This was by far one of the most ground breaking episodes in Star Trek history, both in story telling and a superior battle sequence. Still sends chills down my spine
i guess im asking randomly but does anyone know of a method to get back into an instagram account?? I was stupid forgot my login password. I appreciate any tricks you can offer me.
@Alexander Shepard I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site on google and Im trying it out atm. I see it takes quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 a wise decision to make it a two parter, especially as the digital effects had improved to the point where we could finally see massive battles in space between the different races.
@@Elthenar I believe the green bottle was Saurian brandy. I believe that Scotty found out during the tng dual episode. I'll take blood wine over Saurian brandy! If it don't kill ya, it'll make you wish it did! 🤣
"Execute order 66." Sir, that's Star Wars. "Er, execute planetary sterilization pattern number 5." Number 5? Which one is that. I haven't sterilized any planets lately. "Never mind, just...open fire!"
"Tain originated the plan; when we heard of it, we did everything we could to carry it forward" Man you know your idea is shitty if the intended target's reaction is "yes good very good let me give you a hand with that"
When this came out, my gf at the time, who was a Trekkie as well, called me at work super excited to tell me to hurry and come watch it on VHS. We recorded them for when I was working. I came home and jaw dropped at this. It was the most exciting thing Trek had done up to this point. It was surreal at the time.
Up to this point the most Star Trek could get over us was a dozen ships on screen. A fleet of twenty was big in our minds, forty was epic. So when that romulan says one-hundred and fifty ships are coming at them it was world-shaking.
If only they had 20 highly manoeuvrable defiant class ships, he would have simply said they should have sent 400 and set about completely destroying the fleet. But nope into the Romulan sent the most unmanoeuvrable vessel ever, the deridex_class battle ship.
You cut one of Garak's best lines in the episode: "They've set up a transmitter on the surface sending us false sensor readings. THE PLANET IS DESERTED!"
0:37 - that moment really was the game changing moment. Even with the loss of the Odyssey, and the games the Dominion played against the DS9 crew until now, the Tal'Shiar-Obsidiant order lured into the trap and swatter like nothing let the viewers know they were way more formidable than we were led to believe. True "Oh shit" moment.
to be fair they are secret agencies that NEVER thought they could be infiltrated. Both are respected and feared agencies across the quadrant. Their own secrecy and self assurance was used against them....
I wish Starfleet had created a fleet of them as planned. Too many make the mistake of thinking that single Defiant class ships were to take on the Borg. Of course it would have been a number of them attacking a cube at once. Very cool ships.
It's way way more maneuverable than a tank though... it has the armor to accept a lot of energy damage, and quad phasers to fuck things up, and can fly circles around big targets
It was nice how they connected the "suggestion" of 24 months to have any defense against the Borg, as well as using that time to have the fleet up in less than a year.
Oddly enough, it helped the Alpha quadrant side to not have sneaky paranoid elements in the fight.It certainly helped bringing the Romulans into the fight and it helped Damar and the Cardassian resistance.
But doesn't really make a lot of sense. Tal Shiar and Obsidian didn't need to man the vessels with agents of the groups once they completed. Any normal officer could have carried out the mission, considering all it required was to travel under cloak to the planet and then start bombarding it.
Technically only the Obsidian Order was wiped out. The Tal Shiar was badly weakened, but was careful enough not to fully commit their entire force to the attack. Tain pushed for the full Order to go, probably hoping to recapture some of his glory from having been the Order's greatest leader. As for not needing to man the ships themselves? Actually, yes they did. This would be what in the 'spy game' is called a 'black ops' situation. Normal military protocol would have prevented the Cardassians and Romulans from even making the attempt to wipe out the Founders. This had to be done outside the normal chain of command, in order to avoid any 'red tape' or 'moral objections' (not that either the Romulans or Cardassians WOULD have objected...) - and it also gave both governments 'plausible deniability'. The Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order could both be disavowed and declared 'rogue elements' or 'extremist terrorists', and allow for diplomactic routes to be taken. We all know such options would have been pointless in the face of the Dominion's modus operandi, but still...forms must be obeyed.
Garak is such a brilliant character. He added such depth and intrigue to the series. Definitely added a more adult mature complex element to the storytelling. DS9 brought a lot of the storytelling back down to a humanoid level. The God level being and cosmic stakes story lines get a bit overblown and unrelatable at times. DS9 managed to avoid a lot of that by having plots more humanoid centric. Even the stories with the prophets and the founders focused more on the struggles of their humanoid followers dealing with their faiths than the God like beings themselves.
