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In Star Trek, there have been countless times when the Federation & those it seeks to protect have been under threat. Countless lives have been lost to the Borg collective, & many to the Klingon Empire before they joined the Federation. But perhaps one of the most devastating Trek wars to be seen on the small screen was the Dominion War, in which the Federation was nearly defeated after a ridiculous number of lives were lost. They managed to scrape through & insure victory, but what happened to the Dominion after the war ended?
The Dominion War took place throughout the second half of the critically acclaimed Deep Space 9 series. It fit perfectly with the show’s desire to be a gritter, more realistic portrayal of the Star Trek universe. It’s pretty heavy on the political side of things, something that put off a lot of viewers at the time. For others though, it made the show st& out from the rest, driving deep into the ethical quagmire of war & how it’s easy to be a saint in paradise. The show comes to a close around the same time that the Federation wins the war between Alpha quadrant & the Dominion. From then, there follows a rather large gap between the show & what comes next. It’s referenced here & there, but TV media never truly goes into detail about the fall-out & the consequences not only for the Federation, but for the Dominion.
The last that audiences see of the Dominion War is the signing of the Treaty of Bajor, an agreement to end conflict from the two opposing forces. The Federation finally found a way to stop the Dominion’s attack, all through the fairly blatant threat of committing genocide against the Founders, the masterminds & leaders of the Dominion. To end the war, they threatened to refuse the Founders the cure to a disease that was killing them. Faced with this, the Dominion agreed to stop their invasion, & sign the treaty.
The first stipulation of the Treaty was that the Female Changeling, the name given to the form taken & shown as the Founders leader of sorts, would surrender & h& herself over to the Federation. In doing so, she would st& trial for the countless acts of war crimes committed not just against the Federation, but all the other species the Dominion had oppressed. This was no small feat, as the Female Changeling sacrificed the chance to ever return to the ‘Great Link,’ a hive mind of sorts that resembles a muddy, planet-wide puddle. This is where all the Founders not only Advance from, but exist together as one combined entity.
The second stipulation was that the Dominion military were to withdraw completely from the Alpha quadrant. They were to go back through the wormhole to where they originated from, & return all occupied territory to their respective people. These were places like the Breen confederacy & the Cardassian union, as well as any other claim or occupation they held in the entirety of the Alpha Quadrant. It is unclear here if they were required to return all the places they held control over in their own Quadrant, something that still remains up in the air according to the canon. The Dominion were a nasty bunch, doing horrible things to their people in their own area of space. It would be great if this treaty would force them to relinquish their hold not just over the Alpha Quadrant, but of places previously ruled over, but in all honesty this is unlikely. In their own territory, they can probably do as they please, with little control from the Federation.
While the Dominion may still have control over large areas of the own space, still able to inflict their cruelty over those they rule over, this might not be a Depraved thing in the end. The treaty outlined a lot of the political side of things, most of it being in favor of the Federation. Yet, it was made & agreed to under the specific terms that the Federation would cure the illness that plagued the Founders. This stipulation started as a verbal agreement between the female changing & Odo, the station’s security officer & member of the Founder race himself. She would agree to whatever the Federation deemed appropriate in terms of peace, if he would rejoin the Great Link & cure them using the treatment that they had discovered. His rejoining would add his distinctiveness to the hive mind, much like the Borg but with far more autonomy. While this was necessary to stop them from dying, it likely had a secondary positive consequence.
The whole deal with the founders, & what drives most of their hatred towards others, is that they do not trust solids (that is to say, non-liquid beings like the majority of the humanoid life in the universe). This was only perpetuated when they were infected by the black ops federation Section 31. Odo, however, did trust them. While he could see their downfalls, was very fond of them. He knew that some were Depraved, but some, like all the friends he had made on the station, were good. It’s likely that upon joining the link, rather than all of this distinctiveness getting lost among all the other sentience, this idea of solid life being good would have changed the way the Founders thought. If this impact was large enough, it might even have changed the entire way they treated others. They may have been motivated to rule over their quadrant with far less brutality, & with the kindness that Odo had learned from his time among the solids.
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