AQ Fleet Size

[TheDarkling]

Halt their advance; i.e., not take over any more territory.

Yes he called a cease fire, the war was more or less over except for the odd raid by the Klingons, the Cardassians had resigned themselves to the loss of those planets and were trying to stop the rest of the Union falling apart.

You are right in that the Card. gov't seemed determined to avoid further fighting. That makes me wonder...

Why?

I say it's probably because they'd already gotten reamed. They wanted to hold back and try to rebuild some of their strength.

Thats my take on it, they have to resort to Federation handouts (which as noted before they wouldn't accept previously) and that they had to beg the Federation to protect their convoys.

And we have to go back to the fact that we're only discussing this because Worf made some vague statement about "a war the Empire may not win." I don't consider that a very reliable basis for concluding the Federation would beat the Klings, especially when the Klingon forces are still divided, fighting an ongoing war with the Cardies or not.

You see thats where we differ, you are taking the ATL as gospel and allowing events in OTL to alter the predisposed status you bring over frm the ATL, I am trying to figure out who is more powerful in this timeline without starting from the Klingon > Feds postion that you are.

Oh and you seem to be forgetting the second quote

And that will be the
end of the Empire.

But they still have lots of ships in Cardassian space...I doubt they'd just leave their newly annexed territory undefended because the Cardassians were talking about peace. They're smarter than even that.

They don't need alot of ships to hold out against the cardies, I suspect that guarding the Romulan border would get more prioritory if it came down to it.

Sure, but it didn't stop them from considering a new offensive, did it?

Contrast that to how badly beaten, and how fast they were beaten, by the Klingons. They were immediately "suing for peace," as you noted. If the Federation was stronger than the Klingons, why would the Cardies not sue them for peace, too?

You are missing the point, the various factors leading up to the Cardy-Klingon war left the Cardies weaker than when they had previously fought the Feds.

Very weird and ninja orientated example:

Two ninjas fight; the fight lasts for ten minutes and one is left badly wounded (say he looses an arm and a leg).
I then meet the wounded Ninja and beat him in 5 minutes (since he only has one arm and one leg), does this then mean I am superior to the first ninja because I did better against the loser ninja?

Of course not so the Klingons performance against a vastly weakened Cardassia and the Feds half hearted (but longer) beating of a much stronger Cardassia does not equate to Klingons > Feds.

Yet the Federation still ceded territory to them in their peace treaty. They must've been doing something right for the Federation to give up planets to them.

As you have said yourself the Feds will often bend over backwards to prevent wars.

The real test is, how many Cardassian planets did the Federation capture? I think none. The Klingons, meanwhile, captured lots of Cardassian planets. We're told about how they were deploying orbital defense platforms near those worlds.

The Feds weren't trying to conquer the Cardassians and nor did they commit anything near 1/3 of there military, the relative performances of the Feds and Klingons against the Cardassian isn't really an issue because the two aren't comparable.

That still seems like a good ole' fashioned steamroll to me. Even if the Federation had no wish to annex Cardie worlds, how do you explain the vast discrepancy between what the Klingons did vs. what the Feds did?

Because of the differences I have outlined (Klingons catch them after a civil war, military grounded, Fed war crippled them etc etc).

If it was simply due to the fact that the Cardassian forces were very depleted from the Federation war, we'd have to assume they couldn't rebuild their fleet in the span of...what? 5 years?

You have agreed the Cardies are resource poor and that their economy is a mess, why is this a surprise?
The far greater Klingon empire is going to take a decade to rebuild after the Dominion war.

That also makes no sense: as you pointed out, the Cardies were considering a new offensive against the Federation in "CoC." That means they were ready for some kind of action.

They were going to grab a system or two and drag the Feds to teh table where they figured (probably correctly) that the Feds would play appeasement, this fits with standard Fed MO as you have agreed.

I think we have to ultimately look at this from the standpoint of numbers. The Klingons routed the Cardies inside weeks. The Federation fought them for YEARS. Even with all the aforementioned disadvantages vs. the Klingons, I see weeks on the left, and years on the right.

Thats because you are dropping the outside factors by your own admission, is it any sujrprise you get a faulty result.

I need to go again. The tome shalt resume later! It looks like a bumpy road ahead of me here, but I'm entirely pleased that we can talk about it in such an enjoyable manner.

Yeah I can think of an avenue or two that haven't been raised yet.

[seanrobertson]

I'd better respond to this first...

I think this is where I left off. A few real life things have made it difficult for me to even remember what Iam doing...

The war wasn't a full scale thing though it was a scrap over the Archanis sector, thus Starfleet’s forces should be concentrated there,

Archanis was part of the war, but are there any statements to indicate that it was limited solely to that system?

And didn't the Klingons actually win the fight in that system? I seem to remember Gowron saying,

"The Federation must allow us to annex Archanis and the other worlds we've seized." ("Apocalypse Rising.")

also the fact that the Klingons had preparation time means they could move the bulk of there force (everything they got as Sisko puts it)

Hmm...no. Sisko wasn't talking about the Archanis sector. He simply said, "The Klingons are throwing everything they have at us." We don't know where the Klingon fleets were concentrated.

Klingons might pull some dumb shit, but they're NOT so stupid as to focus their entire assault on a single world. That'd leave large areas of their own territory comparatively poorly defended.

Besides, as I noted above, Gowron said "...the other worlds we've seized."

The war was bigger in scope than a couple of fights at Archanis.

to the area but that Starfleet would have to drag forces to the area meaning that the Klingons should have had the advantage and still Starfleet was blunting their sword.

If and only if the fight is limited to Archanis. Gowron said it wasn't.

Kim'pec threatened to drop the Feds like they were a bad habit if Picard didn't do as he asked, Gowron rewrote history and refused to speak to (or help) Picard until Picard threatened to lend Federation gratitude to other houses in the Empire, Duras would have taken the Empire into a Romulan alliance and so on.

What Duras would've done's irrelevant; it didn't happen, nor would it ever have happened. Most Klingons HATE Romulans...as LaForge said, "They've been blood enemies for eighty years."

K'mpec and Gowron are relevent, but as I recall, Gowron eventually did the "right thing," and K'mpec was just blustering--for good reason in fact, since "refusing the dying request of a leader of the High Council would be taken as an insult to all Klingons."

The alliance wasn't exactly built upon solid bedrock.

Perhaps not, but it was solid enough that two major Romulan conspiracies didn't break it apart.

Here again, we're coming down to observed FX vs. dialogue. K'mpec and Gowron all talk or act big, but when it came down to it, it took a Federation condemnation of the Cardassian invasion for Gowron to piss on the Khitomer Accords. It took DS9's refusal to turn over suspected changelings for the Klingons to attack DS9. It took a changeling impersonating Martok to get the war actually in motion.

Take all the subterfuge away, and the alliance isn't that damn shaky. It might not be as firm as I initially suggested, but some old Klingon's bullshitting is hardly new or especially meaningful.

I suspect him calling himself Galen when he was being an archaeologist was a direct reference to his old Prof (hmm internal continuity).

Yep Like him playing that Ressikian (sp?) flute with his one-night stand, the chick from astrometrics.

Nope that was the Tholian conflict of 2353 but thanks for adding more to my list

Oh no...

DATA
This particular guerilla maneuver
resulted in two hundred and
nineteen fatalities over a three-
year period.

It wasn't just that single colony or the conflict wouldn't have lasted for a minium of 3 years, although the Federations inability to deal with brushfires is well know (I actually think its more to do with the Feds lacking political will than an inability to enforce their borders).

Perhaps a bit of both?

Still, if the best (or worst as the case may be) the Talarians could do is kill 219 people in three years, they're an insect--a pimple on the UFP or Klingons' asses.

*That* kind of conflict couldn't have drained Federation resources much if it took place during the events of "Yesterday's Ent."

I am just assuming they do, we all we know the Klingons developed a cloak like from ST VI in the early war which gave them the advantage out of the gate or soemthing else extreme, this is exactly why I don't like the idea of using the alternate timeline to prove anything about "our" timeline.

? Come again? Advantage from a Trek Six cloak? That device was rather easily neutralized. It took all of 15 minutes for the Federation to penetrate it and blow Chang's ship to Sto'Vo'Kor (or Gre'thor).

Yeah they are, I agree.

Cool.

But you fail to understand the Cardassian mindset, I have an expert here to explain.

JELLICO
Lemec is a Cardassian... and
Cardassians are like... timber
wolves -- predators... bold in
large numbers... cautious by
themselves...

I like Ronnie Cox and I liked the Jellico character for his no-BS attitude, but it's my opinion that Jellico was a fool. He claims to know a lot about Cardassians--I'll ignore the fact that his overly generalized, racist claims exclude many Cardies we've seen--but the second Lemec talks about Picard's capture, Jellico shirks away like an injured child.

Where was his quick comeback? Why didn't he use his knowledge of Cardassians to his advantage then?

I hastily grant that the situation defined his response, but his words are typical of a swaggeringly overconfident, even arrogant, racist-type.

I'm not trying to derail Jellico's point, per se, by crashing on the guy in general; however, what he says IS a rather gross generalization, and we know it's definitely not descriptive of all that many Cardassians we've become well-acquainted with; e.g., Dukat held captive by the Maquis ("Just SHOOT them!"), or Garak's initiative on Defiant. Those lone wolves were far from "cautious" in the manner he intends.

But I digress. This is a rather minor point in the scheme of things

A predator attacks when blood is in the air, with the Feds weakened the Cardies will attack, do you think they will simply take a few gains and leave it at that?

Well, look at it this way:

P1--With a mere third of their military, the Klingons kicked the Cardassian's ass. I think you'd concur there.
P2--You maintain the Federation is stronger than the Klingons.
C--Therefore, the Federation should be able to rather easily kick the CU around w/ a third of their military, too.

Now, let's say that the Union did decide to fight the UFP in this DTL. They smell blood, as you say, and figure the Federation is otherwise occupied with the Klingon Empire.

Does that mean they'd necessarily commit their forces to attack?

In my opinion, no. I think that's a false dichotomy.

Cardassians are smart enough to try and plan ahead. If, for instance, Starfleet managed to call a cease-fire with the Klingons (always a possibility), the Cardassians know what'd happen next. The full brunt of Starfleet could come down on their heads. What little the CU potentially gained in taking a few systems, they might lose and then some.

The Cardassian try again and again to capture more territory even when the Feds could squish them, with a distracted Federation they could (and would) run amok.

I don't agree that they necessarily would. The only reason they even started the war, as I understand it, was because of faulty intelligence regarding Setlik III. Sometime in "The Wounded," a Glin admits that Setlik was thought to be some kind of Federation staging point for an invasion.

And for reasons noted above, the Cardies would have good reason to...gasp...be like Jellico says: cautious Heh.

That is, their strategy would probably not be solely based on a distracted Federation. Said distraction could abruptly end, for all they know (something they MUST anticipate).

The Galen border conflict could have probably been settled by the Feds caving but we don't know enough about the other conflicts to make a proper judgement.

Probably not, but are we sure this is border even exists for them in this divergent timeline? If I remember correctly, the Talarians were very close to Klingon space. Didn't Korris use a Talarian ship to sneakily destroy a Klingon battlecruiser?

I was under the impression that, in addition to being weakly armed, Talarian ships were slow, too. Their range must therefore be limited to something rather close to their core territory. It's not then inconceivable that they were behind Klingon lines in this DTL.

(Note: this is admitted speculation.)

More important is the fact that the Talarian conflicts really didn't consume many resources. As you pointed out, they were forced to use guerilla tactics, and even then only cost some 219 lives. ONE Federation starship could probably handle them...at the very least, a small taskforce should be enough to put a cork in their hole.

A taskforce won't detract much from the Klingon war. That really leaves the Cardassian war and MAYBE the Tzenketh conflict as potential drains on the Federation, in spite of the fact that we don't know of their existence in the DTL AND that the conflicts were still very limited in scale.

All that the Feds caving on every issue without a fight is going to do is invite every single minor race to make a land grab which (going by what you would advise) the Federation will rubber stamp and hand over, of course this may be exactly what happened in the ATL.

I don't advise that, but it seems to be what the Federation does. At least, it would've been to their interests in this alternate timeline, since they and the Klingons were already at each other's throats.

As quoted above cardy losses were in the 100,000's which makes sense since the Feds aren't going to go around butchering civilians like the Cardies, I would expect the vast amount of direct causalities to be on the Feds side.

Even the Cardassians aren't apt to butcher civilians. It apparently took decades for them to start treating the Bajorans in such a Nazi-like manner, a point at which their military had probably been subjected to extensive propaganda about the "sub-human Bajoran."

Still, that's good quote digging. I must confess it does surprise me that the Federation bears the brunt of those losses. It requires me to do two things, one of which benefits your position, one, mine:

First, the Good:
1--I have to re-evaluate my 4.5-4.9 mil. estimate of Federation casualties. IF Picard was speaking literally and remembered his numbers really well, which I have no problems with, we could establish the Cardassians' lower-limit losses at ~200,000.

Out of "millions" lost in the war, that means no more than approximately 9,800,000 Federation/Starfleet peeps could have died.

The Bad:
Compare that to 40 billion.

Instead of 0.011%, now we have a "mighty" 0.025% the no. of people lost in the Klingon-Federation War.

But it gets worse.

The Ugly:
2--The Federation didn't whip the Cardassians. They were losing millions of people--an upper-limit of 9.8 million, so probably less--and were forced to cede territory to the latter.

It sounds to me as if the Cardassians got the better of the Federation. These are the same Cardassians who are utterly destroyed by the Klingon Empire.

We can make some excuses--a few valid ones--for the Cardassian military, but they'd undergone a heavy build-up at LEAST dating back to "The Wounded" (2366?). Evidently they were strong enough at the time of "Chain of Command" that they at least felt confident in tackling one Federation sector.

That gives them a few more years of potential build-up before the Klingons made them dirty their collective diapers. Civil unrest or not, hunger or not, the Klingons whipped them bad.

The Federation didn't, and apparently couldn't, because it was losing millions of people and should've been doing everything possible to stay alive. One does not lose even hundreds of thousands of personnel and "hold back."

So, for a Strong Federation (tm) argument, it's actually better, even if unrealistic thanks to the info you've brought out, to say the Cardassian war was limited to border scrapes. The place we're in now is even WORSE for the Federation, with them faring rather craptacular against a foe that the Klingons almost literally ate for LUNCH!

You underetimate Cardassian greed I feel, the Feds can't wave a magic wand and stop the war and folding to Cardy demands will only make them bolder.

Greedy? I guess given their situation, they might be somewhat greedy for raw materials, but I wouldn't necessarily agree that folding to them would create some kind of slippery slope.

Would it embolden some factions of their military? Definitely, yes...there are bullies in every military, and the Cardassians have their share. But does that mean they'll act on it?

Not necessarily. Without corroborating evidence (e.g., Cardassians actually DOING something, rather than just talk about them) it remains a "maybe." We'd have to appeal to ignorance to try and definitively claim that maybe is a yes or no.

Lack of political will on the part of the Feds, they didn't want to admit to the folks back home that a proper war was going on so they never went all out, if they had of done Picard would have been drinking Earl Grey on Cardassia Prime.

I'm not so sure.

Prior to learning that the Federation bore the brunt of these casualties, I would've agreed with you.

But hundreds of thousands or millions of dead troops and civilians is something you can't hide from the top brass or the bureaucracy. Trust me, when you're losing over 10 times the no. of people the Borg killed at Wolf 359, the political will should BE THERE!

As for the matter of the great Empire, this was after the Cardy economy was crushed by the war,

Orias system?

