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what the gently caress is going on in here
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Aug 13, 2020 23:39
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Did Geordi and Harry Kim ever meet up and have a meeting of "nice" guys who are actually creeps?
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Aug 14, 2020 00:13
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McSpanky posted:what the gently caress is going on in here Very important conversations. The kinds that shape nations, and make people realize you’re smart and cool.
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Aug 14, 2020 01:50
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Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:Did Geordi and Harry Kim ever meet up and have a meeting of "nice" guys who are actually creeps? There was an episode of Voyager where Future!Harry Kim and Future!Chakotay were trying to change the past because they managed to make it home to the Alpha Quadrant but everyone else on Voyager died in the process, and Future! Geordi is the captain of the ship that's trying to stop them. But as I recall, Geordi never talks with Harry, so no, not quite. Episode was called "Timeless" if you're interested.
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Aug 14, 2020 03:20
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why yes I would like to play poker with you guys, a psychic empath, a card-counting android, a guy with a magic sunglasses that can see through the cards and the man with the highest charisma score in the universe I will join you all as soon as I recover from being attacked by an empty plastic barrel
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Aug 14, 2020 07:13
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Well Worf can bluff his way through any game with that intimidation score.
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Aug 14, 2020 08:05
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While it's fun and all that we're talking about TNG in the DS9 thread, I figured I'd try and get things a back on track with a hot take: "The Dominion was completely justified in starting a war against the Federation." Wait, wait, don't walk away yet. I'm not claiming the Dominion was a good and just government, simply that most of their actions as portrayed in the show were reasonable responses to the actions of their opponents. Stick with me here, this is pretty long. So, lets look at the series from the Dominion's point of view. Sisko discovers the wormhole and a bunch of random ships start flying through and exploring/colonizing/exploiting the things they find on the other side. Almost immediately in Season 1 we see that other space-faring civilizations live in the Gamma Quadrant, but no mention is made of the Federation checking to see if anyone already claims any of this space. Let's make the fair assumption that the Federation/Alpha quadrant are not aware of the Dominion at this point, so they're not being intentionally aggressive, but they are being a little naive in not analyzing the political landscape of their new unexplored frontier. Now Season 2. At this point the name "Dominion" is being repeated by alien species the Federation encounters. By episode 6 of the season the loving Grand Nagus has discerned that there is a powerful political entity in the Gamma Quadrant, yet Star Fleet is still shrugging their shoulders even when a race of refugees fly through the wormhole and mention that their former overlords were conquered by "The Dominion". At this point Starfleet is sending poo poo tons of ships through the wormhole and even the Bajorans are forming permanent colonies in the Gamma Quadrant. Now, whether it's fair or not, The Dominion believes that the whole area around the Wormhole is part of their territory and at this point a bunch of aliens have been showing up and pooping in their backyards. So now lets get the first real encounter with the Dominion. The Season 2 finale "The Jem'hadar". The Jem'hadar ambush Sisko (and Quark) on a random Gamma Quadrant planet and lock him up, meanwhile they apparently attack and wipe out the Bajoran colony, then they proceed to fly a ship through the wormhole and with mighty big-dick-energy beam onto Ops to calmly tell the Federation to "STOP COMING THROUGH THE WORMHOLE". Sisko also has a conversation with one of his jailers who also says, "YOU ARE VIOLATING DOMINION SPACE AND WE WILL NOT TOLERATE IT ANYMORE!" Ok, so they came at this like huge assholes, but The Dominion most likely wanted to scare the poo poo out of the Federation by showing overwhelming military power while delivering a very explicit message (we also learn that they always intended to let Sisko escape so that he would carry the message, and the Vorta spy, back home). So another civilization just showed up and said, "Plz stop coming into our space.", so what does Starfleet do? They send a loving Galaxy class