As the war came to an end, we saw a shot of a devastated and burning Cardassian Prime. Garak lamented to Bashir in one of the best scenes in the entire episode about all the great minds and culture lost to his people. Garak wondered if they deserved their fate as the 800 million dead, and climbing, fatality numbers rolled in. Bashir tried to reassure his friend that Cardassia would survive. Garak was certain it would, but his home would never be the same. Nonetheless, Garak remained home on Cardassia, where he's wanted to be since we first met him.
Back at the station, the signing ceremony made the Dominion surrender official. There was surprisingly little in the way of celebration evident on DS9 in reaction to the end of the war. Instead, the senior staff gathered at Vic's to listen to him sing - just as they've been doing for the past year, much to my personal annoyance. In the midst of a dance with his pregnant wife, Sisko had an epiphany as to what was next on his list of tasks as the Emissary. He rushed off to the Bajoran fire caves where Dukat and Winn had gone earlier in their efforts to free the Pah-Wraiths and out-evil each other. Sisko and Dukat had it out. Winn was killed. Sisko and Dukat fell into a fire-filled chasm and the book that carried the instructions for releasing the super-evil, anti-Prophet plot-device, uh, I mean Pah-Wraiths was destroyed (apparently book-burning was the Momma Prophet's grand plan for her baby boy, Ben).
Sisko was whisked off to the wormhole by Momma and told he couldn't return home and had to remain with the Prophets - though where they all went, since we've only seen Momma Sarah all season, I do not know. Sisko visited Kasidy in a vision to inform her of his fate. And frustratingly enough, there was as little reaction amongst Sisko's loyal crew to their captain's fate as there was to the end of the war.
And so began the deciding of fates for our intrepid crew. No poker game for these folks.
Sisko - gone.
Worf - left to be the Federation ambassador to Kronos.
O'Brien - left with his family to return to Earth and teach
