I don't feel like a bunch of americans making a TV show would really think you needed to go into too much detail on why the proposal of "Let's just use our superior technological and military might to impose our will on all the people around us" would be a bit dubious.
The Cardassian Occupation has no end of real-world analogies to draw from, even back when the show was written, and the Federation stance of having a lot of different ideas about how this should be handled seems fairly normal without having to act like it's some sort of great moral failing that they didn't ride in guns a blazing or the need to invoke some idea of their forces being weakened. The idea that there was an obvious solution to the issue that the Federation just didn't choose to take just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
That's the line given in the show, but... The Prime Directive is a Starfleet rule, the Federation as a whole is not bound in quite the same way. The council, president, and diplomatic corps can seek allies and set policies regarding other cultures that alter Starfleet's relationship and responsibilities to them under the PD. For example, once the Federation signed the Khitomer Accords, it enabled Starfleet to do a lot of things with and for the Klingons.
For a few examples, the Federation could have openly allied with the Bajoran militia during the war. Or declared official support of all worlds unjustly held by Cardassia during the war. Both would have made Bajor's liberation a valid action for Starfleet and not a matter of the PD. Or Bajor's release could have been made a condition of the treaty, so that Cardassia's refusal would have invalidated the cease fire and specifically justified Starfleet intervention.
The reality, really, seems to be that the Federation didn't really want to become frontier police in the region. The last border conflict was happening during TNG season 1/2 and the Enterprise never took part or even discussed the war. Starfleet was not putting it's full might into the conflict and the Federation did not leverage victory into a favorable treaty, the nature of the treaty looks a lot more like a resounding Cardassian victory, despite Starfleet barely fighting the war and still bringing the Union to the brink of collapse.
Much easier at the time to leave the whole problem behind Cardassian borders where it's off limits out of our hands.
The whole thing is just that the elements of DS9 come from multiple writers over multiple years of the show and nobody bothered to figure out if any of it made sense when put together.
Until Deep Space Nine there's no reason to suppose the Bajorans are anywhere near the Federation; they could have been on the opposite side of Cardassian space, for all we knew. In "Ensign Ro," they're meant to be some kind of galactic diaspora, like Jewish people or the Roma. Nobody in the episode goes "yo our planet is literally right over there, five minutes from Cardassia."
In their first appearance, the Cardassians seem to be a credible military threat; maybe not like the Klingons, but not a joke. The war against them umpty-ump years ago is implied to have been grueling and brutal. So it makes sense why, in that and subsequent episodes, the Federation is at pains to not stir that up again, especially after the Borg invasion. Deep Space Nine made the creative choice to have them be some barely-holding-their-shit-together North Korea, and it kind of retroactively makes those earlier stories weird - why is everyone tiptoeing around them?
Then the Bajorans get introduced a year or two later. Why are they living in camps? Well, for the sake of the episode. Does it make actual sense that they're living in camps and not being helped more? Not really, unless they're very far away or living in someone else's space. The crew replicate blankets for them in that very episode. Were they the first to think of that? That seems dumb, unless there's some bit of explanation or context that we the viewers never get. I choose to believe that that context exists, rather than that literally every other person in the world of the show is that slow on the uptake, but as for what that context is, who the fuck knows.
I think the issue of Cardassia's threat to the Federation ends up being fairly well drawn even in TNG. They aren't a "we might lose this war" type threat and I don't think they are ever portrayed that way but they have the technology to make the Federation hurt some and that seems fairly consistent from the start and is more then enough reason for the Federation to be wary of starting a war.
I don't feel like a bunch of americans making a TV show would really think you needed to go into too much detail on why the proposal of "Let's just use our superior technological and military might to impose our will on all the people around us" would be a bit dubious.
The Cardassian Occupation has no end of real-world analogies to draw from, even back when the show was written, and the Federation stance of having a lot of different ideas about how this should be handled seems fairly normal without having to act like it's some sort of great moral failing that they didn't ride in guns a blazing or the need to invoke some idea of their forces being weakened. The idea that there was an obvious solution to the issue that the Federation just didn't choose to take just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
But by the light of Federation ideals, it *is* a great moral failing that they didn’t ride to the rescue of Bajor. It’s completely understandable, for all the reasons @Ninja Snarl P mentioned above. But it’s a sacrifice of ideals to politics. Which is *fine*, except that we’re often presented with the Federation ideals as something that is not subordinates to politics.
I’m reminded of the Ba’ku. Picard chose not to let a few hundred of them die, making a moral call that the benefits of eternal rejuvenation for the galaxy didn’t justify hundreds of lost lives. By contrast, someone at Starfleet Command decided that millions of dead Bajorans were going to sit fine on their conscience.
What we’re told the Federation is and what we’re shown that it is can differ.
The bigger issue is that from the Bajoran point of view, it doesn’t matter. Sure, the Federation say they turned up as soon as they could. That just happens to be *after* the fighting is over, *after* millions dead. Just in time to set up shop on Terok Nor and start running education programmes for the children. Just in time to provide a bunch of replicators and needed infrastructure aid, but also being all, well, “root beer” about it.
From a Bajoran perspective, but especially an isolationist one, the Federation only showed up once it had something to gain, and after the hard work was done, having spent the Occupation alternately hand-wringing impotently or actively helping the Cardassians. The Ferengi at least sold weapons to the Resistance on the quiet.
Why would they be welcomed, when we know that Bajoran appeals for aid were met with, at best, a shrug? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the defence of “We could have entered a war to stop the atrocities against you, in line with our own ethical code, but it would’ve been bad for us, so we left you to die, but look, we brought cookies...er...replicators” doesn’t cut much ice for the people who begged for help for decades, and didn’t get any when it counted.
(Personally I think that the Federations failure to get involved earlier or more strongly via soft power or covertly *is* an indictment of their supposed ideals; but I imagine a lot of Bajorans would be incandescent about being judged after the fact by an institution which utterly failed them when they needed help)
ETA: the other thing for me is where the Federation gets the moral space to judge anyone not ready for Federation membership, when we know that the Federation, even at the start of DS9 (never mind the end) has done some amazingly sketchy stuff in the name of politics. Would you want to be a member? It’s a tricky take for the Bajorans, and their split views are great.
Forgive my lack of attention to detail, is it really the case that the Bajorans are a pre-warp culture at the time of the occupation? I think there’s a distinction between the Prime Directive (do not interfere in the development of pre-warp cultures) and whatever Federation/Starfleet law would prevent intervention in the internal affairs of other governments. Maybe I’m confused, it’s been a long several days of wrestling with React Native dependency hell at work (and if you don’t know what that is, take your blessing and go!) but as I glance through the forums for a quick break, it seems to me that Picard was maybe using “short of breaking the Prime Directive” as a rare bit of hyperbole.
The show never goes into it much one way or another but I think we can infer that they were warp capable simply because the show repeatedly states the Bajorans have been a high tech society for a very long time, like they were space faring centuries before humans were. There's also the episode where they had a solar sail ship reach Cardassia before the Cardassians were even space faring. It's also in the background that Bajoran civilisation and culture is pretty well known in their area of space. If you read between the lines the picture the show paints is of pre-invasion Bajor being a very old, somewhat isolationist, militarily weak but culturally influential civilisation.
I don't feel like a bunch of americans making a TV show would really think you needed to go into too much detail on why the proposal of "Let's just use our superior technological and military might to impose our will on all the people around us" would be a bit dubious.
The Cardassian Occupation has no end of real-world analogies to draw from, even back when the show was written, and the Federation stance of having a lot of different ideas about how this should be handled seems fairly normal without having to act like it's some sort of great moral failing that they didn't ride in guns a blazing or the need to invoke some idea of their forces being weakened. The idea that there was an obvious solution to the issue that the Federation just didn't choose to take just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
But by the light of Federation ideals, it *is* a great moral failing that they didn’t ride to the rescue of Bajor. It’s completely understandable, for all the reasons "Ninja Snarl P" mentioned above. But it’s a sacrifice of ideals to politics. Which is *fine*, except that we’re often presented with the Federation ideals as something that is not subordinates to politics.
I’m reminded of the Ba’ku. Picard chose not to let a few hundred of them die, making a moral call that the benefits of eternal rejuvenation for the galaxy didn’t justify hundreds of lost lives. By contrast, someone at Starfleet Command decided that millions of dead Bajorans were going to sit fine on their conscience.
What we’re told the Federation is and what we’re shown that it is can differ.
The bigger issue is that from the Bajoran point of view, it doesn’t matter. Sure, the Federation say they turned up as soon as they could. That just happens to be *after* the fighting is over, *after* millions dead. Just in time to set up shop on Terok Nor and start running education programmes for the children. Just in time to provide a bunch of replicators and needed infrastructure aid, but also being all, well, “root beer” about it.
From a Bajoran perspective, but especially an isolationist one, the Federation only showed up once it had something to gain, and after the hard work was done, having spent the Occupation alternately hand-wringing impotently or actively helping the Cardassians. The Ferengi at least sold weapons to the Resistance on the quiet.
Why would they be welcomed, when we know that Bajoran appeals for aid were met with, at best, a shrug? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the defence of “We could have entered a war to stop the atrocities against you, in line with our own ethical code, but it would’ve been bad for us, so we left you to die, but look, we brought cookies...er...replicators” doesn’t cut much ice for the people who begged for help for decades, and didn’t get any when it counted.
(Personally I think that the Federations failure to get involved earlier or more strongly via soft power or covertly *is* an indictment of their supposed ideals; but I imagine a lot of Bajorans would be incandescent about being judged after the fact by an institution which utterly failed them when they needed help)
No, it's not a moral failing. For exactly the reasons I'm pointing out above. It's not the Federation's ideals that are the question here, it's their resources and their ability to predict and control the fallout of an intervention. Those aren't just political considerations. They are an issue of weighting the consequences of your actions. What are the moral implications of the results of your intervention. So what you end up with is a question of what kind of intervention is best here. It's not just guns-a-blazing or fuck-em-we-don't-care. There's no clean answer to these problems. Which is fairly obvious in real life because we see these exact same considerations brought up in foreign policy all the time.
I don't feel like a bunch of americans making a TV show would really think you needed to go into too much detail on why the proposal of "Let's just use our superior technological and military might to impose our will on all the people around us" would be a bit dubious.
The Cardassian Occupation has no end of real-world analogies to draw from, even back when the show was written, and the Federation stance of having a lot of different ideas about how this should be handled seems fairly normal without having to act like it's some sort of great moral failing that they didn't ride in guns a blazing or the need to invoke some idea of their forces being weakened. The idea that there was an obvious solution to the issue that the Federation just didn't choose to take just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
But by the light of Federation ideals, it *is* a great moral failing that they didn’t ride to the rescue of Bajor. It’s completely understandable, for all the reasons "Ninja Snarl P" mentioned above. But it’s a sacrifice of ideals to politics. Which is *fine*, except that we’re often presented with the Federation ideals as something that is not subordinates to politics.
