DS:9 "Extreme Measures"

[Dînadan]

Which is why I think Bashir was being overly paranoid in his calculations. While all those people may have been involved in some way, most were probably just carrying out orders, having no idea where they came from, or what the true intention of those orders was.

Yeah, some were probably just lab techs or nurses ordered or paid to switch some results rather than knowing accomplices in on the conspiracy. Or considering this is Section 31 we're talking about some may even have been blackmailed or otherwise coerced into turning a blind eye, misfiling a report or the like.

[Beastro]

I liked the "genocide" bit, showing the limited options the Fed had in dealing with the Founders and having to resort to very unclean things that the Fed would normally be too stuck up to even consider.

One thing has to be made clear: This ended the war

You don't like that? Tough. Be like a Fed citizen that bitches like people do today about the nukes dropped on Japan. It doesn't change the fact that an enemy obsessed with murderous intent was able to be brought to the table and opened the way to a brighter future.

It did so by bringing the Founders to the table in a way they badly needed experience, as a humbling experience that at the very least got it in their minds that there was at least one region of the Milky Way that they should be wary of and respect, since at least one of those formidable opponents there almost did what they have been driving themselves mad with paranoia over for God knows how long, but a power that is capable of mercy and has no interest in them so long as they leave the AQ the hell alone.

Nothing else did could have stopped the threat to the Fed and AQ. The war in the AQ was a side show. Winning over the Dominion forces in Cardassia would be defeating a mere expeditionary force they'd sent, and even that almost held its own against the combined forces of the AQ. In the end it was all a side show as the Dominion would continue going about fighting a long war, continuing for centuries perhaps until they were able to find a means around the wormhole and into AQ space to bring the full brunt for their military onto the AQ in a way that would leave the Prophets powerless.

The big problem with it is that it essentially proves that the Changelings were right. They distrust "solids" because solids are always looking to destroy them....and upon discovering changelings, humans almost immediately looked for a way to destroy them. And not just a potential weapon for defensive purposes, but a biological agent that would murder their entire race, even including one of them who is an ally. And this was the work of humans within the Federation, not some more devious element of the Romulan Tal Shiar, but people working within the greatest peace-loving society in the quadrant. Consider how little time passed between discovery of the Changelings and the time Odo was infected-barely over a year, including all the time it took to research and develop this disease and to come up with a plan for infecting them.

And the Solids were right about the Founders and how they'd use their abilities to infiltrate and spread chaos. Section 31 rightly predicted the Founders intent for the AQ and managed to win the war before it had even begun, and all it took was the life of one individual. As much as I like Odo, that is a price very much worth paying when up against a power that casually expected to murder billions simply to pacify a new conquest.

It is to the Feds credit that the balance between Section 31 foresight and pragmatism and the Fed (and at that really just writers fiat, to produce a "clean" outcome to the war) ethics as represented in Bashir and O'Brien resulted in a way out of a zero sum contest that can now allow the Fed and Alpha Quadrant to eventually ease things with the Dominion with what they never had since the Founders started poking around in the AQ - time.

The post-Dominion War AQ is a very interested place and I hope if it's ever looked at in a series it's not ruined by trying to ignore the lessens of the war and continue on blindly pushing for utopia. One outcome I'd see producing a mix of a WWII spirit proud of their accomplishments in the war alongside a Vietnam Experience for the Federation as they realized the vital necessity for things like healthy dose of militarism and realpolitik that would result in a mass rejection of Fed values as they current stand, maybe producing a desire in humans to rediscover their old roots realizing that they cannot be perfect, and said perfect wasn't anything of the sort in the first place as the terrible things that were taken too far in wars like WWIII ended up saving them against an existential threat.

That's freaking sinister.

I'd rather call it astute.

Section 31 had never resorted to such means in the Feds history before, even in the very dark times against the Klingons and demonstrated restraint and faith in the values their country was built upon by not destabilizing and overthrowing civilian control of the Fed when faced with the Borg threat to take the nation in a direction more capable to fighting with a full out Borg invasion of the AQ.

I could very well see the disclosure of Section 31 and their involvement in the Dominion War fracturing the Fed with those, like most opinions in this thread, sneering and demonizing them while the other side is grateful for what they did, especially if it came out that the entire conventional campaign that resulted in millions of dead up to and including what was done to Betazed being a dog and pony show as their acts brought the best result that could be had against such a fanatical and self-deluded power as the Dominion.