starship right into the Gamma Quadrant. Again, the Dominion responds with overwhelming military force, but then LETS THE RUNABOUTS retreat. At this point the Dominion has not indicated that they give a poo poo about the Alpha Quadrant. Season 3. Jesus Christ, Starfleet makes buddies with the Romulans and builds a goddamn cloaking warship for the sole purpose of flying deep into Dominion territory to find the goddamn Founders. What the gently caress guys?! So they learn that the Founder are a species that is deeply distrustful and fearful of other aliens and that The Dominion is a giant wall of violence to protect them. Ok, good thing The Founders have nothing to worry about in the Alpha Quadrant....then the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar decide to build a fleet, fly it into the Gamma Quadrant for the sole purpose of killing all the Founders, and a loving Starfleet admiral jokes about wishing them luck. This Season ends with that Changeling on the Defiant getting killed by Odo. Season 4. This season involves the completely reasonable intelligence ops the Dominions carries out on the Alpha powers. They trick the Klingons into going to war against the Cardassians, and cause all that ruckus on Earth. The season ends with them further loving with Starfleet by convincing Odo that Gowron is a Changeling. These moves are aggressive, but the Alpha powers at this point have demonstrated that they are aggressive towards the Changeling, and basically every major power on modern Earth engages in this kind of spycraft without it being an act of war. Season 5. Episode loving 2 Sisko and his team are loving around in the Gamma Quadrant when a Jem’hadar ship crashes on the planet. Is Starfleet at war with the Dominion? Nope. So why the gently caress are they on the wrong side of the wormhole when another civilization has told them that it violates their space? Okay, so Sisko lays claim to this ship and a Vorta shows up and says, “Yo, that’s ours, give it back.” and Sisko is like, “Nope, mine now!” despite the fact that it crash landed IN THE GAMMA QUADRANT, which is DOMINION SPACE! In any case, a changeling dies because of this and Sisko is all like, “Why didn’t you trust us enough to tell us about the Changeling” and the Vorta is just like “WTF is wrong with these humans.” Season 5 is when the war starts though, so let's go into detail on exactly HOW this war started. The Dominion finally flies ships through the wormhole, to attack?! Nope! The ships turn towards Caradassia because Gul Dukat, as a duly recognized representative of the civilian government of Cardassia, has negotiated a treaty where the Dominion recognizes Cardassian territory as a protectorate, and thus it is completely legally sending ships through the (neutral space) wormhole to protect it’s new ally. And Cardassia has a completely valid reason to do this, they are being stymied by the Maquis and are getting their poo poo kicked in by the Klingons. The Dominion solves these problems for them quite readily. So here is the thing. The Dominion keeps sending ships through the wormhole, but they never ATTACK the Federation. The Federation literally forces a war when they MINE THE loving WORMHOLE. Remember, the wormhole is supposed to be neutral space. Starfleet has sure been acting like they can fly through it whenever they want, so why can’t the Dominion? So they mine the wormhole and shots finally get fired...rest of the series follows. TL;DR: Starfleet antagonizes and ignores the many diplomatic/military threats of the Dominion, forcing the Dominion to finally start a shooting war just to open up their supply lines back to their home territory.
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Aug 14, 2020 09:00
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lol
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Aug 14, 2020 09:57
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The Federation is so comically stupid in DS9 I basically buy that. I don't think that that's the full extent of why the dominion went to war, and we've been shown that they are total assholes such as on quickening planet, but in this particular case I do think they were essentially being goaded. I think they'd have done it anyway but they had complete justification to do it under the conditions that were created even if they hadn't been looking to do so eventually. Pick fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 15:19
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Of course, I also think judging by their behavior and their tactics, Enabran Tain's strike was justified despite being unsuccessful. But in that case it's the federations fault that the union got hosed up, which is just a fact on a number of levels.
Pick fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 15:20
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The Federations politicking skills are basically on par with our current presidential administration. Utterly clueless and incompetent.
