If Leyton succeeded would the Dominion war still happen?

[WraithDukat]

So I'm currently re-watching DS9, as we all know the Dominion War didn't happen in 'The Visitor' alternate timeline which also prevents Jadzia's death. So this leads me to think that Leyton succeeded in this timeline as Sisko wasn't there to stop him, granted any such thing would be short lived but that it happened in the first place could change a lot of things.

Thoughts?

 

[Tenacity]

Even without Sisko's participation I doubt Leyton would have held power very long. The vast majority of Starfleet simply wouldn't have followed his leadership.

As to the Dominion War, it's existence was entirely in the hands of the Founders, Leyton had no impact on whether there was a war at all.

 

[BillJ]

Unless he was willing to collapse the Wormhole, there still would've been a war.

 

[at Quark's]

I'm wondering whether the Dominion War could have been avoided at all - short of collapsing that wormhole. Even if Starfleet and all other AQ powers had heeded the very first warning from the Dominion and ceased any and all exploration/colonization of the Gamma Quadrant and never set foot on the other side of the wormhole again, I still think the Dominion might have invaded sooner or later, given the Founders' implicit distrust of all solids and their abhorrence of a 'chaotic' Alpha Quadrant.

 

[WraithDukat]

Good insights, but it just seemed like a good inuniverse reason why the war didn’t happen in that timeline. We know the wormhole wasn’t collapsed so no one went that far.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In The Visitor timeline, it's likely Martok was never exposed. Remember the Dominion did not want a 'hot' war. They wanted to slowly maneuver themselves into a position where nobody had the power to fight back. Sisko forced their hand with the mines. We have no proof the Dominion's plans were actually stopped in The Visitor timeline. For all we know the Dominion won the war 100 years later. They successfully isolated all the powers and installed their own people or people they could control in the most powerful positions, then sometime in the future, took the quadrant over before anyone could realize what was happening.

 

[Damian]

It's possible Leyton never went through with his plans. He wanted Sisko as his chief of security. Without him Leyton may have backed off his plan or other things may have happened the Leyton felt he didn't need to go forward. We just don't know.

Leyton didn't really strike me as a meglomaniac power hungry type of guy. Paranoid yes, even dangerous from that standpoint. But he didn't want power for power's sake. In his own twisted way he wanted to protect the Federation and it's democracy from the totalitarian Dominion. Sisko's 'death' may have had an effect on his decision making.

Just a theory of course. But my feeling is that in that alternate timeline Leyton never started his coup (or if he did it was very short lived).

 

[Timo]

If anything, Leyton would have provoked the war sooner than even Sisko could have managed.

This would have been part of his character on so many levels:

- His very plan for grabbing power hinged on inciting panic of a Dominion attack being nigh.
- It seemed to start with the faking of a Dominion strike when none was available otherwise.
- His motivation for grabbing the power was to be able to fight the Dominion on a stronger footing.
- He wasn't one for slow maneuvers, as his power base was still missing key pillars as stated above when he put his plans to action.

Being top dog in Starfleet would seem achievable without all that anti-Dominion fuss. Alex Marcus managed that easily enough, in what Pike felt was a "complacent" Starfleet faced with a passive, indeed apparently wholly dormant enemy. On the other hand, grabbing power by the means shown would mean having to move swiftly, as exposure would be disastrous and the appeal of rule by iron fist would quickly wear off if there was no enemy to be punched by that fist.

And of course once Leyton did get going, the Founders were having a field day, with impersonations and distractions and general proving-Leyton-right antics (including a dubious "confession" that Leyton was "actually" wrong). They would not have been interested in stalling if their gullible opponent was eager to go to premature war, in a situation where his important Klingon allies were estranged and his traditional local enemies going strong under Dominion infiltrator misdirection.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Brussels_Dragon]

I Think the war would have happened.
Leyton was paranoid , so I believe he would be the type for doing a first strike or even embracing Section31 and their plans with the Dominion.

 

[The Wormhole]

Leyton's coup could have potentially destabilized the Federation, perhaps even resulted in civil war. With hostilities brewing with the Klingons at the time as well, it's possible the Dominion might not have needed to go to war.

 

[Paradise City]

Leyton would've probably promoted a figurehead to be his proxy. But, yes, it would've destabilised the Federation. Member planets just wouldn't have had it.

The lesson of the episode is that, yeah, you could have a police state but at the end of the day you've lost something precious and for what? The ability of the changeling to unleash mayhem is only slightly restricted, if at all. Indeed, the changelings ability to manipulate peoples that have given themselves over to paranoia is even enhanced.

