Sisko is a murderer

[All Seeing Eye]

During the battle to retake DS9 Sisko orders the fighters to attack the Cardassian ships alone. His idea to make them break formation had merit but the fact is he sent those fighters and those who crewed them on a suicide mission.

Those fighters in a full battle could weave in and out of ships causing damage whilst the bigger capital ships would likely take the brunt of the attacks but sending those fighters in on their own was ridiculous.

Those Cardassian ships especially the Galor classes were far more powerful than those fighters and the fighters were out gunned and out classed by the Dominion fleet.

We saw fighters get blasted to nothing by Cardassian beam weapons and Sisko still sent wave after wave on the suicide run.
Had I been in those fighters i'd be more than willing to go into battle side by side with everyone else but to be asked to go in alone in my fighter craft with no capital ship backup i'd have said no chance in hell.

Sisko must have known that those fighters were going on suicide runs. There's a good chance many fighters would have survived a direct full scale assault but by going in alone in waves many of the fighters got wasted and so did their crews.

Sisko in essence was a murderer. It's a strong title to give but I can't find a more appropriate title that covers what he did.

 

[blueziggy]

um, first off then every general in every war is a murderer.

secondly, you cant go by what you see on screen. just because they show 6 fighters going in to attack a cardie ship doesnt mean there arent waves of federation capital ships behind them.

thirdly, i think you are taking the word alone out of context. granted its been a while since i have seen the episode but what i took from the meaning was that he wanted ALL federation ships to attack the cardie ships alone (meaning not attacking the dominion ships).

finally, it was war. theres a thing called acceptable casualties. losing those fighters and the crew on them saved thousands if not millions of lives.

 

[Timo]

thirdly, i think you are taking the word alone out of context. granted its been a while since i have seen the episode but what i took from the meaning was that he wanted ALL federation ships to attack the cardie ships alone (meaning not attacking the dominion ships).

I rather doubt that. We only saw the fighters attacking, no matter what the camera angle. The dialogue never suggested that any other assets took part, either.

I'd also argue that it was an important ingredient in Sisko's plan that those fighters be vulnerable and that many of them die. The Cardassians wouldn't have taken the bait unless they were supremely confident that they could bite the bait's head off with one swift move. Sisko had to bribe them with the deaths of his pilots to get this effect; we heard the Cardassians indicate that they saw through Sisko's plot easily enough, but they took the bait nevertheless because it was such a fat and soft one.

That's classic naval tactics, really. It has always been useful to have expendable assets to harass the enemy, and entire doctrines and shipbuilding programs have been based on the idea that there would be ship types whose principal function was to die hopelessly outmatched by the enemy.

It's murder all right, in the sense of being premeditated killing. Not in the sense of being premeditated illegal killing, though, as every general (and even a lowly colonel/captain like Sisko) has the legal mandate. And it saves lives elsewhere - more important lives, lives aboard one's capital ships, and perhaps ultimately civilian lives that would otherwise be lost if the enemy carried the day.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

thirdly, i think you are taking the word alone out of context. granted its been a while since i have seen the episode but what i took from the meaning was that he wanted ALL federation ships to attack the cardie ships alone (meaning not attacking the dominion ships).

I rather doubt that. We only saw the fighters attacking, no matter what the camera angle. The dialogue never suggested that any other assets took part, either.

I'd also argue that it was an important ingredient in Sisko's plan that those fighters be vulnerable and that many of them die. The Cardassians wouldn't have taken the bait unless they were supremely confident that they could bite the bait's head off with one swift move. Sisko had to bribe them with the deaths of his pilots to get this effect; we heard the Cardassians indicate that they saw through Sisko's plot easily enough, but they took the bait nevertheless because it was such a fat and soft one.

That's classic naval tactics, really. It has always been useful to have expendable assets to harass the enemy, and entire doctrines and shipbuilding programs have been based on the idea that there would be ship types whose principal function was to die hopelessly outmatched by the enemy.

It's murder all right, in the sense of being premeditated killing. Not in the sense of being premeditated illegal killing, though, as every general (and even a lowly colonel/captain like Sisko) has the legal mandate. And it saves lives elsewhere - more important lives, lives aboard one's capital ships, and perhaps ultimately civilian lives that would otherwise be lost if the enemy carried the day.

Timo Saloniemi

Indeed and to see a Starfleet captain doing it, willing to sacrifice peoples lives like that simply to try and make a hole for bigger ships just doesn't sit right with me one bit.
Starfleet and The Federation is supposed to be different, more evolved. I'd expect such tactics possibly from Klingons but Starfleet? hell no.

 

[Bones2]

Sisko is morally wrong for being complicit in Vreenak's murder, and the way he pursued Eddington and poisoned those planets. And what does Ira Steven Behr do? He makes Sisko into a god.

Personally, people may talk about Janeway being evil, but I see Sisko as worse.

 

[Lt.Cmdr.LaForge]

I actually thought the same as you 'I Am Legend' when i first watched htis ep. As Sisko orders the first wave to attack sumt like half the small fighters are blown up before they even get chance to fire. it seems like a pointless waste of life. But then again, Sisko was pretty awesome and his plan did work, they did retake the station. Casualties of war.

 

[Hofner]

For some reason I'm reminded of the Battle of Midway. The USN aircraft carriers sent wave after wave of small planes against the Japanese task force only to be shot down. But it set up the opportunity for one wave to strike a major blow, sinking 3 Japanese carriers within five minutes. I guess some people would say the commander who sent all those shot-down waves of planes a murderer.

I'm trying to imagine one of the pilots in those ill-fated waves refusing to go on such a near-suicidal mission but I can't. They were not cowards.

