What likely happened to the Cardassian Union after the war

[Sindatur]

Timo wrote:

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No, I don't read DS9 books (A Stitch In Time and The 34th Rule notwithstanding). What I say happened to Bajorans vis-á-vis them joining Starfleet is all there explicitly in TNG episodes "Ensign Ro" and "Lower Decks" and in VOY episode "Good Shepherd", as mentioned.

What I suggest is that Cardassians would behave more or less the same way, only with the names of the players changed, because they are facing more or less the same situation - occupation by a force that looks down on them and thinks it's doing them good by occupying, even though the occupied people think they have fallen from the heights of their civilization due to a barbarian invasion.

Bajorans didn't join the Cardassian military when Cardassia occupied them (as far as we know!). Don't you think it rather unlikely that Cardassians would join the UFP military when the UPF occupies them, a priori?

Hmm... This is lightyears away from "they made a pretense of being tough guys".

Timo Saloniemi

The Dominion Occupation was what destroyed them, the Federation is helping them to rebuild and survive, so, no I wouldn't expect them to blame the Federation, and go run off and join up with the Dominion again (who are the ones who destroyed them)

[GulGoneCrazy]

I don't get just another thing from all this...how anyone can compare Cardassians with Bajorans.
I mean even after dominion war Cardassians have a lot of space and enough of warships left while Bajorans are force with few colonies and few ships mainly shuttle fighters.
Also Cardassians aint just rebuilding just Cardassia like Bajorans did on Bajor.Cardassians have to rebuild almost entire union.

[T'Girl]

GulGoneCrazy wrote:

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Cardassians have to rebuild almost entire union.

But how much of that Union are the Cardassians going to be "allowed" to retain?

Any previously disputed territories would go to non-Cardassian powers, like the worlds in Journey's End would go to the federation, people who evacuated when the federation told them to would finally be able to return to their homes once the Cardassian colonists left.

Any worlds that the Cardassians acquired in a fashion similar to their conquest of Bajor would (hopefully) be freed from the Cardassians. Indigenous populations would see their worlds emptied of any Cardassian presence.

Stripping Cardassia of all it's non-indigenous population colonies, similar in a way to what happen to Germany following WWI, could happen as well.

In the end, the "Union" might consist of just the Cardassian home world, and the Cardassian home star system.

[R. Star]

Unlikely as the Cardassians were stated to have colonies in multiple systems such as Sarpherion and Lazon. As to them being occupied or not? Well that's up to the imagination or if one wants to read the novels or not.

[Timo]

I mean even after dominion war Cardassians have a lot of space and enough of warships left while Bajorans are force with few colonies and few ships mainly shuttle fighters.

Actually, Bajorans had an unholy number of colonies as the direct result of the occupation - there seemed to be a refugee camp style colony just about everywhere in Alpha, and ultimately in Gamma as well! Cardassians don't seem to have hindered the diaspora in any way...

What happened to these worlds is an interesting question as well. Were the refugee camps abandoned in disgust after "Emissary" as the Bajorans finally could return to their homeworld? Or did the emigrants despise those who had stayed behind, and thus stay put for sheer spite? The Dominion razed the Gamma colonies; did Bajor demand that they be reinstated, and did it get what it demanded? Was colonization a brief folly that Bajor abandoned once all this interstellar nonsense was over with?

As far as we can tell, Bajor never was expansionist in its apparent hundred millennia of history - whereas Cardassia seemed to be exactly that for a long time, considering the balance-of-power arrangement involving the expansionist military was quoted as being almost a millennium old in "Defiant". Could Bajor overcome the inertia of those untold millennia and turn towards the stars - or would it resist the temptation instead, and shun anybody who left the homeworld?

Timo Saloniemi

[Drago-Kazov]

But they still underperfomed martially in that war

They are the only power i know in a military alliance which caused more problems then helped. The inglorious N Africa campaign run by Mussolini forced Hitler to establish the Afrika Korps and send it down there. If that would not had happened the allies might had invaded Italy a lot sooner. When it was just them against the brits the italian soilders surrendered in record numbers

[Timo]

Well, the French alliance with Hitler gave him even more grief after 1940. And Hitler's prewar alliance with Stalin directly contributed to Stalin having the upper hand in military intelligence in the following struggle, plus gave Stalin technological knowhow and even an almost completed German warship for free, a vessel crucial in the Soviet defense of Leningrad. And never mind Japan, which decided to be friends with Stalin at the very moment Hitler wanted to crush the Soviet leader, meaning Stalin could withdraw all his forces from Siberia to fight at the western front. Then there are all the annexed nations in eastern Europe - the inefficient and rather corrupt Romanians who cost Hitler Stalingrad, the timid Finns who refused to contribute to the siege of Leningrad at the crucial hour, the Hungarians who had little choice in joining and made that clear in their degree of contribution to the war...

Then again, I can't help but wonder why anybody would be surprised by the low quality of the alliances Adolf Hitler's Germany managed to forge.

