[DS9] Lynch's Spoiler Review, Part 2: DS9 Season 6
Timothy W. Lynch
possibly seasons before) of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Proceed at
your own risk.
[part 2 of 2]
"Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night"
Written by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by: Jonathan West
Initial rating: 3
Quotables:
"Why do you want to play a program where we *lose*?" [Because
the alternative's being in this episode? Sorry, couldn't
resist...]
"Let me get this straight. You want to travel back in time to see if Gul
Dukat and your mother were lovers?"
"And I bet I know what you're thinking: you'd like nothing better
than to get us all drunk so you can kill us in our sleep." "Are
you sure you're not part Betazoid?"
"'I only hope you won't condemn us all for the boorish behavior of
one man.'" [Dukat repeats it] "How did you know he was
going to say that?" "Let's just say this is not the first
performance I've seen of this little ... melodrama."
Nope. This one was just a dumb idea that gets even dumber when
one looks back. Insulting and offensive treatment of time travel, the
use of the Prophets as a crutch (you want the Prophets as _deus ex
machina_, *this* is a better choice than "Sacrifice of Angels"), and
shallow treatment of just about every character involved make this one
a big, big mistake. It's not the worst of the season, but it's awfully
pointless -- when even Marc Alaimo isn't compelling, something's
wrong.
Final rating: 2.5.
"Inquisition"
Written by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Directed by: Michael Dorn
Initial rating: 8.5
Quotables:
"It's like the river calls to me." "Yes, it's saying 'Stay away. Don't
come near me, or I'll hurt you MORE!'" "Aaaigh!"
"Wait ... um ... let me think. Was I *alone* in solitary? Yes, I think
I was."
"Is it really necessary to drive a Starfleet officer across the Promenade
in *irons*?"
"I was with the Seventh Fleet when the Dominion attacked the Tyra
system. 98 of our ships were destroyed in a matter of hours.
I lost a lot of friends." "I lost a lot of friends, too." "I believe
that -- but yours were Jem'Hadar."
"Now, so far, your case is based on circumstantial evidence and
speculation." "What other case can I make against a man who
covers his tracks so well?" "That's a circular argument and
you KNOW it!"
"This man concealed the truth about his illegal genetic enhancement
for over thirty years. He lied to get his medical license, he lied
to get into Starfleet, he lied to you when he came aboard this
station, and he's been lying to you ever since!"
"You don't believe me, do you?" "I don't ... I don't think you're
*lying*, Julian."
"You're saying that I'm a traitor!" "Traitor ... hero ... those are just
words."
"You violate those principles as a matter of course." "In order to
protect them." "Well, I'm sorry, but the ends don't always
justify the means." "Really?"
"How many lives do you suppose you've saved in your medical
career?" "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Hundreds? Thousands? Do you suppose those people give a
damn that you lied to get into Starfleet Medical? I doubt it."
"I can't believe the Federation condones this kind of activity."
"Personally, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't. Every
other great power has a unit like Section 31: the Romulans
have the Tal Shiar, the Cardassians had the Obsidian Order."
"But what does that say about US? When push comes to
shove, are we willing to sacrifice our principles in order to
survive?"
"Inquisition" is probably the second-best episode of the latter half of
the season (losing out only to its immediate successor "In the Pale
Moonlight"). Although the fifth act and the revelation behind "Section
31" feels more like an attempt to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon
than it does a natural outgrowth of the past few years, the questions it
raises are ones which are worth asking: we've seen ends-vs.-means
questions in Trek before, but generally as applied to individuals, not
societies. There's food for thought here, which is nice by itself; add
in a marvelously directed atmosphere of paranoia and a great guest star
turn from William Sadler, and you get a very solid show.
Final rating: 8.
[Note #1: where was Garak in all of this? You'd think Bashir would
have a *lot* to talk about with him after this...]
[Note #2: with all of the questions about "is Section 31 really
authorized by Starfleet or not?", has anyone thought to check Sadler's
claim and look at the original Starfleet charter? In a free society like
the Federation, calling up the text of the charter should be an easy
thing to do.]
[Note #3: Since I'm usually critical of DS9 on the rare occasions I
bring up B5, I figured I should mention something else here in
fairness. Although I think B5 introduced Nightwatch much more
gradually and much more smoothly than DS9 did Section 31, I also
think DS9 did a better job asking questions instead of showing straw
men. Sloan's arguments were far more compelling and potentially
winning than anything a Nightwatch member ever did or said. I
realize the two organizations aren't quite parallel, but they're close
enough that I thought the comparison made sense. Just in the interests
of even-handedness...]
"In the Pale Moonlight"
Written by: Michael Taylor (teleplay); Peter Allan Fields (story)
Directed by: Victor Lobl
Initial rating: 9.5
Quotables:
"I can see where it all went wrong. Where *I* went wrong."
"So they're crossing my backyard to give the Federation a bloody
nose. I can't say that makes me feel very sad."
"Very good, Old Man. You would've made a decent Romulan." "I
prefer the spots to the pointed ears."
"And it may be a very messy, very bloody business. Are you
prepared for that?"
"My intentions were good. In the beginning, that seemed like
enough."
"If you want to guarantee that we obtain evidence of a Dominion plot
to attack the Romulans, I suggest that we manufacture that
evidence ourselves."
"Captain, I've always liked you. I've suspected that somewhere deep
down in your heart of hearts there was a tiny bit of Ferengi
just waiting to get out."
"People are *dying* out there every day. Entire worlds are struggling
for their freedom -- and here I am, still worrying about the
finer points of morality!"
"Who's watching Tolar?" "I've locked him in his quarters. I've also
left him with the distinct impression that if he attempts to force
the door open, it may explode." "I hope that's just an
impression." "It's best not to dwell on such minutiae."
"Always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Worf." [zing!]
"Mr. Garak, after having spent a week with you, I have developed a
very, very thick skin."
"So, you're the captain of Deep Space Nine, and the Emissary to the
Prophets. Decorated combat officers, widower, father,
mentor -- and oh, yes, the man who started the war with the
Dominion. So, I thought you'd be taller."
"Maybe you're right. Maybe the Dominion will win in the end. Then
the Founders will control what we now call Cardassia, the
Klingon Empire, and the Federation. So, instead of facing
three separate opponents, with three separate agendas, you'll
find yourselves facing the same opponent on every side.
There's a word for that: surrounded."
"I'm not an impatient man." [hands up, anyone who believes THAT
one...]
"That's why you came to see me -- isn't it, Captain? Because you
knew I could do those things you weren't capable of doing.
Well, it worked! And you'll get what you want -- a war
between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your
conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the
knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha
Quadrant, and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator,
one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I
don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain." [Quite
honestly, the rest of the scene leading up to this is nearly as
good; my fingers just got tired. :-) ]
"So: I lied ... I cheated .. I bribed men to cover the crimes of other
men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning
thing of all: I think I can live with it, and if I had to do it all
over again, I would."
Shows like "In the Pale Moonlight" are the reason why I keep
watching DS9. Okay, so the narration could be excessive in spots --
you could say the same about the original cut of "Blade Runner", and
that's still a marvelous film. A tale of Sisko's good intentions gone
bad has a lot of promise, and thanks to a lack of loopholes, good
work by Brooks and by director Victor Lobl, and possibly the best
single use of Garak any episode has ever made, this is one that really
stands out as a season's peak.
Final rating: 10.
[Note: someone wrote me with an intriguing suggestion. Suppose
that Garak had been lying about his contacts' death, or indeed about
contacting them at all. Talk about Machiavellian planning...]
"His Way"
Written by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by: Allan Kroeker
Initial rating: 1.5
Quotables:
"Julian, are you telling me that you discussed your love life with a
hologram?" "He's not an ordinary hologram, Miles. He
knows about love, life, and women --" "Yeah, three things
you know nothing about."
"You're not exactly the most lovable person in the galaxy. You're not
even the most lovable person in this sector -- or on the station
-- or even in this room."
"Captain, here's the report on that smuggling ring you requested."
[Note to Odo: *never* misplace your modifiers. Let's look
carefully at that sentence...]
Um ... no. My initial rating may have been a tad harsh, but the basic
thrust of it stands: the episode was trite to the extreme, Vic is entirely
too powerful to be any sort of plausible hologram (or at least one that
gets blase reactions from Starfleet officers), there's rotten dialogue
from most of the principals ("moment of perfect clarity"?), and logic is
tortured beyond belief, all for the sake of creating a romance. Sorry,
folks; as much as I like Odo and Kira as characters, this romance is
way too forced, and this episode undid most of the goodwill that had
built up from last season's "Children of Time".
Final rating: 2.5.
[Note: if you want an example of tortured logic, there's Kira deciding
to pray *in a holosuite*, solely to enable Vic to chat her up. Right,
that makes sense...]
[Note #2: within a matter of weeks after "His Way" aired, Frank
Sinatra died. I refuse to believe this is a coincidence.]
"The Reckoning"
Written by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson (teleplay);
Harry M. Werksman & Gabrielle Stanton (story)
Directed by: Jesus Salvador Trevino
Initial rating: 9
Quotables:
"He is the Sisko. He will not waver." "He is of Bajor." "He will
bring the Reckoning." "What is it you expect of me?" "It will
be the end." "Or the beginning."
"That confirms it: it's a slab of stone with some writing on it."
"The Prophets are not always clear." "Since they have never spoken
to me, I'll have to take your word for it."
"Who knows? The rest of the tablet probably says, 'Go to Quark's --
it's happy hour.'" "I like the way you think, Doctor."
"It seems to me that if the Prophets wants the Bajoran people to follow
a given path, they should provide more specific directions."
"It doesn't work like that." "Maybe it should."
"I just don't know how people make it through the day without
[faith]." "We manage."
"During the Reckoning, the Bajoran people will either suffer horribly,
or ... eat fruit." "Eat fruit?" "Given the tone of the rest of the
inscriptions, I would bet on horrible suffering."
"I just got this uncontrollable urge to smash the tablet." "Oh, I get
those urges all the time -- of course, I never ACT on them."
"Rest assured, the Golden Age is upon us. The Prophets and the
people will be as one. Think of it! There will be no need for
Vedeks, or Kais -- or even Emissaries."
"I think you're confusing faith with ambition."
Okay, okay, so I overreacted a bit here when "The Reckoning" first
aired. I do still like it a fair bit, and I certainly don't have the same
disdain for the Prophet/Pah wraith battle that others have shown.
Some things do bug me more as I think about the episode, however,
and chief among them has to be the regression needed in Winn in
order to set the early stages of the story. A certain amount of
stretching is something I could understand, but this gave me the
distinct impression that the events of "Rapture" had been forgotten
entirely as far as Winn was concerned. That's not good. Winn's
backsliding, plus other issues like Jake's quick forgiveness, take what
could have been a fantastic story about Sisko's faith and turn it into
one that's merely reasonable.
Final rating: 7.
[Note #1: I still think that the Prophet's statement that "The Sisko has
completed his task" is one that could be used as significant
propaganda by someone suitably unscrupulous.]
[Note #2: Why wasn't Jake evacuated off the station with the rest of
the civilians? The "reporter" issue doesn't wash this time, as he never
mentioned it.]
"Valiant"
Written by: Ronald D. Moore
Directed by: Michael Vejar
Initial rating: 5
Quotables: "I felt like I met God every morning."
"You're here to write the story -- to tell people of the Valiant and her
crew. Don't interfere with this story, Jake; don't become a
part of it. Just let it unfold around you."
"I don't even know who you are any more." "I'm the Chief Engineer
of the starship Valiant." "I'll have them put that on your
tombstone."
"What happened?" "We failed." [nicely stark]
"You gonna write a story about all this?" "Probably." "What are you
going to say?" "What do you think I should say?" "That it
was a *good* ship, with a good crew, that made a mistake.
We let ourselves blindly follow Captain Watters, and he led us
over a cliff." "That's not true. Captain Watters was a great
man." "Dorian, he got everyone killed." "If he failed, it's
because we failed *him*." "Put that in your story, too. Let
people read it and decide for themselves. [...] He may have
been a hero. He may even have been a great man. But in the
end, he was a bad captain."
Not a lot changed here. "Valiant" had its moments -- Dorian's story
about sunrise on the moon, a usually strong presence from Captain
Watters, and the novelty of a failed suicide mission (along with Nog's
taking command of a ship of corpses) chief among them. In the end,
though, they're not enough to really let me get into a story which
seems questionable in terms of logic and odd in terms of its existence.
Was Red Squad really popular enough or interesting enough that it
warranted an episode? Not from where I sit.
Final rating: 5.
"Profit and Lace"
Written by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by: Alexander Siddig
Initial rating: 0.5
Quotables:
"A Dominion invasion of Ferenginar?" "Think of the terrible
repercussions to the Alpha Quadrant!" "I cannot think of
any."
Read my original review. It says all that needs to be said, except for
the following: when I tried rewatching this one for the season wrap-
up, I couldn't get through it. That's only happened once before --
with Voyager's "Threshold". Not exactly distinguished company...
Final rating: 0.
"Time's Orphan"
Written by: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle (teleplay);
Joe Menosky (story)
Directed by: Allan Kroeker
Initial rating: 5
Quotables:
"I can't believe how much she's grown since I last saw her." "Look
who's talking."
"She's anthropomorphized the landscape." "Yeah, she loves to
draw." [huh?]
"I'm disappointed in you, Chief. If anyone could break a prisoner out
of a holding cell and get them off the station, I'd have thought
it would've been you."
"By the way, what does 'gung gung gung' mean?"
This year, instead of one "torture O'Brien" episode, we got two.
Unfortunately, it's only by adding the scores of both together that you
get a 10. "Time's Orphan" succeeds in some of its "retraining Molly"
sequences, and Colm Meaney makes O'Brien's fatherhood and
anguish seem fairly real -- but a reset-button ending, random
technobabble weirdness on a known Bajoran colony, a somewhat iffy
Worf/Dax subplot (not to mention a cheap one, given the season
finale), and a general sense of things being too easily telegraphed
made for a very lackluster show. Meaney's always worth watching,
but that doesn't mean his material is.
Final rating: 4.
[Note: is there any reason they couldn't send a *person* back to look
for Molly rather than doing the transporter tricks? Besides the fact that
it would've left the staff without an episode, that is.]
"The Sound of Her Voice"
Written by: Ronald D. Moore (teleplay); Pam Pietroforte (story)
Directed by: Winrich Kolbe
Initial rating: 6
Quotables:
"They're in love." "And what's love? Love's a distraction -- and a
distracted policeman is an opportunity."
"I'm having trouble creating real flesh-and-blood characters,
especially nefarious ones." [...] "Lesson number one: no
one involved in an extralegal activity thinks of himself as
nefarious."
"I'll have one of my officers stay on the comlink with you at all
times." "And order them to *enjoy* it, too." "Done."
"I get the feeling that it's gonna take me some hours to crawl out of
this rather sizable hole I've dug for myself." "Not at all. It'll
take you DAYS."
"There's this assumption nowadays that only someone with a diploma
can listen to your problems or give you advice."
"To failure!" "I'm not drinking to that." "Jake, in ten minutes my
business partner's ship will dock. In fifteen minutes, Odo will
arrest him. In twenty minutes, my name will come up -- and
in twenty-five minutes, Odo will walk in here with a warrant.
I think you should humor me on this one."
"So he'll get this one -- but JUST this one."
"Contrary to public opinion, I am not the arrogant, self-absorbed,
godlike doctor that I appear to be on occasion. Why don't I
hear anybody objecting to that statement?" "I will if you
insist." "I insist." "Then I object." "Thank you, Miles
Edward O'Brien."
"To Lisa, and the sweet sound of her voice." [Even if it weren't at the
end of the scene, I'd have to put this one in. :-)]
I know exactly what this episode was trying to do -- let Our Heroes
grow a bit by the introduction of an outside voice. Unfortunately, a
lot of that was lost in the mix: Sisko's troubles were perhaps too
obvious, Bashir was made a bit *too* robotic in order to let him learn
his lesson later on, Dax was completely absent for no particular
reason, and the sci-fi "premise" behind the resolution is just ghastly.
There's enough good material here to be worth watching (particularly
the Odo/Quark/Jake plot on the station), but only barely.
Final rating: still 6.
"Tears of the Prophets"
Written by: Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Directed by: Allan Kroeker
Initial rating: 7
Quotables:
"Mark my words: by this time next year, the three of us will drink
bloodwine in the halls of Cardassia's Central Command."
"Well, isn't anyone going to welcome me home?" "*Heroes* get
welcomed home, Dukat, not failures."
"We're in the middle of a life and death struggle for the control of the
entire Alpha Quadrant, and all you can care about is quenching
your petty thirst for revenge. You haven't changed a bit, have
you?"
"You're right, Dukat, you have changed. You've gone from being a
self-important egotist to a self-deluded madman. I'd hardly
call that an improvement."
"Klingons can be quite entertaining, can't they? Every Romulan zoo
should have a pair."
"Why is it dangerous to leave? And how will it affect Bajor?" ["And
how will it affect Al Franken?" Oh, sorry; ignore that...]
"The sad truth is, we wasted our time fighting the Bajorans when we
should have been fighting their gods."
"If y'ask me, it's an ungodly hour to go to war -- you can quote me
on that." "I will."
"Pah wraiths and Prophets ... all this talk of gods strikes me as
nothing more than superstitious nonsense." "You believe the
Founders are gods, don't you?" "That's different." "In what
way?" "The Founders *are* gods."
"I know this is small comfort ... but I never intended *you* any
harm."
"My mother says all the Orbs are dark, that the Prophets have
abandoned us. You have to find them, Emissary; you have to
ask them to come back!" "I will try."
"I had a hell of a lot of fun with both of you -- but Curzon was my
mentor. You ... you were my friend, and I am going to miss
you."
"I need time to think, clear my head. But I can't do it here -- not on
the station, not now. I need to get away, and find a way to
figure out how to make things right again. I have to make
things right again, Jadzia -- I have to."
"Let's go home, Jake."
"I was afraid of that. He's not sure he's coming back." "What makes
you say that?" "His baseball. He took it with him."
And so it ends. While I'm all for ambition, which "Tears of the
Prophets" had plenty of, I prefer my episodes to have *focused*
ambition rather than just shoehorning in every neat concept people can
think of. The broad strokes of the episode (the battle turning, the loss
of the Prophets, and the loss of Jadzia) are generally fine -- but the
details of them got all tangled together, and in many cases lost amidst
a sea of rehashed "which are you, Emissary or Starfleet?" moments,
inexplicable musical numbers, too many coincidences and logic
lapses, and material meant solely to build up the loss of Jadzia, as if
losing a character we'd known for six years somehow wouldn't be
enough to make people feel something. "Tears of the Prophets"
certainly wasn't a failure as a season finale, but like Sisko I can't help
feeling the victory was somewhat Pyrrhic.
Final rating: 6.5.
[Note: Okay, I've changed my mind about Jake. Having him on
board was okay.]
[Note #2: someone suggested to me that the Kira/Odo fight would've
been more interesting had he been concerned about her going into
combat again. That would've set up more than one person with a
target on her back, and integrated the Kira/Odo material better. I like
it.]
Well, that was lengthy. For those interested in some numbers, here
are the stats:
Mean +/- Standard Deviation Median
Season 1 7.1 +/- 2.3 7.5
Season 2 7.5 +/- 2.1 7.75
Season 3 6.3 +/- 2.4 6.5
Season 4 6.8 +/- 2.1 7
Season 5 7.3 +/- 2.4 7
SEASON 6 6.1 +/- 2.5 6.5
Last season (season 5) had 10 episodes scoring 9 or higher; season 6
has only 3 (although if you look at ones scoring 8 or higher, that
jumps up to 7 episodes). Season 5 had only 3 episodes scoring below
a 5; season 6 has 7, tying season 3 for most low-scoring episodes.
Clearly, then, something didn't quite click this season. What
happened? Well, you can read on for my ideas...
II. DS9 Season 6 -- General Commentary |
-----------------------------------------+
Before I started writing this section, I looked back over what I'd
written at the end of season 5, and it's interesting to see the contrasts.
Back then, for instance, I wrote:
------
"... as I continued watching the season over again, I noticed how
much of it felt like pieces coming together in ways that DS9 usually
hasn't managed. In season 4, heralded by many as DS9's best
season, there were a lot of pieces in the air -- but they were scattered
and fractured. There was a Bajor story, then a Klingon story, then a
Maquis story, then a Dominion story ... and there wasn't much of a
hint about how, or even if, these things related to each other on a
grand scale.
For about the latter two-thirds, and particularly the last half, of season
5, that changed. From "Rapture", a Bajor story and an excellent one,
we got prophecies which set up some of the events later in the season.
More importantly, the Purgatory/Inferno 2-parter tied a lot of threads
together. Suddenly, a Cardassian story *is* a Dominion story, and
the renewed Federation/Klingon alliance means that we're less likely
to get Klingon stories happening in a vacuum. From there, we got the
new order on Cardassia as established by "Ties of Blood and Water",
an example of Klingons adjusting to the Jem'Hadar threat in "Soldiers
of the Empire", and especially the final two episodes of the season,
which set up both situations and characters in very complex ways
which you could nonetheless envision happening..."
------
As much as I'd been annoyed with the shift in focus over the years
from the personal and cultural issue of Federation/Bajor relations (and
Sisko/Kira as a mirror thereof) to the Grand Epic [TM] idea of the
Federation/Dominion conflict, I was happy by the end of season 5,
because everyone involved had picked up on an important concept if
you're going to do a Grand Epic: everything has to fit. We've got to
see buildup, we've got to see interrelationships, and we've got to see
that this is something more than just the latest cool thing out there.
In the latter half of season 5, we saw that -- and the first couple of
episodes of season 6 seemed to strengthen that idea even further. DS9
had moved to a much bigger tapestry, and at the time the picture was
coming along nicely.
Now? Well, if last season showed me the up side of DS9 entering
Grand Epic territory, this season displayed the perils of such an
entrance. Chief among them is the renewed and even strengthened
need for *consistency*. When Federation/Bajor relations were the
main focus early in the series, it was easy to take detours into alien-of-
the-week territory or into a particularly interesting phenomenon in the
Gamma Quadrant. Now, with the Federation/Dominion war hanging
like a backdrop over everything, it's not that easy -- but it's happening
anyway, perhaps even more than it used to.
Think about it. How many episodes this season felt as though they
were throwbacks to an earlier time when the Federation/Dominion war
was still a vague tension, if that? There's "Resurrection", "The
Magnificent Ferengi", "Who Mourns For Morn?", "Honor Among
Thieves", "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night", "His Way",
possibly "Inquisition", "The Reckoning", "Profit and Lace", "Time's
Orphan", and "The Sound of Her Voice" -- and that's not even
counting the shows which only barely seem to acknowledge the war
like "One Little Ship". (Yes, you heard that right; we saw attempted
Jem'Hadar takeovers well before the war, so the events of "One Little
Ship" could've been old.)
The problem with doing a Grand Epic is that you really need to be
focused -- and when nearly half of the season is doing other things,
the impact is blunted. In this case, the impact was *so* blunted that
the season seemed downright aimless most of the time.
That's a large part of the difficulty DS9 ran into this season, but it's
not the only problem. If you look at the list of "fluffy" episodes
above, there's a bigger problem than the fact that they're not really
part of a larger scheme. After all, "In the Cards" was only barely a
part of the looming Federation/Dominion tension last year, and it
worked like a charm. "Trials and Tribble-ations" was nothing BUT
fluff, but it was one of the best-loved shows of the year. "Hard
Time" was (regrettably) wholly unconnected to anything in its season,
yet everyone seemed to like it.
In other words, the problem with the episodes listed above is not just
that they were unconnected. It's that the episodes were *weak* most
of the time -- weak enough that you were frequently and harshly
reminded of how unconnected they were to anything else. When you
take something which isn't part of something ongoing and make it of
iffy quality in the bargain, what you get is a string of episodes which,
if not bad, tends to feel disappointing when it goes on for weeks at a
stretch.
In a lot of ways, it's not the episodes that earn 2's and 3's which are
most annoying -- while they're rotten, it's fair to expect that if a
production team is willing to branch out and try new approaches,
some of them will fall flat on their face. (Of course, having 4 of them
this season is a bit much.) The *really* annoying thing is a string of
episodes in the 5-7 range, I think -- because they're the shows that
leave you feeling "oh, man ... I really *wanted* to like that one more
than I did." They're the ones that leave you with a sense of missed
opportunity, and at least to me there are few feelings more irksome.
Take, for instance, two-thirds of the opening arc. While all of them
except "Sons and Daughters" were very decent, only "Rocks and
Shoals" and "Behind the Lines" really felt like they were doing what
they were supposed to. For a big, sweeping story like this, you
should get swept away into the action, eager to find out what happens
next. Most of the episodes in that arc had enough glitches in
character, lapses in logic, or just plain missed opportunities that
instead of being swept away, I felt as though I had to sweep up after
all the loose ends. The lack of sacrifice in "Sacrifice of Angels", the
complete non-use of Jake (and Garak, to a fault) in the entire arc, the
Odo/Kira tension that got swept under the rug in a handful of lines of
dialogue ... all of those things tend to make the viewer less interested
in the characters, because they characters no longer seem quite so real.
One other general trend about DS9 that's concerned me this season
has been the lack of teamwork, for want of a better word. An awful
lot of stories this year have been focusing in very strongly on a single
character or at most a pair of them: Kira in "Resurrection", Quark
(mostly) in "The Magnificent Ferengi", O'Brien in "Honor Among
Thieves", Odo in "His Way", Jake and Nog in "Valiant", and so on.
One of DS9's greatest strengths for six years has been its diversity of
character -- and while using various solo stories is a possible way to
show that, it's not, in my opinion, the best one. It's much easier to
see differing outlooks on life when the characters get to deal with a
common issue; separating those characters almost turns the series into
an anthology rather than a story with an ongoing setting. It's certainly
not that every character needs to get equal time (or even to appear
every show; that's what leads to those "give everyone their residuals!"
scenes that can be so jarring at times); it's that we need to see them
*interact*, not just react. Would "In the Pale Moonlight" have
worked so well if Sisko hadn't had Garak there? Would "Rocks and
Shoals" have worked if Sisko were leading a nondescript team, or if
Kira weren't working so closely with Odo? Hell, one of the
consistently good points of the early-season arc was the chemistry
between Dukat and Weyoun.
On to some other character-centered thoughts. The winner of "best-
used character" this year may well be, of all people, Dr. Bashir.
Julian's genetic status, while not the overriding and central concept to
any episode, has proven a springboard for not one, but *two* strong
episodes this year: "Statistical Probabilities" and "Inquisition". In the
former case, his own sense of isolation led him in interesting
directions when he met "his own kind"; in the latter, his genetic status
became a source of extra suspicion. Both of those are good things to
do with the character; I'd like to see a little more dealing with him as a
*doctor*, but he's the one I'm happiest about this season.
A strong second would be Benjamin Sisko. Although "torture
O'Brien" episodes are a yearly staple these days, Sisko is the one
carrying the weight of the Federation on his shoulders ... and in a lot
of good ways, that's been showing more and more. A lot of my good
impressions are based on "In the Pale Moonlight", unsurprisingly --
but things like "The Reckoning" and the ending of "Tears of the
Prophets" have added to that sense. Kirk and Picard are interesting
leaders and eminently watchable -- but Sisko seems to have a lot more
inner torment. Plus, as Emissary, he's literally a mythic figure as well
as a heroic one, and that's been put to good use this year.
(As an aside to that, though ... I'm getting less and less comfortable
with aspects of Avery Brooks' portrayal of Sisko lately. I think Sisko
is often best when he's somewhat restrained, when the strong
emotions he's nearly always fighting with are internalized; Brooks, at
times, chooses to play it far more ... well, "vividly" is the word that's
coming to mind. If you look at some of his narration in "In the Pale
Moonlight", or Benny Russell's breakdown in "Far Beyond the
Stars", that's the sort of thing I mean. I'd be happier if he'd pull back
just a tad.)
Then there are the "worst-used character" awards. Unfortunately, this
is a tighter race. The pair I think got the shaft most were Odo and
Kira. The betrayal early in the season was interesting -- but then it
was taken away with a few kind words in a closet. Perhaps their
reconciliation was meant to be a "love conquers all" message; if so,
I've got news for people. "Love conquers all" isn't convincing when
the "all* merely *disappears*. Kira has now seen a future version of
Odo commit genocide in order to save her life, and "her" Odo
condemn one of her compatriots to death by his inaction. That
demands real responses, not a quick "we are WAY past sorry", a
silent apology, and then a nice Vegas-style dinner in the holosuite
later. What's worse, there's very little material these two have gotten
which *hasn't* dealt with their romance -- Odo got virtually nothing
else, and Kira only got lackluster concepts like "Resurrection" and
"Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night". They both still have roles
other than Couple of the Year; let's see them.