And this was the work of humans within the Federation, not some more devious element of the Romulan Tal Shiar, but people working within the greatest peace-loving society in the quadrant

A naive and foolish society that would have fallen to the Dominion if not for Section 31 and a nice little deus ex machina from the Prophets.

[bronnt]

I liked the "genocide" bit, showing the limited options the Fed had in dealing with the Founders and having to resort to very unclean things that the Fed would normally be too stuck up to even consider.

One thing has to be made clear: This ended the war

You don't like that? Tough. Be like a Fed citizen that bitches like people do today about the nukes dropped on Japan. It doesn't change the fact that an enemy obsessed with murderous intent was able to be brought to the table and opened the way to a brighter future.

It did so by bringing the Founders to the table in a way they badly needed experience, as a humbling experience that at the very least got it in their minds that there was at least one region of the Milky Way that they should be wary of and respect, since at least one of those formidable opponents there almost did what they have been driving themselves mad with paranoia over for God knows how long, but a power that is capable of mercy and has no interest in them so long as they leave the AQ the hell alone.

First, it doesn't seem like the genocide plot was really a necessary step at all. The war ends with a massive military victory where the Dominion Fleet was obliterated and all of Cardassian space was retaken. What actually ended it for the Federation was the fact that they had Odo on their side to serve as an envoy. He was the only person really capable of "talking" her down. If all the Founders were dead it would have hampered things as nobody else would clearly have the authority to surrender. With Weyoun dead there's no clear next step in the command structure, so the Vorta wouldn't immediately be able to take control.

Second, the humbling experience is clearly not "We got infected by a biological agent," it's, "Apparently we can't even hold territory here without the citizens rising up against us." The biggest lesson is that they can't keep up their evil overlord schtick when they're so heavily reliant on Cardassian military resources and manpower. If you abuse people you need too much, they'll decide you need them more than they need you and will turn on you. It takes some degree of diplomacy and tact to be a successful dictator.

[ScreamingDoom]

I've always kind of wondered what the Dominion would do about a threat like the Borg. It seems to me, that the Borg would be the true ultimate threat for the Dominion. The Borg don't really have anything that can be infiltrated the way the Founders like to; they're a collective, so every Borg will immediately realize that one Borg is suspiciously outside its proper adjunct. There's also very little about the Borg that is secret. They plainly state their intentions, let folks wander around their ships until they make a nuisance of themselves, and are about as blatant as it is possible to be, so infiltrating a Borg cube wouldn't really gain much intelligence wise.

On the assimilation front, the Founders might be able to resist Borg nanoprobes (at least for a while) due to their unique biology, but it seems unlikely that Vorta or Jem'Hadar would, even with Founder genetic engineering. It seems to me that the Borg would quickly be able to engineer a White substitute that is continuously made by specialized cybernetics and pumped into Jem'Hadar that are assimilated. Ramming into Borg ships would not be a particularly effective tactic, either, as Borg cubes regenerate quick and would quickly adapt to such tactics by building more tractor beams or better shields to hold them at bay. Really, the Borg only seem to have lost in two specific instances: when they sent a cube to assimilate Earth, and with Species 8472. In the first case, they underestimated the forces needed to secure Earth (twice!) as well as the ingenuity of Federation technobabblers and in the second, they were encountering aliens literally from a different reality.

If the Federation had lost the war, it'd probably only be a few centuries at most before the Borg arrived back in the Alpha Quandrant and quickly crushed the Dominion there... then went through the wormhole to take down the Dominion in their home area.

[FakeGeekGirl]

I liked the "genocide" bit, showing the limited options the Fed had in dealing with the Founders and having to resort to very unclean things that the Fed would normally be too stuck up to even consider.

One thing has to be made clear: This ended the war

You don't like that? Tough. Be like a Fed citizen that bitches like people do today about the nukes dropped on Japan. It doesn't change the fact that an enemy obsessed with murderous intent was able to be brought to the table and opened the way to a brighter future.

It is incredibly easy to make that case with the benefit of hindsight.

