The Federation owns the decision to use the morphogenic virus

[Vandervecken]

Just that--the Federation in total, acting through the Federation Council. It has been a custom of some to separate out Section 31 as a rogue operation and to place the responsibility for use of the virus on them and them alone, at least in quantity of writing. Rogue or not, sanctioned or not, their infecting of the Great Link was sanctioned after the fact by the Federation through the Federation Council when in the Dogs of War the Council refused to give the Founders the cure.

In my opinion Odo does not speak for the writers here because he is a changeling. His feelings are hardly unbiased here, and Sisko comes off as a man who wants his disapproval to be an acceptable stand-in for really sticking to principles. He also comes off as a total hypocrite to me in targeting scapegoats and in this pretension that he has some moral high ground to speak from after the events of In the Pale Moonlight. He makes Sec 31 a scapegoat right after he has acknowledged that it is now the Federation's ball. He gets to cluck about how he doesn't like it and still reap its benefits while grumblingly explaining that, "oh, yeah, they started this shit." Because the aggressor DOES lose a significant moral position in any physical conflict:


SISKO: The Federation Council considered giving the Founders the cure, then they decided against it.
ODO: Then they're abetting genocide.
SISKO: I don't condone what Section Thirty One did, but the Founders started this war, not us. Giving them the cure would strengthen their hand. We can't do that. Not when there are still millions of men and women out there putting their lives on the line every day. (DS9, The Dogs of War)


But whether you approve of the use of the virus or not, any simple scapegoating of Section 31 is simply ethically empty. The Federation had the cure and refused to give it. Odo states the reality here, a statement that calls Sisko on his singling out of Sec 31:

ODO: Interesting, isn't it? The Federation claims to abhor Section Thirty One's tactics, but when they need the dirty work done, they look the other way. It's a tidy little arrangement, wouldn't you say?


He's right and he's wrong in my view. Right in the mechanics of it, and in its explicit meaning that this tactic of war belongs to the legitimate Federation authorities now, they own it, can't disown it, and so it is a LEGAL-in-every-sense-of-the-word act, but wrong that it was either abhorrent or dirty. It was certainly a step not lightly taken, but millions of dead Federation citizens make the choice not abhorrent, but simply hard and unpleasant.

No matter how you slice it though, and no matter if you think the tactic was wrong or right, Sec 31 is not the ultimate owner of this tactic, the Federation is.

 

[Shikarnov]

I tend to agree that the Federation owns the decision to use the virus, and with all of Odo's comments. But I also can see Sisko's point. It may be a hypocritical, but it is a valid point nonetheless. The Founders started a war with the Federation, their forces were actively engaged in killing millions of people with the ultimate goal of subjugating or enslaving the survivors. However abhorrent the tactic, the fact is that the virus promised a means of ending the war sooner and in a way that preserved the lives -- and freedom -- of trillions of beings across the quadrant. War is a messy business, both physically and morally -- especially when you're losing. Ethics are a luxury for those who are safe.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Morally suspect decisions are a symptom of total warfare.

 

[Kevman7987]

The morphogenic virus was the Federation's version of an atomic bomb that would have erased the Japanese from existence.

 

[Anthony Sabre]

To this day I don't know how to feel about this. It's absolutely true the Council is complicit in 31's actions by refusing to hand over the cure. It's equally true Sisko's "condemnation" of the Council is hypocritical in lieu of his actions during ITPM.

Maybe the Federation should have stuck to its morals. Or maybe the Dominion shouldn't have presumed to attempt to conquer 2 additional quadrants w/o giving better thoughts to the consequences of their actions. If there's one thing that was proven during DS9's run, the solids in the Alpha & Beta quadrant are not the seemingly docile beings the solids in the Gamma quadrant were.

 

[at Quark's]

We don't even know for certain what would have happened, if section 31's virus had succeeded in wiping out the Founders. The Dominion could have crumbled, yes. But just the same, the Vorta could have stepped in, and 'cleanse' the alpha quadrant even more ruthlessly, acting on their rage losing their Gods, and that's even before they would have found out that humanity engineered the virus.

So I'm not really convinced that letting the virus run its course would have been a sound war tactic, all ethical considerations aside.

 

[MacLeod]

To this day I don't know how to feel about this. It's absolutely true the Council is complicit in 31's actions by refusing to hand over the cure. It's equally true Sisko's "condemnation" of the Council is hypocritical in lieu of his actions during ITPM.

Maybe the Federation should have stuck to its morals. Or maybe the Dominion shouldn't have presumed to attempt to conquer 2 additional quadrants w/o giving better thoughts to the consequences of their actions. If there's one thing that was proven during DS9's run, the solids in the Alpha & Beta quadrant are not the seemingly docile beings the solids in the Gamma quadrant were.

Well we know Starfleet approved his plan, it is possible some members of the council were invovled or at least consulted.

 

[LJones41]

However abhorrent the tactic, the fact is that the virus promised a means of ending the war sooner and in a way that preserved the lives -- and freedom -- of trillions of beings across the quadrant. War is a messy business, both physically and morally -- especially when you're losing. Ethics are a luxury for those who are safe.