(Actually, that's not entirely fair. They did get better moments early in
the season; "Rocks and Shoals" was good to both of them,
particularly Kira. It was just later that there were problems.)
I can't call Dukat badly used quite yet, but he's one I'm very strongly
concerned about. We've only seen him a little bit since "Waltz", so
it's possible that his complex motivations and his multifaceted nature
may return. At the moment, though, all the signs indicate that his only
goal now is revenge: revenge on Bajor and revenge on Sisko. That's
all well and good as a motivation -- just ask Khan Noonian Singh. On
the other hand, would Khan have made a good recurring antagonist
for a season and a half on TOS? I don't think so; the taste of revenge
can get awfully monotonous after a while. I'd like to see more
examination of Dukat next year; material like what he got early on in
the season was far more compelling than what he got later.
Dax is an honorable mention here. Her death was a result of outside
events, but it could have been handled better -- and the fact that she
spent almost all her screen time as Worf's wife rather than as a
competent officer, an advisor to Sisko, and a joined Trill shows a lack
of respect. Just as Kira seemed to be nothing but a figure of romantic
interest two years ago, so Dax seemed to be nothing else this year.
Unfortunately, Dax won't get the chance to rebound that Kira did.
Pity.
(I'm not even going to mention Quark. "Profit and Lace" is just too
painful to remember.)
And, of course, there's the "least-used character" awards. The two
winners, hands down: Garak and Jake. Garak, at least, got one
absolutely superb episode this year, namely "In the Pale Moonlight".
The rest of this season, though, he's been little more than a sardonic
observer; while that's entertaining, he deserves a hell of a lot more. In
particular, I'm hoping we get interesting times between him and
Bashir next season (as fallout from "Inquisition"), and lots of
uncertainty about him from Sisko as a result of "In the Pale
Moonlight".
Jake, on the other hand, has been virtually a cipher all season. At the
end of last season, when Jake the reporter was left on the station
during the Dominion occupation, I thought things were going to get
really juicy for him. In fact, I said after the season premiere, "There
are an awful lot of ways Jake can go here, and I'll be intrigued to see
which way things end up." Unfortunately, he might as well have not
been on the station at *all*, for what he got out of it. The only
concrete purpose he served was to help get the message out to
Starfleet about the minefield -- but given that the message was
delivered through Morn, he didn't even need to be involved there. If
he's going to be a reporter, the staff needs to *let him be one*,
complete with all the issues that should address. Surprisingly, the
closest he came to serving that role was in "Valiant", but even there he
was much more "voice of reason" than he was a journalist. Moments
here and there like his "character research" in "The Sound of Her
Voice" helped, but Jake needs more material than he's getting.
Okay, I'm just about done. :-) DS9 certainly stumbled this season in
a lot of ways, but I'd like to think that those ways are easily fixable
for its seventh and last season. For one thing, I hope the "season
adrift" feeling is gone for good -- with only a year left to wrap up,
there's a lot that can and should be done. TNG staggered in its
seventh season, but it didn't have anything definite it needed to do.
DS9 *does*, and everyone on the show knows it: that should be a
help. Sisko may not be sure if he's coming back, but I'm sure I am:
with only one season left, it'd take far worse disappointments than a
simply lackluster year to keep me from seeing things through to the
end.
So, until the season premiere, be well. Me -- I'm outta here.
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu <*>
"A true victory is to make your enemies see they were wrong to
oppose you in the first place!"
-- Dukat
--
Copyright 1998, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
author*. Walnut Creek and other CD-ROM distributors, take note.
--
Moderated by Scott Forbes.
Article submissions: trek-r...@ravenna.com
Moderator contact: trek-revie...@ravenna.com
CDS218
Timothy W. Lynch wrote in message ...
Again, I hate to quibble, but I disagree about you assesment of this
episode. A mess, well, yeah, but as a season finale I think it's first-rate.
A good season cliffhanger, IMHO, should not simply be a big "to be
continued" two-parter that keeps you guessing over the summer, but an
open-ended event that promises next season will require some major changes
to reclaim the status quo. Consider, for example, the TNG season finale
"Time's Arrow" and compare it to the first season finale of the "X-Files".
Which had you wondering and vaguely unsettled all summer long?
From this POV "Tears of the Prophets" was possibly the most successful
finale ever. And that last scene of Sisko scrubbing oysters in a
noir-drenched New Orleans alley just gave me goosebumps (speaking of which,
add that one to our "Most moving moments discussion...)
CDS
Chad B
Timothy W. Lynch wrote in message ...
>One other general trend about DS9 that's concerned me this season
>has been the lack of teamwork, for want of a better word. An awful
>lot of stories this year have been focusing in very strongly on a
single
>character or at most a pair of them
I think this is a large reason why Jadzia's death fell so flat in
"Tears Of The Prophets". Someone mentioned that the staff's reasoning
for all the solo episodes was to cushion Jadzia's departure so it
wouldn't seem so jarring(!?). Well, it worked. I liked Jadzia a lot,
but by the end of Season Six, I didn't feel like DS9 was losing a part
of the family. And *that* was because we didn't see Dax (whoops--I
meant to say "Worf's wife") function as a valuable member of a team
since the end of the opening arc. That was a horrible, horrible
mistake. Jadzia's death *should* have hit us hard, but it didn't.
Not to mention that her death was arranged like a shopping list.
...Make Julian and Quark fawn over her to make her death more
dramatic? Check. Make Dax and Worf consider having a child to make
the death more tragic? Check. Leave Dax on the station instead of
Kira so she can die alone? Check. Keep the symbiote alive so we can
bring we can have a replacement Dax babe? Check...
I think another misused character is--are you ready? Vic
Fontaine. Yes, an entire episode of Vic is entirely too much, and he
shouldn't have had free rein of the station in "His Way" like he did.
I thought he was put to really good use in "Tears of the Prophets",
but there were about a 100 other things in that episode that demanded
more attention than his scenes. I think he'd be good filler material
every once in a while, but keep him out of the "event" shows, for
God's sake.
Lasher >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Chad B.
/=================================================\
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's
left" ---Anonymous
\=================================================/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> la...@sprintmail.com
Plain and Simple Cronan
>"In the Pale Moonlight"
>Written by: Michael Taylor (teleplay); Peter Allan Fields (story)
Take an insipid parable by Peter Allan Fields, something that Michael Taylor
coughed while updating is resume and an phenomenally inept rewrite by Ron
Moore, and what do you get?(Besides an unholy trinity of purported writers,
that is.) An example of what happens when the incompetent are given high
staff positions on a television show.
<snipped>
>Shows like "In the Pale Moonlight" are the reason why I keep
>watching DS9. Okay, so the narration could be excessive in spots --
>you could say the same about the original cut of "Blade Runner", and
>that's still a marvelous film.
There comes the question that few have asked: did Sisko wait for too long? My
answer is of course. The Romulans were ready willing and able to fight when
they sent 30 Romulan Warbirds to the station in a seemingly forgotten
gesture. The Klingons had assembled an impressive fleet along side them.
Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he could
have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the Federation. Why
would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build their
ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a giant
fortress of undeniable power? Sisko should be held responsible for all of
these missteps and instead he is agonizing over the one murder he was
personally involved in. It smacks of
hypocrisy and short-sightedness on the part of the writers.
A tale of Sisko's good intentions gone
>bad has a lot of promise,
Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start with
the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single battle
we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory. Even when they
abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly SMASHED the
Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this story, conveniently
ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship yards in but a scant few
weeks and start churning out ships again? Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma.
He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people. It's their job. Then there's the
explosion of Vreenak's shuttle. Please explain to me how an explosion erases
traces of tammering or how flaws in a poorly made crystal so exactly resemble
those of a core breach.
( We're talking a complex forgery that failed a test by the Romulan
Senator's portable equipment. It's caught in an explosion which it
survives how likely is it that this completely uncontrolled energy
release will precisely cover the details that made this forgery
identifiable as such? )
And that's just the surface. They get more and more extensive as we look
deeper.
> and thanks to a lack of loopholes,
Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards* and
cloning facilities. )
Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
sides. He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more
untenable position. And then he laments this. The writers were short-sighted
and so Sisko had to become a hypocrite for any drama to take place in this
episode. As for Sisko's moral dilemma: it is rooted in the fact that he can
barely stomach killing two people who are involved, but on periphery, of the
conflict for the greater good. Bulslhit, I say. Had he done the sensible
thing then, neither of their deaths would have been necessary in the now.
good
>work by Brooks and by director Victor Lobl,
Whoa, Mr. Lynch. I do believe I have a problem with that. Brook's exiguous
attempt to portray Sisko's guilt, second-guessing, and final ponderings damn
"In the Pale Moonlight". Thoughts of an hour spent plucking the hairs from
the rash on an old man's genitalia form in your minds eye. Brooks is so
utterly unbelievable that even portraying a man broken up by his actions is
for all intents and purposes beyond his reach. During the coda, the
realization dawns upon those who have managed to stomach the preceding
struggle that none of this means anything.
The morality is phony. How many Jem'Hadar has Sisko slain in hand to hand
combat. I count ten at the very least. How many Klingons? How many
Cardassians? He's killed many times with his own two hands, he's blown enemy
starships from the sky, he's threatened to kill the entire population of a
planet before. This man has never before displayed a problem killing in the
name of duty and for the honor of the Federation. What difference should the
deaths of 4 nameless, faceless guards, one arrogant, self-righteous Senator
from a people who are allied with your enemies and one criminal already
sentenced to death in people whom you are currently allied with?
And what of the Prime Directive? How many innocents have died when Picard
or Kirk enforced the PD? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Entire races? The
Federation has regularly committed genocide through inaction, if the PD is to
be believed, and Sisko hesitates to kill 6? Hypocrisy does not impress me.
and possibly the best
>single use of Garak any episode has ever made, this is one that really
>stands out as a season's peak.
Garak stands out as the single believable performance in this mess of an
episode.
>Final rating: 10.
>
>[Note: someone wrote me with an intriguing suggestion. Suppose
>that Garak had been lying about his contacts' death, or indeed about
>contacting them at all. Talk about Machiavellian planning...]
A fine suggestion. Yet it sees depth where there is none.
>"A true victory is to make your enemies see they were wrong to
>oppose you in the first place!"
> -- Dukat
Indeed.
P&SC
John Ford
>[snip]<
<
> Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
> whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
>
> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
> lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
> decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards* and
> cloning facilities. )
>
> Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
> *THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
> sides. He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more
> untenable position.<
[snip]<
I think your analogy to Chamberlain is a good one. But I also
remember Churchill's eugolgy to Chamberlain.<
I don't have it in front of me, but the gist of what Churchill said
was: Yes, he was wrong ... but he was wrong for the finest reasons, his
intense desire for peace. He risked everything in pursuit of that goal,
including his own reputation. Indeed, the most fundamental difference
between the things we are fighting against and what we are fighting to
defend are represented by Mr. Chamberlain.<
Maybe the difference between the Federation and the Dominion is
represented by the fact that Sisko was willing to risk mightily on the
proposition that the Federation could convince the Dominion that it was
possible to live peacefully together. The Dominion took the view that
despite all evidence to the contrary, the only way to insure complete
security was to crush any potential rival as soon as it appeared.<
If Sisko is as brutally decisive as you want him to be, then his
guilt in The Pale Moonlight doesn't mean anything and the show has no
resonance.
Forgive this discourse, but I studied history back before the days of
relativism, when it was still proper to suggest that one culture was
better than another -- even though in extremes, the better culture often
has to emulate the worse one to survive.<
CDS218
Plain and Simple Cronan wrote in message
<6r6ej1$si5$1...@camel0.mindspring.com>...
>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he could
>have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the Federation.
Why
>would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build their
>ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a giant
>fortress of undeniable power
I'm pretty sure it violates some Federation charter or rule or guideline to
blast a race out of the Alpha Quadrant just because they made a treaty with
a race you don't like (but were not engaged in open hostilities with).
Remember, the Dominion simply forged "non-aggression treaties" with the
other races. There were no open hostilities.
>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start
with
>the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single
battle
>we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory. Even when they
>abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly SMASHED the
>Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this story,
conveniently
>ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship yards in but a scant
few
>weeks and start churning out ships again?
Yes, actually, they established that in several episodes. Also, only two of
the battles we saw were victories: 1) the mining of the wormhole 2) the
assault to take back the station. Neither one of these were exactly Desert
Storm--the latter was a bloodbath that we clearly saw on screen.
Furthermore, every episode since the beginning of the season has established
the fact that the Dominion fleet is pounding the Federation/Klingon fleets
(what was the first shot of the first ep of season again? Oh yeah, a ruined
Federation fleet in retreat).
CDS
CDS218
>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he could
>have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the Federation.
Why
>would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build their
>ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a giant
>fortress of undeniable power
There had been no hostilities to that point. And I'm pretty sure Sisko can't
just open fire on the Dominion because he doesn't like them and they've
signed a treaty with the Cardassians. Diplomacy is a little more complex
than that.
>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start
with
>the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single
battle
>we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory. Even when they
>abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly SMASHED the
>Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this story,
conveniently
>ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship yards in but a scant
few
>weeks and start churning out ships again?
Yes, according to the show. That fact has been mentioned several times.
Also, what overwhelming victories are you referring to? The assault on the
Dominion line in "Sacrifice of Angels?" That was a bloodbath we saw played
out on screen. Every episode this season has been hammering us with the fact
the Dominion has been demolishing the Federation and Klingon fleets. Hell,
the first scene of the first ep of the season was the broken Federation
fleet in retreat...
Plain and Simple Cronan
CDS218 wrote
>I'm pretty sure it violates some Federation charter or rule or guideline to
>blast a race out of the Alpha Quadrant just because they made a treaty with
>a race you don't like (but were not engaged in open hostilities with).
>Remember, the Dominion simply forged "non-aggression treaties" with the
>other races. There were no open hostilities.
That's just it. They didn't. They made a deal with a Cardassian CRIMINAL
named Dukat. They installed him as puppet ruler and overturned the rightful
Cardassian Goverment. Remember the Detopa Council who told Dukat to surrender
way back when? Well they were still in charge. And Dukat, with a foriegn
fleet behind him, delcared himself supreme ruler and proceeded to declare war
on the Federation. That and the attempt to BLOW up Bajor's sun strike me as
openly hostile.
>>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start
>with
>>the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single
>battle
>>we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory. Even when they
>>abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly SMASHED the
>>Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this story,
>conveniently
>>ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship yards in but a scant
>few
>>weeks and start churning out ships again?
>
>Yes, actually, they established that in several episodes.
Which ones were those? The Dominion fleet yards were supposed to have been
smashed in "A Call to Arms" yet no mention of this was ever made again.
Also, only two of
>the battles we saw were victories: 1) the mining of the wormhole 2) the
>assault to take back the station.
Name the battles we saw that were losses if you please.
Neither one of these were exactly Desert
>Storm--the latter was a bloodbath that we clearly saw on screen.
The latter showed that the Federation, outnumbered nearly 2 to 1, could hold
their own against the Dominion until the Klingons came and evened the odds.
Then the Dominion was turned back to their own space. Retreating at warp
speed. This is not a bloodbath. This is a victory.
>Furthermore, every episode since the beginning of the season has established
>the fact that the Dominion fleet is pounding the Federation/Klingon fleets
>(what was the first shot of the first ep of season again? Oh yeah, a ruined
>Federation fleet in retreat).
Poppycock, every battle we here the characters relate to us is dramatized to
the point where you're not sure what to believe. How many turning points has
this war had already? How many times have our heroes moved on the enemy in
what was supposed to be a decisive action? How many times have we heard,
"This is it, the big one!" ? Lots. Every other episode we see them winning
with five minute mentions of purported losses which don't seem to really
matter a whole lot.
P&SC
Plain and Simple Cronan
John Ford wrote in message <35D718...@mindspring.com>...
>Plain and Simple Cronan wrote:
>>[snip]<
><
>
>> Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
>> whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
>>
>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He
>> had the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks
>> to the writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through.
>> I am lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically
>> foolish decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built
>> shipyards* and cloning facilities. )
>>
>> Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>> *THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>> sides. He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more
>> untenable position.<
>
>
> I think your analogy to Chamberlain is a good one. But I also
>remember Churchill's eugolgy to Chamberlain.<
As do I. I'm a WW2 buff, myself. I believe it's been said by many that
Churchill has been kinder to his predcesor than history can be. I agree in
full.
> I don't have it in front of me, but the gist of what Churchill said
>was: Yes, he was wrong ... but he was wrong for the finest reasons, his
>intense desire for peace. He risked everything in pursuit of that goal,
>including his own reputation. Indeed, the most fundamental difference
>between the things we are fighting against and what we are fighting to
>defend are represented by Mr. Chamberlain.<
I have the text on my hard drive, if you'd like it...
> Maybe the difference between the Federation and the Dominion is
>represented by the fact that Sisko was willing to risk mightily on the
>proposition that the Federation could convince the Dominion that it was
>possible to live peacefully together. The Dominion took the view that
>despite all evidence to the contrary, the only way to insure complete
>security was to crush any potential rival as soon as it appeared.<
High ideals are fine but an invasion is an invasion, regardless of ones
desire for peace. Literally, they took a puppet leader to Cardassia, put him
in power and then attempted the destruction of Bajor and Ds9 by destroying
the Bajoran sun. That is a heinous act indeed that demands an immediate
response lest one chose total pacificism..
> If Sisko is as brutally decisive as you want him to be, then his
>guilt in The Pale Moonlight doesn't mean anything and the show has no
>resonance.
Decisive? Yes. Brutal? Somewhat. But brtuality is necessary in the face of
naked aggression.
> Forgive this discourse,
Never. It was reasonable and even-handed.
but I studied history back before the days of
>relativism, when it was still proper to suggest that one culture was
>better than another -- even though in extremes, the better culture often
>has to emulate the worse one to survive.<
P&SC
Laurinda Chamberlin
>WARNING: This article has spoilers for the entire sixth season (and
>possibly seasons before) of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Proceed at
>your own risk.
>[part 2 of 2]
>
>"Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night"
[...]
>Nope. This one was just a dumb idea that gets even dumber when
>one looks back. Insulting and offensive treatment of time travel, the
>use of the Prophets as a crutch (you want the Prophets as _deus ex
>machina_, *this* is a better choice than "Sacrifice of Angels"), and
>shallow treatment of just about every character involved make this one
>a big, big mistake. It's not the worst of the season, but it's awfully
>pointless -- when even Marc Alaimo isn't compelling, something's
>wrong. [...]
I thought this one had some good scenes (Kira trying to lift Meru's spirits,
Kira later confronting her over her weakness, the good-cop, bad-cop routine
between Dukat and Barso, and the exchange with the sardonic legate) embedded
in a highly improbable storyline. Too bad. Kira deserves strong material.
>"Inquisition"
[...]
>[Note #1: where was Garak in all of this? You'd think Bashir would
>have a *lot* to talk about with him after this...]
I doubt Bashir would be anxious to discuss with Garak something so
embarrassing to the Federation. Besides, who could believe anything Garak
might say to him in response? The real puzzlement is why Sloan didn't
hold Bashir's friendship with Garak against him.
>[Note #2: with all of the questions about "is Section 31 really
>authorized by Starfleet or not?", has anyone thought to check Sadler's
>claim and look at the original Starfleet charter? In a free society like
>the Federation, calling up the text of the charter should be an easy
>thing to do.] [...]
It may be classified or couched in very nebulous language.
>"In the Pale Moonlight"
[...]
>[Note: someone wrote me with an intriguing suggestion. Suppose
>that Garak had been lying about his contacts' death, or indeed about
>contacting them at all. Talk about Machiavellian planning...]
I think that in some of his comments, Ron Moore says that he really did
have contacts who died. However, if you want to suggest Machiavellian
planning, I would guess that Garak is working with whoever ended up with
the biomimetic gel. It's downright frightening to think he came up with
the whole intricate plan on the fly after the contacts were killed.
>"His Way"
>[...] there's rotten dialogue
>from most of the principals ("moment of perfect clarity"?) [...]
Hmm...did you notice that "clarity" seems to be the watchword for bad
ideas in the latter half of the season?
>[Note #2: within a matter of weeks after "His Way" aired, Frank
>Sinatra died. I refuse to believe this is a coincidence.] [...]
Thank you for that ghoulish thought. :)
>On to some other character-centered thoughts. The winner of "best-
>used character" this year may well be, of all people, Dr. Bashir.
>Julian's genetic status, while not the overriding and central concept to
>any episode, has proven a springboard for not one, but *two* strong
>episodes this year: "Statistical Probabilities" and "Inquisition". In the
>former case, his own sense of isolation led him in interesting
>directions when he met "his own kind"; in the latter, his genetic status
>became a source of extra suspicion. [...]
On the other hand, he was badly mischaracterized in "The Sound of Her Voice",
which had him cold and indifferent to a person in peril, and had him claim
that others saw him as remote and arrogant. He's arrogant all right, but
he's also the most compassionate character on the show, and rather than
finding him intimidating, most characters have to struggle at times to take
him seriously outside his profession. I think Sisko had the meatiest and
most consequential material this season.
>Then there are the "worst-used character" awards. Unfortunately, this
>is a tighter race. The pair I think got the shaft most were Odo and
>Kira. The betrayal early in the season was interesting -- but then it
>was taken away with a few kind words in a closet. Perhaps their
>reconciliation was meant to be a "love conquers all" message; if so,
>I've got news for people. "Love conquers all" isn't convincing when
>the "all* merely *disappears*. Kira has now seen a future version of
>Odo commit genocide in order to save her life, and "her" Odo
>condemn one of her compatriots to death by his inaction. That
>demands real responses, not a quick "we are WAY past sorry", a
>silent apology, and then a nice Vegas-style dinner in the holosuite
>later. [...]
I agree about the poor usage of these characters, particularly in the
development of their romance (keeping in mind all that you've pointed
out above, an intriguing angle would be to have Kira just a little
afraid of Odo in spite of herself) -- but I would have to say that the
worst-used award would have to go to Quark, who was actually mutilated
for the sake of a story line.
>I can't call Dukat badly used quite yet, but he's one I'm very strongly
>concerned about. We've only seen him a little bit since "Waltz", so
>it's possible that his complex motivations and his multifaceted nature
>may return. At the moment, though, all the signs indicate that his only
>goal now is revenge: revenge on Bajor and revenge on Sisko. [...]
If they want to have Dukat "mad" or irrational, and focus on the evil that
exists within him, I wish they would have it arise out of the faults we've
already seen in his character, such as egotism, denial, rationalization,
selfishness, and short-sightedness. There's plenty of evil in all that,
but it's more interesting than having him abandon everything but a desire
for revenge. It gives him a tragic dimension that makes for better viewing.
His curious recent blankness allows the writers to have him do anything
they need him to do.
>And, of course, there's the "least-used character" awards. The two
>winners, hands down: Garak and Jake. Garak, at least, got one
>absolutely superb episode this year, namely "In the Pale Moonlight".
>The rest of this season, though, he's been little more than a sardonic
>observer; while that's entertaining, he deserves a hell of a lot more.
I'd like to see him become more actively involved in fighting the Dominion
in the sense of getting him off the station a little more, and not just on
the bridge of the Defiant. Surely there are a lot of intelligence-gathering
missions out there he'd be entirely suited for? I also liked one of the
original ideas for "Tears" mentioned in one of Ron Moore's chats, of
sending Garak and Kira on a mission together. They would have a certain
double single-mindedness.
>In
>particular, I'm hoping we get interesting times between him and
>Bashir next season (as fallout from "Inquisition"),
Yes, please. They scarcely even spoke to one another last season.
>and lots of
>uncertainty about him from Sisko as a result of "In the Pale
>Moonlight". [...]
He's a walking reminder of Sisko's dirty little secret, and of course he's
bound to appreciate that.
--
Laurinda She walked by herself, and
all places were alike to her.
Timo S Saloniemi
>Timothy W. Lynch wrote what Tim Lynch writes:
>There comes the question that few have asked: did Sisko wait for too long? My
>answer is of course. The Romulans were ready willing and able to fight when
>they sent 30 Romulan Warbirds to the station in a seemingly forgotten
>gesture. The Klingons had assembled an impressive fleet along side them.
>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he could
>have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the Federation. Why
>would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build their
>ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a giant
>fortress of undeniable power? Sisko should be held responsible for all of
>these missteps and instead he is agonizing over the one murder he was
>personally involved in. It smacks of hypocrisy and short-sightedness on
>the part of the writers.
Or on the part of Sisko. Just remember that Captains generally aren't
allowed to start world wars - it wouldn't have been part of Sisko's
duty to start one against the Dominion in "By Inferno's Light",
either. The Federation was at peace with the Dominion at that point,
despite hostile feelings and continued provocations by both sides. Without
instructions from his superiors, preferably from his CIVILIAN superiors
in the UFP Council, Sisko shouldn't have made a move. And he didn't.
So why would he mull over that? He did what was expected of him. In
"Moonlight", he did make a move he wasn't entitled to do, so naturally
it was of more concern to him than his duty-bound inaction.
>>A tale of Sisko's good intentions gone
>>bad has a lot of promise,
>
>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start with
>the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single battle
>we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory. Even when they
>abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly SMASHED the
>Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this story, conveniently
>ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship yards in but a scant few
>weeks and start churning out ships again?
Scant few weeks ain't correct here - it's three months at a minimum,
but possibly as many as six. Remember, the season opener explicitly
mentioned three months having passed, and the later episodes seemed to
span several weeks as well. Otherwise, I agree with your sentiments.
>Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma. He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people.
>It's their job.
It still doesn't mean they won't get prosecuted for the killings. Some
may be let to order the death of hundreds of thousands, while others
may be executed for killing one. Starfleet hasn't been too strong on
this prosecution aspect yet, but one might suspect it would be even more
paranoid than today's USA for condoning cold-blooded assassinations.
Sisko has never seemed too keen on killing anybody, except perhaps
Picard of the Borg. He refuses to shoot Dukat. He hesitates to
fire on Klingons on the warpath, Klingons who have been told to attack
him at the threat of death by their superiors. He's BOUND to have
a lot of moral dilemmas about premeditated killing.
>Then there's the
>explosion of Vreenak's shuttle. Please explain to me how an explosion erases
>traces of tammering or how flaws in a poorly made crystal so exactly resemble
>those of a core breach.
>
> ( We're talking a complex forgery that failed a test by the Romulan
> Senator's portable equipment. It's caught in an explosion which it
> survives how likely is it that this completely uncontrolled energy
> release will precisely cover the details that made this forgery
> identifiable as such? )
This isn't much of a problem. Remember that the person who knew that
the thing was a forgery and that the Dominion had not broken the alliance
was killed in the explosion? The ones who would search his remains would
WANT to find evidence of Dominion betrayal. If there was no such evidence
on the data rod, they would INSERT it there for their own goals, now
that the outspoken Dominion supporter Vreenak was gone. The whole
forgery/assassination plot would just provide them with a nice excuse.
The rod need not have survived at all. It was enough for Romulans to know
that it had existed. The DS9 crew could be questioned about Vreenak's
visit, and Garak might indirectly let slip a hint that a plot against
the Romulans by the Dominion was the subject of the discussions. The
explosion itself would then be proof enough of the treason.
>> and thanks to a lack of loopholes,
>Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
>whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
>
> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
> lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
> decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards* and
> cloning facilities. )
So you would have been happier with a man who performs preemptive strikes?
I can't tell you how deeply I disagree with you on this, so I won't even
try. I'd have wished to see Sisko tortured to death on screen by UFP
Council members wielding rusty forks, had he pulled off such a strike
- regardless of whether it succeeded or not.
The Dominion didn't fire a shot, remember?
>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>sides. He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more
>untenable position.
So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
>And then he laments this. The writers were short-sighted
>and so Sisko had to become a hypocrite for any drama to take place in this
>episode.
Wouldn't hypocrisy be an elemental part of the psyche of *any* person
whose job (at least in part) it is to make other people suffer, from
soldier to police to doctor to TV writer? I see no contradiction in
Sisko's behavior. He's been a hypocrite from the beginning, in
many ways, simply because he's a well-off Federation officer presiding
over the one important resource of a poor planet, a religious icon
for what he saw as misguided mysticists.
