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This goes back to a very old debate I had with someone once (I think on MSN) about whether the surrender of the Dominion's Alpha Quadrant forces also included the surrender of their Gamma Quadrant forces. My opponent (whose name I forget) insisted the entire Dominion surrendered, whereas I maintained it was only their Alpha Quadrant force.

I've been trying to think of ways that my opponent could have been right, but I can't think of any. The only possible bargaining chip I can think of would have been the delivery of the cure to the Founders' plague, but if Odo hadn't given the Female Changeling the cure prior to her ordering the fleet to stand down, the Jem'Hadar would never have surrendered.

Plus, how could the Federation Alliance have possibly enforced such a measure? They would have had nothing close to being able to control Dominion territory, especially when the Alpha Quadrant was in need of repair itself.

Does anyone see any possible way my opponent was right? Or was he barking mad?

I don't think the AQ Alliance ever asked for the surrender of the GQ Dominion forces to begin with?

Batman wrote:I don't think the AQ Alliance ever asked for the surrender of the GQ Dominion forces to begin with?

Another good point- one I don't think I raised at the time. my opponent just seemed to take it as a given that the surrender meant the entire Dominion, even without any reason for this to be the case (that I can think of).

From what I understood, it wasn't a surrender of the Dominion forces: they just surrendered the Cardassian Union and possibly the Female Founder and pledged to not attack anymore in exchange for the cure.

It might be worth clarifying what event you're talking about - the armistice between the forces engaged at Cardassia Prime, or the final treaty signed on DS9. If it's the former, then it probably only applied to the AQ forces. If it's the latter, the fact that there was a big end-of-the-war party, and Odo and Kira were able to swan off to the Founders' seat of government without any issues, suggests that the treaty applied to all Dominion forces galaxy-wide, otherwise there would have been at least some discussion of maintaining a watch on the wormhole to prevent a repeat of the invasion.

They don't need to maintain a watch on the wormhole, the Prophets are doing that anyway (and now that Sisko is amongst them they are probably even more vigilant).

My understanding was a surrender of AQ forces and a peace treaty with the Dominion in the GQ.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:They don't need to maintain a watch on the wormhole, the Prophets are doing that anyway (and now that Sisko is amongst them they are probably even more vigilant).

If they rely utterly on the goodwill and vigilance of a species whose very concept of "now" is dubious at best, then they're bloody stupid. The Prophets' intervention meant that they didn't get curbstomped after they lost 3rd Bajor, but that doesn't mean they could afford to completely ignore the existence of an actively hostile force on the far side of the wormhole. The fact that they a) didn't even mention the issue and b) were happy for Odo and Kira to go through indicates a cessation of hostilities in both quadrants.

My understanding was a surrender of AQ forces and a peace treaty with the Dominion in the GQ.

The AQ forces might not even have surrendered, at least technically, any more than the German Army surrendered on 11 November 1918 (Foch's comment to the contrary notwithstanding).

A nonagression/peace treaty does not require the surrender of the GQ Dominion forces. 'Surrender' means they're moved to AQ custody, so to speak. As in the ships are spoils of war and the crew are POWs. All the treaty did was make the Dominion stay on their home turf while keeping all the assets they already had there.

From what I gathered the AQ forces of the Dominion surrendered and the GQ forces stood down from hostilities. The female founder stood trial in place of the entire Founder race. I would imagine that the Founders ordered the AQ Jem Hadar to return to the GQ as they probably wouldn't be fun or willing to be held as prisoners.

Are they at peace? Probably the way the Romulans and Federation are at peace. More of a Warm War as opposed to a Cold War. The Federation is probably not sending ships through the worm hole and they are most certainly standing vigil over it despite the perceived protection the prophets may offer, they are kinda wishy washy after all, they may decide that the Dominion's linear existence is being threatened by the Romulans or Klingons or some such nonsense.

Federation security, Section 31 along with the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order (or whatever has taken their places) is not going to leave AQ security up to the Prophets.

The storyline in STO(which is as canon as it's going to get) as of 2409 is more or less as Hav states it. Starfleet has relaxed on monitoring the wormhole, and trade is occuring between the AQ and GQ, under strict guidelines. Jemha'dar in the AQ at the end of the war were divided in their reaction; some laid down arms and attempted to integrate wherever they would be accepted, others refused and became the pawns of anyone offering a chance to continue fighting for the Founders(who had no part in such business). Diplomatic relations between the AQ and GQ have been maintained, though are not exactly close.

