Headscratchers / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Federation

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No law against Genocide

• Sisko's feud with Eddington Sisko genocides the Maquis home world. All his officers obey the orders to genocide. And that's it. No pay-back, no investigation. The Federation has no law against genocide.
  • One, there is no Maquis home world, they are a diverse set of colonies. Two, he didn't kill anyone, just made the planet unusable for long-term human (and specifically human) habitation. Three, considering Eddington did the same thing with two Cardassian colonies (made them unsafe for Cardassians but not humans), Sisko's zealous pursuit probably prevented the Cardassians from declaring war on the Federation. The Cardassians and the Federation traded the worlds that were attacked.
    • Doesn't deterrence theory require an equal response? Foreign powers have to believe that if they use their weapons of mass destruction on you, you will retaliate with your own WMD. Otherwise, you're telling everyone that there are no consequences for attacking you. In that case, Sisko might have saved Maquis lives. If the Cardassian missile in the Voyager episode "Dreadnought" was any indication, the Cardassians would have had no problem whatsoever with turning every man, woman, and child on that planet into a fine, radioactive ash. And they probably wouldn't have bothered with things like advance warning. The weapon that Sisko used amounted to a strategic area denial weapon, where as the Cardassians might have used the event as an opportunity to use something much more heinous—like the aforementioned, ridiculously overpowered missile.
  • Note that the Maquis colonists are explicitly said to be going for their ships the second the torpedoes hit the atmosphere. They may have thought he was bluffing, but they were ready to run. The Cardassians also had a chance to leave when Eddington made their planets unlivable.
    • If I plant one of those futuristic bombs that do no physical damage except for killing anything alive, and tell everyone they have ten minutes to get out of the blast range, even if they all escape with no problems it's still attempted murder.
    • They weren't killing anything, they were rendering the planet unsuitable for habitation by a specific race (Cardassians or Humans) by dispersing a specific chemical into the biosphere that would not harm the other life.
    • More like manslaughter, if you honestly do believe no one will be hurt by it.
    • Eddington says to Sisko, "You're talking about turning hundreds of thousands of people into homeless refugees." If even Eddington does not accuse Sisko of causing anyone's death (here or in "Blaze of Glory," where he'd certainly throw such a thing in Sisko's face), it's reasonable to assume that he doesn't.
  • "For the Uniform" has been a controversial episode since it aired, but I think people have a long history of misinterpreting the ending. Sisko did not commit genocide or attempt to — he just ruined the Maquis's real estate. One might note, however, that he did commit a massive ecological crime, but it seems Starfleet is willing to turn a blind eye to that.
    • Generally if you launch weapons towards a space with the express purpose of making that place uninhabitable by the residents until a terrorist surrenders that's going to at least be ethnic cleansing.
    • Perhaps the trouble with that episode is that, as much as it tries to cast shadows over Sisko's motivation and make you wonder if personal animus against Eddington has compromised his objectivity (a Trek staple since the aptly-named "Obsession"), in the end it doesn't really seem to matter much and Sisko's decision seems to be affirmed as right with no real debate. In the end, it seems unwilling to confront the very ethical questions it raises.
    • I think it's because it's implied that the Maquis colonists still got to settle a world, they just got to settle on a world that was originally a Cardassian colony... which is what Eddington intended in the first place. It's just that Eddington didn't want the Cardassians to be able to settle anywhere, but they wind up with somewhere to go, the world Sisko did the same thing to. Since the only real "ecological crime" seems to be a "a particular race can't live here now" but everyone still winds up with a place to go, it comes off as a little bit of a "No harm, no foul" sort of thing. Really Sisko's actions here fit more in the Cowboy Cop Captain Kirk-esque mold than that of the "slathering terrorist" one everyone seems to try to jam him into for this episode. "You took a planet away from People A to give to People B? Fine, I'll take a planet away from People B to give to People A, seems only fair" is totally something Kirk would have pulled.
  • Much of the discomfort with this episode can be easily resolved with a simple hand wave by presumes that whatever chemical Sisko released wasn't instantly fatal. If it's something that would cause serious harm after long term exposure, but will have little if any affect if only exposed to for a few hours, then it simultaneously would make the planet inhospitable to humans while still not putting any lives in direct and immediate danger. There are plenty of known real-world hazards that likewise are not instantly stable but are sufficiently dangerous as to render areas inhospitable while still being safe to spend a few hours in, like the lower (comparably speaking) level radiation around three-mile island. It still makes Sisko's actions questionable, but far more forgivable then other interpretations
    • This is it exactly. The toxins used - trilithium resin (fatal to humans, harmless to Cardassians), and cobalt diselenide (fatal to Cardassians, harmless to humans) are actually very lethal. But they weren't placed on the surface in population centers, they were placed in the upper atmosphere of the planets. The populations on the surface would have time to evacuate before the toxins made it down to ground level, since they had to disperse throughout the atmosphere. The Cardassians that escaped the planets that Eddington bombed had plenty of time to get out with no fatalities, and they didn't have the advance warning the Maquis planet did, so it's obvious that the weapons used weren't instantly fatal to the population on the surface. Both populations had technology that let them escape into space pretty quickly, so it wasn't really an issue and genocide doesn't really enter into it. Yes, it WOULD be genocide if it were deployed against a more primitive race that didn't have such ubiquitous space travel, but neither the Maquis or Cardassians were primitive enough for that to be an issue.
    • Perhaps ecological damage is treated as less of an issue when it's so easy to travel through worlds; if I destroy one world I can always move to another etc. .
    • Is it ecological damage when the ecology of the place is not (as far as we know) damage in any way?
• Speaking of Eddington, of all the ships in Starfleet they could have sent after him, why did they pick the one ship he had served aboard to catch him? While this was justified in "For The Uniform" by having the Maquis damage the only other ship in range, Sisko had apparently had the assignment for eight months before that. Did it really not occur to them that, in the months he was aboard, he might have sabotaged the Defiant like he did the station? And surprise surprise, it turns out he did!
  • True, and why give Sisko the job of tracking him down at all? A: Sisko's plate is pretty full anyway, and B: Sisko harbors a personal grudge against him and that threatens his objectivity.
    • The Defiant was apparently one of the few major combat vessels the Federation had in the area (not that it makes any sense to have so few there). Of course why the head of the most important space station in the region is going terrorist-hunting instead of delegating to his officers is a good question.
    • Sisko has explicitly gone to Starfleet Command and reserved the task for himself precisely because he hates Eddington's guts. After all Sisko is Javert and Eddington is Valjean. The question is: why would Starfleet acquiesce to Sisko's desire to go after Eddington? It might be because Sisko knows the Badlands best. It might be because he is a highly decorated combat officer whose request cannot be easily refused or he just knows which strings to pull (high ranking Starfleet officers under whose command he may have served). It might be because Starfleet wants to use more ruthless tactics against the Maquis than before. Sisko's personal motivation will then no longer be a liability but an asset (at least he has no qualms about killing traitors to the uniform and even relishes the task).
    • Sort of sidetracking here, but Eddington was never Valjean. He was much more like one of Les Amis de l'ABC.
    • That actually didn't matter. The reason Sisko played Javert is because Eddington saw HIMSELF as Valjean. It didn't matter if he was correct or not...Eddington saw himself as one person from a book, so Sisko intentionally played the part of that person's nemesis in the book to play to his ego.
    • They probably assigned the task to Sisko because A) he knows Eddington, so he's at least somewhat familiar with how he operates, B) he's already stationed close to the Badlands, so they won't have to pull any other ships off of their usual duty, and C) Having lost a state of the art, brand new ship without a trace a couple of years before, Starfleet would have wanted to send a ship capable of defending itself from just about any attack.