>As for Sisko's moral dilemma: it is rooted in the fact that he can
>barely stomach killing two people who are involved, but on periphery, of the
>conflict for the greater good. Bulslhit, I say. Had he done the sensible
>thing then, neither of their deaths would have been necessary in the now.
So you'd have preferred killing the Dominion and Cardassian soldiers back
in "By Inferno's Light", right? Then Sisko would have been lackluster in
his duty to kill the Romulans (who have now taken Betazed and apparently
intend to keep it), the Klingons (who can never be trusted) and his
admirals (who in ST IX will conspire to break the prime directive),
as well as his son (how can he ever be sure..?). Preemptive killing never
sounded like "the sensible thing" to me.
I'm of the kind that, if given a time machine and a sniper rifle, would
use the rifle on the machine. Preemptively.
>>good work by Brooks and by director Victor Lobl,
>
>Whoa, Mr. Lynch. I do believe I have a problem with that. Brook's exiguous
>attempt to portray Sisko's guilt, second-guessing, and final ponderings damn
>"In the Pale Moonlight".
That STILL qualifies as good work by Brooks, mind you! :) I never liked his
acting, either.
>The morality is phony. How many Jem'Hadar has Sisko slain in hand to hand
>combat. I count ten at the very least. How many Klingons?
I suspect two in "Way of the Warrior", plus many more in the mirror
universe. He mainly uses the good old KO punch which is not fatal in
the movieland.
>How many Cardassians?
Zero? Anyone remember a case?
>He's killed many times with his own two hands, he's blown enemy
>starships from the sky,
Those simply weren't premeditated killings. That makes a world of a
difference, usually, even though a man of cold logic would readily
admit that no real difference exists. It's just that no men of cold
logic exist, either...
>he's threatened to kill the entire population of a planet before.
That's a different side of Sisko. He certainly is megalomaniac enough
(who wouldn't be, after four seasons of being called "Emissary"?) in
"For the Uniform". But he told to himself that nobody would really
be killed there. And apparently nobody was. He was probably just
happy with himself afterwards for having been so clever and on top of
the situation. Not so in "Moonlight" where everything went wrong, pulled
out of his control.
>This man has never before displayed a problem killing in the name of
>duty and for the honor of the Federation.
What? The man who let Calvin Hudson the Traitor, Dukat the Madman, the
Evil Slime Founders and a whole bunch of minor aliens walk away from
him when he was holding a big cannon at them? One COULD say he's never
had a problem killing, since he hasn't *killed*, but I guess this is not
what you meant at all.
Sisko is consistent in his following Startrekkish Guidelines of
Killing: only in self-defence, or when one of his crew is threatened,
or when acting as part of a whole bunch of folks doing the killing.
Just the same Picard and Kirk did. OTOH, he also follows the Startrekkish
Guidelines of Insubordination: he often refuses to kill unless explicitly
ordered to.
>What difference should the deaths of 4 nameless, faceless guards, one
>arrogant, self-righteous Senator from a people who are allied with your
>enemies and one criminal already sentenced to death in people whom you
>are currently allied with make?
Well, lots of significanse comes from the fact that Sisko ordered the
killings of these unthreatening individuals who never fought back. That
falls outside the ST Guidelines of Killing he's so fond of.
> And what of the Prime Directive? How many innocents have died when
>Picard or Kirk enforced the PD? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Entire
>races? The Federation has regularly committed genocide through inaction,
>if the PD is to be believed, and Sisko hesitates to kill 6? Hypocrisy
>does not impress me.
Didn't you just conclusively prove that hypocrisy is a job requirement
for Starfleet officers? How can you say it's atypical of Sisko when
you admit Picard and Kirk actively preached and practiced it? Conflict
between killing by inaction and by action has always been part of the
Trek drama, and Kirk could with utter sincerity say "today I shall not
kill" while promoting the commencing of a bloody war between two
planets.
If you were arguing that this was a character trait of Sisko that
you found unbecoming of a hero, I'd tend to agree with you. Sisko
IS repungant, as were Kirk and Picard in their own ways. But you
clearly wish to say that this was a mistake in writing the character,
and that Sisko should not be written that way - this I strongly
disagree with. A repungant Sisko is a realistic Sisko, and a dramatic
Sisko.
>>and possibly the best single use of Garak any episode has ever made,
>>this is one that really stands out as a season's peak.
>
>Garak stands out as the single believable performance in this mess of an
>episode.
I liked the supporting cast and their characterizations as well. It's just
Brooks I hate, but I've come to accept this as part of the Sisko character.
Perhaps Sisko really *is* an extremely awkward person whose emoting takes
the form of poor acting when he's agitated, and disappears entirely when
he's not?
>>Final rating: 10.
>>[Note: someone wrote me with an intriguing suggestion. Suppose
>>that Garak had been lying about his contacts' death, or indeed about
>>contacting them at all. Talk about Machiavellian planning...]
>A fine suggestion. Yet it sees depth where there is none.
Isn't that the whole idea of show business? It's all an illusion,
after all. Even if depth is projected where there is none, the depth
is still seen - and "the play's the thing", not the stage.
Timo Saloniemi
.
.
Antony Alonso
>There comes the question that few have asked: did Sisko wait for too long?
>My answer is of course.
The problem was early on, Sisko had no directives from Starfleet to follow.
When the Dominion were first shuttling ships, supplies, men, etc through
the wormhole no open state of hostilities existed. Of course, Sisko saw it
for what it was --- a military buildup and a reinforcement/reinvigorment of
the now-former Cardassian Empire.
>The Romulans were ready willing and able to fight when they sent 30
>Romulan Warbirds to the station in a seemingly forgotten gesture.
I've forgotten this. You're not referring to the Cardassian/Romulan
alliance forged in order to decimate the Founders' homeworld, are you?
>The Klingons had assembled an impressive fleet along side them.
Probably not then, as the Klingons weren't part of that original joint
alliance then. What episode was this in, please? I've forgotten...
>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he
>could have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the
>Federation.
At the time, no state of aggression existed. Sisko lacked the initiative
as Starfleet's bureaucracy effectively tied his hands ("wait until they
bloody your nose before we'll allow you to defend yourself" was more or
less typical Federation philosophy for many an ocassion).
>Why would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build
>their ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a
>giant fortress of undeniable power?
Because no formal relations had been established, and the Dominion's
movements of personnel, resources, etc were peaceful and without incident.
This probably accounted for Starfleet's initial pacifist attitude and
perhaps even more, it had been hoped some form of diplomatic solution or
overtures would prevent a state of eventual open hostilities/warfare.
>Sisko should be held responsible for all of these missteps and instead he
>is agonizing over the one murder he was personally involved in. It smacks
>of hypocrisy and short-sightedness on the part of the writers.
Sisko did START the actual hostilities in the end. He purposefully mined
the Wormhole to prevent further incursions into Federation space.
>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start
>with the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single
>battle we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory.
What, "Sacrifice of Angels," "Rocks and Shoals," or where they destroyed
Dominion shipyards, etc? They were minor *tactical* accomplishments. The
Dominion, however have had greater *strategic* victories (but have been
mentioned as events that have ocurred offscreen --- like taking Betazed,
destroying a few SF amardas, etc). Strategic are more longterm-oriented
goals, where tactical are more of the moment.
>Even when they abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly
>SMASHED the Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this
>story, conveniently ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship
>yards in but a scant few weeks and start churning out ships again?
True, but perhaps a variety of possible scenarios would account for the
appearance of a continuity lapse. For example, maybe the Feds destroyed
a *KNOWN* shipyard location and not all of them. If you were the conquering
race kind, would *you* put all your eggs into one basket? Another
possibility is that perhaps a greater span of time had elapsed between the
events as depicted.
>Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma. He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people.
>It's their job.
True, but being a soldier isn't his sole badge of office being a Starfleet
officer either. Yes, he can kill when called upon --- but that doesn't
mean it's not a personally distateful business. The fact he had a hard time
accepting the "real hard truths" of this war reflected beautifully on his
previous work and interraction with the Jem'Ha'Dar in "Rocks and Shoals."
As Spock (and Kirk in another case) once put it: the illogic of waste.
>Then there's the explosion of Vreenak's shuttle. Please explain to me how
>an explosion erases traces of tammering or how flaws in a poorly made
>crystal so exactly resemble those of a core breach.
I'd wager the datarod's integrity wasn't maintained, obviously. Likely the
scenario would involve the Romulans piecing together fragmentary images
and dialogue. Garak believed the Romulans' suspicious nature would carry
the day instead of objective doubt.
> ( We're talking a complex forgery that failed a test by the Romulan
> Senator's portable equipment. It's caught in an explosion which it
> survives how likely is it that this completely uncontrolled energy
> release will precisely cover the details that made this forgery
> identifiable as such? )
The explosion would've likely damaged the datarod to the extreme just like
a flight recorder (as well protected as it is) sometimes gets shredded.
The best one can hope for is a fragmentary reconstruction of the events
it was supposed to have covered. This would largely negate the obvious
monikers of outright forgery if this was the case.
>Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
>whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
Unfortunately, the Federation seems to tolerate this as a possibility. If
there had been no definite outward aggressive signs, chances are the Feds
would stall hoping for a diplomatic overture to clarify their intent and
avoid unnecessary (if deemed the case) aggression by lacking communication
as intent.
> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
> lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
> decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards* and
> cloning facilities. )
Ummm... that would fall under Federation policy-making rather than allowing
for that level of autonomy befitting Starfleet officers. This premise
essentially indicates the "man on the scene" is far less capable of
understanding the situations posed to him than some bureaucratic, and
self-important member of the Ambassador Corps would view it from afar. This
obviously would be largely and wildly inaccurate, but it DOES seem the
prevailing Federation philosophy. This probably is a reflection on the
likelihood giving individual officers THAT level of power could perhaps not
look favorably upon the Federation as a whole (in other words: the officer
in question could be WRONG, or not consider some larger picture).
>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>sides.
Early on, he had no say. Later after open conflict broke out, resources
on a large scale weren't available to him --- nor was it likely such a
mission would be successful. I think the sole reason he *was* successful
"In the Pale Moonlight" because the characters involved were so
inconsequential to the BIG PICTURE type of solution that it didn't occur
to Sisko at first. That was the elegeance in the final outcome --- make
a major move with so little effort (in comparison) as opposed to clubbing
the SOBs over the head with a thousand ships.
>He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more untenable
>position. And then he laments this. The writers were short-sighted and so
>Sisko had to become a hypocrite for any drama to take place in this
>episode.
His "duty" doesn't cover misrepresentation, conspiracy, manufacturing of
evidence, illegally obtaining biomimetic gel under dubious circumstances,
nor killing (or allowing the deaths) of co-conspirators simply to keep the
truth under hat. While you may argue "war is war," these aren't exactly
Federation idealisms, nor condoned normally. Starfleet only did condone
his actions (though I'm sure he was as nondescriptive as possible so they
could dissavow knowledge if found out) because the war *was* going so badly
for the Federation.
>As for Sisko's moral dilemma: it is rooted in the fact that he can barely
>stomach killing two people who are involved, but on periphery, of the
>conflict for the greater good. Bulslhit, I say. Had he done the sensible
>thing then, neither of their deaths would have been necessary in the now.
The problems were at first he couldn't. The moral dilemma was more him
breaking the vows idealisms upon which the Federation stands in order to
effectively combat an enemy. Add to that he purposefully misled an entire
society into entering a war that heretofore had no real vested interest in
the outcome.
[snip on section not commented on]
>The morality is phony. How many Jem'Hadar has Sisko slain in hand to hand
>combat. I count ten at the very least. How many Klingons? How many
>Cardassians? He's killed many times with his own two hands, he's blown
>enemy starships from the sky, he's threatened to kill the entire
>population of a planet before.
True, but that was on a level playing field and "no-foul play" existed.
>This man has never before displayed a problem killing in the name of duty
>and for the honor of the Federation. What difference should the deaths of
>4 nameless, faceless guards, one arrogant, self-righteous Senator from a
>people who are allied with your enemies and one criminal already sentenced
>to death in people whom you are currently allied with?
Yes he *did* have a problem killing. In "Rocks and Shoals," it was apparent
to Sisko he could easily defeat the Jem'Ha'Dar soldiers with the
information Keevan provided him. He found it distasteful to essentially
slaughter a platoon wholesale, even to the point of having a dialogue with
their leader before being forced to do the deed. I think Sisko doesn't have
a problem when the playfield is level, just when things are stilted
disproportionately.
>And what of the Prime Directive? How many innocents have died when Picard
>or Kirk enforced the PD? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Entire races? The
>Federation has regularly committed genocide through inaction, if the PD is
>to be believed, and Sisko hesitates to kill 6? Hypocrisy does not impress
>me.
How does the PD factor in? Perhaps Sisko's attempt to deliberately involve
the Romulans would qualify,granted. The PD exists so that no undue
influence, interference, or altered level of development afflicts a
population. That is by all purposes it's intent --- primarily "do no harm."
The PD doesn't factor in when you're speaking of INDIVIDUALS, especially
if they're NOT living in such a culture.
>Garak stands out as the single believable performance in this mess of an
>episode.
Yes, Garak ruled the day and carried the episode aside Brooks.
>P&SC
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Plain and Simple Cronan wrote in message
<6r85gi$k5l$1...@camel15.mindspring.com>...
>
>That's just it. They didn't. They made a deal with a Cardassian CRIMINAL
>named Dukat. They installed him as puppet ruler and overturned the rightful
>Cardassian Goverment. Remember the Detopa Council who told Dukat to
surrender
>way back when? Well they were still in charge. And Dukat, with a foriegn
>fleet behind him, delcared himself supreme ruler and proceeded to declare
war
>on the Federation. That and the attempt to BLOW up Bajor's sun strike me as
>openly hostile.
You're right. I hadn't thought of the Council/Dukat angle...
>
>Poppycock, every battle we here the characters relate to us is dramatized
to
>the point where you're not sure what to believe. How many turning points
has
>this war had already? How many times have our heroes moved on the enemy in
>what was supposed to be a decisive action? How many times have we heard,
>"This is it, the big one!" ? Lots. Every other episode we see them winning
>with five minute mentions of purported losses which don't seem to really
>matter a whole lot.
I still disagree with you here, as we are constantly told that the war is,
at best, a dead heat. Perhaps the battles we've seen don't always show that
(I, personally believe they do), but it is mentioned again and again.
Plain and Simple Cronan
Timo S Saloniemi wrote
>Or on the part of Sisko. Just remember that Captains generally aren't
>allowed to start world wars
Sisko was, however, given the authority to do what was necessary to preserve the
Federation in that episode. Remember? He and Gowron were there, with the Romulans along
side.
- it wouldn't have been part of Sisko's
>duty to start one against the Dominion in "By Inferno's Light",
>either. The Federation was at peace with the Dominion at that point,
>despite hostile feelings and continued provocations by both sides.
The Federation was at peace with the Dominion. The Dominion was at war with the
Federation. They made an attempt to destroy a Federation run space station, all the
civilians onboard, a Klingon/Federation/Romulan fleet and the entire planet of Bajor.
Call me silly but this is an act of war. The Dominion had also declared war on
Cardassia which was, at the time, a quasi-ally.
Without
>instructions from his superiors, preferably from his CIVILIAN superiors
>in the UFP Council, Sisko shouldn't have made a move. And he didn't.
>So why would he mull over that? He did what was expected of him. In
>"Moonlight", he did make a move he wasn't entitled to do, so naturally
>it was of more concern to him than his duty-bound inaction.
This is factually incorrect. Sisko had been given orders from his superiors. He had
been sent a small fleet of Federation ships. They attempted to DESTROY those ships, the
station and the planet of Bajor. Those are grounds to counter-strike if I've ever heard
them.
>>Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma. He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people.
>>It's their job.
>
>It still doesn't mean they won't get prosecuted for the killings. Some
>may be let to order the death of hundreds of thousands, while others
>may be executed for killing one. Starfleet hasn't been too strong on
>this prosecution aspect yet, but one might suspect it would be even more
>paranoid than today's USA for condoning cold-blooded assassinations.
It wasn't cold blooded. We're talking about the Romulan who's responible for reversing
Dominion policy towards the Dominion, his guards and one criminal, already sentenced to
death.
>Sisko has never seemed too keen on killing anybody, except perhaps
>Picard of the Borg. He refuses to shoot Dukat. He hesitates to
>fire on Klingons on the warpath, Klingons who have been told to attack
>him at the threat of death by their superiors. He's BOUND to have
>a lot of moral dilemmas about premeditated killing.
Exactly when were the Klingons who attacked the station threatened by their superiors?
>This isn't much of a problem. Remember that the person who knew that
>the thing was a forgery and that the Dominion had not broken the alliance
>was killed in the explosion? The ones who would search his remains would
>WANT to find evidence of Dominion betrayal. If there was no such evidence
>on the data rod, they would INSERT it there for their own goals, now
>that the outspoken Dominion supporter Vreenak was gone. The whole
>forgery/assassination plot would just provide them with a nice excuse.
Fanboy rationalizing is not an excuse. You insert data that was not in the episode and
not implied by the contents of the episode to your hearts content. It doesn't make it
so. You are, no matter how rational it may be, adding things to the script to excuse
something happened without a reasonable explanaition.
>The rod need not have survived at all. It was enough for Romulans to know
>that it had existed. The DS9 crew could be questioned about Vreenak's
>visit, and Garak might indirectly let slip a hint that a plot against
>the Romulans by the Dominion was the subject of the discussions. The
>explosion itself would then be proof enough of the treason.
Treason by who?
>>> and thanks to a lack of loopholes,
>
>>Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
>>whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
>>
>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
>> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
>> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
>> lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
>> decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards* and
>> cloning facilities. )
>
>So you would have been happier with a man who performs preemptive strikes?
Preemptive? I'm talking about a counter strike. They tried to blow up the Bajoran sun
for Chrissakes!
>I can't tell you how deeply I disagree with you on this, so I won't even
>try. I'd have wished to see Sisko tortured to death on screen by UFP
>Council members wielding rusty forks, had he pulled off such a strike
>- regardless of whether it succeeded or not.
>
>The Dominion didn't fire a shot, remember?
Unless you count the attempt at the destruction of the Bajoran sun.
>>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>>sides. He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more
>>untenable position.
>
>So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
>threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
The duty of a soldier is to fulfill his oath to protect his nation. Sisko failed to do
so.
>>And then he laments this. The writers were short-sighted
>>and so Sisko had to become a hypocrite for any drama to take place in this
>>episode.
>
>Wouldn't hypocrisy be an elemental part of the psyche of *any* person
>whose job (at least in part) it is to make other people suffer, from
>soldier to police to doctor to TV writer? I see no contradiction in
>Sisko's behavior. He's been a hypocrite from the beginning, in
>many ways, simply because he's a well-off Federation officer presiding
>over the one important resource of a poor planet, a religious icon
>for what he saw as misguided mysticists.
Wha? He never saw them as 'misguided'. Ever. He simply did not believe as they did.
>>As for Sisko's moral dilemma: it is rooted in the fact that he can
>>barely stomach killing two people who are involved, but on periphery, of the
>>conflict for the greater good. Bulslhit, I say. Had he done the sensible
>>thing then, neither of their deaths would have been necessary in the now.
>
>So you'd have preferred killing the Dominion and Cardassian soldiers back
>in "By Inferno's Light", right?
There were not Cardassian soldiers involved at that point other than those in Dukat's
direct command. Cardassia was invaded by the Dominion.
Then Sisko would have been lackluster in
>his duty to kill the Romulans (who have now taken Betazed and apparently
>intend to keep it)
No, they haven't. The Dominion has taken Betazed. The Romulans have taken Benzar and
there is no proof they intend on keeping it.
>, the Klingons (who can never be trusted)
Sisko betrayed the Klingons not the other way around. The Klingons had reliable
intelligence data that, in their eyes, proved that Cardassia had been taken over by the
Dominion. Sisko, in spite of orders not to intfere, told the Cardassians what was
coming. Had they not the Klingons blitz looked certain to crush Cardassia. They then
had to turn around, after Sisko took those they suspected of being changelings under
his protection, and fight those who they wished to remain allied to.
and his
>admirals (who in ST IX will conspire to break the prime directive),
Wha? You're rambling. I have yet to see Star Trek 9 and I doubt you have either.
>as well as his son (how can he ever be sure..?). Preemptive killing never
>sounded like "the sensible thing" to me.
A counterattack after someone tries to blow up a sun around which the station you
inhabit, a joint fleet and a billion bajorans orbit sounds like the perfectly sensible
thing to me.
>I'm of the kind that, if given a time machine and a sniper rifle, would
>use the rifle on the machine. Preemptively.
Your babbling, now. This is irrelevant.
>Those simply weren't premeditated killings. That makes a world of a
>difference, usually, even though a man of cold logic would readily
>admit that no real difference exists. It's just that no men of cold
>logic exist, either...
He didn't premeditate Vreenak's death either. Garak did.
<snipped>
>>What difference should the deaths of 4 nameless, faceless guards, one
>>arrogant, self-righteous Senator from a people who are allied with your
>>enemies and one criminal already sentenced to death in people whom you
>>are currently allied with make?
>
>Well, lots of significanse comes from the fact that Sisko ordered the
>killings of these unthreatening individuals who never fought back. That
>falls outside the ST Guidelines of Killing he's so fond of.
They were threatening and he didn't order their deaths. One threatened to more firmly
put the Romulans in the Dominion camp and the other could have somehow tattled on him.
They were an active threat to the Federation that Garak took care of
>> And what of the Prime Directive? How many innocents have died when
>>Picard or Kirk enforced the PD? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Entire
>>races? The Federation has regularly committed genocide through inaction,
>>if the PD is to be believed, and Sisko hesitates to kill 6? Hypocrisy
>>does not impress me.
>
>Didn't you just conclusively prove that hypocrisy is a job requirement
>for Starfleet officers?
No. For writing for Star Trek.
How can you say it's atypical of Sisko when
>you admit Picard and Kirk actively preached and practiced it?
Did I say it was atypical?
Plain and Simple Cronan
Antony Alonso wrote
>>There comes the question that few have asked: did Sisko wait for too long?
>>My answer is of course.
>
>The problem was early on, Sisko had no directives from Starfleet to follow.
Yes, he did. That's why they send him quite a few ships.
>When the Dominion were first shuttling ships, supplies, men, etc through
>the wormhole no open state of hostilities existed.
Yes, it did. They opened fire on the Bajoran sun and attempted to destroy Ds9, the
Fed/Klingon/Romulan fleet and Bajor itself.
Of course, Sisko saw it
>for what it was --- a military buildup and a reinforcement/reinvigorment of
>the now-former Cardassian Empire.
And he did *nothing*
>>The Romulans were ready willing and able to fight when they sent 30
>>Romulan Warbirds to the station in a seemingly forgotten gesture.
>
>I've forgotten this. You're not referring to the Cardassian/Romulan
>alliance forged in order to decimate the Founders' homeworld, are you?
No. I'm refering to "By Inferno's Light"
>>The Klingons had assembled an impressive fleet along side them.
>
>Probably not then, as the Klingons weren't part of that original joint
>alliance then. What episode was this in, please? I've forgotten...
"In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light"
>>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he
>>could have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the
>>Federation.
>
>At the time, no state of aggression existed.
You people keep saying this. They tried to destroy the entire planet of BAJOR. The
entire planet. And the fleet. And Ds9.
Sisko lacked the initiative
>as Starfleet's bureaucracy effectively tied his hands ("wait until they
>bloody your nose before we'll allow you to defend yourself" was more or
>less typical Federation philosophy for many an ocassion).
Starfleet gave him a sword and said, "Defend the Federation." He was attacked and he
did nothing. This is not bureacracy. This is Sisko failling in his duty.
>>Why would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build
>>their ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a
>>giant fortress of undeniable power?
>
>Because no formal relations had been established, and the Dominion's
>movements of personnel, resources, etc were peaceful and without incident.
Formal relations?
>This probably accounted for Starfleet's initial pacifist attitude and
>perhaps even more, it had been hoped some form of diplomatic solution or
>overtures would prevent a state of eventual open hostilities/warfare.
I see. So, trying to destroy a planet full of people and invading a quasi-ally(Shadow
and Inferno) isn't formal enough or hostile enough for the Federation?
>>Sisko should be held responsible for all of these missteps and instead he
>>is agonizing over the one murder he was personally involved in. It smacks
>>of hypocrisy and short-sightedness on the part of the writers.
>
>Sisko did START the actual hostilities in the end. He purposefully mined
>the Wormhole to prevent further incursions into Federation space.
Why didn't he act then? Before the Dominion had restocked Cardassia for war?
>>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start
>>with the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single
>>battle we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory.
>
>What, "Sacrifice of Angels,"
The Federation, with half the ships, held their own against the Dom/Cardie fleet. Then
the Klingons arrived and forced the Dom/Cardie fleet to retreat. This a victory.
> "Rocks and Shoals,"
Sisko and his lost two people and took one prisoner. The Dominion force was
obliterated.
or where they destroyed
>Dominion shipyards, etc? They were minor *tactical* accomplishments.
Forcing nearly the entire Dom/Cardie fleet to retreat is minor? Destroying their ships
yards is minor? That's gooolish.
The
>Dominion, however have had greater *strategic* victories (but have been
>mentioned as events that have ocurred offscreen --- like taking Betazed,
Exactly of what value is a planet where everyone knows your thoughts?
>destroying a few SF amardas, etc). Strategic are more longterm-oriented
>goals, where tactical are more of the moment.
Destroying a Federation armada is nothing compared to smashing the yards that made
those ships.
>>Even when they abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly
>>SMASHED the Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this
>>story, conveniently ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship
>>yards in but a scant few weeks and start churning out ships again?
>
>True, but perhaps a variety of possible scenarios would account for the
>appearance of a continuity lapse. For example, maybe the Feds destroyed
>a *KNOWN* shipyard location and not all of them.
Exactly how do you hide shipyards?
If you were the conquering
>race kind, would *you* put all your eggs into one basket?
No.
Another
>possibility is that perhaps a greater span of time had elapsed between the
>events as depicted.
A year? 3? How long does it take to brebuild a place where one builds ships the length
of 10 football fields?
>>Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma. He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people.
>>It's their job.
>
>True, but being a soldier isn't his sole badge of office being a Starfleet
>officer either.
No, but it's how he's consistently identified himself since this conflict began.
Yes, he can kill when called upon --- but that doesn't
>mean it's not a personally distateful business. The fact he had a hard time
>accepting the "real hard truths" of this war reflected beautifully on his
>previous work and interraction with the Jem'Ha'Dar in "Rocks and Shoals."
>As Spock (and Kirk in another case) once put it: the illogic of waste.
Sisko wasted time. The most illogical thing to waste of all. As Spock said in "Balance
of Terror", strike hard and fast now.
>>Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
>>whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
>
>Unfortunately, the Federation seems to tolerate this as a possibility. If
>there had been no definite outward aggressive signs, chances are the Feds
>would stall hoping for a diplomatic overture to clarify their intent and
>avoid unnecessary (if deemed the case) aggression by lacking communication
>as intent.
>
>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
>> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
>> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
>> lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
>> decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards* and
>> cloning facilities. )
>
>Ummm... that would fall under Federation policy-making rather than allowing
>for that level of autonomy befitting Starfleet officers.
No, it wouldn't or they wouldn't have placed him on command of a small fleet. That and
he had the support of Gowron.
This premise
>essentially indicates the "man on the scene" is far less capable of
>understanding the situations posed to him than some bureaucratic, and
>self-important member of the Ambassador Corps would view it from afar. This
>obviously would be largely and wildly inaccurate, but it DOES seem the
>prevailing Federation philosophy. This probably is a reflection on the
>likelihood giving individual officers THAT level of power could perhaps not
>look favorably upon the Federation as a whole (in other words: the officer
>in question could be WRONG, or not consider some larger picture).
They already had.
>>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>>sides.
>
>Early on, he had no say.
Yes, he did. they sent him a fleet. He reformed the alliance with the Klingons and the
Romulans sent ships to support their actions. This sounds like support to me.
<snipped>
>>He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more untenable
>>position. And then he laments this. The writers were short-sighted and so
>>Sisko had to become a hypocrite for any drama to take place in this
>>episode.
>
>His "duty" doesn't cover misrepresentation, conspiracy, manufacturing of
>evidence, illegally obtaining biomimetic gel under dubious circumstances,
>nor killing (or allowing the deaths) of co-conspirators simply to keep the
>truth under hat.
