I agree their ships were not as strong as Federation ships. In the first episode to show the Cardassians (The Wounded), the Cardassian ship (probably Galor class) was no match for the Galaxy class Enterprise. Of course with later affiliations with the Dominion, they've now almost certainly achieved a reasonable technological parity.
Maybe some of the governments were fed up with the Federation's expanionist tendancies and tried to establish their borders. This could be why they're called the "Border Wars"
Didn't the war end around 3 years before the Cardassians left Bajor?
As for who won and who lost... I think the implication that has always been made was that the Federation was the superior military force but Cardassian tenacity and willingness to resort to any means neccessary to win kept the thing dragging on year after year. The Klingons may even have been involved in aid of the Federation or as a third party, as there's been reference to Cardie-Klingon hostilities, in what, the late 2340s? (I believe it involved the Betreka Nebula or something).
While the Cardassian withdrawal from Bajor may have had very little directly to do with the outcome of the war or even the terms of the Fed/Cardie treaty, the foiled invasion of Minos Korva, which by stardates was a few weeks before "Emissary", might well have been the straw that broke the camel's back... Perhaps after this incident, Central Command became convinced that the Federation clearly held the upper hand in the border area and with a greater Federation influence nearby and an inability to maintain as strong a military presence in the area, the Bajoran resistance was probably more likely than ever to make life miserable for the occupiers. Therefore to save face and build goodwill with the Federation after the rocky incidents of "Chain of Command", letting it go voluntarily might be the smart thing to do.
Further to the Bajor question: might it be possible that until the 2366 treaty the Bajoran system was decently behind-the-lines of the Cardie-Federation border, but the boundary realignment put it right out on the edge? It seems that the Federation never touched the Bajoran system during the Wars, which one would have assumed would have been a primary target if it was on the edge of Cardassian space and a tinderbox of anti-Cardassian resistance.
Also can anybody explain why Cardassia was that close to the border of the Federation? Even accpting that there was a correction to the border cardassia was awfully close to the Federation, suggesting that the Cardassians only invented or bought warp drive relitvely recently. Another reason they expanded in a direction away from the Federation maybe a war and occupation with another empire. Any other ideas?
Hence, when the Cardies left Bajor, the Federation suddenly got a lot closer to Cardassia.
I'm thinking that the Federation-Cardassian border used to run pre-2366 so that Starbase 375 was pretty much as close as the Federation got to Bajor, but also ran so that the worlds that would later become the birthplace of the Maquis (Dorvan V and co.) were on the Federation side. The renegotiated boundary gave the Federation Minos Korva and a system or two between Starbase 375 and Bajor and perhaps others at the cost of the Maquis worlds. The Cardies would lose more space two years later when they withdrew from Bajor, cutting the buffer space from their home system to their border to only three light years or so.
Bajor's exposure on the frontier, while, as Bernd notes, is at first glance illogical on the Cardassians' part, might have been a blow the Cardies were willing to take if the new systems they were getting were higher grade than the ones they were ceding.
The map contains a picture of the galaxy from the top, with marked and bordered areas that indicate the territories of the Borg, Dominion, Cardassian, Romulan, Klingon and Federation space. Planets and capitals are also marked.
It would leave you grasping to see that there is not really any borders, that the above empires only occupy a fraction at best of their respective quadrants, that Cardassia Prime and Bajor are actually a little closer to Earth than Quo'nos, with Bajor between Earth and Cardassia Prime, that the Cardassian Union actually has a space territory as big as the Federation or bigger---the Cardassian Union is also bigger than the Romulan and Klingon empires.
What's remarkable is that so so much of space, even the Alpha quadrant, remains unexplored.
If anyone is interested, I can email a jpg of the map to anyone applying. Just put a reply.
[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: The_Evil_Lord ]
[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: Harry ]
Just a nitpick with your chronology. You make it sound like the colony shuffling which creates the Maquis happens BEFORE the Cardassians abandon Bajor, it doesn't.
quote:
Originally posted by Harry:
Yes, but I have the idea that "approved" means nothing more then "we need to have x% of your money".[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: Harry ]
Every game developer who did a Trek game will tell you its not as simple like that. Ship designs, weapons, bases, etc,. have to be submitted individually to Paramount. Many designs tend to be rejected and has to be submitted as much as five to six times before Paramount would even approve them. Paramount could reject a design or concept stating that it may look a bit too Klingon and less Borg for example.
Crobto: I think you're deluding yourself if you think Paramount approval is a drawn-out-process intended to make stuff creatively synched to the show. It's more a "let's make sure the programmers didn't totally misrepresent the Trek universe and therefore negatively impact the marketability of the franchise as a whole." Game approval is by no means even influenced by the creative dept. of the show, but simply a function of Viacom's marketing dept. In other words, it's probably two or three legally-trained folks with something of an interest in Trek that sit in an office far removed from the Paramount lot and are there to make sure the Borg starbases don't look like Vor'cha class cruisers, to make sure Starfleet isn't operating special green beret forces armed with M-16s, to make sure that Picard isn't depicted in a game as a blithering idiot, but not to make sure that the boundaries as depicted in a game are supported by the views of the production staff and the scripts.
[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
The DW map can't be canon because there is never a canon map, but fan assumptions of the cartography and their maps are even worst and even more poorly supported. They only probably toss this map in to get the "general feel" of the area, and that's about the best any map can do.
[ June 24, 2001: Message edited by: crobato ]
Also, I doubt Bajor held any out-system planets at all at any point of its pre-Occupation history. The society was described as one without the curiosity needed for exploration, and one in peace with itself and in no need for expansion. Exile on faraway planets was a horror to the people in "Ensign Ro". Colonization would only come to play in the aftermath of the Occupation that changed the mentality of the Bajorans in major ways.
The "wars", plural, thing would indeed seem to indicate a now-on, now-off affair where neither side pressed for a final showdown. Instead, the war was allowed to wind down on its own during the run of TNG, until the dust had settled enough for an actual peace agreement to be signed.
If the Cardassians really settled for an outcome that left their enemies mere 5.25 ly from their homeworld, the I'd have to declare them the factual losers of the war. I'd even speculate that there were several attempts at peace during these "wars", but all ended in repeated Cardassian aggressions because the borders were drawn in a way that did not satisfy them.
Thus, the wars really were "border wars" in every sense of the words, and it becomes understandable that the Federation would go to rather extreme lengths to get the border arrangements right in the final, 2367 treaty. The Feds would not press for the handing over of Bajor since that would tick off the Cardassians once again - and they would still have enough spit in them to be dangerous, especially if the fighting was to take place that close to their home turf. "Chain of Command" would be the first indication that the Cardassians were actually far weaker than they seemed, and that their homefront was beginning to crumble - so the Feds would now dare move into Bajor, although tentatively at first.
Timo Saloniemi