Section 31's Changeling Genocide vs Starfleet's Borg Genocide

• I think I've figured out why saying why the S31 virus is unjustified gets me accused of spreading "anti-S31 propaganda" and Word of God seems to say that changeling genocide = okay, yet Borg genocide = wrong. The only times we see a Changeling who's not a Founder are Laas, who's a total jackass, and the baby changeling, who dies. And the writers even decide that in spite of his important relationships with the other characters, witnessing the Occupation, and his proud declaration early on that he's not the kind of person who steps on ants, the only thing that stopped Odo from joining a bunch of genocidal fascists who make the Occupational authorities look like treehuggers is Kira. So the Changelings are Always Lawful Evil and we're not meant to feel that bad about preemptive genocide because they'll end up deserving it (unless they fall in love with a Solid). But doesn't that... not gel with Trek's usual position on "enemy" races? Romulans, Cardassians, Klingons, even Borg all get a chance to prove that they're more complex than that, but the Changelings don't. Seems out of line of Star Trek's usual.
  • The Changelings are a study of what happens when you don't treat new races with openness and respect. From what Laaz and the female Changeling say at different points, Changelings are commonly discriminated against by humanoids. Effectively they founded the Dominion to protect themselves, they just went way WAY overboard with the whole idea. Think of them like a beaten child, of course they're going to lash out, and they'll develop severe defense mechanisms to protect themselves.
  • A couple of points:
    • The Great Link, even if the Founders/Changelings promote it as the perfect melding of thought and form, and infinitely better than any Solid form of intercourse (sexual or otherwise), it's still shown to be unreliable or capable of manipulation—tricking Odo as to who the Klingon infiltrator was, the Female Changeling trying to take his attention off of Kira and all the other Solids, and so on. This was Laas' first time linking, and he probably interpreted Kira's intense presence in Odo's mind as being his only reason for not being a Founder. Odo's own self-doubt probably assumed this to be true.
    • The whole genocide question has been muddy for ages, but one can look at it like this: the Borg, for all their incredible resources and terrifying collective presence, have only made a handful of excursions into the Alpha Quadrant spaced out over a decade or more. Scary as hell, but there's hadn't been a real opportunity for sustained conflict with the Borg until Voyager, and that was on the other side of the galaxy. Thanks to the wormhole, the Dominion was practically right next door, and there were 4 years of tension and cold war leading up to open conflict. There was more time and opportunity to enact such a plan, compared to the Borg incursions. Heck, if you think about it, it's because of the Borg as a implacable threat to the Federation that the Council would be willing to go along with such an extreme measure against the Dominion, even if they didn't directly initiate it. It's not a justification, just something to think about—Section 31 would've committed genocide against the Borg if they had the chance, and the Council would've been too glad to go along with it. The Dominion plague is more a case of aiding and abetting.
    • What is more, the Borg could be viewed as trillions of innocent people being compelled by an alien cybernetic intelligence to do things against their individual will. Since multiple Borg drones have been reformed (Hugh, Picard, 7 of 9) the idea of genocide against the Borg might be seen as killing a slave army which could still (in theory) be cured and freed from bondage. The Changelings are a collective intelligence when in the Great Link, and could be seen as one massive hostile life form (Odo being just the lingering doubts in the back of a single giant mind). Killing a "race" that is uniformly bent on the subjugation of all life in the universe (and has themselves used biological weapons to suppress races, "the Quickening") might be seen in the same way as "curing" the Borg of the malign intelligence that drives the drones to conquest.
  • It's not even that complicated; the two situations are perfectly consistent. Consider:
    • In "I, Borg", the crew of the Enterprise devise a virus that would destroy the entire collective; their decision not to do so is based on the fact that in order for the plan to work, Hugh, who they had come to consider a friend, would have to be infected (in order to get the program into the Borg's network) and would likely become a casualty himself. In "Descent", Picard is rebuked by Starfleet Command for that decision; Nechayev makes it clear that she has no patience for the issues of morality that arose. Picard is given an order to the effect of "if you ever get a chance like that again, take it".
    • Section 31 develops a disease that would kill the Founders. In order for their plan to work, Odo would have to be infected (in order to get the disease into the Great Link) and would likely become a casualty himself. Section 31 isn't exactly known for morality to begin with, and on top of that, Starfleet has made their position on the matter clear. Section 31 makes the tactical choice, infecting (and sacrificing) Odo to destroy the Dominion.
  • I dispute the premise that we're supposed to be okay with genocide against the Founders. It's done by a villainous organization. Our characters act to prevent it. In the end, the implication is that Odo, given his different upbringing, will help guide the Founders to a more peaceful outlook... so they do explicitly get that chance at redemption you are saying is denied; we have already seen it happen in microcosm with the female Founder, who agrees to surrender after linking with Odo. And Laas is a jerk but a complex character since we understand his backstory, and his motivation is largely to be left alone. I don't see a shred of evidence that we are supposed to be even partially okay with the concept of committing genocide against them.
  • The only people who had a bad reaction to Borg genocide were on the Enterprise. Starfleet's official position on the matter was What the Hell, Hero? to Picard. The Borg were identified specifically as a threat that there was no hope of negotiating with that would never stop trying to kill or assimilate them all. The Founders may be implacable in their views on what constitutes "order" in the galaxy, but they've been known to negotiate treaties (including their own surrender). Starfleet definitely hardened their views on the subject though. In early TNG, even discussing the option would have been unthinkable; however, fast forward to the Dominion War, and even medical officials on Earth were happy to see them all wither and die. The Federation knew that a cure existed and made the conscious choice to withhold it.

Does Quark actively court Starfleet business

• Either they've evolved past money or they haven't. If it's the former, it's not the best business decision in the world to relocate there, is it?
  • I think the best explanation is to assume that money exists, but the average human doesn't use it (and what money that is used is not hard currency) because Replicators manufacture 99% of everything they need, so it's little more than a luxury used to buy exotic foreign stuff. Also, DS9 is a Bajoran station (with a Federation administration), so his main source of income would be the Bajorans (and foreign trade from the Wormhole).
    • Humans, specifically humans from Earth, don't use money. It was made clear repeatedly that the Federation as an entity DID have money (Federation Credits mentioned more than once), and that several members worlds also used it (the Bank of Bolias was mentioned). It's even mentioned that Starfleet officers are paid quite well (Janeway makes reference to it on a Voyager episode.) So, it's likely that they had money to spend in Quarks bar.
    • Right. I assumed that Starfleet officers are paid, but don't need the money on Earth. However, lots of other cultures still use money, so the people who regularly come in contact with them need to have some currency of their own.
• There have been minimum-income experiments in the real world a few times, even successful ones. Humans may "not use money" because everything the average person could want (food, clothes, shelter, education, entertainment, decoration) is supplied for them. Purchases from alien traders, individual artisans, and so forth would be another story. If Federation citizens are given a monthly stipend in credits to spend on alien goods or some such — which is a reasonable idea to encourage commerce and a brisk trade in ideas between worlds — then technically credits would be ration cards, not money ... even if those credits are considered money on Bolia or Betazed.
  • Quark didn't relocate to DS9. He'd been there for years, and was blackmailed by Sisko to stay.

Racism: a fine quality in Starfleet captains!

• Or speciesism if you want to get technical but anyway. The baseball episode is fun, but the story's foundations are... illogical. Solok's disdain for any emotional species, especially humans, is completely unconcealed. He's built his academic career on his belief in their inferiority. So how the heck did he get anywhere in Starfleet, and why would they indulge his prejudice so far as to give him an all-Vulcan crew? Never mind the fact that he is also highly decorated. Flagrant prejudice isn't exactly a Starfleet core value, not to mention that a lot of the top brass are humans themselves.
  • Vulcans have had something of a paternalistic attitude toward Humans at least since first contact; a lot of tension exists on ENT between the races, as the Vulcans are barely one step above Q's opinion of humanity as a "dangerous, savage child race." It's possible that racism runs deeper than the series is willing to admit out loud; Humans and Vulcans may still, even in the 24th century, flat-out still not like each other.
  • There is precedent for an all-Vulcan crew (the Intrepid in TOS had 400 Vulcans on board when she was destroyed). As for Solok, there are racist assholes in every line of work (including the present-day military), and some of them find a way to get promoted up the chain.
    • Good point on both things, although I still think Solok publishing one dozen academic papers about how stupid humans are stretches credulity... he's not even making an effort to maintain plausible deniability about it.
    • I don't think he was phrasing them in a way that makes them outright discriminatory. You'd be surprised at the stuff you can write and get away with if you use numbers or clever phrasing. It's more likely his papers were along the lines of "Statistics and biology where Humans have failed to keep up or even match Vulcans."
  • Not only precedent, but considering the demographics and history of the Federation, setting up an all-Vulcan crew probably wouldn't be too hard for a determined racist: Vulcan has more or less the same population and prominence as Earth, and consider e.g. the proportion of humans on the Enterprise-D or the Voyager; there are almost certainly crews consisting almost entirely of Vulcans as well (it's also possible that the Vulcan-dominated ships don't attract that many volunteers from other species; perhaps they're boring?). As for how he gets away with the attitude - he probably gets results. If he happens to be a brilliant military commander in the middle of the Dominion war, Starfleet may well just take what they can get.
    • Also, given the unique environment of Vulcan (Vulcan gravity is roughly twice that of Earth's, with a much thinner atmosphere and an average temperature roughly on par with the Middle East during the summer) it would make sense for an all-Vulcan crew based on the environmental requirements.
    • We have seen plenty of Vulcans on ships primarily crewed by humans and other species as guests and as crew. Tuvok, Sarek and T'Pol never mentioned any special environmental needs. Starfleet is just ignoring (or covering for) a racist.
    • That is untrue. Spock complains about the cold in one episode (yes, it was an episode when everyone start aging rapidly, but it still tells us something) and T'Pol says to other Vulcans that humans smell bad and she has to use a nasal inhibitor. In any case is generally easy for organism to endure lesser gravity and cold than the other way around (our astronauts do it, for example).
    • That said, we have never seen humans on a Vulcan ship, where the environment would be set to Vulcan norm. Likely, it is easier for a Vulcan to adapt to Earth conditions (lighter gravity and cooler temperatures) than for a human to adapt to the heavier gravity, higher temperature, and thinner air that a Vulcan ship would be set to by default. Several of the Expanded Universe books have shown humans on Vulcan ships enduring the harsher conditions, or even have Vulcans on human ships adjusting the environmental controls to make their quarters more like Vulcan, something that discourages human visits.
    • Odds are that Vulcans are very uncomfortable in ships designed for human living conditions. But, being Vulcans, they're not likely to complain about it.
    • Alternatively to the above, they find being on a human vessel somewhat refreshing as far as the environment goes. As a human analogue, think of going to a place with more temperate conditions and low altitude. Suddenly, you're not constantly hot, there's more oxygen in the air so you breathe easier, etc.
  • Probably a case of Solok being a Bunny-Ears Lawyer. You can be a flagrant bigot and still be good at what you do, and at this point Starfleet is hurting for manpower and ships and has been since Wolf 359. Since then they've had a border war with the Cardassians, two or three more Borg incursions including another attempt on Earth, a war with the Klingons that lasted a year or so, and now they're a year and a half into the Dominion War and taking serious casualties (the Seventh Fleet took something like 80% losses offscreen in the season 6 premiere). They can't afford to drum him out because he technically hasn't done anything illegal and, with the casualties they're taking against the Jem'Hadar, they need all the competent COs they can get.
  • It could be that the Vulcans just find his attitudes (twelve academic papers? really?) so embarrassing they don't want him on the home world, so they pulled a few strings with Starfleet Command to keep him out in space. Alternatively, given the smug humanocentrism of most humans in Trek, maybe Solok's bigotry makes him more popular with all the aliens who have to put up with all the Humans Are Special bullshit.
  • It's not without precedent, actually. Sisko is openly racist against Ferengi, Picard is racist against Romulans, O'brien hates Cardassians, and pretty much everyone makes wild generalizations about other races, often speaking entirely in stereotypes that rigidly define entire, multi-planet civilizations.
    • Sisko is not racist against Ferengis, this was examined in the respective headscratcher. What Sisko did was to say that is the Ferengi nature to act like Nog asks. Which sounds bad if you change Ferengi for Asian, but no if you change Ferengi for feline. People tend to forget that they are talking about different species not different races.
  • This is like asking why White supremacists still exist in the US? Shouldn’t all Americans consider one another to be brothers and sisters, fellow countrymen of the greatest nation on Earth? Why did Brexit happened? Shouldn’t the enlightened Europeans all, British or continental, consider themselves to be Europeans and transcend those pesky notions of nationalism that caused wars? Why racism is still a problem in some Islamic countries if Islam absolutely and explicitly forbids racism? True, prejudice and racism manage to survive in almost every society as sad as it sounds.
  • Also he might be very old. Vulcans live much longer. T'Pol is seen as a youngster by her fellow Vulcans and is 60, Tuvok looks slighty younger than Solok and was serving alongside Sulu like a 100 years prior, then took decades of sabbatical in a monastery before going back to Starfleet. Solok might be over a 100 or even getting to 200 and have being born in pre-Federation or early Federation times, still holding some of the paternalistic and prejudiced views many Vulcans had back then. It is the typically "racist grandpa" joke. Imagine that we in real life have sometimes awkward conversations with senior citizens because they hold certain ideas that are racist by our standards. Now imagine if humans lived for centuries; you'd have people who fought for the Confederate States and owned slaves still living.