It ended the war, but only by incredible luck. In fact it only ended the war because Odo got cured and was able to offer that cure as leverage, something which does not appear to have occurred to Section 31 to do, likely because they dared not reveal the real nature of the virus - had that not happened, Sanders would have died and, based on what she herself said, let her last order be to the Jem'Hadar to fight to the last man while continuing to massacre Cardassians, costing countless more Cardassian, Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Breen and Dominion lives and made the Alpha Quadrant's victory very Pyrrhic. So, really it very easily could have been sort of the opposite of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. It's questionable how much the virus hindered the Founders at all up until that point - it made them desperate, sure, and that might be part of why Sanders suddenly started giving (really stupid) orders when she'd previously been happy to "leave the war to the Vorta." And that desperation is exactly what let to this willingness to turn Cardassia Prime into a slaughterhouse rather than surrender. It's possible it would have gone down the same way had they not been infected and without the disease and cure as leverage it would have been a slaughterhouse, but it's also possible that without knowing she and her entire species were going to die Sanders might have been willing to die another day and, if not surrender, at least bed down for a proper siege instead of stupidly sending out all her people to kill civilians. Or maybe the Founders are just too stupid and proud to have ever surrendered regardless of how hopeless their military situation was and it really was the virus that saved the day, that's a matter of debate.

But hey that's also with the benefit of hindsight. So let's look at what they knew at the time they infected Odo.

The Dominion had been run by the Vorta for hundreds of years, to the extent that many of the Dominion's member species thought the Founders were a myth, gods that the Vorta worshipped but were not tangibly real. They were still scared absolutely shitless of the Dominion because as that Karemma dude put it, "You do what the Vorta tell you. Because if you do not, they summon the Jem'Hadar, and then you die." So the Dominion runs perfectly well with minimal to no interference from the Founders, check.

When the Cardassians and Romulans tried to destroy the Founders' homeworld, everyone flipped out because they were afraid the Jem'Hadar would "come screaming out of the wormhole looking for revenge." So there's a possibility of a long suicide rampage causing innumerable damage, check. Granted once the war started you can argue that's hardly going to make the situation worse, but they infected Odo before the war turned hot . So they were clearly hoping to kill the Founders before war ever started, fair enough, but at risk of massive civilian casualties.

And they knew that the Founders were infiltrating all the other powers, therefore in a very good position to uncover a massive conspiracy that took dozens of people to carry out, perhaps even before you infect them all. In fact, I'm kind of amazed the Dominion didn't figure out where the virus came from but there goes that hindsight again. So that long suicide revenge rampage might not be so random if the Dominion knows who killed their gods.

And do we know for sure the Vorta would just give up even if their gods were dead? Remember the Ship hadn't happened yet. They hadn't seen an example of a mass Jem'Hadar suicide following failure (they had of course seen the kamikaze of the Odyssey). We also already knew as an audience that there were other Changeling infants out there, so I'm assuming Odo had put that in a report somewhere along the way - presumably the Vorta knew too and I can see them keeping the machinery going (which they were more than likely capable of judging by the aforementioned centuries in which no one had seen goo nor puddle of a Changeling) while they wait for the return of the Changeling infants.

It seems to me, and maybe I'm an idiot, like a huge gamble to assume the species that can look like anyone isn't going to uncover your plan to poison them, and that they'll die before the cold war turns hot without every figuring out that they were victims of a bioweapon made by the Federation, and that the Vorta who have been running things for centuries will just be unable to or unwilling to carry on without them, and that even if the Vorta give up the Jem'Hadar are going to just politely kill themselves quietly instead of going on a bloody psychotic rampage possibly through your quadrant until they die of white withdrawal.

So yeah. Sorry. Were I a member of Section 31 around the time this plot gets in motion, I would object on tactical grounds. Then again I imagine there wasn't an abundance of other plans on the table that didn't involve rolling over and yelling "Ow not the face!"

[CareerKnight]

First, it doesn't seem like the genocide plot was really a necessary step at all. The war ends with a massive military victory where the Dominion Fleet was obliterated and all of Cardassian space was retaken. What actually ended it for the Federation was the fact that they had Odo on their side to serve as an envoy. He was the only person really capable of "talking" her down. If all the Founders were dead it would have hampered things as nobody else would clearly have the authority to surrender. With Weyoun dead there's no clear next step in the command structure, so the Vorta wouldn't immediately be able to take control.

