These individuals included Aradar and his daughter Siranna, who later sought to build a "true balance" on her world after she learnt the truth about vahar'ai, which Kelpiens had believed was a signal that they were to be culled as a means to maintain the Great Balance. In truth, vahar'ai was a stage of their natural evolution, which had once made Kelpiens the dominant predators of the Ba'ul. However, priests were spared the same contempt that collaborators amongst other species often faced, since the role that priests played were those of innocent custodians who worked to preserve their culture, ignorant to the truth about their suppressed history. Captain Saru acknowledged to Michael Burnham that his father Aradar had been a collaborator, albeit an unconscious one, but loved his late sire nonetheless.[48]
An oath coin of the Linnarean Guard that has been defaced to mark the owner for their collaboration with dissident Majalans.
The civilisation of Majalis struggled to survive on the surface of their planet and therefore relocated the population to levitating platforms that were kept airborne through technologies that their founders constructed, enabling the people to escape the predators on the surface. To operate, however, this machinery required the neural network of a child known as the "First Servant", who was doomed to suffer a death that was excruciating and painful after connecting to the apparatus, but while the Majalans devoted centuries of their efforts to find another means to sustain the power systems, their failure and subsequent decision to accept the sacrifice as an imperative evil drove a segment of the population to secede and settle on Prospect VII, which became the headquarters for rebel opposition to the sacrifice, even as most of their kind denounced the colonists as traitors. Despite this, some members of the mainstream population were sympathetic to the cause and though their duties were to defend the First Servant, there were even certain soldiers in the Linnarean Guard that wished to halt this ritualistic sacrifice and thus conspired to abduct the child before his Ascension ritual, thereby saving his life. To demonstrate their renunciation of the Majalan people, the collaborators defaced the backs of their oath coins, which violated the laws of their people. Some of the dissident bodyguards were active participants in the original effort to rescue their charge and helped crew a combat cruiser dispatched from Prospect VII, which was grounded after sustaining damage from the USS Enterprise, though the renegades were able to escape without identification. One of the defaced oath coins was salvaged from the craft, however, leading Minister Alora to the realisation that some of the Linnarean Guard had aided the attack and a subsequent investigation exposed her trusted acquaintance Kier as one of the collaborators. When uncovered, Kier tried to escape and condemned his city as a floating hell, declaring his proud allegiance to the First Servant and their survival before being impaled with his own blade.[49]
Inside the Q Continuum, collaboration with the enemy was a crime that was punishable by death. This law extended to those who were under a banner of truce, as was demonstrated when Captain Kathryn Janeway was arrested for assisting a member of the Freedom Faction during the Q Civil War. As a collaborator, she was sentenced to face execution at the hands of a firing squad, though this event was averted when her crewmates from the USS Voyager and the Female Q intervened.[50]
Quark lives as a bartender during the occupation of Bajor.
While speaking with Commander Benjamin Sisko and Lieutenant Jadzia Dax about how some Bajorans had decided to sell their planet out for a profit, Odo stated that not even a Ferengi — with their capitalist-driven practices — would collaborate in such a manner if it was Ferenginar that was under military occupation.[8] On the other hand, however, the deeds of Ferengi businessmen demonstrated their willingness to collaborate with others, even when faced with situations like the Bajoran Occupation, where a substantial number of them set up shop on Terok Nor. One such individual was Quark, who[51] — despite his choice to sell food to natives for a price that was at or just above cost[52] — was said to be a collaborator nonetheless because of his amicable relations with the Cardassian Guard. After the liberation, however, Quark was exempted from the Ilvian Proclamation and continued to run his bar onboard Deep Space 9 when it came under Bajoran and Federation ownership, though Kira Nerys named him as a collaborator while listing his various faults.[51] Because of his activities with their organisation and familial connections to Nog — the first Ferengi to enlist with Starfleet — Quark was also named as a collaborator who worked for the United Federation of Planets, which his cousin Gaila accused him of assisting with the dismantlement of his arms business and later bartering to exchange prisoners with the Dominion on their behalf. Quark, however, claimed that these accusations were invalid, since the Federation had not been involved with either circumstance.