Confused about Gamma Quadrant Exploration

[PhoenixIreland]

Some things confuse me, they occured to me when readint the last Mission Gamma novel.

I COULD find out by trailing episode histories onlne...but I'm a laazzzy lazzzy man people....

1. Did starfleet stop exploring the GQ when the minefield went up or was it after the Odyssey was destroyed?

2. Are we to assume all those starfleet ships Garak talked about that were lost in the GQ were destroyed by the dominion? Was there ever any mention in novels about their fate (besides the one in MG4)?

3. Did they not expore the GQ during the Dominion war at all? was the Defiant mission in MG novels the first time since the mine field went up?

4. Are we to assume after the prophets dissapeared the dominion fleet the dominion just never bothered sending anything else through for fear of what would happen to them>?

 

[Jono]

1. I remember that O'brien and Bashir were returning from a mission in the GQ in early season 4, the episode after The Visitor, where they find the Jem'Hadar free of the white...I can't remember its name at the moment. I can't recall any mention after that off the top of my head.

2. What ship in MG4? The Valkyrie? Pretty sure she was lost in the Alpha or Beta Quadrants. Nothing to say the ships Garek mentioned were destroyed or captured by the Dominion unless the Dominion admited to it like they did the destruction of New Bajor. Probably an educated guess based on where the ships were when they lost contact or where they were scheduled to explore.

3. No mention of it. Definitely didn't do it in the first 4-5 months of the war with the minefield up or 3 months in 2374-2375 when the wormhole closed. It doesn't seem like they sent anyone through during the war.

4. Possibly. Maybe the Dominion tried several more times and each time the Prophets made their fleets disappear. Whatever the reason we do know for sure that no Dominion reinforcements came through after the start of the war.

 

[Haytil]

1. I remember that O'brien and Bashir were returning from a mission in the GQ in early season 4, the episode after The Visitor, where they find the Jem'Hadar free of the white...I can't remember its name at the moment.

"Hippocratic Oath"

 

[Timo]

1. Did starfleet stop exploring the GQ when the minefield went up or was it after the Odyssey was destroyed?

As said, our heroes continued making recce forays into Gamma long after the Odyssey was lost. They used runabouts when they felt they would not be going near Dominion military strongholds, as was the case in "Hippocratic Oath" and "The Ship"; but they also continued scouting when acknowledging the risks. In "Meridian", they used the Defiant.

However, after the loss of the Odyssey, we stop hearing about Starfleet vessels other than the runabouts or the Defiant in Gamma. Which is a bit weird. Before the Jem'Hadar threat emerged, Sisko's crew clearly wasn't tasked with exploring Gamma: they only went there on diplomatic errands related to station business. But after the threat, it seems that Sisko's folks were the only ones that went!

3. Did they not expore the GQ during the Dominion war at all? was the Defiant mission in MG novels the first time since the mine field went up?

Exploring Gamma would have required access through the wormhole. During the war, even if the Prophets stopped making ships disappear, the Jem'Hadar would be waiting on the other side. And everybody who flew cloaked ships to Gamma had to decloak for the duration of the passage through the wormhole, and thus would be fired upon when emerging on the Gamma side. I'd say the chances of exploring would be zero.

4. Are we to assume after the prophets dissapeared the dominion fleet the dominion just never bothered sending anything else through for fear of what would happen to them?

Yes. They say as much in "The Reckoning", and again in "Tears of the Prophets". The risk was far too great, going against godlike powers like that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Photon]

Wonder about SF Intelligence or S31? I would prolly say that were in the GQ after the Odyssey incident, more of a presence after The Search. And after hostilities broke out, they were doing subterfuge.

SFI and S31 prolly had cloaked ships, so I'm sayin'

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Wonder about SF Intelligence or S31? I would prolly say that were in the GQ after the Odyssey incident, more of a presence after The Search. And after hostilities broke out, they were doing subterfuge.

SFI and S31 prolly had cloaked ships, so I'm sayin'

It's been shown that ships had to decloak to enter the wormhole. The Cardassian/Romulan fleet in 'The Die Is Cast' decloaked before they entered and if they could have been cloaked during wormhole passage, they would have - it's kind of a mission that demands stealth, since they were aiming to destroy a planet.

 

[nx1701g]

1. Did starfleet stop exploring the GQ when the minefield went up or was it after the Odyssey was destroyed?

I'm not entirely sure but I believe that Gaia (the planet with the crew's descendants) was supposed to be in the Gamma Quadrant. I believe that it was after the minefield went up that Starfleet quit their exploration of the GQ.

2. Are we to assume all those starfleet ships Garak talked about that were lost in the GQ were destroyed by the dominion? Was there ever any mention in novels about their fate (besides the one in MG4)?

I believe it was meant to be the Dominion. They did say they would destroy any who violated their territory.

3. Did they not expore the GQ during the Dominion war at all? was the Defiant mission in MG novels the first time since the mine field went up?

GQ exploration ended during the course of the war.

