Should DS9 have ended with the Federation LOSING the Dominion War?

[Phily B]

After the horrid, ghastly deus ex fucking machina that was Sacrifice of Angels, I had no doubt whatsoever that the Feds were going to win this gig.

Your comment about the deus ex machina nature of the episode reminded me that Ira Behr replied those criticisms.

Ira Steven Behr: "I felt it was the perfect next step in the evolution of the relationship between Sisko and the Prophets that began in the pilot. Hearing people refer to it as some dopey deus ex machina is really annoying because I would think they'd give us more credit for being on the ball. We didn't have to end it like that, we chose to end it like that. Because we wanted to say that there was something going on here. And ultimately, that would lead to our finding out that Sisko is part-Prophet. They wouldn't have done this for just anyone. This was the man going out into the wilderness and demanding God to interfere, to do something for crying out loud. The corporeal characters had done so much in the episode; surely they'd earned the help of the gods."

And why shouldn't the Prophets interfere? They've sided with Bajor, and Bajor was in danger. Their Emissary, The Sisko, asked them for help. Why would they refuse?

I think Behr's defense misses the point there. Sure, there's story logic to the Prophets' intervention, but I think the criticism is that it was weak from a DRAMATIC perspective not from a story logic perspective.

It essentially ended a major arc with the wave of a magic wand. Long-term planning or not, that's lame.

I think that they should've had Sisko go into the wormhole and ask for help first, then mine the wormhole after he was unsure he'd get their help or if they said they were unconcerned about corporeal matters etc like usual.

 

[Dream]

TOS introduced the Trek universe, TNG expanded it, DS9 started a bloody war that wrecked it and killed billions.

 

[Kadratis]

Berman would have never let that happen. God forbid anything happen to "HIS" franchise.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

A dominion victory would've been undone in Voyager or a TNG movie anyways. Like they were going to do ongoing TNG films set in a galaxy where the Federation would be gone.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Sure, kill off the franchise even faster.

(...)

Star Trek is primarily about having fun; if one has missed that, one has missed the point.

And making it exciting by invoking "anyone can die" doesn't mean fun to you? I for one have more fun when I can't tell how a show will end from ten thousand miles away, and when it isn't sure that the good guys will win.

 

[neozeks]

So, no, I don't think it would have been appropriate for DSN to end with the Federation being conquered by the Dominion. DSN reconstructed optimism after it deconstructed utopianism, and a Dominion conquest of the Federation would have undermined that creative project.

Absolutely agree.

I think Behr's defense misses the point there. Sure, there's story logic to the Prophets' intervention, but I think the criticism is that it was weak from a DRAMATIC perspective not from a story logic perspective.

It essentially ended a major arc with the wave of a magic wand. Long-term planning or not, that's lame.

I'm certainly not a writer but honestly, what other way could have they ended it that would have been more dramatically satisfying? The Federation winning through pure military might? Boring. The Federation winning through some clever ruse or technobabble ingenuity? Predictable. The Dominion coming through the Wormhole? That wouldn't have solved anything. I could see two other solutions that would have dramatically worked for me. First would be for the Bajorans to disregard Sisko's advice to stay out of the war and somehow stop the minefield going down just in the nick of time. But we already sort of had that with Kira's resistance cell actions on DS9. The other would be for the Cardassians to somehow (again in the nick of time) turn against the Dominion - but with the war going totally in their favor I can't see how that would come about. And neither of these would really crucially involve Sisko and the Starfleet crew. Nor would they have the additional "OMG! What now?" factor of seeing the minefield actually going down.

Of course, everyone has their own sense of what's dramatically right (and it's sometimes hard to put in into words) but I wouldn't have found any of those solutions as satisfying as the one we got. I mean, I can sort of understand the "magic wand" feeling but... why is that actually lame if it was properly setup and was based on character work, character actions and character choices, and not just pulled out of nowhere? Because of the suddeness of the resolution?

And the Prophets intervention didn't really end the war arc or anything. The Feds still had to win both that battle and the rest of the war (and they had to fight through to get a chance to ask the Prophets for intervention in the first place). To paraphrase Behr, the Gods just leveled the playing field, because the corporeals earned it through their actions.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Sure, kill off the franchise even faster.

(...)

Star Trek is primarily about having fun; if one has missed that, one has missed the point.

And making it exciting by invoking "anyone can die" doesn't mean fun to you?

Yes, I've stopped beating my spouse. Thanks.

 

[chrinFinity]

The Jack Pack prediction was never right. All they ever looked at was events broadly, but they never factored in that personal things can change things greatly as it usually does. They never knew anything about Dukat/Sisko and the prophets/pah wraiths, or Damar's resistance fallout, or Odo's effect on the Founders.