Military build-up in "The Wounded"?

Build-up in preparation for an offensive in "Chain of Command"?

Their economy was hurt, but not crushed. They'd had some time to recover.

the Cardy forces hammered by the Feds (and the Marquis, and a few by the Founders), their main intelligence network destroyed, a civil war and a resulting coup that probably had all military forces grounded so as to prevent the military from trying to retake power, this is why the Klingons advance with little to no resistance until thanks to Garak’s warning the Cardassian are able to get their ships deployed into the field.

I don't think the entire military was grounded. Dukat had a new job as a Detapa advisor inside days. Given his reputation, if anyone outside the Obsidian Order would be "grounded," it'd be Dukat. (That didn't come until later, after the leadership realized he couldn't defeat the Klingons with direct conflict.)

And as I recall, Worf didn't seem to think the mobilized Cardassian fleet would pose much of an obstacle to the Klingon advance.

Good old Worf doesn't hate my argument that much, see

They were taking advatage of Federation weakness - they were rearming after the had be trashed by the Feds (or themselves if you account for them running thei economy nito the ground).

Yes, but we're talking about weakness vis-a-vis an invasion.

But that's all the Federation ever does. Cave in.
Did they with the Tholians?, the Tzethkethi?, it took them 20 years with the Cardies and frankly caving in will probably hasten their demise anyway.

Perhaps.

No se on the Tholians or Tzenkethi. Since at least the former was very quick to sign a non-aggression pact with the Dominion, it wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah so teh cardies will think "hell they gave us planets when we just asked for them, if we attack them they will give us sectors", meanwhile on the Breen homeworld some bloodless leader is taking notes and so on.

Maybe. Chances are also good that, after witnessing how long a militarized Federation held out against the Klingons, they realized it might be best to just wait until that conflict was over.

Like I said earlier, if the Cardassians, Breen et al. got all uppity and started stealing territory by force, what would they do if the Federation managed to negotiate a cease-fire with the Klingons? What if, by some miracle, the Federation managed to end the war by phase-cloaking a giant asteroid that blasts Qo'nos?

This weakened, but still big gun-toting Federation would come looking for those that stole from her cookie jar.

Any kind of military worth its salt must anticipate and plan for these contingencies. It would be idiotic of them to simply assume the Federation and Klingons are in it for the long-haul, that it'd therefore be "easy" to steal worlds and run amuck without risk of getting spanked.

Yeah it should read:

Yeah I agree that the Romulans didn't seem to be hiding from the Klingons in OTL but the defeat of the Romulans at Narendra 3 may have encouraged the Klingons into keeping up a war which in the ATL they could ill afford.

I'm still confused. When were the Romulans defeated at Narendra 3?

They didn't they lent aid and comfort to the enemy, they allowed the Dominion to cross Romulan sapce and attack the lightly guarded Feds in their belly, although Bashir's thinktank predicted that by the time of season 7 (and some annual military meeting) the Romuans would decide they must act in order to avoid Dominion domination of the quadrant.

Sure, but...we're talking about the Romulans themselves "taking advantage of the situation," as Picard says in "First Contact." They never did that. They'd talk about it, but they were much more inclined to play friendlies off against each other.

They don't need planets they just want to dominate the galaxy and will persue whatever actions bring them closer to that goal.

Well, says Enabran Tain anyway

As I have explained appeasement is a bad idea and so is using this ATL to gauge Klingon strength in OTL.

I dunno. Appeasement seemed to work in keeping the Romulans out of the UFP's hair for about 53 years. It helped relations improve with the Cardassians to the point that those two powers seemed to be getting close until Dukat veered off and joined the Dominion.

True enough but the Feds tend to recruit fully industrialised member worlds (who will probably have their own fleets already), this just adds to the murkiness of the ATL.

Really?

The eu-chin-chef-for people were barely warp capable, weren't they?

Bajor had long been groomed as a potential Federation member, and we saw what they were like...Senator what's-her-face scoffed at Kira's big stand in "Images In the Sand," noting that Kira's dinky fleet couldn't stand up to a single Warbird.

Point of fact, I have never, ever seen any Federation ship outside of Starfleet fight bad guys. We never saw Andorian, Tellarite, Tyrellian, Betazoid, Benzanite, Bolian, Coridian, Deltan OR Vulcan ships riding alongside Starfleet ships into combat.

Ah my fingers are already bleeding.

If you want to take a day's break or so, I can go along with that. I've spent a couple of hours in front of this computer screen today

[seanrobertson]

Well, before I quit for the night, I might as well respond in full eh?

I wonder if anyone else has had the patience to read through all this...

You see thats where we differ, you are taking the ATL as gospel and allowing events in OTL to alter the predisposed status you bring over frm the ATL, I am trying to figure out who is more powerful in this timeline without starting from the Klingon > Feds postion that you are.

I actually didn't start from that conclusion.

Ages ago, I figured the Federation would squash the Klingons.

Then I saw "Yesterday's Enterprise." I saw a Federation that was far more serious about fighting (read: stronger) than the typical "real Federation."

I was surprised when Picard whispered how the Federation was losing badly, especially with this tougher, meaner Starfleet protecting it.

Ultimately, though, I obviously do lend credence to the alt. timeline's events. I don't see enough compelling evidence to indicate that the Federation was weakened by other fights, which Picard did not mention as troublesome (though you think it'd be relevant...remember, their only hope was to get the E-C back in time).

I see evidence that, even if those conflicts DID take place, it is unrealistic to assume no one ever messed with the Klingons either and, most important of all, that said conflicts were insectoid in scale next to the Klingon-Federation War, hardly the kinds of conflicts that would "turn the tide" or somesuch. (As little as hundreds of thousands of Feds killed vs. 40 billion? Come on. No comparison, no matter how simplified that is.)

Oh and you seem to be forgetting the second quote

And that will be the
end of the Empire.

...Which I see as Worf being all dramatic, such that he can push Kurn in a certain direction.

I also see it as the result of a Klingon Empire which underestimates the Federation--a potential loss as the partial result of arrogance, not just comparative military weakness.

And I see it as a Klingon Empire which still has lots of ships in Cardassian space, ships they weren't willing to remove until the Jem'Hadar came and unleashed shield-piercing shots from hell on them. Those are ships that wouldn't be available for a UFP fight, regardless of whether or not they were still frequently engaging Cardassian warships.

They don't need alot of ships to hold out against the cardies, I suspect that guarding the Romulan border would get more prioritory if it came down to it.

They don't necessarily need them to hold out, but Gowron had large fleets in Cardassian territory, including the Negh'Var, up until "By Inferno's Light."

You are missing the point, the various factors leading up to the Cardy-Klingon war left the Cardies weaker than when they had previously fought the Feds.

Do we really know that?

They'd been building up since "The Wounded." They might've been hard-pressed to build any faster, but they didn't seem so bad off...Madred said they "were feeding the people," which is something they couldn't do prior to the war with the Federation.

Very weird and ninja orientated example:

Two ninjas fight; the fight lasts for ten minutes and one is left badly wounded (say he looses an arm and a leg).
I then meet the wounded Ninja and beat him in 5 minutes (since he only has one arm and one leg), does this then mean I am superior to the first ninja because I did better against the loser ninja?

That is a good analogy, though I'm not sure it's perfectly indicative of the situation we're discussing. I simply don't see that the Federation cut the Cardassians' arm and leg. They took losses, and so did the Federation, but we don't know much beyond that.

My analogy would be similar, though I would keep the ninja from using swords.

Ninja 1 is in a fight lasting 5 minutes. Ninja 2 beats him up, but the damage is isn't irreparable.

A week later, Ninja 1's concussion feels better, his bruises have mostly healed, and maybe a couple of broken fingers in his hand still hurt, but he can throw a punch.

Ninja 1 fights ninja 3. Ninja 1 goes down in 2 seconds.

Technically, yes, ninja 1 is still not fully up to snuff, but his shortcomings are extremely minor. He can even still throw a punch with both hands though one of them causes great discomfort.

That he goes down in 2 seconds really isn't a symptom of not being in top form, however. Rather, his opponent was simply that much tougher than Ninja 2. The down-and-out Cardassian/ninja never even had a chance for his weaknesses to really be a hindrance to him.

Of course not so the Klingons performance against a vastly weakened Cardassia and the Feds half hearted (but longer) beating of a much stronger Cardassia does not equate to Klingons > Feds.

No, but when you couple a somewhat different version of the above with the fact that the Klingons whipped the Feds in a divergent timeline, the Klingons are 2 for 2, and the Federation is left with Worf's ambiguous and vague statements that may or may not be true (no pun intended) given the context in which he actually SAID them; i.e., persauding Kurn to do something he didn't want to do.

Yet the Federation still ceded territory to them in their peace treaty. They must've been doing something right for the Federation to give up planets to them.

As you have said yourself the Feds will often bend over backwards to prevent wars.
[/quote]

I should've known that would haunt me

All I'm saying is, the definitive victor of a war doesn't cede stuff. That would be like Coalition forces digging up Saddam Hussein to give him back Baghdad. The Federation must've had a pretty hard time with the Cardassians, evident by the fact that the admiral in "The Wounded" thought Starfleet couldn't handle another war.

But a few years before the Dominion War, Starfleet has apparently recovered rather well from the Cardassian conflict. Just two years after the Klingons destroy Cardassia, we see that Starfleet has reached unprecedented levels of size, with individual fleets of hundreds of ships.

Surely all that growth didn't come from the trailing two years' building. Surely that growth wasn't just the result of ships pulled out of mothballs.

So you've got to think, wouldn't the Cardassians have had time to recover circa 2371, too? Especially since, by all indications you've pointed out, they didn't lose as heavily as the Federation did? (That still amazes me, but I'll work with it.)

I have to think so. I don't see them as this one-legged, one-armed guy fresh from a good amputation session. I see them as still recovering, but close to full strength again.

The Feds weren't trying to conquer the Cardassians and nor did they commit anything near 1/3 of there military, the relative performances of the Feds and Klingons against the Cardassian isn't really an issue because the two aren't comparable.

How do we know how much of Starfleet was dedicated toward that operation? A third might not be all that unreasonable, since the Romulans were quiet and the Klingons were being good.

I agree w/ the thought that it's not the Federation's style to conquer worlds, but we know they'll capture and at least temporarily use planets if it's to their advantage: Chin'Toka is a perfect example.

Because of the differences I have outlined (Klingons catch them after a civil war, military grounded, Fed war crippled them etc etc).

The military wasn't grounded, though...Dukat was immediately appointed the military advisor to the Detapa Council. It was clearly stated that their fleet mobilized to try and slow the Klingons' advance. And I don't think they were still crippled from fighting the Federation...they had 5-10 years to rebuild after all that.

That leaves the civil war. (Well, coup, anyway.)

How could that possibly weaken the Cardassian military to any significant degree? It hurt their initial response time, but even after they started fighting, they couldn't drive a "mere" third of the Klingon navy out of their territory.

You have agreed the Cardies are resource poor and that their economy is a mess, why is this a surprise?
The far greater Klingon empire is going to take a decade to rebuild after the Dominion war.

Yeah, but it lost thousands of ships, and had been in wars since 2371.

The Cardassians probably didn't lose that many ships in their first UFP war, and weren't in any kind of sustained conflict for many years at that point.

They were going to grab a system or two and drag the Feds to teh table where they figured (probably correctly) that the Feds would play appeasement, this fits with standard Fed MO as you have agreed.

Probably, yeah, though I maintain they'd need to be in better shape than one armed, one legged to pull this off, in the off chance that someone else decided to hit them. Remember, at that point in time, the Klingons and Federation had a mutual defense pact...if the Cardassians went to war with the Federation, they wouldn't just be dealing with the Federation.

And before everyone sat down to the negiotiation table, a combined Klingon-UFP reprisal might be nasty for those Cardies. They would understand that, and should have prepared accordingly.

Thats because you are dropping the outside factors by your own admission, is it any sujrprise you get a faulty result.

Don't confuse "dropping" those factors with dismissing them. I haven't forgotten or ignored them; I simply think they're not all that important in the grand scheme of things. They affect the outcome, don't get me wrong...I just don't think they completely skew the result.

Yeah I can think of an avenue or two that haven't been raised yet.

Well, one thing that's definitely in your argument's favor is the condition in which the Klingons were after the Dominion War.

Yeah, sure, Worf said the Klingons pressed the attack harder than the Romulans (and perhaps UFP), and yes, the Klingons did have to shoulder the war for awhile shortly after the Breen joined the fight.

But it really, really sounded as if the Empire was in bad shape...a decade to rebuild is one thing, but at one point, Odo even told Ma Changeling that "the Federation wouldn't allow the Romulans or Klingons attack the Gamma Quadrant." Now, Martok's tight with the UFP, but you still better have SOMETHING on him if you hope to tell him, "No, little boy. Go to your room and be quiet."

That something, I wager, is probably that the Federation weathered the fight better than the Klingons OR Romulans because the Federation is somehow stronger...that might simply be its industrial base, but still. (It's also pretty surprising in light of the fact that the Romulans joined the war "late," yet the Federation was fully capable of telling them what to do.)

If I was defending the glory of the Klingon Empire, I would word that somewhat differently and wouldn't treat a few things quite so casually...but there ya go. Yet another avenue

[TheDarkling]

Archanis was part of the war, but are there any statements to indicate that it was limited solely to that system?

And didn't the Klingons actually win the fight in that system? I seem to remember Gowron saying,

"The Federation must allow us to annex Archanis and the other worlds we've seized." ("Apocalypse Rising.")

The Archanis sector, the planets seized could easily be there and it is implied that the war is a very localised affair (again nothing on the scale on the Dominion war which is why I draw this conclusion).

And remember the Archanis sector, that takes care of alot of your rebuttals.

What Duras would've done's irrelevant; it didn't happen, nor would it ever have happened. Most Klingons HATE Romulans...as LaForge said, "They've been blood enemies for eighty years."

K'mpec and Gowron are relevent, but as I recall, Gowron eventually did the "right thing," and K'mpec was just blustering--for good reason in fact, since "refusing the dying request of a leader of the High Council would be taken as an insult to all Klingons."

Yeah and they were enemies of the Feds before that (and surprise they had an alliance with the Romulans who are now there bitter enemies).

You also imply that Duras who came within a hair of leading the empire is irrelevant or prehaps you believe he wouldn't have had the support, I disagree on the former and on the latter, the Romulans thought they could pull it off if the sisters were in charge.

Perhaps not, but it was solid enough that two major Romulan conspiracies didn't break it apart.

Not really relevant, the fact that the Feds had the amazing Mr Data to save them doesn't indicate anything about the stability of the alliance.

Here again, we're coming down to observed FX vs. dialogue. K'mpec and Gowron all talk or act big, but when it came down to it, it took a Federation condemnation of the Cardassian invasion for Gowron to piss on the Khitomer Accords. It took DS9's refusal to turn over suspected changelings for the Klingons to attack DS9. It took a changeling impersonating Martok to get the war actually in motion.

Not really FX Vs Dialogue but observation of events and I put it down to the Klingons knowing that taking on the Feds is suicide as Worf pointed out.

However lets hear what Worf thinks.

WORF
There are many Klingons who say we
have been at peace too long. That
the Empire must expand to survive.
Fear of the Dominion only gives my
people an excuse to do what they
were born to do. To fight. And
to conquer.

Hmm yeah very stable guys.

Still, if the best (or worst as the case may be) the Talarians could do is kill 219 people in three years, they're an insect--a pimple on the UFP or Klingons' asses.

