Dominion War : Fall of the Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar 

Pointing out the flaws in a thing does not always mean one dislikes that thing.

In Sisko's defense, he hasn't yet been promoted to Captain yet and had no authority to use Code 47 to contact other ship commanders to set up a blockade of Federation Starships........

Best kind of lie is one that contains some truthful elements. That's why the Dominion may very well have thrown away their homeworld, after all, the only thing that matters to the founders is the link, not where the link is located.

He who controls the spice ‘cough-cough’ I mean, Ketrecel White, controls the Universe!

Time to go watch Admiral Ramirez's speech in Axanar.

It's likely we are in transition federation. Picard represents the federation ideal, the best the ideal ever produced. Sisco, Janeway, and others are a product of wars with the Cardassians and Borg. Sisco regardless of what he could or could not do as well the Admiralty are clearly becoming increasingly militaristic as the calm "golden age" that allowed ships with kids on them comes to an end. Still full of the ideals but becoming creatures of war. Even Picard gives in by first contact.

Star fleets short comings does make it more like a real government, and less like wish fulfillment.

Starfleet, or at least elements of Starfleet high command, has repeatedly shown throughout it's history that it can and might behave immorally when convenient. This is not a universal behavior of all Starfleet officers nor the Starfleet designed by Roddenberry, but it's not out of character.

Honestly, I could see the Federation being willing to sit back and do nothing, with one very specific episode as evidence from the TNG era: I, Borg. In it, Picard is perfectly willing to use an abandoned Borg drone as a Trojan Horse to completely wipe out the Borg as a threat once and for all. While he does ultimately back out when "Hugh" begins to demonstrate individuality, it does show how much the Federation had changed after their dealings with the Borg, perfectly able to justify to obliteration of an entire civilization in the name of self-defense (albeit, one that there was NO chance of negotiation or peace with). I find it quite reasonable that the Federation at this time, while not condoning or participating, would be perfectly willing to sit back and wait to see what happened when someone else expressed an interest in wiping out a potential threat...

What is amazingly out of character is that the Federation _then_ decides to step up and *protect Cardassia* and *turn on* their toughest ally, *the Klingon Empire.* *_This is worthy of its own video, here are my thoughts._* They were right about it being a Dominion ploy, but so what? The real ploy was to get the Klingons and Starfleet to fight, weakening both, and to force the Cardassians into their arms. The Cardassian seduction required for the Cardassians to be weakened, but still independent. Starfleet should have just let the Klingons go ahead. They didn't know for sure that the Klingons were wrong (Martok being the Changeling was a complete surprise) and the Cardassians had been a complete _pain in the ass_ ever since contacted, and would no doubt continue to be. Let the Klingon Empire take out the threat on their border that was also the last war they fought (and pre wormhole was likely to be the next one as well) and a ongoing hassle that caused the Marquis (and internal instability) as a response. Starfleet either sits back…while Bajor celebrates and hold up _"go Klingons go!"_ banners as their hated former oppressors get stomped… or joins in with the Klingons if they want to be realpolitik (and drop the pacifist face) about it. Buy the time the Dominion can get to Cardassia to offer membership the Cardassians _have already lost._ The Klingons managed to devastate them while holding off the Federation, if given a free hand and blessing (either private or public) and maybe even co-belligerence by Starfleet they would take the Cardassian Empire before a single Dominion ship could reach there. The Federation gets one less threat upon its borders, it solves the whole disputed colonies issue. And if they joined in with the Klingons it helps cement the alliance further, as well as get themselves even more territory and a buffer for Bajor. And most importantly, _the Dominion don't gain a client state in the Alpha quadrant near the wormhole._ Surely Starfleet must have considered the strategy and the risk that Cardassia would join the Dominion, even before the Klingons started beating on them. And imagine if they didn't uncover the Changeling, or even killed Gawron? Then the Klingon Federation war goes on till one side completely losses. It is so insane that surely there must've been a Changeling infiltrator in Starfleet pulling strings.