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Aug 14, 2020 15:50
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Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:The Federations politicking skills are basically on par with our current presidential administration. Utterly clueless and incompetent. I think it's especially pronounced in ds9 but I still rant about the politics of tngs Chain of Command every single second of every single day george w bush-rear end two-parter
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Aug 14, 2020 16:01
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anyway, great post, anonymous zebra. thanks.
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Aug 14, 2020 16:04
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i've talked before with people about how defining the federation too much is a mistake, and that star trek shouldn't be "about" the federation. i agree. that said, it's hard to tell a story on ds9's scale without that aspect however, when this was done, there were shocking missteps that I think were out of step with what the federation should be and represent TOS federation forever, DS9 federation... ehhhhh however, interesting to contrast it to how b5 got major powers into the shadow war
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Aug 14, 2020 16:20
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Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:The Federations politicking skills are basically on par with our current presidential administration. Utterly clueless and incompetent. The Federation seems more like the EU; so long as it’s not being confronted with any kind of threat it does fine & acts smug about how enlightened it is compared to all the other poor benighted people who have not yet been blessed with unlimited holiday time to be obnoxious degenerates abroad; but the minute things get rough everyone gets lovely. Still able to keep it together, insofar as people and governments still function well enough to react to easy mode poo poo that shouldn’t be able to kill a people and their massive economy *cough*corona*cough* America is more like the Cardassians. Smug about how awful our culture is, predatory as poo poo, hosed up legal system, and kanar looks like straight up karo syrup which lines up with where our soda consumption is going. Once our empire finishes crumbling we’d totally team up with the closest Dominion analogue- ideological differences be damned- just to get a taste of that sweet, sweet global domination again.
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Aug 14, 2020 16:43
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Huh, okay. I like the union episode.
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Aug 14, 2020 16:58
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That's why I really like the section 31 episodes. Because for all the federations grandstanding and holier than thou attitude, sometimes you just need to get nasty. And everyone in the admiralty is willing to just look away while they oh idk commit genocide.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:29
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Garak is the best.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:35
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spankmeister posted:That's why I really like the section 31 episodes. Because for all the federations grandstanding and holier than thou attitude, sometimes you just need to get nasty. And everyone in the admiralty is willing to just look away while they oh idk commit genocide. The Federation secretly LOVES genocide. You've got the aforementioned virus they want to unleash on The Founders, the TNG crew wanted to send Hugh back to The Borg, hoping his sense of individuality would destroy them from within, and when Future Janeway comes back everyone is a-ok with her infecting The Collective with a horrible neurovirus that severs the link to most of them.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:37
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Based on kasidy Yates's sentence and when it's served (when she goes and when she returns), it's explicitly clear Garak didn't actually even spend his whole 6 mos in the brig for attempted genocide. I don't think the federation was that mad.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:40
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Which Trek culture is it that can't provide healthcare but can blow up the everloving poo poo out of anyone in the galaxy?
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Aug 14, 2020 18:51
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Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:Which Trek culture is it that can't provide healthcare but can blow the everloving poo poo out of anyone in the galaxy? Ferengi? Dominion will provide the Jem Hadar with healthcare for exactly as long as the Jem Hadar are useful to them and not one second longer.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:54
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DrBouvenstein posted:The Federation secretly LOVES genocide. BYSTANDER: you can’t just disappear dissidents to section 31 black sites! ADMIRAL: I’ll tell you what I told that guy who saw the diplomatic head gear; if you paint it beige it’s actually good. Those are beige sites. Also the —- Rewatching ds9 and seeing all the civilian clothes’ crazy cuts and patterns reminded me of what my grandma would sew. Looks like camouflage jumpers for going to war in a Bed Bath & Beyond’s curtain aisle. That might be the most nostalgic part of the of the rewatch.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:55
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Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:Which Trek culture is it that can't provide healthcare but can blow up the everloving poo poo out of anyone in the galaxy? Klingons but without the honor.