Against the enemy? Yes, it does. And at that point the Romulans were the enemy,
particularly Vreenak.
While you may argue "war is war," these aren't exactly
>Federation idealisms, nor condoned normally.
Yet they are facts of war.
Starfleet only did condone
>his actions (though I'm sure he was as nondescriptive as possible so they
>could dissavow knowledge if found out) because the war *was* going so badly
>for the Federation.
So? Hypocrisy up and down the chain of command impresses me even less.
>>As for Sisko's moral dilemma: it is rooted in the fact that he can barely
>>stomach killing two people who are involved, but on periphery, of the
>>conflict for the greater good. Bulslhit, I say. Had he done the sensible
>>thing then, neither of their deaths would have been necessary in the now.
>
>The problems were at first he couldn't.
Yes, he could. He was given the authority to protect the Federation. When they Attacked
Bajor, invaded Cardassia he could have moved then.
<snipped>
Brendan Guy
> Or on the part of Sisko. Just remember that Captains generally aren't
> allowed to start world wars - it wouldn't have been part of Sisko's
> duty to start one against the Dominion in "By Inferno's Light",
> either. The Federation was at peace with the Dominion at that point,
> despite hostile feelings and continued provocations by both sides. Without
> instructions from his superiors, preferably from his CIVILIAN superiors
> in the UFP Council, Sisko shouldn't have made a move. And he didn't.
> So why would he mull over that? He did what was expected of him. In
> "Moonlight", he did make a move he wasn't entitled to do, so naturally
> it was of more concern to him than his duty-bound inaction.
In the Search pt2, Sisko was willing to collapse the Bajoran wormhole
(going against direct orders from Starfleet Command) to keep the
Dominion out of the Alpha Quadrant. Why is it that in By Inferno's
Light, a time where the Dominion is obviously a bigger threat, where it
has just illegally taken over the government of Cardassia and tried to
blow up the Bajoran sun, and where he has the Klingons and Romulans on
his side, he does nothing? I agree that frontline military commanders
should not be setting national policy, but that is hardly a rule Sisko
has ever respected. He routinely sets his own policy and to hell with
Starfleet Command and the Federation Council, so why is it the one time
it really counts does he do nothing? Is it any wonder the Romulans
sided with the Dominion?
> This isn't much of a problem. Remember that the person who knew that
> the thing was a forgery and that the Dominion had not broken the alliance
> was killed in the explosion? The ones who would search his remains would
> WANT to find evidence of Dominion betrayal. If there was no such evidence
> on the data rod, they would INSERT it there for their own goals, now
> that the outspoken Dominion supporter Vreenak was gone. The whole
> forgery/assassination plot would just provide them with a nice excuse.
I'll agree with you on this. There seems to be a substantial
anti-Dominion element in the Romulan senate, they would probably jump on
any excuse to get into the war, even if it means tolerating Federation
deceit.
> The rod need not have survived at all. It was enough for Romulans to know
> that it had existed. The DS9 crew could be questioned about Vreenak's
> visit, and Garak might indirectly let slip a hint that a plot against
> the Romulans by the Dominion was the subject of the discussions. The
> explosion itself would then be proof enough of the treason.
The real problem I have with this episode is, why didn't Vreenak
immediately contact Romulas and tell them about the forged data rod when
he first learned about it. Before he even confronted Sisko, he should
have contacted his government, and told them what the Feds had tried to
pull off.
> So you would have been happier with a man who performs preemptive strikes?
Yes! Isn't a preemptive strike to quickly defeat the Dominion better
than forcing the entire quadrant to endure a protracted war? Dukat was
not the legetimate head of the Cardassian government, he had no
authority
to hand Cardassia over to the Dominion. And if liberating Cardassia
from an invading army is not enough justification, what about the
Dominion attempt to destroy Bajor's sun, that is about as clear an act
of war as you can get. (There are also lesser charges resolving around
kidnapping Federation citizens, sabotaging Federation property, and the
genocidal campaign carried out against the Maquis).
> The Dominion didn't fire a shot, remember?
Invaded Bajoran space with a massive fleet is an act of war.
The anchullus of Cardassia is an act of war.
Attacking Maquis colonies is an act of war (it is also firing a shot)
Attacking Klingon forces is to the Klingon mind an act of war
Trying to nova bomb the Bajoran sun is an act of war
And this is after two years of provocation and terrorism. Sisko
would have been entirely justified in attacking the Dominion.
> So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
> threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
The duty of a soldier is to protect his country against all enemies
foreign and domestic. The Dominion was an aggresive, powerful and
exceedingly hostile enemy that threatened the entire Federation.
Sisko could have stopped it from doing this, by failing to do so he has
failed the Federation if not the entire Alpha Quadrant and plunged the
Federation into a war it could very well lose (of course we know it
won't, but if this was a real world situation, the price of Sisko's
actions could very well be Jem'Hedar soldiers marching through the ruins
of Earth).
> I'm of the kind that, if given a time machine and a sniper rifle, would
> use the rifle on the machine. Preemptively.
Well that's only logical. Mucking about with a time machine would be
insanity of the highest order.
> That's a different side of Sisko. He certainly is megalomaniac enough
> (who wouldn't be, after four seasons of being called "Emissary"?) in
> "For the Uniform". But he told to himself that nobody would really
> be killed there. And apparently nobody was. He was probably just
> happy with himself afterwards for having been so clever and on top of
> the situation. Not so in "Moonlight" where everything went wrong, pulled
> out of his control.
What went wrong? He got the Romulans into the war and saved the
entire Federation. This is the Picard and the Borg virus insanity all
over again. In war if you can save millions of lives at the cost of one
life, you take it.
Brendan W. Guy
Arthur Levesque
BG>...What went wrong? He got the Romulans into the war and saved the
BG>entire Federation. This is the Picard and the Borg virus insanity
BG>all over again. In war if you can save millions of lives at the cost
BG>of one life, you take it.
What part of "all's fair in love and war", "self-preservation", and
"the needs of many" don't you people understand? Sisko's endless
self-pity over doing what needs to be done was sickening; especially since
that sort of pathetic whining is more in Picard's character.
--
/\ Arthur Levesque 2A4W <*> b...@boog.orgASM =/\= http://boog.org __
\B\ack King of the Potato People <fnord> "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!" (oO)
\S\lash Member of a vast right-wing conspiracy (-O-) Urban Spaceman /||\
\/ I was a lesbian before it was fashionable "I hate rainbows!"-EC
Timothy W. Lynch
>"Timothy W. Lynch" <tly...@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:
>>WARNING: This article has spoilers for the entire sixth season (and
>>possibly seasons before) of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Proceed at
>>your own risk.
>>[part 2 of 2]
>>"Inquisition"
>[...]
>>[Note #1: where was Garak in all of this? You'd think Bashir would
>>have a *lot* to talk about with him after this...]
>I doubt Bashir would be anxious to discuss with Garak something so
>embarrassing to the Federation.
I'm not so sure. In particular, if Bashir really believes Section 31
is such a threat, he might want to talk to Garak in order to get tips
on how to bring about its downfall.
>Besides, who could believe anything Garak
>might say to him in response?
That assumes he wants or expects factual answers, however.
>>"In the Pale Moonlight"
>[...]
>>[Note: someone wrote me with an intriguing suggestion. Suppose
>>that Garak had been lying about his contacts' death, or indeed about
>>contacting them at all. Talk about Machiavellian planning...]
>I think that in some of his comments, Ron Moore says that he really did
>have contacts who died.
You leave authors out of this. :-)
>>"His Way"
>>[...] there's rotten dialogue
>>from most of the principals ("moment of perfect clarity"?) [...]
>Hmm...did you notice that "clarity" seems to be the watchword for bad
>ideas in the latter half of the season?
Actually, I did; I just forgot to mention it. It felt like a very
nebulous term most of the times it was used; I really wanted to quote
a relevant Inigo Montoya quote back at them.
>>[Note #2: within a matter of weeks after "His Way" aired, Frank
>>Sinatra died. I refuse to believe this is a coincidence.] [...]
>Thank you for that ghoulish thought. :)
Uncharitable as it was, the very first thought that jumped into my
head when I heard of Sinatra's passing was "I *told* Paramount not to
send him that tape of 'His Way'." Honest. :-)
>>On to some other character-centered thoughts. The winner of "best-
>>used character" this year may well be, of all people, Dr. Bashir.
>>Julian's genetic status, while not the overriding and central concept to
>>any episode, has proven a springboard for not one, but *two* strong
>>episodes this year: "Statistical Probabilities" and "Inquisition". In the
>>former case, his own sense of isolation led him in interesting
>>directions when he met "his own kind"; in the latter, his genetic status
>>became a source of extra suspicion. [...]
>On the other hand, he was badly mischaracterized in "The Sound of Her Voice",
>which had him cold and indifferent to a person in peril, and had him claim
>that others saw him as remote and arrogant.
The former was a problem, but I'm not sure the latter is. He is still
*seen* as somewhat remote and arrogant by a lot of people, and that
would only be amplified by things like "Statistical Probabilities".
>He's arrogant all right, but
>he's also the most compassionate character on the show, and rather than
>finding him intimidating, most characters have to struggle at times to take
>him seriously outside his profession.
I'm not sure the struggle to take him seriously is incompatible with
them seeing him as remote and arrogant.
>I think Sisko had the meatiest and most consequential material this season.
Most consequential, certainly -- but I have to downplay that just a
little, since Brooks *is* the star of the show. I think the ratio of
success-to-screen time may be higher for Bashir this year than for
Sisko; I'll have to think about it, though. (Sisko stayed completely
away from Vic Fontaine, though, which automatically helps...)
[on worst-used characters]
>I agree about the poor usage of these characters, particularly in the
>development of their romance (keeping in mind all that you've pointed
>out above, an intriguing angle would be to have Kira just a little
>afraid of Odo in spite of herself) -- but I would have to say that the
>worst-used award would have to go to Quark, who was actually mutilated
>for the sake of a story line.
Mmph. That's a good point, regrettably. As with Sisko, perhaps it's
that I *expect* Quark-centered material to be bad, so it makes less of
an impression. Kira/Odo material could in theory be very, very good
-- this season, it hasn't been.
[Garak]
>I'd like to see him become more actively involved in fighting the Dominion
>in the sense of getting him off the station a little more, and not just on
>the bridge of the Defiant. Surely there are a lot of intelligence-gathering
>missions out there he'd be entirely suited for? I also liked one of the
>original ideas for "Tears" mentioned in one of Ron Moore's chats, of
>sending Garak and Kira on a mission together. They would have a certain
>double single-mindedness.
Oh, my, yes. I hadn't even heard that one; I like it a lot.
Tim Lynch
Dave Roy
Guy <bg...@vvm.com> saying:
>Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
>
>> Or on the part of Sisko. Just remember that Captains generally aren't
>> allowed to start world wars - it wouldn't have been part of Sisko's
>> duty to start one against the Dominion in "By Inferno's Light",
>> either. The Federation was at peace with the Dominion at that point,
>> despite hostile feelings and continued provocations by both sides. Without
>> instructions from his superiors, preferably from his CIVILIAN superiors
>> in the UFP Council, Sisko shouldn't have made a move. And he didn't.
>> So why would he mull over that? He did what was expected of him. In
>> "Moonlight", he did make a move he wasn't entitled to do, so naturally
>> it was of more concern to him than his duty-bound inaction.
>
> In the Search pt2, Sisko was willing to collapse the Bajoran wormhole
>(going against direct orders from Starfleet Command) to keep the
>Dominion out of the Alpha Quadrant. Why is it that in By Inferno's
>Light, a time where the Dominion is obviously a bigger threat, where it
>has just illegally taken over the government of Cardassia and tried to
>blow up the Bajoran sun, and where he has the Klingons and Romulans on
>his side, he does nothing? I agree that frontline military commanders
>should not be setting national policy, but that is hardly a rule Sisko
>has ever respected. He routinely sets his own policy and to hell with
>Starfleet Command and the Federation Council, so why is it the one time
>it really counts does he do nothing? Is it any wonder the Romulans
>sided with the Dominion?
You seem to be forgetting that they *did* try to close the
wormhole.....the changeling Bashir sabotaged it so that instead of
closing the wormhole, it made it impossible to close.
Dave Roy
Antony Alonso
>The rod need not have survived at all. It was enough for Romulans to know
>that it had existed. The DS9 crew could be questioned about Vreenak's
>visit, and Garak might indirectly let slip a hint that a plot against
>the Romulans by the Dominion was the subject of the discussions. The
>explosion itself would then be proof enough of the treason.
Umm... just how would they've known, other than possibly some traces of
its signature in the wreckage? And who would be questioning the DS9 crew?
Sisko pointedly stated the Feds agreed to his initial plan, but that
specifics to them weren't exactly offered. Also, contacting Vreenak was
done directly, as Garak knew of the proconsul's flight plans. No direct
contact with the Romulan empire was suggested, and his means of arrival
was that of stealth.
>So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
>threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
The duty of a soldier is to follow orders. Sisko lacked them in previous
dealings with the Dominion.
>So you'd have preferred killing the Dominion and Cardassian soldiers back
>in "By Inferno's Light", right? Then Sisko would have been lackluster in
>his duty to kill the Romulans (who have now taken Betazed and apparently
>intend to keep it),
The Dominion took Betazed. The Romulans up to this point had a non-
aggression pact with them. That's not the same thing as active involvement
in hostilities. It's a "you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone"
proposition.
>Timo Saloniemi
Antony Alonso
>In the Search pt2, Sisko was willing to collapse the Bajoran wormhole
>(going against direct orders from Starfleet Command) to keep the
>Dominion out of the Alpha Quadrant.
Which is more of a passive choice than a purely aggressive one in
comparison.
>Why is it that in By Inferno's Light, a time where the Dominion is
>obviously a bigger threat, where it has just illegally taken over the
>government of Cardassia and tried to blow up the Bajoran sun, and where
>he has the Klingons and Romulans on his side, he does nothing?
Perhaps as a Captain he can make decisions within a certain framework.
Like closing off the wormhole can be construed as a passive and defensive
action, whereas initiating hostilities directly with the Dominion would
be outside of his authority. I believe only the UFP can possibly declare
a state of war. If Sisko took the initiative and drew the Feds into the
war at this point, they might've taken the view the war was _because_ of
his involvement (scapegoat).
>I agree that frontline military commanders should not be setting national
>policy, but that is hardly a rule Sisko has ever respected. He routinely
>sets his own policy and to hell with Starfleet Command and the Federation
>Council, so why is it the one time it really counts does he do nothing?
What specifically are you referring to as past incidents (other than
perhaps the closure of the wormhole [purely a defensive and passive
measure], involving the Romulans [wronfully and illegally, yes], and where
he poisoned a planet's atmosphere [which no one got hurt, and presumably
they traded worlds])?
>Is it any wonder the Romulans sided with the Dominion?
Not so much as sided as sidelined themselves to any direct involvement.
>The real problem I have with this episode is, why didn't Vreenak
>immediately contact Romulas and tell them about the forged data rod when
>he first learned about it. Before he even confronted Sisko, he should
>have contacted his government, and told them what the Feds had tried to
>pull off.
True. But perhaps he has enemies in the Senate, who would take advantage
of the fact he was on an unauthorized mission. Such things have been
hinted at in "Balance of Terror," etc.
>Yes! Isn't a preemptive strike to quickly defeat the Dominion better
>than forcing the entire quadrant to endure a protracted war? Dukat was
>not the legetimate head of the Cardassian government, he had no authority
>to hand Cardassia over to the Dominion.
That would require two things:
1. The resources (which Cronan points out he _did_ have at one point)
2. The authority (which it seems at the _time_ he did not)
>And if liberating Cardassia from an invading army is not enough
>justification, what about the Dominion attempt to destroy Bajor's sun,
>that is about as clear an act of war as you can get.
True, I'll have to rewatch that ep because I'd forgotten about it.
>(There are also lesser charges resolving around kidnapping Federation
>citizens, sabotaging Federation property, and the genocidal campaign
>carried out against the Maquis).
Which could've been looked over if it was SF's intent to avoid a war.
With regard to the extermination of the Maqui, no big deal either as they
were thorns in SF's side and a political embarrassment. Kidnapping of
Federation personnel (I'd assume you mean where the Doms/Founders took
Sisko and company and put them into a simulation), even Kirk and the
Enterprise were considered _expendable_ if it'd avoid another bloody war
in "Balance of Terror." Sabotaging of Federation property has also been
looked over in ST4.
>The duty of a soldier is to protect his country against all enemies
>foreign and domestic. The Dominion was an aggresive, powerful and
>exceedingly hostile enemy that threatened the entire Federation.
>Sisko could have stopped it from doing this, by failing to do so he has
>failed the Federation if not the entire Alpha Quadrant and plunged the
>Federation into a war it could very well lose (of course we know it
>won't, but if this was a real world situation, the price of Sisko's
>actions could very well be Jem'Hedar soldiers marching through the ruins
>of Earth).
Assuming he had the _legal_ authority to do so. I'd figure he did not,
and didn't want the responsibility of an _appearance_ of precipitating a
war. I'm sure he bent the hell out of SF's ear, pushing for some kind of
action or allowance of this, but it'd have to have been offscreen.
>What went wrong? He got the Romulans into the war and saved the entire
>Federation. This is the Picard and the Borg virus insanity all over
>again. In war if you can save millions of lives at the cost of one life,
>you take it.
An accurate comparison there, TNG's "I, Borg" and DS9's "In the Pale Moon-
light." The difference is, Picard's morality did not waiver even though
the likelihood at the time indicated doing so would cost too much down the
line. Sisko's morality faltered, and the deconstruction of his fiber was
interesting (and perhaps more real world realistic than Picard's).
> Brendan W. Guy
Timo S Saloniemi
>Hello Plain and Simple Cronan, on 16-Aug-98 06:09:07, you said,
>
>>There comes the question that few have asked: did Sisko wait for too long?
>>My answer is of course.
>
>The problem was early on, Sisko had no directives from Starfleet to follow.
>When the Dominion were first shuttling ships, supplies, men, etc through
>the wormhole no open state of hostilities existed. Of course, Sisko saw it
>for what it was --- a military buildup and a reinforcement/reinvigorment of
>the now-former Cardassian Empire.
Also, even though the actual declaration of war came only after "A Call to
Arms" (as a direct response to Sisko's decision to start mining the
wormhole mouth), both sides were trying hard to kill each other even
before that. I haven't actually seen "By Inferno's Light", but I believe
Dukat declared an alliance with the Dominion, plus his intent to drive
the Klingons out of Federation space. He did not declare a war against
the Federation specifically at that point, not for himself nor for the
Dominion. The Klingons, while good buddies with the Federation, had
recently severed formal ties, and attacks against them would probably not
count as acts of war against the UFP unless the Feds specifically so
stated.
Now, the Dominion did try to destroy the UFP/Klingon/Romulan fleet
shortly thereafter. But it never really sent any ships, and the actions
of its single operative *could* always be explained as the acts of some
unknown outsider, a rogue founder acting outside the authorization of his
government (just watch Odo to see that such critters can exist), or even
a Federation attempt at framing the Dominion... The Feds have forgiven
much graver offenses.
>>The Romulans were ready willing and able to fight when they sent 30
>>Romulan Warbirds to the station in a seemingly forgotten gesture.
>
>I've forgotten this. You're not referring to the Cardassian/Romulan
>alliance forged in order to decimate the Founders' homeworld, are you?
Nope - there was a Romulan fleet sent to oppose the Dominion and
to support Klingon and UFP forces in "By Inferno's Light". It
apparently departed shortly thereafter, as Romulans saw it more
profitable to sign a nonaggression treaty with the Dominion.
>>The Klingons had assembled an impressive fleet along side them.
>
>Probably not then, as the Klingons weren't part of that original joint
>alliance then. What episode was this in, please? I've forgotten...
In "By Infernos's Light", the Klingons were indeed present in force.
They also still held the captured Cardassian worlds, so part of their
forces were tied down there. And they had not yet normalized their
relationships with the UFP, either, so some forces were probably
at the borders close to Earth and Qo'NoS. Still, the Klingons
might have joined the offensive against the Cardassian/Dominion alliance.
>>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he
>>could have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the
>>Federation.
I doubt that. Dukat promised that in five days, the Klingons (and the
Maquis) would be ousted from former Cardassian space. We have no
reason to think this didn't take place. So the Dominion and the
Cardassians put together seemed to have quite a potent fighting force
to begin with. They might well have blown Sisko and his Klingon and
Romulan allies from the stars!
>At the time, no state of aggression existed. Sisko lacked the initiative
>as Starfleet's bureaucracy effectively tied his hands ("wait until they
>bloody your nose before we'll allow you to defend yourself" was more or
>less typical Federation philosophy for many an ocassion).
Agreed.
>>Why would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build
>>their ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a
>>giant fortress of undeniable power?
>
>Because no formal relations had been established, and the Dominion's
>movements of personnel, resources, etc were peaceful and without incident.
>This probably accounted for Starfleet's initial pacifist attitude and
>perhaps even more, it had been hoped some form of diplomatic solution or
>overtures would prevent a state of eventual open hostilities/warfare.
Actually, both sides had been shooting at each other's ships for
wuite a while before that date. So "peaceful" and "without incident"
are an exaggeration. Still, what UFP had was a relative paucity of
war. One might think that the UFP wanted to prolong that as long
as possible, in order to gather its warfleet - an operation that
may have required years, and must have lasted at least months.
>>Sisko should be held responsible for all of these missteps and instead he
>>is agonizing over the one murder he was personally involved in. It smacks
>>of hypocrisy and short-sightedness on the part of the writers.
>
>Sisko did START the actual hostilities in the end. He purposefully mined
>the Wormhole to prevent further incursions into Federation space.
It's unclear how much of Sisko's actions were really his own. He might
have had standing orders to mine the wormhole after SD XXXX (the date
when the Starfleet warfleets were ready) and before the next Dominion
convoy got through. The idea of asking Bajor to sign separate peace
was probably Sisko's, but must have involved discussions with Starfleet
about the timing.
If realism is asked for, one simply *must* assume that Sisko's decision
to mine the wormhole was timed with a stopwatch to match the larger
Starfleet plans. How else could the thousand-ship fleet have moved
in to destroy the Dominion fleet yards at the correct moment? Sisko
was but a minor player at this stage.
OTOH, during the initial Dominion surge into Alpha quadrant in "By
Inferno's Light", Sisko was at a crucial position. No contingency
plans existed for that type of incident. Starfleet probably had
not yet completed assembling its warfleets (again, I must stress
that such things take time!). The station was supposed to collapse
the wormhole, but the Dominion plot prevented this from happening,
thus ruining the whole UFP strategy concerning the wormhole. What
Sisko did there and then, with what he had, was a turning point in
history.
I just think that he did the right thing. With the forces at hand,
he might well have lost the initial battle royally, in which case
the Dominion could have captured the *wormhole* - a much more
important strategic asset than the pitiful worlds of the Cardassian
Union. By waiting it out, Sisko gave Starfleet time to gather its
forces and to strike back a couple of months later.
>>Yes, but this story is to contrived to fullfil that promise. Let's start
>>with the Federation having so much trouble with the Dominion. Every single
>>battle we've seen has been an overwhelming Federation Victory.
>
>What, "Sacrifice of Angels," "Rocks and Shoals," or where they destroyed
>Dominion shipyards, etc? They were minor *tactical* accomplishments. The
>Dominion, however have had greater *strategic* victories (but have been
>mentioned as events that have ocurred offscreen --- like taking Betazed,
>destroying a few SF amardas, etc). Strategic are more longterm-oriented
>goals, where tactical are more of the moment.
It's impossible to say which victories are of strategic importance
in Trek. Taking ten planets might not be that significant in the long run,
while destroying a sensor platform might turn the tide of the war.
The battles seen were those where our main heroes participated, so
naturally they had to end in at least partial UFP victory, lest our
heroes be killed or captured. Of the battles that were mentioned,
some were victories (like the missions to destroy the White depot
and the deep space sensor array), some were losses (like the battle
of the 7th Fleet, or the loss of Betazed). In some victories, many
ships were lost, while in some defeats, no ships or fighting capacity
were actually lost.
We have no way of telling how the war actually went, even if we assume
nobody intentionally lied about the victories and defeats.
>>Even when they abandoned the station, a Federation fleet had supposedly
>>SMASHED the Dominion ships yards. (This is, for the purposes of this
>>story, conveniently ignored thought) Did the Dominion rebuild these ship
>>yards in but a scant few weeks and start churning out ships again?
>
>True, but perhaps a variety of possible scenarios would account for the
>appearance of a continuity lapse. For example, maybe the Feds destroyed
>a *KNOWN* shipyard location and not all of them. If you were the conquering
>race kind, would *you* put all your eggs into one basket? Another
>possibility is that perhaps a greater span of time had elapsed between the
>events as depicted.
Well, the time span is at minimum three months (the time said to have
elapsed during the hiatus). In addition, there was almost half a season
between the destruction of the fleet yards in "A Call to Arms" and their
subsequent mention in "Statistical Probabilities". Some might say that
this was not enough time for rebuilding. Others might note that the
Cardassian facilities would probably have been destroyed in the Klingon-
Cardassian war already, so the Dominion had to rebuild them from scratch
between "By Inferno's Light" and "A Call to Arms" - so the time scale
ought to work out. It's just a matter of personal opinion here.
>>Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma. He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people.
>>It's their job.
>
>True, but being a soldier isn't his sole badge of office being a Starfleet
>officer either. Yes, he can kill when called upon --- but that doesn't
>mean it's not a personally distateful business. The fact he had a hard time
>accepting the "real hard truths" of this war reflected beautifully on his
>previous work and interraction with the Jem'Ha'Dar in "Rocks and Shoals."
>As Spock (and Kirk in another case) once put it: the illogic of waste.
And it would be consistent for Sisko to hesitate with killing individuals.
He hasn't committed cold-blooded murders before. When he has had the upper
hand temporarily, he has refused to shoot his enemies before. It is
entirely possible that he feels the need to be detached from the actual
killing, preferably by sitting in his command chair and telling to
himself that the enemy attacked first.
Events that would suggest Sisko is capable of killing without remorse are
few. "For the Uniform" is interesting, since Sisko threatens planets with
mass destruction. Still, the method he uses is ultimately nonlethal, and
only effective if the enemy refuses to withdraw within a given time. And
Sisko does have a personal vendetta here, directed at a person who will
not even be threatened much by Sisko's doomsday weapon. Sisko seems
unwilling to kill even his nemesis Eddington.
Do we have other examples of Sisko performing or ordering premeditated
killing of noncombatants like in "Moonlight"?
>>Then there's the explosion of Vreenak's shuttle. Please explain to me how
>>an explosion erases traces of tammering or how flaws in a poorly made
>>crystal so exactly resemble those of a core breach.
>
>I'd wager the datarod's integrity wasn't maintained, obviously. Likely the
>scenario would involve the Romulans piecing together fragmentary images
>and dialogue. Garak believed the Romulans' suspicious nature would carry
>the day instead of objective doubt.
And, as I stated earlier, it was an important proponent of Romulan-Dominion
peace that was killed there. With his death, apparently by Dominion's hand,
very little extra evidence would be needed. And what was needed could be
manufactured by the Romulans opposing the peace traty.
>>Huh? Sisko, just like Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s, appeased a group
>>whose ideology clearly dictated a conflict would someday come about.
>
>Unfortunately, the Federation seems to tolerate this as a possibility. If
>there had been no definite outward aggressive signs, chances are the Feds
>would stall hoping for a diplomatic overture to clarify their intent and
>avoid unnecessary (if deemed the case) aggression by lacking communication
>as intent.
Consider another viewpoint entirely, for a change: perhaps Sisko was
like Stalin, biding his time with the "Germans" with a version of
the "Ribbentrop-Molotov pact" so that the Federation would be ready
to fight? Had Stalin tried to crush Hitler back in '39, he might have
failed. In '41, he was almost ready. And in '45, he did win.
Since we never saw how and if Starfleet backed up Sisko, we can't say
if he was a Chamberlain or a Stalin in that situation. Just for argument's
sake I go for the Stalin interpretation.
>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
>> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
>> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through.
Well, "foresight" is definied by hindsight. "Foresight" that does not
lead into victory is known as "poor judgment", and this might be what
Sisko would have demonstrated by attacking in "By Inferno's Light".
>>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>>sides.
