No, STO is as irrelevant as the novelverse
Spoilers Picard: COUNTDOWN! - Comic is available, spoiler discussion within
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No, STO is as irrelevant as the novelverse
As Trim said, there are lots of things in the Trek universe that could trigger an unexpected supernova. Conspiracies don't have to be the go-to explanation for every single thing.
It happened in Generations -- the gravitational effects of the supernovae were felt instantaneously by ships parsecs away, and by the Nexus. It happened with the Praxis explosion's "shock wave" in TUC. If anything, the evidence is that subspace propagation of supernovae and similar events does happen fairly routinely in the Trek universe.
Because Odo agreed to rejoin the Founders on the condition that they end their aggression against the Alpha (and Beta) Quadrant. They cared more about reuniting with him than they did about their ambitions for conquest, so they wouldn't want to drive him away by carrying out a revenge plan he would never sanction.
And failed. Would they really repeat the same tactic? Especially if they wanted it to be clandestine, it'd be pretty stupid to repeat a method they were already known to have tried.
The reason conspiracy-theory thinking is such a trap is that you can always find some similarities between two unconnected things, so someone predisposed to see connections will see any random similarity as "proof" of something deeper. That way lies madness. You should never start with the conclusion you want and cherrypick the evidence that will support it, because you can always find things that look like they support your premise. The thing you have to do with a hypothesis is try to disprove it, and only accept it if you can't rule it out. There are always multiple possible explanations for a thing, so the only way to know you have the right one is if you've ruled out all the alternatives.
The comic isn't canon either. Presumably the artist used that design because it was available and fit the time period.
Did they really go after the Cardassians though? A couple years after the attack, the Cadassians joined the Dominion and all Cardassians being held prisoner as a result of the attack were released. The decimation of Cardassia in WYLB was in response to Damar's rebellion taking root in the Cardassian military to the point that even the Cardassian ships fighting the battle switched sides against the Dominion.
The Karemma actually weren't worried that the Jem 'Hadar would devastate their homeworld when they wanted to sell Dominion weapons to Starfleet...
Doesn't that actually cripple your argument? The Dominion are okay with one of their subject races selling weapons to their enemy, then they ally themselves with a race who launched an attack against their gods, and allow the other race involved in that attack to enter a non-aggression pact with them. But then, a supernova that happens a decade later against the Romulans must be in retaliation of an attack the Dominion seemed perfectly willing to forgive and forget a few years afterwards?
Besides, it was Tain (a Cardassian) who was the mastermind behind the attack. When he reached out to the Romulans for support, it was at the behest of the Founder posing as Colonel Lovok they agreed, so technically speaking the Romulan government was innocent pawns in a Dominion masterplan. Not really seeing why the Dominion would feel the need to single them out specifically for retribution for something they duped the Romulans into doing.
Right, exactly. I see now, the whole premise here is faulty. The joint Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order operation to devastate the Founders homeworld was a Founder trap in the first place, a ploy to lure those two agencies to their destruction to make it easier for the Dominion to infiltrate the Alpha Quadrant. And it was a successful trap. The Founders got exactly what they wanted. Why would they want revenge for something that was their idea in the first place?
As far as I recall, the only reason the Female Changeling wanted to devastate Cardassia was as retaliation for their uprising. It's how a dictatorship maintains control, by demonstrating the intolerable cost of rebellion. It's the same reason the Empire destroyed Alderaan. It wasn't revenge, it was a calculated move to retain power by making others too terrified to rebel. And the attempt to destroy Bajor's sun was also a strategic move, an attempt to get rid of the rival forces controlling the wormhole so that they would no longer stand in the Dominion's way. None of this is about anything as petty as revenge. It's all far more calculated than that, moves in the game of empire.
Maybe but the female founder seemed really resentful against the Cardies because of the attack, according to "Broken Link".
"FOUNDER: There were no Cardassian survivors.
GARAK: You mean, they're all dead?
FOUNDER: They're dead. You're dead, Cardassia is dead. Your people were doomed the moment they attacked us. I believe that answers your question. "
Again, that's not resentment, that's policy. A tyranny maintains absolute power through fear, by making it clear that the price for resistance is annihilation. There was no reason for her to resent an attack her people invited in the first place. They'd already left that planet and moved elsewhere, so they weren't harmed by the attack. It was all just part of their trap. Claiming that her people were the victims of an attack they engineered was just self-serving rhetoric.
Besides, everything that happened in the AQ in the years leading up to the Dominion War was all part of a calculated Dominion plan to infiltrate the quadrant and undermine powers that could be threats to them. They targeted Cardassia from the start, by having the Changeling Martok trick Gowron into invading Cardassia, which (along with the destruction of the Obsidian Order) weakened Cardassia and left it vulnerable to the Dominion's offer of alliance, thereby giving them a foothold in the quadrant from which to launch its conquests, with the Cardassian state inevitably being subjugated and dissolved once it was no longer of use. All one big chess game, a strategy of conquest that the Dominion has no doubt honed over centuries. Resentment implies they were taken by surprise, and that certainly wasn't the case here. Everything that happened with Cardassia, at least prior to Damar's revolution, went exactly as the Dominion planned well in advance.
