This would have been in place of Insurrection for me. I would have focused it on a Deanna story and gotten in on the Dominion War and her helping to retake Betazed. Worf could have taken the Defiant or a Runabout to meet up with the Enterprise to assist them with the guerilla and infiltration style mission it would have ended up being. Hell you could have brought in Garak or Jadzia to help with the Cardassian part of the occupation there. Have a nice Worf/Deanna/Riker set-up down on Betazed, while you have the Enterprise and a small fleet working to distract and harass the Cardassian and Dominion forces in orbit.
You get your action pieces, you get to make a social statement on countries invading each other, a statement on war, and the personal cost it can take through Deanna's eyes as she liberates her home. We might have even given Beverly something to properly do in the films for a change. Picard and Data would have their moments, but they get relegated to the B-story for this one as they work on hit and run tactics in orbit.
This way it doesn't disrupt DS9 all that much, it's still a TNG story but has the Enterprise actually involved with the war for a change in canon as opposed to comics and novels, and there's plenty of room for thoughtful dialogue.
Yes I know they did a novel way after the fact, but I wanted to see the TNG crew having to deal with a war time situation, not just a skirmish or Borg fight here or there. Show how the pride of Starfleet, the flagship crew, deals with the ugliness of war and sticks to their ideals.
