TNG: Peak Performance

[McAvoy]

In the same way that if the Chinese sailed to California in the 16th century they'd be trespassing against Spain. The Dominion's claims may as well be the Treaty of Tordesillas.

Not really. 16th century California or just the whole West Coast was very very sparsely populated. Like it was actually brand new to European explorers in the 16th century.

Whereas, he know that probably within 100 light years of the wormhole, there were civilizations who knew what the Dominion were or did active dealings with them. The Founder homeworld wouldn't be that far either. Unless you think those missions on runabouts or the Defiant lasted weeks or months. I know, I know, the power of the plot decides the speeds of the ships in episodes.

So yeah I think the Alpha and Beta Quadrants were trespassing on Dominion territory. The way the Dominion responded though was unacceptable.

I'm still a bit fuzzy as to what 100 light years means exactly... Anyway, my memory of the situation played out like this:
-> Federation/Bajorans begins exploring/settling the area on the other side of the wormhole.
-> Alpha-beta quadrant hears rumors of the Dominion
-> The Dominion kidnaps a bunch of people and asserts their claims on everything in the Gamma quadrant.

Now, by my estimate, this maps roughly to how a completely foreign power would receive Spain's claims on the Pacific Ocean and all it's shores. If they're asserting that they can tell anyone to leave the Gamma Quadrant by virtue of owning the entire quadrant, then they also ought to be able to get their tributaries/vassals/etc. to tell the foreigners to piss off.

Measure of distance. If you are traveling at 100 times the speed of light, you will be there in a year. 1,000 times the speed of light you will be there in over a month. Which is just under Warp 8.

Anyway, Warp speeds has always been powered by plot. But if we are talking about time frames here. No way to think trips in runabouts or the Defiant took weeks or months. So all of the episodes unless specifically stated was short term. Which means the Founders Homeworld isn't that far from the wormhole.

Where as California in the 16th century was barely and I do mean barely explored. By anyone!

To compare your analogy, California in the 16th century would be an area of space devoid of intelligent lifeforms with the exception of a alien space station. Not claimed by anyone, but full of habitable worlds.

Whereas in DS9, it would be like Japan trying to colonize California and claim it as its own during the 1930's but without knowing who the United States was.

[MaxWylde]

Excellent points. And I like them.
New theory on why a weaker vessel must engage the stronger though. This is about the borg. And against them even a Galaxy class is the underdog. You can't just keep running away. So how do you win against a superior foe?
In that scenario I think the Enterprise should behave as they know of the borg. Big implacable enemy. Hathaway has to both evade and try to do damage to the superior ship. Altering attack patterns and other effects till they out do that vessel's ability to rebuff them. Analyzing what they do wrong when they are killed. But then you would want even more crew on the Hathaway to make the training work so they can help spread the experience.

Well, it's an Assymmetrical Combat Scenario, where one side is deliberately meant to be weaker in various ways to the other. We do this a lot in real military wargames, and often both sides really doesn't know which side is really the weaker or stronger of the two because intelligence gathering is vital to any conflict.

But, in the case of why must the weaker engage the stronger, they don't have to. In my scenario, the goal is simply to survive long enough to notify Starfleet Command. As for how the Enterprise should behave, rather like the Borg, that is immaterial if the real goal is to test the crew and systems under certain conditions. As I said previously, the goal of a wargame exercise isn't so much to win, but to see what works and what doesn't, and what needs improvement, especially what can be fixed by the unit itself through training and other things that doesn't require much in the way of resources other than time.

At this point in their initial encounters with the Borg, Starfleet (meaning the Enterprise specifically) does have some things to go on, but they don't know quite nearly enough about them. After all, after Q Who, the Borg could behave quite differently than how they behaved at J-25. They could decide to be more aggressive than they were, which, actually, they did behave that way in Best of Both Worlds Part 1. They were bent on capturing Picard, to assimilate into Locutus, as part of their plan.