Emperor Palpatine could've learned from this: if you lure your enemy into a trap, don't just pester them with starfighters, envelop and destroy them with your ships.
that wasnt mistake on his part, the rebel fleet would have been destroyed either way but he needed psychological pressure to turn Luke which was WAY more important to him than the rebels. the fact the rebels willingly chose to make a suicidal run on the imperial fleet rather than stay in the open to be target for the Deathstar might have told you that attacking them with just fighters leaving the rebel fleet open to the most powerful weapon in the battle was the tactically superior choice to begin with.
Why do D'deridex-class Warbirds look so bad-ass and advanced, but seem to just shit themselves and become immediate cannon fodder in this episode? The odds were crazy but they didn't even fight back
They are huge but only about equal to a Galaxy Class ship in firepower. They do put up a fight but the odds were 150 vs 20 ships, even the small Jem'Hadar attack vessels are dangerous in large numbers. Swarmed. The battle continues after the Defiant leaves. I would imagine the Dominion took at least 1/3 losses.
Dominion weapons were still more effective against shields at this point. After an attack ship was captured, the technologies were studied. Defenses were improved after the Dominion invaded. Cardassians were also given technical assistance after joining the Dominion. The combined force was able to offset any technical advances the Alliance had. A Warbird was just a big target until then, maybe taking out a couple ships, each. Later on, the Warbird was a match for the battlecruisers.
It's funny how badly misinformed their intelligence was. They thought a fleet of 20 ships could even make a dent on an operation of this scale. And this wasn't a covert operation, especially when they told everyone in the Alpha Quadrant that they were going to do this before they went into the wormhole.
Why not announce it as soon as you arrive at the wormhole? Nobody can warn the founders, except through the wormhole, so they only had to prevent that until they are gone through, and ask the Federation to keep it closed for a little while after, so nobody would outrun them towards the founders homeworld. (which requires them to tell the Federation)
It is also funny that the Dominion missed the opportunity to acquire, study, reverse-engineer and employ the stealth modules of the wrecked OO/TS ships. A stealthy Dominion armada would have steamrolled the alpha quadrant
@@hindermannbjorn9507 the thing about that is, they normally just steamrolled right through their opposition and thus didn't need to result to stealth tactics. If it wasn't a case of numerical superiority overwhelming their enemies, then it was the fact that their weapons could penetrate most shields - and even in situations where the tide began to turn in the enemy's favor they were willing to sacrifice themselves in Kamikaze runs at the enemy ships. In a way they were worse opponents than the Borg.
@@danieljackson1272 Normally yes. But the Dominion already perceived the Federation/Klingon Alliance as a real threat that needed sophisticated infiltration, subterfuge and diplomatic isolation which was done well. They created "perfect" unquestioning loyal soldiers and servants which they can replace quick. So why pass up the opportunity to improve their own reliable forces, understand the cloaking which romulans, klingon and the defiant uses and relying in alliances with solid cardassians and breen? I perceive it as a dent in founder perfectionism
I liked how the changeling let Garak go out of respect for the obvious friendship between him and Odo when he could've easily liquified him with a Romulan disruptor
I loved this episode, I loved his story art. My only problem was with the battle. The Romulan and cardassian ships are simply standing still, and not even firing. These are state-of-the-art warships, manned by combat veterans. They would have been firing relentlessly. They would have been overwhelmed, but they would not have gone down quietly
"The third ship is still pursuing" - "Aft torpedos, fire" and it's just a single button to press. Why do they have to wait for the Captain to order every single shot? Just fire at the enemies! Or better: let the computer do it.
Always been a flaw in Star Trek. Computers would work so much faster than having to go through all the verbal orders and human interactions with the console. Sisko said the plan was to fire at 500 meters, so instead of auto firing at 500 meters, Dax has to call out when they reach 500, and then he orders to fire. At the speed the ships were flying towards each other, they would have already collided by the time the first shot was fired.
@@FlintIronstag23 You would also think ship computers would be better able to stay ahead of Borg adaptations against rotating shield and phaser freqs. Just enter in attack plan whatever and the ship computer would handle the selection and firing of weapons as well as ship handling. It would be interesting if somebody did a DS9 Trek novel where it turned out Section 31 dug up the old M-5 computer plans and retrofitted it to older Miranda,Excelsior, or Constitution refit ships, so they could operate with bare bones crews during the Dominion War.
I saw this when it aired on TV. Who else here was holding their breath every time they went to commercial for this episode? Yeah thats right I had to with through commercials but damn did it make coming back from commercial break so much sweeter.
Only Sisko would have the balls to enter a warzone containing 150 Dominion ships and then start shooting up Dominion ships AND living to tell the tale!
150 ships coming out of a nebula and apparently nobody thinks to cloak and get moving back to the Alpha quadrant. It really amazes me how the Romulan warbird is touted to be one of the most powerful ships in the Alpha quadrant yet literally any time it appears in ds9 it gets its ass handed to it. They spent an entire episode cantered on bringing the Romulans into the war, yet you never see their Warbirds doing anything of worth in the battles, you see the federation and Klingons destroying ships, but the Warbird is basically a decoration, sitting about not doing much.
