Bribing Quark in Pale Moonlight

[Hofner]

When did Starfleet know anything about it? Maybe I've forgotten but I don't remember any conversations with Starfleet in this epi.

And if Sisko really had Starfleet's backing, then there would have been no need to do what he did at the end.

In ITPM, when Garak outlined his "A" plan, ie give the Romulans a fake recording of Dominion plans to invade their empire, Sisko said he didn't have the authority to approve such a plan; he'd have to clear it with Starfleet Command. Later he said in his monologue that Starfleet Command gave their blessing to the plan.

So ultimately Sisko didn't authorize the plan, Starfleet Command did.

Robert

 

[DanCPA]

I wonder who in 'fleet did it

I doubt some idealistic flag officer would have approved it

 

[SoM]

I doubt some idealistic flag officer would have approved it

Well, not all flag officers were idealistic, ja? Homefront/Paradise Lost leaps instantly to mind.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Fair enough. If not a threat how about an explanation? I think you'd agree that Quark would definately not want the Dominion in control of DS9 (again).

Even tho Quark did help out during the Dominion occupation of DS9, for Sisko to have brought him in on the conspiracy would have required an incredible amount of trust. That would have been foolish of Sisko. And Quark may have honestly disagreed that Sisko and Garak's plan was the right strategy. On top of that, the plan kept changing as things went wrong and they had to adapt.

So ultimately Sisko didn't authorize the plan, Starfleet Command did.

Sisko erased his recording, not because he feared for his career, but because of his own personal sense of ethics. It was his way of coping with what he'd done, simply to decide to forget it. The moment would have been less powerful if he'd done it just to cover his butt. Something like that needs to be internally motivated to make good drama.

 

[DanCPA]

I doubt some idealistic flag officer would have approved it

Well, not all flag officers were idealistic, ja? Homefront/Paradise Lost leaps instantly to mind.

yeah, but there has to be a couple of idealistic ones?

 

[SoM]

I doubt some idealistic flag officer would have approved it

Well, not all flag officers were idealistic, ja? Homefront/Paradise Lost leaps instantly to mind.

yeah, but there has to be a couple of idealistic ones?

The rest locked them in a cupboard while they were debating

 

[Hermiod]

^This is the same Starfleet that pulled the "let's build a cloaking device far in advance of anything our enemies have and not tell the Romulans about it" stunt.

 

[SoM]

^This is the same Starfleet that pulled the "let's build a cloaking device far in advance of anything our enemies have and not tell the Romulans about it" stunt.

Well, per the treaty, they weren't allowed even primitive cloaking devices [let alone one which threw intangibility into the bargain], whether they told the Romulans or not.

*still wonders exactly how badly the Feds were caned by the Roms to make that treaty seem like a good idea...*

 

[Hofner]

Well, not all flag officers were idealistic, ja? Homefront/Paradise Lost leaps instantly to mind.

yeah, but there has to be a couple of idealistic ones?

The rest locked them in a cupboard while they were debating

I imagine it's not hard for the hard-liner admirals to get rid of the idealistic ones in Starfleet Command.

SC HardLiner: Hey, I just saw some puppies someone brought in the other room.

After the idealistic Admirals rush out to look at the cute puppies the hard-liners vote to approve Sisko's Romulan plan.

Robert

 

[darthraidr]

let's not forget that betazed had fallen during the episode... i cant imagine it would be hard to convince starfleet brass to use false information to convice someone to join a war.

 

[Anthony Sabre]

It was most likely through Admiral Ross. He was presented as being Sisko's immediate superior and he was quite willing to fool the Romulans later in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.

 

[Hermiod]

^This is the same Starfleet that pulled the "let's build a cloaking device far in advance of anything our enemies have and not tell the Romulans about it" stunt.

Well, per the treaty, they weren't allowed even primitive cloaking devices [let alone one which threw intangibility into the bargain], whether they told the Romulans or not.

Yes, exactly my point. Yet Admiral Raner, the Chief of Starfleet Security, thought it was a good idea.

*still wonders exactly how badly the Feds were caned by the Roms to make that treaty seem like a good idea...*

Ah, the Treaty of Algeron did not end any war. There was a prior Earth/Romulan treaty that ended the war between them.

