Because it's a government that already provides everything all its citizens would need to live.
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Star Trek Thread. Stardate 47634.44. Lets talk about the time Sisko gassed that planet
- Thread starter DrForester
- Start date
Well then you were just making a bad analogy. Native Americans weren't moved because an arbitrary line had been drawn to split territory between factions in an effort to preserve peace. They were forcibly pushed off of good land onto poor land so homesteaders could steal the good land. They weren't given an option to stay. And they hadn't only been living there for 25 years.
And I'd call you and everyone you know entitled asshats for it too. You took land that wss being contsted during a war and want to stir up another war because you ended up choosing poorly. Boo hoo.
I don't know what the experience on these colonies actually was, but in my head the only experience they would've had with Starfleet/Federation was their planet being given away. You wouldn't trust a government if your only experience with them was a breach of trust.
Hahaha. Worf: "Can we at least fire at some Romulan freighters?"
I think it was justifiable, but coming from TNG, Sisko's actions solicited a big "HOLY SHIT" from me.
I also think "gassing a planet" is hugely reductive, given what the gas ACTUALLY did. It would have been a lot less justifiable if he had just gassed the planet to root out Eddington, rendering it uninhabitable by everyone.
I also think "gassing a planet" is hugely reductive, given what the gas ACTUALLY did. It would have been a lot less justifiable if he had just gassed the planet to root out Eddington, rendering it uninhabitable by everyone.
This is the principle issue with the Maquis. They're not some proud multigenerational people being deprived of their homeland and being put in cages. They're just incredibly stubborn, and strangely bloodthirsty for another war with the Cardassians.
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I love that Shax in Lower Decks is just all the Worf tropes.
Maybe I just need to rewatch some early DS9 but I don't remember it being said that the planets the future Maquis colonized were contested when they were settled. If the planets were in Federation space when they were settled I don't really care how long the colonists were there when the treaty changed things up.
Some of them maybe if they were born a colonist or settled when they were young, but the leadership damned well had experience with the Federation. They were Federation citizens even if they were colonists.
The cause of the war in the first place was the Cardassians and the Federation both trying to colonize the strip of class M worlds on their shared border.
So yes, they have always been contested.
So these empty planets were 'contested' before there was anything or anyone on them? Isn't it more likely that people started colonizing planets that they thought were near but safely within the Federation border and that's when the Cardassians pushed back?
I don't know that any of this is made 100% clear on screen so ultimately it doesn't matter too much. I'm just saying that from the Maquis perspective they thought they were under Federation protection and would've felt understandably betrayed when the treaty gave them up.
I think it all harkens back to that proto-Maquis TNG episode where the settlers were (incredibly authentic and well researched) Native Americans and the show and Captain Picard became self aware for a bit when they realized it's a pompous white dude with a French last name resettling a historically displaced and oppressed people against their wishes based on politics and treaties that they were not involved in or even aware of. Without that angle there is no reasonable plight for the viewer to support and these settlers just become incredibly privileged Federation citizens who aren't used to being told that they cannot do something, so a bit like Space-Karens or a stand in for another kind of contemporary modern settler that we all know and love.
I love Sisko but the fact that Janeway gets tossed into the fire for Tuvix by comparison is a little
Voyager doesn't call Janeway on her shit. DS9 calls Sisko on it in the episode, he brushes it off, and then In the Pale Moonlight happens.
No one got hurt in For the Uniform and no one pretends what Sisko did in In the Pale Moonlight was good. Someone died in Tuvix and people unironically argue that what Janeway did was fine.
That's always been my issue with the Maquis as well and why I always found them deeply unsympathetic. Like these aren't their native planets and they have other options. They could easily have the Federation re-settle them and provide for any resources they might need. Their entire reasoning for willing to kill for these planets is that they just really want these specific ones for some reason.
Like, here's the thing that people don't understand about this episode:
Eddington is a pompous, deluded asshole. But he is 100% right about what Sisko does. No one got hurt and Sisko was playing into a role to get Eddington to surrender, sure. But that doesn't change the fact that what Eddington says about what he's doing is right. And it is echoed a season later by Garak.
Eddington is a pompous, deluded asshole. But he is 100% right about what Sisko does. No one got hurt and Sisko was playing into a role to get Eddington to surrender, sure. But that doesn't change the fact that what Eddington says about what he's doing is right. And it is echoed a season later by Garak.
Thr worst part s that this isn't even the worst thing Sisko has done.
Picard is just about the only Starfleet Captain that isn't some sort of war criminal, murderer or similarly morally questionable.
Picard is just about the only Starfleet Captain that isn't some sort of war criminal, murderer or similarly morally questionable.
Dax had that whole Klingon bro code thing going so it made sense to me that she would say something like that.
Picard didn't resist the Borg hard enough and Wolf 359 happened. That's on him.
Picard couldn't just say to Q: "You know, you're right. There are probably things out there we're not ready for. Hopefully we will be when we meet them."
That is on him
Yeah that too and remember when he left Tim Russ to be dissolved by a murder beam after he knocked him out with a hypospray?
Encountering the Borg when they did probably saved the quadrant. The Borg would have come eventually regardless. At least when they did, they had an idea what to expect.
The Borg would have come eventually, but the Borg wouldn't have come then. There are two possibilities on the table:
1. Q was intentionally helping Earth, at which point Picard running his mouth or not wouldn't have changed things one way or the other.
2. Q was trying to punish Picard's arrogance, at which point things turning out okay doesn't actually justify Picard running his mouth.
Yeah, there's a beta canon story that basically reveals that everything Q did was beneficial to humanity in some way, directly or indirectly.