I’m reminded of the Ba’ku. Picard chose not to let a few hundred of them die, making a moral call that the benefits of eternal rejuvenation for the galaxy didn’t justify hundreds of lost lives. By contrast, someone at Starfleet Command decided that millions of dead Bajorans were going to sit fine on their conscience.
What we’re told the Federation is and what we’re shown that it is can differ.
The bigger issue is that from the Bajoran point of view, it doesn’t matter. Sure, the Federation say they turned up as soon as they could. That just happens to be *after* the fighting is over, *after* millions dead. Just in time to set up shop on Terok Nor and start running education programmes for the children. Just in time to provide a bunch of replicators and needed infrastructure aid, but also being all, well, “root beer” about it.
From a Bajoran perspective, but especially an isolationist one, the Federation only showed up once it had something to gain, and after the hard work was done, having spent the Occupation alternately hand-wringing impotently or actively helping the Cardassians. The Ferengi at least sold weapons to the Resistance on the quiet.
Why would they be welcomed, when we know that Bajoran appeals for aid were met with, at best, a shrug? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the defence of “We could have entered a war to stop the atrocities against you, in line with our own ethical code, but it would’ve been bad for us, so we left you to die, but look, we brought cookies...er...replicators” doesn’t cut much ice for the people who begged for help for decades, and didn’t get any when it counted.
(Personally I think that the Federations failure to get involved earlier or more strongly via soft power or covertly *is* an indictment of their supposed ideals; but I imagine a lot of Bajorans would be incandescent about being judged after the fact by an institution which utterly failed them when they needed help)
No, it's not a moral failing. For exactly the reasons I'm pointing out above. It's not the Federation's ideals that are the question here, it's their resources and their ability to predict and control the fallout of an intervention. Those aren't just political considerations. They are an issue of weighting the consequences of your actions. What are the moral implications of the results of your intervention. So what you end up with is a question of what kind of intervention is best here. It's not just guns-a-blazing or fuck-em-we-don't-care. There's no clean answer to these problems. Which is fairly obvious in real life because we see these exact same considerations brought up in foreign policy all the time.
The Federation charter disagrees (Spoilers for big):
"We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interstellar law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of living on all worlds, and for these ends, to practice toleration and live together in peace with one another, and to unite our strength to maintain interstellar peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institutions of methods, that weapons of destruction shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ interstellar resources for the promotion...”,
specifically
“ to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interstellar law can be maintained“
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Federation should have been involved *practically*. But their inaction, and failure to assist Bajor is an example of their reality being in contravention of their ideals. By the principles we are repeatedly told they uphold, they *should* intervene. Not doing so, and the judging the Bajorans, is a failing.
For what it’s worth, I agree, there were other options other than guns-blazing or don’t-care. Someone mentioned a few alternatives up thread. But we never see any of those alternatives put on the table; the closest we get is in “Ensign Ro”, which is very much “we don’t care”.
ETA: real world parallels work, but the humanity of the future is meant to be rather more morally evolved than we are...
ETAETA: And even we poor unevolved, pre-WW3 apes take a dim view of genocides orchestrated by our neighbours, and tend to intervene; by most lights, failing to do so is an ethical issue imo.
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
+2
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
Absolutely none of this obligates the Federation to act in a self-destructive way to save a single world. There's wording for promoting peace and avoiding armed conflict when at all possible, but nothing that says the Federation is nigh-religiously compelled to invade other cultures to save non-signatory or non-allied cultures. "Promoting peace" just means the Federation will advocate peaceful dealings with any and all involved actors; in this case, the Federation would want Cardassian peace just as much as Bajoran peace, but Cardassia isn't asking the Federation in to help and Bajor is.
The Federation fully recognizes the injustice of what happens on Bajor, but it's absolutely not the fault of the Federation. They do feel morally obligated to help when the politics allows them to help, but the Federation not going at Cardassia guns blazing is anything but a moral failing. The Federation is practically aware of the fact that it simply cannot save everybody everywhere.
This angle is like saying Superman is wrong for not saving people 24/7 instead of working himself to death in a month. The Federation, with Vulcan logic as one of it's core guiding philosophies, knows it can't save everybody everywhere. It will, however, make a reasoned choice to save as many people as it can without also destroying what it has already built. Bajor refusing to accept the Federation's hands were tied is a failing of Bajor, not the Federation.
A morning after scene with Kai Winn and Bajoran Dukat wasn't on my bingo card.
As was established with Kira and her religious beaux, Bajor apparently does not have problems with their religious figures spending time in horizontal meditation with their supplicants.
As for who she "meditated" with, well, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving Kai.
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
Absolutely none of this obligates the Federation to act in a self-destructive way to save a single world. There's wording for promoting peace and avoiding armed conflict when at all possible, but nothing that says the Federation is nigh-religiously compelled to invade other cultures to save non-signatory or non-allied cultures. "Promoting peace" just means the Federation will advocate peaceful dealings with any and all involved actors; in this case, the Federation would want Cardassian peace just as much as Bajoran peace, but Cardassia isn't asking the Federation in to help and Bajor is.
The Federation fully recognizes the injustice of what happens on Bajor, but it's absolutely not the fault of the Federation. They do feel morally obligated to help when the politics allows them to help, but the Federation not going at Cardassia guns blazing is anything but a moral failing. The Federation is practically aware of the fact that it simply cannot save everybody everywhere.
This angle is like saying Superman is wrong for not saving people 24/7 instead of working himself to death in a month. The Federation, with Vulcan logic as one of it's core guiding philosophies, knows it can't save everybody everywhere. It will, however, make a reasoned choice to save as many people as it can without also destroying what it has already built. Bajor refusing to accept the Federation's hands were tied is a failing of Bajor, not the Federation.
Sorry if this is going on a bit, it’s bugging me and I’m not quite sure why. So writing it out in the hope it gets out of my head.
The Federation charter indicates what their values are.
The Federation is also explicitly aware (because refugee Bajorans tell them so) that the Cardassians are committing the mass murder of millions of Bajorans , in an Illegal occupation which is twinned with genocide.
The Federation decision not to intervene is, IMO:
1) Morally and ethically horrific. If they don’t get out of bed to stop a genocide, what is their techno-space-communism club even for? Frankly, if they’re going to get into a war, “stopping industrial murder” feels like a good reason.
2) Politically savvy in the short term, for all the reasons you’ve outlined above.
3) Very much contra to the values in the charter, especially the section around respecting the “dignity and worth of all life forms”. If some people are people, and some (non-Federation) people are just talking meat, non intervention works, in that the Feds don’t need to care about anything outside their space. But if *all* people are people, as the charter states, then their decision not to intervene in a war crime is contra to their values.
Practically, *I* think you’re right - the Federation can not intervene successfully prior to the Cardassian withdrawal. But what we see in the early seasons of DS9 suggests that a lot of Bajorans don’t see it that way. While their relatives were being run through a Cardassian wood chipper, they were begging the Federation for help, help which did not come until after the damage was done. Help which is now being served with a side order of condescension for their cultural practises, and with a total lack of reflection on the Fed side for how their mission looks through a Bajoran lens.
Regardless of whether the Federation could, realistically intervene, its failure to do so, and mealy mouthed response in general, IMO, sacrifices any moral authority it may have when negotiating with Bajor in a post-Occupation period.
In the end, it doesn’t matter; but I think that the push back by various Bajoran factions - isolationists, patriots, self-determinists, survivors - against the Federation...makes sense. They have no reason to trust an entity who (from their perspective) let them down when they needed help, and every reason not to. I think the Bajoran global trauma helps define who they are in the show, and especially their sceptical relationship with external powers (c.f. Winn)
Anyway! Sorry, just thinking. I do love how complex Bajor’s politics can be, both on screen and for the viewer!
On an unrelated note, heard rumours of a Sisko miniseries, and I’m...weirdly not sure I want that. Love Sisko, not sure how I feel about using even more legacy characters to leverage nostalgia for new properties...
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
Absolutely none of this obligates the Federation to act in a self-destructive way to save a single world. There's wording for promoting peace and avoiding armed conflict when at all possible, but nothing that says the Federation is nigh-religiously compelled to invade other cultures to save non-signatory or non-allied cultures. "Promoting peace" just means the Federation will advocate peaceful dealings with any and all involved actors; in this case, the Federation would want Cardassian peace just as much as Bajoran peace, but Cardassia isn't asking the Federation in to help and Bajor is.
The Federation fully recognizes the injustice of what happens on Bajor, but it's absolutely not the fault of the Federation. They do feel morally obligated to help when the politics allows them to help, but the Federation not going at Cardassia guns blazing is anything but a moral failing. The Federation is practically aware of the fact that it simply cannot save everybody everywhere.
This angle is like saying Superman is wrong for not saving people 24/7 instead of working himself to death in a month. The Federation, with Vulcan logic as one of it's core guiding philosophies, knows it can't save everybody everywhere. It will, however, make a reasoned choice to save as many people as it can without also destroying what it has already built. Bajor refusing to accept the Federation's hands were tied is a failing of Bajor, not the Federation.
Sorry if this is going on a bit, it’s bugging me and I’m not quite sure why. So writing it out in the hope it gets out of my head.
The Federation charter indicates what their values are.
The Federation is also explicitly aware (because refugee Bajorans tell them so) that the Cardassians are committing the mass murder of millions of Bajorans , in an Illegal occupation which is twinned with genocide.
The Federation decision not to intervene is, IMO:
1) Morally and ethically horrific. If they don’t get out of bed to stop a genocide, what is their techno-space-communism club even for? Frankly, if they’re going to get into a war, “stopping industrial murder” feels like a good reason.
2) Politically savvy in the short term, for all the reasons you’ve outlined above.
3) Very much contra to the values in the charter, especially the section around respecting the “dignity and worth of all life forms”. If some people are people, and some (non-Federation) people are just talking meat, non intervention works, in that the Feds don’t need to care about anything outside their space. But if *all* people are people, as the charter states, then their decision not to intervene in a war crime is contra to their values.
Practically, *I* think you’re right - the Federation can not intervene successfully prior to the Cardassian withdrawal. But what we see in the early seasons of DS9 suggests that a lot of Bajorans don’t see it that way. While their relatives were being run through a Cardassian wood chipper, they were begging the Federation for help, help which did not come until after the damage was done. Help which is now being served with a side order of condescension for their cultural practises, and with a total lack of reflection on the Fed side for how their mission looks through a Bajoran lens.
Regardless of whether the Federation could, realistically intervene, its failure to do so, and mealy mouthed response in general, IMO, sacrifices any moral authority it may have when negotiating with Bajor in a post-Occupation period.
In the end, it doesn’t matter; but I think that the push back by various Bajoran factions - isolationists, patriots, self-determinists, survivors - against the Federation...makes sense. They have no reason to trust an entity who (from their perspective) let them down when they needed help, and every reason not to. I think the Bajoran global trauma helps define who they are in the show, and especially their sceptical relationship with external powers (c.f. Winn)
Anyway! Sorry, just thinking. I do love how complex Bajor’s politics can be, both on screen and for the viewer!
On an unrelated note, heard rumours of a Sisko miniseries, and I’m...weirdly not sure I want that. Love Sisko, not sure how I feel about using even more legacy characters to leverage nostalgia for new properties...
