#i think the pagh wraiths could have been developed a little more as villains

[tanadrin]

Rewatching some DS9, and like: how stupid are the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar, that they try to launch a surprise attack on the Founders’ homeworld? The Dominion knew of the existence of the major Alpha Quadrant powers years before any of them knew the Founders existed or were shapeshifters, so any reasonable intelligence agency--especially ones with a reputation for guile and paranoia--should have assumed they were massively compromised by shapeshifting Dominion agents the instant the Federation shared their intel with them. Either Enabran Tain & co are too stupid to live, or massively compromised by their egos (or both).

Now, it’s hinted later in the series that the Founders are limited by their numbers, and also don’t like the personal risk involved, and so replacing literally the entire leadership of a big power like the Federation would probably have been impractical. Also, I like to think that the alternate reality simulation they run when they first capture the crew of the Defiant is, in part, gaming out that kind of scenario, because they have to know that even the most foolish Federation admiral is not going to give a hostile power a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant for no reason. So the goal of that simulation was to figure out what the rest of Starfleet would do (and the answer was: close the wormhole for good, which meant an invasion at that time was a bad idea).

But Starfleet ranks only just above the Romulans and Cardassians for not closing the wormhole sooner. Like, sure, it would have made the Bajorans unhappy, but the Prophets would have been fine, and it’s really hard to justify the existential risk to the entire UFP to keep the wormhole open in return for Starfleet facilitating its core mission of exploration and diplomacy in the Gamma quadrant. It’s especially grim considering the only reason the UFP wins the Dominion war is because Cardassia is unable to get more Dominion reinforcements even after the minefield is cleared--at full strength the war would have been an easy win for the Dominion, and, you got lucky that you were able to convince the powerful wormhole aliens to guard a key chokepoint for you, but if you hadn’t, man, Sisko would have looked like such an asshole while the Jem’Hadar were busy glassing Earth for not doing what he should have done in like Season 3.