Given this was in the trailer and episode 1 -- Who really blew up the recruiting base and why? We see Worf and Raffi chasing the folks-with-the-weapons, but what good was done by blowing up the base? There's no sign up to Ep 3 that anything good (from the bad guys view) happened, and there's lots of reasons to conduct a test secretly. What was the point? Why alert the Federation to the problem at all? Vadic - seems to have been busy chasing Beverly. I don't think the timing works for her to blow up the base and then get to the nebula... although maybe the changeling somehow alerted her to Titan's location... And has shown no reason to target Matalas's planet. (By the way, wouldn't Titan have seen the Shrike arrive?) Vadic also seems to have "the weapon" which is pretty clearly the one that was used on the base... so if it wasn't her on the planet, are there two weapons? I'm losing the thread here. Any thoughts?
That Vadic works for a larger organization and is coordinating their efforts by keeping people busy. The effort to counter them is not coordinated so they still have the advantage. Also, we're only a third of the way in the story. I expect more will happen to show us what happened.
The point is, the changelings want Starfleet to know the truth, kinda They want to be caught, so the Federation retaliates and plunges them into Dominion War 2
Yeah, 100%. Its exactly how they do things. Just like, why blow up a meeting on Earth? Why kamikaze attack Earth? Why let the Defiant survivors escape? It's all about terror. That's the Founders favorite weapon.
A Xindi faction that hates humans broke off into a splinter group to seek revenge, completely unrelated to the Changeling splinter group seeking revenge against the Federation. Then Peanut Hamper will help them to join forces with one another.