I always got the feeling that the Federation was always the dominate power in the alpha quadrant (if not by much) but their inherent peacefulness stop them from taking any real advantage of it. I agree with you that the Vietnam War isn't a good comparison for the Dominion War. The Federation won, large numbers of people weren't wondering why they were fighting it, and the Quadrant will never be the same again. All this points to WWII being the better comparison. The only real wrinkle in the comparison is the lack of a USSR stand in. As people have pointed out Romulans could have been the stand in in the post DW galaxy but Nemesis and (2014) kind of killed that by leaving them in a worse position then the Klingons.FaxModem1 wrote:Vietnam is not an apt comparison for how the Federation should feel about the Dominion war. If anything, DS9 portrayed the Dominion War more as the Federation's stand-in as America in WWII, a giant fight for it's very survival against a great evil, which they won, and are now the sole standing power which is largely untouched in this(aside from the Romulans, who as you mentioned, go boom). They'll need to bury their dead, to rebuild, and fix things, of course.
The question now, is what happens to the Alpha Quadrant with the Federation as the dominating power? More than likely, there will be a focus on rebuilding the Federation planets that were invaded, such as Betazed(did the Dominion pay reparations as per the Treaty of Bajor, or did they just retreat to their quarter of the galaxy?), and probably help Cardassia rebuild, because it's both the right thing to do, and it makes sense politically, as it gains them an ally, and maybe even a future member.
A potential future series could be about dealing with political dissidents, refugees, moral conundrums on who to help rebuild first, etc. See the Federation trying to rebuild all the ashes of the Alpha Quadrant, with them being stretched thin having to do so, debates on what is the right thing to do, etc.
While they will probably have more of military bent then the TNG era due to the Dominion War and the Borg, I could also see a big push to get back to exploration after the war for a return to normalcy.CharlesPhipps wrote:I actually like the idea of the Federation being more cautious, conservative, and less prone to exploration after the Dominion War. It is the worst war the Federation has ever experienced and it's been through a really large number of them for a mostly peaceful organization.
