While providing members of the Alpha Quadrant races with their first close exposure to the development of our mighty warriors, the Jem'Hadar, this story also allows us to glimpse the savagery of those species. In this installment of the chronicle, the aliens of DS9 come into possession of an infant Jem'Hadar. Astonished by its capacity for accelerated growth and skills acquisition, they debate whether to surrender the child warrior to the cruel authority of Starfleet Command for "examination" (no doubt a euphemism for torture and eventual dissection.) The traitorous founder, Odo, who has elected to remain among them demonstrates again his superiority to the creatures of the Alpha Quadrant by arguing for humane treatment for the Jem'Hadar, but foolishly attempts to divest it of its fierce, warrior capacity. Of course, this foolhardy endeavor ultimately fails. The Jem'Hadar demonstrates its unfailing loyalty to the Dominion by attempting to return to the Gamma Quadrant. Realizing his abject inferiority to the creature of the Dominion, Sisko accedes and allows Odo to return the Jem'Hadar to its home.
This installment is a delightful exposition on the incompetence of the Alpha Quadrant races as we see them launch one of the first of their ill fated attempts to overcome the invincible Dominion. Alerted to a Romulan conspiracy involved in an attempt to murder Garak, the traitorous Cardassian tailor, Odo launches an investigation into their motives which ultimately reveals the existence of a Romulan-Cardassian plot led hatched by the Cardassian Obsidian Order and the Romulan Tal Shiar and commanded by Garak's father, Enabaran Tain. Tain reveals to Odo, incidentally, the only creature in the Alpha Quadrant bright enough to uncover this plot, that the combined Romulan-Cardassian task force plans to travel into the Gamma Quadrant to destroy the Founders' home world. Garak foolishly elects to join Tain in his ill fated gambit.
This second part in the farcical attack by the Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar on the Founders' home world, vindicates our assumption that these pitiable races would prove no threat to the dominion and provides further evidence of the myriad failings of the Alpha Quadrant races. On board one of the Romulan-Cardassian task force ships bound for the Gamma Quadrant, Garak, at the orders of Tain, demonstrates his innate savagery by torturing Odo for information. Meanwhile, Sisko and his crew of incompetents take the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant in pursuit of the task force, only to find that their cloaking device has been sabotaged by one of their own. While, publicly denouncing the Romulan-Cardassian plot, the Federation has effectively sanctioned this illegal attack by soliciting an operative on board the Defiant to sabotage their cloaking device and prevent them from intercepting the task force. Once exposed by the failure of their cloaking device, the Defiant is quickly dispatched by the Jem'Hadar. Upon reaching what they believe to be the Founders' home world, the task force opens fire and destroys much of the planet's surface. Shortly thereafter they learn the folly of their actions, when they discover that the planet is in fact uninhabited and a massive fleet of Jem'Hadar ships reveal themselves and destroy the fleet. The Defiant is permitted to rescue Odo and Garak and return them to the Alpha Quadrant that they might report what they have seen and further spread respect for the mighty Dominion among their comrades.
In this installment of the chronicle we learn of a clever Dominion plot to turn the Alpha Quadrant races against one another which is only narrowly averted by Sisko and his crew. Having riddled Starfleet with Founder impostors, the Dominion sent one posing as Admiral Krajensky to attempt to lure Sisko into actions which would provoke a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi. Believing that Barisa Prime is under attack from the Tzenkethi, Sisko takes the Defiant to that world. En route, his bumbling crew stumble upon alien devices infiltrating many of their ship's systems. In a desperate gamble, they surmise that some member of the crew may be a Founder posing as a humanoid. Examining each crew member in turn, Krajensky is ultimately revealed but escapes to take control of the ship. The Founder sets course for Tzenkethi with the Defiant armed and cloaked. Realizing that the Founder could take the form of any member of the crew, the incompetents of the Defiant become paranoid in the extreme and take various dubious steps to attempt to determine who the Founder is posing as. Easily, gulled by the wiles of a Founder, he ultimately reveals himself to Odo. Demonstrating the full extent to which he has been corrupted by the savages of the Alpha Quadrant, Odo murders the Founder by throwing him against the warp core. In his final moments, the Founder graces Odo with the words which still strike terror into the hearts of the feeble Alpha Quadrant creature: "You're too late, we're everywhere."
