Talk:Dominion War/Archive 1

Wow!
This is a superb account of the Dominion war. As a regular Star Trek simmer, this has been bloody useful in trying to set up a new game!

I've converted it into a year-by-year timeline in present tense (and anglicised a few things). Is it okay to use it on my website, obviously with a rather large link to the original on Wikipedia? I don't know if it's at all useful to anyone else but I'm more than willing to post it up here too.
 * All of Wikipedia (save for a few images) is released under the GNU FDL. Putting a copy on your website should be fine provided you include the copy under the same lisence and provide a link back to the article on Wikipedia. You may also need to list the authors, but I think a link to the edit history will suffice. Copyrights may help answer any questions you have. -- General Wesc 19:08, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

I've removed a couple of sentences from the aftermath section, because they were based on speculation and from stories in non-canon novels. Please do not add information from non-canon sources and your own supposition. pomegranate 02:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Galaxy-class
I was just browsing through some Star Trek articles and decided to check this one out. Just one comment that I wanted to make is that it seems that there is two much of the galaxy-class in the pics. All three pics are one of the galaxy-class ships during the war. Maybe it could be evened out a bit. Chuck 17:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think it needs to be "evened out," as the reason for the numerous Galaxy Class ships is obvious. Each of the pics you refer to illustrates a key battle of the conflict with the Dominion. The pic of the Oddysey should stay because that battle could be viewed as the opening battle of the war, even though it happened some years before the "all out" war did.  The next pic is a scene from the Battle of Bajor, in which Galaxy Class ships played a very prominent part.  Indeed, there is onscreen evidence that a minimum of 8 to 12 Galaxy Class ships participated in that battle. The final pic shows a scene from the invasion of the Chin'Toka system, where again the Galaxy Class ships played a prominent part. The specific image has good visual impact because it demonstrates the power of the Cardassian weapons platforms.


 * Finally, you seem to have missed the fourth pic on the page. The very first image shows a scene from the Battle of Bajor. The ships most prominantly pictured are the Sitak and the Majestic, both Miranda Class ships, and both in the process of being destroyed.  I think the images on the page are fine as-is.  Toroca 09:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

original research
the section "Aftermath similarities with the Second World War" seems to me to be largely original research. --60.225.2.209 14:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It was my intention to delete the article... This section discussing similarities between the Dominion War and WWII is poorly written and completely unnecessary. It details events of the Dominion War that have already been covered in the preceding paragraphs of this article. This article need only be concerned with canon facts established from the series. --Adarredo 20:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA
This is a well-written and complete article, but I'm afraid that I had to fail it because it contravenes WP:WAF. Most of the article takes an in-universe perspective, describing the Dominion War as if it really happened. While this may be helpful for fanfic writers, this approach doesn't belong in Wikipedia. MLilburne 09:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree, how can you write such an extensive article without going 'in-universe'? 203.114.140.222 02:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What's wrong with an in-universe perspective? MLilburne 06:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think modifying this article to such an extent as you are proposing would severely diminish it; currently it is an excellent article documenting the events of the war as seen by the viewer. Surely thats what the article should be? (Unlike at Memory Alpha, when it should not be based on the viewers viewpoint, but actually in-universe). 203.114.140.222 04:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that it would mean major changes to the article, but if you have a problem with the policy, you might want to take it up on the policy page rather than here. MLilburne 08:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've started making changes to this article to remove the in-universe style. It's not so much major changes as minor shifts in the way the information is presented. I've only done "Background" so far. I'm also adding s to quotes and facts I encounter as I go along so we can start to tackle this article's references problem too. Dheppens (talk) 07:19, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

–Operation Return was a victory, not a defeat... DS9 was reclaimed, the invasion fleet from the Gamma Quadrant was eliminated, and the Bajoran wormhole remained closed to Dominion traffic. 68.33.88.35 23:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Sisko was created by the Prophets
It currently reads "They, for unrevealed reasons, adopted Sisko as their emissary to the Bajoran people". There was an episode later on that showed that they had created his mother, sent her to Earth to mate with his father, give birth, and then disappear. They wanted him to exist. Of course, they act surprise he does when they first meet him, strangely enough. Dream Focus 17:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the "unrevealed reasons" portion of that statement and decided that a description of the character's grand design wasn't necessary here. Dheppens (talk) 07:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

What are the Gorn doing there?
I see the Gorn Confederacy put in the list of the allies. I've seen all DS9 episode about the Dominion War, and there was never any mention of the Gorn taking any side in this conflict.

