Dominion War : Leaving DS9 was a Strategic Mistake

[@rurrjh]

Dukat's ego. He wanted to be prefect of Bajor again. This is actually good writing. People lose because they cannot get past their past.

[@IronWarhorsesFun]

Even with time travel?

[@jannegrey]

Might have been a part of that.

[@rurrjh]

I think also Dukat has a plan to deal with the Dominion . My guess is he was going to turn on them at the last moment. The Jem Hadar are running short on white at one stage But then the Dominion looked like they were going to bring down the wormhole. So he went back to being a good boy. At least for the first few convoys

[@rurrjh]

@@Wuestenwiesel Julian Bashir makes the same point in statistical probabilities

[@jannegrey]

@@rurrjh Dukat double-crosses everyone so much, that I wouldn't be surprised. Only he knows what his agenda is. Well, until Pah-Wraithes, but let's not talk about that.

[@GameHammerCG]

Abandoning DS9 is the Federation’s Dunkirk: a necessary loss to regroup that gives the enemy a huge advantage for a short time. Ultimately it was something that had to happen before the Federation leadership finally woke up and realised they needed to take the war seriously.

[@rodniegsm1575]

Not just that. If they had not abandoned ds9 Station, bajor would become another casualty of the war. And that was not an acceptable secrevise. In the short run, they blocked the dominion from getting reinforced from the gamma quadrant. Also, the dominion now had to use their own fleet to protect bajor and the wormhole. Ships they couldn't send to the front

[@ZoeMalDoran]

Interestingly enough, in the novelization, Dukat wanted the minefield to go up. He had a long-term goal of uniting all the Cardassian factions behind him, using the Dominion and their resources to help take out the enemies of Cardassia and rebuild what they lost against the Maquis and the Klingons, and then stab the Dominion in the back, leaving Cardassia (and himself) as the supreme power in the Quadrant, preferably with all the other survivors hailing him as a hero for getting rid of the Dominion. He knew exactly how to take down the minefield from almost as soon as it was up, but he wanted to buy as much time as he could for Cardassia to be indispensable to the Dominion. What he didn't realise is that the Founders were only ever using Cardassia and were always planning on wiping them out once they stopped being useful. After all, the Founder leader said it herself to Garak in 'Broken Link' - "Cardassia is dead. Every last one of you. You sealed your fate when you attacked us" Ok, granted, the novels aren't canon, but I do really enjoy what books 2 and 4 of "The Dominion War" add to the arc as the adaptation and expansion of those 6 and a half episodes (books 1 and 3, which I never found, are a totally different story, detailing what Picard and the Enterprise-E crew were up to at the time)

[@James-lh7rj]

Ooo... You read the wrong books out of that four-part series book one and three have a much more interesting storyline!

[@ZoeMalDoran]

@@James-lh7rj As I said, I never found them. Perhaps some day I will.

[@aqua8514]

I always thought the Dominion securing supply lines over possibly getting Earth or other core worlds made sense. Especially since Earth/Vulcan are going to be extremely hard to maintain an occupying force on.

[@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701]

THIS

[@Bitchslapper316]

Yeah I agree. We also don't know if the dominion was fully producing everything in the alpha quadrant at this time. They may have still been relying on clones, white and a good portion of the ships from the gamma quadrant. No doubt they redoubled their efforts on production in alpha quadrant after they lost the wormhole.

[@bengrogan9710]

I was under the impression that the focus on the wormhole was to ensure adequate supplies of ketrasil white to ensure the Jem'hadar wouldn't rebel

[@dragonknightleader1]

@@bengrogan9710 Correct. By the seventh season, they were experimenting with Alpha Jem'Hadar that were better adapted than their Gamma Quadrant cousins.

[@anulovlos]

I think that Starfleet saw two sources of 'infinite' ships: the wormhole and the shipyards at Torros III (had to look that up). Either they commit all to DS9 and hold the wormhole, only to eventually be overwhelmed by the shipyard production rate, or they lose DS9 and get overwhelmed by reinforcements pouring through the wormhole. The minefields were an option to do both things: Yes DS9 would be lost, yes the Dominion would find a way around them, but for a period of time the Federation and its allies would be free of the two largest sources of Dominion reinforcements. For the Dominion's part, securing a line back to the Gamma Quadrant is absolutely a higher priority than trying to blitz the Federation with too few ways to sustain the effort. They could occupy, maybe, but they could not capture or hold on their own, and probably would risk overextending so early in the war.

[@DavidKnowles0]

From the look of things through, a fairly small number of ships, especial Cloak Klingon ships would have turn the tide of DS9 battle in their favour. At least that how it comes over in the show.

[@DavidKnowles0]

When I first watch this episode I was hoping the plan was to pin the Dominion fleet around DS9 and then dozens of Klingon ships decloak during the dominion assault in a surprise ambush aim at taking out the fleet an Gul Dukat, that Sisko was kept in the dark about the plan because of the threat of changelings infiltration of DS9.

[@TheAnon03]

Biggest mistake of The Dominion was not sending everything at The Defiant first preventing the mining of the WH and letting the immobile station sit and wait.

[@IAmEvilTree]

I put that down to Dukat's ego, both in wanting to retake DS9 and in the power of his fleet. Had the commander not been him they may have done the smart thing and dealt with the Defiant first.

[@TheAnon03]

@@IAmEvilTree Pretty much, for Dukat DS9 is personal and it really clouded his judgement.

[@robertagu5533]

That an the fact that other then Dukats ego TOTALLY ignoring DS9 she'd probably blown up a lot more then the close to 50 she did near single handedly. I ALWAYS thought it was dumb as hell one of Starfleets most important places wasnt better protected at least with a decent garrison fleet. I'd had half a dozen of the strongest ship types permanently stationed with Defiant in case someone decided to do just this sorta thing.. again.

[@robertagu5533]

@T J B if I remember right in one season they could and did actually move DS9 somewhat. I may be wrong though... theyd not needed to fight so hard or cover Defiant at all though if there'd been a decent fleet waiting for the Dominion to do something stupid... like attack.. they saw it coming from their perspective and timeline a matter of weeks and I think months before it happened

[@resolutegerm]

If they did the fleet would have been unable to defend itself against the station the defiant was always in range of ds9 covering fire

[@frictionRx9]

you park the Nexus outside of the wormhole Dominion exits wormhole enters Nexus and are happy and content for the rest of their lives

[@NitpickingNerd]

that's where the prophets sent them

[@krzosu]

@T J B Subspace weapons are unpredictable - the tear could swallow the wormhole - or it could prove to be impossible to seal it afterwards thus making the travel impossible forever - Dominion could not take that kind of chance - if that plan failed they could have lost the war from the start. I would imagine the mere idea of that kind would get anyone who proposed it to be killed instantly. another thing was timing - it was early stage of the war so there would be no need to use such desperate measures so eraly on - especially if you take into account that at first dominion thought they will be able do dismantle the minefield without breaking a sweat -- they were wrong ofc but at that time they couldnt have known that. Cheers o/

[@HontasFarmer80]

I always thought that in a way Gul Dukat wasn't in a big hurry to get rid of the mines. He wanted Dominion help, troops, and ships. With out the gamma quadrant Dominion.... he could effectively lead a stronger Cardassia that can wage war without killing Cardassians in the process.

[@theindooroutdoorsman]

This was at the start of the war, they still had utterly incompetent admiralty. End of war leadership wouldn't have abandoned the station.

[@weldonwin]

Consider for a moment, when was the last time Star Fleet actually fought a war? A REAL war and not some border conflict with the Cardassians or the Xenkethi, where Star Fleet sends some token task force and never commits to a serious campaign since they are the caring-sharing-save-the-wales Federation? We'd have to go back, what one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty years to the four years war with the Klingons (I use the old continuity since I know Disco is Lore's trigger). The Federation has NO real experience with full scale war and even less stomach for one until their backs are to the wall.

[@Bitchslapper316]

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened differently if Admiral Layton was successful with his coup.

[@csehszlovakze]

@@weldonwin it's funny because the only all-out war the Feds ever fought was against the Klingons (yeah, Discovery) and they had their asses handed to them. Thanks to specialist Mary Sue, however, they managed to put a dead man's switch inside Quo'nos and installed a puppet government holding that switch.

[@theindooroutdoorsman]

@@Bitchslapper316 He probably would have fought, but not with the proper fleet makeup. Likely would have been a task force of a Nebula or Excelsior class backed up by three or four Miranda's.

[@Bitchslapper316]

@@theindooroutdoorsman Layton's main goal was to militarize star fleet. Judging by the upgrades he gave the lakota it wouldn't have surprised me if he started up full time production of war ships like the defiant class.

