Breen ass-pull?

[Timo]

They really mustn't know much about the Breen if they don't even know they wear helmets.

Well, that is the fun part - Picard's line can in retrospect be read as saying that all the evidence does point specifically at the Breen! So the only thing that makes him doubtful is the location...

ST:GEN then makes it sound as if the Breen rank among the Klingons and Romulans as prime baddies, which again isn't in contradiction of "Hero Worship" - even though again that TNG episode didn't exactly have that intent, but rather used them in the role of random despicable space pirates.

I remember as a big Trek fan thinking it was awesome how they were finally getting a big role in the lore.

My sentiments, too. And it was wonderful that the Tholians got theirs in ENT at last... Even if only in the Mirror realm.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ethros]

Also, it was never really about the Breen. It was about the Dominion having a new ally.
As after the Romulans joined, the Alliance suddenly had a lot going for them. So to give the Dominion side another member would make it a lot more threatening again. And for the writers to just invent a totally brand new species we'd never heard of before would have kinda sucked, so better to use an established one.
But after the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians how many are left? The Ferengi wouldn't work. The Tholians they wouldn't have been able to do justice with, it was another six years before they were able to appear in CGI for ENT. The Gorn too I don't think would have worked.
So there was really only the Breen and the Tzenkethi, and much better to use the Breen who we'd actually seen before, and whose costumes would still be in the costume departments wardrobe.

So really I don't think they "pulled the Breen out of their asses" at all.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I didn't feel like the Breen came out of nowhere. They had been established to be secretive, they had been established to be slave takers relatively near Bajor, and to have had contact with the Dominion. The writers needed another newer ally for the Dominion so we could see Cardassia slide lower on the totem pole, motivating Damar to rebel. We know there's other races nearby that the Federation had either been to war or had tensions with that we didn't know much about, such as the Zen'kethi, so having it be a race we didn't know much about wasn't a huge surprise.

 

[Overgeeked]

Also, it was never really about the Breen. It was about the Dominion having a new ally.
As after the Romulans joined, the Alliance suddenly had a lot going for them. So to give the Dominion side another member would make it a lot more threatening again. And for the writers to just invent a totally brand new species we'd never heard of before would have kinda sucked, so better to use an established one.

True, but they basically were invented whole-cloth at that point. They technically had a few mentions prior to their appearance in DS9, but not much at all. It could have just as easily been the Moropa, or any other briefly mentioned but not fleshed out species.

To me, the difference between a "mentioned but essentially unknown species" and a "completely new species" is basically nil.

So really I don't think they "pulled the Breen out of their asses" at all.

My initial ass-pull comment wasn't that they simply appeared out of nowhere, rather that this species that we knew basically nothing about was suddenly so utterly powerful on their own that they could swing the tide back to the Dominion's favor. Further, that it was odd that they had such devastating weapons that they completely disabled any Romulan, Federation, or Klingon ship they fired on... yet none of these species had really encountered them before... yet they had a military powerful enough to swing the tide. So it's the combination of "know basically nothing about them", "has a vast and powerful fleet", plus "super-weapons we can't hope to defeat"... that made me just stare at the screen and say WTF?

If they were this big and powerful, someone in the Alpha Quadrant would know about them. But nope. If they had this big of a fleet to not only join the Dominion and single-handedly turn the tide against the Federation Alliance... someone in the AQ would have known about them. But nope. If they had weapons that utterly devastating to all the Fed Alliance ships, someone would have known... but nope.

It's more an objection of the speed with which they were introduced. If they'd been built up earlier, introduced sooner as some kind of threat it wouldn't have seemed to forced. It was really just a snap of the fingers and bam-o, a new species to rival the Fed.

Compare the Breen to the Cardassians. The Cardassians featured in nine episodes of TNG that brought up the war with the Federation and their occupation of Bajor. So when you're watching the pilot of DS9 you're not like, "Cardassians? Who the hell are these guys?" With the Breen they went from "who the hell are these guys" to "major power in the quadrant" in the span of what... one episode?

 

[Kinggodzillak]

Of the minor races that they could have used, they were probably one of the better choices. I guess the Tholians could have been used as well. Both are mysterious, seldom seen and, apparently, militarily powerful.

I'm still miffed we didn't get;

WEYOUN: "The birth of the alliance between the Dominion and the Pakleds. Changes everything, doesn't it?"

PAKLED COMMANDER: "We are smart."

WEYOUN: "Yes, of course you are..."

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Of the minor races that they could have used, they were probably one of the better choices. I guess the Tholians could have been used as well. Both are mysterious, seldom seen and, apparently, militarily powerful.

I'm still miffed we didn't get;

WEYOUN: "The birth of the alliance between the Dominion and the Pakleds. Changes everything, doesn't it?"

PAKLED COMMANDER: "We are smart."

WEYOUN: "Yes, of course you are..."

