posted
Concerning the DS9 era, I always got the impression that the Klingon Empire did not have a direct border with the Cardassians, just like depicted in "Star Charts". Especially in "Way of the Warrior", I got the impression that the reason the Klingons used the ruse of guarding the entrance to the wormhole was because they were using DS9 as their staging area for the attack. Fake-Martok said that it had been "a long journey" from the Empire, and somehow I don't think that if there were a border world or station close enough, they wouldn't have gone directly from Qo'noS to DS9.
It would also explain why tensions between the Klingons and the Cardassians, though occasionally high, never broke into outright warfare until WotW -- the distance between the two powers made sustained fighting impractical, until the supposed Changeling threat made an invasion "necessary".
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
That's what I sort of tried to promote in the Charts: for decades, the Klingons and Cardassians have thrown impotent insults across the gulf that has Betreka Nebula in the middle, but UFP presence there has kept the fighting sides apart.
Naturally, then, when the Dominion War breaks out, the favored Cardassian strategy is to go through Betreka towards the Klingons... And the Dominion goes along with it, because an invasion route that separates the Klingons from the Feds is just the thing they want. The Feds, expecting a direct plunge towards Earth, go "Huh?" and are left standing still.
It's a nice coincidence that the actual DS9 wall maps support this strategy and astrography.
Moving the Klingon/Romulan border corewards to Gamma Hydra would make this far less workable. But the idea has its merits...
(Incidentally, "Way of the Warrior" is troublesome in that it claims the Klingon invasion was halted before it reached Cardassia, yet Klingons got hold of several Cardassian systems anyway. How is this possible if the Cardassian home system is the one nearest to Bajor? Did the Klingons attack in a wide front? Or did they spread out to grab whatever they could after Cardassian resistance at the home system solidified?)
posted
Mabye the Klingons strategy was to flank and surround Cardassia Prime- then, when the Cardassians went on the counterattack, the invading forces found themselves inside the Union's borders, and potentially surrounded themselves, dug in and occupied the systems they'd already conquored.
Untill the Dominion kicked their asses out, anyway.
It's possiblr the Brekta Nebula lies "above" or "below" Federation claimed space and the KLingons and Cardassians held their lengthy skirmishes without any Federation interference.
In the (non canon, I know) Lost Era book Art of the Impossible the two empires were testing their strengths against each other with neither really intending an all-out war.
The Klingons needed to test their mettle after so many years of relative peace and the Cardassians wanted to establish themselves as a power to be reckoned with.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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