Proka Rugal/Rugal Pa'Dar
Origin: Deep Space Nine
Hair:
Occupation:
Parents: Kotan Pa'Dar, Arys Pa'Dar
Adopted parents: Etra, Migdal
Place of residence: Castle, 13th floor, Room 16-12
Race: Cardassian
He was born in 2358, at the Tozhat settlement on Bajor, where he lived with his parents for the first several years of his life. (DS9 novel: The Never-Ending Sacrifice)
His father, Kotan Pa'Dar was an exarch in a Cardassian colony on Bajor during the Cardassian occupation. After an attack by the Bajoran resistance in 2362 in which Rugal's mother was killed, Rugal himself was taken by a Cardassian officer attached to Terok Nor to the Tozhat Resettlement Center, while his father believed he was killed in the attack. He was later adopted by a Bajoran man named Proka Migdal.
In 2370, Rugal accompanied his family to Deep Space 9. When Elim Garak introduced himself, Rugal attacked him. This led to Rugal becoming the subject of an intense confrontation between the Cardassians and the Bajorans as it was discovered that he had family in Cardassia and accusations were made that his Bajoran parents mistreated him.
In a custody hearing conducted by Commander Benjamin Sisko, it was discovered that Gul Dukat and Kotan Pa'Dar were political enemies. Dukat deliberately had Rugal taken to an orphanage in hopes of someday using this to humiliate his adversary. When Sisko learned of this, he decided to let Pa'Dar take Rugal back to Cardassia, realizing that Pa'Dar had a right to raise his child. (DS9: "Cardassians")
On Cardassia, Rugal would fail to integrate. His father lived in Coranum Sector, as a member of the aristocracy, with Rugal's paternal grandmother, Geleth Pa'Dar. His grandmother was especially vicious and added to Rugal's sense of displacement. Encountering an environment where the State was everything and to speak out something unapproved brought swiftly the attention of the Obsidian Order, Rugal hoped to return to Bajor. He would encounter some respite in a girl, Penelya Khevet, a niece of the wealthy Khevet family, who owned farms on Ithic. Pen's parents had been murdered by the Maquis on Ithic, and the Khevet patriarch, Mikor, found in Pen an ideal future manager of his Ithic holdings. Like many things on Cardassia Rugal objected to this, and as he fell for his friend he never realised she could not say no to her uncle to the idea of going to Ithic. For Rugal, his dream was always to return to Bajor, even after his adopted parents passed away.
Rugal would reject the privileged education his father could give him, and instead trained to be a nurse in the Free hospital in Torr Sector. He would at night with others give medicine and food to the homeless in Torr also. Also Rugal would discover his father was involved in the Detapa Council's dissident movement, led by Meya Rejal, but would correctly identify that the dissidents merely wanted to replace the military and state police's hold on power with their own. He was attracted to the powerful rhetoric and trans formative ideas of Natima Lang's The Ending of "The Never-Ending Sacrifice", but Lang was forced to flee Cardassia before he could meet her. When Rejal seized power after the fall of the Obsidian Order, he was not disappointed in his prediction of how conservative her government would be. During the Klingon invasion of 2372 his father was evacuated to Deep Space 9: during this period his grandmother would pass away, and Geleth would tell Rugal that his father was in fact a bastard. Geleth had committed revenge for her family on the Pa'Dar family by marrying and cheating upon her husband. The Klingon invasion did not reach Cardassia Prime itself, and Kotan would return - together with Penelya they would spread her ashes in the dry dessert region Geleth came from. Soon after, he and Penelya met Tora Ziyal, the daughter of Skrain Dukat, whom they would befriend. However, Dukat's fall from political disgrace would rob them of further friendship too.
Rugal would stay at the Torr hospital, and live with friends in Torr. He would reject going to Ithic with Penelya, ending their relationship. However in 2373 when he was coerced into military service by Skrain Dukat, then leader of Cardassia, and subsequently spent most of the war as a glinn on Ogyas III. For his service on Ogyas, Rugal was awarded a medal. When the war ended he deserted rather than being captured by the Romulans.
It would take him several months to get from Ogyas to Ithic, where his girlfriend Penelya Khevet lived before the war. There he would not find her, but instead found at the Khevet farm a traumatized human girl, Hulya Kiliç. The young child had witnessed human survivors murder her mother, and found in Rugal a person she could trust, unlike other humans. Eventually some other Cardassian survivors would wander their way, though none were Pen. He realised she was dead. More so, Rugal realized to continue protecting Hulya, he would need to obtain some rights in the face of opposition from local human survivors.
Therefore, in 2378, Rugal applied to become a Federation citizen. The official charged with ruling on Rugal's application decided that Captain Sisko's earlier decision to return Rugal to his father was not in keeping with Bajoran law, and overturned Sisko's decision—Rugal was once again the adopted son of Proka Migdal and Etra, and as Bajor was a Federation member world, he was a Federation citizen by extension. Rugal was the first Cardassian to become a Federation citizen.
Subsequently, Rugal formally adopted Hulya. He would return to Cardassia, and there encounter Penelya, who had indeed survived the genocide.(DS9 novel: The Never-Ending Sacrifice)