Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

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Generalissimo
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Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Generalissimo »

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Rebel Alliance leader Garm Bel Iblis eventually left forming a separate yet still moderately successful resistance against the Galactic Empire.
Garm Bel Iblis went on winning several military victories against Imperial forces Garm Bel utilizing five Old Republic (Katana Fleet configuration) Dreadnaughts.
Considering the Maquis resistance against Cardassians lacked any (supposed alleged) "genius" military leadership until Michael Eddington. . .
What happens if Garm Bel Iblis commanded the Marquis instead?

*Specifics of Scenario*
Technological base limited to Star Trek.
Being fair to Garm Bel Iblis' doctrine with older dreadnoughts the Marquis have access to four old Federation Class Dreadnoughts.
Of course this would include Garm Bel Iblis' command staff too.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Batman »

What in Valen's name is a Federation class dreadnought, and even if such a ship exists why would Iblis automatically have them available?
Putting Garm Bel Iblis in charge of the Maquis means...he is now in charge of the Maquis. They now have access to capital ships because of what, an act of Q?
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Generalissimo »

Batman wrote:What in Valen's name is a Federation class dreadnought,

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Federation_class
Batman wrote:and even if such a ship exists why would Iblis automatically have them available?

Dreadnoughts are thematic for Garm Bel Iblis.
Also essential in his anti-imperial campaign.
I thought having them would be closer to his usual resistance fighting doctrine.
Not giving him an unfair disadvantage right off.
Batman wrote:They now have access to capital ships because of what, an act of Q?

Arbitrarily for sake of balance.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Batman wrote:Putting Garm Bel Iblis in charge of the Maquis means...he is now in charge of the Maquis.
Fair enough assessment in opening post's failure being not specific enough.
(Hanging around places with far less ridged standards may occasionally lend to uncouth sloppiness)
How does Garm Bel Iblis leading the Maquis change their chances?
Any improvement over unaltered canon's utter wrecking?
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by biostem »

IMO, the greatest problem that the Maquis faced was that BOTH the Federation and the Cardassians were after them - it's one thing to have your enemy coming after you, but to also have your former allies dogging you just adds insult to injury. I don't recall the Feds being responsible for the Maquis as part of the original agreement with the Cardies, so they really should have just backed out of the entire situation...
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

Generalissimo wrote: How does Garm Bel Iblis leading the Maquis change their chances?
Any improvement over unaltered canon's utter wrecking?
How would the Maquis fare with free dreadnoughts with their usual leadership? The problem with your scenario is that we are comparing apples to oranges. We can't compare Iblis with the normal Maquis leadership if they have different forces to work with.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Dreadnought's aren't thematic to Bel Iblis, he just used what he could get his hands on. If all he coudl get were Carracks or Star Galleons, he'd use those.

More to the point, even if we gave him these mythical Federation class dreadnoughts, they are a) only five ships against potentially hundreds or thousands of Federation and Cardassian vessels and b) a full hundred years out of date.

How woudl it affect their chances? They would probably take a nosedive. Before, they had a few raiders at msot, nothing serious to worry about. Now you've given them (old, obsolete) capital ships. Thats a good reason to pull some heavier units off normal duties and hunt them down. Those dreadnoughts are still only roughly Consitution-sized, so they might be able to hide in the Badlands, but they would have no hope against a Galaxy. Or the Defiant, and you can bet that Sisko would make finding and destroying them a priority.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by FaxModem1 »

Remember the DS9 episode "Defiant", where Thomas Riker steals the Defiant for the Maquis in order to fight the Cardassians, and the Cardassian Union essentially sends out its entire fleet to hunt it down? That is essentially the same scenario, only without the Defiant's cloak and the fleet spreading out more to hunt down five ships instead of one.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by WATCH-MAN »

Generalissimo wrote:Considering the Maquis resistance against Cardassians lacked any (supposed alleged) "genius" military leadership until Michael Eddington. . .
That seems to be a wrong premise.