However, be that as it may, it seems to me that Picard went along with this scenario as depicted in the show because he felt his crew needed the experience. That's just as good a reason as any to conduct it, but it also implies that Starfleet doesn't really conduct these things at all, or at least very often. Hence why they bring in this Zakdorn, non-Starfleet, Observer; if Starfleet were doing these on a regular basis, there would be no need to bring in such an outsider unless they wanted a different point of view. We did that sometimes with NATO forces; we'd sometimes bring in a British officer to watch what we do and opine on it, giving his own perspective on things because sometimes it's really good to have someone like that along, to be the Odd Man, so to speak, who can freely give out an opinion that might be unpopular without fear of having his career in any sort of jeopardy.

But, if you wanted the Enterprise to behave like the Borg did, fine. Throw that in the works as part of another phase in the exercise. There's nothing wrong with this inherently, but you don't want to do this too often because, as I said, there's no reason, at this point, to believe that the Borg would always behave the way they did previously. To really throw a wrench in the works, I might suggest to the crew of the Hathaway that they're going to encounter something completely different, something they're not exactly ready for. Not the Enterprise, but another ship that's part of the exercise (preferably a Starfleet ship so as not to raise hackles). Maybe another Galaxy-class or maybe an Ambassador-class to really get them to think on their toes. Do that as the last phase of the scenario.

[McAvoy]

I would have liked to seen how this was supposed to go down without the Ferengi interference and one of Wesley's experiments. None of those were factored originally into this war game. What was Riker supposed to do?

[clearspira]

I would have liked to seen how this was supposed to go down without the Ferengi interference and one of Wesley's experiments. None of those were factored originally into this war game. What was Riker supposed to do?

Rikers only options seemed to be die or surrender. It's the Kobyashi Maru.
A lesson he should have already learned.

[McAvoy]

I would have liked to seen how this was supposed to go down without the Ferengi interference and one of Wesley's experiments. None of those were factored originally into this war game. What was Riker supposed to do?

Rikers only options seemed to be die or surrender. It's the Kobyashi Maru.
A lesson he should have already learned.

Exactly. I have no idea how the Hathaway was supposed to do anything but be destroyed or surrender.

[CrypticMirror]

I would have liked to seen how this was supposed to go down without the Ferengi interference and one of Wesley's experiments. None of those were factored originally into this war game. What was Riker supposed to do?

Rikers only options seemed to be die or surrender. It's the Kobyashi Maru.
A lesson he should have already learned.

Exactly. I have no idea how the Hathaway was supposed to do anything but be destroyed or surrender.

That might have been exactly what it was supposed to do, and Starfleet just wanted to see how long it would take their officer corps to realise that. To see what close in combat manoeuvrers they'd perform on their way to being destroyed or surrendering, and to see what Picard's response was in return. What Starfleet told Picard they were looking at might not actually have been what they were looking at. Just because they were being tested, does not mean the tests were for Picard and Riker's benefit, at least initially anyway. This two ship encounter was probably just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of different set up across the entire fleet; all generating data for Starfleet Command to number crunch and come up with conclusions in aggregate for a more holistic fleet enhancement plan. Riker and Wesley's cheating to win might have skewed the results on which Starfleet was depending, rendering this encounter now worthless as a point of reference.

I have less of an issue with ST: Picard than some because I actually see it as a sort of rolling ball ownhill or set of dominoes. The whole destruction of the Mars colony and shipyards was the final straw for the Federation to go internally rather than one event changing everything. The continued exploration of the unknown that was their mandate had brought the Borg and Dominion down on their heads while pushing the envelope on scientific research had created a seeming Robot Revolution.

The Dominion War isn't a result of exploration, but a result of repeated trespassing by the Federation.