Every military needs cannon-fodder.

 

[Ithekro]

The Breen might not have been a large force. They could have only a hundred or two hundred starships fit for war. That's basically one more fleet's worh of ships. Not enough alone to take on any of the larger powers, even with their new weapon. But with their ships used with the much larger Dominion fleets, that weapon becomes death on warp nacelles. Disrupt Federation ships, then have the Dominion fleet cut them up quickly in hopes they won't be able to figure the weapon out.That the Founder let the survivors live and that a single Klingon ship was immune is what starte the path to Starfleet figuring stuff out. And with the Klingons immune, they could at least hold the lines until Kira could bring back a sample weapon.
The Breen might have been using the weapon for a while, but only against isolated ships. No witnesses.
That they hit Earth, that is something though.

 

[USS Triumphant]

If they were this big and powerful, someone in the Alpha Quadrant would know about them. But nope. If they had this big of a fleet to not only join the Dominion and single-handedly turn the tide against the Federation Alliance... someone in the AQ would have known about them. But nope. If they had weapons that utterly devastating to all the Fed Alliance ships, someone would have known... but nope.

I feel like you're making a relatively common mistake here: the assumption that just because WE, the viewers, don't know something big, that means that no one INSIDE the story knows it. But obviously that's not true - think about the Remans. Think about the NX-01. A whole planet blew up in Khan's colony system, and we didn't know about it for *years*.

Point being, there could have been a whole war or even several between TOS and TNG that none of us have heard of, involving species we've never even seen. And the Breen: you're only assuming the Federation and Klingons didn't know anything, but there may have been a whole strategic planning group at Starfleet Command dedicated to learning more about them, analyzing what effect their entering the war could have, possibly even sending agents to try to infiltrate and manipulate their internal politics to bring them in on the Alliance side. (And for that matter, if such missions were discovered by the Breen, they could have played a role in driving them into the Dominion's arms.) The Romulans obviously knew about them at least well enough to have an expression regarding them.

And on a meta level, I'm not saying that the writers took any cues from things posted on this board, but that rumor about the Breen/Romulan war was on this board for *quite* a while before they were shown joining the Dominion. So maybe it *had* seeped into someone's subconscious somewhere. I dunno.

 

[Ethros]

I feel like you're making a relatively common mistake here: the assumption that just because WE, the viewers, don't know something big, that means that no one INSIDE the story knows it. But obviously that's not true - think about the Remans. Think about the NX-01. A whole planet blew up in Khan's colony system, and we didn't know about it for *years*.

Point being, there could have been a whole war or even several between TOS and TNG that none of us have heard of, involving species we've never even seen. And the Breen: you're only assuming the Federation and Klingons didn't know anything, but there may have been a whole strategic planning group at Starfleet Command dedicated to learning more about them, analyzing what effect their entering the war could have, possibly even sending agents to try to infiltrate and manipulate their internal politics to bring them in on the Alliance side. (And for that matter, if such missions were discovered by the Breen, they could have played a role in driving them into the Dominion's arms.) The Romulans obviously knew about them at least well enough to have an expression regarding them.

All very true.

Also the Breen pre-DS9 s7 (2375) could have been like the Romulans between the Tomed Incident (2311) and TNG s1 (2364), more or less isolating themselves from most galactic affairs for some time. So when they did fully remerge at that time they'd developed this new weapon the Federation and its allies knew nothing about. But before that who knows what they were up to. (whether it be during the 'Lost Era' or even pre-TOS. (Captain Archer could have made First Contact with them in Season 5 for all we know )


I got the impression the Breen homeworld was a long way away too, seen as how all the knowledge that it's a cold world is kinda based on second hand information.

 

[Overgeeked]

I feel like you're making a relatively common mistake here: the assumption that just because WE, the viewers, don't know something big, that means that no one INSIDE the story knows it. But obviously that's not true - think about the Remans. Think about the NX-01. A whole planet blew up in Khan's colony system, and we didn't know about it for *years*.

Could be, but not this time. When they joined the Dominion there was a quick conversation between Admiral Ross and Sisko about the Breen. That was essentially:

"The Breen? What do we know about the Breen?"
"Basically nothing."

I got the impression the Breen homeworld was a long way away too, seen as how all the knowledge that it's a cold world is kinda based on second hand information.

Sure, but that's basically the limit of the Fed's knowledge of the Breen at the time the joined the Dominion. Their planet is cold and they have a big enough fleet that their joining the Dominion is scary.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I would love to see the Breen come back as the main adversary for the next TV series. With not much being known about them and conflicting reports about them as well, they are a mystery--a very dangerous one at that.

Definitely better than rehashing the Romulans or forcing more Borg on us.

 

[USS Triumphant]

"The Breen? What do we know about the Breen?"
"Basically nothing."

"Basically" nothing could be very literal, as in, "we know they're bipeds, and that's it".

