Am I wrong to like the Maquis

[Mr. Laser Beam]

But If you don't want to leave you're house and place you and or your family build?
Do you have the right to defend yourself?

You can't always get what you want. The law is the law.

If, for example, the government takes my house via eminent domain, I wouldn't have the right to just go out and start shooting. I'd take the money that the government is required to pay me (the fair market value of my home) and go live somewhere else. Don't get me wrong, my home IS important to me, but there are limits.

In the Federation, it's even easier. There's land ripe for the taking on hundreds of Federation worlds. If the choice is, suck it up and go live somewhere else, or be a stubborn prick and die defending a home which can probably be re-created in precise detail on one of those worlds, well, pardon me if the choice seems a bit too clear.

 

[Ithekro]

Do we even know how long these colonies have been in place? They all seem to be human colonies of one sort or another. How far away is Cardassian Space from Earth? Humans have been sending out colonies for a few hundred years at this point, but did they have contact with Cardassia for more than say a hundred years? Were these colonies settled for a long time prior to Cardassia coming into the area, or were the Humans settling too close to Cardassian space, triggering the conflict? Remember that Cardassia annexed Bajor and that was not very far from Cardassia Prime, and that was relatively recent (within Picard's lifetime). The wars seem to be even more recent, it shouldn't be that these colonies are like ancestral homes or anything. Sure their are memories and hard work, but these aren't were your people have been for centuries.

 

[Nyotarules]

We probably only see humans due to budget constraints of a TV show. But I get the impression humans are the nosy parkers of the Federation always wanting to plant their flag in someone else backyard. Why don't humans stay within the Sol system?

 

[Ithekro]

Even with a World War or three there are likely too many humans on Earth by the 22nd century and some of those old pioneer spirit ideas come back. So many people leave that Earth seems like paradise by the 24th century.

We must also be breeding like rabbits to have so many colonies scattered across so many sectors of space. That or we keep running onto "lost" human groups left by the Preservers or any number of other alien species that seem to like to take humans and set up cultural based colonies across the galaxy. (the old version of Alpha Centauri, the 37ers, at least one Native American tribe that took in Kirok, a Wild West settlement found by the NX-01, and also possibly the various parallel development worlds like Miri's world or the Romans, and the like.)

 

[Nyotarules]

Since most of the colonists are from North America maybe a future USA runs out of space, the population reaches 1 billion or something lol

 

[Ithekro]

Old theory (based on both the lack of other nationalities being represented in number and the Q scene from late 21st century Earth in "Encounter at Farpoint") was that whatever happening in the last of Earth's major wars blasted a large piece out of Asia's populations.

Of course it was really just what they could get for extras in Hollywood.

 

[Nyotarules]

Old theory (based on both the lack of other nationalities being represented in number and the Q scene from late 21st century Earth in "Encounter at Farpoint") was that whatever happening in the last of Earth's major wars blasted a large piece out of Asia's populations.

Of course it was really just what they could get for extras in Hollywood.

Or Q used an example close to Picard's culture

 

[Tracy Trek]

Ok, maybe the colonies were infringing on Cardassian territory, I'm not sure. But what right did Cardassia have annex Bajor in the first place? That was the Bajoran's own world. Were they initially invited or something like a trade agreement and then they just started taking advantage? I remember Kira comparing the Federation to the Cardassians in Emissary.

 

[Paradise City]

I think the intent of the writers is that this is Federation overreach, that it's tough living on a frontier colony in a very real and substantial way, relocation is fraught with serious difficulties. These frontier people aren't just nutters taking up arms for the giggles.

I'm not saying they are justified once you work all these things through -- I don't think they are - nevertheless they have powerful and real reasons for doing what they do and reasons that aren't easily dismissed.

 

[Ithekro]

Ok, maybe the colonies were infringing on Cardassian territory, I'm not sure. But what right did Cardassia have annex Bajor in the first place? That was the Bajoran's own world. Were they initially invited or something like a trade agreement and then they just started taking advantage? I remember Kira comparing the Federation to the Cardassians in Emissary.

