Outliers - A Deep Space Nine Celebration, Part 5

Martok

(first appeared in "Way of the Warrior," fourth season)

(first appearance that was not a Changeling infiltrator, "In Purgatory's Shadow," fifth season)

Jake!  An entire barrel of bloodwine to celebrate the release of your book!  No doubt it will receive great acclaim on your home world.  Holosuites will be made in its honor!  I will try my best to see it adapted into a Klingon opera.  You'll see!

You want to know what my life was like before DS9.  It was a typical warrior's life, and here I exclude the sorry episode of my life contained in a Dominion prison camp.  I have been assured that my honor will not be impugned, even in the strictest of circles, by those events.  It would do worse for everyone, not the least Chancellor Gowron himself.  

No, I will not speak of those days.  I will instead regale you with a personal quest I have been undertaking most of my life, not a conquest on the battlefield but instead in the annals of Klingon history.  It seems my family heritage includes a fairly infamous advocate of the High Court, who allowed himself to die in another prison camp, a long time ago, defending the ideals he grew to believe in on the chance encounter with a human, who I understand has something of a glorious place in Starfleet lore.

It was not easy.  All knowledge of him appears to have been buried, his final fate left unacknowledged.  I hoped against hope that he would have been vindicated, but that would not have been the Klingon way, not in his time.  No, that would have been too noble.  We Klingons do not always behave in such a way.  It is sometimes more of a posture than a conviction.

Finally, I learned that he died, less than three days before he was scheduled to be released from the frozen dilithium mines of Rura Penthe.  I discovered this not two weeks ago.  I will be attending a ceremony in his honor soon. Perhaps you would care to join me.  It doesn't matter if you decline.  These rituals can be tiresome, even for one such as me.  I grow weary of the pomp of a warrior's life, but we are seldom able to avoid the glories life thrusts upon us.  Where shall I end up after the war?  I wish in as fine a place as this.  I would hate to leave it behind!

Vic Fontaine

(first appeared in "His Way," sixth season)

Why would you want to speak with me?  I'm just a two-bit actor who happened to license himself to holoprogram developers.  It's the biggest gig I've ever had and I had nothing to do with it!

Wait, are you telling me that the lounge singer had wings?  On Deep Space Nine, you say?  Who would've guessed!  Yeah, I was there for a few months.  Quark's Bar?  His holosuites are okay, but as I hear it they require constant maintenance.  He does good business?  Good for him.

It amazes me, it really does.  It just goes to show, wherever you go, there you are.  You just never know where life will take you.  I've been meaning to go back to DS9, though, I really have.  I liked it there.  Brought out some of my more rebellious instincts.  I may look calm and collected to you, but that's the acting.  Inside I'm just as shell-shocked as anyone else by this war.  I can see why that program has proven such a great success.  Sometimes you just need somewhere else to be, even if it's just an illusion.  It calms your nerves.  You say the guy doesn't just sing, but listens to you talk?  Yeah, I guess that sounds familiar.  Those developers, they spent days talking to me.  I receive holiday messages from them, sure.  Seems I made quite an impression on them.

But do I get it?  Somewhere I'm a legend.  I'm overwhelmed.  I'm sure he's nothing like me.  But what do I know, pally?