Cardassian/Romulan alliance

[Thor Damar]

^Man in the High Castle aside, it would have been literally decades before Germany and Japan could have even considered abrogating their understanding--digesting the billion or so people in Asia at the time would have been a hell of task for the fewer than two hundred million people of Germany and Japan. Japan couldn't quite handle China even when they weren't at war with us.

Of course, there's no way America would ever have been actually conquered. Britain is less certain, but that too borders on the impossible. (The Soviet Union was a nearer-run thing, but not close as near-run as people think... still, the loss of our commie friends would've made us far more willing to talk terms, I suspect.)

Uh, anyway, I voted they should join the Federation.

I thought that you would

 

[JustKate]

Actually, in the book, it does take decades (two, I believe) before the Nazis show their fangs and turn on the Japanese. Before that, the two powers proceed in a faux alliance not at all like the Cold War.

Of course, the book does posit near-domination by the Axis, with the US occupied by the Nazis along the Atlantic and the Japanese along the Pacific, with the besieged Central States "free." Not an entirely accurate extrapoloation, I grant (for one, Imperial Japan is depicted as way too benevolent an occupying force) but a damn fine novel just the same.

I think that a Cardassian-Romulan alliance would have to plan on a long war, too (not to mention some very difficult occupations). They, too, would have to contend with large areas (interstellar in their case, so "large" is putting it kind of mildly ) that would be difficult if not impossible to bring under their dominion.

(Oh, and thanks for mentioning The Man in the High Castle - I've never read it but I've always meant to.)

If they could trust each other long enough, they would probably take the quadrant.

Take it? You bet. My question is...would they be able to keep it? Keeping it would require a continuing trust or pragmatism or something that I'm not sure either side has, something that would not only bring them together for their mutual benefit but also keep them together once the immediate benefit has been achieved. Ooh, tricky!

I just thought of a parallel - sorry, Thor Damar, I know you aren't crazy about these real-life parallels, but...

It kind of reminds me of the Empire of Japan-Third Reich alliance in WWII. How in the world would those two powers have worked together if, God forbid, they'd won?

I think that might actually be a apt RL example in terms of the Geographical distance between the CU and the RSE so I'll forgive you for making it JustKate.

(obviously I'm not in favor of the Cardassians as 'space Nazis' or the Romulans as either Fascistic or Maoist and I don't see my hypothetical alliance as the 24th centuries answer to the Axis powers of WWII. So there.)

That's exactly what I had in mind - the distance.

But while I, too, am not in favor of putting either the Romulans or the Cardassians in some tidy little 20th-century-Earth ideological box, there is another similarity as well, one that struck me even more than the distance. The thing that neither the Imperial-Nazi scenario nor the Romulan-Cardassian scenario addresses is the mutual loathing that the allies in each case would have for each other. For Japan and Germany, it was out-and-out racist loathing, bred almost to the bone - and it's impossible for me to imagine that would have ever gone away so long as the Third Reich and the Empire were around to reinforce it. Each literally considered the other group of humans less than human, but they were willing to put up with each other for the sake of their respective empires. For a while...

For the Romulans and the Cardassians...well, it's harder to say. It's difficult for me to imagine two such practical and pragmatic peoples despising each other out of simple bigotry...but then, it's hard for me to imagine the mindset of the WWII-era Germans and Japanese, either, and that is a world that I know from first-hand reports. It seems to me that xenophobia and contempt for any other species is bred pretty well to the bone in Romulans and possibly in Cardassians as well. So I suspect that such an alliance would work long-term only if something fundamental changed in, particularly, the Romulan psyche. Which could happen, don't get me wrong. But I think any scenario that considers Romulus and Cardassia taking the quadrant and keeping it would have to address this issue. It doesn't have anything to do with disrupters vs. phasers or cloak technology, but it's still crucial, IMO.

My analysis of the situation runs as follows, as the Cardassians and Romulans are both a highly pragmatic peoples they would use the alliance for specific and achievable goals, for example containing the Klingons within their borders or effecting regime change. Although the RSE has very nearly succeed at this several times before it would be more beneficial to have an ally that could...distract... third parties and use their own resources to enable for a speeder resolution.

