The Federation should've blown up the wormhole

[Robert DeSoto]

Worf's runabout, the Defiant and a bunch of listening posts pick up a large Dominion fleet heading towards the wormhole.

This fleet is large enough that DS9 has "no way of stopping them." And the Federation Fleet is still two days away.

Now I understand they wanted to preserve the wormhole without harming the Prophets. But why would you wait until the last minute for something so important.

As far as anyone knew this invasion fleet was going to destroy the station and possibly the Federation Fleet when it arrives. The Romulan, Klingon and Cardassian Fleets were also in bad shape with all the recent wars. So really, the Alpha Quadrant is potentially in quite a bit of danger.

Wouldn't you want to give yourself a little margin for error? not wait until the Dominion fleet was right at your doorstep before sealing the wormhole? Maybe give yourself an hour. If anything goes wrong with the graviton emitter, maybe you can blast the wormhole with phasers and photon torpoedoes.

If the plan really takes that long to finish, maybe you shouldn't go with that plan. What if O'Brien was a little slow that day? Or some of those engineers called in sick. Or Rom screwed up the wiring. Anything could happen.

So the Dominion Fleet finally comes through, but doesn't attack the station. They just move to their new staging ground at Cardassia. But to make things worse, the Dominion sends a bunch of convoys worth of ground troops and warships to the already large invasion fleet at Cardassian.

after the fifth convoy Starfleet FINALLY decides to mine the wormhole. So the Dominion invasion fleet attacks (along with its 5 convoys worth of reinforcements).

The result? Heavy losses to the Federation and Klingon Fleets (and eventually the Romulan Fleet). Millions of lives lost over two years of bloody conflict.

Not to mention that a second wave of Dominion invasion forces almost made it thru the wormhole which would've completely wiped out the Federation fleet.

In "the Search" Sisko was involved in a simulation where he hijacked a runabout and blew up the wormhole with photon torpedoes. So really one runabout armed with a few photons could've prevented that war and saved all those lives

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

There is no proof that the photon topedoi simulation was accurate. It wa sonly menat to show that he would do it if he had to.

 

[Londo]

The prophets eliminated a whole fleet: I expect they could preserve their temple in the face of a runabout and a few torpedos if they wished.
Really im not sure the federation could close the wormhole until the prophets decided this was a good idea.

 

[Navaros]

I agree with the idea presented in the OP. But, the Federation was complacent due to their naive peacenik attitudes (that is, until they eventually go off the deep end to the other extreme, such as with the genocide). That attiude IMO is what caused them to wait before acting rather than doing the smart thing and acting fast since they were going to act anyway.

The prophets eliminated a whole fleet: I expect they could preserve their temple in the face of a runabout and a few torpedos if they wished.
Really im not sure the federation could close the wormhole until the prophets decided this was a good idea.

But, they were too stupid to realize that they should teleport the fleet elsewhere. For that reason, the Sisko had to go and spell it out for them.

Since nobody would be spelling it out for them that the Sisko was about to destroy the wormhole, chances are the wormhole aliens would be too stupid to realize what was happening and hence their powers to stop it would be a moot point.

 

[Admiral Shran]

You have to remember that the Wormhole wasn't Federation property, or even in Federation terrority. The Bajorans had the final say in whether or not to destroy it in order to end the Dominion threat.

In By Inferno's Light, Sisko even says that the Provisional Government had agreed to their course of action.

So, unless the Federation would just decide to invade Bajoran terrority and impose their will on the Bajorans, I don't see how they could have done it any earlier.

In fact, the final plan (to collaspe the entrance) had to be devised so as not to harm the Prophets, in order to placate the Bajorans I assume.

 

[SoM]

Since nobody would be spelling it out for them that the Sisko was about to destroy the wormhole, chances are the wormhole aliens would be too stupid to realize what was happening and hence their powers to stop it would be a moot point.

What is "about"? Is it linear?

[Sisko was very, very lucky the Prophets humoured him and never presented out of sequence (for him).]

 

[Withers]

Assuming they succeeded in collapsing the Wormhole the Federation would then be absent exactly one ally when the Dominion finally did make it to the Alpha Quadrant the only fashioned way (70,000 light year trip, which if they were half as smart as the idiots on Voyager, would only take about 7 years.)

Depending on whether or not you believe in the Prophets (i.e. that it was their influence that allowed the destruction of the Rondak ship yards to be destroyed and were responsible for Admiral Ross' change of heart et all.) one might say that killing them all (or at least locking them in the wormhole) would be tantamount to handing eventual victory to the dominion.

I agree that they should have had a better plan before allowing the Dominion Fleet to just arrive in the way it did... but I don't think, assuming they could have, collapsing the wormhole was the right course of action.

-Withers-​

 

[The Librarian]

They tried to collapse the wormhole in "By Inferno's Light". Because of the changeling's sabotage, they ended up making it stronger and un-collapsible. It was only after that that the Dominion started sending ships through.

 

[Photon]

Fleet of cloaked, drone ships replete w/quantum torpedoes. Send them straight to Dominion strong points and let them go

 

[Londo]

But, they were too stupid to realize that they should teleport the fleet elsewhere. For that reason, the Sisko had to go and spell it out for them.

