Feds Could Have Won The DW On Their Own

[PhoenixClass]

This neocon fantasy ...

Better them, than the liberal lack of intelligencia.

Wow. I got to hand it to you, T'Girl, you rarely disappoint.


Regarding the OP: I think your most interesting point is about Section 31. I disagree with you that Starfleet and/or the Federation should actively use them. There are obvious moral implications. Also, relying on such people empowers them, and such people inevitably corrupt the institutions they claim they serve. Sooner or later they would start preying on the Federation itself to protect their own power.

 

[-Brett-]

Fleets of Defiants

The Defiant's power is mostly the stuff of fanwank. The show doesn't actually depict it as being that impressive. Sure, it can outperform ships of a similar size, but anything much bigger, even if it's an 80 year old design, and the Defiant has problems.

 

[Shawnster]

Highly doubtful, if not completely preposterous.

Phase cloaks - illegal (unless they wanted to face a two-side war against the Romulans as well)

So? And assassinating Romulan Senator Vreenak wasn't illegal? Plus, as we saw in "The Search" the Romulans were willing to negotiate an agreement where the Federation could legally use cloaking technology.

M5 computers - 100 years out of date (also hugely flawed at its conception)

And 100 years of R&D should have been able to overcome some of the issues, like not using a mentally damaged individual as a template for the M5 (or would that be M10 at that point).

Or, what about armies of androids? Besides Data we had androids from Planet Mudd and also the Andromedan Androids from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Or combine these technologies for advanced starship cybernetics.

 

[Jedi_Master]

To win the war, the Federation had to engage in lots of unethical and illegal activity. Wars are not won by following the rules.

For example, if Section 31 had not infected the Founders with the "can't change shape" virus, then Odo would not have been cured, and used that cure to convince the "female" Founder that solids were trustworthy, which allowed her to order the Dominion forces to surrender, instead of fighting to the last man, and causing enormous losses for the Alliance "victors".

I think the argument on this thread about WHAT kind of illegal and unethical activities the Federation "could have" partaken in is very silly. For the purposes of the story, the war needed to be a few seasons long, so that we could see the effects of the war on the main characters. All any of the techonobabbley weapons and strategies offered by some of the posters would have led to a few episodes of massive spacebattles and destruction, a few more to deal with the aftermath, and then a few more seasons of dull "alien of the week" stories or Bajoran religious/political disharmony stories. Meh

The only exception to this would be the phase - cloak. First of all we do not know if Starfleet would ever be able to stabilize the darn thing in the first place. Second, even if they were able to manufacture, mass produce, and mass install the cloak on all Starfleet vessels, it would still lead to the Romulans entering the war - but as the Federation's enemy. No phase cloak would be able to overcome that strategic disadvantage.

 

[BillJ]

The only exception to this would be the phase - cloak. First of all we do not know if Starfleet would ever be able to stabilize the darn thing in the first place. Second, even if they were able to manufacture, mass produce, and mass install the cloak on all Starfleet vessels, it would still lead to the Romulans entering the war - but as the Federation's enemy. No phase cloak would be able to overcome that strategic disadvantage.

I think the Phase-cloak would've broken the Dominion's back regardless of who they were allied with. Ships can pass undetected anywhere and through solid objects. If you could miniaturize it, you could plant destructive devices within the core of Dominion worlds without them even noticing...

JELLICO: I'm not going to argue with you, Gul Lemec. Every one of your ships has a mine on its belly, my finger's on the button, and you're in a very bad position.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I don't agree. Unless Starfleet spent at least two years prior to the war manfacturing, testing, and installing the cloaks PRIOR to the war, there would simply not be enough time to gain strategic value from the phase cloak before the Dominion and Romulans and possibly even the Klingons rained hell on them.

 

[Vandervecken]

Phased cloaks are banned by treaty.

Which treaty any sane government would have said adios to in the face of the Dominion threat. Or the Borg, for that matter.

And--as far as I'm concerned--phasing isn't cloaking. Not going to get into that again in this thread, but it isn't cloaking any more than a replicator is a warp drive.

And the phase cloak doesn't need to be stable to be adapted as a phasing weapon. Then that wholly inapplicable treaty would never have applied even in the minds of folk who think laws and treaties aren't open to interpretation.

 

[Vandervecken]

To win the war, the Federation had to engage in lots of unethical and illegal activity. Wars are not won by following the rules.

