Title: Legacy, Year 1
Series: Alternate Histories of the Dominion war
Author: Valerie Shearer
Contact: thenightbird@sbcglobal.net
Series: DS9
Part: 1/?
Rating: PG-13
Codes: Character Death
For full header, see part 0
Introduction
Legacy - an Alternate History of the Dominion War
If you read Surrender, you'll recognize a few of the characters
in this story. I borrowed them. And the terraforming technology
they use in Surrender to reclaim the land so it can be farmed has
its origin in this story. So in a sense they are companion
stories, except in Surrender the technology Vance and Blanchard
are developing was taken by the Dominion during the war itself
and used for their own purposes..
Imagine, if you will, that instead of replaying World War 2, the
Dominion war had followed the pattern of the first world war
instead. The time period for Year 1 is two years before the end
of DS9 and the war. What if the Dominion had started the war,
staging a massive surprise attack, before the Federation was
ready? Instead of mines being in place, there are nothing but
masses of Dominion ships and a massive chunk of Federation
territory already under their control?
Of course, in this story, the Dominion *keeps* what it captures.
This story is set between In the Cards and Call to Arms, at the
end of the Fifth season. The war starts about the same time, but
it's a different war and those from DS9 who find themselves
captives have not had the hard, terrifying years in-between to
harden them that they had in Surrender.
War is hard when you're a soldier. But it's harder, in its way,
when your battles are to keep your family alive in what is
essentially a planet-sized ghetto, and walk a fine line between
becoming the enemy and following their orders when the cost is
paid by your own, but knowing that the alternative is too
terrible to allow.
There have been real-life men who faced Sisko's dilemma in this
story. I hope I've given him a realistic look without copying
any one person. For this has to be about how Sisko would face a
terrible position.
In a sense, this is the opposite of Surrender. In that, we
primarily see the world as the slaves at the bottom view it. In
Legacy, the view is more balanced, asking how the men who have to
stand between the enemy and the people find ways to live with it.
Some do better than others, but all are damaged. Who can say
what is harder, to be the one who has no choice but to obey or the
one who must give the orders?
I don't know how long this will end up being. I know how long
the Dominion holds on and how it ends for them, but years will be
skipped along the way. This one is the first, when innocence
lives along side terror and everyone looks towards the skies
waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This year is rated PG-13 for intensity, but is far less violent
than its sister story. Tyranny isn't always delivered at the
point of a rifle. Sometimes, it comes at the tip of a pen and a
form left incomplete.
May you live in interesting times.
Valerie
Valerie,
The Nightbird