That was just using a single tactic (playing Possum) to damage enemy ships, with the Feds distracted the Tallerias could step up attacks (although in their case I am inclined to think they would leave it at driving out what they saw as the invading Federation).

? Come again? Advantage from a Trek Six cloak? That device was rather easily neutralized. It took all of 15 minutes for the Federation to penetrate it and blow Chang's ship to Sto'Vo'Kor (or Gre'thor).

You are avoiding the issue which is we can't really predict what happened in the ATL and that the position of the Feds 20 years ago doesn't have a huge bearing on them now.

And I said "like" prehaps they could put a plastic bag over the tail pipe

But I digress. This is a rather minor point in the scheme of things

Which I accept your concession on, using Garak as an example of an average Cardy is silly, the man is super-Cardassian .

Cardassians are smart enough to try and plan ahead. If, for instance, Starfleet managed to call a cease-fire with the Klingons (always a possibility), the Cardassians know what'd happen next. The full brunt of Starfleet could come down on their heads. What little the CU potentially gained in taking a few systems, they might lose and then some.

And yet even without the Feds being at war the Cardies launched a campaign against them, the Cardies have shown themselves to be less than cautious banking upon the Feds appeasement, that backed if with the Feds being war weary gives them a perfect situation.

I don't agree that they necessarily would. The only reason they even started the war, as I understand it, was because of faulty intelligence regarding Setlik III. Sometime in "The Wounded," a Glin admits that Setlik was thought to be some kind of Federation staging point for an invasion.

Aye and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon.

It was a land grab plain and simple.

That is, their strategy would probably not be solely based on a distracted Federation. Said distraction could abruptly end, for all they know (something they MUST anticipate).

They have a backup - appeasement, and in OTL they didn't even have that.

This line of reasoning about the Cardies backing off more than they did in the OTL makes no sense at all, the Feds are weaker so the cardies will at least do what they did in OTL and probably more because they have the advantage, if the Feds manage to make peace then the Cardies run to the table.

(Note: this is admitted speculation.)

Which is again why we shouldn't be using an alternate timeline.

A taskforce won't detract much from the Klingon war. That really leaves the Cardassian war and MAYBE the Tzenketh conflict as potential drains on the Federation, in spite of the fact that we don't know of their existence in the DTL AND that the conflicts were still very limited in scale.

And the Tholians and whoever else wants a piece of Federation space.

The Federation didn't, and apparently couldn't, because it was losing millions of people and should've been doing everything possible to stay alive. One does not lose even hundreds of thousands of personnel and "hold back."

The Feds do, they were not fully mobilised, if they were they would have actual warships as the Borg/Dominion forced them to have, not many people talk about great war with the Cardassians, Cardassian ships are WEAK and I mean really WEAK, the Feds have a larger fleet and so on, the only conclusion to draw is that because the Feds didn't want to cause upset at home and so played tic for tat with them.

Going by your analysis the Cardies > Feds in which case why has it taken the Klingons 20 years to beat the Feds and yet they beat the Cardies in less than a week - it simply doesn't make a lot of sense at all, the Feds came out of the war untouched and the Cardies were crushed.

Would it embolden some factions of their military? Definitely, yes...there are bullies in every military, and the Cardassians have their share. But does that mean they'll act on it?

They were about to against the feds in "Chain of Command", Feds who were far stronger, again this assertion that the Cardies will suddenly become gun shy when they haven't before makes no sense.

But hundreds of thousands or millions of dead troops and civilians is something you can't hide from the top brass or the bureaucracy. Trust me, when you're losing over 10 times the no. of people the Borg killed at Wolf 359, the political will should BE THERE!

And yet......

It is the only real conclusion to draw, those dead were colonists out on the fringes and obviously there deaths weren't a high prioritory and teh Feds simply said they were handling it.

Orias system?

Military build-up in "The Wounded"?

Build-up in preparation for an offensive in "Chain of Command"?

Their economy was hurt, but not crushed. They'd had some time to recover.

The USSR enjoyed building up its military while its economy was taking a nose dive so the build up proves little.

I don't think the entire military was grounded. Dukat had a new job as a Detapa advisor inside days. Given his reputation, if anyone outside the Obsidian Order would be "grounded," it'd be Dukat. (That didn't come until later, after the leadership realized he couldn't defeat the Klingons with direct conflict.)

I don't think the entire military was grounded. Dukat had a new job as a Detapa advisor inside days. Given his reputation, if anyone outside the Obsidian Order would be "grounded," it'd be Dukat. (That didn't come until later, after the leadership realized he couldn't defeat the Klingons with direct conflict.)

Ah but Dukat saw which way the wind was blowing and supported the insurection thus getting his position and by grounded I mean the ships were brough into dock so nobody could use them to start a civil war (thus why the Klingons had such an easy time).

And as I recall, Worf didn't seem to think the mobilized Cardassian fleet would pose much of an obstacle to the Klingon advance.

Quote?

Yes, but we're talking about weakness vis-a-vis an invasion.

Which is what they were about to do.

Any kind of military worth its salt must anticipate and plan for these contingencies. It would be idiotic of them to simply assume the Federation and Klingons are in it for the long-haul, that it'd therefore be "easy" to steal worlds and run amuck without risk of getting spanked

There is always risk but then there was risk that the Feds wouldn't sit down and appease yet they still went to war with them.

I'm still confused. When were the Romulans defeated at Narendra 3?

OK not defeated but given a bloody nose considering it shuold have been a walk in the park.

Sure, but...we're talking about the Romulans themselves "taking advantage of the situation," as Picard says in "First Contact." They never did that. They'd talk about it, but they were much more inclined to play friendlies off against each other.

Ah so they sit there while the Klingons double there power by taking over the Feds, I don't think so.

I dunno. Appeasement seemed to work in keeping the Romulans out of the UFP's hair for about 53 years. It helped relations improve with the Cardassians to the point that those two powers seemed to be getting close until Dukat veered off and joined the Dominion.

Close in that "please feed and clothe us" way yeah but that wasn't apeasement and eh Romulans hiding was their own affair once they returned they continued to push the Feds.

The eu-chin-chef-for people were barely warp capable, weren't they?

Desperate times as was pointed out.

Bajor had long been groomed as a potential Federation member, and we saw what they were like...Senator what's-her-face scoffed at Kira's big stand in "Images In the Sand," noting that Kira's dinky fleet couldn't stand up to a single Warbird.

I didn't say only Industrial worlds, and getting Bajor onside makes sense for other reasons (an unstable poor world on the border is never a good idea, especially one known for its terrorism).

Point of fact, I have never, ever seen any Federation ship outside of Starfleet fight bad guys. We never saw Andorian, Tellarite, Tyrellian, Betazoid, Benzanite, Bolian, Coridian, Deltan OR Vulcan ships riding alongside Starfleet ships into combat.

Yet they do exist.

I will answer your other post later, time for some sleep.

[TheDarkling]

Sleep is for the weak.

Then I saw "Yesterday's Enterprise." I saw a Federation that was far more serious about fighting (read: stronger) than the typical "real Federation."

But were they? prehaps Fred the amazing shield technology designer died in an early attack and thus never developed that tech which by OTL TNG gives the Feds an advantage, maybe the Klingons launched an early surprise attack across the now undefended Klingon border and ravaged the land before the Feds could respond, you are making the assumption that the Feds here are stronger than the OTL Feds and that the klingons are the same, this is not necessarily true and thus makes theananlysis suspect.

They don't necessarily need them to hold out, but Gowron had large fleets in Cardassian territory, including the Negh'Var, up until "By Inferno's Light."

He could have moved them to fight the Feds and then moved them back (and Sisko basically said as much).

Do we really know that?

Well Picard is of that opinion and Madred agrees.

persauding Kurn to do something he didn't want to do.

I didn't hear Kurn say "What you talkin about? " because Worf was clearly in the wrong and way off base.

Surely all that growth didn't come from the trailing two years' building. Surely that growth wasn't just the result of ships pulled out of mothballs.

So you've got to think, wouldn't the Cardassians have had time to recover circa 2371, too? Especially since, by all indications you've pointed out, they didn't lose as heavily as the Federation did? (That still amazes me, but I'll work with it.)

Ah but the Feds industrial might is far greater than the Cardies, not only that but Feds loss of life was larger not necessarily the ship losses or economic strain.

We also have to consider the scale differences between the Feds and the Cardies.

I have to think so. I don't see them as this one-legged, one-armed guy fresh from a good amputation session. I see them as still recovering, but close to full strength again.

I see them having been forced to sell cultural relics in order to finance a war that brought them little gain and worlds still suffering starvation.

How do we know how much of Starfleet was dedicated toward that operation? A third might not be all that unreasonable, since the Romulans were quiet and the Klingons were being good.

If they had used a third the Cardies would have lost their entire military, not to mention actually moving to war footing production.

I agree w/ the thought that it's not the Federation's style to conquer worlds, but we know they'll capture and at least temporarily use planets if it's to their advantage: Chin'Toka is a perfect example.

The Dominion war was a bit bigger than the Cardy war and the Klingnos actually took the world not the Feds.

The military wasn't grounded, though...Dukat was immediately appointed the military advisor to the Detapa Council. It was clearly stated that their fleet mobilized to try and slow the Klingons' advance. And I don't think they were still crippled from fighting the Federation...they had 5-10 years to rebuild after all that.

5-10 to rebuild their economy and industry and their fleet?

And they got the outlining colonies before the cardies could deploy even with forewarning, hardly a well oiled military machine.

The Cardassians probably didn't lose that many ships in their first UFP war, and weren't in any kind of sustained conflict for many years at that point.

What proof do you have of that?
100,000 deaths in the military seems high especially given that huge ground battle don't often happen in ST.

Remember, at that point in time, the Klingons and Federation had a mutual defense pact...if the Cardassians went to war with the Federation, they wouldn't just be dealing with the Federation.

Yet the Feds never called upon the Klingons for aid even though you believe the Cardies were hurting the Feds and I can't see the Klingons turning down the chance to steam rll the Cardies in a week if your analysis of the cardies strength during the two timeframes is correct.

If I was defending the glory of the Klingon Empire, I would word that somewhat differently and wouldn't treat a few things quite so casually...but there ya go. Yet another avenue

That was the one I was thinking of (although I have a few others) but I expcted the counter of the Klingons throwing themselves into the fire (which they did).

[seanrobertson]

The Archanis sector, the planets seized could easily be there and it is implied that the war is a very localised affair (again nothing on the scale on the Dominion war which is why I draw this conclusion).

And remember the Archanis sector, that takes care of alot of your rebuttals.

Yes, they could be there, just like Mars and Jupiter Station are in "Sector 001."

To conclude they must be there is a hasty generalization.

And even if they were, so what? Gowron came on TV and gave the Federation a heads-up months in advance: "Archanis is OURS! There will be war..."

If they couldn't send enough ships to fight the Klingons, that still indicates weakness.

Yeah and they were enemies of the Feds before that (and surprise they had an alliance with the Romulans who are now there bitter enemies).

That depends on who you believe. Worf claimed the Klingons and Romulans were allies prior to the Khitomer massacre, but LaForge said, "The Romulans and Klingons have been blood enemies for 75 years." (Or maybe it was 80.)

We have to rationalize the two...one doesn't become allies with a blood enemy for no good reason; e.g., the Dominion War. Given other statements in TNG, like the incredulity w/ which most people reacted to Duras' Romulan connection, it seems as if Worf was exaggerating yet again.

You also imply that Duras who came within a hair of leading the empire is irrelevant or prehaps you believe he wouldn't have had the support,
I disagree on the former and on the latter, the Romulans thought they could pull it off if the sisters were in charge.

Duras is irrelevant because he never ruled the Empire. He has no place in a Klingon-Federation military comparison.

I also don't think the Klingons would've supported a Romulan alliance. We've seen a grand total of THREE Klingons or Klingon groups that thought this was a good idea: the Duras family, Kel, and that guy with the injections in "The Drumhead."

The vast majority of Klingons would just as soon spit on a Romulan, and vice-versa. In "Redemption," it was made very clear that once proof of the Duras-Romulan friendship arose, support would fall away from Duras rapidly.

Hell, even Sela understood this:

MOVAR: They have discovered us!
SELA: Reverse course. Order the fleet back to Romulan territory.
MOVAR: Commander! The Duras need this convoy. Without these supplies, they cannot win!
SELA: We've been exposed. It's over.

The Romulans probably knew the best they could realistically manage was to start a Klingon civil war. If the size of their "convoys" are any indication, the Romulans were feeding the Duras family just enough support to keep the civil war going.

This is consistent with what ultimately came of their secret alliance: the Romulans had no real intention of buddying up with them when push came to shove (Sela: "Tell them...they're on their own").

The Duras sisters were just Romulan pawns to weaken the Klingons and drive a wedge in the mighty UFP-KE Alliance.

Not really relevant, the fact that the Feds had the amazing Mr Data to save them doesn't indicate anything about the stability of the alliance.

Perhaps not. I cede this point.

Not really FX Vs Dialogue but observation of events and I put it down to the Klingons knowing that taking on the Feds is suicide as Worf pointed out.

That's what I meant: observed "effects" vs. some ambiguous or vague dialogue.

However lets hear what Worf thinks.

WORF
There are many Klingons who say we
have been at peace too long. That
the Empire must expand to survive.
Fear of the Dominion only gives my
people an excuse to do what they
were born to do. To fight. And
to conquer.

Hmm yeah very stable guys.

? What does this have to do with a Federation war meaning suicide? Are you talking back to the bit about the stability of the UFP-KE alliance?

I don't think he was talking about Klingon-Federation relations. He said this in response to the Cardassian invasion. The Feds needn't enter into that statement.

That was just using a single tactic (playing Possum) to damage enemy ships, with the Feds distracted the Tallerias could step up attacks (although in their case I am inclined to think they would leave it at driving out what they saw as the invading Federation).

Ah, okay.

How many lives do you think were probably lost in fighting the Talarians, then? They seemingly had to rely on playing possum to do any real damage...we know those warships in "Suddenly Human" were a bad joke, and probably not just to the E-D, but any Federation capship even approaching her magnitude. (The GCSs are a technical leap for Starfleet, but they ain't ten times stronger than an Excelsior or what-have-you.)

I see the Talarian conflict as utterly insignificant on this basis, far from a big drain on the Federation's war machine.

You are avoiding the issue which is we can't really predict what happened in the ATL and that the position of the Feds 20 years ago doesn't have a huge bearing on them now.

We can predict what happened: the Klingons were winning the war. We don't know if they themselves had taken severe losses--they probably did at that--but they were still winning.

As far as potential Klingon technological edges giving them a leg up, isn't that a contradiction of your earlier posit, w/ which I agreed, that the Federation is more technically advanced?

In the end it doesn't really matter if the Klingons had fancy cloaks or not: that they were winning is what matters. If they used cloaks to get a leg up on the Federation, they're still "stronger," just as Shinzon's cloaked ship was stronger than the E-E in "Nemesis."

And I said "like" prehaps they could put a plastic bag over the tail pipe

Er, okay

Which I accept your concession on, using Garak as an example of an average Cardy is silly, the man is super-Cardassian .

Yes he is. But what about Dukat?

Cardassians aren't that fickle on their own. Jellico's characterization of their entire race remains a generalization--ill proof that the Cardassians would necessarily attack a war-torn Federation.

Cardassians are smart enough to try and plan ahead. If, for instance, Starfleet managed to call a cease-fire with the Klingons (always a possibility), the Cardassians know what'd happen next. The full brunt of Starfleet could come down on their heads. What little the CU potentially gained in taking a few systems, they might lose and then some.