We know enough Starfleet officers - besides Lieutenant Commander Michael Eddington - who went to the maquis (e.g.: Lieutenant Ro Laren, who just completed Advanced Tactical Training at Starfleet Tactical; Lieutenant Commander Calvin Hudson; Lieutenant Thomas Riker; Commander Chakotay). We can assume, that there were more discontented Starfleet officers in the Maquis than those we have seen on-screen.

Unless you want to argue that all these trained officers have less military leadership skills than Garm Bel Iblis, who served in the military for a time, but only learned how to operate blasters and rudimentary weaponry [source] before he was elected as Corellia's representative in the Galactic Senate [source], we have no reason to assume, that the latter could have changed the course of events for the Maquis with his ""genius" military leadership".
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Lord Revan »

Hmm has anyone considered that maybe Garm Bel Iblis' military talent was actually at recruiting and organization, I mean he's one of the members of the delegation of 2000 (he wasn't personally present at the meeting in ROTS but one of the persons present was so close of a friend that he might as well been present).

He's also known to be one the few senators that aren't hopelessly corrupt IIRC and if you want to be a successful politician without following the orders of the big money, you must have at least some degree of organizational skills and tons of charisma.

so maybe just maybe Garm Bel Iblis' talent wasn't personally planning every single battle but recruiting the right people and organizing them so that they could use their abilities to their fullest.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by FaxModem1 »

Will Garm even know anybody in the Alpha Quadrant? It's one thing to be a charismatic and popular politician when you have a history in the galaxy you're in. It's quite another when Q just pops you out of nowhere and makes you leader of the Maquis. Will he know anyone in the Federation, or in Starfleet? They might just think of him as some farmer or colonist who has gotten uppity and made himself the head of the Maquis through his personal charisma.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Lord Revan »

FaxModem1 wrote:Will Garm even know anybody in the Alpha Quadrant? It's one thing to be a charismatic and popular politician when you have a history in the galaxy you're in. It's quite another when Q just pops you out of nowhere and makes you leader of the Maquis. Will he know anyone in the Federation, or in Starfleet? They might just think of him as some farmer or colonist who has gotten uppity and made himself the head of the Maquis through his personal charisma.
that's kind of my point, that his "military genius" might be due to something that doesn't work when put to another situation.

I mean it's one thing to be a well known senator from a wealthy core world (one of the founder worlds of the Galactic Republic in fact) and totally another thing to be essentially a nobody.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Simon_Jester »

Generalissimo wrote:
Batman wrote:and even if such a ship exists why would Iblis automatically have them available?
Dreadnoughts are thematic for Garm Bel Iblis.
Also essential in his anti-imperial campaign.
I thought having them would be closer to his usual resistance fighting doctrine.
Not giving him an unfair disadvantage right off.
The Dreadnought-class ships Bel Iblis used were 'cruisers' of a type individually weaker than Imperial star destroyers- and there were thousands and thousands of such star destroyers in the galaxy. Just because they were called 'dreadnoughts' doesn't mean they were especially powerful ships.

If we gave him an equivalent amount of firepower in the Star Trek galaxy, he'd be tooling around with a squadron of Miranda-class ships or something. Of course, gaining those ships might just make him a higher-profile target as others have noted, so yeah.
biostem wrote:IMO, the greatest problem that the Maquis faced was that BOTH the Federation and the Cardassians were after them - it's one thing to have your enemy coming after you, but to also have your former allies dogging you just adds insult to injury. I don't recall the Feds being responsible for the Maquis as part of the original agreement with the Cardies, so they really should have just backed out of the entire situation...
The TNG-era Federation that originally set policy toward the Maquis was exactly the sort of government that would enforce a treaty provision against its own citizens or former citizens, in order to maintain peace with the Cardassians.

Also, Bel Iblis will probably not be too surprised to find both major powers in the region against him. In Star Wars, he's perfectly used to fighting two enemies that both have him comically outgunned: the left half of the Empire, and the right half of the Empire. ;)
WATCH-MAN wrote:Unless you want to argue that all these trained officers have less military leadership skills than Garm Bel Iblis, who served in the military for a time, but only learned how to operate blasters and rudimentary weaponry [source] before he was elected as Corellia's representative in the Galactic Senate [source], we have no reason to assume, that the latter could have changed the course of events for the Maquis with his ""genius" military leadership".
On the other hand, Bel Iblis was good enough as a guerilla leader to make the Imperials look like a bunch of fools for years- so unless the average Star Trek military officer is better at tactics than the average Star Wars military officer, Bel Iblis will still come out looking pretty good.