I think Starfleet’s inaction stems from the came cause you’ve intensified in previous videos; a paralyzing aversion to war. Neither the Romulans or the Cardassians are allies, but potential enemies with whom they have a tentative piece, and have bent over backwards (‘Contagion’ nowithstanding) to avoid war with. Now, in order to protect the Founders/Dominon- who have murdered a Starfleet crew most recently, and destroyed settlements and the like- they would have to go to war with two Alpha Quadrant powers… a war they’ve worked hard to avoid, and especially cannot afford with the potential of a war with the Dominion, who could just swoop in and decimate all three weakened powers as ‘thanks’ for a save they’d probably never even know occurred. Now, if this was TNG, they’d probably go and do that anyway- hoping that they might have another Narendra III that would convince the Founders that the Federation wanted to be friends. Or just do it because it was the right thing to do. And that's what they should've done. But this is DS9's portrayal- less optimistic, more pragmatic… and here, while it’s distasteful to do nothing- the price of doing something could get them all killed; a risk they can’t afford to take for someone who’s demonstrated clear aggression. The cold calculus is- they can’t stop everyone from fighting with everyone; they can’t police both quadrants, and they simply aren’t willing to take the consequences that would come from intervention.

Like others mentioned, Sisko has NOT certain priviliges yet to do things on his own... Especially if you are dealing with a "crisis" Situation which involves 3!! Major space powers. But with that said, the decision by the Federation high command to not interfere was really.. Unusual tbh.

I do find myself in agreement with you that the Federation's early actions are largely uncharacteristic with regards to the Dominion. That being said, however, if we were to assume that the Federation did warn the Dominion and made a show of force in attempting to stop the attack, would that have really changed what the Dominion intended to do? While it may have given some members of the Founders pause, I do not believe it would have made the slightest difference. Add in the fact that the Great Link functions almost as a means of brainwashing to achieve group consensus and there is very little chance of this changing anything. It might have been counterproductive as it could have made the Romulans even more standoffish later to the point of refusing an alliance no matter what. In the end, DS9 just proves how wrong Gene Roddenberry always was about his belief in "evolved" humanity. Sisko said it best when he said that it was "easy to be a saint in paradise." But there is a corollary to that statement. If the people you are dealing with aren't saints then you can't afford to be either. That's why I long ago changed my favorite lead from Picard to Sisko. Sisko would throw away everything from his ideals to his morals to allow the Federation to survive in the hope of preserving those ideals and morals for someone else. Picard, on the other hand, would sacrifice the Federation so he could look himself in the mirror at the end. Picard is the leader you want in times of peace and plenty and you are so powerful that no one would dare take you on. Sisko is the leader for the real world where the enemy might be at the gates or trying to knife you in some dark alley.

_I_ was pretty startled to see an admiral in gold.

I think Sisko held back because he was captured by the Dominion and held bye them until he was rescued. I think Sisko probably wanted to destroy them just like section 31 did

Back to your best, i have watched those episodes many times but never thought about the fedreation helping the dominion might help with a peace in the future. Keep it up

Every time I'm impresed by those videos Lore, great job mate!

Fantastic series. The format is stellar, and it's fun to entertain an intelligent analysis of the fandom on a more complex level. Looking forward to more!

I love love love your new intro. It's really awesome, and I've replayed it like 5 times!

Great video! Love it when you contrast 'episode logic' against the man on the street perspective.

I'm very impressed with your videos. Your viewpoints are very intelligent and well thought out. I look forward to your videos all the time.

The elimination of the founders would have saved countless lives in the alpha quadrant, war with the Dominion was inevitable and the end of the war was only secured when the disease that had afflicted the great link forced them to the negotiating table, the way i see it they were a deceitful lot who would no doubt have one day had another go at the alpha quadrant so best just get rid of the threat once and for all

Romulans started getting their cloak tech out there because they saw what their rivals (Starfleet) could do by that point if they tried to come up with it on their own. So like any major Tech brand they start putting their own stuff out into the the wild to prevent anyone from coming up with their own and potentially better tech

Starfleet never could have got enough ships to the Gamma Quadrant to stop the attack. It took days to get reinforcements to DS9 when it was attacked by the Klingons. It also took days when an attack was expected after Dukat joined the Dominion. The only ship Starfleet could have sent was the Defiant.