[@Darkmatterdwarf]

Here is a Plan that would make Sisko and Martok into really good strategic planers: When the Federation starts mining the wormhole, a second mining operation is allready going. Martok orders his cloaked klingon ships to place klingon mines in the expected dominion attackvectors. Then you keep th erest of the plan as is. in the middle of the battle, when the dominion is allready engaged you activate the wormhole field, at the same time you activate the detonators on the klingon field and the dominion gets demoralized and looses a large part of their forces without warning or visible reason. While everyone tries to figure out what just happens and the station plus rottaran udn deviant clear the damaged survivors up the first attack of the dominion is done for. At the same time the shipyard attacks are done as in the original, but after that the fastest ships (likely galaxys abds intrepids) race at maxspeed to ds9, reinvorcing the perimeter. The dominion beginns the war in ruins without gammaquadrant support and parts of their shipyards down. BtW: Why did they use so many mines to start with, lay one mine, start the replicator and just wait. (I don't support that, just showing how stupid the unlimited selfproducing mines really are. Replicators use up energy and you can not replicate energy, so the whole concept is stupid and doesn't even work in universe)

[@dedrickhowell805]

As for beaming soldiers across, the Dominion grew expendable soldiers, so their shortage was ships. Also, one assumes the mines were able to self replicate rapidly enough so that anything short of simlataeous mass detonation wouldn't have removed them.

[@kadindarklord]

I thought the mines were said to swarm detonate, presumably if a Dominion ship tries to go near them.

[@beepthemeep12]

Yeah they were

[@demarcusfaulkner7411]

They were

[@Ranadinn]

Wouldn't that make destroying them easier? Take a bunch of torpedoes, put a transponder with ship signals and launch them. More mines for your buck. Heck you could tractor large rocks into the field with the transponders. Also yes they were written to swarm detonate.

[@SvendleBerries]

@@Ranadinn Thats where the replicators come in. You would need quite a bit of fodder to destroy all of the mines before they replace themselves. You could send enough to open up a hole maybe, but by the time you sent your ships through, the hole would be filled again.

[@Phoenixesper1]

This just dawned on me. I think I found a viable solution for crossing the mine field. Build a transporter system at the mouth of the worm hole powerful enough to transport whole ships past the field. Build it in the form of a dry dock which would allow ships to basically teleport right past the field. The technology of regular federation transporting systems need only be scaled up in size and a series of warp cores could easily power it. And if federation tech could do it imagine what the far more advanced Dominion transporters might accomplish. Yes there would be one giant caviate to this, it would take time to engineer it, build it and test it. However It could work. Nothing in the trek cannon would say it couldn't. I see no reason why if you can transport people and equipment with a transporter that a whole ship and crew can't be as well, with enough energy and computing power devoted to the task. Plus an ingenious plot like that would actually give a far more pressing reason for the federation to return to DS9...cause if it succeeds, what other barriers might this technology be able to circumvent? Adds a nice ripple and shows the dominion can think outside the box.

[@DrewLSsix]

If such a thing was possible it would be in use somewhere already. There's many limitations to the technology and any number of them could make that solution if not impossible at least impractical for this situation.

[@Mrs.Grave5433]

I do wished they did the mines a little better but tbf I don’t envy the writers either. The I think they work enough to be taken seriously as it is a clever idea at some level.

[@mb2000]

That minefield was always shown as being laid on a flat plain (like in the screenshot in the video) Shouldn’t it have been spherical to surround the opening to the wormhole? Otherwise the Dominion could have just flown around the edges and come at the wormhole from behind.

[@DrewLSsix]

Visually all ships seemed to emerge at the same point from the wormhole. It doesn't seem it works like some tunnel where you can choose to hug one side or the other.

[@jaimeosbourn3616]

In the episode where they had taken the Defiant's crew prisoner and had them going through an invasion scenario while unconscious, Sisko wanted to detonate a photon torpedo in the throat of the wormhole. He told the dominion representative that he'd better be prepared for about a centuries wait for reinforcements. Do that, reinforce deep space 9 and put that weapons mod on every starbase and potential platform in the federation. Let's see how that effects the Dominion.

[@IronWarhorsesFun]

ADMIRAL ZUKOV HAS JOINED THE GAME: ALL RIGHT YOU STAR-FLEET COWARDS START DIGGING TRENCHES!!! WE CAN NOT TAKE ONE STEP BACK!

[@danielseelye6005]

Space Station Stalingrad. That would be fucked up. Great to watch, but fucked up.

[@CesarinPillinGaming]

@@danielseelye6005 What would be the equivalent of those artillery pieces that the Russians used to decimate Nazi assets at Stalingrad? Souped up Sovereigns with transphasic torpedos?

[@danielseelye6005]

@@CesarinPillinGaming The only thing I can think of within the canon would be the laser cannon in the first pilot "The Cage" that transfered the power from the Enterprise to the surface. Only updated to the 24th century.

[@AmurTiger]

@@CesarinPillinGaming Huge ground installations on Bajor or the moon, like the one that the Romulans built that got everyone worked out.

[@IronWarhorsesFun]

@Jonathan Stiles I'm making a WW2 joke and you talk about transphaisic torpedoes?! TO THE GULAG!

[@ThePinkPhantom]

The "ramming ships at the minefield" means you push for bypassing the minefield would also apply to the station. Both are stationary defenses. Sufficient ships will destroy either. They could also put civilians on the attacking ships forcing the Federation not to defend against the attack.

[@Jarsia]

So true Lore. What I would have done in that battle is first of all focus every photon launcher and phaser on DS9 onto the ship Dukat and Weyoun were on. Without Dukat directing the battle, DS9 probably holds longer. I'd still hit the shipyard, but I'd arrange for some of those klingon ships in that task force to hold back under cloak. Hitting the shipyards would be harder, but I'm sure they could still spare a few ships and still succeed. If say 2-3 Vor'chas, a half dozen k'tingas, and 10-12 bird of prey were to hang back under cloak in the bajoran system, they could wait till the attack on DS9 started and attack the reserves that Dukat calls for during the battle. If the klingons can catch their reinforcements off guard and destroy, the main attack on the station will be in a tough spot. DS9 would still be hurting at this point, but once the minefield is laid the Defiant and Rotarran will join in the defense and a depleted dominion fleet will be facing the damage station and a BoP and Defiant on one side, and a klingon strike force on another. If everything goes well, the attack on the shipyards may still succeed.

[@SpaceEngineerErich]

The self replicating mines always bugged me. If you really think about it, the entire field has a finite amount of energy. Assuming each mine has an independent power source that cannot be replenished, the cost of replicating another mine and then providing that new mine with energy would reduce the overall energy of the field. So if they just used the stations phasers to blow up mine after mine eventually they wouldn't be able to self replicate and the field would be gone.

[@Locutus]

That is true, but how much energy do you have to sustain? There are 100s of thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of mines in the field.

[@kewltony]

Self replicating, cloaked mines made every ship and every weapon in the Star Trek universe obsolete.

[@NitpickingNerd]

it's possible they were somehow designed to draw energy from the wormhole itself. it was always mentioned how the wormhole emits all kinds of strange particles and energies even when its closed . that can also explain why these mines were never used anywhere else

[@Spacegoat92]

Starfleet definitely should have sent at least a couple of dozen ships to bolster the station. They didn't send their entire fleet to destroy the Dominion shipyards, they had some ships left over. They also should have persuaded the Klingons to send a few ships as well. And while we're talking about mines, why didn't they lay a couple of hundred around the station while they were beefing it up? That would have taken down a few enemy ships as well.

[@Snowwie88]

I still don't understand where Dax got the extra 40 minutes, since it was clearly stated that Sisko said that the Dominion fleet would be there in 20 minutes and Dax said they needed at least another hour. Also when evading those 3 Jem H'adar fighters the mines were not activated yet, so why did none of those fighters fire on the mines? About leaving DS9, well, it was clear that after they destroyed 50 Dominion ships (which is a LOT for only the station and one Bop), it's reasonable to assume that the stations weapons were depleted and the energy reserves were nearly gone. Sisko left it, destroyed as many 'stuff' as possible so the Dominion had it's hands full of work to get thing back to work again while he would later try to retake it. Also, Dukat stated there were 2,800 Dominion ships on the other side of the wormhole and admiral Ross said that if they came along everything would be lost. Wut? We are talking about only 2,800 ships. The whole Federation had like ten thousands of ships, even as the Klingons and also the Romulans, so lets say combined these three had like 40,000 - 50,000 ships. Of all sizes and classes of course. But even small ships can be made deadly when equipped with the right weapons.

