The Size of the Dominion

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » 2004-07-11 02:46pm

Stark wrote:Can we learn anything about the nature of the Dominion from its fleet makeup? The fleets sent to attack the AQ were almost wholly roaches with a small number of the 700m-ish ships... obviously, they felt that this was the correct fleet composition based on their experience and intel. After the whole Odysessy debacle its not hard to see how they made their decision, although there were likely other factors.

If their fleet in GQ is organised the same way, this suggests they maintain a widely-spread military presence. Perhaps they were forced to keep the bulk of their heavies in GQ to offset some unknown threat? Or perhaps, lacking any outside threat, they simply don't have many active heavies, and were unprepared for combat in the AQ.

I think its interesting that apart from their largest ships, they appear to be on par with AQ powers in shipbuilding etc, despite being much larger and older.

Ah, the wonderful world of Cedar Point. Anyways, I read that when the producers were creating the Dominion, they came up with the idea that the Dominion had been watching the Alpha Quadrant for hundreds of years. And that if Sisko didn’t go through the Worm Hole, discovering the Dominion early and throwing off there plans, they would have invaded on schedule (200+ more years) they would have crushed the Alpha Quadrant in a single blow. Now I don’t think its canon, only backstage info. But it does kinda make a little sense. The Dominion had to build its fleets and get them into the Alpha Quadrant before anyone could say anything about it. But all in all there fleet buildup is pretty impressive. Even without reinforcements, the Dominion was able to out number every FKR fleet 3 to 1 almost every time, even before the Breen joined.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-07-12 04:40am

Sovereign wrote:Ah, the wonderful world of Cedar Point. Anyways, I read that when the producers were creating the Dominion, they came up with the idea that the Dominion had been watching the Alpha Quadrant for hundreds of years. And that if Sisko didn?t go through the Worm Hole, discovering the Dominion early and throwing off there plans, they would have invaded on schedule (200+ more years) they would have crushed the Alpha Quadrant in a single blow. Now I don?t think its canon, only backstage info. But it does kinda make a little sense. The Dominion had to build its fleets and get them into the Alpha Quadrant before anyone could say anything about it.

Where on Earth did you read that?

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2004-07-12 05:10am

Gandalf wrote:
Sovereign wrote:Ah, the wonderful world of Cedar Point. Anyways, I read that when the producers were creating the Dominion, they came up with the idea that the Dominion had been watching the Alpha Quadrant for hundreds of years. And that if Sisko didn?t go through the Worm Hole, discovering the Dominion early and throwing off there plans, they would have invaded on schedule (200+ more years) they would have crushed the Alpha Quadrant in a single blow. Now I don?t think its canon, only backstage info. But it does kinda make a little sense. The Dominion had to build its fleets and get them into the Alpha Quadrant before anyone could say anything about it.
Where on Earth did you read that?

heres a hint he didn't. This guy has several threads dedicated to him including one Mike titled Soverign You Lying Sack Of Shit. The only reason he's not banned is because he runs like a scaled dog from every thread he's ever started.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-07-12 05:12am

Lord Pounder wrote:
Gandalf wrote:
Sovereign wrote:Ah, the wonderful world of Cedar Point. Anyways, I read that when the producers were creating the Dominion, they came up with the idea that the Dominion had been watching the Alpha Quadrant for hundreds of years. And that if Sisko didn?t go through the Worm Hole, discovering the Dominion early and throwing off there plans, they would have invaded on schedule (200+ more years) they would have crushed the Alpha Quadrant in a single blow. Now I don?t think its canon, only backstage info. But it does kinda make a little sense. The Dominion had to build its fleets and get them into the Alpha Quadrant before anyone could say anything about it.
Where on Earth did you read that?
heres a hint he didn't. This guy has several threads dedicated to him including one Mike titled Soverign You Lying Sack Of Shit. The only reason he's not banned is because he runs like a scaled dog from every thread he's ever started.

Fair enough.

Sorry for not recognising it, I'm rarely here.

Sidious · Post by **Sidious** » 2004-07-12 03:15pm

heres a hint he didn't. This guy has several threads dedicated to him including one Mike titled Soverign You Lying Sack Of Shit. The only reason he's not banned is because he runs like a scaled dog from every thread he's ever started.

Actually what Sovereign said is from one of the featurettes on the DS9 dvd boxsets. Not sure if its season 4 or 5. But I remember that exact explanation from someone on the production staff, possibly Ira Behr. He's right, its backstage talk, not cannon. I can verify the source tonight when I get home.

