Notable Antagonists

Notable Antagonists

This page gives writers a quick overview of major antagonists, hostile figures and morally dangerous players active within the game setting. Not every figure listed here is a simple villain. Some are rulers, collaborators, opportunists, zealots, survivors, intelligence officers or resistance-adjacent figures whose goals may bring them into conflict with Avalon Station, the Lantern Network, the USS Resolute or the wider anti-Dominion resistance.

These entries are intended as quick references rather than full biographies. They are useful for understanding who may oppose the crew, who may manipulate events from the shadows, and who may become important during future missions.

Dominion Authority

Prime

Prime is the Founder ruling from Terok Nor and one of the most dangerous figures in Dominion-occupied space. Paranoid, ruthless and increasingly obsessed with the Lantern Network, Prime sees resistance not merely as rebellion, but as contamination. His control over Terok Nor, Bajor and the Bajoran wormhole gives him immense strategic power, while his fear of weakness makes him prone to brutal crackdowns, religious persecution and symbolic acts of terror such as The Offering.

The Founder on Earth

The Founder on Earth governs from the former Federation Council chambers in Paris, turning the symbolic heart of the old Federation into a seat of Dominion authority. Their rule is marked by martial law, political theatre, cultural suppression and the continued use of Earth as an example to other occupied worlds. While less publicly erratic than Prime, the Earth Founder remains coldly pragmatic and deeply invested in proving that the former Federation’s homeworld has been permanently broken.

The Founder on Cardassia Prime

The Founder on Cardassia Prime oversees Dominion operations across Cardassian territory and former Federation border regions. Their position has become increasingly unstable due to the Cardassian Rising, Damar’s martyrdom, Dukat’s growing influence and Garak’s shadow work. This Founder is more strategic than theatrical, but their authority has been badly damaged by rebellion, Romulan deception and growing distrust between Alpha and Gamma Quadrant Dominion leadership.

Senior Vorta Administrators

Senior Vorta administrators serve as the practical machinery of Dominion rule. They oversee rationing, labour quotas, propaganda, intelligence reporting, loyalty programmes and planetary compliance. Some are true believers in Founder divinity, while others are frightened bureaucrats trying to survive Prime’s paranoia and the widening cracks in Dominion control. They can be polite, smiling and almost delicate in manner, which makes their cruelty all the more unsettling.

Jem’Hadar Commanders

Jem’Hadar commanders enforce Dominion authority through military occupation, reprisals and battlefield discipline. Some are blunt instruments of terror, while others have become experienced counterinsurgency leaders after years fighting Lantern-linked cells, Klingon rebels, Bajoran resistance groups and Cardassian dissidents. They are rarely political actors in the same way Vorta or Founders are, but their presence can turn any local crisis into an immediate combat threat.

The Division of Protection & Investigations

DPI Directorate

The DPI Directorate is the hidden command structure behind the Dominion’s secret police. It coordinates surveillance, informants, arrests, loyalty checks, interrogations and infiltration across occupied former Federation space. The Directorate is especially dangerous because it understands that fear does not need to be loud to be effective. A missing neighbour, a delayed ration card, a quiet visit from an Investigator or a public loyalty notice can do as much damage as a Jem’Hadar patrol.

Protectors

Protectors are elite DPI enforcers, often recruited from Andorian collaborators and trained as shock troops for occupation work. Their use is deliberately psychological: former Federation citizens turned into the Dominion’s armoured fist. Protectors are deployed during raids, public arrests, prison transfers, crackdown operations and the suppression of protests. To many civilians, they represent the personal betrayal at the heart of Dominion rule.

Investigators

Investigators are DPI agents commonly drawn from joined Trill collaborators or other highly adaptable occupied populations. They are valued for memory, pattern recognition, cultural awareness and the ability to follow threads through communities without attracting immediate suspicion. Investigators are often more dangerous than soldiers because they do not need to win a fight. They only need to find the person who knows the person who knows the safehouse.