On the Sisko mini-series rumor. The story I read is that Brooks is insisting that Lofton comes back as Jake if it happens. Line in the sand, he won't do it if that doesn't happen insisting. Which, if accurate, is good and bad, because it means that Brooks gets it, but it also means that the people pitching the show don't.
I think one strike against the Federation (as a whole) with regards to Bajor is that they didn't seem to get involved in any meaningful way until the Cardassian withdrew from Bajor. The Maquis formed up to protect ex-Federation colonies against the Cardassians, and I don't remember any stories covering the Federation or Starfleet providing any material support for the Bajorans. Quark probably had more impact on Bajoran efforts to liberate themselves than anything the Federation did.
An interesting story would have been the Section 31 idiots setting up the Maquis as a sort of International Brigade to work with the Bajoran resistance instead of having them be formed as a reaction to Cardassian aggression against the ex-Federation colonies in the DMZ. I'm guessing they didn't do that because that'd be a little too dark for TNG era trek and Section 31 was created more as a department sized evil Admiral for the protagonists to work against, and the not minor point that they didn't even exist until DS9.
Could go even darker and have a network of like minded captains behave like regular Starfleet 99% of the time, but when they're facing a Cardassian they're poking and prodding to try and generate an excuse to knock down the size of their fleet by a ship or two. There's an incident between a Cardassian and Federation ship, the Enterprise is called in to investigate, there's a Cardassian opposite number keeping the pressure on, the conspiracy is discovered an we get dualing speeches about how standing by while evil happens is evil vs. peaceful conflict resolution is good and just shooting people is bad, with a side order of realpolitik.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
+1
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Poor Mexico Bajor. So far from God the Prophets, so close to the United States Federation of Planets.
0
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
The stuff that happens in Quark's Bar is irrelevant to the greater Ferengi Alliance. In fact, since the FCA shuts down Quark's Bar over its business practices, I could make an argument it was actually detrimental to the cause, if only marginally since, again, no one in the Alliance (save Brunt) really cares about what's going on in a small bar on a border space station.
Rom was influenced by Federation ideals, and going forward as Nagus these ideals will shape his administration, I'll give you that. Except none of that would have happened if not for their mother Ishka and her influence on the Nagus. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to name Rom as his successor. It was Ishka that, previous to that, convinced Zek that women should be given equal rights. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to implement a massive world-changing reform of the Ferengi Alliance, instituting taxes, allowing women to wear clothes, etc. The key role of Rom's tenure as Nagus will be, in fact, to maintain Zek's reforms, not to create them. And Ishka did all this thanks to her personal business skills and networking skills, without a single hint of Federation help or influence. I don't think Ishka spent more than a couple of days in her life in DS9, and that's as close as she's ever been to the Federation, and Zek certainly wasn't influenced by Federation ideals.
And let's talk about the Federation's influence on Rom. Where was it? Was the Federation teaching and training Rom as a potential successor to the Zek? Was the Federation subtly whispering in his ear about all the injustices in his society? Did the Federation pay him a cruise around Earth and Vulcan and Bethazed to show him how better life could be? Nope, nope, nope. Rom lived in a Bajoran space station administered by Starfleet, so far from the Federation that even Sisko bitched that Federation ideals were difficult to implement here, and for most of the series worked in a Ferengi business that was allowed to operate by Ferengi rules (provided they didn't involve outright crimes or abuses). He was "influenced" by Federation ideals only insofar as he met Federation people in his day-to-day life, and by that definition you could make as strong an argument that he was influenced by Bajoran ideals, or Cardassian ideals, or Dominion ideals, or even Klingon ideals. Rom found more merit on the Federation side of the influences he met every day, but that's because he was predisposed to them - since childhood Rom was always a soft sensitive touch, something Quark often reproached him and Ishka often complimented him on throughout the series. The Federation did nothing to select him or groom him, they just got lucky that he was the right guy at the right place, otherwise the new Nagus might be implementing bat'leth duels for contract dispute resolution.
So to conclude, I wholly reject the idea that the Federation had any sort of influence on the Ferengi revolution Zek implemented at the advice of Ishka.
Richy on
+2
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The Federation was such an influence on Rom that he bailed on Ferengi culture to join up with O'Brien's crew, wherein Rom's hidden genius was able to play instrumental roles in blocking the Dominion from entering the quadrant with reinforcements. That also allowed Ferengi to even continue existing as a sovereign nation. He spends years getting to see how the Federation is a way better deal than Ferengi society and realigns his choices and thinking accordingly.
Before the Federation hit the station, Rom was just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi underling getting ripped off by family. If the Cardassian presence had continued or the Federation not shown up, Rom would've stayed a beaten-down nobody working in a crappy bar. Occupation Rom would likely never have even considered marrying a Bajoran woman, much less completely relented on trying to push Ferengi marriage ideas on her. Occupation Rom would also never have gone on strike, anathema to "true" Ferengi.
The fact that the Federation didn't intentionally and directly target Rom for influence is utterly irrelevant. The simple existence of the Federation culture around him incontrovertibly has direct effects on his family and indirect effects on his way of thinking. It goes right with Quark's whole dialogue about the Federation being root beer. The Federation doesn't kick Rom into a position of power, but its presence and ideals influences Quark's family such that they save their mother, allowing her to lead a cultural revolution, and allows Grand Nagus Rom to exist.
So the root beer of the Federation may not have had special agents working as handlers for Ishka and Rom, but that sweet, cloying Federation disposition ultimately had a profound effect on the structure of Ferengi culture.
The Federation was such an influence on Rom that he bailed on Ferengi culture to join up with O'Brien's crew, wherein Rom's hidden genius was able to play instrumental roles in blocking the Dominion from entering the quadrant with reinforcements. That also allowed Ferengi to even continue existing as a sovereign nation. He spends years getting to see how the Federation is a way better deal than Ferengi society and realigns his choices and thinking accordingly.
Before the Federation hit the station, Rom was just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi underling getting ripped off by family. If the Cardassian presence had continued or the Federation not shown up, Rom would've stayed a beaten-down nobody working in a crappy bar. Occupation Rom would likely never have even considered marrying a Bajoran woman, much less completely relented on trying to push Ferengi marriage ideas on her. Occupation Rom would also never have gone on strike, anathema to "true" Ferengi.
The fact that the Federation didn't intentionally and directly target Rom for influence is utterly irrelevant. The simple existence of the Federation culture around him incontrovertibly has direct effects on his family and indirect effects on his way of thinking. It goes right with Quark's whole dialogue about the Federation being root beer. The Federation doesn't kick Rom into a position of power, but its presence and ideals influences Quark's family such that they save their mother, allowing her to lead a cultural revolution, and allows Grand Nagus Rom to exist.
So the root beer of the Federation may not have had special agents working as handlers for Ishka and Rom, but that sweet, cloying Federation disposition ultimately had a profound effect on the structure of Ferengi culture.
Except Rom wasn't just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi before the Federation came along. He was already a family-minded man and a tech genius. The presence of the Federation, which values these traits more than other cultures present on DS9, may have given him a more positive environment for personal growth, but that's a far cry from saying the Federation is responsible for those traits or that growth.
And at any rate, Rom can have all the personal growth he wants, none of it would have meant anything without Ishka and her influencing Zek to reform the Ferengi Alliance and name him his successor. Without Ishka, Rom would still be a engineer on DS9 and Zek would still be a greedy business leader, and without Ishka and Zek working together women would still be enslaved on Ferenganar. The Ferengi Alliance wasn't reformed because some tech-savvy server at a small bar on a backwater space station was given a positive environment for personal growth by the Federation. It was reformed by a business-savvy and skilled-networking woman on Ferenganar who never set foot in Federation space or met a Starfleet officer. And she did it not by upholding and promoting Federation ideals but by out-Ferengiing the best Ferengi on Ferenganar.
The Federation was such an influence on Rom that he bailed on Ferengi culture to join up with O'Brien's crew, wherein Rom's hidden genius was able to play instrumental roles in blocking the Dominion from entering the quadrant with reinforcements. That also allowed Ferengi to even continue existing as a sovereign nation. He spends years getting to see how the Federation is a way better deal than Ferengi society and realigns his choices and thinking accordingly.
Before the Federation hit the station, Rom was just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi underling getting ripped off by family. If the Cardassian presence had continued or the Federation not shown up, Rom would've stayed a beaten-down nobody working in a crappy bar. Occupation Rom would likely never have even considered marrying a Bajoran woman, much less completely relented on trying to push Ferengi marriage ideas on her. Occupation Rom would also never have gone on strike, anathema to "true" Ferengi.
The fact that the Federation didn't intentionally and directly target Rom for influence is utterly irrelevant. The simple existence of the Federation culture around him incontrovertibly has direct effects on his family and indirect effects on his way of thinking. It goes right with Quark's whole dialogue about the Federation being root beer. The Federation doesn't kick Rom into a position of power, but its presence and ideals influences Quark's family such that they save their mother, allowing her to lead a cultural revolution, and allows Grand Nagus Rom to exist.
So the root beer of the Federation may not have had special agents working as handlers for Ishka and Rom, but that sweet, cloying Federation disposition ultimately had a profound effect on the structure of Ferengi culture.
Except Rom wasn't just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi before the Federation came along. He was already a family-minded man and a tech genius. The presence of the Federation, which values these traits more than other cultures present on DS9, may have given him a more positive environment for personal growth, but that's a far cry from saying the Federation is responsible for those traits or that growth.
And at any rate, Rom can have all the personal growth he wants, none of it would have meant anything without Ishka and her influencing Zek to reform the Ferengi Alliance and name him his successor. Without Ishka, Rom would still be a engineer on DS9 and Zek would still be a greedy business leader, and without Ishka and Zek working together women would still be enslaved on Ferenganar. The Ferengi Alliance wasn't reformed because some tech-savvy server at a small bar on a backwater space station was given a positive environment for personal growth by the Federation. It was reformed by a business-savvy and skilled-networking woman on Ferenganar who never set foot in Federation space or met a Starfleet officer. And she did it not by upholding and promoting Federation ideals but by out-Ferengiing the best Ferengi on Ferenganar.
well technically S01 Rom was a generic Ferengi that tried to kill his brother to get a few bucks, but then they re-wrote him completely.
I don't think he was even supposed to be Quark's brother in season 1.
+2
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Early Rom wouldn't even let his son go to school taught by a woman. He was absolutely the basic stepped-on underling Ferengi where his talents were totally wasted simply because he sucked at business; there was zero indication he wouldn't have stayed that way his whole life without the Federation making a bunch of changes on the station and bringing in Federation ideas. Once Rom starting pushing Quark with Federation ideals and Quark started to bend, then we got the Rom who could become the new Nagus.
And yeah, Ishka was absolutely the key figure for reform, but she also would've been dead a couple times over before getting to make those big changes without Federation influence softening up Quark to the point of defying Ferengi law and the Dominion to save her. So even if the Federation didn't have notable political influence on her, the Federation presence allowed her to be alive enough to even have political influence later on.
