Sacrifice of Angels Question

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

During the fight to retake DS9, the huge Federation fleet takes on the Dominion, and the Defiant blasts through the blockade with one or two other Klingon vessels.

Sisko asks Nog (I think): "How many ships made it?"

Nog answers that it was just the Defiant...(and I guess there are shots of Sisko and others looking saddened).

Now, I always thought they were the only Federation ship to 'survive' (which would be a feat, since it would show the Dominion to be overly powerful, and we would have seen the entire Dominion fleet turn on the Defiant and those one or two Klingon vessels).

However, it seems like Nog and Sisko were saying that the Defiant was the only Federation ship to make it though the blockade...(since the other ships--Galaxy-class, Miranda-class, fighters, Excelsior-class were still taking out Dominion vessels)...

Too much thought into that, but it's fun...

Am I missing something, though?

 

[Timo]

After Sisko and the Prophets sort it out, the villains on DS9 make note that the still ongoing battle is turning into their disfavor, and that some 200 Alpha Quadrant ships have broken through and are heading for the station. The villains then commence evacuation (but for some reason don't do self-destruct).

So yes, the Defiant represented only the first break through the enemy line, and unfortunately happened to be but a single-ship break. But the battle continued, and multi-ship breaks eventually followed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

After Sisko and the Prophets sort it out, the villains on DS9 make note that the still ongoing battle is turning into their disfavor, and that some 200 Alpha Quadrant ships have broken through and are heading for the station. The villains then commence evacuation (but for some reason don't do self-destruct).

So yes, the Defiant represented only the first break through the enemy line, and unfortunately happened to be but a single-ship break. But the battle continued, and multi-ship breaks eventually followed.

Timo Saloniemi

Interesting....

Tks, Timo...

 

[Hermiod]

Timo is correct. Sisko's plan is to use the fighters to provoke the Cardassian captains (since the Vorta ones will be too disciplined) in to breaking formation, creating a hole he can punch through.

Dukat sees this plan (interestingly Weyoun and the Female Founder do not) and plans to give them the hole in order to close it on them, trapping the Starfleet ships. In exchange, Dax and Sisko realise this but opt to try to push through anyway.

They get a bit lucky when the Klingons show up and flank the Dominion fleet, though.

The goal was not to destroy the Dominion fleet, it was to get past it.

 

[Timo]

Which is an odd goal as such. After the Defiant breaks through, she goes to warp for several minutes, suggesting that the battle took place relatively far away from DS9. Why, then, did the Alpha fleet stop to fight there? Why not warp around the enemy and directly to DS9? The enemy fleet was only a few dozen kilometers across by the looks of it, a few hundred kilometers across at most. Going around it should have been almost trivially easy.

Sure, the enemy could have followed at warp, and eventually intercepted, but at least the Alpha side would have had the initiative there, and would have disrupted the enemy formation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^My understanding is that ships have to travel in straight lines when at warp. That means that in order to go around the Dominion fleet, they would need to drop out of warp to adjust course, possibly more than once.

Certainly they could have used this to allow them to choose where they fight, but they definitely wouldn't have wanted to fight the fleet and the station at the same time.

 

[Cyke101]

If they warped around the Dominion fleet, I wouldn't like Starfleet's chances of succeeding. They'd eventually face 1200 ships behind them, and in front of them would be a heavily-fortified station that, last time it saw battle, took out fifty ships all by herself.

 

[TheGodBen]

The real reason is that Ira Behr wanted a kick-ass space battle, and what we got was the most kick-ass space battle in the entire history of television. Does it make sense? No, but it sure as hell was fun!

 

[Timo]

The "But they can go around the enemy at warp!" thing could have been avoided simply by not having the Defiant go to warp after breaking through.

But yeah, it makes sense that our heroes would stop and fight when the enemy challenged them. If their mission was one of destroying a point target, it would make sense to perform a suicidal dash. But their mission really was one of securing a target, namely the wormhole or at least the minefield around it, so a quick in-and-hopefully-out would not have done the trick.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Damask]

The villains then commence evacuation (but for some reason don't do self-destruct).

They would have killed Odo.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Sisko's "we're no condition to stop [the Dominion forces]" from leaving DS9 was bullcrap (he was willing to committ suicide against the fleet in the wormhole). Open up on those ships, kill the female changling, Weyoun and Damar.

That would make a good fan edit.

 

[Odo's_Bucket]

Sisko's "we're no condition to stop [the Dominion forces]" from leaving DS9 was bullcrap (he was willing to committ suicide against the fleet in the wormhole). Open up on those ships, kill the female changling, Weyoun and Damar.

That would make a good fan edit.

Then the show would be over. How is that a good edit?

 

[Praetor]

The villains then commence evacuation (but for some reason don't do self-destruct).

They would have killed Odo.

Really though, that's the one part of the episode that's never made sense. I understand why Sisko didn't destroy the station entirely when Starfleet pulled out, but why didn't the Dominion, can anyone think of a sound answer or reason why Dukat or Weyoun or the Female Changeling or any of the unseen senior officers wouldn't have tripped the destruct spitefully?

 

[TheGodBen]

^^^ You just quoted the answer, they would have killed Odo. No changeling will harm another, the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar certainly wouldn't do anything to harm him, and the Cardassians would have been overruled if they had dared to suggest it.

 

[Praetor]

Ha, duh to me. I'd forgotten the Changelings' renowned loyalty to one another and stubbornness.

I feel stupid. Carry on.

 

[Braxton]

I was a little disappointed that no other ships made it through with the Defiant. It would have been nice to see less than 10 ships make it through, maybe even less than 5.

It wouldn't make sense to try and go around the Dominion fleet. It would be best to hit engage whatever the Dominion sent against them to tie up their forces. Remember, the Admirals were afraid of an attack on Earth. By keeping such a large number of Dominion forces busy, the Federation wouldn't have to worry too much about a large scale attack against Earth as the Third Fleet could most likely stop such an attack. Sisko took a gamble that the Dominion would send a fleet against him instead of Earth and he was right.

 

[Cyke101]

I was a little disappointed that no other ships made it through with the Defiant. It would have been nice to see less than 10 ships make it through, maybe even less than 5.

It did seem a little weird for sure (then again, Trek isn't really known for realism). The Defiant going at it alone was just further cemented when they entered the wormhole, as the whole episode was primarily about ever-increasing odds for all the heroes.

But yeah, I did punch the air when the dialogue mentioned 200 friendly ships breaking through and heading for DS9. I'm a fan of the good ol' fashioned "Look at the villains run with their tails tucked between their legs" ending.

 

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

Just out of curiosity, what was the initial number of ships on both sides?

 

[Cicero]

Memory Alpha lists the Federation fleet strength as 627 starships, and the Dominion numbers at 1,254. No figure is given for the Klingon fleet other than its description as "large."

 

[Jono]

Memory Alpha lists the Federation fleet strength as 627 starships, and the Dominion numbers at 1,254. No figure is given for the Klingon fleet other than its description as "large."

The Dominion fleet's size is explicitly stated and MA has used Bashir's comment that they (Feds) are outnumbered 2 to 1 to mean that they were exactly outnumbered 2 to 1.