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Do you see the Maquis differently today?

I'm sorry, can you please clarify how forcible removal of people is preferable to "you're welcome to stay with the understanding that you will no longer be considered citizens of our government but will instead be considered citizens of government X"?

Either the Federation is wrong for taking people from their homes, or the Federation is wrong for not taking people from their homes?

Lose-lose situations make the best drama. (Sorry, Kirk.)
 
I'm sorry, can you please clarify how forcible removal of people is preferable to "you're welcome to stay with the understanding that you will no longer be considered citizens of our government but will instead be considered citizens of government X"?

Either the Federation is wrong for taking people from their homes, or the Federation is wrong for not taking people from their homes?
First of all, in "The Maquis" the 2nd part, Admiral Necheyev mentioned that the Maquis are still "citizens of the Federation". I don't know what the provisions of the treaty were, but that's what she said.

The Federation sold out their own colonists, but once the Feds were committed down this wrongheaded path, the burden falls on them to mitigate the damage of their decision.

In that same scene where Necheyev said that the Maquis are Federation citizens, she also said, "We never should've allowed those colonists to remain on the Cardassian side of the Demilitarised zone." But the Feds didn't do that.

They made a bad situation and subsequently made it worse.


Either the Federation is wrong for taking the people from their homes, or the Federation is wrong for not taking the people from their homes?


It was wrong for the Feds to sell out the colonists. Other posters have eloquently wrote about why that is so. I don't want to reiterate what they wrote. The point that I was trying to make was where the Federation went wrong (again) after it sold out the colonist, and as a response to a point you made. The burden of action should fall on the Federation, not the colonists.

The other irony, I suppose, is that once the decision to sell out the colonists was made, it probably was then best for all colonists, that would otherwise find themselves on the wrong side of the new border, to be removed, forcibly if necessary, before the treaty went into effect. That's the irony. It may even sound counterintuitive or contradictory.

Kira was right. There was no way that the Cardassians would allow the colonists to live in peace on their side of the new border, regardless of what the treaty said; and they demonstrated that by terrorizing the human colonists. The creation of the Maquis was a reaction to this, as well as the Federation abandoning them in the face of Cardassian hostility; but apparently not the original sellout.

I got the impression that there would have been no Maquis if no human nor Cardassian colonists, before the treaty went into effect, had been allow on the wrong side of the new border.

So the Federation's mishandling of the situation did indeed plant the seed for further conflict, hence the Maquis.

It's easy to criticize the Federation for the path they chose, but I haven't seen many instances of people proposing better options.
Once the timeline of events went past that point, why didn't the Federation just support the Maquis, like the Cardassian government supported their own paramilitary in the DMZ, instead of treating the Maquis as enemies?

While fighting the Maquis, did the Federation even demand that the Cardassians remove their colonists on the Federation side of the new border, for reciprocity's sake?

Did they try to renegotiate the treaty? The Feds could have warned -- through back channels (like through that Cardassian Legat who travelled to DS9) -- the Cardassians, that they would support the Maquis as the Cardassians were supporting their paramilitaries, unless the treaty was renegotiated to reincorporate the human planets back to the Federation side and vice versa. The Cardassians understand force. The Feds could have made the best of a bad situation that they helped to create.

But instead the Feds (Sisko) resorted to using biogenic weapons against their own people. The Cardassians must have been laughing at all this.
 
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They were't happy about it, but they didn't start an armed uprising.
Nor would I expect them to. I wouldn't have done that either, but I would definitely have been super-pissed. I'm not arguing that everything the Maquis did was right, only that their position was understandable.
 
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The Federation didn't "sell out" the colonists.

Those living in the DMZ knew exactly what they were getting into. They agreed to live under Cardassian rule, rather than be relocated.

This of course does not excuse the Cardassians' later treatment of them, but the term "sell out" implies that the colonists did not know what the Federation was going to do. This has been proven false.
 
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The federal government brought a flurry of lawsuits against landowners in South Texas to survey, seize and potentially begin construction on private property in the first five months of the year as the administration rushed to deliver on Mr. Trump’s promise to build 450 miles of wall by the end of the year, which he downgraded on Thursday to 400. While Mr. Trump has built less than 200 of those miles, his administration has brought 78 lawsuits against landowners on the border, 30 of them this year.

So Trump is taking Land and not using it.

The next administration, if it ain't Trump again, is going to "give" it back gratis, with an apology.
 
TBH, I'm not a fan of the Maquis. In a universe where poverty, disease, and famine are eradicated, I saw no reason for their relocation to be above the safety of the alpha quadrant.
 
TBH, I'm not a fan of the Maquis. In a universe where poverty, disease, and famine are eradicated, I saw no reason for their relocation to be above the safety of the alpha quadrant.

On the other hand, Federation treaty obligations do not justify the UFP just standing by and allowing unofficial Cardassian militias to massacre Federation colonists with a wink-nudge from the Central Command, without taking substantive action to stop Cardassian treaty violations. If the Federation won't stand up to the Cardassians and demand they fulfill their treaty obligations, is it really so wrong of the colonists to form their own self-defense/resistance organization? Is it really so wrong for them to seek independence from the Federation?
 
Inside the Federation core worlds, there is no want.

Federation Colony worlds do not seem to gain automatic Federation membership, and they can fail, and the Federation will let them fail.

Lets say there are very large bubbles scattered across the Milkyway where everyone has a few deuterium powered replicators, an unending supply of deuterium, and a roof above their head.
 