Idiotic Federation Treaties

• In another "Dax"-related question, who in the world does the Federation come up with to make these damn treaties?! Signing a treaty with the Romulans promising not to develop cloaking technology was bad enough (and yeah, I read Serpents Among the Ruins, and I get that It Makes Sense in Context). But signing a treaty with the Klaestrons allowing for unilateral extradition?! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
  • Unilateral extradition isn't that odd by itself (at least, it's not an inherently ridiculous concept), but if the Federation is really based on the EU, they would never for a moment consider handing Dax to a government that used the death penalty, without the explicit assurance that the entire plot of the episode wouldn't happen.
    • The series itself never explains the full terms of the Treaty of Algeron, but presumably in return for not developing cloaking technology the Federation gained some concession from the Romulans.
    • If I recall correctly, the thing they gained in return was the Neutral Zone... which is supposed to be a place that the Klingons, Romulans, and Federation all stay the hell out of, using it as a buffer so that no one's right up against anyone else's doorstep peering in on them with a telescope. Of course the Klingons and especially the Romulans violate it constantly, but we've also seen that the Federation tinkers with cloaking technology every so often too, so.
    • That doesn't make sense with what we've seen. The Neutral Zone with the Romulans was created well before "Balance of Terror" where it's clear cloaking technology is brand new. The Romulans are testing it and Federation resolve and it's clear the Enterprise crew never saw it before. Later, in "The Enterprise Incident", Kirk purposely crosses the Neutral Zone with the express purpose of stealing the cloaking device. Spock's final conversation with the Romulan Commander made it clear she assumed the Federation would make use of it.
  • Regarding cloaking, the Federation technically already has it; the Treaty of Algeron bans them from using it, in practice, anyway. So it's similar in some ways to a nuclear ban or some other form of arms control.
    • One of the novels (I don't recall which) had an idea that I rather liked: The Federation actively develops it's own cloaking technology, and the designs and material to construct cloaking devices are always kept aboard deployed starships; ready to be built and installed the moment war is declared with the Romulan Empire. In fact, the show has sort of implied that not only does Starfleet have cloaking technology of it's own, but that their technology is vastly superior to Romulan and Klingon cloaks—and that it has been for quite some time. In TNG's The Next Phase, the Romulans are shown to be tinkering with a phasing cloak, which actually brings a starship out of phase with reality, not just hiding it, but actually preventing the outside universe from interacting with it at all in any normal way. The Pegasus shows that the Federation had actually fielded a working prototype of that sort of cloak ten years earlier. Both side's experiments ended in disaster, but notably, while the Romulan prototype was defective, the Federation model only failed due to operator error.

No Legal Experts on Deep Space Nine?

• There was also the obligatory trial episode, where a crew member had to represent Dax because they had no lawyers. At all. To reiterate the scenario, this is a government that's being operated according to Bajoran law, but is enforced by Starfleet personnel, and is dealing with fallout from what was done under the Cardassian government. Why. The. Hell. do they not have any legal experts? They should need an entire team of them!
  • There's a difference between solicitors dealing with trials and those used for the disputes between nations. Actually having trained trial defense solicitors wasn't a high priority since DS9 doesn't seem to have been equipped for that in mind.
    • The primary mission of Deep Space Nine, at least in the earliest seasons, was to help out war-torn Bajor with Federation personnel and supplies. This would present a pretty significant legal and diplomatic challenges. There should be a number Federation lawyers and diplomats either based on DS9 or Bajor itself; we just never see them.
  • It's never actually established if the Trills joined the Federation or are just merely allies. Due to this, one can infer that there are numerous legal issues over dealing with a Trill citizen, working for the Federation, on a Bajoran space-station. Regardless, it is however established that the Klaestrons have a treaty with the Federation that permitted extradition, but had no such treaty with the Bajoran government. Considering that the Federation was trying to maintain diplomatic relations with both parties, it's likely why they didn't attempt to use their lawyers and let the Bajorans take over the case.
    • Bajor also had a fledgling government and very idealized self-image at that point; it's entirely possible the pre-occupation society didn't have lawyers as such, and the provisional government wanted to mimic that (which would explain why their judge is 100 years old). It's also possible the provisional government had a very crude constitution with an ill-defined judicial branch and Sisko was deliberately exploiting the situation.
  • Further questions are raised by how a minor fringe planet managed to get the Federation to agree by treaty with the extraordinary rendition of its own citizens without even informing Federation authorities of the matter. This is far from the only time in the series we see the Federation Diplomatic Corps to be established as utterly incompetent (the treaty with the Cardassians is a stinker of equal odor), but it's one of the worst.

Hastily thought out mole hunt from shaky evidence?

• In Inquisition Sloan suggests that for most of the episode he had strongly suspected Bashir of being a traitor. However his actions create two problems that really harm the idea of Section 31 being efficient. The first is that the evidence we see isn't exactly strong and hardly enough to go to the effort of kidnapping an important doctor. The second is that if Bashir really had been a traitor his meeting with the fake Weyoun would have tipped him off that this wasn't real.
  • Sloan knew the entire time that Bashir wasn't a mole. He wanted to test him to see if he was worthy of joining Section 31. It's been a while since I've seen the episode, so I don't remember the particular reason it was so elaborate.
    • Sloan mentions that he had been proven wrong by the test, implying he had suspected that Bashir was a traitor before.
    • Sloan lying to manipulate a subject would hardly be out of character. He moved straight from the 'loyalty test' to trying to recruit Bashir. Bashir even calls him out on the 180 in attitude shift that represents. The test was never about loyalty, it was about how easily he could be manipulated. Imagine the holodeck scenario but used by the Dominion and played straight. Bashir as an agent of 31 gets abducted by the Dominion, they want to get information from him, so they try breaking down his sense of reality to convince him to cooperate with them. Bashir's ability to notice flaws in the scenario and resist having his reality distorted enough to cause him to give up sensitive information is what was being tested. 31 didn't stay hidden this long by recruiting chumps, Sloan needs to know how hard it would be to break Bashir. Sloan tortured Bashir, so he could find out how well Bashir would resist torture. That was the test.
    • Simple answer: Sloan assumes that everyone could potentially being a traitor. So he tests them for being a traitor, and if they're not, he's proven wrong and moves forward

"Or should I say Bill?"