Given that enforcing such a surrender is impossible, and that the Dominion nearly won the war with what had to have been a fraction of their resources and essentially running on a logistics made of hope until the ketracel white native production was up, I would say he was insane.


The Dominion reenforcements were thought to be a war winner and the main reason that the Battle of Cardassia happened was so thr Dominion couldnt build up and breed up a Doom Fleet with just Alpha Quadrant resources, I would say that had the Dominion say, discovered or captured Slipstream within the next 2 years afterwards, that they would have produced a Doom Fleet that outnumbered thr Alpha Quadrant power ten to one and rolled them up before Nemesis occured.

Yeah, because we know the Quantum Slipstream drive worked out so well for VOY. How do you know they could ever get it to work properly leave alone mass-produce it?

Batman wrote:Yeah, because we know the Quantum Slipstream drive worked out so well for VOY. How do you know they could ever get it to work properly leave alone mass-produce it?

Voyager was one ship, one that should have just used the damn thing for short hops at a time.


Not to mention that my post presupposes a lot by making that statement. Number one that they either find examples or the idea itself, which is the most unlikely bit. Instead of debating the general idea, that the wormhole is no longer relevant, you conclude that a fucking massive polity couldnt surpass or work aroundvthrough sheer attrition if nothing else a problem that a single ship failed to. And single ship that was not, in fact, the elite of its polity. Most likely just average and suffering some limitations.


Some of the limitations were due to the ship itself and the hull and the fact that Voyager couldnt spare the time and didnt have the resources to build another ship to spec.



Something that the Dominion, being a polity atleast the size of the Federation, wouldnt really have a problem with. No, the real question is why the Federation doesnt have that tech within twenty years of Voyagers return. The answer tis that they simply refuse to expend lives for data.


Something the Dominion could and would do.


In fact, there are so many things wrong with your assumption and the comparison of a single, non expendable ship that wasnt totally state of the art and the crew was maybe slightly abive average at best to a technological peer adversary of the Federation that can afford to in fact BUILD SHIPS FOR THE EXPLICIT PURPOSE OF TESTING THIS TECHNOLOGY, and is willing to expend them and the lives of the crew, that I will have to settle for this.


Are you tired, exhausted, drunk, trolling or just plain fucking retarded?

Dominarch's Hope wrote:

Batman wrote:Yeah, because we know the Quantum Slipstream drive worked out so well for VOY. How do you know they could ever get it to work properly leave alone mass-produce it?

Voyager was one ship, one that should have just used the damn thing for short hops at a time.

If memory serves they didn't know how long that damned thing would live so going through repeated power up/power down cycles may have been contraindicated. Been a while since I saw the episode though so my memory may be off.

Not to mention that my post presupposes a lot by making that statement.

In case you haven't noticed, that a large part of the problem.

Instead of debating the general idea, that the wormhole is no longer relevant, you conclude that a fucking massive polity couldnt surpass or work aroundvthrough sheer attrition if nothing else a problem that a single ship failed to. And single ship that was not, in fact, the elite of its polity. Most likely just average and suffering some limitations.

I didn't conclude nothing. I asked you to show they could do it. Show that QS drive can be made to work reliably with Dominion technology. Show that VOY being strapped for resources was the problem (when they used every photon torpedo 17 times over and lost about 700% of their shuttle complement on the way) instead of the damned drive being way too far ahead of their technology/knowledge (which the Dominion wasn't particularly far ahead of, their only advantage other than the temporary and quickly fixed 'Ha-ha, we get to ignore your shields' was numerical superiority.

Some of the limitations were due to the ship itself and the hull and the fact that Voyager couldnt spare the time and didnt have the resources to build another ship to spec.

Some being the operative term.

Something that the Dominion, being a polity atleast the size of the Federation, wouldnt really have a problem with. No, the real question is why the Federation doesnt have that tech within twenty years of Voyagers return. The answer tis that they simply refuse to expend lives for data.

Or the damned thing might simply not work reliably with their technology. You want to claim they can make it work, you show them doing so. You do not grt to blithely assume they will because they have more resources than Lameway and the poor sods under her command.

Something the Dominion could and would do.

You don't get to assume it would work. You have to show it.