First, its heavily implied that the Female Changeling surrenders because Odo agreed to take the cure back to the Gamma Quadrant, no plague and she would have been willing to fight to the last. Second, the defeat at Cardassia Prime would have just meant the defeat of their expeditionary forces. The Dominion would have still been incredibly hostile and would have invaded again at the first opportunity. Not saying I'm in favor of genocide on the Founders but you could make a decent argument that it may have paradoxically strengthened Odo's case in the end. Sure solids attempting genocide fits right in with their view of the rest of the galaxy but two solids, after the Dominion had killed at least tens of thousands of their fellow citizens which likely included people they knew, being willing to risk their lives to save a Changeling just because they were friends and its the right thing to do... that's something that would be hard for them to rationalize away to fit their group think on solids.

It seems to me, and maybe I'm an idiot, like a huge gamble to assume the species that can look like anyone isn't going to uncover your plan to poison them, and that they'll die before the cold war turns hot without every figuring out that they were victims of a bioweapon made by the Federation, and that the Vorta who have been running things for centuries will just be unable to or unwilling to carry on without them, and that even if the Vorta give up the Jem'Hadar are going to just politely kill themselves quietly instead of going on a bloody psychotic rampage possibly through your quadrant until they die of white withdrawal.

So yeah. Sorry. Were I a member of Section 31 around the time this plot gets in motion, I would object on tactical grounds. Then again I imagine there wasn't an abundance of other plans on the table that didn't involve rolling over and yelling "Ow not the face!"

Section 31 likely (and correctly) viewed war with the Dominion as inevitable so there wasn't really much risk to their plan from their perspective. Best case scenario the Dominion collapses without the Founders, worst case scenario you get a war that was coming anyway but the Dominion is denied a major strategic resource without Changeling infiltrators.

While the Founders were considered a myth by many that doesn't mean they were completely hands off until Odo showed up and they revealed themselves to him. So while the Vorta are effective bureaucrats, its possible they don't have much in the way of initiative without being given goals by the Founders. After all the Female Changeling is the one who initiated alliance talks with the Breen when the war started to go badly for them and its likely Dukat approached them with an offer of alliance with Cardassia.

[Sir Will]

Obviously I don't agree with what S31 did, but it's not like they were unprovoked. The Dominion had been aggressive since we met them. They blew up ships, kidnapped and murdered people, and then started infiltrating us. They got the Klingons to start a war. War with the Dominion was seen as inevitable long before it actually started.

[Fixer]

Another theory that comes to mind is Section 31's own self preservation above that of the Federation.

Both the Changelings and section 31 are clandestine in their operations. S31 would have seen the threat more clearly than most, and the prospect of a perfect infiltrator such as a changeling replacing one of their agents thereby gaining access to their resources would have been terrifying. Unlike the Romulan and Cardassian intelligence services, they were unsanctioned and unaccountable. The Federation themselves would have them convicted if knowledge of their actions was made public. If they were turned against the Federation themselves they know exactly how much damage they could do.

The response to immediately destroy this threat later rationalised as ta defence of the Federation could really be S31's justification for an incredibly immoral act of in the name of protecting their own organisation.

[Durandal_1707]

Unlike the Romulan and Cardassian intelligence services, they were unsanctioned and unaccountable. The Federation themselves would have them convicted if knowledge of their actions was made public.

Convicted of what? They're apparently in the Starfleet charter. They're on the books. Immoral, but not illegal.

Of course, that raises the question of why nobody knows about them. Does Starfleet not have its charter available for the public to read or something? Seems unlike them.

[Fixer]

Unlike the Romulan and Cardassian intelligence services, they were unsanctioned and unaccountable. The Federation themselves would have them convicted if knowledge of their actions was made public.

Convicted of what? They're apparently in the Starfleet charter. They're on the books. Immoral, but not illegal.

Of course, that raises the question of why nobody knows about them. Does Starfleet not have its charter available for the public to read or something? Seems unlike them.

Section 31 in the charter simply reads that Starfleet may act with extraordinary measures during times of extreme threat.

The suggestion was that Section 31 as an organisation was installed when Starfleet was founded and has effectively secured resources and recruited personnel independently without direct funding or oversight ever since. Section 31 operates more as a conspiracy within Starfleet rather than an intelligence service. Starfleet Intelligence being it's own discreet and separate branch answerable to the Federation government.