[@Dalek7823]

Rewriting DS9's Dominion War would be a significant challenge. Here's some key things to consider: 1. The Dominion should take over the Alpha Quadrant slower than they do in the TV series. Planetary resistance isn't just in space, to control planets, you need to physically invade their land masses (or even the sea with some species). Powerful weapons deployed on the ground can reach beyond the atmosphere in Star Trek lore. Having a few ships in orbit and claiming you've taken land is just naive. I'd rewrite Starfleet to start deploying ground based defences that could defend the surrounding orbital areas of the planet from entrenchment. 2. I'd replace the plot device of the minefield with a Section 31 influenced bioweapon that targeted Jem'Hadar and could be deployed like a gaseous nebula. To limit its effectiveness, I'd specify that they only had enough to create a small nebula in front of the wormhole. This would in turn introduce further plot elements about the Dominion learning then acting to counteract this effect in the same way they experimented with the minefield.

[@illegalclown]

The problem is that the Dominion is supposed to have powerful ships, yet we see our hero ships destroy them by the dozen. If they were so powerful then it would make sense that the Federation couldn't hold that system. Even when that episode aired I was yelling at Sisko for leaving when it looked like he was winning.

[@GraniteGhost778]

Honestly if I was going to do it I'd have reinforced DS9 with a fleet and held my ground. It's evident that DS9 can be held given the destruction wreaked on the Dominion during a fighting retreat so it just seems prudent that holding the wormhole makes the most sense. Personally I never really understood that if the place (DS9) is so important why they don't assign several starships there permanently aside from the Defiant. All the more so given the Federation's apparent interest in exploring through the wormhole. DS9 is logical homeport for a squadron of starships at the very least. Hell, there are other Defiant-class ships, assign a pair of them or something at least.

[@mb2000]

The Slade I agree. Many ships showed up when the Dominion first came through the wormhole and surely they could have spared a few from the Torros III attack or somewhere else to hold such a vitally important position as DS9. At this time Starfleet apparently has hundreds upon hundreds if not thousands of ships, yet they leave DS9 with just its own defenses, the Defiant, a Klingon BoP and three runabouts? This must be the DS9 version of the “Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant” cliche.

[@BattlestarZenobia]

They probably didn’t have the ships to spare, remember the Federation is practically surrounded by hostile states on all sides with the Tholians. Gorn, Tzenkethi and the Romulans etc

[@Bitchslapper316]

Keep in mind DS9 and the defiant had plot armor. There isn't much another handful of cruisers could realistically do if the dominion launched an all out attack. Just look at any of the big battles shown, star fleet cruisers were getting popped left and right. Off screen they lost 98 out of a 112 ship fleet in a battle that took place just shortly after the battle at DS9. If they wanted to keep DS9 they would have had to commit a massive fleet to it's defense. Even then, if the minefield failed said massive fleet would have been on the receiving end of a few thousand dominion ships coming out of the wormhole. They would have had to put a lot on the line to hold DS9.

[@mb2000]

Bitchslapper316 speaking of plot armour, why did none of the ships during the Dominion War appear to have shields? Weapons fire went straight through to the hill with no kind of light effect as though it was passing through a shield bubble first (like when the Enterprise-E joined the battle at Sector 001) Even relatively undamaged ships seemed fly into battle with shields down!

[@BattlestarZenobia]

mb2000 VFX were changed during the show so that explosions seemed to occur on the ships hull with shields up leaving little to no damage, similar to the DS9 battles

[@Tezunegari]

If Starfleet had stayed on DS9... Bajor would have burned. That was foreshadowed in Season 5 Episode 10 "Rapture" (Sisko prevented Bajor's joining of the Federation). Though I agree on the minefield. It was a deus ex machina. The cloaking devices though would have been legal by a technicality. It wasn't the Federation that developed them, it was Rom who came up with the idea - a technician in the Bajoran engineers under O'Brien. The closest thing they came to breaking the Treaty of Algeron was the implied fact that Starfleet staff helped build them and that the Defiant deployed these mines. Personally, I would have gone with some active interference of the wormhole by cloaked emitters. (Klingon tech, upgraded to work against the Dominion sensors and given to the Bajorans) As long as they are present the wormhole does unspeakable things to anything trying to fly through. They could even have made up another prophecy about how "The crafty merchant without gold will turn the gates of the temple into an abattoir for the locusts!"

[@jonathanpercy5379]

I think this is only a mistake in hindsight, being more of a trade off in planning. Basically, with the minefield in place, DS9 becomes much less of an important strategic position. The station is basically the gatekeeper for the wormhole, and the gate is unavailable. They were effectively planning to cut off two of the Dominion's major sources of ships at the cost of losing a position after they reduced its significance.

[@christopherscott5544]

Your theory on throwing Civilians at the mines I have to disagree mainly because of the Female changelings quest to get Odo back. Remember the Female changeling has made it clear that the war means nothing To her only Odo .. and The only civilians the Dominion could throw at the mines were the Bajorans .. and as you know if an Bajoran died at DS9 ODO would flip or to be clear Kira would flip and Odo would just follow because that’s his Boo.. So the only civilians I could see thrown at the mines are Morn,Rom and Quark .. I’m sure the galaxy would weep for the loss of Morn (because he’s a national treasure 🤣) but Rom and Quark not so much

[@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701]

Have to disagree here... The Dominian DID succeed and would have won in the end due to the fleet coming through the wormhole even though they did some strategic mistake... So they were right to focus on their Gamma Quadrant Forces! HOW should they have known that the so called "Jesus" of Bajor, the Sisko, could REALLY bring godlike entities into the war!??

[@GarththeVader]

That's a risk when the minefield was completely destroyed that Sisko would re take DS9 but not before going in suicidal Only Dukat found out _after the fact_ that Sisko must have had some influence from the Bajoran prophets including talking to the priestess (I forget her name and cba to Google, bite me 😁) And therefore realized not just the Dominion but Dukat's _personal loss of Bajor_ was from SiskoJesus If he had told the Changelings especially the Female Changeling about the power of the Pah-Wraiths the Dominion would have been the ultimate army of hell...

[@LionMerteuil]

I think the biggest driving force for the focus on controlling DS9 wasn't necessarily Cardassian ego or a tactical misstep by the Dominion but rather the will of the Founders. And I think it was less to do with the strategic positioning and the overall war effort or more to do with the Founders in the Alpha Quadrant being separated and cut off from the Great Link and not wanting to be. I mean the Female Changeling was stranded and when she showed up on DS9 she even says being cut off from the Link and the other Founders is challenging for her, and I don't think anyone would argue that the Fem Changeling's word was law to all Dominion forces. So her top priority would be reopening the wormhole so she can return home and also the added benefit of reinforcements etc.

[@Alphasiera1701]

my Understanding was that all the mines needed to be destroyed at once, without their self replication capability on line, or else the surviving mines would replicate more and fill any gap. But yes, it is a Massive plot device to prevent the good guys loosing. A cool one though, non the less

[@terrencejones9817]

As I said in the other video. A half dozen Starfleet cruises plus maybe a squadron of BOPs. They could have held the station long enough for the task force that destroyed Toros 3 to return. The war would have taken a very different course.

[@Dungeonstone]

Another issue: If the Dominion knew that the Federation was in the process of mining the wormhole, and that the minefield ~had~ to be completely finished before the minefield could be powered up, cloaked and left autonomously, then why didn't the Dominion just send some ships through from the Gamma Quadrant over the course of the several days that the Defiant was still in the process of laying the mines? Per what O'Brien says at one point, wouldn't that have potentially detonated the whole thing and forced the Defiant to start over, setting up a new minefield from scratch? Seeing as how we already know that "Suicide runs" are a tactic already practiced by the Jem' Hadar ships, this plan doesn't seem to be out of character for the Dominion to order.

[@AC-su6mj]

If i remember the dialogue for the episode at the peak the dominion was only sending bulk transports at most every 4 days. Their didn't appear to be any other dominion activity in-between this period. Ontop of this it was Starfleet that owned the communication equipment that allowed messages to be sent through the wormhole. Id argue that starfleet was able to mine the wormhole within 1-3 days and the dominion wouldn't have been able to request early reinforcements until it was too late.

[@Dungeonstone]

@@AC-su6mj Even if the Dominion had no way at all to tell the fleet in the Gamma Quadrant to get to the wormhole faster, they still could simply have had some of their ships suicide into the minefield from the DS9 side. For example, the three ships that we see that make it to the Defiant in the battle while the mines are still being laid, could have instead flown straight into the incomplete minefield, detonating either the whole thing or at the very least causing it to lose 30-50 mines that the Defiant would then have had to go back and replace. And we know that the Defiant's crew didn't have enough time to have done that meaning that the Dominion would have succeeded in preventing it's completion.

