What if Leyton's coup succeeded?(RAR)

[FaxModem1]

In the DS9 two parter, "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost", Admiral Leyton engineers a coup and martial law after a diplomatic function is bombed by some Founders. It's quickly put down due to intervention by Sisko, Odo and the crew of the Defiant. But, what if they failed, and/or Sisko agreed to back Admiral Leyton in helping make the UFP strong against the upcoming Dominion threat?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I suspect that the wormhole would have been mined earlier, probably after the first Dominion convoy came through. This means a vastly smaller initial enemy force, meaning the war would go much easier.

[DaveJB]

The reason they had to mine the wormhole at all was because their attempt to close it without harming the Prophets ended up going wrong and making the wormhole completely indestructible. That being the case, I suspect that a Leyton-controlled government would have ignored the whole issue of potentially harming the Prophets, and just destroyed the wormhole outright before the Dominion could get any forces through.

After that, I suspect that the shapeshifters who were already in the Alpha Quadrant would have taken a different tack. They'd likely have gone to ground, laid low for a while and then started worming their way into the high offices of the Federation, Klingons and Romulans (the Cardassians would have been conquered by the Klingons without Dominion reinforcements). Once they'd done that, they could focus on slowly gaining control of those nations and started carving out their own little fiefdom in the Alpha Quadrant, waiting for the day that the main Dominion "inevitably" expanded into that region of the galaxy.

[Gandalf]

I suspect that the wormhole would have been mined earlier, probably after the first Dominion convoy came through. This means a vastly smaller initial enemy force, meaning the war would go much easier.

That assumes that the rest of the Federation and Starfleet just go along with the coup, as opposed to rushing to Earth to stop the whole thing.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's...a good point actually. Though I think that when the OP said "the coup succeeds" they meant "Leyton and co are now in charge of the Federation, what happens next?"

Though the idea of a Federation Civil War between Leyton's faction and the less warlike faction is interesting. The second faction would probably be lead by someone like Picard now that I think about it.

[FaxModem1]

I was leaning towards the latter, but the consequences of an idealist led UFP civil war would also be interesting to discuss.

[Lord Revan]

there's at least 1 Founder on earth so trying to cause a UFP civil war might have been their intention.

[Darth Tanner]

Yes the idea that the Federation would just let a single Admiral take direct military control for any extended period is rather implasuable. He got away with it for a very short length of time by exploiting presumably genuine founder terrorist attacks and his own shenanigans with the wormhole but his actual military backing was a bunch of cadets and a single ship he had to lie to to get them to act on his behalf. His position is untenable longer than the time it takes for a single other starship to arrive and remove him... or the security forces he deployed to remove him themselves. It is a bit weird however that on Earth of all places there were no other Admirals or high ranking staff to be seeing what he was doing but the timeframe of his stay in power was very short.

If you bypass all of that and simply give Leyton supreme command by Q then I can see the wormhole being mined and a fleet deployed to blockade it as well. I would imagine they would still go with the plan to 'close' the wormhole rather than destroy the prophets and piss of Bajor which would still get sabotaged by the Founders into making the wormhole bomb proof.

The only question then is if the Founders can sabotage the minefield to allow their fleet through, or alternatively use the Cardassians to reopen the wormhole from their end without direct Dominion military support.

[FedRebel]

If the coup succeeded?

Starfleet would be more overtly shifted to a war footing, basically Picard's bickering from Insurrection...only earlier.

Federation culture would start to be molded from anti-Founder/anti-Dominion propaganda, blowback would depend on whether Layton floods the media with "Dominion Bad" or just gradually leaks it in (more heavy handed, the more doubt the pop would have in Leyton's Junta.)

Overall not much of a difference in events or the war. Likely the first "Flight III" Galaxy's (All Good Things upgrades) would be entering service towards the closing months of the war.

Scratch that, no Founder Surrender at Cardassia, that bioweapon program likey would've been given higher priority by Leyton and would've claimed the female Founder before any plucky hero could intercede. The Alliance wins, but the Klingon Defense Force is next to wiped out from attrition, Federation loses are severe but mitigated by the "Flight III's" having the punch with the Phaser Cannon to cut through the Super Battleships, the Romulan's take very heavy losses and don't have the saving grace of a Super-ship of their own. And there's no formal close to the war.

