I've watched DS9 countless times since I was a kid and the Dominion War strikes me as one of the best arcs in Star Trek history. It gave the entire franchise a realistic tone, and though it wasn't uplifting or nearly as optimistic, it made the characters that much more relatable. I'm not a professional writer, I have written very little in the past so please tell me what I do and don't do well, or if this is worth continuing.
The First Dominion War bears many similarities the to the ancient Earth conflict known as the First World War. Like the first Earth World War, the First Dominion war brought a scale of conflict and slaughter previously unheard of in galactic civilization. It led to a peace more out of attrition and mutual exhaustion than any real resolution of conflict, and it only served as a springboard to a much more bloody and destructive conflict, the Second Dominion war. The female shapeshifter had agreed to surrender Dominion forces in the Alpha Quadrant solely because the Changeling named Odo had agreed to heal the entire Shapeshifter race, not because she actually had an interest in making peace with the Alpha Quadrant races. While the Founders appreciated that a solid had brought an end to the disease that had threatened their species, they were not blind to the fact that it had been solid's that created the disease in the first place. With Odo's return to the Great Link however, the Founders decided to bide their time, waiting for the Alpha Quadrant to disarm itself before they struck again.
The following 5 years was a tense time in the Alpha Quadrant; the Federation narrowly avoided a devastating attack by rogue Reman forces under the command of Shinzon, the Cardassians were an endangered species after the conclusion of the First Dominion War with a full 79 percent of the Cardassian population losing their lives, most of it to the slaughter that was ordered just prior to the surrender. The Klingons were severely depleted, having lost 17 percent of their total population and 57 percent of their military. The Romulans became embroiled in a brief Romulan-Reman Civil War which ended after 6 months with the complete orbital bombardment of Remus. The Federation remained the only stable power in the quadrant, but one that was war weary and had come within a hairsbreadth of defeat.
The only bright spot during this time was the return of the Intrepid class USS Voyager, which had spent 7 years in the Delta Quadrant. While it's return was a huge morale boost to the rank and file in Starfleet as well as the civilian population, Starfleet Command was more interested in the technology that Captain Janeway had brought back, as well as the fact that the Borg had been severely weakened. The advanced technology brought by Voyager leapfrogged Starfleet tactical systems by decades, and the fact that the Borg were crippled for a time meant that Starfleet could concentrate on rebuilding its fleet. Though adapting the armor and weapons meant violating the Temporal Prime Directive, the Federation Council along with Starfleet Command determined that in the face of so many existential threats, the Temporal Prime Directive would be temporarily rescinded in the interests of Federation security.
While many in the civilian population of the Federation believed that with the Dominion contained behind the wormhole, the Borg crippled, and the other major Alpha Quadrant factions exhausted by war, the Federation would be able to return to its roots as an exploratory force, most within Starfleet felt very different. Starfleet had lost 30 percent of its pre-war strength of 16000 ships of all classes, and between ground forces, Marines, and Starfleet crew over 9 billion had lost their lives. This figure doesn't even include civilian dead, where figures are as high as 20 billion. There was not a soul within Starfleet that had not lost multiple close friends, and to a man they were determined to never be caught unready for war again.
The lessons learned during the First Dominion War were put to good use prior to the run up to the Second Dominion War. Starfleet Tactical analyzed every fleet action from its Galaxy Class wings to the attack runs of its fighters, and everything in between. Every permutation of every decision was war gamed endlessly in an effort to make Starfleet a more effective fighting force in the future.
There were hundreds of changes made to doctrine, training, and shipbuilding, among other things, but there were ultimately three main changes to the fleet as a result of this after-action review.
