When did the Federation/Cardasssian War
- Thread starter Photon
- Start date
wasn't Picard on the Stargazer during that conflict?
That is correct. In "The Wounded," he describes an encounter between Stargazer and a Cardie warship, in which he ordered the lowering of the deflector shields as a gesture of goodwill and was then attacked anyway. The weapons and impulse engines of the Stargazer were damaged and she was forced to flee.
This might be off topic... but regardless of the Prime Directive, why did the Federation not try to intervene during the Occupation, yet they were willing to recruit Bajorans (Ro Laren, Sito Jaxa for example)?
Hmmm... What's that line from Insurrection about it being easy to turn a blind eye to suffering of a people you don't know
Hmmm... What's that line from Insurrection about it being easy to turn a blind eye to suffering of a people you don't know
This might be off topic... but regardless of the Prime Directive, why did the Federation not try to intervene during the Occupation, yet they were willing to recruit Bajorans (Ro Laren, Sito Jaxa for example)?
Hmmm... What's that line from Insurrection about it being easy to turn a blind eye to suffering of a people you don't know
It woulda been pretty cool if SF ships were running supplies resistance, especially Kira's cell.
This might be off topic... but regardless of the Prime Directive, why did the Federation not try to intervene during the Occupation, yet they were willing to recruit Bajorans (Ro Laren, Sito Jaxa for example)?
Hmmm... What's that line from Insurrection about it being easy to turn a blind eye to suffering of a people you don't know
The Prime Directive prevents them from doing anything.
This might be off topic... but regardless of the Prime Directive, why did the Federation not try to intervene during the Occupation, yet they were willing to recruit Bajorans (Ro Laren, Sito Jaxa for example)?
Hmmm... What's that line from Insurrection about it being easy to turn a blind eye to suffering of a people you don't know
The Prime Directive prevents them from doing anything.
Exactly, you can't discount the prime directive.
Anyway, why would the Federation get involved or go to war with Cardassia over a planet whose people aren't part of the Federation or has any real strategic value.
It is a lot like Tibet. I'm sure there are many in the US who would like to see the country free but few would be willing to go to war with China over the issue.
Even so, it left the Cardassians in a really bad way, plundering their civilisation just to keep the war going.
The timeline can be put together in many different ways, and cause and effect can be flip-flopped if one pleases.
The known datapoints are these:
-In the 16th century, a threefold government is formed for the Cardassian Union, an arrangement that supposedly stays stable from there on until "Way of the Warrior". The military (or Central Command) basically has one third of the power.
-In Gul Madred's childhood, somewhere in the 23rd or 24th centuries, at least part of the population on Cardassia Prime suffers from outright hunger. The military offers improvement, apparently funding it through conquest.
- Cardassia occupies Bajor either 40, 50 or 60 years before the late 2360s. No doubt different people see the change from "presence" to "occupation" occurring at different dates: the Cardassian version is that the factual occupation began in the 2320s, while the Bajorans may feel it began in the 2300s already.
- The Cardassian Union and the Klingon Empire fight at Betreka Nebula in an incident that lasts for 18 years, but OTOH supposedly results in relative peace for 20 years prior to "Way of the Warrior". Thus, the likely starting date is in the late 2320s or early 2330s.
- Cardassian militia attacks a Federation colony on Setlik III in 2347, and at least initiall drives off the small Starfleet landing party that comes to investigate. Cardassia later apologizes for the "incident", and the UFP apparently accepts the apology.
- Cardassian warships ignore Picard's peace signs and chase his ship at some point before 2354. This is the last time Picard sees Cardassians before 2368.
- Cardassian ground forces at Setlik III are defeated by Federation forces of which O'Brien is part in a battle that leads to the capture of O'Brien's comrade Boone, apparently in 2362.
- Cardassians have an uneasy truce with the UFP as of 2367. It is gradually turned into a peace treaty by 2370, before which the Cardassian military tries a last hurrah in "Chain of Command", fails, and is told to withdraw from Bajor.
