Am I wrong to like the Maquis

[Voth commando1]

this is a general question and not specific to any one series-but am I wrong to like the maquis and want them to win.

The federation sells these people up the river and then says yeah we'll resettle you-the lives you built here don't mean anything no hard feelings.

The cardassians kill them and oppress them, the federation turns their back on them for the sake of peace-yes peace with an aggressive and duplicitous empire.

Eddington also had a sense of charisma and intelligence, not Picard's self righteousness, Siskos arrogance and utter lack of moral compass and Janeway's suicidal desire to satisfy her own emotional needs-I'd follow him to Cardassia itself.

Am I wrong.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Yes, I think the Maquis got the bad end of the deal in the border dispute between the Federation and the Cardassians. I believe the Cardassians never had any intention of peacefully co-existing with the Federation colonists that lived within their borders. So they started harassing them, hoping they would give up and leave.

 

[DonIago]

I think the colonists got somewhat of a bad deal, but I also think they handled it in just about the worst possible way they could have, and lost the right to complain when they showed they had as little regard for anyone else's lives as the Federation allegedly had for theirs.

 

[Spot261]

My own take is that the Maquis are supposed to leave you feeling at least some sympathy for them, the whole situation represents the Federation making compromises and perhaps mishandling things.

 

[Mage]

That's the question they wanted to ask, as writers, I feel. I mean, labeling someone or a group as terrorists is easy. Depending on your own status and points of view, they might be either terrorists or freedomfighters. Same goes for the Bajor Resistance. In the Netherlands, during WWII, there was an active resistance. Some considered them patriots, others saw them as terrorists. And not just the oppressors. From a oppressed point of view, you might label them as terrorists aswell, since their actions are causing the oppressors to push down harder and making life even harder for you. Or you could label them as heroes since they are trying to set your free.

And that's what DS9 did more often. The show tried to go against the standard Western World black and white concept of good guy/bad guy. In the real world, it's hardly even that simple, we are simply forced to believe it is.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I think you need to be more concerned about the correctness (or lack thereof) of your suggestion that a place with a large civilian population should be "glassed" than about your opinion of the Maquis. As others here have suggested, the latter matter has a great deal of nuance and ambiguity. But the former matter does not. And there's no way to casually use weapons that do things like that and somehow magically determine and separate those who are not your enemy from those who are - nor would it be okay to destroy their homes and lives like that, nor even those of citizens who might support their planet's war with you but aren't active combatants - even if you could. Frankly, it's a monstrous idea.

(A lot of people are confused by what happened when the US nuked Japan at the end of WWII. Those bombings were *not okay*. However, they may have been partially justified by projections that a ground invasion to take Japan would have resulted in millions more deaths than the two bombs did. *However however*, there may have already been indicators that the Emperor of Japan was ready to surrender anyway, and the bombs may actually have been dropped to demonstrate them to *the USSR* as a deterrent. Regardless, "glassing" Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a terrible act, and a war crime, honestly, since it was intentionally targeting a civilian population. It certainly wasn't the easy clean sweep that, probably due to propaganda, some young Westerners sometimes seem to believe.)

Sorry if I got off on a rant, there, and I don't want you to think I'm trying to come down on you hard, and yes, I know you were discussing it in a fictional world (which I'm not sure matters, but maybe it does). I just couldn't let that "glassing" business pass without comment. Please consider what I'm saying here.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

You wouldn't necessarily be wrong to like the Maquis as such, but you WOULD be wrong to like Eddington, who was clearly an insufferable jackass with an ego the size of the Federation itself.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Did the Maquis try to avoid civilian targets? At least in the beginning when Calvin Hudson first started with them. And to the original poster. I do not think that Cardassia should be "glassed".

What was the name of the episode or episodes that revealed that Eddington was working with the Maquis?

 

[at Quark's]

Eddington also had a sense of charisma and intelligence, not Picard's self righteousness, Siskos arrogance and utter lack of moral compass and Janeway's suicidal desire to satisfy her own emotional needs-I'd follow him to Cardassia itself.
Am I wrong.

Say again?

Eddington certainly had charisma, and some points against the Federation (policy) that could be considered valid, but he wasn't hesitant at committing acts of sabotage and terrorism. Besides, he was every bit es much a self-righteous prick as some interpret the Picard character, to boot. He just spouted a different world belief in which the Federation wasn't the unequivocal end-all of all things, but he seemed to fully buy into the idea he had some kind of 'rebel hero' status, and eventually, martyrdom.