That's just one notion that I've had, I'll post some more up later and address some of the interesting points made in this thread.
(I will not be able to do so in this post because ironically I lack the temperament for long winded posts)

"Distract" is very good - the perfect word, if I may say so. Cardassians would definitely need to take heed! And I agree that having specific and achievable goals would be the key. When it would get tricky is after those were met.

 

[flandry84]

It was my understanding that Cardassia prime had been so devastated in the Dominion war that feeding the population rather than forming political alliances was the greater priority.From that "Worlds of DS9-Cardassia"book,my lingering impression of Cardassia is piled debris and a hardscrabble existence.
As for Romulus,the assasination of the entire senate should be what occupies them,for a while at least.If they run true to stereotype,then the skullduggery/power struggles amongst the ruling elite should be of epic proportions...entire bloodlines being wiped out as every military "strong man",every petty nobleman and bastard son of a petty nobleman should be coming out of the woodwork.Gotta love the Romulans.

A political alliance between the 2 powers might make for good storytelling device,but makes little "real-world" sense.....IMO

 

[Thor Damar]

It was my understanding that Cardassia prime had been so devastated in the Dominion war that feeding the population rather than forming political alliances was the greater priority.From that "Worlds of DS9-Cardassia"book,my lingering impression of Cardassia is piled debris and a hardscrabble existence.
As for Romulus,the assasination of the entire senate should be what occupies them,for a while at least.If they run true to stereotype,then the skullduggery/power struggles amongst the ruling elite should be of epic proportions...entire bloodlines being wiped out as every military "strong man",every petty nobleman and bastard son of a petty nobleman should be coming out of the woodwork.Gotta love the Romulans.

A political alliance between the 2 powers might make for good storytelling device,but makes little "real-world" sense.....IMO

I should have stated that my timescale for this 'alliance' is before Tain's Folly (AKA the Obsidian Order/ Tal Shiar attack on the Founders homeworld) with both empires at relative full strength.
Obviously a post DW alliance would be foolish and unworkable given the status of both the Union and the Star Empire.
Although it should be noted that....

Spoiler: Post destiny politics

Both the Cardassian Union and the Imperial Romulan State have joined the Khitomer Accords Alliance and the Romulan Star Empire has joined the Typhon Pact. So it can be done, it just needs more powers in said alliance.

 

[blueshirt]

I'd say that a Romulan-Cardassian defense pact to contain the Federation and Klingons would have made perfect sense for both sides in the pre-Dominion days. Any large-scale war would devastate all 4 powers, and the Romulans and Cardassians initially could use their skills at covert operations to chip away at their enemies.

However, I think any long-term alliance would fail. The Romulans, at least in the 24th century, appear too xenophobic to trust anyone for long, while Cardassian foreign policy was based on treating all other species as resources. Eventually, they'd start taking advantage of each other and the alliance would crumble.
Also, I don't think the Cardassians have anything the Romulans need in exchange for the cloaking device, beyond the convenience of loaning the cloak to certain Cardassian ships for specific missions.

 

[Praetor]

Actually, in the book, it does take decades (two, I believe) before the Nazis show their fangs and turn on the Japanese. Before that, the two powers proceed in a faux alliance not at all like the Cold War.

Of course, the book does posit near-domination by the Axis, with the US occupied by the Nazis along the Atlantic and the Japanese along the Pacific, with the besieged Central States "free." Not an entirely accurate extrapoloation, I grant (for one, Imperial Japan is depicted as way too benevolent an occupying force) but a damn fine novel just the same.

I think that a Cardassian-Romulan alliance would have to plan on a long war, too (not to mention some very difficult occupations). They, too, would have to contend with large areas (interstellar in their case, so "large" is putting it kind of mildly ) that would be difficult if not impossible to bring under their dominion.

(Oh, and thanks for mentioning The Man in the High Castle - I've never read it but I've always meant to.)

If they could trust each other long enough, they would probably take the quadrant.

Take it? You bet. My question is...would they be able to keep it? Keeping it would require a continuing trust or pragmatism or something that I'm not sure either side has, something that would not only bring them together for their mutual benefit but also keep them together once the immediate benefit has been achieved. Ooh, tricky!

