posted
How intense was the conflict? It never seemed like that it was anything beyond a series of intense skermishes. From all accounts in the series, it seemed like the Federation took a lot of casulties, but at the sametime it never seemed overly concerned about the war. The peace treaty resulted from the war seemed to upset many people in the Federation, but the Cardassian just doesn't seem like a match for the Federation. Class for class, Cardassian ships have always performed poorly against Starfleet vessels.
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
There are many theories on this matter, I have my own for example detailed on my site. But I'd have to say the war was most certainly a serious affair, the Feds don't regard warfare lightly. There's a lot of evidence to suggest the Cardassians were pretty much routed, and the culmination of large fleet losses and the resulting withdrawl from Bajor would have most likely forced the Cardassians to offer proposals of peace (rather than a surrender).
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.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted
In "Emissary", the war with Cardassian is associated with the Border Wars. The Border Wars is a reference to the various wars fought in the 2350's and the early 2360's.
Registered: Sep 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
This is also the time a Federation border starbase was attacked by the Tholians ("The Icarus Factor")
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"
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
posted
"There's a lot of evidence to suggest the Cardassians were pretty much routed, and the culmination of large fleet losses and the resulting withdrawl from Bajor would have most likely forced the Cardassians to offer proposals of peace (rather than a surrender)."
Didn't the war end around 3 years before the Cardassians left Bajor?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
posted
The final treaty was apparently in place in 2366, but it seems incredibly unlikely there was any sort of a hot war going on in the background during TNG's first-through-third seasons, so the best guess would be there'd been a multi-year cease-fire with perhaps the occasional flareup in effect then. (For comparison, the two Koreas only formally ended hostilties by treaty last year after a 50-year long hot/cold truce.) The fact they're called the Cardassian Wars indicates there were alternating periods of peace and open conflict, going back at least to the early 2350s. (The Tzenkethi War was apparently tucked-in somewhere in the early 2360s but I'd highly doubt it was anything more serious than 24th century Falklands War. From what we can gather, things have never been to buddy-buddy with the Tholians, but there hasn't been a real war. Ditto for the Talarians.)
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.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
posted
The_Tom: I wonder if the Cardassians would have given a territory near Bajor, so close to their homeworld, to the Feds. On the other hand, the DMZ, the Badlands, Bajor and Cardassia all have to be very close together. Maybe the border was indeed "corrected" in a way that it became shorter.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Wasn�t there an epsiode of the next Generaion which showed the E-D visting a Bajoran refugee camp on a planet near the border (I think it was 'Ensign Ro' but I aint sure) This suggest that Bajor wasn't that far behind the Cardassian border (I doubt refugees would be able to get their hands on fast ships)
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?
posted
Yeah, but it was pretty much assumed that the Federation started on the far side of Bajoran space, which is hardly any more than a half-dozen lightyears across. (I've envisioned the Bajorans controlling four or five systems at most.)
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.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
posted
Oh boy, if you people have seen the galactic map used as the entrace menu for the game 'Dominion Wars' you would think a bit different.
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.
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
We've seen that map. There's an entire thread right here dedicated to the discussion of it. Bottom line: whoever came up with that piece of [insert random profanity here], should be hung from the highest tree. It's about as inaccurate as non-canonical maps get.
[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: The_Evil_Lord ]
posted
If you want to put the blame on the map, there is no other one to blame for it but Paramount itself. Every aspect of the game, from the new ship designs and even that map has to be APPROVED by Paramount.
IP: Logged
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.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