[@bengrogan9710]

@@Dungeonstone that assumes the Jem'hadar are aware that the self replication wont engage until complete

[@Dungeonstone]

@@bengrogan9710 The Dominion seemed to be aware that they had to stop the Defiant before the minefield was completed. Also, they could have easily verified whether the self-replication was functional simply by targeting and shooting a few of the (at that time) non-cloaked mines that were just floating out in front of the wormhole. Honestly, the whole "Going after the Defiant" strategy was idiocy in that the Dominion ships simply had to shoot down the mines before they were activated, which in turn would have both proven that they weren't active as well as prevented the completion of the minefield thus guaranteeing an ultimate Dominion victory all around.

[@jamesp3902]

According to dialog, Gul Dukat was under the impression the mine field could be easily dismantled once the station was taken. Dukat's plan even included Federation Shields holding against Dominion weapons. Taking the station first is the conservative battle plan.

[@snyderman001]

Asteroids masked with Jemm hadar warp signatures sent in mass

[@germantrekkie]

Really love your Dominion War series

[@krzosu]

Starfleet plan was a good one - a good opener - i would imagine it was a calculated manouver - temporarily abandon DS9 to go after the shipyards - and then swing back and retake it - What Starfleet didnt know - was the Domininon was able to track them at every turn with the Sensor array Dax was sent to destroy later. Basically if you know where the enemy is you can counter them that much easier - that was the initiall reason why Starfleet got its butt kicked so many times early on - and that made it impossible for them to attack DS9 earlier. From Dominions perspective this also made sense - at the time they thought - we dont need the shipyards - all we need is the wormhole to get reinforcements - They thought they will be able to intervene before the mines could be activated - and even if they were they arogantly assumed that they will be able to deal with they very quickly. So it was a good ploy - sacrafice the shipyards but drag entire battle fleet away from DS9 thus making capturing it easier - that was a good deal from their perspective at the time. And i would imagine That would be the changelings assumption as well - in the show we were shown all they cared for at the time was to reestablish two way support via wormhole - they wouldnt give a flying fck - about the shipyards or lives lost. As for the plan to put civis on ships and threaten to send them in to get blown up - with stakes as high as they were - even the federation would know that in that circumstances those civis would be just a collateral damage not worthy of saving - aka thats some deal - losse the entire quadrant - to save the bunch of civis - Even Gawron knew this - achieving small victory for the cost of an empire aint a good deal. The very same thing applies here - as painfull as it would be - for the sake of entire Quadrant - some pawns would have to be sacraficed. An ugly reality of war - So in the end that tactic wouldnt work. More over - that would prob push EVERY power into Federation alliance - because the DOminion would show that they are prepared to win by any cost - sacraficing any and everyone in the process to do it - That would send a powerfull message to unite - Federation might be flawed - but at least they wont kill you if you dont want to join - And the dominon would. As for the mines - its easy to say - harder to do - Firstly you do have to get a lot of ships to be blown up - and those ships were needed elsewhere on the frontlines - secondly - you dont know how many and how fast the mines were able to replenish themselves - replication tech is pretty advanced - so i would think it woulnt take long - and if it was ineed a small time - then you wouldnt be able to deplete the mines fast enough. If i was the designer i would make sure to program the mines that there would be nodes (like 1 out of every 10 mines) thats sole purpose would be to just stay there and DO NOT attack - thus leaving one mine in place so it could replenish the nearby area - that way you would always have means to replenish them quickly - as long as there was energy left for replication and since we do not know how many mines can be replicated from a single mine until it gets out of juice - its hard to tell how effective "the atrittion strategy" could be. You could be sacraficing dozens if not more combat ships for nothing - and that is a cost you coult not afford so early in the war - also using civilian ships wouldn't work either since they are less capable thus smaller amount of mines would be needed to destroy those ships - we are told dozens are needed for a proper warship - but if it only takes a few to destroy a civi ship then that wouldnt be a good bargain either. Basically Dominion could not predict how costly it would be to brute force it through early on - and thus they assumed that at the time this was not a viable option - they couldnt afford to loose so many ships so early on in the war. And from their perspective it wasnt needed - after all they thought they were facing normal mines at first - they have learned the replicating part a bit later on. I would imagine they learned it hard way when they did tried to brute force it (but that wasnt shown in the movie and it was probably on a smaller scale) otherwise there would be no way for them to know that they were self replicating.

[@tomcopple7633]

What the Federation should have done was to fortify DS9 to the teeth with a fleet, I mean a massive fleet, the moment that the Dominion shown themselves to be a potential threat. Abandoning the station however does make some sense to me however. Absent overwhelming numbers, I am thinking the Federation holding the station would turn the Bajoran system into a graveyard. Mining the wormhole entrance, and the subsequent abandonment of the station, and Bajor's neutrality I think helped maintain Bajor's safety. Now whether or not Starfleet had that in mind, I don't think so.

[@liquidflorian]

A handful of Lakota refits, a Galaxy class and some support ships and they could've held it. They put way too much faith into the mine field. Hell, hiding the DS9 support flotilla behind Bajor for a surprise counter attack would've been a master stroke. It would've blunted the dominion offensive and secured any chance of a resupply. Not that it mattered because the dominion set up resources to continue the war in Cardassian space.

[@dibaterman]

Dominion are a near homogeneous mind, they aren't a hive mind like the Borg but they are dedicated to one thing. That one thing shows itself in their decision making, of course they would protect access to the Gamma Quadrant as number one, they've been geared for protecting the founders consciously and subconsciously.

[@ironstarofmordian7098]

If I was in command of Starfleet at that time, I don't think I could do anything. However, if I somehow was able to keep the culture of "doomsday prepper" in Starfleet from Wolf 359, I would've had a fleet of the most militarized vessels I could get at DS9 in enough numbers to hold the Dominian back for days if not weeks. I'd also add unmanned battle stations, 8-9, with phasers and quantum torpedoes around the wormhole along with a minefield. The fleet would perform combat exercises at all Starfleet and Bajoran forces all throughout there deployment when they aren't patrolling or on station at reaction points to handle the fleet.

[@AlexanderTheScourge]

Hindsight is twenty twenty. From all military documents I have read. Abandoning a castle you are unsure you can hold onto is a sound military move. DS9 was a prime location. Whoever controls the DS9 controls the wormhole. It would be hotly contested. The Dominion would throw everything at them to take it. Secondly, the dominion had two advantages on their side. Dukat and the Jem’Hadar. Dukat has intimate knowledge of the station. So much so he could easily sneak into Sisko’s quarters without detection. That isn’t something to scoff at. Secondly, Dukat saw through Sisko’s battle plan during the Second Battle for DS9. And he already developed a counter for it. The only reason the dominion lost was cause Sisko pulled a miracle of out his ass. The jem hadar only needed eight days to be able to fight a standard human need years. The dominion are the ones that should have held the castle.

[@aragos32727]

Remember, the mines were designed to swarm onto ships so they're probably not that far from the mouth of the Wormhole and mobile although limited. And it's probably a safe bet that you can't beam while in the entrance of the wormhole. I'm sure there's some space magic that will prevent ship-to-ship transportation. Frankly I like the ideas of the mines. It shows how ROM was actually very intelligent despite not having the lobes for latinum. The prophets, and everything to do with profits was stupid.

[@rexracer3221]

I would have overwhelmed the minefield with thousands of drones. Basically it would have been mine vs mine until the Federation mines were all or mostly gone.

[@thehunterx1973]

Putting citizens on ships and ramming it into the mines would break the non aggressive pack with the Bajoran

[@joelbilly1355]

Starfleet thought if they stopped dominion reinforcements from the gamma quadrants and destroyed cardasian shipyards the dominion wouldn't be able to replace their loses and Starfleet and the klingon defence force would win due the loss of attrition in the long run. They would have seen every single vessel the dominion sent through the wormhole and knew how weak the cardasiasn fleet was even before the war. Strategically the plan was sound they just didn't count on the Dominion bringing everything they needed to produce new ships, vorta and jem hadar as well as the ferociously of the jem hadar.

[@user-qy8kw4cn2s]

The dominion war is just a Sci-fi version of the war in the Pacific WWII

[@user-qy8kw4cn2s]

@R Mcdud Thank you.

[@therenegade79]

@@user-qy8kw4cn2s I remember in my youth spending many a night at the local pub with my friends comparing the entire Dominion War to WW2.

[@johnlavery3433]

You’re wrong. WW2 was quite frankly just a matter of time once the Nazis invaded Russia and the yanks joined the war, because the Germans and the Russians lacked key resources like crude oil. The dominion on the other hand was an Industrial behemoth

[@user-qy8kw4cn2s]

@@johnlavery3433 You are right about the industrial complex. However, take the industrial faction out of it. Say that Australia represented DS9. And the Coral Sea the wormhole and New Guinea represents Bajor. And then you have the wormhole aliens , which represents the A bomb. Not an exact fit, but Harry Turtledove took the same liberties(and more) in his Civil War series... Of course things had to be simplified in DS 9 because it is a Sci-fi show and they wanted a world audience, and because the average viewer (at the time) did not want to see "war" action every episode so the writers kept forgetting there was a war on (B5 did the war stance better and at that time DS9 very much wanted to be B5). And who ever heard of having your command staff go on away missions (especially spy missions). It is clear the writers did not know how the armed forces works, and ignored it all. One other thing I forgot is that Quark's was Rick's (from Casablanca) ...