[53] Although their government made taciturn overtures with the Federation Alliance during the war, other Ferengi utilised their spacecraft as smugglers for the 'Gamma Quadrant invaders', adhering to the Rule of Acquisition that stated, "the riskier the road, the greater the profit". One particular example was DaiMon Krax, who contracted the services of his crew as operatives for high-risk missions at the instructions of the Great Link. Hungry for power, Krax was eager to assist the Dominion with their efforts to sabotage the Alpha Quadrant and, in return for a promise to establish him as the next Grand Nagus, planned to launch a destructive attack on the heart of the Federation. Armed with a trilithium device that his allies installed on his starship, Krax intended to have the vessel set to autopilot, then itself into Sol, causing the star to detonate and eradicate the planets orbiting it, including Earth, eliminating the centre of the war effort. Before his mission could be put into action, however, Krax met a sudden and violet end, brought on when his Nausicaan crewmen discovered that he intended to leave them behind to perish with the vessel, prompting them to mutiny.[21]
After the Federation discovered that the honoured Vulcan ambassador T'Pel was a deep-cover infiltrator from the Romulan Star Empire, Minister Satok was the receipt to a message that Ambassador V'Lin had written, which included a list that compiled the identities of those who had been known to harbour extensive contact with former mole before her extraction. Since V'Lin had served beneath "T'Pel" as a junior diplomat for several missions, the ambassador included her own name on the roster, acknowledging that these affiliations made her a logical suspect for the investigation about the possible collaborators who might have assisted the Romulans with the installation of their agent, though such offered to allow one of the security officers to mind-meld with her, thus dispelling mistrust. The suspects that V'Lin listed also included T’Paal, a prominent member of the Isolationist Movement, though the author of this roster was unable to see a logical reason for a Vulcan with these inclinations to have such consistent lines of communication with a spokeswoman like T'Pel.[54]
On the planet Andoria, natives with sympathies for the Old Ways political faction or separatist movement like the True Heirs of Andor came to use a modern slang "fade" to describe individuals who were believed to somehow be not Andorian enough. Though the insult was also utilised as a racial slur that degraded those who had Aenar amidst their ancestries, as detractors inside the population called for their home planet to secede from the United Federation, the term was also associated to describe Andorians that were thought to have become collaborators, selling themselves out to humankind, like the analyst Commander Ortees Sharad.[55]
Though the Open Sky terrorist group had little resources with their efforts to supplant the current Akritirian government with one that answered to the people, the planet authorities on Akritiri claimed to have suspected that the rebel movement had been working hand-in-hand with collaborators who were located offworld. When the USS Voyager was drawn into the local conflict, ambassador Liria accused her crew of having colluded with the Open Sky as their long-theorised allies. The terrorists had been in possession of a trilithium based explosive, even though their sector housed no source for this substance. Voyager, on the other hand, was powered with dilithium, which could be converted to the compound that had been weaponised. With this 'evidence' in mind, the Akritirian authorities prepared to impound the starship and arrest her crew, but Kathryn Janeway elected to order a withdrawal from local space.[56]
Represented through Gelnon, the Dominion created a pact with the Orion Syndicate, meeting with their members.
During their expansion into the Alpha Quadrant, the Dominion built links with several factions that harboured no alignment with the Federation Alliance, including the criminal Orion Syndicate, which assist their extermination of the Maquis. Having once been allies of the organisation, when news about the purge reached Farius Prime, the syndicate turned the local cells over to the Jem'Hadar without hesitation, thereby protecting their territories from the brutal strikes launched against other worlds that harboured the separatists.[57] From then on, significant leaders of the ruling families were known for their active collaboration with the Dominion and the latter made use of their services to attack the Klingon Empire, which suffered harassment from Orion raiders that attacked vessels en route to reinforce Starfleet.[21] In 2374, the Dominion had entered into an alliance with the Orion Syndicate, which conspired to manipulate circumstances that would motivate the Klingon Empire to withdraw from the Federation Alliance. To do so, the Vorta Gelnon met with individuals like Raimus and Liam Bilby to have the latter and his subordinates assassinate a prominent Klingon ambassador on Farius Prime, using Klingon disruptors to make it look like the target had been silenced for his anti-Federation sentiments and motivate the Empire to leave the Alliance. Unbeknownst to the conspirators, however, Starfleet Intelligence had been able to insert Miles O'Brien into the Syndicate, turning the mission into a death sentence for the Dominion collaborators, though O'Brien made a futile attempt to warn Bilby, who the spy had befriended, though he was unable to dissuade him because the other man feared the consequences that his wife and children would face from the Orion Syndicate otherwise.