So the originator of Ferengi reform and the executor of the reform were either saved by Federation influence or molded by it, both via the kinds of peaceful cultural shifts the Federation likes to steer species towards. No Federation at DS9, no Ishka surviving to reform the Ferengi, no Rom changing to be the Ferengi to help carry those reforms forward.
And yeah, Ishka was absolutely the key figure for reform, but she also would've been dead a couple times over before getting to make those big changes without Federation influence softening up Quark to the point of defying Ferengi law and the Dominion to save her. So even if the Federation didn't have notable political influence on her, the Federation presence allowed her to be alive enough to even have political influence later on.
I can think of two instances where Ishka was in trouble and Quark saved her. The first was when the FCA caught her making profits in Family Business. Quark didn't choose to intervene on her behalf, he was dragged into it by law since Ishka was his responsibility. And far from helping her out and fight for Federation ideals of gender equality, he sold her out to the FCA and made her give up all her profits (that he knew of). The second time was when she was captured by the Dominion in The Magnificient Ferengi. This time it was Zek who paid Quark to save her, because at that point they were in a serious relationship together, which had started and grown thanks to Ishka, not Quark (in fact when Quark found out about it previously in Ferengi Love Songs he was appalled and tried to end it).
So, no, the Federation gets exactly zero credit for Quark saving Ishka on either occasion.
When discussing Cardassia and the Federation, I think its important to remember that the Federation was facing both the Borg and a resurgent Romulan empire at the time. The Borg being a huge existential threat that forced Starfleet to build multiple warships in response to them. Something unheard of in Starfleet history if DS9 was to be believed.
In fact its my head canon that the Truce between Cardassia and the Federation was as a result of the Borg threat. The Wounded(first appearance of the Cardassians) was a s4 episode and in it they mention that the peace treaty was a year old(aka S3). This explains why the Federation never curbstomped the Cardassians and freed Bajor; they need the ships to defend their core territories. Its probably also why they allowed something like the DMZ to be created; the Cardassians had them over a barrel and forced the issue. After all what are a few small colonies compared to Vulcan,Earth and Andoria?
The entirety of DS9 first seasons was clean up after a major security pivot for the Federation.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
The Federation was such an influence on Rom that he bailed on Ferengi culture to join up with O'Brien's crew, wherein Rom's hidden genius was able to play instrumental roles in blocking the Dominion from entering the quadrant with reinforcements. That also allowed Ferengi to even continue existing as a sovereign nation. He spends years getting to see how the Federation is a way better deal than Ferengi society and realigns his choices and thinking accordingly.
Before the Federation hit the station, Rom was just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi underling getting ripped off by family. If the Cardassian presence had continued or the Federation not shown up, Rom would've stayed a beaten-down nobody working in a crappy bar. Occupation Rom would likely never have even considered marrying a Bajoran woman, much less completely relented on trying to push Ferengi marriage ideas on her. Occupation Rom would also never have gone on strike, anathema to "true" Ferengi.
The fact that the Federation didn't intentionally and directly target Rom for influence is utterly irrelevant. The simple existence of the Federation culture around him incontrovertibly has direct effects on his family and indirect effects on his way of thinking. It goes right with Quark's whole dialogue about the Federation being root beer. The Federation doesn't kick Rom into a position of power, but its presence and ideals influences Quark's family such that they save their mother, allowing her to lead a cultural revolution, and allows Grand Nagus Rom to exist.
So the root beer of the Federation may not have had special agents working as handlers for Ishka and Rom, but that sweet, cloying Federation disposition ultimately had a profound effect on the structure of Ferengi culture.
Except Rom wasn't just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi before the Federation came along. He was already a family-minded man and a tech genius. The presence of the Federation, which values these traits more than other cultures present on DS9, may have given him a more positive environment for personal growth, but that's a far cry from saying the Federation is responsible for those traits or that growth.
And at any rate, Rom can have all the personal growth he wants, none of it would have meant anything without Ishka and her influencing Zek to reform the Ferengi Alliance and name him his successor. Without Ishka, Rom would still be a engineer on DS9 and Zek would still be a greedy business leader, and without Ishka and Zek working together women would still be enslaved on Ferenganar. The Ferengi Alliance wasn't reformed because some tech-savvy server at a small bar on a backwater space station was given a positive environment for personal growth by the Federation. It was reformed by a business-savvy and skilled-networking woman on Ferenganar who never set foot in Federation space or met a Starfleet officer. And she did it not by upholding and promoting Federation ideals but by out-Ferengiing the best Ferengi on Ferenganar.
well technically S01 Rom was a generic Ferengi that tried to kill his brother to get a few bucks, but then they re-wrote him completely.
I don't think he was even supposed to be Quark's brother in season 1.
He was, because Nog was identified as Quark's nephew right off the bat, when he was getting Jake arrested.
I'm not sure he was really supposed to exist as a character for quite a while, though.
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
The stuff that happens in Quark's Bar is irrelevant to the greater Ferengi Alliance. In fact, since the FCA shuts down Quark's Bar over its business practices, I could make an argument it was actually detrimental to the cause, if only marginally since, again, no one in the Alliance (save Brunt) really cares about what's going on in a small bar on a border space station.
Rom was influenced by Federation ideals, and going forward as Nagus these ideals will shape his administration, I'll give you that. Except none of that would have happened if not for their mother Ishka and her influence on the Nagus. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to name Rom as his successor. It was Ishka that, previous to that, convinced Zek that women should be given equal rights. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to implement a massive world-changing reform of the Ferengi Alliance, instituting taxes, allowing women to wear clothes, etc. The key role of Rom's tenure as Nagus will be, in fact, to maintain Zek's reforms, not to create them. And Ishka did all this thanks to her personal business skills and networking skills, without a single hint of Federation help or influence. I don't think Ishka spent more than a couple of days in her life in DS9, and that's as close as she's ever been to the Federation, and Zek certainly wasn't influenced by Federation ideals.
And let's talk about the Federation's influence on Rom. Where was it? Was the Federation teaching and training Rom as a potential successor to the Zek? Was the Federation subtly whispering in his ear about all the injustices in his society? Did the Federation pay him a cruise around Earth and Vulcan and Bethazed to show him how better life could be? Nope, nope, nope. Rom lived in a Bajoran space station administered by Starfleet, so far from the Federation that even Sisko bitched that Federation ideals were difficult to implement here, and for most of the series worked in a Ferengi business that was allowed to operate by Ferengi rules (provided they didn't involve outright crimes or abuses). He was "influenced" by Federation ideals only insofar as he met Federation people in his day-to-day life, and by that definition you could make as strong an argument that he was influenced by Bajoran ideals, or Cardassian ideals, or Dominion ideals, or even Klingon ideals. Rom found more merit on the Federation side of the influences he met every day, but that's because he was predisposed to them - since childhood Rom was always a soft sensitive touch, something Quark often reproached him and Ishka often complimented him on throughout the series. The Federation did nothing to select him or groom him, they just got lucky that he was the right guy at the right place, otherwise the new Nagus might be implementing bat'leth duels for contract dispute resolution.
So to conclude, I wholly reject the idea that the Federation had any sort of influence on the Ferengi revolution Zek implemented at the advice of Ishka.
We see the Federation's influence shaping all the non-federation characters. Quark has multiple episodes around this theme. That's what the speech about root beer that people love to link is actually about. I think it'd be silly to act like this isn't a part of Rom's arc.
And we see this through other characters too. What's Nog's reason for wanting to join Starfleet? He doesn't want to end up like his father. A man who can't make it as a "proper" ferengi no matter how hard he tries. And Rom eventually takes the same path as his son. Essentially integrating into the station's federation/bajoran structure because the possibilities of being something more then what his own society allows are there, staring him in the face.
I don't feel like a bunch of americans making a TV show would really think you needed to go into too much detail on why the proposal of "Let's just use our superior technological and military might to impose our will on all the people around us" would be a bit dubious.
The Cardassian Occupation has no end of real-world analogies to draw from, even back when the show was written, and the Federation stance of having a lot of different ideas about how this should be handled seems fairly normal without having to act like it's some sort of great moral failing that they didn't ride in guns a blazing or the need to invoke some idea of their forces being weakened. The idea that there was an obvious solution to the issue that the Federation just didn't choose to take just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
But by the light of Federation ideals, it *is* a great moral failing that they didn’t ride to the rescue of Bajor. It’s completely understandable, for all the reasons "Ninja Snarl P" mentioned above. But it’s a sacrifice of ideals to politics. Which is *fine*, except that we’re often presented with the Federation ideals as something that is not subordinates to politics.
I’m reminded of the Ba’ku. Picard chose not to let a few hundred of them die, making a moral call that the benefits of eternal rejuvenation for the galaxy didn’t justify hundreds of lost lives. By contrast, someone at Starfleet Command decided that millions of dead Bajorans were going to sit fine on their conscience.
What we’re told the Federation is and what we’re shown that it is can differ.
The bigger issue is that from the Bajoran point of view, it doesn’t matter. Sure, the Federation say they turned up as soon as they could. That just happens to be *after* the fighting is over, *after* millions dead. Just in time to set up shop on Terok Nor and start running education programmes for the children. Just in time to provide a bunch of replicators and needed infrastructure aid, but also being all, well, “root beer” about it.
From a Bajoran perspective, but especially an isolationist one, the Federation only showed up once it had something to gain, and after the hard work was done, having spent the Occupation alternately hand-wringing impotently or actively helping the Cardassians. The Ferengi at least sold weapons to the Resistance on the quiet.
Why would they be welcomed, when we know that Bajoran appeals for aid were met with, at best, a shrug? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the defence of “We could have entered a war to stop the atrocities against you, in line with our own ethical code, but it would’ve been bad for us, so we left you to die, but look, we brought cookies...er...replicators” doesn’t cut much ice for the people who begged for help for decades, and didn’t get any when it counted.
(Personally I think that the Federations failure to get involved earlier or more strongly via soft power or covertly *is* an indictment of their supposed ideals; but I imagine a lot of Bajorans would be incandescent about being judged after the fact by an institution which utterly failed them when they needed help)
No, it's not a moral failing. For exactly the reasons I'm pointing out above. It's not the Federation's ideals that are the question here, it's their resources and their ability to predict and control the fallout of an intervention. Those aren't just political considerations. They are an issue of weighting the consequences of your actions. What are the moral implications of the results of your intervention. So what you end up with is a question of what kind of intervention is best here. It's not just guns-a-blazing or fuck-em-we-don't-care. There's no clean answer to these problems. Which is fairly obvious in real life because we see these exact same considerations brought up in foreign policy all the time.
The Federation charter disagrees (Spoilers for big):
"We the lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interstellar law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of living on all worlds, and for these ends, to practice toleration and live together in peace with one another, and to unite our strength to maintain interstellar peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institutions of methods, that weapons of destruction shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ interstellar resources for the promotion...”,
specifically
“ to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interstellar law can be maintained“
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Federation should have been involved *practically*. But their inaction, and failure to assist Bajor is an example of their reality being in contravention of their ideals. By the principles we are repeatedly told they uphold, they *should* intervene. Not doing so, and the judging the Bajorans, is a failing.
