Kira Meru

Kira Meru was a Bajoran woman refugee and the mother of Colonel Kira Nerys of the Bajoran Militia.

History
She was born in the Dahkur Province on Bajor and as a child, like so many Bajorans at the time enslaved by Cardassians, Meru dreamed of having enough food to eat and pretty clothes to wear. She was married to Kira Taban and in addition to Nerys, had two sons with him, Kira Reon and Kira Pohl. As a woman of faith, she convinced her husband to go to services with her every day, even though he was not a particularly religious man himself.

She was a skilled icon painter and her favorite flowers were Bajoran lilacs.

She had a scar on the left side of her face, which she often tried to hide with a strand of hair, from a time when she had failed to show a Cardassian officer proper respect. 

In 2346, during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, she and her family lived at the Singha refugee camp. Meru was chosen by Basso Tromac, a Bajoran collaborator, to serve as a comfort woman for Cardassian soldiers aboard Terok Nor. There, she became Gul Dukat's mistress. In return, Dukat made sure her family was cared for and received special treatment, such as food, housing and medical supplies. Meru continued to live with Dukat in relative luxury until her death seven years later in a Cardassian hospital.

Back on Bajor, Kira Taban told his children that Meru had died in the camp to protect them from knowing the truth about what their mother had to do in order to keep them well-fed and cared for. However, many years later, in 2374, Dukat - in an attempt to come clean with himself and his past - contacted Kira Nerys on what would have been Meru's sixtieth birthday and told her that he and Meru had been lovers. Unsettled by the possibility, Kira traveled back in time using the Orb of Time and met Meru, under the guise of Luma Rahl. There, she found out first hand that Dukat was telling the truth: her mother had become Dukat's mistress and seemed to enjoy it too.

Disgusted that Meru seemed to be falling in love with Dukat and buying his lies about how much Cardassians cared about Bajorans, Kira eventually participated in an assassination attempt on both of them by planting an ultritium bomb. Just before the bomb went off, Kira heard a taped message from her father to her mother in which he thanked Meru for the sacrifice she was making which in turn had saved their lives. Kira panicked, suddenly realizing that maybe her mother was not the willing collaborator she believed her to be. She grabbed Meru and Dukat and led them out of the room where the bomb was planted. The Orb of Time brought Kira back to the present during the explosion and back on Deep Space 9, she discussed the matter with Benjamin Sisko. She told him how conflicted she is about what her mother did, insisting that no matter what Meru's motives, it did not make it right, as she was living in the lap of luxury for seven more years, while thousands of Bajorans were losing their lives at the hands of murderers like Dukat and his kind. She admitted, however, that no matter what Meru had done, she was still her mother. 

Background
Kira Meru was played by Leslie Hope.

Apocrypha
In the Star Trek: Terok Nor novel Night of the Wolves, Dukat took another mistress and his relationship with Meru began to crumble by 2348. Years later she was sent by Dukat to Crell Moset's hospital on Bajor, where she died of the Fostossa virus. He continued to take care of her family into the 2360s hoping to be able to stir Kira away from the Resistance. (Dawn of the Eagles)

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