Did Picard make the right decision with the Son'a/Baku
- Thread starter Godless Raven
- Start date
They probably felt that way seeing as the federation wasn't very dependable seeing as they were ignorant of what was going on and their usual way of handling other governments doing something they don't like is to impotently complain at them and only do that.
Except by that point the Maquis didn't accept federation authority any more and as far as their concerned they aren't apart of it anymore.
They didn't seem to think of the federation as their government anymore.
You make it sound like the Cardassians were just going to give up after one set back their history on the shos says otherwise.
Well if they were doing their job when they were supposed to instead of just assuming the Cardassians would honor the treaty when they've show no inclination to do so in the past things wouldn't have gotten that bad.
Actually it doesn't seem to matter in the trekverse that much.
Again it's a mess of their own making becuase they were naive idiots.
Their first appearance is what he's talking about.
And if I'm remembering it right then the federation went after them before they discovered the treaty violations had occurred, as the federation becoming aware of what the Cardassians had done was part of Sisko's final attempt to get Hudson to end the Maquis which Hudson seemed to shoot down as too little too late.
Ah, this was The Maquis. Well, a high-ranking Starfleet officer defects. What the hell should the Federation do, just idly sit by? Of course they will go after him, he is a defector and possible a traitor.
Still waiting for the arguments that points out how the actions of the Maquis serve the goal of peace.
I already made my point, peace treaty plus decent monitoring do the trick whereas attacking the Feds or the Cardassians doesn't. Fighting against the bullies on the schoolyard is heroic but if it doesn't end their nastiness it is pointless in the long-run.
Still waiting for the arguments that points out how the actions of the Maquis serve the goal of peace.
I already made my point, peace treaty plus decent monitoring do the trick whereas attacking the Feds or the Cardassians doesn't. Fighting against the bullies on the schoolyard is heroic but if it doesn't end their nastiness it is pointless in the long-run.
A peace treaty the Cardassians were doing their best to break from day one. The Federation refused to force Cardassia to uphold it all "in the name of peace." The agreement reached by Sisko and Dukat in the Maquis was each side reigns in it's people. The Cardassians never did that.
To take your "schoolyard" metaphor a step further. So the Cardassian bully is beating up the Maquis kid and taking his lunch money. So he cries and cries to the Federation teacher. Who does nothing about it. Heck sometimes the teacher is actively holding the Maquis kid down while the Cardassian bully takes the lunch money. So yeah... they chose to fight.
And as innocent sounding as taking lunch money sounds, it's more along the lines of destruction of property, rape, and murder.
If you mess with the bullies and the teacher you cannot whine when the teacher smacks you. Last time I checked only teachers can establish peace on the schoolyard.
Care to point out how the actions of the Maquis are anything but detrimental to achieving peace in the DMZ? This is what I care about. Heroic macho separatist bullshit? No thanks.
Care to point out how the actions of the Maquis are anything but detrimental to achieving peace in the DMZ? This is what I care about. Heroic macho separatist bullshit? No thanks.
"detrimental to achieving peace?" I think the other poster's point was that there was already a lack of peace. By definition, if you're already being bullied, then there isn't peace. Whether you acknowledge that or not by fighting back or just taking it, there still isn't "peace."
And you just want millions of Federation citizens die in a second war with the Cardassians. Can we stop the hyperbole and emotional bullshitting and get back to the core of the issue?
I never claimed that the Maquis are nasty bastards or whatever. My argument was that they should do a little bit of violence, Intifada style, to get the attention of their central government. Then they should lay down their weapons and try to lobby hard for better monitoring of the DMZ.
That's a path towards peace. Care to point out how fighting with the Cardassians AND the Federation achieves anything? As I already pointed out, the violence of the Maquis gave the Cardassians an excuse to maintain a military presence in the DMZ and ship even more weapons to the colonies (you can use your ships as cover and as transport vessels). They weren't just a bunch of colonists who defended their colonies from local bullies, they had spaceships and led a guerrilla war.
I don't have problems with political violence. Gee, I defended the Jacobins in this very thread! But you always gotta analyze the specific situation and check out whether violence and what kind of violence (in this case few weeks or months of Maquis action until Federation newspapers report about the problems in the DMZ) helps you to achieve your goal.
If I may end this with a personal note, my grandaunt is the only one who of this generation who ever liked to talk about WWII. When the French troops came after the war some guys of the Légion étrangère misbehaved and started to rape women in the village. The people in the village sent somebody to report to a higher ranked officer in a nearby town to sort out this issue. Of course they could have also picked up weapons and used them against the rapists but I doubt that the outcome would have been good. So much about Maquis style solutions.
I never claimed that the Maquis are nasty bastards or whatever. My argument was that they should do a little bit of violence, Intifada style, to get the attention of their central government. Then they should lay down their weapons and try to lobby hard for better monitoring of the DMZ.
That's a path towards peace. Care to point out how fighting with the Cardassians AND the Federation achieves anything? As I already pointed out, the violence of the Maquis gave the Cardassians an excuse to maintain a military presence in the DMZ and ship even more weapons to the colonies (you can use your ships as cover and as transport vessels). They weren't just a bunch of colonists who defended their colonies from local bullies, they had spaceships and led a guerrilla war.
I don't have problems with political violence. Gee, I defended the Jacobins in this very thread! But you always gotta analyze the specific situation and check out whether violence and what kind of violence (in this case few weeks or months of Maquis action until Federation newspapers report about the problems in the DMZ) helps you to achieve your goal.
