"The War That Wasn't" - Fluff BG for "Anatomy

[Steve]

It has long been known that the Tsen'kethi attack had likely been in the works since tthe Winter War, and likely during it. The Tsen'kethi had cleverly hidden their preparations, instead sending their elite forces toward their border with the Federation for what looked to be the standard saber-rattling over a few disputed systems.
During the first hours of the invasion the Cardassians were still uncertain as to how extensive the attack was. Some beleived it might just be a minor raid. Some of Puvek's supporters undoubtedly wondered if the military was exaggerating the attack as a precursor to retaking power.
Within 48 hours, virtually the entire border was overrun. The Tsen'kethi fleet was moving into Cardassian space, with it's largest concentration targeting Cardassia Prime itself. Fifty hours into the invasion, the flanking force of this fleet fought the Cardassians' Tsen'kethi Frontier Fleet in the Kortaxis System. The Cardassians managed a tactical victory, but it was strategically indecisive with a successful Tsen'kethi withdrawal. Two days later the Tsen'kethi Frontier Fleet was defeated at Odomethal by the main Tsen'kethi force and forced to flee, losing half of it's number.
The Tsen'kethi finally stopped on the 18th of their own accord so that they could move up supplies. In the worlds they occupied, Tsen'kethi counter-insurgency forces engaged in vicious campaigns of suppression that, by the end of this short war, would leave one and a half million Cardassians dead. The Cardassian insurgencies never died out, however, and would eliminate or reduce several key industrial resources that the Tsen'kethi had been counting on to aid their efforts.
In Cardassia, panic grew after the loss at Odomethal. The people were already demoralized by their string of defeats against the Alliance. Even worse, the government had been particularly unprepared for a new war. Construction ordered during the Winter War had been halted by Puvek, and many military warships were instead ordered completed half-finished, with an emphasis on using them as transports and cargo carriers. As a result, the Cardassian fleet had only recovered to having about four to five thousand combat worthy vessels, almost all of which were busy on other borders and frontiers maintaining order.
Puvek was forced to temporarily end his consumer good production - military production was restarted on an emergency basis on the 11th, as it was clear that the Tsen'kethi invasion was not a raid. Peace feelers were also immediately sent out - Puvek was willing to decide border disputes in Tsen'kethi favor in exchange for peace, in which he could continue his plans. He seemed to have little understanding that the people were blaming his "softness" for the war and word of his peace feelers would be used to foment popular uprisings against him in the future.
There was another future problem brewing in Pelikar, which declared independence right after the Tsen'kethi attacked. The Sector Governor on Pelikar was Gul Yulain Horvon; Horvon was an ambitious man who's abilities were not up to his ambitions. He still managed sufficient contacts in Pelikar, where he made a decent fortune off of underground dealings with various cartels and merchant groups, including the feared Orion Syndicate. Shortly after the end of the war the Foreign Ministry placed Horvon on a list of government officials of the Alpha Quadrant suspected of aiding in the underground slave trade - it was believed he was actually working as a front for the Cardassian government to buy slaves for use in military experiments or Gul Madred's Village system, though he also may have aided in the movement of slaves through his area toward other markets on Ferenginar and in independence space. As a result of this link, the Alliance refused to grant Horvon recognition when he asked for it. No Alliance politican would risk being associated with a man linked to the Alpha Quadrant slave trade.
Horvon had one last chance. He turned to Hanse Davion. Commonwealth agents had already made minor contacts with him - today it's believed that Prince Hanse encouraged him to break with the Cardassian Union in the first place. Hanse's reply was that he would not grant recognition, but that he would formally annex Pelikar and the worlds under Horvon's authority. Such an annexation would not be a violation of the armistice with Cardassia so long as Hanse didn't annex worlds that he already occupied, but with Pelikar he would have a stronger claim to Dervak and the other worlds for the peace negotiations. In exchange for agreeing to be annexed into the Federated Commonwealth, Horvon was to be made the Commonwealth's first non-human aristocrat as ruler of what would be called the Cardassian March. Horvon found that acceptable. On the 19th of March, he secretly signed the articles of annexation. In a secret order co-signed by his wife after the articles were signed, Hanse declared the formation of the Cardassian March and named Horvon Duke of Pelikar and ruler of the Cardassian March. Forces of the AFFC currently on occupation duty were ordered to Pelikar and Horvon's other worlds, and an additional four divisions worth of troops were ordered in. He told Sir Alex Mallory that "the Capellans gave me Ridzik, now Cardassia has given me Horvon".
Hanse Davion announced the order to the Commonwealth Estates General two days later, sparking praise and protest. The Estates General ended up supporting the move by a slim margin and, on the 30th of March, Horvon was formally ennobled by the Commonwealth - his militia forces were inducted into the AFFC as the Cardassian March Militia. To further celebrate the incorporation of the first non-Human citizens of his Commonwealth, Hanse signed an order establishing the Cardassian Guards and allowed Horvon's top officers and troops to begin making up the unit with AFFC training officers.
By that time the Alliance had issued a formal protest. Hanse was given the evidence of Horvon's links to the slave trade. His reaction to it was that Horvon, now a citizen and noble of the Commonwealth, would cease those activities. Privately he ordered the Intelligence Secretariat to make sure Horvon's links were severed and to, if necessary, arrange an assassination that could be pinned on Cardassia or Horvon's criminal associates. When evidence came out a year later that Horvon was still operating with the Orion Syndicate, the Intelligence Secretariat acted - Horvon would be killed in a "tragic" transporter accident on 18 July 2155, succeeded by a nineteen year-old son attending NAIS.
By 27 March the Tsen'kethi were ready to resume their offensive. They struck out again, one advance seeking to cut the Cardassian Union in half while the other continued to advance on Cardassia. Their first setback was to be on the splitting offensive - at the systems of Olarta and Keve'el Reth on the 2nd and 4th of April, the Cardassians fought ferocious space and land battles that ended in phyrric Tsen'kethi victories, forcing that advance to halt.
This left the Tsen'kethi offensive aimed at the heart of Cardassia, including most of her surviving industrial base and shipbuilding capacity. The Cardassian Home Fleet was now back to full strength. The Cardassians had also managed to partially reconstitute their 1st Fleet, shattered in the Winter War by the Alliance's opening carrier strikes and at the Battles of Second Darane and Shervarak, giving them a fleet of 800 combat vessels against a Tsen'kethi attack of about 1,700 ships. Puvek gave orders to do anything necessary to slow the Tsen'kethi advance, up to and including the authorization of suicide attack craft to be piloted by terminally ill Cardassians and other volunteers (mostly orphans or those who lost their entire families in the Alliance's nuclear strikes). Normal citizens were inducted into the militias and being prepared to fight "the greatest guerrila campaign this Quadrant has ever seen".
The defense of Cardassia ultimately rested in the hands of Gul Skrain Dukat. For Dukat, this was his chance for redemption after being forced out of his position as Prefect of Bajor following the Central Command's decision to stay there. He had learned vital lessons from the war with the Alliance - as early as the day after the Alliance's final offensive launched, he was having plans drawn up to re-organize the Cardassian fleet into "Strike Groups". Fleets would cease to be tactical units - they would be command-level units only, divided into the Strike Groups (Dukat had them officially called "wings" for simplicity) in a fashion similar to the Alliance Stellar Navy's Task Force organization. Dukat placed the best squadron commanders he had in command of the Strike Groups and prepared to fight the Tsen'kethi in a war of attrition and maneuver, apparently inspired by the Pan-Human effort against the Agresskan in the opening days of the Agresskan War.
The Tsen'kethi fleet was big, but it was unwieldly. Tsen'kethi nobility commanded it and their organization was not flexible - above normal ships were only "prides" and "groups" that went up to division and squadron level. Higher than that were only admirals themselves, who commanded fleets on a totally ad hoc basis without any kind of further division structure. Dukat used this inflexibility against the Tsne'kethi. In the Battles of Korvel, Teravak II, and Yukarak on the 1st, 8th, and 11th, Dukat's smaller fleet managed to inflict substantial damage through the superior tactical flexibility before withdrawing. There were mistakes made - what was known of the battles were used as case studies in a number of naval academies elsewhere to show the problems of using inexperienced forces to fight complex divisional battles - but Cardassian tenacity and the strange combination of ambitious initiative and stern obedience encouraged in Cardassian officers paid off. Perhaps moreso, those officers who performed best were younger officers, not from important families, who had risen mostly by their own merits. Dukat called them his "New People"; they were the future of Cardassia.
The Tsen'kethi fleet had been whittled down by Dukat's prior attacks. High Admiral Ikutho Lynkis, the Tsen'kethi commander, was growing impatient with Cardassia's tactics. He desired to have one massive fleet battle to end the war once and for all. At Mekelos, Dukat finally gave Lynkos the large-scale fight he wnted, but not in the fashion of it. Dukat learned the lessons of the Winter War well, attacking the Tsen'kethi fleet with a very wide formation that made it harder for the Tsen'kethi to concentrate their fire. Attacking in this fashion, the Cardassian ships - supported by what fighters and gunboats could be brought together - torpedoed the Tsen'kethi fleet mercilessly. After hours of pounding by the more maneuverable Cardassian fleet, Lynkos ordered a retreat.
The retreat turned into a rout. Dukat had prepared for individual Strike Groups from other forces to attack the Tsen'kethi fleet's supply bases and communication facilities during and immediately after the battle. It was a desperate campaign that in some cases had to make use of suicide craft, but it had the desired effect. The Tsen'kethi fleet, low on fuel and torpedoes, was prevented from regrouping. It fell back, and back, and back until it finally was delayed at the Pevethos System on the 24th, where a frantic resistance by the remains of the Cardassian Tsen'kethi Frontier Fleet delayed the Tsen'kethi fleet long enough for Dukat's forces to arrive in strenght. The Tsen'kethi fleet was utterly annihilated. Out of the 1,700 ships advancing on Cardassia, only 435 escaped back over the border. Admiral Lynkos killed himself rather than face his Autarch.
The defeat prompted a change of power on Tsen'ketha. The advisors who had counseled the attack on Cardassia were expelled or committed suicide. With so much of the Tsen'kethi fleet lost (mostly intact but in Cardassian hands), there was no longer any chance of military victory. On 30 April, the Tsen'kethi asked for peace and agreed to give up most of their claims against Cardassia.
By the time the peace offer came, Loralo Puvek was out of power. Immediately after his victories at Mekelos and Pevethos, Dukat personally returned to Cardassia. He was greeted as a hero by the people and paraded into the Imperial Plaza. There, to Puvek's surprise, Dukat denounced him as a fool to cheering crowds. Declaring that Puvek's stupidity "was now treason" and that Puvek had willingly signed over Cardassian territory to the "killers of our children", Dukat called on the Detepa Council to remove him and appoint new leadership, otherwise he would have no choice but to declare them traitors as well. The Council saw that the momentum had shifted against Puvek and did so. Puvek, having no choice, fled into exile in the Federation with his closest supporters and family. The Cardassian government was again in military hands.
The Detepa Council reconstituted the Political Advisory Board and offered it's leadership position to Gul Keve, who assumed the title of Legate. He in turn promoted a number of other senior Cardassian officials to Legate, stating that no one man should have that power. All of his appointees were seniors in the Central Command (Dukat was offered the promotion and refused, accepting instead the prestigious post of Commanding Officer of the 2nd Order).
After dismantling Puvek's "Seven Year Plan" and restoring favored oligarchs (though not all, as those who Keve did not like were not restored, their factories remaining in the communal ownership of the people who worked in them with the State), Keve's first order of business were the peace negotiations, both with the Alliance and with the Tsen'kethi. His decisions in this event would guarantee a war sometime in the future, a war that the Dominion would later instigate.

