What Would Garak Do?

[Shada Dukal]

I have re-watched “Profit and Loss” episode recently and there are certain things that I do not understand. Natima Lang and two dissidents are on the DS9 because their ship was damaged by disruptor fire.

Later, Garak enters the Ops and informs Sisko that the Central Command accuses the dissidents of terrorism and has sent a Galor class ship to apprehend them. Garak has informed the Central Command about the presence of these dissidents on DS9. Gul Toran who has some old quarrel with Garak informs him that the Central Command wants them dead and implies that Garak can come back to Cardassia in exchange.

Garak is resolved to do his job and to stop the fugitives, then suddenly Gul Toran appears and informs him that his stay on the station has soften him. Garak realizes that if Toran takes the credit, his exile will continue and Toran confirms that the completion of this task will not change his position on Cardassia.

I wonder if Garak did not hate Toran and if Toran did not appear, would he kill the dissidents or not. After that, he tells Quark that he spared them because he loved Cardassia although it was obvious that only five minutes ago he was ready to kill them for Cardassia and to end his exile. Such a change of heart really puzzles me. Did he let them go in order to spite his old rival or because he realized that his exile will continue or he believed that these dissidents were right? During the entire episode, he did not express even a shred of sympathy for them. In the end it turns out that my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

[Gul Khold]

I personally think that, indeed, he did let them go merely out of spite. Not only Toran would not have kept his side of the deal, but chances are he figured the Central Command - if even were aware of it - wouldn't also keep their part of the bargain. So might as well spite them.

Now, if they kept their deal... The dissidents would be as good as dead.

[Dal Rassak]

Interesting to read your comments - I have always read this situation completely differently!
To me when watching this it seemed obvious that this scene is meant to imply that Garak is some kind of secret dissident himself - a true patriot, yes, but one who has a different idea of what's good for his country than the way the official line goes. I'm thinking he was acting for Toran's benefit when threatening to shoot the fugitives, knowing that Toran would show up at the scene, and being convincing just long enough till he got HIM in the line of fire.
Saying at the end to Quark that he did what he did for love of his country makes it clear as daylight to me that by this he means to say Cardassia needs a less rigid society and more foreward-thinking scientists etc, and that he's making a personal sacrifice in the interests of his country in assisting the fugitives to escape - that buying himself out of exile on the terms offered by Toran and at the cost of the professor and her protégés was something he was not willing to do, no matter how much he hates his exile.

If you think back to the scene in his shop where he tries to talk Quark out of buying a certain dress for her, using the dress as an obvious analogy for how dangerous it can get for anyone to associate with Cardassian "outsiders" and ripping the dress to illustrate how ruthlessly Cardassian society deals with such people, there is nothing there that actually shows that he himself agrees with those prevalent attitudes. He's merely making a graphic statement to the effect "this is how it is and this is the risk you're running". In a later episode ('Second Skin') when assisting in the rescue of Kira (made to look like Tekeny Ghemor's lost daughter Iliana) he also appears to act quite respectfully and sympathetically towards Ghemor - who is a dissident. Garak may have seen (and done) a lot of things in his career in the Order that might have made him think twice about how his state treats its own citizens.

[Shada Dukal]

The beautiful thing about Garak is that what he says, what he does and what he thinks are completely different things so there is more than it meets the eye. The longer an agent remains unaccounted for and left on their own, the more likely they are to forget their initial goals, they play it by ear.

Garak realized that his exile was likely to continue so making enemies with the aliens he was living among was not the best way to keep a low profile and pretend to be a tailor. If he had killed the dissidents, he had to explain to the Galor ship’s second-in-command what had happened to their Gul and I don’t think that Garak relished such a development. Leaving the dissidents to escape implicated them or the station inhabitants as perpetrators of the murder. What is more, if he had killed Quark that would lead to an investigation, which would jeopardize his stay on the station. And Toran told him that killing the dissidents would not terminate his exile.

This raises another question – how exactly Odo is going to explain that three people has disappeared from the brig. The Bajoran government was ready to hand over the dissidents to the Cardassians in exchange for some Bajoran prisoners so this was a diplomatic gaff. Trying to kill the dissidents on the station did not make any sense, this could be done on the ship or on Cardassia.

I don’t think that Garak had any illusions about the dissidents and the conversation in the shop reveals it. He uses the dress as a metaphor and says that he finds its style too radical and later adds, “She's chosen to associate herself with some rather flamboyant companions. It would be a tragedy if she got in the way when her friends... went out of style.” This was a clear warning but hardly an approval, more of disdain and contempt coming from a better informed person at the sight of sheer naiveté.

The operation in “Second Skin” could succeed if the Obsidians had not kidnapped the real Kira, they could physically alter an agent in order to expose Ghemor as a dissident. The disappearance of a high-ranking Bajoran officer serving on a Starfleet-controlled station is something that naturally leads to an investigation. And Sisko had to threaten and coerce Garak to take part in the mission. Garak could not stay on Cardassia considering that he had used his secret code to help Defiant enter Cardassian space so his only way to survive was to kill Entek and return to DS9.

I guess what Garak says in “The Wire” is the closest to his true feelings, he was an agent, his job was to blend and to adapt, but still he lamented his loss of status. I don’t think that he favored any faction in the Cardassian politics, he simply wanted to survive and regain his professional standing on Cardassia. If survival meant cooperating with Starfleet, he was ready to do it because it was part of his undercover and it allowed him to have access to information.