Actually they did factor in the possibility of the Cardassians turning against the Dominion... they did not, however, consider the Changeling disease. They didn't factor in the prophets either, but it's arguable the prophets had any influence on the outcome of the war. They vanished a Jem'Hadar fleet once, but that was before Jack's team made their predictions.

 

[josborn]

Sorry to ask a really "noob"-ish question but what was the "Jack Pack"?

 

[Deckerd]

A group of genetically enhanced flakes who were given a (brief) sojourn at running the war based on their calculations.

 

[Pavonis]

The "Jack Pack" were 4 genetically-engineered humans who had severe social problems due to their genetic tampering. The Federation kept them in a sort of group home or mental institution, where they could be supervised and cared for, because they just didn't function well in normal society. They were brilliant but unstable people.

 

[Paper Moon]

Sorry to ask a really "noob"-ish question but what was the "Jack Pack"?

Spoilers for sixth season episode "Statistical Probabilities," and fifth season episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?":

Spoiler: that stuff

The "Jack Pack" was the behind-the-scenes name for the group of genetically engineered humans consisting of Jack (the de facto leader), Patrick, Lauren and Sarina seen in "Statistical Probabilities". Unlike Bashir, their enhancements were not well done. In some ways, they were a commentary on the treatment of the mentally ill today.

 

[josborn]

Thanks all.

I'm a bit behind on my DS9.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Sure, kill off the franchise even faster.

(...)

Star Trek is primarily about having fun; if one has missed that, one has missed the point.

And making it exciting by invoking "anyone can die" doesn't mean fun to you?

Yes, I've stopped beating my spouse. Thanks.

I'm sorry, but this warrants a bitch, please. So...here goes:

 

[ichab]

Nah, I'm happy with the way it ended. I thought they went as far as they could go with stretching the limited boundaries of Trek with the serialization of episodes and conflict between the characters. They even had the bad guys take over the station for part of season 6. By the end of season 7 it was time to end the war and I don't think after all that buildup the fans would have been satisfied with an ending that has the good guys losing.

 

[Hober Mallow]

IIRC, the proposed ending was that the Federation loses the war, but something happens that stops the Dominion or someone swoops in to save the day at the last second, so in the end everything would have been okay. That idea never really sounded appealing to me.

 

[LeadHead]

No, I don't think that would have been a good way to end the series. Now, if that had happened to a greater extent within the series, that would've been more acceptable. If the Occupation arc had lasted longer, with the Federation getting pushed further and further back. Some of our heroes being captured and enduring prison camps, a major planet like Andor or Vulcan falling (and us actually seeing it)

If they wanted to set the stage for a new series, what they would need to do is show the first victory, the ray of hope that would shine the way to the Federation pushing back against the onslaught. This would open up the possibility for DS9 Characters to be in the new series too, which would make sense since the Dominion was introduced in DS9, maybe 1 or 2 would be regulars.

 

[Diogenes5]

We've already seen an entire tv series about what would have happened had the Dominion won the war. It's called "Battlestar Galactica". j/k

The show ended pretty well; I don't think anyone could've predicted the ending they went with and how Odo saved the alpha quadrant from billions more dying.

I think the problem with the Dominion is that they wrote themselves into a corner by making it so damn powerful. Early on the Dominion had long-range transporters and their expendable fighters could destroy galaxy-class starships. They had cloned, fanatical soldiers with cloaking that they could breed billions of.

At the end of the day, it was clear the Dominion could eradicate all the Alpha Quadrant if it just sent even a tiny part of its fleet through the wormhole and it nearly did just that.

I'm just glad they didn't use a Deus Ex Machina to end the series (here's to you Battle Star Galactica). Using the prophets to stop the Jem'hadar reinforcements in Season 6 was the nearest they came to using magic in the series. But given the prophets were responsible for the wormhole in the first place and that Sisqo had been the emissary from season 1, it made enough sense. And I am glad in general the writers did not have the prophets intervene much if at all (I always thought to myself when the station was imperilled nearly every episode: "Hey, why not have Sisqo ask the prophets to help him")

The founder from the very start said that Odo was more important than the Alpha quadrant. I also think the writers knew that this would be the last Star Trek fans would be seeing of the Alpha Quadrant on TV for a very long time. Paramount couldn't wait to to tear down the DS9 sets and Voyager and the TNG movies were going to just go on random adventures. I think they knew they had to end the conflict with finality and tie up every loose end.

It also has to be said that the Dominion couldn't win the war because they initially intended to make Sisqo a prophet and leave Cassidy and Jake forever. That would have been really piling on the sadness.



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[R. Star]

Actually I could see the Prophets being cold enough to snatch Sisko away right when he was needed by Starfleet the most.

 

[Spock/Uhura Fan]

Re: "Should DS9 have ended with the Federation LOSING the Dominion War?"

My answer to this is ONLY if they were going to do DS9 movies where eventually the Federation won after more struggle, and perhaps with the Emissary's "heavenly" help.