[Zed Snardbody]

I almost enjoy this more than the actual story.

[Steve]

The Moscow Summit, originally scheduled before the breakout of war, had been touted as the beginning of negotiations for an official peace treaty on all sides. This hope evaporated after Puvek refused to come, intent on the war with the Tsen’kethi and on his growing domestic problems. Nevertheless it still had the potential to play an important part in the interactions of the other powers. For the first time, the Alliance Head of State was visiting the Alpha Quadrant. Hanse Davion announced an intention to attend in February, since the wording called for all heads of state “with holdings” in the Alpha Quadrant, and the FCOZ seemed to qualify. Complaints about this were quashed when the formal annexation of Pelikar occurred. Hanse now had as much right to attend as Miller and Gowron.
They were not the only new representatives to the stage of galactic statesmanship. Grand Nagus Zek, the titular head of state for the Ferengi Alliance, also agreed to attend. Proconsul Neural of the Romulan Empire joined the recognized “triumvirate” of quadrant leaders, Miller and Gowron, to “preside” in the formal meetings. Hanse Davion and Gowron led a contingent of the attendees in favor of adding Mamatmas to the presiding group, citing the clear economic and military strength of the Alliance. It was a particularly symbolic act, since most powers had been expecting Cardassia to become part of the leading “quadrumvirate” of the Alpha Quadrant. Miller and Neural resisted successfully, staving the issue until a future date (the Khitomer Summit in mid-2155, where Mamatmas was given equal status).
Without Puvek to begin laying the framework for peace talks, the agenda of the Summit was largely economic. The loudest argument was over currency exchange: Zek accused the Alliance of imposing “phantom tariffs” by “devaluing” the dollar to gold-pressed latinum, making Alliance exports to the Alpha Quadrant cheaper and Ferengi goods more expensive. He demanded that the Alliance honor a 1:1 exchange rate from a GPL slip to the ADN dollar (at the time one slip was worth $.75 ADN). Mamatmas rejected on the grounds that latinum prices governed the value of the dollar by Alliance law, the aim being to make it a stable trade currency for international commerce within and outside of the Alliance. This was infuriating for Zek - the Ferengi had worked hard to make their favored GPL the established currency of trade in the Alpha Quadrant. The matter was not resolved at the Summit, but it was quite clear that Zek would not solve it in his favor. If he tried to exclude the Alliance from trade in Ferengi-dominated markets, the locals might very well throw the Ferengi out in favor of the Alliance, and the Alliance’s likely retaliation - limiting or even excluding Ferengi trade to other universes - would cost the Ferengi far too much in the way of potential opportunities. The final straw - military force - was not even an issue. The Ferengi Alliance’s military was geared toward enforcing it’s trading rights and bullying minor powers in range; it was the weakest of the main powers of the Alpha Quadrant and the only defense against the Alliance would be astrography.
Miller was forced to back Mamatmas against Zek by Torskani and the Central Committee. The Party wanted the Alliance dollar to remain weaker so as to make importing Alliance goods and materials less costly - a specific concern since extrauniversal companies refused to accept Federation government credits, demanding hard currency instead. Exports would also be favored, although held hostage to the Federation’s continued threats of trade sanctions against the Alliance over foreign policy.
In light of the exchange rate fight, Mamatmas counter-attacked and accused the Ferengi of imposing a harmful trade monopoly through the Ferengi Commerce Authority, which had such broad powers in the Ferengi economy that it had the potential of imposing a planned economy over night. Ferengi trade cartels charged outrageous prices at times, skirted regulations on safety, and often exploited the slimmest loopholes to get out of contractual agreements save with each other. Mamatmas further accused the Ferengi Commerce Authority of infringing on the sovereignty of independent worlds by forcing Ferengi entrepreneurs in foreign territory to continue to operate under Ferengi labor laws, thus violating at times other nations’ regulations and laws on labor and safety. Zek’s counter-argument was essentially a “cultural rights” one - Ferengi should not be forced to violate their own ways and honor the culturally-derived laws of their “hosts”. Reportedly Hanse Davion’s reply was that any Ferengi “was free to follow his ways in the territory of the Commonwealth, just as I am free to order their arrest for violating our laws”. Mamatmas’ own angry rejection - “I cannot and will not allow you to spit on our laws simply because your people believe in this twisted excuse for capitalism!” - was comically used by far-right opponents in the Alliance to claim he was a Communist sympathizer.
Another economic discussion was aid to Bajor and other war-torn worlds. Mamatmas called on the most prosperous attendees to join the Alliance in founding and funding the Planetary Reconstruction Fund, an international bank that would offer low-interest loans to Bajor and other recovering governments. He pledged that the first Alliance contribution would be in the amount of $250 trillion over the next two fiscal years. Hanse pledged $500 billion in the next year.
The responses were not encouraging. Zek outright refused, as was expected, and the Romulans and Klingons showed now interest. This left the Federation. Miller knew full well that if she refused as well, it would undermine her moral authority. She accepted and left it to the Party Central Committee and Federation Council to add so many terms as to make the entire thing impossible. Mamatmas and Hanse would withdraw their offers in August 2154.
For the Alliance, the key developments were not in the formal meetings. In the informal gatherings, Mamatmas ended up discussing issues at length with Murluno and Gowron in various personal meetings. Gowron was especially interested due to the recently successful Iversian petition to the IUCEC for the second IU Jump Gate Assembly in the Alpha Quadrant. This would make the Triangle region a trade center, which could benefit the Klingon Empire. He personally encouraged Mamatmas to consider the Iversian request for an Alliance naval presence to counter piracy, which would ensure no last minute denials to the Iversian petition. At one point he offered to persuade the High Council to partially finance the establishment of an Alliance position in the region, giving birth to the Khitomer Restoration Project.
Gowron seemed to mostly be interested in trade, but there was a military element as well. Being a rather clever and shrewd operator, Gowron calculated that the Federation considered their alliance with Quo’noS too highly to risk it over the Alliance. An Alliance presence near the Triangle would finally begin to stablize the region. Finally, from the position of both Khitomer and Ivers’ Planet, the Alliance would pose a potential threat against Romulus, forcing the Romulans to re-deploy forces to counter it. The final point may have been Gowron’s long-term plan to replace the Federation with the Alliance as his primary ally. Alliance dollars and technology would go a long way toward restoring Klingon power. In the end, that potential would be limited primarily by Gowron’s own political allies in the Klingon traditionalist movement, which considered Alliance military thought “un-Klingon”.
Murluno sought aid directly. The Talarian economy was on the verge of collapse. Nearly half of their economy was going into maintaining the Talarian military against the multiple military threats facing them, and six years of continuous conflict with the Cardassians in Ulithra Sector had cost them many lives and ships, as well as devastating many worlds critical to the Talarian economy. Murluno was taking a severe risk given traditional Talarian xenophobia, but the Talarian leadership had mostly agreed that something had to be done before the Talarian economy disintegrated, leaving their race at the mercy of their Breen, Tsen’kethi, and Cardassian neighbors.
Already the Alliance Council had agreed on a $250 billion grant to Talar in exchange for the Talarians opening their ports to Alliance trade. Another $100 billion was in the pipeline, sponsered as a “gratitude grant”; the Talarians were the only openly-independent native government to outright support the Alliance war effort against Cardassia, and they were the only non-belligerent in the prior war to recognize Bajoran independence and offer advisors to begin rebuilding Bajoran cities. But Murluno had to ask Mamatmas for even more money. She needed funds quickly to begin rebuilding, and if possible, she needed a direct guarantee of military support that might allow her and the Talarian Senate to reduce military spending and reorientate their faltering economy to consumer goods that would alleviate the suffering of the common Talarian.
Mamatmas’ advisors encouraged him to accept. The Talarians, properly rebuilt, would threaten a second front against both Cardassia and Tsen’ketha in a future war. Popular support in the Alliance would be easy to create, given their tragic recent history and their moral support for the Alliance and Bajor, and the Talarians’ fierce libertarianism would make it easier for the Alliance - now the champion of personal liberty and self-government - to be liked there. This also offered the chance to demonstrate that the Alliance’s gratitude was as great as it’s will to destroy it’s enemies. Murluno would find another ally in Hanse Davion, who also encouraged Mamatmas to accept - he argued to Mamatmas and his advisors that a defensive pact led by the Commonwealth and the Alliance would stablize both the Inner Sphere and this region of the Alpha Quadrant.
By the time the Summit ended, the war between the Tsen’kethi and Cardassians was over. Mamatmas had been persuaded to pursue the Iversian petition in Washington, which would establish an Alliance position on the other side of the Alpha Quadrant and thus create a whole new source for crisis. He was also intent on beginning discussions with the Alliance Security Committee on pursuing aid for Talar over the coming months. By the time these matters were being placed before the Council, the Cardassian-Tsen’kethi peace talks had taken an unexpected turn, and the situation became far more grave than it had been before.