Yeah, we've all read the Nitpickers Guide. Now, in S1 DS9 the Dominion is first an unheard of GQ power, then later a distantly heard of one, and eventually a rushing right up to the gates of the Wormhole power with increasingly brutal conquests and behaviours, power. That isn't a power with valid territorial claims, that is a rapidly, not to mention rabidly, expansionist and conquering Empire. The Dominion are much more trespassers than the Federation can ever be called. The Dominion are more like Germany's military-government in the late thirties and early forties.

[Rocketboy1313]

I have less of an issue with ST: Picard than some because I actually see it as a sort of rolling ball ownhill or set of dominoes. The whole destruction of the Mars colony and shipyards was the final straw for the Federation to go internally rather than one event changing everything. The continued exploration of the unknown that was their mandate had brought the Borg and Dominion down on their heads while pushing the envelope on scientific research had created a seeming Robot Revolution.

The Dominion War isn't a result of exploration, but a result of repeated trespassing by the Federation.

Yeah, we've all read the Nitpickers Guide. Now, in S1 DS9 the Dominion is first an unheard of GQ power, then later a distantly heard of one, and eventually a rushing right up to the gates of the Wormhole power with increasingly brutal conquests and behaviours, power. That isn't a power with valid territorial claims, that is a rapidly, not to mention rabidly, expansionist and conquering Empire. The Dominion are much more trespassers than the Federation can ever be called. The Dominion are more like Germany's military-government in the late thirties and early forties.

There is also the oft forgotten fact that just because a empire claims control of an area, doesn't make them a legitimate authority over the area and does not mean they get to say, "keep out" to people. Especially when the area you are referring to is an entire quadrant of a galaxy.

The Federation is allowed to move thru space peacefully, same with the Dominion, and free peoples are allowed to interact with either massive organization how they choose.

I mean, I can certainly claim to control all of the Potomac and shoot at people who come and go, but that doesn't make me the ruler of the Potomac.

There is a recent Map Men episode about the concept of making a country that seems relevant.
https://youtu.be/hX4s1ZLW_PI

[Deledrius]

We never really were given any specifics on the territorial makeup in the Gamma Quadrant. We barely know any details in the Alpha. We have a good idea that DS9 was not in Federation Space, though it's presumably not too far out because control of the station was never cut off by rival powers without first going through the space under the station's control (for the sake of argument, I'm treating territory as a mostly-2D volume since this is how it is used almost exclusively in the shows).

Meanwhile, the Dominion's end of the wormhole may very well have been enclosed deep inside their "territory", but in a relatively sparsely-colonized region. Much as the area around Bajor was strategically unimportant before the discovery of the wormhole, it seems likely that the Dominion had a limited presence in the immediate vicinity. While the nearby worlds (mostly rural, from what we see) were technically under Dominion rule, they probably enjoyed the sort of peace from every day interference simply by being unimportant and not worth the effort of troops or direct management. That, of course, changed when the wormhole opened and, more importantly, a rival power began poking through and making contact with worlds -- and their local leaders -- which held no authority in the Dominion hierarchy.

This would explain why the mentions of the Dominion grew slowly over the course of a year or so, and also why the Dominion treated the Federation expeditions as a direct incursion. To the Founders' paranoid, strategic perspective this was a prelude to undermining their authority and their territory. Someone was using a hole in space to infiltrate and invade their systems from within; we know the Founders themselves prefer this strategy when in conflict with rival powers, so it's probably they view outsiders' actions through that same perspective.

We really don't know how expansionist the empire of the Dominion is, nor how large. We're given to understand it's quite old, and claims of them being the power in charge of the Gamma Quadrant is possibly shorthand; when your only window into a region is through that empire it's hard to see what's on the other side (and it wouldn't be out of character for the Founders to use exaggerated claims of their reach in order to maintain fear and control). It's probably large, but what little of their power structure we do see suggests it may not be as large as they'd like us to believe. But who knows? For all we know they are expanding in all directions, and we never saw nor heard mention of those fronts in wars against other GQ civilizations because it simply wasn't relevant. It would certainly be another reason they took time in showing their hand against the Federation.