Considering the Tal'shiar were considered the most powerful secret service out of all the powers it's easy to see Section 31 operating in a stand alone complex with the dominion in pursuing the same goal independent of one another, while it was less pronounced the previous fear within the federation power structure was of Romulan infiltrators and sleeper agents, the founders ability to shape shift and mimic people simply took that existing fear to a new level. Section 31 did have one advantage over the Tal'shiar in that their own government barely knew of their existence, they had made themselves what a secret agency should be in that for most people they didn't exist on any visible level.

The dominion already destroyed the odyssey and started to replace key personnel

If Sisko tried to take the Defiant to warn the Dominion and stop the attack, the Dominion would have double-crossed him and the rest of the Federation.

If the "earlier" humans had not embraced sufficient pragmatism and realism, then they would not have survived long enough to have the opportunity to “evolve” into these “evolved” humans.

I agree the Dominion did orchestrate the Federation to sit back and let the fall of the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order. Remember, at the end of the episode, "The Search part II," the female changling said the Alpha Quadrant is racked with chaos and they could use some order and at the end of, "The Die is Cast," the fake Romulan Commander said to Odo and Garak that, "the only threats from the Alpha Quadrant is the Federation and Klingons...and non them will be a threat much longer." I think the confrontations between the Borg and the Federation has made the Federation very nervous and scared. The Borg put the Federation in the mode of desperation.They are willing to allow their enemies to fight each other so it would seem like the they are the victim and not the aggressors.

It almost certainly isn't the planet they evolved on, merely a barren place to be an ocean of goo. And it wouldn't be like they were abandoning great cities and landmarks. Also, apparently they wouldn't even need ships to evacuate as we've seen changelings flying through space at warp speeds in the guise of weird space-dwelling lifeforms in that episode were Odo meets Laas. Also, if the Founders were that paranoid about outside threats, they may have already evacuated the planet as soon as Odo and the DS9 crew left in the second episode of season 3.

Federation: peace? Dominion: sure. But we will own you. Federation: ummmm no. Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar: Nuke em from orbit? Federation: Execute Order 66. Section 31: Grab the popcorn and the champagne

Man awesome Video so many things that you got right

As far as special operations goes, you can almost bet section 31 was behind the Romulan failure. They are for anything that both expands their power and weakens their enemy. Plus it’s a chance to see the capability of the Dominion

Star Fleet ordered captain picard to take the next chance he had to completely destroy the Borg. That alone is precedent for this. And that was definitely TNG era.

Another awesome segment ! (30 April 2019 1212 hours)

When you are faced with a foe who will not stop until they are in control, you must be willing to do what ever it takes to win. Do what you can to have peace yes, but once they start fighting, you must be all in. Those who try to be peaceful are just hindering the survival of a nation and even the species in it. Starfleet's overly pacifistic view is what cost 10s of millions of lives. That blood is on them. You should always hope for the best, but expect and be prepared for the worse.

I hope Since they are doing a Section 31 Show they may do a Obsidian Order Show with Elm Garak in the Future.

"This action, to sit back and allow genocide, is so far away from what Starfleet would do at this point in time - it's mind-boggling." Capt. Archer: "Now, back in _my_ day..."

I wouldnt be surprised if section 31 had known or had a hand in it in some way

Romulan intelligence never fell apart, they were still active during Star Trek Picard

The Federation did get more and more warlike and similar to us today as ds9 went on. Great to see a video touching on this. Ds9 is my favorite Trek

I wouldn't call obliterating all the colonies sent by the Alpha quadrant to be any form of restraint.

It makes sense that the dominion would actually use their homeworld to bait their trap. For a lie to work, it requires 2 parts truth to one part lie.

Also they rule and empire of thousands of planets. Why would they limit themselves to just one planet.

