Female changeling stupid??

[Dankokoro]

*Spoilers*

I watched the final episode last night and thought it was mostly good.. I thought the Pah Wraith story line was a bit of an anti climax tho and was disappointed that they dealt with that story and the final battles with the dominion completely separately. would've thought they were going to make them intersect in some way.. Anyway..

One thing made no sense to me though.. Why did the woman shapeshifter order the destruction of the Cardassian city when they were depending on the Cardassian military in order to have any chance of defeating the Federation/Klingon/Romulan Fleet. Surely that is a monumental blunder, and if she/it hadn't given that order it's likely that battle (and the war) would've had a totally different outcome..

I mean they were concerned about a full on Cardassian uprising and then they go and do the one thing that absolutely guarantees that every Cardassian is going to turn on the them.. Surely they know that the Cardassians are so proud they'd never allow an atrocity like that committed against their people to go unpunished. The result is the Cardassian Fleet turning on the Dominion and the Cardassian guards killing the Jem'Hadar that are about to execute Kira, Demar, and Garak.. Nice one!

Why didn't she hold off until after the all important battle. Once they'd repelled the invading fleet she could've dealt with the Cardassians however she pleased...

I can remember one other instance when she ordered the Breen/Jem'Hadar to not attack and destroy all of the escape pods after the battle where Defiant #1 got destroyed.. the escape pods containing Sisqo, Worf, and other high profile targets.. I mean i get the idea behind it, let some survive so they tell others of the horrors of the Breen and the Dominion.. but at least kill the crew of the Defiant while you have the chance! Sisqo has been responsible for all the Dominion major defeats to date and they know that.. yet they pass up an easy opportunity to kill him..

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The escape pod thing was the 'Main character bubble of protection' that causes the enemies to always aim for the redshirts first.

I think it's more, her experience in the gamma quadrant told her that if you don't meet all challenges with overwhelming force, you are showing a sign of weakness. To her experience, letting a rebellion grow would have a domino effect to the entire population, but a proof that if you don't end the rebellion your family will die will make people surrender out of fear for their lives.

She just miscalculated the hell out of the Alpha quadrant.

 

[Pavonis]

One thing made no sense to me though.. Why did the woman shapeshifter order the destruction of the Cardassian city when they were depending on the Cardassian military in order to have any chance of defeating the Federation/Klingon/Romulan Fleet. Surely that is a monumental blunder, and if she/it hadn't given that order it's likely that battle (and the war) would've had a totally different outcome..

They weren't counting on the Cardassian military to fight off the Allied fleet, though. The Jem'Hadar were going to do that, by themselves at first. The Breen commander had to convince her to let them stand beside the Jem'Hadar. The only contribution by the Cardassians were the unmanned weapons platforms.

Besides, the Cardassian people had shown themselves to be disloyal to the Dominion, so the need to eliminate a threat behind the lines was judged to be more important than maintaining a few loyal Cardassian ships and commanders.

I mean they were concerned about a full on Cardassian uprising and then they go and do the one thing that absolutely guarantees that every Cardassian is going to turn on the them.. Surely they know that the Cardassians are so proud they'd never allow an atrocity like that committed against their people to go unpunished.

No, they don't "know" the Cardassians would never allow an atrocity like that. Why would they? They never cared about the Cardassians. They were a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant, and no more than that. They didn't treat the Cardassians as equals even when relations between the Cardassians and the Dominion were at their best.

 

[Melakon]

For the Dominion, the Cardassians were a slave race as soon as Dukat negotiated with them.

 

[Dankokoro]

They weren't counting on the Cardassian military to fight off the Allied fleet, though. The Jem'Hadar were going to do that, by themselves at first. The Breen commander had to convince her to let them stand beside the Jem'Hadar. The only contribution by the Cardassians were the unmanned weapons platforms.

I don't remember that?? And they were contributing ships as well as the weapons platforms..

From the memory Alpha:

"In the midst of battle, the Defiant is taking heavy fire. As a Breen warship fires on her, it is suddenly destroyed by a Cardassians ship. They have turned on the Dominion for the destruction of Lakarian City, and begin attacking the Breen and Jem'Hadar."

If they weren't counting on the Cardassians support, why was it the battle turned in the Federations favour once the Cardassian fleet defected?

That response doesn't make sense to me in the context of the episode i just watched last night..

 

[Dankokoro]

Besides, the Cardassian people had shown themselves to be disloyal to the Dominion, so the need to eliminate a threat behind the lines was judged to be more important than maintaining a few loyal Cardassian ships and commanders.

Ok.. that's what may have been judged, but again, it was obviously the wrong decision given it resulted in the Cardassian fleet defecting.. which turned the tide of the battle.

