It’s Day 1 of Dominionweek 2024!! I’ll be honest I completely forgot it started today but I had a story that fit with today’s prompt, Act of Compassion, so I edited it and now I’m good to go. I’m properly introducing a new character from my vorta oc Lizaan’s story in this one. I hope you like it!! :DD
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As the Vorta scientists scurried around the activation room, the Founder called Overseer looked on. Their owlish face was pale and smooth, their shimmering imitations of eyes like spheres of solid gold, blank yet always watchful. Their long neck curved gracefully as they dipped down to loom over the shoulder of the Vorta geneticist who was typing away on the interface plugged into the clone stasis pod.
The geneticist was making the edits to the clone’s programmed conditioning. She quickly but carefully input the new protocols Overseer had personally outlined, including knowledge and skills that perhaps would better suit a Vorta class that specialized in intelligence-gathering rather than an Attendant-class. She removed some protocols while reinforcing others, suppressing the obsequious meekness that was characteristic of Attendant-class Vorta while bolstering the clone’s natural curiosity and innate loyalty to the Founders and the Dominion.
Overseer had been precise and methodical while devising the edits they wanted to make to this clone. They already knew this line was capable of espionage while still acting as a functioning attendant, and Overseer wanted to nurture that. However, they needed to ensure that the changes would be well-hidden from others, including Clone Quality Control and perhaps even the clone himself until Overseer required his new conditioning to be put to use.
Once the Vorta geneticist had edited the clone’s conditioning, she moved on to editing the clone’s memories. The clone’s previous iteration had made some… unfortunate choices which led to his termination, the memories of which Overseer had deemed unnecessary and perhaps even detrimental to the new and improved successor’s function.
Lizaan-2, and, by extension, the entire Lizaan line had been convicted of espionage and sedition against the Dominion. The only reason the whole line hadn’t been terminated along with Lizaan-2 was because it was one of the few lines whose clones hadn’t all been destroyed during the Kalantai Conflict. Once the cloning facilities had been repaired and the Dominion regained its strength after its heavy losses, the Link gave the order to have the defective line terminated. However, Overseer, out of curiosity and an admittedly rare benevolent mood, decided to launch a proper investigation to determine the root of the previous Lizaan’s defection rather than immediately terminate the line.
Lo and behold, after an autopsy, Overseer found an error in Lizaan-2’s conditioning chip that likely caused his aberrant behavior. The majority of the Link had wanted to terminate the line anyway, just to be safe, but Overseer had always been loath to let a perfectly good resource go to waste. They requested they be allowed to activate the next clone, Lizaan-3, and see if they could put his predecessor‘s ability as a spy for the enemy to use for the good of the Dominion. If Lizaan-2 had managed to fool the Founder he served for so long, Overseer had no doubt Lizaan-3 could serve the Dominion well as a spy, especially if his conditioning were edited to refine his ability. It was an odd request, but the Link had learned to trust Overseer’s judgment as spymaster after all their centuries of service.
It wasn’t often that Overseer showed such compassion. Still, so long as the clone’s loyalties remained where they should be, Overseer knew their mercy would not be wasted.