Do you think Section 31 saved Federation during war ?

[Can]

While methods of Section 31 was reprehensible at best I couldn't help but wonder. The changeling disease they have infected with Odo and Great Link forced Domnion to surrender isn't it ? Or more precisely the cure for the disease convinced Female Changeling to stand down. Otherwise they would be another costly battle on Cardassia Prime and countless lives would be lost again. So Section 31 contributed victory over Dominion but in a way they didn't think of.

 

[Photon]

There's no doubt. It was the bargaining chip to cure end the war. The Founder would have just told them bring on the Cardassian invasion-you're gonna lose a bunch of men.

 

[Ro_Laren]

^ I agree. The Founders are selfish and didn't agree to peace until they were personally threatened. Section 31 played an important part in the war.

 

[Sci]

Not at all. Had the Founders died out, the war would not have ended; it would just have left the Jem'Hadar and Vorta with no moderating influences. The Vorta -- always portrayed as being even more power-hungry than the Founders on DS9 -- would no doubt have seized the opportunity to set themselves up as the rulers of the Dominion and kept the Founders' deaths hidden from the Jem'Hadar, and would likely have kept the war going to prop themselves up. And that's a best case scenerio.

The worst case scenerio is, word gets out, the Jem'Hadar rebel and go nuts, dividing into numerous warring factions with no one to keep them under control anymore, plunging the Gamma and Alpha Quadrants into even greater anarchy.

Iraq should teach us something about what happens when an empire held together by nothing more than a dictator's will has that dictator taken away. Here's a hint: Not peace and prosperity for the ones who removed the dictator.

 

[Photon]

The Jem'Hadar would have either: a) killed themselves or
b) killed everyone on Carddy Prime including the Vorta

The Jem'hadar and Vorta would have never worked together if the Founders had been gone. Too much distrust

 

[Sci]

Photon said:
The Jem'Hadar would have either: a) killed themselves or
b) killed everyone on Carddy Prime including the Vorta

Oh, really? No enterprising Vorta would hide the Founders' deaths from them? No opportunistic Jem'Hadar might take it upon himself to use the situation to manipulate his fellow Jem'Hadar to give himself greater power?

The Jem'hadar and Vorta would have never worked together if the Founders had been gone. Too much distrust

That really depends on the circumstances, doesn't it? And if they didn't -- doesn't that suggest exactly the sort of Dominion civil war scenerio that I suggested above?

 

[Navaros]

I don't agree with assessment in the OP. The female Founder linked with Odo enough times to know his true colors. It wasn't in Odo's nature to let his people die due to a genocide, regardless of any corrupt Fed orders to do so. Odo, by his very nature to do what is just, would have compelled himself to go cure the Great Link regardless of anything else. Period. And the female Founder definitely knew this. Therefore, the Founders were gonna get cured regardless of any surrender or not.

No, I'm afraid to get a fitting explanation for the Founder magically changing her mind, one must go to out-of-show explanations. Either the female Founder has gone insane due to dementia brought on by age and/or the disease. Or, the female Founder converted Odo to be anti-solid and share the Great Link's vision, and the entire surrender was just a clever ruse. Or, the big execs needed a rushed, ill-fitting, tidy little ending of the Feds winning so that all future franchise projects could completely ignore the Dominion War and DS9 as a whole.

 

[Jono]

Navaros said:
I don't agree with assessment in the OP. The female Founder linked with Odo enough times to know his true colors. It wasn't in Odo's nature to let his people die due to a genocide, regardless of any corrupt Fed orders to do so. Odo, by his very nature to do what is just, would have compelled himself to go cure the Great Link regardless of anything else. Period. And the female Founder definitely knew this. Therefore, the Founders were gonna get cured regardless of any surrender or not.

No, I'm afraid to get a fitting explanation for the Founder magically changing her mind, one must go to out-of-show explanations. Either the female Founder has gone insane due to dementia brought on by age and/or the disease. Or, the female Founder converted Odo to be anti-solid and share the Great Link's vision, and the entire surrender was just a clever ruse. Or, the big execs needed a rushed, ill-fitting, tidy little ending of the Feds winning so that all future franchise projects could completely ignore the Dominion War and DS9 as a whole.