• Admiral Ross went without a first name for a while, until "Image in the Sand," when Odo says to Kira (sensitive about being called "Colonel"): "Well, has Admiral Ross, or should I say Bill, arrived yet?" Indeed, later episodes call him William or Bill Ross. The headscratcher is that the Deep Space Nine Companion notes that the writers weren't sure at first if that reference was to be taken literally (and early set decorations called him "Cliff Ross"), because it was in the context of Odo cracking a joke. It was indeed gentle dig at Kira's discomfort with her new title, but how could this joke work at all if Admiral Ross's given name was anything other than William?
  • Could be that Ross's name is Clifford William Ross, and he simply prefers to go by his middle name (or a shortened form of it) in social situations. As neither Odo nor Kira are members of Starfleet, it's entirely possible that when introduced, he simply said "Call me Bill."
    • Or that he's so known by "Bill" to the Starfleet personnel that that's what they all call him, with Odo and Kira only knowing that name via osmosis (hear enough people talk about "Bill", and that's what you'll call him)

The head of a space station only a commander?

• This has always bugged me about Deep Space Nine. When the series starts, Sisko is a commander, only getting promoted to captain during "The Adversary". But shouldn't a space station have a higher ranking officer? It's larger, so probably needs more people to properly maintain. It's a political symbol of the federation, and the commander will be required to negotiate in its name. And, it's the docking place for other federation ships, which are led by captains, which could cause chain of command tension in a crisis.
  • I don't know about other Federation stations, but DS9 was somewhat of a special case. At the beginning of "Emissary", Starfleet wasn't completely taking over the station, but helping out Bajor after the occupation as a facilitator. The Starfleet crew early on was nearly a skeleton crew: you had your doctor, your chief engineer, your head science officer, and a few other crewmen scattered here and there to fill gaps, but the rest of the station personnel were mostly members of the Bajoran militia (such as Odo's entire staff). This wasn't exactly a plum assignment, or even much of an important one; Bajor wasn't strategically important, the station wasn't exactly a major hub for starships, or any traffic, for that matter (remember, it wasn't named Deep Space Nine because it was in a major traffic zone), and the station was still technically Bajoran with a token Federation presence. Perhaps Starfleet just didn't see it as important enough to send a captain in. It was only after the discovery of the wormhole that suddenly Bajor and the station became important to both the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant as a whole, but by then Sisko had already been placed in the position of Emissary by the Bajorans, and the Starfleet higher-ups probably thought it would weaken their relationship with Bajor to bring in somebody else above Sisko at that point.
  • No doubt Sisko has special training and experience that makes him appropriate for such an administration job (and it's easy to forget that, at the beginning of the series, Sisko is a mid-level administrator). I think spending so much time aboard starships throughout most of Star Trek fosters a "captain or nothing!" mentality in most audiences, but realistically a commander is more than experienced enough for most command situations.
  • Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often (in fact the only other instance I can think of off the top of my head is when {Lt Cmdr} Data was in command of that Nebula-class ship during that Klingon two-parter back in TNG). Chalk it up to Viewers are Morons, I guess. Starfleet's Mildly Military culture notwithstanding, many, MANY real-life navies place sub-Captain officers in command of (smaller) ships (and my own Air Force base has a Colonel in command of thousands of people as opposed to say, a General). Voyager (and especially Equinox) could have and probably should have been commanded by lower-ranking officers. Deep Space 9 was a backwater posting when Sisko was assigned, I have no problem believing that Starfleet let a Commander run things. Hell, their CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER was a Junior-Grade Lieutenant when he arrived! Their Operations officer was a Senior Chief! Reality is unrealistic, so Starfleet has four hundred thousand Captains and they all seem to know each other. As for the chain of command during a crisis, the Captain on that ship may outrank Sisko, but it's SISKO's station.
    • Also, at the start of the series, Sisko is First Officer of a ship while holding the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
    • Another curious exception on DS9 is in "Second Sight," where the U.S.S. Prometheus seems to be commanded by a Lt. jg (albeit it could have been the case that higher offers were simply off the scene for some reason or another).
    • It's been hinted at in the various shows, and outright stated in the extended universe, that a Starfleet captain has the power to enter into treaties and make agreements on behalf of the Federation. That would make sense, given the exploration and first contact duties of a Federation starship. Starship C.O.s may all be captains because, well, you don't want a junior lieutenant setting your foreign policy.
    • Also, in one episode, O'Brien noted to Nog that despite the person's actual rank, it was tradition to refer to the ship's commander as "Captain". This was followed by Nog (an acting Ensign) asking if that meant HE could be referred to as captain, but O'Brien noted that if that happened, there'd be no one left alive to address him as such. Without counting the pips on each Captain's collar, the title isn't indicative of the officer's rank.
    • Indeed, this is addressed in Star Trek Online. You start off on your first ship as an Ensign, and the ship is attacked by the Borg, leaving the entire senior staff dead. You take command, save the ship, and help hand the Borg incursion its ass. In reward, you're promoted to Lieutenant and retain command of the repaired ship. Despite the fact that you then have to climb up the ranks of Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, and Commander before actually attaining the rank of Captain, everyone still refers to you as "Captain" while you're in command of the ship. (Which is also the case IRL by tradition)
  • Also, IIRC, other starbases in TNG were run by commanders, rather than captains.

The UFP Never Ratified the Geneva Conventions

• In the cold open of Favor the Bold, has always bugged me a bit. In that sequence, the Defiant is made to look damaged and broadcasts a distress call in the hope of luring a Dominion patrol into attacking it, at which point the Rotarran de-cloaks and fires on the attacking ships. Isn't using a false distress call with the intention of ambushing an enemy technically a war crime? Now I'm no fan of Gene Roddenberry's idea of an idillic future where humanity completely evolves past its darker aspects, and I realize that the Dominion forces do far, far worse without hesitation or remorse, but I still find it, I don't know, vaguely disturbing that Starfleet would so casually resort to perfidy.
  • The headscratcher here isn't 'why doesn't the UFP observe the Geneva Conventions', but 'why would the Geneva Conventions even apply?' Given that they are a 400 year-old historical treaty that only applied to countries on Earth? Earth has been through WWIII, wars with the Romulans and Klingons, not to mention several other disputes such as the Cardassian Border 'Wars'. Treaties between disparate interstellar Empires and Confederations are obviously in place, but the series has shown time and again that the majority of races/empires/groups in Trek do not hold to the same ideologies as the UFP. Even the Bajorans, (their aggressive post-occupation attitudes notwithstanding) have some troubling ideas about resistance that the UFP find troubling. Generally the UFP do wage war in an ethical fashion, but during the Dominion War, all bets were off. Any chance to strike against the Dominion would be taken if you'd taken the losses the UFP had to that point. While the Klingons can absorb even devastating defeats as 'glorious battle' and see death in battle as honorable, the UFP can't due to its ideology. It's not surprising to see the UFP take a few tips from the Klingon/Romulan/Dominion playbook and start to use more underhand tactics to win. As Worf says in Way of the Warrior (when questioned on the honor of cloaked ships lying in wait for ships that try to rescue survivors of destroyed Cardassian ships), 'in war there is nothing more honorable than victory.'
    • OP, here, and I was just looking for a vaguely clever name for the folder heading. I didn't actually think that the Geneva Conventions would apply, I mostly chose it because that name telegraphed that the question was about rules of warfare.
  • Attempting to destroy a ship broadcasting a distress call is also a war crime. The Federation is just using the Dominion's dirty tactics against them.
  • True, and the Dominion don't deserve sympathy; but it still strikes me as odd in a series that always takes the time to explore the consequences of what good people have to do in wartime. Not only is it not examined, I get the impression that these operations are kind of routine.
    • It's also dangerous. You're running the risk of drawing innocent people—who are required to respond to distress calls—into a battlefield
    • We have no idea what laws and agreements concerning rescue are even in use by the different belligerents^note though a common sense view would assume that one exists. However, even if the Federation normally refrains from those tactics if the Dominion has a standard policy of firing on ships requesting help then there isn't a point to the Federation keeping that standard. The ships will be fired on regardless of whether they're sincere or not so the Federation might as well make use of whatever advantage they can get.
    • Also it's not exactly likely that Sisko set up his ambush for a Jem'hadar warship anywhere within easy travel time of a civilian vessel that would receive and respond to a distress call.
  • Part of the problem with this headscratcher is that it reflects that most people don't really understand what the Geneva Convention is or does. Most people who bring it up seem to think that it means "The first-world countries who signed this agree to be really nice and caring and not do bad things". Rather, the Geneva Convention has a very specific list of things countries will or will not do in certain situations... and it only applies to other signatories. Thus even if the Federation did hold to the Geneva Convention, unless a Weyoun wanted to show up and sign the Dominion up to it (and actually hold to it themselves in any appreciable way that didn't disqualify them from it), the Federation is not obligated to extend the Geneva considerations to the Dominion. Unless the Federation has actually signed some form of treaty with the Dominion that prohibits faking distress calls, faking a distress call isn't even a war crime... it's just a bit of a dirty trick, and there's a philosophy in warfare that says "Fighting fair is for suckers". The only reason the Federation would have to not pull such a ploy is that doing so would encourage Jem'hadar ships to fire on ships in distress instead of helping them... and since the Jem'hadar ships already do that, there's no benefit to the Federation, even morally really, for not pulling such fake outs.
  • It also means that the Defiant and Rotarran can stay in one place and let the Jem'Hadar come to them. I doubt Sisko would permit them to pull the trick anywhere near where a neutral or civilian ship might have a chance of answering the distress call, so the only likely respondents would be another Starfleet or KDF ship (which would either render that particular iteration of the trick pointless or give them extra firepower), or a Dominion ship (in which case, open fire). I doubt if anyone further up the chain of command in Starfleet, or in the civilian government of the Federation would get to know about it, and if they did, then given the stories about the Dominion, I wouldn't expect them to raise too much of a fuss ("oh, it's just an over-enthusiastic commander on the front line pulling his Cowboy Cop crap again, when is his superior going to call him onto the carpet about it?"). I'd be more concerned about whether the KDF Command or High Council thought the maneuver was dishonorable, and refusing further joint ops. But then, they do have cloaking devices...
    • Dax states specifically that they're on the front line pulling this stunt. After the fight they're ordered to fall back to the starbase and she's pissed off because they're out there looking for the enemy.
    • The Klingons consider nothing more honorable than victory in war, according to Worf in Way of the Warrior. He cautions against scanning for survivors among wrecked Cardassian ships as there are likely to be cloaked Klingon ships lying in wait. So it's doubtful they would have any issue with a distress-call tactic. They may in fact applaud the Starfleet officers involved for doing what it takes. The Dominion itself has shown to only consider or adhere to treaties that benefit itself (such as Non-Aggression pacts with the Romulans, Tholians, Bajor etc that remove key allies or potential allies) and only ever considers the Klingons and UFP as genuine enemies. This is because they (rightly) predicted that those two powers would be their main enemies in any war for the Alpha Quadrant. So it's extremely unlikely that the Dominion would have considered or agreed to any rules of engagement with their primary enemies. It's simply not how the Founders do things. Even when the Dominion comes to the table briefly (in Statistical Improbabilities), it's because they want a valuable planet that will allow them to more easily manufacture Ketracel White in the Alpha Quadrant.
• Well actually there is something similar to the Geneva Convention in the Star Trek universe, it’s call the Seldonis IV Convention and it’s mentioned in the episode Chain of Command, the Cardassians and the Federation are both signatories. That said, as pointed before, the Federation is not obligated to enforce it on the Dominion if the Dominion is not a signatory.
  • And, by extension, Cardassia annulled their signature by actively joining the Dominion, thus making the concern basically null. And if the ship were to be Cardassian, I suspect they'd have exercised more restraint and ascertained whether the crew would fire on then or offer aid.
• *Retroactive, but worth considering from a Watsonian perspective: this troper recalls a Discovery episode detailing Geneva protocols being mentioned, with one in 1928 and another in 2155. The latter would more likely than not be focused on interstellar warfare, especially considering its placement during the Earth-Romulan War. Maybe Starfleet is recognizing a Geneva Convention, just one that’s been altered from what we have today.

