Fighting for your home: joining the Maquis?

[Lynx]

I don't entirely buy the whole "they would be relocated to another planet where they could build up a home which was exactly what they had in the DMZ and everything would be fine".

It's all about emotions. Let's say that I grew up in a house on the countryside in the DMZ, a place which I really loved everything about. The place itself, the surrounding nature and everything.

Then the government decide to sell out this area where my house is to the Cardassians and I got an offer of "relocating". Would I do that?

Well, I could easily build up the house exactly as it was or with Star Trek thechnology replicated it down to the tiny crack in the wall over the front door. But the rest? The nature around the house would be totally different, the trees, the animals, everything. Three moons instead of one. No snow in the winter. I would probably end up hating this new place and leave it as soon as I could.

So I decide to stay in my old house.

Then I have to live under Cardassian rules and see how they destroy everything which we had built up and also have to stand their harrassment of us who jhave decided to stay in our homes. And one day, the Cardassians just take over the land where my house is and destroys everything.

Of course I would fight!

I would probably start hating everything Cardassian and I would also despise the Federation politicians for selling out the area in the first place.

I can see the point of the Maquis and their actions because as a child I was "relocated" due to stupid government politics which I won't go into here because it's out of topic and would start a political debate which don't belong here. But due to my own experiences, I can understand and have sympathies for "the Maquis cause".

 

[Ragitsu]

Lynx, you are a true tiger in the bush .

 

[DonIago]

I don't entirely buy the whole "they would be relocated to another planet where they could build up a home which was exactly what they had in the DMZ and everything would be fine".

It's all about emotions. Let's say that I grew up in a house on the countryside in the DMZ, a place which I really loved everything about. The place itself, the surrounding nature and everything.

Then the government decide to sell out this area where my house is to the Cardassians and I got an offer of "relocating". Would I do that?

Well, I could easily build up the house exactly as it was or with Star Trek thechnology replicated it down to the tiny crack in the wall over the front door. But the rest? The nature around the house would be totally different, the trees, the animals, everything. Three moons instead of one. No snow in the winter. I would probably end up hating this new place and leave it as soon as I could.

So I decide to stay in my old house.

Then I have to live under Cardassian rules and see how they destroy everything which we had built up and also have to stand their harrassment of us who jhave decided to stay in our homes. And one day, the Cardassians just take over the land where my house is and destroys everything.

Of course I would fight!

I would probably start hating everything Cardassian and I would also despise the Federation politicians for selling out the area in the first place.

I can see the point of the Maquis and their actions because as a child I was "relocated" due to stupid government politics which I won't go into here because it's out of topic and would start a political debate which don't belong here. But due to my own experiences, I can understand and have sympathies for "the Maquis cause".

Would you do all this even if you knew that by doing so you might contribute to causing a war, though?

 

[Paul Weaver]

Would you do all this even if you knew that by doing so you might contribute to causing a war, though?

It does seem a bit extreme for someone who lost their house through eminent domain

 

[Lynx]

Lynx, you are a true tiger in the bush .

Thanks!

Would you do all this even if you knew that by doing so you might contribute to causing a war, though?

A good question.
I'm not a violent person and war is one of the worst thing to happen.
But I must admit that sometimes when I think of my own life, my home province and what I described in an earlier post, I have had some dark thoughts, at least when I was younger. However, I managed to move back when I was old enough to do so so for me it ended well but some problems in the area itself remains

I must also state that in some cases people have had to fight for independence in countries which have been opressed by some occupant force. Otherwise the occupation and opression would have continued.

I must also refer to a situation from The Gray Universe (which is the universe we are living in), a situation which might have inspired the writers who came up with the idea of the Federation-Cardassian treaty and its impact on the colonies in what would become the DMZ.

In 1938, Germany claimed that certain areas of Czechoslovakia, areas were the majority of people were Germans should be handed over to Germany. The Czechoslovaks refused.

In order to avoid war, the British Prime Minister negotiated with German leader Hitler about those territories. The outcome of the negotiations was that the areas were handed over to Germany. The Czechoslovaks were forced to accept.

The British Prime Minister was happy and spoke of "peace In our time. Others, like Winston Churchill disagreed. Churchill said: "They (the British politicians) had a choice between war or dishonor. They choose dishonor and will get the war too."

A few months later, Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia too and a few months after that, WWII started.

 

[XCV330]

Emotions are the worst method for making decisions. Vegas weddings are based on emotions. Ramming the SUV full of kids in front of you when they cut you off at the exit is based on emotions. Buying a time share in Orlando is based on emotions. Rising up against a galactic power with no industrial base or allies to assist you, is based on emotions.