For example, if Section 31 had not infected the Founders with the "can't change shape" virus, then Odo would not have been cured, and used that cure to convince the "female" Founder that solids were trustworthy, which allowed her to order the Dominion forces to surrender, instead of fighting to the last man, and causing enormous losses for the Alliance "victors".

I wouldn't even call the Founder plague unethical. What makes it unethical? The Federation and Dominion weren't cosignatories to any kind of document that ruled out biological weaponry.

 

[Vandervecken]

This neocon fantasy ...

Better them, than the liberal lack of intelligencia.

Wow. I got to hand it to you, T'Girl, you rarely disappoint.

Yes, so unlike JirinPanthosa's rational criticism above.

 

[Vandervecken]

LOL, you can't just abandon your ideals during wartime, genocide the crap out of your enemy, and then return to your “ideals“ like nothing happened.

Yes, you can.

 

[BillJ]

LOL, you can't just abandon your ideals during wartime, genocide the crap out of your enemy, and then return to your “ideals“ like nothing happened.

Yes, you can.

No, you can't. But you do need people who can, any society does. When your civilization looks back on their actions, they may be looked at as monsters. But there will still be a civilization to look back at and condemn those actions.

Ben Sisko would've been an interesting character study, trying to re-embrace the values he had to abandon to win a war and whether he would be able to still exist in the society that created him after the Dominion War. That is if they hadn't sent him off to the Prophets.

 

[PhoenixClass]

To win the war, the Federation had to engage in lots of unethical and illegal activity. Wars are not won by following the rules.

...

I wouldn't even call the Founder plague unethical. What makes it unethical? The Federation and Dominion weren't cosignatories to any kind of document that ruled out biological weaponry.

You're confusing unethical with illegal.

Better them, than the liberal lack of intelligencia.

Wow. I got to hand it to you, T'Girl, you rarely disappoint.

Yes, so unlike JirinPanthosa's rational criticism above.

I don't want to argue with T'Girl through you, but I will say this: JirinPanthosa's portrayal of neocon political thought was generally accurate: they do believe in establishing military dominance over everyone else. At least, the neocons who held power in the Bush years did, and many of them still do. I commented on T'Girl's response because it was over-the-top, being a form of "oh yeah well liberals are dummies."

 

[Jedi_Master]

I still think this whole argument is pointless. There were a host of terrible things that the Federation could have done to win the war quickly and decisively. But they are the GOOD GUYS. They can bend the morals, break their word in specific situations, but they cannot engage in genocide, or break the entire thematic structure of Star Trek. What writer or show runner in his or her right mind would have advocated the Federation winning the war in a few episodes because they did something horrible? It would destroy the story for no good reason.

Y'all can sit and argue hypotheticals all day long, but any scenario that includes the Federation winning the war on their own by using some horrible device or weapon or strategy belongs in a low quality fan fic blog.

 

[-Brett-]

To win the war, the Federation had to engage in lots of unethical and illegal activity. Wars are not won by following the rules.

For example, if Section 31 had not infected the Founders with the "can't change shape" virus, then Odo would not have been cured, and used that cure to convince the "female" Founder that solids were trustworthy, which allowed her to order the Dominion forces to surrender, instead of fighting to the last man, and causing enormous losses for the Alliance "victors".

I wouldn't even call the Founder plague unethical. What makes it unethical? The Federation and Dominion weren't cosignatories to any kind of document that ruled out biological weaponry.

Genocide is bad, m'kay.

 

[varek]

I don't think the Federation could have won the Dominion War on its own. It seemed to be on the ropes several times, like when the Breen attacked Earth.
Also, fighting together as allies--as with the Klingons, Ferengi(?) and eventually the Cardassians--brings peoples closer together and builds friendship. Not that cultures should go out to war just for those reasons! But, at least some good may come in the peace that follows a war.

 

[JarodRussell]

If they completely threw any moral consideration out of the window, the Federation could have conquered all of the galaxy by now. Destroy the wormhole before any fleet comes through, genocidal orbital bombardments, biological warfare, martial law on all planets, etc... We've seen all these things throughout DS9, but they were either only used once or the heroes stopped it from happening.

Even the Dominion wasn't using its full potential, because they were relying on the slimey diplomacy of their Vorta way too often.