2:33 i guess the founders COMPLETELY “missed the boat” on SECTION 31. ….the ones who actually were able to bring about the founders’ extermination. …until Odo decided to heal them.
I like how the founder who was posing as the romulan officer told them not to withdraw and make a stand, ensuring they all would be destroyed. thing that didn't make much sense though is why the obsidian order and telshiar would of commited the entire organizations to this battle? They said this would wipe those organizations out? Seems pretty silly.
It would STILL be interesting, that, if there was a major BORG invasion of, the Gamma space, among other incursions, and the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Bajorans, and with special attention to The Dominion, had to "ALL", work together, big time!! For if one fell, all would. And a WAR like that would last longer than two years, and the destruction caused by the BORG would be absolutely catastrophic!! And much, much, harder to fight an enemy that will not surrender!! A good concept!!??
Its interesting that the founder said the only real threat were the Klingons and the Federation but yet they would make treaties with the Tholians and Miradorn so must have thought they were a real threat.
Crippling the Romulan Tal Shiar and Cardassian Obsidian Order was a brilliant plan by the Founders to weaken the Alpha Quadrant factions. I’m so sad so many D’deridex was lost.😢
1) The Jem'Hadar fired on Odo & Weyoun 6... when they didn't know he was aboard. 2) The Jem'Hadar fired on the runabout with Odo & Garak aboard... so apparently the "no changeling has ever harmed another" doesn't mean "No Jem'Hadar has ever harmed a Changeling." 3) The Jem'Hadar didn't concentrate on the Defiant... just enough firepower to persuade Sisko to leave...
Honestly, I think Gene would have looked at the Dominion War as massive failure of the Federation to win over the Dominion with it's idealism, or have a transcendent species step in and dictate peace. Kirk hunted down a marauding Romulan ship to keep the peace and it's commander self destructed. Kirk went after a marauding Gorn ship and was forced by godlike aliens beings into a battle to the death with the Gorn Captain he refused kill in cold blood after injuring it. The Orgainians stopped the out break of a Federation /Klingon War. I think the idea of setting a Trek series during a multi season galactic war that could not be resolved by a rousing Kirk speech, or timely alien intervention,would have horrified Roddenberry.
I wonder what happened to the out of phase Romulan who was thrown through the bulk head!? Might make an interesting follow up story or maybe the Romulan whom the changeling was impersonating was imprisoned like Bashir, Martok among others!
Even as a kid... I was yelling "cloak" at the screen. They think their cloaks are effective at this point (and supposedly are in-universe); the fighters are out of range... IMMEDIATELY cloak, and disperse in random directions at warp, then retreat to alpha quadrant and rally at DS9. Yes, Lovak is a changing, and he's giving the orders to make a stand, but Tain is shown here to be a complete idiot. It also completely undermines all of the tension & drama they've been building. Of course, the writers could've just had them be in firing range already which would've fixed it... but the way this is written it always infuriated me; because we are told over and over that these people are the best and brightest, and then as soon as something goes awry, they turn into mentally-handicapped idiots who might as well be banging their heads on the keyboards drooling. Also... the Cardassians & Romulans never fire back... at least in the initial battle scenes. :-/ Also made no sense that the Jem'Hadar would be chasing the Runabout or shooting at it; that might be the most egregious thing in maybe the whole series. Lovak, a Founder, beamed onto one of the Dominion ships after giving Odo the Runabout. He would have ordered them to explicitly NOT shoot it, and not even shoot the Romulan flagship until they left. Hell, the Jem'Hadar probably would have escorted the Runabout back to DS9. I actually think that's a way better ending and way scarier... this whole fleet goes through the wormhole, and all that comes back out is the Runabout, with Garak alone to tell the tale.
They shouldve sent a scout ship, a completely foreign ship with the best upgrades cloak that doesnt register as romulan... Even if caught it would be blown up up or the person could kill themselves(alien in appearance
The Changeling impersonating this Tal Shiar Officer didn’t mention other potential threats; e.g. Breen (probably already infiltrated), Shelliak, Gorn and the Borg. The Borg in particular would be a more dangerous threat to the Dominion.
Considering the Dominion had thousands of warships I can definitively see them using 150 for this ambush easily. You have to remember the Dominion occupy the same amount of space as ALL the major Alpha quadrant political entities and considering that each one had just hundreds of ships before the war. Ya,150 ships is a drop in the bucket.
That Romulan at 0:43 is hot & would absolutely get it. 😂 Seriously though, I wonder if that's the same one from the episode where Worf, Ezri, the Romulan, and that one Breen were being held prisoner?