Readers

Readers are Betazoid collaborators or coerced telepaths used by the DPI for interrogations, loyalty screenings and resistance detection. Their existence has caused deep fear and mistrust among occupied telepathic communities, especially on Betazed. Some Readers serve willingly for protection or privilege, while others are trapped by threats against family or loved ones. Either way, their presence makes Lantern work far more dangerous.

Collaborators and Occupation Figures

Torel Duras

Torel Duras is the Dominion-aligned High Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, installed after the Empire fractured under the weight of defeat, civil conflict and political exhaustion. His government presents itself as the only practical path to Klingon survival, but many Houses view him as a collaborator who sold Klingon honour for continued rule. Torel’s regime is opposed by the Blades of Martok and other rebel Houses, making him a major antagonist for Klingon-linked stories.

Brunt

Brunt rose to power within the Ferengi Alliance after Zek was forced aside, presenting cooperation with the Dominion as the only profitable course left. Under his leadership, official Ferengi trade became tied to Dominion supply routes, labour contracts and occupation economics. Brunt is not a battlefield enemy, but an opportunist whose greed props up Dominion control. His problem, as ever, is that Ferengi trade networks have cracks, and many of those cracks leak straight into Lantern hands.

Dominion-Backed Planetary Officials

Across occupied space, the Dominion relies on local puppet governors, administrators, security chiefs and civic officials to maintain daily control. Some are ambitious collaborators who thrive under the new order. Others are exhausted survivors convinced that cooperation is the only way to reduce suffering. These figures can be useful antagonists in local stories because they are not always grand villains. Sometimes they are the person signing travel permits, approving ration reductions or deciding which family is reported to the DPI.

Offering Compliance Officers

Offering Compliance Officers oversee selection lists, exemptions, substitutions and transport processing for The Offering. They may belong to local administrations, the DPI or Dominion labour offices, but their role makes them hated across occupied space. They turn fear into paperwork, family guilt into policy and forced labour into public ceremony. For many civilians, they are the face of the Dominion’s most intimate cruelty.

Regional Power Players

Sela

Sela is one of the most dangerous Romulan power brokers in the post-Romulus era. Closely tied to the Tal’Shiar and the survival politics of New Romulus, she helped shape the official narrative that Romulus was destroyed by Dominion treachery. Sela may oppose the Dominion, but that does not make her trustworthy. Her loyalty is to Romulan strength, Romulan secrecy and her own position within the ruins of Imperial power.

Tal’Shiar Commanders

Tal’Shiar commanders operate in the shadows around New Romulus, the ruined Romulus system, Lantern-linked contacts and captured or classified technologies. They may cooperate with resistance forces when useful, leak intelligence when it weakens the Dominion, or conceal vital truths if Romulan interests demand it. Their danger lies in the fact that they can be helpful, honest and manipulative all in the same conversation.

Shinzon

Shinzon is a rising Reman figure shaped by exploitation, survival and fury after the destruction of Remus. To some Remans, he is a voice of vengeance and liberation. To others, he is a dangerous man turning grief into a weapon. His hatred of Romulan elites and Dominion manipulation may place him near anti-Dominion causes, but his ambitions are unlikely to remain safely contained. Shinzon is best treated as a volatile wild card rather than a simple ally or enemy.

Hardline Romulan Senators

The surviving Romulan political class on New Romulus is divided between reconstruction, revenge, secrecy and military survival. Hardline senators oppose weakness, distrust outside alliances and may support dangerous operations if they believe Romulan security is at stake. They are capable of working against the Dominion while also undermining Lantern, Starfleet or Avalon interests whenever those interests threaten Romulan control.

Xindi Extremists

The Xindi Independence Movement is not unified. Some factions may become useful anti-Dominion contacts, while others are isolationist, militant or openly hostile to outside influence. Xindi extremists see the Dominion’s weakening grip as a chance to restore old strength and settle old grievances. They may attack Dominion assets, but that does not make them safe partners for the wider resistance.

