2398

2398 Timeline: The Cardassian Rising and the Awakening of Avalon

2398 — The Cardassian Rising

• After years of quiet resistance, Damar and sympathetic Cardassian officers begin coordinating open action against Dominion rule from within the Cardassian military structure.
• Garak supports the rising from the shadows, using intelligence contacts, forged orders, blackmail, and old Obsidian Order methods to weaken Dominion loyalists.
• Dukat’s Badlands coalition provides weapons, routes, and propaganda support, though many Cardassians remain divided over whether he is a liberator, opportunist, or relic of the old regime.
• Lantern-linked couriers move intelligence between Cardassian dissidents, Bajoran cells, Ferengi smugglers, and former Maquis routes in the Badlands.
• Kira Nerys and Odo cautiously support targeted cooperation against the Dominion, while refusing to allow Bajoran resistance to become subordinate to Cardassian ambitions.
• The rising begins with coordinated strikes against Dominion relay stations, supply depots, detention centres, and collaborator command offices across Cardassian territory.
• Damar becomes the public face of Cardassian defiance, giving ordinary soldiers and civilians a figure they can rally behind without fully trusting Dukat.
• The Dominion responds with mass arrests, Jem’Hadar reprisals, and DPI purges, but the crackdown only spreads the rebellion further.

2398 — Damar’s Death and Dukat’s Ascension

• During a major liberation action against Dominion command infrastructure, Damar is killed, turning him into a martyr for Cardassian freedom.
• His death threatens to fracture the movement, with military dissidents, civilian cells, Garak’s contacts, and Dukat’s followers all pulling in different directions.
• Dukat steps into the vacuum, invoking Ziyal’s death, Damar’s sacrifice, and Cardassia’s humiliation under Dominion rule to claim leadership of the liberation movement.
• Garak supports the transition only because Cardassia needs a symbol quickly, not because he trusts Dukat.
• Kira views Dukat’s rise with deep unease, recognising both the danger he poses and the usefulness of having Cardassian anger pointed at the Dominion.
• Under Dukat, the Cardassian resistance becomes louder, bolder, and more unified, but also more politically dangerous.
• Prime denounces Dukat as a terrorist, traitor, and false patriot, ordering the DPI to crush the Cardassian Rising before it inspires other occupied worlds.

2398 — The Myth of Avalon Stirs

• As the Cardassian Rising spreads, the Lantern Network relies increasingly on Badlands routes once used by the Maquis.
• Rumours of Avalon grow stronger: a hidden sanctuary somewhere in the storms, where ships vanish from Dominion pursuit and return repaired, resupplied, or carrying impossible intelligence.
• Most resistance fighters still treat Avalon as a myth, but Lantern couriers, former Maquis, and Badlands smugglers begin reporting signs of a stable pocket deep within the plasma storms.
• Dominion patrols sent into the region suffer navigation failures, sensor ghosts, missing probes, and unexplained system malfunctions.
• The Lanterns suspect something real may exist inside the Badlands, but no faction has yet confirmed Avalon’s location or purpose.

2398 — The USS Resolute Arrives

• Late in the year, the USS Resolute is pulled through a violent subspace tear and emerges in the Badlands.
• Its arrival interacts with the strange calm pocket hidden deep within the plasma storms, destabilising old concealment patterns and drawing the ship toward the mythical refuge known as Avalon.
• The Resolute discovers Avalon Station, long hidden within the Badlands and protected by systems no one in the resistance fully understands.
• The station’s dormant systems begin waking in response to the ship’s arrival, including the entity or intelligence later known as the Custodian.
• Avalon’s activation sends subtle ripples through nearby subspace, enough for Lantern contacts, Dominion sensors, and Badlands factions to realise that something impossible has changed.
• The Lantern Network gains what it has only ever had as rumour: a real sanctuary, hidden command hub, and potential rallying point.
• From this moment, the fixed timeline ends and the game begins. Future history will be shaped by the crew of the Resolute, Avalon Station, and the missions that follow.