[@3rdreichball525]

@@user-qy8kw4cn2s the only thing about the wormhole alien and a bomb comparison is starfleet needed that miracle. I am not convinced that it was necessary to drop the a bomb. By the time the bomb was ready to go the imperial navy had been destroyed. Additionally Japanese diplomats were dispatched all over Europe as peace feelers. The Japanese were on the verge of surrendering. Honestly the USA could of just haulted, and kept poking the Japanese wounds, and they would've surrendered in my opinon. My point being Starfleet needed that miracle, and the USA did not.

[@shawn092182]

The biggest mistake that the dominion made was going after the defiant. What they should've done was to destroy the minefield before it activates. I ship could've done that. Destroy and there will be a chain reaction, maybe even end up destroying the defiant.

[@coreymicallef365]

How do you get past anti-ship mines according to Lore Reloaded? Crash ships into them. What about asteroids or comets? They're a lot cheaper. Or chaff or ball bearings. Nah, fuck it we've got a few thousand Jem'hadar Fighters to spare, ram those clone MFs into the mine field.

[@ViroVV]

I would disagree on this front. A single battle is quite different than a prolonged siege or even a hostile occupation. While the Dom had every reason to desire getting that beachhead to ensure future supply lines, they knew the Bajorans were not going to accept any occupation government, especially one tied to the cardassians. Meaning they knew if they took the station by force they would face no end of guerilla resistance on the station, the planet and through the system. Effectively destabilizing any sort of beach head when its constantly contested and unstable. So the DOM NEEDED partnership rather than dominion over that area. The only way they could have had any hope to hold it would have been a scorched earth/total annihilation strategy which would in turn likely upset and motivate neutral AB quad powers into action. On the flip side the Fed had every reason to maintain the system as a rampart against Dom forces. Yet with the DOM consistently challenging existing borders there was already much instability in the quadrant. While it might have been held for this battle, trying to hold it becomes untenable when you see your own borders being challenged already and you cannot accurately predict if the sector would be cut off from friendly territory. It still makes the most sense. It is a calculated strategic retreat. The Fed understands the DOM cant risk alienating and losing amicable terms with the Bajorans, thus it means they will effectively be safe and at lesser point of concern for an already taxed Federation fleet. It gives the fed the time it needs to control the DOMs influence through the quadrants rather than controlling their presence. Essentially the fed knows that while they might be able to fend off one attack, maintaining their hold on the station and influence in that system is NOT guaranteed or even likely over repeated engagements that would turn Bajor into a battlefield wasteland. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn in order to put yourself into position to take the queen, which essentially this is what the Fed is doing. Falling back long enough to secure what needs to be secured so that the Fed can hold the station and system indefinitely with little/no resistance from the DOM vying for it. It is the smartest of all the bad choices in the long run.

[@matthalo871]

A Galaxy class 4 nebulas and for Akira classes with steam runners normandy's and New Orleans classes maybe a couple obits for cannon fodder you should be able to hold the wormhole.

[@kingssman2]

I think the mines are the most brilliant invention from Starfleet. Due to cloaked and self replicating, means that you don't know how big or deep the minefield is. Also self replicating means that ALL mines must be destroyed for if a single mine remains, the whole minefield will be back up

[@marcusdoe6552]

At the end of Season 5 the dominion doesn't know of any alternative ketracel white sources. Taking Deep Space Nine and the wormhole and stopping the mine field was mission critical

[@masatotanaka999]

Weyoun could have downloaded the janeway field guy for handling problems. I’m sure there is a chapter in there about mines and using holograms and such.

[@Ranadinn]

To fix the wormhole reinforcements issue. I'd go with a rebellion in the Dominion. Not strong enough to cripple it, but enough to prevent them from steamrolling into the alpha quadrant. They have already shown that not everyone is in accords with how it works within the Dominion. I.E people willing to trade with the outsiders, to some of the Jemadar turning on the founders. You could even work it in that upon seeing a force that could oppose the Dominion that the less loyal groups may have galvanised together to form a semi standing army.

[@timaahhh]

I would still use the mine field but more to slow down progress. Instead I'd have StarFleet perhaps with the help of a Bajoran Orb, tech tech a method to undo the re-enforcement the founders did to the worm hole. Maybe not to the point of totally closing it (so suspace comms can still pass through) but make it impassible for ships until the Dominion finds a way to reopen the wormhole. And as they attempted this they had to destroy the mine field. The self replicating mines are another reason I can't believe dominion technology is superior to the Federation. It took them forever to figure out this 1 problem. Since the mines seemingly came entirely from DS9 resources and data could not be stolen easily by changling spies they could only rely on Dominion tech to disable them. Rom and a handful of Starfleet personal in 1 meeting came up with an idea that took the Dominion months to find a workaround for. We also never hear how bad Dominion losses are and the fact the Federation was able to destroy the Dominions Ketracel white facilities in the Alpha quadrant means they can't defend everything. I imagine Dominion losses were heavy especially after they lost their Ketracel White Jem'hadar were likely sent to die en mass to ensure supplies didn't run out. The Founders nor the Cardasians would have had any particular issue with this stratagey. And they could still heavily punish the Federation in the process but that doesn't mean the Dominions strategy was sustainable. Attempting to take Vulcan or Earth could have been the straw that broke the dominions back. With their diminished ship yards and lack of white such a move may have put them at a severe disadvantage.

[@relativityboy]

A bit late to the party, but I figured it out. I'd replace the mines with MAGIC mines. It really is worse than plot armor. Coming up with a non-magic solution is tough. If we embrace the prophets, probably a better way to do it would have been someone else who were aligned with the dominion piss off the prophets. Prophets decide to put a specific amount of energy into a space-magic-diaphram that covers the wormhole. It self-regenerates from a limited amount of "wormhole energy" or whatever.

[@MetaSynForYourSoul]

The dominion screwed up their objectives. Taking the station should've been a secondary objective, but Dukat's ego got in the way, so it was made primary. Taking down the Defiant should've been top priority. Also I'm working on a theory that the Dominion underestimate and misjudge what "solids" are going to do largely because of their own arrogance and because they genuinely don't see us as equal to them. Even though the only advantage they've ever displayed over solids is the ability to change shape. They've not displayed themselves to be more intelligent than us, nor was their tech so superior that it couldn't be beaten. I wonder if their dominance over their corner of the galaxy made them complacent somewhat so that when they met solids they didn't control they both under and over reacted in varying turns causing, thinking these solids would be like their own.

[@krzosu]

Dukat wasnt the one calling the shot - in the end he was just a puppet - the real orders came from the changelings (through Veyon - and you can see that he made sure dukat knew that) - At the time from their perspective the station was a bigger threat - and in the end indeed it was (aka 50 ships lost :P) but at the time they couldnt have known how hard dismantling the minefield would be ... so the initial battle plan was quite sound all things considered. Keep in mind you are looking at this and passing judgment from the perspective when its all did and done - and not from what info was actually aviable at the time. At first they have thought they will just steamroll through the station with ease - keep in mind they didnt know their weapons were not passing through shields like they did when they destroyed that galaxy class ship- so they still thought they had the upper hand but - this time there was no fast and easy victory ahead - but instead a pitched battle took place and they had to slug it out. Cheers o/

[@earlwatt7677]

Self replicating mines are brilliant. None of your possible solutions could have worked, and the Cardassians were trying everything to defeat the mines. Leaving DS9 was necessary unless you wanted the Starlet officers there to commit suicide against overwhelming numbers.

[@andrewblanchard2398]

GUL DUKAT was against killing civilians because he knew from experience that would piss off STARFLEET

[@juntakyle]

DS9 only did so well imho because the dominion didn't want to destroy the station. Partly for dukat and possibly to appease the bajorins. Infact DS9 did more damage to the dominion than the Borg cube did to Starfleet. If the area was defended they may have put their ego aside and destroyed the station taking far fewer casualties.

[@ariesmp]

It would have been much more interesting if the battles between the Dominion and Starfleet would have been a clash between numbers vs size. 8-10 dominion ships to 1 Starfleet vessel. It would have led to a much better scenario and visuals.