[58] In addition to this false-flag attack, the Syndicate made preparations to eliminate officials from the main triad of galactic powers that comprised the Alliance on several occasions, seeking to encourage internal conflict within enemies of the Dominion through the elimination of these individuals. While most elements inside the illicit empire recognised the Dominion was fixated on a conquest that would not halt with the Triple Alliance, a minor number of Orion Houses were consumed with greed and ambition, which blinded them to the real nature of their allies. Promised that their deeds would have the Orions elevated to harbour an exalted platform inside the new galactic order after the Dominion triumphed, these collaborators had the mistaken impression that a demonstration of legitimate strength would convince the conquerors to assume a tolerant stance on their enterprises.[21]
Throughout the course of their existence, the Emerald Chain crime syndicate formed alliances with a multitude of different factions that collaborated with them for reasons that ranged from self-interest to coercion. When the people of Kwejian was starved from the sea locusts that plagued their harvests, the Chain offered them a pesticide that its scientists had developed to eliminate the insects. In return, Minister Osyraa demanded that the planet cooperate with her mafia state and turn over its native trance worm population,[59] which had become endangered because of the constant hunt for such creatures as an exotic food source.[60]
Alternate realities[]
Mirror universe[]
In the mirror dimension, after discovering information about the alternate events that had led to the formation of the United Federation of Planets inside the mainstream universe, the Terran Commander Jonathan Archer was repulsed by the career of his counterpart and how this man had become a collaborator that sold the people of Terra out to subhuman species.[61]
Vintage bloodwine, which became a symbol of Terran collaboration with the Klingon Alliance.
When the decline of the Terran Empire emboldened the raiders of the Klingon Alliance to launch destructive strikes on Imperial colonies, a number of Terrans made secret inroads to strike alliances with the invaders that ensured their own survive. Over the next two centuries, Klingon bloodwine became evidence of Terran collusion with the people of Qo'noS after bottles of this beverage was found inside the residence of eighty-six families, who received these gifts for their assistance as collaborators. One of these individuals was Merliak, a resident of Sarolis, who assisted the Empire alongside other relatives, granting the Klingons access to the local defense system from her house. To conceal this truth from their neighbors, Merliak and her kin used the Barclay family as scapegoats, taking advantage of how the patriarch of this clan had built an underground bunker where his relatives hid themselves after the colonists were attacked. The real collaborators argued that this shelter could not have been constructed without forewarning from the Klingons, utilising the fear and anger to turn other survivors from the subsequent massacre against the Barcley surname, despite protests from the targeted, which Merliak overruled with claims that she had evidence to back her accusations that these people were "Klingon lovers", a slanderous term used to insult collaborators. This persecution triggered a blood war between the two families that continued for the next hundred years, during which Merliak and her descendants continued to harbour signs of their relationship with the Klingons, including at least one cask of bloodwine that was stored in their ancestral estate. Meanwhile, while the true colluders remained comfortable, those who had been framed for their deeds were hounded but survived, despite the efforts of Erya, the great-granddaughter of Merliak, who also inserted a micronized explosive device behind one ear as a failsafe precaution to negate the damage that her potential capture could do. In the 24th century, however, Reginald Barclay and Data from the ISS Enterprise-D discovered the bloodwine that Erya owned after breaking into her manor, which Data recalled had been found in the homes of Terran collaborators in eighty-five previous cases, thus revealing it had been Merliak and her bloodline who were affiliates of the Klingon Empire. Though Erya and several others tried to prevent the two Imperial Starfleet officers from escaping, she was swiftly overpowered by Data but spared from immediate execution at the request of Barclay, who wanted to have her watch as his relatives ransacked the landholding. However, after discovering the detonator that his prisoner was wearing, Data proceeded to carry out the waylaid execution, then uploaded data about the collaboration between Klingons and the Terran family for Captain Jean-Luc Picard.[62]
Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew, who were contractors for the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance before their revolt.
