You know, that clause of the treaty really is incredibly demeaning to the Cardassian clients. We should publicize this aspect of the treaty as much as possible, and encourage neutral species to spread the word. I can't imagine the Yrillians or Dawiar being happy about the Cardassians forbidding us to treat with them on their own terms.
Especially the Dawiar. They fear losing their sovereignty, and the Cardassians have just forbid their neighbors from talking to them.
This is very smart and I agree with it eleven jillion percent.
Just saying, this is like... stereotypical abuser behavior from the Cardassians and it should be well known to the galaxy. Sorry, Dawiar, we WOULD negotiate sharing of this mining colony site we just found near your space, in fact we'll be delighted to if the Celos Treaty didn't apply to you, but the CARDASSIANS DON'T WANT YOU TO TALK TO US. Talk to them, they'll sort it all out with us, I'm
sure. They have your best interests at heart, right? Sorry, Sydraxians, we WOULD negotiate reparations with you but CARDASSIANS DON'T WANT YOU TO TALK TO US. Talk to them, they're your overseers, right?
IF the
Kindness Through A Dark Lens omake is canon then I think we can afford to largely strip the RBZ for the moment.
If.
Furthermore, this invites the question, what is that fleet for? Hint: it's not for stopping a Romulan invasion fleet, we haven't got a hope of doing that with the forces we've put in position. It's there:
1) To make sure the Romulans can't sneak through our territory to hit the Klingons from the flank, which would make
us complicit in an act of war against the Klingons. We know this is possibility because the Romulans
already tried that.
2) To show a degree of respect for the Romulans and keep them from worrying excessively that we're up to something precisely
because we suddenly pulled our ships out. The Romulans are probably the only people in the galaxy who can keep up with the Lecarre for paranoia, after all. On a good day, anyway.
I think that our deal this session shouldn't be 'what can the factions do for us' but 'what can we do for the factions'. We need to kiss as much ass as possible to claw back some PP to buy a few colonies, or maybe even get some extra Influence to trade for Impact or Resilience. If that means detailed promises for future placement of Starbases to the hawks, or an assurance to the Development faction that we'll let them lay down a Superfreighter somewhere, then I'm all in favor of that kind of deal.
This is as smart as Leila's point. I like it.