Since nobody would be spelling it out for them that the Sisko was about to destroy the wormhole, chances are the wormhole aliens would be too stupid to realize what was happening and hence their powers to stop it would be a moot point.

Not seeing the relevance to them of a transiting force and detecting a threat to themselves are rather different things. The Prophets were hardly focused on the lives of anyone even the bajorans really, the evidence is slight as to their own internal relations, they are probably faster to realise a threat aimed at them.
But really my point was actually that: close the wormhole? sure they can do that but who is to stop the prophets re-opening it or creating a new one if they felt their business with bajor is unfinished.
Though I dont recall if it is ever established they created the wormhole, if you close it without harming them there is a good chance you are leaving them with the means to undo what you just did.

 

[indolover]

there is no evidence that closing the wormhole would kill the Prophets, since we don't know the nature of their existence. for all we know they could exist on a similar plane to the Q Continuum. They may have even created the wormhole, who knows? or have created the Bajoran race, again we don't know (this could be why they protect the Bajorans for all we know).

 

[blackzoid]

Just what I mentioned in the other thread!

1: The Romulans in "Visionary" succeeded in closing the wormhole using I presume regular weaponary.

2: For 2.5 years, the Federation does NOTHING to stop the Dominion covert activity by collapsing the wormhole. Then they leave it to the last minute to try something with the Dominion fleet on the way in "In Purgatory's Shadow" That is absurd planning.

3: Aside from destroying the wormhole, the Federation could have mined the mouth at any time. Either at the start of the 3rd season, or in the middle of the 5th. And unlike destroying the wormhole, mining the mouth does not annoy the prophets. And it can be reversed. And they could still hammer out a treaty with the Dominion using subspace radio through the wormhole with the comm relay. (I'm sure the Dominion could build their own, if they blow up the Federation one in the Gamma Quadrant). Or, if the Bajoran's want to visit the prophets they could have mined the Gamma Quadrant end instead.

4: Why does the Federation leave it to Rom/Dax and O'Brien to design the cloaked self-replicating mines? Again at the last moment! Utterly terrible planning!

The wormhole situation is the elephant in the room for the series. For 2.5 years the entire Federation/Ds9 command crew are utter utter idiots. The entire Dominion war could have been easily prevented. The Klingon/Federation war could have been prevented. The Klingon/Cardassian war could have been prevented. All this without annoying the prophets/Bajorans!

Absurd

 

[neozeks]

The wormhole situation is the elephant in the room for the series. For 2.5 years the entire Federation/Ds9 command crew are utter utter idiots. The entire Dominion war could have been easily prevented. The Klingon/Federation war could have been prevented. The Klingon/Cardassian war could have been prevented. All this without annoying the prophets/Bajorans!

Absurd

Except that would be a very booooring show.

 

[blackzoid]

The wormhole situation is the elephant in the room for the series. For 2.5 years the entire Federation/Ds9 command crew are utter utter idiots. The entire Dominion war could have been easily prevented. The Klingon/Federation war could have been prevented. The Klingon/Cardassian war could have been prevented. All this without annoying the prophets/Bajorans!

Absurd

Except that would be a very booooring show.

Oh I agree. Its something that the writers had to allow in order for the show to proceed. Otherwise it would be a boring show as you say. (Although the writers could have helped by first making it explicit that the wormhole could not have been collapsed at all and second by maybe having the Dominion technobabble their way through the minefield situation. At least then the characters would have tried to forestall the inevitable and not have looked like such utter idiots.)

It just that looking back from an in-universe perspective, its absolutely shocking that the wormhole situation wasn't taken care off. Such an obvious problem. All those millions dead.

 

[neozeks]

It just that looking back from an in-universe perspective, its absolutely shocking that the wormhole situation wasn't taken care off. Such an obvious problem. All those millions dead.

Well, stuff like that tends to happen. You know, Hitler rearming Germany, WW2 and the whole shebang.

It's easy being smart with hindsight.

 

[blackzoid]

Hindsight for a situation happening in a moment of crisis is one thing.

Foresight for an easy fix to a coming problem is quite another.

They had 2.5 years to solve the issue, even when:

1: They discovered that Changelings were infiltrating the Romulans/Cardassians in mid season 3.
2: Changeling attempting to instigate a war at with the Tzankathi at the end of season 3.
3: Changelings on Earth in mid season 4.
4: Changelings manipulating the Klingons to go to war with the Federation at the start of season 5! (even then! Thats an obvious moment to do it!)

I keep going back to Picards actions in Redemption II. In that episode he assembles a blockade to stop Romulan entry into the Klingon Civil war, guessing correctly that there was precedent for Romulan interference in the Klingon Empire. And Picards problem was harder, he had to blockade an entire region of space, as opposed to the single entry point of a wormhole and the Romulans had cloaks, something the Dominion does not have (or never shown to have if they did) Picard was able to do this given a few weeks notice but Sisko/Starfleet cannot perform the same actions over the duration of several years.

This is something that I as a first time viewer was asking out loud whenever I watched an epsiode even before the Dominion war happened. Why does the Federation let anything enter the Alpha Quadrant when its quite clear that deaths in the Alpha Quadrant are occuring due to Changeling manipulation.