General Star Trek thread

helimachoptor wrote: »

unfortunately even peaceful expansion will lead to war more often than not.

Absolutely. Though I'd draw a large distinction between diplomatic incidents, & a malevolent sprawling empire.

Put it this way.. with El Adrel, lets say Data hadnt figured out the language even to the small level he did and Picard had been killed by what was in essence a very a hostile act (with the right intentions imo) it could have easily led to war.

Indeed, it was a hostile act (with good intentions as you say, albeit dangerous) to abduct Picard against his will & then ensure he couldn't be rescued. It could indeed have led to war, but only for the intelligence, conviction, and compassion of Picard who prevented things escalating in the end. This demonstrates an ethic very far removed from an officer of an empire who 'annexes and assimilates'.

In every single organisation there are the undesirable element, i think it was obvious during the conference on Romulus that Admiral Ross was at the very least aware of Section 31 and at worst complicit in what they want.

Very true, all the big players had such - Section 31, The Obsidian Order, the Tal Shiar etc. As you allude to, I'd imagine it's likely that Starfleet High Command knew of Section 31, & perhaps even casually threw a blind eye to some of their operations. Section 31 while operating against wider Starfleet principles, certainly don't represent the ethos of the Federation. It may even suit the Federation on occasion to have S31 around to do some of the dirty work that can't be done officially. The Federation certainly isn't perfect, but I've seen nothing to suggest it's anything other than a benign entity with a few blot marks in its history.

for me though the biggest throwback of DS9... "it's a faaaaaake"
Basically tricking the Romulans into entering a war

Absolutely, & a great plot device it was. Here we are today still talking about it! It's a debate that could rage on, but at the end of the day Sisko was more than likely right in what he said - that the Dominion won't sit idly by having total control of the Alpha Quadrant while leaving the Romulan Empire there undisturbed. With everyone else defeated, the Romulans without doubt would have been next...the ethos of the Dominion was to place 'order' on the galaxy after all.

While the actions were certainly not in line with Federation ethics and principles, the end result was likely the saving of the alpha quadrant & all the races therein. While a bloody operation, in the end it was justified when you look at things on a macro scale.

Indricotherium wrote: »

Tng: journeys end on station 114 at 7pm......

A fine example of the 'benign' Federation at its best.

Ha, still on this? It's been acknowledged that forcibly moving colonists wasn't the most compassionate of things to do. It didn't happen though, thanks to a benign Federation officer!

What would you have done in Starfleets position? You could either:

1) Forcibly move the colonists (which really was for their own protection anyway).
2) Abandon the colonists without another thought.
3) Negotiate with the Cardassians the formation of a DMZ, where BOTH sides could have colonies left where they were (this is what happened)
4) Not negotiate with the Cardassians, risking increasing tensions and a return to war.

There you go Indricotherium, pick one (or indeed another solution of your own) & lets discuss

Indricotherium wrote: »

Establishing the dmz and selling out their own colonists is the start of a story that ends with the Cardassian union on its knees, Cardassia a wasted ruin, billions dead, and most importantly, Starfleet officers establishing themselves on Cardassia.

You're not being entirely congruent with your previous posts here dude, & here's why On one hand you're complaining about the colonists being moved against their will, and here above, when left where they want to stay, your saying they've been 'sold out' by the Federation. If what you're getting at is that the Federation should have stead fast, stuck to their guns, & not negotiated with the Cardassians, it risked escalating tensions which could have led to war. It seems to me the Federation eventually took the harder decision to leave the colonists where they wanted to stay, instead of relocating them to ensure their safety. That's not very 'sprawling empire' like at all, is it?

To imply that the Federation took this option, because they eventually knew a wormhole would be discovered, a race would come through & invade Cardassia, and the Federation would eventually win that war & stand on Cardassia is ludicrous man, sorry but it is.

This works out okay for the federation so if I was deciding what to do from a Starfleet point of view I'd probably let it play out the same way. Probably I'd not spend as long humouring Wesley.

Again implying foreknowledge of events to come many years later just isn't the case. They had the colonists interests at heart, their crime was thinking on a macro scale over a micro scale, but regardless, they desired to protect their own citizens.

If I didn't know it was going to play out as it did, and I wasn't privy to the federations long game, I'd probably not have entered into the treaty that on the face of things seems to disadvantage the federation so much.

So you'd have gone against creating the DMZ? Fair enough, why's that though? You'd find yourself at a stalemate with the Cardassians, and tensions building by the day. You're risking war and the lives of millions by playing hard ball at the bargaining table, all over a small few sectors of space (a small concern in the grand scale of things). The Cardassians are willing to form the DMZ, allow your colonists to stay, theirs have to stay too...but the Cardassians will agree to not arming any of their colonies in the DMZ (which they later did anyway). Seems a relatively decent option to me, so why not play ball & move on, for the sake of inconveniencing a few colonies (again from a macro perspective)?

God Worf is just a terrible officer. Even if Wesley wasn't being all Spiderman three , it's still totally innapropriate to tell him about the plan to remove the colonists.

Riker will be bring ing this up at annual review.

helimachoptor wrote: »

dont think it was ever said, but this ep was post his capture in Chain of Command

Shh it's more fun to put a spin on things seemingly

It just dawned on me, Indricotherium has only ever seen the mirror universe episodes of Trek...it all makes sense now

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

AND ... Nurse Christine Chapel in TOS ...

AND...No.1 (the bridge officer) in the original pilot (The Cage)

SarahBM wrote: »

Has anyone ever noticed that the phrase "On the double" is used quiet a lot on DS9.

something else I have noticed is people using the phrase "oh my god", when according to their religious beliefs they don't have one.
I find it amusing. I would have thought it very much a human and earth based phrase.

22:53 - on to season 2.

Jaysus you're lashing through it.