Beastro wrote:I'd rather see the post-war forces setting up a government that would make Cardassia the least likely to start more trouble, namely one modeled after the Fed.
Really, looking at what's left of Cardassia. They're really going to need the help rebuilding just to exist as a government, if not going extinct as a people. We're talking decades here before they're solid enough to do anything without the Federation propping them up. Making trouble will be hard, if not impossible, for them to do unless it's a century or more down the road. And by that time, they might be Federation allies, if not members. Could still be potential terrorist cells, as shown in Star Trek Online.
Klingon civil war I'd rather see breaking the empire apart into numerous warring nations, hopefully resulting in a permanent fracturing of the klingon race into several separate nations, something which Star Trek really, really needs to have given it's "One race, one nation" mentality.
Possible, but the Klingons tend to band together against outside threats, or if things are bad enough for the leadership and civil war is looming, they try to find one(see Gowron and the invasion of the Cardassian Empire). But, the real problem for the Klingons is that they've exhausted resources for the past two decades. A civil war, a failed invasion of Cardassian space, a conflict with the Federation, followed by a costly war with the Dominion. Martok is going to have problems keeping his chair, but a lot of Houses will be severely depleted from all the conflicts that they might just want to hold off until they have replenished their ranks a bit. Again, it might be a couple decades until that happens.
Then again, maybe Martok is challenged and killed, and the new Chancellor utterly destroys the Empire. *shrug*
It's not simply Nemesis the damaged the Romulans, the Star Trek remake had Spock heading to save their asses and he vanished. That result would be the destruction of Romulus when the Romulands relied on the Federation to help them, and on top of it all, it came down to a Vulcan helping them that wound up screwing things up.
They will not be doing anything close to being friendly with the Federation after that. I could see the Romulan Empire forming the main opposition to Federation hegemony in the Alpha Quadrant after that actively pushing to undermine them in anyway they can.
If the Romulan Empire can rebuild itself after that without Federation aid. Trek powers need their homeworlds to stay competitive, or have something resembling a functioning government. See Star Trek VI and the Klingons, the Cardassians after the destruction of Cardassia, every single Trek villain's plan to stop the Federation by taking out Earth, etc. The Romulan government might not be too friendly with the Federation, but then, as mentioned in the STO timeline, they might not have much choice.
Didn't that episode of Voyager 'relativity' kind of hint at this?
Star Trek has always had a triumphalist mentality when it came to the Federation.
It needs to be taken down a few pegs, and the Dominion War causing a "Vietnam Syndrome" of sorts as the Federation withdraws reluctant to get their hands dirty again as the AQ degenerates with the Klingon Empire disintegrating and the Romulans gunning to unravel their hegemony is a perfect setting for a post-Dominion War series to re-inject a sense of vulnerability back in their situation again.
I forget how much you hate the idealism of Star Trek and the idea of the Federation being a powerful government.
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.