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » 2004-07-12 03:22pm

Gandalf wrote:
Sovereign wrote:Ah, the wonderful world of Cedar Point. Anyways, I read that when the producers were creating the Dominion, they came up with the idea that the Dominion had been watching the Alpha Quadrant for hundreds of years. And that if Sisko didn?t go through the Worm Hole, discovering the Dominion early and throwing off there plans, they would have invaded on schedule (200+ more years) they would have crushed the Alpha Quadrant in a single blow. Now I don?t think its canon, only backstage info. But it does kinda make a little sense. The Dominion had to build its fleets and get them into the Alpha Quadrant before anyone could say anything about it.
Where on Earth did you read that?

Star Trek The Magazine - Volume 1 Issue 13 - May 2000
Behind The Scenes - Creating the Dominion

'Seeds of Destruction'

Because the writers knew that the Dominion were going to play such an important role in the series, they made them as powerful as possible; their technology was superior to the Federation's, and they had incredible resources. Robert [Wolf] says that in their early discussions they didn’t bother to work out how Starfleet would ultimately defeat them, but they did build in a few weaknesses. "What we said at one point, and I don’t know if it ever got onto the air, was that the Dominion had been planning to go to war with the Federation for 100 years, and they were slowly preparing. They were expecting to meet the Federation’s borders in 200 years, but Sisko going through the wormhole blew all their plans out of the water, and they had to fight the Federation 200 years before they were ready. If everything had gone the way it was supposed to go, they would have won! That was why they were pushing so hard to get everyone to leave; they were trying to get the original timetable back. They were saying, 'Go away and leave us alone, we don't want you here.' But their real motivation was 'Go away and leave us alone for 200 years and then we'll be able to kick your asses.' One of the things we always figured with the Dominion is that they only fought to win, and they would plan these things out long, long time in advance."

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2004-07-12 08:37pm

In court such a claim would be called Heresay. In SD.Net i call it bullshit. Unless we see a Founder on screen saying they'd been watching the feds and where gonna invade in 200 years it isn't canon and can't be counted. Sorry if that bursts you fanwankage.

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » 2004-07-12 09:26pm

Lord Pounder wrote:In court such a claim would be called Heresay. In SD.Net i call it bullshit. Unless we see a Founder on screen saying they'd been watching the feds and where gonna invade in 200 years it isn't canon and can't be counted. Sorry if that bursts you fanwankage.

Funny, it bursts my bubble how? I think when I posted the comment before it was criticized I said...

Sovereign wrote:Now I don’t think its canon, only backstage info. But it does kinda make a little sense.

If the Dominion was watching the Alpha Quadrant for 100 years, it makes sense that they Sent Changelings like Odo to spy and gather intelligence to where they would eventually give to the Founders. Like Odo was almost corrupted, but never was...

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-07-12 11:55pm

Alyeska wrote:Evidence indicates the Dominion didn't start producing the cruiser until they met the Federation. The Bug works, but they needed heavier support ships. Getting the Cardassian as allies fixed their problem of needing a mid ranged support ship.

You've missed my point; if the roach was all they needed in the GQ, what does that say about their military? Its some kind of coastguard? A force of occupation? Obviously they have no fear of other significant spacefaring neighbours; and they hardly PLANNED to use Cardie ships in their fleet composition.

Alyeska wrote:The B'Rel is about 120 meters long. The K'Vort is about 300 meters long.

There you go again. In Rascals (the only ep to mention the fricking name) the ship is scalable to K'vort size. You can't just say it isn't; indeed, the K'vort doesn't even exist outside of an alternate timeline, so why the problem that they call K'vorts B'rels in the regular timeline? They call the 90-120m ones Birds of Prey.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-07-12 11:59pm

Stark wrote:You've missed my point; if the roach was all they needed in the GQ, what does that say about their military? Its some kind of coastguard? A force of occupation? Obviously they have no fear of other significant spacefaring neighbours; and they hardly PLANNED to use Cardie ships in their fleet composition.

Backstage information says the Dominion has a LOT of roaches in the GQ. Its all they ever needed. That they started building cruisers in significant numbers upon meeting the Federation is telling of how fast they can adapt.

Alyeska wrote:There you go again. In Rascals (the only ep to mention the fricking name) the ship is scalable to K'vort size. You can't just say it isn't; indeed, the K'vort doesn't even exist outside of an alternate timeline, so why the problem that they call K'vorts B'rels in the regular timeline? They call the 90-120m ones Birds of Prey.