Picard, the Absentee Captain

• Where the hell is the Enterprise-E during the Dominion War? Surely with the kinds of losses Starfleet is taking — one offscreen fight mentioned in the season 6 premiere stated a casualty rate almost as bad as Wolf 359 — they would need their newest, most powerful warship at the front lines. For that matter we never see any other Sovereign-class ships during the battle scenes, either.
  • The Enterprise-E did take part in the Dominion War off-screen. The reason they didn't show up in the fleet battles is...well...the only way they could really do it is to have Sisko or someone say "the Enterprise is here", and only show the exterior of the ship and none of the actors (basically make the ship itself have a cameo)...and that's not very good storytelling. Having the Enterprise play a meaningful part in the conflict would require at the very minimum cameo appearances from the TNG actors. And unfortunately actors do not work for free and this kind of thing is very expensive. And these episodes were already really high budget as-is with all of the CGI. And the reason they end the shows after 7 years and make new ones is because the salaries of actors goes up for the length of the show, and a new show lets them "reset" it by bringing in lesser-known actors again (until they get well known by the end of their shows). So the real reason is "it would've made the Dominion War episodes too expensive". I just assume the Enterprise WAS there, just not shown on screen. It was confirmed in Insurrection that the 1701-E WAS involved in a lot of battles in the Dominion War.
  • Doyle-ist answer is that it isn't Picard's show any longer so they aren't going to pay top-rate Next Gen actors.
  • Watsonian-answer, from stuff that's been said at cons and in various books, is that they Sovereign class vessels including the Enterprise were doing stuff that could be handled by one ship instead of large fleets. Stuff like dealing with diplomatic crisis, helping colonies which are having the sort of problem that is non-Dominion related, maintaining relationships with non-combatant powers. Which makes sense. Just because there is a war on does not mean that the Diabolus ex Nihilo and Eldritch Abominations will stop showing up, or that the imperiled colonies from Mad Scientists will stop being imperiled; basically all the stuff that the Enterprise dealt with on a weekly basis before the Dominion War. Starfleet has got to do all the usual stuff plus fight a war instead, so rather than waste the Enterprise in a confrontation where it could be one-shotted as cannon fodder in a battle it was used for the stuff it always did or for stuff where prestige mattered more than mere strength. The difference between the Dominion War and the two Borg crisis was that Wolf-359 and Sector One battles were acute crisis but the Dominion War was a chronic problem instead of an acute "one battle and it is over" affair. The TL;DR version is that while the Sovereign class were potentially powerful weapons in pitched battles they were also definitely much more useful tools for other stuff that Starfleet has still gotta deal with along with the war.
    • I also wonder if the production team just didn't think the older models would clash with the Sovereign visually. Notice there aren't any Excelsiors at the Battle of Sector 001, and only fleeting glimpses of Mirandas, despite both classes being in active combat duty in the Dominion War.
  • According to Memory Alpha there was only ONE confirmed Sovereign-class starship ever built, and that was the Enterprise-E (there are three other ships listed that might have been Sovereign-class, but they are not confirmed as such). It would be very understandable if Starfleet chose to keep some or all of their finest vessels away from the front lines. Losing a Sovereign-class ship to the Dominion would have been a terrible blow to Federation morale, not to mention put a significant dent in Starfleet military power.
    • No, I'm sorry, but that wouldn't be understandable at all; especially with how badly things were going for the Federation. You don't build ships like Enterprise unless you intend to use them. Take, for example, the U.S.S. Essex—the most advanced aircraft carrier of her time, and the pathfinder for the legendary Essex-class of American carriers—which was commissioned in December of 1942. By May, it was already in front-line combat duty in the Pacific. Keeping a ship like that out of action because you're afraid the paint might get scratched hurts military power by virtue of being an asset that you've sunk huge amounts of time, money, and effort into, only to be unwilling to use the result of that investment. Those are resources that were needed elsewhere in the war effort, so if you don't use what you've invested them in, those resources are wasted. Losing a ship like that would hurt morale, sure, but nothing builds morale like having your top-of-the-line capital ship, the symbol of your nation's spirit and ingenuity, at the center of a battle group, kicking the ever-loving crap out of the enemy.
    • It is really a shame because it would have made for a good two-parter. The idea of the Enterprise showing up to help after "First Contact" would have gotten a lot of people to watch the show. Maybe have them show up to help mine the wormhole? Have Picard and Sisko debate the ethics of provoking a war, bring up the Borg and talk about how Sisko wishes he had been the one defending Earth. Would have done a lot to bring in casual fans.
    • That Memory Alpha article has a flaw: The first of the Defiant class was called the Defiant. The first of the Intrepid class was called the Intrepid. The first of the Excelsior class was called the Excelsior. The first of the Galaxy class was called the Galaxy. The first of the Prometheus class was called the... you get the point. How does it make sense that the first of the Sovereign class isn't called the Sovereign when every other starship follows a very clear design lineage? It should by all rights be called the Enterprise class.
    • It's possible that the ship was called the U.S.S. Sovereign while it was under construction, but they changed the name to Enterprise after NCC-1701-D was destroyed.
  • A possible explanation might be the actual combat role of the Sovereign-class and the newness of the design. It may have been the most advanced ship class in the fleet at the time, but that does not equate to being the most powerful.^note That honor still fell to the Galaxy-class. Witness the complete lack of any confirmed kills of a GCS during the actual Dominion War (the Odyssey doesn't count), whereas Mirandas, Excelsiors, and Akiras fell by the dozen. The GCS was also the only ship not to take severe damage from the Cardies' orbital weapons platforms in "Tears of the Prophets". In terms of displacement and hull profile the Sov seems to have been intended as a replacement for the Excelsior-class as Starfleet's standard heavy cruiser, rather than as a battleship-level command vessel like the GCS, and the Excelsiors were built by the truckload for fifty-odd years whereas the Sov was only introduced in 2373. Simple math dictates we were more likely to see an Excel than a Sov.
    • Excelsiors originally played a battleship-like role in Starfleet, being the largest and most powerful ships in the fleet. It's just that decades worth of advances in starship design led to size creep and they became more of cruiser. But they presumably stayed in construction because the design proved adaptable enough to new technology that they could fill roles formerly given to smaller ships. Meanwhile, the Sovereign-class is overall more compact than the Galaxy-class (longer, but not as tall or broad, for less internal volume) and has much larger warp nacelles (which presumably allows for greater speed, otherwise why bother; Galaxy already reused the Nebula engines so they'd be reused again for Sovereign if there was no performance advantage to the bigger ones). Supposedly Sovereigns have a purely Starfleet crew (as opposed to Galaxies having civilian specialists and the provision for the crew's families), indicating that some of the long-term exploration capacity was sacrificed in a wartime design, presumably in favor of a more combat-oriented ship. Sovereigns would probably have better shields as well, because they have less surface area to cover and thus even if power output were identical they'd have more power per square meter. As for why the Sovereigns weren't seen in DS9, we didn't see every battle. There were probably entire fronts to the Dominion War we saw nothing of. The Cardassian Union was hardly small, after all, and that's not even getting into any fighting that might have occurred in the ‎Breen Confederacy and any adjacent Federation or Klingon territory. Realistically, though, we probably should've seen at least some of them. Even if paying the TNG cast as guest stars would've not been worth the expense, they still could've had the USS Sovereign. Have it be Admiral Ross's flagship or something.
    • Interestingly, the Akira-class presents us with the opposite problem. They have a massive presence in DS9 from "A Call to Arms," onward; more so than any of the other ships that made their debut in Star Trek: First Contact. This suggests that they've been in production for a few years, already—it wouldn't be surprising if Starfleet fast-tracked the design, and kicked its production into high gear immediately after Wolf 359. So many Akiras show up during the Dominion War, in fact, that we probably should have seen some evidence of their existence in later episodes of TNG or early DS9.
    • For what it's worth, an episode of Star Trek: Voyager opens during Voyager's construction at Utopia Planitia (so circa TNG Season 7/DS9 Season 2) and there are several Akira class ships either under construction or undergoing repairs, firmly establishing them as having been actively in operation likely since at least 2370, even if they weren't shown on screen under Star Trek: First Contact, set in 2373. Still doesn't explain that particular absence to that point, but...
    • Picard's presence on the battlefield might have usurped Sisko's command. In Sacrifice of Angels, Sisko was placed in command of a 600-ship fleet and often appeared equal in responsibility to Ross and Martok on the battlefield; however, Picard wasn't even invited to fight the Borg, but the moment he showed up he took command of the fleet and nobody argued it. Would Sisko ever be put in a task force command over Picard?
    • The entry for Star Trek: First Contact mentions a protocol where, if the ranking officer in charge of the fleet is killed, then that position falls to the captain of the largest vessel in the fleet. When the Enterprise showed up in the battle of Sector 001, that gave Picard that authority. If we stretch the definition of vessel to include a space station, then Deep Space Nine is much larger than either the Enterprise-D or the Enterprise-E. Alternatively, as one commenter noted above, it is Sisko's station, even though he may be outranked.
    • That's probably referencing a line from VOY: "Equinox," where we actually hear a portion of text of that regulation ^note a huge nerd might tell you that it's Starfleet Regulation 191, Article 14; so it's probably best to avoid mentioning that at all. It's not actually the largest ship in a formation, it's the ship with "tactical superiority." That still firmly puts Commander, DS9 in charge, considering the station once fought an entire Klingon battle fleet to a draw. If modern navies are anything to go by, however, there are a couple of caveats to that: First, the station and the mobile force would most likely have separate command structures. There are a few reasons for that, not the least of which is ensuring that both chains of command remain intact should the fleet have to break away from the station for any reason. Second, in any major fleet action, there would be a preestablished line of command that would supersede that regulation. If that regulation were in effect, and Admiral Ross were killed or injured, then command would probably fall to the most senior captain of a Galaxy-class ship. Defiant is a tough little ship, but since the Excelsior-class starship Lakota actually managed to hold her own against Defiant, it's probably safe to say that a Galaxy-class has overall tactical superiority to a Defiant-class (even if we don't exactly know what criteria Starfleet uses to define 'tactical superiority'). If that regulation was Picard's justification for assuming command of the fleet in First Contact, it probably means that the fleet's preestablished command structure had collapsed due to sheer attrition — and note that the heaviest capital ship we see during the battle other than Enterprise, herself, was the Nebula-class starship Endeavour.
    • Furthermore, Sisko has had more experience with the Dominion and their races than Picard. Which is exactly how Picard was able to turn the tables on the Borg in First Contact.
  • Additionally, it may be a factor of combat/utility ratios. Sovereign-class ships may be more equipped for outreach (full medbays capable of just as much as a proper installation, scientific and exploratory suites capable of working wonders, enough space to evacuate entire colony populations, etc), making them infinitely more useful for utility work (evacuating colonies in high-risk areas, assisting with medical situations on member worlds, and, if needed, acting as firefighters for small incursions) rather than actively throwing them into the front lines (a situation where cheaper, less versatile ships like the Miranda-class would be less risky to deploy)

