Why did they wait?

[McAvoy]

I don't know if this has been posted before and I did look for a bit.

Anyway something occured to me while watching season 5. Why did Sisko wait until he did to mine the wormhole? I mean he could have done it much earlier and prevented most of the Dominion ships from coming to Alpha quadrant. I highly doubt that if he mined the wormhole after the Cardassians joined the Dominion, that the Cardassians and the Dominion would put up an effective fight. I counted 32 Dominion battlecruisers in the fleet that went to Cardassia.

We know the Klingons were pushed out of Cardassian space, so the fleet should be big enough to push them out. However with the help of the Federation fleet, it should be much easier than let's say waiting a few more months waiting for that fleet to get even bigger. Dominion shipyards are not in place nor are the cloning facilities.

The only reason I can think of is Sisko was waiting for Starfleet to prepare itself.

[Tsukiyumi]

Dude, it's the Federation.

They can't take a leak without permission; Sisko probably waited as long as he did because of political pressure.

[Sonic Glitch]

Dude, it's the Federation.

They can't take a leak without permission; Sisko probably waited as long as he did because of political pressure.

Yeah. After all, how could they be sure the Dominion really was trying to take over the alpha quadrant. And I guess early-on the dominion did provide some legitimate humanitarian positives to the Cardassian Union, I suspect there were still some TNG-era Federation officials in power who felt they would look too evil if they stopped it

[Teaos]

Although after the Galaxy class ship was destroyed the Federation would have been justified in mining the wormhole. It no moe drastic than Picard bloacading the Klingon boarder from Romulan aid.

[kostmayer]

They'd already tried destroying the Wormhole entrance prior to this anyways, just before the Cardassians joined the Dominion - I don't understand why mining the wormhole was such a big deal.

Granted by then the Dominion already had ships in the Alpha quadrant which could have threatened them, but this would have been much less of a problem if they'd mined the wormhole promptly rather then waiting.

[Deepcrush]

The UFP has always been slow to action. Unless someone is literally bashing the door, the UFP tends to take its time to react.

[Mark]

I think it more because until then, the Federation held out hope that they could still avoid a war, and that mining the wormhole would have sparked the explosion they were trying to avoid.

[Teaos]

Remember the Gamma quadrant was a vast untapped resource, if conflict could have been avoided the wormhole is a massive asset.

[Captain Seafort]

It's also possible that the Federation simply wasn't ready for war any earlier. It was almost a year from "The Ship" to "Call to Arms", but only six months or so from "The Ship" to "By Inferno's Light". While the Dominion certainly built up their forces considerably over that period, Starfleet would have as well - reactivating mothballed ships, calling up reserves (and possibly instituting conscription if they had any sense), and putting their industrial base onto a war footing. Most importantly they had to develop a counter to the Dominion weapons technology based on the captured fighter - going to war with an enemy that could shoot straight through their shields would have been an exceptionally bad idea.

[Graham Kennedy]

You could ask that of most any war. Look at how long Britain and France waited to declare war against Germany. They knew it would be an awful war, so they wanted to avoid it if at all possible. Only after they'd basically exhausted every other possible alternative did they go to war. And really that's a good thing on several fronts. By doing everything else possible first, Britain never had to suffer serious doubt about what it was doing. There could never be a serious question as to whether we were right to go to war because the government could always say "we had no choice" and everybody could see that it was plain truth. It also gave us considerable moral authority - when people complained about mass bombings and the like the government always had the position of "war is hell but we're not here because we jumped at the chance..."

Contrast that to World War I, where the big Empires are often accused of wanting to have a war as part of their Empire building strategy, and therefore the average soldier often had a lot of bitterness towards his own government because he couldn't see and good reason for what he was being asked to do.

The Federation knew that mining the wormhole would trigger an attack on DS9 and therefore all out war. They didn't want that, they tried to build an alliance against it, but the Dominion was winning the peace by getting non aggression treaties signed all over the place, and killing starships on the sly as well. But by doing everything they could first, the Federation always had the moral justification that they didn't seek war, it was forced upon them.

[Jim]

There is a rather big difference between a blackade and mining an area. Imagion putting a fence between your yard and your neighbor's... compared to putting in a mine field.

[Tyyr]

I think it more because until then, the Federation held out hope that they could still avoid a war, and that mining the wormhole would have sparked the explosion they were trying to avoid.

Pretty much that right there. Though if they'd rigged a command activated wormhole so they could leave it off most of the time might not have been out of the question.

[Teaos]

Its been a long time since i saw that episode but wernt those mines a recent development to?

[Tsukiyumi]

Those particular mines were designed during the episode.

[Teaos]

I thought so, and it was due to them being cloaked and replicating that prevented them being taken out. So they couldnt go up any faster.