First the bulk of Starfleet, while adequate in a wartime role, was not a very effective fighting force. The majority of ships were meant to be long duration exploration ships, so tactical systems were a distant second after sensors, warp drive, and crew amenities. There was no better example of this than the vaunted Galaxy class starship. The size and luxury of these giant cruisers was unparalleled, but for their size they were woefully under armed. During their first encounter with the Dominion the USS Galaxy was attacked by a wing of 3 Jem Hadar attack ships, and failed to destroy a single one before being rammed by a kamikaze fighter. To contrast this was the Defiant class; it had been Starfleet's only true warship at the outbreak of the First Dominion War, and the class could routinely outfly and outfight several Jem Hadar attack ships at once. Starfleet would have to go back to the drawing board on its entire fleet to make sure it could go toe to toe with enemies in the future and come out on top.
Second: The crews themselves were woefully untrained for combat situations, particularly in ground combat or in boarding actions. Starfleet Security officers had no training in tactical movement, squad tactics, suppressive fire, or any one of the countless military strategies that every military in history had taken for granted. Many officers and crew lost their lives at the hands of Dominion troops because they didn't have the tactical training which is now mandatory for every recruit.
Lastly was that should a full-scale war ever break out again, the entire Federation would have to go on a full war footing. During the First Dominion War Starfleet shipyards had not been retooled for war production until almost mid-way through the conflict, and there had never been a large-scale recruitment drive, so in the event of another major conflict, Starfleet would have to consider conscription. It had been determined by Starfleet Tactical that had the war drug on much longer, the entire fleet would have steadily lost efficiency due to inability to replace its losses in personnel.
Starfleet Tactical decided to tackle these conclusions in order. The entire fleet was restructured. While the larger Galaxy and Sovereign class vessels could be effective in combat, it was determined that they were inefficient in that role. The amount of resources required in the construction of one of these massive vessels was enough to build a dozen Defiant class ships, six Akira class ships, or three Prometheus class ships. They were relegated to a secondary role within the fleet as either armored troop transports or planetary assault vessels, able to carry and deploy a brigade of the newly created Starfleet Marine Corps.
Emphasis was given to several battle tested designs such as the Defiant, Intrepid, Steamrunner, Akira, and Prometheus classes, to name a few. Starfleet began filling its ranks with masses of these proven warships. The technology brought by Captain Janeway was invaluable, the transphasic torpedoes, while tailored for use against the Borg, still allowed a large increase in the range and yield of torpedoes, while the armor enhancements gave Starfleet vessels previously unheard-of levels of survivability. There were also new additions such as the Sisko class destroyer, which was a medium sized warship armed with multiple phaser banks and photon torpedoes. There was also the Ticonderoga class escort, which was armed with multiple banks of high powered phasers to deal with Jem Hadar attack ships, it was also armed with point defense phasers designed to shield larger ships from torpedo attacks. Humans made up the majority of Starfleet, and ancient Earth navies had by far been the most advanced race in the area of naval warfare, so many of the new tactics and doctrines were developed from their history books.
Perhaps the most important one was the introduction of the Leyton Class fleet Carrier. Named for the hero Admiral Leyton who had died leading the Federation right flank in the Battle of Cardassia, the Leyton Class encompassed the entirely new approach that Starfleet was taking. The Leyton class was lightly armed, it only sported half a dozen phaser banks as well as point defense phasers, but it's power came from the 150 Venture class fighters that she carried within her hanger bays.
Small single man fighters had long been ignored by the major powers, even being referred to by one Starfleet captain as, "lightly armed shuttlecraft." However, as part of the after-action analysis it was determined that the makeshift Federation Peregrin Class fighter, was able to consistently punch above its weight, with swarms of them able to overwhelm even the largest Dominion ship. They were also far more cost effective than larger ships, as the loss of several fighters was insignificant, while the loss of even an obsolete Miranda class vessel within the fleet was felt.
The entire fleet structure was overhauled, with the Leyton Class carriers becoming the centerpiece, with all other fleet units in a support and escort role. Prometheus, Intrepid, Sisko, and Akira class vessels became the standard escorts, and Defiant class vessels, modified due to an amendment in the Treaty of Algeron, became outfitted with the Trans-Phasic cloaking device that had been developed jointly by Section 31 and Starfleet Intelligence. This became the closest held secret of the war, and it was not until a decade after the conflict ended that the Trans-Phasic cloak became public knowledge.