Engineers are not important

• The chief engineer of DS9 is a non-com, and would be outranked by someone fresh from the academy. The doctor, the chief scientist and the cultural attaché are all high ranking officers, yet in this world where all the most life threatening problems can only be solved by using the right engineering tricks on the stations systems, the chief engineer is not. If I'm not mistaken, on a current day navy vessel the person performing the equivalent function is pretty much the highest ranking person on the ship except for the skipper.
  • This is actually one of the few times Star Trek gets it right. O'Brian's rank is "Master Chief Petty Officer", which is the highest non-commissioned rank in the navy(and also the coast guard) and is explicitly reserved for masters of specific ships systems(in O'Brian's case: transporters). CPOs are the guys who keep the ships running, carry out all the maintenance, etc. It actually makes MORE sense that O'Brian is the cheif engineer. The real question is: why does the Enterprise have Geordi LaForge, a commissioned officer, doing that job instead of a Chief(who would arguably know more and have more experience). It would explain why the Enterprise is getting stuck in negative space wedgies every other week, while DS9 only experiences the occasional technical issue based on poor design and its age. While its true O'Brian will have to call Nog 'sir' when he graduates, Nog won't let it go to his head if he knows whats good for him. Here's a handy joke about the real chain of command: http://www.goatlocker.org/resources/cpo/humor/co-cpo.htm
    • Slight correction: O'Brien identifies himself as a "senior chief specialist" in "Shadowplay," and scattered lines of dialogue after that suggest that, despite apparently being the senior most NCO on Deep Space Nine, he retained that rate throughout his entire run on the series. As odd as it seems, our intrepid engineer seems to have been, at most, Senior Chief O'Brien until at least his posting to Starfleet Academy.
  • Nobody was assigned to DS9 with the belief that it was an important post. Sisko was sent there almost as a pity assignment with a mix of Kicked Upstairs and Reassigned to Antarctica in hopes he'd actually do something when put under a modicum of pressure. Bashir was only a lieutenant - not a particularly high rank, probably the minimum needed to hold a position like Chief Medical Officer in a border outpost. And they didn't even need a full-fledged Omnidisciplinary Scientist warp engineer to maintain the station, just someone with some familiarity with Cardassian tech and in a position to be reassigned - and hey, there was O'Brien, who was already looking to get off a ship and was otherwise good enough. By the time the station became important, suddenly the officer in charge was a local religious figure and effectively untouchable, and in a good place to politely tell Starfleet "no thank you" when the topic of replacing any of his staff came up. After that, it's a matter of Starfleet ranks and promotion prospects being fairly stagnant as established in previous series, and the relative rarity of moving a non-com to CO ranks.
    • Presumably Bashir was commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade straight out of the academy, because that's the lowest rank a medical doctor can hold in Starfleet. That's how it works in the real US Navy that Starfleet is based on, after all.
    • Pedant point: Word of God from Gene Roddenberry is that Starfleet is based on the US Coast Guard, not the navy. With bits of the old British Royal Navy from the age of Wooden Ships and Iron Men on occasion, but mostly Coast Guard. The Coast Guard places a huge emphasis on its scientific and lifesaving missions, far more than on its war time roles, which is something that really comes through in Starfleet.
  • Given Sisko's background, he's fresh from design-building the Defiant at the Utopia Planetia shipyards, he was supposed to be chief engineer as well as Dock Master and O'Brien was his senior noncom in charge of running the repair teams and handling day-to-day training up of Bajoran maintenance teams. I'd hold out that it could also have been Dax who was the Officer-in-Charge, since having a science officer sounds a little egregious, and then O'Brien as the senior non-com.
  • Sisko's background and characterization suggests his talents are as a troubleshooter. Someone who is sent where there is a potential hotspot, and who has the skills to resolve the situation in the best way possible. His job was to help Bajor rebuild and transition into Federation membership, and his skills are well suited to that. It just turned out that the posting was far more important than anyone thought it would be.

Save Odo's Life, Get One Free Murder!