When Voyager finally phones home, the Pathfinder Project is already full bore as Sarfleet would be looking into alternative means to access the Gamma Quadrant and take the Dominion War on the offensive.

A more militant Federation would have two main post war outcomes, first the Klingon's would have a stronger bond to the Federation (thinks Quark's comments in 'Siege of AR588", only those cultural aspects asserted sooner and wouldn't abate.) Second, the Romluans would sh*t themselves...especially when the first "Flight III" Galaxy's entered service, this would likely lead to the Scimitar Project being a more overt development and undercutting the reforms by the Romulan senate that gave Shinzon his opening to gain military support and stage his coup.

Leyton's Federation and the Romulan Star Empire would be in an overt Cold War arms race with Super-ships and other military programs. Martok's government would have a special relationship with the Federation and partly out of necessity from losing so many hulls, the KDF would be using Starfleet surplus ships.

[Prometheus Unbound]

why do you keep mentioning this "flight iii" magical galaxy class that was seen 20 years further into the future in a different universe, itself a modification of the Enterprise, a ship already destroyed by this time?

[Tribble]

Leyton could have ordered Sisko to close the wormhole. Or if he was worried that Sisko would defy his order, he could have just sent the Lakotta over to DS9 to torpedo it. Instead he tried carrying out an elaborate ruse involving the wormhole randomly opening and closing and having cadets blow up a power facility, all so that he could take over as dictator. Either Leyton was a complete idiot or else he was always planning on seizing control one day, and he happened to use the Dominion as his excuse. If the Dominion weren't around he might have just come up with a plan where it was a Romulan or Klingon threat which necessitated martial law.

[Metahive]

The Federation descends into civil war (let's remember that the Federation consists of more than just humans and those other members might not like getting a human military dicatorship imposed on them), either Leyton or one of Leyton's close advisors is killed and replaced by a Founder to keep the war going for as long and destructive as possible. Really, nothing good would have come of it.

[Lord MJ]

(the Cardassians would have been conquered by the Klingons without Dominion reinforcements)

Based on the show, the Cardassians weren't in danger of being conquered after their initial assault. War continued in virtual stalemate afterwards. The prospect of the Cardassians being conquered became even less likely when Gowron decided that starting a war with the Federation was a good idea. And the only reason the Cardassians didn't launch a counter attack was because the civilian government was too afraid to do so.

My theory on this is that the Cardassians don't share a border with the Klingons like they do with the Federation and Romulans, so the Klingons can't simply pour forces into Cardassian space without transiting Federation controlled areas or longer open space routes. Once the initial invasion petered out and the Cardassians were able to reinforce the homeworld areas, the Klingons no longer had sufficient forces to break through into the Cardassian homeworld areas. This is supported by the fact that, the Klingons shifted their priorities to identifying and targeting individual outposts and systems that they thought could be isolated and conquered rather than large offensives. Klingons couldn't launch large offensives anymore (first one likely took months of planning in secret), and once the war with the Federation started, there was little possibility of reinforcements being sent to the Cardassian front.

[Tribble]

I wonder if Section 31 would have stepped in and stopped Leyton had Sisko failed? They seem to want to keep up the appearances that the civilian government is in control, and having an Admiral arbitrarily seize power on Earth might have screwed up whatever plans they had at the time. Had Leyton succeeded in his scheme he might have had an unfortunate "accident" soon afterwards. Or mysteriously "disappeared." Or perhaps even been accused of being a changeling trying to stir up trouble, like what he did to Sisko. IMO the last thing Section 31 would want would be the potential for power struggle or civil war, and they'd probably take action to have him removed asap.

[Replicant]

Why didn't at some point at the beginning of the war didn't Section 31 just send in a cloaked ship and destroy the wormhole?

I am sure they have a stolen cloaking device and based on what was stated a few times the wormhole can be destroyed with a few modified photon torpedoes. It is not like Section 31 would give a rats butt about the public outcry if some people became stranded by doing this, assuming that they ever admitted to doing it to begin with.

[Gandalf]

As of In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light, the wormhole was apparently indestructible or something.