And yet even without the Feds being at war the Cardies launched a campaign against them, the Cardies have shown themselves to be less than cautious banking upon the Feds appeasement, that backed if with the Feds being war weary gives them a perfect situation.

In other words, you think they'd be dumb enough to not prepare for all possible contingencies.

I'd also hardly call the planned attack on Minos Korva a big campaign, unless you're willing to admit that taking a Federation world is a real big deal

Aye and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon.

It was a land grab plain and simple.

Hehe...that made me chuckle

Maybe it was, but that friendly Glin swore the Cardassians had been fed faulty intel, that they'd been told it was a staging point for some kind of incursion. Why would he lie? He was upfront about everything else...one of the most forthright guys in the entire episode, in fact.

They have a backup - appeasement, and in OTL they didn't even have that.

This line of reasoning about the Cardies backing off more than they did in the OTL makes no sense at all, the Feds are weaker so the cardies will at least do what they did in OTL and probably more because they have the advantage, if the Feds manage to make peace then the Cardies run to the table.

They might, at that, yes. I think it's rather fool-hardy of them to plan an attack solely on that basis, and I don't think they're really that stupid; still, it remains a possibility.

What I am trying to say is that I don't see that this "huge drain" helps your argument, and for two reasons.

The first reason is how this is relevant to the "ATL." Even added up with losses to the Talarians, I don't see that's going to hurt this alternate Federation to the point that the Klingons are fighting this half-crippled foe. Like I said, the upper-limit Federation losses vs. the Cardies were insectoid in scale next to the 40 billion figure.

The other reason pertains to the "original timeline." If the Federation DID take serious losses to the Cardassians, they miserably failed where the Klingons had an easy victory.

Either way you go on this point, it's not a clear positive in the Federation's favor.

Which is again why we shouldn't be using an alternate timeline.

But even if we assumed all the bad things from the main timeline took place, I've tried to show how insignificant said losses might be. Even the bloomin' upper-limit is microscopic.

I would, of course, favor using the "real" timeline as well, but DS9 isn't a whole lot of help. Even if I'm totally wrong about the Klingons keeping their military divided, they weren't at full-strength then either.

After a brief but bloody civil war and potential losses to the Cardassians, how could we say they were at full strength?

And the Tholians and whoever else wants a piece of Federation space.

Whoever else that has the power to threaten even a handful of Federation starships, which doesn't include many known species.

The Feds do, they were not fully mobilised,

How do we know that/

if they were they would have actual warships as the Borg/Dominion forced them to have,

Defiant and Prometheus are the only confirmed "warships."

I also think this "either they built warships, or they didn't take the conflict seriously" is a false dichotomy. Maybe they didn't have the means to build dedicated warships at that point...the Ambassador or Nebula or Akira was the best they could manage.

not many people talk about great war with the Cardassians, Cardassian ships are WEAK and I mean really WEAK, the Feds have a larger fleet and so on, the only conclusion to draw is that because the Feds didn't want to cause upset at home and so played tic for tat with them.

I don't think Cardassian ships are that weak. They seem rather poorly shielded on the whole, but their hulls take a hell of a beating prior to being destroyed ("Sacrifice of Angels," "Way of the Warrior"), and their forward firepower is good enough to slug it out with all but the biggest and baddest Federation designs...designs which, by all indications, do not make up the majority of their fleet.

Besides, you'll cause HUGE upset at home if you're losing hundreds of thousands of people. Who do you think that would please at Starfleet or the Fed. Council?

Going by your analysis the Cardies > Feds in which case why has it taken the Klingons 20 years to beat the Feds and yet they beat the Cardies in less than a week - it simply doesn't make a lot of sense at all, the Feds came out of the war untouched and the Cardies were crushed.

I don't think the Cardassians are superior to the Federation militarily, but that they managed to fight for decades against one power, then were crushed by another in a matter of weeks does tell me that the Klingons have some kind of military advantage, even after we go through the excuses of a weakened Cardassia, a grounded Cardassia, etc.

They were about to against the feds in "Chain of Command", Feds who were far stronger, again this assertion that the Cardies will suddenly become gun shy when they haven't before makes no sense.

Stronger, perhaps. But Starfleet brass also thought they weren't in any kind of shape for a "sustained conflict" against the Cardassians:

PICARD: Will the Cardassians cooperate... ?
ADMIRAL HADEN: They've granted you safe passage... We've agreed that you'll take along a delegation of observers as a show of good faith. Jean-Luc... I don't have to tell you the Federation is not prepared for a new sustained conflict. You must preserve the peace... no matter what the cost.

The Borg attack and the no. of ships needed to patrol the Romulan NZ are partly to thank for this, but it doesn't sound as if the Federation was just orders of magnitude stronger than the Cardassians.

And yet......

It is the only real conclusion to draw, those dead were colonists out on the fringes and obviously there deaths weren't a high prioritory and teh Feds simply said they were handling it.

?!

There's no way.

Setlik III was considered a massacre, a rarity in the conflict that embarrassed even many Cardassians after the fact. I doubt hundreds of such events took place.

I also vehemently disagree that the Federation would just shrug off those kinds of losses as a "low priority." How is that at all consistent with their ethos?

The USSR enjoyed building up its military while its economy was taking a nose dive so the build up proves little.

The economic condition of the Cardassian Union is a red herring. We were primarily concerned with its military strength, which evidently wasn't so piddly after all.

Ah but Dukat saw which way the wind was blowing and supported the insurection thus getting his position and by grounded I mean the ships were brough into dock so nobody could use them to start a civil war (thus why the Klingons had such an easy time).

Dukat did switch sides, but where is it ever stated that the Cardassian fleet was grounded?

Kira specifically stated, "The outlying colonies were overrun almost immediately. But now that the Cardassian fleet has mobilized, maybe the Klingons will think twice about what they are doing."

It couldn't have been grounded.

And as I recall, Worf didn't seem to think the mobilized Cardassian fleet would pose much of an obstacle to the Klingon advance.


Quote?

In response to Kira's statement above, Worf said something like, "Unlikely, Major. Now that the battle has begun, Martok's troops will stop at nothing less than victory." He went on to talk about the conquest of Cardassia and installation of an Imperial overseer.

Later in the episode, Garak even comments that "the destruction of his homeworld" was, lamentably, good for Quark's business; and that the Federation was DS9 and Cardassia's only hope.

Sounds like a routing to me.

There is always risk but then there was risk that the Feds wouldn't sit down and appease yet they still went to war with them.

I suppose so, yes.

OK not defeated but given a bloody nose considering it shuold have been a walk in the park.

I think it still was a walk in the park. Four Warbirds, presumably of lesser calibre than the D'Deridex class, should still be a gross overmatch for one E-C. Garrett even said "they wouldn't last long in a fight."

Ah so they sit there while the Klingons double there power by taking over the Feds, I don't think so.

Double their power how?

After taking over the Federation, the Klingons would've fought a very, very costly war--I'd never deny that. Though I think the Klingons might be slightly stronger than the Federation in the right set of circumstances, I don't think the disparity is really that huge...otherwise, the war wouldn't have lasted 20 years.

Furthermore, the Klingons would probably opt to occupy the Federation, just as they planned to occupy Cardassia.

So their forces are depleted from fighting a huge war, and what they have left is spread out across a far greater territory...

I think that sounds like the perfect situation for the Romulans.

Close in that "please feed and clothe us" way yeah but that wasn't apeasement and eh Romulans hiding was their own affair once they returned they continued to push the Feds.

But they never went to war. I thought you were suggesting that appeasement was bad because it encouraged an invasion.

It didn't in the Romulan's case.

The eu-chin-chef-for people were barely warp capable, weren't they?

Desperate times as was pointed out.
[/quote]

Yes they were, but you said...

"the Feds tend to recruit fully industrialised member worlds (who will probably have their own fleets already)."

I wouldn't wager that those folks had their own fleet. Bajor didn't have a noteworthy fleet, either.

So where are these fully industrialized recruits?

I didn't say only Industrial worlds, and getting Bajor onside makes sense for other reasons (an unstable poor world on the border is never a good idea, especially one known for its terrorism).

That's true, not to mention its proximity to the wormhole.

But in fact you did indicate that the "Feds tend to recruit fully industrialized worlds."

Yet they do exist.

Where? I've seen a couple of shitty Vulcan ships (see side-note below), but that's about it.

(Side-note: in TNG, the Vulcans were said to be pacifists. In ENT, their ships were bad-ass. Kinda funny.)

[seanrobertson]

But were they? prehaps Fred the amazing shield technology designer died in an early attack and thus never developed that tech which by OTL TNG gives the Feds an advantage, maybe the Klingons launched an early surprise attack across the now undefended Klingon border and ravaged the land before the Feds could respond, you are making the assumption that the Feds here are stronger than the OTL Feds and that the klingons are the same, this is not necessarily true and thus makes theananlysis suspect.

Lots of maybes, most of which assume the Feds are morons. (Sneak attack? Like they weren't prepared after the debacle at Narendra III?)

A few definites:

We see that the Federation is more militarized. A GCS isn't built for exploration; whereas it used to be a "ship of peace," as Guinan said, now it's built to wage war.

No families are onboard--the idea of a "battleship with families" blows Picard's mind. The ship has thousands of troops onboard. Everyone carries side-arms. We're even told that "shield technology has advanced a lot in the war...our shield dissipation rates are half what the Enterprise-C's are, so we can hang in a firefight...a lot longer."

Nothing spurs technological development and drives politics like a good conflict.

He could have moved them to fight the Feds and then moved them back (and Sisko basically said as much).

When did he say that? I remember no such thing. After the Negh'Var and the Klingon fleet decloaked, Sisko specifically said, "It looks like Gowron's war against Cardassia has taken a turn for the worse."

If the Klingons and Cardassians weren't still in open conflict, the Klingons sure as hell had ships ready for that purpose.

Well Picard is of that opinion and Madred agrees.

What, specifically, do they say?

You said "...the various factors leading up to the Cardy-Klingon war left the Cardies weaker than when they had previously fought the Feds." I don't remember Madred agreeing that the Cardassians were weakened.

I didn't hear Kurn say "What you talkin about? " because Worf was clearly in the wrong and way off base.

No, he didn't disagree with Worf, but he'd already said Gowron "underestimates the Federation...thinks that they are weak."

And we know that the Klingons had plenty of ships inside the Cardassian Union. So it doesn't sound like the Empire is going to lose a war based on its sheer military inferiority to the Federation.

Ah but the Feds industrial might is far greater than the Cardies, not only that but Feds loss of life was larger not necessarily the ship losses or economic strain.

We also have to consider the scale differences between the Feds and the Cardies.

Even if their industrial capacity is greater (I think that's true), but we're talking YEARS here...from 236? to 2371. Surely they weren't still weak as a kitten from a war that ended before the E-D launched.

I see them having been forced to sell cultural relics in order to finance a war that brought them little gain and worlds still suffering starvation.

Then why did Madred say, "But [now] we are feeding the people?"

Picard agreed to that thought: "Her belly may be full, but her soul is empty." *slap*

Poor Picard. I wish he'd had a chance to punch Madred. Mad's a sadistic bastard.

If they had used a third the Cardies would have lost their entire military, not to mention actually moving to war footing production.

That's begging the question: the Federation was stronger than the Cardassians, so they would've beaten them with superior strength.

From what that admiral told Picard in "The Wounded," that "sustained conflict" could well have involved a sizable portion of Starfleet.

The Dominion war was a bit bigger than the Cardy war and the Klingnos actually took the world not the Feds.

Yeah, I forgot...the Federation is really funny about using ground troops. Whereas the Klingons will board your ships and land soldiers on your planet, it took decades of war for the Federation to figure out marines were a good idea.

The fact remains, capturing enemy planets is a pretty big deal. The Feds had months of advance notice that the Klingons intended to take Archanis and other worlds. They had time to prepare and stop the Klingons...

Assuming, of course, that they could.

5-10 to rebuild their economy and industry and their fleet?

Fleet. They were definitely building ships.

What about the "grounded military" thing?

And they got the outlining colonies before the cardies could deploy even with forewarning, hardly a well oiled military machine.

Kind of like the Federation, which lost worlds to the Klingons inside of a few months even though the UFP knew the Klingons were coming.

Besides, "well-oiled" is a red herring. You said they were grounded, with lots or all of the Cardie fleet recalled.

What proof do you have of that?
100,000 deaths in the military seems high especially given that huge ground battle don't often happen in ST.

No, but we know entire Orders of the Cardassian military often occupy single planets. Martok even laughed at the ineptitude of the ?th Order, "old men and walking wounded," and how the Klingons anticipated "taking the planet within a day."

That one planet/Order had millions of troops. If the Federation struck just a handful of such targets, they could easily have killed 100,000+ without destroying hundreds of Cardassian warships.

Still, I freely admit to you, that's speculation. They could well have lost lots of ships in the war. But we do not know that for certain. And it seems somewhat unlikely that the majority of the losses were simply from fleet engagements, since that admiral in "The Wounded" DID say the Feds weren't ready for a sustained conflict.

Why would the Cardassians pose any kind of threat unless their fleet was still at least sizable? What would they do, throw jumja sticks at Starfleet? Beat them at dom-jot?

Yet the Feds never called upon the Klingons for aid even though you believe the Cardies were hurting the Feds and I can't see the Klingons turning down the chance to steam rll the Cardies in a week if your analysis of the cardies strength during the two timeframes is correct.

Well, we don't know exactly when the mutual defense pact was signed, but we know it was in effect during "Chain of Command." We'd heard about it previous to that point, in "Redemption."

It was probably signed sometime after the Cardassian war fizzled out, which could've been the late 2350's or early 2360's.

That was the one I was thinking of (although I have a few others) but I expcted the counter of the Klingons throwing themselves into the fire (which they did).

Not to mention Gowron's reckless endangerment of Klingon forces to protect his political career, or the fact that, in mixed fleets, the Klingons oddly chose to fight without the help of the Romulans or Starfleet; e.g., "Tears of the Prophets."

We shouldn't forget the fact that they shouldered the war for a short while either, outnumbered 20 to 1 at one point.

(Side-note: I didn't much like that "Gowron is just a politician" bit. I felt Gowron's character was given the shaft in late DS9. We know he was an egotist from his historical revisions, but he wasn't flat-out stupid or cowardly either. DS9 made him out to be both in the Final Chapter.)

[TheDarkling]

And even if they were, so what? Gowron came on TV and gave the Federation a heads-up months in advance: "Archanis is OURS! There will be war..."

Months in advance?

How do you figure that Gowron was probably on the move five minutes aftre his speech because the Feds told him there was no way on Gods green earth he was getting that sector.

That depends on who you believe. Worf claimed the Klingons and Romulans were allies prior to the Khitomer massacre, but LaForge said, "The Romulans and Klingons have been blood enemies for 75 years." (Or maybe it was 80.)

We have to rationalize the two...one doesn't become allies with a blood enemy for no good reason; e.g., the Dominion War. Given other statements in TNG, like the incredulity w/ which most people reacted to Duras' Romulan connection, it seems as if Worf was exaggerating yet again.

We know they had an alliance because they did tech sharing back during the day, then the Romulans became chummy with the Feds and then how knows, my point is the Klingons had an alliance that fell through and that their opinions on people can change very fast = unstable alliance.

Duras is irrelevant because he never ruled the Empire. He has no place in a Klingon-Federation military comparison.

Duras isn't irrelevant to the issue of how unstable the Klingons are which was what it relates to (go back and read the post to see where it is linked in).

