In The Pale Moonlight-Would you do it?

[Knight Templar]

Note that even in war time standards evolve as to what is acceptable and what is not.

Prior to and throughout part of World War One, it was considered a war crime for submarines to torpedo civilian ships without warning.

Now, not only is it not considered a war crime, but it is acceptable military practice to do so.

 

[DWF]

This is true I remember Robert Hewitt Wolfe saying that, the Dominion had the Federation in their sights for a while, it was the wormhole that sped up their confrontation.

The dominion - as per the scenarists' intent which was not established on-screen - may have been planning to invade the alpha/beta quadrants from the beginning.

But our characters are not omniscient - as such, they could not know the extent of the dominion's plans from the beginning ('the search') - or the fact that the dominion will find a bridgehead as convenient as the cardassians, enabling it to launch the war.
And these are some unacceptably large speculations to make.

Well the Federation knew the Borg were on their way too and really failed to prepare for them. And it was a goor three years before the war started, DS9ers even stood there watching the Dominion fleet coming though the wormhole and did nothing. The desperation in the final stages of the war was the fault of poor planning and allowing the Dominion to establish a beachhead in the AQ. So they didn't need to be omniscient just smart enough to know what was going to happen.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Picard never would have done it. Picard had always been known as the most moralistic of all the captains.

The most deceptive thing I've ever seen Picard do is either some under cover work, or put on a poker face.

If not tricking the Romulans into war means letting the Dominion eventually win, so be it, would probably be the conclusion, but then again, who knows.

 

[BillJ]

The most deceptive thing I've ever seen Picard do is either some under cover work, or put on a poker face.

Picard invaded Cardassian space to destroy a weapon that would've shifted the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant. Him and his team shooting Cardies along the way.

I really don't see his actions being any different than Sisko's except he had his governments backing...

 

[Navaros]

I might consider doing it if the Federation was good.

Since the Federation is just as bad, if not worse, than the Dominion, as proven by the Federation's attempt to commit genocide against the Founders, then no, I would not do it.

That's also why in hindsight, ITPM does not work as well as it should. It's moral dilemma hinges on the idea that Sisko is doing something bad for the greater good. But since the Federation is bad, he winds up doing something bad for the greater bad, which removes all moral complexity/intrigue from his choice.

 

[DonIago]

So because an unsanctioned group consisting of less than 1% of the Federation's members unilaterally enacted a plan to commit genocide, the Federation is "bad"? Really?

You must have a pretty low opinion of humanity as well then.

 

[Knight Templar]

Killing all the founders was pretty much a less ditch action when it appeared that the Dominion would win the war and destroy Earth.

 

[sonak]

I might consider doing it if the Federation was good.

Since the Federation is just as bad, if not worse, than the Dominion, as proven by the Federation's attempt to commit genocide against the Founders, then no, I would not do it.

That's also why in hindsight, ITPM does not work as well as it should. It's moral dilemma hinges on the idea that Sisko is doing something bad for the greater good. But since the Federation is bad, he winds up doing something bad for the greater bad, which removes all moral complexity/intrigue from his choice.

huh. A tiny unelected cabal does something bad, and therefore that irrevocably taints the entire UFP in your eyes? You're a tough judge.


The UFP includes its democratic government as well as billions of civilians, none of whom had anything to do with Sec. 31.

On the other hand, the Dominion is totalitarian, motivated by racial supremacy, and its power structure is built on vast armies of genetically engineered slaves.


Yet you see no difference. Interesting.

 

[Brolan]

The most deceptive thing I've ever seen Picard do is either some under cover work, or put on a poker face.

Picard invaded Cardassian space to destroy a weapon that would've shifted the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant. Him and his team shooting Cardies along the way.

I really don't see his actions being any different than Sisko's except he had his governments backing...

Sisko HAD Starfleet's backing. Watch the episode again.

 

[BillJ]

The most deceptive thing I've ever seen Picard do is either some under cover work, or put on a poker face.