• Okay, "murder" might not entirely fit, but how are Bashir and O'Brien not in trouble for any of the very serious felonies that they committed in Extreme Measures? And not just legal trouble—they killed a member of Section 31! It's hard to say how that organization might respond to one of their agents being killed, but I can't help thinking that Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien should be giving serious consideration to defecting to the Dominion before it does.
  • Officially there is no Section 31; in the 400 odd years of on-screen Star Trek history we have seen only Archer and Sisko's senior staff have any proven interaction with them at all. There hasn't even been a single token conspiracy theory. Even if you break in and murder a couple they aren't going to press any kind of formal charges for fear of revealing themselves. As to why 31 didn't didn't just abduct them one night with their fancy long range undetectable transporter I think the same reasoning applies - if anyone on Deep Space Nine has even a shred of concrete evidence (which they reasonably could have as only a fool would count out such accomplished seasoned officers) then say goodbye to that very nice top secret organization you once had. The general population of the ultra-liberal communist utopia of the Federation would never allow such a group to continue operating without a mass protest, to say nothing about what captains like Picard would do. Any man willing to commit treason to save a planet of elves would do so again to stop men like Sloane killing Starfleet officers in the name of his beloved Federation. True he would have to find them first but no matter what Sloane claims, Star Trek 12 proves that Section 31 does have a headquarters (and I'm sorry but there is no way Nero's incursion could have in any way spawned that building short of a Voodoo Shark).
  • The rest of Section 31 going for revenge sounds far more dangerous for their organization than any benefit to killing Bashir. They don't officially exist, and Sloan getting caught by Bashir would probably turn into a Mission Impossible situation where he's left out to dry by his own people.
  • Point of order: technically, Bashir and O'Brien didn't kill Sloan. Sloan took his own life by activating a neuro-depolarizing device in his brain.
    • I think you could make a pretty good case for at least culpable negligence, considering the whole...extremely dangerous, highly-illegal Romulan mind probe thing. In fact, we can probably assume that the whole affair ended up being very highly classified, or Bashir probably would have lost his medical license.
    • But Sisko learned of what Bashir and O'Brien were doing and refrained from intervening, too. So a lot of people would go down.
  • Well to be fair, a lot of characters got a "free murder" throughout the series, including Gaila (In The Magnificent Ferengi), and Garak on more then one occasion.

Why the Name Deep Space 9?

• It's not located in deep space, but on Bajor's front porch. None of the other space stations with the Deep Space designation appear to be anywhere near an inhabited planet. Sure, Bajor is "the frontier" from Starfleet's perspective, as evidenced by Bashir's incredibly tone-deaf speech to Kira about "frontier medicine" in the pilot, but that's just the thing: that speech was incredibly tone-deaf, the sort of thing you might expect from a greenhorn like Bashir but not, one would think, from an organization as concerned with diplomacy as Starfleet. They want Bajor to join the Federation, after all: naming the nearest Federation presence to them the future equivalent of "Middle-of-Nowhere Uncivilized Barbarian Observation Outpost #9" seems to be a bad way to get that effort off on the right foot.
  • Maybe it's an artifact title and/or placeholder title? It seems unlikely that in the two hundred or so years since the founding of the Federation that at the start of the series they'd only be up to their ninth deep space station, so maybe it's a designation that gets recycled? Eg There's Deep Space 1 through 10 and those got assigned as they were built, then some time after 10 was built, DS1 was renamed as it was no longer an outpost far from Earth, but the main starbase/administrative hub for that sector, so when the next one was built instead of calling it DS11, they reused the DS1 designation. As the decades have gone on, the Deep Spaces have been renamed and the title moved on to the next one and DS9 was the next one to come up when Starfleet were assigning Terrok Nor's Federation designation. And because they'd invited the Federation to help run the place and wanted to wipe away as much of the memory of the Cardassian occupation as they could, the Bajorans didn't want to keep using Terrok Nor and didn't come up with their own designation so agreed to the Federation one. Also, considering Bajor was working towards becoming a member of the Federation (or at least some elements of the Bajoran Provisional Government wanted to), maybe they saw the Deep Space designation (assuming the above is true) as the first step towards that goal (so it's less "Middle-of-Nowhere Uncivilized Barbarian Observation Outpost #9" and more "Potential-Member-Admin-Hub #9").
  • I think the implication is that "Deep Space" is a term used for Federation facilities that are located outside of Federation territory. Once Bajor joins the Federation, DS9 will probably be renamed 'Starbase Whatever'. The only other Deep Space Station that we've spent any significant amount of time at was Deep Space Station K-7, which was near Klingon space, which we know isn't particularly far from Earth. Since it was built to help the Federation annex Sherman's Planet, however, we know that it was outside of Federation space as well.
    • It almost certainly was. Sherman's Planet was in what was referred to as disputed territory, essentially an a region claimed by both the Federation and Klingons. They were ready to go to war over it. Given that neither Kirk nor Lurry had the authority to prevent Klingons from making use of station facilities, it was probably a condition of the treaty as well to share facilities. However, K-7 was apparently civilian run. Lurry was not in uniform and only addressed as Mr.
    • == Most likely, it was a civilian facility as part of the detente between the Federation and the Klingons. That way, the base was TRULY neutral ground, with neither side directly claiming ownership to avoid tensions
  • There is a novel which I dont remember the name of, but may have been a novelisation of an episode (possibly Way of the Warrior) where Worf thinks about how it was the ninth time they tried to establish a station in this area... basically nonsense then and now sure, but its at least an explanation that was put into print.

600-ship Fleet tasked to win the war commanded by a Captain?

• Why would a fleet of 600 ships that is tasked with winning the war be commanded by CAPTAIN Sisko? Wouldn't a fleet that large and important be commanded by an Admiral? Really, it's no wonder Kirk and Picard never wanted to be Admirals, since apparently Admirals in Star Fleet don't actually do anything important. Not even commanding large fleets, as they have always done as far back in history as one chooses to look.
  • Maybe because Admirals have spent years working desk jobs and are not always best situated in combat situations (like Commodore Stocker from TOS whose entire career took place behind the desk) and Sisko has actual experience as combatant in the war? Besides,IMO, the Admirals in Trek always are acting as more of diplomats than tactical officers and in this case, I wouldn't want one of them to lead the fleet. Both Kirk and Picard have said/implied that being an Admiral is boring desk job and they wouldn't be in the midst of the actual exploration and/or fighting. Perhaps past experiences play a hand, as in the "Call To Arms" novelization (the scene takes place during "A Time To Stand), Bashir mentions that the Defiant is basically the most experienced ship in the Dominion conflict and Sisko is shocked at what orders the fleet must have been given to lose a hundred ships in one ambush, instead of retreating. As a matter of fact, we also see the TNG crew best equipped for skirmishes with the Borg as they were the very first who encountered them and who had a personal history with them. I'd say that in such grave instances, letting the people who have been shown to come up with unorthodox ways of fighting the enemy and defeating them (even on small scales) would logically be better put in use.
    novel!Sisko: The strategies coming out of the admiralty have to be more creative, or we're just looking at more disasters. The admirals who we have now, they haven't fought this kind of a war. I've been out in deep space, defending the station, defending a planet, protecting a sector- you can't just go by the book on tactics! They don't understand. You have to be more creative. You have to change your thinking every single day, because that's what your enemy does. I've got to get close and start changing things.
  • It seems strange considering that not only is a captain, but a very junior captain. On the other hand, at that moment he was Ross' operations officer rather than just the Defiant CO and it was his battle plan.

Tavnian vs Federation Law

• "The Muse": How does Tavnian law regarding the disposition of Lwaxana's baby by a Tavnian supersede Federation law? In other words, why couldn't Lwaxana just file for an injunction in a Federation court? She is, after all, not just a Federation citizen, but a senior Federation ambassador.
  • The Federation in general is HIGHLY respectful of the laws of other worlds, both member planets and non-member planets. Member planets have to agree to the Federation charter (which disallows things like class systems, racial profiling and requires things like democratically elected governments). But these are *loose* requirements, not strict rules. Even member planets are free to make their own rules as long as they don't contradict something in the Federation charter. Also, even if a planet DOES violate the Federation charter, the worst case scenario is they won't be allowed to be a member of the Federation, they won't meddle in their affairs.
    • Correct. The Expanded Universe even mentions how Andoria leaves the Federation for a time (the Andorexit?) and we already know the canonical case of Turkana IV.
  • Several reasons. 1 - Lwaxana and the man were married on the Tavnian homeworld in a Tavnian ceremony. Tavnian custom dictates that the son would be his to raise. Lwaxana would have implicitly agreed to that when she married him. 2 - They are not in Federation territory, they're in Bajoran territory. The federation can't do much about it.
  • But Lwaxana wasn't in Bajoran territory when the baby's father first tried to claim him. It's implied she was on Betazed, and she mentions in the episode she fled to Deep Space Nine because she thought the father wouldn't find her there. So the original question stands: why didn't she go the authorities on Betazed and ask them to protect her?