As the mirror universe entered into the ensuing reign of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, several Terrans decided to collaborate with the new regime for their own benefit or survival, including Benjamin Sisko. Once a slave that worked in their mines, Sisko was able to acquire employment with the Alliance as a privateer that collected duties from ships that passed through Bajoran space with his raiding ship, which as crewed by other Terrans and individuals, including Marauder, Andrews,[63] the Trill freelancer Jadzia Idaris,[64] and several Bajorans, like Opaka Sulan,[65] Ro Laren,[66] and Celoni Dei.[64] In addition, Sisko also became romantically involved with Intendant Kira Nerys, though Sisko resented having to serve beneath his lover, despite having no initial wish to fight back against the regime. After he encountered the counterpart of Kira Nerys from the prime universe, however, Sisko realised that, despite his privileges, he was still as much a slave as he had ever been. This motivated him to mutiny and start the beginning of what became the Terran Rebellion, which his raiders joined as some of the earliest members.[63] His estranged wife Jennifer — who hailed from one of the families that had first decided to cooperate with their new overlords before the Empire fell — also worked for the Alliance beneath the Intendant, despite her familial connections to the rebellion's leader, and was later tasked with building a transpectral sensor array that could help find where the resistance was located in the Badlands. Before she could finish her work, Jennifer was convinced to defect over to the dissident forces after Miles O'Brien and a version of her late husband from the prime universe extracted Sisko from Terok Nor.[67]
From the beginning, certain Terran families likewise made the conscious decision to collaborate with the emergent Alliance, selling out their diminished empire to assist the new conquerors with their invasion of Earth and other planets that had been willing members of the Imperial dominion. After the coalition seized the worlds that these traitors had betrayed, it rewarded their families, who became what constituted to the elite status for their races within this new era.[68] One of the Terrans who had the "foresight" to predict that the future of the universe was one where Alliance would dominate the Empire was a man named Devitt, who witnessed the ongoing conflict with enemies of his people and, recognising that Terra was doomed to fall, chose to align himself with the impending victors, thereby allowing his family to curry favour with the new order, which elevated them to a position where their descendants were able to enjoy reasonable luxuries and a certain degree of respect from certain members of the Alliance, such as Intendant Kira, who praised their wisdom as something that was comparable to her own race, the Bajorans. After their forebearer established this alliance, Terrans with this surname would continue to cooperate with the Alliance for the next two generations, with Stan Devitt following in the footsteps of his father to occupy a position within the Akiem corporation, where his own daughter Jennifer and future son-in-law also worked before their services to the Intendant.[69]
When the Klingon and Cardassian forces battered the Imperial Starfleet back, members of the Picard clan provided them with structures that were vital to the defence effort, exchanging these locations for wealth and influence. Because of this service, their descendants were allowed to retain their freedom and Jean-Luc Picard was able to undergo academic sessions at several universities and later underwent became a well-known archaeologist. However, despite these privileges and his own successes in the field, Picard resented the discrimination that he faced from the speciesist attitude of the Alliance and how these sentiments restricted his access to historic sites. As a result, he was driven to become the founder of the Maquis, a resistance outfit that fought to liberate Earth from its oppressors. Furthermore, even though their bloodline was afforded with luxuries its collaboration with the invaders, Jean-Luc was not a sole defiant member of the family to emerge in recent generation.[68] His elder brother Robert tried to resist the Klingon-Cardassian forces when their soldiers approached Château Picard, but paid for this defiance with his life.[70] Despite the tireless work of their special forces and spies, the Alliance was never able to locate a number of historic icons and technological advancements that had vanished during their orbital bombardment of Earth. The Janeway family also counted themselves as one of the "cooperative" households, but Kathryn Janeway broke this tradition with her decision to enlist with the Maquis as one of their lieutenants.[68]
The mercenaire Ezri Tigan accepted contracts from both the Alliance and the Rebellion, asserting that her allegiance was with those that were her friends, which included the Intendant, who was romantically involved with the Trill. As a sellsword, Julian Bashir and other freedom fighters saw her as a traitor that the Terran Rebellion later took prisoner while she was on a mission for the Klingon Regent Worf. Despite her nature as a hireling, however, the murder of her partner Brunt later drove Ezri to because a full-time member of the continued battle for independence from the Alliance, ending her collaboration with their regime. Before his execution, Brunt also balanced missions for both sides of the war as a collaborator of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, but he also harboured distinct sympathies for the Rebellion, which later motivated Nerys to kill him for theoretical treason.[71]