One could cobble together various sorts of wars from this material. One version is that the occupation of Bajor caused interstellar outrage, the Feds rallied to war, and there was lots of intense fighting right until 2367. Another is that the Cardassians did as they pleased in a series of minor conquests, annexations and raids for about 800 years, justifying it all with ongoing and perhaps artificially sustained poverty at their home system, and the Federation finally grew annoyed enough in 2362, slapped down hard, and by 2363 had driven the Cardassians back home to lick their scales. Anything in between goes just as well.
My personal preference here is that the war with the Feds lasted from about 2354 to about 2362, with Picard's peace overtures an early development ("Excuse me, do you really want a war with us?") and the second time O'Brien fought at Setlik III a late stage when the outcome was already clear. A lot of skirmishing was going on at other times, a necessary part of the Cardassian policy of expansion, but the Feds largely tolerated it as it didn't directly affect Federation affairs.
Timo Saloniemi
The known datapoints are these:
-In the 16th century, a threefold government is formed for the Cardassian Union, an arrangement that supposedly stays stable from there on until "Way of the Warrior". The military (or Central Command) basically has one third of the power.
-In Gul Madred's childhood, somewhere in the 23rd or 24th centuries, at least part of the population on Cardassia Prime suffers from outright hunger. The military offers improvement, apparently funding it through conquest.
- Cardassia occupies Bajor either 40, 50 or 60 years before the late 2360s. No doubt different people see the change from "presence" to "occupation" occurring at different dates: the Cardassian version is that the factual occupation began in the 2320s, while the Bajorans may feel it began in the 2300s already.
- The Cardassian Union and the Klingon Empire fight at Betreka Nebula in an incident that lasts for 18 years, but OTOH supposedly results in relative peace for 20 years prior to "Way of the Warrior". Thus, the likely starting date is in the late 2320s or early 2330s.
- Cardassian militia attacks a Federation colony on Setlik III in 2347, and at least initiall drives off the small Starfleet landing party that comes to investigate. Cardassia later apologizes for the "incident", and the UFP apparently accepts the apology.
- Cardassian warships ignore Picard's peace signs and chase his ship at some point before 2354. This is the last time Picard sees Cardassians before 2368.
- Cardassian ground forces at Setlik III are defeated by Federation forces of which O'Brien is part in a battle that leads to the capture of O'Brien's comrade Boone, apparently in 2362.
- Cardassians have an uneasy truce with the UFP as of 2367. It is gradually turned into a peace treaty by 2370, before which the Cardassian military tries a last hurrah in "Chain of Command", fails, and is told to withdraw from Bajor.
One could cobble together various sorts of wars from this material. One version is that the occupation of Bajor caused interstellar outrage, the Feds rallied to war, and there was lots of intense fighting right until 2367. Another is that the Cardassians did as they pleased in a series of minor conquests, annexations and raids for about 800 years, justifying it all with ongoing and perhaps artificially sustained poverty at their home system, and the Federation finally grew annoyed enough in 2362, slapped down hard, and by 2363 had driven the Cardassians back home to lick their scales. Anything in between goes just as well.
My personal preference here is that the war with the Feds lasted from about 2354 to about 2362, with Picard's peace overtures an early development ("Excuse me, do you really want a war with us?") and the second time O'Brien fought at Setlik III a late stage when the outcome was already clear. A lot of skirmishing was going on at other times, a necessary part of the Cardassian policy of expansion, but the Feds largely tolerated it as it didn't directly affect Federation affairs.
Timo Saloniemi
I didn't think of it that way... I was going to say shame on the Federation, but then I'd have to say shame on us. Ugly little thing, the truth, isn't it?
Given the apparent superiority of Federation technology, I don't think a war with the Federation is something the Cardassians can have particularly wanted. During the TNG years, the Federation is largely distracted by the return of the Romulans, the Borg and internal Klingon problems.
