what always concerns me, is how young people think that war is a glorious opportunity to be a hero, the reality is anything but. it's not a game, people get killed or seriously injured, and for what ? because some politician says we need a war, or some arms dealer needs to make a profit ? it's not like someone attacked your country, and there's a need to protect your people your home your job your relatives etc. quite often your sent to some place you've never heard of, for some dispute you have no interest in, that is even if they do tell you why you're there. " yours is not to question why, yours is but to do or die " what kind of crap is that ?
war
- Thread starter wolfroy
- Start date
Huh! Good God, y'all!
Does this part have anything to do with Deep Space Nine?
Episode titles usually are better. People are more familiar with them vs. episode numbers.
I'm guessing you're talking about "Nor the Battle to the Strong"?
DS9 did a great job with showing some of the consequences and costs of war. I do wish we'd gotten an extra season to look at the aftermath of the conflict and reconstruction, when the full impact of war is really understood.
Nah, I see what you’re saying. There was never any fear that we’d lose the main cast and they got to blow up cool shit fighting genetically-engineered space lizards and Nazis and whatnot. As far as people looking for meaning and purpose in life, that’s certainly a lot more attractive than finding your bliss and voting for the recycling candidate.
There is something disturbing about a show that started out with a people torn apart by an alien military-industrial complex and ended with the biggest war in franchise history.
There is something disturbing about a show that started out with a people torn apart by an alien military-industrial complex and ended with the biggest war in franchise history.
That's 90s TV for you. Today would be somewhat different though.
DS9 did far better with its war than Discovery did.
DS9 covered that, in addition to the episodes mentioned so far, "Valiant" comes to mind. I wouldn't put Tears of the Prophet's up there though despite the decimation of starfleet and the death of Dax which wasn't really war related, as we didn't see any actual impact (other than Dax)
DS9 did a great job of showing how war can become inevitable even when you try your best to avoid it.
Again DS9 shows the detachment that's possible -- Look out there. Millions and millions of stars, millions upon millions of worlds. And right now, half of them are fanatically dedicated to destroying the other half. Now, do you think if one of those twinkling little lights suddenly went out, anybody would notice? Suppose I offered you ten million bars of gold pressed latinum to help turn out one of those lights, would you really tell me to keep my money?
The Dominion did fire the first shot when they attacked DS9, although arguably they were justified for
1) security -- the federation blocked their access to the wormhole
2) Bajor -- the federation was illegally occupying DS9 (Captain, as a Major in the Bajoran Militia, I must officially protest Starfleet's refusal to turn over this station to my government)
Overall DS9 was great at showing not everything was black and white. And then there's Pale Moonlight just when you thought things were getting clearer.
Should humans defend Earth? Mars? Vulcan? Angel One? Bajor? Ferenginar? Cardassia?
Siege of AR-558: According to Starfleet regulations we're suppose to be rotated off the front lines after ninety days. Ninety days! We've been stuck on this rock for five months
Nobody had heard of AR-558, but it was crucial to get access to the dominion communications, which saves lives, maybe even planets. Sure Betazed was occupied, but Telar wasn't. Perhaps AR558 meant that millions of Telerite lives were lost.
It's the kind that people who join the military sign up for. It's our duty, as the people who elect those that have to make the call, to ensure that they only make the call when the alternative is worse.
The one thing I feel that DS9 didn't do well was the background of the war. There's a strong argument that the Federation directly caused the war through incompetence and arrogance - and I'm not talking about the minefield.
Of course the changelings behind enemy lines, 'Martok', 'OBrien' on earth, 'Krajensky', all stoked paranoia in the Alpha Quadrant.
However go back to Season 1. The Federation did barely any exploring of the Gamma Quadrant. It was the Ferengi that made first contact with the Dominion, and all was going fairly well, until settlements started appearing (New Bajor, ok technically not federation, just like technically Norway isn't in the EU)
Effectively the Federation allowed the invasion of an area of space they knew nothing about.