Then again, in response to that people make a good point that a lot of his skills become less valuable when he's transplanted to a strange environment. He might still be a good judge of people, a good leader and so on, but he would no longer be able to personally appeal to potential allies, or trade on his reputation for good character and responsible power.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by WATCH-MAN »

Simon_Jester wrote:
WATCH-MAN wrote:Unless you want to argue that all these trained officers have less military leadership skills than Garm Bel Iblis, who served in the military for a time, but only learned how to operate blasters and rudimentary weaponry [source] before he was elected as Corellia's representative in the Galactic Senate [source], we have no reason to assume, that the latter could have changed the course of events for the Maquis with his ""genius" military leadership".
On the other hand, Bel Iblis was good enough as a guerilla leader to make the Imperials look like a bunch of fools for years- so unless the average Star Trek military officer is better at tactics than the average Star Wars military officer, Bel Iblis will still come out looking pretty good.
Not really.

It is easier to wage a guerrilla (irregular or asymmetric) warfare than to defend against it.

The incapability of the average Star Wars military officer to deal with Garm Bel Iblis is not conclusive evidence for their military incompetence as the incapability of the average Star Trek military officer to deal with the maquis is not conclusive evidence for their military incompetence.

On the other side, a well trained military officer may be better suited to wage a guerrilla (irregular or asymmetric) warfare than a politician with only a rudimentary military training.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by Metahive »

WATCH-MAN wrote:It is easier to wage a guerrilla (irregular or asymmetric) warfare than to defend against it.
If you have someone backing you up, either outside assistance or sizable parts of the military defecting. If you are all by yourself then it's tough shit. Guess what situation the Maquis is in. It's no wonder that once the Cardassians dropped all pretenses at giving a diplomatic shit about simply exterminating all humans within their territory and got Dominion assistance, the Maquis were swept away without much fuss. Having a "genius" leader won't help, like at all.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

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It is less a question if you have backup and more a question what abilities the superior enemy has and how willingly he is to use them.

Special forces of regular armies are trained to operate behnd the lines - in enemy territory - without any backup for long time.

They have to do with what they have and what they can get by whatever means.

(Japanese holdouts had no backup for years and still were defending their position and attacking the enemy in the name of their Emperor years after the WWII ended).

What makes life difficult is the enemy and how strong it is importuning. And that is a question of what abilities the superior enemy has and how willingly he is to use them.

Cardassia was not willing to attack and kill all Non-Cardassians in the demilitarized zone as long as a resulting war with the Federation could have been lost - although it is to assume that - technically - it would have been possible - at least until the fall of the Obsidian Order which allowed the dissident movement to overthrew the Central Command, which in turn caused the Klingons to attack Cardassia and defeat most of its forces. It can be doubted if Cardassia would have been able to attack and kill all Non-Cardassians in the demilitarized zone then. But it got its ability back when it united with the Dominion. And from this point the concerns regarding a war with the Federation were obsolete (source: By Inferno's Light).
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by FaxModem1 »

Actually, the Maquis did have support, in the form of the Klingon Empire, the episode 'Blaze of Glory' was about dealing with that after the Maquis was destroyed by the Dominion.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

