Romulan-Bajoran standoff

[Voth commando1]

So I was just rewatching the first two episodes of season 7, and the Kira-Cretak standoff, strikes me as being extremely unbelievable.

Basically, Kira was willing to initiate a battle with the romulans over the romulans placing weapons on a moon, weapons they would have move, anyway at the end of the war, especially if Bajor did enter the Federation.

Admiral Ross tells her that the romulans are more important than Bajor. And surely I think the Federation would have told the Bajoran government to stand down. Or contacted the romulans at a higher diplomatic level, and worked things out.

I get it, it shows Kira as willing to engage in tenacious brinkmanship, but frankly, she and the Bajorans overstepped their clout, and would have(in my humble opinion) would been slapped down for it.

The only thing, preventing an armed confrontation was the wormhole opening, which apparently caused Cretak to lose her nerve.

Kira also seemed totally unconcerned with the possibility of blowing up the Federation-Romulan alliance, or causing the Federation to turn on Bajor.

Kira was definitely brave, but her actions were extremely unwise, and could have been disastrous.

 

[Arpy]

She was playing a very dangerous game...if you even want to call it that. It’s more the berserk tactics of a resistance fighter. She won because she lucked out, but if externals didn’t save her, the whole thing could have been an excuse for the Romulan conquest of all of Bajor. It’s far from Romulus, but the wormhole is one of the most important/lucrative bits of real estate in the galaxy.

Stuff like that had my head scratching when we saw her in a full commander’s uniform at the end of the series. She might have been a major in the militia for the same reasons Han Solo was a general in the Alliance, but there was a lot she needed further training on. I’d have made her a lieutenant in Starfleet.

 

[Voth commando1]

The federation wouldn’t have tolerated a Romulan conquest of Bajor, but it would have most definitely sided with the romulans(unless forced into a fait accompli) over Bajor when the chips were down.

And Kira didn’t get the romulans to back down, the wormhole opening and Admiral Ross threatening the senator got her to back down.

So her whole gambit was ultimately pointless. As she didn’t win, someone else(or the prophets) won for her.

 

[Arpy]

The Federation might have gone to war to save Bajor or it might have been more concerned with the Dominion. More importantly, Bajor would have been ravaged by the conquest and subsequent liberation too. The episode was one of those Hollywood drama for drama’s sake for me. Made no sense. If Kira hadn’t proven herself more responsible and just a terrorist, maybe she’d have done that in season 1, but by that late in the series? And if this were real life I think Ross would have asked for her reassignment no matter what after that whole incident.

 

[Voth commando1]

Indeed, a lot it was more just a way to give Kira and Odo a subplot.

While Sisko, and his son and Ezri were off looking for an orb, and Worf, Julian, O’brien and quark were trying to ensure Jadzia’s entrance into Sto-vo-kor

There wasn’t much going on on DS9, so they created a Bajoran-Romulan standoff to give Kira and Odo something to do.

Also, the stakes weren’t that high, as it was the beginning of the season, and there was no way narratively the federation-romulan alliance would fall apart.

Which is why, I don't really like the subplot.

 

[Timo]

That Kira is an unapologetic terrorist is a theme that never really goes away. There's very little reason for her to even consider changing - say, trying out a bit of collaboration for the greater good. What she does here is character-plausible, then.

Do the Prophets protect fools, saints and terrorists named Kira, then? Within the premises of the show, this works just fine, too. Divine intervention is commonplace around Bajor...

It appears Kira was at odds with more than just the Romulans and the Feds here, though. The Council of Ministers apparently was giving her just enough rope to hang herself with by relinquishing those twenty ships of no military worth, even though it's not as if Bajor really would have had better uses for them at the time. But this never works: since the hero won the very public round, punishing her would only have been counterproductive for the Council, especially when they had made her the underdog and thus chosen the role they'd play in whatever public aftermath there was.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Voth commando1]

Honestly Kira comes across really unsympathetically throughout the subplot, Ross and Cretak are both fairly restrained while she loses her composure and acts far more confrontational than what was appropriate or necessary.

The Federation should have sought guarantees that the Romulans would remove the weapons at the end of the war, and once they got them, told the Bajorans to let the issue be.

It wasn't as if the Romulans were planning on some backstabbing or trying to install a military installation in Bajoran space, as it was common knowledge and the Federation was willing to allow whatever they were installing for the duration of the Romulan presence on the moon. Those torpedoes were probably for the defense of the hospital(though honestly I find the torpedoes presence difficult to believe as well).