Picard invaded Cardassian space to destroy a weapon that would've shifted the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant. Him and his team shooting Cardies along the way.

I really don't see his actions being any different than Sisko's except he had his governments backing...

Sisko HAD Starfleet's backing. Watch the episode again.

Right you are!

Sisko's actions were really no different than the actions taken by Picard or Kirk's in The Enterprise Incident.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

This is true I remember Robert Hewitt Wolfe saying that, the Dominion had the Federation in their sights for a while, it was the wormhole that sped up their confrontation.

The dominion - as per the scenarists' intent which was not established on-screen - may have been planning to invade the alpha/beta quadrants from the beginning.

But our characters are not omniscient - as such, they could not know the extent of the dominion's plans from the beginning ('the search') - or the fact that the dominion will find a bridgehead as convenient as the cardassians, enabling it to launch the war.
And these are some unacceptably large speculations to make.

Well the Federation knew the Borg were on their way too and really failed to prepare for them. And it was a goor three years before the war started, DS9ers even stood there watching the Dominion fleet coming though the wormhole and did nothing. The desperation in the final stages of the war was the fault of poor planning and allowing the Dominion to establish a beachhead in the AQ. So they didn't need to be omniscient just smart enough to know what was going to happen.

About the Dominion:
The federation found out the dominion was xenophobic/hostile.
Well, most other super-powers in the alpha/beta quadrants are xenophobic/hostile - romulans, klingons, cardassians, tholians, etc, etc. And shooting war with them was avoided for hundreds of years (with the exception of the romulans).
That's a pretty good record; the federation can rightfully claim it knows how to handle aggressive neighbors.

At first, the federation could also assume that the dominion was no stronger than the romulans/klingons. Later, this perception was, indeed, corrected.

And there was one other CRUCIAL FACTOR:
The federation could collapse the wormhole at any time, thus ending the conflich before it even began.
Why deny the riches of the gamma quadrant ab initio by collapsing the wormhole when you could do it at any ulterior time?
Indeed, in 'By inferno's light' (in time to prevent the dominion invading), the federation wanted to do just that.

The actions of the changeling impersonating Bashir - eliminating the collapse-the-wormhole-option - could not be predicted as probable by the keenest strategic minds. And they represented, indeed, a HUGE failure of federation counter-intelligence.

After the changeling Bashir stabilised the wormhole, the dominion sent large convoys through the wormhole at a breakneck speed, and the federation had no viable option for blockading the wormhole until Rom designed his law-of-conervation-of-energy-breaking mines (which is a HUGE discovery); when it had Rom's discovery, the federation immediately blockaded the wormhole.

In conclusion - the federation could not reasonably predict that the dominion will be tougher to handle than its centuries-old neighbors; could not reasonably predict that it will suddenly lose the option of closing the wormhole.
As such, any apocalyptic claims about the dominion invading/being able to invade prior to 'By inferno's light' were just idle speculation.


About the borg:
The federation's failure to prepare for the borg represents either criminal stupidity or criminal negligence or both on the part of starfleet/whomever else was in charge of the federation protection.

 

[BillJ]

About the borg:
The federation's failure to prepare for the borg represents either criminal stupidity or criminal negligence or both on the part of starfleet/whomever else was in charge of the federation protection.

This makes no sense.

We know from The Best of Both Worlds I that Starfleet has new weaponry on the drawing board but is at least 18-24 months away from being ready. Part of those developments are the Defiant, Quantum Torpedoes and the Intrepid class.

Voyager seems to hold up well against the Borg in a number of engagements and a combination of Starfleet ships defeats a Borg cube in First Contact.

In The Best of Both Worlds, Starfleet can only gather up thirty-nine ships to intercept the cube at Wolf 359. In the DS9 fleet engagements with the Dominion we see hundreds of ships.

