Attention, citizens of the Dominion! This is your admin speaking!
The Founder has not had an easy year, and has given charge of Dominion Week over to me! I was deeply honoured to receive this charge, and although I am delivering this message rather later than usual, Dominion Week is still on!
As a Vorta, I am sadly deficient in the fancy art department, but I have still done my best to provide for you all, and my efforts have met with the Founder's approval!
So what is Dominion Week?
Dominion Week, held on the last full week of August since the year 2023, is a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanwork event that aims to centre the personhood, experiences, and unique perspectives of Dominion species and characters. It is explicitly OC-friendly, and we at headquarters (the Dominion Endures Discord server) encourage cultural worldbuilding through character development. The event is also explicitly aroace-affirming, and although ship-centric fanworks aren't disallowed, Gen fanworks are the central focus.
How does it work?
Each day has two prompts to choose from, and this year introduces seven additional wild card prompts, which a prospective contributor can choose to use in the event neither of the day's prompts strikes a spark of inspiration! You can create a fanwork for both prompts in one pair as well, of course. The more contributions, the better, and none of us at Headquarters will complain! Submit all contributions to the designated AO3 collection, and post them here on tumblr in the #dominionweek or #dominion week tags, so we can find them!
What are the rules?
Tag everything appropriately. This is an event centred around the Dominion, and even citizens like myself do not shy away from the darkness in our past. Heavy topics will come up, and out of respect for any prospective readers, they must be tagged properly.
Focus on the perspectives, motivations and actions of Dominion characters as much as possible. You do not always have to agree with or morally endorse such motivations, perspectives or actions, but the point of this event is to explore points-of-view that can be very interesting if handled with care and sensitivity. As an example, writing from the perspective of a Changeling infiltrator keeping themself hidden is acceptable; writing from the perspective of the Federation crew trying to hunt them down is assuredly not.
Other than that, have fun! You can have fun writing dark themes and angst-laden scenarios, ask how I know. :)
The Prompt List
When I was given charge of Dominion Week for 2026, I immediately thought of this year's prompts following a theme! And the theme I decided upon was Epic the Musical! I have been a fan of this musical for years and there are many clever little turns-of-phrase I could apply to the Dominion. Some are more obvious than others, but I collected so many that the addition of the wild cards became necessary to include them all! I did make a few adjustments to create snappier prompts, but any Epic fan reading these lists will know where I got them all. :D
The main prompts are as follows:
Aug 23: Ruthlessness Is Mercy/Open Arms
Aug 24: Will to Survive/No Price We Won't Pay
Aug 25: All the Power, All the Blame/Ripples and Tidal Waves
Aug 26:Threat No Longer/We Are the Same
Aug 27: Dance With Fate/Honour and Faith
Aug 28:Darkest Moment/A Greater Tomorrow
Aug 29: What We've Become/To Fall Is To Learn
And the wild cards are:
Ways of Persuasion
Modes of Control
Means of Deceit
One Goal In Mind
Mindset Change
Portrayals of Betrayal
All They've Ever Known
On behalf of all of us at Headquarters,
Happy Writing!
