Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoilers*

[ReadyAndWilling]

hey guys, anyone else thought it was out of place for the dominion to lose in the end?

DS9 was supposed to be this show that moved against the grain and not be as cliche as TNG and of course, TOS. yet, here we have the good guys once again triumphing against a far superior enemy.

the dominion had more powerful ships, much stronger soldiers (physically and mentally) and had a much better capacity to create battleships.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Easy, the Feds just technologically advanced faster than the Dominion did. After all, the tech of all their enemies is produced by one group and one group alone. The Feds actually have several species co-operate on things. The message being that single-minded conquest doesn't yield the same prosperity that multi-group cooperation does.

Their ships? At the end all they had that was better were those big battleships.

Stronger soldiers? They were cannon fodder and none lived more than a few years. And "To the Death" showed how small a grip they had on them in how that Jem'Hadar rebellion would've destroyed the Dominion.

Better capacity for ships yes, but the Feds had the Prophets to keep them away. Having trouble with logistics is what happens when you invade someone else's home.

 

[Moocey]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

It's Star Trek. The good guys are supposed to win.

 

[PorthosShadow]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Easy, the Feds just technologically advanced faster than the Dominion did. After all, the tech of all their enemies is produced by one group and one group alone. The Feds actually have several species co-operate on things. The message being that single-minded conquest doesn't yield the same prosperity that multi-group cooperation does.

Their ships? At the end all they had that was better were those big battleships.

Stronger soldiers? They were cannon fodder and none lived more than a few years. And "To the Death" showed how small a grip they had on them in how that Jem'Hadar rebellion would've destroyed the Dominion.

Better capacity for ships yes, but the Feds had the Prophets to keep them away. Having trouble with logistics is what happens when you invade someone else's home.

Basically, The Federation had home court advantage

 

[Jono]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Given the Dominion seemed to spend most of the war "losing", the Federation winning at the end didn't seem out of place to me.

 

[BillJ]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

The Dominion had to lose, no matter how superior they seemed. There was a feature film franchise and Star Trek: Voyager still using the same sandbox as Deep Space Nine.

 

[InklingStar]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

The Federation didn't really defeat the Dominion so much as they beat the Dominion's expeditionary force in Cardassian space. If the Founders had been able to throw the entire might of the Gamma Quadrant against the Federation, they would never have had a chance.

 

[DS9 Gal AZ]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

The Federation didn't really defeat the Dominion so much as they beat the Dominion's expeditionary force in Cardassian space. If the Founders had been able to throw the entire might of the Gamma Quadrant against the Federation, they would never have had a chance.

Exactly! Really, the only reason the Feds won is that they mined the entrance to the Wormhole just as full-scale war was breaking out, and then the Prophets did Sisko a favor or whatever by destroying the Dominion fleet when the minefield went down (and then presumably, somehow keeping the Dominion from coming through when the wormhole was opened up again, although IIRC it's never stated explicitly that that's what the Prophets are doing).

And lest we forget, even without reinforcents from the Gamma Quadrant the Dominion was winning the war until Sisko tricked the Romulans into joining the fight, which starting making things more even between the Dominion and the Feds/their allies. And I don't think the tide really turned in the Fed/Klingon/Romulan/etc.'s favor until the Cardassians started rebelling against the Dominion. I thought the whole set-up of the war was pretty believeable.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Didn't they say at one point that the Prophets were keeping Dominion reinforcements out of the Alpha Quadrant?

That is what didn't make sense to me. The Female Founder said that she ordered all the Jem'Hadar to fight to the death so that the resulting aftermath of the war would be so bloody they'd never survive the next attack from the Dominion from the Wormhole. But if the Prophets were keeping them away there wouldn't BE another attack. And if all the Founders in the Gamma Quadrant were dead from the virus, there wouldn't be an attack from them coming the "slow way" since the Jem'Hadar wouldve all rebelled by then or died without the Founders making more Ketracel White.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

DS9 was supposed to be this show that moved against the grain and not be as cliche as TNG and of course, TOS. yet, here we have the good guys once again triumphing against a far superior enemy.

If DS9 tried to be completely unlike TNG then they would have filmed it upside down. DS9 wasn't trying to be completely different from TNG, it was just trying to be different enough while still being Star Trek.

That being said, DS9 is different in one crucial way; if Sisko (and the rest of Starfleet) were as principled as Picard, then the Federation would have lost the war. Sisko's actions in In the Pale Moonlight, Starfleet Command condoning Section 31's attempted genocide of the Changelings, their willingness to assist the murdering dictator turned terrorist, Damar... these are things that Picard would never have gone along with. That's how DS9 was different from TNG, not because the bad guys won, but because of actions that good guys were willing to take to stop the bad guys from winning. This way made for a much more satisfying story than the good guys sticking to their principles and dying.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

It's Star Trek. The good guys are supposed to win.