 

[fireproof78]

Emotions are the worst method for making decisions. Vegas weddings are based on emotions. Ramming the SUV full of kids in front of you when they cut you off at the exit is based on emotions. Buying a time share in Orlando is based on emotions. Rising up against a galactic power with no industrial base or allies to assist you, is based on emotions.

But you can't dismiss them either when trying to understand people.

 

[XCV330]

But you can't dismiss them either when trying to understand people.

True. You can sometimes manipulate people easily once you understand how they are controlled by their own emotional responses.

 

[fireproof78]

True. You can sometimes manipulate people easily once you understand how they are controlled by their own emotional responses.

I love how understanding moved right in to manipulation. Fascinating.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Keep in mind that the Maqui and people of the DMZ are colonists and ex-patriots of the Federation. None of them are indigenous to Cardassian space. They all came from somewhere else.

Their government (the UFP) had a war with Cardassia. People died and the peace process involved redrawing the lines of each respective combatant's borders. The Federation colonists didn't want to leave and agreed to renounce their citizenship and submit themselves to rule under Cardassia.

This isn't the struggle of the Native American tribes vs Manifest Destiny of the US government or the Trail of Tears or the Indian Wars in the United States.

It's not the tribes of the Na'vi fighting to keep their planet Pandora from being pillaged and pirated by the Resource Development Administration (James Cameron's Avatar).

It's not like the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Where both parties are indigenous to the region and thereby have claim. Which has led to decades long dispute, occupation and war in the region.


The Maqui and the ex-patriots of the Federation really don't have a leg to stand on. So, the new government they agreed to live under turned out to be a pack of real villains. That was understood going into renouncing their citizenship to stay there. Its not like the Cardassian's acts of villainy, or previous status as an enemy of the Federation was a secret. Raising hell with both the Cardassian Union and the Federation to force a renegotiation of terms was a bad plan and only saw both super powers dig their heels in and crackdown harder.

I imagine the Maqui were happy to go back to the UFP, after the Jem'Hadar brought the guillotine down. Klingons don't take prisoners and neither did the Jem'Hadar.

 

[XCV330]

I love how understanding moved right in to manipulation. Fascinating.

this is the part where I am supposed to backtrack and "What i meant to say", etc and then perhaps make some thin gruel apologetic statement, but let's just skip that bit. In any case, we're talking about Maquis.

If the Maquis were really supposed to be some example of the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, the writers did not do a good job of it, and I don't think that was their intent. The Maquis worlds seemed to be a terra nullis place, not some Sudetenland with millenia standing cultural ties so neither was this a Bajor situation.

Closest situation i can think offhand, and I am sure there are better ones, might be the Republic of West Florida. United States settles swarmed into the Mobile District thinking that it was part of the Louisianna Purchase. Spain however now claimed authority. The United States was trying to chart a very difficult course during the Napoleanic Wars (which would ultimately have disastrous results) , and though it wanted to claim that area, at first did not do so. Americans living in the zone declared their indepenance, formed a country no one recognized and took on Spain. The US did not immediately intervene, but in the end did so after two months. If it had not, the situation might have been very Maquis-esque.

 

[Unicron]

Why is it not a given?

This is the future. Federation territory (and technology) is vast. There's got to be thousands of worlds available to colonize. (Doesn't even have to be an uninhabited world, either. Nothing preventing the people in the DMZ from moving to an actual Federation member world, like Earth, Andor, Tellar, etc.) And as I said, those colonists' homes can be re-created, in precise detail, on any of those worlds.

Because future stories would be less dramatic and interesting if it were literally true. The fact that the Federation covers a wide range of space and has reasonably advanced technology doesn't mean a human accustomed to living on a temperate world (Earth) would feel as comfortable trying to live on an ice world (Andor) with a radically different environment. You'd need to construct a different sort of home for that environment, even if you can transport a lot of basic things. And I somehow doubt the Andorian government would be keen on letting humans terraform a chunk of their world to make living room, anymore than Earth would want a group of Andorians to turn Florida and the Caribbean into a more comfortable, icy environment.

Merely having the option to leave and recreate stuff isn't generally enough, especially since some things can't be magically replaced. Even if a replicator can create a seemingly perfect duplicate of the plow my ancestors used to grow food when they settled in the New World, it won't seem like entirely the same thing to me. Just a copy with none of the real history.

There's also the fact that even with reliable technology, there are still conflicts over how to use it. DS9's "Progress" is about a handful of Bajorans (Mullibok in his friends) who had to leave their homeworld during the brutal Occupation and settled on a world that nobody had any specific claim on. He spent literal years making that place into a a livable, original home, and was then told (and ultimately forced) to leave because the Bajoran government wanted to tap the moon's energy to help thousands of other Bajorans. Staying would mean Mullibok would die, but he felt the same about leaving.