I think that might actually be a apt RL example in terms of the Geographical distance between the CU and the RSE so I'll forgive you for making it JustKate.

(obviously I'm not in favor of the Cardassians as 'space Nazis' or the Romulans as either Fascistic or Maoist and I don't see my hypothetical alliance as the 24th centuries answer to the Axis powers of WWII. So there.)

That's exactly what I had in mind - the distance.

But while I, too, am not in favor of putting either the Romulans or the Cardassians in some tidy little 20th-century-Earth ideological box, there is another similarity as well, one that struck me even more than the distance. The thing that neither the Imperial-Nazi scenario nor the Romulan-Cardassian scenario addresses is the mutual loathing that the allies in each case would have for each other. For Japan and Germany, it was out-and-out racist loathing, bred almost to the bone - and it's impossible for me to imagine that would have ever gone away so long as the Third Reich and the Empire were around to reinforce it. Each literally considered the other group of humans less than human, but they were willing to put up with each other for the sake of their respective empires. For a while...

For the Romulans and the Cardassians...well, it's harder to say. It's difficult for me to imagine two such practical and pragmatic peoples despising each other out of simple bigotry...but then, it's hard for me to imagine the mindset of the WWII-era Germans and Japanese, either, and that is a world that I know from first-hand reports. It seems to me that xenophobia and contempt for any other species is bred pretty well to the bone in Romulans and possibly in Cardassians as well. So I suspect that such an alliance would work long-term only if something fundamental changed in, particularly, the Romulan psyche. Which could happen, don't get me wrong. But I think any scenario that considers Romulus and Cardassia taking the quadrant and keeping it would have to address this issue. It doesn't have anything to do with disrupters vs. phasers or cloak technology, but it's still crucial, IMO.

My analysis of the situation runs as follows, as the Cardassians and Romulans are both a highly pragmatic peoples they would use the alliance for specific and achievable goals, for example containing the Klingons within their borders or effecting regime change. Although the RSE has very nearly succeed at this several times before it would be more beneficial to have an ally that could...distract... third parties and use their own resources to enable for a speeder resolution.

That's just one notion that I've had, I'll post some more up later and address some of the interesting points made in this thread.
(I will not be able to do so in this post because ironically I lack the temperament for long winded posts)

"Distract" is very good - the perfect word, if I may say so. Cardassians would definitely need to take heed! And I agree that having specific and achievable goals would be the key. When it would get tricky is after those were met.

That's very well synopsized, I think, JustKate.

 

[Thor Damar]

^ Indeed. I think the Astro-political ramifications of such an alliance could have had a adverse affect upon the balance of power in the known Galaxy(to wit the explored AQ/BQ).
It could be argued that the UFP has been able to maintain its status as a hegemonic superpower because of the alliance with the Klingon Empire which helped to serve as a buffer towards both the RSE and the CU and provided the Feds with passable deniablity if they needed to weaken their rivals.
"It's not our fault that your colonies and supply depots where attacked, it's all due to those Klingons. Honestly."

I'll have more soon I just wanted to bump this thread!

 

[Anwar]

I'm kind of surprised that aside from the Dominion that we never saw another astro-political group that was composed of more than one species. I'd have thought it interesting in the latter half of TNG to see them encounter a rival polity that was made up of some of the antagonists from TOS who banded together after the Borg Incursion to better defend themselves now seeing how even the Feds were just barely able to hold them off.

 

[Myasishchev]

I'm kind of surprised that aside from the Dominion that we never saw another astro-political group that was composed of more than one species. I'd have thought it interesting in the latter half of TNG to see them encounter a rival polity that was made up of some of the antagonists from TOS who banded together after the Borg Incursion to better defend themselves now seeing how even the Feds were just barely able to hold them off.

That's more-or-less the premise behind the Sinister Six approach the Treklit writers are taking these days...

The Borg don't count as a multi-species empire? There's argument either way, I suppose.

I'd also point out the Son'a had two subject species.

