Reimagining the Dominion War...

[McAvoy]

I honestly think the biggest handicap for the Feds was that they met the Dominion during the pansy ''flying mall'' era where only a couple of years before Riker was gloating about how war was not the make up of a Starfleet captain. The Starfleet of Star Trek Picard's era that had been broken by the Borg, Dominion and losing Mars would have handled this very differently.

There is a saying: ''The truly strong do not need to defend themselves.'' No one on Earth is likely to attack a US aircraft carrier because they know that their whole country is going to get wiped off the map. And its the same here. When the USS Odyssey went down, the Federation at this point should have sent the whole flag to the Dominion and attempt to do what the Obsideon Order and the Tel Shiar did. The Klingons probably would have joined in, we know that several parts of the Cardassians and Romulans would have too.

I think that a joint Fed/Klingon/Tel Shiar/Order taskforce taking on the Dominion before those clone factories and Founder infiltrators could get going? Completely different outcome.

The YouTube guy Lore Reloaded has a interesting viewpoint on this period. Check him out.

Anyway, he suggests that at the time of the Odyssey's destruction the Federation had no moral high ground to stand on when it came to invade the Gamma Quadrant. Think about it, the wormhole is discovered and ships from the opposite side of the galaxy comes in, colonizers, does trade and basically operates in space they had no idea was claimed by anyone.

Yes they could have found out if that space was claimed or not. But then the Dominion didn't say anything either until they became hostile.

His viewpoint is that while us as watchers of the series knew the Dominion were bad, in universe you couldn't make that claim. Not until much later.

One of the biggest issues he does have which I think it's safe to say all of us do too, is Starfleet not having a bigger presence in terms of ships by DS9. There could be some vocal elements from the Bajorans not wanting a fleet of ships in their own territory just yet. That alone would have been an interesting side story for Kira though.

[Meushell]

The YouTube guy Lore Reloaded has a interesting viewpoint on this period. Check him out.

Anyway, he suggests that at the time of the Odyssey's destruction the Federation had no moral high ground to stand on when it came to invade the Gamma Quadrant. Think about it, the wormhole is discovered and ships from the opposite side of the galaxy comes in, colonizers, does trade and basically operates in space they had no idea was claimed by anyone.

Yes they could have found out if that space was claimed or not. But then the Dominion didn't say anything either until they became hostile.

His viewpoint is that while us as watchers of the series knew the Dominion were bad, in universe you couldn't make that claim. Not until much later.

One of the biggest issues he does have which I think it's safe to say all of us do too, is Starfleet not having a bigger presence in terms of ships by DS9. There could be some vocal elements from the Bajorans not wanting a fleet of ships in their own territory just yet. That alone would have been an interesting side story for Kira though.

First, the only way to find out if the territory was claimed is to be told it was claimed. The Dominion said nothing for years. No one told them that that particular area was claimed. There’s no, “You have entered Dominion Space. Get out,” beacons. If anything, the evidence says that the wormhole is not within their territory.

Second, the Federation was not being hostile. There’s no indication that anyone was being hostile. The Dominion had no right to respond to peaceful missions with violence. They didn’t give any warning. They slaughtered the Bajoran colony, kidnapped Sisko and company, then made unreasonable demands. The Odyssey was destroyed while retreating after a rescue mission.

The Federation has many flaws, but they 100% had the moral higher ground here.

[Beastro]

[quote=McAvoy post_id=102854 time=1621911130 user_id=3066
The Soviets were a huge country that was slowly learning its mistakes. At best Germany would havd stalemated them if Britain and the US were not involved. But bring in those two, Germany had no chance.
[/quote]

The Soviet Union was a giant funnel of a front that every grew thinning out Germany's military power. Once the Soviets pulled their industry back behind the Urals the Germany's could do nothing given how overly extended they were.

The war against the Soviets was not a war the Wehrmacht was built to fight. It would be by no means a short war, and they were structured completely around those.