The Treaty of Algeron was signed after the unspecified "Tomed Incident".

 

[Timo]

To be sure, we don't know when the Treaty of Algeron was signed, and whether there was a war attached. All we know is that the treaty, which bans UFP cloaks, has kept the peace since the rough time of the Tomed Incident (or Tomed Incident, as David George III would have us believe). Prior to that incident, the treaty might already have existed but would simply have failed in keeping the peace.

Before ENT "Minefield", we might have thought the Romulans would have no reason to add a no-cloak clause to the original 2160s (2170s?) peace treaty, as cloaks would not have existed back then. But apparently they did, or were seen as a technologically viable possibility, and could easily have been a strategic advantage the Romulans wanted to keep.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

To be sure, we don't know when the Treaty of Algeron was signed, and whether there was a war attached. All we know is that the treaty, which bans UFP cloaks, has kept the peace since the rough time of the Tomed Incident (or Tomed Incident, as David George III would have us believe). Prior to that incident, the treaty might already have existed but would simply have failed in keeping the peace.

The Federation treaty makers of the time may have just wanted to keep the peace. They may have, idealistically, still seen Starfleet as a non-military organisation that does not need to sneak around.

I view it much like the nuclear test ban treaties of today. Countries like Germany, for instance, do not have nuclear weapons but does anyone think that with the scientific skill such a technologically advanced nation has at their disposal they couldn't build such weapons if they tried ?

The Federation still built a working cloaking device that, despite it's flaws, was even more advanced than anything the Romulans had built at the time.

Before ENT "Minefield", we might have thought the Romulans would have no reason to add a no-cloak clause to the original 2160s (2170s?) peace treaty, as cloaks would not have existed back then. But apparently they did, or were seen as a technologically viable possibility, and could easily have been a strategic advantage the Romulans wanted to keep.

"Minefield" did indeed change our perspective on things. I do wonder why the Romulans did not give their Drone Ships cloaks. Perhaps the projection technology that allowed the ships to pose as other ships and their cloaking devices were incompatible.

 

[Timo]

Or perhaps the technology is one and the same: it can create visual illusions of foreign ships, or it can create visual illusions of empty starfields.

It's just that those visual illusions fall apart when subjected to even relatively primitive sensor scans. An example of such primitive technology would be the devices provided by Daniels - advanced by mid-22nd century human standards, perhaps, but so primitive nevertheless that all the opponents of the Romulans would have them by the latter half of the century, rendering the projection technology useless.

If so, the Romulans would have a good reason to include the no-cloak clause: their enemies would not find it a bad bargain, given the low value of cloaks extant at the time, but the Romulans would buy time to develop a more perfect invisibility screen while ensuring that the enemy efforts at developing countermeasures would go on back burner for a while.

This as such still contradicts "Balance of Terror" where the historically savvy Stiles claims that the identifying characteristic of Romulan ships is their birdlike warpaint. By all rights, the identifying characteristic of Romulan ships should be that they look like other ships or empty space! However, "Balance of Terror" is the only piece of Star Trek that claims that invisibility devices were a novelty and a rarity. In other episodes of TOS, let alone the spinoffs, invisibility is taken for granted, and it is readily accepted that it comes in a number of varieties, of which the Romulan technology is but one (and not necessarily the first).

That's the dilemma here: "Balance of Terror" is the one sore thumb sticking out, and makes little sense in scifi terms overall - surely invisibility would be a routine occurrence for our intrepid space adventurers already? But "Balance of Terror" is also a good episode, better than many other invisibility-themed ones, and something I'd hate to erase from Trek history even if I could.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^It's really "Minefield" that sticks out. There is, however, a big gap between "Minefield" and "Balance of Terror". Maybe Starfleet figured out the cloaking technology to the point where the Romulans temporarily abandonded it during the war. They must have gotten their hands on at least one Romulan ship during the war.

In any general Star Trek discussion, I don't like to use a lot of retroactive evidence from Enterprise. It is fully established by Daniels that, at the very least, the major events of the third season were not supposed to happen and the series did focus on a large scale Temporal Cold War where various parties were changing history. Typically, however, Star Trek shows that when time travel to the past occurs what happens is that the end result is what was supposed to happen in the first place.