Or it could be more along the lines of "Well, we know they fought a war with the Romulans, but the Romulans have played that very close to the vest and everything we've collected on any of their battles has been hearsay and rumors, and we don't even know what their homeworld is like or what they look like under those suits - so a little, but nothing useful at all". And an important man like the Admiral maybe just didn't feel like running down all of that when he probably knew that just about everything they DID have on the Breen would be in messages from Starfleet Intelligence sitting in the inboxes of every commander in the combined fleets, anyway. So, "basically nothing".

 

[Overgeeked]

"The Breen? What do we know about the Breen?"
"Basically nothing."

"Basically" nothing could be very literal, as in, "we know they're bipeds, and that's it".

Or it could be more along the lines of "Well, we know they fought a war with the Romulans, but the Romulans have played that very close to the vest and everything we've collected on any of their battles has been hearsay and rumors, and we don't even know what their homeworld is like or what they look like under those suits - so a little, but nothing useful at all". And an important man like the Admiral maybe just didn't feel like running down all of that when he probably knew that just about everything they DID have on the Breen would be in messages from Starfleet Intelligence sitting in the inboxes of every commander in the combined fleets, anyway. So, "basically nothing".

Man, you are trying way too hard to justify this. Trek is filled with "As you know, Bob..." dialogue, so it's doubtful at that point in the franchise's history they suddenly decided to stop having characters explain things to other characters that already knew the information for the benefit of the audience, but just for that one scene.

 

[USS Triumphant]

"The Breen? What do we know about the Breen?"
"Basically nothing."

"Basically" nothing could be very literal, as in, "we know they're bipeds, and that's it".

Or it could be more along the lines of "Well, we know they fought a war with the Romulans, but the Romulans have played that very close to the vest and everything we've collected on any of their battles has been hearsay and rumors, and we don't even know what their homeworld is like or what they look like under those suits - so a little, but nothing useful at all". And an important man like the Admiral maybe just didn't feel like running down all of that when he probably knew that just about everything they DID have on the Breen would be in messages from Starfleet Intelligence sitting in the inboxes of every commander in the combined fleets, anyway. So, "basically nothing".

Man, you are trying way too hard to justify this. Trek is filled with "As you know, Bob..." dialogue, so it's doubtful at that point in the franchise's history they suddenly decided to stop having characters explain things to other characters that already knew the information for the benefit of the audience, but just for that one scene.

Hey, what can I say? DS9 was better written than the other shows. If the Admiral didn't know, he didn't know.

 

[Starborn Dragon]

The Cardassians were a throw away line in the very first episode, Encounter at Farpoint as part of the Joke Geordi told Data.

I still don't understand how he remembered telling the joke to data in Generations myself.

 

[Ithekro]

Some people have a memory for weird things that happened years ago, but can't remember what they had for dinner last night.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I like that they're an eleventh-hour ass-pull, even as I recognize very wholly that they'r'e an eleventh-hour ass-pull, and also, I admit to being completely unfit to properly critique the last few seasons of DS9 as they were the first ongoing story I got sucked into as a child. I'll never quite remove the rose-tinted lenses on this one.

During my very-recent rewatch, the new viewer I introduced to the show definitely did a double-take on the sudden angle the writers took with the Breen. She remembered them from their brief fourth-season appearance but was still like, "wai, what?" I imagine many viewers had similar reactions in 1999, but I wasn't one of them. I was a kid who was perpetually starry-eyed and only wanted all his school friends to understand his nerdy obsession.

 

[Ethros]

The Cardassians were a throw away line in the very first episode, Encounter at Farpoint as part of the Joke Geordi told Data.

I still don't understand how he remembered telling the joke to data in Generations myself.

*cough* it was actually the Ferengi *cough*



Which I always find weird. "The Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to go." But at the time of Farpoint there hadn't been official First Contact with the Ferengi yet. I'm sure there's some way around it, but basically its a continuity error on behalf of the writers, and its always irks me a little when I watch it, that I can never fully enjoy the scene because of it.

 

[Leviathan]

From the Starfleet Tactical Manual

The Breen Ass-Pull: Can be used effectively against 'The Picard Maneuver' however is countered completely by liberal use of Corbomite.

 

[Overgeeked]

*cough* it was actually the Ferengi *cough*

Which I always find weird. "The Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to go." But at the time of Farpoint there hadn't been official First Contact with the Ferengi yet. I'm sure there's some way around it, but basically its a continuity error on behalf of the writers, and its always irks me a little when I watch it, that I can never fully enjoy the scene because of it.

Well, knowing that a species exists isn't the same as knowing their name, nor is that first contact, nor is that first "official" contact. No reason to assume that they wouldn't be aware of the species' name before they'd made first "official" contact.

From the Starfleet Tactical Manual

The Breen Ass-Pull: Can be used effectively against 'The Picard Maneuver' however is countered completely by liberal use of Corbomite.