Ok so Picard ran his mouth. Was arrogant. Perhaps a mistake. But not a morally questionable action to be compared with what other captains have done. If that's the worst thing you can say Picard has done, he's basically a saint.
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Picard was all about the "let them die" fanaticism of the Prime Directive.
Sisko probably was too, but that never came up on DS9
The worst thing Picard did was cultural appropriation. That man clearly wasn't French. I bet global warming meant their vineyard was actually in the south of England.
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I'm not talking morals. I'm talking shit that irks me about him.
Mr. "It's Easy to be a Good Man in Paradise"? Nah. He was more sympathetic to the Maquis than I am.
Historical records got real cluttered during the Eugenics War and they switched France and England's labels.
If we must compare this to Janeway, let's at least use Equinox instead of rehashing the same old trolley problem over and over.
Janeway's pursuit of the Equinox was outwardly justifiable in that the Equinox crew kidnapped the Doctor and Seven, and were harming innocent aliens, but her real reason was her vendetta with Ransom for abandoning Starfleet principles.
Chakotay actively called her out on it and got relieved of duty.
In contrast to DS9, Voyager drew a pretty clear line of who was right or wrong in the overall sense, but still provided a morally compromised captain on the rampage, willing to do anything to take down a man who violated their shared moral code.
(And then it was never brought up again.)
Janeway's pursuit of the Equinox was outwardly justifiable in that the Equinox crew kidnapped the Doctor and Seven, and were harming innocent aliens, but her real reason was her vendetta with Ransom for abandoning Starfleet principles.
Chakotay actively called her out on it and got relieved of duty.
In contrast to DS9, Voyager drew a pretty clear line of who was right or wrong in the overall sense, but still provided a morally compromised captain on the rampage, willing to do anything to take down a man who violated their shared moral code.
(And then it was never brought up again.)
This called for a mutiny, Sisko should have been stunned on the bridge and thrown into the brig. He's a war criminal, "The terrorists did it too!" is not a justification.
He had no idea if everyone could leave in time, countless people could have died from the poisoned atmosphere or could have been trampled to death in the panic, not everyone on Maquis planets was a terrorist, most of them were just settlers, entire families who ended up on the cardassian side of the border. Fuck Sisko!
He had no idea if everyone could leave in time, countless people could have died from the poisoned atmosphere or could have been trampled to death in the panic, not everyone on Maquis planets was a terrorist, most of them were just settlers, entire families who ended up on the cardassian side of the border. Fuck Sisko!
You have to think that Chakotay kind of took the whole thing kind of personal given his history with the Maquis. He probably saw a lot of himself and the rest of the Federation in the scenario despite the Equinox's clearly being in the wrong.
I think it helps that Sisko pretty openly admits that his actions in Pale Moonlight were wrong. Of course also just moves on and doesn't get any due justice, so ultimately not a great situation either. Both cases basically show that Star Trek captains are pretty much above the law, and never face consequences for anything, as long as they otherwise successful enough.
How come killing a pro-Dominion senator is worse than gassing a planet and possibly kill the entire human population? Unless you mean because of Sisko, Romulans started dying when they joined the war. Which, sooner or later, would have happened after the Dominion wiped the Federation and Klingon Empire.
It's the definitive of the killing of the senator vs. the POSSIBILITY of killing a colony...a colony which was also technically harboring, if not actively participating, terrorists.
I don't think Sisko and Janeway are meant to be top tier, best in their generation Starfleet captains the same way Picard and Kirk were. They were just sort of average officers that were thrust in extraordinary circumstances. They're going to mess up sometimes.
I think this is really the theme of DS9 and Voyager. Both are an average flawed crew being thrown into an extraordinary situation none of them were prepared for, making equal amounts of good and bad decisions as they navigate one culture shock after another.
The Enterprise is the flagship, so Kirk and Picard's crews are all expected to be exemplary Starfleet officers, but DS9 and Voyager are not that at all. Half of each cast isn't even Starfleet.
(I wish Voyager did more with the "half of the crew are ex-Maquis" angle, but this is forgotten after the third episode and only comes up when a writer wants to use it for the plot.)
I think of this quote from Voy episode Flashback:
I'd love to see this quote get used again in Discovery, only replacing Kirk, etc for Janway, Sisko, & Mariner.
I'd love to see this quote get used again in Discovery, only replacing Kirk, etc for Janway, Sisko, & Mariner.
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Voyager was one big squandered opportunity. Entire first season should have been about Janeway not only trying to unite the two crews, but also earning back the respect of her own crew since it was her screw up that stranded them in the first place.
I don't think anyone died when he gassed the planet, but he dragged the Romulans into war under false pretences. Sisko's actions probably directly led to more Romulan deaths than people on the gassed planet.
It's easier for most people to get behind someone doing something "for the greater good" or to a group that you don't see the actual result than it is to get behind someone killing a being begging for their life to bring 2 people back. I think it's more in how these events were written and presented that it is the actual events.
Remember the uss equinox, it reminds me that other "captains" who got the short end of the stick (shorter than Janeway) really did messed up big time. Aside from the crew the equipment/ship also mattered. The equinox is like a short-term science vessel compared to a long range exploration vessel which is one of the most advanced ship on the fleet back then.
"It's easy to cling to your principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact, manned by a crew that's not starving."
Sure, as far as we know the gas didn't kill anyone. But, like I mentioned before, the Dominion must likely would have attacked the Romulan Empire after defeating the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The Founders were dead set on conquering the Alpha Quadrant at any cost and even doing genocide.
I still can't believe they spent all that time on the Maquis in TNG and DS9, only for Voyager to have a half-Maquis crew that is wearing Starfleet uniforms by the end of the first episode