The fleets closely resembled the United States Navy of the 20th and 21st Century, with the Leyton Class being the main striking force, the other classes functioning as escorts, and the cloaked Defiants acting as the submarines. They were undetectable, able to strike where least expected, and re-cloak before the enemy knew what hit them. The Defiant class captains had classified orders that also were not made public until a decade after the war, under no circumstances were Defiant class vessels or their crews be captured. The cloak was Starfleet's best kept secret, and Starfleet Command was determined to keep it that way at any cost. In case of imminent capture by Dominion forces, they were to self-destruct. Failure to comply with this would result in a charge of treason against the Federation, and it was the one exception to the two man rule for self-destruct activation aboard Federation starships. The Defiant classes were also modified with several redundant destruct systems to ensure that if the crew was incapacitated, the cloaking technology would still be reduced to nothing more than free floating atoms. The Defiant class contribution to the war cannot be understated, but the crews paid heavily for this, with a casualty rate of over 45 percent, by far the highest of the 2nd Dominion War.
With the fleet reforms in place, Starfleet moved on to the second conclusion, training and doctrine. Starfleet tactics during the First Dominion War had been woefully simple; direct frontal assaults, rudimentary flanking maneuvers, and the like. Starfleet had never placed an emphasis on coordinating large numbers of ships in formations, and the crews paid this price in blood. The same thing occurred with ground combat; Starfleet had no real ground forces, and Starfleet officers and enlisted personnel were thrust into this role against soldiers who hadn't just trained, but whose very existence revolved around warfare, and again they paid a price in blood for this.
All Starfleet personnel were given training in repelling boarders, and each ship had at minimum a company of the newly created Starfleet Marine Corps. They drew on the traditions of many military services, the British Royal Marines, United States Marine Corps, Andorian Imperial Guard, and above all the Military Assault Command, or MACO's, of the United Earth Government. Armed with rapid fire pulsed phasers, personal force fields, photon grenades, and a variety of other close quarters weapons, the Starfleet Marine Corps became experts in defending their own ships from boarding actions as well as transporting aboard enemy ships to subdue their crews. In fleet movement and coordination Starfleet also improved, adopting more advanced tactics, mass deception, envelopment, just to name a few. Simulations showed over a threefold increase in effectiveness due to the new fleet doctrine and training.
A standing army also became a reality during this time. Marines were excellent for forcing a landing on a hostile planet, but they didn't have the numbers or the doctrine to forcibly take a planet from a hostile force. The Starfleet Planetary Assault Command (SPAC) was created, and in reality it was a conventional army. Technologies that had been long forgotten or limited to history books were suddenly being researched in labs and tested in holodecks. Armored personnel carriers, tanks, indirect fire weapons, heavy support weapons, all of the materiel of war that ancient military forces knew intimately were rediscovered and brought into the 24th century. 10 years is a long time, and SPAC turned itself into a solid and reliable force, however 10 years is not enough time to completely rediscover martial skills that had been gone for centuries, and it was only when SPAC engaged the Jem Hadar that they learned the brutal reality of ground combat and relearned all of the painful lessons that had been learned over millennia of earlier conflict.
Perhaps the most significant change was the realization by the worlds that made up the Federation was that paradise needed to be put on pause. After the joy of the victory in the First Dominion War wore off, Starfleet made no secret about just how close they had come to defeat. This was a metaphorical cold bucket of water on the citizens of the Federation, and it was realized that with the expanding threats that the Federation was facing, she could no longer afford to be the "sleeping giant." While Starfleet service was not mandatory, there were vast recruitment drives to not only increase the active fleet, but to ensure that there was a large reserve of trained personnel in reserve should they be needed. Within two years of the end of the first Dominion War, Starfleet had actually exceeded its prewar strength in manpower.