So in between Q, Who? and the Dominion War it seems Starfleet has really ramped up ship production.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

BillJ
I - and, as per his formulation, DWF, I assume - was talking primarily about 'Destiny' (trek lit).

Among other things, in said books it becomes apparent that starfleet's 'preparations' are worthless, a fact highly predictable to anyone who had even superficial knowledge of the borg.


Not that starfleet's preparations shown on-screen are much better:
Defiant's phasers and quantum torpedos are all but worthless against even a VERY SMALL borg attack (5-10 cubes) - the borg would adapt after the first shots, after which you may as well throw stones at it.
No other anti-borg weapons systems are shown.

In 'First contact', considering the fleet's initial numbers, its performance against the borg - and its losses -, were also highly unimpressive.
Only ONE cube reached Earth - again - despite such a large fleet and so ample time to develop countermeasures - and was then only destroyed thanks to insider knowledge from former Locutus.

The large fleets from DS9 were gathered just before the dominion war for this war - not for anything related to the borg.

 

[BillJ]

BillJ
I - and, as per his formulation, DWF, I assume - was talking primarily about 'Destiny' (trek lit).

Among other things, in said books it becomes apparent that starfleet's 'preparations' are worthless, a fact highly predictable to anyone who had even superficial knowledge of the borg.

I know your talking about Destiny...

What would you have the Federation do? Their actual fleet size looks to be about ten times what it was from early TNG which when factoring in support personnel means it's probably twenty times bigger. We know that they attempted to develop new weapons but that would be something that would be very hit or miss.

The problem the Federation faced was how do you account for a full bore invasion from a foe who not only adapts to tactics but becomes impervious to your weapons as well after a few shots.

If I'm facing seven thousand cubes and the enemy collects enough information to adapt after I defeat five or ten (and I'm being very kind with that number), it means that I have to have seven hundred unique ways to defeat cubes...

A very daunting task and I'm not sure if the Federation had a century they could've come up with a way to defeat them, much less the twenty years they ended up with.

 

[BillJ]

The large fleets from DS9 were gathered just before the dominion war for this war - not for anything related to the borg.

That makes no sense either...

You can build all the ships you want but if you don't have the trained manpower to crew them you might as well not have them at all.

This isn't Bewitched, the Federation didn't wiggle its nose and hundreds of starships and trained crews didn't pop out of thin air. Between the time of the Jem'Hadar and the start of hostilities, Starfleet Academy would've put through one complete class.

The Federation was already ramping up for something and it wasn't the Dominion...

 

[Edit_XYZ]

BillJ

The problem with 'destiny' was NOT that starfleet lost; it was that it all but proved that 50 cubes would be more than enough to destroy starfleet/the federation - sans magical weapons from the future (transphasics).
In other words, it proved that starfleet's 'preparations' were utterly lacking.

As for 'what could starfleet do' - both on-screen and in trek lit, there were shown sources accessible to starfleet for tech advanced enough to hold the borg in check: the iconian gateways or the shedai technology, for example.

In both mentioned cases (and others) the reason for not using them is a medieval attitude of the federation towards science - 'we're not ready for such knowledge; no one should have this much power'.



About the ds9 fleets - actually it was pretty much established that the dominion was the reason the starfleet ships were recalled home.

About your explanations - that prior to the borg starfleet only had a few ships - well, this makes no sense; it has more logical holls in it than swiss cheese:
If it were true, other powers would have ripped the federation to shreds long ago - or are you positing that the romulans/klingons/etc also only had a few ships?

Of course, real world reason?
Initially, everyone was supposed to have only a few ships (due to CGI, mostly). During ds9, this changed.

 

[BillJ]

BillJ

The problem with 'destiny' was NOT that starfleet lost; it was that it all but proved that 50 cubes would be more than enough to destroy starfleet/the federation - sans magical weapons from the future - transphasics.

It proved that starfleet's 'preparations' were utterly lacking.