[@Clenched.Cheeks]

All of this assumes that the Federation Alliance could maintain the long supply lines and handle all the logistics involved in fortifying a far flung territory; one that happens to be 4 light years (if I recall?) from the homeworld of your enemy and it's powerful/advanced ally. I understand that how things played out was simply necessary for the way they wanted the plot to develop, but if you really wanted to get into the heads of Starfleet Command, it could be argued that falling back and waging a defensive war, and (assumingly) halting the production of troops and ships is a way to turn the tide and fight back into enemy territory in the long run. The ultimate goal being to win out through attrition, rather than thinning out your own lines, losing more territory faster, and not slowing down said production of troops and ships. It's kinda like a game of risk, you don't start expanding into new territories until you have enough resources and capital to defend your core territories and fortify your new ones upon being conquered. If you do everything you can to expand without the ability to defend, you'll lose the game quickly.

[@LoreReloaded]

They did at the end

[@bencoomer2000]

I think cloaked mines are good, but not just sitting outside the wormhole. Make them armed with torpedoes or whatever that if the wormhole opens, they will destroy it. Lose the connection, lose the fleet inside. Have some tension between SF, the Dominion and Bajor over this. Sure, Fed torpedoes would destroy the Celestial Temple, but it'd be the Dominion using it as a military asset that preceded it.

[@saliston]

They should have stationed planetary defensive units around the wormhole and made it suicidal to try to run it. Also they should have done this around DS9 to reinforce it. By doing this the federation navy would have been free to attack the ship yards.

[@derrickdinwiddie8759]

Maybe use the mines to put around DS9? Block the Dominion from getting to close to the station and it forces a bastion behind enemy lines from where the Federation can send ships. Even if it's just for supply runs.

[@NitpickingNerd]

that would require a lot more mines and they had limited time and resources

[@WaveForceful]

The Federation had no choice to leave DS9. They were largely outgunned, DS9 could handle a dozen or so ship alone but against the sheer number they were up against?, No. They had no reinforcements either. The Federation leaving DS9 also insured that the Bajorians would remain a neutral party who later were instrumental in helping in the war effort.

[@aragos32727]

The solids do not matter. All that matters is the Great Link. I just explained Dominion Doctrine. You're welcome

[@digitalis2977]

The attack on DS9 wasn't Ego... It was Dogma. The Dominion was about to be cut off from their Gods, and more importantly, the Founders in the Alpha Quadrant were about to be cut off from the Great Link...THE MOST important thing to any Changling anywhere (save Odo, of course, and even then, his attachments only barely beat out the siren's call of the Great Link.) So no, it wasn't about materiel or reinforcement from the Gamma Quadrant; it was about the Founders being cut off from home and having to manage the coming war without input from their collective...a concern borne out through the majority of the war as the Female Changling struggled to not lose an unlosable war.

[@BrianD0313]

I have to agree with everything. If Starfleet were actually smart and had an armada of Oberths and Mirandas protecting DS9 instead of Magic Mines then the Dominion would have never been able to capture DS9. I give Starfleet a D- for poor tactics

[@thoruszwolf4153]

Wasn't having cloaking devices on the mines used by Starfleet a violation of the Treaty of Algeron? And as the mines could self replicate indefinitely, this means they literally had an inexhaustible power source, as they could replicate more power whenever needed, and not to mention the warhead itself, if they utilized self replicating technology on their ships, they could send out streams of photon or quantum torpedos that would make short work of even the most powerful ships in the Galaxy... it was really a point where Star Trek Technology Jumped the Shark... again

[@peterchristensen7943]

I agree a joint Klingon federation could have held the dominion fleet for quite some time while giving their fleets time to build

[@andrewblanchard2398]

DS9 did the DESTROY THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE before the big budget movies

[@codyraugh6599]

Simple, all of this was supposed to have joint Klingon Federation development, and honestly no matter what it's just Deus "the Federation must always win because plot says so" there is no solving this one particular episode without massive authorial bias. And really if you think the Dominion almost beat the 3 biggest super powers with the help of a already defeated regional power and a single planet minor power...all without the manufacturing power of the Dominion nor it's troop reinforcements. And this is the three greatest powers outside the Borg but they're either able to beat god himself or too dumb to figure out how a monkey with a bone works and Trek settled on dumb so they don't count. If I were rewrite the buildup i'd have actually as a writer NOT mined the wormhole and made the Dominion early on in the war entirely dependent on their Gamma Quadrant manufacturing and had the withdrawl as to knock out the Cardassian manufacturing keeping them out of the Early war. Then operation return has a major implication outside of "because plot says so" but instead the Cardassian manufacturing is about to get back up and running, as is the Dominion is just kicking too much ass and they have ANOTHER full fleet coming through, Sisko needs to close or block off the worm hole then and then the deus ex plot-auto-win happens ending the Dominion's fleet dominance...but the Cardassians are now back in the war and with Dukat gone they're a slightly more conventional and larger threat and the Dominion will need to learn to rely on them and potentially other alpha/beta powers to help them win as their own power starts to slowly suffer the attrition of the war.

[@prion42]

A lot of people wondering why Sisko didn't blow the station. And the follow-up question is why the Dominion didn't blow it when they left the following year. I have to think there's a political component. The station is the territory of a neutral power. Destroying it would be a crime against that neutral power. Sisko could have destroyed it out of spite, but the Dominion could just park a battleship there (and possibly redirect their attention to Bajor). Weyoun was a poor strategist but an excellent politician. He was still intent on proving the Dominion keeps their word.

[@chimaican01]

1) We can only assume that you can only enter/exit the wormhole on a particular trajectory (like a tunnel). We only ever see ships pass through the wormhole in one direction. So if this is the case, mining the wormhole entrance wouldn't be difficult as you wouldn't have to surround the entire anomaly 360. 2) The swarming effect and self-replicating would make the field more difficult to destroy as others have already pointed out. Did they have their own internal power source or was there an external power source just within the mine field itself that gave additional power? 3) The Romulans could have given permission or turned a blind eye to the Federation using cloaking on mines. We all know that the Romulans didn't fully trust the Dominion even if they initially stayed neutral. The Tal-Shiar tried to kill all the Founders prior to the Dominion-Federation-Klingon war, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think they would have just ignored the treaty in this instance. Besides, the Romulans always prefer to manipulate from the side-lines. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. 4) Dukat did send more than one battle wing to attack the Defiant, so it's not like he underestimated Sisko. Yes he could have sent the entire fleet after the Defiant and attack the station second, but really, it was a few wings against one ship. At the time, he could do both. Also, everyone here is stating why didn't they just bombard the minefield first? Yeah, I suppose they could have, but they didn't have the intel (I don't know why everyone here talks about the Dominion already knew that the minefield could only be activated when they were finished laying. How would they have known this unless there were spies on DS9 and among the senior staff), and besides, their orders were to engage the Defiant, not the minefield.

[@rurrjh]

Also, a note about the Dominion do they need to beam personnel. Why not just clone them?

[@davidford3115]

They did. How many times did Weyoun die?

[@Liopleurodon]

I think of it as a political move by the Dominion: Dukat wants to retake all Cardassian Terretroy, so DS9 is on the plate to appease him and the Dominion sees the mining as act of war, so they put themselves on the moral high ground by attacking the minefield (and protecting station). So Weyoun can still say "Yeah, we just wanted the mines gone; the Feds attacked us on our own terretory (+ blabla civilan casualties)!"

[@jamessullivan7692]

I don't think Starfleet planned on staying offif I recall correctly when Captain sisko left in the defiant they rendezvoused with a massive star fleet task Force and then wound up having their asses handed to them so loremaster with more shifts around DS9your theory on destroying more dominion ships is correct but I don't think that that's still would have mattered considering the battle that followed almost immediately afterward I may be wrong but hey we're all talking

[@hellfish2309]

1:32 securing the wormhole was mechanically advantageous for the Dominion of course, but also was a symbolic and cultural necessity for its autocrats the Changelings to maintain The Great Link between quadrants 4:21 counterpoint - O’brien initially conceived the mines to “swarm detonate” meaning they have some kind of super short range propulsion to leave their laid position; since the mines CAN move, it’s likely the neighbor mine(s) will already have replicated the replacement by the time the initial mine in question has 1) moved far away enough to limit chain reacting the field, 2) already detonated so... this would make brute-forcing a chain reaction yes doable but more impractical than even the radicalized Dominion would consider

[@SamuelJamesNary]