4. Are we to assume after the prophets dissapeared the dominion fleet the dominion just never bothered sending anything else through for fear of what would happen to them>?

The Prophets wouldn't allow anything to come through the Gamma Quadrant side of the wormhole - at least in the novels. I recall it being mentioned in one of them (I believe The Battle of Betazed).

 

[Jono]

Wonder about SF Intelligence or S31? I would prolly say that were in the GQ after the Odyssey incident, more of a presence after The Search. And after hostilities broke out, they were doing subterfuge.

SFI and S31 prolly had cloaked ships, so I'm sayin'

SFI would be tied to the whatever the treaty is that bans the Federation from using cloaking devices. S31 however might operate "independent" vessels with cloaking devices.

The Klingons on the other hand would be more then able to provide cloaked surveillance and monitoring in the Gamma Quadrant. However, at the start of the war the ability for any vessel in the GQ to communicate with the AQ would be very limited as the Dominion controlled DS9 in the first few months and probably did keep a presence near the mouth in the hope that they would be able to sent support through.

 

[Photon]

Wonder about SF Intelligence or S31? I would prolly say that were in the GQ after the Odyssey incident, more of a presence after The Search. And after hostilities broke out, they were doing subterfuge.

SFI and S31 prolly had cloaked ships, so I'm sayin'

SFI would be tied to the whatever the treaty is that bans the Federation from using cloaking devices. S31 however might operate "independent" vessels with cloaking devices.

The Klingons on the other hand would be more then able to provide cloaked surveillance and monitoring in the Gamma Quadrant. However, at the start of the war the ability for any vessel in the GQ to communicate with the AQ would be very limited as the Dominion controlled DS9 in the first few months and probably did keep a presence near the mouth in the hope that they would be able to sent support through.

I maybe wrong, but from some of the cartography I've seen, Dominion proper wasn't at the mouth of the WH, it seemed to be several LY away.

 

[Jono]

^ Given that it took over a year for the Federation to even hear of the Dominion suggests the Dominion's expansion had not yet encompassed the area around the wormhole. Once the war began they would want to monitor the area for communications from their forces in the AQ and to watch for a possible strike coming through the wormhole.

 

[Timo]

Clearly the wormhole Gamma end was quite distant from Dominion strongholds, because there was no permanent Jem'Hadar presence there until as late in the game as "In Purgatory's Shadow". After that episode, though, one might assume that the Gamma end was heavily fortified. For all we know, during the war there was a Dominion space station there, too, analogous to DS9.

However, at the start of the war the ability for any vessel in the GQ to communicate with the AQ would be very limited as the Dominion controlled DS9 in the first few months and probably did keep a presence near the mouth in the hope that they would be able to sent support through.

And even if the Jem'Hadar let their guard down, it would seem that the Feds would still need a relay station at the Gamma end to get their messages through the wormhole. That relay station was no doubt destroyed in "By Inferno's Light" if not earlier already. I don't think we ever heard of a Federation ship communicating from Gamma to Alpha without the help of the relay station, now did we?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[PTRACER]

I'm still watching DS9 on DVD and there's far less about the Gamma Quadrant than I remembered from watching the series on the TV. The first two seasons had the odd episode where Gamma Quadrant aliens were featured (e.g. Tosk) and in Season 2 or 3 they had the communications thing put up in the Gamma Quadrant, but there really wasn't much said about it.

As has been said though, once the Dominion War started, exploration of the G.Q. would have ended, though I didn't really realise how much of the entire series was dominated by the Dominion War.

How interesting could potential Gamma Quadrant episodes have been? Maybe it would be too similar to Voyager, exploring the great unknown Delta Quadrant, hence it was a good idea they didn't talk about it too much.

 

[Anwar]

The Dominion didn't control the area of space the Wormhole was in, their talk of "violating our territory" is pretty much the same as Red China telling the States in the 60s to stay out of the Pacific (the writers said this). The Feds were fully in their rights to keep exploring after "The Jem-Hadar" because they weren't really violating the Dominion's territory as much as the Dominion being domineering jerks (which shouldn't surprise anyone).

They couldn't explore the GQ after the mines went up, and then the war was on so they had no time or resources to do so.

 

[Timo]

The Dominion didn't control the area of space the Wormhole was in

That would be time-dependent. During the first two or three seasons, they didn't. During the fourth and fifth, they more or less did. During the sixth and seventh, they absolutely did.

Their talk of "violating our territory" is pretty much the same as Red China telling the States in the 60s to stay out of the Pacific (the writers said this).

...Of course, China would have been worth listening in this respect if its nuclear arsenal in the 1960s outweighed that of the US tenfold or hundredfold and its ships and aircraft were invulnerable to their US counterparts. But Starfleet never was the greatest advocate of reapolitik.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Well, yes by the time the war started they definately had expanded to the point of controlling the wormhole (it wouldn't make sense not to). But at the time of "the Jem'Hadar" their actions and claims made them the open aggressor in what were a series of unprovoked attacks. S4 they had also destabilized things in the Alpha Quadrant to the point that there wasn't much time left for GQ exploration.