A case in point, the Cardassians had to pull their forces out of the Bajoran sector in order to make their aborted invasion of Minos Korva possible. They just don't have the forces to spare to fight a full-on war with the Federation. Even worse, if they provoke such a conflict they'll bring the Klingons down on them as well under the terms of the Federation/Klingon alliance.
A case in point, the Cardassians had to pull their forces out of the Bajoran sector in order to make their aborted invasion of Minos Korva possible. They just don't have the forces to spare to fight a full-on war with the Federation. Even worse, if they provoke such a conflict they'll bring the Klingons down on them as well under the terms of the Federation/Klingon alliance.
The Cardassians might risk a war with the Federation if they thought that the Federation was distracted. We have a war with the Tzenkethi (unknown time frame but probably not the far in the past given Sisko and Leytons involvement), the war with the Talarians from 2351 to 2356 and attack by the Tholians in 2353 on a starbase.
They'd probably just calculate like they did with the Demilitarized Zone colonies: a bit of harrassment here, a little sabotage there, a quick massacre performed by forces untraceable to the government, and the Federation colonial-commercial expansion in strategic directions could be curtailed. The first Setlik III incident sounded exactly like that, too: a non-government military force (they called it a militia) would reduce the strategic worth of a weak Federation outpost.
It wouldn't be unexpected for the Cardassians to eventually calculate wrong and provoke a response from the Federation. But they probably couldn't afford not to try, as the Feds would wage peace better than the Union, too: soon enough, every planet of worth in the neighborhood would be taken unless the Union struck back somehow.
It also seems that when the Feds did respond, they nearly did the whole Union in. Before the war, Bajor is solidly held by Cardassia. After the war, neutral space is bordering on Bajor, and by the time of "Emissary", neutral space is essentially bordering on the home system of the Union! Apparently, Starfleet carved a gigantic hole in Cardassian holdings and then refused to conquer it, instead releasing it to be neutral (but generally sympathetic to Cardassia, as with the Kressari, Klaestron, Xepolites and whatnot).
Timo Saloniemi
It wouldn't be unexpected for the Cardassians to eventually calculate wrong and provoke a response from the Federation. But they probably couldn't afford not to try, as the Feds would wage peace better than the Union, too: soon enough, every planet of worth in the neighborhood would be taken unless the Union struck back somehow.
It also seems that when the Feds did respond, they nearly did the whole Union in. Before the war, Bajor is solidly held by Cardassia. After the war, neutral space is bordering on Bajor, and by the time of "Emissary", neutral space is essentially bordering on the home system of the Union! Apparently, Starfleet carved a gigantic hole in Cardassian holdings and then refused to conquer it, instead releasing it to be neutral (but generally sympathetic to Cardassia, as with the Kressari, Klaestron, Xepolites and whatnot).
Timo Saloniemi
The gap between Cardassian tech and Fed tech got a little muddled in DS9: It's clear throughout TNG that the Cardies' ships are no match for any modern Fed ship, but the orbital batteries in the Chin'Toka system are 100% Cardassian (not Dominion) tech and they tore the Fed fleet to ribbons throughout the battle.
Never liked how they were portrayed in that episode as nigh-indestructible since we never saw any other Cardassian vessels show the same abilities to resist weapons fire. Just the pure mass of numbers of them would be enough to run the exact same story.
In situations like the Bajorans, I believe the Federation tries to keep it as tight lipped as possible. While Starfleet might be a bit corrupt, the majority of its members are not and I bet a few ships would run off to help the Bajorans and end up pissing the Cardies off. Which is what happened in DS9 with the Maquis, but on an even worse level.
They'd still be risking bringing down a very powerful and very well supported enemy upon them - and their Klingon allies too.
That would be typical. The Federation does not go around conquering people.
Of course, once liberated, the more friendly, united worlds might get a few visits from their friendly neighbourhood Federation ambassador.
The Federation defences around Earth did the exact same thing to the Breen fleet that attacked the planet, and they didn't have a blatantly obvious power source to destroy.
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