I am on a public computer forbidden to edit this out, can someone do it?


 * Agreed, the Gorn do not play a role in the Dominion War whatsoever. I don't think they were even mentioned, unlike the Tholians (who were mentioned as having a non-aggression pact with the Dominion in the Season 5 finale).--Werthead 12:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The Gorn article says the manual for the computer game Star Trek: Bridge Commander says the Gorn were allied with the Cardassians and the Dominion. Memory Alpha's article on the Gorn also cites the graphic novel The Gorn Crisis and the novel Articles of the Federation. I doubt any of these three things are considered canon, though. -- General Wesc (talk) 05:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Deus ex machina?
Amusingly, the resolution of Operation Return does not fit the definitition of deus ex machina as given in the linked article. The existence of the Prophets within the Bajoran wormhole, Sisko's importance to them as the Emissary and their extremely powerful abilities were well-established in many episodes prior to this one, from the pilot onwards. The definition given in the Wiki article is:

"an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (e.g. an angel suddenly appearing to solve problems)."

The Prophets were not introduced suddenly (they first appeared 130 episodes and more than five years prior to this one) and their acts in this episode had ramifications for later ones (i.e. it wasn't a get-out-of-jail free card). A viewer familiar with the series would also be reasonably expecting the Prophets to appear once the Defiant entered the wormhole (their home territory). Thus the term deus ex machina is used inappropriately, and I have removed it.--Werthead 12:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Dominion Control 02 (small).jpg
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Fair use rationale for Image:Dominion Control 02 (small).jpg
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Fair use rationale for Image:Battle of Chin'Toka.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge in Chin'toka here
Bolsters this article, and merges a stubby one. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Dheppens (talk) 07:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Merged. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

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Aftermath: Klingons joined the federation
I seem to recall in an enterprise episode where archer is taken to the future, that in some point in time the Klingons became part of the federation. Is there anything to support that this happened in the aftermath of the dominion war? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.143.79.252 (talk) 11:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't think there are any cannon sources for this, I don't think the Klingons would join the federation that quick, it would be a weird political act at the time --Erlend Aakre (talk) 20:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Far into the future maybe - time of the NCC-1701-J. Mid 2500s according to Memory Beta, which is 200 years after the dominion war. Also, since Archer beat the sphere builders pre-federation, that's an alternate future. -mattbuck (Talk) 00:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

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Resolved rationale problem. Dheppens (talk) 02:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

does anyone agree that the Bajoran occupation was the Cardassians Vietnam? Stuho1mez (talk) 02:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Son'a
I notice that the Son'a are noted on the list of allies for the Dominion, but isn't it noted in a conversation between Picard and Riker in Insurrection that "The Federation must be desperate for allies in the War against the Dominion" -- Or words to that effect? I think this scene takes place just before the Enterprise is informed of Data's "malfunction". I don't recall hearing or seeing any references about the Son'a in the series or opposing the Federation outside of ST: Insurrection. (139.168.198.131 (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Son'a here and at Son'a both provide more details of the Son'a involvement with the Dominion. John Darrow (talk) 05:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

A request to change "combatants" to "belligerents"
Although I've made several (minor) contributions to Wikipedia, I'm not sure how to change this, so if someone could I'd appreciate it. On the top right of the page, under the list of the forces that participated and for what side, I believe we should change "combatants" to "belligerents". Not only is that more correct from a technical standpoint, it is what the participating sides of a conflict are called in all the other pages (just look at the entry for "World War II" or "Korean War")To quote from the Wikipedia article on "Belligerent":

"A belligerent is an individual, group, country or other entity which acts in a hostile manner, such as engaging in combat. Unlike the colloquial use of belligerent to mean aggressive, its formal use does not necessarily imply that the belligerent country is an aggressor." Joe Giorandino (talk) 01:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Changed "combatants" to "belligerents" on the template for fictional military conflict. This now places the template's nomenclature in-line with the template for actual military conflict. Dheppens (talk) 02:06, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

retcon?
Says "The Wounded" retconned history to include conflict between the feds + allies and the Cardasians. As far as I am aware, there wasn't anything in trek history up until that point that would have precluded a short conflict with the Cardassians, which wouldn't be a retconn as I understand it, just filling in history that hadn't otherwise been specified. I also don't remember specific mention of allies in the conflict with the earlier conflict with the Cardassians, although I could just be not remembering it. --58.172.104.170 (talk) 13:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Good points all. I've made a few changes. Dheppens (talk) 04:26, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic account
Fantastic account of the Dominion war - I especially like the implications section. Great work!