Or then he saved millions of lives that could have been unnecessarily
wasted. There is no way of judging things like this unless one has
a time machine and a good road map for the crossroads of spacetime.
It's always infuriating to see somebody claim that since lives could be
saved by taking them, *not* taking them must be close to murder. This
completely omits the consideration of other options that might have led
to lighter losses of life with no need of assassinations or preemptive
strikes.
Consider for example the following options:
*Sisko could have asked Starfleet to surrender. Loss of life might have
been minimized.
*Sisko could have caused, or later allowed, Bajor's sun to go nova,
thereby preventing the use of the wormhole.
*Sisko could have tried to go through the wormhole, destroying it
from the other side or from inside.
*Sisko could have taken his combined fleet to Gamma quadrant and gone
hunting for the weakened Dominion positions, securing the Gamma
side of the hole from Dominion intrusion.
*Sisko could have sent another diplomatic expedition to Gamma,
blasting away Dominion planets until they began to talk to
him or other UFP/Klingon/Romulan representatives.
*Sisko could have contacted the Prophets there and then.
Any of these might have resulted in interesting and possibly life-saving
scenarios. A few of them might have been within the mandate Sisko
had been given by Starfleet and the UFP - some more so than a
pre-emptive strike would have been.
Timo Saloniemi
Plain and Simple Cronan
>>>There comes the question that few have asked: did Sisko wait for too long?
>>>My answer is of course.
>>
>>The problem was early on, Sisko had no directives from Starfleet to follow.
>>When the Dominion were first shuttling ships, supplies, men, etc through
>>the wormhole no open state of hostilities existed. Of course, Sisko saw it
>>for what it was --- a military buildup and a reinforcement/reinvigorment of
>>the now-former Cardassian Empire.
I said it before and I'll say it again: they tried to blow up a fucking sun.
Not just any random sun either. The one Sisko, his crew and Bajor orbit in
the hopes of destroying a Federation, Romulan and Klingon fleet along with
the station that guards the wormhole. That's pretty god damn hostile.
>Also, even though the actual declaration of war came only after "A Call to
>Arms" (as a direct response to Sisko's decision to start mining the
>wormhole mouth), both sides were trying hard to kill each other even
>before that. I haven't actually seen "By Inferno's Light", but I believe
>Dukat declared an alliance with the Dominion, plus his intent to drive
>the Klingons out of Federation space.
Dukat can't declare an alliance with ANYONE. He's a criminal. He's a
terrorist. He's fighting against the duly recognized government of Cardassia
as well as the Klingons. The only thing he can agree to is working for the
Dominion. He has no legal status other than WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE in
Cardassian space.
He did not declare a war against
>the Federation specifically at that point, not for himself nor for the
>Dominion.
Blowing up a sun ain't enough for you?
The Klingons, while good buddies with the Federation, had
>recently severed formal ties, and attacks against them would probably not
>count as acts of war against the UFP unless the Feds specifically so
>stated.
That's wholly irrelevant considering Sisko took it upon himself to resign a
treaty with the Klingons.
>Now, the Dominion did try to destroy the UFP/Klingon/Romulan fleet
>shortly thereafter.
They tried a hell of a lot more than that.
But it never really sent any ships, and the actions
>of its single operative *could* always be explained as the acts of some
>unknown outsider,
Please. Explain it that way then. Go ahead. I'll wait here.
a rogue founder acting outside the authorization of his
>government (just watch Odo to see that such critters can exist), or even
>a Federation attempt at framing the Dominion... The Feds have forgiven
>much graver offenses.
Please tell me when the Federation forgave an attempt to destroy an entire
fleet as well as a planet with a billion inhabitants.
>>I've forgotten this. You're not referring to the Cardassian/Romulan
>>alliance forged in order to decimate the Founders' homeworld, are you?
>
>Nope - there was a Romulan fleet sent to oppose the Dominion and
>to support Klingon and UFP forces in "By Inferno's Light". It
>apparently departed shortly thereafter, as Romulans saw it more
>profitable to sign a nonaggression treaty with the Dominion.
No. One Romulan convinced the rest of this: Vreenak.
>>Probably not then, as the Klingons weren't part of that original joint
>>alliance then. What episode was this in, please? I've forgotten...
>
>In "By Infernos's Light", the Klingons were indeed present in force.
>They also still held the captured Cardassian worlds, so part of their
>forces were tied down there.
That's speculation. From what we saw in that episode, the Klingons most
powerful ships were on the run from a Dominion fleet led by Gul Dukat.
And they had not yet normalized their
>relationships with the UFP, either, so some forces were probably
>at the borders close to Earth and Qo'NoS. Still, the Klingons
>might have joined the offensive against the Cardassian/Dominion alliance.
Might? MIGHT?! Gowron was more than happy to resign anything to get Sisko's
help. MIGHT?! Wha?
>>>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he
>>>could have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the
>>>Federation.
>
>I doubt that. Dukat promised that in five days, the Klingons (and the
>Maquis) would be ousted from former Cardassian space. We have no
>reason to think this didn't take place. So the Dominion and the
>Cardassians put together seemed to have quite a potent fighting force
>to begin with.
Who said all the Cardassians fought with the Dominion? What of the forces
loyal to the real Cardassian government? We saw later, in the ep with Kira
and that old, dying Cardie, that some Cardassians rallied against Dukat but
whatever the force it doesn't really matter. You've got more ships than your
enemy, more than 2/3rs of which can cloak, several of which are bigger than
anything the Dominion had. The Cardassian ships have been proven weak time
and again by Federation jobs going all the back to "Phoenix". That and based
on Dukat's past promises he's rather fond of lying to make himself sound big
deflates your theory.
They might well have blown Sisko and his Klingon and
>Romulan allies from the stars!
Sisko, the Klingons and the *Romulans*
>OTOH, during the initial Dominion surge into Alpha quadrant in "By
>Inferno's Light", Sisko was at a crucial position. No contingency
>plans existed for that type of incident. Starfleet probably had
>not yet completed assembling its warfleets (again, I must stress
>that such things take time!).
Strange how the Romulans had one in place but a few days after hearing about
the massing of Dominion forces. The Klingons had one hanging about at DS9 and
the Fed had sent several ships to support them. So tell me why THAT
considerable fleet wasn't used AFTER an indirect attack on them that would
have killed every Bajoran, destroyed the station and the fleet. One good
reason is all I ask.
The station was supposed to collapse
>the wormhole, but the Dominion plot prevented this from happening,
>thus ruining the whole UFP strategy concerning the wormhole. What
>Sisko did there and then, with what he had, was a turning point in
>history.
What Sisko did there and then was foolish and colors all his later heroic
accomplishments.
>I just think that he did the right thing.
A thought which you've failed to support.
With the forces at hand,
>he might well have lost the initial battle royally, in which case
>the Dominion could have captured the *wormhole* - a much more
>important strategic asset than the pitiful worlds of the Cardassian
>Union.
Clearly not. They've managed to hold off both the Klingon Empires and the
entire UFP for quite some time now with but a few shipments from the
Dominion.
By waiting it out, Sisko gave Starfleet time to gather its
>forces and to strike back a couple of months later.
By waiting it out Sisko gave them time to build ship yards in the first
place.
>And it would be consistent for Sisko to hesitate with killing individuals.
>He hasn't committed cold-blooded murders before.
These weren't cold-blooded murders. One was a criminal scheduled to die
anyway the other was the Senator who changed the Romulans status.
>Do we have other examples of Sisko performing or ordering premeditated
>killing of noncombatants like in "Moonlight"?
Considering that no one in "Moonlight" was innocent or a noncombatant, I'd
say no.
>Consider another viewpoint entirely, for a change: perhaps Sisko was
>like Stalin, biding his time with the "Germans" with a version of
>the "Ribbentrop-Molotov pact" so that the Federation would be ready
>to fight? Had Stalin tried to crush Hitler back in '39, he might have
>failed. In '41, he was almost ready. And in '45, he did win.
As I remember the Russians lost 20 million men, women and children thanks to
Stalin. As I remember, Hitler lost to the Russians not because he had
superior forces but because his forces were spread to thinly across the
Russian frontier. As I remember, Stalin's pact with Hitler was one of the
reasons Hitler felt confident enough to conquer the rest of Europr and begin
his Final Solution. So putting Sisko in Stalin's place doesn't make him
better. It makes him worse.
>Since we never saw how and if Starfleet backed up Sisko, we can't say
>if he was a Chamberlain or a Stalin in that situation. Just for argument's
>sake I go for the Stalin interpretation.
I think we can go with Chamberlain if only because there's more evidence of
it and the parallel is more accurate(an invasion followed by growing
appeasement until there is not choice but to go to war).
>>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
>>> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
>>> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through.
>
>Well, "foresight" is defined by hindsight. "Foresight" that does not
>lead into victory is known as "poor judgment", and this might be what
>Sisko would have demonstrated by attacking in "By Inferno's Light".
Might this, might that. He had more and better ships, the Dominion were
invading hostile territory, he had surprise and he had reinforcements should
they be necessary. What more do you want, exactly?
>>>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>>>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>>>sides.
>
>Or then he saved millions of lives that could have been unnecessarily
>wasted.
Like those on Bajor, right?
There is no way of judging things like this unless one has
>a time machine and a good road map for the crossroads of space-time.
Yes there is. It's called common sense. Someone invades your next door
neighbor and tries to blowup your country. What do you do?
>It's always infuriating to see somebody claim that since lives could be
>saved by taking them, *not* taking them must be close to murder.
It's even more infuriating to see people believe that their beliefs and
qualms
and hesitancy to what must be done are worth the lives of billions.
This
>completely omits the consideration of other options that might have led
>to lighter losses of life with no need of assassinations or preemptive
>strikes.
Which clearly has not come to pass.
>Consider for example the following options:
<snipped>
>Any of these might have resulted in interesting and possibly life-saving
>scenarios. A few of them might have been within the mandate Sisko
>had been given by Starfleet and the UFP - some more so than a
>pre-emptive strike would have been.
None of which would have undermined the Dominion's powerbase in the quadrant
while telling their behavior was unacceptable as a strike against a power
which had already attacked you. Pre-emptive, my ass. It's retaliatory.
P&SC
Timo S Saloniemi
>Timo S Saloniemi wrote
>>Or on the part of Sisko. Just remember that Captains generally aren't
>>allowed to start world wars
>Sisko was, however, given the authority to do what was necessary to
>preserve the Federation in that episode. Remember? He and Gowron were
>there, with the Romulans alongside.
Yes, AFTER the Dominion sally to Cardassian space. Had Sisko had a fleet
then to destroy the Dominion convoy, he might have made a difference
(although most of the damage was already done when the wormhole was
wedged open, and Dukat converted to Dominion). Attacking Cardassia
after the forces had dug in and the false assault fleet was nearing
Bajor would IMHO have been tactical suicide, and Sisko's failure to
attack then thus shouldn't be held against him. IMVHO.
>- it wouldn't have been part of Sisko's
>>duty to start one against the Dominion in "By Inferno's Light",
>>either. The Federation was at peace with the Dominion at that point,
>>despite hostile feelings and continued provocations by both sides.
>
>The Federation was at peace with the Dominion. The Dominion was at war with
>the Federation. They made an attempt to destroy a Federation run space
>station, all the civilians onboard, a Klingon/Federation/Romulan fleet and
>the entire planet of Bajor. Call me silly but this is an act of war. The
>Dominion had also declared war on Cardassia which was, at the time, a
>quasi-ally.
Sure, the Dominion committed acts of war. The Federation did, too, all the
time, sending ships into the Gamma quadrant and meddling with Dominion
affairs. The realpolitik in the situation simply was to let these
aggressions pass. Acts of war are a routine occurrence in the Trek
universe, even more so than they were during the cold war here on Earth.
But reacting to these acts may often be strategically foolish, especially
if the acts never really lead to major casualties and if there is hope of
achieving understanding and signing a peace treaty if the matter is let
to pass.
I simply think that, had the UFP declared war on the Dominion there and
then and gone to the offensive, it would have lost. It had not assembled
a warfleet to match that of the Dominion yet - the COMBINED fleet of three
races was threatened by the perceived Dominion/Cardassian forces approaching
Bajor.
Dominion had created its beachhead on Alpha when the guns of DS9 misfired
and wedged the wormhole permanently open, and when Dukat decided to join
the Dominion. Sending the ships through was something of a symbolic gesture
to support the alliance with Dukat, not a strategically significant moment.
IMHO.
>>Without
>>instructions from his superiors, preferably from his CIVILIAN superiors
>>in the UFP Council, Sisko shouldn't have made a move. And he didn't.
>>So why would he mull over that? He did what was expected of him. In
>>"Moonlight", he did make a move he wasn't entitled to do, so naturally
>>it was of more concern to him than his duty-bound inaction.
>
>This is factually incorrect. Sisko had been given orders from his
>superiors. He had been sent a small fleet of Federation ships. They
>attempted to DESTROY those ships, the station and the planet of Bajor.
>Those are grounds to counter-strike if I've ever heard them.
A suicidal counterstike? A small fleet against a large one? I don't think
Starfleet would have approved. Sisko was to protect Bajor and the Alpha
quadrant against an invasion - and he did that. Bajor was not invaded,
and the attempt to nova the star was prevented as well. Cardassia, a
quasi-ally, willingly received the Dominion fleet, so technically, no
invasion took place, either. In practice, an invasion did happen, but
of a sort that could not be fought with phasers and torpedoes; Sisko
should have fought Dukat and the Detapa Council on this, not Dominion
warships.
>>>Then there's Sisko's moral dilemma. He is a SOLDIER. Soldiers KILL people.
>>>It's their job.
>>
>>It still doesn't mean they won't get prosecuted for the killings. Some
>>may be let to order the death of hundreds of thousands, while others
>>may be executed for killing one. Starfleet hasn't been too strong on
>>this prosecution aspect yet, but one might suspect it would be even more
>>paranoid than today's USA for condoning cold-blooded assassinations.
>It wasn't cold blooded. We're talking about the Romulan who's responible
>for reversing Dominion policy towards the Dominion, his guards and one
>criminal, already sentenced to death.
If that's not cold-blooded, then I sure don't know what is. Noncombatants
labeled as either indirectly hostile or insignificant, then wiped out.
It just isn't Sisko's style. And if it was his "duty"... then why wasn't
it his duty to kill Vedek/Kai Winn when she got difficult and in effect
compromised UFP access to the important gateway to Gamma? Was it just the
Prime Directive holding this bloodlusty soldier back? Why aren't soldiers
called to assassinate difficult world leaders more often today? The
Embassy Marines in arab countries would be protecting their nation by
performing active operations against local troublemakers - are they
truly lax in their duties, or just held back by both sensible practical
constraints and a firm moral code?
>>Sisko has never seemed too keen on killing anybody, except perhaps
>>Picard of the Borg. He refuses to shoot Dukat. He hesitates to
>>fire on Klingons on the warpath, Klingons who have been told to attack
>>him at the threat of death by their superiors. He's BOUND to have
>>a lot of moral dilemmas about premeditated killing.
>Exactly when were the Klingons who attacked the station threatened by
>their superiors?
I formulated that unclearly - I meant a different set of Klingons, at
a different stage of the attack.
Remember how the BoP detained Kasidy Yates's ship? The Klingon captain
was ordered to conduct the search and to put down possible resistance,
yet he yielded to Sisko - and was killed by Martok for not persisting,
and not firing on Sisko's ship when challenged. After that, Sisko knew
that Klingons were ordered to kill in similar situations, or be killed.
Yet he tried a nonviolent approach with the Klingon ships bombarding
Dukat's ship.
As for the Klingons assaulting the station with swords, I doubt they
were coerced in any way... But they were killed by Sisko in the heat
of the battle, a category I separated from killing when Sisko has the
drop on his enemy.
>>This isn't much of a problem. Remember that the person who knew that
>>the thing was a forgery and that the Dominion had not broken the alliance
>>was killed in the explosion? The ones who would search his remains would
>>WANT to find evidence of Dominion betrayal. If there was no such evidence
>>on the data rod, they would INSERT it there for their own goals, now
>>that the outspoken Dominion supporter Vreenak was gone. The whole
>>forgery/assassination plot would just provide them with a nice excuse.
>Fanboy rationalizing is not an excuse. You insert data that was not in the
>episode and not implied by the contents of the episode to your hearts
>content. It doesn't make it so. You are, no matter how rational it may be,
>adding things to the script to excuse something happened without a
>reasonable explanaition.
I fully admit that what I did was just fanboy rationalization. However,
I'd like to point that a) such rationalization is easy to do here, which
IMHO is a sign of good instead of bad writing and b) it's not really
needed in all that detail - everybody can choose an explanation he or she
likes. The incident is not crucial to the plot. It just represents the
ultimate step of the events getting pulled off Sisko's control - things
are left either to chance or the ministrations of Garak, whichever is
worse. Surprisingly, Sisko succeeds here, even though everything he did
or tried to do failed. And that's the whole irony of the story. The forgery
(an immoral step, but still better than assassination) was unconvincing,
and still it worked since an even more immoral step (the assassination
itself) was taken. Sisko lost in every count, initially not wishing to
do forgery, then not sanctioning any deaths. His ultimate triumph
came *against* and *despite* his efforts.
>>The rod need not have survived at all. It was enough for Romulans to know
>>that it had existed. The DS9 crew could be questioned about Vreenak's
>>visit, and Garak might indirectly let slip a hint that a plot against
>>the Romulans by the Dominion was the subject of the discussions. The
>>explosion itself would then be proof enough of the treason.
>Treason by who?
A poorly formulated chapter again. Sorry. I meant that the explosion would
be proof of the Dominion betraying Vreenak and killing him. Of course, it
*could* be (and was!) proof of somebody else betraying and killing Vreenak,
but still could be used by the anti-Dominion Romulans to put the blame on
the Dominion.
>>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
>>> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
>>> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through. I am
>>> lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically foolish
>>> decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built shipyards and
>>> cloning facilities. )
>>
>>So you would have been happier with a man who performs preemptive strikes?
>
>Preemptive? I'm talking about a counter strike. They tried to blow up the
>Bajoran sun for Chrissakes!
I guess we have been talking past each other a bit. "Preemptive" would be
attacking the Dominion convoy when it came through and dug in on Cardassia.
"Counterstrike" would be attacking Cardassia after the fake Dominion assault
and attempted nova-bombing of Bajor. I opposed the "preemptive" strike
since at that point, the Dominion had committed only minor acts of war,
similar to the ones committed by the Federation, and was not acting in an
exceptionally threatening way. I oppose the "counterstrike" on different
grounds, believing that it would have failed badly and left Bajor
unprotected against conventional attack.
>>The Dominion didn't fire a shot, remember?
(and with this I meant while coming through the wormhole, although I
was writing in a rather confusing way about it)
>Unless you count the attempt at the destruction of the Bajoran sun.
A typical Trek "act of war" that can't be conclusively blamed on the
Dominion. The Romulans pulled these all the time in TNG. A good lawyer
could paint the Feds as the aggressors here... Theoretically, this
would be grounds for going to war against the Dominion. But so would
the destruction of all the starships that had gone trhough to Gamma,
or the Bajoran colony, etc. etc. Somebody would probably have sent
a warfleet to Gamma already, if that really was a viable solution
to the crisis.
>>>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>>>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>>>sides. He ignored his duty then and later found himself in a even more
>>>untenable position.
>>
>>So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
>>threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
>
>The duty of a soldier is to fulfill his oath to protect his nation.
>Sisko failed to do so.
This is where I disagree most strongly. IMHO, he didn't fail - he did
protect Bajor against destruction and/or conquest. He didn't allow an
invasion of Federation space to take place, although he did allow an
invasion of Cardassian space to take place (the Cardassians officially
weren't unahppy with that invasion).
My argument is that the events of "By Inferno's Light" after the opening
of the wormhole were not strategically significant, or decisive in
determining the future of the Federation. Not much that Sisko could have
done would have resulted in fewer casualties than those resulting from
a foreseeable war. Conquest of Cardassia with a fleet so much smaller
than Gowron's "Way of the Warrior" fleet which failed in the job? No way.
And that would have meant fighting your quasi-ally. The best chances Sisko
and the UFP had were in clever negotiations, or in blockading the wormhole
against further intrusions.
THIS is what I feel was an error in Sisko's and Starfleet's part -
the events that took place AFTER "By Inferno's Light". Perhaps the
wormhole should have been blockaded earlier. However, I give them the
benefit of doubt: perhaps, like Stalin in 1939, Starfleet wasn't
ready to take on the Dominion in mid-2373, and desperately needed three
more months to gather its warfleet? After all, we never saw ANYTHING
like the "Call to Arms" fleet in Trek before - it must have been
an *exceptional* undertaking for Starfleet since all they could do
to oppose the Borg was 40 or so starships, some of questionable combat
value.
Stalin, by waiting until 1941 before deciding to attack Hitler, let
the latter build a bigger army and to attack first. This way, Stalin
lost much of the industry in the Donetsk valley, and suffered further
setbacks. But he recovered, and was able to build an even larger army
to crush Hitler after 1943. Had Stalin opposed Hitler from the beginning,
the USSR might well have suffered a far worse fate and Hitler might have
triumphed.
Sisko, by agreeing with Starfleet on not attacking or blockading the
wormhole until the end of 2373, may have bought crucial time for
Starfleet. I refuse to believe he was acting solo on this - unlike
the split-second decisions of "By Inferno's Light", the decision
whether to blockade or not was something he must have been able to
consult Starfleet on. And Starfleet must have said "no".
>>>And then he laments this. The writers were short-sighted
>>>and so Sisko had to become a hypocrite for any drama to take place in this
>>>episode.
>>Wouldn't hypocrisy be an elemental part of the psyche of *any* person
>>whose job (at least in part) it is to make other people suffer, from
>>soldier to police to doctor to TV writer? I see no contradiction in
>>Sisko's behavior. He's been a hypocrite from the beginning, in
>>many ways, simply because he's a well-off Federation officer presiding
>>over the one important resource of a poor planet, a religious icon
>>for what he saw as misguided mysticists.
>Wha? He never saw them as 'misguided'. Ever. He simply did not believe as
>they did.
Word play. I can do that, too :) Okay, "misguided" was a poor choice of
words. What I meant was that he didn't share the belief that gave him
his powers, nor did he seem keen on fulfilling his prophesied part
in "Destiny" etc., yet he used the powers to put up powerful if
passive resistance to Vedek/Kai Winn, and later to Akorem in
"Accession".
>>>As for Sisko's moral dilemma: it is rooted in the fact that he can
>>>barely stomach killing two people who are involved, but on periphery, of the
>>>conflict for the greater good. Bulslhit, I say. Had he done the sensible
>>>thing then, neither of their deaths would have been necessary in the now.
>>
>>So you'd have preferred killing the Dominion and Cardassian soldiers back
>>in "By Inferno's Light", right?
>
>There were not Cardassian soldiers involved at that point other than those
>in Dukat's direct command. Cardassia was invaded by the Dominion.
But "liberating" Cardassia would have meant fighting the Cardassian
forces anyway, both those of Dukat and those nominally under the
Detapa Council. The Detapa legates would not have let a Klingon/UFP
fleet take their planets and destroy their shipyards - they had
enough trouble stomaching an alliance with the Bajorans, let alone
with two superpowers who had fought destructive wars against them.
It would have taken some skillful (and potentially very interesting)
political maneuvering to get the Detapa troops to fight Dukat and
to allow Sisko to attack the Dominion forces. In the category of
perhaps not all that accurate real-world analogies, I refer to the
Allied invasions of northern Africa in WWII. The Vichy French put
up a good fight, especially against the Brits but also against the
Americans who were sent in first with giant Stars'n'Stripes.
>>Then Sisko would have been lackluster in his duty to kill the Romulans
>>(who have now taken Betazed and apparently intend to keep it)
>
>No, they haven't. The Dominion has taken Betazed. The Romulans have taken
>Benzar and there is no proof they intend on keeping it.
Sorry. My mistake.
>>, the Klingons (who can never be trusted)
>
>Sisko betrayed the Klingons not the other way around. The Klingons had
>reliable intelligence data that, in their eyes, proved that Cardassia
>had been taken over by the Dominion. Sisko, in spite of orders not to
>intfere, told the Cardassians what was coming. Had they not the Klingons
>blitz looked certain to crush Cardassia. They then had to turn around,
>after Sisko took those they suspected of being changelings under
>his protection, and fight those who they wished to remain allied to.
Yes, Sisko betrayed the Klingons (and I'm reasonably sure the Detapa
council DID include Changeling infiltrators, despite Bashir's blood
tests). Still, it would have been Sisko's duty to kill the Klingons
since they had been hostile in the past and would certainly be hostile
at some point in the future, right? Gowron had fired on the station,
just like Dukat/Weyoun had fired on Bajor and the fleet. There was no
guarantee he wouldn't do that again. True, the odds were small, but we
are talking about a *principle* here, a *duty* to be followed. (heavy
sarcasm implied for everything I write on this specific subject, BTW -
I hope you didn't think I really wanted Ben Sisko to kill Jake?)
>>and his admirals (who in ST IX will conspire to break the prime directive),
>Wha? You're rambling. I have yet to see Star Trek 9 and I doubt you have
>either.
Just going by the (probably 90% accurate) spoiler synopsis here. I simply
wanted a good selection of absurd examples of forces that can threaten
Sisko and what he holds dearest, but which still should not be summarily
attacked (counterattacked or preemptively attacked). I could have included
Picard the Evil Locutus, too.
My point is twofold:
1) All "evil" should not be killed at sight, since there is enough "evil"
in each of us. The border against "evil" has to be drawn separately
for each case, and Sisko usually isn't the one who should be
drawing it. At the very least, there should be some admiral holding
a ruler for him. And hopefully, the UFP Council could get in a word
or two about the drawing as well.
2) Even when evil is to be opposed, an open attack may not be the best
means to do it.
I use point 1 to defend Sisko's decision not to chase the Dominion convoy
pouring out of the wormhole, and point 2 to defend his decision not to
use the combined fleet to attack Cardassia after the Dominion attempt
at nova-bombing Bajor. I feel more certain about point 1, since it
relies on general moral views, while the application of point 2 relies
on "alternate timelines", i.e. what *might* have happened but didn't.
Still, I stand behind point 2 with an army of IMHOs.
>>as well as his son (how can he ever be sure..?). Preemptive killing never
>>sounded like "the sensible thing" to me.
>A counterattack after someone tries to blow up a sun around which the
>station you inhabit, a joint fleet and a billion bajorans orbit sounds
>like the perfectly sensible thing to me.
What would that have been - a punishing expedition? "You tried to
kill millions of our folks, so I'll kill a couple of yours in
retribution"? Something like somebody finding a bomb under the
Oval Office table and disarming it, and hundreds of cruise missiles
screaming to Baghdad or Tripoli the next day? That IS one way
to handle these things, yes. But not really one that I think could
be considered effective.
A counterattack after the nova-bombing attempt would have been a
stab at empty air as far as moral retribution was concerned. And
it might not have been strategically advantageous at all. The end result
as matters stand: Bajor was saved, the fleet was saved, the wormhole
remained open for invasion. The end result with a counterstrike: Bajor
saved, the fleet wounded, and possibly weakened against a REAL Dominion
assault on Bajor, and the wormhole still open for invasion.
>>I'm of the kind that, if given a time machine and a sniper rifle, would
>>use the rifle on the machine. Preemptively.
>Your babbling, now. This is irrelevant.
Sorry. I don't feel the little ramble as such was relevant, either. What
I feel was relevant would be that you are accusing Sisko of creating an
outcome you don't like, without presenting a scenario one could claim
would result in a better outcome. Sisko can't see to the future
(not without the Orbs, anyway), and has to deal with what he has
at the time. Only a time machine could have enabled Sisko to be
sure of the consequences of his (in)action. Lacking that, he did pretty
well, delaying the occupation of Bajor and assaults on UFP space
until the end of the season. A declaration of hot war at that point
might have been a serious mistake. Or it might not have been. I would
like to hear you present a scenario where it would have been a good
decision and resulted in a UFP victory, so that we can compare the
fictional scenarios to what apparently transpired.
>>Those simply weren't premeditated killings. That makes a world of a
>>difference, usually, even though a man of cold logic would readily
>>admit that no real difference exists. It's just that no men of cold
>>logic exist, either...
>He didn't premeditate Vreenak's death either. Garak did.