It's DS9. It's not supposed to do the obvious Star Trek thing.

What I wanted: for the Feds to lose, then the next series is all about the Feddies fighting as a resistance force across Dominion-occupied AQ.

That would have beat the heck out of the series we got instead. But only if written by the DS9 writers of course.

Didn't they say at one point that the Prophets were keeping Dominion reinforcements out of the Alpha Quadrant?

Yeah. The Feddies won via arbitrary ass-save courtesy of the Prophets. That's not a very satisfying way to end the war because the Feds didn't earn the victory, just lucked into it (and also were lucky that the female changeling didn't just up and order the Jems to fight to the death and embark on a scorched-earth policy).

And that's why the Feds should have lost - so we could have another series where they actually earn their eventual victory. The Prophets should stay the frak out of it because they never made any sense anyway.

There was a feature film franchise and Star Trek: Voyager still using the same sandbox as Deep Space Nine.

VOY wouldn't have been impacted until they got back to the AQ (and I wouldn't have minded some of the cast joining the new series to help in the fight.) Only Nemesis would have been impacted by DS9's ending but literally anything would have improved that pile of steaming crap. Having the TNG cast fighting in the resistance sounds okay to me. Even better, kill them all at the end in some heroic way - they were at the end of their useful life as characters so let them go out with a bang. Better than the pathetic whimper they got instead.

 

[indolover]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Luck. There is nothing else to it.

Without the Prophets' help by destroying Dominion reinforcements in the wormhole, the Federation would have lost. Without Sisko and Garak tricking the Romulans into the war, the Dominion would have attacked the core Federation worlds, and even Earth. And without Kira and Odo secure a Breen energy weapon for it to be reverse engineered, the Dominion/Breen alliance would have won the war.

The Dominion technologically didn't seem more advanced than the Federation. But they simply were a more effectual war machine. They could breed legions of Jem'Hadar at will, build stacks of ships at will, and the Federation/Klingons couldn't do this.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

I would have really liked to see a series where the Feds have to come to grips with the Dominion's overwhelming advantage of being able to breed new soldiers factory-style. I think they would have been forced to get more "creative" such as devising ways to attack the weak point of the Dominion, that the structure is based on the Founders' paranoia that the Vorta and/or Jems might one day rebel and is therefore inherently unstable. Or just cut off the k-white supply and/or start making their own.

 

[CaptJamesScott]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Anyone who thinks the Federation advanced faster than the Dominion is wrong. The only reason the Federation won the war, is because of the actions taken by the Prophets. Imagine the Dominion with its full force descending down on the Alpha Quadrant. It was kind of a weak deus ex machina in my opinion, but the Federation was destined to win. After all, it is a show about humans

 

[InklingStar]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Anyone who thinks the Federation advanced faster than the Dominion is wrong. The only reason the Federation won the war, is because of the actions taken by the Prophets. Imagine the Dominion with its full force descending down on the Alpha Quadrant. It was kind of a weak deus ex machina in my opinion, but the Federation was destined to win. After all, it is a show about humans

I don't think it was deus ex machina at all. At its core, the show was about Sisko, Bajor, and their relationship with the Prophets. When Sisko begged them to intervene, it was the first time he had asked them to do anything, and it was the latest step in his embracing of his role as the Emissary. It wasn't free though, it came at a cost - he nearly lost Jake, he lost Jadzia, and in the end he lost his mortal life.

 

[FormerLurker]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

If DS9 tried to be completely unlike TNG then they would have filmed it upside down.

Well, the station was filmed upside down. It was easier that wasy.

 

[Bones2]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

I'd have liked the Dominion to win. So long as Sisko got killed somewhere along the line.

 

[Hofner]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Yeah, it would've been neat to see the Federation lose. I could see the victorius Dominion inflicting extreme torture and cruelty upon the people on Earth. They'd reintroduce a monetary system on Earth and cruelly force the humans to actually have to work for a living. Worse yet, they'd deprive them of their badly needed daily psychological therapy sessions. A fate worse than death.

Robert

 

[Listener4]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

As previously mentioned the Federation didn't exactly win, they reached a draw. It would have been interesting to see an occupation of Earth, Vulcan etc, but not as the end of the series.

 

[CaptJamesScott]

Re: Anyone else think it was wrong for the Federation to win? *Spoiler

Given the Dominion seemed to spend most of the war "losing", the Federation winning at the end didn't seem out of place to me.

Actually the Federation was losing up until the Romulans joined the effort. And then when the Breen joined, the tide shifted again.