There's no way a group of people (obviously far less than the 600 peace-loving Ba'ku farmers) are expelled from the planet, conquer two entire species (!) and build those warships, weapons and ally themselves with the Federation.
Yet John Gill apparently did all that basically
single-handedly, or was about to do so.
Never underestimate the gullibility and industrial potential of primitive species...
The Son'a probably went to the Federation and said, 'we have this guy here, Ru'afo, who came to us from the Briar Patch. Said he lived there on a planet for some centuries with some other Son'a who now call themselves the Ba'ku. The Ba'ku are totally cool with the sugeestion of coming back to Son'a Prime, we just need your okay because it's one of your planets. By the way, the planet grants eternal youth. We would like to harvest it's enery so everyone can benefit from it. You okay with that?' The Fed Council probably agreed on those terms.
So who provided the holoship? Who okayed the clandestine observation, and to what purpose? And if all
that was Starfleet high treason, why involve the legitimate UFP government at all?
The whole Son'a groove here was that nobody was to exchange words with the Ba'ku and learn the ugly truth about the full extent of Son'a villainy. Making most parties think the Ba'ku were primitives would accomplish that, because the UFP automatically protects primitives by depriving them of the right of say.
Funny enough, I always thought Picard agreed with Dougherty on that level. He didn't believe the Ba'ku had the right to stay per se, but was open for other options (he even said something 'let the Enterprise have a lok at the issue'). It was Dougherty's attitude of 'no thanks, we do it now, and you go back home' that led Picard to take the side of the Ba'ku. The moral dilemma was rather complex, but when Dougherty started to act out his plan, Picard had to intervene.
Which is where the movie gets its name: Picard doesn't just confront a bunch of ugly villains, he defies his own government. On a couple of mistaken assumptions at that, but this might not count for much in the end. When Picard forces the Council to face the full set of facts and retract its earlier decisions, his career is probably stalled for good, with even that upstart Janeway going wooshing past.
So, I guess at the end of the movie, Starfleet probably sends some more scientists to work on a solution that benefits the Ba'ku and everyone else?
The only party needing a "solution" would appear to have been Rua'fo - that old bastard may or may not have been truthful about not surviving a conventional treatment of spending time on the planet, but his young followers are likely to be better off (especially as Rua'fo's claim, as relayed by Dougherty, is already moderated by the expression "some of them").
With the main villain out of the picture, the science of the issue might be done, and all that's required is organizing the longevity spa. So, exit the eggheads, enter the diplomats. Or, as it may be, the soldiers.
I guess I just gave the whole backstory more thought than the writers ever did.
I wouldn't bet on that. ST:INS is complex. The audience not "getting it" (forming an uniform interpretation) at first and then spending decades arguing it is probably more an artifact of the audience having simple expectations.
Timo Saloniemi