Germany had a choice in 1933 to focus on their economy and rebuild it or do the same to their military. They chose both. They then turned into a drug addict breaking into and robbing others to fuel their habit. They were kept afloat just enough by each successive invasion that had to be short and bloodless to integrate as much of the occupied nations as possible into their economy to keep the whole edifice going and were successful until they went after the Soviets.

Not that they couldn't avoid it, the Soviets were planning to attack then, hence why they were so successful with Barbarossa. They enveloped whole armies propositioned to attacking at salient points, not placed in defensive postures.

The YouTube guy Lore Reloaded has a interesting viewpoint on this period. Check him out.

Anyway, he suggests that at the time of the Odyssey's destruction the Federation had no moral high ground to stand on when it came to invade the Gamma Quadrant. Think about it, the wormhole is discovered and ships from the opposite side of the galaxy comes in, colonizers, does trade and basically operates in space they had no idea was claimed by anyone.

Yes they could have found out if that space was claimed or not. But then the Dominion didn't say anything either until they became hostile.

His viewpoint is that while us as watchers of the series knew the Dominion were bad, in universe you couldn't make that claim. Not until much later.

One of the biggest issues he does have which I think it's safe to say all of us do too, is Starfleet not having a bigger presence in terms of ships by DS9. There could be some vocal elements from the Bajorans not wanting a fleet of ships in their own territory just yet. That alone would have been an interesting side story for Kira though.

So the Fed's bad because the C-word is really trendy now?

They didn't overrun any Dominion world's or take over inhabited planets. What they and Bajor did was settle literal terra incognita until the Dominion popped up and declared it was all theirs.

Simply because a nation claims a bit of land doesn't mean they have any de facto claim to it. It is for that reason that the rest of Europe didn't shrug their shoulders and hunker down in Europe after the Treaty of Tordesillas. Do keep in mind that the mentality of the Dominion extended to other planets not yet until their rule in much the same way as Spain and Portugal laid out their claims ahead of their ability to actually enforce them.

We're also talking about a power here that would claim the entire galaxy as theirs by right of the special place of the Founders in their minds. We are all here to be good little Solids and just do as they tell us to, after all.

[McAvoy]

I love how the moment I use the word 'colonizer' it is now a bad word or a trendy word. As opposed to being just a word to describe a group of settlers fucking colonizing a world. Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph.

I just deleted a whole response to this. I am not even bothering now. Just watch Lore Reloaded's Dominion War Playlist. All I did was that he did an interesting take on it.

Jesus Christ... Can't use colonizer now...

[Beastro]

I love how the moment I use the word 'colonizer' it is now a bad word or a trendy word. As opposed to being just a word to describe a group of settlers fucking colonizing a world. Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph.

I just deleted a whole response to this. I am not even bothering now. Just watch Lore Reloaded's Dominion War Playlist. All I did was that he did an interesting take on it.

Jesus Christ... Can't use colonizer now...

No, actually you got it wrong. I was the one with the loaded assumption there and so bloody used to it being used in that way now that I thought you were using it that way. The way your post was framed, it seemed like it was "The Fed colonized an uninhabited world. They are therefore bad because they colonized and colonizing is always evil."

I too am tired of how it's being done employed now, especially since I've become intrigued by the sociocultural idea of being colonized by ideas and how that shapes the world. People will say even that is bad, but sorry, you're being colonized by ideas from the moment your mind gets enough sense to it (like responding to your mothers voice in the womb more than other voices).

Sorry, man.

But to get back to things, I see the Dominion acting overmighty like the Spanish in the Caribbean,

"Yeah we've claimed this whole general area. We're not doing much with most of the islands, but you can't have em.

Cus they're ours.

Cus we said they are.

And we'll kill you if you try to do anything with em."

[McAvoy]

Ahh. OK no big deal.

Anyway one of the things that get me is that those Dominion convoys that led Sisko to finally mine the wormhole, how many ships were in those convoys. It had to be alot.