Wow. It's okay to resort to attempted genocide to win a war?

Maybe the Federation should have stuck to its morals. Or maybe the Dominion shouldn't have presumed to attempt to conquer 2 additional quadrants w/o giving better thoughts to the consequences of their actions.

So, the fact that this war began because the Federation had refused to ignore the Dominion's warning to stay out of their territory means nothing?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

The Dominion always exxagerated their territory.
If you asked them which parts of the galaxy didn't rightfully belong to them they would stay silent.

The case of the Federation council withholding the cure is a matter of self preservation.
You can not expect anyone to save the life of someone trying to kill you without insurance that he will not just murder you right after.
If you have reason to believe thatthe Dominion would act honorably and retreat instead, that would be a different matter.

Now responsibility for infecting the Founders in the first place is more difficult to determine.
That all depends on S31 being in any way sanctioned by the authorities.
It once was, that is without a doubt, but I think by the time if the war they have shed every ounce of accountability and the council couldn't do anything about them if they wanted toor even is still aware of them.

 

[saladdays]

Wow. It's okay to resort to attempted genocide to win a war?

I think the Founders present a very unique situation. The problem is that we don't precisely know how the Great Link operates, and how much individuality the Founders truly have. There is some dialog that the Founders were, at times, at odds with each other (I believe they disagreed about what to do with Odo as punishment for killing one of their own), but I believe we usually see (or at least have to assume) that the Founders are all complicit with their own actions, including the killing of thousands upon thousands (if not millions). If they are more of a collective conscious, then I think it ceases to be genocide in the way that, say, the Nazis killed Jews.

So, the fact that this war began because the Federation had refused to ignore the Dominion's warning to stay out of their territory means nothing?

I don't recall it being that black and white, but I don't see the Dominion sitting idly by with an open and stable wormhole around even with the Federation staying totally out of the GQ.

 

[Tenacity]

It's okay to resort to attempted genocide to win a war?

When all is said and done, the virus (and withholding it's cure) is how the Federation won the war, the Dominion was perfectly willing to continue, only the offer of the cure resulted in their surrender.

 

[Tosk]

When all is said and done, the virus (and withholding it's cure) is how the Federation won the war, the Dominion was perfectly willing to continue, only the offer of the cure resulted in their surrender.

That's not to say it's the only way to have won the war though. It went the way it went so we can never know, but I always go back to this bit of dialogue...

Founder: "Odo is a Changeling. Bringing him home, returning him to the Great Link, means more to us than the Alpha Quadrant itself. Is that clear?"

 

[Tenacity]

Without the dangling prize of the cure, the war would have include the immediate deaths of the inhabitats of Cardassia. Would the Federation have eventually won the war? hard to say.

And Odo carried the cure within him, that's why they wanted him so badly.

 

[jmiller]

It's an odd thing, but I agree with both Sisko and Odo. Think about this in modern(ish) terms. The biggest internal argument in the US government toward the end of WWII was the use of the atomic bomb. It was a weapon of total war, derived from the belief that it was a last resort of the US if/when the Germans or Japanese encroached upon American soil, or at a point when soldiers and resources were depleted to a point in which its use was inevitable. Consider the parallels... The Dominion was capable and ready to stage a war that could last until the last soldier. We learn this toward the end of the series when The Founder is speaking with Kira and Garak in What You Leave Behind. The Japanese employed a similar plan during the waning moments of WWII when it was relatively clear the Allied Forces would win. They would've required the Allies to island hop all the way to the Japanese Mainland in order to ensure victory. Section 31 developing the virus is very similar to the US developing the Atomic Bomb. Also, both the Allies and the Federation employed these weapons. Odo speaking with Sisko would've been like a Japanese advisor who was an underground CIA operative.

 

[Hero of Setlik III]

I also think that while the promise of a cure was a good reason to end the war for the Founders, I think the virus must have made it impossible for Changeling operatives to remain under cover and without the virus, the Dominion would have been even stronger and might have been winning more decisively.

 

[DonIago]

Without the dangling prize of the cure, the war would have include the immediate deaths of the inhabitats of Cardassia. Would the Federation have eventually won the war? hard to say.

And Odo carried the cure within him, that's why they wanted him so badly.

No, they wanted Odo before they knew they were infected.

 

[e3jeremey]

See it was these moral issues that had me fall in love with DS9. In my opinion the Federation became complicit in the matter by abetting genocide. Yes, the war was going badly, but this was far being a nuclear option. A nuclear option would have been bombing the planet with tricobalt devices, this was far beyond that. Even in war there has to be a moral high ground that keeps you from becoming no better than the enemy. For that moment the Federation was no better than the Dominion.

 

[Nyotarules]

When someone attacks your home, and will kill you and your family without a prick of guilt, there is no moral high ground, there is self preservation.

 

[LJones41]

When someone attacks your home, and will kill you and your family without a prick of guilt, there is no moral high ground, there is self preservation.

Exactly. Or when someone invades or trespasses in your home. No wonder the Founders went to war against the Federation.

 

[DonIago]

Er, not really. The Founders had plenty of other options, but they let their prejudices get in the way.