If I may end this with a personal note, my grandaunt is the only one who of this generation who ever liked to talk about WWII. When the French troops came after the war some guys of the Légion étrangère misbehaved and started to rape women in the village. The people in the village sent somebody to report to a higher ranked officer in a nearby town to sort out this issue. Of course they could have also picked up weapons and used them against the rapists but I doubt that the outcome would have been good. So much about Maquis style solutions.
Last edited:
they could have tried that track with the Federation I suppose, but the TNG-era Federation tended to bend over backward to avoid any conflict, so I don't think they would have gone for tighter monitoring or a more assertive approach toward the Cardassians.
And you're operating under the false assumption that the Federation was doing -anything- to stop this. Picard, Sisko and Necheyev all said they're on the Cardassian side of the DMZ, they're on their own when pressed on the issue. When Sisko asked Husdon about taking it to the Cardassian authorities..
The Federation went after the wrong people all in the name of peace with the Cardassians. Which yeah... that worked out real well. The Cardassians only instigated the largest war in the history of the Federation a few years later.
So don't tell me the Cardassians were interested in peace. They weren't. Before the treaty was even negotiated they tried to seize Minos Korva. Even after it they'd attack Federation ships(like in the Chase) when convenient. They routinely terrorized the colonists, and were arming for a new conflict with the Federation.
The Federation went after the wrong people all in the name of peace with the Cardassians. Which yeah... that worked out real well. The Cardassians only instigated the largest war in the history of the Federation a few years later.
Just to be clear, I don't condone Federation behaviour in any way and I totally agree that political actions would have most likely not made the Feds monitor the DMZ better (which would have hardly been an affront to the Cardies).
But once the Maquis attacked both sides there was no way the Feds could have implemented a better policy even in theory, they first had to stop the violence of the Maquis.
This is my problem, whatever slim chances the settlers (besides doing the common-sensical thing and leaving their colonies) had, their ruined it once they fought against their own government. And once they went down this separationist path they basically became suicidal. Even the tiniest chance to change Federation policy via political means in the DMZ is better than this.
Ah, you finally you made your point, the war should continue. Given that this implies the suffering of perhaps hundred or thousands times more people I am against it. The little that was implied in TNG made it crystal clear that this was one of the most devastating conflicts in recent Federation history.
I agree with you there. The Maquis should have left the colonies. It's the 24th century in Trek, re-settling elsewhere in the Federation should be easy.
I never said it -should- continue, you're putting words in my mouth there, please don't. I'd say it -is- continuing, courtesy of the Cardassians. Heck, they bombed an entire Federation colony in Ensign Ro. The Cardassians repeatedly demonstrated an opportunistic behavior regarding the Federation, attacking their colonies, their starships and outposts whenever tactically convenient. So "hundreds or thousands" of casualties were already happening.
As for little being implied in TNG? Well being it ended in season 2 of DS9, you can't expect them to have covered the Dominion arc. When I said they instigated the largest war in Federation history a few years -later- I wasn't talking about the past conflict, but the Dominion one. Again, the Cardassians broke the treaty when convenient. Great peace treaty eh? It's historical fact you have to have both parties interested in peace for it to work. Not just one.
I think that the colonists were so stubborn for two reasons.
First, they do attract adventurous, not particularly risk-averse people. It's kinda like with the settlement of the New World, but the selection effects are stronger as there are no economic incentives in the world of Trek (America was land-abundant while labour was scarce so wage to land rent ratios were higher in America than in Europe). So in the core of the Federation people we have these (I am exaggerating) phlegmatic, risk-averse hobbits who caring about a peaceful and quite life. Naturally the adventure types on the border are more trigger-happy and less concerned about their own life.
Second, we all have read our Ernest Becker. People need an "immortality project", people need to pursue something which (they can pretend) continues to exist after they are death. Gilgamesh and the wall around Uruk, a writer living on via his books, having children. For people in the "outer rim" their life's work is in the places they made habitable so they don't wanna give them up. As you said, life elsewhere should be easy but unlike animals we humans are not simple hedonists. Once some of them fight in the Maquis their new immortality project might have become giving up their comforts or ultimately their life to fight for what they perceive as a good cause (MLK's last speech neatly shows how somebody thinks and feels in such a situation).
First, being at war doesn't mean you actually fight and the treaty with the Cardassians wasn't a peace treaty. When you are at peace you do not need demilitarized zones.
So, to be more precise, what I actually meant was that you advocate that the Federation remains at war in the sense of not signing anything more than a mere ceasefire agreement. Situations remain tense, fleets remain ready and so on. If I am wrong again please correct me or clearly state what you advocate the Federation to do. I outed myself as a pussy peacenik long ago.
Second, of course you have to judge the trustworthiness of your opponent. But back then Dominion War was a future event and what matters are the corpses from the previous war. The Feds made good experiences with the Romulans, guys who are not trustworthy either, and the neutral zone so the idea of a DMZ with the Cardassians seemed good.
You do realize that we are talking about multiple planets with no idea how many people are actually living there so moving them could require a large amount of ships which have to come from somewhere (hell it took Picard a few weeks to just get evacuation ships to move a small colony descended from crash survivors so who knows how long bigger colonies would take), then there is the question of where to put all the refugees I mean it not like the federation has an infinite amount of planets hence why the planets being ceded were colonized in the first place, (again Picard and his crew spent time looking for a new planet for the guys from Homeward so it's not exactly a cake walk). Which is another problem with the treaty.
Seriously when do people not realize that a planetary evacuation isn't some minor project and is in fact a major undertaking. It's a freaking planet not a small town.