[Steve]

11. The Rochester Pact


After the end of the war with the Tsen'kethi, Legate Keve was presented with an invaluable opportunity. Nearly eight hundred Tsen'kethi ships were in his possession as war prizes and the Tsen'kethi were on the ropes. Cardassia could not only decide all territorial disputes in it's favor, it could also lay claim to Tsen'kethi territory by right of force.
Keve at that time made what was considered a remarkable decision. Instead of aggressively taking whatever they could, Cardassia would instead settle for a favorable settlement of the outstanding claims. Keve's first envoys to the bilateral peace negotiations recommended a secret provision to the peace treaty to bind the Cardassian Union and the Tsen'kethi Imperium into a military alliance.
Autarch Kovk'kivis proved highly receptive. A Cardassian-Tsen'kethi alliance would allow both governments to focus their strength on other borders. The Talarians would be an easy target, if they could be dealt with before the consolidation of their growing ties with the Alliance. The Breen would be nearly boxed in by such a result. Finally, together, they could jointly press the Federation harder over territorial disputes.
The negotiations continued on into June to maintain the deception that no agreement had yet been reached. In truth the peace and alliance treaty had been secretly signed and ratified in late May. The clear intention of the public delay seemed to be a plan to launch a sneak attack on the Talarian Steadhold. Most historians and analysts today believe this as the only reasonable motive though there is no hard evidence - presumably any orders to the effect were among the billions lost to the devastation of Cardassia Prime when it fell to the Alliance in 2161.
Any plans for an attack were likely thwarted on 13 June 2154 when the Alliance Council passed the Talarian Aid and Defense Resolution (TADR). The resolution authorized the Mamatmas Administration to give a $15 trillion aid package to the Talarians, the biggest aid to the Steadhold yet, and authorized the leasing of a total of 800 mothballed cruisers and destroyers to the Talarian military. The ships were older models - among them were American and Australian destroyers that had been built during the Third Anglo-Russian War - but were still state-of-the-art compared to the bulk of the Talarian fleet. The leasing terms were generous, as the Alliance assumed the costs of providing spare parts for the ships as well as advisors to train Talarian crews; Talarian repayment was to begin in fifteen years if the ships were still in their possession, with a one hundred year repayment package with almost no interest. The TADR was the crowning achievement of Boris Umachov's Foreign Ministry, which had pushed vigorously for it as a means to accomplishing long-term policy objectives related to expanding Alliance influence in the Alpha Quadrant and encircling the Cardassian Union.
Two days later, the Treaty of Rolevek - named for the Cardassian frontier city where the negotiations had taken place - was officially announced by Cardassia and Tsen'ketha. It's terms were all made public, relating both to the settlement of territorial disputes and to the new alliance. If the treaty had been hidden from the public to prepare an attack on the Talarians, the TADR is argued as having prevented it by convincing the new partners that the Talarians had already entered Alliance orbit - an attack on Talar would start a new war when neither party was ready for another major conflict.
The treaty still had great value for both empires. It called for the demilitarization of the Cardassian-Tsen'kethi border and both parties, surprisingly, honored that term, reducing their defenses facing each other by 90% by the end of the year. This freed up ships, troops, and military bases to be deployed along other borders. The Talarian border received a large amount of reinforcement, as did the Breen. The two powers aided one another in maintaining their empires; Tsen'kethi task force aided Cardassian suppression of a revolting interstellar race on their frontier and the Obsidian Order assassinated four Tsen'kethi and alien revolutionaries that had long called for revolt against the Autarch.
The Treaty of Rolevek also had implications for dealing with the Federation. One reason the Tsen'kethi had been so willing to give up some of their claims on Cardassian territory was that the Federation-claimed systems they desired were richer in materials and better suited for colonization. With Cardassia backing them, the Tsen'kethi would be able to push the Federation harder on territorial concessions. The Cardassians would benefit by the alliance in the upcoming peace treaty negotiations with both the Alliance and the Federation. The Tsen'kethi were in a much better position to attack the Keloans - who held space they claimed as justification for such an attack - and thus to threaten the Alliance Colonial Zone from a different front. Similarily, the Tsen'kethi and Cardassians were in a position to aid the other in outflanking Starfleet in the event of the Cardassian-Federation War reigniting.
The response to the treaty varied. Miller applauded it as a step toward ensuring peace in the region; Torskani, for his part, was reportedly infuriated that she'd taken that step without consulting him, as many of the Federation's leadership was uncomfortably aware of what a Cardassian-Tsen'kethi alliance could do. The Breen response was to heighten their border defenses, which they would do until invited to sign the Rovelek Treaty themselves.
The Talarians responded by going on military alert. A panicked message was dispatched to Washington; the Talarians feared that the announcement was a prelude to a joint Cardassian-Tsen'kethi attack and they wanted more assurances of Alliance support. On the 16th, Mamatmas' press office released an official statement that carefully supported the peace between Cardassia and Tsen'ketha, but which also served as a warning against them expanding against their neighbors and that such a response "would jeopardize the peace negotiations between Cardassia and the Allied Nations"; a thinly-veiled threat on behalf of Talar.
The Rolevek Treaty had the effect of destroying Umachov's plan for encircling the Cardassian Union. It also jeopardized the security of Kelos - an Alliance client ally - and Talar, a desirable ally. The clear solution was to counter it. On the 28th of June, Security Advisor Takahara gave the Security Committee her formal recommendation of establishing a strategic alliance with Talar and Kelos (Bajor was considered a potential member as well) to counter the Rolevek Treaty.
Umachov went one step further; he tied the issue in with his own long-term plans for the Inner Sphere by calling for a strategic alliance between the Alliance, the Federated Commonwealth, the Talarian Steadhold, and the Kingdom of Kelos. A second treaty would then bind the Free Rasalhague Republic into the ADN-FC alliance within Universe MWB-32. Umachov saw Alliance support for the Commonwealth as crucial to maintaining peace in the Inner Sphere - according to his memoirs Umachov hoped to eventually cause the restoration of the Star League as "a Confederacy of the Inner Sphere Houses" which would end up admitting the Periphery states or compelling them into Alliance membership (when his memoirs were published in 2170, there were protests in the Outworlds Alliance and Canopus, and anti-Alliance Canopians nearly succeeded in causing a vote to withdraw from the Alliance). Sir James Bronson supported Umachov, but Takahara did not want to embroil the Alliance into the politics of the Successor States. She argued successfully against an outright alliance in the Inner Sphere on the grounds that it might make Hanse Davion too aggressive against his neighbors.
Minister Rathbone provided the compromise suggestion. The Federated Commonwealth, now possessing the worlds around Pelikar and with a very strong claim to annexing most or all of it's Occupation Zone, would be added to the Takahara proposal for an Alpha Quadrant defensive alliance. The treaty would be limited to the Alpha Quadrant only, so it could not be used to justify Alliance support for Commonwealth expansion in the Inner Sphere. Umachov was irritated when Mamatmas agreed, arguing that the Alliance was going to start offending Hanse Davion if they continually rebuffed his attempts at stronger ties. Nevertheless, messages were dispatched to the concerned governments that presented the Alliance proposal. By July 5th, all four governments had agreed. Negotiations were scheduled to take place in the Royal Governor's Palace on Kensington in the city of Rochester.
In the meantime, on July 3rd, the official peace talks began on ST-3 Earth to bring an official end to the Winter War. The Cardassian delegation was led by Legate Tekeny Ghemor. (The same Ghemor that was later proven to be a leader of the Cardassian dissident movement.) The Coalition Powers sent a delegation led by John Land, the Secretary of State for the United States DN-9; it's key members included Kuan Yin Allard-Liao, acting as the delegation's senior secretary, and the Foreign Ministry's Peter Wells, the future Foreign Minister in the Dale Administration. An annex of Starfleet Academy in Oakland was chosen as the site for the negotiations.