In fact, there are so many things wrong with your assumption and the comparison of a single, non expendable ship that wasnt totally state of the art and the crew was maybe slightly abive average at best to a technological peer adversary of the Federation that can afford to in fact BUILD SHIPS FOR THE EXPLICIT PURPOSE OF TESTING THIS TECHNOLOGY, and is willing to expend them and the lives of the crew, that I will have to settle for this.
Are you tired, exhausted, drunk, trolling or just plain fucking retarded?

I AM tired, and drunk, and I'm STILL not the on who's assumptions are wrong here. You blithely assume the Dominion can make QS drive work because they have more resources. For all you know, all those resources meant they could figure out it was a 'no can do' faster than VOY did.

Batman wrote:

Dominarch's Hope wrote:

Batman wrote:Yeah, because we know the Quantum Slipstream drive worked out so well for VOY. How do you know they could ever get it to work properly leave alone mass-produce it?

Voyager was one ship, one that should have just used the damn thing for short hops at a time.
Not to mention that my post presupposes a lot by making that statement.Instead of debating the general idea, that the wormhole is no longer relevant, you conclude that a fucking massive polity couldnt surpass or work aroundvthrough sheer attrition if nothing else a problem that a single ship failed to. And single ship that was not, in fact, the elite of its polity. Most likely just average and suffering some limitations.Some of the limitations were due to the ship itself and the hull and the fact that Voyager couldnt spare the time and didnt have the resources to build another ship to spec.Something that the Dominion, being a polity atleast the size of the Federation, wouldnt really have a problem with. No, the real question is why the Federation doesnt have that tech within twenty years of Voyagers return. The answer tis that they simply refuse to expend lives for data.
Something the Dominion could and would do.

In fact, there are so many things wrong with your assumption and the comparison of a single, non expendable ship that wasnt totally state of the art and the crew was maybe slightly abive average at best to a technological peer adversary of the Federation that can afford to in fact BUILD SHIPS FOR THE EXPLICIT PURPOSE OF TESTING THIS TECHNOLOGY, and is willing to expend them and the lives of the crew, that I will have to settle for this.
Are you tired, exhausted, drunk, trolling or just plain fucking retarded?

If memory serves they didn't know how long that damned thing would live so going through repeated power up/power down cycles may have been contraindicated. Been a while since I saw the episode though so my memory may be off.
In case you haven't noticed, that a large part of the problem. I didn't conclude nothing. I asked you to show they could do it. Show that QS drive can be made to work reliably with Dominion technology. Show that VOY being strapped for resources was the problem (when they used every photon torpedo 17 times over and lost about 700% of their shuttle complement on the way) instead of the damned drive being way too far ahead of their technology/knowledge (which the Dominion wasn't particularly far ahead of, their only advantage other than the temporary and quickly fixed 'Ha-ha, we get to ignore your shields' was numerical superiority. Some being the operative term. Or the damned thing might simply not work reliably with their technology. You want to claim they can make it work, you show them doing so. You do not grt to blithely assume they will because they have more resources than Lameway and the poor sods under her command. You don't get to assume it would work. You have to show it. I AM tired, and drunk, and I'm STILL not the on who's assumptions are wrong here. You blithely assume the Dominion can make QS drive work because they have more resources. For all you know, all those resources meant they could figure out it was a 'no can do' faster than VOY did.

Yeah...under no circumstances will I ever respond in this manner. Paragraphs for sentences... This is justt messy and oversized. Im going to fix it though.

Okay, the core idea seems to be having to show that they could do it instead inferring it. That is the equivalent of saying, nope cant do it.

Its fucking stupid. Its like assuming that had the Nazis been victorious, that they could have never have succeeded at making nuclear weapons, effective SAMs, or other devices.

You are literally saying that a major galactic power cant be inferred to ever be able to work out this technology or the ability to copy it or make examples and ships specifically for using it.

Logical Inferrence exist. Voyager, with only itself and its crew, manage to make it work. For short periods at a time, BUT IT FUCKING WORKED. It fucking functioned. Period.

You are suggesting that the Dominion's Scientific Expertise and R&D is inferior to Voyager's crew. You are suggesting that even with a dozen orders of magnitude more people and the political will to test ships to destruction and death of the crew to adapt this new technology, that they cant replicate Voyager's feat and then go from there. You are saying that the Dominion couldnt or wouldnt build new ships specifically for this class or just carbon copy whatever ship they acquired and test it.