 

[Anwar]

I don't mean just subjugated species, I mean an actual alliance where the ships are crewed by multiple species and not just a bunch of slaves (though I guess this drops out the Dominion).

The best example would be the Xindi, but they were all a related race.

 

[Myasishchev]

An actual counter-Federation, then?

I can see from a dramatic standpoint why they wouldn't introduce such an alliance.

Perhaps we can theorize that occasionally Starfleet did contact federations of various species, but since they had no particular structural, ideological, or egotistical impediments to combination with other races, they were rapidly incorporated into our UFP.

 

[Anwar]

I can see from a dramatic standpoint why they wouldn't introduce such an alliance.

Why, exactly?

 

[Myasishchev]

Well, the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Canada, as thrilling as it is, hasn't produced many memorable works. Maybe Canadian Bacon or South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, although they weren't terribly realistic excursions into that field.

Now, if it were an ideologically opposed federation, like the ideas we were knocking around the other week regarding a revamped Ferengi Alliance, then that would be a different story. But a clone of the Federation wouldn't provide anything, dramatically, that simply introducing Federation members we just don't know about yet would.

With one exception, now that I think of it: if a social-democratic confederacy became embroiled in a war with another power, let's say the Romulans, in what way would the Federation respond? (Although unfortunately I think we can probably answer, "They'd do jack shit," since that's what they ordinarily do when presented with a clear situation of conquest and exploitation of one or more planets by another. They might feel bad about it, though.)

 

[Anwar]

Huh, did you ever read "My Take on Voyager" in the Voy forum? It was my version of how I'd have written VOY and a lot of the story revolved around the equivalent of the Federation in the area of space they were in: The League of Spacefaring Civilizations.

 

[Myasishchev]

I haven't, I only dabble in the Voyager forum (I hate the show, so it's not my business to go into their forum and tell everyone so on a daily basis). I'll have to check it out--what you suggest would be interesting the context of Voyager, but you can see my reservations about how worthwile it might have been to explore it in, say, TNG.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

as the Cardassians and Romulans are both a highly pragmatic peoples they would use the alliance for specific and achievable goals, for example containing the Klingons within their borders or effecting regime change

The Cardies aren't pragmatic in the least. They might think of themselves as such, but they're self-deluded - they are driven by their own fragile self-image rather than practicality. This causes them to over-reach and then go down in flames.

Romulans are fairly pragmatic, but again they have blind spots that will cause them to do self-defeating and impractical things on occasion.

I'd say Cardies are about on par with Klingons for pragmatism. For real pragmatism, look at the Dominion.

I'm kind of surprised that aside from the Dominion that we never saw another astro-political group that was composed of more than one species.

Which is what makes the Dominion uniquely dangerous to the Federation. It is the anti-Federation, offering a good deal to subject worlds - don't worry about your defense. We'll clone warriors to handle that for you, and you won't have to send any of your own people to fight - ever. The Federation does the same thing but with hew-mons as the Jem'hadar. I've often wondered how Earth manages to provide 90% of the Feddie cannon fodder. Either they breed like Cardassian voles or they've got cloning tanks of their own.

 

[Anwar]

Or maybe a lot of the "humans" we see are really the people from several of the worlds in TOS where the inhabitants just happened to look just like humans. Might explain why there are so many more "humans" than other species...

 

[JustKate]

The Cardies aren't pragmatic in the least. They might think of themselves as such, but they're self-deluded - they are driven by their own fragile self-image rather than practicality. This causes them to over-reach and then go down in flames.

Romulans are fairly pragmatic, but again they have blind spots that will cause them to do self-defeating and impractical things on occasion.

I'd say Cardies are about on par with Klingons for pragmatism. For real pragmatism, look at the Dominion.

Temis, I never thought of it that way before, but I think you're right. In their own way, the Cardassians are...romantic! Not romantic like a romance novel but romantic like a heroic ballad. They see themselves as the heroes, which can be good...but it can be bad and self-deluding as well. I mean, they kind of expect everybody else to see them as heroic, too.

The Romulans are pretty pragmatic, though - sure, they have their blind spots (that's the only way to remain really xenophobic, for one thing), but they are about as practical as we can expect anybody non-Dominion to be.