[Steve]

Before the commencement of the Oakland Talks, Alliance officials repeatedly expressed concerns that the restored military government would be obstructive. On May 2nd, a memo from the office of the Alliance's senior Foreign Ministry official for the Alpha Quadrant, Foreign Vice-Minister Katherine Rath, made it's way to Mamatmas' staff, informing the President that "any hope of peace talks are now dead". Council Representative Elijah Weisbaum publicly condemned Mamatmas' "failure to act against the restoration of Cardassian autocracy" and declared the armistice was no longer valid. Weisbaum's known views did not scare the press much on the prospect of the war resuming, but only because a concurring internal memo signed by analysts of both the Foreign Ministry and Alliance Intelligence was not made public.
On May 13th, a Security Committee meeting decided that there was no danger of the war resuming so long as there was no official peace between Tsen'ketha and Cardassia. Plans were still made to reinforce the OZs and the Alliance presence in the Alpha Quadrant. 9th Fleet was re-deployed to the region on the 19th and sparked protest from Miller, who accused the Alliance of destabilizing the region.
When the Treaty of Rolevek was announced, the Mamatmas Administration responded by ordering preparation for reserves to be re-deployed to the Alpha Quadrant in the event of imminent war. The war-time Joint Command Authority between the Alliance and the Federated Commonwealth was re-established on June 18th, with Commonwealth Marshal Bisla resuming the senior post as COJCA (Commanding Officer Joint Comomand Authority). When Cardassian ships entered the Rokorav system on June 25th for the stated purpose of re-establishing their naval base there, President Mamatmas was advised that it was an act of provocation by the restored military government on Cardassia (As Puvek's government had agreed not to re-establish naval bases within thirty light years of the Coalition OZs) and that the Alliance had to respond. Mamatmas decided against it on Takahara's advice; her proposal for an Alpha Quadrant strategic alliance followed three days later.
As the negotiations drew closer, however, the Foreign Ministry decided that the new military government wasn't going to be as obstructionist as they feared. Keve's government had not repudiated the armistice terms that led to the handing over of Legate Kelataza and other senior Cardassian officials for post-war war crimes trials; nor had it actually remilitarized the armistice line. On June 28th Keve told an IUNS interviewer that his government had no intention of reneging on Puvek's agreement to respect the coming war crime trials or to demilitarize the armistice line; the interviewer failed to get Keve to clarify his view in light of condemnations of the armistice in the Cardassian state press. Two days before the Oakland Talks convened, Umachov told Mamatmas over lunch that the Cardassians were not going to repudiate the armistice and that the attacks in the press were just "grand-standing for the Cardassian public".
The Oakland Talks dominated public attentions at first, so the first meetings at Rochester went unnoticed. The biggest news they made was when Council Rep. Harry Tubwell (Midwest Fed. (FHI-8)-FAP) criticized the Mamatmas Administration for allowing the Commonwealth to participate, saying it would "legitimize" Hanse Davion's blatant land-grabbing. Chancellor MacKenzie, despite her own noted opposition to permanent military links to the Commonwealth, rebuked Tubwell for his remarks. President Mamatmas refused to say anything on the matter despite attempts by Rathbone and Umachov to have him criticize Tubwell. He didn't believe it would help matters if the incident became more public.
The great crisis of the talks was the language chosen for the mutual-defense terms. To ensure that the Keloans and Talarians would not be drawn into conflicts in other universes, a clause was written that "All signatories agree to protect the holdings of other signatories within the universes they have a claim in". It seemed innocent until, during a meeting in Washington, Takahara pointed out to Mamatmas that the language could be construed in such a way as to require the Alliance to aid the Commonwealth in the Inner Sphere. Even the defensive-sounding nature of the term was no guarantee against the Alliance being drawn into a war of expansion by Hanse Davion. It was pointed out by Takahara that Hanse's intelligence service was very capable and had a wide reach. It would not take much for him to engineer an incident or provoke an intended target. That the language was introduced by Roland Teller, who agreed with Umachov's pro-FedCom policies, was a further cause for concern. The term was itself re-written to specify the Alpha Quadrant as the limits of the new treaty by request of the Keloans, who were worried that "a claim" could eventually be re-defined as Keloan communities living on interracial colonies.
As the Oakland Talks bogged down, in no small part due to the Commonwealth's position that Duke Horvon of Pelikar had a stronger claim to most of the worlds in the Commonwealth OZ, the treaty was completed. On the 10th of August, the Rochester Pact was formally announced at a series of press conferences. By the provisions of the treaty, the Joint Command Authority established by the Alliance and the Commonwealth was expanded. A senior general officer from each signatory would be given a position in the JCA's Command Staff, with a chair rotating amongst the signatories every year. A joint defense fund was also established, to which the Alliance contributed $5 trillion in the Pact's first three years; Hanse Davion added another $300 billion and the Keloans $15 billion.
It was put to immediate effect in the Oakland Talks and helped insure passage of another aid grant to Talar. A week later, the Alliance Council ratified the planned defense treaty with New Ivers which would create an Alliance presence in the Triangle region of the Alpha Quadrant. The agreement was good news to Gowron, who had pushed for it as a benefit to the Klingon Empire. On Earth ST-3, however, the Federation could not help but believe that it was being boxed in now. Between the treaty with New Ivers and the Rochester Pact, the Alliance's sphere of influence was on the rise.

[Steve]

12. The Bajoran Spring


When the Winter War ended, Bajor was in ruins. During the uprising that immediately preceded the Alliance invasion, the Cardassians had devastated farmland and wrecked towns and cities across the planet, making worse an already bleak situation for most Bajoran farmers who already had to work with soil made toxic by Cardassian industrial pollution. The death toll was catastrophic; it would later be estimated that around three hundred million Bajorans died in the days of the war from both intentional Cardassian action plus disease and starvation in the squalid refugee camps which now dominated the planet. The Red Cross called the situation "the greatest humanitarian crisis we have ever faced" and sought immediate relief, which was hard to bring through with so much gate traffic at New Liberty being taken by the Alliance military's supply ships.

Desperation during the fighting sometimes turned violent. During the week of December 20th to 27th, Bajoran mobs in impoverished Ratha Province broke into several warehouses - including an Alliance Army supply depot - and stole every box of food and medicine they could get their hands on. Another mob attempted to sack the Cardassian civilian enclave at Kotala, acting on rumors that the Cardassians had hoarded food there, and were only calmed through the influence of Vedek Bareil Antos, the future Kai of Bajor. He escorted seniors in the mob to inspect the enclave, where they discovered to their surprise that the Cardassians were on tighter rations than the Bajorans in the refugee camps around Kotala.

On 29 December, Field Marshal Sir Anthony Hunt - the commander of the Alliance Bajor Theater - sent a request directly to President Mamatmas for additional supplies. His troops, who were mostly disengaged from combat by that time, were having a tough time keeping order as Bajoran refugees sought food in any way they could. He requested additional transport ships to get food from the undamaged farming colonies on Darane, Retora, and Seeva, where there were surpluses, as well as to buy wholesale foodstuffs from markets in the Colonial Zone and the Sphere. The request was lost in the shuffle during the Cardassian spoiling attack and the New Year's Offensive and never made it to Mamatmas' desk. Months later Hunt would produce copies of the written request to deflect criticism that he had ignored the humanitarian problem.