Dangerous Wild Cards

Gul Dukat

Gul Dukat is one of the most complicated figures in the resistance landscape. After escaping Dominion custody and establishing himself in the Badlands, he became a symbol of Cardassian defiance to some and a political nightmare to others. By 2398, following Damar’s death, Dukat has stepped into the leadership vacuum of the Cardassian Rising. He is anti-Dominion, charismatic and useful, but he is not safe. His ego, history with Bajor, relationship to Ziyal’s memory and hunger for personal myth make him one of the most dangerous allies the resistance could have.

Rogue Maquis Remnants

Not every former Maquis cell became part of the Lantern Network or the wider resistance in a clean way. Some old fighters have become smugglers, warlords, local strongmen or revenge-driven raiders. They know the Badlands, former Cardassian border routes and hidden caches better than almost anyone, but their loyalty may extend only to their own people, their own grudges or their own survival.

Pirate Lords and Black-Market Brokers

The collapse of Federation authority and the strain on Dominion control have allowed pirates, Nausicaan raiders, Orion remnants and black-market brokers to thrive. Some move supplies for the Lanterns or sell weapons to resistance cells. Others traffic refugees, betray safe routes or sell information to the highest bidder. They are useful because they can get things done. They are dangerous for exactly the same reason.

Compromised Lantern Contacts

The Lantern Network survives through trust, but occupation makes trust fragile. Some Lantern contacts may be compromised by DPI pressure, family threats, Offering exemptions, blackmail or simple fear. A compromised contact is rarely obvious, and they may still believe they are protecting someone by cooperating. These figures are especially useful for tense mission writing because their betrayal can be tragic rather than cartoonish.

Rogue Vorta

As Dominion authority fractures, some Vorta administrators and field officers have begun acting in their own interests. A rogue Vorta may seek protection, defect for survival, manipulate resistance groups, hide Dominion failures or attempt to build a private power base. They can bring valuable intelligence, but every Vorta comes wrapped in questions: what do they really know, what have they already done, and who taught them to lie so well?

Borg-Scarred Survivors

The Borg incursions left behind survivors, wreckage, trauma and dangerous fragments of technology. Some individuals touched by assimilation, partial recovery or Borg research may become unstable assets, unwilling threats or targets for competing powers. They are not necessarily villains, but Borg-linked stories should always carry risk. The Dominion, Romulans, Starfleet remnants and Lantern cells all understand that even a small piece of Borg knowledge can become a catastrophe if handled badly.

Using Antagonists in Stories

Antagonists in this setting do not always need to appear directly. A Founder’s order, a DPI notice, a ration denial, a false transmission, a Tal’Shiar leak or a Lantern contact suddenly going silent can all bring an antagonist’s influence into a post without placing them in the room.

Writers are encouraged to use these figures as pressure points rather than simple obstacles. The best antagonists in this setting should create difficult choices. Do characters risk a rescue if it exposes a safehouse? Do they cooperate with Dukat to save prisoners? Do they trust a Romulan leak? Do they protect a collaborator who helped the Dominion under threat? Do they strike back knowing civilians may suffer reprisals?

The Dominion occupation is powerful because it weaponises fear, hunger, grief and mistrust. The people opposing it are not untouched by those things. That tension should sit at the heart of antagonist-driven stories.

Current Status as of 2398

By 2398, the Dominion remains the dominant hostile power in occupied space, but its grip is weakening. Prime’s paranoia, the Cardassian Rising, the growth of the Lantern Network, Klingon rebellion, Romulan hostility, Xindi unrest and the awakening of Avalon Station have created a dangerous new moment in the quadrant.

That does not make the antagonists weaker. It makes them more desperate.

As Avalon comes alive and the USS Resolute enters the wider conflict, these figures and factions may become enemies, reluctant contacts, temporary allies, hidden manipulators or future mission threats. In this setting, the line between useful and dangerous is often thin enough to cut your hand on.