If you're the Dominion and you're busy on one or more fronts of expansion, then suddenly you hear rumors of some unknowns poking around? You'll keep an ear out, but you may not have anyone to spare to track down a couple of small ships in a backwater part of your territory. It's not until you start collecting a trail of evidence and learn where they're coming from that you realize it's not one or a few rogue ships, but an entire quadrant-spanning government with a shortcut into your back yard that you shift priorities.

[McAvoy]

We never really were given any specifics on the territorial makeup in the Gamma Quadrant. We barely know any details in the Alpha. We have a good idea that DS9 was not in Federation Space, though it's presumably not too far out because control of the station was never cut off by rival powers without first going through the space under the station's control (for the sake of argument, I'm treating territory as a mostly-2D volume since this is how it is used almost exclusively in the shows).

Meanwhile, the Dominion's end of the wormhole may very well have been enclosed deep inside their "territory", but in a relatively sparsely-colonized region. Much as the area around Bajor was strategically unimportant before the discovery of the wormhole, it seems likely that the Dominion had a limited presence in the immediate vicinity. While the nearby worlds (mostly rural, from what we see) were technically under Dominion rule, they probably enjoyed the sort of peace from every day interference simply by being unimportant and not worth the effort of troops or direct management. That, of course, changed when the wormhole opened and, more importantly, a rival power began poking through and making contact with worlds -- and their local leaders -- which held no authority in the Dominion hierarchy.

This would explain why the mentions of the Dominion grew slowly over the course of a year or so, and also why the Dominion treated the Federation expeditions as a direct incursion. To the Founders' paranoid, strategic perspective this was a prelude to undermining their authority and their territory. Someone was using a hole in space to infiltrate and invade their systems from within; we know the Founders themselves prefer this strategy when in conflict with rival powers, so it's probably they view outsiders' actions through that same perspective.

We really don't know how expansionist the empire of the Dominion is, nor how large. We're given to understand it's quite old, and claims of them being the power in charge of the Gamma Quadrant is possibly shorthand; when your only window into a region is through that empire it's hard to see what's on the other side (and it wouldn't be out of character for the Founders to use exaggerated claims of their reach in order to maintain fear and control). It's probably large, but what little of their power structure we do see suggests it may not be as large as they'd like us to believe. But who knows? For all we know they are expanding in all directions, and we never saw nor heard mention of those fronts in wars against other GQ civilizations because it simply wasn't relevant. It would certainly be another reason they took time in showing their hand against the Federation.

If you're the Dominion and you're busy on one or more fronts of expansion, then suddenly you hear rumors of some unknowns poking around? You'll keep an ear out, but you may not have anyone to spare to track down a couple of small ships in a backwater part of your territory. It's not until you start collecting a trail of evidence and learn where they're coming from that you realize it's not one or a few rogue ships, but an entire quadrant-spanning government with a shortcut into your back yard that you shift priorities.

My point exactly. I keep mentioning this but it's not like the alpha and beta quadrant powers were going hundreds or thousands of light years into the Gamma quadrant. The fact that for example, the Super Agressive Red Faced Capitalist aliens know of does dealings with the Dominion, and the fact they were not far from the wormhole means the Dominion were very much nearby.

You could argue that the Dominion may not havd thought much of it if these ships from across the galaxy were nobodies, but once they start looking into it, they realize these powers especially the Federation were direct threats to them. Or at least rivals.

Without a doubt they are aggressively expansionist. Within a year of their announcement in Jem Hadar they started to spark wars with Changeling infiltrators.

[Fianna]

There's also the possibility that the wormhole was at the very edges of Dominion territory. So when the folks come through the wormhole talk about the Dominion, whether it's a somewhat distant presence or the force actively running their lives might depend on what direction they approached the wormhole from.