Admitted. But with Sisko in charge. He would probably have felt equally
bad about Worf killing Gowron to further Sisko's goals and UFP security,
even though he normally just congratulates Worf for killing Jem'Hadar
or "evil" Klingon troops in battle. Sisko suffers from two things
here - the killings being performed outside heated battle (which I
should have used instead of "premeditated", since as you say, Sisko
didn't exactly do the premeditating), and theoretically under his
command but still outside his control.
>>>What difference should the deaths of 4 nameless, faceless guards, one
>>>arrogant, self-righteous Senator from a people who are allied with your
>>>enemies and one criminal already sentenced to death in people whom you
>>>are currently allied with make?
>>Well, lots of significanse comes from the fact that Sisko ordered the
>>killings of these unthreatening individuals who never fought back. That
>>falls outside the ST Guidelines of Killing he's so fond of.
>They were threatening and he didn't order their deaths. One threatened to
>more firmly put the Romulans in the Dominion camp and the other could have
>somehow tattled on him. They were an active threat to the Federation that
>Garak took care of.
I say Sisko was not inconsistently portrayed in not having a stomach for
these killings but capable of killing in battle. I say Sisko was in charge
of this operation, and almost as guilty of killing those people as
Kirk was of letting Gorkon be killed. People under his command performed
killings Not Sanctioned By Established Trek Precedent of Starfleet
Killings. None of the Romulans threatened Sisko directly, the way an
enemy would in a battle, and that was the crucial difference that made
Sisko dislike these killings. As political forces, the Romulans and the
forger were threatening. As individuals, they weren't really. And the
problems stemmed from Sisko being able to treat them as individuals
(even if sometimes nameless ones) since the heat of the battle wasn't on.
>>> And what of the Prime Directive? How many innocents have died when
>>>Picard or Kirk enforced the PD? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Entire
>>>races? The Federation has regularly committed genocide through inaction,
>>>if the PD is to be believed, and Sisko hesitates to kill 6? Hypocrisy
>>>does not impress me.
>>
>>Didn't you just conclusively prove that hypocrisy is a job requirement
>>for Starfleet officers?
>
>No. For writing for Star Trek.
But, almost by definition, it then BECOMES a job requirement for Starfleet
officers, since they are nothing but the figment of imagination of these
writers. Hypocrisy is present in previous incarnations of Trek, in many
previous Starfleet officer characters. Why wouldn't it be part of Sisko's
character as well?
> How can you say it's atypical of Sisko when
>>you admit Picard and Kirk actively preached and practiced it?
>Did I say it was atypical?
Well, that was a complex chain of deduction, I admit. You said you
didn't like Sisko's hypocrisy. You said the episode was bad because of
this. This led me to think that you watched the episode as well as others,
and considered the other episodes good or at least not bad in comparison,
and had expected "Moonlight" to be good/not bad as well. Yet these other
episodes you must have used to formulate your opinion on the show also
included hypocritical characters. So I thought that your dislike of this
particular episode stemmed from some finer points of Sisko's hypocrisy.
Perhaps it was an atypical kind of hypocrisy?
I'm not especially fond of the Sisko character, and I actively hate
Brooks in this role. Still, I have learned to like Sisko in an odd
sort of way, and I find his hypocrisy an integral part of him. Were
he to be deprived of it, he would become even less human and much
less interesting as a character.
(For one thing, he would have to accept that he's a lowly captain
with no business in commanding big fleets or formulating galactic
policies. And where would that leave the show? We'd need an admiral
character who might then be far too big for the confines of the
station.)
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
> In the Search pt2, Sisko was willing to collapse the Bajoran wormhole
>(going against direct orders from Starfleet Command) to keep the
>Dominion out of the Alpha Quadrant. Why is it that in By Inferno's
>Light, a time where the Dominion is obviously a bigger threat, where it
>has just illegally taken over the government of Cardassia and tried to
>blow up the Bajoran sun, and where he has the Klingons and Romulans on
>his side, he does nothing?
But he DOES do something. He again tries to collapse the wormhole
(a maneuver that by now has probably earned Starfleet's sanctioning
as well). When he fails in that, he has few options left until the
supporting fleets arrive. And at THAT point, he'd better keep the fleets
protecting Bajor since a big bad Dominion assault force is apparently
nearing.
What happens after the assault is proven a fake is most significant.
Should Sisko try to root out the Dominion forces? Gowron failed to
invade Cardassia, with a bigger fleet than what we see in Sisko's
possession. Now Cardassia is defended by a selection of Dominion
warships in addition to the surviving Cardassian junkships. An assault
without waiting for some reinforcements seems unwise. For all practical
purposes, Dominion is ALREADY rooted in at Cardassia. What about
blockading the wormhole against Dominion reinforcements? For some
reason, Sisko lets at least five convoys come through, even though
the Dominion continues low-level aggressions and has attacked the
UFP allies, Klingons.
But at this point, Sisko must have had plenty of time to discuss
the best course of action with his superiors. We simply must assume
the superiors said "no" to a blockade at that point. The reasons for
that remain unclear, but they are Satrfleet reasons, not just Sisko
reasons.
>I agree that frontline military commanders
>should not be setting national policy, but that is hardly a rule Sisko
>has ever respected. He routinely sets his own policy and to hell with
>Starfleet Command and the Federation Council, so why is it the one time
>it really counts does he do nothing? Is it any wonder the Romulans
>sided with the Dominion?
To the contrary, it seems that Sisko's inaction in the later stages is
a Starfleet-dictated choice, whereas Sisko's own initiative in the early
stages was already demonstrated when he again tried to collapse the
wormhole, and managed to expose the nova-bombing scheme.
> The real problem I have with this episode is, why didn't Vreenak
>immediately contact Romulas and tell them about the forged data rod when
>he first learned about it. Before he even confronted Sisko, he should
>have contacted his government, and told them what the Feds had tried to
>pull off.
Perhaps his support back at home was not all that strong, and he thought
he would not be believed unless he presented physical proof? This is
the weakest part of the plot, admittedly, much weaker than the other
stages of Garak's plan, or the portrayal of Sisko (which I think was
smack on, even if it didn't cast Sisko in a flattering light).
>> So you would have been happier with a man who performs preemptive strikes?
>Yes! Isn't a preemptive strike to quickly defeat the Dominion better
>than forcing the entire quadrant to endure a protracted war? Dukat was
>not the legetimate head of the Cardassian government, he had no
>authority to hand Cardassia over to the Dominion.
Hmm. That's an interesting point. I though Dukat was in agreement with
the Detapa Council in forming the alliance.
>And if liberating Cardassia from an invading army is not enough
>justification, what about the Dominion attempt to destroy Bajor's sun,
>that is about as clear an act of war as you can get. (There are also
>lesser charges resolving around kidnapping Federation citizens,
>sabotaging Federation property, and the genocidal campaign carried out
>against the Maquis).
Acts of war are so often performed in the Trek universe and left
unchallenged that only the attempt to destroy the Bajoran system
would even register on the fear-o-meter of the admirals and
politicians. The Feds committed their share of acts of war, too.
But what seems important to me here is that Sisko was in no position
to go to a real war back then. At most, he could have mounted a
punitive expedition, and I question the worth of those.
>> The Dominion didn't fire a shot, remember?
> Invaded Bajoran space with a massive fleet is an act of war.
But not a *serious* act of war, by any standard. Everybody keeps
invading everybody's space in Trek. The Federation kept on sending
ships to Gamma at least for 1.5 years after the Dominion told
them not to. Sending a fleet through isn't much of an offense in
the Trek setup, and besides, what could Sisko have done about it?
He had no fleet to stop it when it came through.
> The anchullus of Cardassia is an act of war.
Or then not, depending on the point of view of the Detapa council.
AFAIK, they didn't send (or didn't manage to get off?) a formal call
for help, which allows Dukat to argue that Cardassia welcomed the
Dominion with open arms.
> Attacking Maquis colonies is an act of war (it is also firing a shot)
> Attacking Klingon forces is to the Klingon mind an act of war
These happened after the episode, and the choice not to react to them
was Starfleet's to make, not Sisko's.
> Trying to nova bomb the Bajoran sun is an act of war
That was the one serious act of was to which Sisko could have
reacted. But I still think Sisko lacked the means to react to
it in any practical way.
> And this is after two years of provocation and terrorism. Sisko
>would have been entirely justified in attacking the Dominion.
Sure. He would have been entirely justified in attacking Qo'NoS
as well, or bombarding Romulus. The question is, COULD Sisko have
taken measures here against the Dominion? I think an immediate
attack on Cardassia would have failed and been strategically foolish.
Any later action or inaction was for Starfleet to decide.
>> So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
>> threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
>
> The duty of a soldier is to protect his country against all enemies
>foreign and domestic. The Dominion was an aggresive, powerful and
>exceedingly hostile enemy that threatened the entire Federation.
>Sisko could have stopped it from doing this, by failing to do so he has
>failed the Federation if not the entire Alpha Quadrant and plunged the
>Federation into a war it could very well lose (of course we know it
>won't, but if this was a real world situation, the price of Sisko's
>actions could very well be Jem'Hedar soldiers marching through the ruins
>of Earth).
Plunging the Federation into a war was not for Sisko to decide - the
two powers had been at war for more than a year already, although they
pretended not to be, apparently in order to gather strength. Stopping
the Dominion would have been nice, but I don't think Sisko had the
means to do this, save for blockading the wormhole. And as I said, the
decision *not* to blockade came later, and was Starfleet's to make.
>> That's a different side of Sisko. He certainly is megalomaniac enough
>> (who wouldn't be, after four seasons of being called "Emissary"?) in
>> "For the Uniform". But he told to himself that nobody would really
>> be killed there. And apparently nobody was. He was probably just
>> happy with himself afterwards for having been so clever and on top of
>> the situation. Not so in "Moonlight" where everything went wrong, pulled
>> out of his control.
>
> What went wrong? He got the Romulans into the war and saved the
>entire Federation.
Well, nothing went wrong from Garak's point of view. But everything Sisko
tried to do failed. He didn't get to avoid making a forgery. He didn't
manage to do the forgery smoothly, but had to involve Bashir and a bunch
of criminals. And the forgery didn't work in the end, so assassinations
had to be made. Sisko just wasn't in control at all, even though he
felt fully responsible.
In "Uniform", OTOH, Sisko was planning ahead of Eddington, and his plan
worked. He had to do questionable things there, too, but he did those
out of personal choice.
>This is the Picard and the Borg virus insanity all over again. In war
>if you can save millions of lives at the cost of one life, you take it.
Hmm. There are similarities and differences here. Picard and his crew
believed the Hugh virus could have worked - but we'll never know. At
least the individuality infection didn't succeed in spreading beyond
Hugh's ship. Sisko believed that collapsing the wormhole would have
worked - but it didn't work, and after that Sisko was at loss of
means to oppose the Dominion. Picard chose not to use a means he
had, while Sisko had no means over which to choose. Picard was
reprimanded for his choice, while Sisko apparently was not (after
all, there was no clear choice to reprimand him for!).
What life *could* Sisko have taken to protect the Federation? That of
Dukat when his ship sped off to meet the Dominion? Sisko didn't have time
for such an action then. That of some of his crew, of the Klingon and
Romulan crews, and some Dominion and Cardassian crews, in a glorious
battle over the Cardassian shipyards? I doubt Sisko would have succeeded
in taking many Dominion lives there, instead just losing much of his
own forces.
At most, Sisko might have tried entering the wormhole and trying to
either access the Prophets or to destroy it from the inside. I can't
invent more alternatives that would have worked - if Sisko's forces
coudl not take Cardassia, they would not have been of much use in
the Gamma quadrant, either.
There simply doesn't seem to be a crucial moment in the episodes where
Sisko could have turned the tide of the events. Or have I missed such
a moment?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Timo S Saloniemi wrote
>>Also, even though the actual declaration of war came only after "A Call to
>>Arms" (as a direct response to Sisko's decision to start mining the
>>wormhole mouth), both sides were trying hard to kill each other even
>>before that. I haven't actually seen "By Inferno's Light", but I believe
>>Dukat declared an alliance with the Dominion, plus his intent to drive
>>the Klingons out of Federation space.
>
>Dukat can't declare an alliance with ANYONE. He's a criminal. He's a
>terrorist. He's fighting against the duly recognized government of Cardassia
>as well as the Klingons. The only thing he can agree to is working for the
>Dominion. He has no legal status other than WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE in
>Cardassian space.
How so? I thought he was the military advisor to the Detapa council
at the time! There was little indication that the Detapa council
opposed his military advice on this matter (or that it even existed
at that point): Dukat might well have been in a perfectly legal position
to declare an alliance with the Dominion.
You must be confusing him with his post-"Waltz" self, where he indeed is
a hunted criminal (although one who might find friends in both the
Dominion and Cardassia).
>>He did not declare a war against the Federation specifically at that
>>point, not for himself nor for the Dominion.
>Blowing up a sun ain't enough for you?
Well, it wasn't a Federation sun to begin with :) And no, apparently
nobody at Starfleet or in the UFP Council considered this a declaration
of war. A state of peace existed between the Dominion and the UFP for
the rest of the season, regardless of the fact that the Dominion kept
blowing up Klingon ships and may have attacked Federation vessels
as well (although the one ship we hear of, the Tian An Men, apparently
was not destroyed after all, since it later makes a triumphant return).
Perhaps the fact that the sun wasn't blown up after all had something
to do with it? Perhaps Dominion even denied involvment in the
bombing?
>>The Klingons, while good buddies with the Federation, had
>>recently severed formal ties, and attacks against them would probably not
>>count as acts of war against the UFP unless the Feds specifically so
>>stated.
>That's wholly irrelevant considering Sisko took it upon himself to resign a
>treaty with the Klingons.
Well, I'll admit that.
>>But it never really sent any ships, and the actions of its single
>>operative *could* always be explained as the acts of some
>>unknown outsider,
>Please. Explain it that way then. Go ahead. I'll wait here.
Simple: "This is Gul Dukat speaking. For all UFP citizens: we
didn't nova-bomb Bajor. That attack, if it ever happened, was the
work of an outsider with no affiliation with either Cardassia or
the Dominion. I don't wish to imply that this whole story about
a nova-bomb is just a fabrication of Starfleet in order to
black-paint us and our new and prosperous alliance with the
Dominion. Heck, no. Live long and prosper. Dukat out."
>>a rogue founder acting outside the authorization of his
>>government (just watch Odo to see that such critters can exist), or even
>>a Federation attempt at framing the Dominion... The Feds have forgiven
>>much graver offenses.
>Please tell me when the Federation forgave an attempt to destroy an entire
>fleet as well as a planet with a billion inhabitants.
After "By Inferno's Light", of course. Sisko was forgiven for bombing the
Maquis colony, Picard for massacring the Wolf 359 fleet, and Garak (after
a brief jail sentence) for trying to kill the Founders in their new
hideout. There was no declaration of war against the Dominion when
one of its agents tried to massacre the Xenkethi by using the Defiant.
Apparently, Starfleet just didn't feel being up to opposing the Dominion
at the time.
>>Nope - there was a Romulan fleet sent to oppose the Dominion and
>>to support Klingon and UFP forces in "By Inferno's Light". It
>>apparently departed shortly thereafter, as Romulans saw it more
>>profitable to sign a nonaggression treaty with the Dominion.
>No. One Romulan convinced the rest of this: Vreenak.
Thanks for the info. I haven't really seen "Moonlight" yet, nor am
I likely to see it for a couple of months, so any info on dialogue
is welcome.
>>In "By Infernos's Light", the Klingons were indeed present in force.
>>They also still held the captured Cardassian worlds, so part of their
>>forces were tied down there.
>
>That's speculation. From what we saw in that episode, the Klingons most
>powerful ships were on the run from a Dominion fleet led by Gul Dukat.
Yup.
>>And they had not yet normalized their
>>relationships with the UFP, either, so some forces were probably
>>at the borders close to Earth and Qo'NoS. Still, the Klingons
>>might have joined the offensive against the Cardassian/Dominion alliance.
>Might? MIGHT?! Gowron was more than happy to resign anything to get Sisko's
>help. MIGHT?! Wha?
Okay, they would have joined the bandwagon without a second thought.
Does that sound better? :)
>>>>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he
>>>>could have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the
>>>>Federation.
>>I doubt that. Dukat promised that in five days, the Klingons (and the
>>Maquis) would be ousted from former Cardassian space. We have no
>>reason to think this didn't take place. So the Dominion and the
>>Cardassians put together seemed to have quite a potent fighting force
>>to begin with.
>Who said all the Cardassians fought with the Dominion? What of the forces
>loyal to the real Cardassian government? We saw later, in the ep with Kira
>and that old, dying Cardie, that some Cardassians rallied against Dukat but
>whatever the force it doesn't really matter. You've got more ships than your
>enemy, more than 2/3rs of which can cloak, several of which are bigger than
>anything the Dominion had. The Cardassian ships have been proven weak time
>and again by Federation jobs going all the back to "Phoenix". That and based
>on Dukat's past promises he's rather fond of lying to make himself sound big
>deflates your theory.
I need some clarification here. Would Sisko really have had more ships than
Dukat? Was there any indication that some Cardassian ships indeed fought
Dukat's ships? Even the resistance described in "Ties of Blood and Water"
seemed like very covert one. And the Cardassians did stop the Klingons
once before from taking Cardie Prime, even though they lost most of their
other holdings, so their junkships must add to SOMETHING in the end.
>>OTOH, during the initial Dominion surge into Alpha quadrant in "By
>>Inferno's Light", Sisko was at a crucial position. No contingency
>>plans existed for that type of incident. Starfleet probably had
>>not yet completed assembling its warfleets (again, I must stress
>>that such things take time!).
>Strange how the Romulans had one in place but a few days after hearing about
>the massing of Dominion forces. The Klingons had one hanging about at DS9
>and the Fed had sent several ships to support them. So tell me why THAT
>considerable fleet wasn't used AFTER an indirect attack on them that would
>have killed every Bajoran, destroyed the station and the fleet. One good
>reason is all I ask.
This is a matter of interpretation, it seems. I simply do not recognize
the fleet as "considerable" - it appears to be nowhere near the size
of Gowron's "Way of the Warrior" fleet, the first wave of which held more
than a hundred ships but failed to take Cardassia. What *was* the size of
Sisko's fleet in the final analysis? A hundred and fifty ships? We didn't
get anywhere near the FX density of ships that was used to portray "large"
fleets in the war arc episodes.
What I think was happening was that Starfleet was gathering those 300-ship
fleets later seen in the war, and biding its time by not responding to
all aggressions with futile counterstrikes.
>>The station was supposed to collapse
>>the wormhole, but the Dominion plot prevented this from happening,
>>thus ruining the whole UFP strategy concerning the wormhole. What
>>Sisko did there and then, with what he had, was a turning point in
>>history.
>What Sisko did there and then was foolish and colors all his later heroic
>accomplishments.
What DID Sisko do? He tried to collapse the wormhole. That would
have been a historic turning point, had it succeeded. It was a
historic turning point when it failed. The rest of the episode
was an anticlimax in that Sisko's actions would not have changed
much, whereas the time after the episode involved decisions made
by people other than Sisko.
>>I just think that he did the right thing.
>A thought which you've failed to support.
So I'll keep trying.
>>With the forces at hand,
>>he might well have lost the initial battle royally, in which case
>>the Dominion could have captured the *wormhole* - a much more
>>important strategic asset than the pitiful worlds of the Cardassian
>>Union.
>Clearly not. They've managed to hold off both the Klingon Empires and the
>entire UFP for quite some time now with but a few shipments from the
>Dominion.
With supplies coming from the wormhole, they would have done a lot
more than "hold off" the enemy, I think. Blockading the hole after
"By Inferno's Light" would have probably helped a lot, but as I said,
that decision was not solely Sisko's to make.
>>By waiting it out, Sisko gave Starfleet time to gather its
>>forces and to strike back a couple of months later.
>By waiting it out Sisko gave them time to build ship yards in the first
>place.
There must have been shipyards in place to begin with. The Dominion
had its yards up and working about four months after the Feds destroyed
them in "Call to Arms" - the Cardassians had more time than that to
recover from the Klingon invasion which wasn't specifically stated to
have damaged their shipyards and which failed to conquer Cardassia
Prime. Evidently, the construction of shipyards of practical size takes
something like half a year (this is also how much time seemed to have
passed between the Maquis learning about construction work at Oriana III
and the Obsidian Order launching its attack against the Founders from
there). Also, the building of the ships themselves takes some time -
it would make things simpler to say the Cardassians already had shipyards
to offer for the Dominion, because then the rapid Dominion buildup
would be easier to explain.
>>And it would be consistent for Sisko to hesitate with killing individuals.
>>He hasn't committed cold-blooded murders before.
>These weren't cold-blooded murders. One was a criminal scheduled to die
>anyway the other was the Senator who changed the Romulans status.
So a cold-blooded murder isn't a cold-blooded murder when the victim
is a bad guy? Sisko has killed innocents before, in the heat of the
battle, and undestandably has not had much qualms about that. But here
there was no heat of the battle, and the victims were noncombatants.
>>Do we have other examples of Sisko performing or ordering premeditated
>>killing of noncombatants like in "Moonlight"?
>Considering that no one in "Moonlight" was innocent or a noncombatant, I'd
>say no.
I didn't talk about innocents, and I strongly disagree with your calling
any of the victims a combatant. A senator is no soldier. Nor was the
Klingon, even if he had been a warrior by race and profession. The
Romulan guards were soldiers, but not enemy soldiers - unless you want
to imply that the guards of the American embassy should have been
shooting at the guards of the Russian embassy during the cold war!
(Considering that a friend of mine lived between those embassies here
in Helsinki, I wouldn't have liked to see such a scenario!)
>>Consider another viewpoint entirely, for a change: perhaps Sisko was
>>like Stalin, biding his time with the "Germans" with a version of
>>the "Ribbentrop-Molotov pact" so that the Federation would be ready
>>to fight? Had Stalin tried to crush Hitler back in '39, he might have
>>failed. In '41, he was almost ready. And in '45, he did win.
>As I remember the Russians lost 20 million men, women and children thanks to
>Stalin. As I remember, Hitler lost to the Russians not because he had
>superior forces but because his forces were spread to thinly across the
>Russian frontier. As I remember, Stalin's pact with Hitler was one of the
>reasons Hitler felt confident enough to conquer the rest of Europr and begin
>his Final Solution. So putting Sisko in Stalin's place doesn't make him
>better. It makes him worse.
Well, I wasn't trying to literally put Sisko in Stalin's place (that
would certainly make someone in the Avery Brooks camp liable to perform
a homicide). I was just saying that Stalin, despite being a monster and
an idiot who had decimated his own army before the war, was smart in not
opposing Hitler in '39. Had he done that, Hitler could have conquered
Europe even more effortlessly, first crushing Stalin by marching through
Poland, the Baltics and Leningrad and then taking the Volga and Donetsk
valleys before Stalin had industry in place elsewhere, then taking the
other countries which certainly would not have lifted a finger to help
Stalin.
As for Hitler and Stalin fighting each other... well, Stalin didn't
do the fighting, his rather competent generals did. Hitler did do
part of the planning for Germany, and thus was one of the best
strategic assets of the Allies...
And as for the Final Solution, it didn't involve much of the Reich's
military resources and could have been effected even if Stalin tried
to use his then-pitiful army to attack Germany from the east. It
is unlikely that the western nations would have sided with the Soviets
in such a conflict, or paid much attention to the horrors of the
Solution.
>>Since we never saw how and if Starfleet backed up Sisko, we can't say
>>if he was a Chamberlain or a Stalin in that situation. Just for argument's
>>sake I go for the Stalin interpretation.
>I think we can go with Chamberlain if only because there's more evidence of
>it and the parallel is more accurate(an invasion followed by growing
>appeasement until there is not choice but to go to war).
Or an invasion occurring during a hectic escalation race followed by
lots of delaying actions and simultaneous continuing attempts to undermine
the position of the invader? Anyway, in the end, Starfleet was the one
to decide the moment when the war began. The initiative was in Starfleet's
hands in "Call to Arms", unlike in the historical situation resulting
from Chamberlain's policy.
>>>> ( The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He had
>>>> the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks to the
>>>> writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through.
>>
>>Well, "foresight" is defined by hindsight. "Foresight" that does not
>>lead into victory is known as "poor judgment", and this might be what
>>Sisko would have demonstrated by attacking in "By Inferno's Light".
>Might this, might that. He had more and better ships, the Dominion were
>invading hostile territory, he had surprise and he had reinforcements should
>they be necessary. What more do you want, exactly?
Some support to the statement that he *had* more and better ships, for
starters. Or for the existence of reinforcements which didn't seem to
be all that available in the subsequent episodes like "Call to Arms".
>>>>Instead of using the resources at his disposal and stopping the Dominion
>>>>*THEN* he waited and tens of thousands more than necessary died on *both*
>>>>sides.
>>Or then he saved millions of lives that could have been unnecessarily
>>wasted.
>Like those on Bajor, right?
Exactly. Those lives might have been lost if Sisko had attacked Cardassia
at that point and failed. Bajor would have been the natural next
target, being of some strategic importance even if the Feds couldn't
hope to collapse the wormhole any more.
>>There is no way of judging things like this unless one has
>>a time machine and a good road map for the crossroads of space-time.
>Yes there is. It's called common sense. Someone invades your next door
>neighbor and tries to blowup your country. What do you do?
Defend my own country against him? Rally support for my cause from my
other neighbors? I certainly wouldn't leave my country behind and go
traipsing for a punitary expedition.
>>It's always infuriating to see somebody claim that since lives could be
>>saved by taking them, *not* taking them must be close to murder.
>It's even more infuriating to see people believe that their beliefs and
>qualms and hesitancy to what must be done are worth the lives of billions.
This forms some sort of a yin/yang pair, doesn't it? I doubt a solution
will even be found for this dilemma, unless time travel or seeing the
future becomes a practical possibility.
>>This completely omits the consideration of other options that might
>>have led to lighter losses of life with no need of assassinations or
>>preemptive strikes.
>Which clearly has not come to pass.
Since the options were not taken, this is trivially obvious.
>>Any of these might have resulted in interesting and possibly life-saving
>>scenarios. A few of them might have been within the mandate Sisko
>>had been given by Starfleet and the UFP - some more so than a
>>pre-emptive strike would have been.
>None of which would have undermined the Dominion's powerbase in the quadrant
>while telling their behavior was unacceptable as a strike against a power
>which had already attacked you.
No? What about the strikes against Gamma itself? Both undermining and
highly punitive. Against the wormhole from the inside, the Gamma side,
or through contact with the Prophets? Undermining, certainly, if not
punitive.
(Here I still argue that the passage through the wormhole was the
significant strategic gain to the Dominion, while their foothold in
Cardassian space was not. If you don't agree with that, then your
claim that the powerbase would not have been undermined is indeed
quite correct. Let's agree to disagree, right?)
And do you seriously think it was Starfleet's mission to "tell" the Dominion
that their behavior was unacceptable? The Dominion certainly knew this
already - they had captured enough starships and probably tortured
enough crews to have a very clear picture of the sentiments of Alpha,
and of the fact that they would be unwanted if they invaded.
Sending in ships would not have delivered any "message" except perhaps
that Starfleet could be prompted to strategically foolish action by
invoking moralist considerations. Had I been Weyoun, I'd have quickly
learned that attacking civilian targets with excessive brutality was
the best way to win this war, forcing Starfleet to respond in foolish
ways.
> Pre-emptive, my ass. It's retaliatory.
Is retaliatory somehow better than pre-emptive? At least pre-emptive
is supposed to make strategic sense (although I again claim that
"foresight" here can soon turn to "bad judgement", and "pre-emptive"
to simply "provocative"). I suppose bombing Dresden made strategic
sense in light of the London bombings and the long list of other
Nazi atrocities? Too bad Dresden didn't backfire the way the Cardassian
expedition might have.
(BTW, we are already way beyond the point where (somebody's) Law
should kick in and declare the thread polluted since Hitler and the
Nazis were invoked. I hope we can still keep on tossing inaccurate
WWII analogies at each other in all civilicity without making those an
issue by themselves. For example, I don't want to create the impression
that I like Stalin for his Eastern Front or dislike Americans for the
bombing of Dresden. If not, perhaps we should agree to limit the
analogies to safely pre-WWII ones?)
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Hello Timo S Saloniemi, on 17-Aug-98 05:18:18, you said,
>
>>that it had existed. The DS9 crew could be questioned about Vreenak's
>>visit, and Garak might indirectly let slip a hint that a plot against
>>the Romulans by the Dominion was the subject of the discussions. The
>>explosion itself would then be proof enough of the treason.