"Sanctuary" is about a group from the Gamma Quadrant (Skreeans) who want to settle on Bajor because they believe it ties into their spiritual beliefs, and because their skill at agriculture could help offset some of the problems Bajor is facing after the withdrawal. The Bajoran government ultimately rejects this plan because they can't afford the necessary resources to help support the Skreeans, though they're not totally unsympathetic to their goals.

Would you do all this even if you knew that by doing so you might contribute to causing a war, though?

For me, it would depend on a number of variables. If I'm a veteran who actively fought in the last war between the Feds and the Cardassians, like say O'Brien or Maxwell, and I chose to settle in a border region that has always been Federation space (until the new treaty was signed, at least), I might have a hard time understanding why the government I served so faithfully isn't doing more to help me. Why the bureaucrats seem perfectly willing to abandon us if they get a good "offer" of peace from the former enemy. I don't want another round of violence or war, personally, but I'm not going to be intimidated either. I was here long before the Cardassians were given authority on this world.

Keep in mind that the Maqui and people of the DMZ are colonists and ex-patriots of the Federation. None of them are indigenous to Cardassian space. They all came from somewhere else.

Their government (the UFP) had a war with Cardassia. People died and the peace process involved redrawing the lines of each respective combatant's borders. The Federation colonists didn't want to leave and agreed to renounce their citizenship and submit themselves to rule under Cardassia.

We don't really know that's the case with all of the colonists, though, in terms of them declining status as Federation citizens. The Native American group in "Journey's End" was said to have traded that status to live under Cardassian law if they stayed, yet in "The Maquis" Admiral Nechayev says (or at least infers) that the bulk of the colonists are still Federation citizens. Even the Maquis members, since the Federation doesn't recognize their resistance efforts as anything like a government. Their willingness to use violence and radical means, even in a manner that seems logical to them, reflects on the Federation as a whole.

So, the new government they agreed to live under turned out to be a pack of real villains. That was understood going into renouncing their citizenship to stay there. Its not like the Cardassian's acts of villainy, or previous status as an enemy of the Federation was a secret.

And you think it's logical that such colonists would choose to live under the equivalent of Nazi occupation? I don't. The Cardassian colonial authorities promised that they would attempt some form of equitable rule, and even put it writing signed by both groups, and there are Cardassians (as I referenced above) who aren't actually dicks and don't want to cause trouble. They came to settle because, for the most part, they genuinely want the same thing we do. And watching the Cardassian military threaten that opportunity won't win them much loyalty.

Now, maybe the Cardassian administration was lying to begin with and never planned to honor their agreement. Maybe different colonies are experiencing different problems. Maybe they (the Cardassians) are afraid that accepting the peace in any logical form would make them look like outcasts or pariahs back home, in addition to the difficulty of having multiple cultures on a world. To some of them, even those who served in the military, being stuck on a colony away from any big responsibility or prestige might seem more like a punishment than anything else. And whatever goes wrong in terms of administration, it's just one more thing they can be blamed for.

 

[fireproof78]

this is the part where I am supposed to backtrack and "What i meant to say", etc and then perhaps make some thin gruel apologetic statement, but let's just skip that bit. In any case, we're talking about Maquis.

Assumptions abound.

If the Maquis were really supposed to be some example of the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, the writers did not do a good job of it, and I don't think that was their intent. The Maquis worlds seemed to be a terra nullis place, not some Sudetenland with millenia standing cultural ties so neither was this a Bajor situation.

I agree they did not do a very good job of it. I simply am one to examine emotions that drive behaviors rather than dismiss them as being poor guides of decision making. They are that, but that doesn't create understanding.

 

[Ragitsu]

At some point, we have to buckle down and realize that the writers were tackling this subject from a 20th century frame of mind: no advanced power generation (i.e., fusion generators and matter-antimatter reactors), no faster-than-light travel, no matter replicators, no transporters, no holodecks, no futuristic medicine, no terraforming, et cetera. If people have had their needs met and have been able to travel in the blink of an eye (or near close enough) for a few centuries, their point of reference would be significantly different.

 

[Unicron]

I don't think they entirely ignored it, although I do agree the writers didn't handle aspects of the Maquis as well as they could have. Transporters have a limited range and can be blocked by energy fields or other conditions, so you need FTL ships to go anywhere. Terraforming is time consuming and challenging, though we don't know how it typically works in the Trek franchise. Even advanced technology, like geography and politics, should have reasonable plot limits. Not that Trek is good with that part typically.