By the armistice the situation was rapidly detiorating. At a Security Committee meeting on 6 January, Security Advisor Takahara warned Mamatmas that if the Alliance failed to alleviate the Bajoran humanitarian crisis, it would squander all moral capital gained by the liberation of Bajor and damage the Alliance's reputation throughout the known Megaverse. Mamatmas responded by approving Security Resolution 79, which called for "the immediate relief of the crisis on Bajor". Within hours of the formal armistice being signed, Alliance military transport had begun lifting food, medicine, and prefab shelters to Bajor. An ad hoc committee was formed, headed by Treasury Vice-Minister Paul Gabon, to coordinate the Alliance government relief effort.

The situation was highlighted in the press, leading to literally hundreds of charity drives across the Megaverse to provide aid. The problem was not a lack of materials, but a lack of transport capacity. BIllions of tons of food, medicine, and equipment had to be shipped to Bajor weekly, and there weren't enough surpluses in the Colonial Zone to cover the need; shipments had to come from other universes and thus through the Gate. As during the war, the New Liberty Gates served as a literal bottleneck in the movement of needed relief supplies. To help alleviate the problem, Mamatmas ordered all jump capable explorer and colony ships to be temporarily reassigned as government cargo carriers. The Stellar Navy's IU JumpShips were assigned to provide transport to the Alpha Quadrant.

Relief was needed in another way. Bajor had a shortage of trained doctors, nurses, engineers, construction experts, and other necessary occupations. The call went out for the provisiion of experrts in these fields to come to Bajor, aid in recovery, and then help train Bajorans to take up the tasks themselves. Naturally this added to supply concerns, if only lightly; the extra mouths needing food were a relatively small group compared to the masses of Bajorans in the refugee camps.
For all of it's problems, Bajor had one advantage that would save it; sympathy. The plight of the Bajorans was the major press story of the day; every nation and people in the known Megaverse knew where Bajor was and what was going on, with the news networks maintaining a constant eye on the planet. Aid began to flow in from all corners.

As work on relief continued, the foundation for a new Bajoran government was laid on January 25th with the first meeting of the Bajoran Constitutional Congress. Led by Opel Nevis, the Congress started work on writing a new constitution for Bajor and it's worlds. It's primary goal was to establish a Republic with democratic institutions and acknowledging the natural rights of the citizenry.
There was controversy in other details. Bajoran religious leaders and conservative factions wanted the constitution to acknowledge the authority of the Kai and the clergy in Bajoran society. The most conservative, who wanted to restore the d'jarra castes, protested the constitution's planned statements of rights on the grounds that they would violate the d'jarra distinctions. On the other hand, secularism was strong amongst those with ties to traditional urban areas, as well as many of the colony populations and the returning emigres. They insisted on a secular constitution and were bitterly opposed to giving the Temple any say; some revived Occupation-era charges by secular resistance movements that the Temple had collaborated with Cardassian authorities.
The definition of citizenship was another early issue. The Occupation had engendered xenophobia in a great deal of the Bajoran population that the Alliance liberation and aid was just begiinning to undermine. A large number of delegates insisted that only Bajorans could be citizens. Some sought to exclude mixed-race Bajorans, most particularly the population of half-Cardassian Bajorans who, for many, were a painful reminder of both collaboration and forced prostitution by the Occupation. As the rebuilding effort picked up steam, the issue became less heated. Kai Opaka and her successor, Bareil, played key roles in overcoming the xenophobes and ensuring that citizenship would be made available to non-Bajorans.

By the end of February, rebuilding efforts were having a noticable effect. Thousands of homes had been successfully constructed or rebuilt and enough food was arriving to keep the population fed. The end of the short-term crisis was recognized as coming by the middle of March; Bajor had a large food surplus thanks to the combination of rationing, the success of winter foodstuff crops in several provines, and the almost frantic efforts to transport food to the planet by various private organizations as well as the Alliance Government. Half of the $80 trillion granted for rebuilding by the Recovery Act had been spent, and the job was not over. But the light was at the end of the tunnel.

The end of the food crisis and the increasing success of efforts to rebuild Bajor were having an effect. For many Bajorans, the suffering that once seemed to be endless now had a definite end. Bajoran society could begin to heal from the Occupation. Furthermore, the xenophobia that Cardassian brutality and Federation apathy was creating now had a powerful counter in the Alliance, which had fought to free Bajor and was now rebuilding it. Bajorans who had never met Humans before found most of their first experiences with Humans to be positive; soldiers who were generous with the handing out of personal rations to starving Bajorans (as well as candy for children; the first English word many Bajoran children learned was 'sweets'); aid workers who helped to rebuild homes, plant crops, or set up soil reclaimators and power generators; nurses and doctors who cared for the sick and wounded, and many other examples. Particularly powerful were the acts of courage by Human troops in protecting Bajorans and liberating the camps. The liberation of the Gallitep gulag by the 24th Marine Recon Battalion would become the most famous example, one that to this day dominates Bajoran memories about the nature of their liberators.

The imagery of Human soldiers who died to free Bajor was supremely powerful and a weapon in the hands of those opposing the xenophobes and racial parties. The fall of Jaro Essa, a prominent nationalist figure, is the greatest example. In a Constitutional Congress session on 22 April, Jaro loudly denounced the proposal to allow non-Bajorans to seek citizenship. His rhetoric, meant for gaining support from the religious orthodox factions, cited the Occupation as a "warning from the Prophets" that aliens should not be accepted in any capacity amongst Bajorans; his exact words included the phrase "We must keep aliens off of Bajor's sacred soil". Having decided to sit in on the session, Kai Opaka asked to speak and, in the finest High Bajoran she'd ever been heard to speak, asked Jaro a simple question: "If you wish to remove aliens from our soil, then what do you suggest we do with the 70,000 Human soldiers who died for it and are now buried in it?" She went on to attack him, a layman with no religious education, for trying to interpret holy writings he had no personal knowledge of. The incident virtually destroyed Jaro's political career.

[Zed Snardbody]

Fantastic. Simply fantastic.

[fgalkin]

70,000 dead? Since when is bitchslapping Cardies was that hard?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Ford Prefect]

*Whistles* That's impressive work Steve.

[Trogdor]

70,000 dead? Since when is bitchslapping Cardies was that hard?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

In Anatomy of a War, some Alliance officers decide to invade a city that the Cardies are well fortified in, rather than lay seige and starve them out because the latter would look bad, IIRC. That's probably where most of the casualties came from.

[Steve]

70,000 dead? Since when is bitchslapping Cardies was that hard?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Almost all of those casualties would be in the urban battles, where range and firepower advantages would be negated.

[Steve]

The last gasp of the xenophobes' power came before Jaro's disasterous remarks. On March 10th the surviving members of the Kohn Ma, a violently anti-alien secular terrorist group, attempted to destroy the grave of Gul Ikval Luvar in Kevima Valley. Luvar was popular in the Valley, which he had protected from his people's most vicious policies, and the locals reacted badly to the intentions of the Kohn Ma. After a couple of failed attempts to destroy it, the Kohn Ma turned to terrorism and tried to blow up the grave with an explosive. They were used to Cardassian security systems, and the newer Alliance sensor grid in place detected their attempt and led to the capture of the bombers before they could set their charge. Security was stepped up should the Kohn Ma try again, but as later accounts of the organization's survivors showed, too many members had been killed in the uprisings before the Alliance invasion and the Kohn Ma leaders were unwilling to risk more of their few experienced members left.
The failure of the Kohn Ma was immediately followed by the visit of Pope Gregory XIX followed by President Mamatmas a week later. Gregory's visit was of particular concern, causing much criticism in the fear that it could incite conservative Bajorans. Instead it was a rousing success, with Kai Opaka personally welcoming the pontiff and observing the Easter Mass service the Pope held for Catholic aid workers and troops serving on Bajor.

Shortly after the papal visit, Mamatmas made his own visit to Bajor, giving a major speech in Ikila and touring several battle sites and refugee settlements. He confided to staff that he was surprised just how well the Bajorans were getting along. Though there were incidents of criminal behavior and a few near-riots over rationing, the vast majority of the temporary camps were very peaceful, and the rebuilding of Bajor was starting to pull ahead of schedule.

With the visit of the Pope and President Mamatmas there was increased media presence on Bajor. The quickening pace of rebuilding was a surprise to a number of media figures who had, in the months before, aired numerous reports expressing fears for the stability of Bajor. As both visits came and went, media coverage about Bajor changed to a great degree as the facts proved the situation less critical than some had feared. The newfound optimism in the press, a rarity in of itself, reached it's pinnacle with CNN reporter Richard Townsend, who during a live report from Bajor about the reconstruction commented that "Spring has come to Bajor, in more ways than one." Townsend's sound-bite made history, and since then Bajor's post-Occupation rebuilding, and all of the cultural and social healing that came with it, has been known as "The Bajoran Spring".