I also don't think the Klingons would've supported a Romulan alliance. We've seen a grand total of THREE Klingons or Klingon groups that thought this was a good idea: the Duras family, Kel, and that guy with the injections in "The Drumhead."

And several more who wanted to end the Federation alliance, you have no proof that these guys were huge exceptions especially when many others supported teh Sister even knowing the obvious path that would lead to.

The Duras sisters were just Romulan pawns to weaken the Klingons and drive a wedge in the mighty UFP-KE Alliance.

Which they thought they could do - unstable alliance, everything we know about the Klingons shows them to be unstable and I can't really see how any other conclusion can be drawn.

I don't think he was talking about Klingon-Federation relations. He said this in response to the Cardassian invasion. The Feds needn't enter into that statement.

He points out that many Klingons want to return to rape and pillage mode, obviously that would have been the end of the F/K alliance, which it was as seen in that very same episode when the alliance does implode when the Klingons crank up the war machine.

I see the Talarian conflict as utterly insignificant on this basis, far from a big drain on the Federation's war machine.

It is if the feds have to deploy ships they need to fight the Klingons, along the border to protect the colonies (while those ships were weak they could easily destroy a shieldless colony).

As far as potential Klingon technological edges giving them a leg up, isn't that a contradiction of your earlier posit, w/ which I agreed, that the Federation is more technically advanced?

No point is Fed technological advancement has widdened the gap by the time TNG rolls around but 20 years erlier the gap was probably smaller meaning a war further in the past favours the Klnigons.

In the end it doesn't really matter if the Klingons had fancy cloaks or not: that they were winning is what matters. If they used cloaks to get a leg up on the Federation, they're still "stronger," just as Shinzon's cloaked ship was stronger than the E-E in "Nemesis."

And there it is, you are doing a direct substitution of the Klingons/Feds in both timelines - If sme uber cloak or such gave them an edge it isn't an edge they have by the time TNG rolls around.
This proves my point perfectly without knowing the exact disposition and setup of the other timeline compared to OTL 20 years later we can't draw any meaningful conclusions.

Cardassians aren't that fickle on their own. Jellico's characterization of their entire race remains a generalization--ill proof that the Cardassians would necessarily attack a war-torn Federation.

The Cardassians actions speak for themselves - they attacked a stronger Federation, they were going to do the same again, they attacked the poor Bajorans, they wanted to break the Bajoran treaty and start up the occupation again when they werre members of the Dominion, they intended to let the Feds/Klingons/Romulans fight the Dominion until all parties were WEAK and then Cardassia would be rulers of the Alpha quadrant (after stabbing the Dominion in the back).

The actions I have outlined fit Cardassian thinking to a T.

n other words, you think they'd be dumb enough to not prepare for all possible contingencies.

Oh come on you seem to think that if you don't suffer from strategic paralysis due to not being omnipotent that means you are dumb.

Was Hitler dumb for annexing Czechoslovakia because there was an impossibly small minute chance that the entire world would decide they didn't like excitable men with moustaches and declare war on him? no he consider the possibility decided it wouldn't happen and went ahead - this isn't shocking its called a good decision.

Maybe it was, but that friendly Glin swore the Cardassians had been fed faulty intel, that they'd been told it was a staging point for some kind of incursion. Why would he lie? He was upfront about everything else...one of the most forthright guys in the entire episode, in fact.

Why do the Japanese deny the world actually had a time period between the 20 and 50's?

War guilt plain and simple, notice in that scene that O'Brien looks at him as if to say "sure man keep shovelling it".

The first reason is how this is relevant to the "ATL." Even added up with losses to the Talarians, I don't see that's going to hurt this alternate Federation to the point that the Klingons are fighting this half-crippled foe. Like I said, the upper-limit Federation losses vs. the Cardies were insectoid in scale next to the 40 billion figure.

Yes but it forces the Feds to either let the Cardies kill and enslave sectors or the Feds much defeat the Cardies taking up ships and personnel, and requiring occupation forces and resource spent on helping the now conquered Cardies.

But even if we assumed all the bad things from the main timeline took place, I've tried to show how insignificant said losses might be. Even the bloomin' upper-limit is microscopic.

Ah but it isn't just losses but ships tied up and not only that but things will get much worse than the OTL because the Feds are seen as weak and have all of their forces up against the Klingons.

Whoever else that has the power to threaten even a handful of Federation starships, which doesn't include many known species.

They don't have to threaten a Fed task force just federation colonies that have small/non existent defences.

How do we know that/

The Feds didn't have their entire fleet involved in the conflict, it lasted for 20 years, they displayed none of the hard edge the Dominion beat into them (warships, almost in some small way from a distance looking like a third rate military), they didn't call on Klingon aid, Picard or his crew never mention the war once even though it is going on at the time of early TNG.

It is glaringly obvious that the Cardassian war wasn't on many peoples minds (except those out on the border).

I also think this "either they built warships, or they didn't take the conflict seriously" is a false dichotomy. Maybe they didn't have the means to build dedicated warships at that point...the Ambassador or Nebula or Akira was the best they could manage.

Come on, the Dominion and Borg show up and there is a massive leap in Fed warship technology and weapons and the Ent-E with its double digit torps launchers sure as hell counts as a warship in my book.
If they were fully mobilsed how come they didn't use it as the perfect excuse to liberate the Bajorans? unless you still think the Feds couldn't handle the Cardies and that Picard spent every minute off camera worrying about the fall of the Federation.

Besides, you'll cause HUGE upset at home if you're losing hundreds of thousands of people. Who do you think that would please at Starfleet or the Fed. Council?

I know it seems odd but unless you have another conclusion that makes sense the only conclusion is that the Feds simply didn't care enough to go to war fully with the Cardies.

I don't think the Cardassians are superior to the Federation militarily, but that they managed to fight for decades against one power, then were crushed by another in a matter of weeks does tell me that the Klingons have some kind of military advantage, even after we go through the excuses of a weakened Cardassia, a grounded Cardassia, etc.

Not really the Feds weren't bothered and still did a large amount of damage the Klingons took on a weakened Cardassia and were fully comitted to winning.

PICARD: Will the Cardassians cooperate... ?
ADMIRAL HADEN: They've granted you safe passage... We've agreed that you'll take along a delegation of observers as a show of good faith. Jean-Luc... I don't have to tell you the Federation is not prepared for a new sustained conflict. You must preserve the peace... no matter what the cost.

I have always taken that to mean the Feds couldn't afford another conflict politically at this time and to believe the Cardies could defeat/harm the Feds given the drubbing one Nebula class gave them and that a GCS without shields can take fire without damage is a rather large stretch.

The Borg attack and the no. of ships needed to patrol the Romulan NZ are partly to thank for this, but it doesn't sound as if the Federation was just orders of magnitude stronger than the Cardassians.

The Borg attack cost them 40 largly defunct ships which were replaced with better models within a year so I hardly think it was a large factor except possibly in the publics mind (SF barely managed to stop the Borg and now peole are dying in a Cardy war, should I really have faith in them? etc).

I also vehemently disagree that the Federation would just shrug off those kinds of losses as a "low priority." How is that at all consistent with their ethos?

And yet.....

They did nothing to help the Bajorans
The war was never mentioned and it was going on for the first 3 years of TNG.
No mention was given to the huge relief because the war was over.
The Federation flagship never saw action in this massive war SF was waging.
The Klingons weren't called in to help.

The evidence simply doesn't point to the Federation being that concerned over the events on the Cardy border.

The economic condition of the Cardassian Union is a red herring. We were primarily concerned with its military strength, which evidently wasn't so piddly after all.

No it isn't and yes it is.

The economic strength ties directly into their ability to rebuild after the war upto their former glory so they could face the Klingons, I have pointed out its dioubtful they could have and you haven't contested this.

Their military is piddlying because they have very weak ships indeed, so much so that federation ships can take them on withuot shields - come on does that seem like a great force to you?

Kira specifically stated, "The outlying colonies were overrun almost immediately. But now that the Cardassian fleet has mobilized, maybe the Klingons will think twice about what they are doing."

This proves my point, the fleet was grounded but with forewarning the Cardies were able to get them mobilised but not until the Klingons had taken the lion share of territory they would gain, once the fleet was mobilised the Klingons were slowed down, the Klingons got Cardassian territory because the Cardy fleet wasn't ready to fight and once they did deploy the Klingons were largely stopped.

In response to Kira's statement above, Worf said something like, "Unlikely, Major. Now that the battle has begun, Martok's troops will stop at nothing less than victory." He went on to talk about the conquest of Cardassia and installation of an Imperial overseer.

Its funny how Worf is a good source only when he supports your argument.

That also isn't what he says, he says that now that battle is joined the Klingons won't stop at anything short of victory (because Kira hoped the unexpected Cardassian resistance would give them pause).

Later upon hearing that the Klingons had punched through the Cardassian lines he said they would head straight for Cardassia prime, capture it and install an imperial overseer who would then be in charge of finishing off the Cardassians.

The Klingons were hoping that with the loss of Cardassian prime (and their government) that the Cardies would become disorganised and easier to beat, oncethe government escaped Gowron seemed to lose interest in further warfare (because it would cost him too much).

I think it still was a walk in the park. Four Warbirds, presumably of lesser calibre than the D'Deridex class, should still be a gross overmatch for one E-C. Garrett even said "they wouldn't last long in a fight."

Until Yar with her super new tactics and a patched up ship gave them a better chance, they still lost but the Romulans got more than they bargained for.

Furthermore, the Klingons would probably opt to occupy the Federation, just as they planned to occupy Cardassia.

So their forces are depleted from fighting a huge war, and what they have left is spread out across a far greater territory...

I think that sounds like the perfect situation for the Romulans.

I think you underestimate the industrial base of the Federation, the Feds were going to surrender, with many worlds intact now producing ships for the Klingons added to their own ship yards they would be able to trample the Romulans with sheer indutrial might.

But they never went to war. I thought you were suggesting that appeasement was bad because it encouraged an invasion.

It didn't in the Romulan's case.

No it just encouraged the Romulans to be more bold and play silly beggars at very turn, whereas putting them down good the first time would have made sure they knew who was the boss.

"the Feds tend to recruit fully industrialised member worlds (who will probably have their own fleets already)."

tend != always.

So where are these fully industrialized recruits?

Hmm Vulcan, Andorian, Bezar, Betazed and so on you make out as if the Federation recruits only the destitute who would be a drain of resources, that is not he case and with new members comes now industrial output and sometimes fleets, new science etc.

But in fact you did indicate that the "Feds tend to recruit fully industrialized worlds."

tend != always.

Hmm Deja Vu.


Hmm Deja Vu.



A world admitted for strategic reasons would still be of use in a war (if it was admitted because of its strategic importance to any war with the Klingons).

Oh and they wanted Bajor before the wormhole was found so that is really a non issue.

Where? I've seen a couple of shitty Vulcan ships (see side-note below), but that's about it.

They have their own defense fleet as we are told in Unification.

The Benzites also operate their own fleet.

There is nothing to indicate these are the exceptions to the rule.

Blasted board ate my post, good job I copied it into word first or I wouldn't have been happy.

[TheDarkling]

Lots of maybes, most of which assume the Feds are morons. (Sneak attack? Like they weren't prepared after the debacle at Narendra III?)

Yeah a Fed ship disapears while trying to save a Klingon outpost, thats a debacle all right, if they couldn't see a war coming then they must be dolts /Sarcasm

We see that the Federation is more militarized. A GCS isn't built for exploration; whereas it used to be a "ship of peace," as Guinan said, now it's built to wage war.

But not necessarily strong, its performace sure doesn't indiacte it is upto a greater standard than the regular GCS anyway.

"shield technology has advanced a lot in the war...our shield dissipation rates are half what the Enterprise-C's are, so we can hang in a firefight...a lot longer."

But we don't know if thats different than in OTL, although it does indicvate the Feds of 20 years ago starting a war could be very different than one starting around TNG time.

Nothing spurs technological development and drives politics like a good conflict.

Not necessarily, no exploration means the Feds weren't going around looking at pretty nebulae which is critical to weapons research, .

Seriously though we don't know if things were overlooked because of the rush for war, they haven't got Q Torps so they aren't that more advanced, in fact everything about that GCS seems to roughly equal to a OTL GCS but we can't know that for sure.

When did he say that? I remember no such thing. After the Negh'Var and the Klingon fleet decloaked, Sisko specifically said, "It looks like Gowron's war against Cardassia has taken a turn for the worse."

Sisko said they were throwing everything they had at the Federation, not many ships were needed to defend Cardassia because they wren't going to do anything, once the Fed war ended Gowron moved his ships back to the least secure area - Cardassia where he was still running the odd raid.

PICARD
That war cost you hundreds of
thousands of lives... depleted
your food supplies... left your
population weakened and
miserable... and yet you risk war
again.


MADRED
How easy for you to judge us.
Federation planets seem to want
for nothing. But our planet is a
hardscrabble world... famine is
still a threat... it's not so easy
for us.


The war left them weakened, it is said they are rebuilding but it is clear that the war hurt them and the question of whether they have rebuilt by the time is open, although doubtful given that Bajor forced them off world (losing them resources) the Marquis hurt them time and again (which says alot given the Marquis position) and they needed to use they military to fuel rebuilding my grabbing more planets (although the Feds stopped this effort) its made rather clear their economy depends upon expansion, expansion they haven't managed in many years.

And we know that the Klingons had plenty of ships inside the Cardassian Union. So it doesn't sound like the Empire is going to lose a war based on its sheer military inferiority to the Federation.

No they will probably lose to the Federations industrial might, it doesn't really matter much, as for Gowron underestimating he Feds that is why they will get into the war not why they will lose, or at least thats what Kurn says.

Even if their industrial capacity is greater (I think that's true), but we're talking YEARS here...from 236? to 2371. Surely they weren't still weak as a kitten from a war that ended before the E-D launched.

The war didn't end until season 3 TNG and yet within a year they are trying to rearm, this shows that the Feds rendered the Cardassian military not much of a threat for a prolonged conflict, thus why they try a small scale landgrab.

Then why did Madred say, "But [now] we are feeding the people?"

Not very well if as indicated previously famine is still a threat.

Poor Picard. I wish he'd had a chance to punch Madred. Mad's a sadistic bastard.

Ah it doesn't matter, he beat hmi in the end.

PICARD
There are four lights.

Dam straight.

That's begging the question: the Federation was stronger than the Cardassians, so they would've beaten them with superior strength.

From what that admiral told Picard in "The Wounded," that "sustained conflict" could well have involved a sizable portion of Starfleet.

Yet again the war wasn't that big which is why the Admiral must be talking for a political standpoint.

I may try to explain all of the stands in a seperate post so you can see where I am coming from (you see a quote and think it conflicts with my veiw, then see another quote and it conflicts in another way so you aren't seeing my overview which links it all in).

The fact remains, capturing enemy planets is a pretty big deal. The Feds had months of advance notice that the Klingons intended to take Archanis and other worlds. They had time to prepare and stop the Klingons...

Again, where do you get this "months of advanced notice" from.

Fleet. They were definitely building ships.

Yeah and because of that they needed to expand to prevent their econmy falling apart, they failed and the number of ships they could produce is probably low because of their weakened status.

What about the "grounded military" thing?

What about it?

Kind of like the Federation, which lost worlds to the Klingons inside of a few months even though the UFP knew the Klingons were coming.

Knew with how much warning, a day, a few days?

Besides which we both know that the Feds have a lot of border to patrol and that a great many of their ships are slaved to other tasks.

Besides, "well-oiled" is a red herring. You said they were grounded, with lots or all of the Cardie fleet recalled.