For what it’s worth, I agree, there were other options other than guns-blazing or don’t-care. Someone mentioned a few alternatives up thread. But we never see any of those alternatives put on the table; the closest we get is in “Ensign Ro”, which is very much “we don’t care”.
ETA: real world parallels work, but the humanity of the future is meant to be rather more morally evolved than we are...
ETAETA: And even we poor unevolved, pre-WW3 apes take a dim view of genocides orchestrated by our neighbours, and tend to intervene; by most lights, failing to do so is an ethical issue imo.
No, it's not in contravention of their ideals. Because their ideals don't say "And never think about the consequences of your actions". Their morals obligate them to believe that the Cardasssian Occupation is wrong. They do not set down what they should do about it though. It's not a moral failing to consider whether your actions will make things better.
Again, just like in real life, the question is not "is this situation bad", it's "what can we do about this situation to make it better". Because even back when the show was being made, and just way more so now, the idea of the ideal intervention was kinda dubious. An acknowledgement of this is not immoral.
EDIT: PLUS the events of the Dominion War and interaction of the Ferengi with the Federation moved Ferengi society to a point where it would stop treating half the race as outright slaves and most of the rest of the race as wage slaves, massively improving the quality of life for a whole additional interstellar society. Which, again, wouldn't have happened if a Federation weakened by fighting wars over non-members had left it too weak to fend off Romulan, Klingon, or Dominion invasion.
That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
The stuff that happens in Quark's Bar is irrelevant to the greater Ferengi Alliance. In fact, since the FCA shuts down Quark's Bar over its business practices, I could make an argument it was actually detrimental to the cause, if only marginally since, again, no one in the Alliance (save Brunt) really cares about what's going on in a small bar on a border space station.
Rom was influenced by Federation ideals, and going forward as Nagus these ideals will shape his administration, I'll give you that. Except none of that would have happened if not for their mother Ishka and her influence on the Nagus. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to name Rom as his successor. It was Ishka that, previous to that, convinced Zek that women should be given equal rights. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to implement a massive world-changing reform of the Ferengi Alliance, instituting taxes, allowing women to wear clothes, etc. The key role of Rom's tenure as Nagus will be, in fact, to maintain Zek's reforms, not to create them. And Ishka did all this thanks to her personal business skills and networking skills, without a single hint of Federation help or influence. I don't think Ishka spent more than a couple of days in her life in DS9, and that's as close as she's ever been to the Federation, and Zek certainly wasn't influenced by Federation ideals.
And let's talk about the Federation's influence on Rom. Where was it? Was the Federation teaching and training Rom as a potential successor to the Zek? Was the Federation subtly whispering in his ear about all the injustices in his society? Did the Federation pay him a cruise around Earth and Vulcan and Bethazed to show him how better life could be? Nope, nope, nope. Rom lived in a Bajoran space station administered by Starfleet, so far from the Federation that even Sisko bitched that Federation ideals were difficult to implement here, and for most of the series worked in a Ferengi business that was allowed to operate by Ferengi rules (provided they didn't involve outright crimes or abuses). He was "influenced" by Federation ideals only insofar as he met Federation people in his day-to-day life, and by that definition you could make as strong an argument that he was influenced by Bajoran ideals, or Cardassian ideals, or Dominion ideals, or even Klingon ideals. Rom found more merit on the Federation side of the influences he met every day, but that's because he was predisposed to them - since childhood Rom was always a soft sensitive touch, something Quark often reproached him and Ishka often complimented him on throughout the series. The Federation did nothing to select him or groom him, they just got lucky that he was the right guy at the right place, otherwise the new Nagus might be implementing bat'leth duels for contract dispute resolution.
So to conclude, I wholly reject the idea that the Federation had any sort of influence on the Ferengi revolution Zek implemented at the advice of Ishka.
We see the Federation's influence shaping all the non-federation characters. Quark has multiple episodes around this theme. That's what the speech about root beer that people love to link is actually about. I think it'd be silly to act like this isn't a part of Rom's arc.
And we see this through other characters too. What's Nog's reason for wanting to join Starfleet? He doesn't want to end up like his father. A man who can't make it as a "proper" ferengi no matter how hard he tries. And Rom eventually takes the same path as his son. Essentially integrating into the station's federation/bajoran structure because the possibilities of being something more then what his own society allows are there, staring him in the face.
Again, I'm not saying that living near the Federation didn't have an impact on Rom. In fact, I explicitly said it did.
I'm saying the Federation had nothing to do with Ferengi women gaining their freedom, since the two characters who worked to give it to them, Ishka and Zek, were not influenced by the Federation in any way. That was in response to a post saying the Federation was somehow responsible for that revolution and that it vindicates their hands-off approach to interplanetary politics. In the 10 years the Federation was officially in contact with the Ferengi, from TNG season 1 to DS9 season 7, they spent 5 of them not even being aware that Ferengi women were enslaved and the other 5 doing nothing about it, and they certainly do not deserve credit for Ishka freeing them.
Oh wow. I kinda love where they have decided to go with Discovery. Let's get the band back together!
[Not sure if this is the Discovery thread, if there is a Discovery thread, or if CBS has banned us all from talking about it unless we have a CBS logo in our account profile]
Also, since I had to sign back up for Discovery, I get to watch the rest of Lower Decks (epis 7-10), and I'm pretty psyched.
I'm sure it's just some kind of resonance from our current news cycle of the last few years, but I desperately needed an optimistic, scientific, upright to the point of being a damn nerd except when you're not, ethical, inclusive, and loving fuckin' crew right now, and Lower Decks and Discovery both are really a balm I didn't expect to have.
Oh wow. I kinda love where they have decided to go with Discovery. Let's get the band back together!
[Not sure if this is the Discovery thread, if there is a Discovery thread, or if CBS has banned us all from talking about it unless we have a CBS logo in our account profile]
Also, since I had to sign back up for Discovery, I get to watch the rest of Lower Decks (epis 7-10), and I'm pretty psyched.
I'm sure it's just some kind of resonance from our current news cycle of the last few years, but I desperately needed an optimistic, scientific, upright to the point of being a damn nerd except when you're not, ethical, inclusive, and loving fuckin' crew right now, and Lower Decks and Discovery both are really a balm I didn't expect to have.
I'm with ya. These two shows and Ted Lasso have been my saviors in 2020.
I just discovered that there's a 2018 film starring Nana Visitor on Netflix called Killer Grandma and it is has terrible IMDB reviews, so I know what I'm watching this Halloween.
I understand why Bajor didn't trust the Federation. From their vantage point, they probably had good reason. That doesn't make it an objectively correct assessment of the situation.
I would say Starfleet opting not to swoop in and liberate Bajor wasn't a matter of political expediency. It was a question of practicality.
Here's a ridiculous hypothetical. Let's say the USA was in a protracted shooting war with Australia. Can they reasonably be expected to liberate (what is, in this scenario) an occupied New Zealand?
Or a less perfect, but more realistic analogue. Who thinks sailing a battle group to Taiwan and telling Beijing to take its "One China" policy and shove it up its dynasty would be a good idea?
I understand why Bajor didn't trust the Federation. From their vantage point, they probably had good reason. That doesn't make it an objectively correct assessment of the situation.
I would say Starfleet opting not to swoop in and liberate Bajor wasn't a matter of political expediency. It was a question of practicality.
Here's a ridiculous hypothetical. Let's say the USA was in a protracted shooting war with Australia. Can they reasonably be expected to liberate (what is, in this scenario) an occupied New Zealand?
Or a less perfect, but more realistic analogue. Who thinks sailing a battle group to Taiwan and telling Beijing to take its "One China" policy and shove it up its dynasty would be a good idea?
Yeah, from the *Federation* point if view it’s not practical. But:
1) From the Bajoran point of view, that lack of action looks a lot line cowardice
2) The Federation only adhering to their ideals when it’s *practical* is generally not a good look - at that point they’re not really ideals.
3) My answer to your hypotheticals changes if we add, you know, genocide to the equation. At which point yes, you’d hope the US would intervene. Though notably the US doesn’t claim to adhere to its ideals quite as much as the Federation does (in, say, TNG, Discovery, DS9 or Picard even).
Also to map this hypothetical, the US may have just nominally *won* a shooting war with Australia, but decided that the genocide of New Zealanders is an Australian internal matter and decided not to mention it during the peace talks, or for years of the aftermath before an Australian withdrawal.
It may not be practical, but as Disco reminds us every now and then, the idea of the Federation, it’s founding core, *is not* to be practical.Its to bring people together, and to soar. If it can’t be bothered to get involved in a genocide, then imo it’s absolutely failing to match its ideals; that’s fine(!), but it helps explain why the Bajorans are so leery of Federation assistance. It only turns up after they desperately needed it, and it comes with a side order of root beer.
(I suspect I’m not convincing anyone here, it’s just bugging me now I’ve thought about it a bit more!)
Speaking of Section 31, do we know what’s happened to that series, with the pandemic and all?
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I still have yet to hear a convincing argument that "living up to their ideals" in your conception doesn't necessarily devolve into declaring war on literally everyone else.
+2
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I still have yet to hear a convincing argument that "living up to their ideals" in your conception doesn't necessarily devolve into declaring war on literally everyone else.
Particularly in light of the fact that that charter makes it extremely explicit that the Federation does not use violence if it can at all be avoided. If the Federation can see a reasonably realistic end result of an occupation where playing the long game is less destructive than open warfare, they're going to play the long game. Taking the war to Bajor could very well have seen a monumental increase in damage, particularly given that the Cardassians are incredibly spiteful assholes and they had a lot of warcrime shit to cover up.
At least when the Cardassians left due to recall by the civilian government, they had the time to just pick up their crap and leave without fighting. If forced out by the Federation, they likely would've incinerated every slave camp they could just so the Federation couldn't show the galaxy proof of the Cardassians being monstrous.
I still have yet to hear a convincing argument that "living up to their ideals" in your conception doesn't necessarily devolve into declaring war on literally everyone else.
I’m actually struggling to think of stuff that the other major powers (the Romulans and the Klingons) are up to that would necessitate Federation intervention - at least as far as presented on screen in the DS9 period. The Klingons are bloodthirsty lunatics, but only at each other right now.
The Romulans are no doubt up to some weird sneaky plan to take over the quadrant by convincing everyone that orange is actually blue, or something, but they also haven’t ordered any atrocities lately.
The Ferengi are probably the closest thing to a misbehaving quadrant power, merrily selling arms to contenders in all sorts of brushfire wars, but they’re probably too governmentally diffuse to actually pressure, rather than play whack a mole with (and the Feds do seem interested in stopping those wars, at least from memory).
Maybe the Orion Syndicate, but we do see Federation involvement there, on screen even.
Nobody apart from the Cardassians is out there committing actual atrocities (that we see on screen), and being met with a shrug.
And there are, obviously, means of intervention other than all our war
I think the closest thing we could get to matching what the Federation says it is with what it does is something like Picard’s intervention in the Klingon succession crisis. Quiet, diplomatic, stops a war.