Odo can only cure his people if he can get to the GQ and who controls the wormhole, the Federation. If the Dominion did not surrender Odo would not have had the chance to go and cure his people.

Plus at that point the war was lost anyway. The Founder said so herself on Cardassia before she surrendered.

Without the virus it is possible that events would have played themselves out the same way, except the Alliance would have had to fight the battle at Cardassia Prime and the war probably would have continued for months or years as they moved on to secure the rest of the union and probably would have included an invasion of Breen territory.

 

[Navaros]

rofeta said:

Odo can only cure his people if he can get to the GQ and who controls the wormhole, the Federation. If the Dominion did not surrender Odo would not have had the chance to go and cure his people.

That would be no problem for Odo to circumvent. It's not like the Federation would fire upon another Federation vessel right away. Plenty of time for Odo to escape any engagement and get to the Great Link unscathed. Or he could find other means like turning into a space stingray (similar to Laas) and just fly there himself. Or if that's too conspicuous, he could morph into something even smaller that can do the same thing. Or negotiating some other covert way with one of Quark's shady connections. Point is, there's isn't any working way for the Feds to stop Odo.

I also do not buy "the war was already lost at that point" point, because in contradicts what was stated in Statistical Probabilities: the Federation wouldn't not win the war even if the Romulans joined in, and Cardassia turned on the Dominion. The opposite of that magically becoming the case in a moment in WYLB simply because it was the last episode; is yet another glaring plothole in my view. That further compounds the problems with WYLB quite a bit, especially when combined with the Odo plothole; that Odo doesn't even try to get to the Great Link because the Sisko's order is grievously corrupt. Both plotholes in my view combine to underscore the rushed, haphazard way they had to tack on a "happy ending" that is completely inconsistent with the rest of the series.

 

[Jono]

Navaros said:

rofeta said:

Odo can only cure his people if he can get to the GQ and who controls the wormhole, the Federation. If the Dominion did not surrender Odo would not have had the chance to go and cure his people.

That would be no problem for Odo to circumvent. It's not like the Federation would fire upon another Federation vessel right away. Plenty of time for Odo to escape any engagement and get to the Great Link unscathed. Or he could find other means like turning into a space stingray (similar to Laas) and just fly there himself. Or if that's too conspicuous, he could morph into something even smaller that can do the same thing. Or negotiating some other covert way with one of Quark's shady connections. Point is, there's isn't any working way for the Feds to stop Odo.

I also do not buy "the war was already lost at that point" point, because in contradicts what was stated in Statistical Probabilities: the Federation wouldn't not win the war even if the Romulans joined in, and Cardassia turned on the Dominion. The opposite of that magically becoming the case in a moment in WYLB simply because it was the last episode; is yet another glaring plothole in my view. That further compounds the problems with WYLB quite a bit, especially when combined with the Odo plothole; that Odo doesn't even try to get to the Great Link because the Sisko's order is grievously corrupt. Both plotholes in my view combine to underscore the rushed, haphazard way they had to tack on a "happy ending" that is completely inconsistent with the rest of the series.

We haven't seen anything to show Odo can change into that type of creature. He isn't the most skilled changeling out there. Also we don't know what type of defences were set up at the wormhole after the Feds got it back. Maybe another minefield was put in place, that would have made things difficult if there were. Odo would have been hard to stop, but he could be stopped.

As for what Jack and the mutants said. Originally they said that the Feds would win and they would win because the Cardassians would turn on the Dominion and the Romulans would join the war in around a years time. Then they changed their tune to a Dominion victory.

In the end it was their first prediction that was more accurate. Which means when they made their Dominion victory unavoidable prediction that there was a flaw in their reasoning/equations.

Bashir made the point that while the mutants were smart they weren't all knowning. They could make a reasonable guess at the future but it doesn't mean that they will be right because they you can't factor in every single variable.

So in the end the end of the series doesn't stomp on that episode, especially as it had one of the predictions made (Cardassia rebelling against the Dominion) come true in the end.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Photon said:
The Jem'Hadar would have either: a) killed themselves or
b) killed everyone on Carddy Prime including the Vorta

The Jem'hadar and Vorta would have never worked together if the Founders had been gone. Too much distrust

Or
c)launched a massive kamikaze attack against the Federation/Klingon/Romulan Alliance by raming a buttload of ships and stations.