kostmayer wrote:What would have happened had the Founders not learned of the plan? Could Tain have wiped out most of the Founders, and would the Alpha Quadrant weathered the counterstrike easily?
Let's say the Tal'Shiar caught Leland Orser's changeling before he learned of the plan, or even the fleet's existence.
How would the war have gone? How would it have changed the politics?
Lot of nice opportunity for discussion here; nice question, kost.
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
Well, IMO with the Founders suddenly gone, the oppurtunistic Vorta would have tried to seize control of the Dominion, by controling the Ketricel White for the Jem'Hadar. I give that an average of 20 years before the Jem'Hadar completely revolt, overthrow the Vorta, and carve little niche empires for themselves. Then fall to squabbling amongst themselves, being bred for combat and nobody else to fight, since they don't have their "gods" to unify them.
They say that in the Army,
the women are mighty fine.
They look like Phyllis Diller,
and walk like Frankenstein.
Well, I doubt all of the Founders would have been caught in that particular trap, personally. We know they had some off in the AQ at that point.
There is only one way of avoiding the war – that is the overthrow of this society. However, as we are too weak for this task, the war is inevitable. -L. Trotsky, 1939
I don't think that all of the Founders would have been killed. Though I truly believe that most of them would have been lost. As such I would expect a massive counter attack from the Jem'Hadar. When someone attacks your base of faith, you don't start hitting the guy next to you... You and the guy next to you go after anyone who did or may have been a part of the attack.
We would have a Dominion War with the whole of the Dominion flooding into the AQ. The AQ powers would have been forced to come together in order to survive.
I doubt the Vorta would immediately take over. Aside from the odd sneaky bugger as seen in "To the Death" and "Rocks and Shoals", they were bred to be loyal and regarded the Founders as Gods.
Have to wonder why the Founders wouldn't have already evacuated the planet anyways, given that the Federation now knew where their homeworld was located. Though if they saw that as a problem, they probably wouldn't have given the location away in the first place.
Its possible that there were planetary defenses that weren't present in The Die is Cast due to the Founders laying a trap, but the Obsidian order wasn't expecting any, and they had Starfleets intelligence reports.
Maybe the massive Dominion fleet that ambushed the Romulans was always there on standy incase of attack?
Finally, and I think I've asked this before - could the Alpha Quadrant have got enough forces together at DS9 to adequately defend the wormhole from the Dominion. The Dominion attack would have been devestation, but the Wormhole is a chokepoint. Would have made a pretty good cliffhanger - very similiar to the end of Series 2 in Blake's 7.
"You ain't gonna get off down the trail a mile or two, and go missing your wife or something, like our last cook done, are you?"
"My wife is in hell, where I sent her. She could make good biscuits, but her behavior was terrible."
Kost, they did leave the planet, which is why the plan failed. The point of the thread is to cover what would have happened if they didn't know of the attack and didn't leave.
Yeah, I understand we're assuming they evacuate and were detroyed / severely inconvenienced, I'm just wondering why they wouldn't. Were they depending on their founders forewarning them of any impending attack?
Anyhoo - without the benefit of mass convoys travelling through the wormhole unabated, and without the Founders leadership, how much trouble would the Dominion have attacking the Alpha quadrant through the Wormhole?
First, I doubt all the Founders would have been killed, and even if they did the Vorta could probably organise themselves well enough to consolidate their forces.
The Federation originally had to deploy a minefield to stop any Dominion ships coming through the wormhole, rather then relying on its conventional weapons to destroy the ships as they came through. This suggests that a pretty substantial force can come through the Wormhole at once.
The Federations main hope of stopping any invasion would be deploying a minefield (which Rom hadn't invented yet), or gathering a mass fleet at the entrance to the wormhole. Do we know how long the minefield took to deploy from the time Rom came up with the idea to the last mines being layed?
If the Dominion attacked quickly enough, and could gather a big enough force in time, I reckon they could have overwhelmed the DS9, fortified the wormhole and possibly taken over Bajor. If they could maintain their foothold, they'd have the full resources of Dominion available.