The use of the mines as a tactic by the Federation wasn't a bad one. As the use of mines has proven to be a common tactic in naval warfare, particularly to fortify certain areas in Earth's history. And while we don't have replicator technology on Earth today, the presence of mines and the fact that they may be hard to detect is often more than enough to deter attacks in mined waters. We see this in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. The Turks didn't have an infinite number of mines, but they were powerful enough to sink French and British battleships and the Entente naval forces knew that if they brought in minesweepers to clear the mines, those minesweepers would be vulnerable to shelling from the Turkish forts on the Gallipoli peninsula itself. It was this that essentially defeated the attempt to force Dardanelle Strait in 1915 and attack the Turkish capital at Constantinople and the Turkish fleet in the Sea of Marmara, and forced the ground campaign in Gallipoli. The ground campaign was supposed to clear the forts, that would then allow the minesweepers to clear the mines and then finally the bigger ships could move through. When the ground campaign failed, the defense worked. Which made the Turkish use of mines a very successful action. And the Federation's use of the mines would fall into a similar sort of category. The mines would present something that could at least damage enemies without risking the lives of Starfleet personnel. And by the TNG, DS9, VOY era where they had replicators and could use them to replicate anything from spare parts to tea, why not use them for a military purpose, in a sense with replicating mines. That would present a major boon for the Federation in a position where they'd be looking at an uphill battle to begin with. Especially if the Dominion and Cardassians were able to push into the heart of the Federation immediately after taking DS9. Because while the stated Dominion losses are made to sound heavy, any attack and push that would as deep as the Vulcan border would have had to encounter large numbers of Federation ships along the way, with accompanying ground battles. Sure the Dominion might not be able to replace these losses easily, but the fact that they got as far as they did WITH the minefield there would give some indication that making a last stand at DS9 would have been just that. Sure the station and supporting ships would do more damage to the Dominion… but they'd still take the station and Starfleet would have virtually nothing left... and with no mines... the wormhole would be open for reinforcements, negating the potential loss of the shipyards. In this, the Federation was a major tactical disadvantage in that they were building up to a war diplomatically but due to earlier tensions and squabbles with the Klingons and the fight with the Borg in "First Contact," they didn't have the ships or command ready for the war when it came. They were spread far too thin and weren't ready. The minefield was the thus the only option to slow the Dominion down and prevent them from gaining reinforcements and thus giving the Federation and Klingons time to rally their forces and where the Dominion down... The only thing that should have changed with the Federation's post 2nd Battle of DS9 actions would relate to Sisko providing some insight on likely Dominion efforts. Have him warn the admiralty that the Dominion was such that they'd likely push civilian ships through the minefield to try and overwhelm them or that the Cardassians might try an effort to fire their energy weapons at the mines and see if they can destroy large numbers of the mines first... since the ships in Star Trek aren't necessarily limited to physical ammunition storage and thus could rotate through various energy weapons and try to destroy the minefield that way. Essentially let the Federation know that while the mines may be powerful and could hold off the Gamma Quadrant reinforcements if they're to be the bigger threat... but that they would only buy them time and that they'd have to assemble their forces for a major conflict in one area as soon as possible.

[@hydrogenone6866]

Maybe instead mines their cloaked drones with advanced AI that fire phasers and torpedoes. As long as there is energy the weapons that could be deployed could be limitless.

[@markpresslee687]

What you saying is very good and I do agree with a lot of it but I didn't think you could transport through a wormhole

[@ectogambit]

Bajor and Cardassia are next door neighbours!

[@ChikaOnyirimba-lj7vo]

Just love this video and your analysis of the early stages of this conflict the most devastating the galaxy has seen with Starfleet pitted against a foe far more cunning and dangerous than the Romulans, Ferengi and Klingons put together!!?! Do agree holding ds9 would have been setback the dominion (especially Gul Dukat) for sure just not sure if Starfleet would have gotten there before the Cardassians and Jem Hadar but based on the episode 'Way of the Warrior' its very possible 🙂🙂 The question mark is the Klingons but if their game a joint taskforce with Starfleet then takes out the shipyards they originally did destroy putting the Jem Hadar in a real bad plight but the war still might drag on for years but in this scenario the Federation would have the upper hand

[@wcoleman99]

All i keep thinking is a Ferengi planning his wedding was like hey how about self-replicating mines and lets get to the point so i can say i do. The scottish guy was sure why not, i've pulled enough miracles to get this station to work up to starfleet standards

[@DG-xh8fz]

Humm.. I don't know if I agree. I think the federation knew it could not defend DS9. And if they had sent a fleet to protect it, Dominion would have sent a larger fleet to take it. They left it undefended to lure the dominion in sooner. The odd thing though is the dominion clearly knew this and only sent a small fleet to take it, and should have left the rest of their fleet defending their lines, but the Federation found a undefended spot and took it.

[@cadengrace5466]

While it may be tactically sound to hold DS9, politically the Federation cannot do so. It would paint the UFP as an aggressive culture just when there are still attempts to settle the situation with diplomacy. Never mind that the art of diplomacy is built on keeping all of your agreements, lest none of them have meaning. If Star Fleet stays on DS9 the Federation would lose all diplomatic clout. A better choice would be to destroy the station. It was not expected to survive Dominion weapons-fire in the first place and was something of a shock to the Dominion, but not the Cardassians that Star Fleet had figured out how to block Dominion phased polaron beams. As for the ship yards of the Dominion still be operational, it is likely they are using Breen shipyards that were never hit. But, no one knew how powerful the station was going to turn out to be. It was hoped that it would withstand the assault long enough to activate the minefield. Because, there was no one to know for sure, plans were made ahead of time to evacuate the station. Star Fleet only knew about the power of the station after the fact, not something they could plan on. As for the minefield, the Dominion do not know how many mines there are out there. They are cloaked and the field is huge. The war has just started and they have just lost their principle shipyards. Ships are valuable right now, maybe ramming later will work, maybe it wont. But at this point, they Dominion fleet has a finite number of ships and they do not know what else Star Fleet may be about to do. You are being an armchair general.

[@andrewblanchard2398]

the reason was that the DS9 writers wanted to copy BABYLON 5 with large epic space battles and a space station really was a bad choice for it STAR TREK : VOYAGER did epic space battles better because the USS VOYAGER was a starship travelling through space that met new races all of the time DS9 faced THE CARDASSIANS THE KLINGONS THE DOMINION SPATIAL ANOMALIES way too much

[@robertb7230]

A lot of 20/20 hindsight and gap filling in this video. You touched on it once--we have no idea how much those shipyards affected the Dominion. The Federation is able to supply a huge portion of its fleet from a single system's shipyards (Sol). They probably assumed the Dominion were the same, thus the destruction of an entire system's shipyards would have devastated the Dominion's system's "in quadrant" supply lines and with no ability to resupply on from Gamma, it would have put the federation in a far superior position than simply destroying the ships. (Because even with no naval assets, territory is a ponderous process to claim...). In essence, the Federation probably had no idea of the different scale of ship production the Dominion were capable of, nor the scale of troop production thanks to their clone soldiers. Looking back, the most effective tactic might indeed seem like wiping out their fleet and immediately going scorched earth, not bothering to take territory, just trying to bomb and disrupt them. But at the time, the Federation probably had no reasonable belief that the Dominion had the capability to not only sustain a defensive war after losing their shipyards and gamma quadrant infrastructure but in fact conduct an OFFENSIVE war. (Which, lets face it, was most likely just terrible writing because its always more compelling to be underdogs.)

[@LoreReloaded]

Which is why i challenged you to write it better

[@robertb7230]

​@@LoreReloaded Well, to make this particular arc better, you just have the defiant rejoin with a battered, crumbling federation task force and have the finale end with "It was an ambush. We failed.". End the season on a definitive down note, with the federation having failed to take the ship yards and lost DS9 in the gambit. This way you don't have the jarring season differential that showed the federation in an extremely dominant position at the end of the season, but then utterly getting stomped in the next (Which was a huge WTF moment when I was watching it.) Then you can start the next season with more of "How did the Dominion know of our plans" and further emphasis on the founders ability to use their powers to infiltrate an enemies ranks and act as spies. Use that plot to illustrate why the Federation had been working for months now on a virus that prevented shape shifting...Not with the intent to wipe the founders out, but rather the intent to expose founders who were acting as espionage agents--a virus which humans can carry harmlessly but for a changeling would prevent their regeneration, thus you could have every human be a point of transmission and quickly weed out spies (Because their skin would be flaking off in a few months--as it seemed the founders could remain in form significantly longer than ODO could). Have it be a totally unintended side effect that the virus made its way back to the great link before the minefield went up, as it was only intended to eventually root out enemy agents. That could be a much bigger emphasis now in the war, rather than the throw-away line Sisko said about the cure for the virus, have it be an entire arc Odo and the federation struggle with. Show throughout the season how the federation is getting pounded, and illustrate that as the changelings are found in various branches of federation governance, the federation slowly begins turning the tide of the war--illustrate that the virus preventing changeling espionage is absolutely essential, because all other methods have failed. Now you actually have a genuine conflict about the morality of using such a weapon on an enemy that is so dominant and ruthless with the use of their powers. In essence though, the biggest change would simply be to NOT ignore the huge coup it should have been to take out an entire system-wide shipyard. The writing for that just felt awful. And you're right, it did make the station trade seem stupid, because it made it seem like the Dominion could lose such a massive part of their infrastructure and remain unphased (Which is not the case with how we understand modern naval infrastructure. If you took out America's aircraft carrier shipyard, it would take us years to replace it, as infrastructure projects on that scale are mind-boggling complex)

[@SpiritualFox]

This is what happens when adults jump in on a children's game of risk. The map doesn't make sense, and the kids won't be able to execute your grand visions.