 

[Tenacity]

an aggressive and duplicitous empire that quite frankly needed to be dismantled maybe they could give the cardassian dissident movement a city on some remote planet after they glassed Cardassia

This implies that the Federation would have even have been able to do this. The fact is that despite trying, the Federation was incapable at the time of defeating the Cardassians.

Picard said that the war had taken millions of lives.

So they went for a imperfect treaty.

 

[TheSubCommander]

Yeah, you were never intended to think of the Maquis as villains. More like either sympathetic antagonists who are sometimes protagonists, or an allegory where big government forgets about the "little guy." But I always got the impression that the writers didn't quite know what to do with the Maquis, and ultimately, they just end up killing them all off. Except for the Maquis on Voyager, that is. And even them they just get absorbed into the federation crew.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Did the Maquis try to avoid civilian targets? At least in the beginning when Calvin Hudson first started with them.

Most of them did, yeah.

And to the original poster. I do not think that Cardassia should be "glassed".

Eddington would have. You can be absolutely sure that he would have destroyed Cardassia itself if he'd had the means and opportunity.

 

[DonIago]

^Agreed with that last point. If the Maquis were looking to be legitimately recognized by the Federation and Cardassian governments, Eddington was the last thing they needed in terms of leadership.

It's a shame that it essentially became more about him than the Maquis itself, and that we never saw what more moderate factions within the Maquis were up to. What was Hudson doing after we last saw him? Did he support Eddington?

 

[USS Triumphant]

What was Hudson doing after we last saw him? Did he support Eddington?

For that matter, would Chakotay have supported Eddington? I can't really see that.

 

[suarezguy]

The federation sells these people up the river and then says yeah we'll resettle you-the lives you built here don't mean anything no hard feelings.

I think they settled on the worlds knowing that they were highly disputed, claimed by both the Federation and the Cardassians, and the Federation did fight a war to protect their interests and rights and did manage to keep some of the worlds but not all of them. Accepting nothing but complete and total victory and taking everything and wanting to fight until you get it seems at the least unreasonable.

am I wrong to like the maquis and want them to win.

A lot of the characters are likeable and the Cardassians are presented as duplicitous and brutal enough that as a movement they may seem reasonable and justified but their indifference to civilian casualties and insistence that fighting a war (which they would prefer the Federation fought for them) is better than relocating I think on the whole disqualifies them from support. Not that the Cardassians were justified or more deserving to win.

 

[DonIago]

I also frankly think in a world with replicators and (prior to the Dominion War at least) what we're led to believe is essentially unlimited resources within most of the Federation, the whole notion of "this is my home and I won't leave it even if that means starting a war!" is a bit ridiculous.

I also agree with the above poster that at best the colonists must have known they were settling on worlds close to unknown space, and at worst knew they were settling right next door to a hostile power. To me, this lends an air of "What did you think was going to happen?"

Make no mistake, I'd hate to have my apartment burn down in a fire or such...but if I could easily be relocated to an apartment at least as large and have the bulk of my possessions re-created with relative ease? Hey, that's not so bad.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Welcome to the Mirror Universe, folks.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Are you suggesting that an entire civilization should be murdered because of the war history of their political decision makers? This isn't even a case like the bombings in Japan where the bombings may have prevented a longer drawn out war that killed more people. Attacking civilians on Cardassia would have accomplished absolutely zero except to guarantee that any military vessels not on Cardassia fought to the last man. What you're suggesting would be an act of genocide motivated by revenge and anyone who would even consider that is unfit to have authority over McDonalds employees much less an entire country.

One of the basic quotes from Art of War. Best is to attack their supply lines, next best is to attack their armies, worst is to attack their cities. The Dominion 'glassing' a Cardassian city is what finally turned the Cardassian military and the entire population against them and the Federation doing it wouldn't have been any more useful.

Regarding the Maquis. They were not wrong to defend their homes, but they passed up peaceful avenues at multiple opportunities. Eddington was not motivated by practicality, he was a narcissist who wanted to tell the story of himself rescuing the trodden down colonists. The Federation may or may not have been wrong to just give away their homes at the swipe of a pen in order to achieve peace, they were clearly wrong to just abandon and not defend them. The Maquis had all the right motivations but no long term plan and terrible leadership that led them into oblivion.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"Glassing" Cardassia isn't the equivalent of a McDonald's manager firing employees...it's the equivalent of bombing the store during lunch rush.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I can answer the original question of the thread now: No, you're not wrong. How could you possibly be? Given the justification of genocide that you've presented here, I'm not entirely sure how you could possibly believe that much of *anything* is wrong. I'm honestly surprised you had the inkling to even ask whether you were wrong about something or not.

Note to moderators: If that counts as an infraction, I apologize. Warn me or not as you see fit. But I'm done with this thread, either way.