But in the end, the dichotomy between what the Federation says it’s values are and what it does *is fine*. It gives us all sorts of dramatic tension (and we see the same argument play out with the Maquis on screen). But it does lend some weight to the more isolationist/sceptical Bajoran perspective. The Federation like to think they’re more morally evolved than everyone else, but they’re as aware of realpolitik as any major power *must* be. They’re just not as up front about it as the Klingons, say.
ETA: what really bugs me about this personally is that the Federation decides not to intervene in the ongoing genocide of millions of people, not even while they’re fighting a war with the people committing the genocide, and not even after they’ve *won* it.
And, again, if the systematic murder of millions of people isn’t worth going to war over (or perhaps, mentioning in a peace treaty afterwards) what is? What are the Federation other than another big quadrant power with a big stick?
I unironically love that two decades on we're still relitigating the Federation response to the occupation of Bajor
+4
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
The Ferengi literally enslave their women. Klingon honor requires people commit suicide for behavior that is not their responsibility, or retaliate in kind. Romulan slavery was the plot of an actual movie.
Bajor is like, one small example in an entire galaxy of examples of reprehensible behavior both within and without the Federation. It boggles my mind that anyone thinks military intervention is actually the answer to solving all of these issues and that such use of force is actually ideal Federation behavior.
The Ferengi literally enslave their women. Klingon honor requires people commit suicide for behavior that is not their responsibility, or retaliate in kind. Romulan slavery was the plot of an actual movie.
Bajor is like, one small example in an entire galaxy of examples of reprehensible behavior both within and without the Federation. It boggles my mind that anyone thinks military intervention is actually the answer to solving all of these issues and that such use of force is actually ideal Federation behavior.
But that’s not an argument I made (I think! It’s very early in the morning and a baby is yelling in my ear), or at least not entirely. The argument is that the lack of Federation intervention, of any stripe, during the Bajoran Occupation, is a failure of the high morals and ethics that the Federation themselves claim the mantle of. They fail to intervene in an active genocide. A genocide that shatters a planet, and actively murders millions.
If the Federation Council decided that a few million dead Bajorans is the cost of doing business and keeping hold of what they have, that’s fine. Well, actually, it’s appalling. But maybe it’s politics. But a failure to get involved in some way when a neighbouring state is actively engaged in mass murder of its citizens is outright moral cowardice *today*, never mind in humanities purportedly evolved future.
And that is, again, fine. Because the Federation often isn’t what it claims to be. But by the lights of the principles the show constantly claims are the province of the Federation, they should be doing more. Or at least doing something.
You make a great point WRT the Remans, I’d managed to forget them entirely, along with the rest of Nemesis. I guess the difference there is, we have no reason to assume that the Federation a) even knows they exist, because...Romulans. b) aren’t intervening off screen diplomatically (similarly to @shryke ’s argument that Federation engagement helps shift the needle for Ferengi gender equality).
Bajor, unlike the Remans, or even the Ferengi, gets enough screen time, and enough context for its issues, that we know Federation interest in their horror show is minimal at best, and as viewers, are informed enough to gauge their response.
And I think that’s why this is still bugging me (that and sleep deprivation). If I don’t think too hard, I can assume the Federation are trying to talk the Ferengi into having their women wear clothes. Or that once they know the Remans exist, they start sending sternly worded notes to the Romulan Senate along with a fruit basket.
But the diplomatic efforts we have for the Bajorans are showcased in “Ensign Ro”, and are...shockingly poor. Nobody gives a wet shart about the Bajorans problems, and it shows (and boy does Ro herself know it). The lack of military intervention *during a shooting war with the Cardassians* which would save millions of lives, is an abject failure both ethically and as policy. The atrocious diplomatic engagement that we see is embarrassing. And the lack of engagement or interest at all, is...awful, basically.
Maybe the Federation should be more involved with the Remans and the Ferengi. We don’t get to see how involved they are. But we do see how much they care about Bajor prior to the wormhole (not a lot, to put it mildly), we do see that they’re willing to make a calculation and say that millions of non-Federation lives lost is nothing to get worked up over.
(That said, given the circumstances of the Federation-Cardassian war, if the mass murder of millions *isn’t* a reason to stop by Bajor on your way to winning that war, then when *do* you intervene militarily? What kind of pan-galactic horror show will bestir the Federation fleets, if not to prevent a genocide? Where do you even escalate to from there? ...that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but actually I’m hoping someone really does have some arcane Federation escalation doctrine in an old tech manual somewhere...)
Anyway. Apologies for the dissertation. Trapped under a sleeping baby, so got a bit carried away.
We’re back to, the Federation response to Bajor is complicated. Which is cool. I genuinely hope that we can start having these talks about Disco...soon.
I can't remember if it was Trek or something else, but I remember a scene in something where one of the main characters is essentially asked "You're walking down the street, and you see a man beating a child in the road, possibly to death. Do you step in?" Obviously, yes. "Okay, what if he's doing it on his own land, behind the dividing border of a fence?" Still yes. "What if he's doing it across the border of another country? When does an invisible line on a map stop you from acting?"
But my original point wasn't even about serious intervention on Bajor, military or political. It was the fact that they felt comfortable just offering blankets to a refugee camp when they could have turned it into a comfortable pre-fab town with modern amenities with a couple of days work.
Or a less perfect, but more realistic analogue. Who thinks sailing a battle group to Taiwan and telling Beijing to take its "One China" policy and shove it up its dynasty would be a good idea?
That's pretty much exactly what the US did. That's why Taiwan wasn't immediately annexed.
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The Cardassian Occupation has no end of real-world analogies to draw from, even back when the show was written, and the Federation stance of having a lot of different ideas about how this should be handled seems fairly normal without having to act like it's some sort of great moral failing that they didn't ride in guns a blazing or the need to invoke some idea of their forces being weakened. The idea that there was an obvious solution to the issue that the Federation just didn't choose to take just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.
I think the issue of Cardassia's threat to the Federation ends up being fairly well drawn even in TNG. They aren't a "we might lose this war" type threat and I don't think they are ever portrayed that way but they have the technology to make the Federation hurt some and that seems fairly consistent from the start and is more then enough reason for the Federation to be wary of starting a war.
But by the light of Federation ideals, it *is* a great moral failing that they didn’t ride to the rescue of Bajor. It’s completely understandable, for all the reasons @Ninja Snarl P mentioned above. But it’s a sacrifice of ideals to politics. Which is *fine*, except that we’re often presented with the Federation ideals as something that is not subordinates to politics.
I’m reminded of the Ba’ku. Picard chose not to let a few hundred of them die, making a moral call that the benefits of eternal rejuvenation for the galaxy didn’t justify hundreds of lost lives. By contrast, someone at Starfleet Command decided that millions of dead Bajorans were going to sit fine on their conscience.
What we’re told the Federation is and what we’re shown that it is can differ.
The bigger issue is that from the Bajoran point of view, it doesn’t matter. Sure, the Federation say they turned up as soon as they could. That just happens to be *after* the fighting is over, *after* millions dead. Just in time to set up shop on Terok Nor and start running education programmes for the children. Just in time to provide a bunch of replicators and needed infrastructure aid, but also being all, well, “root beer” about it.
From a Bajoran perspective, but especially an isolationist one, the Federation only showed up once it had something to gain, and after the hard work was done, having spent the Occupation alternately hand-wringing impotently or actively helping the Cardassians. The Ferengi at least sold weapons to the Resistance on the quiet.
Why would they be welcomed, when we know that Bajoran appeals for aid were met with, at best, a shrug? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the defence of “We could have entered a war to stop the atrocities against you, in line with our own ethical code, but it would’ve been bad for us, so we left you to die, but look, we brought cookies...er...replicators” doesn’t cut much ice for the people who begged for help for decades, and didn’t get any when it counted.
(Personally I think that the Federations failure to get involved earlier or more strongly via soft power or covertly *is* an indictment of their supposed ideals; but I imagine a lot of Bajorans would be incandescent about being judged after the fact by an institution which utterly failed them when they needed help)
ETA: the other thing for me is where the Federation gets the moral space to judge anyone not ready for Federation membership, when we know that the Federation, even at the start of DS9 (never mind the end) has done some amazingly sketchy stuff in the name of politics. Would you want to be a member? It’s a tricky take for the Bajorans, and their split views are great.
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The show never goes into it much one way or another but I think we can infer that they were warp capable simply because the show repeatedly states the Bajorans have been a high tech society for a very long time, like they were space faring centuries before humans were. There's also the episode where they had a solar sail ship reach Cardassia before the Cardassians were even space faring. It's also in the background that Bajoran civilisation and culture is pretty well known in their area of space. If you read between the lines the picture the show paints is of pre-invasion Bajor being a very old, somewhat isolationist, militarily weak but culturally influential civilisation.
No, it's not a moral failing. For exactly the reasons I'm pointing out above. It's not the Federation's ideals that are the question here, it's their resources and their ability to predict and control the fallout of an intervention. Those aren't just political considerations. They are an issue of weighting the consequences of your actions. What are the moral implications of the results of your intervention. So what you end up with is a question of what kind of intervention is best here. It's not just guns-a-blazing or fuck-em-we-don't-care. There's no clean answer to these problems. Which is fairly obvious in real life because we see these exact same considerations brought up in foreign policy all the time.
The Federation charter disagrees (Spoilers for big):
specifically
“ to reaffirm faith in the fundamental rights of sentient beings, in the dignity and worth of all lifeforms, in the equal rights of members of planetary systems large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interstellar law can be maintained“
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Federation should have been involved *practically*. But their inaction, and failure to assist Bajor is an example of their reality being in contravention of their ideals. By the principles we are repeatedly told they uphold, they *should* intervene. Not doing so, and the judging the Bajorans, is a failing.
For what it’s worth, I agree, there were other options other than guns-blazing or don’t-care. Someone mentioned a few alternatives up thread. But we never see any of those alternatives put on the table; the closest we get is in “Ensign Ro”, which is very much “we don’t care”.
ETA: real world parallels work, but the humanity of the future is meant to be rather more morally evolved than we are...
ETAETA: And even we poor unevolved, pre-WW3 apes take a dim view of genocides orchestrated by our neighbours, and tend to intervene; by most lights, failing to do so is an ethical issue imo.
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That didn't happen. Quark's Mom reformed the Ferengi Alliance. She's the one who had the business skills to prove the worth of women and the networking skills to get the Grand Nagus to listen and agree. The Federation did jack shit there. They didn't even find out that women were enslaved in Ferengi society until DS9 season 2 - five years after first contact - and then did nothing about it for another 5 years.
Except we clearly see Federation ideals being reflected in Ferengi actions on DS9. Demanding a fair wage, demanding paid sick leave, demanding non-abusive contracts for females, all that stuff happens at Quark's bar via interaction with the Federation. Then Rom ends up in charge of the whole Ferengi shebang because of his Federation experience; his mother makes it happen, sure, but it's the Federation influence that makes a Rom that can be the Grand Nagus of a new Ferengi society that isn't full-throttle capitalism.
