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Old July 2 2012, 03:44 AM   #27
R. Star
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Re: What likely happened to the Cardassian Union after the war

Nightdiamond wrote: View Post
R. Star wrote: View Post

That's like saying if Germany had more planes, tanks, oil and men, they would have won World War II. Sure it's true, but it doesn't exactly mean much.

Cardassia was advanced enough to compete with the great powers and be acknowledged by them, but not really enough to be truely threatening. Most of their greatest schemes involve tricking and outmanuvering their opponents.
But Germany, for a small country, came pretty close to dominating Europe. If you can believe Spock, the world too.

I don't know how accurate Spock's statement was, though.

Cardassia could be seen in a similar way, except they were way too far behind in their current state to be a serious match for the Federation.

They were smaller, ships technologically behind the Feds (or some of their ships), and

But they did have the scientific, military, industrial and logistical base to be become a major power if they were bigger and had more resources to feed it.

Dukat wasn't a threatening villain because he had a huge fleet as his command, but because he was so unpredictable he kept the good guys guessing.
I dunno, the fact that he was directing the war, and winning it, during the first stages suggests he was pretty tactically sound-he caught on to Sisko's plan even when Weyoun, who seemed to be the senior adviser or something, couldn't see it.

They are a capable power, but short of dramatic shifts of power like them joining the Dominion, they weren't going to be truely threatening.
I tend to agree, except if they were bigger in size, and had more resources, they could possibly achieve it on their own.

Their near evil philosophy on certain things is their biggest weakness though.
Really the Cardassians were a tragic race more than an evil one. You can almost symathize with where they were and how they got there. A culturally enlightened people who were starving and dying from disease. The military takes over and starts several aggressive wars to aquire more resources. Now you have people chaffing under military rule, dying from constant wars, battles and occupations. They finally manage to overthrow their military oppressors to found a democratic government and what happens? The Klingons declare they have to be changelings and invade. This reduces them to a 3rd rate power and puts them worse off than they were before, to the point they're having to rely on their former enemies, the Federation for help. You can almost see why Dukat did what he did in alligning Cardassia with the Dominion.

But really your arguement that "if they had more technology and resources they would be powerful" doesn't exactly mean much. Of course they would... what does that have to do with anything? If you gave Italy atomic weapons at the beginning of world war 2, they would have conquered the world with or without Germany.. while true that doesn't say anything about Italy as it was itself.

They were what they were, the militaristic bad guys that were quite obviously behind in technology. Their doctorine seemed to operate on quantity more than quality as you almost never see Cardassian ships operating alone. This is why they also had a first rate Intelligence service... that's low maintence compared to a massive military and often can achieve the same results.
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