 

[varek]

If they completely threw any moral consideration out of the window, the Federation could have conquered all of the galaxy by now. Destroy the wormhole before any fleet comes through, genocidal orbital bombardments, biological warfare, martial law on all planets, etc... We've seen all these things throughout DS9, but they were either only used once or the heroes stopped it from happening.

Even the Dominion wasn't using its full potential, because they were relying on the slimey diplomacy of their Vorta way too often.

Good analysis, Admiral. And, as you say, the Vorta were the Dominion's only real weakness.

 

[popcultureevil]

UFP should have kidnapped some Jem'Hadar and Vorta, reengineer them, and place them in the Dominion HQ on Cardassia Prime and kill Weyoun, Damar, and the Female Changeling. No HQ and no Founder means no more war. The remaning Jem'Hadar would go wild, but then nothing the UFP, Klingons and Romulans couldn't handle. The remaining Vorta would most likely kill themselves since they'd have no "God" to contact, so who cares..

 

[Enterprise1701]

I'm not sure if it was ever stated in an episode or not, but I think that prior to Sisko convincing the Prophets to make the Dominion reinforcements disappear and the wormhole close, the Dominion still had dozens of fleets of Jem'Hadar starships yet to deploy and shipyards ready to rapidly mass-produce. The Federation doesn't have that kind of materiel capacity. And even if they could steal Jem'Hadar samples to grow a Federation Jem'Hadar army, what if the Jem'Hadar were programmed to fight for freedom and thus rebelled to be with their own kind? Or what if someone insisted on conducting long field tests?

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I suppose it's true.

On a smaller scale, this is the same issue that could have solved the problems in several eps.

Security deactivation of weapons, transporter inhibitors, subcutaneous transponders, kironide, transporter duplication, and so on. Many one-time treknobabble ideas that are never brought up again, which could eliminate plot issues down the road.

Similarly, these same ideas could have also solved larger issues in the Dominion War. The Feds could have gone all out--use phase cloaks, revive Genesis technology, Omega particle energy, psionic warfare, transporter warfare, genetic manipulation, biogenic weaponry, you name it...

But what lengths would the Federation go to? What lines would be crossed? Maybe leave it to Section 31.

Had the Federation opened with the bolded technology at the beginning of the war (Season Finale of Season 5/beginning of Season 6) the Dominion conflict could've ended in a fortnight. The destructive capabilities of genesis torpedoes and omega molecules could wipe out Jem'Hadar fleets. The Romulans were willing to suspend parts of the Treay of Algeron for the Federation to use a cloaking device on the Defiant. The Federation has the ability to make and install their own cloaking devices, as seen on TNG. The Federation/Starfleet could've lobbied to for more of the Treaty to be suspended, so that cloaks manufactured by Starfleet could be installed on Starfleet vessels. They could have used cloaked and or phased cloaked ships to bomb Dominion shipyards or make surveillance runs to Cardassia Prime or other Dominion held worlds.


Keeping things in prespective here. Starfleet was A-OK with Sisko working with Garek to forge evidence that the Dominion was planning on violating their non-aggression act with the Romulans. All to trick the Romulans to joining the war for the Fedeations cause: "In the Pale Moonlight". The subsequent assassination of the Romulan delegate by Garek, they presumably remained ignorant of however. Also recall that, while Section 31 used Odo to carry a biogenic virus to the rest of the Founders. The Federation and presumably Starfleet Command (although this is unverified since Starfleet Admirals have colluded with Section 31 previously) were ignorant of such an action. After the act was exposed, The Federation Council and Starfleet Command voted against giving the cure to the Founders. Federation principles, ethics and values took a backseat in such desperate times of war.

This shows that the Federation and Starfleet are willing to play dirty to achieve their agenda. How far they take it though is a matter to debate. However once you've resorted to using biogenic weapons (virus, pathogens) a line has been crossed and reflection of such actions should be discussed.

[...]The Dominion War consumed untold lives, I am hard-pressed to believe that Starfleet would place armistice integrity over the lives of their dedicated conscripts...

The prime directive, treaties, etc - The federation puts quite a few things above the lives of starfleet personnel - and even its own security.
As for technology - The federation views quite a few technologies as forbidden, 'immoral' because having/using them would be 'playing god' - ranging from genetic engineering to the transportation technology of the 'demons of air and darkness'.

QFT