The Maquis or the Federation?

[Timo]

No, they should walk away and not be silly. If they choose to be silly, they deserve the above, and more.

Really, the whole idea of "making a stand" for "rights" at the above cost is so disgusting that it boggles the mind that anybody could find this sorry lot sympathetic in any sense. The violence is all their own choosing, the victimization their own doing. All because they prefer to be "happy" on a lawn they themselves planted!

Timo Saloniemi

[R. Star]

Timo wrote:

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No, they should walk away and not be silly. If they choose to be silly, they deserve the above, and more.

Really, the whole idea of "making a stand" for "rights" at the above cost is so disgusting that it boggles the mind that anybody could find this sorry lot sympathetic in any sense. The violence is all their own choosing, the victimization their own doing. All because they prefer to be "happy" on a lawn they themselves planted!

Timo Saloniemi

That's your skewed opinion. Personally I find it more repugant you're saying people deserve to die and be brutalized because they stand up for themselves when their own government gave away their homes to appease a hostile power that wasn't interested at all in peace.

I'm sure the Cardassian Central Command agrees with that sentiment though, so if that's what you're going for good job there.

[DonIago]

As I said in another thread, I think it would have been the height of entertaining irony if the colonists had blocked the treaty, a new Cardassian war had ensued, and the colonies had consequently been glassed by the Cardassians.

The very formation of the Maquis IMO shows very little consideration for the possible consequences of their actions, especially when they began openly targeting military vessels.

[sonak]

Mage wrote:

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Silly? These people had made lives for themselves there. If you were suddenly told that the home you lived in was going to be taken from you, the home where you are happy and want to spend your life, you don't just say 'well that's just super, where do I sign up?'. Even if your government was going to pay for a new house, give you a job and feed you. You are happy where you are.

The Maquis were right in there cause. The Federation had no right to just give away those colonies without atleast asking what the people who life there think about it. You talk about Utopia (and as Sisko said, only the coreworlds have real Utopia, the colonies still have to struggle to maintain themselves). In a Utopian society, everybody matters. No one is forced into doing anything they don't want. So by forcing to settlers into abandoning their homes, the Federation is basicly showing their true colors.

Perhaps the attitude of doing what you are told works for Starfleet officers, but a civilian will struggle with that sort of forced relocation. Hell, even Starfleet officers saw how wrong it was and decided to join up.

1. Yes I'd be fine with moving, if we're talking in the context of a 24th century society where my needs are provided for and I'd be provided with a new home, and if it meant peace. Some random piece of property isn't worth a war. (I realize that it didn't exactly bring peace here, but I mean hypothetical or potential peace)

2. The Federation had EVERY right to do what they did. They're a democracy whose legitimately elected leaders made a legal treaty with another government, and I assume the treaty had broad support outside of that small minority of colonists.


A free society doesn't mean that nobody ever has to do anything they don't want to. That's more like anarchy.

[Timo]

people deserve to die and be brutalized because they stand up for themselves

That's just one step removed from people murdering their own female relatives because a "principle" must be upheld.

Standing up for themselves, indeed - a more selfish act could not be imagined. The reasons for staying are ridiculous, the obstacles to leaving nonexistent, and what is gained by resistance? Far less than nothing, as the stupidity dictates the loss of everything that could be saved by walking away. These testosterone-drunk men yearning for a fight are raping their own wives there, strangling their own daughters, mutilating their own goldfish and mashing up their precious butterfly collections, in addition to burning their own crops.

The Maquis really fought for the goals of the Central Command, so that makes them doubly the traitors to their homes and ideals. Was there something in the groundwater that gave them fractional IQs? Perhaps Cardassia had started the poisoning campaign earlier than we thought?

Timo Saloniemi

[DonIago]

For that matter, ultimately what the Maquis did played right into the Dominion's hands.

Makes you wonder whether the Maquis may have been infiltrated by Changelings, actually.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

starburst wrote:

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But would you want to give up your home, I mean some of us might be willing to even if begrudgingly, but some who have spent years building a life on those colonies would be far less likely to want to up sticks and move (and going back to my analogy they had every reason to, the Cardassians are hardly Canadian or Mexican!)

I do love my home, but if I was presented with a good enough reason for moving, I'd take it. I certainly wouldn't become a terrorist against the government. In the end, a home is four walls and a ceiling surrounding all your stuff. Certainly not worth armed rebellion.

IRL, if the government takes my home via eminent domain, they must compensate me by paying me the fair market value of my home (I *think* they have to help me find a new home as well, though I'm not sure about that). I'd consider that a fair trade.

And I'd just like to repeat that it was the colonists' IDEA to live under Cardassian rule in the first place (true, "Journey's End" did not specifically mention the Maquis, but it's obvious they were leading up to that). That doesn't justify what the Cardassian colonists later did, but it does put paid to the notion that the Federation handed the colonists over to the Cardies against their will.