That, in itself, is incredibly fucking stupid. Unless you would like to conceed that the crew of the Voyager could possibly jack in a hyperspace generator and use it for a short while, but IN THE SAME BREATH, say that absolutely none of the major Polities could ever do the same, and that they damn sure couldnt make ships specifically to test it out.

Now, I am up for agreeing that they might not be able to use the Slipstream drive within 2 years or maybe even ten. Fact is, Star Trek dropped the fucking ball and let it roll down the mountain side into the pool of lava.

Dominarch's Hope wrote: Yeah...under no circumstances will I ever respond in this manner. Paragraphs for sentences... This is justt messy and oversized. Im going to fix it though.
Okay, the core idea seems to be having to show that they could do it instead inferring it. That is the equivalent of saying, nope cant do it.

No it's not. Incidentally, you're NOT inferring, you're blithely assuming.

Its fucking stupid. Its like assuming that had the Nazis been victorious, that they could have never have succeeded at making nuclear weapons, effective SAMs, or other devices.

No it's not.

You are literally saying that a major galactic power cant be inferred to ever be able to work out this technology or the ability to copy it or make examples and ships specifically for using it.

No. I'm saying you can't blithely assume they will, which is what you are doing. Your whole line of reasoning (if we want to call it that) is 'they have more resources therefore they must automatically be able to solve the problem'. That's not how it works. 19 million cavemen are no more likely to figure out and rebuild an internal combustion engine than 150 are.

Logical Inferrence exist. Voyager, with only itself and its crew, manage to make it work. For short periods at a time, BUT IT FUCKING WORKED. It fucking functioned. Period.

For a short while. You know it will work for longer with available technology because of...?

You are suggesting that the Dominion's Scientific Expertise and R&D is inferior to Voyager's crew.

No I'm not. I'm saying that without knowing why it didn't work you can't say that the Dominion can fix the problem.

You are suggesting that even with a dozen orders of magnitude more people and the political will to test ships to destruction and death of the crew to adapt this new technology, that they cant replicate Voyager's feat and then go from there.

No, I'm saying that you can't blithely assume they will succeed in doing so.

You are saying that the Dominion couldnt or wouldnt build new ships specifically for this class or just carbon copy whatever ship they acquired and test it.

Again, no. I'm saying you can't blithely assume they will succeed in making it work just because they have more resources.

That, in itself, is incredibly fucking stupid. Unless you would like to conceed that the crew of the Voyager could possibly jack in a hyperspace generator and use it for a short while, but IN THE SAME BREATH, say that absolutely none of the major Polities could ever do the same, and that they damn sure couldnt make ships specifically to test it out.

I'm not saying they couldn't or wouldn't make ships to test it out. You are the one saying they will, thanks to having far more resources than VOY will automatically be able to make it work, and that's not how it works. Yes, given it has considerably more resources than VOY did the Dominion is far more likely to make QS drive work...provided it is possible with the technology available to them. It wasn't for VOY, and since the Dominion isn't particularly far ahead of the AQ, you don't get to blithely assume it will be for the Dominion just because they have more resources.

Dominarch's Hope wrote:Given that enforcing such a surrender is impossible, and that the Dominion nearly won the war with what had to have been a fraction of their resources and essentially running on a logistics made of hope until the ketracel white native production was up, I would say he was insane.


The Dominion reenforcements were thought to be a war winner and the main reason that the Battle of Cardassia happened was so thr Dominion couldnt build up and breed up a Doom Fleet with just Alpha Quadrant resources, I would say that had the Dominion say, discovered or captured Slipstream within the next 2 years afterwards, that they would have produced a Doom Fleet that outnumbered thr Alpha Quadrant power ten to one and rolled them up before Nemesis occured.

The Battle of Cardassia happened because the war would have otherwise dragged on an indefinite number of time. The Dominion had put all their hope into the Breen special weapon and when that advantage evaporated they were on the retreat once again. Also, since they had deliberately alienated the Cardassian to gain the Breen's favor, the Cardassian revolt and subsequent defection of the fleet would have happened nonetheless. Without their established holdings in Cardassian space the Dominion had nowhere to go, hence the last minute scorched earth order of the Female Founder.
The war was already lost for the Dominion when A: the wormhole was closed and B: the Romulans joined forces with the Federation and the Klingons. From then on it was only a question of how costly an ultimate victory would be for the enemies of the Dominion.