I watched this episode yesterday for the very 1st time One thing got me thinking: a few episodes earlier, Thomas Riker makes an incursion inside Cardassia space and ends up being tried by the Empire after surrendering the Defiant and it's data on the sector where the Obsidian Order was preparing a fleet to attack the Dominion. So the Central Command has at least some information on what was going on... and Sisko knew that.

You can also make the case that Sisko's wife was killed by the Borg so he would probably be open to genocide of the changelings , fast forward to season 4 Episode Home Front. Sisko tells the president " The dominion will be waging the type of war earth has not seen since the founding of the federation " To me Sisko understood the threat that the dominion posed and was willing to stop at nothing to protect the federation

United earth aliance from bab v is one of my favorite depictions of future humans

And the magick word is: Section-31... True there may even have been a really long term goal of Section-31 to both weaken the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar but also eventually goad the Dominion into invading the Alpha Quadrant in order to make all these powers more compliant to the UFP and also of course changing the weak minded Starfleet into an actual military force. My understanding of Section-31 is that they may have been playing an epic long-game if everything from First Contaact and Enterprise is factored in = Section-31 may have had advanced knowledge and had been preparing for all the eventualities = The epic clusterf%&¤# of Wolf-359 is but one of almost inumerable bits in that shadowweave.

It's almost like the UFP became closet Isolationists prior to getting fully involved with the Dom War.

My personal theory is that Romulans found out how to easily detect the cloak, created superior replacement and is now flooding black market with inferior tech that can't be used against them.

And this is why Deep space nine has the be the greatest Sci Fi series ever well over 20 years since it went off air and we still trying to figure out what was a changeling plot or a section 31 plot

The only thing the federation or DS9 could have is to send a warning message to the Dominion. It would have taken days to assemble a large enough fleet to stop that Card-Rom attack fleet. And at that time it is already over.

That was a brilliant trap of the Dominion.

Sisko said in the Maquis ‘the problem is Earth. You look at the window of Starfleet Headquarters you see paradise but not everyone out there lives in Paradise. He is making the distinction between the TNG era and now the world The Federation lives in. Picard did say in Journeys End that the treaty with Federation citizens living on the Cardassian side would cause issues.

The federation feels they are dealing with a force they may not handle, Who is very aggressive. I would of done the same, let the attack happen, it's called none interference a federation policy.

Regarding the Founders' giving away their homeworld to Odo... That's actually very much in-character for them. The Founders are amazingly crafty, deceitful, and manipulative when it comes to dealing with other races. When it comes to other Changelings though, they make ridiculously stupid decisions. More accurately, they are as passionate and irrational about protecting/incorporating their own kind as Starfleet was (supposed to be) about maintaining peace. The Founders were more than willing to genocide entire species to ensure the survival of just one or two of their race. On the other hand, more than once Founders died in order to protect others of their race, or even to *influence* others of their race like Odo. Indeed, in the end of the war when it looked like the Founder species was doomed the female made incredibly irrational-seeming orders that would have crippled the Alpha-Quadrant Dominion in her absence... but would have also ensured the other powers were crippled as well. Basically she was ensuring that what was left of her people would never be threatened by the Feds, Klingons, Romulans, et al ever again.

It certainly made more sense to have Sisko in the role Abrams-verse Kirk, where he is ethically obligated to disobey an illegal order. And Toddman's decision not to have him court martialed would have the effect of keeping the real reason for Starfleet's passivity on the down low. When this series gets to "To the Death", is it possible the Dominion's recruiting of Starfleet as an ally in not only eradicating rebel Jem'Hadar, but in destroying an Iconian gateway, suggests a willingness on their part to leave the Alpha Quadrant alone? All they're doing at this point is sending infiltrators to turn the Alpha Quadrant powers against each other.

Had Starfleet warned the Dominion, it could have meant war with both the Romulans and the Cardassians at the same time, and even if it hadn't, The Romulans would have held a grudge, and never would have come to the aid of the Federation alliance later on, though the Cardassians might have still turned on their dominion masters, there is no guarantee of that either. Warning the Dominion would have been a worse idea politically, with more damaging potential fallout.

