Can we all agree that 31 had a huge roll in winning the war

An big problem here is the aforementioned clairvoyance aspect. Humans cannot foretell the full consequences of their action; however, the Prophets apparently can. At the end of the day, it proved impossible to collapse the wormhole - but quite possible to render it impassable by making friends with the Prophets.

Trying to butt heads with the Prophets would have been genocide, too. Granted, offing the genus of Prophets might have been slightly less sinful than offing the trillions of souls associated with the Dominion, but it would probably closely match offing the genus of Founders. And trying to argue that lesser evil is categorically allowed in fighting greater evil doesn't seem to be up your alley, any more than it is up mine. It'd have to be case-by-case, and this particular case just doesn't sound like something where I'd side with a putative S31 plan to destroy the Celestial Temple.

In general, trying to play nice costs lives - just have a look at WWII. But this isn't a good argument for not playing nice. I'm on the side of the party that refused to pursue attacks against the Celestial Temple, then; doesn't mean I'd much appreciate the plan to murder or blackmail the Founders.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yet its odd that Sisko and co on two seperate occassions had no moral problem with attempting to collapse the wormhole to prevent the Dominion coming through. Especially as in the second case (In Purgatory's Shadow) they had a way to do it without harming the Prophets.

 

As said, the Federation does its share of genocide. And Sisko is a murderer by profession. It's not always easy to associate with these heroes, just as it's not easy to always condemn the appointed villains.

In the first attempt at collapsing the wormhole ("The Search"), I am certainly opposed to the path Sisko took. Genocide merely in the name of a delaying action (granted, seven decades' worth, but still) doesn't sound justified. In the second attempt, I can but shrug at the ingenuity of the enemy in turning this disaster into a triumph for them - and at Sisko's lack of foresight or initiative, as he never seemed to consider asking the Prophets pretty please, despite already having evidence that they listen to the right kind of reason.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Question: With beings as powerful and advanced as the Prophets could the wormhole/Celestial Temple be permanently collapsed? They made it, surely they could remake it.

 

That first attempt never really happened though, it was part a Changling version of a holodeck story.

 

There is no proof that collapsing the Wormhole would kill the prophets in the first place. Besides as a Secret Society, a super virus makes more sense then potentially opening a new front against extremely advanced Aliens. Not to mention they want to expand Federation dominance into that Quadrant eventually and its alot easier to hid their virus plan then it is to hide cutting off the wormhole.

Although its easier for Sisko to just ask and mining the wormhole does the same thing essentially.

 

True enough - but asking would be helpful in this respect, too. And it's probably still safer to assume that "collapsing one's house poses a risk to one" than that "the Dominion will attack"...

The scenario we got never rang particularly true anyway. The wormhole is a choke point, and even an invincible fleet of hundreds of thousands of ships should be relatively easily stopped by 300 Spartan class ships wielding nothing more exotic than standard phasers and photon torpedoes. If the Feds feared war with the Dominion, they could have fired on those Dominion shipments with impunity (at any point, including the key moments of "By Inferno's Light") and laughed at feeble Dominion accusations of unfair aggression. That sort of violence would have been directed at the exact deserving target, without risk to outsiders or innocents, or even to the UFP public image much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

So your saying they should have just camped out at the entrance and shot up anything that crossed? Self Replicating Mine Field basically did the same thing without forcing them to commit 300 Ships. Although your plan works fine if they stop up the entrance before the Dominion gains a foothold after better off using mines becuase u cannot afford to have 300 Ships sitting around just guarding an entrance.

 

The funny thing is, they did have 300 ships there right about the time the Dominion first came through. At that time, the station's weapons were sabotaged; at any later date, the station could have done the guarding all by itself, seeing how well it did against at least 40 Klingon ships that were allowed to swarm all around it in 3D.

A mayhem in time saves nine, I guess. But again, it would have taken a bit of foreknowledge to understand that a decisive stand in "By Inferno's Light" or even an eternal vigil by 300 ships would still have cost less than the war ended up costing. And relations with the Dominion might have remained a bit better... Now they know that mankind is no good and absolutely has to be eradicated.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Section 31 did not help win the war; the Romulan Imperial Fleet and Klingon Defense Force helped win the war. Section 31's virus merely drove the Female Shapeshifter to decide to order the Jem'Hadar to give the Federation a Pyrrhic victory by refusing to surrender, and to order the extermination of the Cardassian race.

And that's to say nothing of their completely backfired attempt to prevent the Augment virus from spreading throughout the 22nd Century Klingon Empire by allowing Phlox to be kidnapped. I mean, seriously, they were surprised when the Klingons went back on their deal.

Section 31 is utterly incompetent. Anyone who defends them is doing so because they have authoritarian personalities and like to fantasize about men with guns who aren't answerable to anyone.

No. Bashir was reading Sloan's memories, and discovered that Section 31 had an agent in President Jaresh-Inyo's Cabinet, not his office. In other words, he discovered that Section 31 was spying on the democratically-elected government.

Uh, no. "Inquisition" made it very clear that Section 31 does not answer to anyone in the Federation government -- it doesn't answer to anyone whatsoever.

Pure nonsense. Section 31 can be bad guys just as easily as the Dominion and Cardassians. There's no rule that says that the bad guys are always on the other side from the protagonists in a story about a war.

There is no reason to think that the Federation "needs" Section 31.

Because no government wants to have an organized crime ring that operates beyond its control, obviously.

Remember, Section 31 is not like the CIA or MI-6. It's not the Federation's intelligence/black ops agency. It's an organization that does not answer to the Federation government, does not take orders from the President. It's more akin to the Mafia than the Mossad.

Liberal democracy and the rule of law.