Yes, the Federation very definitely didn't directly cause the change, but that whole situation wouldn't have happened without the Federation at DS9. Quark's mother would've been executed for earning profit, Rom would've still been under Quark's thumb, and the most Rom could hope for was to try and connive the bar away from his uncle. Instead, Federation influence shifted all those variables, creating a unique situation where massive cultural reform could finally happen.
Absolutely none of this obligates the Federation to act in a self-destructive way to save a single world. There's wording for promoting peace and avoiding armed conflict when at all possible, but nothing that says the Federation is nigh-religiously compelled to invade other cultures to save non-signatory or non-allied cultures. "Promoting peace" just means the Federation will advocate peaceful dealings with any and all involved actors; in this case, the Federation would want Cardassian peace just as much as Bajoran peace, but Cardassia isn't asking the Federation in to help and Bajor is.
The Federation fully recognizes the injustice of what happens on Bajor, but it's absolutely not the fault of the Federation. They do feel morally obligated to help when the politics allows them to help, but the Federation not going at Cardassia guns blazing is anything but a moral failing. The Federation is practically aware of the fact that it simply cannot save everybody everywhere.
This angle is like saying Superman is wrong for not saving people 24/7 instead of working himself to death in a month. The Federation, with Vulcan logic as one of it's core guiding philosophies, knows it can't save everybody everywhere. It will, however, make a reasoned choice to save as many people as it can without also destroying what it has already built. Bajor refusing to accept the Federation's hands were tied is a failing of Bajor, not the Federation.
A morning after scene with Kai Winn and Bajoran Dukat wasn't on my bingo card.
As was established with Kira and her religious beaux, Bajor apparently does not have problems with their religious figures spending time in horizontal meditation with their supplicants.
As for who she "meditated" with, well, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving Kai.
Sorry if this is going on a bit, it’s bugging me and I’m not quite sure why. So writing it out in the hope it gets out of my head.
The Federation charter indicates what their values are.
The Federation is also explicitly aware (because refugee Bajorans tell them so) that the Cardassians are committing the mass murder of millions of Bajorans , in an Illegal occupation which is twinned with genocide.
The Federation decision not to intervene is, IMO:
1) Morally and ethically horrific. If they don’t get out of bed to stop a genocide, what is their techno-space-communism club even for? Frankly, if they’re going to get into a war, “stopping industrial murder” feels like a good reason.
2) Politically savvy in the short term, for all the reasons you’ve outlined above.
3) Very much contra to the values in the charter, especially the section around respecting the “dignity and worth of all life forms”. If some people are people, and some (non-Federation) people are just talking meat, non intervention works, in that the Feds don’t need to care about anything outside their space. But if *all* people are people, as the charter states, then their decision not to intervene in a war crime is contra to their values.
Practically, *I* think you’re right - the Federation can not intervene successfully prior to the Cardassian withdrawal. But what we see in the early seasons of DS9 suggests that a lot of Bajorans don’t see it that way. While their relatives were being run through a Cardassian wood chipper, they were begging the Federation for help, help which did not come until after the damage was done. Help which is now being served with a side order of condescension for their cultural practises, and with a total lack of reflection on the Fed side for how their mission looks through a Bajoran lens.
Regardless of whether the Federation could, realistically intervene, its failure to do so, and mealy mouthed response in general, IMO, sacrifices any moral authority it may have when negotiating with Bajor in a post-Occupation period.
In the end, it doesn’t matter; but I think that the push back by various Bajoran factions - isolationists, patriots, self-determinists, survivors - against the Federation...makes sense. They have no reason to trust an entity who (from their perspective) let them down when they needed help, and every reason not to. I think the Bajoran global trauma helps define who they are in the show, and especially their sceptical relationship with external powers (c.f. Winn)
Anyway! Sorry, just thinking. I do love how complex Bajor’s politics can be, both on screen and for the viewer!
On an unrelated note, heard rumours of a Sisko miniseries, and I’m...weirdly not sure I want that. Love Sisko, not sure how I feel about using even more legacy characters to leverage nostalgia for new properties...
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On the Sisko mini-series rumor. The story I read is that Brooks is insisting that Lofton comes back as Jake if it happens. Line in the sand, he won't do it if that doesn't happen insisting. Which, if accurate, is good and bad, because it means that Brooks gets it, but it also means that the people pitching the show don't.
I think one strike against the Federation (as a whole) with regards to Bajor is that they didn't seem to get involved in any meaningful way until the Cardassian withdrew from Bajor. The Maquis formed up to protect ex-Federation colonies against the Cardassians, and I don't remember any stories covering the Federation or Starfleet providing any material support for the Bajorans. Quark probably had more impact on Bajoran efforts to liberate themselves than anything the Federation did.
An interesting story would have been the Section 31 idiots setting up the Maquis as a sort of International Brigade to work with the Bajoran resistance instead of having them be formed as a reaction to Cardassian aggression against the ex-Federation colonies in the DMZ. I'm guessing they didn't do that because that'd be a little too dark for TNG era trek and Section 31 was created more as a department sized evil Admiral for the protagonists to work against, and the not minor point that they didn't even exist until DS9.
Could go even darker and have a network of like minded captains behave like regular Starfleet 99% of the time, but when they're facing a Cardassian they're poking and prodding to try and generate an excuse to knock down the size of their fleet by a ship or two. There's an incident between a Cardassian and Federation ship, the Enterprise is called in to investigate, there's a Cardassian opposite number keeping the pressure on, the conspiracy is discovered an we get dualing speeches about how standing by while evil happens is evil vs. peaceful conflict resolution is good and just shooting people is bad, with a side order of realpolitik.
Bajor is close enough to the Prophets that they decided to use the planet as a prison for the extra dickish portion of their population.
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The stuff that happens in Quark's Bar is irrelevant to the greater Ferengi Alliance. In fact, since the FCA shuts down Quark's Bar over its business practices, I could make an argument it was actually detrimental to the cause, if only marginally since, again, no one in the Alliance (save Brunt) really cares about what's going on in a small bar on a border space station.
Rom was influenced by Federation ideals, and going forward as Nagus these ideals will shape his administration, I'll give you that. Except none of that would have happened if not for their mother Ishka and her influence on the Nagus. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to name Rom as his successor. It was Ishka that, previous to that, convinced Zek that women should be given equal rights. It was Ishka that convinced Zek to implement a massive world-changing reform of the Ferengi Alliance, instituting taxes, allowing women to wear clothes, etc. The key role of Rom's tenure as Nagus will be, in fact, to maintain Zek's reforms, not to create them. And Ishka did all this thanks to her personal business skills and networking skills, without a single hint of Federation help or influence. I don't think Ishka spent more than a couple of days in her life in DS9, and that's as close as she's ever been to the Federation, and Zek certainly wasn't influenced by Federation ideals.
And let's talk about the Federation's influence on Rom. Where was it? Was the Federation teaching and training Rom as a potential successor to the Zek? Was the Federation subtly whispering in his ear about all the injustices in his society? Did the Federation pay him a cruise around Earth and Vulcan and Bethazed to show him how better life could be? Nope, nope, nope. Rom lived in a Bajoran space station administered by Starfleet, so far from the Federation that even Sisko bitched that Federation ideals were difficult to implement here, and for most of the series worked in a Ferengi business that was allowed to operate by Ferengi rules (provided they didn't involve outright crimes or abuses). He was "influenced" by Federation ideals only insofar as he met Federation people in his day-to-day life, and by that definition you could make as strong an argument that he was influenced by Bajoran ideals, or Cardassian ideals, or Dominion ideals, or even Klingon ideals. Rom found more merit on the Federation side of the influences he met every day, but that's because he was predisposed to them - since childhood Rom was always a soft sensitive touch, something Quark often reproached him and Ishka often complimented him on throughout the series. The Federation did nothing to select him or groom him, they just got lucky that he was the right guy at the right place, otherwise the new Nagus might be implementing bat'leth duels for contract dispute resolution.
So to conclude, I wholly reject the idea that the Federation had any sort of influence on the Ferengi revolution Zek implemented at the advice of Ishka.
Before the Federation hit the station, Rom was just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi underling getting ripped off by family. If the Cardassian presence had continued or the Federation not shown up, Rom would've stayed a beaten-down nobody working in a crappy bar. Occupation Rom would likely never have even considered marrying a Bajoran woman, much less completely relented on trying to push Ferengi marriage ideas on her. Occupation Rom would also never have gone on strike, anathema to "true" Ferengi.
The fact that the Federation didn't intentionally and directly target Rom for influence is utterly irrelevant. The simple existence of the Federation culture around him incontrovertibly has direct effects on his family and indirect effects on his way of thinking. It goes right with Quark's whole dialogue about the Federation being root beer. The Federation doesn't kick Rom into a position of power, but its presence and ideals influences Quark's family such that they save their mother, allowing her to lead a cultural revolution, and allows Grand Nagus Rom to exist.
So the root beer of the Federation may not have had special agents working as handlers for Ishka and Rom, but that sweet, cloying Federation disposition ultimately had a profound effect on the structure of Ferengi culture.
Except Rom wasn't just another sleazy backstabbing Ferengi before the Federation came along. He was already a family-minded man and a tech genius. The presence of the Federation, which values these traits more than other cultures present on DS9, may have given him a more positive environment for personal growth, but that's a far cry from saying the Federation is responsible for those traits or that growth.
And at any rate, Rom can have all the personal growth he wants, none of it would have meant anything without Ishka and her influencing Zek to reform the Ferengi Alliance and name him his successor. Without Ishka, Rom would still be a engineer on DS9 and Zek would still be a greedy business leader, and without Ishka and Zek working together women would still be enslaved on Ferenganar. The Ferengi Alliance wasn't reformed because some tech-savvy server at a small bar on a backwater space station was given a positive environment for personal growth by the Federation. It was reformed by a business-savvy and skilled-networking woman on Ferenganar who never set foot in Federation space or met a Starfleet officer. And she did it not by upholding and promoting Federation ideals but by out-Ferengiing the best Ferengi on Ferenganar.
well technically S01 Rom was a generic Ferengi that tried to kill his brother to get a few bucks, but then they re-wrote him completely.
I don't think he was even supposed to be Quark's brother in season 1.
And yeah, Ishka was absolutely the key figure for reform, but she also would've been dead a couple times over before getting to make those big changes without Federation influence softening up Quark to the point of defying Ferengi law and the Dominion to save her. So even if the Federation didn't have notable political influence on her, the Federation presence allowed her to be alive enough to even have political influence later on.
So the originator of Ferengi reform and the executor of the reform were either saved by Federation influence or molded by it, both via the kinds of peaceful cultural shifts the Federation likes to steer species towards. No Federation at DS9, no Ishka surviving to reform the Ferengi, no Rom changing to be the Ferengi to help carry those reforms forward.
I can think of two instances where Ishka was in trouble and Quark saved her. The first was when the FCA caught her making profits in Family Business. Quark didn't choose to intervene on her behalf, he was dragged into it by law since Ishka was his responsibility. And far from helping her out and fight for Federation ideals of gender equality, he sold her out to the FCA and made her give up all her profits (that he knew of). The second time was when she was captured by the Dominion in The Magnificient Ferengi. This time it was Zek who paid Quark to save her, because at that point they were in a serious relationship together, which had started and grown thanks to Ishka, not Quark (in fact when Quark found out about it previously in Ferengi Love Songs he was appalled and tried to end it).