The Valiant's training cruise

• "Valiant" has the Red Squad cadets on a training cruise close to the Cardassian border with only a few commissioned officers who are all conveniently killed in the opening of the Dominion War. Why would Starfleet have a ship full of cadets be near a potential warzone but also have the ship be a Defiant-class who is among the very few dedicated warships in the Starfleet armada and of vital importance for the coming war effort instead of a training vessel.
  • Its explicitly stated in the episode that their original mission was to "circumnavigate the Federation" and that they were cut off when the war started. Just how you circumnavigate a region of space is a mystery, but you get the idea.
    • As for why a Defiant-class ship? Based on the timing it seems likely the Valiant was only the second or third Defiant-class ship off the line, and the new ones still had issues being worked out(remember the original Defiant was only remotely battle-worthy because O'Brian is a genius). Starfleet probably started building as many Defiants as the could as fast as they could, figuring they would work out the bugs later. And instead of throwing them into battle and watching them get ground to dust, they figured, hey, while its not doing anything, why not use this one as a training ship? Its perfect: no amenities to distract the cadets, but lots of problems to test and challenge them.
    • Interestingly, there's a historical precedent for just this sort of mission. In 1907, the US sent the Great White Fleet, consisting of 16 battleships and their support ships, on a cruise around the world. It was partially a mission of goodwill, and partially a show of force to forestall war with Japan. The circumstances are different here, but the thinking might have been the same: show the colors in as many friendly and neutral ports as possible, show our potential enemies that we're ready for them, and give some green sailors some time at sea.
  • Because the cadets are training for an upcoming war. The time for "peaceful exploration" is over.
    • Emphasis on training for war... they're not meant to be participating directly in the war as cadets. That episode is really contrived.
    • The whole concept of Red Squad has its issues.

O'Brien, Chief of Engineering and intelligence officer

• In "Honor Among Thieves", O'Brien works as an intelligence officer (again) infiltrating the Orion Syndicate, and the station keeps lampshading his genius engineering skills by giving hiccups every 5 seconds or so. And he had a wife and two kids. Was Starfleet Intelligence really desperate enough to send someone that important to a suicide mission like that?
  • It's important to note that the Klingons were engaged in war with the Cardassians at the time. O'Brien's presence could be a Call-Back to a fairly forgettable TNG episode, where O'Brien has some backstory revealed that he and his old captain (who is the focal point of that episode) spent a lot of time fighting Cardassians back in a war between the two powers that occurred before the start of TNG.
  • It's established in the episode that they can't send someone who is already in Starfleet Intelligence because they've been compromised, and they need someone who has the technical skills to make him appealing to the gang. Presumably, O'Brien has specific technical expertise and any number of other qualities that put him at the top of the list. Given that O'Brien does manage to perform the technical feats required of him and get into the gang's good graces, he was a good choice.

Dr. Bashir the Andorian

• In "Explorers", how did Dr. Elizabeth Lense mistake Bashir for an Andorian for years without realizing her mistake? Does "Julian Bashir" sound at all like an Andorian name? Did she never bother to look up his file? And unless she arrived late to her own graduation and missed him giving the first speech as the Salutatorian, she would have noticed the man giving the speech was human! Granted, she might not have particularly cared who he was, but a woman who's supposed to be as intelligent as Julian is, making such an elementary mistake? It strains credulity!
  • Julian was talking to an Andorian when he was pointed out to her at a party. She may have assumed it was just a strange name for an Andorian. And she missed his speech because she was preparing for hers. She flat out says it in the episode.
  • How often did anyone—even other Klingons—question Alexander Rozhenko's very human name? Martok appeared a little confused, but it seems to have been because he couldn't identify which of the Klingon Great Houses Alexander belonged to. I don't think the situation is all that uncommon. An Andorian infant adopted by human parents might well be given a human name, after all. Alternately, an Andorian might have just loved human names so much, he had his own changed.
    • Or used it as a sort of pseudonym to better integrate with the people he'd be working with (as a real life parallel, people from foreign countries often adopt a name easier to pronounce in the place they're living (Shizuko to Sue, or Chkwube to Chuck, for example)
    • Lower Decks has an Andorian named Jennifer, so maybe there's some sort of tradition of Andorians adopting human names, for any of the reasons mentioned above.

Why is Worf always on the Enterprise-E?

• Why is Worf always conveniently on the Enterprise-E, even when he is assigned to Deep Space Nine?
  • Worf was reassigned to the station after the destruction of the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: Generations. This meant that the writers needed to come up with a reason — any reason — to have Worf present on the Enterprise-E for his subsequent appearances in the Next Gen movie franchise. Star Trek: First Contact gives a reasonable explanation. Star Trek: Insurrection blatantly Hand Waves his presence at the beginning of the movie: he begins to explain what he's doing there before Riker starts talking over him. Finally, in Star Trek: Nemesis — which is set after the Deep Space Nine finale, in which Worf resigns from Starfleet and becomes the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire — Worf is on the Enterprise-E, in Starfleet, as a member of its crew, with no explanation at all^note There actually was an explanation given, but it was cut from the final film.
  • Perhaps Insurrection takes place between episodes of Deep Space Nine during Worf's brief vacation from the station in an attempt to be very far away from Keiko O'Brien during her pregnancy (which didn't last long anyway, but Worf wouldn't know that until he got back).
    • The pregnancy was two years past by that point - Insurrection occurred in Season 7, Kirayoshi O'Brien was born in Season 5.
    • Dialogue also establishes that the movie took place after the end of the Dominion War; which ended in the final episode of DS9.
    • Actually, Insurrection HAS to be set during the series - at the end, Worf is no longer on the station or the Defiant. Common fanon puts the events of Insurrection as occurring during the episode 'It's Only A Paper Moon,' which explicitly takes place over several weeks.
    • Worf was setting up the defense perimeter at the Manzar Colony, per the script — the explanation, such as it is, is made inaudible in the finished film.
  • As this troper recalls, Worf was attending Riker & Troi's wedding at the start of Nemesis. They then board the Enterprise to head to Betazed, for that side of the wedding. As such, Worf would have gone along with his old crewmates. Then when the Enterprise got into trouble, he wouldn't have just stood by. He's not that type of character.

No jail time for Mrs. Bashir

• In Star Trek Deep Space Nine S05E16 "Dr. Bashir, I Presume", Julian Bashir's father Richard pleads guilty to genetically tampering with his son and strikes a deal where Richard spends two years in minimum-security prison in exchange for Julian being able to keep his medical license and Starfleet commission. Julian's mother Amsha, who is guilty of the exact same crime... looks a little sad, and that's it. What gives? There's no mention that clemency for his wife was part of Richard's plea agreement, and nobody even suggests that she might be in any way culpable as well.
  • I think we just have to chalk that one up to Law of Conservation of Detail. She was definitely at least guilty of accessory, but we get the impression throughout the episode that Richard Bashir was the prime mover in this and it is him that the audience probably most wants to see learn some lesson about not being so flippant and stubborn, while Mrs Bashir has been seen as a sympathetic and moderating force on him. That means he gets the jail time, and the audience still gets to feel sympathetic to Mrs Bashir. And us nitpickers just have to infer that part of the deal was letting her off rather than bogging the episode wrap up down in unnecessary detail.
  • "Richard has agreed to a plea bargain in which he spends two years in minimum-security prison" -> "Richard and Amsha have agreed to a plea bargain in which they spend two years in minimum-security prison." Alternatively, "Richard has agreed to spend two years in jail in exchange for clemency for his son" -> "Richard has agreed to spend two years in jail in exchange for clemency for his wife and son." That's "bogging the episode wrap-up down in unnecessary detail"? I don't buy it. It's literally two extra words in either case.
  • Amsha is William H. Macy to Richard's Felicity Huffman.

So Brunt just walks away for assault?

• In Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 04 E 16 Bar Association, Quark's employees form a union and Brunt comes in to set things back to the traditional Ferengi way. During this, he and two Nausicaan thugs have Quark beaten up and sent to the hospital. DS9 is not under Ferengi jurisdiction, it's under Federation or Bajoran. Why would they tolerate this, as opposed to throwing Brunt in jail where he belongs?
  • It's all there in the episode:
  Rom: Odo has him and the Nausicaans in a holding cell. He says it's an Open And Shut Casee.
  Quark: It's an open-and-shut case all right, but I'm not going to press charges.
  Rom: You're not?
  Quark: Of course not. I'm in enough trouble with the FCA as it is.
  • The situation is very omerta-like. He may be a victim of the FCA's tactics, but Quark believes in principle in the FCA's authority and isn't going to risk crossing it for fear of further reprisals.

Hypersexuality will get you institutionalised?

• In "Statistical Probabilities", why exactly is Lauren locked in a mental institution? The other three patients we see in the institution seem to suffer from series mental disorders as a result of their genetic modifications, but Lauren's only psychological issue appears to be her hypersexuality. Hypersexuality, of course, can cause some serious problems to a person, but even today the treatment for it is therapy and/or medication, and there's no need to put someone in closed psychiatric ward because of it. And 24th century Federation is supposed to be more utopian and liberal than our era when it comes to such issues, so it doesn't make sense Lauren would locked up because of that.
  • It probably has something to do with her total lack of boundaries. Or, at least, her complete disregard for other people's boundaries. It's played for laughs, but grabbing Bashir's butt the way she did constitutes sexual assault by most definitions. Given her personality, it seems likely that this is probably a pretty regular occurrence for her. And because she’s brain damaged, she may not even be capable of understanding why this is wrong, or have the impulse control skills to stop herself. That would make her a danger to herself and others. If she weren’t in a mental institution, she might be in prison.

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