We know they sealed the border.
We know the civilians were seizing power from the military in a coup.
We know the outlining colonies were unprotected.
We know if they hadn’t have been forewarned the Klingons would have steam rolled them.

What conclusion do you draw?

If I was taking over a military junta I would get the power and then get the military demobilised to prevent them trying to retake power until the situation had calmed odnw and I had culled the herd of the more rebellious elements.

This explains everything and it makes sense, so what is your explanation?

That one planet/Order had millions of troops. If the Federation struck just a handful of such targets, they could easily have killed 100,000+ without destroying hundreds of Cardassian warships.

It was 500,000 men not millions but your point still stands if the Federation went in for large ground invasions of Cardassia, I don't think they did.

We have never seen the Feds do a ground invasion.
They should have at least some skill in the area in TNG if they had just bn conducted such ops, they don't seem to have any.
There is no mention of attacking invasions but we do have reports of defensive ground battles.
The war wasn't a major deal (at least on the Federation side).

While I don't doubt that some ground battling went on I believe in was defensive in nature (for the Feds) and the reports of those engagements were very small scale indeed.

The Wounded" DID say the Feds weren't ready for a sustained conflict.

I have addressed this several times, this delayed nature in which we are posting is leading to repetition, I will try and do that outline of my thoughts later to give us somewhere to work from.

throw jumja sticks at Starfleet?

Ah the true reason the Cardies wanted Bajor, jumja sticks are their main offensive weapon, no wonder the Enterprise could take hits to the hull.

It was probably signed sometime after the Cardassian war fizzled out, which could've been the late 2350's or early 2360's.

The Cardy war went on until 2367, I'm not actually sure when the Federation and Klingons allied but it certainly before then and it my infact have been very shortly after the battle of Narendra III because as Picard says in season 5 TNG (2368)

PICARD
(continuing)
The Romulans have been trying to
destroy the Federation/Klingon
Alliance for over twenty years,
and at the same time, the Duras
have been secretly conspiring with
the Romulans.

Therefore the alliance could possibly predate the Fed/Cardy war and it certainly predates the latest possible date for the war to start (2355) but not the earliest (2333).

We shouldn't forget the fact that they shouldered the war for a short while either, outnumbered 20 to 1 at one point.

I very short while in which they did hit and runs plus had the aided distraction of the Cardassian uprising.

That is just a nitpick though because as I have already said the Klingons did jump into the fire (as any upstanding Klingon shuld).

(Side-note: I didn't much like that "Gowron is just a politician" bit. I felt Gowron's character was given the shaft in late DS9. We know he was an egotist from his historical revisions, but he wasn't flat-out stupid or cowardly either. DS9 made him out to be both in the Final Chapter.)

He was always interested in hanging onto his own title and power, he saw Martok as a threat to that, that was his main error.

That amd risking the entire galaxy for his own sake, just little stuff like that

[seanrobertson]

Months in advance?

How do you figure that Gowron was probably on the move five minutes aftre his speech because the Feds told him there was no way on Gods green earth he was getting that sector.

I would think if the Federation said that, they'd better be ready to back it up, no? That indicates preparedness.

They knew good and well what happened the last time they pissed on Gowron's head. To not prepare is foolhardy.

And yes, I think they had months. Gowron started broadcasting these inflammatory messages at the beginning of "Broken Link." Supposedly weeks later, after returning from a point deep inside Dominion territory (in the slowish Defiant naturally), Gowron was still talking.

Fast-forward three months later to "Apocalypse Rising." The war had only been going for 2 months, IIRC.

That's well over a month's notice to either get ready or get out.

We know they had an alliance because they did tech sharing back during the day,

That remains fan-based speculation. I'm not even sure a Romulan-Klingon alliance was actually mentioned in the sole TOS episode that suggested as much. They could've simply salvaged those ships, just as the Ferengi nabbed some old B'Rels in "Rascals."

We don't even know that the Klingons got cloaking devices from the Romulans. Kor said the cloaking device "was a relatively new invention" that he implemented on a D5 battlecruiser in "Once More Unto the Breach."

Besides, you implied that this "alliance" was something fairly current. I'd say the 2260's, a century before the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise," aren't very current.

then the Romulans became chummy with the Feds and then how knows, my point is the Klingons had an alliance that fell through and that their opinions on people can change very fast = unstable alliance.

They didn't have an alliance during TNG, or for about 80 years beforehand. Maybe they did then.

But again, I ask, what does that have to do with "Yesterday's Enterprise"?

Duras isn't irrelevant to the issue of how unstable the Klingons are which was what it relates to (go back and read the post to see where it is linked in).

I remember how you were using Duras as proof of instability, but what does it matter? How is an alliance's potential instability going to make the Federation stronger military?

Forgive me if I am glossing over something here, but we really need to get back on track.

And several more who wanted to end the Federation alliance, you have no proof that these guys were huge exceptions especially when many others supported teh Sister even knowing the obvious path that would lead to.

Yes I do. I just gave you some of it.

Sela said, "It's over." Once the Romulans were exposed, they KNEW support for Lursa and B'Etor would crumble.

Gowron and Picard also discussed this in "Redemption, pt. II." Gowron specifically said that, once the Romulan connection was exposed, support for Lursa and B'Etor would quickly dwindle.

So, these Klingons stop fighting, swallow their dislike or even hatred for Gowron, and risk execution just because the side they were fighting for was receiving Romulan supplies.

That sure sounds as if a Romulan-Klingon alliance ain't very likely.

Which they thought they could do - unstable alliance, everything we know about the Klingons shows them to be unstable and I can't really see how any other conclusion can be drawn.

Did I not concede that their alliance was unstable? I still don't see how that really means anything. We have to multiply speculation to get anywhere with that.

He points out that many Klingons want to return to rape and pillage mode, obviously that would have been the end of the F/K alliance, which it was as seen in that very same episode when the alliance does implode when the Klingons crank up the war machine.

Okay, the alliance is unstable. I can't remember why we're even talking about it *shrugs*.

It is if the feds have to deploy ships they need to fight the Klingons, along the border to protect the colonies (while those ships were weak they could easily destroy a shieldless colony).

How many ships could you possibly need to smack down the laughable Talarians?

Also, as I may or may not have said, why are we certain that the Talarians and Federation would even have a dispute in the divergent timeline? You noted that the Federation would've probably halted its expansion upon breakout of the Klingon war. Were the Feds not ticking off the Talarians because they started encroaching on their territory?

No point is Fed technological advancement has widdened the gap by the time TNG rolls around but 20 years erlier the gap was probably smaller meaning a war further in the past favours the Klnigons.

Why? The Klingons had no known designs to match Starfleet's best circa 2330-2360. Not until the introduction of their attack cruisers did they really have something that was competitive with the big Federation starships.

And there it is, you are doing a direct substitution of the Klingons/Feds in both timelines - If sme uber cloak or such gave them an edge it isn't an edge they have by the time TNG rolls around.

Why would it be? The cloak was nullified in the same DAY it was introduced, in 2293!

The Cardassians actions speak for themselves - they attacked a stronger Federation, they were going to do the same again

In other words, you admit that taking a single star system is a big deal, even in a sneak attack.

they attacked the poor Bajorans, they wanted to break the Bajoran treaty and start up the occupation again when they werre members of the Dominion,
they intended to let the Feds/Klingons/Romulans fight the Dominion until all parties were WEAK and then Cardassia would be rulers of the Alpha quadrant (after stabbing the Dominion in the back).

That was Dukat's ego-driven plan. Funny how it ended up that probably over a billion Cardassians ended up dead, by far the weakest of the Big Four, and Dukat, dead.

The actions I have outlined fit Cardassian thinking to a T.

It's glib but true: thinking and doing are two different things.

Oh come on you seem to think that if you don't suffer from strategic paralysis due to not being omnipotent that means you are dumb.

It's not being omnipotent, it's just being smart.

Think of it this way.

In the late 70's, would the United States have been very wise to attack the Soviet Union, which was embroiled in a drawn-out Afghani conflict?

On the basis that "the Russians are busy over there," hell no.

Was Hitler dumb for annexing Czechoslovakia because there was an impossibly small minute chance that the entire world would decide they didn't like excitable men with moustaches and declare war on him? no he consider the possibility decided it wouldn't happen and went ahead - this isn't shocking its called a good decision.

He also thought it'd be okay to invade France and Poland.

The Czechs were impotent. They're not at all analogous to a big power like the Federation.

Why do the Japanese deny the world actually had a time period between the 20 and 50's?

War guilt plain and simple, notice in that scene that O'Brien looks at him as if to say "sure man keep shovelling it".

Maybe. But I believed the Cardassian. Without proof otherwise, or some kind of extenuating circumstances, why shouldn't we believe his explanation?

If the potential of bias, guilt, persausion, and other such things render a character's testimony subjective, you might as well throw away that overly dramatic scene between Worf and Kurn.

Yes but it forces the Feds to either let the Cardies kill and enslave sectors

...which you earlier said they'd do to not upset the people "back home."

or the Feds much defeat the Cardies taking up ships and personnel, and requiring occupation forces and resource spent on helping the now conquered Cardies.

That's a false dilemma. You can defeat an enemy thoroughly without occupying their territory. More relevant, you can push them back or deter them without a big occupying army.

Ah but it isn't just losses but ships tied up and not only that but things will get much worse than the OTL because the Feds are seen as weak and have all of their forces up against the Klingons.

Maybe, if they even had a conflict with the Cardassians.

From what I remember the Cardassian war started about 2348, 2 years after the Klingon war would've started.

For all we know, the Federation never even encountered the Cardassians in this alternate timeline. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.

If they did encounter the Cardassians, perhaps the Cardassians would be foolhardy enough to attack a Federation somewhat weakened by an ongoing war with the Klingons. Or maybe not.

If the Cardassians did fight the UFP in that time, maybe they'd devote a significant enough force to actually wound Starfleet, further weakening it against the Klingons in the long run. Or maybe not.

We can speculate all day long about what might've happened. None of it is supported by what Picard--anyone--said in "Yesterday's Enterprise." None of it is contradicted by Worf's vague statements in "Sons of Mogh" for obvious reasons. No one is surprised by Q's possibly illusory future, in which the Klingons conquer the entire Romulan Empire, the Federation's mortal enemy and utter terror in TNG. Even Jake Sisko is nonchalant about a Klingon-controlled DS9 and Bajor Sector in the alternate future of "The Visitor."

Where in all of that do we see anything that indicates the Federation is militarily much stronger than the Klingons? At best, they might be about equal.

That requires no speculation whatsoever. Ockham's Razor applies here: the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is that the Klingons simply have a somewhat stronger military than the Federation does.

Given some of the words you yourself quoted--that the Klingons "were born to fight, and to conquer"--this shouldn't be a big surprise.

They don't have to threaten a Fed task force just federation colonies that have small/non existent defences.

What happened to all those world's personal defense fleets?

The Feds didn't have their entire fleet involved in the conflict,

Nor was the entire fleet technically "involved" in the Dominion War; they had to hold back lots of ships for intra-Federation defense, with whole fleets devoted to that purpose (fleet stationed at Betazed, "In the Pale Moonlight").

That the Federation had a smattering of ships at the Romulan Neutral Zone doesn't mean they didn't take the Cardie war VERY seriously, if that's what you're thinking.

it lasted for 20 years,

So did the Klingon-Federation war, and half of Starfleet was destroyed.

they displayed none of the hard edge the Dominion beat into them (warships, almost in some small way from a distance looking like a third rate military), they didn't call on Klingon aid, Picard or his crew never mention the war once even though it is going on at the time of early TNG.

Actually, we don't know when open warfare ceased. That the "war" is said to be ongoing or somesuch is meaningless by your RoE here; earlier, you totally dismissed Sisko's proclamation that "Gowron's war against the Cardassians" meant fighting still went on.

As far as the Klingon aide goes, we don't know when the mutual defense pact was signed. As I already pointed out, it's probably after the Cardassian War was over.

It is glaringly obvious that the Cardassian war wasn't on many peoples minds (except those out on the border).

We can read all their minds?

The fighting of the Cardassian War was probably well over by the time TNG came around. When Picard first encountered Gul Macet's ship, he was surprised that Macet fired on the E-D, right? Did Picard not say something to the effect that "the war has been over for some time, so why in the hell are you shooting at us?"

Come on, the Dominion and Borg show up and there is a massive leap in Fed warship technology and weapons and the Ent-E with its double digit torps launchers sure as hell counts as a warship in my book.

That massive leap is something I don't really subscribe to. The introduction of quantum torpedoes and regenerative shields seem to be by far the biggest steps they've taken, and we're not looking at orders of magnitude difference. They are stronger, yes, but they've never shown anywhere NEAR the kind of improvement some people wank off about.

If they were fully mobilsed how come they didn't use it as the perfect excuse to liberate the Bajorans?

Two words:

Prime Directive.

(Picard even told a disgruntled Bajoran this once, shortly after Ro joined his crew. The Bajoran scoffed and noted that it was dubiously "convenient.")

unless you still think the Feds couldn't handle the Cardies and that Picard spent every minute off camera worrying about the fall of the Federation.

No, no. You're misunderstanding me.

I do not maintain that the Federation is militarily inferior to the Cardassian Union. I think it's the other way around.

But I *do* know that, either way you cut it, we reach a point at which the Federation doesn't come out looking like it's stronger than the Klingons.

I know it seems odd but unless you have another conclusion that makes sense the only conclusion is that the Feds simply didn't care enough to go to war fully with the Cardies.

Well, how about they did take the war rather seriously? What contradicts that?

It's a false dichotomy to say, "Either the Feds didn't take it seriously at all, or they went all-out." I imagine they were dedicated to the war, but rather than drawing 100% of their resources like the Dominion War, it might've only been spared 20% *shrugs*

Not really the Feds weren't bothered and still did a large amount of damage the Klingons took on a weakened Cardassia and were fully comitted to winning.

How do you know they weren't bothered? Hundreds of thousands to even millions of dead people sounds bothered!

I have always taken that to mean the Feds couldn't afford another conflict politically at this time

These are the people who don't care whether or not colonies get wiped out by the dozen? Why would they give a damn about politics? Who are they going to rank off, the Klingons?

and to believe the Cardies could defeat/harm the Feds given the drubbing one Nebula class gave them and that a GCS without shields can take fire without damage is a rather large stretch.

But relatively few Federation starships are of those classes, which were the very strongest they had at the time.

And yet.....

They did nothing to help the Bajorans

Which weren't Federation members. Prime Directive prevents interference.

The war was never mentioned and it was going on for the first 3 years of TNG.

No, it wasn't. There weren't open hostilities, anyway, unless Picard was a total fool in being surprised by Gul Macet's attack in 2366. Later in the same episode, O'Brien even said, "The war's over."

One can have a "war" without necessarily fighting; e.g., the Cold War, or the Klingon-Cardassian War, the Sisko quote about which I've referenced many times.

No mention was given to the huge relief because the war was over.
The Federation flagship never saw action in this massive war SF was waging.
The Klingons weren't called in to help.

The evidence simply doesn't point to the Federation being that concerned over the events on the Cardy border.

See above. I've already written about this too many times; I'm afraid you're going to get the wrong impression if I keep rehashing the same quotes over and over. You get the gist of them as well as I do--once is enough.

No it isn't and yes it is.

The economic strength ties directly into their ability to rebuild after the war upto their former glory so they could face the Klingons, I have pointed out its dioubtful they could have and you haven't contested this.

Perhaps because you haven't given me a quote that asserts their economy is, indeed, that bad off?