They call ALL of them Birds of Prey. It was always intended that the K'Vort be the larger one and the B'Rel be the smaller one. Just read the DS9 TM for more on this (though they get the size on the K'Vort massively wrong). That they were called B'Rels is nothing more then a mistake by the writers and can be written off to Worf at first thinking they were being attacked by the more common BoP or more used to that name.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2004-07-12 11:59pm

Stark wrote: There you go again. In Rascals (the only ep to mention the fricking name) the ship is scalable to K'vort size. You can't just say it isn't; indeed, the K'vort doesn't even exist outside of an alternate timeline, so why the problem that they call K'vorts B'rels in the regular timeline? They call the 90-120m ones Birds of Prey.

I'm pretty sure the BoP in TNG "The Defector" were K'vort cruisers.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-07-13 01:17am

Alyeska wrote:Backstage information says the Dominion has a LOT of roaches in the GQ. Its all they ever needed. That they started building cruisers in significant numbers upon meeting the Federation is telling of how fast they can adapt.

So, again, this means they've got no major competition, which explains their rather poor performance in the AQ. Maybe they haven't had a war for ages. Disproves the whole 'watching the Fed for hundreds of years' thing to, which is excellent

Alyeska wrote:They call ALL of them Birds of Prey. It was always intended that the K'Vort be the larger one and the B'Rel be the smaller one. Just read the DS9 TM for more on this (though they get the size on the K'Vort massively wrong). That they were called B'Rels is nothing more then a mistake by the writers and can be written off to Worf at first thinking they were being attacked by the more common BoP or more used to that name.

I'm fine with the *intention*, but the only time you hear the name its refering to 300m-ish ships. Backstage, TM, whatever, its right there on the show. I mean, the whole idea of a visually almost identical ship is ludicrous anyway; but the BoP in GEN had a specific designation, so its obviously just shorthand. Maybe they chew through the classes faster than SF. I maintain my nitpick that calling them B'Rels instead of BoPs is bad.

@ Kamakaze Sith: Really? If they use that name that'd be neat; but I also think the Rascals ones had their wings in the lower position, so they're kinda different anyway.

Coalition · Post by **Coalition** » 2004-07-13 01:27am

So, again, this means they've got no major competition, which explains their rather poor performance in the AQ. Maybe they haven't had a war for ages. Disproves the whole 'watching the Fed for hundreds of years' thing to, which is excellent

Well, they were watching the Federation, and figuring their strategy based on the military capabilities they displayed.

That might explain why they were so rudely surprised.

Be a heck of a bigger surprise though, if they were prepping for the Federation humans, and ran into the Imperium of Mankind version though.

(Yes, I know, other sci-fi, but it'd still be fun to watch Dominion troops suddenly going up against tanks, troop transports, dedicated heavy weapons, and lots of jamming)

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-07-13 05:20am

Coalition wrote:Well, they were watching the Federation, and figuring their strategy based on the military capabilities they displayed.

That might explain why they were so rudely surprised.

Be a heck of a bigger surprise though, if they were prepping for the Federation humans, and ran into the Imperium of Mankind version though.

(Yes, I know, other sci-fi, but it'd still be fun to watch Dominion troops suddenly going up against tanks, troop transports, dedicated heavy weapons, and lots of jamming)

They shouldn't have been surprised AT ALL if they'd been watching; hell, we only get a bloody TV show and we know all about their military!

Plus, if Alyeska is right and they schemed the cruisers as a reaction, then they can build new ships fast, so why take hundreds of years? Maybe the cruisers were kept in mothballs.

And seeing the Dominion go up against ANYONE who wasn't basically exactly the same level of lameness would have been fun; Jem hadar vs those little nurgling bastards, for instance

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-07-13 05:53am

Would someone like to tell me WHERE the idea that the Dominion fleet was almost all Roaches came from?

A simple COUNT of the major fleet formations in In Pergetories Shadow or Favour the Bold shows while the Roachs are clearly in the majority (as you would expect from a ship that small) there are a VERY large number of the ~600 meter long cruisers there. Why you leave Behind and the fleet around Cardasia prime had butloads of them, and the large Battleships as well.

We know almost nothing about what the Dominion has in the GC. They correctly use the little bug ships all over the place in 3 ship patrols and they have been more then adiquate in a patrol role. They probably keep the heavy stuff at staging points all over the place, ready to respond to any problem the Bugs signal that is beyond them....

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-07-13 06:15am

Oh and For the Record.

I have no problem with the 4800 meter long ship existing as a seperate class from the 1200 meters long ship.

For one we have clear precedent in Star Trek. The K'VOrt and B'Reil class BOP look visualy *identical* but one is three times the size of the other. We have of course various sized Borg Cubes which scale differently all the time. So I would hesitate before saying its impossible.

