The Visitor

[DonIago]

Given that Melanie and Jake couldn't have been talking for all that long, really...even if she believed he was going to wipe her timeline out of existence, what was she supposed to do about it? Kill him before Ben appeared? He'd already taken the suicide drug, so she wasn't going to be able to stop him from dying (and I'm not sure he told her what he was actually planning to do?).

Just trying to examine it on a practical level, though I think anyone analyzing the episode in this manner is possibly missing the point.

 

[at Quark's]

Even if her particular history was erased, wouldn't mean she was erased. She just might have gotten a slightly different history.

 

[DonIago]

^Still kind of a messed-up thing to do to another person. And it's not like Jake would have any way of knowing whether a timeline with his father would objectively be "better".

Hell, if we assume the DW doesn't happen without Ben, there may be a lot of people who'd be pissed off at Jake.

...OTOH, if you go by the novels and assume that because the DW doesn't happen Starfleet isn't ready for the Borg to come in force....well...

Okay, now I wish one of the Myriad Universes stories had looked at this in greater detail.