-- Just adding that the account is superb. written as if it was real history lol. Plz note though that it should sound in-verse style i think but whatever. Awesome work whoever wrote it. Savre (talk) 10:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

One of the Jem’Hadar attack ships
"One of the Jem’Hadar attack ships made a kamikaze run for one of the Odyssey’s warp nacelles as the Odyssey was retreating, using its phased polaron beam to punch through her shields despite rotating shield harmonics." - doesnt it run into the deflector, and some piece hits the right nacelle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk_qs6BtdbY

This article was taken from
This article was taken from Everything2 with permission:
 * WolfDaddy says Are you a member there? If so, if you'd like to post it, you have my permission :-) I don't need ANOTHER database into which I will be sucked.
 * General Wesc says Cool, thanks. This will, of course, mean it's lisenced under the GNU FDL. (For what it's worth, anonymous edits are allowed.)
 * WolfDaddy says That's cool, I have no problems with it going under GNU. Have fun! :-)

This Star Trek-related article describes an aspect of Star Trek in a primarily in-universe style
I've done a lot of work to try and frame this important event in real world context. We still need to do a lot of work to clean up the rest of the article. There are lots of interesting real world observations and analysis to add. I've upgraded the article from Stub to Start. Dheppens (talk) 05:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've just done some clean-up of the Infobox, too much information was placed into the Result section. I believe this is indicative of the overall problem with this very long in-universe plot-focused article. We must edit down the plot such that long summaries are not placed where they shouldn’t be. If this article wasn't so long, no one would be tempted to overload the Infobox. I'm going to start cutting a lot of plot fat in this article, but I definitely could use some help. Dheppens (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Aftermath
The Aftermath section is very redundant, it needs to be rewritten by an expert. Lots42 (talk) 02:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Dheppens (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dheppens, I have begun to pare down the old 'Aftermath' section and restyle it as a discussion of the fan speculations about the Star Trek universe. Even so, maybe it will still prove redundant. What do you think? Ethdhelwen (talk) 20:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Complete Rewrite
This article is in serious need of a complete rewrite: the 'Depiction' section is in very poor shape. I'm going to start working on a new framework and help would be appreciated. Thanks. Dheppens (talk) 07:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Dheppens, I hope you don't mind but I have had a go at re-organising this article. I have opted to set it out more in relation to the narrative development of a TV show story-arc rather than a historical narrative, with sections split by Season, and with each season section having a brief introduction relating more to thematic or scriptwriting issues concerning the Dominion War arc. I haven't changed the actual narrative, as I didn't want to erase a vital plot point. Sorry if I haven't made a good job of it, I've never tried this before. Feel free to review and revise my edits if you think it won't be of use! Ethdhelwen (talk) 23:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Simply excellent. :) Dheppens (talk) 04:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

As this article is still cited as being overdetailed with plot points, I have made a tentative rewrite of the paragraph about Season Two, as a possible way to integrate some plot details into a discussion of the themes and production development, which is where Wikipedia would like the article to emphasise. Its going to be a very hard process anyway, as it is so easy to make statements that sound like original research, lacking quotes from the writers and producers themselves. In the process of course, we will likely lose some of those nice descriptive passages of 'virtual history'. Is there someone who wants to 'save' the narrative as is, or perhap publish it elsewhere, e.g. Memory Alpha, before it has to be condensed? What do people think?Ethdhelwen (talk) 14:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