The industrial might of the Federation was also re-evaluated. For centuries, technological advancements and resources had been used primarily to increase the quality of life for Federation citizens. The holodeck, the transporter, replicators; all of these were pieces of technology that were invaluable as military assets, but had been squandered by a civilization that hadn't seen real conflict in centuries. This approach was rethought, shipyards and drydocks were expanded to pump out the ships of the new Starfleet. Replicators were limited to industrial use, food was grown the old-fashioned way, by growing it, and holodecks were repurposed for tactical drills.
Before the First Dominion War there had been much disdain within Starfleet and the Federation for having a military force, and even with these reforms being widely accepted, there was some pushback. Some felt that by becoming a military force Starfleet was betraying its mandate to "seek out new life, and new civilizations." Even the most fervent supporter of these reforms couldn't deny that Starfleet was becoming primarily a military force, but one look at the casualty rolls of the first Dominion War was enough to win over most critics. Starfleet could return to its exploratory roots, but there had to be an intact Federation for that to occur, and an intact Federation meant a militarized Starfleet.
The Dominion
To this day there is very little known about Dominion preparations for the Second Dominion War, most information is more conjecture than hard fact, as there are no prisoners to elaborate. What is known however is that very little changed in the Dominion military between the First and Second Dominion War. Weapons and shields improved marginally, as did tactics, but there was no large-scale restructuring or analysis like there was within Starfleet. As to why there are only guesses. The most widely accepted idea is that the Founders belief in their superiority, that they had only lost the First Dominion War because they had been cut off from their main sources of troops and supplies in the Gamma Quadrant. The bulk of the Dominion Gamma Quadrant fleet had never seen combat or been defeated.
The Founders also grossly miscalculated the Federation's will to fight. It had been believed consistently during the First Dominion War that the Federation would seek peace at the earliest possibility, or would not invade, or any number of other miscalculations that ultimately led to the Dominion defeat. Likewise, they also miscalculated about just how much Starfleet would evolve as a result of the lessons learned during the First Dominion War. The end result was that other than a marginal advance in technology, the new Starfleet was facing the same Dominion military it had faced off against in the previous war, just in far greater numbers.
The Allies
The other two major Alpha Quadrant powers, the Klingons and the Romulans, also underwent their own shifts after the first Dominion War. They were not nearly to the extent of the change in the Federation, as these powers already fielded standing armies and navies, but they were updated. The Klingon's during the first war had been swimming in manpower, Klingon culture demanded that in a time of war all true Klingon's were to answer the call of the warrior. The problem was this left the Klingon logistics in chaos. There is an old Earth adage, "amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics." This was particularly true when talking about feeding, fueling, and equipping fleets of thousands and armies of tens of millions over hundreds of light years.
Because of the Klingon desire for battle, Klingon shipbuilding actually decreased as the First Dominion War went on, and Klingon troops constantly found themselves underfed, under armed, and under fueled, resulting in many needless casualties. The change that needed to be done was an obvious one, but it was a bitter pill for many Klingon's to swallow. Service in any capacity was honorable, and it was demanded that personal triumph take a back seat to the triumph of the Empire. These reforms had mixed results, after action analysis of the Second Dominion War showed that Klingon troops were still undersupplied, but not nearly to the extent that they had been during the First Dominion War.
The Romulan's also restructured their fleet, the pre-war Romulan fleet had never been a front-line battle force, it was not the Romulan way. Instead it had relied upon intelligence gathering, political subterfuge, sabotage, logistical warfare, and hit and run tactics. This form of warfare was not that effective against the Dominion as they could easily make good on losses that would have left other powers staggering, and as the first war progressed and Dominion territory shrunk, those tactics became harder to carry out. Unlike the Federation, the Romulan's never had any experience with fighters and instead went for the "big gun" navy.