 

This part sounds highly dubious. What reason would we have to believe that Cardassians wouldn't have been slaughtered for what they did in "The Die is Cast" already? Letting them live would have been reneging on a deal, and the Dominion wouldn't want to look untrustworthy like that!

When you add to this the fact that the virus was the leverage that prevented said slaughter, you simply have to accept that the bioweapon plot did more good than damage in the short term.

In the long term, of course, the Federation got moved from the tail end of the "conquer at leisure" list to the top of the "deadly and devious threat - eliminate ASAP" one...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Versus collapsing/mining the entrance of the wormhole?
No.

 

Paying attention to the Female Shapeshifter's behavior. Before becoming ill with the virus, she was calm and stoic -- manipulative and authoritarian, but also a rational political actor. As she became ill, she began to lament her race's inevitable extinction at the hands of Section 31's virus, and she started to become an irrational political actor. She became prone to fits of rage. It was in one of these fits that she ordered the Cardassians exterminated upon the Cardassian fleet's defection, and it was as a result of her increasing irrationality that she ordered the Jem'Hadar and Breen to fight to the last man rather than do the logical thing.

The closer she and the rest of the Founders came to death, the more irrational she became, and the more destructive her orders became. Had there been no virus, she would almost certainly have ordered a Dominion surrender at the Battle of Cardassia with an intent to withdraw and then later re-invade. The Federation would then have had the opportunity to rebuild and thwart the Dominion's later plans. By infecting the Founders, Section 31 provoked the Female Shapeshifter into ordering a Pyrrhic for the UFP -- only Odo's offer of a cure staved that off. Had there been no cure, thousands more Federates would have lost their lives. Had there been no virus, Federation loses would have been minimized because the Dominion fleet had already effectively been won through conventional means.

No, the offer of a cure by a third party -- an officer in the Bajoran Militia who was of her same species, and who was certainly not a Federate -- was what prevented the slaughter.

 

What logical thing? There would have been no possible reason to hold back the Jem'Hadar - they were bred to die, and if they didn't fight till the very last, their potential would be wasted. The only logic in surrender was that it could buy the antidote to the bioweapon.

Had the Founder simply died before the end, her second-in-command would no doubt have had instructions to ensure that the Cardassian species no longer would be.

Makes no sense. She could re-invade equally well without withdrawing, with fresh forces, provided the wormhole were opened at some point. If it weren't, she couldn't re-invade no matter what.

Cure by any party would have accomplished the result at that desperate situation. If the identity of the benefactor mattered, S31 could have generated the suitable sort at a moment's notice.

Also to be remembered here is that the death of all Cardassians would have been a positive outcome for the Federation, in the thinking of the organization that created the bioweapon (be it S31, Starfleet or somebody else with similar interests)...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I can see your point of her becoming more irrational a leader as the virus progressed. It is a very interesting idea.

Just one bit, which in no way takes away from you argument, but the Female Shapeshifter didn't start ordering the destruction of Cardassian cities and the killing of the Cardassians until the civilian population began revolting against the Dominion. It was that act that turned the Cardassian fleet against the Dominion an Breen fleets.

 

I would actually argue that the FC becoming irrational was to the advantage of the Allies--and therefore, this "side effect" of the virus was a good thing.

As Sun Tzu said:

And:

Therefore, effective war strategy requires rationality, and coolness of head and composure of mind.

On the other hand, as Sun Tzu warned:

The FC was motivated more and more by anger--which Sun Tzu noted was a big red flag:

And:

In the meantime, he notes, chaos and anger in your opponent is something you can turn to your advantage:

And:

Irrationality in your opponent is therefore a good thing--provided you are rational in responding to it.

And finally:

In other words...the way to defeat them is to break them--and the way to break them is to strike at what they value.

 

Of course, there's an element of dissimilar combat in this case, something ol' Sun wasn't really considering. That is, the opponent isn't quite human...

The Jem'Hadar may be quite capable of fighting efficiently in berserker mode, without leadership or discipline, even at the level of divisions and armies. They won't get fatigued in long campaigns, and don't wish to return home, ever. They already loathe their commanders from the get-go, but they worship their missions nevertheless. And they aren't concerned with loot because only their own can provide the sort of riches they have use for. And in the best spirit of Monty Python, their sole weakness is their willingness to die and their fanatical devotion to the Founders, arguably allowing the enemy to strike at what they value by homing on on the Link - but the resulting berserking won't necessarily debilitate them the way it would a more conventional army.

If the Dominion fully comprehends the qualitative differences between their forces and those of the enemy, and doesn't merely think of the Jem'Hadar as super-duper versions of ordinary troops, it can kill, capture, shame, disgrace and trouble any opposing leader who has read his Sun Tzu...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Well, I would say that Sun did anticipate opponents willing to die: "Those who are ready to die can be killed."

And of course, he also emphasized the value of (when necessary) total annihilation, in the "Fire Attack" chapter. (But only when necessary--he noted that it's better to conquer an enemy without destroying it, and that "siege of a city is done only as a last resort.") And in the final chapter, he emphasized the need for effective intelligence-gathering, particularly double agents.

 

No, the jem'hadar can't.
To be more exact, if they were depicted as fighting effectively without rationality and discipline, this would have been a HUGE deus ex machina.

Game theory shows that in any complex activity, reason beats mindless anger anytime - given equal starting positions.
The ones who don't think rationally make mistakes, don't see occasions, don't coordinate, etc.


About the founders - they showed they have no problem with genocide from before the dominion war - 'The quickening' comes to mind.

Sci is confusing rationality with decency and morality. Just because one is rational does NOT make him decent and moral.

The founders, already shown to be paranoid and xenophobic (not so much decent and moral), could have done a LOT more damage with the army at their disposal during the war were they rational, rather than angry/debilitated in any other way.