So far, I have reorganised and rewritten the sections about Seasons Two, Six and Seven. The aim is eventually to get the warning citations removed for the article. I have made a save point before I began, so all the narrative is still locateable from the history page for Memory Alpha purposes! I've integrated the plot elements into paragraphs arranged by theme and related to specific episodes, with links to their individual pages and writing credits. Ethdhelwen (talk) 00:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I have restyled each of the Seasons 2-7, and removed the 'Impact on the star Trek universe' section. I am going to see whether we can get any citations removed now... Ethdhelwen (talk) 12:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Clash with Roddenberry's vision?
Why is this even mentioned? Roddenberry never said the Star Trek Universe was utopian, just that the Federation is. War with the Klingons occurred in shows and movies Roddenberry had a say in and he was around when horrible, cruel regimes like the Cardassian Union, the Romulan Star Empire and the Borg Collective were introduced. War crimes against civilians committed by the Klingons were hinted at during the original series. I really don't see how the Star Trek Universe suddenly became dystopian because of the Dominion War, aside from the Federation and a handful of other civilizations it always had been pretty dystopian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.93.101.238 (talk) 23:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC) You may have misinterpreted the reason for this section being included in this article, and misinterpreted what it infers about the opinion of Gene Roddenberry, according to the cited sources. This article discusses the development of a theme in the TV show, and as such, cited examples from authorities close to the decision-making for the Dominon War story line are valid entries, as they help to highlight the thought-processes that went towards its acceptance and inclusion in the tv programme, and put it into context. It is merely intended as a report of what the show's creators and policy-makers thought and considered. No moral or artistic judgement is implied, it is merely a summary of both sides of a then-topical debate. To address your first point on the utopian nature of the Federation, I think there is ample evidence from the quoted interviews with the scriptwriters in the article to show that they were intending to test some of the established tenets viewers had come to accept, and numerous episodes place Starfleet characters in moral dilemmas that differ in both their complexity and in their more ambiguous resolutions and consequences. Which is not to say that other Star Trek plotlines have never made attempts to tackle similar issues before or since, or that it is in conflict with Gene Roddenberry's vision, which was not what I wished to imply. —Preceding comment added by Ethdhelwen (talk • contribs) 23:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I have looked back at the Introduction to the article, and think this is rather where the problem lay. I have replaced the sentence that refered to a definite 'clash' with 'Roddenberry's utopian vision', to refer instead to this story-arc simply challenging some of the in-universe values of the characters. This puts the sub-section about the various views of Roddenberry and others in its intended context as a simple summary of viewpoints.Ethdhelwen (talk) 23:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Copy Editing
Hi, I have gone through the article now, especially the old 'Depiction' section, for copy editing and altered the tense to portray the events as a story narrative as opposed to historical account. I have removed the 'Copy Editing' notice, do you agree it has improved? Ethdhelwen (talk) 20:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Infobox
Hi again, I have tried replacing the 'fictional war' format of infobox witha version of the 'television' infobox from the DS9 page itself, as it refers to the production staff and related facts. Although it involves losing sadly an interesting summary of Star Trek facts, this may contribute towards the removal of the 'in-universe' tags on this article. Ethdhelwen (talk) 21:08, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Mattbuck, explain why you think the old Infobox should stay if we are to remove the in-universe tag. Originally this was written as a fictional history of events, much as would be very valuable on Memory Alpha. We need to make this article refer to a story in a television series and its production development, and alterations in this line would be very welcome. I am a big fan of DS9 myself, so I too want to avoid this article's deletion if possible. It is tagged because it originally strayed into 'fancruft'. This paragraph on the Fancruft wiki advice page explains it well: "One of the major aspects of fancruft articles is that they tend to focus entirely on their subject's fictional relevance, as opposed to their place in the real world. Articles on episodes of television series, or fictional characters in movies are more likely to be labeled fancruft if they are primarily summaries, biographies of made-up people, or collections of trivia that relate to the continuity of a series rather than its critical or social reception. In fact, an article should not be entirely composed of summaries or biographies of fictional characters. Articles can often avoid being labeled fancruft if they avoid focusing on their subjects as fiction. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) for more about how to achieve this." Ethdhelwen (talk) 10:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * OK. I feel that the infobox fictional conflict provides and summarises information in a useful manner - I suppose we could keep both. While I agree that we should describe the conflict primarily OOU, at some point we need to describe the plot, and this does it neatly in a coherent fashion, plus provides a nice set of sorted links to relevant articles. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Sources and Citations
I have begun to record and cite details for specific episodes where plot themes are developed, and also thought that I woudl add The Star Trek Deep Space Nine Companion (Pocket Books 2000) as a useful general reference. If anybody has a copy of this, the summary suggests it could have lots of useful production information and interview material relating to how the show creators developed the Dominion War storyline. Can anyone help with this?Ethdhelwen (talk) 13:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I have begun to add episode references to the imdb pages for each episode, and references to interview and script quotations in the footnotes. I have referenced the Deep Space Nine Companion book where Memory Alpha says information came originally from it, but at the moment I cannot check down to page numbers, until I get a copy myself. Hoepfully, soon, the last warning box for 'references' can come off this article! :) Ethdhelwen (talk) 14:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I've gotten hold of a copy of the Companion book, so I am adding page references where citations exist, and will search for new information to include too.Ethdhelwen (talk) 08:11, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Preserving Narrative at Memory Alpha?
As this article is still cited as being overdetailed with plot points, I have made a tentative rewrite (of my original rewrite :)) of the paragraph about Season Two, as a possible way to integrate some plot details into a discussion of the themes and production development, which is where Wikipedia would like the article to emphasise. Its going to be a very hard process anyway, as it is so easy to make statements that sound like original research, lacking quotes from the writers and producers themselves. In the process of course, we will likely lose some of those nice descriptive passages of 'virtual history'. Is there someone who wants to 'save' the narrative as is, or perhap publish it elsewhere, e.g. Memory Alpha, before it has to be condensed? What do people think?Ethdhelwen (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I have marked an edit point in the history of this article labeled "Marker for full version of 'virtual history' for use at Memory Alpha or similar". This is the version with the full text of the narrative of the plot of the Dominion War.Ethdhelwen (talk) 23:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