Despite denouncing him as a renegade, the human clone and Reman Praetor Shinzon had constructed a truly remarkable battleship in the Scimitar class, and it had only been a tactical error born out of arrogance that had caused his defeat at the hands of the USS Enterprise and two Romulan Warbirds. This design became the basis for the new Romulan Fleet, small numbers of well-armed and armored warships designed to smash through enemy fleets with precise firepower rather than numbers. This tactic, though a total departure from pre-war strategy, made sense given the limits of Romulan manpower and industry after the bombardment of Remus in the Romulan-Reman Civil War.
This conflict, while brief, resulted in the complete orbital bombardment of Remus, and the near extinction of the Reman people. When the Reman plot against the Federation, as well as the Reman murder of the entire Romulan Senate, became public knowledge, the Romulans immediately declared a state of martial law on Remus. The Reman's did not respond well to this and immediately responded with an attack on the Romulan fleet.
Caught off guard the Romulans were pushed away from Remus, and a bloody war of attrition began, The Romulan Empire has never made its casualties known, but estimates range widely from between two and eight percent of the entire Romulan population. The Remans on the other hand, were nearly wiped out as a species, and their entire planet reduced to ash. This loss not only of personnel but of the Reman people and their industrial capabilities severely handicapped the Romulan Empire, and further reinforced their reliance on creating highly lethal and survivable ships, at the expense of maneuverability, range, and speed.
The cause of the Second Dominion War also remains a mystery to this day. Unlike the First War, with the period of Cold War, then border skirmishes, then open warfare, there was no run up to the war. One day the citizens of the Alpha Quadrant woke up to peace, the next day they woke up to full scale war. The only entry point into the Alpha Quadrant was still the Bajoran wormhole, and Starfleet had heavily fortified it. In addition to Deep Space 9, two additional starbases had been constructed, there were dozens of stationary phaser platforms and torpedo launchers, and there was the Federal 6th Fleet guarding it.
The 6th fleet was no reserve fleet either, every man and woman of every species serving in the 6th fleet was aware of the responsibility they had, they were the gatekeepers to the Alpha Quadrant, and it was a job they took seriously. Composed of 14 different task forces with a total of 497 ships, the 6th fleet was arguably the best trained and best equipped in Starfleet. While many criticize their inability to stop the Jem Hadar attack at the wormhole, no one expected an attack. As previously stated there was no build up of tension, no diplomatic maneuvering, no Changeling infiltration. The first message sent by Rear Admiral Kira Nerys to her forces as well as the fleetwide broadcast will forever echo in Federation history, the moment that the Federation faced its darkest hour.
**Authentication Romeo Alpha Seven Four Seven Nine Zulu **
**PRIORITY ONE MESSAGE**
From: Admiral Kira Nerys Commander in Chief Starfleet 6th Fleet
To: Starfleet 6th Fleet
To: Starfleet Command
**ALERT** Large Dominion force detected emerging from wormhole. **BREAK** Dominion Fleet strength 4792 vessels. **BREAK** Dominion force on intercept course for the Wormhole defense perimeter. **BREAK** All 6th fleet elements to rendezvous at rally point Sierra immediately and prepare for counterattack. **THIS IS NO DRILL** **MESSAGE ENDS**
Starfleet Command acknowledged this message before the first wave of Jem Hadar fighters even got within weapons range and immediately put the entire Federation on a war footing.
**Authentication Sierra Lima Bravo Six Zero One Five Hotel**
**PRIORITY ONE MESSAGE**
From: Starfleet Command
Attention all Starfleet units, large Dominion attack underway in Bajoran sector **BREAK** First wave of enemy ships verified as 4792 vessels. **BREAK** All Starfleet units to execute War Option Bravo. Repeat execute War Option Bravo, use of all weapons and tactics authorized. **BREAK** All Starfleet units to execute unrestricted warfare on any Dominion contacts. **BREAK** Further orders will follow. **MESSAGE ENDS**.
The stage was set for the most destructive conflict in recorded galactic history, one that made the First Dominion War look like a brief skirmish. The Second Dominion War had begun.