>
>its signature in the wreckage? And who would be questioning the DS9 crew?
>Sisko pointedly stated the Feds agreed to his initial plan, but that
>specifics to them weren't exactly offered. Also, contacting Vreenak was
>done directly, as Garak knew of the proconsul's flight plans. No direct
>contact with the Romulan empire was suggested, and his means of arrival
>was that of stealth.
Well, these are very good points, but explainable. Obviously, the
Romulans would check out the location where the warpshuttle exploded,
and quickly determine where it could have come from. The sneaky Feds
and the sneaky Dominion would be the two prime suspects, and DS9 would
be the closest Fed installation. From there on, it would be a Garak
show again. He'd be in a good position to leak information and
disinformation about Vreenak's visit. Let's not forget the former close
Cardassian/Romulan ties - Garak might have better contacts with
Romulus than any other party, combining the pre-DS9 amiable relations
with his time as the embassy gardener-assassin and the heritage of
Enabran Tain...
>>So the "duty" of a soldier is to kill until there is nothing left to
>>threaten him? I sure hope you have no connection to the military...
>The duty of a soldier is to follow orders. Sisko lacked them in previous
>dealings with the Dominion.
Of these orders: apparently, Sisko was now authorized to collapse the
wormhole, Starfleet having learned of his little VR-induced stunt
and probably discussed it thoroughly with him. Obviously, Sisko was not
lax in following the orders to collapse the wormhole. But from there
on, after the collapsing plan failed, Sisko was probably back on the Plan
B From Outer Space level, only having general guidelines to follow.
Can we really claim that Sisko was lax in protecting the Federation here?
He never allowed an invasion of UFP space (or even Bajoran space) to take
place in the aftermath of the invasion of Alpha quadrant. No shots were
fired by the Dominion, not even the nova-bomb, thanks to Sisko's actions.
That's a rather good score for a man with so limited means to respond, and
so hampered by sabotage and infiltration/betrayal.
Laxness in ousting the Dominion came after the episode, during a period
where Starfleet was back in the loop and should have been giving Sisko
orders. I choose to assume that Sisko had a reason to agree with those
orders not to attack or to blockade the wormhole yet, and that he would
have just caused more damage by going against those orders...
>>So you'd have preferred killing the Dominion and Cardassian soldiers back
>>in "By Inferno's Light", right? Then Sisko would have been lackluster in
>>his duty to kill the Romulans (who have now taken Betazed and apparently
>>intend to keep it),
>The Dominion took Betazed. The Romulans up to this point had a non-
>aggression pact with them. That's not the same thing as active involvement
>in hostilities. It's a "you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone"
>proposition.
Right. I made a mistake here, confusing Benzar with Betazed - the former
is the planet Romulus took. Anyway, the above was just the beginning of
a list of absurdities, of future offenses Sisko might have prevented
by preemptive strikes against "enemies". When the Dominion came pouring
through the wormhole, it was not much more threatening than the forces
of Romulus. Both had threatened the Federation, and Sisko's life
personally, and committed acts of war, as well as sent ships where no
ships sould have been sent. in addition, the Romulans had fought a
full-scale war against Sisko's home planet, whereas the Dominion hadn't
done that kind of stuff yet (it had destroyed a full Bajoran colony in
Gamma, though).
Given the balance of Sisko's limited means of responding at that time
(Gowron's and the Romulans' fleets hadn't arrived yet, the station
was sabotaged, and the wormhole could not be closed) and the limited
threat posed by the invaders (what's a fleet between friends - they had
demonstrated a willingness to reconsider in "The Search", even though
this later proved to be pure deception), I don't see how Sisko could
have acted differently, or how he failed to follow his orders. Only
his inaction at the later stages of the episode, and after it, should
therefore be questioned; and, as many participants in this thread have
told me, those would not have been preemptive but retaliatory. And
that's a whole different argument altogether...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>In article <6rhhp5$kpp$1...@camel15.mindspring.com> "Plain and Simple Cronan" <ja...@mindspring.com> writes:
>>Dukat can't declare an alliance with ANYONE. He's a criminal. He's a
>>terrorist. He's fighting against the duly recognized government of Cardassia
>>as well as the Klingons. The only thing he can agree to is working for the
>>Dominion. He has no legal status other than WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE in
>>Cardassian space.
>How so? I thought he was the military advisor to the Detapa council
>at the time! There was little indication that the Detapa council
>opposed his military advice on this matter (or that it even existed
>at that point): Dukat might well have been in a perfectly legal position
>to declare an alliance with the Dominion.
>You must be confusing him with his post-"Waltz" self, where he indeed is
>a hunted criminal (although one who might find friends in both the
>Dominion and Cardassia).
Oops! A big-time goof. I was completely wrong here, confusing the timeline
badly. True, Dukat WAS a pirate at this time (although I'm not sure the
Detapa Council was really actively hunting him). So this really boils down
to: did Dukat have the support of the former Central Command here? If
yes, then Sisko would have had to fight most of the surviving/rebuilt
Cardassian navy; if not, he could have drafted that navy to hunt down
Dukat and to aid the Feds and Klingons.
Obviously, though, Dukat's party would not have been the one which had
made a peace treaty with the Federation, and would not be a legal
reign of Cardassia (at least not until Dukat's possible Central Command
pals performed a coup and got the recognition of some outside party).
So my argument here was quite misplaced. Sorry!
Timo Saloniemi
Bill Harris
> THIS is what I feel was an error in Sisko's and Starfleet's part -
> the events that took place AFTER "By Inferno's Light". Perhaps the
> wormhole should have been blockaded earlier. However, I give them the
> benefit of doubt: perhaps, like Stalin in 1939, Starfleet wasn't
> ready to take on the Dominion in mid-2373, and desperately needed three
> more months to gather its warfleet? After all, we never saw ANYTHING
> like the "Call to Arms" fleet in Trek before - it must have been
> an *exceptional* undertaking for Starfleet since all they could do
> to oppose the Borg was 40 or so starships, some of questionable combat
> value.
You have to remember that Starfleet was at a sizable disadvantage at that
point. Up until "Call to Arms", the shields emplyed by Starfleet and the
Klingons (and presumably other Alpha Quadrant powers) were completely
ineffective against Dominion weaponary. No military strategist is going to
begin an offensive operation under those conditions. The only viable
alternative was to fortify their defensive positions and diplomatically try to
buy time until Starfleet researchers could crack the problem.
Plain and Simple Cronan
>>Dukat can't declare an alliance with ANYONE. He's a criminal. He's a
>>terrorist. He's fighting against the duly recognized government of
>>Cardassia as well as the Klingons. The only thing he can agree to is
>>working for the Dominion. He has no legal status other than WANTED: DEAD
>>OR ALIVE in Cardassian space.
>
In "Return to Grace" Dukat became a criminal. He disaobeyed the orders of the
Detopa Council and took to fighting the Klingons on his own. Remember that
episode? He'd been demoted and was offered his old position back but turned
it down when the Detopa Council decided to negotiate.
<snipped some stuff>
>>>He did not declare a war against the Federation specifically at that
>>>point, not for himself nor for the Dominion.
>
>>Blowing up a sun ain't enough for you?
>
>Well, it wasn't a Federation sun to begin with :) And no, apparently
>nobody at Starfleet or in the UFP Council considered this a declaration
>of war.
At that point, it didn't really matter what they considered a declaration of
war. Moreover, it was a sun under the direct protection of a Federation
fleet. What mattered was Sisko acting in defense of the Federation. He was
faced with an aggressive foe who had just attempted to take possession of the
wormhole while killing a billion people. Not just the fleet but the people of
Bajor as well. Attacking them is self-defense at that point for the chances
are if their willing to blow up the sun then they're willing to do it again.
A state of peace existed between the Dominion and the UFP for
>the rest of the season,
No, it did not. The Dominion engaged in a massive military buildup, the
poltical and military isolation of the Klingon Empire and the UFP and, most
tellingly, covert actions againt both goverments. This is not peace.
regardless of the fact that the Dominion kept
>blowing up Klingon ships and may have attacked Federation vessels
>as well (although the one ship we hear of, the Tian An Men, apparently
>was not destroyed after all, since it later makes a triumphant return).
Episode reference? And, I'd point out, that in defintion of 'state of peace'
with which I am currently aquanted does the blowing up the ships of an allied
power reside.
>Perhaps the fact that the sun wasn't blown up after all had something
>to do with it? Perhaps Dominion even denied involvment in the
>bombing?
At that point, considered they'd already bombed a high-level diplomatic
meeting on Earth between the Federation and the Romulan Empire("Homefront"),
their denials should have fallen on deaf ears. This and the fact that the
real Bashir had returned from a Dominion prison camp should have silenced
their protestations of innocence.
>>>But it never really sent any ships, and the actions of its single
>>>operative *could* always be explained as the acts of some
>>>unknown outsider,
>
>>Please. Explain it that way then. Go ahead. I'll wait here.
>
>Simple: "This is Gul Dukat speaking. For all UFP citizens: we
>didn't nova-bomb Bajor. That attack, if it ever happened, was the
>work of an outsider with no affiliation with either Cardassia or
>the Dominion. I don't wish to imply that this whole story about
>a nova-bomb is just a fabrication of Starfleet in order to
>black-paint us and our new and prosperous alliance with the
>Dominion. Heck, no. Live long and prosper. Dukat out."
Dukat went on to say, "You know that Changling that killed all those Human
and Romulan diplomats? And the Starfleet and Klingon prisoners we were
holding in a Dominion prison camp? Yeah. Well that was all just a really,
really big coincidence."
>>Please tell me when the Federation forgave an attempt to destroy an entire
>>fleet as well as a planet with a billion inhabitants.
>
>After "By Inferno's Light", of course.
I see no forgiveness there. I see inaction on the part of Sisko. He had
evidence, he had the fleet and lacked the will so millions more died. Going
all the back to the 9th episode of the first series, "Balance of Terror", the
Federation has shown itself more than willing to attack when attacked.
Sisko was forgiven for bombing the
>Maquis colony,
Sisko is literally untouchable. He cannot be removed from his station because
of the UFP's need to stay in Bajor's good graces.
> Picard for massacring the Wolf 359 fleet,
He was under Borg influence. He cannot logically be held responsible for
those actions. Sisko, however, can.
and Garak (after
>a brief jail sentence) for trying to kill the Founders in their new
>hideout. There was no declaration of war against the Dominion when
>one of its agents tried to massacre the Xenkethi by using the Defiant.
That was a terrorist act. But it does not equate to the destruction of a sun.
>Apparently, Starfleet just didn't feel being up to opposing the Dominion
>at the time.
Explain that. Why didn't Starfleet feel it was able to do that but it
continued to send missions into the Gamma quadrant.
<snipped for space considerations>
>I need some clarification here. Would Sisko really have had more ships
>than Dukat?
It certainly appeared that way given what came through the wormhole and what
was around Ds9 near the end of the episode.
>Was there any indication that some Cardassian ships indeed fought
>Dukat's ships?
Not, directly, but given that at least SOME of the Cardassians had to fear
the Dominion at least as much as they feared the Klingons would seem indicate
that.
Even the resistance described in "Ties of Blood and Water"
>seemed like very covert one.
After a few months of consolidating power, certainly.
And the Cardassians did stop the Klingons
>once before from taking Cardie Prime, even though they lost most of their
>other holdings, so their junkships must add to SOMETHING in the end.
As I believe others have observed in the past, he Cardassians had to throw
everything they got at the Klingon Blitz just to slow it down. And they were
still striking deep in Cardassian territory some months later.
>>Strange how the Romulans had one in place but a few days after hearing
about
>>the massing of Dominion forces. The Klingons had one hanging about at DS9
>>and the Fed had sent several ships to support them. So tell me why THAT
>>considerable fleet wasn't used AFTER an indirect attack on them that would
>>have killed every Bajoran, destroyed the station and the fleet. One good
>>reason is all I ask.
>
>This is a matter of interpretation, it seems. I simply do not recognize
>the fleet as "considerable" - it appears to be nowhere near the size
>of Gowron's "Way of the Warrior" fleet, the first wave of which held more
>than a hundred ships but failed to take Cardassia.
As we would later learn, 100 ships is not all that much. The Fed would summon
600 by "Favor the Bold" with more on the way. The Dom/Card fleet would have
twice that. The Klingons managed to take much of Cardassia using a small to
medium sized fleet. The number ships that would arrive at Ds9 were at least
equal to those seen in Way of the Warrior attacking the station. Remember,
those were all of the forces that were in Klingon occupied Cardassia period,
not just those on the invasion force.
What *was* the size of
>Sisko's fleet in the final analysis? A hundred and fifty ships? We didn't
>get anywhere near the FX density of ships that was used to portray "large"
>fleets in the war arc episodes.
No, we didn't. But the number of ships was easily superior to that the
Dominion brought through the wormhole.
>What I think was happening was that Starfleet was gathering those 300-ship
>fleets later seen in the war, and biding its time by not responding to
>all aggressions with futile counterstrikes.
Considering that 100 Klingon ships can move on and take much of Cardassian
space....
<snipped>
>>These weren't cold-blooded murders. One was a criminal scheduled to die
>>anyway the other was the Senator who changed the Romulans status.
>
>So a cold-blooded murder isn't a cold-blooded murder when the victim
>is a bad guy? Sisko has killed innocents before, in the heat of the
>battle, and undestandably has not had much qualms about that. But here
>there was no heat of the battle, and the victims were noncombatants.
A murder isn't cold blooded when it's done in war time for the cause of your
nation unless you are willing to call every pilot who's dropped a bomb on a
strtegic target a cold-blooded murderer.
>>Considering that no one in "Moonlight" was innocent or a noncombatant, I'd
>>say no.
>
>I didn't talk about innocents, and I strongly disagree with your calling
>any of the victims a combatant. A senator is no soldier.
A Romulan senator is not a senator in the same way a US senator. He's more
like a Roman senator. He was, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of
a general. This guy was second in command of the Tal Shiar.
Nor was the
>Klingon, even if he had been a warrior by race and profession.
No Klingon that I saw in "Moonlight" was killed"
The
>Romulan guards were soldiers, but not enemy soldiers
The Romulans were, at that point, the enemy. Remember the Dominion ships
using the Romulan space to attack Federation ships?
<snipped>
>As for Hitler and Stalin fighting each other... well, Stalin didn't
>do the fighting, his rather competent generals did. Hitler did do
>part of the planning for Germany, and thus was one of the best
>strategic assets of the Allies...
Nope. Stalin purged his generals prior to "The Great Patriotic War"(the
Russian name for World War 2). The generals he had were morons for the most
part. I reccomend you read "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives." They both had
a nasty habit of killing competent military leadership.
>And as for the Final Solution, it didn't involve much of the Reich's
>military resources and could have been effected even if Stalin tried
>to use his then-pitiful army to attack Germany from the east.
Actually it took up quite a bit of tue Reich's money and resources. Source:
WW2 Encyclopedia.
It
>is unlikely that the western nations would have sided with the Soviets
>in such a conflict, or paid much attention to the horrors of the
>Solution.
Ha! I say. I don't really want to go into great detail here but that's a load
of malarky. Roosevelt was looking for ANY reason to join the war. Given proof
of attempted genocide...
>>Might this, might that. He had more and better ships, the Dominion were
>>invading hostile territory, he had surprise and he had reinforcements
>>should they be necessary. What more do you want, exactly?
>
>Some support to the statement that he *had* more and better ships, for
>starters.
Romulan Warbirds, Klingon warships, Federation starships. All there and under
his defacto command.
Or for the existence of reinforcements which didn't seem to
>be all that available in the subsequent episodes like "Call to Arms".
There were no reinforcements in "A Call to Arms" because there supposedly out
smashing Dominion ship yards, remember
>>Like those on Bajor, right?
>
>Exactly. Those lives might have been lost if Sisko had attacked Cardassia
>at that point and failed. Bajor would have been the natural next
>target, being of some strategic importance even if the Feds couldn't
>hope to collapse the wormhole any more.
Wha? Sisko wasn't attacking Cardassia at that point. He was attacking the
invading Dominion fleet which had just attempted to blow up Bajor.
>>Yes there is. It's called common sense. Someone invades your next door
>>neighbor and tries to blowup your country. What do you do?
>
>Defend my own country against him?
Which Sisko didn't do.
Rally support for my cause from my
>other neighbors?
The most powerful of those neighbors were *lready* there
I certainly wouldn't leave my country behind and go
>traipsing for a punitary expedition.
No one's asking you to leave your country behind. Your leaving a heavily
armed station to defend it. Your attacking a fleets flank which is moving
into Cardassia on a mission of conquest.
>>It's even more infuriating to see people believe that their beliefs and
>>qualms and hesitancy to what must be done are worth the lives of billions.
>
>This forms some sort of a yin/yang pair, doesn't it? I doubt a solution
>will even be found for this dilemma, unless time travel or seeing the
>future becomes a practical possibility.
There is a solution. Billions of lives for one. There is no question when
that one has made clear it places no value on those billions.
>>>Any of these might have resulted in interesting and possibly life-saving
>>>scenarios. A few of them might have been within the mandate Sisko
>>>had been given by Starfleet and the UFP - some more so than a
>>>pre-emptive strike would have been.
>
>>None of which would have undermined the Dominion's powerbase in the
quadrant
>>while telling their behavior was unacceptable as a strike against a power
>>which had already attacked you.
>
>No? What about the strikes against Gamma itself?
Useless. Not enough is known about how much of the quadrant the Dominion
controls nor is it known exactly what the source of the materials flowing
toward Cardassia is.
>Both undermining and highly punitive.
There is no specific target. Striking out blindly does nothing for you.
>And do you seriously think it was Starfleet's mission to "tell" the
>Dominion that their behavior was unacceptable?
Yes.
>The Dominion certainly knew this already -
No, they didn't. Their actions have yet to show a single consequence.
>> Pre-emptive, my ass. It's retaliatory.
>
>Is retaliatory somehow better than pre-emptive?
Yes.
At least pre-emptive
>is supposed to make strategic sense (although I again claim that
>"foresight" here can soon turn to "bad judgement", and "pre-emptive"
>to simply "provocative"). I suppose bombing Dresden made strategic
>sense in light of the London bombings and the long list of other
>Nazi atrocities? Too bad Dresden didn't backfire the way the Cardassian
>expedition might have.
The raid on Dresden was part of plan 'Thunderclap' concieved to take
advantage of a recent Soviet offensive and add to the growing chaos within
Germany by bombing Berlin and other population centers, disrupting the flow
of refugees fleeing the Soviet attack. It's secondary objective was to break
German morale. That makes perfect strategic sense. Dresden did, by and large,
backfire in terms of its secondary objective however the first, to create
general chaos in Germany, worked well. Dresden was, after all, an important
rail-communication center for forces on the Eastern Front. I reccomend
Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse Five_.
P&SC
Plain and Simple Cronan
>>Sisko was, however, given the authority to do what was necessary to
>>preserve the Federation in that episode. Remember? He and Gowron were
>>there, with the Romulans alongside.
>
>Yes, AFTER the Dominion sally to Cardassian space.
So? This was fleet invading loosely allied space and so being forced to face
off against whatever Cardassian forces were there. Sisko had their flank and
should have attacked them.
>Sure, the Dominion committed acts of war. The Federation did, too, all the
>time, sending ships into the Gamma quadrant and meddling with Dominion
>affairs.
Wrong. The area around the wormhole and a good portion of the Gamma Quadrant,
according to "The Quickening" and "The Ship", is not claimed or even
recognized by the Dominion as 'their space'. Never once did the Federation
knowlingly invade Dominion territory, attack Dominion ships unless it was in
self-defense, spy or perform terrorist activities against Dominion denizens
or kidnap Dominion officers. The Dominion did all these things *and*more*.
And nation that did such things to the Unisted States would have had war
declared upon it post haste.
<<snipped>>
>I simply think that, had the UFP declared war on the Dominion there and
>then and gone to the offensive, it would have lost. It had not assembled
>a warfleet to match that of the Dominion yet - the COMBINED fleet of three
>races was threatened by the perceived Dominion/Cardassian forces
>approaching Bajor.
You have no support for this, more over, it's reasonable to assume that had
the UFP, Romulans, Cardassians and Klingons all presented the Dominion a
united front way back in "The Die is Cast" as opposed to the slipshod methods
used then, they may very well have won. The UFP took a limp-wristed,
half-assed approach and furthered the divide between the quadrants powers
eventually resulting in two powers who were the most opposed to the Dominion
formering alliances with them. If the UFP had acted there's every indication
they could have won.
>Dominion had created its beachhead on Alpha when the guns of DS9 misfired
>and wedged the wormhole permanently open,
They didn't 'misfire'. That was Dominion work.
and when Dukat decided to join
>the Dominion.
Dukat can decide to join the Dominion if he so desires. Cardassia never
joined. It was *CONQUERED*
>Sending the ships through was something of a symbolic gesture
>to support the alliance with Dukat, not a strategically significant
>moment. IMHO.
Your opinion is duly noted. The simply facts of the matter are that the
Cardassian fleet was improved using Dominion technology, replacing, at the
very least, weapon and navigation systems. We learned from Weyoun in "A Call
to Arms" those convoys were filled with weapons and Jem'Hadar breeding
equipment. Most of the ships that would attack Ds9 in "A Call to Arms" would
be Dominion. Those convoys were not only strategically signifcant but they
cemented the Dominion's hold on an occupied territory.
>>This is factually incorrect. Sisko had been given orders from his
>>superiors. He had been sent a small fleet of Federation ships. They
>>attempted to DESTROY those ships, the station and the planet of Bajor.
>>Those are grounds to counter-strike if I've ever heard them.
>
>A suicidal counterstike? A small fleet against a large one?
A small, cloaked fleet against a large, unsuspecting one that carried mostly
occupation forces. This is not suicide. This is a simple matter of attacking
at the right moment. Warbirds, Birds of Prey, Vor'Chas, Galaxys, Nebulas,
Excelsiors and possibly Galors flanking the invading fleet isn't suicidal.
They had a fair chance which is better than what they stood against Dominion
occupied Cardassia.
I don't think
>Starfleet would have approved.
They already had.
Sisko was to protect Bajor and the Alpha
>quadrant against an invasion - and he did that.
No, he didn't. Cardassia was invaded and turned into a war machine,
Federation and Klingon space is occupied to this day, Bajor would eventually
come under Dominion control. The Dominion eventually took a fair sized chunk
of the Alpha quadrant.
Bajor was not invaded,
>and the attempt to nova the star was prevented as well.
Thanks largely to dumbluck. The attempt was made. That it was unsuccessful
isn't as important as the blatant disregard for human life it showed. After
something like that, a state of total war exists.
Cardassia, a
>quasi-ally, willingly received the Dominion fleet,
No, it did not. As evidenced by "Ties of Blood and Water."
so technically, no
>invasion took place, either. In practice, an invasion did happen, but
>of a sort that could not be fought with phasers and torpedoes; Sisko
>should have fought Dukat and the Detapa Council on this, not Dominion
>warships.
The Detopa council's rightful power was usurped. There's nothing to fight
there. They are to supported, remember?
>If that's not cold-blooded, then I sure don't know what is.
That much is clear. At worst it's justifiable homocide.
Noncombatants
>labeled as either indirectly hostile or insignificant, then wiped out.
Was Winston Churchhill a 'noncombatant'? Was Saddam Hussein a 'noncombatant'?
No. They were responsible for the policies that determined how the war was
fought.
>It just isn't Sisko's style.
Your right. It doesn't match, sylisticly, with massive incompetence.
And if it was his "duty"... then why wasn't
>it his duty to kill Vedek/Kai Winn when she got difficult and in effect
>compromised UFP access to the important gateway to Gamma?
That is a singularly illogical analogy. Kai Winn is the religious leader of a
world petitioning for Federation memebership. Senator Vreenak is a poltical
leader of a world aiding your enemy. The difference there should be clear.
Was it just the
>Prime Directive holding this bloodlusty soldier back?
Your characterization aside, Starfleet's Prime Directive has drawn more blood
than any army in the histroy of mankind.
Why aren't soldiers
>called to assassinate difficult world leaders more often today?
Because it isn't poltically expedient. This was. Believe it or not, the US
military does train assassins.
The
>Embassy Marines in arab countries would be protecting their nation by
>performing active operations against local troublemakers - are they
>truly lax in their duties, or just held back by both sensible practical
>constraints and a firm moral code?
That's astounding for its shallow characterizations/.
>>Preemptive? I'm talking about a counter strike. They tried to blow up the
>>Bajoran sun for Chrissakes!
>
>I guess we have been talking past each other a bit. "Preemptive" would be
>attacking the Dominion convoy when it came through and dug in on
>Cardassia.
No, it wasn't a convoy. It was an invasion fleet. It was specifically refered
to as such by both Wrof and Sisko upon scanning it.
>"Counterstrike" would be attacking Cardassia after the fake Dominion assault
>and attempted nova-bombing of Bajor. I opposed the "preemptive" strike
>since at that point, the Dominion had committed only minor acts of war,
There are no minor acts of war.
>similar to the ones committed by the Federation,
HAH!
and was not acting in an
>exceptionally threatening way. I oppose the "counterstrike" on different
>grounds, believing that it would have failed badly and left Bajor
>unprotected against conventional attack.
Bajor was protected by the immensely powerful battlestation Ds9 and incoming
Federation reinforcements which were explicitly stated to be on the way.
>>The duty of a soldier is to fulfill his oath to protect his nation.
>>Sisko failed to do so.
>
>This is where I disagree most strongly. IMHO, he didn't fail - he did
>protect Bajor against destruction and/or conquest.
No, he didn't. Eventually the Dominion would control Bajoran space.
He didn't allow an
>invasion of Federation space to take place,
Yes, he did. He postponed it but it did happen.
although he did allow an
>invasion of Cardassian space to take place (the Cardassians officially
>weren't unahppy with that invasion).
Dukat is not Cardassia.
<snipped lots>
Timo S Saloniemi
>Timo S Saloniemi wrote
>>>Sisko was, however, given the authority to do what was necessary to
>>>preserve the Federation in that episode. Remember? He and Gowron were
>>>there, with the Romulans alongside.
>>
>>Yes, AFTER the Dominion sally to Cardassian space.
>
>So? This was fleet invading loosely allied space and so being forced to face
>off against whatever Cardassian forces were there. Sisko had their flank and
>should have attacked them.
I said no for two reasons: 1) the weak argument: the Dominion wasn't
really evil, the Cardassians were welcoming them to their sovereign,
non-UFP space (although, as you say, it wasn't the sitting Cardassians
legal government doing the welcoming), and thus Sisko lacked legal grounds
to interfere. You have managed to convince me that this would and should
not have stopped Sisko, though. I formally abandon that position now.
Satisfied? 2) the stronger argument: Sisko lacked the muscle to do anything
about it, even with Gowron's support. Gowron had used a much bigger fleet
earlier, and failed to conquer the heart of the Cardassian space. Now it
was defended by Dominion vessels in addition to the Cardassian rust buckets.
The allied fleet could perhaps plunge into Cardassia, but might very well
fail and be decimated - and after that, the Dominion could take the Bajoran
system, a more valuable strategic asset.
>>Sure, the Dominion committed acts of war. The Federation did, too, all the
>>time, sending ships into the Gamma quadrant and meddling with Dominion
>>affairs.
>
>Wrong. The area around the wormhole and a good portion of the Gamma Quadrant,
>according to "The Quickening" and "The Ship", is not claimed or even
>recognized by the Dominion as 'their space'. Never once did the Federation
>knowlingly invade Dominion territory, attack Dominion ships unless it was in
>self-defense, spy or perform terrorist activities against Dominion denizens
>or kidnap Dominion officers. The Dominion did all these things *and*more*.
>And nation that did such things to the Unisted States would have had war
>declared upon it post haste.
Well, it's obvious that the Dominion had no presence in the wormhole
area before the Federation came through. But by the third season, they
had made a formal claim - actually, they even made a claim to the whole
Gamma quadrant. True, they still seemed to totally lack the military
muscle to actually blockade the wormhole - but from a legal point of
view, every Runabout or Defiant entry to Gamma from there on WAS a
violation of the rights of the Dominion and could be called an
act of war.
It makes no difference that the Federation never signed a treaty
recognizing Gamma as Dominion's property. Hussein didn't recognize
Kuwait as a sovereign country, either (and the Koreas still don't
regar each other as real nations, AFAIK). China would never consider
it an act of war to invade Taiwan, but Taiwan would *certainly*
do so! International law is not something that can really be enforced
if the parties don't like it, since there is no superior power to
impose it on the nations. Only might makes right.
