Destroying The Wormhole

[Delta Geminorum]

Why didn't the Federation destroy the wormhole the moment they learned of the Dominion?

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

The moment they learned of the Dominion? They didn't really know what the Dominion was, who exactly ran it, what prospects there were for peace, trade, exploration, etc. The Federation also wanted Bajor to join the Fed family, and destroying the celestial temple would have excluded that possibility. They did try to collapse the entrance without destroying the wormhole aliens, but the attempt was sabotaged by a changeling, and it made the entrance almost impossible to collapse instead. Hence the mines later on.

 

[Finn]

Wasn't there a thread about this a few months ago?

Edit: Yep...page 5

We knew of them well before it was understood that they were a huge threat. Even then, the Federation wasn't about to close a route to GQ just because they found a new baddie over there.

 

[Masiral]

"To seek out new life and new civilizations". Kinda hard to do that when you blow up your only access point.

 

[Prax]

It's a legitimate question, since Sisko tried to collapse the wormhole at the first sign of the Dominion establishing itself on the Federation side(The Search, part II), and what they are doing in season 5 poses a far greater threat.

Keeping Bajor and the Federation safe is clearly more important to the main characters than the wormhole and "exploration" in season 3, so the answer would have to be that Sisko is less inclined to take that measure in season 5, and exploring the gamma quadrant is not his reason. The wormhole aliens are.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

The moment they learned of the Dominion? They didn't really know what the Dominion was, who exactly ran it, what prospects there were for peace, trade, exploration, etc. The Federation also wanted Bajor to join the Fed family, and destroying the celestial temple would have excluded that possibility. They did try to collapse the entrance without destroying the wormhole aliens, but the attempt was sabotaged by a changeling, and it made the entrance almost impossible to collapse instead. Hence the mines later on.

Hmm. Maybe in the one alternate reality in
"Parallels" where the Bajorans were the bad guys, events with the Dominion started way earlier and the Feds actually destroyed the wormhole...

 

[arch101]

Making an ally out of the Bajorans doesn't begin with destroying the only gateway to their gods...

 

[Prax]

But they nonetheless tried to do exactly that in "The Search part II"

 

[JirinPanthosa]

They talked more about collapsing the entrance than destroying the wormhole.

I suspect if there was any danger of the wormhole being destroyed the Prophets would have possessed the woman who would give birth to the only one who would prevent it.