Sacrifice of the Angels Ending A Deus Ex Machina?

[MacLeod]

All those treaties of Non-Aggression the dominion had were in the long term worthless.

After conquering the the Federation and the Klingons, they would have moved onto say the Romulans, then onto the next race until they had brought the Founders sense of order to the galaxy.

[Tiberius]

Yes, but it made sense for the Dominion to honour those treaties for as long as possible because it kept everyone else off their backs.

[Nightdiamond]

Weyoun: Otherwise, treaty or no treaty, she would share his fate. I'm sorry, major, but the Dominion takes a dim view of
terrorism.

Kira: We'll see what the Bajoran government says about that.

Weyoun: I'm afraid their pleas will fall on deaf ears.

Sooner or later something would have happened to have ALL the Bajorans up in arms, the Dominion would probably have done the same thing to them that they did to the Cardassians.

The Dominion is just too different. They are absolutist, and that takes priority over any "Solid's" concerns-religious, legal, political, whatever.

[Tiberius]

Yes, true, but until then, I am firmly convinced that the Dominion would honour the treaty - until it was in the Dominion's interest to renege.

[Christopher]

Ti-BOO!-rius wrote:

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But the point was that if the Dominion had a non-aggression pact with Bajor they wouldn't abandon it until they had no other choice.

First off, no, they'd abandon it the moment it was convenient for them to do so, because it was never anything more than a self-serving ploy. Second, again, it doesn't matter when they would do it, since Sisko was making his case to beings for whom time has no meaning or relevance. All that matters is that they would do it.

[Pavonis]

We all agree, then. The Bajorans would've been slaughtered by the Dominion eventually. To survive, they would've had to be willing to kneel before new overlords, and who thinks that would've been done easily and quietly?

[R. Star]

Pavonis wrote:

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We all agree, then. The Bajorans would've been slaughtered by the Dominion eventually. To survive, they would've had to be willing to kneel before new overlords, and who thinks that would've been done easily and quietly?

With people like Kai Winn running things? She'd do what she needed to to stay on top.

[Christopher]

Zombie Redshirt wrote:

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With people like Kai Winn running things? She'd do what she needed to to stay on top.

There were collaborators under the Cardassian occupation as well, but that didn't prevent the rise of a robust resistance movement.

[Pavonis]

Zombie Redshirt wrote:

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With people like Kai Winn running things? She'd do what she needed to to stay on top.

Absolutely she would. But her authority would be eroded by the Dominion gradually, while the rest of the Bajorans would start ignoring her "authority".

The problem with the Dominion, and it's one of their strengths, is that they can appear reasonable and nonthreatening if they want to. Weyoun especially had the knack for appearing as a reasonable person, but could quickly switch to threatening when he wanted. They could convince the Bajorans that being under the Dominion's control wouldn't be any worse than being under the Federation's control, and infinitely better than being under the Cardassian's control. But for how long? A few years? The Bajorans fought a guerrilla war against the Cardassians for decades. Why would they do any less against the Dominion?

[Tiberius]

Christopher wrote:

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First off, no, they'd abandon it the moment it was convenient for them to do so, because it was never anything more than a self-serving ploy. Second, again, it doesn't matter when they would do it, since Sisko was making his case to beings for whom time has no meaning or relevance. All that matters is that they would do it.

That was my point. Yes, it was a self serving ploy, and the Dominion would abandon it as soon as it stopped serving them.

[FKnight]

Ok, so what we've come to is that the ending was a Deus Ex Machina based on a half-definition from a search engine, not a dictionary, and the trustworthiness of the Dominion to be nice.

Gotcha

[Tiberius]

Actually, I have no idea how the Dominion's trustworthiness came into it.

A DEM is a way of solving a problem which comes out of nowhere, using previously unknown characters and a large dose of luck.

None of this applied to the end of SoA. The prophets had been clearly established, the fact that the Prophets did it spoke volumes to Sisko's relationship with them (as well as the fact that he was half prophet) and no luck was involved.

So I don't see how it was DeM.

[Vanyel]

He wasn't half Prophet though. A Prophet possessed his Human mother and forced her to marry his father and conceive Benjamin. Once the Prophet released Sisko's mother she left them. She them stayed away from the Wormhole until it was time to free it from the Pah Wraiths. That whole story line itself is also a DEM.

Whenever you deal with beings of extraordinary powers or abilities you cannot help but face the fact that sooner or later or multiple times those powers will be used to overcome an insurmountable problem.

[Christopher]

Ti-BOO!-rius wrote:

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Actually, I have no idea how the Dominion's trustworthiness came into it.

See post #80. Knight Templar alleged that Sisko had lied to the Prophets to win their support because there was no evidence that the Dominion had any intention of harming Bajor. So KT was assuming the Dominion could be trusted to keep its word.

A DEM is a way of solving a problem which comes out of nowhere, using previously unknown characters and a large dose of luck.

Not necessarily characters. It can be an event, an object, a sudden heart attack -- anything that comes out of the blue to solve the problem rather than being a logical outgrowth of the story and characters established so far.

[Tiberius]

Christopher wrote:

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See post #80. Knight Templar alleged that Sisko had lied to the Prophets to win their support because there was no evidence that the Dominion had any intention of harming Bajor. So KT was assuming the Dominion could be trusted to keep its word.

As a short term thing, yes, the Dom could be trusted. But only because if the Dom had attacked Bajor, the Breen, for example, never would have joined with them. At the time, it served the Dominion's best interests to appear to be trustworthy. Once appearing trustworthy no longer served the Dom's interests, that treaty would go out the window.

Thanks for the reference.

Not necessarily characters. It can be an event, an object, a sudden heart attack -- anything that comes out of the blue to solve the problem rather than being a logical outgrowth of the story and characters established so far.

true, character, event etc. Same diff.

The point is that it does not logically follow from what has happened before. Thus, if we can show that the Prophets helping Sisko DOES logically flow from what we know, then it can not be a DEM.

And since the prophets had a plan for Sisko which did not involve him dying in a Dominion attack, and since we know that the Prophets went out of their way to make sure Ben was born and that we saw what their plan was for Ben in the final episode, the prophets helping Ben in SoA is clearly a logical extension of all of that.

So it wasn't a DeM.