So, no, the Federation gets exactly zero credit for Quark saving Ishka on either occasion.
In fact its my head canon that the Truce between Cardassia and the Federation was as a result of the Borg threat. The Wounded(first appearance of the Cardassians) was a s4 episode and in it they mention that the peace treaty was a year old(aka S3). This explains why the Federation never curbstomped the Cardassians and freed Bajor; they need the ships to defend their core territories. Its probably also why they allowed something like the DMZ to be created; the Cardassians had them over a barrel and forced the issue. After all what are a few small colonies compared to Vulcan,Earth and Andoria?
The entirety of DS9 first seasons was clean up after a major security pivot for the Federation.
He was, because Nog was identified as Quark's nephew right off the bat, when he was getting Jake arrested.
I'm not sure he was really supposed to exist as a character for quite a while, though.
We see the Federation's influence shaping all the non-federation characters. Quark has multiple episodes around this theme. That's what the speech about root beer that people love to link is actually about. I think it'd be silly to act like this isn't a part of Rom's arc.
And we see this through other characters too. What's Nog's reason for wanting to join Starfleet? He doesn't want to end up like his father. A man who can't make it as a "proper" ferengi no matter how hard he tries. And Rom eventually takes the same path as his son. Essentially integrating into the station's federation/bajoran structure because the possibilities of being something more then what his own society allows are there, staring him in the face.
No, it's not in contravention of their ideals. Because their ideals don't say "And never think about the consequences of your actions". Their morals obligate them to believe that the Cardasssian Occupation is wrong. They do not set down what they should do about it though. It's not a moral failing to consider whether your actions will make things better.
Again, just like in real life, the question is not "is this situation bad", it's "what can we do about this situation to make it better". Because even back when the show was being made, and just way more so now, the idea of the ideal intervention was kinda dubious. An acknowledgement of this is not immoral.
Again, I'm not saying that living near the Federation didn't have an impact on Rom. In fact, I explicitly said it did.
I'm saying the Federation had nothing to do with Ferengi women gaining their freedom, since the two characters who worked to give it to them, Ishka and Zek, were not influenced by the Federation in any way. That was in response to a post saying the Federation was somehow responsible for that revolution and that it vindicates their hands-off approach to interplanetary politics. In the 10 years the Federation was officially in contact with the Ferengi, from TNG season 1 to DS9 season 7, they spent 5 of them not even being aware that Ferengi women were enslaved and the other 5 doing nothing about it, and they certainly do not deserve credit for Ishka freeing them.
[Not sure if this is the Discovery thread, if there is a Discovery thread, or if CBS has banned us all from talking about it unless we have a CBS logo in our account profile]
Also, since I had to sign back up for Discovery, I get to watch the rest of Lower Decks (epis 7-10), and I'm pretty psyched.
I'm sure it's just some kind of resonance from our current news cycle of the last few years, but I desperately needed an optimistic, scientific, upright to the point of being a damn nerd except when you're not, ethical, inclusive, and loving fuckin' crew right now, and Lower Decks and Discovery both are really a balm I didn't expect to have.
I'm with ya. These two shows and Ted Lasso have been my saviors in 2020.
I would say Starfleet opting not to swoop in and liberate Bajor wasn't a matter of political expediency. It was a question of practicality.
Here's a ridiculous hypothetical. Let's say the USA was in a protracted shooting war with Australia. Can they reasonably be expected to liberate (what is, in this scenario) an occupied New Zealand?
Or a less perfect, but more realistic analogue. Who thinks sailing a battle group to Taiwan and telling Beijing to take its "One China" policy and shove it up its dynasty would be a good idea?
Yeah, from the *Federation* point if view it’s not practical. But:
1) From the Bajoran point of view, that lack of action looks a lot line cowardice
2) The Federation only adhering to their ideals when it’s *practical* is generally not a good look - at that point they’re not really ideals.
3) My answer to your hypotheticals changes if we add, you know, genocide to the equation. At which point yes, you’d hope the US would intervene. Though notably the US doesn’t claim to adhere to its ideals quite as much as the Federation does (in, say, TNG, Discovery, DS9 or Picard even).
Also to map this hypothetical, the US may have just nominally *won* a shooting war with Australia, but decided that the genocide of New Zealanders is an Australian internal matter and decided not to mention it during the peace talks, or for years of the aftermath before an Australian withdrawal.
It may not be practical, but as Disco reminds us every now and then, the idea of the Federation, it’s founding core, *is not* to be practical.Its to bring people together, and to soar. If it can’t be bothered to get involved in a genocide, then imo it’s absolutely failing to match its ideals; that’s fine(!), but it helps explain why the Bajorans are so leery of Federation assistance. It only turns up after they desperately needed it, and it comes with a side order of root beer.
(I suspect I’m not convincing anyone here, it’s just bugging me now I’ve thought about it a bit more!)
Speaking of Section 31, do we know what’s happened to that series, with the pandemic and all?
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Particularly in light of the fact that that charter makes it extremely explicit that the Federation does not use violence if it can at all be avoided. If the Federation can see a reasonably realistic end result of an occupation where playing the long game is less destructive than open warfare, they're going to play the long game. Taking the war to Bajor could very well have seen a monumental increase in damage, particularly given that the Cardassians are incredibly spiteful assholes and they had a lot of warcrime shit to cover up.
At least when the Cardassians left due to recall by the civilian government, they had the time to just pick up their crap and leave without fighting. If forced out by the Federation, they likely would've incinerated every slave camp they could just so the Federation couldn't show the galaxy proof of the Cardassians being monstrous.
I’m actually struggling to think of stuff that the other major powers (the Romulans and the Klingons) are up to that would necessitate Federation intervention - at least as far as presented on screen in the DS9 period. The Klingons are bloodthirsty lunatics, but only at each other right now.
The Romulans are no doubt up to some weird sneaky plan to take over the quadrant by convincing everyone that orange is actually blue, or something, but they also haven’t ordered any atrocities lately.
The Ferengi are probably the closest thing to a misbehaving quadrant power, merrily selling arms to contenders in all sorts of brushfire wars, but they’re probably too governmentally diffuse to actually pressure, rather than play whack a mole with (and the Feds do seem interested in stopping those wars, at least from memory).
Maybe the Orion Syndicate, but we do see Federation involvement there, on screen even.
Nobody apart from the Cardassians is out there committing actual atrocities (that we see on screen), and being met with a shrug.
And there are, obviously, means of intervention other than all our war
I think the closest thing we could get to matching what the Federation says it is with what it does is something like Picard’s intervention in the Klingon succession crisis. Quiet, diplomatic, stops a war.
But in the end, the dichotomy between what the Federation says it’s values are and what it does *is fine*. It gives us all sorts of dramatic tension (and we see the same argument play out with the Maquis on screen). But it does lend some weight to the more isolationist/sceptical Bajoran perspective. The Federation like to think they’re more morally evolved than everyone else, but they’re as aware of realpolitik as any major power *must* be. They’re just not as up front about it as the Klingons, say.
ETA: what really bugs me about this personally is that the Federation decides not to intervene in the ongoing genocide of millions of people, not even while they’re fighting a war with the people committing the genocide, and not even after they’ve *won* it.
And, again, if the systematic murder of millions of people isn’t worth going to war over (or perhaps, mentioning in a peace treaty afterwards) what is? What are the Federation other than another big quadrant power with a big stick?
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Bajor is like, one small example in an entire galaxy of examples of reprehensible behavior both within and without the Federation. It boggles my mind that anyone thinks military intervention is actually the answer to solving all of these issues and that such use of force is actually ideal Federation behavior.
But that’s not an argument I made (I think! It’s very early in the morning and a baby is yelling in my ear), or at least not entirely. The argument is that the lack of Federation intervention, of any stripe, during the Bajoran Occupation, is a failure of the high morals and ethics that the Federation themselves claim the mantle of. They fail to intervene in an active genocide. A genocide that shatters a planet, and actively murders millions.
If the Federation Council decided that a few million dead Bajorans is the cost of doing business and keeping hold of what they have, that’s fine. Well, actually, it’s appalling. But maybe it’s politics. But a failure to get involved in some way when a neighbouring state is actively engaged in mass murder of its citizens is outright moral cowardice *today*, never mind in humanities purportedly evolved future.
And that is, again, fine. Because the Federation often isn’t what it claims to be. But by the lights of the principles the show constantly claims are the province of the Federation, they should be doing more. Or at least doing something.
You make a great point WRT the Remans, I’d managed to forget them entirely, along with the rest of Nemesis. I guess the difference there is, we have no reason to assume that the Federation a) even knows they exist, because...Romulans. b) aren’t intervening off screen diplomatically (similarly to @shryke ’s argument that Federation engagement helps shift the needle for Ferengi gender equality).
Bajor, unlike the Remans, or even the Ferengi, gets enough screen time, and enough context for its issues, that we know Federation interest in their horror show is minimal at best, and as viewers, are informed enough to gauge their response.
And I think that’s why this is still bugging me (that and sleep deprivation). If I don’t think too hard, I can assume the Federation are trying to talk the Ferengi into having their women wear clothes. Or that once they know the Remans exist, they start sending sternly worded notes to the Romulan Senate along with a fruit basket.
But the diplomatic efforts we have for the Bajorans are showcased in “Ensign Ro”, and are...shockingly poor. Nobody gives a wet shart about the Bajorans problems, and it shows (and boy does Ro herself know it). The lack of military intervention *during a shooting war with the Cardassians* which would save millions of lives, is an abject failure both ethically and as policy. The atrocious diplomatic engagement that we see is embarrassing. And the lack of engagement or interest at all, is...awful, basically.
Maybe the Federation should be more involved with the Remans and the Ferengi. We don’t get to see how involved they are. But we do see how much they care about Bajor prior to the wormhole (not a lot, to put it mildly), we do see that they’re willing to make a calculation and say that millions of non-Federation lives lost is nothing to get worked up over.
(That said, given the circumstances of the Federation-Cardassian war, if the mass murder of millions *isn’t* a reason to stop by Bajor on your way to winning that war, then when *do* you intervene militarily? What kind of pan-galactic horror show will bestir the Federation fleets, if not to prevent a genocide? Where do you even escalate to from there? ...that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but actually I’m hoping someone really does have some arcane Federation escalation doctrine in an old tech manual somewhere...)
Anyway. Apologies for the dissertation. Trapped under a sleeping baby, so got a bit carried away.
We’re back to, the Federation response to Bajor is complicated. Which is cool. I genuinely hope that we can start having these talks about Disco...soon.
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But my original point wasn't even about serious intervention on Bajor, military or political. It was the fact that they felt comfortable just offering blankets to a refugee camp when they could have turned it into a comfortable pre-fab town with modern amenities with a couple of days work.
That's pretty much exactly what the US did. That's why Taiwan wasn't immediately annexed.