Sisco and Picard are just single captains and the best in moral, but not Starfleet

You know what, I agree with you on what starfleet should have done with regards to the genocide attempt. In fact, doing so might have helped to thaw the tensions between the federation and dominion.

do your part to wipe out those filthy changelings and stomp on some jello

One detail you forgot was that the dominion initiated contact by destroying all bajoran colonies in the gamma quadrant, that seems pretty aggressive to me.

The Romulans give out cloaking devices all the time man. The cloaking devices the Klingons used in TOS were Romulan cloaks they got in exchange for D7 schematics.

what's the name of the intro music ?

UEE? Oh not that one okay move along citizens.

Cisco and the defiant should have tried to stop the genocide of the founders. That's a very good point and the exact reason why the Federation had a two year old with a queen on her earlier in the season!

It occurs to me that the vein of DS9 philosophy is more closely akin to that of Kirk’s era instead of TNG. Just considering that Sisko is given A LOT of autonomy in his position over most of the series.

Actually negotiating peace and sacrificing your own people (the marquis) for it is sitting back and that's exactly what they did. However there is no right or wrong as spock quoted: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Black ops; if it works its great. If it doesnt the people you're doing it for need to be able to wash their hands or face exactly what you're trying to prevent in your op in this situation.

Its possible it was (past tense) their home world. They may have left it for a better one years ago in order to keep their true location hidden. Its also possible in the past many others have attacked their original home world and they just figured let others think they still live there so as to protect themselves and confuse their enemies.

What is a little genocide when compared with the promise of holodecks for all?

I wish Star Trek would do a show based on Section 31. It could be pretty awesome and clear up some holes in the other stories.

Best way for them to defy orders without defying orders go to quark have him relay the message to his business contacts in the Dominion and have him be sure to tell them who passed the intel to him. 1 federations hands stay clean. 2 dominion are alerted to intercept the armada (because they don't know the founders manipulated the Cardies & Romulans into it)

Taking consideration that the Federation had already dealt with loss due to the Dominion involvement. The loss of the new Bajor colony and the destruction of the USS Odyssey. The Dominion did not wish to talk nor discuss anything, but just destroy. I have to say the Federation in this situation had a right to take a stand back and watch approach.

The Fleet need to go through the warm whole, on that moment, this will be public anyway. So they give this message while going through the warm whole. It's reasonable, actually. As for the Starfleet, they won't go to the war with the fleet, and even if they want, they don't have enough ships around the wormhole. And also, Starfleet won't be able to join the fleet, even if they want to, which they don't.

Look its the military so i would expect that it's chess. Military not peace keeper in war

So what was the Federation supposed to do? Send the Defiant (the only ship which might be able to intercept the fleet) to stop them? Assuming that the Defiant could even detect the fleet (they adjusted their cloaks so the jem hadar couldn't detect them), what is Starfleet supposed to do? Have the Defiant fight 20 Roman/Cardassian ships? Warn the Founders (after the Dominion had already destroyed Federation ships) and alienate the Cardassians and Romulans (the Klingons would probably consider it very dishonorable as well)? Possibly risking war with the Romulans and Cardassians?

United Federation of Rabbits? Watership down…the next Generation.

Also Picard would have seen this as an opportunity. Maybe that's part of the reasons the Dominion decided to orchestrat this. To see if anyone would attempt to help them... Like the great federation

All true, the public image in the early years give the dominion a more favorable light than they should. Still, just because I know the character of the Dominion and changings...the attempt itself does not raise huge sympathy to me. Just like the Borg served as a reminder to the Fed's that parts of the galaxy may have beings far superior to them, the changlings need to control all solids something like this would be tried. It's a tragic that, in at least some respect, finding out able this plan from two governments that taken the lest action, asked why it escalated to that level (remember the founders helped along, but the initial plan was Tan)

I think if DS 9 had at least sent a warning to the founders they might have reconsidered how they viewed the Federation. If the Federation had done this the Romulans and Cardasians would have been pissed but thats all. Sending a fleet to intercept them could have started a war between the three.

