No, they left a lot of damage around the station but weren't trying to destroy it. If they'd wanted to destroy it, I'm sure they would have succeeded Just Cardassians who were unhappy to be leaving expressing their opinions. Dukat brought in a couple of small ships soon after the Federation got there to glower a bit, but they didn't try to retake the station and I don't think Central Command authorized them to try. The Cardassian government had already decided to leave Bajor, and they weren't going to change their minds without a good reason. Dukat being unhappy at losing the prefect job doesn't count as a good reason.
I haven't seen Emissary in a while, but I remember that as soon as the big D left and was out of range, the Cardie's came to DS9. And some conflict erupted and ended with Kira yelling at Evek? on the display screen. "There! THERE'S YOUR WORMHOLE!" Then the big D returns, the Cardassians withdraw and Sisko meets with PeKard again and changes his mind. On a side note, in the pilot episode, DS9 REALLY felt like a lonely, vulnerable outpost. Like I was worried that they aren't gonna be safe out there.
1. Enterprise leaves. 2. Dukat comes. 3. Dax and Sisko find the wormhole. 4. Dukat tries to take the wormhole. 5. Kira and O'Brien move station to wormhole. 6. Cardassian fleet threatens station as Dukat is missing. 7. Before Kira surrenders, Sisko tows Dukat out of the wormhole. 8. The Cardassians leave. 9. Enterprise returns.
I always considered the Cardassian war as an increasingly sordid little affair fought a long way from anywhere and deliberately small forces(as both sides knew the implications of major escalation).That might account for the esprit-de-corps between O'Brien and Maxwell and Maxwell's trust that O'Brien could handle tactical.Remember the latter episodes of 'Band of brothers' when the replacement men were sidelined by the veterans...if Maxwell found a capable tactical officer from within his old clique,he might stick with him even if more senior officers became assigned to the ship. IMO,Miles then returned to the mainstream fleet where he became the journeyman crew member,essentially losing himself in the crowd after a pretty harrowing war.A man who could do security detail,engineering work or indeed helm as in Farpoint. On reflection,possibly a more psychologically interesting character than any of the shows leads.
I always thought the cardassian war was basically a short border war with limited but intense engagements probably over territory with a whole of lot cardassian jingoism thrown into the mix. Remember Janeway mentions having served in it as well-she talks about it as involving trenches, intense combat and some measure of mercy shown-at least by the Federation. It was probably brief lasting less than a year to only a few years carried out by ground forces and sector detachments over territory and perhaps resources ending in either a status quo antebellum or minimal changes perhaps a few borders exchanged and pro forma promises made.
I'd argue for a long war that was on "back burner" for most of the time, at least from the point of view of the victorious Feds. Dialogue originally refers to the Border Wars, plural, and the Cardassian conflict itself might amount to more than one of those. The Setlik III massacre in 2347 with O'Brien fleeing for his life appears to precede the actual war, but is probably already part of a Cardassian campaign of intimidation that will lead to the war. The last we hear of the war is the truce of 2367, followed by the peace treaty of 2370; the last fighting is the 2362 battle on Setlik III with O'Brien triumphant. Then there is Picard trying to make peace overtures and Janeway coming under attack, the first during Picard's Stargazer days (probably towards the very end, during his captaincy of the vessel) and the second before Janeway's Billings ones (that is, before 2363). That's a good decade-plus of fighting at the very least - against an opponent whose capital ship weapons barely tickle the Enterprise! It's remarkable that O'Brien is there basically all the time, from Setlik III to, well, Setlik III... Timo Saloniemi
Janeway states she was she a lieutenant at the time so it must have been at least a decade in the past.
Hard to tell, really - we don't have a crystal-clear picture of Janeway's promotion history. Some of our heroes go through ranks in quick bursts, especially after reaching a certain level and becoming capable of exceptional heroics that in Starfleet often result in promotions rather than medals. But I tend to think of this as an early adventure, too. We just don't have much in the way of data on when the war actually began (besides "after 2347") or even a date before 2362 when the war would assuredly have been going on. Even Picard's peace offering no later than 2354-55 could have preceded the actual war... Timo Saloniemi
There are essentially four episodes in which O'Brien tells the story of Setlik III, or gets it told for him. Put together, they must be describing at least two completely separate events if not more. In "The Wounded", we learn that O'Brien, part of the crew of USS Rutledge under Captain Maxwell, was there exactly one day after a "squad" of Cardassian "militia" had made a "sneak raid" and wiped out "hundreds of civilians"; O'Brien grabbed a colonist's gun and, unaware of its setting, made his first-ever kill with that one. The dating is left unclear. In "Tribunal", O'Brien is a veteran of a fight dated at 2362 where his Rutledge pal Boone gets caught by the Cardassians. He's almost immediately released but quits Starfleet (in fact he got replaced by a Cardassian agent), while O'Brien stays. In "Paradise", O'Brien tells he saved a landing party at Setlik by fixing a field transporter, his first-ever involvement with transporters. Failure would have meant becoming POW. He saves 13 men and gets to wear gold and become the/a Tactical Officer on the Rutledge. In "Empok Nor", Garak explains how O'Brien is "hero of Setlik III" for leading two dozen men against "Barrica encampent" and "taking out" an "entire regiment" of Cardassians. To this, O'Brien says he's not a soldier any more, but an engineer. Since we further learn from "Realm of Fear" that O'Brien has worked on transporters for 22 years at that point, we have our two sets of data: 1) The First Setlik happens in 2347, in a prewar setting, and involves soldier O'Brien mopping up after a massacre conducted by a small Cardassian militia group, getting involved in a firefight where he makes his first-ever kill, and then having to flee and making his first-ever transporter repair. He remains a soldier, more specifically Tactical Officer (despite being enlisted) but now wears gold rather than whatever he wore before. 2) The Second Setlik happens in 2362, in the late stages of the war, and involves soldier O'Brien triumphing over large formations of regular Cardassian soldiers. Again, it's not a clear-cut victory as Boone gets captured, but it's a much more positive outcome than in First Setlik. The two incidents could perhaps be blended in one by using a bit of semantic violence if not for the clear-cut dating issues: O'Brien must fiddle with transporters in 2347 already, but Boone can't get caught before 2362. Nothing wrong with the setup as such. Apparently, Setlik III is a place worth fighting over, many times over (the original excuse of the Cardassian militia was that they thought Starfleet was using it as a staging post for attack), and Starfleet might well send skippers with local experience to fight over the place, many times over (Maxwell's family lived there until First Setlik). Timo Saloniemi
...It would be nice to learn why planets in Trek have "strategic value". Whenever we hear those words, the planet in question fails to be hailed for its great industrial capabilities or its rich mines. Instead, sparsely populated farming worlds with medieval infrastructure can be strategically significant. Why's that? Star Trek ships don't really need planets for anything. So is it just so that the crews could get R&R before or after action? (Why are they such wussies?) In any case, O'Brien has seen it all. Has anybody else? The other TNG era heroes don't consider themselves veterans of fighting, although three skippers have stories of combat (Picard and Janeway vs. the Cardassians, Sisko vs. the Tzenkethi). Timo Saloniemi