What If: Dominion War

[Mark]

I myself see Section 31 as taking action as soon as the UFP even heard about the Dominion. Why? Because that's what a true intel force would do. You don't wait for the new race to come to you, you go to them. As for the Founders desease, I'm sure seafort is right about the timing there but the Dominion was already known to the UFP. Even if only by name and deed.

Yeah, but what kind of action could they take? They couldn't attempt infiltration, because nobody knew where to find the Dominion, plus nobody had any ideas what the founders were. Hell, Odo WAS a founder and didn't even know it. If I were the founders, after the Odyssey was destroyed, I wouldn't have done anything hostile at all, and maybe even opened diplomatic channels (the Federation LOVES dipolomacy) after all, and just let my Founder infiltratiors do there work. Starfleet would have gone on thinking the Vorta were the leaders of the Dominion.

[Deepcrush]

Any kind of information would be better then nothing at all. As we have seen the Dominion must have had a fair amount of space in the GQ. Section 31 could have set agents around there to learn about the Dominion. Find a sight of a former battle and research the remains of ships and troops. Study how fast a Dominion ship responds to anything. Locate the borders of their space, learn about their internal workings.