I find it also laughable that the Dominion could just invent a highly advanced drive in just few years considering the arch-conservative attitude of the Founders and the rigid and inflexible minds of their servitors. It's ironic, their minds are as stiff as their form is fluid.
See, when the Federation adapted to their phased-polaron beams, they never managed to improve their weapon to get around this. Near the end of the war the Jem'hadar even switched their nasty anti-coagulation rifles for a more basic plasma gun.

Voyager had Seven and her Borg knowledge of a similar drive. The Dominion didn't.

Dominarch, go back and watch "Timeless." Two very important details you have missed. One, the reason they got the drive working was because they found a ridiculously rare form of dilithium (or similar material) to power it. This super-rare material would have decayed in a matter of days whether they used the drive or not. Which is why they didn't take "baby steps" nor could they replicate it.

So for the Dominion to be able to use QS drives on their fleets, they need to find a working example AND a source of this super-rare mineral OR a suitable stable alternative (which most likely will be equally rare).

And yes, you do have to show they can do it. You have made the claim and the burden of proof is on you. Inferrence should be based on something better than "but the Dominion are awesome."

I have only recently started rewatching Voyager. Enough to know that using the array was impossible, thanks to the caretaker dying, the array being severely damaged by the Kazon ship, and the Kazon possibly bringing renenforcements.

However, conceded. If using it depends on a rare mineral/ore/etc, then it just pushes the odds even further.

Conceded.

Using the array would have been easily possible if somebody on VOY remembered the concept of a timed fuse.

Nope.

They come back from the Ocampa world, arrive at the array, find the Kazon there, engage them in discussion, hostilities begin.

Then, Chakotay rams the big Kazon ship, crippling it. Then later, the Kazon ship ends up colliding with the array.


Lets stop right here. The array has been damaged. Do you think it would be safe to use?

Back to it, during this, Janeway and Tuvok have boarded it and were looking around for the controls. They found the Caretaker first, he refuses to help them and dies VERY shortly after they find him. In fact, his death is immediately after the Kazon ship damaged the array and disabled the self destruct sequence. Tuvok specifically stated that it would take him multiple hours to use the array to get home.

Hours. And the Kazon had more of those big ships that was taking on Voyager. Hours is plenty long enough to call in Kazon reenforcements, which would mean that either Voyager sits there and gets killed, tries to run and leave behind whoever and the Kazon get the array and Voyager is fucked anyways, or does what they did.

At no point from seeing the Kazon at the array and the Caretaker's death was Voyager able to just jack the array and use it.

Besides, its stupid anyway to criticize damn near any opening episode. Of nearly any series, much less Star Trek that, TOS excluded, had a tradition of taking 2-3 seasons to get in swing.

OK, I don't know why you suddenly started blurting out about the Caretaker thing. Since it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Even less that QSS did originally, which is quite amazingly.

On the one hand for a while I thought you were right about the Array issue. And the 'lol should have just used timed charges' thing annoys me too. Watching the episode it doesn't show that using the Array to get home is something easily in their grasp; there isn't a big red 'return to sender' button in there, they deliberately didn't push.

BUT the episode does, and in fact every episode in Voyager that references it does, refer to the act as a choice, a moral decision Janeway made to strand them in the delta quadrant to save the ocampa. They don't act like they had no choice and were stranded here by circumstances beyond there control. Even Janeway admits she had a choice and she made the wrong one in Season 6's Night.

For them to have had a choice; using the array to go home must have been a feasible option.

Opening episodes and early seasons get leeway for why they're stupid. I don't think that ever included not calling them stupid.

Yeah, I just got around to watching the third/fourth episode. The one where Janeway finds her animal guide and after that episode where a planet kersploded itself thanks to polaron power.


Anyways, the episode had Tom Paris' Holosuite program, thr Animal Guide, the alien nebula thing, and aomething else, all going one at once.

Man, it was just too much and too oddly spaced out. But it will al be worth it once I get to the episode where Neelix owns Tuvok again by hooking up with the Klingon chick and having dirty rough sex in Tuvoks quarters, destroying it.

That's Season 7. You will be waiting a looong time.

Also why do I Know that?