Then again, I suppose it is in character for Kira to not be particularly diplomatic and for her to seek confrontation over reasoned settlements.

That's probably why I find it difficult to believe, the Bajoran government wanted someone known for a confrontational and provocative style to provoke a standoff.

Or I suppose it could have been, a way to get rid of her. By having her initiate a battle with the romulans, losing, and then the Bajorans profusely apologizing and claiming she acted on her own.

 

[Timo]

The role of the Bajoran government here might have been fairly minimal. Kira isn't exactly shown keeping them in the loop - she only asks them for ships to play with. I wonder whether she even bothered to tell them what she needed the ships for...

Naturally, they would have guessed, having been the ones to file the formal eviction order in the first place. But there are half a dozen steps of deniability that both sides could and probably would have taken as regards the blockade.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkt]

It wasn't as if the Romulans were planning on some backstabbing or trying to install a military installation in Bajoran space, as it was common knowledge and the Federation was willing to allow whatever they were installing for the duration of the Romulan presence on the moon. Those torpedoes were probably for the defense of the hospital(though honestly I find the torpedoes presence difficult to believe as well).

I don't think so. Backstabbing is what Romulans do. A Romulan military installation near the wormhole would be very valuable. If it wasn't a backstabbing attempt, the Romulans would have asked permission to install torpedoes, not done it by stealth.

Bajoran space, including its moon, was protected by the Federation. As long as there was just a hospital there, the Federation forces protecting DS9 and Bajor would be fine to protect the hospital too.

 

[Timo]

I wonder what sort of a weapon this Romulan "plasma torpedo" is.

I mean, this is not the name of the weapon that nearly did in Kirk and his ship in "Balance of Terror". It is, however, the name of the weapon mounted on the Cardassian orbital defenses at Chin'Toka in "Tears of the Prophets". There, the weapon was used against enemy starships exclusively. Would it have other uses?

Say, there's trilithium involved, as per the episode at hand. That stuff creates serious kaboomage, as per "Starship Mine", but is notoriously difficult to handle - so, sort of like firing artillery shells filled with nitroglycerine? It's great for making stars hiccup, though. Are "Romulan plasma torpedoes" good weapons for bombarding Bajor with, then? Or Bajor's star?

It would make limited sense to install them on a moon of Bajor, far away from the star, but perhaps that's the only non-cloaked installation the Romulans could hope to have anywhere near the star? Soran's comparable weapon took fifteen warp-seconds to hit its target from a comparable distance - a surprise strike would be difficult to intercept, but any blackmail based on the threat posed by the torpedoes would suffer from having that fifteen-second window of vulnerability, in a star system teeming with ships capable of intercept.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[saladdays]

Stuff like that had my head scratching when we saw her in a full commander’s uniform at the end of the series. She might have been a major in the militia for the same reasons Han Solo was a general in the Alliance, but there was a lot she needed further training on. I’d have made her a lieutenant in Starfleet.

Yes, nitpicky, but she was a colonel by the time of season 7, right?

 

[Arpy]

Yes, nitpicky, but she was a colonel by the time of season 7, right?

Lieutenant colonel, the army equivalent of a navy captain/the bajoran equivalent of a Starfleet (full) commander, yeah.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Kira's actions make total sense to me. Bajor agreed to permit a hospital on their moon, a site for immediate medical aid for injured Romulans fighting on their doorstep, but to turn around and then arm it makes the hospital and by extension Bajor a target. After Sisko liberated the station, there is no mention of Bajor revoking its non-aggression pact with the Dominion, so a fortified enemy encampment within their system would not go down well should the Federation lose the station again.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Lieutenant colonel, the army equivalent of a navy captain/the bajoran equivalent of a Starfleet (full) commander, yeah.

Actually, the canon isn't entirely clear on this. Three colonel insignia have been used in Star Trek: Kira (2-i-C to a senior field officer), Day Kannu (2-i-C/political advisor to a General) and Lenaris Holem (a unit commander in the Militia). Lenaris is clearly the senior of the three and wears a gold insignia with a ring around it not found in the other two, Kira and Day's insignia are essentially the same insignia in gold and silver respectively, which implies that Day could be the junior of the two (and there the lieutenant colonel), although I'm not entirely sold on this.