Robert

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

The fact is a lot of people die on Star Trek but because all we ever see is a cool explosion in space we don't really think about too much. Remember the scene where Q has Picard listen to all the people he has killed over the years? Picard is incredulous, but Q says these are all the people who were killed because of an action Picard did or didn't commit. Seemed like a large group.

 

[-Brett-]

I thought this was going to be about Vreenak. You might have had a case there.

 

[SRFX]

War is hell?

Thread over.

 

[RyuRoots]

A commander in a battle uses the options at his disposal to execute what he views as the most effective strategy. That's how war works, pal.

 

[Jono]

thirdly, i think you are taking the word alone out of context. granted its been a while since i have seen the episode but what i took from the meaning was that he wanted ALL federation ships to attack the cardie ships alone (meaning not attacking the dominion ships).

I rather doubt that. We only saw the fighters attacking, no matter what the camera angle. The dialogue never suggested that any other assets took part, either.

Sisko does order several ships to move in to give the fighters more cover. So they has some starship support.

I'd argue against that the fighter attack qualifying as a suicide mission given we see only around seven or eight fighter blow up out of around 40 ships that appear on screen. Hardly devastating losses. Plus those fighters were doing their job, protecting their larger brethren, they are the support ships not the main fighting line.

 

[DonIago]

Perhaps the fighters were remote-piloted.

In any case, if Sisko's a murderer for his actions in Sacrifice of Angels, what does that make the commanders of the D-Day invasion?

 

[T'Girl]

What sergeants tell recruits at the beginning of basic training is that murder is a illegal killing, since what they will be doing on the battlefield is completely legal, it isn't murder.

According to a story told by my father.

 

[Jono]

^ That's true by most definitions "murder" has to involve an unlawful component to the killing. For Sisko to be a murderer there has to be something illegal about the actions he took.

I guess if you take the view that killing is never justified than by "essence" you could consider Sisko a murderer.

 

[Photon]

I think the Democrats in Congress need to get this one. Put Sisko and Cheney..er uh...Ross up for war crimes trials and impeach...uh....dishonorable discharge.

What kind of leader sends his troops into a battle situation, he should be more in contact w/his inner puss.

"Sisko lied, Red Shirts died"
"No blood for space, no blood for space"

 

[Nightdiamond]

It gave the fighters a more 'personal' and human side.

Also, the fighters took out a couple of Galor Class ships.

 

[Timo]

Hmh? I don't think they as much as charred the paint on one.

That is, all the explosions we see are "harmless" ones, leaving no evidence of damage after the orange cloud dissipates. And nobody ever says that any of the targeted ships would have been harmed, let alone lost.

Indeed, in all the big battles until that point, no Cardassian or Dominion capital ship is ever "really" shown being lost. The VFX apparently was too expensive, so no actual, detailed losses were shown in episodes like "The Die is Cast" or "Call to Arms". Stock explosions were shown engulfing smaller vessels, which then disappeared, but the larger ones appeared to shrug off the orange fireballs.

In contrast, "Way of the Warrior" had the budget to blow up a Klingon ship or three on screen, including a very cool scene where an old K't'inga is perforated by four torpedoes. And later episodes in the Dominion War had enough VFX budget (not just in terms of money but processing time, I guess) to show very interesting starship deaths. But "Sacrifice of Angels" still relies a lot on the good old trick of showing lots of orange clouds and then turning the camera away just before the "destruction" of the target - so we don't get any verification that the target really was destroyed. Apparently, most of the effort was put on the impressive deaths of the Defiant's escorts: first the two Mirandas and then the three Klingon BoPs.

The total count of ships destroyed on screen in that battle seems to be only half a dozen, and none of that is thanks to the fighter attacks. No doubt the fighters were supposed to be doing at least some damage, but none was verified in visuals or dialogue.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jono]

^ The final attack by the fighters we see visible damage to the Galor and in the old Sci-fi tradition it lists as if it is a sinking ship to show that it is disabled or knocked out of the fight. Also logically you would think that the attacks have to be doing damage or why bother? If the Cardassian ships can take all the damage without any issue why would they get angry? No one is dying and they are killing the enemy and wasting precious time, which is the main purpose of their mission. Someone at DS9 really should have pulled Dukat back from opening that hole because it was completely unnecessary. They hold Sisko wastes more and more time and finally he has no choice and has to hit their lines and they can envelop the Federation fleet at that point. Of course I don't know why I bother to make sense of it, it is meant to be entertaining not a serious lesson on starship tactics in the 24th century.

Sisko did choose a tactic that really should be useless against a highly trained and disciplined fighting force as the Cardassia military. The Klingons on the other hand go nuts at the drop of a hat and would gladly open a hole in their lines in 2 seconds flat.

 

[Timo]

Certainly story logic requires the fighters to be a nuisance of some sort, even if they don't verifiably blow actual holes in starships. And it's easy to allow for that, since the camera does turn away from a "dying" Cardassian starship once or twice after the fighters have made their pass. So I've got nothing against that interpretation, really. Let's just keep from making the fighters a truly effective antiship weapon, in WWII style, because they don't behave like that previously or later on.

But Dukat probably did the right thing in allowing Sisko to attempt a penetration. He didn't really know the minefield thing would be that time-critical; the breakthrough in the clearing ops came as something of a surprise. And if he allowed the Feds to wait too long at the impasse, they might come up with a plan that did work. Supposedly, once Dukat goaded Sisko into attacking, it would have been a hands-down victory for the Dominion - had the Klingons not intervened.

Timo Saloniemi