no sisko. No kira. Klingon relations were different. I'm not sure where odo was but he'd have been different. So it would have affected the outcome.
Coming out of an Isolation Era?
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no sisko. No kira. Klingon relations were different. I'm not sure where odo was but he'd have been different. So it would have affected the outcome.
no sisko (nobody to get the prophets to vaporize dominion reinforcements). No kira. Klingon relations were different. I'm not sure where odo was but he'd have been different. So it would have affected the outcome.
Not to mention there would be still danger for Bajor. Without taking over Cardassia, they'd go for Bajor.
M
Mr Troi
Guest
You could argue that the Sarek meld may have had some kind of influence over Picard and that is why he made the cowboy accusation.
However, I don't think Picard was insulting Spock. Picard was more assertive than he usually is but that could have just been a diplomatic strategy. Spock is an historical figure (in Star Trek anyway) and Picard was communicating to him that he was not intimidated by his status.
As has already been noted, it is not the Federation's job to police the entire universe. It is far more 'naive' to believe that. They don't have the authority and they don't have the resources to do it.
F
fghfghsss
Guest
i like it
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It is, however, Starfleet's job to police Federation space and to handle military affairs as well. That encompasses quite a lot.
M
Mr Troi
Guest
Yes but Federation space is not Cardassian space and that was the point in Ensign Ro.
I'm pretty sure the Bajorans would argue, however, that Bajor is not a part of Cardassian space either, and Deep Space Nine seems to establish by implication that were it not for the earlier agreement between Cardassia and Bajor, prior to the occupation, that Bajor would be in Federation space.
Garm Bel Iblis
Commodore
Stable wormholes: "The oil of the 24th Cetury."
I believe the Klingon Empire was on life support following the explosion of Praxis. In ST:VI the quote of "The Klingon Empire has fifty years of life left" is spoken. Assuming a temporary peace was acheived, that period of weakness would have lasted until Nerendra III. The Vorcha was best Klingon ship in early TNG and it probably was no more than 15-20 years old.
Fighting the Dominion with only K'tingas, Birds of Prey and Excelsiors would be long odds. I doubt the Dominion fleet was much smaller fifty years previous.
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Oh yeah, that's a good point. I forgot all about Praxis. The Klingon Empire would have been in no position to wage a major war.
And another argument to further destroy my argument is that the Romulan Star Empire was in isolation at the time, so it would have been much harder for another Sisko to drag the Romulans into a war with the Dominion. It would have been the Federation alone against the Dominion. Not a pretty picture.
Well, keep in mind that the Dominion was a 10,000 year old empire, with almost no mention of any significant threats in their home territory. It's likely they've been at more or less the same technological level for some time. An earlier Dominion War would likely have been a disaster, given that the Dominion got a pretty good drop on the AQ as it was.
Thanks to the OP for posting a very interesting theme.
My take is that one must always be aware of context. And the context in which this series was originally developed was that of the end-game of a 50-year old, worldwide Cold War between political/economic communism and democracy/capitalism. There's a Real Life reason for why Roddenbury had this ship (and its TOS forbear) named "Enterprise," after all.
The total collapse of commuism, the euphoria which accompanied it and the imagined hopeful consequences that might flow were all reflected in the scripts of the early years of ST:TNG. At the time in RL, many otherwise level-headed political philosophers were seriously writing in terms of the "end of history" and for more than a brief moment, it actually appeared possible that the idealistic appeal (as opposed to the harsh reality) of the United Nations might indeed set the way forward as to govern the conduct and relations between sovereign nations.
All this seeped in to some degree into ST:TNG in the first year and we should have probably seen a gradual change of emphasis starting to permeate the show sometime in season two, if not for the writers' strike, which pretty much ruined the rest of that season as a result.
What is most obvious about season 3m in retrospect, and which is absolutely confirmed by BOBW I (which first aired in June 1990), is not so much that the scripts improved (as they certainly did) as a direct consequence of the end of the writers' strike, but that the episodes (with exceptions) took on a darker, more nuanced mood, much more in keeping (almost reflective) with the increasing uncertainties and concerns playing out in the RL.
ST is an ideal. So is the Prime Directive, which is why we see Picard break it every now and again. Yet, the maxim that seems to infuse ST:TNG all the way through its 7 seasons is that "the ends don't justify the means." It sets forth a clear moral position very early on and Roddenbury's death nothwithstanding, pretty much remains true to this philosophy (which of course, Roddenbury would have known originated with the Greeks, yet may have left him somewhat ambivalent by the knowledge that they only suvrived into the modern era as a direct result of the writings and influence of the Catholic Church, and St. Thomas Aquinus in particular.
I take some comfort from the fact that the ST:TNG characters (in the scripted scenarios they were given to play with) tried to uphold that maxim, and I think that maxim is a universal. So it will always have something to say, even to viewers with a post 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, perspective.
My take is that one must always be aware of context. And the context in which this series was originally developed was that of the end-game of a 50-year old, worldwide Cold War between political/economic communism and democracy/capitalism. There's a Real Life reason for why Roddenbury had this ship (and its TOS forbear) named "Enterprise," after all.
The total collapse of commuism, the euphoria which accompanied it and the imagined hopeful consequences that might flow were all reflected in the scripts of the early years of ST:TNG. At the time in RL, many otherwise level-headed political philosophers were seriously writing in terms of the "end of history" and for more than a brief moment, it actually appeared possible that the idealistic appeal (as opposed to the harsh reality) of the United Nations might indeed set the way forward as to govern the conduct and relations between sovereign nations.
All this seeped in to some degree into ST:TNG in the first year and we should have probably seen a gradual change of emphasis starting to permeate the show sometime in season two, if not for the writers' strike, which pretty much ruined the rest of that season as a result.
What is most obvious about season 3m in retrospect, and which is absolutely confirmed by BOBW I (which first aired in June 1990), is not so much that the scripts improved (as they certainly did) as a direct consequence of the end of the writers' strike, but that the episodes (with exceptions) took on a darker, more nuanced mood, much more in keeping (almost reflective) with the increasing uncertainties and concerns playing out in the RL.
ST is an ideal. So is the Prime Directive, which is why we see Picard break it every now and again. Yet, the maxim that seems to infuse ST:TNG all the way through its 7 seasons is that "the ends don't justify the means." It sets forth a clear moral position very early on and Roddenbury's death nothwithstanding, pretty much remains true to this philosophy (which of course, Roddenbury would have known originated with the Greeks, yet may have left him somewhat ambivalent by the knowledge that they only suvrived into the modern era as a direct result of the writings and influence of the Catholic Church, and St. Thomas Aquinus in particular.
I take some comfort from the fact that the ST:TNG characters (in the scripted scenarios they were given to play with) tried to uphold that maxim, and I think that maxim is a universal. So it will always have something to say, even to viewers with a post 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, perspective.
Didn't Kira hint at how Bajor came under Cardassian rule? I seem to recall she countered Sisko's defense of the Federation taking control of DS9 to help Bajor as the same kind of help that led to the Occupation. If that is so then the Federation would have been on very shaky ground to object to try to forcibly remove Cardassians from a planet they had been helping and was under Cardassia's control.
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