The Terran Empire itself also employed the services of collaborators, both before and following its initial fall. In one version of the events where the original Imperial state had been restored after the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance began to crumble, the planet Betazed was one of the civilisations that resumed their membership within the expansionist regime, the ruling leaders having elected to do so by their own volition, rather than at the end of a blaster.[72] However, though their world had been forced to endure hardships because of its former status as an Imperial domain,[68] a number of Betazoids were opposed to this decision, leading to unrest and the formation of a resistance movement that condemned Deanna Troi and other leaders as puppets that had sold out their people. Dissident powers like the Third House of Betazed used the discontent with the taxes and restrictions that Betazoids were made to bear as a basis to expand their influence. Even Lwesi — the advisor of Troi — voiced scepticism towards the decision to surrender, telling her superior that their enemies believed that submission to the Empire had benefited Deanna and a few others, rather than granted Betazed the advantages and protect that it had been promised. Troi, on the other hand, claimed that aligning themselves with the reemergent government would elevate the Betazoids to a position of strength after the Empire was victorious in the ongoing war between it and the Alliance. Despite these claims, however, she later elected to depart from her homeworld after it became evident that the Free Betazed insurrectionists were prepared to target her specifically, prompting Troi to instead become an Inquisitor for the Terran Starfleet.[72]
The Ferengi Alliance was brought under the banner of the original Terran Empire with assistance from collaborators, annexing Ferenginar after it was overthrown through a palace coup that had been conceived from the mind of Captain Azark after his vessel made first contact with the Imperial Starfleet. When brought before the reigning Emperor, Azark offered designs for a bloodless takeover of his homeworld, presenting the idea and his services with the conditions that he be named the Grand Nagus of the Alliance, which, according to the agreement, would not be subjugated, but instead be granted the modicum of self-governance as an Imperial vassal. With eager support from the crown and the assistance of Starfleet Intelligence, the coup d'état was implemented with flawless results, though officers from the Terran Armada failed to realise that the incumbent nagus had been able to escape while visual records depicting a man with a strong familial resemblance to the new leader were spirited away. Though the Ferengi would denounce the rumours, by all appearances, it seemed that Azark had been the Grand Nagus and made arrangements to replace himself, though further investigations into the matter were shuttered with prompting from the ludugial gold that the new - and possible old - ruler of the Ferengi funnelled into Imperial coffers and the personal accounts of Emperor Stephane Louvin. Later, when assassins executed Louvin in a bid to elevate Garth of Izar over to claim the throne, representatives from Ferenginar rushed to secure the same agreement that their planet had enjoyed with the previous overlord. Because of the level of autonomy that they were allowed, the Ferengi became an important component inside the economic needs of the Empire and favoured for their services to the Terran Emperor. To ensure that their collaboration was unbroken, Imperial state received healthy payments to compensate for their troubles, while the Ferengi gained lucrative deals with their security department. Years later, in accordance with one of their Rules of Acquisition about how "middlemen outlive kings", the Ferengi would also embark to make connections with the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, which was a rising power at the time of Grand Nagus Narl, who claimed to have new friends with the emergent regime when Emperor John Cray and Spock threatened to invade his homeworld for its refusal to reimburse Terra after the Cetacean Probe ravaged the planet. After the Empire collapsed, the Ferengi fell into disfavour, but although the Klingons would often execute a member of their kind on sight, the Cardassians recruited some to be fences, snoops and black marketeers.[68]
Appendices[]
Apocrypha[]
Unlicenced publications[]
The RPG Call of the Prophets: The Bajorans, published by Last Unicorn Games after they had lost their Star Trek licence, detailed the identities of several Bajoran collaborators and their contributions to the Occupation of their homeworld. Though such individuals were drawn from a mixture of the fearful, the profit-driven and the coerced, for their countrymen, there was little to distinguish the individual motives which had influenced this decision and the Resistance was known to execute assassinations on such traitors. A number of the indigenous colluders were known to be fluent in the Cardassian language and to have questionable histories that influenced them to accept bribes. Additional traits used to pinpoint fifth columnists included an uncommon degree of wealth and protection measures, though most were also known to carry phaser weapons on their person. As established, the females known as comfort women were seen as collaborators, but though most were victims who had been forced to endure an unchosen life, there were occasional instances where the sexual servants became more than companions of Cardassian officers, collaborating with the armed force that their owners served. The Bajoran Militia was likewise compromised became treason within the ranks warped their objectives to a mannerism that benefitted the conquest. Even though most of the defence service was disbanded, what had once been the Auxillery Corps and Constabularies were maintained, albeit in a role with significant restrictions. While it retained the name of the larger organisation, this version of the Bajoran Militia was tainted from collaborators amidst their officers, but an evaluation of their enforcement records verified that most policemen were either covert supporters of the Bajoran Underground or simply prioritised the rule of fair law, as Constable Odo had. Just as some natives were informants that fed the Cardassian Empire intelligence on the resistance effort, others helped the occupiers to devise technological advancements utilised to suppress the Bajora, though dissident forces tried to liquidate these collaborators on at least one occasion. The Higa Metar resistance cell masqueraded as a front for quislings of this type to secure access to scientific installations and facilities, such as Terok Nor, which the rebels mined with snares who contained the strain of aphasia virus that Dekon Elig had developed with Surmak Ren before the latter was arrest on the words of Cardassian informants. On Terok Nor, private quarters inside the district that housed the Bajoran population were a privilege that was often granted to inhabitants who were assets to the foreign rule.