Second, arguments like 'We never see them in combat when we should have' are just stupid. We've seen the 1200 meter long ship all of TWICE and we've seen the Battleship type a half dozen other times, which may be one or the other. In a free for all of this scale the fact that we see one of these ships twice and the other once aint convincing me of this logic.

We do have quite a good scaling from the supership in orbit of Cardasian prime. That said, for all intents and purposes it means more or less nothing. We don't have any good information on this ship so it may as well not exist. But I don't see as yet any compelling reason to assume it DOESN'T. I'm all for using your head and being willing to dismiss events due to stuff like actors mistakes, FX screwups and such.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-07-14 04:51am

Chris, I don't know where I got that impression either; I haven't seen any Dominion DS9 myself, and that was the impression I got from hearing about it. Since you're a more reliable source, could you estimate a ratio of roach to cruiser? I thought it was something like 10-1, but you seem to suggest it's a more reasonable comparison. But then, I guess a roach is pretty damn small and volumetrically you'd expect a pretty high ratio...

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » 2004-07-14 04:01pm

Most references I’ve read say that the Jem’Hadar attack cruiser is 68.3 meters long. So they are obviously small than the Defiant class ships. I’m sure they do have the Majority of the fleet composition as they are made to out maneuver capital ships and dogfight with Birds of prey and such.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-07-14 11:21pm

Sovereign wrote:Most references I’ve read say that the Jem’Hadar attack cruiser is 68.3 meters long. So they are obviously small than the Defiant class ships. I’m sure they do have the Majority of the fleet composition as they are made to out maneuver capital ships and dogfight with Birds of prey and such.

And those references would be wrong. They are clearly not that much smaller then the Defiant.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-07-15 01:22am

Alyeska wrote:
Sovereign wrote:Most references I’ve read say that the Jem’Hadar attack cruiser is 68.3 meters long. So they are obviously small than the Defiant class ships. I’m sure they do have the Majority of the fleet composition as they are made to out maneuver capital ships and dogfight with Birds of prey and such.
And those references would be wrong. They are clearly not that much smaller then the Defiant.

I saw a screencap of Defiant chasing a roach, showing their similarity in length, but I've forgotten where... But just from the crashed on in DS9 its clear its much larger than 68 meters!

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » 2004-07-18 01:50am

Alyeska wrote:
Sovereign wrote:Most references I’ve read say that the Jem’Hadar attack cruiser is 68.3 meters long. So they are obviously small than the Defiant class ships. I’m sure they do have the Majority of the fleet composition as they are made to out maneuver capital ships and dogfight with Birds of prey and such.
And those references would be wrong. They are clearly not that much smaller then the Defiant.

Well, from this pic i'd say it is much bigger than that. The Defiant herself is about 115+ meters.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-07-18 02:27am

Thats the cap I was thinking of! Given the relative contruction of the two ships, and their similar size, I'd still rate the roach as 'slightly smaller'.

As a DS9 ignoramus, after the FED solved the whole polaron beam thing, were the roaches still effective, or were they individually weaker than Defiant?

Sovereign · Post by **Sovereign** » 2004-07-18 04:07pm

Stark wrote:Thats the cap I was thinking of! Given the relative contruction of the two ships, and their similar size, I'd still rate the roach as 'slightly smaller'.

As a DS9 ignoramus, after the FED solved the whole polaron beam thing, were the roaches still effective, or were they individually weaker than Defiant?

Well, they didn’t become weaker but they were less effective. They ended up becoming kamikaze ships. It seemed like they preferred to kamikaze the Klingon cruisers over the Feds or Roms. Maybe they had a reason for that?

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2004-07-18 07:36pm

Stark wrote:Thats the cap I was thinking of! Given the relative contruction of the two ships, and their similar size, I'd still rate the roach as 'slightly smaller'.

As a DS9 ignoramus, after the FED solved the whole polaron beam thing, were the roaches still effective, or were they individually weaker than Defiant?

I remember one celebration where the crew claimed the Defiant destroyed six JH attack ships.

Also, the JH attack ships went after the Klingons because Martok volunteered to deal with them.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-07-19 02:07am

Kamakazie Sith wrote:
Stark wrote: There you go again. In Rascals (the only ep to mention the fricking name) the ship is scalable to K'vort size. You can't just say it isn't; indeed, the K'vort doesn't even exist outside of an alternate timeline, so why the problem that they call K'vorts B'rels in the regular timeline? They call the 90-120m ones Birds of Prey.
I'm pretty sure the BoP in TNG "The Defector" were K'vort cruisers.

Indeed. Both of the two Birds of Prey seen in "The Defector" were Kvorts.