One thing about "The Wounded"
- Thread starter indolover
- Start date
The US military was technologically superior to the Viet Cong, and yet we couldn't win...
The Enterprise disables the Cardassian ship with a couple of shots. And they were unnable to resist the renegade ship's attacks, even with access to its command codes...
Plus they fired at the Enterprise and didn't even ding the shields.
Could have been a "limited war" war, or "police action"...but also it seems the UFP had the upper hand because they seem to have gotten the better of the treaty..which is why the Cardassians were secretly re-arming rather than doing it in the open.
& the Federation could read the Cardassian's transponder codes at will, which seemed to rather bother Gul Macet
Picard: "We are able to make that determination"
LOL He says it so coldly. Clearly the technological advantage was the Federation's. The war ending in a draw could have been due to entirely different reasons, like tactics
...Or the Federation having no interest in winning. Perhaps the prize was too unimpressive?
Cardassians probably wanted to conquer worlds - this is a motivation attributed to them by their enemies, allies and themselves alike. Feds just as probably would have had no interest in getting possession of Cardassian worlds.
Timo Saloniemi
Cardassians probably wanted to conquer worlds - this is a motivation attributed to them by their enemies, allies and themselves alike. Feds just as probably would have had no interest in getting possession of Cardassian worlds.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't recall where or when I heard this (DS9, maybe?) but I believe Cardassian Galor-class ships were prone to being grouped into 3's. Considering how the Enterprise was able to easily disable one (let's also factor that Enterprise was state-of-the-art at the time), it could be that Cardassian ships had numbers that allowed for equal footing, to make up for any technical disadvantages. Numbers and cornering, after all, is how they nearly defeated the Defiant in, um, "Defiant."
A single ship was initially seen in "The Wounded", but two later attacked the Phoenix in unison. Two ships were also used in "Ensign Ro", while a single ship appeared in "Parallels" and "Preemptive Strike".
However, DS9 premiered with a three-ship threat to the station when Gul Dukat's single vessel went missing in the wormhole. This might be where one gets the impression of the ships operating in threes - but it's actually the only time they do so. For example in "Defiant", two ships (this time of the Keldon class) is the preferred small formation again.
For a war fought near Cardassia, it would basically automatically follow that Cardassians would have plenty of ships (namely, all of them!) while Starfleet would only have whatever it deemed absolutely necessary for the theater of operations since we know of at least three other military conflicts the UFP was entangled in at the time (with Talarians, Tholians and Tzenkethi - perhaps there is a long queue and the 2350s were slotted for the T species, with Cardassia guilty of cutting?).
Timo Saloniemi
In this instance, I think we can.
Not only do our heroes act remarkably unalarmed during the exchange of fire, Picard specifically says to the defeated Macet "The alternative is for us to continue firing at one other - and in such a contest, you would be at a disadvantage". It seems the writers are explicitly setting the scene for what follows: the Cardassians, feeling wronged, are going to remain helpless to do anything about it militarily unless Picard helps them.
Fortunately, all later episodes stay consistent with this, allowing Cardassian warships to pose a threat to their Federation counterparts only in a) alternate universes or b) when upgraded with alien technologies (Romulan, Dominion).
Timo Saloniemi
Not only do our heroes act remarkably unalarmed during the exchange of fire, Picard specifically says to the defeated Macet "The alternative is for us to continue firing at one other - and in such a contest, you would be at a disadvantage". It seems the writers are explicitly setting the scene for what follows: the Cardassians, feeling wronged, are going to remain helpless to do anything about it militarily unless Picard helps them.
Fortunately, all later episodes stay consistent with this, allowing Cardassian warships to pose a threat to their Federation counterparts only in a) alternate universes or b) when upgraded with alien technologies (Romulan, Dominion).
Timo Saloniemi
NebulaClassGuy
Lieutenant Commander
I'd agree with this.
...Although classically even the stronger player in a conflict-to-be would be motivated to do his amassing of forces in great secrecy. If the stronger player wanted to avoid conflict, then an open and much-propagated rearming and general bullying might be the way to go: those are the classic signs of empty blustering that a nation incapable of unwilling of entering into combat would display.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Knight Templar
Commodore
For this simple reason.
Secretary of Defense MacNamara was bragging to a U.S. congressman that the U.S. was killing the communists in Vietnam
"We're killing ten of theirs for every one of ours!".
The congressman reportedly said:
"Bob, the American people don't care about the ten. They care about the one.".
Naaah... given what we know about Cardassian culture from DS9, and from the difficulty Dukat had adjusting to life as a guerrilla fighter against the Klingon Empire (not to mention Damar's difficulties adjusting to life as an anti-Dominion folk hero / guerrilla leader), I think it's fairly safe to assume that the Cardassians were not very well used to doing asymmetric tactics.
Timo said:
That seems like a reasonable explanation, particularly given the treaty they signed with the Cardassians which ended up creating the Maquis. The Federation, in spite of having favourable conditions, did not press for retention of their colonies.
It was said numerous times in the episode (re - technological inferiority):
- Worf arrested one of Gul Moset's aides, since the aide was curious about the Federation's superior weapons tech.
- Chief O'Brien was asked by Gul Moset's other aide about the Federation's superior transporter tech.
And of course there was the point regarding the transponder codes. It's just if the Federation had these advantages, it may not have taken the war that seriously. It certainly wasn't, I guess, a "life or death" war like that against the Dominion.
- Worf arrested one of Gul Moset's aides, since the aide was curious about the Federation's superior weapons tech.
- Chief O'Brien was asked by Gul Moset's other aide about the Federation's superior transporter tech.
And of course there was the point regarding the transponder codes. It's just if the Federation had these advantages, it may not have taken the war that seriously. It certainly wasn't, I guess, a "life or death" war like that against the Dominion.