You cited an anachronism about the state of the Cardassian economy well before the events of "The Wounded," something you should know is outdated since we see evidence that the Cardassians are rebuilding.

What are they doing this rebuilding with, Monopoly money?

Their military is piddlying because they have very weak ships indeed,

And vast numbers of them. All of their ships are just shy of 500 meters long, roughly Excelsior-sized. (The TM is wrong. Compare the Galor to any FX shot in which it's compared to Defiant.) They are inferior one-on-one, generally speaking, to Federation counterparts.

But they also don't typically operate alone. That "pack" mentality, as you'll recall.

so much so that federation ships can take them on withuot shields - come on does that seem like a great force to you?

In special circumstances, they can pull out a victory without shields, yeah--like when they move outside the Cardassian's weapons range.

When they are dealing with multiple Cardassian ships, I would say indeed that they're dealing with a formidable foe.

This proves my point, the fleet was grounded

Why do you draw that conclusion? "Mobilization" just means "react." You said that the Klingons totally surprised the Cardassians. How could they react to that which caught them off-guard?

but with forewarning the Cardies were able to get them mobilised but not until the Klingons had taken the lion share of territory they would gain, once the fleet was mobilised the Klingons were slowed down, the Klingons got Cardassian territory because the Cardy fleet wasn't ready to fight and once they did deploy the Klingons were largely stopped.

Stopped? Then why did they stop fighting well before the events of "Return To Grace"? Earlier you told me that they knew it was a hopeless fight. Dukat said it rendered Cardassia a "third-rate power" (which must mean they were on a tier or two higher beforehand, in his judgment).

They fought a little, then threw their hands up?

That makes no sense.

Its funny how Worf is a good source only when he supports your argument.

When he isn't trying to bullshit someone into doing something, when his statements don't involve ambiguous language or vagueries like "maybe"?

Sometimes, yes. It's not that I just think Worf, the character is a bad source. The context of his quotes remains important, however.

That also isn't what he says, he says that now that battle is joined the Klingons won't stop at anything short of victory (because Kira hoped the unexpected Cardassian resistance would give them pause).

Err...how is that different from what I said?

"Worf said something like, 'Unlikely, Major. Now that the battle has begun, Martok's troops will stop at nothing less than victory'."

Later upon hearing that the Klingons had punched through the Cardassian lines he said they would head straight for Cardassia prime, capture it and install an imperial overseer who would then be in charge of finishing off the Cardassians.

Capturing their homeworld, which, if at all like Earth, is "the heart of their defenses."

Wow. Pretty impressive.

The Klingons were hoping that with the loss of Cardassian prime (and their government) that the Cardies would become disorganised and easier to beat, oncethe government escaped Gowron seemed to lose interest in further warfare (because it would cost him too much).

Then why did he keep all that territory? How could he be certain that the Cardassians wouldn't try to expel his forces?

Until Yar with her super new tactics and a patched up ship gave them a better chance, they still lost but the Romulans got more than they bargained for.

What tactics?

As I recall, the ship wasn't even back to 90% of its full combat readiness shortly before it went into the rift. Yar only said that, as an experienced tactical officer, she might "buy the Enterprise-C a few more seconds, seconds that could change history."

I think you underestimate the industrial base of the Federation, the Feds were going to surrender, with many worlds intact now producing ships for the Klingons added to their own ship yards they would be able to trample the Romulans with sheer indutrial might.

Yeah, sure, after they built the facilities to extract Federation resources and get in full production again. It's not as if the minute they won the war, they'd pull up to the Fed's former dilithium moons and start pumping gas. It would take time to rebuild the infrastructure to extract those goods. (Destroying your enemy's shipyards and ability to harness raw materials is simply a given in a war of that scale.)

Would the Romulans wait around for all that to happen? How many months or years could it take until the Klingons rebuilt their losses and had enough surplus ships to control their space and that of former Federation?

tend != always.

I know. But you said "recruits," which I took to mean everyone BUT the core members. Recruit has a connotation of newness to it. The Vulcans et al. were vets.

They have their own defense fleet as we are told in Unification.

Then...where was it? Why wasn't it poised to intercept those three troopships? How big is it?

The Benzites also operate their own fleet.

There is nothing to indicate these are the exceptions to the rule.

How about the fact that we never see any such ships, even when it would be a really, really good thing in some cases?

Blasted board ate my post, good job I copied it into word first or I wouldn't have been happy.

That's happened to me. Real smart of you to copy it; I'm glad you did. This has been/is a vigorous exercise, which I enjoy. But now I have to give my poor eyes a break...

[TheDarkling]

OK here is a rough outline for my take on the Cardy war, I will flesh it out as you ask questions and as I remember more than in my current addled state.

The Cardassian war begins (Most likely 2350 but could be anytime between 2333 - 2355).

The war is a protracted border clash with the majority of Starfleet content to ignore it.
With the war being such a low priority the Feds deem it unnecessary to call upon the Klingons under their mutual defence agreement, after all the Klingons would only escalate the conflict and force he Federation to get hip deep in a full blown war and then foot the bill for occupying and rebuilding the battered Cardassian people and their subject races.

The war continues to drag on over time and the Feds are still reluctant to send many forces to engage the Cardassians, the border worlds are still though of as somewhat safe with Federation captains in the area actually have their families living on lightly defended outposts in the region.

Causalities continue to mount amongst the Federation, it is largely a "death of a 1000 paper cuts" with the Cardassians executing small ground raids in order to force a Federation settlement (and resettlement of Colonists, a tactic they would later employ to mixed success against Federation colonists in the Cardassian controlled DMZ).

The Cardassians prefer these hit and run strikes for one main reason, Starfleet ships enjoy a massive superiority over their own and any engagement results in huge losses for the Cardassians, Starfleet aids the Cardassians in this endeavour my deploying relatively few ships to the region, the better to not draw attention you see.

Eventually with the Cardassians facing economic ruin as the number of ships lost continues to mount they contact the Federation for peace talks.

They meet for Peace talks and the Federation grants the Cardassians a number of resource rich, but uninhabited worlds.

The Cardassians enjoy these new boons however industry not being their strong point the development of these worlds is poor, if Bajor has taught the Cardassians anything it’s that resource rich worlds should all come with slave workers.

The Cardassian economy still barely alive needs something to boost it, the answer is obvious with the primary and most substantial Cardassian investment being the military this is the best way to bring in economic fortune just as it has done for centuries.

The Cardassians decide that the Federation is an easy mark and likely to fold, the Klingons are judged to be too stubborn as the Betreka Nebula incident made abundantly clear and the Cardassians enjoy going trading relations with the Romulans, no the target must be the Federation.

However to execute this plan of action he Cardassians need to rebuild and rearm after all the Federation war severely harmed their military, however this must be done in secret in order to get the jump on the Federation and gain as much territory as possible before going to the negotiation table.

A series of "science" outposts are setup to further invasion plans and weapons/supplies are moved into position.

The Cardassian plan continues afoot with good progress until the actions of renegade Starfleet Robert Maxwell (a veteran of the border wars) gets wind of the illicit actions and decides to take matters into his own hands.

Several outposts and ships involved in the build up are destroyed and Gul Macet reports that the federation now knows about the plan and has indicated it will be watching them.

Unknown to the Cardassians at the time is that the Federation is especially unwilling to engage in another conflict after the Borg fiasco raising concerns about Starfleets ability to function as a military organisation, it is feared that another war at this time would cause doubts to form in the minds of Federation citizens.

Meanwhile things were moving in Cardassian circles, civilian insurrection on Bajor is reaching intolerable levels and many ships and resources are being tied up their, the elements without the military hierarchy who are leery of a new Federation conflict use the Federations heightened state of alert, the Bajoran uprisings and concerns over civilian underground movements to put invasion plans on hold.

Military build-ups continue but are hampered by diminished production on Bajor and the fact that the military has failed to return on the capitol invested in it.

Disaster strikes in 2369 when Cardassia is finally forced to admit that the situation on Bajor has become untenable, Cardassian forces withdraw.

With the economic situation worsening and the loss of Bajor Cardassia must again look outwards for more resources, the idea of an invasion of the Federation is again raised, again voices are raised in descent stating that military build up is not anywhere near the amount needed to wage a new war against the Federation, this is true however two factors lead the Cardassians to push ahead with the plan, firstly with the forces around Bajor now available for use the Cardassian military now has enough forces to attempt a small scale incursion and secondly the Federations tendency to appease aggressors.

A war however is obviously out of the question and so a small scale incursion is planned using the forces freed up from Bajor and a few odds and ends a plan is put into action, now they need to only pick their target.

The decision is made Target: Minos Korva.

However an edge is still needed to make the battle swift and the Federations appeasement forthcoming, Obsidian order operatives learn that any defence of Minos Korva will be headed up by the Enterprise.

A plan is enacted to gain access to the Enterprise Captain Jean Luc Picard and learn the defense plans for Minos Korva whilst the Cardassian in charge of the invasion fleet, Gul Lemec attempts to gain and upper hand for the post war negotiations by seeking a Federation admission of guilt for a covert strike into Cardassian territory.

Again the Cardassian plans are thwarted by Starfleet, the Cardassian fleet is forced to return to port in shame and Picard is returned to the Federation.

The Cardassian economy continues to nosedive and the faction against a renewed conflict with the Federation gains the upper hand, negotiations are entered into and the resultant border changes bring about some changes in ownership of various colonies and the establishment of a DMZ between the two powers.

Cardassian brutality of the former Federation citizens begins shortly thereafter and the response is the formation of the Marquis, a terrorist organisation using discarded Federation fighters and courier ships to fight a informal war against the Cardassians outside the zone and ground wars within the zone on a small scale.

In late 2371 an event that was to shape the Cardassian Union future was about to happen, the Federation using the Bajoran wormhole to explore the Gamma quadrant discover a previously unknown civilisation called the Dominion, this empire was bent upon bringing order to the chaos of other civilisation and they displayed the technological ability to do it.

Enabran Tain former Obsidian order spymaster takes this threat very seriously, more seriously that Central command so he sets about to construct a fleet of ships to attack the Dominion and he manages to gain Romulan aid in the matter, in the form of the Tal'Shiar.

The fleet, staffed with high ranking and powerful Obsidian order operatives proceeds to the Founders (the leaders of the Dominion) home world in and effort to cripple the Dominion in one strike, this plan however in a manipulation and the fleet is destroyed by the Dominion.

The resulting loss in power of the Obsidian order and the reprisal by Central command leads to a weakening of the Cardassian police state, the long growing dissident movement sees its chance and fuels a coup giving power back to the civilian authority of the Detapa council.

The resulting chaos causes the Detapa council (with the aid of their new military advisor Gul Duk'at) to bring all military forces to base and with the lack of ships to patrol the border is closed to prevent word of this weakness leaking out.

However once again the hand of the Dominion shapes Cardassian destiny, a Dominion operative posing as a member of the KDF advises Gowron (leader of the Klingon high council) that the Cardassian Union is now under the control of the Dominion, this is a ruse designed to cause conflict within the Alpha quadrant and thus facilitate a Dominion invasion.

The ruse is successful and the KDF deploys over 1/3 of it total military forces to the invasion of Cardassia.

The Federation using a backdoor courier informs the Cardassians of the incoming invasion, it is too late for the Cardassia to mobilise in time to defend their outlying colonies but it does allow them to blunt the Klingon assault.

The Cardassia military still suffering from the Federation war of 5 years ago is not able to match the Klingon empire with so little time to redeploy and the Klingons manage to break through the lines and head for Cardassia Prime, the Klingon intention is to execute the government and occupy the Cardassian home world in the hope that this will take the wind out of the Cardassian sails and lead to their capitulation.

Through the actions of Starfleet the Detapa council is rescuing and the Klingons engage the Federation station Deep Space Nine, Captain Sisko commander of the station pursued Gowron hat these sorts of actions is exactly what the Dominion would want and so Gowron halts his advance into Klingon space, however due to the Federation interference Gowron withdraws from the Federation-Klingon peace treaty.

Gowron also refuse to give up several of the captured colonies the Empire ceased during the war, making the Klingons a permanent fixture in the area for some time to come.

The Cardassian Union is in ruins the Klingons have taken many worlds, the Marquis is making large gains in and around the DMZ (up to the point where they are considering becoming an official nation) and the economy is devastated.

They are forced to ask for Federation aid (something they would have balked at less than 4 years prior) and Starfleet protection for convoys against Klingon raids, they are broken, they have become a third rate power.

the Klingons however are in ascendance and continue to raid Cardassian space without challenge yet they do not launch another full scale attack, not against the Cardassians that is.

In early 2372 Gowron, once again at the behest of the Dominion impostor, demands territorial concessions from the Federation namely the Archanis sector, a fleet in immediately sent by Gowron and the Federation is given ten days to evacuate, when the Federation makes it clear they will not cede the sector to the Klingon Empire Gowron attacks and begins the conflict.

The fighting is localised to the Archanis sector with neither side attempting deep strikes into the others space, the Klingons pulling forces from Cardassian space (where they are no longer needed) and having the advantage of (relative) surprise are able to field in theatre numerical superiority, this leads to Klingon gains although Starfleet drawing upon what resources it has is able to stem the tide and prevent further losses.

Less than a month into the war the Federation is able to expose Martok (the main proponent of the war) as a Dominion operative, Gowron calls a ceasefire once again fearing the Dominion above all else, his concerns are not misplaced as soon the entire quadrant would find out.

While the "War" was very short (three weeks) and thus the Klingons were able to make keep gains before the Federation could respond it still resulted in large Klingon losses, with small houses suffering financial difficulty because of it.

.................................................................

Wow I didn’t know I was going to write that much but once I got going... anyhow that is my "basic" outline of what I think is the brief history of the Cardassian Union (and I tacked a bit of the Fed-Klingon war at the end).

So what do you think?

[TheDarkling]

And yes, I think they had months. Gowron started broadcasting these inflammatory messages at the beginning of "Broken Link." Supposedly weeks later, after returning from a point deep inside Dominion territory (in the slowish Defiant naturally), Gowron was still talking.

It was the general opiniion that Gowron was blowing smoke.

My old friend Worf says.

WORF
If Gowron is willing to go to war
over the Archanis Sector, then he
has become even more dangerous
than I thought.


Everybodys second favourite bald captain says.

SISKO
I don't think Gowron gives a damn
about Archanis. He's just looking
for an excuse to rattle his sabre.
The question is... why?

Fast-forward three months later to "Apocalypse Rising." The war had only been going for 2 months, IIRC.

Actually only three weeks and if Gowron was telling the truth about giving the Feds ten days then its closer to a week and a half, if not less.

That's well over a month's notice to either get ready or get out.

I would predict Starfleet got the intial message, 2 weeks later (prehaps less maybe 1) Gowron says "my ships are on the way you have 10 gays to get out" 4 weeks after this message the war is over and the crew is in the GQ doing a mineral survey.

Besides, you implied that this "alliance" was something fairly current. I'd say the 2260's, a century before the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise," aren't very current.

I was not implying such at all, I was showing the instability inherent in the Klingon empire.

But again, I ask, what does that have to do with "Yesterday's Enterprise"?

Go back and follow the thread (hehe you don't even know what yu are arguing, I might try posting some stuff that supports you and watch you attack it ) basically I was saying that if the Klingons were a big threat and they are so unstable why share tech with them.

You choose to attack the "they switch sides faster than Italians" line of reasoning which has led us here.

Forgive me if I am glossing over something here, but we really need to get back on track.

What and cut out all the nosense involving the ATL? I couldn't agree more.

That sure sounds as if a Romulan-Klingon alliance ain't very likely.

