Ao3 Ds9GIRL

Hear me out. My theory is that Cardassians are like the New Mexico whiptail lizard Aspidoscelis neomexicanus–exclusively parthenogenic. That is to say, they don’t have sex to produce offspring. Their bodies will, unprompted by sex and completely divorced from sexual intercourse, periodically spit out a clone.

I imagine that’s why they’re so intense about “family” and strict societal roles. See, the nuclear family model has to be mandated because they continue to consider it culturally important, but it’s otherwise biologically obsolete. Sexual intercourse, then, is only for social bonding. This would also explain why their planet became resource-scarce: they couldn’t regulate population because  — *poof!*  — babies just sort of fall out of them from time to time. Dukat clearly favors his son Melkor, who gets several shoutouts in the show, but who we never see. Why is this? Perhaps it’s because that’s his personal offspring. The other six with his wife derived from her. anyway this is how and why a space-faring civilization has not invented the condom. they have sex for bonding purposes and have no idea that’s how babies are made. for evidence, i present:

Mila’s hair is white.

Enabran Tain’s hair is black.

He looks a bit younger, doesn’t he? My theory? Mila isn’t Garak’s mother. She’s his grandmother. She’s Tain’s mother. Okay, but again, how does this square with our parthenogenesis theory?

American alligators, as with some other reptile species, exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination. The sex of the babies is determined by their temperature during embryonic development, not the presence or absence of specific sex chromosomes. Therefore, female Mila could have male Tain as a function of how warm or chilly he was when he was a fetus. no problem.

(*also applies to Gul Madred and his daughter)

- Dukat tying victory for the Cardassian Union to his son Melkor’s birthday is significant because Dukat is basically coupling the future of the Union with what is in essence his “future self”

- Mila telling Garak to go assist Tain is his “past self” telling his present self to go rescue his intermediate self. That is, to acknowledge a direct legacy currently spread across three people. For Mila particularly, it would be significant as her next iteration (Tain) got to be one of the most important figures in the Union, where her current iteration (Mila) never did and is relegated to being a housekeeper.

- Gul Madred showing Picard his daughter was making a very specific point about what he was doing for the future of Cardassia. Her “producer” would be alive to care for her and help her thrive. His focus was on an experience for her better than his own experience by dint of his expanded power and his presence in her life.

- Dukat deciding to love and care for Ziyal was realizing/acknowledging that a child produced by mixing his pure lineage with another entity’s is equal to those of his who are essentially a copy.

- crossbreeding might be the only way for this xenophobic species to increase its genetic robustness! wow