 

[Dankokoro]

No, they don't "know" the Cardassians would never allow an atrocity like that. Why would they? They never cared about the Cardassians. They were a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant, and no more than that. They didn't treat the Cardassians as equals even when relations between the Cardassians and the Dominion were at their best.

How would they not know? They may not have cared about the Cardassians, but surely they had enough interactions to know what they would and wouldn't endure. They would've had enough evidence through Demars increasing intolerance of the dominion, and the pockets of resistance that started to emerge. They are obviously a proud race that would not sit idly by while millions of their citizens are slaughtered. That's obvious to anyone, why shouldn't it be obvious to the dominion? It's pretty ridiculous that they wouldn't know anything about a close military ally of a number of years..

 

[Nightdiamond]

My theory is that the
inhabitants of the Gamma Quadrant may have a totally different psychology than the Alpha Quadrant.

They're used to using threats and violence to make a culture to obey them without question.

With all the genetic engineering, threats, fear conditioning, and bribes, that may be the only way the Dominion knows how to deal with solids.

Weyon actually broadcast a speech to all Cardassians telling them that Jem Hadar just destroyed one of their major cities, for the acts of a few, then smiles and asks them to resume fighting the real enemy, the Federation, etc.

I noticed an episode where the Founders decided to breed a new strand of Jem Hadar specifically designed for combat in the AQ.

The fighting skills I could understand, but they also said they were 'psychologically' designed to fight in the AQ too.

It's like a small clue that the psychology in both quadrants may be different.

 

[Timo]

I don't see why tactical considerations would have been important for the Female Founder at that point. She could just as well have considered the war on Alpha lost - but that would not be a major strategic setback for the Dominion. They could always call it quits and come back later to wipe out the Feds and the Klingons. Wiping out the Cardassians would be a nice, solid step along the greater strategic path of driving terror in the hearts of Solids - not to mention a tactically viable goal (it's better to engage in possible things than in impossible ones, as the possibility of embarrassing failure is greatly reduced...).

If Cardassia were destroyed, what possible damage could that do to the Dominion? They'd lose a few million or billion Jem'Hadar warriors - all of whom were bred in Alpha in the first place! They'd lose a few thousand starships - all of which were built in Alpha in the first place! The Dominion itself would not be weakened by these losses. Not only would they be losses suffered by Alpha (waste of natural resources scoured from Alpha, not from Gamma), but they would demonstrate that isolated Dominion contingents anywhere would have the ability to whip up such troop and ship concentrations. While these forces fought at Alpha, comparable forces could have been built in Gamma with the same effort, and the Dominion would actually be stronger at the end of the war, not weaker.

The only loss the Female Founder might pay any thought to would be that of her own life. But that would be lost anyway, because of the disease. Indeed, if not for the disease, the FF could probably have escaped the carnage easily enough, and such things might even be a standard Dominion practice: the definition of a victorious military operation in Dominionese might well be "Create an army of Jem'Hadar, have it fight to the death, and make your personal escape".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Use of Time]

My theory is that the
inhabitants of the Gamma Quadrant may have a totally different psychology than the Alpha Quadrant.

They're used to using threats and violence to make a culture to obey them without question.

With all the genetic engineering, threats, fear conditioning, and bribes, that may be the only way the Dominion knows how to deal with solids.

Weyon actually broadcast a speech to all Cardassians telling them that Jem Hadar just destroyed one of their major cities, for the acts of a few, then smiles and asks them to resume fighting the real enemy, the Federation, etc.

I noticed an episode where the Founders decided to breed a new strand of Jem Hadar specifically designed for combat in the AQ.

The fighting skills I could understand, but they also said they were 'psychologically' designed to fight in the AQ too.

It's like a small clue that the psychology in both quadrants may be different.

This is my thought as well. Destroying the Cardassian city for all we know is standard operating procedure in cases like that for the Founders. It had probably served them well enough in the Gamma Quadrant that they didn't think of any alternate outcome.

 

[Dankokoro]

I don't see why tactical considerations would have been important for the Female Founder at that point. She could just as well have considered the war on Alpha lost - but that would not be a major strategic setback for the Dominion. They could always call it quits and come back later to wipe out the Feds and the Klingons. Wiping out the Cardassians would be a nice, solid step along the greater strategic path of driving terror in the hearts of Solids - not to mention a tactically viable goal (it's better to engage in possible things than in impossible ones, as the possibility of embarrassing failure is greatly reduced...).

See i just don't get this.. why wouldn't it be? She wanted to win the battle, didn't she? She gave an unnecessary order (for whatever reason) that resulted in her losing the immediate battle at hand. They were winning the battle before the Cardassians turned on them. Regardless of her motives or what she thought was going to happen after giving the order it resulted in them losing the battle and hence was a mistake.