With the collapse of the xenophobic movement, the main issue remaining for the Constitution was how to ensure it's popular acceptance. The debate was whether the entire constitution should be ratified by plebiscite - and if so, if a majority vote in a certain majority of provinces should be enough to count for ratification - or if there should instead be elections to the Constitutional Congress to bring popular leaders into the process.
The issue was about more than just the principles of democracy. Rebuilding was still underway, a great many of Bajorans were nearly illiterate and uneducated, and there were many regional feuds and rivalries that might find their way into a general election. Secularists feared that the mass of surviving conservative peasantry would insist on giving the Temple a role in the government. Their counterparts in religious orthodoxy feared that the mass of expatriates, secularists, and surviving urban dwellers, buoyed by Occupation-era distrust for the Temple, would ram through a Constitution that might deprive the Temple of traditional influences and even rights.
The debate took up much of the Congress' deliberations in it's first three months until Jaro, who had spent the time playing both sides against each other to win concessions on his issues, lost his influence. On the 10th of May a compromise was proposed by Yuven Kesha, the prominent expatriate spokeswoman, and accepted; the Constitutional Congress would finish it's work while elections were prepared for a "Ratification Assembly" that would go over the Constitution, under strict guidelines, and either accept it or deny it through a clear majority vote and to insist on changes if there was a denial.

As the recovery continued and the Rolevek and Rochester Pacts were signed, a new debate came; Bajor's place in the Alpha Quadrant. Though there was a natural enmity toward Cardassia and a sympathy to the Alliance, many Bajoran leaders were still wary of fixing their fortunes to the Alliance. The Cardassian Occupation had taught them that they needed the means to protect their own sovereignty and an independent policy to ensure that they would not suffer for an ally's mistake.
At first this view was not widely spoken because it seemed ingrateful, and there were some fears that the Alliance might scale back aid if Bajor was not going to come into it's sphere of influence. Only as it became clear that there were debates in the Alliance government itself on the issue did Bajoran leaders openly discuss the matter.
The course taken was to dispatch someone to attend the ongoing Oakland talks who could negotiate for the future government of Bajor, making it's positions known. A hero of the Resistance, Li Nalas, was picked. Li went to Earth and joined the Allied negotiating team, though he often remained silent and would only relay messages from Opel Nevis and his interim government.
From Oakland, Li floated the idea to various ambassadors. The talks had so far assumed Bajor coming into the Rochester Pact, but when it became clear that the Bajoran interim government was amenable - even desirous - of neutrality, it led to new deliberations on how the peace treaty should affect Bajor.

The discussions culminated in two seperate acts; on the 19th of November 2154, the Bajoran Governing Council gave a formal recommendation that Bajor should pursue a neutral course and announce such. It was backed across the spectrum, by figures as diverse as Juvel Tiga, leader of the Ideal-Democratic Party, and Kai Opaka. Following this announcement, on the 12th of December, terms were finalized into the Oakland Treaty to maintain Bajoran neutrality. Bajoran sovereignty would be under the joint protection of the Alliance, Cardassia, and the Federation, and Bajor would be kept out of all of their disputes with one another. The Alliance military presence would be drawn back to advisors, to begin after the official signing and ratification of the treaty by all parties, and the Federation would operate the orbiting space station over Bajor, meant to replace Terok Nor, for five years, with most of the station's staff consisting of Bajorans and a mixed team of Starfleet and Alliance advisors. This space station, initially given the designation Bajor Orbital Station, was soon redesignated by the Federation into it's more popularly-known name, Deep Space Nine.
Two days later, on the 14th, the Ratification Assembly held it's approval vote. The Bajoran Constitution passed by a comfortable margin, and would be formally enacted in three months. The interim government would run Bajor and it's holdings until the following June, with formal elections to be held in May. This success ended a year of concern and worry in Washington as to if the Bajorans would be able to get themselves going. When the new government took over that June, a majority coalition comprised of the two major rural parties, the expatriates' main party, and a secularist party took control of the government, with Opel Nevis winning the Presidency. By this time, rebuilding was in it's final stages, and by 2157 Bajor would be well on the road to recovery and stability.

Today the Bajoran Spring is still a subject of discussion because it was unexpected. Bajor and her surrounding worlds were able to unite under a single government without any substantial bloodshed, as had been feared, and with an environment being healed and an economy on the rebound. It was, and still is, an unprecedented fate. Not a single effort like it has ever been as successful. It was a key boost, politically, for the Alliance. And while Bajor was officially neutralized by the Oakland Treaty, Bajor would still remain friendly to the Alliance within the bounds of that neutrality, providing an outlet for trade and with many former guerrilla fighters giving their expertise and support to other democratic movements across the Alpha Quadrant.
In fact, despite the neutralization of Bajor legally, Bajor would prove to be part of an interesting analogy for the next two decades; historians today compare free Bajor to Castroist Cuba of the late 20th Century, the springboard from which an outside power - the Alliance in the place of the Soviet Union - spread revolution (in the form of universal republicanism, democracy, and citizenship) through the Alpha Quadrant, playing the part of the Western Hemisphere.
The legacy of a free and stable Bajor had another part to play. Over six years after Bajor's liberation, the Bajoran Star Navy would use it's full force, about 350 ships, to defeat a Dominion reinforcement armada ten times it's size that attempted to get through the wormhole. This victory saved the Alpha Quadrant from the Dominion, and the violation of Bajoran neutrality by Dukat's Cardassia and the Dominion provided the final act that brought the Alliance into the Dominion War. In this way, Bajor's freedom became the freedom of the entire Alpha Quadrant.

[Steve]

13. The Triangle and Alliance Expansion


The Winter War, like many conflicts, had an impact that far out-ranged it's physical scope. The demonstration of Alliance military power changed policies across the Alpha Quadrant.
One government affected by the war was the New Ivers Federation. New Ivers was a world in the neutralized Triangle, one of the few functioning states there, a coalition of Romulan, Human, Trill, and Orion colonial governments. Though plagued at times by racial problems, New Ivers succeeded where Nimbus 3 failed by established a stable interracial federation of republics. At the time of the winter war, the Presidency of the planet and it's two in-system mining colonies was held by a Romulan, Lurheial t'Raku, as part of an accepted rotation of the senior members of the New Iversian Ruling Cabinent.
New Ivers also possessed an effective military for the Triangle, with a defensive navy made up mostly of refurbished Klingon warships and three upgraded Federation Constitution-class cruisers. It alone had the power to protect nearby systems and shipping lanes from pirate attack, though a desire to maintain the careful balance of New Ivers' population kept them from actually admitting the worlds under their protection.
However, New Ivers' strength alone was not enough to keep the peace. For their own reasons, the Romulans, Klingons, and Federation had not imposed security upon the region as greatly as originally promised, and the Triangle became a hotbed of pirate activity, with a well-active criminal underground dominated by the Orion Syndicate. One apt description of the region was "the hellhole of the Alpha Quadrant", which even today dominates the popular imagination of billions across the Megaverse.
New Ivers had, by that time, spent fifteen years appealing to the local powers for help in stablizing and securing the Triangle, and they were consistantly ignored. Beginning on 18 December 2153 AST, they had an even greater incentive toward gaining support for eliminating piracy in the Triangle, when New Ivers was placed high on the IUCEC's candidate list for the second major Interuniversal Jump Gate Assembly to be assembled in Universe ST-3.
At first President t'Raku merely repeated earlier requests for aid to the surrounding governments. Shakeups in the Federation and Klingon Empire prolonged this period until March, when Gowron turned down a second appeal on the grounds that it would violate Klingon agreements with the Romulans and Federation. With no hope of agreement from any of them, t'Raku and her government turned to the only major power left: the Alliance.

On the 28th of March, the formal request was hand-delivered by the Iversian ambassador on Quo'noS to Alliance Ambassador MacDougal. MacDougal forwarded the agreement to Washington where a tense debate flared up. On April 1st the following week the note dominated a Security Committee meeting, the last that President Mamatmas would attend before leaving for his state visit to Bajor and the following Moscow Summit. Rachel MacKenzie argued for the Iversians to be turned away, strenuously applying her foreign policy views in her new position as Chancellor. She insisted that "accepting this proposal will result in an unwelcome expansion of our security requirements and will cause more instability in the Alpha Quadrant". She further argued that it would harm the Alliance Government's public image.
As usual MacKenzie was opposed by her successor as Foreign Minister, Boris Umachov, and by Security Advisor Takahara. Umachov and Takahara argued seperate reasons for accepting the Iversian appeal. Umachov considered it a perfect base from which to expand Alliance influence into the trade-rich Triangle region. Dr. Takahara's arguments instead focused on the benefits of eliminating piracy in that region, establishing a second IU Jump Gate Assembly to increase trade with the Alpha Quadrant and reduce traffic at the New Liberty Gates, and it would help the Alliance's public image if it helped to suppress not just piracy in the region but "the trafficking and trade of sentients" - a euphemism for the bustling slave trade in the Triangle.
Mamatmas ordered a reply sent to the Iversians that authorized further talks to be held on Quo'noS, but stopped just short of a commitment. Mamatmas' decision ultimately rested on the counsel of MacKenzie who, seeing Takahara had successfully influenced Mamatmas, sought to delay the measure and to allow for questions relating to the Tsen'kethi-Cardassian conflict and other issues to be settled at least in part at the upcoming Moscow Summit.

