The Die is Cast

[Photon]

Couple of questions and an observation

Very neat: As Odo was being interegated by Garak, the pieces that had fallen off on the floor became liquid when he was allowed to revert back to his liquid state. I prolly wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't done it-just shows DS9's greatness.

Question 1: Speculate: What might have been a reason (or reasons) the Warbirds & Keldons decloaked going by the station/entering the Wormhole?

Question 2: How did Tain survive? The lead Warbird's bridge exploded just as Odo's shuttle left from the bay. There really was time for the Jem'Hadar to do their usual boarding raid. Plot hole?

 

[Angel4576]

Question 2 - Presumably, by that time, the warbird's shields were down. Don't see anything stopping the Jem'Hadar just beaming people directly onto their own ship(s).

Question 1 - It made for a nice FX shot?

 

[Photon]

That's really the only way to explain it that the Jems just beamed all that was on the bridge onto their ships

 

[StarryEyed]

1. Perhaps cloaks interfere with travel through the wormhole or they were at least concerned that it might. Did we ever witness a cloaked vessel enter or exit the wormhole?

2. He was beamed off. The Jem Hadar would know what ship he was on and he would make a very valuable prisoner.

 

[Photon]

It was speculated in Homefront that cloacked Dominion vessels might be coming thru the WH, but that's all we got. The Defiant always came thru uncloaked then cloaked once in the Gamma. So, apprently you're right.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

In Homefront, Admiral Leyton's "crew" was causing the wormhole to open and close as a ruse to further inflame suspicions about a Dominion attack in the AQ, and against Earth.

 

[StarryEyed]

Apogeal Alpha01 said:
In Homefront, Admiral Leyton's "crew" was causing the wormhole to open and close as a ruse to further inflame suspicions about a Dominion attack in the AQ, and against Earth.

Right. I don't remember how they did it though.

 

[AdmiralGarak]

A beam of technobabble secretly transmitted from the station, I believe.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

AdmiralGarak said:
A beam of technobabble secretly transmitted from the station, I believe.

That's the way I remember it, too.

 

[Timo]

Our heroes had alternate-universe complications arise when they used warp engines inside the wormhole. They also got into a bit of trouble every time they stopped inside the wormhole. By empirical data alone, they should have adopted a practice of doing nothing beyond a simple impulse run. And the ultra-conservative, ultra-cautious Romulans, relying on information from our heroes, would naturally do the same.

And legalistically speaking, the Defiant was not allowed to cloak before she entered the wormhole, and doing it inside might get messy, so naturally they'd always do it on the other side. I mean, there would be no reason not to. If there were Jem'Hadar waiting for them on the other side, the villains would in any case see the wormhole opening and would realize that a ship was coming through, cloak or no cloak. And cloaking and shielding is not something the Feds or the Romulans prefer to do simultaneously, so they'd be at a serious disadvantage if ambushed with their cloak up. (Klingons do seem to raise shields under cloak every now and then, tho. Probably they don't care for absolute cloaking perfection.)

Then again, our heroes (and the Romulans) might also have specifically tried out whether the wormhole recognizes a cloaked vessel and agrees to open up for her. And they might have failed, so they'd not try that again when they wanted to open the thing. But they couldn't bet their lives on the fact that the Jem'Hadar would also fail, so Leyton's trick would still work.

As for Tain surviving the explosion on that Warbird, there's nothing to say that the explosion took place anywhere near the bridge where Tain was sitting and rambling. It's just a small fireball on the outer surface of the ship's portside bows; the Romulans might well keep their bridge much deeper within the ship.

And while Tain seemed lost in thought when Garak and Odo abandoned him, there's no telling what he did immediately afterwards. He had just as much time as Odo and Garak did to get to an escape craft of some sort - or to run to "Colonel Lovok" or other Dominion operatives who'd be perfectly aware that he was aboard and would be a nice catch indeed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TeutonicNights]

Also, when Odo and Garak went for the shuttle, the Warbird was pounded left and right with "Lovok" and Odo still aboard.

The whole ambush was carefully planned and at that point, the Dominion was always portrayed as having everything under perfect control, misleading their enemies.
As Timo said it would make perfect sense the Dominion knew exactly what was happening, shooting at the Warbird first without destroying it, transporting Tain away with their uber-transporters and then smash the Bridge while our heroes have escaped, monitoring the event.

 

[Timo]

...They'd be planning on keeping those witnesses alive, then. Which I guess we could surmise in any case. If they really wanted to destroy that runabout, and were giving it their all rather than holding back, they could still have done it with just a couple more shots - but they didn't fire those shots. They gave Odo and Garak plenty of time for dialogue, and only fired after the cavalry arrived and swept Odo to safety. Surely the Founders could have scripted their plan in that sort of detail, too: "If the Defiant arrives, allow her to save Odo. If not, let the runabout escape, convincingly scarred."

Which reminds me, surely the Founders would have had agents at DS9 at that point, to inform about the planned and impromptu maneuvers of Starfleet - or surely the Romulans would at least have thought they had. What would keep those agents from warning the Dominion after they witnessed the decloaking of the Romulan-Cardassian fleet? How could the Romulans prevent the agents from going through the wormhole and then sending a subspace message that would precede the arrival of the fleet?

Perhaps Romulans were counting on Starfleet prohibiting any movement through the wormhole, other than the occasional Romulan-Cardassian preemptive strike armada?

I also wonder if some Dominion agent didn't actually ride aboard the Defiant and send a covert message or two to pave way for the mercy mission...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tralis]

We've also seen evidence that Dominion transporters are significantly more advanced than UFP transporters.

 

[Timo]

Which sort of makes one wonder why those aren't used as deadly weapons more often.

Perhaps the new Starfleet shields that were able to resist phased polaron beams were also impervious to Dominion transporters?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[shatastrophic]

Timo said:
Which sort of makes one wonder why those aren't used as deadly weapons more often.

That is an interesting point. You could transport entire crews off of their ships into space or just scatter their molecules into forever.

 

[Photon]

shatastrophic said:

Timo said:
Which sort of makes one wonder why those aren't used as deadly weapons more often.

Or do like J'way did, beam in torpedoes and blow the hell out of 'em.

That is an interesting point. You could transport entire crews off of their ships into space or just scatter their molecules into forever.