When the dominion finally made it known that the federation should not be in their space, rather than close up the wormhole there and then and begin proper diplomatic relations (which may well have reverted to an agreement that nobody passes through the wormhole, on either side)
By the time "By Inferno's Light" and the attempted destruction of Bajor had come along, war was inevitable, but there's a strong argument that that point was reached because of Federation incompetence and arrogance, and it's the kids caught up in the war, and the civilians on planets like Betazed, that paid the price.
Paul Weaver, i can see that your like me, you analyzed each point and replied, so thank you for that. sorry ime new to this, so ime still working out how to use it. ive been watching star trek since it was in black and white only 9 inch vacuum tube telly. i grew up with superman batman and dixon of dock green, all telling us how heroes should behave. yep ime in my 70s. ive lost family in other peoples stupid wars, ive had family that wouldn't even talk to me about it, they just wanted to forget it ever happened. now who do kids look up to ? what are we teaching them ? unfortunately some children can't separate fiction from reality. and the adults just keep making more and more destructive weapons and tell us we have to protect ourselves from foreign invasion ? rent a cop carrying assault rifles. this isn't the country i grew up in, and i want the same chance for our children to have a less brainwashed future. you can point out that this isn't star trek ? but i will say, that children are influenced by what they see hear and understand to be normal and acceptable. we are so accustomed to violence it doesn't have the same effect it would have had in the past. this was not what gene roddenberry envisioned that the future would be like, he was trying to send a message, not pamper to tv ratings or you canceled, which has happened so often these days. and yep i am a dinosaur but proud of it
The more that I have learned about Gene Roddenberry, the more I have been cured of my admiration for him. He may have talked about a future humanity free of problems, but Roddenberry himself could be both misogynistic and bigoted. Moreover, he was seldom interested in stories that showed how humanity solved problems. He just wanted Picard or Riker or Troi to turn their noses at peoples who still struggled with social issues. Hans Biemler and Rick Manning presented a script in which the crew of the Enterprise encounters an active genocide. They had to debate violating the prime directive to stop it. Gene Roddenberry rejected the story out of hand: Picard would simply warp away. He would not try to stop it. So there it is: Star Trek can't solve the Twentieth Century's more egregious crimes. It ignores the major causes of violent death. It simply punts the solution to some unknown time.
Similarly, I don't find Roddenberry's approach to militarism to be entirely useful. Yes, cultures can be carried away by jingoism and imperialism. It can be simplified or presented in ways that glorify the experience, even death. For every society that attacks another for its land or resources or because their beliefs are different or whatever, there is another society whose people are struggling to survive, who have no choice but to fight with the hope that their children might live. And there are those societies that decide whether or not to intervene, knowing that it will be a messy affair but has the potential to moving the situation away from war.
Luckily, not all presentations of war glorify it. Yes, there are those "Top Guns," where our characters solve problems with quick wit and cool machines (not unlike the Enterprise). On the other hand, there are movies that strive to present the fullest experience of war in a way that emphasize that it is dangerous. It was appropriate that Steven Spielberg started his movie about what one risks for an ideal on the beaches of Normandy, presenting some of the most horrifying aspects of war. Gene Roddenberry was unwilling to do that.
Similarly, I don't find Roddenberry's approach to militarism to be entirely useful. Yes, cultures can be carried away by jingoism and imperialism. It can be simplified or presented in ways that glorify the experience, even death. For every society that attacks another for its land or resources or because their beliefs are different or whatever, there is another society whose people are struggling to survive, who have no choice but to fight with the hope that their children might live. And there are those societies that decide whether or not to intervene, knowing that it will be a messy affair but has the potential to moving the situation away from war.
Luckily, not all presentations of war glorify it. Yes, there are those "Top Guns," where our characters solve problems with quick wit and cool machines (not unlike the Enterprise). On the other hand, there are movies that strive to present the fullest experience of war in a way that emphasize that it is dangerous. It was appropriate that Steven Spielberg started his movie about what one risks for an ideal on the beaches of Normandy, presenting some of the most horrifying aspects of war. Gene Roddenberry was unwilling to do that.