There was, however, no hope of maintaining absolute secrecy of the offer. The Klingons found out about it, and by the first day of the Moscow Summit the Federation knew as well. The issue was not brought up in the open meetings, as Gowron so no reason to torpedo the possibility and Miller was afraid it might lead to a "provocative" exchange between Mamatmas and other leaders.
Privately, Miller begged and threatened Mamatmas to decline. Mamatmas was later quoted as saying she "acted in constant contradiction to herself, at times begging me to reject on the grounds that it would inflame the entire region, and at times threatening everything short of war if the Alliance accepted". Mamatmas professed to remaining non-committal, though the meetings were crucial in the formation of his views of Miller.
Gowron, on the other hand, encouraged Mamatmas in their private meetings. As stated earlier in this work, Gowron went beyond supporting the Iversian petition and floated the idea of the Klingon Empire helping to fund the establishment of an Alliance base outside of New Ivers in the region of the Triangle. Mamatmas was thrown off by the suggestion, not anticipating Gowron's interest in Alliance expansion, and did not make any firm commitments beyond negotiations in the coming months.

Upon his return from Moscow Mamatmas was soon to be distracted by developments in Cardassia and elsewhere. Umachov, however, continued talks with the New Iversians, appraising Mamatmas every couple of weeks as terms were hammered out.
Informal talks with the Klingons began as well, starting with Foreign Vice-Minister Katherine Rath's visit to Quo'noS in early June. After a month of discussions between ministers of the Klingon government and Ambassador MacDougal, terms for the Khitomer Restoration Project were delivered to Mamatmas for consideration. The Klingon government would sign over half of the planet's surface to Alliance jurisdiction and the space in the system would be jointly-held. The Klingon terms also included the sale of two nearby uninhabited systems for a very cheap rate and a pledge of support if the Alliance chose to accept the defense treaty that New Ivers was pursuing.
Again the Security Committee became a battlefield. MacKenzie insisted on the whole idea being dropped. It was too provocative and too unsettling. Rathbone, to the surprise of many, came to her side. The Alliance military was unprepared for such an expansion in it's security needs in light of the problems in the New Liberty region.
Again Umachov and Takahara counseled acceptance, and they now had a powerful ally. Weighing in strongly for the first time was Fleet Admiral Robert Dale, Chairman of the Strategic Planning Staff and a long-time friend of Mamatmas in addition to that. Dale backed Umachov and Takahara on grounds close to Takahara's - the advantage in helping to end the Triangle's problems with piracy and the slave trade, insuring New Ivers gained the second IU Gate Assembly - and a new term of his own; positions in New Ivers and Khitomer would expand Alliance trading influence and produce strategic benefits, including a possible entente with the Klingons.
On the strength of Dale's recommendation, Mamatmas again sided against MacKenzie. The decision was made to finish negotiations with both governments on Quo'noS, with an eye toward having the treaty with New Ivers signed and ratified by the Council by the time of the IUCEC vote scheduled for September.

New Ivers, in the meantime, began to suffer from pressure from the Federation. In May an envoy from Miller held a meeting with President t'Raku and issued a formal "request" from the Federation to reconsider their decision with dire warnings that a New Iversian decision to introduce a "foreign power" to the Triangle could have "tremendous repercussions" to a number of things, including their continued political independence. T'Raku gave a diplomatic "non-response" at first, and in June a formal response was sent in which she detailed the defense needs of New Ivers and how it required outside assistance. Her counter-offer was a reiteration of the prior request - a Starfleet presence at New Ivers and an intense anti-piracy campaign. Miller balked as before and replied that such a thing would be impossible. It would violate agreements with the Romulans and Klingons as to the limit of commitments made in the Triangle.
T'Raku replied by affirming her intent to sign the defense agreement. When her ambassador to Quo'noS signed the treaty with Ambassador MacDougal on 28 July 2154, Miller tried one last, desperate plan. She went to the Romulans and Klingons for assistance in compelling the Iversians into withdrawing the request. The Romulans agreed and began massing ships on the border, making formal pronouncements that if necessary they would institute a preventive occupation of New Ivers.
As the Iversians mobilized their own military, the Klingons also massed their ships on the frontier and issued their announcement. To Miller's surprise and horror it was not an agreement to her request but strong support for New Ivers' right to invite powers outside of the Triangle to help protect their shipping "and to secure an end - hosting a new Interuniversal Jump Gate Assembly - that would be beneficial not just to New Ivers but to their neighbors". The Klingon buildup was meant not to occupy New Ivers but to protect it from the Romulans.

Torskani now stepped in and pulled the plug on Miller. In secret session the Party Central Committee decided that the Iversian issue was "not important enough to risk a fracture with the Klingons". Miller resisted at first, complaining the Central Committee was overriding her presidential perogative, but Torskani overruled her. The Party faithful backed the Committee again and on August 12th the Federation Council voted a resolution that accepted "the rights of the independent system of New Ivers to make treaties with whom they desire so long as they are not in violation of the terms of the Treaty of Nimbus" - in other words, the Federation recognized the right of any independent world in the region of the Triangle to affiliate with the Alliance or another power so long as it did not involve the Klingons, Romulans, or Federation. It was a humiliating retreat, but necessary to preserve the Khitomer Accords.
With this crisis passed, Mamatmas no longer had problems getting the Alliance Council to ratify it, which occurred on August 17th. The New Iversian Congress ratified the treaty a day later, and orders were made for prefab naval facilities to be moved into New Iversian territories to support an Alliance naval presence. The New Iversian Defense Flotilla was formally established under the command of Line Admiral Janet Fubuki. In conjunction with the Treaty of Nimbus, the Alliance did not deploy any warships heavier than a light cruiser, which it deemed more than enough to fight local pirates. The Alliance had now formally gained a sphere of influence in the Triangle, technically considered the other side of the quadrant from New Liberty.

[Trogdor]

I had thought that the Bajoran Spring was the final chapter. I must say I'm pleased to see I assumed wrong.

[Zed Snardbody]

I had thought that the Bajoran Spring was the final chapter. I must say I'm pleased to see I assumed wrong.

Indeed. I am pleasently surpried.

[Steve]

Two weeks before Ambassador MacDougal signed the treaty with with New Ivers, he and Chancellor Gowron personally signed the Khitomer Restoration Project Treaty, which was ratified on July 17th. Already, in anticipation of the treaty, specialists had begun traveling to Khitomer to begin preparations for establishing settlements. Camp Khitomer itself, split between East and West by the Alliance and Klingons, was chosen to host the war crimes trials of the Cardassian leadership extradited to the Alliance.
The establishment of the Alliance presence at Khitomer coinciding with the treaty with New Ivers seemed out of the Federation's control, but Miller had one last card to play. Due to the positioning of the systems, the Alliance would have to go through either Federation or Cardassian space to get to Khitomer and New Ivers. On the 23rd of August, Miller formally announced that the Federation was barring "all Alliance military traffic, including civilian shipping bearing military goods, until guarantees are provided to the Federation that the Alliance will not field military forces within the boundaries of the Triangle Region." It was a desperation ploy, justified by the legal argument that by permitting passage to Alliance forces bound for the Triangle, the Federation would be violating the Treaty of Nimbus.
The Alliance's response to the declaration, a day later, accused the Federation of interfering in the sovereign affairs of New Ivers, the Klingon Empire, and the Alliance, and of violating "the established right of innocent civilian passage between nations not at hostility with one another". The Alliance Government began to look over their options, as this final action by Miller had so far posed the most danger to the New Iversian petition to the IUCEC by preventing Alliance military forces from reaching the region.