 

[zenophite]

I think Leyton's plan would have likely mobilized StarFleet to pursue countermeasures far more aggressively than they had been. It always seemed to me that the concern over the Founders and the Dominion was rather less than it should have been considering the threat they represented. They were only barely looking at measures to detect and subdue the Founders.

Given Leyton's character he seemed like more of a 'take the fight to them' sort of military man. I think he'd focus resources on the threat and give section 31 carte blanche to do what they needed to do to take care of business.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

Maybe Section 31 succeeded in the Changeling genocide without Sisko being there, then proceeded to find a similar way to take out the Jem'Hadar and Vorta.

 

[kkt]

The Dominion has tens of thousands of years experience with genetic engineering. Isn't it a little arrogant to think that Section 31 or Starfleet Medical could defeat their engineering in just a couple of years?

 

[Timo]

Well, they claimed to have ten thousands years of experience with being the dominant military force of their realm - and yet our heroes could knock out the Jem'Hadar like they were so many Klingons. Nothing builds up confidence like success.

I think Leyton's plan would have likely mobilized StarFleet to pursue countermeasures far more aggressively than they had been. It always seemed to me that the concern over the Founders and the Dominion was rather less than it should have been considering the threat they represented. They were only barely looking at measures to detect and subdue the Founders.

Then again, having countermeasures was an idea the Founders were trying to make the Alphans pursue. It was a Founder who suggested doing the blood tests; another Changeling who promoted the phaser sweeps; and a Founder again tried to make Starfleet kill Gowron as a form of testing.

Testing and doubting was to the advantage of the Founders, who never were caught by a test of any sort. And Leyton might well have fallen for it. Or then he might have seen through it, and been the first to exploit it as a weapon against the Dominion: anybody coming under suspicion would be trustworthy.

Given Leyton's character he seemed like more of a 'take the fight to them' sort of military man. I think he'd focus resources on the threat and give section 31 carte blanche to do what they needed to do to take care of business.

Which he probably did anyway. It's not as if he would have needed much in the way of extra powers to accomplish his goals. He could already control Earth and Starfleet enough to manipulate the government and to make Starfleet ship fire on Starfleet ship while the rest of the Fleet stood by. His signature (in invisible ink) probably was on a S31 padd long before he decided to bomb Antwerp and blame it on the Dominion.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Voth commando1]

A federation civil war-the likely result of a successful Leyton coup would have made a dominion victory all but assured. The actual course of the war would have been changed-but a divided federation would have basically destabilized the AQ and gave the dominion a basically unbreakable foothold in the AQ.

 

[kkt]

A federation civil war-the likely result of a successful Leyton coup would have made a dominion victory all but assured. The actual course of the war would have been changed-but a divided federation would have basically destabilized the AQ and gave the dominion a basically unbreakable foothold in the AQ.

Yes, I think that would be quite likely. Also the boy who cried wolf effect: they would eventually figure out that the power failure was not a Dominion attack, so they next time the alarm was sounded they'd be a little slower to respond.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I wouldn't be surprised, if Leyton won, if they immediately replaced him with a changeling, who then continued to drive changeling hysteria. Only, redirected the hysteria to the Klingons, Romulans, and maybe other member worlds, so they started suspecting other Federation worlds of being overrun by changelings too.

The Dominion would have attacked the Federation eventually, but not until they had finished with the Klingons and instigated a Federation wide changeling witch hunt.

 

[Voth commando1]

I recall an abandoned plotline was for Vulcan to secede in reaction to the coup-this would be the start of a federation civil war-member worlds who could not brook the coup would leave while others might rally behind Leyton.

Starfleet officers and ships would have to decide pro Leyton or anti Leyton-and the federation would have collapsed as a result of this.

Remember the dominion wanted to destabilize the AQ-to do this they did a variety of things-from manipulating the destruction of the obsidian order and the heavy weakening of the Tal Shiar, attempting to provoke wars-the Klingon cardassian war occurred largely as a result of dominion manipulation, they attempted to maneuver the federation into war against the Tzenkethi, they signed non aggression pacts, etc...

Ideally I think the dominion wanted to take over the AQ with as little loss to themselves as possible-ideally if the quadrant had torn itself apart in war, upheaval, and the collapse of governments-this would have made dominion conquest a smooth and relatively easy process.

In essence-they were trying to set up the chessboard to ensure they got a check mate.

 

[Timo]

One wonders why they decided to go with this military conquest campaign at all. Keeping on destabilizing for the next 500 years would probably protect the Founders from these evil Solids just as effectively.

May have been the Hitler-in-Poland thing. Too much success and too optimistic a view of weakness of opposition would make them go for the takeover-of-Cardassia thing, thinking it would quickly blow over and leave the Dominion so much stronger - and suddenly they would find themselves trapped and forced to act openly.

Timo Saloniemi