It has been shown many would like a Romulan alliance but yes many would not, some would just like an allaince with no body, they ain't very stable.

Did I not concede that their alliance was unstable? I still don't see how that really means anything. We have to multiply speculation to get anywhere with that.

Not really you have lost my point in the masses of text, I have written it for you above, in explaining how we got here.

As for multiplying speculation - the ATL will have to lead to that becauase we just don't have enough information to make it a valid source of information.

Also, as I may or may not have said, why are we certain that the Talarians and Federation would even have a dispute in the divergent timeline? You noted that the Federation would've probably halted its expansion upon breakout of the Klingon war. Were the Feds not ticking off the Talarians because they started encroaching on their territory?

You have said it, but how do we know the cookie monster didn't eat half of Starfleet in ATL?

Using the ATL leads to such guesswork, would the Feds have ticked off teh Talarians? who know, I did actually say that the Talarians were the least likely to push a war with the Feds.

Why? The Klingons had no known designs to match Starfleet's best circa 2330-2360. Not until the introduction of their attack cruisers did they really have something that was competitive with the big Federation starships.

And you know this how?

What sorts of ships were the Klingons using then?

Why would it be? The cloak was nullified in the same DAY it was introduced, in 2293!

You are missing the point, the lack of information about what happened in the ATL makes it a very poor source of information with which to judge the Feds/Klingons in another timeline AND 20 years further on.

In other words, you admit that taking a single star system is a big deal, even in a sneak attack.

Well that would depnd on the system obviously.

It's glib but true: thinking and doing are two different things.

You are just being evasive, you admit the Cardies think that way and they acted on those thoughs every single time except against the Dominion because they were beaten to the punch (although they did turn on them).

Therefore there is no reason (at least you haven't ppresented one) to assume they wouldn't do as they have always do and attack the Federation.

In the late 70's, would the United States have been very wise to attack the Soviet Union, which was embroiled in a drawn-out Afghani conflict?

On the basis that "the Russians are busy over there," hell no.

You leave out all the details, a better way to put it is would WW III between the US and the USSR have been a good time for an Afghan uprising, the answer is of course yes (although that isn't perfect giving those nukes, spoil all the good debates they do ).

The Czechs were impotent. They're not at all analogous to a big power like the Federation.

Address the issue, you think that not acting because you aren't 100% sure of the outcome is a good idea and thats what the Cardies should do.

Their pattern of behaviour indicates they wouldn't do as you outline and common sense indicates they shouldn't.

Maybe. But I believed the Cardassian. Without proof otherwise, or some kind of extenuating circumstances, why shouldn't we believe his explanation?

Yeah I know what modern western militaries would do if they had found a hidden staging post (with only civlians there and no actually equpment for a staging point) and it wouldn't be going door to door killing civilians, like the "intel made me do it" Cardassians.

...which you earlier said they'd do to not upset the people "back home."

Again you raise a red herring, it probably wouldn't bother people if it was low key but billion enslaved and entire sectors falling to the enemy would raise an eyebrow or two.

That's a false dilemma. You can defeat an enemy thoroughly without occupying their territory. More relevant, you can push them back or deter them without a big occupying army.

The federation can't crush the Cardies without leaving the people starving, thats hardly going to look good on the news alongside the Klingons doing similar things and driving them back sounds good but what if the cardies play hit and run again, it forces the Feds to tie down ship patroling the border.

Maybe, if they even had a conflict with the Cardassians.

Maybe the annual meeting of Strfleet captains had some bad bree and half the fleet was sent into a sun somewhere.

Are you getting the point that using the ATL is a bad idea yet, the arguments here are comprised of, the Cardies are mostly likely to do this based on their MO........ Yeah but you don't know for sure.

No I dno't know for sure but it is mostly likely, if you want to drop this entire ATL like the bad idea it is then that is fine by me.

Where in all of that do we see anything that indicates the Federation is militarily much stronger than the Klingons? At best, they might be about equal.

Yeah in an alternate universe we see a Cardassian empire enslaved by the Bajorsn and the POD happened after the Bajoran occupation, do we therefore conclude that the Bajorans could easily replicate such a feat?

That requires no speculation whatsoever. Ockham's Razor applies here: the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is that the Klingons simply have a somewhat stronger military than the Federation does.

Going by that analysis of the Razor if I only looked outside my window on a Tuesday is I heard a noise like rain then I could conclude thateverytuesday has rain because I never observed it not raining on Tuesdays (assuming I never left the house, on a Tuedsay at least).

The Q alternate future took place 25+ years plus in the future and we for all we know a Reman insurection could have weakened the Romulans, the Klingons could have found an Iconian gateway, the Romulans had a civli war, and so on.

Using alternate timelines (which take place (or have POD's) 20+ either side of the present) isn't going to cnofirm much about the present in this timeline

What happened to all those world's personal defense fleets?

Cute.

However i never said that every member world has a defensefleet (so that would be a strawman) and since they are colonies anyway (thats mean its also a red herring) they don't necessarily have a built in industrial base and finally you avoided commenting on the issue at hand but instead brough up seomtihgn irrelevant (another red herring).

Nor was the entire fleet technically "involved" in the Dominion War; they had to hold back lots of ships for intra-Federation defense, with whole fleets devoted to that purpose (fleet stationed at Betazed, "In the Pale Moonlight").

Rubbish, a fleet stationed to protect a world from the DOMINION is involved in the war, especially when you cite a planet that was invade because of that war.

The Ent-E was involved in the war yet the Cardassian war didn't even get a mention on the Ent-D untl it was over, hardly an epic struggle for life and death.

So did the Klingon-Federation war, and half of Starfleet was destroyed

Yeah but the Fed Klingon war lead to Starfleet getting more military and you have already noted, where was this in TNG?

The Cardassian conflict was a much smaller conflict, that is obvious.

Actually, we don't know when open warfare ceased. That the "war" is said to be ongoing or somesuch is meaningless by your RoE here; earlier, you totally dismissed Sisko's proclamation that "Gowron's war against the Cardassians" meant fighting still went on.

There was a ceasefire in the Klingon-cardy case yet we have noevidence of such with the Feds, and the feds would also adhere to a cease fire unlike the Klingons.

As far as the Klingon aide goes, we don't know when the mutual defense pact was signed. As I already pointed out, it's probably after the Cardassian War was over.

It wasn't.

We can read all their minds?

I see, so you do believe Picard was thinking about it and that it was a constant topic of conversation, only never on camera... hmm odd that it only seems to fit with my theory.

Did Picard not say something to the effect that "the war has been over for some time, so why in the hell are you shooting at us?"

It had been over for less than a year, but it was over so Picard would be correct in being surprised.

That massive leap is something I don't really subscribe to. The introduction of quantum torpedoes and regenerative shields seem to be by far the biggest steps they've taken, and we're not looking at orders of magnitude difference. They are stronger, yes, but they've never shown anywhere NEAR the kind of improvement some people wank off about.

Meh I think its rather clear but thats a topic for another time.

Two words:

Prime Directive.

(Picard even told a disgruntled Bajoran this once, shortly after Ro joined his crew. The Bajoran scoffed and noted that it was dubiously "convenient.")

Ermm I see so thats why Starfleet didn't invade Cardassia proper even though they were fighting tooth and nail (but nobody liked to talk about it of course, unlike the Borg, Klingon and Dominion wars) because the Crdassia held a Bajoran or two on each planet and said "hey Prime directive!" you know I bet that is who the Klingns won in the ATL aswell.

But I *do* know that, either way you cut it, we reach a point at which the Federation doesn't come out looking like it's stronger than the Klingons.

I have noticed you have switched from "this proves the Klingons are stronger" to "this doesn't prove the Klingons are weaker", I haven't asserted the latter although I have challenged the former which you seem to be cutting loose.

It's a false dichotomy to say, "Either the Feds didn't take it seriously at all, or they went all-out." I imagine they were dedicated to the war, but rather than drawing 100% of their resources like the Dominion War, it might've only been spared 20% *shrugs*

But everybody thought it was old news so didn't mention it, if they did comit 20% of their forces and it still took them 20 years this shows them to be far inferior to the Klingons which doesn't make any sense especially when they can hold the klingons at bay with a similar size fleet (or below), so we have Klingons>Feds>Cardies>Klingons, ermm that ain't right.

20% of the fleet is way to high only 3 characters in the shows saw action in them, Picard did about 20 years ago, O'Brien did and Janeway did.

If it was 20% of the forces you would have thought it that the others would have seen action in it, oh yeah and maybe peolpe coould possibbly talk about this ongoing war, with 2,400 ships commited they must have been taking many times Wolf 359 a year so why the alarm at it?

Where is the big influx of ships when the war ended?

Why weren't any military type ships built, why were theGCS ships not deployed to the battle.

It doesn't make any sense to think the Feds were half in and half out like you suggest and this war had 1/5 of their military in it yet nobody talked about it and very few served in the war.

These are the people who don't care whether or not colonies get wiped out by the dozen? Why would they give a damn about politics? Who are they going to rank off, the Klingons?

Meh I exlpained it in my other post I won't repeat it here to cut down on space.

But relatively few Federation starships are of those classes, which were the very strongest they had at the time.

And yet tif they were so much better that there hulls were better than other ships sheilds and there Phasers were many times more powerful why were they not deployed against the Cardies, your view of events seems to be a patchwork of conflicting ideas that don't bear out individually let alone collectively.

Which weren't Federation members. Prime Directive prevents interference.

Didn't bother them when they invaded Cardassian worlds, or got involved in resucing Cardasians from the Klingons, or supporting the Cardassian uprisings.

No, it wasn't. There weren't open hostilities, anyway, unless Picard was a total fool in being surprised by Gul Macet's attack in 2366. Later in the same episode, O'Brien even said, "The war's over."

OK let we explain time to you.

The war ends in season 3 TNG.

The wounded takes place in season 4 TNG.

Season 3 - War.

Season 4- Not war.

The war ended and then it was over before then it was a war.

I don't get the problem here.

One can have a "war" without necessarily fighting; e.g., the Cold War, or the Klingon-Cardassian War, the Sisko quote about which I've referenced many times.

I assume you have something to back that assertion up other than a guess otherwise what reason do we have toassume that the war was in an inactive state for several years?

You cited an anachronism about the state of the Cardassian economy well before the events of "The Wounded," something you should know is outdated since we see evidence that the Cardassians are rebuilding.

They can rebuild and still not have a great economy you know.

What are they doing this rebuilding with, Monopoly money?

No this is Trek so it would either barter system or Good Pressed title deeds to Mayfair Avenue.

In special circumstances, they can pull out a victory without shields, yeah--like when they move outside the Cardassian's weapons range.

The Enterprise sat there got shot at without shields, returning fire and knocking the Cardies weapons out, thats WEAK, with shields and horrors using Torps they could level Cardy ships by the dozen (a slight exageration... maybe).

When they are dealing with multiple Cardassian ships, I would say indeed that they're dealing with a formidable foe.

If they need 5 on one odds (and an idiot captain enough to close within their weapons range) then I think they have already lost the war, especially since the Feds outnumber them anyway.

Image this, the feds send 600 ships (well wihin your projected 20%) and head straight for an important ship yard, the Cardies have to muster 3000 ships to have a chance of defending themselves and will still take heavy losses, now how many ships do yuo think the cardies have?

Image the send 1,200 (still within you 20%) that means the Cardies have to assemble a fleet of 6,000 ships in one place.

Frankly the ratio means that any sort of Federation commitment beyond bare bone sees the cardies losse within a year.

Why do you draw that conclusion? "Mobilization" just means "react." You said that the Klingons totally surprised the Cardassians. How could they react to that which caught them off-guard?

They did surprise them, Dukat said they couldn't handle them to Garak, they took several colonies without any resistance, they were caught off guard, if they hadn't even got the warning they did the Klingnos wuold have hammered them, the crew attributes the cardassians slowing the Klingons down to "someone" have warned them.

The cardies got lucky that Sisko was willing to go behind everybodies back.

Stopped? Then why did they stop fighting well before the events of "Return To Grace"? Earlier you told me that they knew it was a hopeless fight. Dukat said it rendered Cardassia a "third-rate power" (which must mean they were on a tier or two higher beforehand, in his judgment).

They fought a little, then threw their hands up?

That makes no sense.

I'm not sure I follow you, the Klingons advance without the Cardassians even fighting them, The Cardies deploy and blunt the Klingons, the Klingons make an attempt to circumvent a full out war by choping of the snakes head (so to speak), they fail, they give up some of that which they took but not all, they continue to run raids every no and then but the Cardies keep going for the ceasefire.

"Worf said something like, 'Unlikely, Major. Now that the battle has begun, Martok's troops will stop at nothing less than victory'."

Yes but you said Worf said teh Klingons would win he simply said they wouldn't stop until they did win, I could say I won't stop until I have reached the summit of everest it doesn't mean I won't die in the attempt.

Capturing their homeworld, which, if at all like Earth, is "the heart of their defenses."

Wow. Pretty impressive.

If.. If, we don't know that it is or even if there defense are that good anyway, considering their ships I doubt it somehow.

Then why did he keep all that territory? How could he be certain that the Cardassians wouldn't try to expel his forces?

They didn't keep it all, they gave some of it up and why not keep what the Cardies will allow you to have because they are too weak to say otherwise.

As I recall, the ship wasn't even back to 90% of its full combat readiness shortly before it went into the rift. Yar only said that, as an experienced tactical officer, she might "buy the Enterprise-C a few more seconds, seconds that could change history."

Which did change history, I said it gave htem a better chance and you just agreed, whats the problem?

Yeah, sure, after they built the facilities to extract Federation resources and get in full production again. It's not as if the minute they won the war, they'd pull up to the Fed's former dilithium moons and start pumping gas. It would take time to rebuild the infrastructure to extract those goods. (Destroying your enemy's shipyards and ability to harness raw materials is simply a given in a war of that scale.)

The Feds were going to surreneder which means they get the stuff intact.

Then...where was it? Why wasn't it poised to intercept those three troopships? How big is it?

They were poised to intercept the troopships, in fact that is what they were doing.

WORF
Vulcan defense vessels are also
responding... the Romulan force
is retreating toward the Neutral
Zone...

I don't know how big it is though.

How about the fact that we never see any such ships, even when it would be a really, really good thing in some cases?

Well Piller (I think it was) explained it quite well, he said they all have ships but it would be to costly to show them.

That's happened to me. Real smart of you to copy it; I'm glad you did. This has been/is a vigorous exercise, which I enjoy. But now I have to give my poor eyes a break...

My back is killing me because I was sitting on the edge of my seat (pun intended), ouch.

[seanrobertson]

Darkling,

I propose that we start another thread about KE vs. UFP.

This one has gotten so long that I am having a great deal of trouble even remembering what I have responded to, and why we're talking about certain things.

If that seems like a bad idea to you--that it's some effort at dodging a point--copy and past them into the new thread.

I think we would both best be served by starting over again.

I will respond to your last post, however. And if I have the time I'll talk a bit about your outline. From what I have seen, it looks good. I've done some checking (VERY hard to do without complete transcripts, which I don't even know where to find), and you are right about a lot of the early events of the Cardassian-Federation war; e.g., that it ended in 2366, slightly less than a year of the events in "The Wounded"/2367.

[TheDarkling]

Sure no problem, I can certainly understand getting lost within those mounds of text.

[seanrobertson]

Sure no problem, I can certainly understand getting lost within those mounds of text.

Thank you Very gentlemanly of ya--I appreciate that.

I'll start the topic maybe sometime this afternoon? I'm already terribly behind on all things internet.