It's definitely a border dispute where for the first two years, they didn't even know the Dominion existed, so the Bajorans thought it was free real estate and set up colonies. So, I'm inclined to think it's more like the Neutral Zone where it's all frontier that no one touches. If the Dominion cared about defense, they would have plugged their side of the Wormhole when they found out the Alpha Quadrant existed, so that pretense gets done away with when they finally invade.
I think it's an arguable point. And an interesting one. A large political and military force suddenly appears on your door step and begins surrounding your territory with colonies, setting up trade deals with your constituent states. Oh and said power is clearly expansionist. It also very aggressively uses trade and cultural colonisation and immigration as ways to assimilate its neighbours - the root beer of civilisations as Quark termed them. The Dominion aren't stupid - they understand how this all works. In the modern West we are all raised to believe that cultural, financial and immigration methods are acceptable methods of eliminating a people/culture and violence is an inappropriate way to oppose it. But there's no fundamental law that "oh, the way I am being destroyed is on the approved list, I better not do anything about it".
Playing Pa'Wraith's advocate here, attack sometimes really is the best form of defence. If the Dominion had simply blockaded their side of the wormhole, they'd have given the Federation as long as it wanted to get on a war footing, as long as it needed to, I don't know, invent a bioweapon that exterminated their species, decades to operate behind their lines and foment native rebel movements Maidan style. I imagine the Federation to act much like real world US foreign policy where they are the masters of the "I'm not touching you" game. Playing wholly defensively is a path to losing. The only question the Dominion have to ask is if the Federation will back off or if the Federation will keep pushing. And the Federation is an expansionist power, not to mention the Klingons and Romulans.
The Pah Wraiths are cartoonishly Satanic, but I will agree the Prophets aren't really Good guys. They view the Bajorans as pets and bumble about aimlessly by claiming non-linearity. Which can be disrupted when their final fight got interrupted by Kai Winn, proving they aren't omniscient. They also don't really care about Bajorans as individuals since they were perfectly willing to let Akorrem die until Sisko reminded them they can just send him back. It is kinda funny how they don't really fit into this show despite its overt Jewishniess. Season 1 clunkiness aside, the Prophets plots are the worst parts of the show because they often don't connect with other plots going on and finally used to nerf Dukat.
The thing is, the Pa Wraiths never actually do anything that evil that I can think of. They possess Keiko (little disernible personality difference, tbh) in order to strike back at those that imprisoned them and which presumably helps them regain their freedom. Dukat does evil things which he says is in their name but that's not actually them. And they have red eyes. About the worst I can think of is that one was willing to let DS9 be destroyed by holding their fight with the prophet there, but then so was the prophet. And Sisko was willing to let them do it!
There's very little I see of the Pa Wraiths that makes them anything other than us joining the story in the middle of a war and not knowing the reasons it began so not knowing who is a "goodie" or "baddie" in the ongoing conflict. Most of it seems to come down to 'this faction has blue light effects and that faction has red light effects'.
The one after Nog loses his leg is excellent; a wonderful meditation on personal struggle and coping/sneeding that can only be told with the sci-fi holodeck setting. Vic becomes a very interesting character there. Aron Eisenberg really shows what a great actor he could be. It is good sci-fi.
Yeah, that's kind of what I meant about them telling some good stories with it, but me still not liking it. They could do the same with some other character or a one-off holosuite program, and Nog's journey would be the same, imo. There was just a tonne of this "Vic" stuff and Lounge music is one of the very few forms of music I actively abhor. The actor is fine, I just really disliked this stuff and they kept filling up more and more screen time with it.
I have already bitched in this thread about the Ferengi cola (aka 'tranny Quark') episode which is basically a total time waster if you are wondering how the Ferengi are affected by the Dominion War. Spoiler: they aren't.
That episode was a lot more disturbing than I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be some knockabout farce with Quark running around in drag and such. But they made it weirdly realistic in places, esp. with the whole thing where Bashir does an
actual sex change on Quark.
I do still think the actress in that episode playing the Dabbo girl that Quark attempts to coerce into sleeping with him was great, even though it was a small part. The way she says "Ohhhh, you mean you want me to be... 'nice'" is great. I do wish Quark had ended up with someone by the last episode.
Anyway congratulations on watching a great show, but sorry you had to get sick to do it!
Thanks.
