Not sure what Ainsworth is smoking, because this is a defeat. We have one ship slightly damaged, and one ship severely damaged. They have two ships slightly damaged. Its not even an attritional victory, because the damage to the Sydraxian ships will probably not require more than a month or two of repairs, tops. I guess this is why the Conniebee is just a stopgap cruiser; it really is showing its limitations as a combatant.
Good news is that the Courageous survived, though its down at least 1E of crew and we now have yet ANOTHER excelsior in need of longterm repairs. Bad news is that the Licori have shown themselves to be dysfunctional as a society to the point where they can't be trusted as friends, as neighbors, or even with their own safety. I guess its good to see that the Federation government seems to be treating this with due seriousness, if nothing else.
Its very analogous to the Orion Syndicate's disabling of the Courageous. In both cases, we knew that (minor power) would do grave harm to us if it could, but we didn't take them seriously because we thought they lacked the ability. Once that ability has been demonstrated, we are forced to take them more seriously.
Unlike that Orion situation, however, the Lecarre are protected by the Treaty of Celos. If we had found out about this at any time prior to the signing of that treaty, I'd want to destroy some Lecarre outposts and ships as a deterrent against them trying this again. It's even possible that we could then pressure their leaders into negotiating a lasting peace. Unfortunately, the timing just completely fucked us over.
There's not much we can do about the Lecarre right now. We'll need to wait until either a) they try to do this again in violation of the Treaty of Celos, or b) we've weakened the Ashalla Pact to the point where we can act against the Lecarre without fear of Cardassian reprisals.
Let's not thought police.