When the heroes said they were three weeks or six weeks from Dominion
space, they were being realistic - the response to the intrusion would
come in six weeks, if ever. But that doesn't mean they weren't
trespassing in Dominion space (since the whole Gamma was Dominion,
or at least off-limits-for-UFP, space!). In the ongoing series of stupid
analogies, the Federal Republic of Germany, or even the United States,
lacked the military power to keep West Berlin - still, the East Germans
or the Russians could not say the West's claim to the city was invalid.
The looming threat of a war elsewhere, where the West did have military
power, held back plans of "re"taking the city.
>>I simply think that, had the UFP declared war on the Dominion there and
>>then and gone to the offensive, it would have lost. It had not assembled
>>a warfleet to match that of the Dominion yet - the COMBINED fleet of three
>>races was threatened by the perceived Dominion/Cardassian forces
>>approaching Bajor.
>You have no support for this, more over, it's reasonable to assume that had
>the UFP, Romulans, Cardassians and Klingons all presented the Dominion a
>united front way back in "The Die is Cast" as opposed to the slipshod methods
>used then, they may very well have won. The UFP took a limp-wristed,
>half-assed approach and furthered the divide between the quadrants powers
>eventually resulting in two powers who were the most opposed to the Dominion
>formering alliances with them. If the UFP had acted there's every indication
>they could have won.
How could they have "won"? They would have had only two choices - to
utterly destroy the Dominion war machine (or assassinate the Founders),
or to collapse the wormhole. Which of these would you count as a victory?
An unified front back in "The Die is Cast" would have made little
difference, unless it mobilized huge fleets to take on the Dominion
on its home turf. I think this would have been utter suicide. An unified
front could have fought on its own home turf only after the events of
"Purgatory/Inferno", and my point is that the front just wasn't there
during "Inferno" so Sisko can't be blamed for not using it to crush
the intruders.
>>Dominion had created its beachhead on Alpha when the guns of DS9 misfired
>>and wedged the wormhole permanently open,
>
>They didn't 'misfire'. That was Dominion work.
I don't deny that. Okay, let's say "...when the guns of the DS9
misfired due to Dominion sabotage and wedged...". Happy?
>>and when Dukat decided to join the Dominion.
>
>Dukat can decide to join the Dominion if he so desires. Cardassia never
>joined. It was *CONQUERED*
I hope you didn't take too seriously an earlier reply of mine that
wrongly claimed that Dukat still had his formal position at this stage.
I couldn't have been more wrong. So, let's admit Cardassia was conquered.
I guess there were enough former Central Command heads happy with that,
in addition to Dukat.
>>Sending the ships through was something of a symbolic gesture
>>to support the alliance with Dukat, not a strategically significant
>>moment. IMHO.
>
>Your opinion is duly noted. The simply facts of the matter are that the
>Cardassian fleet was improved using Dominion technology, replacing, at the
>very least, weapon and navigation systems. We learned from Weyoun in "A Call
>to Arms" those convoys were filled with weapons and Jem'Hadar breeding
>equipment. Most of the ships that would attack Ds9 in "A Call to Arms" would
>be Dominion. Those convoys were not only strategically signifcant but they
>cemented the Dominion's hold on an occupied territory.
Agreed. I just feel the first convoy as such would not have been very
important as a digging-in force, not in comparison to the later fleets.
The first wave at least consisted of warships (be they laden with
weapons, breeders etc. or not) that would have been capable of defending
the occupied Cardassia initially - but by blockading the latter fleets,
Starfleet could probably have dug the Dominion out again. It just seemed
to take a TAD too long in doing so, and let a couple of convoys too many
through.
So a blockade of the wormhole would have been of primary interest.
Starfleet must have said no. Sisko's small fleet could have done the
blockade (although I don't think they could have retaken Cardassia).
A minefield could have been erected earlier. Reinforcements could
have arrived before the second convoy got through (although probably not
before the first convoy had settled down on Cardassia). THESE are failures
I'm at loss to explain, except to say that perhaps Starfleet felt it
could not oppose the existing forces and should be escalating, so that
the balance of power would be to their advantage a couple of months after
"Inferno".
>>>This is factually incorrect. Sisko had been given orders from his
>>>superiors. He had been sent a small fleet of Federation ships. They
>>>attempted to DESTROY those ships, the station and the planet of Bajor.
>>>Those are grounds to counter-strike if I've ever heard them.
>>
>>A suicidal counterstike? A small fleet against a large one?
>
>A small, cloaked fleet against a large, unsuspecting one that carried mostly
>occupation forces.
Come on, you can't claim they would be "unsuspecting". And the ships we saw
were full Dominion warships, even if they carried occupation troops. No
helpless transports there.
>>Sisko was to protect Bajor and the Alpha
>>quadrant against an invasion - and he did that.
>
>No, he didn't. Cardassia was invaded and turned into a war machine,
>Federation and Klingon space is occupied to this day, Bajor would eventually
>come under Dominion control. The Dominion eventually took a fair sized chunk
>of the Alpha quadrant.
I simply don't feel that this argument has any validity, since for all
we know, Earth might be in ashes now if Sisko had attacked Cardassia (just
as easily as Dominion might be in ashes now if Sisko had attacked). If,
if, if... The period in 2373 was full of junctures of history - Sisko
navigated one rather nicely, given what he had, but Starfleet then
dropped the ball on other junctures, if you pardon my mixed metaphors.
Bajor was safe after "Inferno", and Alpha wasn't doing too bad, either:
the big fleets could have been gathered at that point (even if this meant
they wouldn't be quite as big as they would get if given time for more
escalation), with Sisko's fleet blockading the wormhole, and then used
to crush the beachhead of Dominion. *Sisko had made that possible*. Too
bad Starfleet didn't choose this course of action.
>>Bajor was not invaded, and the attempt to nova the star was prevented
>>as well.
>
>Thanks largely to dumbluck. The attempt was made. That it was unsuccessful
>isn't as important as the blatant disregard for human life it showed. After
>something like that, a state of total war exists.
Sure. A state of total war had existed ever since "The Search", legal
terminology aside. I don't disagree with this. I just feel that any
"retaliatory" strike would have been a stab at empty space, unless
done in sufficient strength to really remove the Dominion occupational
forces (and their soon-to-be Cardassian allies - clearly, Dukat had
or got many friends in his decision to join the Dominion). Sisko's
fleet would not have been capable of pulling that off. At most, they
could have shown that Starfleet thought in popularistic instead of
strategic terms: "You tried to hit use, we'll try to hit you, or
we'll look like wimps to our citizens". News break: Starfleet looks
like wimps to the Jem'Hadar in any case - trying to "impress" them
will make no difference.
>>If that's not cold-blooded, then I sure don't know what is.
>
>That much is clear. At worst it's justifiable homocide.
Now THAT euphenism just topped my list of cold-bloodedness :)
Let's see if you can make it sound even better on the next round. ;)
>>Noncombatants labeled as either indirectly hostile or insignificant,
>>then wiped out.
>
>Was Winston Churchhill a 'noncombatant'? Was Saddam Hussein a 'noncombatant'?
>No. They were responsible for the policies that determined how the war was
>fought.
Well, they were noncombatants enough that no government could publicly
admit to planning to kill them, although nobody on the opposing side was
really unwilling to see them dead. If Churchill was trying to shoot
Sisko with a phaser, the brave captain would slay him. But as long as
Churchill carried nothing more lethal than his cigar, Sisko would be
facing a "combat situation" utterly different from his routine line
of work. I doubt he or any other Starfleet officer would have the guts
to kill there, at least not with the triumphant grin you apparently
would have wanted to see on Sisko's face after "In the Pale Moonlight".
And Sisko *would* face trial for murder there. US person or persons,
military or not, would probably also have faced murder charges, had
they killed Saddam with a sniper rifle, even though they would escape
charges if they dropped a bomb and preferably killed a dozen others at
the same time, so as not to single Saddam out!
>>It just isn't Sisko's style.
>
>Your right. It doesn't match, sylisticly, with massive incompetence.
Or with the traditional doubletalk that the militaries throughout
recent history have used to create an artificial divider between
civilian and military forms of killing. The governments of the world
sanction and support many forms of killing, while seeming arbitrarily
condemning others. There is every reason to believe that the UFP
does the same, with its Prime Directive and holier-than-thouness.
Sisko just happens to live in that universe, and fits right in.
>>And if it was his "duty"... then why wasn't
>>it his duty to kill Vedek/Kai Winn when she got difficult and in effect
>>compromised UFP access to the important gateway to Gamma?
>That is a singularly illogical analogy. Kai Winn is the religious leader of a
>world petitioning for Federation memebership. Senator Vreenak is a poltical
>leader of a world aiding your enemy. The difference there should be clear.
Not to me. Romulus could be a powerful ally when Vreenak is removed.
Bajor could be a powerful ally if Winn was removed. Both killings would
probably cause strong counterreactions and backfire badly if done in
an unskilled, uncamouflaged way, but both could be pulled off using
Garakian thinking. Federation's cause and standing in the view of Bajorans
could have been significantly improved by skilfully removing Winn. Why
didn't Sisko think of that? Was it just because times were less dire,
or was a precedent or a social norm in place to discourage such
assassinations.
>>Was it just the Prime Directive holding this bloodlusty soldier back?
>
>Your characterization aside, Starfleet's Prime Directive has drawn more blood
>than any army in the histroy of mankind.
That, I guess, is something we both strongly agree with.
>>Why aren't soldiers called to assassinate difficult world leaders more
>>often today?
>Because it isn't poltically expedient. This was. Believe it or not, the US
>military does train assassins.
Of course it does. Even our local little Finnish army does. That's a
sensible way to fight a war, since so much depends on the presence or
absence of key personnel. The points of interest here are:
-Sisko isn't trained as an assassin - this does require special
training...
-Sisko isn't trained as a person calling in assassins to do their job -
even this is a special job that requires special training.
-Sisko isn't authorized to perform/request assassinations without
negotiating with the civilian government and the top brass of the
military - nor are today's assassins. If caught, they will be
charged with murder if the government and top brass choose to
use their carefully structured deniability.
-Adding up all these points, it won't be difficult to believe Sisko
vomits when facing the fact that he was helping in an assassination
plot, even if he can dig out the guts of a Klingon with his own
sword in combat.
>>The
>>Embassy Marines in arab countries would be protecting their nation by
>>performing active operations against local troublemakers - are they
>>truly lax in their duties, or just held back by both sensible practical
>>constraints and a firm moral code?
>That's astounding for its shallow characterizations/.
Admittedly. There would probably be better examples of the fact that
"peace" is different from "war" and these artificially created states
of existence often place limitations on sensible strategic thinking
in an ongoing state of hostility. And the people learn to live with
the system, and structure their personal values according to it. The
moral codes are born out of the artificiality of "war" and "peace",
and thus may not make sense in a purely utilitarian analysis.
>>>Preemptive? I'm talking about a counter strike. They tried to blow up the
>>>Bajoran sun for Chrissakes!
>>I guess we have been talking past each other a bit. "Preemptive" would be
>>attacking the Dominion convoy when it came through and dug in on
>>Cardassia.
>No, it wasn't a convoy. It was an invasion fleet. It was specifically refered
>to as such by both Wrof and Sisko upon scanning it.
Ho-kay. Invasion fleet then.
>>"Counterstrike" would be attacking Cardassia after the fake Dominion assault
>>and attempted nova-bombing of Bajor. I opposed the "preemptive" strike
>>since at that point, the Dominion had committed only minor acts of war,
>
>There are no minor acts of war.
With this I disagree most strongly. The definitions of "acts of war" are
flexible in the world that has seen the Cold War. They can be thought to
remain so in the Trek universe, where "acts of war" are an everyday
occurence on the Neutral Zones.
>>and was not acting in an exceptionally threatening way. I oppose the
>>"counterstrike" on different grounds, believing that it would have
>>failed badly and left Bajor unprotected against conventional attack.
>
>Bajor was protected by the immensely powerful battlestation Ds9 and incoming
>Federation reinforcements which were explicitly stated to be on the way.
DS9 doesn't protect Bajor. I doubt it could reach weapons range of Bajor
much faster than the trip in "Emissary", even with all of its thrusters
operational. But I'm beginning to believe there really would have
been reinforcements available, since you say this was explicitly
mentioned - until now, I had believed they weren't mentioned. Just
goes to show that one shouldn't argue over these episodes unless one
had them on video.
>>>The duty of a soldier is to fulfill his oath to protect his nation.
>>>Sisko failed to do so.
>>
>>This is where I disagree most strongly. IMHO, he didn't fail - he did
>>protect Bajor against destruction and/or conquest.
>No, he didn't. Eventually the Dominion would control Bajoran space.
>>He didn't allow an invasion of Federation space to take place,
>Yes, he did. He postponed it but it did happen.
*Despite* what Sisko did, I say. Not *because* of it. Using the
joint fleet to blockade the wormhole still seems to me like a sensible
thing to do. I still blame him for his later, post-"Inferno" incation,
but offer Starfleet's policy as a mitigating factor.
Let's keep on doing this. I have already abandoned one of my positions
because of an error you pointed out (Dukat's status), and I'm wavering
on the issue of the wormhole defence. You might yet get to crucify
Sisko after all. (plus, that will offer me time to escalate a response
that gives me a real chance of "winning", in case you didn't notice) :-)
Timo Saloniemi
P Bowles
Chamberlin) writes:
>I'd like to see him become more actively involved in fighting the Dominion
>in the sense of getting him off the station a little more, and not just on
>the bridge of the Defiant. Surely there are a lot of intelligence-gathering
>missions out there he'd be entirely suited for? I also liked one of the
>original ideas for "Tears" mentioned in one of Ron Moore's chats, of
>sending Garak and Kira on a mission together. They would have a certain
>double single-mindedness.
Plus, he still has his promise to Taim to keep - to avenge Taim's death.
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
<ja...@mindspring.com> writes:
>Which ones were those? The Dominion fleet yards were supposed to have been
>smashed in "A Call to Arms" yet no mention of this was ever made again.
"Statistical Probabilities" mentions another planet capable of keeping the
Dominion fleet running for years. Besides, the shipyards were only destroyed on
one planet, and you can't believe that the Cardassians had no shipyards on
other planets.
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
<ja...@mindspring.com> writes:
> The Dominion INVADED the Alpha quadrant with a sizable fleet. He
>>> had the weapons and authority to stop them what he lacked, thanks
>>> to the writers, is the foresight and the will to follow through.
>>> I am lambasting Sisko for making a tactically and strategically
>>> foolish decision by not stopping the Dominion BEFORE they built
>>> shipyards* and cloning facilities. )
They didn't build shipyards - they took over existing Cardassian ones. As for
cloning facilities, they may well have been brought on transport ships, as we
know that these sometimes carry Jem'Hadar young ("The Abandoned").
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
<Night...@Clarksburg.com> writes:
>>The Romulans were ready willing and able to fight when they sent 30
>>Romulan Warbirds to the station in a seemingly forgotten gesture.
>
>I've forgotten this. You're not referring to the Cardassian/Romulan
>alliance forged in order to decimate the Founders' homeworld, are you?
At the end of "By Inferno's Light" the Romulans asked to join the Fed/Klingon
fleet, thinking that a Dominion attack was imminent and that they'd have no
chance alone. However, given typical Romulan caution and the fact that they'd
have had an opportunity to see the opposition first hand (not to mention the
fact that the only Romulan/Dominion encounter before that time ended with the
Romulans' defeat), it is hardly surprising that they lept at the chance to 'opt
out' of the war.
>>The Klingons had assembled an impressive fleet along side them.
>
>Probably not then, as the Klingons weren't part of that original joint
>alliance then. What episode was this in, please? I've forgotten...
"By Inferno's Light". This was the episode in which the Khitomer Accords were
reinstated and in exchange a Klingon garrison was to be placed aboard DS9 under
a commander personally selected by Captain Sisko, who chose General Martok on
Worf's recommendation.
>>Before the Dominion could get deeply rooted into Cardassian space, he
>>could have blown them from the stars. He didn't and thus doomed the
>>Federation.
I'm not sure where you get this idea from; Sisko, and indeed Starfleet, never
had the power at their disposal to stop the Dominion, certainly not when their
fleet was concentrated as it came through the womhole rather than spread
throughout Cardassian space as it was later.
>At the time, no state of aggression existed. Sisko lacked the initiative
>as Starfleet's bureaucracy effectively tied his hands ("wait until they
>bloody your nose before we'll allow you to defend yourself" was more or
>less typical Federation philosophy for many an ocassion).
But it was a Federation action authorised by Starfleet Command which led to the
outbreak of hostilities.
>>Why would you give your enemy a resource rich area upon which to build
>>their ships? Why would you wait for them to turn a broken empire into a
>>giant fortress of undeniable power?
Because you didn't have much of a choice? The Federation President is a very
definite Neville Chamberlain analogy, who wouldn't want a war under any
circumstances, far more so than Captain Sisko who one refused to sanction peace
between the Federation and the Dominion, or who at least thought he did ("The
Search Part II").
>Sisko did START the actual hostilities in the end. He purposefully mined
>the Wormhole to prevent further incursions into Federation space.
Only when he was ordered to; Starfleet started the war.
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
<ja...@mindspring.com> writes:
>The Federation was at peace with the Dominion. The Dominion was at war with
>the
>Federation. They made an attempt to destroy a Federation run space station,
>all the
>civilians onboard, a Klingon/Federation/Romulan fleet and the entire planet
>of Bajor.
>Call me silly but this is an act of war.
Only if a declaration of war is made as a result; the Dominion wasn't
interested in outright conflict when it could do whatever it wanted without the
frightened Alpha Quadrant races declaring a response, and the Federation wasn't
capable of waging war on that level, especially without formal allies which it
didn't have when the Dominion started coming through the wormhole. The Romulans
later demonstrated a willingness to avoid war despite the consequences for the
Alpha Quadrant, and who knows if anyone even told the Klingons?
The Dominion had also declared war
>on
>Cardassia which was, at the time, a quasi-ally.
No it hadn't. A Founder had told an exile from Cardassia aboard a Federation
ship that 'Cardassia is dead.' That hardly constitutes a formal declaration of
hostilities.
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
Levesque) writes:
>What went wrong? He got the Romulans into the war and saved the
>BG>entire Federation. This is the Picard and the Borg virus insanity
>BG>all over again. In war if you can save millions of lives at the cost
>BG>of one life, you take it.
But Sisko has stated before that he believes he has no right to decide who
lives or dies regardless of numbers, and I think he's right. Otherwise you
wouldn't have all the complaints about Janeway's treatment of Tuvix to get two
crewmembers back.
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
writes:
>Also, even though the actual declaration of war came only after "A Call to
>Arms" (as a direct response to Sisko's decision to start mining the
>wormhole mouth), both sides were trying hard to kill each other even
>before that. I haven't actually seen "By Inferno's Light", but I believe
>Dukat declared an alliance with the Dominion
Not quite true, and this misconception annoys me. The Vorta Doyis proclaimed
that Cardassia had joined the Dominion after discussions with Gul Dukat,
although it is not clear whether this was illegal or whether Dukat was acting
in his capacity as military advisor to the Dtappa Council (it was never stated
in "Return to Grace" that his refusal to surrender to the Klingons resulted in
his losing his newly regained position). Presumably if Dukat was working for
his government (and I believe Doyis refers to high-level negotiations with the
Cardassian government rather than simply Dukat), the provision that Dukat be
made ruler of Cardassia was not officially sanctioned.
, plus his intent to drive
>the Klingons out of Federation space.
And to ensure that within a month no Maquis colonies would remain within
Cardassian space.
He did not declare a war against
>the Federation specifically at that point, not for himself nor for the
>Dominion.
He didn't declare war at all; although the Federation took the first aggressive
act, there never was a formal declaration of war. Since we didn't see the
attack on the shipyards and we don't know how far each fleet had to travel, we
can't say who fired the first shot or sent the first ships into enemy territory
(presumably the Federation sent the taskforce before the Dominion sent a fleet
to the station - the Federation's main naval facilities are further from
Cardassia than DS9).
The Klingons, while good buddies with the Federation, had
>recently severed formal ties, and attacks against them would probably not
>count as acts of war against the UFP unless the Feds specifically so
>stated.
Although the Khitomer accords were reinstated shortly after the Klingon fleet
was driven out of Dominion territory.
Philip Bowles
P Bowles
writes:
>Oops! A big-time goof. I was completely wrong here, confusing the timeline
>badly. True, Dukat WAS a pirate at this time (although I'm not sure the
>Detapa Council was really actively hunting him). So this really boils down
>to: did Dukat have the support of the former Central Command here? If
>yes, then Sisko would have had to fight most of the surviving/rebuilt
>Cardassian navy; if not, he could have drafted that navy to hunt down
>Dukat and to aid the Feds and Klingons.
I imagine Dukat as a privateer at this point; he is unofficially acting against
his superior's wishes, but he retains his status within Cardassia. Note that
Doyis describes Dominion negotiations with the 'Cardassian government', not
Dukat alone.
Philip Bowles
Laurinda Chamberlin
>In article <6selcj$hl1$1...@samsara0.mindspring.com> "Plain and Simple Cronan" <ja...@mindspring.com> writes:
>>Timo S Saloniemi wrote
[...]
>>>Sure, the Dominion committed acts of war. The Federation did, too, all the
>>>time, sending ships into the Gamma quadrant and meddling with Dominion
>>>affairs.
>>
>>Wrong. The area around the wormhole and a good portion of the Gamma Quadrant,
>>according to "The Quickening" and "The Ship", is not claimed or even
>>recognized by the Dominion as 'their space'. Never once did the Federation
>>knowlingly invade Dominion territory, attack Dominion ships unless it was in
>>self-defense, spy or perform terrorist activities against Dominion denizens
>>or kidnap Dominion officers. The Dominion did all these things *and*more*.
>>And nation that did such things to the Unisted States would have had war
>>declared upon it post haste.
>Well, it's obvious that the Dominion had no presence in the wormhole
>area before the Federation came through. But by the third season, they
>had made a formal claim - actually, they even made a claim to the whole
>Gamma quadrant. True, they still seemed to totally lack the military
>muscle to actually blockade the wormhole - but from a legal point of
>view, every Runabout or Defiant entry to Gamma from there on WAS a
>violation of the rights of the Dominion and could be called an
>act of war. [...]
I'm a little confused by your use of the word "legal" here. What body of
law defines the legality of the Dominion's claim to the entire Gamma
Quadrant? After all, the sovereign civilizations in the area with whom
the Federation had traded in the two years that the Dominion was little
more than a rumor presumably also formally claimed the territory in question.
I don't dispute that the Dominion would *treat* Federation incursions as
acts of war, but "legal"?
--
Laurinda She walked by herself, and
all places were alike to her.
Antony Alonso
[admittedly, a rather late response to this thread]:
>> The real problem I have with this episode is, why didn't Vreenak
>>immediately contact Romulas and tell them about the forged data rod when
>>he first learned about it. Before he even confronted Sisko, he should
>>have contacted his government, and told them what the Feds had tried to
>>pull off.
>Perhaps his support back at home was not all that strong, and he thought
>he would not be believed unless he presented physical proof? This is
>the weakest part of the plot, admittedly, much weaker than the other
>stages of Garak's plan, or the portrayal of Sisko (which I think was
>smack on, even if it didn't cast Sisko in a flattering light).
Vreenak's support was rather strong. The far more plausible answer would
be Sisko's level of heightened secrecy. There had been other ocassions
where communications had either been severed, or at least substituted
with prerecorded broadcasts. The fact a Romulan power broker was visiting
the station under guise of cloak (obviously in a move _not_ to provoke
or cause an inquiry by the Dominion) would tend to put a lid on all kind
of outgoing communications. While Vreenak was aboard DS9, chances are
there was a communications blackout, just without any dialogue establishing
this (although ample precedent in other episodes would tend to confirm the
practice).
>Timo Saloniemi
Timo S Saloniemi
>Vreenak's support was rather strong. The far more plausible answer would
>be Sisko's level of heightened secrecy. There had been other ocassions
>where communications had either been severed, or at least substituted
>with prerecorded broadcasts. The fact a Romulan power broker was visiting
>the station under guise of cloak (obviously in a move _not_ to provoke
>or cause an inquiry by the Dominion) would tend to put a lid on all kind
>of outgoing communications. While Vreenak was aboard DS9, chances are
>there was a communications blackout, just without any dialogue establishing
>this (although ample precedent in other episodes would tend to confirm the
>practice).
I agree with this, but the theory still leaves open the basic question.
WHy didn't Vreenak contact Romulus AFTER leaving DS9? His ship was
only destroyed several days later, on a return leg of a diplomatic
mission. Presumably the mission was to a Dominion-controlled world, so
that it would seem plausible that he had obtained the data rod from that
world and been assassinated for that. It seems a given that he did not
*visit* Romulus in between, but he could have made the *broadcast* anyway.
Perhaps he did maintain radio silence for reasons of personal safety.
Or perhaps he was just busy writing an acidic speech in which to
thoroughly demonize the UFP for its vile deed, and did not wish to
leak the news too early, to get the maximum impact out of it.
Timo Saloniemii
Laurinda Chamberlin
>In article <1748.563T2...@Clarksburg.com> "Antony Alonso" <Night...@Clarksburg.com> writes:
>>Vreenak's support was rather strong. The far more plausible answer would
>>be Sisko's level of heightened secrecy. There had been other ocassions
>>where communications had either been severed, or at least substituted
>>with prerecorded broadcasts. The fact a Romulan power broker was visiting
>>the station under guise of cloak (obviously in a move _not_ to provoke
>>or cause an inquiry by the Dominion) would tend to put a lid on all kind
>>of outgoing communications. While Vreenak was aboard DS9, chances are
>>there was a communications blackout, just without any dialogue establishing
>>this (although ample precedent in other episodes would tend to confirm the
>>practice).
>I agree with this, but the theory still leaves open the basic question.
>WHy didn't Vreenak contact Romulus AFTER leaving DS9? His ship was
>only destroyed several days later, on a return leg of a diplomatic
>mission. [...]
The news filtered down to DS9 several days later, but the actual incident
could have taken place not long after Vreenak left the station. Presumably
he would maintain the cloak and the radio silence while still in
Federation space, especially if he suspected the Federation might panic
and try to prevent his return to Romulan territory after Sisko's little
fiasco.
Timo S Saloniemi
Now THAT I will buy. The diplomatic mission on which Vreenak was would then
be a mission he undertook *before* making the secret side tour to DS9.
Given this rationalization, the plotline actually makes complete sense.
Too bad that not everybody can do the rationalizing just by watching the
episode, and may be left feeling confused.
Timo Saloniemi
Antony Alonso
>The news filtered down to DS9 several days later, but the actual incident
>could have taken place not long after Vreenak left the station. Presumably
>he would maintain the cloak and the radio silence while still in
>Federation space, especially if he suspected the Federation might panic
>and try to prevent his return to Romulan territory after Sisko's little
>fiasco.
An admirable extension of my attempt at an explanation, thanks! :)
>--
>Laurinda She walked by herself, and
> all places were alike to her.
John Cholewa
Timo S Saloniemi wrote:
> I agree with this, but the theory still leaves open the basic question.
> WHy didn't Vreenak contact Romulus AFTER leaving DS9? His ship was
> only destroyed several days later, on a return leg of a diplomatic
> mission. Presumably the mission was to a Dominion-controlled world, so
> that it would seem plausible that he had obtained the data rod from that
> world and been assassinated for that. It seems a given that he did not
> *visit* Romulus in between, but he could have made the *broadcast* anyway.
>
> Perhaps he did maintain radio silence for reasons of personal safety.
> Or perhaps he was just busy writing an acidic speech in which to
> thoroughly demonize the UFP for its vile deed, and did not wish to
> leak the news too early, to get the maximum impact out of it.
>
> Timo Saloniemii
I have a better explanation for it. It's been established that the Romulans do not volunteer information
to their superiors (or, for that matter, anyone else unless they're asked about it). This was shown in a
TNG episode about a human who had lived among the Romulans and just came back to Federation space. I
don't think Vreenak would have spoken to anyone of import about it until he reached the end of his trip;
until he got to Romulus and started speaking to the high officials there. In fact, the more that I think
about it, the more I'm sure that he *wouldn't* say anything about it until that late. They do have a
reputation for arrogance. He probably didn't want the information to merely filter up to Romulus, he
wanted credit for presenting it in front of the government.
-JC
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