When this arrangement was initially worked out, Picard was faced with a Cardassian crew (led by Gul Evek) who appeared to be quite reasonable. Picard, and by extension the Federation as a whole, had little reason to imagine what was about to happen. Who knows, Evek himself may have been horrified by those subsequent developments (Evek seemed like a fairly decent sort).

[Use of Time]

I hated the fact that the Maquis apparently had children they forced to remain behind on principle. Try this analogy. I purchase a home in a decent neighborhood and begin raising my family. Let's say I've been there five years. Say that the neighborhood starts showing signs of decline and drugs/crime start to insert themselves into the area. The police are doing what they can but it's like fighting the ocean. I would feel that I have a responsibility to my children and wife to remove them from that situation. My house would be on the market in no time, principles be damned.

[JediKnightButler]

You know, I never quite got the Maquis. They were pissed off (with justification) about the Federation/Cardassian treaty that forcibly relocated them from their colonies in the DMZ but it was never quite clear what their endgame was or how they hoped to achieve it. It seemed like they were very "romantic" about their cause like Eddington but after all being said and done, what did they ultimately hope to achieve through their tactics? I've always kind of wondered too what happened to the surviving Maquis after Cardassia allied with the Dominion and wiped most of them out? Whatever "goals" they had hoped to achieve clearly went up in smoke at that point. And can any of them honestly say it was worth it?

[Use of Time]

JediKnightButler wrote:

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You know, I never quite got the Maquis. They were pissed off (with justification) about the Federation/Cardassian treaty that forcibly relocated them from their colonies in the DMZ but it was never quite clear what their endgame was or how they hoped to achieve it. It seemed like they were very "romantic" about their cause like Eddington but after all being said and done, what did they ultimately hope to achieve through their tactics? I've always kind of wondered too what happened to the surviving Maquis after Cardassia allied with the Dominion and wiped most of them out? Whatever "goals" they had hoped to achieve clearly went up in smoke at that point. And can any of them honestly say it was worth it?

Well we see Maquis ships joining the Federation in several battles with the Dominion, I would assume that the Maquis were all but forgiven at that point and the Federation couldn't really be choosy about the help they received.

[TiberiusMaximus]

They're a democracy whose legitimately elected leaders made a legal treaty with another government, and I assume the treaty had broad support outside of that small minority of colonists.

So because they were elected and created the treaty through legal channels, it must have been the right thing to do. Of course. There were lots of people who thought it was a good idea, so that makes it all okay.

[/sarcasm]

The Federation should not have given those planets up to the Cardassians. The Feds knew full well that the Cardassians had a brutal history of oppression, slavery, and atrocity. They weren't right to give those planets up.

At the same time, it would have been far more rational and intelligent for the Maquis to leave. Absolutely. And of course, humans only ever make rational, intelligent decisions, right?

So while the Federation may not have had the right to surrender those planets to the Cardassians, it's important to remember that it was the Cardassians, not the Feds, who brutalized the colonists. Did the colonists have a legitimate grievance with the Federation? Perhaps, but that doesn't really justify their actions. As JediKnightButler said...wait, JediKnightButler? What kind of a name is that? :P I like it. So, as JediKnightButler said, what was their endgame? What did they hope to accomplish by attacking the Federation?.

But did they have a legitimate grievance with the brutal Cardassians? Absolutely.

Leaving would have been the right thing to do. But after they decided not to leave, fighting back against the Cardassians was also the right thing to do. It's not a perfectly clear situation, and no one group was completely in the right. Personally, I would have gotten the frell out of there before the Cardassians showed up. There's no shame in running. Not when you're running from a brutal military regime that wants to crush and enslave you and has the power to do so.

[JediKnightButler]

Use of Time wrote:

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Well we see Maquis ships joining the Federation in several battles with the Dominion, I would assume that the Maquis were all but forgiven at that point and the Federation couldn't really be choosy about the help they received.

When was this? I do have to admit that I saw almost no episodes between the "Occupation Arc" in S6 and "Final Chapter in S7, so it's entirely possible I missed this but I didn't know this before.

[DonIago]

I saw the class of ship that the Maquis were frequently shown to be using used during the DW episodes, but saying that they were crewed by Maquis would be overreaching.

[Use of Time]

DonIago wrote:

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I saw the class of ship that the Maquis were frequently shown to be using used during the DW episodes, but saying that they were crewed by Maquis would be overreaching.

I don't know that it would be overreaching. It was pretty much all hands on deck in the Alpha Quadrant to keep the Dominion and Cardassians from taking control. All of the border issues and tap dancing to prevent a war by the Federation would all be pretty much moot seeing as how the Federation was openly at war with Cardassians at that point.

[DonIago]

My point is that as the Maquis were using Federation property to begin with, it's at least as likely that the "Maquis" ships seen later were piloted by Starfleet crews.