In Paris, Miller's gambit was causing it's own problems. Torskani, still acting as Clerk and de facto head of the Party, began insisting that Miller negotiate with the Alliance and allow passage for various trade and political concessions, including the neutralization of Bajor (since, at that time, the Bajorans themselves had not yet officially proposed neutrality). Miller, however, believed that she was doing nothing less than defending "the peace of the Alpha Quadrant" by keeping the Alliance out of the Triangle. "If the militarists of the Alliance gain a foothold in New Ivers and Khitomer, they will unleash bloodshed and violence across the entire region, as they have done in the region of Bajor," Miller said in defense of her refusal to negotiate. She showed her customary disdain for astropolitical considerations when fielding a complaint from Starfleet about alienating the Klingons, replying, "The Federation has no need for barbaric militarist allies if we remain true to our course of interstellar peace and enlightenment".
Memos now indicate the crisis and Miller's position was enough that Torskani was considering having the Party Central Committee demand a no-confidence vote in the Federation Council, citing Miller's conduct as "contrary to the interests of the Federation." Miller rallied her followers in PAPAL as she usally did, who staged more demonstrations against the Alliance Embassy in San Francisco and other Alliance diplomatic offices, prompting yet another complaint from the Alliance Government that the Federation was unfairly and illegally interfering with the operation of the Alliance's diplomatic representation through PAPAL.

The Alliance Government, however, was at a logjam of what to do. Military force was out of the question. The distance from New Liberty to New Ivers was too far, and Mamatmas was not prepared to fight a war on the issue. Ideas of retaliatory sanctions were floated but unheeded, and there was a general feeling in Washington that the Federation was grandstanding and would negotiate, as a Gate Assembly at New Ivers would be beneficial to them as well. On August 28th an official memo from Takahara's office stated, "It is our belief that the Federation will seek concessions of both economical and political nature to lift these restrictions and permit the Alliance to begin establishing it's presence in the Triangle." Defense Minister Rathbone's staff issued a more public memo on the same day: "The Federation's illegal actions are being done solely as blackmail to extract concessions from the Alliance Government. It is furthermore the Defense Ministry's opinion that this crisis is not of sufficient weight to cause any further breach of the relationship between the Alliance and the Federation."
Sir James Bronson saw it differently. His own memo, dated the 25th, informed President Mamatmas that "President Miller is a fanatic. She lives in her own world, in which the Alliance has become the embodiment of everything she stands against. This is not a matter of negotiation to her. It is a matter of principle. Negotiations will be fruitless." President Mamatas, for the part, seemed to agree, later commenting to ISA President John Sheridan that, "Our Federation colleague is mad, and I don't think we ever could have worked with her."

The impasse - both at the diplomatic level and in Paris - was broken by an unexpected source. On the 28th of August, the Cardassian Embassy on Quo'noS sent a formal note to Ambassador MacDougal offering passage rights. This was followed up the next day by Legate Keve, who formally announced that the Cardassian Union would permit the Alliance to send warships and military materials through Cardassian space to the Klingon frontier in exchange for "aid in the rebuilding of Cardassia". The Legate's asking price was $40 trillion Alliance dollars worth of credit for purchasing raw materials, foodstuffs, and industrial goods.
Reaction in Washington was swift. The Alliance Council was called to emergency session and presented with the formal bill. A $40 trillion credit to be granted to Cardassia, placed into the next two fiscal years, was passed swiftly over Chancellor MacKenzie's lame veto. The Cardassians accepted the "gift", and on September 2nd the first squadrons and military transports departed Kensington Base, bound for New Ivers via Cardassian and Klingon space.
Miller was shocked and outraged. "The Cardassians betrayed us despite all we did to protect them from the Alliance", she would later argue. Torskani railed at her for missing the opportunity to extract concessions, but with the matter decided he stopped short of the planned no-confidence vote. Miller, on the other hand, never forgave Cardassia. She had, after all, supported them for years; she had opposed the Federation's war against them, she had harrassed Bajorans against the Cardassian Occupation, and she had ridiculed and attacked her own people when they spoke against Cardassia. She had done all of this just for the Cardassians to callously stab her in the back and open the way for the Alliance to "bring more bloodshed to the Alpha Quadrant".
Of the entire matter, there is still some debate about what Legate Keve's motives were. His personal journals hold no mention of his reasons and the official government transcripts from those days were lost when the Cardassian Archives were partially destroyed during the fall of Cardassia. The favored scholarly opinion was that Keve wanted the Alliance to get embroiled on the other side of the Alpha Quadrant. There it would get sucked into the politics of the Klingon, Romulan, and Federation disputes and perhaps see the need to relax it's policies in Cardassia's region of space. Another possibility floated was that Keve was punishing the Federation for not aiding Cardassia militarily against the Federation, or simply that Keve was taking financial advantage of the situation.
Either way, the Cardassians rendered Miller and the Federation powerless to oppose the expansion of the Alliance. With Alliance ships deploying to New Ivers and Khitomer and Jump Drive ships on the way to give the Alliance an independent ability to move materials and forces into the region, their position was swiftly entrenched, to the delight of Gowron, the disgust of Miller, and most certainly the irritation of the Romulans. Gowron got what he wanted out of the deal when, on the 25th of September, the IUCEC voted to formally grant the second IU Jump Gate Assembly to New Ivers. Soon the Alliance position would be completely independent of it's neighbors, and it would control two disembodied but equally strong footholds on the Alpha Quadrant.

[Zed Snardbody]

Cardasians are insufferable, bureaucratic, amoral bastards. But they are not stupid.......usually.

[Steve]

The long-term consequences of the Alliance expansion into the Triangle were unknown at the time, but many in the Alliance Government knew that there would be some kind of consequence. Chancellor MacKenzie, herself an accomplished diplomat and student of astropolitics, was public in her dissatisfaction. Her argument was not just that her advice had been blithely ignored, but that the Alliance's expansion would bring instability, not order as was promised. An official note written by the Chancellor to Vice-Minister Rath spelled out her qualms, that "the region, wedged between three great interstellar powers, can ill afford a fourth trying to force itself in", that "our support from the Klingons is certain to be predicated on the belief that we will provide them future aid, whether it is in our best interest or not", and that "this action has generated unneeded hostility from both the Federation and the Romulans."
Mamatmas also distrusted the enthusiaism of his more hawkish subordinates and repeatedly insisted on a policy of restraint in the region, with all military maneuvers to be used exclusively for the reason of destroying piracy. His desires aside, Mamatmas confided to Security Advisor Takahara that, "I don't think we can avoid exerting an influence in the affairs of the region, and there are going to be dangers that we didn't consider."
Good things happened first. The Iversian economy began to recover from a decade long stagnation as trade poured into it even before the full opening of the Jump Gate Assembly. Khitomer grew in population in both zones and, due to the symbolism there, it would be suggested and accepted as the site for the next great summit of the Quadrant's Heads of State. When the Jump Gate opened, the Iversian economy received a boost that made it the most powerful of the independent systems in the Triangle.
At the same time, the Alliance presence, and aggressive patrols, soon eliminated most of the pirates in the Triangle. Only near Orion itself - where the Southern Orion pirate kingdoms continued their raiding system despite the growing costs - was there any piracy to speak of left, and it remained only an occasional nuisance easily suppressed by aggressive naval patrols by Alliance stealth ships and destroyers. The suppression of the endemic piracy would soon lift the entire Triangle out of the slumps of economic depression. By the end of the decade most of the worlds had established close economic ties with the Alliance, where companies invested heavily in the Triangle systems' economies for everything from mining operations to local cash crop agriculture. The boon aided everyone, even the Federation, and the Klingons especially began to enjoy an economic recovery from their vicious Civil War.
But the continuance of Orion piracy near the Orion homeworld itself - and it's few colonies - provided the catalyst for future crisis. First the piracy itself, and the situation on Orion itself, would provide the next conflict the Alliance would be engaged in within the Alpha Quadrant; when these problems were settled, they still provided the root for future problems, most notably the Algrossa Crisis. The Federation would find it's credibility damaged yet again, and the Alliance, far from it's original intentions, would be drawn inexorably into the greater affairs of the region by virtue of what was to pass in the next decade.
The introduction of the Alliance to the Triangle had another effect. The Romulans now had cause to fear attack from the Alliance, and the Federation would have to deal with the prospect of a two-front war. The Klingons, making a more sound judgement as to likely activities by the Alliance, found themselves enjoying a new military superiority over the Romulans, as the planners on Romulus now had to deploy forces to face a potential Alliance attack from Khitomer. Sectors where they'd once kept only token forces would again have to be militarized.
Historians today have many varied opinions on if the expansion into the Triangle had a good result or a bad, but most agree; without the Alliance expansion into the Triangle, the history of the Alpha Quadrant would be, for better or worse, much different. From the destruction of the Orion slavocratic nations and the rise of the Orion Federal Republic came the further disgracing of the Federation with the discovery of Federation citizens in Orion slavery. From this discovery came a rejuvenation of anti-Federation sentiment in local charter colonies and with that an interest in independence, directly leading to the Algrossa Crisis of 2158, the Nullification Crisis of 2164, and the Pacifica Crisis of 2166. The decisions of Pacifica in 2166, made with the knowledge of a sympathetic Alliance military power on their border, immediately led to the Federation's First Civil War and the beginning of the end for the United Federation of Planets.