I mean, just imagine if Starfleet wants to relocate settlers to the closest possible system relative to the DMZ (they can go elsewhere if they want, but it's more delays and such). That closest system is reasonable suitable for life, but it's only been recently charted and not heavily explored. It would need a lot of infrastructure built to accommodate the number we want to send, a lot of time and investment, and since the most "recent" surveys are a few years old, we've run into a new problem.

That region of space, which was uninhabited when the survey was done, now has settlers from another power already building there. They recognized it would be good space too and, as far as they knew, nobody else had much interest. Are we just going to displace them, since we think we explored first, and risk open conflict? Are we going to ask permission to create shared settlements, which has already been problematic with a former enemy? Are we going to tell the colonists that apparently this home won't work after all and we'll have to find somewhere else?

 

[kkt]

No, you will resurvey right before the relocation begins and if it has become occupied in the meantime find another planet.

 

[STEPhon IT]

But I really don't understand why. Why fight for "land" in a society and setting where land, including breathtakingly beautiful land with the mildest climate(especially considering weather control systems) and oceanview, is so readily available? Would you really join a ragtag band of guérilla fighters and fight the Cardassians for land with the knowledge that you just could to go to the Federation and ask them for some new land? Knowing what the Cardassianz do to rebellious populations?

Great question. It all depends on my circumstances at the time and I wouldn't know if there was a certainty I'd get new land. But I would join them and fight for what I believed was mine, where I believed I would have a fresh start and create something which would be called home. My answer wasn't really popular anyway, I didn't get not one "like", even by the member who started the thread.

 

[fireproof78]

At some point, we have to buckle down and realize that the writers were tackling this subject from a 20th century frame of mind: no advanced power generation (i.e., fusion generators and matter-antimatter reactors), no faster-than-light travel, no matter replicators, no transporters, no holodecks, no futuristic medicine, no terraforming, et cetera. If people have had their needs met and have been able to travel in the blink of an eye (or near close enough) for a few centuries, their point of reference would be significantly different.

I don't think it was ignored at all. I think they were doing exactly what Star Trek was designed to do-explore contemporary issues through a science fiction lens. Hopefully it would help create an understanding of different point of views, even if we don't agree with it.

Which brings me to the second point. While many Trek fans love to ignore it human beings have more than material needs that can be met through replicators and fusion power generators. There are emotional needs, including the need to explore, to face greater challenges, to go out in to the unknown and building your home out on the frontier. It might be to prove something to themselves, to the Cardassians, or to create a new life for their family. Asking them to just up and leave pretty much ignores these emotional needs.

 

[thribs]

I would just move. Plenty of planets out there.

 

[Lynx]

this is the part where I am supposed to backtrack and "What i meant to say", etc and then perhaps make some thin gruel apologetic statement, but let's just skip that bit. In any case, we're talking about Maquis.

If the Maquis were really supposed to be some example of the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, the writers did not do a good job of it, and I don't think that was their intent. The Maquis worlds seemed to be a terra nullis place, not some Sudetenland with millenia standing cultural ties so neither was this a Bajor situation.

Closest situation i can think offhand, and I am sure there are better ones, might be the Republic of West Florida. United States settles swarmed into the Mobile District thinking that it was part of the Louisianna Purchase. Spain however now claimed authority. The United States was trying to chart a very difficult course during the Napoleanic Wars (which would ultimately have disastrous results) , and though it wanted to claim that area, at first did not do so. Americans living in the zone declared their indepenance, formed a country no one recognized and took on Spain. The US did not immediately intervene, but in the end did so after two months. If it had not, the situation might have been very Maquis-esque.

As I see it, the situation in the DMZ had soem similarities with the Sudetenland events in 1938 and the writers may have been somewhat inspired by it. However, as fiction writers often do, they make something entirely different out of it.

What most reminded me about the Sudeten crisis in 1938 was how the Federation sold out those planets to Cardassia in order to have "peace in our time", something they didn't get. As Churchill said: "They did chose dishonor and will have the war as well".

The sad thing is that the Federation made the same mistake again some years later when they almost ended up at war with their Klingon allies in order to protect Cardassa and Cardassia rewarded the Federation with joining the Dominion, thus stabbing the Federation in the back.

Emotions are the worst method for making decisions. Vegas weddings are based on emotions. Ramming the SUV full of kids in front of you when they cut you off at the exit is based on emotions. Buying a time share in Orlando is based on emotions. Rising up against a galactic power with no industrial base or allies to assist you, is based on emotions.

You may have some points here. But without emotions, we would be like soul-less robots.

Personally I'm happy for my emotions even if they have made me act like a jerk sometimes.