The relatives of Tahna Los hailed from a privileged house that were receipts to substantial wealth and stature because of their collaboration with the Cardassian Union. Born under this alien regime, throughout his childhood, Los was oblivious to the source of his luxuries and became stricken with horror after the truth was made known to him in adulthood. Despite his initial reservations towards actions that could inflicting damage to his kinsmen, a growing exposure to the plight of his fellow Bajorans radicalised Tahna and drove him to consider each native who was a collaborator to be complicit in the rape of their planet, disowning his clan for their actions. From the extremist perspective that Los came to harbour as a member of the Kohn-Ma, the casualties of his terrorist attacks were collateral damage as presumed collaborators.
After the Ilvian Proclamation was issued, a number of the collaborators who were expelled from their home planet decided to follow the retreating invaders back to Cardassia, but several other natives that had chosen to assist the withdrawn occupiers were able to avoid detection, although these Bajorans would devote the remainder of their lives to ensure that their misdeeds were shrouded. One example was Razka Karn, a salvager with friends inside the Shakaar resistance cell. Unbeknownst to others, the man who was known as Razka Karn was not the one who had been born with this name but was in fact a collaborator called Roj Blaak. Once a business partner to the actual Razka, Blaak murdered his comrade when the other man discovered that their illicit activities were made to benefit the Obsidian Order, which helped fabricate documentation to confirm his new alias. A survivor who balanced loyalties to both the Order and his homeworld, the new Razka Karn assumed this name to deflect future accusations of duplicitousness and even after the occupation came to a conclusion, Roj continued to juggle separate relationships that linked him to elements of Bajoran Intelligence and their Cardassian counterpart, assisting the latter with their scheme to orchestrate the rescue of the acclaimed hero Li Nalas from the Hutet labor camp to diminish the influence that Benjamin Sisko carried with the Bajorans and destabilise relations with the United Federation of Planets. At the same time, Blaak was also complicit in a larger effort that elements from the Cardassian Guard had launched to have their intermediaries arm the Alliance for Global Unity in a bid to drive Starfleet from the Bajor sector, leaving it unable to defend itself from a second invasion. When the Obsidian Order ceased to function after its attack on the Omarion Nebula, their relations with the smuggler dissipated, leaving him a wanted criminal that Cardassian authorities wished to see face trial for rebel actions, but the former collaborator upheld measures to ensure his survival, were the organisation to make a comeback. Once restored, the Bajoran Militia was freed from the presence of the officers who had been collaborators before the "Years of Deliverance" were brought to an end. The conspirators expunged from their ranks, a number of veterans were found to be innocent of these accusations and thus allowed to avoid the persecution that collaborators faced, which often left stigma that continued to shadow the immediate descendants of these individuals. Having evolved to become a radical fringe group without the Bajoran Resistance to unite them with other factions, the Kohn-Ma continued to launch terrorist attacks on members of their kind that the extremists believed were collaborators in some manner of deed.
Likewise, The Cardassian Union: Iron and Ash was another supplemental that had been scrapped before it could be published but was nonetheless released as a non-canon sourcebook. According to this material, the Obsidian Order was a force that could function with near-total exemption from the law, which enabled them to conduct trials of their own members without interference from either the Central Command or civilian leaders. Within the organisation, to collaborate with hostile forces was one of the worst crimes that one could be implicated in and those that were accused might become the targets for assassinations or exile. The counterintelligence division of the Order was renowned for the patient tactics for hunting potential spies and their operatives would favour a strategy where the suspect was "baited" to expose collaborators or confederates. Meanwhile, after the Order was rendered defunct, survivors from the Cryptography Branch came to serve the Dominion after its arrival to Cardassia and their service to the Founders offered the cryptanalysts access to various codes and encryption protocols. For their responsibilities as coders, members of the Cryptography Branch were seen as collaborators, though this reputation was somewhat undeserved.
References[]
External links[]
- Collaborator article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Collaborationism article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.