New GA Review Suggestions
Bradjamesbrown (talk) has kindly done a GA review for the article as it is at the moment, and has left us a set of further improvements we can work on. I have already had a look at a few of the smaller, easier things, e.g. copyrighted image, infobox, some variance in style of the earlier sections to my later Development sections. There are some larger ones that other people might have the knowledge to work on: "# Is it broad in its coverage?

A. You need more information about how the story-line was received, and not just how it was viewed by those already close to Star Trek as a franchise."

- does anyone know of some reliable television reviews or journals (but I presume NOT fan blogs)

"# Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary: This article needs more "real-world" sources. Too many other citations are quotes from DS9 episodes." - I will note that I added the DS9 script quotes simply as a confirmation that the summary of the plot points were not original research, but it would be nice to have more specific sources, e.g. quotes from the writers and producers themselves!

"# Is it reasonably well written?

A. Prose quality: In general, this article needs a through copy-edit.

B. MoS compliance: an independent copy-edit will also help bring it in line with the MoS." Ethdhelwen (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I am going to go through and do a general copy-edit myself now, to remove any 'however/allegedly" type statements I might have included that I can find. It would be great if someone else could also have a look to see what I might gloss over.Ethdhelwen (talk) 17:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I have added a section about 'Critical Reception' and begun to find some reviews of DS9 from newspaper critics that refer to themes of war in the show. It is a tough job, as I doubt there is very much analysis of DS9 to choose from outside of the fan base. I have so far trawled the NY Times, Washington Post, Variety, Guardian UK, and some more fan based places such as Trek Nation.Ethdhelwen (talk) 07:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I have redirected the episode citations to offical pages on Star Trek.com, so the episode summaries there will act as reference for description of the war narrative. I also found a webpage that has uploaded scripts, in order to reference certain quotes with specific relevance. So they won't be just transcribed quotes anymore! Ethdhelwen (talk) 13:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I found more real-world references from Australian Frontier magazine, the Internet Review of Science Fiction, and I went through the Ron Moore interview at IGN and specified which page backs up which statement. I've used the template sometimes so as to give as much detail as possible. They list editors and publishers so hopefully they are credible sources, as it seems they both may have ceased publication. All of the Frontier magazine is held by the Australian library service. This 'real-world' sourcing is tough! :) Ethdhelwen (talk) 18:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the Critical Reception section, I have added an 'Academic perspectives' section with several references. I have found several judgements they make about the psychology, tone and themes of the show, although I know that fan writers have in fact made much more detailed and nuanced ananlyses as well, but probably cannot use those! To highlight the flaws in the 'quote published academics only' rules, one of these writers, Michele Barrett, thinks that the Breen headgear is based upon Darth Vader from Star Wars. I have not included this pearl of dubious wisdom in the article! :)Ethdhelwen (talk) 07:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Request for C Class status
What do people think at the moment? Has this article started to reach C class yet? Would anyone from Wikiproject Star Trek have any suggestions? Ethdhelwen (talk) 18:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I would say it is B class. I am upping the rating. Good work improving the article. --Alpha Quadrant (talk) 23:33, 2 June 2010 (UTC)