Federation Colony worlds do not seem to gain automatic Federation membership, and they can fail, and the Federation will let them fail.

That's a very interesting point. What's more, the Federation doesn't even seem to be willing (I assume they are able) to evacuate colonists who don't want to live in a shithole full of rape gangs (e.g., child Tasha Yar). I think overall, the Federation has often shown a willingness to brush aside humans and other members who are less enlightened by Federation values.
 
With Turkana IV, it's very possible the planet itself cut ties to the Federation. That might explain why Data said the last Starfleet ship warned anyone beaming down would be killed.
 
I think the line was written by an idiot, but they said that the Prime Directive does not apply to humans, in Star Trek Insurrection, but the noninterference policy is a completely different thing.
 
Howso? I assume in the discussion you're citing the aspect of the PD being discussed is "making aliens aware we exist", and the point in this instance is that if the Baku aren't indigenous to the planet then there's no reason to shield them from the existence of aliens.

That said, it's also a good argument that the Baku don't necessarily "deserve" the planet, but were just lucky to find it before anyone else did. I'm not saying it should be the only argument in either direction, just that it's an argument.
 
If you're talking about Admiral Dougherty, he says it doesn't apply because the Ba'ku are not indigenous to the planet. Which is still a load of old codswallop.

I had a stroke a month ago, and I'm dumb.

TNG Masterpiece Society.

PICARD: If we ever needed reminding of the importance of the Prime Directive, it is now.

RIKER: The Prime Directive doesn't apply. They're human.

PICARD: Doesn't it? Our very presence may have damaged, even destroyed, their way of life. Whether or not we agree with that way of life or whether they're human or not is irrelevant, Number One. We are responsible.

Although that human colony, the first Red Angel stop, in Discovery was subject to the Prime Directive, because they were from preWarp Earth, circa WWIII.
 
Howso? I assume in the discussion you're citing the aspect of the PD being discussed is "making aliens aware we exist", and the point in this instance is that if the Baku aren't indigenous to the planet then there's no reason to shield them from the existence of aliens.

That said, it's also a good argument that the Baku don't necessarily "deserve" the planet, but were just lucky to find it before anyone else did. I'm not saying it should be the only argument in either direction, just that it's an argument.

How does deserve enter into anything at all? Did humans 'deserve' Alpha Centauri or Mars?

Every colony in existence is by definition non-indigenous. That means absolutely nothing whatsoever. As for being 'lucky enough to find it first', that's literally what almost every colony in existence is based on, too.
 
How does deserve enter into anything at all? Did humans 'deserve' Alpha Centauri or Mars?

Every colony in existence is by definition non-indigenous. That means absolutely nothing whatsoever. As for being 'lucky enough to find it first', that's literally what almost every colony in existence is based on, too.

If Alpha Centauri or Mars held the Cure for Cancer and a small group of humans who got there first refused to share it with the humans on Earth, do you think that would be generally considered acceptable? What if the Vulcans set up colonies there? Do you think humanity would be accepting of aliens having a colony within the bounds of the solar system?

And clearly with regards to the Prime Directive, whether or not a species is indigenous to the planet they're settled on is considered a relevant factor.

Of course, in the case of the Baku-Son'a dispute, the Federation shouldn't have gotten involved once it was established that they were the same people and consequently that it was an internal matter. They should have withdrawn until the end of hostilities, as they did during the Klingon Civil War.
 
If Alpha Centauri or Mars held the Cure for Cancer and a small group of humans who got there first refused to share it with the humans on Earth, do you think that would be generally considered acceptable? What if the Vulcans set up colonies there? Do you think humanity would be accepting of aliens having a colony within the bounds of the solar system?

First, no matter how many times this comes up the particles still aren't comparable to a cure for cancer. And no matter how many times it comes up, the Baku still never refused to share anything. That's an utterly baseless assumption.

Secondly, there've been examples of different species sharing a single solar system, so there's no reason to assume a Vulcan colony on Mars would've been considered unacceptable. And there's also no reason why that question is in any way relevant to the Baku, who were the *only* people in their entire region of space (the whole nebula was uninhabited).

And clearly with regards to the Prime Directive, whether or not a species is indigenous to the planet they're settled on is considered a relevant factor.

It clearly is entirely irrelevant based on all the previous examples. Dougherty is talking out of his ass.

Of course, in the case of the Baku-Son'a dispute, the Federation shouldn't have gotten involved once it was established that they were the same people and consequently that it was an internal matter. They should have withdrawn until the end of hostilities, as they did during the Klingon Civil War.

That is unquestionably true. Legally speaking, anyway.
 
If the Baku never refused to share anything, they also never offered. Now, that's a weakness of the film itself, that the question never comes up because the film isn't interested in the question, but to assume the Baku would have shared is as baseless as to assume they would not have shared. They did essentially sentence a portion of their population to a long and painful death (relative to their own standard of living), whether or not the Son'a may have deserved it.

If you don't like the comparison to a Cure for Cancer, what comparison would you find acceptable?

Can you provide an example of an indigenous species in Trek sharing a solar system with a non-indigenous species? Contemporaneously, I think a whole lot of humans would have a lot of problems with an alien race stumbling into our solar system and claiming Mars for themselves. I suspect the Federation has guidelines against colonizing in a system known to have indigenous aliens that would fall under PD protection.

On what do you base your assumption that Dougerty was talking out of his ass? Picard never disputes his claim that the Baku, as a non-indigenous people, are not subject to PD protection. He raises concerns, but not PD concerns.
 
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