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You can not seriously compare special ops with guerillas, that's apples and oranges. For one, special ops' goals are usually way more limited in scope than those of guerillas. Special ops also do absolutely need a base to back them up at least to safely insert them prior and then extract them after their mission is done, not to speak of intel and coordination.
WATCH-MAN wrote:(Japanese holdouts had no backup for years and still were defending their position and attacking the enemy in the name of their Emperor years after the WWII ended).
O really now, that had more to do with the fact that they were stationed on remote islands no one cared about and they were isolated there on purpose by US strategy. Instead of wasting men and material to conquer each and every tiny island, they just made sure the japanese forces there couldn't leave and concentrated on the main prize. They were effectively neutralized as a combat factor with minimal effort. Bad example.
FaxModem1 wrote:Actually, the Maquis did have support, in the form of the Klingon Empire, the episode 'Blaze of Glory' was about dealing with that after the Maquis was destroyed by the Dominion.
That was however some years after they had started their rebellion and there was also open war between the Maquis' backers and the Cardassians. The OP doesn't mention that as a specific of the scenario, so I presume Iblis is supposed to be the leader from the start when they were on their own.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

Post by WATCH-MAN »

Metahive wrote:You can not seriously compare special ops with guerillas, that's apples and oranges.
Not if - as was said in the beginning - the guerillas/terrorists/outlaws/irregular combatants/freedom fighters/rebels/insurgents/militias/partisans have trained military officers in their ranks, who know how to survive and fight without backup.
                • Without comparing apples with oranges I'm not able to tell wether there are any similarities and differences. Insofar I have to compare them to come to te conclusion that there are too many differences to equate them.
Metahive wrote:For one, special ops' goals are usually way more limited in scope than those of guerillas. Special ops also do absolutely need a base to back them up at least to safely insert them prior and then extract them after their mission is done, not to speak of intel and coordination.
Doesn't change the fact that they have no backup - and no contact with their base - between insertion and extraction.
Metahive wrote:O really now, that had more to do with the fact that they were stationed on remote islands no one cared about and they were isolated there on purpose by US strategy. Instead of wasting men and material to conquer each and every tiny island, they just made sure the japanese forces there couldn't leave and concentrated on the main prize. They were effectively neutralized as a combat factor with minimal effort. Bad example.
It is a good example for what I was arguing: It is less a question if you have backup and more a question how strong the enemy is importuning. The enemy has ignored them - thus they could hold their position for many years without backup.

If the Maquis were ignored by Cardassia - be it that Cardassia had no or a not big enough interest in those planets - they could have survived. But the moment Cardassia launched a massive invasion of the Demilitarized Zone, the Maquis was defeated. Only "backup" that would have changed the Maquis from a rebellious organization to regular forces could have prevented this.

The problem with assymetric warfare is that the weaker combatants try to avoid open battles and try to choose only those battles they can win. At the same time, the stronger combatants are trying to coerce the weaker combatants into battles only the stronger combatants can win. The weaker combatants can only survive as long they can elude (or hide from) the stronger combatants and can choose when and where they attack. The moment all possible retreats are under attack by the stronger combatants, the weaker combatants have lost.

The Maquis had the advantage that the treaty between the Federation and Cardassia about the Demilitarized Zone prevented both sides to effectively engage the Maquis.
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Re: Garm Bel Iblis commands the Maquis

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WATCH-MAN wrote:Doesn't change the fact that they have no backup - and no contact with their base - between insertion and extraction.
No relation to guerilla warfare.
It is a good example for what I was arguing: It is less a question if you have backup and more a question how strong the enemy is importuning. The enemy has ignored them - thus they could hold their position for many years without backup.
While having no effect at all. Good job! Also, the Cardassians are most-expectedly not ignoring the Maquis, but actively hunting them down.
The problem with assymetric warfare is that the weaker combatants try to avoid open battles and try to choose only those battles they can win. At the same time, the stronger combatants are trying to coerce the weaker combatants into battles only the stronger combatants can win. The weaker combatants can only survive as long they can elude (or hide from) the stronger combatants and can choose when and where they attack. The moment all possible retreats are under attack by the stronger combatants, the weaker combatants have lost.

The Maquis had the advantage that the treaty between the Federation and Cardassia about the Demilitarized Zone prevented both sides to effectively engage the Maquis.
The whole point of the Maquis insurgency was that the Cardassians were ignoring or subverting the treaty by arming their colonists and coming after the Maquis militarily anyway. The Federation itself did the same, down to using biological weapons on their colonies. That's why they hid in the badlands instead of the colonies.
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