The only advantage the Alpha Quadrant forces would have in this scenario over the original history is that they aren't actively hostile with each other. Even when they did combine their forces, they barely pushed the Dominion back. Any surviving Founders would presumably not have been infected by Odo as in the original history, and so rather then having a reason to surrender, would instead be more determined to wipe out all solids.
"You ain't gonna get off down the trail a mile or two, and go missing your wife or something, like our last cook done, are you?"
"My wife is in hell, where I sent her. She could make good biscuits, but her behavior was terrible."
Coming through that wormhole against a fleet arrayed to stop them would have been a real deathtrap in my view. Your room to manuver is so limited that you would likley be running into the debris of the ships in front of you that got blasted. I giant pile of dead ships is damn near as effective as a minefield after just a little while.
And even though they did not have cloaking mines nothing would have stopped the AQ powers from using regular large anti-matter mines that they could have blown of as people tried to get out as well. Once you kill enough ships as they emerge the rest won't have anywhere to manuver.
The wormhole may be a chokepoint but would the Federation, Klingons and Romulans have the time to create a fleet large enough to destroy wave after wave of angry Jem'Hadar ships?
"Don't underestimate the power of technobabble: the Federation can win anything with the sheer force of bullshit"
While I agree that the Federation and Cardassians would be able to field a fleet in time, I do not think they would have had a fleet large enough to effectively defend the wormhole. Fielding a fleet the size we have seen later in DS9 took time. They knew a war was coming for a while. This on the other hand was unexpected and the Dominion was still new.
I see initial denfinding of the wormhole to be successful but wave after wave of ships would wear down the fleet until they eventually break through and destroy DS9.
Also, the fleet that attacked the Founder's homeworld would most likely be destroyed. They should have known that attacking the Founders would be a one way trip.
"Don't underestimate the power of technobabble: the Federation can win anything with the sheer force of bullshit"
McAvoy wrote:While I agree that the Federation and Cardassians would be able to field a fleet in time, I do not think they would have had a fleet large enough to effectively defend the wormhole. Fielding a fleet the size we have seen later in DS9 took time. They knew a war was coming for a while. This on the other hand was unexpected and the Dominion was still new.
The UFP began arming for war right after they met the Dominion. This with their forces along the CU border wouldn't be anything to be taken lightly. The CU showed it could field a massive force when it needed to and with their small amount of space, could easily deploy are large force to the wormhole. Also, if the Dominion didn't see the attack coming then they wouldn't have forces "Ready and waiting" or at least not up close and personal as you seem to imply. Both sides would be off step but with the AQ having the advantage of being on the defensive.
McAvoy wrote:I see initial denfinding of the wormhole to be successful but wave after wave of ships would wear down the fleet until they eventually break through and destroy DS9.
This depends on how quickly the AQ powers could get their defenses in place and how many ships the Dominion could apply before those defenses are ready.
McAvoy wrote:Also, the fleet that attacked the Founder's homeworld would most likely be destroyed. They should have known that attacking the Founders would be a one way trip.
Very possible, however the loss of two dozen ships wouldn't really affect the combined might of the AQ powers. So its not really important if they survive or not, only if they complete their mission.
Also, don't forget the fleet that was wiped out at the Founders homeworld wasn't a "military fleet", they were made up of Obsidian Order and Tal'shiar ships.
Also, with only basic defenses in place, I would imagine that the defenders would be able to hold the Dominion ships back with only a fifth of the invaders numbers, especially coming through a choke point like that.
You'd only need to keep peppering the enterence with torps, lay out some mines (standard ones even), and some unmanned defenses with the ships, and they would have wiped out massive numbers of the Dominion fleet, without the Klingons or Romulans.
They say that in the Army,
the women are mighty fine.
They look like Phyllis Diller,
and walk like Frankenstein.
Commander Eddington stated that Starfleet was sending 9 Starships to reinforce the area. Sisko described this as 'substantial forces', seems like a rather small force to me to defend against any counter attack.
Assuming the attack was succesful and the Romulan Cardassian Fleet wasn't wiped out, I wonder what Garak would have done? Stayed with Tain, or helped Odo escape.
"You ain't gonna get off down the trail a mile or two, and go missing your wife or something, like our last cook done, are you?"
"My wife is in hell, where I sent her. She could make good biscuits, but her behavior was terrible."
