I'm kinda surprised I didn't get more of a reaction for the
Stargazer's log - I thought that
ice dragons flying around the cloud-tops of gas giants as gene-modded apex predators breathing toxic fumes was pretty metal
Sorry. There was so much sheer coolness and joy from just
seeing a Captain's Log, plus we've been thinking astropolitics for so long, that we focused on the astropolitics.
A Gretarian push may be suboptimal at this time. Remember what happened when we tried to push Bajor while the Cardassians were distracted. I think we can win the Gretarians their freedom by appealing to the new Sydraxian government...
Glassware, the Cardies were
distracted when we pushed Bajor. By contrast, the Sydraxians are in the middle of a civil war. There's a difference. Furthermore, the Cardassian fleet was strong and remained strong in 2310 and 2311, allowing them to contemplate aggressive moves on Bajor. The Sydraxian fleet has lost an enormous fraction of its overall strength quite recently. Furthermore, we have huge, highly active fleets quite nearby, and once the assault on Gammon is done we might very well be able to spare, say, a thirty-point task force plus some more member world ships to go protect the Gretarians from what's left of the Sydraxian navy.
As one of the people who argued against the Bajor push at the time, I honestly think this is NOT the same situation. And I
have argued against pushing the Gretarians in the past when I
did think the situation was similar.
We wasted the opportunity of Ghosts and Whispers by waiting a full year before using it. We would be making an identical mistake again if we did not take advantage now.
I'm not entirely sure that we could have pushed Bajor very hard in 2310 without the same thing happening. Affiliate status would still have been 'obstructed,' and the Cardassians would still have been able to send a fleet. Even if there was enough political chaos in their ranks to delay or disrupt the operation, we certainly don't have any evidence that they'd have remained disorganized if only we'd done the same thing faster than we did it historically.
I know. I don't care. We follow the letter of the law, not the self-serving Cardassian interpretation of its spirit. Otherwise there's no point in us having signed it.
Problem: We don't
know the exact reading of the Treaty of Celos. We know only the summary Oneiros gave us, which almost certainly is not a full detailed representation of the 'letter of the law.'
We can't follow a law to the letter if we can't
read the letters.
I don't view them as very important. They're basically the equivalent of a few resource colonies that the Sydraxians have. It would be nice the Sydraxians didn't have those resource colonies, but it's not something I worry a lot about.
Breaking up that protection racket is very likely to help us break up the entire threat on our coreward flank,
@Briefvoice . It gives us a lot of information on the activities of the Yrillian pirates that have been working with pro-Cardassian/Sydraxian (Old Guard Sydraxian, that is) interests. It gives the Sydraxians more incentive to engage in peaceful trade and interaction with the outside galaxy. And it gives us a forward base from which we are well positioned to influence the power struggle within Sydraxian space in hopes of rendering the Sydraxians neutral instead of hostile.
What about 'when we may do so again', with 'so' referring to diplomatic talks, was not understandable?
Ah, I thought you meant 'the next time we have a chance to throw diplomats around
in general.'
If you're saying "send Honiani to talk to Bajorans after the Treaty of Celos is no longer an issue..."
Well, think about what would have to happen first. One, the Treaty of Celos will have to be abrogated, which would likely entail war between us and the Cardassian Union and its allies. Two, the Bajorans have to be an independent entity for 'send diplomats to Bajor' to actually mean anything. Which means we'll need to have
fought and won this war already, because you can be very sure that if the Cardassians win a war with us Bajor will be firmly enslaved, more and more so with each passing year.
By the time we can fight and defeat Cardassia, or by the time that the overall strategic picture changes enough to render the Treaty of Celos irrelevant for other reasons, any plans we make now will have changed unrecognizably.