I seem to recall that Bajor went into some sort of depression or something that required aid and the Cardassians provided it. Than some years later they considered themselves to be de facto owners of the system and Annexed it. I don't know if the occupation was brutal at first, or if the mining station of Terok Nor was originally part of the deal with Bajor prior to the annexation, or if it was a result of the Bajorians resisting a little (possibly on religious grounds at first), than getting more and more brutal as the decades past (some could say like the colonial situations in the Middle East post World War One).

It is likely that Bajor was strip mined because of the war with the Federation, and it paying out might have been part of the cause for the Cardassians to go for a peace of sorts with the Federation, and leaving Bajor (over Gul Dukat's objections).

The border colonies with Cardassia seem like a place that could be abandoned. I seem to recall several Cardassian worlds were also to be traded in the deal. meaning those Cardassian colonist would also have to leave.

 

[Solariabsg25]

We of course do not have any idea how long ago these colonies were established. They could be centuries old, with the colonists for all intents and purposes actually being the indigenous populations of the world.

The current generation, possibly the fifth or sixth generation of the planet, who may have even taken up a phaser and saw friends and loved ones killed helping to defend the place from the Cardassians during the Cardassian War, then only a few decades later to have some Federation official tell you "Well, we know all you went through, but well you have to pack your bags and leave"? I suspect many would tell them to shove it.

I do wonder if perhaps the higher-ups in the Cardassian Central Command DID actually want the treaty to succeed, as wanton violence against the ex-Federation Colonists would have possibly drawn the Federation into a conflict that the Treaty hoped to avoid in the first place.

 

[Ithekro]

I would imagine the Cardassians did want the treaty signed and done with the exchanged colonies and no Federation citizens within their border. No pests within their territory means they can rebuild without so many bush fires or potential Federation informants looking closer than we know they already were.

Once the Union licks its wounds, it could come back in a decade or so and possibly retake those world and Bajor, or just leave the Federation alone and focus someplace else now that they have a secure border.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Federation wants it all.

Cardassia was going to sign up.

Then the Klingons and the Romulans.

Everyone.

 

[Ithekro]

The Federation wants it all and they want it now?

 

[rogar love]

I like the Maqui or at least the idea of them. A bunch people the Federation seemed to wish that they would go away. The annoying little scratch on the shiny veneer that is Star fleet/Federation. I think Sisko sums it up well when he tells Kira, that the problem is Earth, "Stare out the window and you see paradise, and its easy to be a Saint in paradise!". Or something like that.
I think it sums up the Maqui and what they are about. They want to preserve their way of life just as much as the Federation does, but I suspect most feel betrayed that Federation signed up to the agreement or abandoned by them.
So they take up arms to defend themselves.
One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

 

[Amaris]

You can't always get what you want. The law is the law.

If, for example, the government takes my house via eminent domain, I wouldn't have the right to just go out and start shooting. I'd take the money that the government is required to pay me (the fair market value of my home) and go live somewhere else. Don't get me wrong, my home IS important to me, but there are limits.

In the Federation, it's even easier. There's land ripe for the taking on hundreds of Federation worlds. If the choice is, suck it up and go live somewhere else, or be a stubborn prick and die defending a home which can probably be re-created in precise detail on one of those worlds, well, pardon me if the choice seems a bit too clear.

Indeed. This is a post-scarcity society. There is no limit to where they can go.

 

[Ensign]

If you believe in big government then I guess you would agree with the Federation as they are a big government.

It basically just comes down to big government vs local community. Everything else is just mudslinging.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It really depends on if power and votes are distributed evenly on the Federation Council, and how many votes it takes to pass any resolution, as well as the powers of the council president and how he or she is elected/selected.

If there's only 150 seats on the council, it wouldn't be too hard for a bunch of noobz to rise up, and starchamber the old guard/founders irrelevant as decision makers.

 

[USS Firefly]

Good points, and perhaps it depends if you have a family, wife, children.
I have a wife and daughter, and the moment there is a possibility that the Federation could exchange the planet with the Cardassians, I move.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If you believe in big government then I guess you would agree with the Federation as they are a big government.

It basically just comes down to big government vs local community. Everything else is just mudslinging.

I believe in GOOD government. Which, for the most part, is what the Federation is.

Whether it's big or small, who gives a shit? As long as it works.