 

[unimatrix7]

Kira's actions make total sense to me. Bajor agreed to permit a hospital on their moon, a site for immediate medical aid for injured Romulans fighting on their doorstep, but to turn around and then arm it makes the hospital and by extension Bajor a target. After Sisko liberated the station, there is no mention of Bajor revoking its non-aggression pact with the Dominion, so a fortified enemy encampment within their system would not go down well should the Federation lose the station again.

Yes and it's precisely because the Dominion-Bajoran non-aggression treaty was likely still in effect Kira and the Bajorans could operate from a position of privilege the rest of the Federation-allied forces didn't have.

If Kira's actions jeopardised the involvement of the Romulans in the Dominion War and Starfleet was, as you say, forced to withdraw from DS9 once again - no doubt at horrendous cost - Bajor would probably be just fine

Everyone is always fine with Starfleet personnel dying en masse to guarantee their freedom and their very existence (Wolf 359, the Dominion War), but nobody wants to be even slightly inconvenienced in the process. The idea that the Romulans could just start firing on Bajor down the road from the most heavily-fortified Starfleet installation in the quadrant is a bit of a stretch. Romulan space is a long way away and there's no evidence that they would have the tactical infrastructure to defend that single base from Starfleet and Klingon efforts to remove them.

 

[Timo]

Romulans avoid conventional ways of fighting wars, though. The weapons could be part of a scheme that involves no fighting - only the destruction of the enemy or other target. Say, they might be there in order to utterly annihilate every non-Romulan ship in the system, there being no plan to defend the place afterwards because the objective X would be reached before defense became an issue. Or in order to annihilate Bajor. Or, in the most rational take of the Romulan mindset, in order to annihilate the wormhole, a feat calling for exceptional firepower at that stage but one perhaps suited for trilithium-laden plasma torpedoes.

As for Kira's rank, it would be nice to not have her skip any when promoted from Major. Lieutenant Colonel would indeed be a nice match for her later Starfleet Commander, and it would make little sense to "demote" her from full Colonel to that Starfleet rank when the idea is to give her extra authority.

Then again, Starfleet infamously believes in three differently marked ranks informally named Commander, two of these being formally named Lieutenant Commander, at least in TOS. Bajor could be entitled to three Colonels as well. (Or then the Provisional Government originally made shoddy work with Lieutenant Colonel insignia, providing Day with the wrong color when the need to manufacture those insignia arose - in the Militia that fought during the Occupation, everybody had skipped that rank, and most had declared themselves Generals outright...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

As for Kira's rank, it would be nice to not have her skip any when promoted from Major. Lieutenant Colonel would indeed be a nice match for her later Starfleet Commander, and it would make little sense to "demote" her from full Colonel to that Starfleet rank when the idea is to give her extra authority.

Whether Kira's is Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel she is probably the most junior of the three, running either:

Colonel --> Field Colonel --> Colonel-Commandant*

or

Lieutenant-Colonel --> Colonel --> Colonel-Commandant*

* roughly equivalent of Brigadier or Commodore

 

[Timo]

One really wonders about colors in this context. The Militia believes in two or three uniform colors, and two insignia colors. Remarkably, insignia colors never matter in separating two ranks of different name - as far as we can tell, it's okay for a "Colonel" to wear the pin in either silver or bronze, and no other rank is distinguished by color instead of shape, either.

Perhaps the colors really don't matter, and a (Lieutenant) Colonel is a (Lieutenant) Colonel? Or perhaps the colors do matter, and Bronze Second Lieutenants are from the Space Forces while Silver Second Lieutenants are from the little-seen Ground Forces?

In any case, Kira never was one for Militia formality. Quite possibly, she still wages her own personal war as late as DS9 S7, rather than the war the Bajoran Government might wish to have, or not have.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Perhaps the colors really don't matter, and a (Lieutenant) Colonel is a (Lieutenant) Colonel? Or perhaps the colors do matter, and Bronze Second Lieutenants are from the Space Forces while Silver Second Lieutenants are from the little-seen Ground Forces?

The fact that gold pips are worn by both Kira (Space Forces) and Linaris (Ground Forces) argues against it being quite that simple, however some sources suggest that Day was Special Operations rather than Security/Constabulary like Odo and the grey uniform (and possibly silver insignia) are exclusive to "BMSOC".

 

[Timo]

Yup, Bajor might have its own Black Badges all right...

Timo Saloniemi