Timo Saloniemi

[Drago-Kazov]

We are lucky Japan was not in Europe. Together they would had been unstopable.

[MacLeod]

T'Girl wrote:

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But how much of that Union are the Cardassians going to be "allowed" to retain?

Any previously disputed territories would go to non-Cardassian powers, like the worlds in Journey's End would go to the federation, people who evacuated when the federation told them to would finally be able to return to their homes once the Cardassian colonists left.

Any worlds that the Cardassians acquired in a fashion similar to their conquest of Bajor would (hopefully) be freed from the Cardassians. Indigenous populations would see their worlds emptied of any Cardassian presence.

Stripping Cardassia of all it's non-indigenous population colonies, similar in a way to what happen to Germany following WWI, could happen as well.

In the end, the "Union" might consist of just the Cardassian home world, and the Cardassian home star system.

The question is could Cardassia support/maintain conquered planets, whilst trying to rebuild the home world. They might decide (or be forced by the UFP) to let those worlds go and not expend valuable resources on them.

[GulGoneCrazy]

Adarak prime
Arawath
Amleth Prime
Avenal VII
Atbar prime
Cardassia prime
Cardassia III
Cardassia IV
Cardassia V
Felton prime
Celtris III
Chin'Toka II
Chin'Toka III
Goralis
Kelvas V
Kora II
Korma
Lazon II
Loval
Omekla III
Orias III
Pentath III
Pullock V
Quinor VII
Regulak IV
Rondac III
Sarpedion V
Septimus III
Simperia
Soukara
Torros III
Trelka V
Unefra III
Vanden prime
Velos VII

This is the list of known Cardassian colonised worlds mentioned in DS9 series.So Cardassians have to rebuild much more than we think... And i believe there is much more Cardassian colonies around...We are not talking about defeat of one race ,this was the fall of great space empire...

[Timo]

We are lucky Japan was not in Europe. Together they would had been unstopable.

What, an extra island in the North Sea or the Mediterranean with minuscule industrial capabilities, no access to key raw materials, and no knowledge of how to build modern armored vehicles, would have made a difference?

The question is could Cardassia support/maintain conquered planets, whilst trying to rebuild the home world. They might decide (or be forced by the UFP) to let those worlds go and not expend valuable resources on them.

One might argue that any planet worth conquering would be self-sustaining or a net producer of goods. That is, the world would be able to sustain a labor force at the required minimum level of getting some good work out of them, and could be stripped of raw materials and somewhat refined goods or even foodstuffs by utilizing a modestly performing space fleet of humble technical specs.

This is the list of known Cardassian colonised worlds mentioned in DS9 series.

Some of those may not actually be colonies - many of the name-dropped worlds serve in the plot role of an "outpost", which might amount to much less than even the humblest "colony".

To what extent the war ravaged these locations is unknown. Why bother with faraway planets when the war can be settled by fighting decisively at Cardassia Prime?

Timo Saloniemi

[MacLeod]

^Yes, but if a world was conquered and needed a military presence to keep the locals under control. If the population rebelled could/would the Cardassians want/be allowed to maintain control of the planet?

[Timo]

This I guess would depend on whether the original occupation force needed to be of significant military strength. In many cases, I could see a planet being kept subjugated by relatively weak forces that would never have been withdrawn from the world even during the height of the war. Although it could be argued that whenever the Alpha Axis powers observed such a world, they would have sent a small military unit of their own to help liberate the world, at very low cost to themselves but high cost to the Union...

Chiefly, though, I could see the campaign being waged much like the WWII Pacific one, with individual "islands" being denied strategic significance by controlling the shipping to and fro. This would reduce the value of fortresses, bases or raw material sources alike. In contrast, an actual attempt to conquer such a world might involve a high cost in lives, as there was some emphasis on bloody infantry-style warfare in the dialogue describing the Dominion War (even if we saw little of it on screen). In order to avoid the loss of life, the Alpha Axis might skip conquest, thus leaving the local infrastructure standing as well, and allowing the Union to resume exploitation operations unless the peace treaty specifically forbade them from doing so.

Of course, the UFP would be likely to insist on such a peace treaty on humanitarian grounds, even if the other Alpha partners would not. But the Feds might also decide to allow the Union to continue exploitation for humanitarian purposes (that is, to prevent mass starvation on Cardassia) if they just agreed to doing it more gently from now on.

Timo Saloniemi

[MacLeod]

Wouldn't it be Alpha Allied powers, rather Axis powers. As Axis tends in modern usage tends to refer to the the fascist allaince between Germany, Italy and Japan during WWII?

[Timo]

...And Klingons and Romulans wouldn't make the Alpha cabal fascist enough yet?

I don't see much reason to glorify the joining of forces with the nomenclature of "good guys", considering they weren't any less prone to atrocities than the other side.

(It's a separate question whether the Allies in WWII were much better than the Axis. But I guess it's the image that counts.)

Timo Saloniemi