Hasn't Star fleet always been fine with Genocide so long as the Federation isn't doing it? Like they were fine with the occupation of Bajor and they would rather have a entire pre warp civilization die then make contact with it. The federation is extremely peaceful, but they're note exactly humanitarian. They've always been fine with other people doing genocides.

Starfleet's reasoning for not stopping the attack on the Dominion "home world" (I'm pretty sure it was a decoy too) is explained in detail in the link below. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dTIsIi8_w0Q.html

Even when I first watched DS9, I remember thinking that if Picard had been in charge of dealing with the Dominion, the war would never have happened. Perhaps, in universe, if the Federation had warned the Dominion or attempted to during The Die is Cast, it might have gone a long way to establishing a bridge of attempted trust and friendship with them. It's not like the Cardassians and Romulans were trusted allies the Federation could not afford to lose. It's also unlikely that Cardassia and Romulus would go to war for the Federation taking that action. Such an act on their part would have displayed to the Dominion that Cardassia and Romulus openly sanctioned the actions of the Order and the Tal'Shiar, and endangered their governments by convincing the Dominion to step up their assault on their worlds. Along with Sisko's good points, I think I'll remember his legacy as a character as one with many missed opportunities to make peace, or at least establish a truce and treaty to coexist. That is, after all, what the Federation does best. It might have even convinced the Founders that the Federation as an entity is truly not interested in conquest or unchecked expansion, but simply explorers who want to learn about everything.

Aww damn, I thought this was going to be a fan made recreation - like Vader 38.

Anyone that thinks you don't like the Federation doesn't grasp how bring critical works. The more I like something/someone the more critical I can be.

Yeah the Dominion was so apethtic to a race in the Beta quadrand and then the Cardassians

You know you bring up such a good point I never noticed. The show did such a great job of making the dominion be bad guys but honestly part of the issue is we rarely see at least a non federation race that actually seems like it could be considered moral. With the possible exception of bajor. Other then that every other race is usally bloodthirsty,argoant,or just plain aggressive and quite frankly selfish and barbaric. It's like the show is afaord to show us a race that is on par in terms of morals that is as technologically advanced as humans( as I said there are expectations and yes i know vulcans were in enterprise but then then those vulcans were kind of assholes to humans) its something I did not notice until now is is very subtle.

They didnt know how to contact the dominion quickly, they were on the frontier of space .. didnt havea fleeet to stop them.. as they didn't even know until the fleet went through the worm hole.

I feel like the Dominion made a major strategic blunder here. The OO and TS are the 2 most anti federation factions in their respective nations, now anyone resonable would know that the federation and klingons would ally up at some point, the klingons are highly disliked by the other 2 nations, this means that the federation will have to do the legwork of bringing in new allies. Given that why on earth would you destroy the anti federation factions of your potential enemy/allies?

On the topic of the bit where the Dominion should have intercepted the message back to their governments, they honestly probably did, since they had basically planned this whole thing

This pretty much is MY ENTIRE issue with DS9, this culminated in Pale moonlight. And was my primary issue with the series

I don't think the Starfleet of season 3 was the Starfleet of TNG. The Defiant being activated and outfit directly contradicts that theory. Starfleet's first true warship.

Second. The behavior of the Federation during this event left much to be desired.

Were they going to do warn the Dominion you already knew the Dominion was going to be everybody's enemy. And it's not like DS9 could actually stopped a fleet of ships

Damn you Anakin!

"Military arm".

👍

If Federation attempted to warn the Dominion about the attack. One, that fleet may have turned around and attacked DS9. Two the other major powers may have viewed the Federation's action as betrayal and attacked it like the Klingons attacked the Cardassian Union. Three, the Dominion still would not have been interested in making peace.

Even if the dominion didn't have agents in the Romulan/Cardassian governments they could have intercepted the message, and if they couldn't track the cloaked fleet they would have just done what they did in the episode and put every available capital ship in/around the omarion nebula and booby trap their birth world.