[@RealSensationalBeing]

I'm not tracking. Who's the kids here?

[@Kindrin]

Mine field on both sides of the wormhole?

[@peterhaag86]

So realistically, the way you fix this is to avoid the minefield debacle all together and have DS9 close the wormhole. Yes this will piss off, alienate and lose Bajor forever. But you will have sealed off the Dominion from their resources for a generation at least. Once it’s sealed off then you’ve cut their supply lines completely. You will then be fighting the alpha quadrant dominion forces until there is nothing left. It’s a heavyweight slugfest at that point. Defending DS9 to leave the wormhole open you send the Enterprise, Thunderchild, and Phoenix to the Bajoran sector. Maybe the Jaeger as well for additional convoy sector escort. This additional firepower will enable you to, along with the Defiant and Rotarran have tactical dominance around the station. It would require a huge amount of Jem’Hadar fighters to overwhelm a task force of that strength. The Dominion didn’t bring enough toys that day to finish that kind of fight and your plot device...er...minefield will be safe to activate.

[@peterhaag86]

Oh, throw some Mirandas in there for Dominion target practice too...explodium works.

[@BainesMkII]

Part of a fix would be to have the Federation clearly lose the battle of Deep Space 9, not leaving on their own terms as was shown in the episode. Make it obvious that the Federation either had absolutely no hope of holding DS9, or that the cost of doing so at best would have made it a Pyrrhic victory that would ultimately have cost them the war. Instead of an orderly retreat, the Federation has to evacuate because the Dominion smash half of DS9, and the only way to save remaining civilians is for all Federation personnel to either surrender or get off the station asap. Maybe have a few more defending ships which all get destroyed. Perhaps Odo brokers a deal to let the Defiant leave unmolested with remaining Federation crew in tow, in trade for the Federation abandoning the fight. Don't have the Defiant on magic minefield duty, instead have it defending mine-laying ships. That would also allow the Dominion to smash both mines and mine-layers, making it less obvious that the field will be completed. Instead of the cloaked Klingon, have a cloaked mine-layer finish the field (laying cloaked mines) as the Defiant escaped, allowing Sisko to snatch a measure of victory from defeat, with the completed minefield coming online right after the Defiant is out of range.

[@NitpickingNerd]

they should have mentioned a starfleet defense fleet around ds9 which we don't see but only hear about (for budget reasons) and then hear it was completely wiped out and the DOminion fleet coming toward the station

[@lbrentevans]

Deus is pronounced “day-us,” not “doose.” The term is from Latin, meaning “god.” The phrase means “god-from-machine.” A deuce is a poker card, or slang expression for a pair of something.

[@LoreReloaded]

Ill never make you happy if this annoys you :(

[@lbrentevans]

I’m not bothered by it, as obviously I knew what you meant. Not everyone would though. In addition to being mispronounced it’s also a foreign language term that would have been difficult to look up due to the odd spelling in addition to the mispronunciation. Everyone makes errors. Errors only become mistakes when one refuses to correct them. My statement was made in a spirit of assistance, and should have been taken only as such. No need to be touchy about it, friend.

[@LoreReloaded]

@@lbrentevans While I'll admit the frownie face was smarmy... I have always had a pretty bad issue with pronunciation, it's been a constant thorn in my side. Go back to the early days and listen to me say 'trek'. It's something I work on, but i'll always have issues.

[@Locutus]

@@LoreReloaded I would have pronounced it the same way as you, if it makes you feel better. :)

[@prion42]

A deuce is also a shit. He was saying the minefield concept was a bullshit machine

[@lonnyyoung4285]

I understand that the mines self replicated, but what about fuel? Even if you can't take the minefield out quickly, all you have to do is randomly send junk into the minefield to set off the mines and force the other mines to replicate the replacements. Eventually, and I would wager sooner rather than later, the mines would eventually run out of fuel. Maintaining a cloak and replicating new friends is energy intensive. Unless the mines were being fueled by the Profits or the mines were violating the laws of physics, the minefield wouldn't be able to hold up for long.

[@gxxlee123]

Complaining about plots when we only see a very very small window of that universe. And hear bits and pieces if we are lucky about happens in that universe. I once read it takes about 56 or so days to reach the edge of Fed space from earth at maximum warp which ships can not hold for long thats a while. Taking into account a base line speed and not anything like going from the neutral zone to earth in minutes. We don't know the state of the affairs before the war. For all we know there could have been dozens of natural disasters going on at the time and they were to far out to reach DS9 from the time that it was confirmed that the Dominion was coming. Or had been clearing out citizens and sensitive data from in and around DS9's area. But given how poorly the Feds were at planning for a even a fist fight i doubt it. But has someone has stated below it makes sense that the Dominion securing supply lines over possibly getting Earth or other core worlds made sense. Even if what we see is them walking over highly critical areas the Federation is big its even bigger then you think you can imagine. Some resources say 8000 light-years across at minimum. And those areas the Dominion walked over tiny tiny dots in the big picture of war how bad was those hits. Yeah they affected moral, loss ships and people but how much to the actual fleet? Has for taking Earth wasn't there a scene between Dukat and Weylon talking about this? That Dukat viewed himself has a hero to Bajor but the people didn't and there was near constant fighting? This would be the same with Earth and Vulcan hell even those areas that the Federation pulled back from wasn't in 100% of Dominion control. Sure they had ships and people there but how much control did they have? Very little I would say. Plus they likely didn't have the resources to make whatever drug it was the Jem'Hader used. And without them well bye bye. Has for leaving DS9 yes it was a mistake but the Federation know that the Jem'Hader used suicide hits. So the minefield was more or less a stop gap measure that they didn't think was going to work. Hence the retreat. But yeah a lack of ships has always been a problem and will still be a problem. But like said earlier the federation controls alot and there are alot of areas that need watched over and they can't just hop and skip over space to them. -insert joke about Star Trek First contact Enterprise going from the Romulus neutral zone to earth in minutes- And why the Jem"Hader just didn't suicide their way though is still an issue.

[@terrencejones9817]

I want to add that I'm not sure that bringing the minefield down and getting those 2800 Dominion ships in, that would win the war. We know that the Dominion fleet had to number around 30k ships, if the 1500 battle ready Klingons would be out numbered 20:1. Onscreen evidence shows that the majority of allies fleet comes from the Federation. During the late stages after countering the Breen weapon, the allies are still pushing the Dominion back. So we have to believe one of two possibilities. The Federation massively ramps up ship production, rivaling the Dominion. Or The Federation is still recalling or refurbishing mothballed ships. I once read a great Fanfiction that Theorized that the reason the Breen were defeated at earth was that 3rd fleet while powerful, isn't the biggest fleet in Starfleet. The 1st fleet is and it only sees action that one time in the war. You see the theory was the 1st Fleet is deployed to Alpha Centauri , which is cannon to be the most populous planetary system in the UFP. So naturally they have the largest fleet. This is actually a reason the Dominion went for Vulcan. Vulcan has a very small population Compared to other core worlds, thus the 2nd and 5th fleet could be much smaller. Something to think about at least.

[@Bitchslapper316]

The federation defiantly ramped up ship production. The 7th fleet had 38 Akira class ships in it during "operation return" (the battle fought when they went back to retake the station). The Akira class was relatively new at the time so they were newer ships.

[@terrencejones9817]

@@Bitchslapper316 You mean the 2nd or 5th fleet? Operation return was to be the 2nd 5th and 9th. The 9th wasn't there in time. I've never counted th Akiras , but it could be that many. Now were they new builds? Or were those recalled from Typhoon sector fleet? That's the sector where the Borg are engaged initially in first contact.

[@ReiHinoSenshi]

And they left rom alone knowing he developed the mines...it kinda all started and ended with rom really...

[@dannyfisher5086]

I think if I had treat the worm hole as a constant second front as writer a place of content battle with a trench warfare theme to it you could constantly build tension know they could potentially brake through at any time and all that was stopped the was the confined nature of the passage and innovation such as mines but more conventional ones and long range bombardments and the like a bit like the plot of 300 but with ships but it would probably be outside of the scope of the budget and would have to mostly rely on dialect in the show

[@brent847]

something else to factor in is the federation is made up of dozens if not hundreds of diverse races.. in the battles i didnt see any vulcan or andorian ships,, you couls make the excuse that those were busy but then canon history flies in the face you couldnt swing a dead cat without hitting a vulcan ship.