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Aug 14, 2020 18:59
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They don't have senior services for Kor
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Aug 14, 2020 19:08
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If you break your back you should just get someone to stab you to death.
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Aug 14, 2020 19:22
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mysterious frankie posted:Rewatching ds9 and seeing all the civilian clothes’ crazy cuts and patterns reminded me of what my grandma would sew. Looks like camouflage jumpers for going to war in a Bed Bath & Beyond’s curtain aisle. That might be the most nostalgic part of the of the rewatch. The Siskos start sporting some rad-as-gently caress 90s Afropolitan fashion somewhere around the middle of the series.
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Aug 14, 2020 19:30
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that episode where odo becomes kurzon and shows his transformation by loudening his shirt
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Aug 14, 2020 19:34
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Lead out in cuffs posted:The Siskos start sporting some rad-as-gently caress 90s Afropolitan fashion somewhere around the middle of the series. Legit psyched to see.
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Aug 14, 2020 19:52
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Pick posted:The Federation is so comically stupid in DS9 I basically buy that. The Dominion is weird in that they don't seem to have an industrial base, supply chains, trade, or any kind of centralization, yet somehow they can spew out warships. They claim the whole Gamma Quadrant as theirs, yet a bunch of species there haven't even heard of them. Also they don't immediately announce themselves for years after alien ships start spewing through the wormhole and wandering around their claimed space. If the same thing had happened in the middle of Federation (or Romulan/Klingon/Cardassian/etc) space, there would have been starships dispatched to greet them immediately. I'm pretty sure a lot of this was because the writers and producers only decided the Dominion should exist a whole season after they came up with the wormhole, but it kinda makes for some weird/janky worldbuilding. Lead out in cuffs fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 20:14
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Lead out in cuffs posted:The Dominion is weird in that they don't seem to have an industrial base, supply chains, trade, or any kind of centralization, yet somehow they can spew out warships. They claim the whole Gamma Quadrant as theirs, yet a bunch of species there haven't even heard of them. My understanding/guess is that the core three Dominion races stay pretty quiet unless they want something, then send Vorta to client cultures and say “spin up your factories, make a bunch of these ships/weapons. Jem’Hadar will be by to get them in X time.” They aren’t interesting in proselytizing and would rather keep a minimum number of races/planets under control to achieve their goals. Communication between cultures in Dominion space is likely intentionally disrupted because that serves the Dominion, since good information flow could lead to competing organizations forming explicitly to stop an organization that leverages races like they purely material infrastructure. Maybe your Dominion planets know about each other, have some communication but even that might be intentionally limited. Anyone you haven’t bothered incorporating doesn’t need to know poo poo, unless they try to gently caress with your or your stuff, and then they either get wiped out or incorporated, and now operate under the same communication rules as the rest of your asset races do. I think the alpha quadrant spurned them to war just by popping out of the wormhole. Competing organizations are suddenly just... there, disturbing the balance of power by making bold declarative statements about who they are and what they do, instead of manipulating quietly, like you’re* supposed to. *and by “you’re” I mean us. The Dominion. You guys are something else.
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Aug 14, 2020 20:49
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The aliens hunting Tosk iirc are part of the Dominion though, some EU stuff confirms that Tosk is an off-brand/variant Jem'hadar engineered by the Dominion as a reward to a well behaved subject world, and they have to be outright told that their poo poo ain't gonna fly on the other end of the wormhole. And there is that species the Ferengi were trading with. Otherwise it does seem that the Dominion is fairly hands-off until they aren't, and we see with the Cardassians and Breen that they openly play favourites among their subjects depending on who's the most useful to them.