I think the Federation of 2381 could've actually fought and won a war against fifty cubes without trans-phasics.

As for 'what could starfleet do' - both on-screen and in trek lit, there were shown sources accessible to starfleet for tech advanced enough to hold the borg in check: the iconian gateways or the shedai technology, for example.

In both mentioned cases (and others) the reason for not using them is a medieval attitude of the federation towards science - 'we're not ready for such knowledge; no one should have this much power'.

The question you have to ask yourself is this: is the short-term bang that one of these weapons gives you worth what the Borg will give back once they adapt and learn to harness these weapons? Not only would you have to develop the weapon, you'd have to develop effective counter-measures for when the Borg inevitably adapt.

Plus without millions of troops to attempt to overwhelm the Borg in a single thrust, the Iconian gateways would be no more effective than transporters.

Is any single weapon an essential game-changer against the Borg? I don't think so. Because they would adapt.

As much as I'll be criticized for it, I believe the Federation's salvation actually would've been Bruce Maddox and Data. Mass producing an army of essential canon fodder that could've overwhelmed the Borg with brute force. But even then, allocating manpower and resources for such a project would be problematic.

About your explanations - that prior to the borg starfleet only had a few ships - well, this makes no sense; it has more logical holls in it than swiss cheese:

Starfleet had 39 ships they could muster for the attack on Wolf 359...

Shelby has a line in The Best of Both Worlds II about it taking less than a year to replace 39 starships...

SHELBY: We'll have the fleet back up in less than a year. I imagine you'll get your choice of any Starfleet command, sir.

By the time of the Redemption two-parter a year later, the ships are still coming off the construction lines and Starfleet doesn't have enough captains for them. Evaluate that any way you like.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

BillJ

The borg only adapt quickly against inferior technology.
Against equal or superior tech - not so much.
Witness, for example, species 8472; the borg failed to adapt to its tech no matter how often it was used against them.

The shedai tech was at least equal to species 8472; no quick adapting for the borg.

The iconian gateways - only as effective as transporters? They're ideal weapon platforms for transporting matter/antimatter warheads inside every borg cube in the quadrant, for example. And, of course, iconian gateways cannot be stopped by shields or the like.

And, as said, this enumeration is not limitative.

PS - Considering its performance in 'destiny', 2381 starfleet can only destroy 3-4 cubes before its weapons become utterly useless. Let's say 3-4 more cubes in kamikaze attacks before the borg adapt to those. That's it.
42 cubes is more than enough to wipe the federation from existence.

 

[BillJ]

BillJ

The borg only adapt quickly against inferior technology.
Against equal or superior tech - not so much.
Witness, for example, species 8472; the borg failed to adapt to its tech no matter how often it was used against them.

Yet they do adapt, or else they wouldn't have adapted to trans-phasic torpedoes. Conventional shielding wasn't suppose to work against those either...

Plus you have the fact that in one of the licensed materials, the Borg are using Species 8472 as shock troops.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

BillJ

As per canon (as in NOT tie in) - 'Scorpion' - 8472 was about to wipe the borg out, without the borg managing to adapt to its technology.
It's a safe bet transphasics are beneath 8472's tech - or shedai tech.


BillJ, against a foe as powerful as the borg, starfleet would need options; and tech such as the iconian gateways represent options.
It's besides the point whether the plan I outlined above with iconian gateways would work. Having such leverage, an intrepid starfleet crew could come up with one that would work. But not without such advantages - there's only so far out of the box thinking will bring you.

And what does starfleet do to prepare? It concentrates on phasers/torpedoes which are obviously useless against more than a few cubes (and that's stretching it) instead of gaining technologies which are within its grasp because ~'such power is forbidden to mere mortals'.
As I said:
The federation's failure to prepare for the borg represents either criminal stupidity or criminal negligence or both on the part of starfleet/whomever else was in charge of the federation protection.

Or, to put it another way - the writers unintentionally made starfleet/the federation quite incompetent.