I suppose you could justify it that she just expected the Cardassians would fall in line after millions of their people were slaughtered.. I don't think it really fits. She's shown that she seemed pretty astute when dealing with the Breen and knew exactly how to minipulate them, but then knew so little about the Cardassians that she cluelessly underestimated them.

It made no sense to me, anyway..

 

[Dankokoro]

My theory is that the
inhabitants of the Gamma Quadrant may have a totally different psychology than the Alpha Quadrant.

I accept that as a possibility.. Kinda proves my point that she's stupid though. She's spent enough time with solids from the Alpha Quadrant to get a guage on them? Especially the Cardassians..

 

[Timo]

She wanted to win the battle, didn't she?

I'm not at all sure about that. When the order to rid Cardassia of its native scum gave, the battle was already lost.

But destroying all Cardassians would not have altered the outcome of the battle much anyway. It's not as if it would have taken that much effort to point a few of the starship guns down and slag the big cities; Jem'Hadar ground troops in turn could not have fought against the Alpha Axis starships anyway, so they could be safely assigned to hunt down survivors on the surface. So it's difficult to see how exterminating the locals would have weakened the fighting strength of the Dominion defenders appreciably.

They were winning the battle before the Cardassians turned on them.

And losing it after the Cardassians turned on them.

The declared strategic aim of the Dominion was to destroy Cardassia and Romulus. Since the latter was out of reach, it made good sense to complete at least the former job.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

^^I get the impression she avoided interaction with the solids as much as possible, actually.

 

[Nightdiamond]

My theory is that the
inhabitants of the Gamma Quadrant may have a totally different psychology than the Alpha Quadrant.

I accept that as a possibility.. Kinda proves my point that she's stupid though. She's spent enough time with solids from the Alpha Quadrant to get a guage on them? Especially the Cardassians..

It does look like the overconfidence and being naive about how AQ cultures behave makes them appear stupid.

I think they're much smarter, but their decisions seemed weird.


Considering how they started treating the Cardassians before, it's a wonder how they never saw any of that coming.

Especially how Weyon dealt with Damar.

Weyoun pushed him over and over again, even when they could see he was irritated. One of the first things he destroyed after starting the rebellion was the cloning facility.

Or how they constantly underestimated their enemies.

The Jem Hadar let Sisko and crew escape and capture or end up killing most of them, when they had the entire crew under lock down and they had the all the guns.

Earlier on in the war, Dukat was able to hold them off, because they needed the Cardassian military and also to sell the image of them as being trustworthy allies to other powers.

No AQ culture is going to trust the Dominion after that debacle.

 

[Hando]

I would like to point out that the Changelings, or at least the other Changelings showed a great ability to impersonate solids.

If they can do that and sometimes/most-times they are so good at it that even friends don't see a difference, I would expect that she would have a better grasp on reality.

Or could the reason be the sickness

Also possible is -although not much, that there are different sorts of Changelings: infiltrators, scouts, rulers, "royals"...
If she is of the last type, then of course she doesn't know how the world runs...

 

[TheRoyalFamily]

Maybe the changelings have a collective intelligence; as in, they are smarter together, but the longer any individual spends outside the Link, the dumber they become. Or perhaps, the longer they are apart from other Founders, the more individual they become, and the more they fall to their own individual personal foibles.

Also keep in mind the FF was very sick, and probably didn't have the typical Founder patience.

Or, the Founders are like abusive players. They will wine and dine you, show off, get you to trust them, and then, once they have you, will treat you like a bug and beat you for your indiscretions.

 

[Melakon]

I think she was showing previously established behavior exhibited toward solids. The Jem'Hadar were trusted up to a point, but made addicted to the white. The Vorta were in positions of minor authority, but made to revere the Founders as gods. They were trusted solids, but still forced into servitude. Any other solids, they didn't really give a shit about, but tolerated if they were useful. Anger the Founders, and you're dead meat.

 

[TheRoyalFamily]

Just was reminded that in "Broken Link" the FC basically tells the Cardies that they're done for; their support just commuted their sentence.

 

[The Overlord]

I am not sure the Female Changeling is stupid persay, rather her mind was being affected by the disease and the fact the Founder's have a psychopathic disregard for solids. Its part of the whole "Evil Cannot Comprehend Good" idea that often makes villains lose.

This attitude is seen in real life, during WWII the Nazis would destroy entire towns if the resistance movement in an occupied country was causing enough trouble. Heck the Nazis solution to almost any problem seemed to be as needlessly cruel as possible. The Nazis campaign in the East would have more successful, if the Nazis hadn't insisted on massacring and enslaving almost all the people in that region, making Stalin the better choice for the Russian population. You are pretty evil, if you can make Stalin look good by comparison. The Female Changeling just has that kind of warped outlook on life.