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Aug 15, 2020 08:10
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I don't know, I don't think there's any doubt that they are bad, or any doubt that they eventually intend to go to war. I just do think it is notable to point out whether they were given decent justification. I mean they say that they are suspicious of solids, but then again we did send a warship directly Through the Wormhole with stealth technology so we can check it out, which does seem to be like a thing that somebody might do if they're potentially a danger to you And should not be trusted
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Aug 15, 2020 18:17
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Anonymous Zebra posted:TL;DR: Starfleet antagonizes and ignores the many diplomatic/military threats of the Dominion, forcing the Dominion to finally start a shooting war just to open up their supply lines back to their home territory. lol if only there was a thing called "setting up an embassy"
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Aug 16, 2020 13:38
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Anonymous Zebra posted:While it's fun and all that we're talking about TNG in the DS9 thread, I figured I'd try and get things a back on track with a hot take: I think this is the lynchpin right here. Was the space around the wormhole actually Dominion space at the start of the show? I'm not sure we can say for certain. I'm inclined to say it wasn't. Maybe they later decided "okay, we're annexing this sector, there's no way we're letting these other assholes get a foothold next door", but if the wormhole genuinely was in the middle of Dominion territory I'm skeptical it would have taken them so long to send ships over and say "hey, get the gently caress out already."
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Aug 16, 2020 21:18
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that said, don't get me wrong, I broadly agree that the feds were brazen as gently caress
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Aug 16, 2020 21:18
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I think this is the lynchpin right here. Was the space around the wormhole actually Dominion space at the start of the show? I'm not sure we can say for certain. I'm inclined to say it wasn't. Maybe they later decided "okay, we're annexing this sector, there's no way we're letting these other assholes get a foothold next door", but if the wormhole genuinely was in the middle of Dominion territory I'm skeptical it would have taken them so long to send ships over and say "hey, get the gently caress out already." The Dominion was likely sending Changelings into the Alpha Quadrant for some time before they made their move. That's why that random Jem'hadar flexes in front of Sisko about the political minutiae of the Federation. The Dominion is saying, "Look at how well we know you, but you didn't even know we existed until today."
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Aug 16, 2020 21:57
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i normally hate retcons and adding dumb EU bullshit but I would have been all over a midquel story about the changelings having a little scuffle with the brainworms from Conspiracy. like they're both there in federation hq and they've staked out certain zones and the brainworms are like gently caress off we were here first
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Aug 17, 2020 00:02
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the problem i have with the dominion is that as they are written and constructed their entire upper class/leadership should be examining success/failure on the scale of decades or centuries, not years (and even one of the episodes mentions this) but instead of mostly just ignoring the federation or signing a diplomatic treaty and honouring it while they infiltrate it with changelings, they just continue acting more and more belligerent until a war starts. i get that maybe incorporating the cardassians was an opportunity they figured they wouldnt have again, but i feel like ten or twenty years of non-aggression would have served them way better. and they should have been prepared for the possibility that they are essentially 1v4 against the fed/klingons/romulans/cardassians the vorta are perfect servants that are content being recreated over and over and the changelings are ageless. they should not be in a rush to win a war against what has the possibility to be an existential threat to them if the stars align poo poo, the federation would not have even learned that changelings are the bad guys if they had just sent the vorta to have a nice little chat and draw some territory lines edit: hell, they might have even been able to convince odo to come back and stay if they hadnt hosed up and started a war to kill his friends! basically the dominion made a lot of mistakes Verviticus fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Aug 17, 2020 |
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Aug 17, 2020 00:12
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 07:19 |
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The Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians combined were no match for The Dominion. The combined powers didn't beat The Dominion, they beat a tiny fragment that was cut off from the rest by space gods living in a wormhole, and only at a huge cost. Remember, there was always an existential threat that MORE ships were just sitting on the other side of the wormhole, and the only thing stopping that was a minefield and later The Prophets. There was no calculus The Founders needed to make. They were more technically advanced, had greater numbers, and their enemies were fragmented and easily swayed by Intel attacks. The only reason they lost (the tiny fragment of ships in the alpha, and 1 founder) was because of space gods that they couldn't have predicted would suddenly become active.
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Aug 17, 2020 01:01
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