Welcome to TrekBBS @wolfroy ! 
I understand that you are new to the BBS and still learning the ropes, but in future please try to compose your thread title and initial post with a little more clarity in how it relates to Deep Space Nine. If I had seen this thread right after you posted it I probably would have moved it to our miscellaneous forum since there was nothing in it which indicated you wanted to discuss DS9.
Thanks!
I understand that you are new to the BBS and still learning the ropes, but in future please try to compose your thread title and initial post with a little more clarity in how it relates to Deep Space Nine. If I had seen this thread right after you posted it I probably would have moved it to our miscellaneous forum since there was nothing in it which indicated you wanted to discuss DS9.
Thanks!
I don’t buy the argument the Federation caused the war. Not like the Dominion put up a sign.
And it’s very clear that once the Founders learned of the Federation they would try to “Bring order” to it. Whether they settled in the GQ or not.
And it’s very clear that once the Founders learned of the Federation they would try to “Bring order” to it. Whether they settled in the GQ or not.
Dominion had a longer term view. They knew the wormhole was just a shortcut and eventually the alpha quadrant empires (which seem more organised and larger than delta quadrant ones) would reach the GQ anyway.
Sisko’s lot tries to stop the war twice by closing the wormhole - once in a simulation (the search part 2), and once in the episode where the first dominion fleet arrives. In the latter it was changeling Bashir that made the wormhole impossible to collapse.
Once the dominion had cloning and shipyards in the AQ they didn’t need the wormhole, although weyoun was still devastated by its loss in Tears of Prophets.
Sisko’s lot tries to stop the war twice by closing the wormhole - once in a simulation (the search part 2), and once in the episode where the first dominion fleet arrives. In the latter it was changeling Bashir that made the wormhole impossible to collapse.
Once the dominion had cloning and shipyards in the AQ they didn’t need the wormhole, although weyoun was still devastated by its loss in Tears of Prophets.
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I always thought the war in DS9 was less about showing big space battles and more about exploring how a peaceful utopian society goes to war when forced to. In this, I think it did a great job. The Feds seemed reluctant to fight at the beginning and got off to a slow start, but they got the hang of it eventually. It was interesting that they had to adopt some of the thinking of their "barbaric" neighbors the Klingons and Romulans in order to win. I wish we could have seen the other half of the story- how the Feds went back to being peaceful and utopian, or wether that was even possible given the extent of destruction wrought during the war.
Yes please. Bring Voyager back at the end of season 5 and have a couple of seasons of them having been unaffected by the war dealing with the fallout - lost battalions that don't know / refuse to accept the war is over, the collapsing of the Romulan alliance, Martok's attempts to demobilise the Klingons, etc.
Agree to that. The Founders' distrust of all solids and love for order would probably have seen to that. Probably, in their eyes, the only good solid is a subjugated solid.
However, we have seen other metamorph species in the AQ long before the Dominion showed up (Kirk met one, we saw at least one on TNG) -- by the time of the Dominion war, such race might even have joined the Federation. How would the Founders treat them ?
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War is not glorious at all! A war is our 'governments' way of getting money, minerals and virtual ownership of that country that they're focussed on with politicians reaping the rewards and the acclaim while those injured in said conflicts are hidden away from the masses, unable to continue because they are not allowed to claim the financial benefits because they're this or they're not that! We're told that we must stop this aggressor or that one because they treat their own citizens poorly and will do so to these people as well but our own rulers treat us with disdain and disinterest and condemn those who will oppose their will!
This I doubt will ever change even into the twenty third century and Federation politicians are just as criminal as those today as we have seen in Insurrection for starters!
JB
This I doubt will ever change even into the twenty third century and Federation politicians are just as criminal as those today as we have seen in Insurrection for starters!
JB
Neither the Ferengi or Bajor are part of the Federation, so why should the federation be responsible for them?
