| File:Enabran tain, the wire.jpg | |
| Enabran Tain | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Species: | Cardassian |
| Died: | 2373 |
| Children: | Elim Garak |
| Occupation: | Former head of the Obsidian Order |
| Actor: | Paul Dooley |
- I should have killed your mother before you were born. You have always been a weakness I can't afford. - to Elim Garak, while dying
Enabran Tain was the former head of the Obsidian Order and the father of Elim Garak. However, he never admitted this fact publicly, believing that his son was "a weakness [he couldn't] afford."
Tain was the head of the Obsidian Order for twenty years, and the only head of the Obsidian Order to live long enough to retire. As the head of the Order, Tain trusted no one, with the exception of his housekeeper, Mila. He was known for ruthlessness, and many said that he lacked a heart. Tain was also Elim Garak's immediate superior, whom he trained and molded into a mirror image of himself. Nevertheless, Tain was directly responsible for exiling Garak after being betrayed by him in some way.
In 2370, during his retirement, Tain lived on Arawath where he was visited by Julian Bashir, who was seeking information on Elim Garak's cranial implant so that it could be removed. Tain only helped Bashir so that Garak would live a long, miserable life. (DS9: "The Wire")
The following year, Tain attempted to stage a comeback by destroying the Founders' homeworld with a combined fleet of Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar ships. His plan was compromised by a changeling infiltrator, and the resulting Battle of the Omarion Nebula was a complete failure. The entire combined fleet was destroyed by the Jem'Hadar. Tain was assumed to have perished when his warbird exploded, but he was actually captured by the Dominion and detained at Internment Camp 371. (DS9: "Improbable Cause", "The Die is Cast")
In 2373, Tain managed to modify the camp barracks' life support system to send a subspace signal to Garak, indicating he was alive. By the time Garak reached him though, he was dying of unspecified heart trouble. On his deathbed, Tain asked Garak to escape, so that he could seek vengeance on the Dominion for what it had done to him. Garak agreed, but only if Tain asked him as his father. Tain finally died, after acknowledging that Garak was his son. (DS9: "In Purgatory's Shadow")
Damar discovered that Tain was Garak's father in 2375, when Garak and himself, with Commander Kira Nerys, sought refuge in Tain's old house. (DS9: "The Dogs of War")
Appearances
Apocrypha
A younger Tain appeared in the Stargazer novel Oblivion, where he is pitted against a young Captain Jean-Luc Picard during Picard's first meeting with Guinan. During this mission, both Picard and Tain are looking for a friend of Picard's who claims to have vital information about a potential threat, but it is eventually revealed that the friend has betrayed Picard and actually has no information. At the end of the novel, Picard and Guinan are transported onto the Stargazer, leaving Tain to drift through space on an abandoned, badly damaged spaceship until he is recovered.
Tain also appears in Keith R.A. DeCandido's Star Trek: The Lost Era novel "The Art of the Impossible".
External link
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