A lie
I personally like the theory that Section 31 is somehow behind this, if only because it matches their "Romulus is our next big threat" talk in Inter Arma, followed by Romulus suffering huge disasters in the two post-Dominion War Alpha Quadrant stories (Nemesis and Star Trek '09).
But Countdown Picard implies otherwise. It's a predicted event, probably natural in some way, and there doesn't seem to be any hand-wringing on the whys in the comic, just the inevitability of it and relocation efforts. If there was even an implication that a rogue Federation agency was somehow involved, the Romulans wouldn't be so accommodating to Picard, but would be on all-out War mode.
That doesn't mean that Section 31 didn't have a hand in getting Shinzon to power (via their Romulan agents), nor couldn't they be sabotaging the efforts to aid the relocation, pump up the Romulan paranoia, and stifle efforts to stop the supernova from occurring.
Then again, maybe it's both. Odo, while always being a paragon of justice (in some respects), was surprisingly supportive of Section 31 as a necessity in DS9. Maybe they converted him after all, and are using him to push the Founders into solving the Romulus issue.
Just kidding. Odo's long dead.
But Countdown Picard implies otherwise. It's a predicted event, probably natural in some way, and there doesn't seem to be any hand-wringing on the whys in the comic, just the inevitability of it and relocation efforts. If there was even an implication that a rogue Federation agency was somehow involved, the Romulans wouldn't be so accommodating to Picard, but would be on all-out War mode.
That doesn't mean that Section 31 didn't have a hand in getting Shinzon to power (via their Romulan agents), nor couldn't they be sabotaging the efforts to aid the relocation, pump up the Romulan paranoia, and stifle efforts to stop the supernova from occurring.
Then again, maybe it's both. Odo, while always being a paragon of justice (in some respects), was surprisingly supportive of Section 31 as a necessity in DS9. Maybe they converted him after all, and are using him to push the Founders into solving the Romulus issue.
Just kidding. Odo's long dead.
I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense at all. Doing so would've been directly opposed to Section 31's interest in the security of the Federation. Remember, at the end of the Dominion War, the Federation's relations with the Romulans were the best they'd ever been. That's why the coup in Nemesis happened -- because Shinzon took advantage of the hardliners in the Romulan military who objected to the Senate's policy of detente toward the Federation. It would've been crazy for Section 31 to back the side that was against better relations with the Federation.
And of course, after Nemesis, with the hardliners defeated, UFP-Romulan relations are even better, with peace talks in the offing -- setting up the situation we see in ST '09 when things are so cordial that Spock is able to drop in on Romulus like it's no big deal. So there's even less reason for Section 31 to want to destabilize that by causing a catastrophe in Romulan space. It's one thing to be ruthless enough to attempt genocide against a powerful enemy posing an immediate existential threat to the Federation, but it would make no sense to attempt it against a nation that the Federation is on the verge of making peace with.
Yes. The less, the better. A conspiracy that is both a) actively involved in everything and b) successfully hidden for generations is a contradiction in terms. The only way it could reasonably stay hidden for a long time is if it acts with the lightest possible touch, only intervening to the minimum extent necessary, if at all.
It was all a joke. I was trying to build up to my grand Section 31/Dominion team-up theory, an idea so ludicrous I don't think I need to explain it further. I sometimes make elaborate theories (like my old Romulans are behind Discovery Season 1 treatise), and was attempting a sarcastic self-parody, but was perhaps too in depth and not jocular enough.
It was a purposeful collaboration between IDW, CBS and Cryptic according to one of the game’s developers.
Yeah, it could have been simply politics. But what i wonder about in this case is why the Founders were determined to exterminate the Cardassians, which actually might have turned the Dominion in a worse position than it would have been if they hadn't act like this, while they apparently turned a blind eye to the activities of the Karemma.
I don't know what you mean. The Karemma were a Dominion member world that engaged in trade with the Ferengi and the Federation before the war. The Cardassians were an occupied state that was engaged in active armed rebellion against their occupiers at a critical stage of the war. They're not even remotely analogous situations.
And the Founders hardly turned a blind eye to disobedience; the whole plot of "Starship Down" was about the Jem'Hadar attacking the Karemma vessel in retaliation for their apparently unauthorized dealings with the Federation.
Both species were actually Dominion members at the time.
Selling Dominion weapons to the enemy
would most likely be a major offense to the Founders.
So i wonder why the Karemma homeworld was apparently safe from repercussions while the Founders first destroyed Lakarian city and later tried to exterminate the entire species for the acts of a few.
Weapons? What are you talking about? The only merchandise that the Karemma were ever shown to trade with Alpha Quadrant powers were things like tulaberry wine with the Ferengi and Karemman fleece with the Federation. The only mention of them selling weapons was to the Jem'Hadar.
Selling merchandise to others generates revenue for the Karemma which the Dominion can tax them for. As long as the Karemma are paying their taxes, the Dominion are okay leaving them to do their thing. The Cardassians on the other hand were essentially in a state of armed revolt against the Dominion. That's something which sort of needs to be addressed immediately and discouraged.