We are talking post mining of the wormhole, the Dominion fleet was large enough to beat Star fleet and the Klingons combined. The Cardassian fleet could not have been built up that quickly as before the Klingons alone was able to handle them.

Maybe the Dominion can mass produce their attack ships like fighters.

Assuming the time frame is the same as when the episodes were aired, it was four months. The Dominion would have to be building 50-70 ships a day to build up a fleet large enough to stand against Star fleet. That would be 6,000 to 8,400 ships by the time of the mining of the wormhole.

We are not sure how many convoys went through the wormhole but we can assume it was enough to drive the Klingons out of Cardassian space on their first convoy alone. So probably hundreds of ships. I can see the Gamma Quadrant sending 2,000 ships before the wormhole was mined.

That and it still takes time to mobilize a fleet and the Federation has a vast territory.

[Beelzquill]

Maybe they transported a massive amount of the Dominion's version of industrial replicators and the raw components to make Ketracel White. Since the Jem Hadar are effectively ready for war in a week after they are "born" they just needed to dump their raw production materials in their relatively fortified Cardassian lines. Oh wait, they still needed to bring fully armed fleets to kick the Klingons fully out of Cardassian space too right?

Of course the truth is 6,000 to 8500 ships would be a drop in the bucket if you have an empire that rivals or even surpasses the the federation's 600 billion populaceBut that's only because science fiction writers have no sense of scale

[McAvoy]

Federation might have a population in the trillions. It does amuse me even in other scifi stories they constantly place alien homeworlds in the hundreds of millions.

Bashir and his crew of special needs geniuses did calculate a loss of 900 billion. So you can figure out they are not talking about a complete wipe out of population centers. They even predict Earth and others will achieve a successful uprising in 200 years.

Really the true scale they never think about is the industrial powerhouse Starfleet could be. We are talking about thousands of ships where it should be easily hundreds of thousands of ships if not millions.

[Beastro]

Of course the truth is 6,000 to 8500 ships would be a drop in the bucket if you have an empire that rivals or even surpasses the the federation's 600 billion populaceBut that's only because science fiction writers have no sense of scale

The frustrating thing is so often tension comes from a smaller scale. It makes me think of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_(anthology)

The weapons and tactics employed are easily recognizable to the modern reader. In Pournelle′s future universe, scientific and technical advances with military implications (which turn out to be virtually all scientific and technical advances) are ruthlessly suppressed by the CoDominium which controls Earth. Also, the expense of importing advanced technology means that cheaper, less advanced alternatives are common. Mules, donkeys and horses are better vehicles than a truck on a colony world, while a tank or two might be the deciding factor in a campaign. The weapons used by planetary forces and the mercenary units are rifles, machine guns, grenades, mortars and light artillery. A few helicopters are available, but in most situations are vulnerable to man-portable antiaircraft missiles. Unlike the present-day state of military art, it is rare that helicopters can be used as aerial fighting vehicles.

It would be neat to have Trek try to work with that where an episodes tension revolves around a crucial bit of game changing tech, like a tank, that needs to be overcome.

Sadly, Trek can't do that with how fundamentally built it is with the tech we know they have access to.

[CharlesPhipps]

Federation might have a population in the trillions. It does amuse me even in other scifi stories they constantly place alien homeworlds in the hundreds of millions.

Bashir and his crew of special needs geniuses did calculate a loss of 900 billion. So you can figure out they are not talking about a complete wipe out of population centers. They even predict Earth and others will achieve a successful uprising in 200 years.

Really the true scale they never think about is the industrial powerhouse Starfleet could be. We are talking about thousands of ships where it should be easily hundreds of thousands of ships if not millions.

I actually liked how utterly they screwed the pooch on their calculations because they can't comprehend how the Dominion operates. The Dominion is not going to have a revolution against it because they're going to EXTERMINATE humanity.

in other words, surrender would have been the end.